From Coleco Vision to iPhone Games - Some High Water Marks in Video Game Design History - Part 4

Street Fighter II (arcade) - Developed by Capcom as a follow-up to their much, game review, maligned original Street Fighter title, Street Fighter II (SF2) solidified the company as the industry leader in fighting game design. In searching for the standout design elements of SF2, the search begins and ends with the games incredible balance. Featuring 8 characters, SF2 presented players with more character options than most arcade games up to that point. Faced with this large selection, many players chose one of the games stars (Ken & Ryu) as their character of choice.



Armed with their combination of ha-do-kens and sho-ryu-kens, these two seemed at first glance to be the game's strongest characters. However, the beauty of SF2 was the fact that each character had their own strengths and, despite initial, game review, impressions, their own vulnerabilities. Despite, game review, the fact that most players used either Ken or Ryu, many of the world's best tournament players could be found using, game review, the games quartet of boss characters: Sagat, M. Bison, Vega and Balrog.



The mighty Zangief was another darling of, game review, world class players due to his incredibly, game review, powerful arsenal of moves, while those who invested the time into mastering Dhalsim's intricate ranged attacks also garnered their fair share of tournament victories. Thanks to ingenious balancing on the part of the game's designers, each character offered players their own distinct path to victory and placed all players on equal footing among their peers.Day of Defeat v1.2-1.3b (PC) - This popular World War 2 themed Half-Life mod has since gone onto retail release, but,,, game review, game review, game review, most fans will agree that the game actually peaked with the release of Beta 1.



2 in April, 2001. With precious few levels (and even fewer actually being used), most of the games of this early iteration of Day of Defeat (DoD) were played, game review, on the maps DoD_Caen, DoD_Hill, DoD_Snowtown, DoD_Dam, Dod_Valley and a selection of Normandy-like maps. The incredible amounts of traffic on DoD servers at the time spoke to the quality of the game, but much like SFII, the standout element for this game was its near perfect balance. Players had the choice of choosing either the Allied or Axis forces, but the choice made little difference to the overall gameplay.



DoD, perhaps more so than any other shooter before it,, game review, truly allowed the player to showcase their skill set. Missing were the super guns, game review, or tactical nukes of other games of the era. Instead, players were armed the most basic options of rifle or machine gun. Battles were won with teamwork and skill rather than firepower and a race to the super weapons. In an era where space themed shooters and a 'bigger is, game review, better' attitude dominated the FPS landscape, DoD delivered a gaming experience, game review, that demanded collaboration to succeed, and kept the players grounded in the harsh reality of wartime combat.