We’re getting ever closer to the release of Ocarina of Time this issue.
Cover: Just Link on the cover this time. Some other games that have received reviews are mentioned, but Link’s got the spotlight.
Industry Interview: Jack Sorensen, the President of Lucasarts is the subject. We get some discussion (with an awful layout) on how George Lucas fits into the whole Lucasarts thing, before moving into working with the Star Wars franchise. They do talk a little about why they hadn’t done a Star Wars point-and-click adventure game which is an interesting question – it doesn’t fit with the LucasArts style, but it might fit with other idioms of adventure games (like the Syberia style). The interview moves on to fitting narrative into games, and the future of gaming – Sorensen brings up the potential of games to build empathy with players through interactivity, which is something we’ve come to see in games since then.
News: We have a second interview with Bernie Stolar about Project Katana – which will be the Dreamcast. He gives a release window that fits with what happens (Autumn ’99 – actually released in 9/9/’99, which fits), and generally presents confidence.
There’s also a “This Month in Gaming History” column – a nice acknowledgment that there is a history to this art form. Most of the stuff listed is a little more recent, which also relates to the fact that specificity when it comes to dates becomes a little more nebulous the further we go, which also shows how bad we’ve been at documenting game history.
The Movers & Shakers Column has, among other things, Colin Campbell making the case to (gasp) open E3 to the public – though admittedly, considering the discussion on some game podcasts over time, there was never really much in games that was shown at E3 that you could let the public get Hands-On with.
Retroview gets into how the Robotron Dual-Joystick controls came about, which was interesting (basically it was an accessibility issue)
How Gaming Will Conquer The World: How do you grow the audience for video games, and become mainstream? There are a few good points – sell to women (though there’s some serious debate as to how – though good stories help), create environments for players to form communities and have social spaces within games, polish what you’re good at, embrace being games (because being ashamed of your medium repels people), be affordable enough for the public, acknowledge creative talent (which humanizes the medium). They’re not all winners – they pitch using Speech Recognition as something needed to make games mainstream, which history has shown just highlights the artifice of games in a way that makes games clunky to play.
There are a couple of sidebars on the current state of game graphics (something that I think is, at this point, serving as a barrier to acceptance), and a sidebar on whether game publishers will go away (the answer is no – publishers have manage to stick around in the era of digital distribution through their ability to defray the costs of games, along with being able to flex their financial muscle for promotion.)
Alphas (Previews): We have an extensive preview of Ocaraina of Time. We don’t get into play mechanics, but they do discuss controls, and that used to be designed for the N64DD.
We also have a preview of Spyro the Dragon – which I’d forgotten Mark Cerney was a designer on. Also, it was designed by Insomniac who ended up being part of Sony – so how the hell did Activision get Spyro?
There’s a general preview of Radical Entertainment getting the ESPN license, and some of the games that could come out of it.
Accolade has made a PC Mech action game called Slave Zero. The bio-mechanical mech has an Evangelion vibe, though admittedly there’s a possibility that the developers haven’t watched it – they certainly aren’t mentioning it.
Planet Moon, made up of former members of the MDK dev team, has Giants: Citizen Kabuto. We also have a developer profile of FASA Interactive, with some discussion of Mech Commander (which did come out), and Shadowrun: Assassin (which did not). The later game sounds like it could have been interesting, as it’s sort of a Reverse Hitman – your character is a bodyguard, and its your job to read the environment and recognize potential threats to stop assassination attempts on each level.
Finally, Psygnosis has dragon flight-sim Arakh, Black Ops Entertainment has a licensed Tomorrow Never Dies game, and EA has a successor to the Strike series with LAPD 2100.
The Way Games Ought To Be: Neil is talking with Janet Murray on how to do storytelling in video games (which will continue into next issue).
Finals (Reviews): Starting with the N64, we have just one game, with a review of 1080 Snowboarding, and a glowing review at that.
On the PlayStation, we get more games and mixed reviews. We have a solid review of the PS Port of Diablo, but the standout title this month is Tekken 3.
PC has several big hits, going by scores, with Die by the Sword, Grand Theft Auto, and Battlezone.
The Arcade has NFL Blitz and Rival Schools.
Letters: We have a letter from Todd Frye calling out their discussion of Atari’s 2600 version of Pac-Man in issue 40. We also have praise for the article in question, and its discussion of Toonstruck from some guy named Geoff Keighley, who I’m sure we’ve never heard of since. 😉
Next time – EA has a big boxing license.
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