Nick Thorpe’s 1998 - Part 2
Last time in our interview with Nick Thorpe, we discussed his transition from 16-bit Mega Drive gaming into the raw, 3D, polygon throwing power of PlayStation (don’t underestimate it!). (Check out part one right here)
But as long time Sega fans we both knew we would have to address the launch of Dreamcast and the excitement that surrounded it in mid to late 1998.
News would drip-feed from Japan to magazines, with rumours of a ‘128-bit console’ on the way from Sega. Eventually Sega would be ready to talk about the console codenamed ‘Katana’ or ‘Dural’, eventually christening the new hardware with the final name; Dreamcast.
Sega would release the Dreamcast in Japan on November 27, 1998;
GamesMaster #77 covers the Dreamcast launch and some key release titles!
“I remember reading in, I think it was specifically Games Master, a sort of diary of the Dreamcast launch day and going around to the different stores [in Japan]. This was how I first heard of places like Sofmap and Bic Camera in Tokyo, where they were going around and sort of checking [out] what the excitement was like. It was massively exciting. I had been too young to really experience the height [of excitement for] the PlayStation and Saturn properly. So the Dreamcast was probably the first one that I properly latched on to in that way.”
Of course, one of the reasons the Dreamcast garnered so much attention was the sheer power. The Nintendo 64 had already been an impressive piece of kit, but Dreamcast promised to be even more impressive, and was coming out much, much earlier than the rumoured PlayStation 2.
FOUR TIMES the power of PlayStation!? That’s INSANE! (From CVG #192)
“I think the other thing about [Dreamcast] is, yeah, the power. We don't get consoles that are really significantly more powerful than what you would see anywhere else these days. Like the Dreamcast and the Xbox later on will probably be the last real examples of consoles outperforming PCs at launch.”
Nick points out the proof of Dreamcast’s power was in the pudding for Sega; “Sega adopted the Dreamcast architecture, more or less wholesale, as their primary arcade technology”. Sega’s Model 3 arcade board was already at the cutting edge of arcade tech, and Sega’s Dreamcast was even more impressive, with the arcade equivalent, Naomi, superseding even the best-looking Model 3 games.
Crazy Taxi (1999) is one of Sega’s key games that released on both Dreamcast and Naomi hardware.
The graphical leaps seen in the 90s were incredibly impressive. Going from 16-bit home consoles in 1990 to the Dreamcast and ever more powerful arcade boards and PCs in the late 90s, new hardware made you constantly change your mind as to what video games could look like. Are graphical leaps like this a thing of the past? The changes we saw in the decades of the 70s, 80s and 90s are not replicated in the last decade of the 2010s.
"Oh, yeah, definitely. The jump that you get from the beginning of the 80s with games like Pac Man to the end of the 80s [with] games like Final Fight, or the beginning of the 90s when you've got games like I mean Hard Drivin’ was very late 80s [1989] technically, you know, you look at something like that and you compare it to Ferrari F355 Challenge in 1999 and holy cow, those are worlds apart! And then there's less of a jump from the beginning of 2000 to the end of 2009. And then, when you look at what was being released in the early 2010s, a lot of that stuff gets remastered and doesn't look very different [to the original] and [the original] holds up pretty well.” Certainly games would look incredibly different ten years apart in prior decades, something that the ray-tracing and resolution upgrades of the last ten years can’t match (this was also talked about in the ‘Gaming in 1998’ feature.
Hard Drivin’ (1989) and F355 Challenge (1999). A perfect illustration of the progress of video game graphics in ten years.
With the 25th anniversary of Sonic Adventure coming up at time of writing (and check our 1998 showcase for that watershed game here), and with Nick being something of a Sonic aficionado, I had to ask about Sonic Adventure, and the excitement surrounding the long awaited return of Sonic the Hedghog’s first ‘proper’ sequel since Sonic & Knuckles;
“It's funny to think of [Sonic Adventure] as a ‘comeback’ now, because the gap between Sonic & Knuckles and Sonic Adventure is just over four years, right? Actually not a lot [of time] there!” Funny how those four years felt close to an eternity when you’re only 11 years old…
Four years is a long time to wait for a franchise as beloved as Sonic the Hedgehog.
“But in gaming terms at that time, it felt like an age and especially because of the progress that had been made in that time in terms of home 3D gaming. You know, everyone had wanted Sonic to have that sort of Mario 64 moment and it hadn't happened. Due to the unfortunate difficulties in getting Sonic Extreme out.” For those unfamiliar, Sonic Extreme was the cancelled Sonic the Hedgehog game for Sega Saturn that looked to mix 2D and 3D gameplay. To this day, Sega fans debate if the game would have lived up to the Sonic name or not.
