Bookmark this page; A look at Rising Thunder and the robot based fighting games

I love fighting games of all types. Did you ever play the ones featuring robots? If not then Bookmark This Page.

The road to Rising Thunder, part 1...

The road to Rising Thunder, part 2…

The road to Rising Thunder, part 3…

The road to Rising Thunder, final part 

Did you have a favorite robot fighting game? Let me know about it in the comments section. As always if you enjoyed this blog, and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

The tanks of tomorrow, the games of the past.

I wanted to talk a little bit about a rarely seen game called Cyber Commando by Namco. It was a mech assault game set in a massive space platform. But in going over the game thanks to MAME got me thinking about the genre, and the history leading up to it. In case you didn’t know almost every Namco arcade game ever developed was connected in a sort of shared universe. The majority of the science fiction shooters were set in the United Galaxy Space Force (UGSF) timeline. This actually included their earliest franchises Pac Man, and Dig Dug in that canon. I’ve written extensively about the games on this blog, and will do more deep dives in the future. If you’re interested in more you can always do a search for UGSF in my search bar above.

Cyber Commando was a sort of descendant of some of the earliest arcade games. In particular I’m talking about tank combat games. As a member of Generation-X I was fortunate enough to be born at the right place, at the right time to enjoy the rise, and fall of the arcade. Some of my earliest, and most precious memories would be playing through some arcade gems when they were first released, or a few years after they had been out. I was also lucky enough that my parents were able to afford the first generations of home consoles, including the Atari 2600. One of the first games my brothers, and I enjoyed at home was Combat by Atari. We had fun taking turns flying planes, and shooting tanks up until our bedtime most nights.

In the arcade one of the most revolutionary games we had ever seen was called Battlezone. Although it only employed two colors, black, and green, it was revolutionary when compared to the graphics in other games. That was the other benefit of being around for the evolution of gaming. Year after year games were evolving by leaps, and bounds. Atari was getting good at employing vector graphics, which were the wireframe templates that polygon games would one day rise out from. They proved this in their smash hit Asteroids in 1979. For the first time gamers could get a sense as to 3D shapes in a video game thanks to titles like Battlezone.

Tank combat would even become even more amazing in a sci-fi setting. This was the case for one of the mini-games in Tron by Midway back in 1982. Part of the live action film that the game was based on featured a fictional tank game called Space Paranoids. As a kid I didn’t realize that it would take another 15 years until actual arcade graphics were able to match what we saw in the film. In the meantime the aesthetics used in sprite-based games were still able to keep me entertained. The isometric game Vindicators in 1988 by Atari was one such gem. Atari was exceptionally good at making isometric games such as Super Sprint, Paperboy, Marble Madness, and 720°. This was when other studios were focused on sprite scaling, vertical, or top-down gameplay. Vindicators had bright, and colorful tanks battling across a wildly evolving alien planet. Being able to drive in one direction, rotate the turret in the opposite direction, while firing, and raising shields required some dexterity, but was intuitive after a while. It was then that I realized that science fiction was the best setting in which to present this type of tank combat. Developers in Japan were way ahead of me in this regard.

Namco was breaking new ground with each title they released. At the same time they had the foresight to connect the worlds they were building. Xevious from 1983 was one of the first scrolling space shooters in the arcade. The creator Masanobu Endo pioneered a number of advances for the studio with his team. One of the things he thought about was using some of the vehicles featured in Xevious into another game. Solvalou, the space ship featured in the game would turn up in many more sequels, but Grobda one of the ground enemies would end up in the first direct sequel. The tank with screw treads made for an interesting weapon for audiences to pilot. The aliens that had invaded the Earth were routed at the end of Xevious. They had abandoned a number of weapons including their tanks during their retreat. This was how humanity was able to discover the technology that would propel them to the stars.

The ground vehicles would evolve into the first generation of piloted combatants. These mechanical gladiators would be used to settle international disputes in the Battle Ring, this was years before Battle Bots! Grobda had some brilliant graphics for the time, with flashing lasers, and explosions that could damage nearby opponents as well. The tank would slow down if it tried to cross over downed opponents, making navigating a stage difficult when trying to strafe enemies. Composer Yuriko Keino came up with the music for Xevious, Grobda, and other classic games. She was not only critical in the sound of the Namco gems, but helped write the software to bring the songs to life. For Grobda she wanted the music to get progressively faster as opponents were defeated. The designers didn’t think the software could handle it, but she wrote the code that allowed the engine to do that.

