Konami Veterans Talk NES Classics

Thanks to Video-Fenky for posting an interview with Konami NES veterans, Kazuhisa Hashimoto and Shigeharu Umezaki, as they "...discuss what was involved in creating your typical 8-bit console game in the mid-1980s." Highlights include discussion of the infamous Konami cheat code - Hashimoto says "There's [no special story behind it], really. I mean, I was the one using it (laughs), so I just put in something I could remember easily", and the much-reduced development teams of the '80s - "With Hyper Olympic, my first game, there was a programmer and a designer - two people - and it took half a year. Gradius was four people and I don't think it even took that long."

WoW

[Metal_Demon]

You have made an incredibly discovery there. It is quite perplexing how an event that happend last month was covered on CNN two years ago. Does this mean CNN can see into the future? The world may never know. @$$|-|@7

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A

[neglige]

Heeeey Macarena [userfriendly.org]

oh the memories...

[dotgod]

Anyone remember how frustrating it was trying to hit up-up-down-down-left-right-left-right-b-a-start before the Contra titlescreen came all the way up?

Re:oh the memories...

[WTFmonkey]

Especially when the connector pins were bad so that it would only work about half the time on a reset, so you had to uuddlrlrbabass, shit didn't get it, reset, blinky screen, blow in cart, reset, blinky screen, reset, uuddlrlrbabass, shit didn't get it.......

Re:oh the memories...

[Metal_Demon]

Yeah you're never gonna get it hittin ba twice.

Re:oh the memories...

[maxume]

You need to blow harder. Try to think of your lungs as a can of compressed air and not, well, lungs. Of course, I use to play the trumpet and was much more interested in shear volume than I was in things like 'tone' or 'pitch' or even 'quality sound'.

Re:oh the memories...

[WTFmonkey]

Unfortunately, my carts didn't come with spit-valves... although the spit might have helped with conductivity...

The next big thing in game development..

[JavaLord]

I'm hoping the next big thing in game development will be cell phones. There are all these people out there with gaming devices that they carry on themselves at all times. Some of the phones ship with Java now which isn't bad for making simple games

The point of this as it relates to the article is, maybe the one to six man development team isn't dead. Maybe it is just getting started.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Blades of Steel

[sjorgnsn]

Man - I loved Blades of Steel! I remember playing that game with my uncle all the time, and he would always kick my ass in the fights.

That's all the game became, eventually - running around with the puck into whatever hockey player my uncle was controlling, trying to get in fights..

Puch, puch, kick, UPPERCUT! *Toasty*

And since when does the loser of the fight have to go sit it out?

I always liked playing against the computer because I could knock it out easily enough - soon it was 5 vs 3, easy to score t

Re:Blades of Steel

[Chaotician]

Add to that list the other all-time classic NES sports games: Super Techmo Bowl Major League *sniff* Think I'll go look for an old console on E-bay...

Re:Blades of Steel

[Sylver Dragon]

While we're on old NES sports games, don't forget Base Wars, that game was the only way I have ever seen baseball be interesting. I spent many a summer day at my friends' house (they were twins) playing for the Base Wars pennet.
Of course, its less fun now, as I only have the computer to play against, and boy is the AI bad. I haven't managed to get to triple digit scores yet, but I have gotten close.

Re:Blades of Steel

[Jimmy_Chi]

errr...i still play blades of steel all the time...if it wasnt for blades of steel and double dragon II, i dont think i would've made it through last semester...

tip for anybody that cares - if you've got the puck and there's no one in front of you and you pass, it goes straight forward...do this in front of the net and you have an unpredictable shot while your buddy's goalie is following that little arrow...

Life Force

[Rudy Rodarte]

I've always wondered why Life Force was never as recognized as Gradius. To this day, Life Force is one of my favorite games for any system. THat last stage, after you beat the boss.... It takes nerves of steel to get past the "Spontaneous Bars of doom."
Either way, a fun game indeed.

Re:Life Force

[karnal]

That was actually one of my favorite games for the system, other than contra etc...

How to beat the bars of doom -- move all the way to the top of the screen, and to the center. You still have to maneuver the first few bars (which, if you've played it as much as I have, you know where they're coming... even after 10+ years) and then you're set...

Gradius 5 will be out in the fall for the US, and I will probably have the first copy. I've still not committed enough time to beat gradius 3 or 4 for the PS2, b

Then and now

[joshsnow]

Co-incidentally, just today I was commenting to my wife about games [classicgaming.com] from the 80's - when I was a school boy - today.

I was just investigating some old computer [zzap64.co.uk] magazines [crashonline.org.uk] for the most popular gaming platforms back then.

These mags make good reading. The reviews praise games which took only a few weeks or months for a one/two person development team to write.

Games then had what I call "playability" - more substance than style. Graphics capabilities were not good, memory was very tight (32K on some mach