Arguably Tecmo’s most beloved franchise, the Ninja Gaiden series was one of the stronger 3rd party trilogies on the NES. I always thought the story was a bit cliche - a hardened shadow of a man travels to America to seek revenge for the death of his father - but I don’t think I cared much. It wasn’t till much later that one of my animation instructors restored my faith in the cliche as a good thing that I came to love this story even more.
One of the [US] launch titles for the NES, Excitebike was quite a title for the little 8-bit system that could. Players race motocross style bikes on one of five different tracks either alone or versus computer controlled opponents.
A third mode, and by far the most profound feature that I remember from this game was the track builder. Most that reminisce about this game will likely recall this feature as one of the first in-game level editors. I still have interest from publishers and licensors alike for game features that offer players the ability to create their own levels. While there were games before Excitebike that offered this ability to a degree, this was the title that I was most heavily exposed to - causing it to land at #9 on my list.
Certainly one of the classics, METROID on the NES started a long and healthy line of 2D platformers. I was never that into the sci-fi genres but Metroid was still appealing because it was pretty fresh and there really wasn’t anything out that combined the adventuring of Zelda with the shooter action. At the time I never realized how much that this game really contributed to the evolution of this genre.
Now I look back and I see lessons of game design pioneered with METROID that are still true today. METROID gives the player something right at the start of the game that allows them enhanced ability [morph ball]. I certainly remember feeling like I accomplished something right away whenever I started the game and I think that is a simple hook that vested me quickly in the game. It also broke from the side scrolling limits and allowed players to travel vertically as well as go backward to locations not previously accessible.
I’m a huge fan of the old NES and I still have one hooked up in my office to this day. Every so often it gets fired up and is still a blast to play. This era or vintage of game is still popular and I think that a lot of modern developers were brewed in the 8-bit days. The art associated with this generation of gaming has it’s cult following as well - and I have always wanted to make my contribution to this community.
So, I decided that it would be a nice little project if I were to list out the top 10 titles from the 8-bit era that inspired me to “one day” make video games and with each I could build out some of the old sprites in their 8-bit glory using some of the 3D tools that I use today.
I dubbed the little project PIX3LED, as the art really focuses on the pixels as 3D shapes. After making a few images - and by necessity studied a few of the sprites - I became really impressed with how well the developers of the early NES days were able to wrangle as little as 4 colors into meaningful shapes - some of which have evolved into real icons of an era.
So tomorrow I will kick off a weekly posting - rambling about the top 10 NES games that inspired me. With each post I’ll include some of the PIX3LED art that complements the reflection.
Here we go…