Designer Shigeki Toyama, who was considered the Leonardo DaVinci of the company helped dream up the fantastic space ships, and other sci-fi weapons for the franchise. The ships, and weapons in UGSF continuity are my absolute favorites in all of sci-fi. This includes Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5, and every other game franchise. As for the game itself, it was 99 levels of pure hell. Well, it was challenging to be fair, and I could only get a few stages in before I was defeated by the waves of opponents. If I was lucky then I might reach a dozen levels, and once I remember seeing a really good player get into the 40’s. However it wasn’t until YouTube that I could see all 99 levels for myself.

I enjoyed the top-down game play featured in Grobda, more than the scrolling of Xevious, although I was never any good at those. I think that people that were great at tracking the whole screen at once could really master it. Those that were good at games like Missile Command, or Robotron 2084 could no doubt get to the final stages. In fact the first thing that I thought of when I saw Grobda was how Namco was using the multicolored laser effects from Robotron, with the explosions of Missile Command, but in a new genre. When I think about it those that enjoyed the early Midway ‘90s games like Smash TV, and Total Carnage might want to check our Grobda if they’ve never played it.

Namco had actually managed to keep sci-fi tank gaming cool several years after Grobda with the title Assault in 1988. The game was sprite based, but featured a number of graphic advances for the arcade. The sprites on the screen rotated, and scaled. These would be features that Nintendo would brag about in their Mode 7 games on the Super Nintendo. The Native Defense Force High-Maneuver Battle Tank did not have a rotating turret like Grobda, but it did feature a unique control element, it could flip sideways to avoid oncoming attacks, and fire while upside down. Although rough terrain slowed it down, it had another way to reach enemies, even those behind cover. It could tilt back, and launch bombs from a distance, including over walls. It was as if Namco had combined the ground bombing of the Solvalou with the traversal of Grobda when planning the title.

As cool as the tanks from Namco were, the idea of gun platforms were rapidly evolving in pop culture. Mecha, or giant robot designs aside, there had been all manner of hover tanks, and land speeders seen in science fiction shows from the US, UK, and Japan. Fang of the Sun Dougram was a popular anime series from 1981 featuring designs by Kunio Okawara, who had also worked on Gundam, and shaped Armored Trooper Votoms as well. His style of robot designs meshed post WWII military weapons with realistic frames. His tank designs in Dougram even had legs. Yet he was not the only artist that was redefining what a tank could look like.

The sci-fi series Gunhed (Gun UNit Heavy Elimination Device) by Kia Asamiya in 1990 found a unique balance between robot, and tank. Where the platform had multiple arms that could elevate itself to increase its range, and tactical advantage. If you’re not familiar with the plot the dystopian future of 2025 (oh no!) saw a supercomputer attempt to rise up against humanity. I can honestly say with the rise of AI that I hope we’re not on track to repeat the same wars mentioned in the manga, and live action film based on it. As influential as the work of Mr. Asamiya was, there were two other artists shaping the future.

Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo had an amazing amount of futuristic vehicles, and weapons. The series was published in Young Magazine from 1982, to 1990. While there were conventional weapons in the manga, there were also some very bold designs, like the spherical Caretakers which were highly agile, multi-legged tanks. Not to be outdone Masamune Shirow illustrated mind-blowing creations based on his love of insects. Such as the spider legged Mobile Fortress in Appleseed, and the Tachicoma from Ghost in the Shell. Even his “regular” vehicles had tremendous personality. This was the case in the manga Dominion from 1985. It’s tiny tank Bonaparte was the inspiration for the SV-001 tank in Metal Slug, which would appear in 1996.

Namco, like the other game studios were not immune to the changes in vehicle designs presented in pop culture. They revisited the sci-fi tank battles from Grobda, but with improved graphics thanks to advances in polygon technology. The end result was Cyber Sled, an arcade gem from 1993, which would received improved graphics on the original Playstation in 1995. The premise of the Cyber Sled tournament was still the same as in Grobda. Contestants from around the world were having gladiator battles in their futuristic tanks. The vehicle designs, and over-the-top pilots were amazing. They could have easily found their way into an anime series, or wrestling promotion. I remember seeing the arcade cabinet in very few arcades. It was possible that not many arcade visitors ever saw, let alone played it.