“Now to be fair, I’m not saying that Sonic Extreme would have been anything close to Mario 64. I think that project had difficulties in many ways.” By comparison, Sonic Adventure had never looked anything less than utterly stunning from its first reveal. Nick recalls seeing the game’s screen-shots in the lead up to release;
An early screenshot of an in-development build of Sonic Extreme. Note the fish-eye lens effect.
“I remember my imagination running wild, seeing Sonic in the city environments and like, running along the sort of narrow pathway in Lost World where there's a massive visual drop. Just so, so much hype around it. And as a Sonic fan at the time, I was fully bought. And like I couldn't have imagined anything more exciting.”
First impressions of Sonic Adventure were very positive. There’s a picture of Sonic in an urban environment, for many, this would have been the first look at Sonic Adventure ever! (From Sega Saturn Magazine #36)
On that note, an important part of gaming at the turn of the millennium was the fact that games were, nine times out of ten, only ever seen in the form of still images until you played them or saw them on a TV show. TV shows centred around gaming existed, but 1998 happened to be the last year that long-running British video game TV show Games Master was aired.
“1998 was the year that Games Master, which was kind of the most prominent Gaming Show of the 90s in the UK, [ended].” Most of the time you’d be relying on the newsstands to get your fix of upcoming games.
“Screenshots let your imagination run wild, and I think there's a good magazine will include a variety of screenshots showing all the kinds of things you can do [in game]. The magazines that I was reading at the time were very highly enthusiastic in their approach. And particularly CVG (Computer and Video Games) under Paul Davies. You could feel how excited they were about the games and that hype practically peeled off the page! It's funny as you go back, and it's a very different approach to how games magazines are now. Like CVG, in particular featured lots of screenshots, lots of box-outs very little in the way of sort of flowing body text. But [these were the] days where that wasn't all laid out for you in video, so that was a great approach! And, you know, it'd be fun reading about things like interoffice rivalries and stuff like that. So yeah, massive part of the [gaming] culture.”
A typical review from CVG #205 for Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six (1998). Note the many box-outs and varied screen shots!
On the topic of big graphical updates, Nintendo was by 1998 overdue for an update on their Game Boy hardware, originally released back in 1989!
“I remember the hype for [the Game Boy Color] as well, it was quite something because just the idea of the Gameboy finally shedding its black and white history and going into full colour was quite a big deal. I remember seeing Tetris DX, Link's Awakening DX and the hype for those. And I'd never owned a handheld console up to that point. So that was, I think something else that I actually asked for that Christmas Eve, you know, it would be something to do on long car journeys and that. But yeah, that was that would be saved until the next year and the Pokemon Boom.” Anyone growing up in 1998 will be familiar with the absolute madness surrounding Pokemon in 1998 in the west. The game almost single-handedly revived the entire Game Boy market and took on a life of its own with card games, a TV series and even a movie. But there was more than one hand-held released in 1998…
CVG #209 reviews The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX for the new Game Boy Color.
SNK would also throw their hat into the handheld hardware ring, and had some very unfortunate timing.
SNK released the Neo Geo Pocket in October of 1998. A black and white console that released just one week after Nintendo launched a new colour version of the Game Boy… While SNK would very quickly change gears and release a Neo Geo Pocket Colour, the Neo Geo Pocket still saw a number of great releases in 1998 and beyond. Nick is a big fan of SNKs handheld games.
SNK’s Neo Geo Pocket was a great piece of kit with some stiff competition.
“I have a Neo Geo Pocket Colour. And I love my Neo Geo Pocket Colour! Didn't get it until after its commercial lifespan, of course, because like everyone else, I was sort of sucked into the Pokemon tractor beam. But [the Neo Geo Pocket] is a fascinating device to me. It's one of those things where SNK chose to do this, and also Bandai chose to do the WonderSwan the next year, [...] and it's fascinating for me to think that even that late into the 90s, there was f a push to use what was fairly antiquated technology. But, you know, you look at those early NeoGeo Pocket games, things like King of Fighters R1 and new NeoGeo Cup ‘98. And they're really good games, just unfortunately, on the wrong side of display technology history.” Meanwhile I was furiously taking notes on some 1998 Neo Geo Games to find and play, then subsequently feature on this website.
At this point we’d nearly used up a full hour talking about the glory days of 90s gaming, and I realised I hadn’t actually asked Nick to specifically rattle off some great games of 1998 in particular! Time flies when you’re having fun, so I was thankful that he actually had something of a list that he’d prepared earlier. But I think there’s enough content there for a part III, so join us soon for the final part of the interview, in which we wax lyrical about our favourite games from this stellar year!
