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The multiplayer games everyone forgot
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2007
Oct 06
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As I’m back on a (retro) arcade game kick, I’ve been looking for ways to play them on-line. I’ve explored the classic NES network abilities and think they’ll work well when playing over the internet, but when I search the web for gaming servers I’m finding a regular handful of games that everyone seems to play. Unfortunately, few of them are ones I’m anxious to play. That’s not say they’re not good games or worth playing, but my list of favorite team games seems to vary quite a bit from the popular list. Sometimes I wonder how people some of these great games.
The popular emulator-based games I find on the gaming servers are either some variation of Street Fighter II, a Marvel vs. Capcom fighting game, or Mario Kart 64. Now, I won’t argue Mario Kart cause that’s just a kick ass game, but out of the arcade games I think there would be more team-based games and more variance in fighting games.
A fighting game I remember playing the arcade a lot was King of the Monsters. It was a Neo-Geo game that pitted “famous” monsters against one another…like Godzilla vs. Giant Beetle. They fought each other in the middle of Tokyo, getting points for destruction as much as beating each other up. It even had co-op mode. I remember being really excited when they ported it to Genesis, but even then it seemed to most like an obscure title.
Another on the fighting front was Samurai Showdown. I guess while everyone else was dropping quarters in the Street Fighter machine I was playing Samurai Showdown. Of course, I played my share of Mortal Kombat, but I don’t even see any variation of MK on the gaming servers. I love fighting games and I have no good reason why I didn’t get into Street Fighter. Maybe because it ended up like the Final Fantasy games where they kept releasing so-called different versions that really weren’t any different that the prior release. And what about the rash of WWF wrestling games? Those were great because they have co-op in tag teams and also supported four players.
The other type of game I see missing from these servers are the team games, those where you weren’t fighting each other but were more co-op based and had usually four players playing. Games like X-Men and the first Ninja Turtles arcade were ones I remember spending way to much time on. Of course, these games have a finite ending and in emulator world it doesn’t take long to play through since you can continue forever, but still…it’s fun to play through anyway.
My other complain with what I’ve found…or more so not found…on gaming servers is NES support. The classic Nintendo is “my” system if I had to pick one. And considering NES games are so low-tech and are very simple in their own right, playing them on-line can’t be that intensive. Think about all those great NES games you played with and against your friends…Contra, Blades of Steel, Bases Loaded, Tecmo Bowl, Jackal (or any other Konami game), Skate or Die…there’s just a ton in that arena that I can’t imagine the retro gaming crowd are not wanting to play.
And that’s just covering two emulators, arcade and NES. There’s an emulator for virtually every console out there. Long for those TurboGrax16 days? No problem. Just download the emulator and you’re off. Sure, the Nintendo Wii has their fancy virtual console where you can download games for a handful of consoles, but there are two reason why emulating on your PC is better: 1) it’s free, 2) you can play on-line — until the Wii opens their classic titles for on-line play they won’t sell like they could or should.