Poll Results

Over the past week, we’ve made posts looking into the history of several topics based on the results of a poll we conducted. As promised, here are the full results! We asked a total of eight questions, and then chose five of them to look into for our posts.

Note that we’ve removed joke answers and “N/A” answers from these results, so if you notice a question has less responses than another, that’s why.

Who is the first video game character you can think of? (Results were used for this post!)

WINNER: Mario (Super Mario) - 10 votes

Link (The Legend of Zelda) - 5 votes

Commander Shepherd - 1 vote

Dragonborn (Skyrim) - 1 vote

Henry Stein (Bendy and the Ink Machine) - 1 vote

Kirby (Kirby) - 1 vote

Makoto Niijima (Persona) - 1 vote

Master Chief (Halo) - 1 vote

Ratchet (Ratchet and Clank) - 1 vote

Roxas (Kingdom Hearts) - 1 vote

Sans (Undertale) - 1 vote

Sonic (Sonic the Hedgehog)- 1 vote

Sora (Kingdom Hearts) - 1 vote

Spyro (Spyro) - 1 vote

Zelda (The Legend of Zelda) - 1 vote

What is the first video game franchise you can think of?

WINNER: Mario - 8 votes

The Legend of Zelda - 4 votes

Halo - 2 votes

Kingdom Hearts - 2 votes

Pokémon - 2 votes

Call of Duty - 1 vote

Civilization - 1 vote

The Elder Scrolls - 1 vote

Half-Life - 1 vote

League of Legends - 1 vote

Luigi’s Mansion - 1 vote

Mass Effect - 1 vote

Persona - 1 vote

Super Smash Bros. - 1 vote

Undertale - 1 vote

What is the first video game console you can think of? (Results were used for this post!)

WINNER: Nintendo 64 - 5 votes

Nintendo Switch - 4 votes

PlayStation - 4 votes

Xbox 360 - 4 votes

GameCube - 2 votes

Xbox - 2 votes

Nintendo Entertainment System - 1 vote

PC - 1 vote

PlayStation 2 - 1 vote

PlayStation 3 - 1 vote

PlayStation 4 - 1 vote

Super Nintendo Entertainment System - 1 vote

“Nintendo” - 1 vote

What is the first video game company you can think of? (Results were used for this post!)

WINNER: Nintendo - 14 votes

Sony - 3 votes

Blizzard - 2 votes

Activision - 1 vote

Atlus - 1 vote

Bethesda - 1 vote

Bioware - 1 vote

EA - 1 vote

Microsoft - 1 vote

Naughty Dog - 1 vote

Sega - 1 vote

Ubisoft - 1 vote

What's the first video game genre you can think of?

WINNER: Platformer - 6 votes

FPS - 3 votes

RPG - 3 votes

Shooter - 3 votes

Horror - 2 votes

RTS - 2 votes

Action - 1 vote

Action RPG - 1 vote

Adventure - 1 vote

Battle - 1 vote

Children’s - 1 vote

Fantasy - 1 vote

MMORPG - 1 vote

Stealth - 1 vote

Survival Horror - 1 vote

What is the first video game soundtrack you can think of? (Results were used for this post!)

TIED WINNER: Kingdom Hearts - 3 votes

TIED WINNER: Undertale - 3 votes

Bastion - 2 votes

Mario - 2 votes

Bendy and the Ink Machine - 1 vote

Bloodborne - 1 vote

Cyberpunk - 1 vote

Cyberpunk 2077 - 1 vote

Dearly Beloved (song from Kingdom Hearts) - 1 vote

Flower - 1 vote

Halo 3 - 1 vote

The Legend of Zelda - 1 vote

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - 1 vote

Luigi’s Mansion - 1 vote

Mario theme (song from Super Mario) - 1 vote

NBA2K - 1 vote

Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire - 1 vote

Red Dead Redemption 2 - 1 vote

Sims - 1 vote

Super Smash Bros. - 1 vote

Wii Sports - 1 vote

What's the best game ever made?

