Article that nobody likes about side-scrollers

[Chris++]

Good screen shots.

 

http://www.stanford.edu/~mktong/sidescr/

 

(It also happens to reference an article I wrote. I didn't know that until I got to the bottom!)

[Spirantho]

Interesting article, but...

 

How can you write an article about side-scrollers without mentioning the Amiga? Seems a bit strange given the Amiga was for almost a decade the ruler of side-scrollers... using the PC as an example is strange as it's the one thing they've never been able to do right, as by the time the technology was good enough people were using 3D like Doom.

 

It's kind of like writing an article on popular soft drinks without mentioning the word "Coca Cola" once. All IMHO.

[Chris++]

I agree completely. But if the guy who wrote the article never had the opportunity to be exposed to the Amiga (or only had, say, an A500), he might not have even thought to research those great early scrollers. The Amiga was substantially less popular in the US than in Europe, so he might not have even known about the Psychnosis games, etc. Just a thought.

[Jetboot Jack]

A found the article poor, it failed to engage with the genre beyond a few games the writer had experienced as a player and then somewhat superficially.

 

I felt no sense that there was any in depth research behind this article at all, pitfall, commander keen and SOTN -- hardly a representative cross section of the genre IMHO...

 

As to ignnoring the Amiga -- well why not, few of that plaform's sidescrollers were more than copies of existing Japanese games/styles or Shadow of the Beast clones (pretty but no real game...).

 

Any article that even begins to delve into a genre as rich as this and yet has scant mention of the key titles in the gnere is asking to be lambasted. Where are the NES, PCEngine, SNES and Genesis games -- each of those platforms produced side scrolling action adventure games that gave definition to the gnre and set standard by which this type is judged...

 

One would expect this article to at least pick 3 side scrollers of merit to base its discussion upon, why not pick the SMB family for heaven's sake, then maybe Sonic and perhaps follow that up with maybe a revelaion of the 3D remake's failures and successes...

 

I despair, really I do...

 

sTeVE

[MegaManFan]

I have to concur with Jack. When I clicked on the link, I expected something far more in depth and profound based on the hype. The author didn't explain the evolution of side-scrollers very well. He just said here's Pitfall, it was great and successful, here's Commander Keen, which was great and successful, and here's Castlevania SOTN. What? At no point does he detail how the genre "evolved" from one style of side scroller to the next, and he left out monumental landmark titles in that evolution in the process; from Mega Man 2 to Super Mario Bros. 3 to Sonic the Hedgehog to Super Castlevania IV to et cetera et cetera. I also found the writer's style to be very "vanilla." Grammatically it may have been sound but it lacked in style and conviction.

[+Cafeman]

I didn't enjoy this article at all.

 

Like many Atari 2600 games, Pitfall was limited to 4 kilobytes of RAM,

 

4K of RAM would have been pretty awesome. He meant 4K of ROM. There are 128 bytes of RAM. If you're gonna write an article, get the facts straight!

[Chris++]

Okay, then, I've changed the title of the thread.

 

You want really in-depth articles? Are you sure?

 

http://www.geocities.com/flynnwins/latest_articles.htm

 

Comments/criticism welcome. Yoose guys is smart.

 

 

.

[Room 34]

I think the article would have been better framed as a personal memoir of the writer's experience with the games. Definitely not a broad or well-researched look at the genre. I think if he had taken the approach I took with my article about the 3 Sears-exclusive 2600 games (just me talking about how I learned about those games over the years), it would have been more effective.

 

Ah... whatever. I just wanted to toot my own horn.

 

[Brad2600]

The person who wrote the article is a dimbulb dolt that didn't do their research.

 

No Super Mario Bros?

 

What about the Sonic games? ToeJam and Earl? Just about any other side scroller?

 

What a lameoid.

 

This is proof that people who KNOW about video games should be the only ones writing about them.

[MichaelJMcKernan]

I thought the article was good.

 

Give the guy a break. Plus, he helped get me an Intellivision.

 

And he plays some mean drums.

 

Not to mention knows how to program games for the Aquarius!!!!

 

Let's just take a step back, breathe, smile and before we go back to wasting our lives playing 25 year old video games.

 

Now if he had written that Cabbage Patch Kids Adventure in the Park was good, then we could all call him a moron.

[Spirantho]

Agreed... it's not a _bad_ article, it's just poorly researched (if at all). He has gone into a fair amount of detail on what he's covered, it's just that he picked a very restricted sample and chose the wrong games to boot. The games he listed as important were, apart from Pitfall!, not important in the Genre at all. Commander Keen was important only as an early iD work, not as a platformer at all, as it was way below the standard set on other systems, and Castlevania, while being a good example and a popular example, was it important? No. But it does represent the end of the side-scroller lifetime for the most part, so we can let that pass.

 

The writer has researched, but only into the games, not into the genre... he wrote an article about 3 games when he should have been writing about 300.

 

All IMHO... and to be honest I`ve not read the article properly. But fair dues to him, he's done a reasonable article about 3 games.

[Inky]

I think that's a horrible article, and I'm all the dumber for having read it. I think you should be shot, hanged, drawn and quartered, and then shot and hanged again, just to make sure you're dead for posting that tripe.

 

And I'm only saying this because I want to be part of the 'in' crowd.

 

[Chris++]

Hey Mikey!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Yeah, I didn't write that article, I just posted it because I was surprised that one of my articles was referred to and I thought the guy did a decent job for supposedly "not having much back knowledge." I think it was a school paper. I don't know. He e-mailed me and asked me to read it. I never wrote him back; he would've felt picked apart. I know the difference between a very well researched article that the picky bastards around here (like me) and something just done to address a genre that many of the guy's classmates might not know about.

[JagMX]

i miss 2d side scrolling games

[kondre]

I like side scroller games. I wish there were more of them.

 

 

Prince of Persia I and II... Out of this world... Wings of Fury.... Captain Goodnight....

 

Side scrollers do well...even toda, look at the success of Abbe's Odessy.

 

I hope that Prince of Persia 4 will go back to side scroller, forget that 3d stuff.

 

but thats not to say i hate 3d games too, dont get me wrong.

[Mr.FoodMonster]

theres this top-scroller game for the pc that i have been desperatly searching for, it came out in the early to mid-90's and was made by 'epic mega games' now just 'epic games' it was called tyrian, anyone have an old copy sitting around? i cant find it ANYwhere, not even online, only the demo version. if you see it PM me!