Classic Arcade Game: Marble Madness
A then 17 year-old Marc Cerny joined Atari back in the mid-80's, and soon created a masterpiece videogame called Marble Madness. You played a marble rolling through abstract ductways, avoiding obstacles. Why was this game so cool? Well, it had awesome music, with a definitive soundtrack throughout the game. It had game physics. Stereo sound effects. An illuminated trakball.
I miss the early days of videogames when each new game you'd see in the arcade was a new genre. I remember going to the half-dozen arcades along the Ocean City, New Jersey boardwalk every summer, and discovering brand new game ideas. Now going to arcades is dull. There's your riding simulation, your use-a-gun game, your fighting game, and that's about it.
What's different today? Obviously now we have home gaming systems that surpass the arcades, but the games are not necessarily revolutionary. Is it Marketing? The size of the industry (which can't take as much risk?)
A then 17 year-old Marc Cerny joined Atari back in the mid-80's, and soon created a masterpiece videogame called Marble Madness. You played a marble rolling through abstract ductways, avoiding obstacles. Why was this game so cool? Well, it had awesome music, with a definitive soundtrack throughout the game. It had game physics. Stereo sound effects. An illuminated trakball.
I miss the early days of videogames when each new game you'd see in the arcade was a new genre. I remember going to the half-dozen arcades along the Ocean City, New Jersey boardwalk every summer, and discovering brand new game ideas. Now going to arcades is dull. There's your riding simulation, your use-a-gun game, your fighting game, and that's about it.
What's different today? Obviously now we have home gaming systems that surpass the arcades, but the games are not necessarily revolutionary. Is it Marketing? The size of the industry (which can't take as much risk?)
Labels: videogames
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