1984 in video games?
Posted: April 11th, 2019, 9:57 pm
For a while now, I've had a dream about reviewing video games on YouTube. And lately I can't seem to escape an idea that I think would make for some great content that most reviewers haven't really experimented with. If you watch a lot of Top 10 lists (a la WatchMojo) like I tend to, you've probably seen a few "Worst Games of the Year" lists, which usually seem to stick with the year that either just ended or is about to (at least the ones that I've seen). But what about covering some of the worst games released years ago, kinda like how music critics on the site like Todd in the Shadows have covered songs from the Billboard year-end charts? Of course, this would be a very challenging thing to do; whereas pop music has its own dedicated charting system to keep track of what came out during a certain timeframe, video games don't seem to have that luxury. Thus, it would take more involved research to try and pull something like this off. And I would like to try figuring out which games critics and players alike seemed to dislike; not just by doing some online research, but also maybe gathering some vintage gaming magazines, comparing critic scores, see which games scored the lowest, and of course playing the games for myself to form my own personal opinion. From the well-known disasters to the forgotten mishaps, from the obvious choices to the more surprising ones, from products of former trends to failed experiments, from consoles to computers and even portables, I think this would make for some very interesting material. And while I would like to cover games that came out in what I consider to be phenomenal years for the industry (off the top of my head, 1998 and 2004), I'm also curious to find out which years were not so great. The one example I can think of... is 1984.
From what I've looked at, this was a very strange year for gaming. For as much as people like to talk about the video game crash of 1983 and the industry's return to power starting with the launch of the NES in 1985, no one really seems to mention that little gray area in between, and I can kinda see why. Aside from a couple of future heavyweights like Tetris and 1942, there's not a lot of material here worth noting; not necessarily bad games, but more just stuff that seem to have fallen to the wayside of public memory (unless names like Cobra Command, Bomb Jack, and Circus Charlie ring any bells to ya). Then again, I could be wrong about this. After all, I wouldn't have been born for another decade. But I would like to see which games really got torn apart that year.
What are your thoughts on this? And what year(s) do you think was underwhelming?
From what I've looked at, this was a very strange year for gaming. For as much as people like to talk about the video game crash of 1983 and the industry's return to power starting with the launch of the NES in 1985, no one really seems to mention that little gray area in between, and I can kinda see why. Aside from a couple of future heavyweights like Tetris and 1942, there's not a lot of material here worth noting; not necessarily bad games, but more just stuff that seem to have fallen to the wayside of public memory (unless names like Cobra Command, Bomb Jack, and Circus Charlie ring any bells to ya). Then again, I could be wrong about this. After all, I wouldn't have been born for another decade. But I would like to see which games really got torn apart that year.
What are your thoughts on this? And what year(s) do you think was underwhelming?