THE HISTORY OF VIDEOGAMES PART 12 - December 1999
| So far in the history of videogames, it’s been all
violence, violence, violence. Distressed by the smell that was being generated by the
gangs of sweaty and excited young boys who exclusively inhabited arcades, Sega designers
decided to try to attract a new element to videogaming, and so, in 1980, the
"cute" game was born. The first in what would become a huge tidal wave of
pretty, brightly-coloured and slightly twee games was Carnival, a fairground shooting game
played against a constant background of cheesy calliope music. (Doubtless an element added
to fiendishly make the game harder – you could switch the music off if, or rather
when, it was driving you mad, but it cost you one of your limited supply of precious
bullets, and involved a risky trip right over to the far side of the screen.) To counter its cuteness, Carnival also featured a gratuitously cruel bonus screen between stages, where you had to shoot at a big bear with a target painted on its side. Every time you hit the bear, it would let out a yowl of pain and attempt to walk off the screen, but every time you shot it it had to turn and walk the other way. Evil players could thus torment it for lengthy periods before the bear finally escaped. The bastards. |
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