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Taito Men Talk Legendary Games
Edge Online has a piece talking with two of the men behind the classic games of Taito company, makers of Space Invaders and Bubble Bobble. From the article: "Q: How difficult was it to make the game back then? A: It was very a difficult process. The hardest part was the development of a microcomputer. Microcomputers were hardly used at that time in Japan, so we had to create one from scratch. I could almost say developing the microcomputer was harder than developing the game itself. These days, we have personal computers to rely on, but there was no programming environment back then. So I had to create everything by myself. I created a development device, wrote a part of the game that runs on it, and then created more devices along the way."
In the article, it is mentioned how it was very difficult to be designing the hardware and software from scratch.
These days, we have IDEs, RAD tools, and even Drag n' Drop programming kits.
It really made me realize how spoiled we are as programmers these days which in turn, makes me really admire the hard work and dedication of our fore-programmers.
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Shame because: A) the article (in online form) is only too short B) the three comments here so far are rubbish trolls Bubble Bobble is one of the finest arcade games of all time, simplistic yet with depth of play, graphically appealing (yes even to a grown man now almost 20 years on) and has a lot of staying power having been converted over more formats than say, er, Doom. Or Duke Nukem forever. And lets not even talk about Space Invaders, Rainbow Islands or Operation Wolf. Anyone else here want a sensible discussion about these stone cold classics?
I am really loving the release of all of these retro game collections.
I really hope to see more in the near future.
For years, if someone wanted to play some old skool games, they had to resort to emulation. But emulation comes with several of its own issues such as legality, stability, and availability of the roms. Plus you were usually limited to playing them on your PC instead of in front of your TV.
It is refreshing that we can now relive some of classic moments in gaming history using only our current gen console and a tv. The best part is it even comes at quite a bargain. (usually at less than a $1 per game).
DEAD DEAD DEAD DELETE ME
Bubble Bobble, Bubble Symphony, Rainbow Islands:
All these are Bubble Bobble action/puzzle games, which provide some of the best play ever seen in arcades. Quick, simple to pick up, but with hundreds of possible bonus items and astounding hidden depths. Also home to one of the first actual codes found in an arcade game, devilishly hidden secret rooms (get as far as you can without dying!), and the "Bubble Alphabet," a code to decipher if you DO find one of those rooms.
Elevator Action:
A nifty game, looks really simple, but the challenge ramps up fast.
Space Invaders, Space Invades Part II, Return of the Invaders:
Space Invaders is mostly interesting for historical purposes, but the sequels tend to update the series mighty nice, almost (but not quite) to the point where they start looking more like Galaga than Space Invaders.
Zoo Keeper:
Not the recent Flash and DS game! No, Zoo Keeper was an ultra-classic, somewhat rare arcade game that ran on Qix hardware. One of the coolest arcade games I've ever seen, with very unique, wall-in-the-animals gameplay. Also contains oddly Joust-esque platformer levels that are practically a Mario overdose. Probably worth buying the collection for, if it's only $20.
Overall quality of FS2 is very high (requires DirectX3 :-)
Don't know too much games that still work without problems.
Good plot, good graphics (though age is starting to show, especially "harsh"-grained models), good playability, assisted learning curve (though it takes practice to become skilled).
Too bad the Sim-scene has become surpassed by FPS (except for a few titles).