From: v089l3s3@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Jeremy B Horwitz)
Newsgroups: rec.games.video.arcade
Subject: Re: Super PlayChoice
Date: 8 Sep 92 00:04:00 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

>> 
>> Most of you have seen a PlayChoice, right?
>> When you put in a quarter, you do not simply get
>> to play any single game.  You *rent* the game!  You get about 300
>> seconds (settings vary).  If you die before the time expires, you may
>> play again, or even select another game.  But if you have an IQ above
>> 60, and your game lasts longer than 300 seconds, tough shit.  You're
>> done.  Unless you want to put in another quarter.

Agreed. This is really stupid. If you want to make an arcade system, you
should at least develop a lives/continues feature that works with
quarters.

>>     This game offends me for a couple reasons.  One is the timer thing.
>> This is the true essence of Nintendo IMHO.  This timer says to me,
>> "Our games are so stupid and unchallenging that if we let you go as
>> far as you could on a single quarter you'd be there until the next
>> solstice."

I somehow doubt that you weren't smiling as you wrote that. Again,
agreed, that NES games are weak. Yet, they are equivalent to the pathetic
efforts such as Pac-Man and Space Invaders which permeated arcades 10
years ago. :) Actually... considering that you have the choice of
other games, why bother looking at it? Go and play Mortal Kombat if
you're looking for hi-tech.

>> Another thing that offends me is that the games are of
>> way too low a quality for the arcade.  I almost bit my tongue off
>> in rage the day I happened to catch a PlayChoice, one of whose games
>> was Gauntlet.  Nintendo's Gauntlet!  And not 40 feet away was the
>> real Gauntlet.  People, if you have never seen Nintendo's Gauntlet ...
>> well, it's not pretty.  It's insulting to put it in the same arcade
>> with the real thing.

"too low a quality for the arcade"? I guess you haven't played any
games like any football game released before John Elway Q-back,
which was graphically pathetic but played OK. How about games like
Ghosts and Goblins, 1942, and Side Arms - games by that crappy
company, Capcom? They stunk graphically, but led to successful
sequels like 1941, Ghouls'n'Ghosts and Forgotten Worlds. 

>Well, the only advantage I can see to these machines are if you are
>intending to purchase a Nintendo cartridge, and it's in the play choice
>game, you can try it out before you buy ut, and if it sucks(most likely ;^)
>then you won't have to be stuck when you buy it.
>I kinda liked the machine actually, because I got to try out Super Mario
>Bros 2 and 3 without buying a Nintendo(I don't really want a Nintendo, since
>I have an Amiga and most games blow a Nintendo away). BTW this was when
>SMB2 and 3 were new, and I hadn't seen them yet.  Just my 2 cents worth...

I have an SNES, and am extremely disturbed that Nintendo delayed Robocop
3's release to the home market so it could be a sales point for the Super
Playchoice. But -- at the very least, they are providing arcade-quality
games for their system. Now. Perhaps the Playchoice was an unfortunate
release, but they've made the Super Playchoice a sales maker for the
Super Nintendo. You can't blame them.
Newsgroups: rec.games.video.arcade