They are all games for playstation, my all-time favorite system!
Jumping Flash 2 you play as a robo-rabbit, and you jump around a landscape, shooting stuff, collecting items, jumping on enemies. But it was one of the first games where there was an open 3d world that you could explore, much like Mario 64, except Mario 64 still kind of corralled you in the direction you had to go, but Jumping Flash was more open.
and when you jumped (you could jump very high and double jump, or use trampolines), the camera would shift downward, so you could aim where you fall.
Tekken 3 and Tobal 2 are both 3d fighting games
Tekken 3:
You must have heard of Tekken- its a classic fighting game series, lots of gameplay depth, nice graphics, nice endings and nice music.
Tobal 2:
Tobal 2 was never released in America, I got the Japanese version, but it had special shaded 3d graphics that were very nice and uncommon in most games, it also featured a unique fighting system, interesting characters, computer animated endings, great music, and a role playing mode where you can run around in a dungeon and fight with the characters and collect items and gain levels and so on (virtually unplayable because of the language barrier!!). The game also featured unlockable characters you could play with including all the monsters from the dungeons- mostly a novelty feature, but still quite cool.
Around this time I became interested in who the game developers were and started following the ones that I liked. Tobal was developed by Squaresoft, who also made the Final Fantasy series, and Tekken was developed by Namco, who also made Ridge Racer and Rage Racer(Ridge Racer 3; Ridge Racer 2 was called Ridge Racer Revolution, which I never played):
Ridge Racer came bundled with the playstation, and was the first true 3d game I played for any home console. It is simple, has 3 variations of the same track, but it featured great music, cool replays and fun gameplay that let you really whittle down your lap times.
This is Rage Racer. Basically an arcade style racing game (as opposed to simulator style). It had lots of cars you could race with and a few different tracks. It had lots of graphical touches, like helicopters flying overhead, waterfalls and stuff like that.
I mentioned following developers, and I have to mention the game that got me into F1!! I became interested in a developer called Psygnosis that made a game called Wipeout and Wipeout XL which were futuristic hovercar racing games. They also included lots of graphical touches like light trails, and great music, including songs by Prodigy and Future Sound of London (at that time only recently possible due to the shift to CD based games). Wipeout also featured an ad campaign by a certain 'drinks company'!!
I remember playing this game and thinking to myself, 'what IS redbull?' That was around '95-'96, before RedBull was released in the US, or at least before it became popular. At least they have always identified with racing
Wipeout and Wipeout XL:
Well Psygnosis eventually developed the first true Formula 1 game for a home console!
It featured all the tracks in the season, exactly how they are in real life, and it included a 'season' mode where you could compete as if you were racing in the championship itself! I never did a season, but I am still proud of myself to this day because I did complete an entire race distance at Interlagos! The game would actually race for 60-some odd laps of the actual lap time, so I sat down racing the same track over and over for an hour and a half! The track layout is still burned in my mind!
I had never been exposed to F1 before, and I was intrigued by it's unusual combination of seemingly manicured racetracks with grass and kerbs, and the strange high-pitch whine of the cars. I started watching races and caught the battle between Hill and Schumacher in 96! I loved it, but as I was a teenager, it lost my attention in competition with other things...
Well, I hope that is enough detail
It's nice to revisit these 'old friends'
