Namco vs. Midway: The King of Arcades: 1989

How did it come to this, Namco?  An entire year and nothing to show for it in English.  Namco officially has nothing for me.  They made arcade games, but not for America.  Valkyrie Densetsu looks like fun, but we didn’t get to play it.  Finest Hour looks like potential game of the year material and so does Burning Force, but the most we got of the latter was the inferior Genesis port.  The only game they might’ve had an entry with is Dangerous Seed, but it’s never seen a re-release and I’ve never been to any arcade that has it.  In fact, going to local arcades to play more games is to Namco’s detriment because there are far more Midway games at them than Namco ones.

That’s why I’ll be fudging the rules just a bit and giving them the only game of this year I was able to play: Rompers.  Similarly to Tower of Druaga, the game got English re-releases later with a full translation.  Since it technically never came to American arcades, like Tower of Druaga, any victory the game might give them will be a soft one.  That is, if there’s a tie, it will not win.  I’m not expecting another Splatterhouse miracle this time.  Maybe this will be a lesson in the importance of English releases.

Hard Drivin’(MID): The only thing you need to know about Hard Drivin’ is, as to be expected from Midway, it’s a technical marvel.  It’s a fully rendered 3D game with a dedicated physics engine to give the racing car weight and realism.  Maybe too much weight and realism.

Hard Drivin’ pulls no punches.  You have to manage the gear shift and control your steering at all times because the car can spin out of control or take a nasty hit that will send it flying, which is likely because these racers are going the opposite direction on the highway like they’re McSkillet.  It’s very unforgiving and frustrating when you can’t control the car or you make a big jump and crashland.  If the game wants me to make a big jump, why make me crash and why are all the other cars fine?  I don’t get this game.

Hard Drivin’ even seems to revel in the player wiping out, with an instant replay showing an outsider’s view of the car being hurtled backwards or catching fire.  I think it knows it’s frustratingly difficult and for the time the mere spectacle of 3D graphics is a novelty.  It’s a very compelling novelty, but I’m unsure of how much I like it as a game or how realistic the physics actually are.  I won’t know that until I go street racing into incoming traffic, which I’m not planning anytime soon.

Wipe ooooout!

Rompers(NAM): This is another one of Namco’s cute, easy to learn and deep puzzle games similar to Dig Dug 2.  The goal is to collect keys scattered around a maze while avoiding enemies.  It’s another serviceable maze game at face value, but it opens up in the ability to push down walls of the maze.  Pushing a wall down both clears that wall to open up the maze and squashes any enemy unfortunate enough to be under it when it falls.  For such a simple addition to the formula, Rompers does a lot with it.  Some walls block another from being pushed, some enemies can push the walls to squash you instead, there are enemies that can lay traps disarmed by pushing the right wall, some walls are set up like dominoes that fall into each other and there’s timing to squashing as many enemies as possible in a single wall push.  Every level is a new challenge and there are lots of different enemies and obstacles with a smooth difficulty curve.  Since it didn’t initially have an English release, it’s easy to overlook Rompers, but it’s a great puzzle game.

Super Off Road(MID): This is Super Sprint with Monster Trucks and that comes with what monster truck racing entails.  It’s slower, there’s rocky terrain to make cars jump and bob and hitting other cars doesn’t make them move a whole lot.  The slower cars makes them easier to handle, but it maintains a sense of speed thanks to nitro boosts and the sense of weight all the cars have, no doubt thanks in part to the advancement in technology.  New to this game from Super Sprint is the ability to upgrade the car between races, which adds some depth to an otherwise straightforward and very fun racing game.

Arch Rivals(MID): This game is a lot easier and simplified for me as someone who doesn’t know a lot about basketball.  There are only 2 people on each team and all you need to know is that when your team has the ball you can shoot and pass (or tell your teammate to do so), but when your opponents have the ball you can jump and punch them with no consequences whatsoever.  It moves at a very fast pace and the cartoonish art style combined with all the voices and crowd noises suck me into the spectator sport setting.  It doesn’t look as good as some of Midway’s other games around this time, but I surprisingly like it.

Unpunished punching seems to be a selling point for the game.

S.T.U.N. Runner(MID): Utilizing the same 3D style as Hard Drivin’, this one has the player veering left and right in a futuristic vehicle that automatically accelerates, driving over different symbols and boost pads while dodging other vehicles to get through winding challenge tracks.

Screenshots do not capture the speed.

Like Hard Drivin’, it’s the impressive rendering technology that you come to this one for, but even with tech that strong for the time, S.T.U.N. Runner seems to have been punching above their weight class because it is way too fast.  It’s not long before your runner goes at a breakneck speed where everything zips by and the poor game can’t render it all effectively.

It does render everything no matter how fast your runner goes, which is an impressive feat, but because of how choppy the framerate is it isn’t long before exhilaration gives way to a headache.  At least with Hard-Drivin’ it went at a speed where you could mentally register everything so the choppy frame rate was easy to ignore.  I give Midway an A for effort, but S.T.U.N. Runner didn’t work out.

The Winner

Midway had a decent lineup for 1989.  Their two 3D games haven’t aged well, but are mind-blowing for the time and their other two games are fun enough to make up for their faults anyway.  Rompers was a strong entry for Namco and might even be the game of the year, but with Midway suffering no major losses (just a minor one with S.T.U.N. Runner) and Rompers not having an English release, Midway wins 1989 handily.

Meanwhile…

While Namco and Midway were putting out more driving and puzzle games, Capcom and SNK were sticking to their tried and true staples of shoot-em-ups and beat-em-ups, with Capcom being the only one making a racing combat game and a bad one at that.  Of course, when it came to what they did best, Capcom was doing very well for themselves and revolutionized the beat-em-up genre with Final Fight, a game that would later inspire Namco’s own Splatterhouse 3.  SNK’s beat-em-ups just plain sucked, but their shooters were alright.

Final Fight's Legacy lasts to this day.

Because of the differing genres, it’s difficult to compare how our current contestants are doing compared to the previous ones, but nothing from Namco or Midway beats Willow or Final Fight.  Those are two of my favorite games of the decade.  That said, even if the actual games aren’t especially good, Midway’s advancement into 3D gaming can’t be upstaged in terms of technical achievement, so they’re a winner on that front.

Now that Midway has a foundation for 3D games, I hope they focus on the game aspect and make something better using the technology.  Namco once again has nothing for me to play in 1990 and their lack of English-released games is going to become a recurring trend, but to be fair I don’t have any Midway games for the following year of 1991.  Therefore next time it’s only fair that the competition cover a two year time span as we go running into the 90s.