TIED WINNER: Baldur’s Gate 3 - 3 votes

TIED WINNER: Minecraft - 3 votes

TIED WINNER: The Witcher 3 - 3 votes

The Last of Us - 2 votes

Bioshock (original) - 1 vote

Doom Eternal - 1 vote

Elden Ring - 1 vote

God of War (2018) - 1 vote

In Death - 1 vote

Kingdom Hearts II - 1 vote

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - 1 vote

Super Mario Bros. 2 - 1 vote

Super Mario Odyssey - 1 vote

Mario & Sonic at The Olympic Games - 1 vote

Mass Effect - 1 vote

Paper Mario (64) - 1 vote

Red Dead Redemption 2 - 1 vote

Sudoku - 1 vote

Tetris - 1 vote

What's the worst game ever made? (Results were used for this post!)

WINNER (LOSER…?): League of Legends - 3 votes

E.T. - 2 votes

Superman 64 - 2 votes

Banjo-Kazooie - 1 vote

Bear and Breakfast - 1 vote

Call of Duty: Cold War - 1 vote

Candy Crush - 1 vote

Command and Conquer 4 - 1 vote

Destiny 2 - 1 vote

Diablo Immortal - 1 vote

EA’s Battlefront - 1 vote

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - 1 vote

FIFA/EA FC 24 - 1 vote

Flappy Bird - 1 vote

Fortnite - 1 vote

Frogger - 1 vote

Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy - 1 vote

Happy Feet Two - 1 vote

King Kong 2023 - 1 vote

Megamania (Atari 2600) - 1 vote

YIIK: A Postmodern RPG - 1 vote

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Thanks to everyone who participated in the poll!

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Wesley Naylor is a second-year student of the Professional Writing program who thinks games are rather neat! He likes learning about what goes into the development of games and seeing how they’ve evolved over time.

He also likes writing... and on this blog, he can combine those interests, just for you!

What’s the Most Popular Video Game Console?

Nintendo 64 console // Image courtesy of Amazon

This week, we’re doing something different! We conducted a poll about a week ago asking questions to see what some of the most recognizable things in video games were. Questions included things like, “What’s the first video game character you can think of?” and “What’s the worst game ever made?” We sent it to students of the Professional Writing program, as well as a few of our own friends, to see the results among our readers. And this week’s posts will look at the winners and how they gained their popularity!

If you want to see the full results, we’ll be posting them on Saturday, December 9th!

For today’s post, beating out consoles like the Nintendo Switch and Xbox 360 by just a single vote, the first console most respondents think of is the Nintendo 64!

This one actually came as quite a surprise to me! For those unfamiliar, the Nintendo 64 released in 1996 here in North America. The console’s biggest competitor was the original PlayStation... and the PlayStation trounced it! The Nintendo 64 sold less than 33 million units—making it one of the worst-selling consoles in Nintendo’s history—while the PlayStation sold a whopping 102 million units, more than three times the amount the Nintendo 64 sold. This was partially due to Nintendo’s decision to stick with cartridges. Their limited storage capacity compared to the PlayStation’s discs convinced several developers that had stuck with Nintendo’s consoles up to that point to change priorities. Companies like Square, Capcom, and Enix moved development to the PlayStation to create bigger games than they could on Nintendo 64. Franchises like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest released on PlayStation instead, after being Nintendo-exclusive up to that point.

Image Courtesy of Reddit user Lucashenrr

But despite all this, the Nintendo 64 comes to mind before any other console for those who took our poll. Why might that be? While an objective answer might be hard to pin down—poll results are based in opinion, after all—I believe that the answer likely lies in how each console’s library has been presented in the years since their release.

When people think of the original PlayStation, games like Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, and Parappa the Rapper likely come to mind. But I don’t think these games’ identities are really tied to the PlayStation.

Final Fantasy VII and Metal Gear Solid have been ported to most modern platforms. Resident Evil got a GameCube remake that has been ported to modern platforms as well. Even Parappa the Rapper, a game that is owned by the PlayStation company, has been ported to both the PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 4. Notably, since many of the PlayStation’s flagship games were developed by third-party studios, the developers have since ported them to non-PlayStation platforms, and these re-releases aren’t often branded as “PlayStation Classics” or anything. New players may not even be aware that these games were originally designed for it.

From Top to bottom: the wii shop channel, wii u eshop, and nintendo switch’s nintendo 64 app // images courtesy of extremetech, niche gamer, and nintendo

By contrast, Nintendo 64 games have always felt more closely tied to their original platform. While Nintendo has ported many of the Nintendo 64’s games to the platforms they’ve released since, these re-releases are always prominently branded as Nintendo 64 games. On the Wii, Nintendo 64 games were made available on the Wii Shop Channel. To get to them, you went to the Nintendo 64 section of the shop. The Wii U was much the same; Nintendo 64 re-releases were available on the Wii U eShop’s Nintendo 64 section. And on their current platform, the Nintendo Switch, Nintendo 64 games are made available through a dedicated Nintendo 64 application.

