Hello Hive.
After my post about the Sega Saturn, I’ve been in a retro state of mind. So I figured that I’d talk about the second console that was beneficent to my gaming childhood, the PlayStation (PS1).
The PS, developed of course by Sony, was released in 1994 in Japan, and was received the following year by North America, Europe and Australia. A little bit of trivia for you, Sony actually started developing the PS after a failed venture with Nintendo in the early 90s. These two companies were looking to create a CD-ROM peripheral for the SNES. I can’t quite remember what exactly fell through, but Sony took their research and turned it into the PS. I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say I’m glad that they did.
The PlayStation had a huge, expansive library of games, some popular ones include: Grand Turismo, Crash Bandicoot, Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy, Resident Evil and Dino Crisis. All of these games eventually spawned numerous successful sequels, (Dino Crisis was a little less successful but I’ll talk about that later). Whilst I was to young for the likes of Tomb Raider at the time, something that I did play a lot of was Bomberman. Yes I know, another Bomberman game, but it’s just so good! This version was released as Bomberman Party edition in Japan, but is known simply as Bomberman in Europe. The single player mode is very similar to the 1985 Bomberman released on the NES. As per the norm, the player must make their way through the area, destroying all of the monsters in their path. Once this is done, the player must then locate the exit, which will be hidden underneath a random soft block. Of course there are various power-ups hidden throughout each level that will make this easier.
Again, the PVP mode is a statement part of this game and as you’d expect, allows you to collect power-ups, allowing you to arm yourself to the teeth to take down the opponents. Upon selecting the battle mode you are then asked to choose one of 3 difficulty levels. This doesn’t reflect on the difficulty levels of the computer controlled characters, but it allows you to choose a different selection of battle stages and characters, depending on the choice you make. In the easiest difficulty, the characters are all the same Bomberman, but with different colours. However, the two difficulties above actually allow you to pick characters that look completely different. In the hardest difficulty, each character has their own unique ability, which aids you in eliminating the other players. You have to be careful when you use it though, because your movement speed will be slowed to a crawl for a couple of seconds afterwards.
Whilst this is not my favourite game in the Bomberman series, it is a very close second. And come on, the intro video is legendary!
I mentioned Dino Crisis earlier. I only have a little bit of experience with this game, as I used to play it at my friends house. The game I want to talk about is the sequel, Dino Crisis 2. The DC series was created by the legendary Shinji Mikami, the man behind the Resident Evil games. As you can imagine, first game follows a very similar vibe to the original RE games, but with Dinosaurs. The second DC however, still retains the puzzle solving element but has more of an arcadey, run-and-gun style of play. DC has an immersive story, and keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout the game. I personally found that as the cutscenes ended I was desperate to get to the next one, as they often leave you on a cliffhanger, only revealing tidbits of information and sometimes leaving you with more questions than answers.
The ending of DC2 leaves you on a cliffhanger, and the sad thing is they never continued it in DC3. Although I never actually played the third instalment, I would’ve at least like to have known where the story would’ve gone and how it would’ve finished. Whilst I’m on the subject of games, another game I played on the PS is Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase. Based on the animated film of the same name, this game allows you to take control of Scooby and Shaggy, guiding them through various levels on the trail of the Phantom Virus. I won’t get into too much detail about this one, but I will mention that my mum never completed this game, (she used to play it a lot back in the day). I on the other hand managed to complete it whilst we were stuck in lockdown. I have to say, the final boss was most definitely the most difficult boss I’ve ever faced off against. I had to actually look at a walkthrough on YouTube to find his pattern, but even then it was still so difficult.
So that was pretty much my journey with the PS1. I didn’t have a huge collection of games, but I’m happy with the ones I did play. I did eventually move into the PS2, but that’s a story for another day.
What were your favourite games, and do you recommend any?
