Page 18 - Old School Gamer Magazine Issue #43 FREE Edition

Remember renting games? If you’re reading this magazine, you do. And you miss it—we know
you do. So take a trip down memory lane with us on some of our best and worst experiences with renting video games.
THE BEST:
Mutant League Hockey
Unlike NHLPA 93 or even NHL
94 (Electronic Arts’ early hockey games on the Genesis), Mutant League Hockey featured no real NHL players or teams. While some of the characters are inspired by actual players, the end result was a hockey game that was always
fun to play, never took itself too seriously, and most importantly, attracted new players.
It’s scary to think a rushed development cycle robbed the game of several added features.
“Some of the features we had planned but had to cut were very fun and innovative. We never fully realized the angry home crowd feature; the home crowd would throw weapons on the ice that
the players could pick up and use against their opponents,” Mendheim said. “That was in the game, but we also wanted spectators to grab the visiting players off the rink (once the glass barricades were broken)
and pull them into the stands and rip them apart. Now that’s a real home- field advantage!
“Another fun feature that we didn’t have time to fully develop was our puck cam. When the puck was hit out of bounds, it would fly through the crowd, killing spectators who
were in its path. We wanted to give the user who hit the puck out of the rink control of the puck cam. If the puck would fly toward a beautiful woman in the stands, it would immediately stop and drop onto her lap.”
In spite of what was ultimately cut, MLH is one of the most accessible and easy-to-play sports games on the Genesis, making it one of the best rental games ever.
ONE (PS1)
If you’ve never played this one,
it’s the type of game Contra Adventure should have been on
the PlayStation. It’s just a balls-to- the-wall shooter that never takes itself seriously - so much so that it has essentially zero story. The end result is a PlayStation game with the soul of a classic NES and arcade run-and-gun shooter.
“The lead designer wanted to develop a story for the game. It became clear, however, that the story would end up being rather cliché and would be too costly
and time-consuming to develop anyway,” One developer Ron Pieket said. “Cinematics were not in the budget. It was my idea to reduce the entire storyline to four words: ‘I made a mistake’ and leave the rest to the player’s imagination.”
Unable to tell a full story, the team just didn’t. Unable to have a huge backstory? Not an issue, either. This made One a perfect game to rent during the PlayStation era. Playing as John Cain, a man with essentially no backstory, on the run from the police and military, all
you know is your hand has been replaced by a hand-cannon of sorts, like Mega Man - and you have a barcode on your neck. In today’s gaming landscape, that wouldn’t
be enough to make a title’s story special, but in 1997, it was perfect. Kids in lunchrooms around the country talked about this one just
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THE BEST AND WORST VIDEO GAME RENTALS IN THE ’90S By Patrick Hickey Jr.
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