Top it off with the fact that many games for the console had “64” in their titles, like Super Mario 64, Donkey Kong 64, and Wave Race 64, and you’ve got a library that’s always going to be tied to its original console.

On top of that, games like Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time are revered today for revolutionizing their genres, and they’re also popular as speedrun games online. So people who like watching live streams or YouTube videos will likely be exposed to the Nintendo 64 library frequently, further cementing its modern popularity.

Up to now, my posts have always revolved around a single topic that is backed up by the facts, but in this case, the results of the poll went against what you might expect when looking at the raw data and sales numbers, which I thought was pretty interesting! I’m interested in hearing from you readers: do you think these results would be the same if the survey had been given to a wider audience?

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Wesley Naylor is a second-year student of the Professional Writing program who thinks games are rather neat! He likes learning about what goes into the development of games and seeing how they’ve evolved over time.

He also likes writing... and on this blog, he can combine those interests, just for you!

What Came Before Kaizo? [The History of Unfair Games]

Thumbnails from JaidenAnimations, Huebi, and Patterrz // Image edited by Me

“Kaizo” is a word that strikes fear into the hearts of many. If you’re not familiar with the term, just look it up on YouTube, and you’ll quickly find thumbnails featuring people having the time of their lives.

Game: Kaizo mario world // image courtesy of gifer

The term “kaizo” refers to games—or modified versions of existing games—that are intensely difficult, often to the point of being unfair. It began with the release of Kaizo Mario World, a hack of Super Mario World, and you can see what it looks like in the image on the right.

While the term is most commonly associated with Mario games, people have since made similar hacks for series like Pokémon, The Legend of Zelda, and more. Kaizo games are now so infamous that some standalone indie games, like Linked Mask and Impulse, even use the term to describe their gameplay.

Kaizo games tend to be made by hobbyists, and the goal is to make them as brutal and unfair as possible. You might think this would just frustrate people, but they remain incredibly popular online. Given this fact, you might wonder whether games with unfair difficulty were notorious prior to Kaizo games and the Internet. The answer is yes, and the first game to do it was Takeshi's Challenge back in 1986.

Takeshi’s Challenge box // image courtesy of deviantart user retroreloads

Takeshi’s Challenge is a game directed by Takeshi Kitano, who’s famous as a film director, comedian, TV host, and more. Back in 1986, he worked with Taito, the company behind prolific games like Space Invaders, to create a game with his name attached. It’s renowned for being one of the most frustrating and confusing games ever made. For just a few examples of what you have to do over the course of the game, none of which are explained to you:

• To decipher a treasure map, you have to leave the game running idle for a full hour. Touching the controller even once forces you to restart the whole process, including re-obtaining the map! (You can alternatively leave the game running for more than five minutes, but less than ten, then scream into the microphone.)

• At one point, there’s a side-scrolling shooting section similar to games like Gradius. But taking a single hit gets you a Game Over, and the controls are intentionally obtuse, preventing you from moving upwards!

• Like many older games, your progress is saved and loaded using passwords. But you can even get a Game Over on the title screen if you input your password wrong!

These are just a few examples. The entire game is full of confusing mechanics and frustrating sections just like those. And again, none of this is explained to you, making it difficult to know how to get to those sections to begin with. Many games from this era, like Battletoads and Ghosts ‘n Goblins, are known for being difficult, but Takeshi’s Challenge is nearly unplayable without a guide.

source: game center cx // image edited by me

So how did a game like this come to be officially released by an actual game company? The very first episode of the popular Japanese TV show Game Center CX, released in 2003, offers some insight.

In this episode, the show’s host, Shinya Arino, meets with Tetsuo Egawa, who was on the sales team for Takeshi’s Challenge. According to Egawa, the game’s developers would meet with Kitano for dinner. Kitano would become drunk and provide ideas for the game… and the developers would implement all of them. It also seems that the frustration was intentional, as the game’s ending features Kitano asking why the player took it so seriously. It was a game intentionally designed to be unfair, just like the Kaizo games that came years later!

game: takeshi’s challenge // image courtesy of nico nico pedia

Yet somehow, just like Kaizo games, Takeshi’s Challenge gained wide notoriety. The game sold 800,000 copies, got inducted into a Hall of Fame for its infamy at Tokyo Game Show 2007, and there were even plans to do a stage adaptation of it! Perhaps most amazingly, Microsoft tried to get a sequel made for the original Xbox! It didn’t end up happening, but it goes to show the legacy the game has.