Perennial rival Sega had been aware at what Namco had released in the arcade. Through the ‘80s they kept trying to one-up each other in every genre. From racing, action, shooter, sports, and adventure titles they matched each other in the arcade, and at home. The early ‘90s saw the two publishers pushing technology forward with the switch from sprites to polygons in the arcades. Sega had a counter for Cyber Sled ready a few years later with Virtual On. The robot combat game from 1995 would be a critical hit, spawn several sequels, and get a fun home port on the Sega Saturn, Playstation 2, and Xbox Live. Sadly one of Namco’s best titles didn’t get the same reception a year prior.

In 1994 Namco was looking for ways to push the genre forward, and do something none of the other studios had attempted. The studio knew that they had something unique with Cyber Sled, but they wanted audiences to really get immersed into the experience. One of the best ways to do that was by extending the story. They added a narrative from the tradition of their earlier UGSF games like Xevious, Galaxian, and Starblade. Instead of piloting a space ship against waves of opponents this game would feature an intense close combat game set within a space colony. The location was actually one of the most memorable in all of the games I’ve ever played.

As with many futuristic stories the villain was a rogue AI trying to destroy humanity. A gigantic cylindrical colony named URANASU had been hijacked. The security computer called RAMA went rogue, was taking a space colony out of orbit, and set it on a collision course with Earth. In order to try and stop RAMA, and correct the course of the station an assault team was put together from the best pilots of the NBA (the National Battling Association) where the Cyber Sled / Grobda contests happened. In the opening cinema you could actually make out the different cities in the satellite-shaped platform.

As with any great combat game there was a number of playable tanks to choose from. Each one with its own strengths, and weaknesses. There were light, speedy tanks, which were great for strafing opponents. The downside was that they weren’t heavily armored, and would take massive damage from gunfire, or missiles. Then there were tanks on the opposite side which were weighed down with heavy armor, and heavy weapons. They could get into a slugfest without cover, and come out on top. You could select your favorite tank, depending on your preferred style of play.

The diversity of vehicle types were not only improved on those featured in Cyber Sled, but they also pulled influences from earlier anime, and science fiction shows. These tanks were far from the type Gen-Xers had grown up with in any game. Even the massive one in Assault that could tumble had no chance keeping up with the Cyber Commandos. This was because as far as tanks went were slightly bigger than cars, the biggest of which weighed almost 14 tons. They were all quicker, and more nimble than our current crop of tanks which could weigh in excess of 60 tons. The commandos were essentially driving the sports cars of the heavy weapon world. At the same time they had an arsenal of munitions that would have shredded any of our most heavily armored vehicles like a tin can.

The stages in Cyber Commando were self-contained cities separated by gates. We could make out the individual communities in the opening cinema. We could see blocks, houses, factories, roads, parks, and even rivers in the individual cities. The idea of a space station with its own atmosphere was the sort of fantastic visual that was last seen in a movie like Elysium. Players were given a briefing as to the mission, and layout as they progressed through access tunnels. The terrain went from a traditional downtown, to a park, to a Mediterranean style villa, and even factory. No two stages looked alike, and that allowed us to be immersed in the world that Namco was creating.

The opponents in the various stages were the other playable Cyber Commandos. It was unknown whether RAMA had hacked the vehicles, or if they were the native defense forces on the colony. Each opponent made for some intense fighting. Each one was as difficult, if not more so than the encounters in Cyber Sled. Yet again Namco realized that having only six opponents to battle on the space station would have made for a short experience. They filled the last half of the game with some creative, and challenging bosses.

The first boss was three times longer than the biggest tank, and yet it was just as fast as the middleweights. The Metal Serpent was an unnerving opponent. You could see its tail disappear behind cover just as you reached it, only to realize its head was already targeting you from around the corner. The diversity of boss types was truly unique, and they truly broke the mold for sci-fi mech designs. As clever as the Metal Serpent was, it would be hard to describe the next opponent as anything other than beautiful. Rafflesia was an enormous floating mechanical flower. It didn’t seem to have a front, or back, as the other rivals, but instead could move in any direction, and strike from any angle as well. I would imagine that Rafflesia was the love child of the Godzilla opponent Biollante, and a mechanical plasma sphere.

The next opponent was more of the traditional heavy hitting tank that we would come to expect as the final boss in the game. General-D was twice the size of any commando, and yet faster than most of them too. Its dense armor made for a brutal match up, as just about any attack barely seemed to scratch it. Thankfully missiles would respawn in the middle of the stages, so that as long as you kept moving, and kept avoid counter fire then you’d eventually be able to restock on ammunition. If you were lucky enough to beat the monster then you would see the commandos blow up the security computer RAMA. With that they would be able to restore control of the station back to the UGSF. Of course nothing was more satisfying in a story than a surprise encounter.

