Recent Posts11
Gaming / Re: Complete game lists per console?
« Last post by JonLeung on October 01, 2020, 04:11:41 PM »But if you can't count them, then you couldn't count Gauntlet on the NES or Tengen's other unlicensed titles.
Funny that you mention that, as there's a particular thing about Gauntlet, and two other Tengen games...
While Tengen (actually pronounced with a hard G, an interesting recently-learned fact for me) is known for its unlicensed black cart games, they were, very briefly, a licensed developer. So Gauntlet, as well as R.B.I. Baseball and Pac-Man, actually have normal grey officially licensed versions, in addition to black unlicensed versions. So if a collector is collecting games from a software perspective, would a black Gauntlet be a suitable replacement if they can't find a grey one, or if a collector is collecting games from a cartridge perspective, would they have to get both versions?
Pac-Man is a more interesting one. As already mentioned, Tengen has an unlicensed version and a licensed version. Namco, the original developer, released their own (obviously licensed) version later - 1993, in fact! I heard that the only difference in the actual ROM between Namco and the Tengen versions other than the opening credits text might just be a difference in the palette, but I don't know how true that is (easy enough to check later, I suppose), though I have heard that the graphics (otherwise), sound and gameplay are for sure identical. So Pac-Man has three versions: two licensed, two Tengen, and one that is both. From a software collector, maybe one is enough, but a cartridge collector would need all three (unless they only collect official releases, but then they still need two).
This is the sort of detail that is interesting if you know it, but can throw off numbers if you are counting and aren't aware of this sort of thing. So while I prefer a simple listing, I would like little asterisks and footnotes for stuff like this, where it's like... "FYI, you should consider this..." i know, I'm hard to please. I want it simple but I want only the extra detail that I care about? Sigh...
Another thing I hate is figuring out naming conventions for games that have a person's name at the front of the title. It throws things off when I compare what I have to a list where they alphabetize it differently because of whether or not the name gets included.
My rule-of-thumb is to keep the name if it references a character or player (common in sports games), but to ignore the name if it is the creator. I know, sounds backwards, right? Sort of like not crediting the creator but giving props to the guy who was just paid to have his name slapped on? But hear me out. "Hudson's Adventure Island" or "Disney's The Jungle Book" are listed under A and J (for "Adventure Island" and "Jungle Book"), not H and D. But "Bill Laimbeer's Combat Basketball"? That's got to be B. Seems natural...
This "rule" isn't without its problems. I do have to look up the name to see if it is a sponsored athlete or the creator. For example, "David Crane's Amazing Tennis". Well, he's not a professional sports player, he's a game creator; you might recognize him from "David Crane's A Boy And His Blob: Trouble On Blobolonia". I dropped the "David Crane's" in both cases. But then "Bram Stoker's Dracula" I'm still not sure what to do with, as the various games on multiple consoles are based on the movie which very heavily promoted the "Bram Stoker's" part of it. If I dropped the creator's name like the others, would it just be "Dracula"? Same could be said with "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein". And then for consistency's sake, what about when the name of the sports player (which I would normally include) actually messes up the continuity with the other games? Like the "Bases Loaded" series... you have "Ryne Sandberg Plays Bases Loaded 3" and "Ryne Sandberg Plays Super Bases Loaded". Or on the Genesis you have "Super Monaco GP" followed by "Ayrton Senna's Super Monaco GP II". Grrrr...
Here are two more simple ones... which do you prefer...
"2020 Super Baseball" or "Super Baseball 2020"?
"Super Noah's Ark 3D" or "Super 3D Noah's Ark"?
