In 1990, a series of CGI animation collections began release on VHS tape. The Mind’s Eye was the first experience many people (myself included) had with pure computer animation.
The best known segment from the first tape is Stanley & Stella in Breaking the Ice, which was first released in 1987. You can just watch it online now of course!
The animation style reminds me a lot of Reboot, a childhood favorite. It still amazes me how interesting this style is even today, really shows how much more artistry and vision matter than technology. I believe this is also the first public demonstration of a flocking algorithm.
My brother brought this home along with the follow-up, Beyond the Minds Eye. I recall the first one having some scenes from The Lawnmower Man. I believe the soundtrack also featured Jan Hammer.
Sure thing! My dad bought a copy of the first one from Incredible Universe, before they sold everything to FRYS. There was a stage in the middle of the store, with big screens surrounding it, playing Minds Eye on a loop.
Holy shit, I saw this as a kid around 95-98 when I was visiting a friend of my mom I think, this as playing as music in the tv, the guy had like a home theater like setup and this burned into my mind, especially the segment on beyond the minds eye where there’s a guy/robot playing a fps. This was a wild trip to recall, thank you!
That’s why my mom bought me an Amega 4000. It was a birthday present. Never got that Video Toaster and never did get into animation back then but I had Brilliance and used it allot. I cant remember for sure but I think I remember the os being more Unix like. God I loved that machine!
Ever since I saw Beyond the Minds Eye I’ve wanted to do computer animation.
Two additions from the 3do era, PO’ed and Killing Time.
PO’ed was an fps with over engineered level designs and humanoid butt cheeks with legs and teeth that fired green projectiles. The 3do version had terrible controls and the game came out shortly before the console was abandoned. It was later released to ps1 to no fanfare, but had updated controls.
Killing Time was a cross between Doom and 7th Guest. It has fmv sprites to advance the story and is generally pretty advanced for its time. After Panasonic abandoned the 3do, Killing Time was ported to pc. It’s currently on sale at GOG. I might buy it lol
Kubo and the Two Strings. Some of the story elements are a bit too obvious, but the overall story is charming and the art style (stop motion with puppet-like characters) is just plain cool.
Kirikou and the Sorceress. Wonderfully weird with an interesting story
Triplets of Belleville. The entire movie is “told” without words, except for a single sentence right at the start and one right at the end.
Games:
Terranigma (SNES). Main characters revives / creates an entire world that was doomed ages ago. It’s kind of bittersweet when you’re done reviving the continents, plants and animals and then the humans start f*cking stuff up. Great music and visuals too, despite being 16-Bit style
Ōkami. One of my all-time favorites but due to minimal marketing, not many people are aware that this game even exists. Charming art style and interesting gameplay concept.
I just recently played through Terranigma! It’s the third of a unofficial trilogy of similar Enix titles that I played as a child: SoulBlazer and Illusion of Gaia. Terranigma didn’t make it to the USA for some reason.
Maybe it’s a regional thing then…? I’m in Germany and noone I know of has heard about either one. I wouldn’t be surprised tho if those two got the attention they deserve in other parts of the world.
What you are missing is that Okami bombed and capcom made no money with it, it’s THE example of a great game that consumers ignored. It’s more popular now than back then.
Okami was really fun. I will say that going back to play it now the NPC talking sound the murmuring gets really old fast. I still enjoyed everything else.
There was a local band where I am 20+ years ago called Naucet. With songs such as “This is Not a Convenient Time to be Stabbed”. I have absolutely no idea what happened to the band, where they went, what they did. I can find no reference to them anywhere online whatsoever. I have a musician friend who was friends with them(maybe just one of them, I forget at this point) and has copies of their music on an old hard drive somewhere in a closet. Been a number of years since I’ve seen/heard from said friend, so I can only assume whether or not he still has that old hard drive. If he does, then for all I know, that might be the only place in existence that you can find that music.
I love stuff like that. I’ve got demo tapes and 7" records from local punk bands from the 90s. Some were kids from my school or kids I used to skateboard with.
A lot of it is just rubbish, but it means something to me. I’ll put a few songs on every couple of years, laugh at the hand-drawn artwork, reminisce, and sing along.
Pretty sure there’s very few, if any, other copies of some of that stuff around anymore.
I recently worked my way through the old games library on archive.org and found some gems I used to play.
The game that got me looking there in the first place was Lost Dutchman Mine (still holds up!), but then I just kept scrolling and have bookmarked dozens of games. I won't list them all, but some favourites I grew up playing (and still occasionally revisit) that I don't think were massively (or at least still would be) well known: Xonix - the first pc game I ever played, back when monitors only had 2 colours lol Jones in the Fast Lane The Sims if it was a board game Mario is Missing Yes, the Mario. I was the only person I know to own and play this game Home alone and Home Alone 2 both on 5¼-inch floppy Goblins I never got far in this game as a kid, and I have resorted to digging up the walkthrough even today to progress lol
Not a game, there is also Jerry Springer the Opera, a satire which I feel went far too low under the radar, and more people should watch (I think most people assume that the first act - a mock up JS episode, is all it is, but it really isn't). I've listened to it so many times I can literally sing you the whole thing from beginning to end (OST is much better quality than the live recording, and is on YT too). 😂(CW: contains some outdated and offensive terms and slurs)
E: here's a no-spoiler taste, the ad break
Edit again (I'm now re-watching it and this part just came up and reminded me lol): some folks here might be familiar with I Just Wanna Fuckin' Dance, which is from the opera!
