Happy New Year – and know that it’s just a jump to the left and a step to the right…
Welcome to 2009. With all the exciting things on the horizon in the world of interactive gaming entertainment, I think it appropriate to look back to the year McLovin was born. The very year Rain Man won the Oscar for best picture is where we hop in our Tardis to visit: 1989. (That’s 20 years ago math whiz!)
Just wait until you see how the little dancing men were done.
The first stop on our journey in time has got to be the release of the Nintendo Gameboy and its pack-in game, Tetris. 20 years later and how many of you are playing handheld games? The grand-daddy to them all came to us and brought the addictive gameplay of Tetris along with it. Tetris is, in this man’s humble opinion, the greatest puzzle game made to date and the standard by which all puzzle games should be measured. The original Gameboy itself was huge in size by today’s standards, but then again so were the Zach Morris cell phones that plagued the land. At the time I am sure no one thought that the Gameboy would be around for in one form or another for the next 20 years and counting.
A certain TV show began in 1989. These freaks scare us all.
Another legacy that was born in 1989 was SimCity. Developed over a few years in the 80′s, SimCity finally got into gamers’ hands in 1989. The game was a departure from the other games at the time since there was no princess with 9000 look-a-likes or magic boomerang. Instead players got to mis-manage things and learn to cheat like freaks on their home computers. SimCity eventually found itself not only on the computer machines, but ported to the Super Nintendo as well. Several sequels and the highly addictive Sims spawned out of this title that lives on in various forms to this day, including the freeware Micropolis.
Maybe Paul Hogan will fight Outback Jack on Hulk Hogan Celebrity Wrestling II?
CGI leaps allowed James Cameron to make The Abyss and different technology gave Konami the ability to release the Adventures of Bayou Billy. Bayou Billy offered three different play styles depending on the level which was a novelty at the time on the original NES. This was your chance to play “knifey spooney” in Louisiana.
Geroge Carlin never drove one of these.
Doc Brown’s DeLorean was not the only time machine around that year: Bill and Ted had their phone booth. If you had a Commodore 64 or a DOS based computer, you could have played Avoid the Noid. Dominoes really needs to bring that scumbag back. This platformer was designed to make you forget that Pizza Hut was awesome when they were being snobby and not delivering their pizza. It also reminded you that a 30 minute guarantee on pizza delivery will lead to traffic situations.
Do NOT pull paper on these kids when playing Janken.
Alex Kidd in The Enchanted Castle brought the former Sega poster child to the Genesis. I do not remember anything about this game but playing rock, paper, scissors. Instead I would like to discuss how much I like The Dream Team. This movie has an all star cast playing a group of mentally ill patients wanted for the attempted murder of their doctor. This was a comedy. It was very entertaining and quotable, “…This is a sign from God that we are all going to die” being a favorite. The cast was made up of Batman, Flounder, Doc Brown, and Frankenstein’s monster. The main villain was Ajax from the Warriors. I hope they never remake this because it stands up well over time. I would like to see a current gen Alex Kidd game, I think it would work well on the Wii. I love rock, paper, scissors.
Yep. 20 years ago, Batman fought the Joker.
I have covered this before so I won’t go nuts again, but we were treated to the greatest sports game on the NES that year: Baseball Stars. If you don’t remember this, shame on you! The future of what players wanted in gaming was all there. The only problem was the damn battery giving out and ruining your league, or your friends resetting it and pretending the same.
Careful Drac, she may steal your jewels.
Slimer was annoying as hell in Ghostbusters II and I was disappointed that he was not one of the ghouls to destroy in the NES classic Dracula’s Curse: Castlevania III. The follow up to Castlevania II dropped the adventure style gaming aspects and was similar to the original. Though it had its differences in that the player could choose different paths to follow through the game. Castlevania is still with us today and the strongest outings were on the Gameboy Advance. Though I rather enjoyed Curse of Darkness on the original Xbox.
This will fully heal you.
1989 was a great year for the side-scrolling beat them up genre. This of course being Final Fight. If you never experienced this game over the years, I would find that amazing. It existed on so many consoles and bore a few sequels, including the final North American release for the Sega Saturn, if I am not mistaken. Streets of Rage was fun, but always a runner-up to Final Fight in the world of my imagination. The fantasy of this game is that you could find chickens around the streets that would be safe to eat.
My thoughts!
Call me out….what game did I snub….go ahead hold a radio over your head and stand outside my window to show me you love me, or just leave some comments on what you remember from 1989.
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