What can we learn from this? Well, plenty of games fade into obscurity because they’re unintentionally annoying to play, but maybe the key to making a popular game is to make it annoying on purpose.

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Wesley Naylor is a second-year student of the Professional Writing program who thinks games are rather neat! He likes learning about what goes into the development of games and seeing how they’ve evolved over time.

He also likes writing... and on this blog, he can combine those interests, just for you!

3D Platform Games - Who Made Them First?

game: super mario bros. // image courtesy of super mario wiki

If you were to take someone who’s never played a game before and ask them what games they’ve heard of, there’s a good chance the ones they name might be platformers. Originally gaining popularity back in the 1980s with games like Super Mario Bros. and Pitfall!, platform games would go on to become some of the most recognizable games of all. This is still true today! Entries in the long-running Super Mario series continue to sell several million copies each, and even new platformers from unproven developers, like Celeste and A Hat in Time, have managed to achieve massive success.

Part of the reason the genre has endured for so long is because, like many other genres, it’s innovated over the years. On older hardware, platform games were, for the most part, strictly two-dimensional. You’d move left and right, jump up and down, and that was it. But as technology advanced and new hardware released, the genre evolved. Today, 2D platformers now exist alongside 3D platformers, which let you move in all directions. How did this version of the platformer come to be? What was the first 3D platformer?

The answer might depend on how you define it. In the 80s, platformers with primitive 3D gameplay actually did exist; games like 3-D WorldRunner attempted to provide a 3D experience on hardware that could only render 2D imagery. But these games weren’t actually 3D. They got as close as they could for the time, but it was still a 2D game trying to emulate a 3D look. But if you’d consider games like this to be 3D games, then 3D platformers got their start back in the 80s!

game: 3-D Worldrunner // image courtesy of nazology

However, I think many people might instead consider Super Mario 64, which came out in 1996, to be the first “modern” 3D platformer. It introduced many of the mechanics that have become staples of the genre today, and was unlike any of the games that had come before it. Super Mario 64 revolutionized 3D platformers in the same way that Super Mario Bros. had for 2D platformers years earlier. But despite being the first game to feature many of the genre’s now-staple mechanics, Super Mario 64 wasn’t the first 3D platformer.

game: alpha waves // image courtesy of reddit user Otherwise_Basis_6328

That title goes to Alpha Waves. It’s even got a Guinness World Record for it! This game was released for PCs in 1990, nearly six years before Super Mario 64. In Alpha Waves, you jump through a series of fully 3D levels, and attempt to make it to the goal in each level to move on to the next one. This concept is essentially the same as traditional 2D platformers. The visuals were also quite simple, featuring blocky, polygonal objects with nothing but solid colours to distinguish them. However, it stood out because nothing like it had ever been done before. The game was in full 3D, and you could go in any direction. So while Alpha Waves didn’t have the dramatic, long-term impact on the 3D platformer genre that some later games did, it was the very first!

One of Alpha Waves’s most obvious differences compared to modern 3D platformers is in the controls. In Alpha Waves, you can’t precisely control your direction. Pressing up or down on the arrow keys will rotate the camera around you, and pressing left or right will change the direction you’re facing. Then you press the space bar to accelerate forward at a fixed speed. You can’t jump manually, either! Instead, you have to move onto platforms that automatically make you jump, and send you higher with each bounce. It’s almost like you’re lining up shots! You aim yourself in the direction you want to go, and then try to accelerate far enough to fall onto the next platform without overshooting it. It’s definitely primitive, even compared to the 3D platformers that came just a few years later, but this control scheme makes Alpha Waves a unique experience, even today! If you’re a fan of 3D platformers, then it’s definitely worth trying. Seeing how far a genre has come can also help you appreciate aspects of newer games that you might not otherwise think about!

If you want to try Alpha Waves yourself, it’s available right here!

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Wesley Naylor is a second-year student of the Professional Writing program who thinks games are rather neat! He likes learning about what goes into the development of games and seeing how they’ve evolved over time.

He also likes writing... and on this blog, he can combine those interests, just for you!