1997.Game - A Gaming Documentary Series

We are again at a moment in time that can be called one of the greatest years in video games history. Not because the games released this year pushed the boundaries of what was possible from a technical point of view, or created new genres, but simply because it had more kickass games per square inch than a lot of other years, maybe with the exception of 1992.

Welcome everyone to 1997, welcome to one of the most kickass years in gaming history. The year that brought us the Pentium 2 and the AMD K6. The AGP slot for video cards. The Lithium-Ion battery. Winamp, the music player that really kicked the llama’s ass. The year when Steve Jobs returned to a dying Apple, that just got a massive investment from Microsoft, that itself became the most valuable company in the world, and Bill Gates the richest man in the world. Titanic was gearing up to become the most profitable movie history, Hong Kong returned to China after years of British sovereignty, one of the first web browsers, Mosaic, was discontinued, Yahoo mail began, the first images from the NASA Mars Pathfinder program logged over 100 million views, Paywalls became a thing on the internet, and a tragic accident claimed the life of Princess Diana of Whales, one that could have probably been avoided if not for certain vultures.

But moving onto video games, this was the year when Jordan Mechner decided to take his idea of a cinematic experience and apply it to a different genre. The Last Express an adventure that took place on the Orient Express, and it was notable for the many outcomes the story could have, as well as for its style. It featured rotoscoping, same as Prince of Persia, but on a much larger scale. It sold very poorly back then, mostly due to it being published by Broderbund at a time when all of the people working on marketing and sales left the company. Even though it had published some of the most popular games in its time, within a year Broderbund would be gone. And speaking of things that would soon be gone, even though the arcades were still getting games like Tekken 3, the writing was on the wall. To keep on going, arcades would need to invent new ideas that couldn’t be replicated on a Playstation. But we’ll get more into that next week. But even with that, arcades would dwindle from the top dog to a niche, at least in the west.

The same could be said for adventure games. Their popularity was dwindling in the USA, though it would hold out indefinably in Europe and in the lower budget sectors, but they’d seldom sell the millions they used to in the old ages. Even so, alongside The Last Express we got plenty of them that year. From Blade Runner, to Riven, the sequel to Myst, The Curse of Monkey Island, a sequel to Monkey island 2, Zork Grand Inquisitor, a sequel to Zork, Broken Sword 2… in general, there were sequels abound. Quake 2 and Mortal Kombat 4 tried departing from the styles that made their predecessors successful, with varying degrees of success. Dark Froces’s sequel, Jedi Knight, gave us the start of the Jedi Simulator genre, where a lightsaber and force powers would guarantee you lots and lots of fun, even though it was a departure from the simple shooter that the last one was. The Need for Speed series did the same thing, changing, I mean. It turned into an arcade and it could be said that this was when it started properly, with Need for Speed 2. It pure Electronic Arts tradition, it would get a sequel each year until the developer was too tired, and work had to be switched to a different studio. The company would do the same with most of its properties, Wing Commander having its last proper outing this year, with Prophecy. The series went from being the next Star Wars, to dead, within just four years. And I can’t say the movie that came out two years after helped.

But since we’re on the subject of sequels, the mother of them all came out this year. Square released a game that made the Playstation console the top dog. Sure, the game was also released for Windows PCs, but there’s no mistake on what platform people played Final Fantasy 7 the most. A magnificent game that would become the most beloved of the series, both because it came right at the moment when a large enough number of people could play it early enough in their life, and because it was a genuinely good game. One that tried to advance the formula of the JRPG by adding diverse combat components, like Materia, featuring a great style that blended 2D and 3D, with very detailed and somewhat overly long summon animations, great CGI cinematics and a killer CD soundtrack. Multiple CDs, actually. It’s the game that redefined the series, pushing into a new direction. The same is true for Castlevania’s sequel Symphony of the Night, featuring a style of map design and accompanying gameplay that encouraged exploration in a method similar the Metroid. Hence the term Metroidvania.

Another sort of a sequel to come out in 1997 was the release version Ultima Online. There were MMOs before it, ones that set up some of the basic ideas and tenements of the genre. But Ultima Online really set things on fire. It was a game with so little trust from the publisher, Electronic Arts, that the developer, Origin Systems, couldn’t ask for more money to send disks to people, so the came could be tested. So, instead, they charged people 5 dollars for the disks. The result was 50 thousand people paying that tax, which is a really weird coincidence, since the games budget was just that, 250 thousand dollars, compared to the millions EA was showering on other games it was going to soon kill. Even so, within a year the game would sell a million copies, and have 100 thousand paying subscribers. More than EA or Origin anticipated. More than anyone anticipated. This was the MMO genre hitting the spotlight and never going back. And what’s very important to note, is that Ultima Online did this without any of the modern trappings of the MMO. This wasn’t a theme park where everyone would go from the same quest, in a static, unchanging world. This was a dynamic, ever changing medium where players had control over many, many things. Too many, actually. They had to tune things down, like the living environment simulation, because the players would just go and kill everything. Unlike its predecessors, Ultima Online is still alive and kicking. Sure, its popularity may have decreased a bit in 20 years, but that doesn’t changed its importance for the genre.