As RAMA fell apart we could see its spherical core become freed from its supports. It began spinning, and flew at the player. The true final opponent of the autonomous robots was known as NightMare. Players had practically no time to react once it appeared. In fact to make things even harder on audiences Namco set up the false ending. They had players face the exit gate after defeating General-D. This gave the first attack advantage to NightMare. If players were not holding the sideways direction on the controls then they’d absorb the brunt of the first, and possibly last attack from the boss. Players were constantly at a disadvantage while fighting it. NightMare was too small, too fast, and too powerful. Making anybody that could claim to have beaten it a real hero. It’s a shame that Namco hasn’t made any more tank titles, or worthy UGSF sequels. Maybe the next generation of designers might return to their roots. What do you think? Did you have any favorite tank, or sci-fi games growing up? I’d like to hear about it in the comments section. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

The road to Rising Thunder, part 3...

The first generation of game designers had grown up reading about giant robots in comics and watching giant robot cartoons. They were only too eager to make games that revolved around these machines. There was a downside however to being in the first group of developers. The software and hardware they worked with were woefully underpowered. They had a difficult time coming up with a game that could capture the power of piloting a giant robot. So instead of that the developers learned workarounds. They would create arcade titles that featured mostly static images of robot sprites with smaller characters moving around them (Space Harrier). They would create platform titles and change the colors of the human character to make them appear more robotic (Mega Man). They would even replace a fighter jet with the top view of a robot on the shooting titles (M.U.S.H.A. Aleste). Sega was just one of the publishers that did this and at the same time they managed to match the trends in robot designs happening on television at the same time. Take a look at how the robot designs changed between Space Harrier in 1985 to Virtual On in 1996. They were on par with the designs featured in VOTOMS and Gundam.

 

There was a reason why the designs used by the mid-90s were show quality. The robot figures in Virtual On were created by Hajime Katoki, he was a senior mecha designer on the Gundam series. It was a long time coming where robots in fighting games had as much planning put into their look and purpose as human characters had since the start of the industry. Sprites and sprite-based engines were how characters were represented in games through the '80s and early '90s. Robots in fighting games were rare at the start of the genre. The vast majority were usually cyborgs, humans with a few robotic enhancements. One of the first robot boss characters in a fighting game was named Ram-X. The character debuted in the 1993 Sega game Dark Edge. It was a unique title in that allowed a pseudo 360-degree playing field where sprites shrunk and grew to create the illusion that they were moving further back or closer to the player. Ram-X appeared like a Macross-style robot, one which could transform into a black fighter jet. It was a sub-boss character and non-playable. Audiences had a number of unique fighters they could play as, the characters Yeager and M.E.K. were cyborgs.

 

In the late '80s there was a big shift in technology. Arcade titles began to be developed on 3D engines. The earliest of which were racing titles because studios did not yet have hardware powerful enough to render convincing human shapes that could move and fight. That changed in the early '90s with the introduction of the Virtua Fighter and Tekken series by Sega and Namco respectively. In addition to being the first 3D fighters the two were notable for being some of the first to have android fighters. Androids were humanoid robots with artificial intelligence. The boss of Virtua Fighter was named Dural, she was a silver-skinned fighter that adapted to the moves of her opponents. Being a faceless, voiceless opponent made her intimidating. Of course the next android character was even more menacing. The enormous Jack appeared in every version of the Tekken series starting in 1994 and was "upgraded" on each new version. He looked like a bodybuilder-turned-soldier but underneath his plastic skin he was a robot. He could swing his arms like propellers, spin his torso 360 degrees and punch with the force of a cannon. If I didn't know better he was nothing more than a re-skinned version of the Mechanical Man that Mickey Mouse had build more than half a century earlier.

Namco kept the tradition of androids alive in the series through other characters like P-Jack, the prototype Jack and more recently Alisa Bosconovich in 2009's Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion. Alisa is very similar to Astro Boy in that she has a number of weapons hidden underneath her artificial skin. She also mirrors Astro in that she was created to be a surrogate child for a professor, in this case it was Professor Gepetto Bosconovich. Of course anybody familiar with the story of Pinocchio recognizes the name of her creator. The Japanese were fond of borrowing from pop culture while designing their games. When it came to putting robots in fighters they could design based on the trends or they could outright poach the look of a character. The second option was used in Galaxy Fight. The robot Musafar was actually the head and brain of a human encased in the body of a robot. His design and attacks were modeled after Robocop 2, the villain in the movie and game of the same name. Robocop 2 was a game made by Data East a few years prior.

