GameSpot Lead Feature

GameSpot Review

GameSpot Review

GameSpot Review

GameSpot Review

GameSpot Review

GameSpot Review

GameSpot New Handhelds from the 2004 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3)

GameSpot Cell Business Summit of the 2004 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3)

Atari. Intellivision. Commodore. The mere mention of these companies conjures up images of one-button joysticks, blocky graphics and random sound bleeps. Unlike the high-tech gaming available today, in the early ‘80’s game designers and players were forced to use their imagination to enjoy a game. For instance, the Spiderman game released earlier this year has breathtaking visuals, a full soundtrack and dizzying camera angles. The original Spiderman for the Atari 2600 consisted of a red stickman shooting a wire at a green blob (the latter representing the Green Goblin).

Cell phone and PDA technology has forced game publishers to go into their archives for low-tech content. Most of us have fond memories of the classics, but is everyone ready to go back to the future?
That ‘80’s Show

“We took ten of our older titles and put them in Shockwave form on our website a couple of years ago. They were played more than 100,000 times the first year,” says Midway’s Director of Worldwide Syndication, Sangita Verma. “They still love these games, and cell phones are the perfect form to play them on.”

Midway is one of the old-school companies jumping on the wireless gaming bandwagon, taking its classics to the small screen.

Midway provided Spy Hunter, Joust, Defender 2 and Tapper for the Palm last year. Defender and Kick Champion were rolled out for the cell phones, both done in J2ME format, and Midway is looking at releasing “new” old-school games such as Mortal Kombat.

It also plans to expand into non-Midway titles for wireless systems. “Our approach is to not only use Midway games but other third-part ones,” Verma says. “Just to give you an idea, we recently licensed [the Internet puzzle game] Bejeweled.”

When asked if all the effort to translate old titles to a new product is worth it, Verma replies quickly. “I say a great game is a great game: Defender was great in the ‘80’s and is great now. People want to play it.”

“Another thing,” she adds, “is the target audience is males 25-40, those that played it originally, and, considering they are the prime audience for cell phones and PDAs, it is a natural fit there.”
Game boys

“Atari was attractive as it is a well-known and respected brand to the over-25 age group, which is likely to be the same age group for early adopters of Java devices,” says Motorola’s Senior Content Product Manager, Kenny Mathers, whose company, along with iFone, has licensed the Atari games catalog.

The consensus is that, at least from a marketing standpoint, the precious 25-to-40-year-old demographic makes old-school games on the cell a given. The challenge is that this is also the target demographic for virtually every other game system. The average person in this age group has a Playstation 2 or another next-gen system at home, and the hardcore gamer probably has a few systems to play on. Why would they want to play Centipede with a tiny keypad when they can enjoy epics like Grand Theft Auto 3 or The Legend of Zelda at home?

“When you’re playing Final Fantasy X [for the Playstation 2], it takes you two hours to figure out what you’re doing,” Mathers says. “It’s not a bad game; in fact, it’s an incredible game… but for cell users, they don’t need to make a long-term commitment. [Eighties’ games] are extremely accessible to everyone. If you only want a five-minute gameplay experience, you need the game to be immediately accessible.”

“[However,] that may change,” Mathers says. “Looking at two to three years down the line, cell phones will have aspects similar to [Nintendo’s high-tech handheld] Game Boy Advance. There’s so much opportunity. That’s what made me and [Motorola partner] Juan [Montes] move to this type of gaming.”
A next-gen platform?

Motorola’s Mathers and Montes exodus is most telling: at the beginning of 2002, both of them worked for gaming giant Sony, creator of the Playstation. According to Mathers, wireless units are not only a solid platform, but a strong platform — even compared to the mighty Playstation.

“Limitations that the technology imposes forces greater creativity, as you won’t be able to hide behind impressive graphics,” he says.

It doesn’t get much more creative than early ‘80’s arcade games, so Motorola and iFone have licensed Atari’s extensive game catalog for multiple cell phone platforms. In the fall Motorola released Asteroids, Pong, Breakout and Centipede for their V60i, V66i and T280i series. And, according to another Motorola spokesperson, these four classics plus at least six other titles will be released in Q1 for Motorola T720, the color java device. As for other platforms, Mathers says that the goal is to have games “device agnostic” and that several other formats have been in trials.

