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Night Trap (Digital Pictures/Sega/Hasbro, 1992)

bryan.eddy@newretrowave.com — Tue, 09 Aug 2016 13:41:02 +0000

I can’t tell if I’m reviewing a game or a movie with this one, RetroFans. I’ll leave that up to you.

When the CD-driven generation of consoles and console add-ons hit in the early 90s, they offered unprecedented opportunities in terms of home console gaming. More data, better data, could be stored on the new medium. This included actual video footage and live-recorded audio, not just pixel-mapped images and digitized sound effects. One of the less esoteric devices on the market was the Sega CD (called the Mega-CD overseas), which hooked up to your Genesis or Mega Drive and lent it astounding capabilities. At least in theory, that’s how it worked.

After a while, it got to be more like playing with Transformers than hooking up a video game system.

The vast majority of titles released for Sega’s CD ROM attachment were simply gently-retooled incarnations of Genesis titles, usually with expanded gameplay options, slightly better sound, or touched up graphics.

Then we had games like Night Trap, which blurred the line between console and cinema.

You left the screen door open again, the house is full of bloodsuckers, and Dana Plato is pissed.

Night Trap was originally filmed in 1987 for Hasbro, who had something called Control-Vision in development at the time. Codenamed “NEMO” during its development, the system was to use VHS tapes instead of cartridges. The quiet death of NEMO is its own fairly boring story, but it resulted in Night Trap‘s footage being shelved for four years, until it was bought in 1991 by a company called Digital Pictures… who just happened to know what to do with it. Some extra trimmings were added and the final product was released in 1992, quickly followed by a version that also utilized Sega’s 32X attachment for even better graphics. The title was eventually ported to the 3DO and the PC later on.

The film footage stars two notable Hollywood names (at least, notable to us Retro nerds): Dana Plato, whose notoriety comes from Diff’rent Strokes and her tragic end; and Andras Jones, known to horror fans as Rick from the fourth Nightmare on Elm Street installment. The third notable star is you, the player. You star as the pivotal member of the SCAT (Sega Control Attack Team). Your job is complicated, to say the least; you see, girls have been disappearing at the Martin house (which is described as a winery as well as a residence). A new group of young ladies will be arriving soon, one of whom is an undercover agent (played by Plato). You must watch through a set of cameras (one at a time, or how would it be challenging?) to keep an eye on them, find out what’s happening to them, and neutralize threats using a strange set of Scooby-Doo style booby traps throughout the house that you’ve covertly been given control of. It’s possible for the hosts to find the cable connecting you to the trap system and unplug you, so you have to defend against that as well. Your hands, literally and figuratively, are full.

I never want this dude as my boss in real life.

I will straight up tell you: this game is not a casual one. Gameplay is borderline stressful, but it can be very fun. Constant vigilance (or elaborate memorization) is required. If you’re off by even a few seconds, you get the privilege of watching helplessly as the young women are kidnapped and drained by Augers.

What are Augers, you say? Well, they’re sort of like vampires, but decidedly less pleasant, if that’s possible (it is).

Those dudes in the right-hand picture? The ones all done up like Dracula’s Olympic fencing team? Those are Augers.

And what does the Martin family have to do with this? Well, I don’t want to spoil anything, but let’s just say if they unplug your trap control cord, it’s not just because they think someone’s stealing their cable.

Oh. Good.

Along with Doom, Mortal Kombat, and other video games from the time period, Night Trap figured strongly into the early 90s Senate hearings on video game violence that eventually brought us the ESRB. Night Trap was cited as having, among other qualities, “an unprecedented level of realism” and as depicting “an effort to trap and kill women.” Sega went so far as to take it off the shelves after its initial release, making the original version a relative rarity to this day. The CD/32X and subsequent ports were released after the outcry had died down, along with a reissue of the base Sega CD version.

In 2014 the original producers made an effort on Kickstarter to reinvigorate Night Trap, claiming they’d even look into doing sequels if the project was successful. To keep that story short, it wasn’t. However, the original footage remains popular on YouTube and elsewhere on the web, and most conversations among gamers that touch on the Sega CD inevitably involve Night Trap. Other games in a similar vein followed, such as 1994’s Double Switch, but by then these elements of gameplay were more commonplace. Night Trap was the one that made the waves.

As one of the more innovative and memorable titles for the Sega CD, not to mention an overall decent game, I give Night Trap 8 out of 10. It’s worth taking a look at, and it’s definitely worth playing if you find yourself so fortunate as to get a chance.

