PixlBit

I sometimes liken the video game industry to an actual human being – going through changes as they grow and mature in the world.  The industry was conceived with Pong and took its first baby steps with Pac-Man, Centipede and Galaga.  As a child it explored the magical worlds of Hyrule, the Mushroom Kingdom and eventually the Green Hill Zone.

And then it entered the awkward stage.  You all know what I’m talking about.  Those teen years where your body goes through some crazy changes: your hormones are all out of whack, you have hair growing in places that had none before, your voice box goes haywire and a general plague of pimples and pock marks ravages your once pinchable cheeks. 

The comedian Eddie Izzard put it best, “Puberty is the sickest joke God plays on us. So you're just noticing members of the sex: "Girls girls, ooo". Naturally you want to look your best, and God says "No! You will look the worst you've ever looked in your life!"”

This was the era of the Playstation, Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64.  It was the 32-bit era or the “wonder years.”

When the above mentioned consoles were making their debut, a great change was going on in the video game industry.  Traditionally games had been designed on a two dimensional plane using sprite based characters.  While this worked beautifully for games being produced on the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis it became apparent that the next generation would focus on the polygon.

Everything, and I mean everything, had to be playable in three dimensions.  This had been spurned on by Sega’s 1993 release of the Virtua Fighter arcade game, the world’s first fully 3D polygon fighting game.  Two years later this game was ported over to the Sega Saturn, which started the polygon craze in earnest.

There is no denying that Virtua Fighter is a historically important game.  It’s a true pioneer in the industry, but that doesn’t mean that it stands the test of time.  The controls were clunky, the character models were bland and the graphics…well, pictures speak a thousand words…

It's black generic guy vs. white generic guy!

At the time we were blown away by the technology.  Never before had we seen anything so…real…in a video game.  In reality we were just shell shocked by something new that was going to change the industry forever.  Being in that moment it was easy to overlook the massive amount of pimples that our games had seemingly sprouted over night.

We tend to look upon the past with rose colored glasses.  We remember how awesome things were during the ‘wonder years’ without putting them in their proper context.  This is the reason that Mario 64 is often times spouted off as the best video game of all time.  Now, don’t get me wrong, Mario 64was a fantastic game when it was released and it laid down the blueprint for what a 3D platform game should be, but how many of you have actually gone back and played the game in the past five years?  While some may argue that it holds up well, the truth is it doesn’t, especially from a graphical standpoint.  Remember, this was the awkward teen phase – games were going through important changes, but it wasn’t going to be pretty.

Ah yes, I remember the 'Bland' Dimmension

Let’s look at another game of the era – the highly regarded Final Fantasy VII.  Oh, I can feel the anger already.  Final Fantasy VII did some pretty important things.  It helped to solidify the JRPG as a mainstream genre in North America, introduced a more cinematic style of storytelling and gave us Tifa cosplayers.

Yup, there is that...

But if you look at the game now you’ll see how it doesn’t really hold up all that well today.  The graphics are a train wreck, the translation is horrible, the story is full of clichés, etc…

Look at it this way, Final Fantasy VII doesn’t hold up as well as the previous title in the series, FinalFantasy VI, even though it was released on a less powerful platform.  Why?  Because Final Fantasy VI wasn’t trying to reinvent the wheel at the time, it was perfecting older technologies that were already proven.

The comparison between these two titles hits on my central point.  The Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis era was representative of the industry’s cute childhood years.  There was an untainted innocence about it and the games were still cute.  If you look back at an old photo album, you’ll no doubt be struck by how damn cute you looked, especially when compared to your awkward teenage years.  This logic is the same when comparing the 16 and 32-bit eras in gaming. 

This applied to practically every game release in the 32-bit ear.  The games were clunky and rather ugly.  Games that are often revered such as Goldeneye, Tekken and Resident Evil don’t look or play as great now that we’ve seen what later evolved from that.  You can’t take away from the importance of these titles or this period in gaming, but we can admit that it wasn’t a golden age that some people remember it to be.

The box art hold up though...

Awkward teen years don’t last forever, and the video game industry really started coming into its own with the dawn of the Playstation 2 and later the Xbox and GameCube.  Through the awkward and at times, downright ugly, growth and experimentation during the 32-bit era the industry was able to grow into a fully realized adult with more polished games that will better stand the test of time than the previous generation.

When Virtua Fighter eventually made its debut on the Playstation 2, it was completely apparent that this series, and the industry itself, had left those “wonder years” behind them and become a man.

That's much better...

 What are your thoughts on the “Wonder Years” of gaming?  Add to the discussion by sounding off in the comments section below!

Happy Gaming.