There are probably many more, but I've just woken up, so that's all that comes to mind rn..
Same, though not only in childhood! For a while it was my "get to sleep" game I would play every night until I dozed off, this was only a couple of years ago.. 😂
Despite that last remark, it's a great game (if a little repetitive, which is what puts me to sleep lol E: Sims 3 often does the same..😆)!
there is this film from the late 80s called miracle mile about a guy who answers an incoming call at a payphone outside a diner in los angeles, and its a panicked military officer who dialed the wrong phone number who says he just launched americas nukes and that a nuclear retaliation will hit american soil in about an hour. a lot of the film is spent without being fully convinced of the authenticity of the phone call and the film has a slightly dreamlike pacing which makes it feel pretty tense, and theres a scene that stuck with me where the main character has a nosebleed in the diner after the phone call. i feel like even as far as cult films go this one is a little under the radar and, even though its not a life altering film, probably deserves a little more credit than it gets.
My mind went straight to the SNES too, but with Chaos Seed, the feng shui dungeon building oddity. I have a feeling people might be familiar with SNESdrunk around here, though.
One of my cool older cousins was playing this one christmas when we went to his house! I was vaguely disappointed when we went back the next year and he was like “oh yeah that was fun but i beat it and don’t play it anymore.” Little kid brain assumed the game just went on for much longer than it does. Playing it together (ie: taking turns) is a fond childhood memory for me, though.
All 3 games got official English translations. Soul Blazer and Gaia were released in the US and Europe, but Terranigma for whatever reason was only released in Europe. I’m so glad emulation came around and opened up access to so many region-locked games.
Terranigma is one of my favorite SNES games! It is a truly awesome adventure and so underrated!
I played through a lot of fan translations and obscure games when I first discovered emulation. E.V.O Search for Eden is another weird, unique RPG from that era, which I highly recommend!
I don’t believe I played it, but I remember that box art. They probably had it on the shelves of my local blockbuster video. I think it might have also been a cover feature in Nintendo power.
When I was a kid I went to a Primus show and they were playing music before the acts came on. One was “Smoke On The Water” covered by Tom Jones and I’ve never been able to find it or even any information about it. I know it was this song and artist as I asked the engineer, it was a great rendition and I wish I could find a copy
It might be on In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy. Track 3 is smoke on the water. And if I recall correctly Tom Jones was on this album. But I can’t be sure he is singing smoke on the water
Maybe not super obscure, but I loved BMX XXX on the original Xbox. It was overshadowed my the plethora of other games like Tony Hawk, Aggressive Inline and SSX but I still love it.
If I wanted to see toplees girls on my modded Xbox I would just load up Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball with a nude texture pack. I genuinely enjoyed the riding aspect of the BMX game.
There was a door (plugin) for The text-based *BBS game Legend of the Red Dragon called Violet’s Tavern.
You could sit at the bar and buy a drink that enhanced your stats, You could go upstairs and pay for a hooker to replenish your energy or you could try to seduce the barmaid / owner and actually have kind of a sweet encounter with her.
It had a betting mechanic I don’t remember if it was blackjack, dice or what but you could game it a little bit by throwing a shit ton of money at it a few times. The initial odds to win or somewhat higher than the extended odds to win so if you hit it and hit big you just walk away. Sometimes you ended up empty but more often than not it worked.
An old MS-DOS game from the 90s called Solar Winds, by Epic Megagames. It was top down and you flew around battling spaceships and doing missions in space. I absolutely loved it as a kid. Pretty sure you can get it for free now.
There used to be a website with a rubber man floating on the screen. You could move him around with the mouse and make him stretch out in psychedelic colors. Hours spent doodling.
There was a game I played on my grandma’s TurboGrafx 16 many years ago. I cannot remember the name, and searching over the years still has me befuddled.
It was a racing game, but with an RPG element where you had to continually upgrade your car and take on local race champs. I loved it and cannot for the life of me find the damn thing.
Edit: holy shit I think I found it. Final Lap Twin
I’m more shocked that someone actually had a turbografx back then, here I never saw a live one in my life, but it’s a fun little console with some underrated gems, I’m having so much fun going through it’s anime inspired library.
I don’t know where she got it, probably ToysRUs back then. I would play it for hours. We only had an NES at home so we were always blown away at the graphics. Now you can find them in used game shops every once in awhile for 200 bucks, at least around here.
We had a TurboGrafx when I was a kid! We had Shinobi 3 and some game that was supposed to be like Punch Out! But I don’t think it actually was called that.
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