Console Graveyard: The Atari Jaguar

bryan.eddy@newretrowave.com — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 06:57:36 +0000

Believe it or not, at the time of this writing, we are seeing the eighth generation of home video game consoles. It has been that long.

We’ve seen and experienced a plethora of amazing concepts, innovative ideas, and ultimately spent millions (maybe billions?) of dollars as a civilization on this particular hobby, video gaming. From the early days of the Atari 2600 and the Intellivision, to the glory days of the 8 and 16 bit hit parade, to the transition from cartridge to disc to download… one could say that video games represent their own wonderland for the human spirit.

Even wonderlands have graveyards.

Some of these ideas just didn’t catch on. Be it a glutted market, poor execution of a concept, or even an idea too far ahead of its time, a few consoles have fallen by the wayside, trampled underfoot in the war-march of the gaming industry. The real heartbreak lies in the fact that some of these concepts were even good. However, it can be argued, they were simply not good enough. After all, the market is brutal, and not every idea sticks. Today I will talk about one of the notable losers, one of the ideas that you probably saw… but not for long. Today I bring you…

Generation: 5th

Year Released: 1993

Discontinued: 1996

In the early 90s, things were changing significantly in the home video game world. Companies like Sega and Sony were developing consoles that ran games from a CD-ROM interface, instead of clunky and easily-dirtied cartridges that had limited data storage potential. Sony’s future powerhouse, the Playstation, hadn’t been released yet, but the buzz was everywhere. What had been released was Sega’s CD attachment for its existing Genesis console, and it had gone over very well despite a high price point and an initially limited game library (which quickly grew).

Atari knew it had to cash in! Atari felt it COULD cash in. After all, hadn’t they been the arcade dynamos of the early 80s? Surely there was a place for them among the new stars of this bright era. There had to be. They began R&D on two systems: the never-to-be 32 bit “Panther,” and the 64-bit Jaguar. Both of these projects were farmed out to a company called Flare, which had originally worked on a home arcade system called the Konix Multisystem. Flare had bailed on the Multisystem due to what could be called an overreach; they were shooting to replicate the arcade experience at home… in the early 90s… with an eye on price. Needless to say, with a floppy-disk system and limited RAM, the Multisystem did not take off.

Why Atari saw Flare as a sure winner despite this baffles me.

Sleek. Stylish. Sophisticated. An utter flop.

In their first brilliant move, Flare and Atari decided to go with cartridges. Knowing that their competitors were moving to CDs and doing quite well at it, they decided to try and pack more into a ROM-style cartridge. The controller design is also questionable; I liken it more to a TI-83 calculator than a joystick.

Does this mean I can use it to call Atari’s complaints department?

The system was released in November ’93, and had sold only around 100,000 units by the end of 1994. With only 67 total games in its library, the Jaguar’s selection of games was tiny throughout its first (and formative) years. Flaws in the CPU and UART components of the console contributed to this, as well as third-party developers’ unwillingness to take a risk on making games for a system already doing so poorly on the market.

The system’s belated CD attachment was kind of like putting a truck cap on an El Camino. It also did little to expand the Jaguar’s piss-poor game library.

Despite later attempts to save its flagging sales, which included a CD attachment and even an earnest try at VR technology, the Jaguar never really caught up with the emerging competition. Once the PS1 was released in 1995, sales took an even greater nose dive. In late 1995, Atari even tried infomercials to boost sales. In mid 1996, the Jaguar was laid to rest… and Atari was on the skids too.

It did have a killer BIOS screen though. I like to imagine that Tony Montana would see just this part alone and buy like 20 of them. One for every room in his coke mansion.

There were (and are) some high notes to the console’s ill fated tale. Firstly, its most successful title, Alien vs. Predator, was a notable success. A memorable and underrated entry to the FPS genre, it was an early example of diversity in that category, offering multiple characters for play. It also boasted an incredibly atmospheric setting, both audio- and video-wise.

Another high point would be Tempest 2000, a remake of the 1981 arcade title. This game was originally exclusive to the Jaguar, but was ported once sales began to truly dip. It is widely praised for its soundtrack, and is exhilarating to play even now.

It should also be noted that the Jaguar received ports of two of my favorite games: Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. Both received good reviews on the Jaguar.

The system still maintains a cult following. Hasbro bought Atari in the late 90s, and released the rights to the Jaguar. It is officially an open platform, and interested third parties can develop whatever they like for it. Some of the results can be seen (and grabbed) here.

I’m going to cover this one back up and let it rest in peace, but I’ll see you soon for another edition of Console Graveyard. Thanks for reading!

Arrogance? Wishful thinking? I’d say six of one, half a dozen of the other. Until next time, RetroManiacs!