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  • Resident Evil 2 (PlayStation)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    While Resident Evil may not technically be the first game to fit in the “survival horror” genre, it is responsible for the term being coined and would define what survival horror was moving forward. Being immensely popular, of course Resident Evil had a much anticipated sequel. Resident Evil 2 was released by Capcom for the PlayStation in early 1998 and later ported to a wide variety of platforms.

    The development of Resident Evil 2 was started only a month after Resident Evil was released and involved most of the same people. I guess they knew they had a winner on their hands with the first game. However, after the sequel was two-thirds complete, it was scrapped and they started over. They felt it wasn’t good enough and its hard to argue against their decision as the final version was one of the most successful games of all time.

    The actual game play of Resident Evil 2 wasn’t really much different than the original other than a few tweaks and improvements. Like the first, you must explore the city solving puzzles and fighting zombies. One of the more unique aspects is the save system. There are certain rooms that have typewriters that allow you to save the game, however, it requires that you find a limited number of typewriter ribbons hidden throughout the game. I guess you could describe it as a real-time 3D puzzle/adventure game featuring zombies. However, Resident Evil 2 ended up with a much more movie-like production with more elaborate backgrounds and cut scenes. Perhaps the biggest difference are the branching story lines. Resident Evil 2 has two playable characters, each with their own story. Additional scenarios can be unlocked for a total of four scenarios.

    The plot picks up two months after the original game and most of the residents of Raccoon City have been turned into zombies. It features a new Raccoon City police officer it what is supposed to be his first day on the job and a college student trying to find her brother. Of course there are the zombies everybody as come to know and love, in addition to new monsters and evil Umbrella executives/mercenaries. Think COVID-19 if it had just got a little differently.

    Resident Evil 2 was a massive success. It had very positive reviews everywhere it was reviewed. It had a huge advertising budget but also huge sales with over 6 million copies sold. It was ported to Windows, the Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, and GameCube. Except for arguably the Nintendo 64 version, none improve on the original PlayStation release. Since the release of Resident Evil 2 there have been well over a dozen sequels, spin-offs and remakes. Resident Evil 2 itself was remade in 2019 and release for the PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One with additional releases in 2022 for the Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch. If you have never played Resident Evil 2 then I think you should definitely check it out. Preferably the original version on the PlayStation. And if you never played the first one you should probably start there. I’m not really familiar enough with the remakes to know if they are suitable substitutes for the originals. However, playing the originals is always nice to see what the big deal was then.

    All images above are from the PlayStation version of the game.


    📂This entry was posted in PlayStation Retro Games 📎and tagged

  • Super Street Fighter II (Sega Genesis)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    While somewhat subjective, it always seemed to me that Street Fighter II was the last really hugely popular arcade game. Sales numbers would seem to objectively back that up. Street Fighter II is second only to Space Invaders and Pac-Man in terms of number of arcade machines sold. Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat II are also high on the list but they don’t really come close to Street Fighter II. The original Street Fighter II sold 60,000 machines (Street Fighter II Championship Edition sold even more at 140,000 machines). By comparison, the Mortal Kombat machines only sold in the range of 20,000 to 30,000 units. See https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/the-25-best-selling-arcade-games-of-all-time.htm for more sales info. Part of this of course comes down to the decline in the popularity of arcades as home systems finally caught up. 16-bit systems were close but 32-bit systems were arcade perfect or so close to it that it didn’t matter.

    Being one of the most popular arcade games, Street Fighter II was also one of the most anticipated home conversions of all time. This was in the 16-bit era of home gaming so home systems were significantly less capable than arcade machines at the time. It was all about how close to arcade perfect you could get but there were always some sacrifices. Graphics quality, sound quality, and even game play on home systems were usually at least somewhat below arcade standards.

    Nintendo managed to get the first home conversion on the Super Nintendo system. The Super Nintendo had better graphics hardware than the Genesis but it also had a slower CPU. Many early games on the Super NES suffered from problems with slow-down when a lot was going on on-screen at the same time. As programmers became more familiar with the hardware, this became less of an issue over time.

    While the Genesis version was not quite as graphically impressive as the Super Nintendo version, it did have a few advantages. First, it did not suffer from slow down as much as the Super NES version did. This wasn’t a huge problem or anything…more of a relatively infrequent mild annoyance. The Genesis kept more of the background animations as well but it suffered from a poorer color pallet and lower quality sound. The standard Genesis controller also didn’t have six buttons which was pretty crippling, however, plenty of aftermarket controllers were available (see below).

