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1UP COVER STORY

1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF MAY 21 | WHAT IF?

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t's kind of a fascinating story really. Shigeru Miyamoto, maybe the most influential designer ever, had little interest in videogames until the late 1970s, when he played Space Invaders. Up until that point, he had wanted to be a manga artist. Well, what if he had followed his original dream and done just that? What would have happened to Nintendo? Or videogames in general? Here's one possible timeline.

1979 -- Miyamoto the Manga Artist: Shigeru Miyamoto graduates from the Kanazawa Munici College of Industrial Arts and Crafts. Because Miyamoto's father is a friend of Hiroshi Yamauchi, he soon receives an offer to work for Nintendo. But Miyamoto is something of a free spirit, and he has little interest in videogames. He decides instead to pursue a career as as manga artist.

Dead Island is set to be re-released in a Game of the Year Edition package next month, a fact that is the source of some complaints. It's not so much that the game is being bundled with its DLC that is the problem; it's the labeling of the game as Game of the Year, a title which many feel it is not deserving of.

It is completely understandable why a publisher would want a game re-release to be positioned as a "Game of the Year Edition." That title carries with it a certain connotation of quality, that it was among the very best, if not the best, games released during the year it originally came out. Game of the Year Editions are commonly associated with the likes of Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Red Dead Redemption, and other critically acclaimed games. There is a certain expectation that a GotY Edition consists of a terrific game and bonus content (be it downloadable content or expansion packs) that early adopters had to pay extra for, with all of this often coming at a sub-$60 price.

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1UP COVER STORY

1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF MAY 21 | WHAT IF?

December 12, 1985

You'll never guess what I got for my birthday! I woke up this morning, walked into the living room, and saw Dad playing Nintendo in front of the TV! He was having trouble with the first level of Mario, so I sat down and helped him jump over the pits until we got to the flagpole at the end. After that, we brought out the Zapper and played Duck Hunt until dinner time. Mom got kinda mad at Dad for buying something so expensive, but he told her that my birthday only comes once a year.

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1UP COVER STORY

1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF MAY 21 | WHAT IF?

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n late 1993, state senators and certified oldsters Joseph Lieberman and Herb Khol got a whiff of this whole "video games" thing and decided to use their unholy powers to investigate the issue. While our friends in Germany and Australia often find amazing games banned outright or plagued with hilariously conspicuous censorship, we Americans escaped with a barely perceptible slap on the wrists thanks to the efforts of testifying industry vets who actually knew the subject at hand. But one can only wonder what the '90s gaming landscape (and beyond) would have looked like if the iron fist of government oppression punched the living daylights out of our beloved hobby...

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1UP COVER STORY

1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF MAY 21 | WHAT IF?

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ith his latest book, 1983, game journalist and historian Chris Kohler has chosen to take a slightly different tack then he employed for his massive treatise Power Up: How America Gave Video Games an Extra Life a few years back. Rather than approaching the topic of video games from a wide-ranging, all-inclusive perspective, Kohler instead drills down here into a single crucial moment in time for the young medium: The near-crash of the industry in year 1983.

Despite the Orwellian overtones of the title Kohler has selected for his work, there's nothing ominous about the story contained herein -- perhaps, except, the idea that video gaming could have been snuffed out entirely a mere decade after Pong's debut. A combination of gold-rush greed, incompetence, and '80s corporate culture nearly suffocated the fledging entertainment medium just as it was hitting its stride. The Warner corporation's eagerness to cash in on their purchase of Atari, combined with the influx of low-quality, externally developed 2600 games after Activision broke away to become the first third-party developer, nearly buried the industry beneath a deluge of self-cannibalizing mediocrity.

I like to play games in what I imagine is an unusual manner, or at least I thought this to be the case until 1UP members revealed they share some of my habits. One of these things, my propensity for systematically exploring an area before moving on, has reared its head in particularly noticeable fashion as I make my way through Max Payne 3. Playing in this way was clearly something the game's designers accounted for, as evidenced by the collectables scattered throughout, and yet it feels almost as if I'm being punished for deciding to be a completionist.

