| Lurker said: The most popular game at the time was Mario and it was completely linear. I can understand their concern. |
Well, it was linear by todays standards. But by the standards of gaming in 1984, it was a revolution of freedom of character movement and play control. In an age when the avg characters were stuck in between walls munching on blocks or jumping stifly over oil spills and climbing ladders, Mario was like jumping from 2D gaming to 3D (for its time).
I mean, its kind of hard to explian, but for a number of years and even after Mario came out, many game developers thought the 'game' was a give and take system of letting the player have some fun, and then trying to take that fun away from them for a time and make them feel stressed or 'trapped' or scared. Like with Pac-Man, the fun comes with eating the blocks, but you are constantly chased by ghosts. Mario is a game where YOU get to choose when to stomp on the enemies and YOU get to choose when to go forward. And that's what made it revolutionary.
Six upcoming games you should look into:
