Beyond Classic DOS Games

In the early days of video games, the United States was king. In May 1972, an American company called Magnavox started selling the Magnavox Odyssey for $100. Even adjusted for inflation, that was a reasonable price for a video game console. Other consoles followed, including the Coleco Telstar, which first went on sale for $100 in 1976. I’m lucky enough to own one of those. Coleco is also an American company (COnnecticut LEather COmpany).

In the unofficial second generation of video game consoles, an American company called Fairchild released the Channel F in August 1976 for $169.95. For most people, the company that started it all was Atari. Based in Sunnyvale, California, they began a cultural revolution when the Atari VCS was released for $199 in October 1977. 30 million units were sold, and millions of gamers continue to own and play their Atari to this day.

Other successful consoles of the second generation include the Magnavox Odyssey2, and the Intellivision, released by American company Mattel, which is still one of my favorite systems. SNAFU for Intellivision is one my favorite games of all time. I even have the Intellivoice module, made famous by the southern drawl of the voice actor in B-52 Bomber. Towards the end, Coleco made another big splash with the release of the Colecovision. It used the same controller design as the Intellivision, but could produce twice as many simultaneous sprites. Sales were going well, until mismanagement at Atari led to an industry wide collapse known as the video game crash of 1983. Although Atari attempted to get back into the game following the crash with the Atari 7800 and Jaguar consoles, America permanently lost its dominance over the video game industry.

A Japanese company called Nintendo released a video game console in Japan called the Famicom, or Family Computer, on July 15, 1983. Wary of the American market’s recent collapse, they originally negotiated with Atari to sell the system as an Atari product in the American market. That didn’t work out, and Nintendo finally went it alone and released the Nintendo Entertainment System in the United States on October 18, 1985, and Canada in February 1986, more than two years after the Japanese release. The Japanese invasion had begun.

Japanese company Sega had success with the Sega Master System in the third generation and Sega Genesis in the fourth generation. Tokyo-based NEC released the TurboGrafx 16, which I still think was a great system that suffered from some poor games. NEC’s flagship game series, Bonk’s Adventure, showed off what the system was capable of, and Fantasy Zone looked much better on the TurboGrafx 16 than on the NES and Master System, featuring beautiful pastel colors which were true to the arcade version. NEC dropped out of the market, but Japanese company Sony got into the American market in 1995.

Today, the three main systems are the Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360, and the Sony PlayStation 3. Microsoft is an American company, having gotten into the console market in a big way with the Xbox in 2001, the first successful American console since the video game crash of 1983. Although a major player, the market is still dominated by Japanese consoles and games.

Which leads me to the subject of this article — great games you haven’t played. There’s a reason why you haven’t played them: they were never released in North America! (more…)

I found a game at at my local Salvation Army Thrift Store a year or two ago that will likely be a blast from the past for some of you. It was Wizardry Trilogy 2, which collects Wizardry V, VI and VII. The first seven games in the Wizardry series of RPGs were sold between 1981 and 1992, and Wizardry VIII was released in 2001. Since the oldest games are more than 20 years old now, I thought that they might be good candidates for freeware releases, so I did some research into Sir-Tech and found out that they’re based in Ottawa, Canada, where I live.

Last year I got addicted to Clyde’s Adventure. Moonlite Software is best known for developing Hocus Pocus, Clyde’s Adventure, and Clyde’s Revenge, and they also made Taking Care of Business, Crazy 8s, and Cribbage. I decided to look them up and, once again, found that they were located nearby in my hometown of Ottawa.

A few days ago I was playing Vinyl Goddess From Mars, developed by Union Logic Software Publishing, who also made Radix: Beyond the Void and TeenAgent. When I quit the game, I saw a familiar area code and noticed that they were located a few blocks from my house, in Nepean, a community in Ottawa. I could walk to their headquarters, but there’s a bus that comes down my street that would take me right there.

There are three significant game developers in my neighborhood. That’s pretty good. Ottawa has always been one of the largest high tech employers in Canada, but I’ve never thought of it as being a gaming community. It turns out that the capital of Canada is also the gaming capital of Canada.

While I’m on the topic of Canadian gaming companies, Psycon Software (Cybersphere, Cybersphere Plus) is from Calgary, Alberta, and Summit Software (Crates, Jelly Bean Factory) is from Gormley, Ontario, just north of Toronto. It’s interesting to see the Canadian contribution to classic DOS games.

Great games come from all over the world, but I think it’s pretty cool so that so many of the best DOS games came from my community. Since it’s Thanksgiving here in Canada, I’m giving thanks for the many Canadians who have given the world countless hours of quality entertainment.