Defining Moment: Opening your eyes The first video games looked like this: Some of those early artists did amazing things with 3, maybe even 4 shades of grey. Later, games like Sonic and Super Mario Land exploded onto our screens in vibrant, dynamic colours. And that was nice and everything, except those were the same shades as the childrens cartoons of the day, helping to cement video games as nothing beyond a childish past-time. Then a company named Rare Ltd. released Donkey Kong Country in 1994, which was easily the most beautiful game on the market. Using pre-rendered backgrounds, Rare made a world that for the first time, actually looked real. And that was important for video games, because it paved the way for the gritty, realistic, urban landscape youll find in every FPS released in the last 5 years. Even today, I can go back and replay those games and be surprised by the quality and realism in the graphics. No mean feat for a game about a crocodile stealing a bunch of bananas. Donkey Kong proved that games could be art, not just in their design but also their graphics (it had a pretty kick-ass sound track, too.) That seems pretty obvious now, but back then it was a revelation. Proving they were no one-hit wonder, Rare Ltd then went on to make a couple of other titles you might have heard of such as Killer Instinct and Goldeneye. Honourable Mention: Chrono Trigger Probably the most beautiful SNES RPG ever released in the US, Chrono Trigger dispensed with realism and instead made a stylised fantasy world. Somewhat ironically for a game about time travel, it only misses out on the top spot by having unfortunately been released a year late. It still manages to be one of the best RPGs of all time, and the best game featuring a talking frog (Sorry, Star Fox.)
Laurence Gardner was born in Canterbury, England. After moving around various cities during his childhood, and spending some time travelling in Europe and America, he studied English Literature at Oxford University. Since then, he’s been living abroad, teaching English, learning a range of languages, and writing in his free time. He can currently be found in Heidelberg, working as an English Tutor and Translator and studying at the University. If you liked this article, follow him on Twitter to get automatic updates on his work.