My process for approaching each area in Max Payne 3 follows the same pattern, only being altered if I'm low on health and out of painkillers (health packs in Max Payne's world). I kill everyone and then proceed to sweep over the entire room, seeking out any hidden spots or areas which do not appear to lead to the next area. As I make my way from one combat area to the next, I'm mindful of my surroundings and am sure to double back to check behind staircases and to see which doors can be opened. I do this all while searching for golden gun components, painkillers, and clues which can be examined. The latter can fill in the backstory but is hardly needed to get the gist of the narrative. I'm able to comfortably do this because there is no ticking clock, even if what Max is doing at any given time suggests there should be, and because enemies come in limited numbers and only in certain areas.

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1UP COVER STORY

1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF MAY 21 | WHAT IF?

People love to look back at the past and ask, "What if things had gone differently?" Navel-gazing at history spans cultures and races. Whether it's author Harry Turtledove making a fortune by contemplating how differently the American Civil War would have gone if someone had time-traveled to give the Confederate Army machine guns, or the manga Konpeki No Kantai in which the Japanese navy beats up America in World War II before teaming up to kill Hitler, second-guessing ourselves seems to be human nature.

Maybe it's the competitive nature of the medium, but video gamers seem especially fond of revisiting the past and wondering about alternate outcomes. As the Three Fates in the image above suggest, games have woven a rich and complex tapestry in their mere half-century of existence -- a tapestry whose design and nature could have changed radically had things turned out differently.

1UP COVER STORY

1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF MAY 21 | WHAT IF?

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UP's cover story this week revolves around the question, "What if?" In keeping with that theme, we'd like to offer this glimpse into one of many alternate realities of video gaming: A world where video games never came home. A world where the arcade still dominates gaming. How would a site like 1UP be different in such a place? We talk to our mirror universe counterparts about the state of gaming and their thoughts on the medium.

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1UP COVER STORY

1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF MAY 21 | WHAT IF?

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et's be honest, when we think about Activision-Blizzard as a company, at least a few of us get a mental image of a dark overlord with hooked fingers looming over a burning landscape. This image is usually accompanied by a deep-voiced demand for sacrificial virgins. Given Activision-Blizzard's status as The Biggest Thing That Has Ever Existed in Gaming, it's easy to forget that prehistoric Activision fought for the right to develop third-party games on the Atari 2600 -- a battle that it eventually won in court.

Activision's victory essentially made it possible for third-party game designers to ply their trade on home game consoles.

Activision's drive for justice wasn't exclusively about being paid its deserved royalties, either. During the 2600 era, Atari had a nasty habit of not crediting its game developers (or even letting developers bring attention to themselves, which convinced Adventure developer Warren Robinett to bury his name in the game, possibly creating the first digital Easter Egg). When Activision won the right to make its own games for the 2600 in 1982, credit was no longer a problem.

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1UP COVER STORY

1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF MAY 21 | WHAT IF?

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or RPG fans of the early 1990s, Square practically had their own branch on the Nintendo family tree. This held especially true on the Super NES, where Square came into its own with Final Fantasy IV and VI, Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, and wealth of Japan-only releases that loomed just out of reach for Americans. By the end of 1995, the union seemed solid. Nintendo's long-awaited Nintendo 64 system was on its way, and would be home to Square's next Final Fantasy.

There seemed no reason to worry until the spring of 1996, when those same RPG fans opened game magazines and learned that Final Fantasy VII wouldn't release in the form of a Nintendo 64 cartridge. It was now headed for the Sony PlayStation, as with every other game Square planned to make for the latest generation of consoles. By the end of the year, Square sewed up a publishing agreement with Sony, and their first PlayStation release, the fighter Tobal No. 1, sat on store shelves. It came as quite a surprise to players who'd effectively grown up with RPGs on Nintendo systems.

Final Fantasy VII didn't just amount to a critical PlayStation success; it was also instrumental in establishing the Japanese RPG in North America's mainstream game industry.