    One challenge with the home conversion of Street Fighter II and its sequels was the controller. The arcade version used a joystick and two rows of three buttons. The Super Nintendo controller actually had enough buttons though they weren’t really arranged in the ideal way for this game. Other systems didn’t even have enough buttons. Needless to say, this spawned an entire market in various six button controllers.

    While not arcade perfect, this arcade conversion was probably the most impressive there had been up to that point. Even to the casual player today, this version is perfectly fine to play instead of the arcade version. Of course, these days you can emulate the arcade version or play arcade perfect conversions on newer systems. It’s still worthwhile to check out the Super NES or Genesis version or even the other conversions at the time to see how impressive they were considering the hardware they were running on. Whether you prefer the Genesis version of the Super NES version probably comes down to what system you owned. Most people owned one or the other and were pretty fanatic about it. The system wars were a bigger deal then than now. While I prefer the Super NES version (that was the system I owned at the time after all), the Genesis version is solid too.

    It can also be a little confusing when you say ‘Street Fighter II’. Street Fighter II: The World Warrior was the original and this version was ported to the Super NES. Genesis didn’t get a version until Street Fighter II: Championship Edition. Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers was an even later version that was on both systems. However, the comparisons above generally apply to all variations of Street Fighter II.

    Screen shots above are from the Genesis version of Super Street Fighter II.


    📂This entry was posted in Retro Games Sega Genesis 📎and tagged

  • Super Street Fighter II (Super NES)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment


    https://darth-azrael.tumblr.com/post/701778197227929600

    In my mind, Street Fighter II was the last really hugely popular arcade game. Sales numbers would seem to back that up as Street Fighter II was behind only Space Invaders and Pac-Man in terms of number of machines sold. Mortal Kombat and Mortal Kombat II are also high on the list but by comparison, the original Street Fighter II sold 60,000 machines (Street Fighter II Championship Edition sold even more at 140,000 machines). By comparison, the Mortal Kombat machines only sold in the range of 20,000 to 30,000 units. See https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/the-25-best-selling-arcade-games-of-all-time.htm for more sales info.

    Being one of the most popular arcade games, it was also one of the most anticipated home conversions of all time. This was in the 16-bit era of home gaming so home systems were significantly less capably than arcade machines at the time. It was all about how close to arcade perfect you could get but there were always some sacrifices. Graphics quality, sound quality, and sometimes game play were all at least somewhat below arcade standards.

    Nintendo managed to get the first home conversion on the Super Nintendo system. The Super Nintendo had better graphics hardware than the Genesis but it also had a slower CPU. Many early games on the Super NES suffered from problems with slow-down when a lot was going on on-screen at the same time. As programmers became more familiar with the hardware, this became less of an issue over time.

    As arcade version for the Super NES go, Street Fighter II was quite good. It wasn’t perfect but no arcade conversions at the time were. The slow-down issue did occur but it was relatively minor and didn’t impact game play much. Background animations were also reduced among other slight changes. As far as home conversions go, it was about as good as you could get. There was a Genesis port that came along a little later and it was ALMOST as good but didn’t quite match the graphics quality and control of the Super NES version. The PC Engine also had an impressive port of the later Championship Edition but it was really too late for the U.S. market and the TurboGrafx-16 was pretty much dead here by that time and this game never saw a U.S. release. I’m not sure what licensing issues may have existed but if they had decided to release a Turbo Duo bundle in the U.S. at that time that included this game they probably could have sold a ton of units and extended the life of that system.

    One challenge with the home conversion of Street Fighter II and its sequels was the controller. The arcade version used a joystick and two rows of three buttons. The Super Nintendo controller actually had enough buttons though they weren’t really arranged in the ideal way for this game. Other systems didn’t even have enough buttons. Needless to say, this spawned an entire market in various six button controllers.

    While not arcade perfect, this arcade conversion was probably the most impressive there had been up to that point. Even to the casual player today, this version is perfectly fine to play instead of the arcade version. Of course, these days you can emulate the arcade version or play arcade perfect conversions on newer systems. It’s still worthwhile to check out the Super NES version or even the other conversions at the time to see how impressive they were considering the hardware they were running on.


    📂This entry was posted in Retro Games Super Nintendo (SNES) 📎and tagged