The 1995 title by Sunsoft was set in the far future and was one of the first to focus on human versus alien combat. Galaxy Fight had a diverse cast and featured a typical plot of the humans and aliens uniting to defeat a powerful alien bent on galactic domination. Despite the serious tone and history of some characters the game was interjected with some humor. Some of the characters in the game appeared a year later in a more comedic fighter called Waku Waku 7. What was interesting about the robots featured in gaming, not just from Japan, were how many cues they took from pop culture. Musafar was just one example but the influences did not stop there. I had mentioned previously the 1995 game Cyberbots: Full Metal Madness. The game by Capcom had some very unique designs. The influences from pop culture were subtle and instead the artists at Capcom, including Kinu Nishimura and Daigo Ikeno got a chance to work on original mecha ideas. The biggest poach of the game was Zero Gouki, but he did not appear until the game was adapted for consoles.

 

A few years later Capcom would go into full fanboy mode and release their first and only 3D fighting game featuring giant robots. The 1998 title Tech Romancer was an homage to the various giant robot shows over the past 40 years. There was at least one robot in the show that represented every type of giant robot anime that the producers had grown up with. Whether it was a silly kids show or a space drama for teens, from the Transformers to Macross and everything in between there was a robot that reminded audiences of 40+ years of anime. Capcom did a good job of changing just enough details so that they couldn't be accused of plagiarism. Also unlike Sega's Virtual On the combat for these robots was closer to a traditional fighting game than a 3D simulator.

 

Capcom had a history of making some memorable robotic fighters. Some of their best work had nothing to do with piloted mecha. As early as 1994 the studio had started a trend that they would follow through the rest of the decade. The game Darkstalkers, Vampire in Japan, introduced the world to Hutzil. It was actually an ancient robot that was modeled after the clay Dogu statues by the Jomon people, the neolithic ancestors in Japan. Huitzil could change shape and had a number of weapons hidden throughout its forms. From the ancient robot to the futuristic Capcom next explored fighting robots in the game Star Gladiator in 1996 and its sequel Plasma Sword: Nightmare of Bilstein in 1998. Both of those titles were done on 3D engines. The robots Vector and Omega fought similarly. They could spin, twist and shoot their machine guns as well as internal lasers. The Star Gladiator series was a sort of fighting game homage to Star Wars with the exception that the robots in this game were not comedic sidekicks.

Around this time the west was experimenting with different types of fighting games as well. Since CGI graphics were relatively new they stood out when compared to the hand-drawn sprites that made up 99% of fighting games. Going with computer-generated models was part of the appeal of the original Killer Instinct. One of the first, if not the first, all-robot fighting game was Rise of the Robots. The 1994 game by Mirage was considered one of the worst fighting games ever released. The studio focused its efforts on a diverse cast of robots and highly-detailed backgrounds. What the studio forgot to do was focus on the gameplay, animation and balance. Those three things pretty much determined a hit or miss in the community. Despite the cool looking robots the game played like a slug. Also the publisher failed to recognize that neither the consoles nor the home computer was powerful enough to render the complex models and stages in real time. When the game was released it was mostly pre-rendered backgrounds and sprites.

 

Rise of the Robots, just like many fighting games that came before and after, failed to live up to the hype. How would a new western effort like Rising Thunder be any different? Well first off it was any indy game and had no connection to a major publisher. The game was also a free-to-play online title. As far as the gameplay went it was being balanced thanks to the feedback of the fighting game community. These were just a few things that Rising Thunder had in its favor. The next blog will look at the stars of the game and wrap up this series. I hope to see you back for that! As always if you enjoyed this blog and would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!

The Sega / Namco Rivalry, part 5...

Namco and Sega were locked in perpetual battle for the hearts of gamers. Every title that one company released often had an answer from the rival. Sometimes the answer was better and sometimes it wasn't. Sega never had Namco's Pac-Man level of success with any of their maze games but when it came to racing games they showed that they could catch up to and beat Pole Position. It was not the only genre where the studios would compete. For science fiction shooters Sega raised the bar in 1985 with Space Harrier. It introduced audiences to a world in which they could fly up, down and across the screen and shoot at alien lifeforms and giant robots over a quickly scrolling battlefield. The technology that Sega used was not really all that new, it simply built on sprite scaling engines that they had used in Turbo, Hang-On and OutRun. Those racing games taught developers great concepts and applications that would work in other genres.