Motorola, even with its’ faith in old-school gaming, is hedging its’ bets: Not only is Motorola giving classics like Missile Command and Combat as part of the dozen T720 games coming this quarter, but its also looking to release recent Playstation hits like Stuntman. “Word of mouth and extensive use of demos will expose the content to the younger markets and, once they play the games, I honesty believe they’ll love it,” Mathers says. “However, we do need to address the youth market with brands that will appeal [to them, like Playstation games] V-Rally, Stuntman and Unreal.”

Just the thought of complex cutting-edge titles like Stuntman and Unreal being on the cell makes one realize where former game designers such as Mathers see the platform going. Idealism only goes so far: recreating old-school games on a weaker platform are, in a sense, a chance to focus on addictive gameplay, but eventually we all want wireless XBoxes and GameCubes so we have a choice whether we want to play Centipede or Final Fantasy X.

One place that may always have a craving for old-school games, regardless of the newest gaming technology, is Japan. The main reason is cultural: most Japanese have a daily commute, hence the boom in cell phone use, but it is not necessarily long enough of a commute to require a complex gaming experience. The average commute is perfect for a handful of Pac-Man sessions, but hardly enough time to enjoy a long game of Final Fantasy.

Old school cell phone gaming has been a staple in Japan for a while: companies like Namco were bringing fully-realized versions of Pac-Man to Japan when Americans were still marveling over Snake. Now there is a nice niche of second- and third-generation arcade games that have been coming down the mobile pipe. While we relish in early ‘80’s hits like Centipede and are just starting to get more mature old-school games, the Japanese have been enjoying titles like Capcom’s 1943 and Sega’s Space Harrier, both circa 1986, since 2001. Quarter-munchers such as Capcom’s excellent Ghosts ‘n’ Goblins, also released in the arcades around 1986, are from an era where arcade games were both brief and immersive; the perfect combination for today’s mobile gaming.
Remember the Time

Old-school gaming may make wireless units the platform of choice in the future, if only for one reason: the old-school video game systems don’t exist anymore.

“I still get much fan mail today, many of it from younger gamers who have been introduced to my games by their parents, teachers, etc.,” says game designer Scott Adams. His classic text adventures, such as Pirate Adventure and Adventureland, were released more than two decades ago on M.I.A. platforms like the Commodore VIC-20. Now gamers won’t have hit the garage sales: the two mentioned games are on the WAP platform via Digital Bridges, with more possibly on the way.

He admits that the game is a little different (“It looks like graphics were added quite a bit to Pirate Adventure.”), but, considering it is a text adventure on a keyboardless cell phone, he’s pleased. “I had little to do on the project, but I had final creative authority. The conversion team did such a great job.”

THQ Mobile Producer Stuart Platt also hopes to keep you away from garage sales. Last year company resurrected off Intellivision, one-time rival of Atari and ColecoVision. Lots of games have been rolling out since Spring 2002 for various Nextel, Sprint and Motorola phones, including Astrosmash, Shark! Shark!, and Skiing. Though it is often considered an “also-ran,” Platt says that Intellivision’s game catalog is remarkably strong.

“The great thing about Intellivision was that most of the games were original titles and not licensed properties,” he says. “The competing systems of that era had mostly licensed titles and did not push many original titles. A good example is the ColecoVision. I believe Coleco only published a handful of original titles.”

The Intellivision license gives THQ access to more than 50 games, making it possible for THQ to continue to release old-school games well after more complex wireless games are possible. Platt says that they even toyed with the idea of making unique games using the Intellivision game engine.

“Look at the popularity of games such as Snake. Snake is probably the most simple game available on a mobile phone. I think most users who play games on phones are looking for great gameplay and relatively simple graphics,” he says.

Platt doesn’t deny that next-gen platforms aren’t incredible. It’s just that old-school games provide an experience that newer ones can’t.

“Today’s games are great. I own all of the new consoles and probably spend too much money on games,” Platt says. “[However], the fact is I still often find myself itching to play a game of Galaga or turn on my Intellivision and play a game of Astrosmash.”