And now that we’re done with sequels, let’s move on the new and shiny bits. Shiny like MDK, by Shiny. The creators of Earthworm Jim. A fun and quirky shooter that didn’t take itself too seriously, but would guarantee you tons of amusement. I can say the same about the classic Oddworld Abe’s Odysee, another cinematic platformer, created by Oddworld Inhabitants, with a charming main character and a sound design so good that you could finish it even if you were blind. And that’s actually what someone did once.

The parade of aces continued in 1997 with Iguana Entertainment’s Turok Dinosaur Hunter, a first person shooter with attitude, dinosaurs, and bows before they were mandated to be in every game. Bullfrog’s Dungeon Keeper brought the god game down into the dungeons and on the side of evil, letting you indulge your darkest desires, as long as they were about digging, slapping, and eventually fighting off the Avatar from Ultima 8 for some reason. If that wasn’t dark enough for you, Stainless Games’s Carmageddon let you run over hundreds of pedestrians and ram other cars off the road, all with the objective of having demented fun on your way to victory. And if that still wasn’t enough, a little studio called DMA Design decided to make a little game about stealing cars, running people over, shooting everything in your way, blowing up everything you saw, and completing missions for various players for the criminal underground throughout three fictional cities: Liberty City, Vice City and San Andreas. That Was Grand Theft Auto. It was the beginning of probably the most profitable series of video game series ever, at least în terms of density of sales per individual game. If violence wasn’t your thing, and you liked music, you had PaRappa the Rapper, a rhythm game with a rapping paper dog, an onion karate teacher and a lot of other weird things.

Even though there had been quite a few first person shooters for consoles up until now, including some of the ones mentioned here today, Rare’s Goldeneye 007 is considered one of the ones that really made the FPS work on a console, namely, on the Nintendo 64. And how did it do that? Well, through copious amounts of auto aim, to the point where it was playable with a keyboard as well. Goldeneye 007 stood out both because it was a really cool adaptation of the new James Bond movie, and because it had a great four player split-screen competitive mode that some people are playing even today.

Didn’t like shooters? The Real Time Strategy genre went above and beyond this year, with the fantastic Age of Empires. A game that took you through the ages, from the times when people barely learned to master fire and make stone tools, to the glory of the Roman Empire. Ensemble studios created a game that both tried to give you a sample of great strategy gaming, as well as a few history lessons, with a campaign that did its best to show you the a small part of the old, old world, in ancient times. Some people would call that boring, I mean, ancient times? Why not something more modern? Why not something set in the future, with robots and lasers? Why not Total Annihilation? Cavedog Entertainment gave players large scale battles, with 3D units and a physics simulation system behind it all. When a bullet hit something, it wasn’t just a simplistic graphic representation, that bullet actually traveled from the tank or robot, plane to the place it hit. And if it found something in its way, it hit that instead. Total Annihilation was unlike Command and Conquer or Warcraft. It was its own thing, and it would go on to evolve in new ways, bringing massive scale strategy to all those who liked the macro more than the micro.

Lastly, there’s one sequel that I’ve neglected to mention so far. Though, it wasn’t an actual sequel, more of a sequel in spirit. A sequel to a post-apocaliptic game called Wasteland, that couldn’t be called Wasteland because Electronic Arts owned that name. This was Interplay’s Fallout. A game that started out as a small side project of a handful of people at Interplay, and quickly turned into a magnificent example of role-playing excellence. Fallout was a game about choice. About who you are, about how you can change a world destroyed once by a nuclear war. Would you bring hope to those you found in your path? Or would you doom them in an attempt to save your own? Combine that with a system of gameplay that let you pick your own path in just about every way possible, even if it meant playing as a character that couldn’t even pick up a gun or one that was as dumb as a sack of bricks. And on top of all that was a story with depth to it, characters with actual motivations behind their actions and excellent dialogue that was more than just a simple yes or no, binary choice. It was an excellent game that proved how much can be achieved when design, creativity and freedom meet. Fallout set a new standard for quality in RPGs, with an added ease of play that may have been lacking from other computer roleplaying games from earlier years.

We now come to the very important question of what was the game of 1997. What game could best describe this year, and left a long lasting impression on the world, on the industry, and on people in general. Well, here’s the problem. There are three games that fit those criteria. Final Fantasy 7 embodies 90’s RPGs as most people remember them. Fallout embodies the best design RPGs can have. And Ultima Online embodies a new breed of game altogether. They are all games that should have this title. But, as I’ve said, I’m not going to pick more than one. And I’m tempted to give it to Need for Speed 2, since it was the stereotypical racing game I think of from the 90’s, or to Carmageddon or Grand Theft Auto, just for the attitude behind them, that rebellious, screw the man, feeling they had.
And you know what else had that? Fallout. It’s a hard decision, but that’s my game of 1997. In terms of sheer quality, of improving the genre, expanding a computer game to be more akin to its pen and paper counterpart, Fallout set the bar high. Very high. And even many would say that Fallout 2 was better, it was so mostly because the base of it, Fallout 1, was that great to begin with.
So, that’s how 1997 ends. Come back next week for the birth of a new king, or possibly two.

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