Prior to Space Harrier most space shooters were single screen affairs, often from an overhead perspective. The 1979 Atari game Asteroids was among the most influential and earliest examples of a space shooter. The vector based graphics rendered amazingly sharp details and the game engine added some realistic physics on top of that. Unfortunately all of the early vector-based games were in black and white with hollow shapes making up the characters or ships. Namco showed the West how they could improve upon the genre, they released the full color space shooter Galaxian the same year as Asteroids. Then they added a scrolling background in 1983 with the hit Xevious. Sega redefined the space shooter with Space Harrier but Namco was barely getting started, in 1988 they released Burning Force. The game featured similar mechanics and even the graphic techniques used in Space Harrier. Burning Force differed in that as the character progressed they went from flying atop a rocket bike to being encapsulated into a small space ship. The game also allowed players to earn weapon upgrades, which was something that they had been used to seeing in the earlier overhead scrolling shooters from the company and other Japanese studios.

Namco had shown that they could probably top anything that Sega had came up with even as a smaller company. It did not matter how imaginative or outlandish an idea was, they were the ones that could improve upon it while adding a unique twist. Where the the two studios really began to eclipse the competitors was in 3D technology. Plenty of studios did amazing sprite based games but few were willing to put in the investment required to shift operations into 3D. The hardware was new and the software yet to be written. The gambles not only with a production budget but with an entire company were at stake. Both Sega and Namco began the '90s with a dramatic shift from the old ways of development. The gameplay elements that they pioneered would be copied by the industry over the next two decades.

Game fans had gotten a taste for computer generated graphics thanks to the film TRON. Released in 1982 the movie revolved around stolen code from the fictional game titled Space Paranoids. The graphics in Space Paranoids were way ahead of their time but audiences knew that someday the arcades would meet that level of technology. Growing up I had no idea that it would take over a decade to get there. The early polygonal games were not quite at the level that TRON promised, however they showed more than enough potential.

In 1993 Namco released Cyber Sled. The game revolved around futuristic tank combat. The tanks were set in arenas with free standing pylons and walls. They provided cover from the machine gun view and missiles that all of the tanks could fire. All of the stages were timed so the more aggressive and tactical player was usually the victor. It was essentially an updated version of the Atari 2600 classic Combat. Players piloted the tanks via a dial joystick yoke, like an actual tank driver. The polygons were bright and colorful and the animation and music very uptempo. The three-dimensional graphics were seamless. The tank and character designs simply oozed style. They were heavily influenced by science fiction animé and looked unlike anything seen in Western cartoons or films. In typical game fashion they each had their own strengths and weaknesses, from light and fast to heavy and powerful. The machines, like many early polygonal games, cost a bit more than the average arcade unit. Only the larger arcades could afford it and many of the early 3D titles.

Science fiction design went over very well with the early polygon hits. Sega released a robotic combat game in 1995 titled Cyber Troopers Virtual-On. That same year Namco released Cyber Commando, a spiritual successor to Cyber Sled. In just a few short years of working with 3D technology the quality of their polygonal engines had grown exponentially. Everything moved faster and responded much more fluidly than the early polygon titles. Visually each generation of 3D game was more gorgeous than the prior. Virtual-On and Cyber Troopers featured new lighting techniques and particle effects that were impossible to reproduce in 2D games. The environments and machines of war that each game featured were very convincing. Gamers could get a greater sense of simulation from these sit down cabinets than ever before. The models in each game gave off a strong sense of weight and mass.

Once the various genres started moving into 3D it was tough to go back. There were no equivalents to Virtual-On or Cyber Sled in 2D. Granted, some genres seemed to have better gameplay in 2D but both Sega and Namco would begin luring players away from those games as well. Even classic light gun shooters were made amazing thanks to polygon technology. Sega released Virtua Cop in 1994, and Namco responded with Time Crisis in 1995. Audiences on both sides of the Pacific began to notice the quality of each game had was only getting better. They also began to notice that Namco seemed to revel in taking shots at their bigger rival. The next blog will look at the game that created one of the longest running rivalries in the arcade. As always if you would like to sponsor me please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!