Taking advantage of the arrival of PS5, Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, FreeGameTips writers and contributors voted for the best launch titles.
2020 is one of those special years for the video game industry, not only because great titles such as Half-Life: Alyx, The Last of Us Part 2, Final Fantasy VII Remake or Hades have been commercialized, but because the time has come for a new generation of consoles. And it has done so in an especially challenging time, in which the coronavirus pandemic has plunged society into an unparalleled health and economic crisis. Studios have had to adapt to teleworking, which is why some projects have lagged behind the challenges of moving all development processes to the homes of their creators.
Neither Sony nor Microsoft have changed their plans regarding their next consoles. Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S will be released on November 10, while PlayStation 5 will do the same on November 19 in Spain (12 of that same month in territories such as the United States, Mexico and Japan).
Gears Tactics.
But with what games will they come? In the case of Redmond, the idea was for it to debut with Halo Infinite, but 343 Industries, the studio in charge of the master chief saga, made the painful decision to delay it until 2021, since the title needed more development time. Microsoft’s bet is now the premiere on Gears Tactics consoles and retrocompatible video games from previous generations, which thanks to the different technologies they have implemented, will receive improved versions, with better framerate, resolution and HDR, among other advantages; also intergenerational games like Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla or Watch Dogs Legion. As for PlayStation 5, Marvel’s Spider-Man will be released from Sony’s in-house projects: Miles Morales, Demon Souls Remake, Sackboy: A Great Adventure, Destruction All Stars and Astro’s Playroom (pre-installed on all consoles).
The launch of a new console is a unique and unrepeatable moment, as is the release of the first game, that moment in which you have the product in your hands and insert it into the machine. It may be that consumer habits have changed, that a physical copy is no longer necessary, even that we try our first title through a service or the cloud. In this article, however, we look back at previous generations of consoles. The writing and collaborators of FreeGameTips have spoken and have chosen the best launch video games in history. Join us on this journey through memories.
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales.
10. Motorstorm (PlayStation 3)
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Evolution Studios was acquired by Sony Computer Entertainment in 2007, when the developer already had several PlayStation and PlayStation 2 games behind her. Specialized in driving and with several games from the World Rally saga behind them, the British studio created one of the titles that generated the most anticipation on PlayStation 3. In those years, companies used to present CGI as if they were gameplay videos, a modus operandi which also affected Killzone 2, the production of Guerrilla, creators of Horizon Zero Dawn. MotorStorm did not reach the graphical level of the original cinematic, but it did demonstrate the potential of the new console with a launch title that not only looked impressive, but gave the player an adrenaline-packed arcade experience.
MotorStorm is emotion, it is mud, it is speed. The old Monument Valley Indian reservation unfolds in all its splendor, giving way to the Arizona desert, to Utah … in total 21 different driving events await us, in which we will pilot motorcycles, quads, buggies, rally cars, Rancheras, 4×4 and trucks. At the wheel (or handlebar), we can advance through shortcuts, look for the most advantageous points and enjoy the views. But beware, the artificial intelligence of the rival pilots does not disappoint.
9. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii)
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E3 in Los Angeles, now in its lowest hours, is full of moments of triumph. One of them, perhaps the most remembered, has Shigeru Miyamoto and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess as the main protagonist. Nintendo had released The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker on GameCube, a game that moved away from the more realistic style of Ocarina of Time / Majora’s Mask (and the 2000 Nintendo World demo) to present a colorful, cartoon-designed world. very controversial when first seen. For the second title of that console, things were going to be different. Miyamoto, sword and shield in hand, officially showed the new installment of the saga during E3 2004, a much darker and epic production in its tone.
Twilight Princess was scheduled for Christmas 2005 on the GameCube, but Nintendo pushed it back a few months. The official reason is that they needed a little more development time, but on the horizon they had the premiere of their new desktop console, the Wii. Finally, those from Kyoto decided to turn their star title into a launch game, and given the characteristics of the machine, the gameplay was adapted to motion controls. The peculiarity is that in the Wii Link version he is right-handed, since Nintendo thought that he would be more comfortable when handling the controller as if it were a sword.
In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, we begin our story in a town south of Hyrule, Ordon. There, Link is known for his skill as a horseman and his prowess with a sword. He then does not know the hard road ahead. As a hero, he will be involved in a conflict against an evil incarnate in the evil Ganon. Becoming a wolf, riding on Epona’s back, saving the Twilight Princess and fighting all kinds of enemies is what awaits us in this memorable adventure.
8. Wii Sports (Wii)
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Nintendo Revolution. That was the code name for Nintendo’s mysterious console, hardware that promised to change the way gamers understood video games until then. In the months leading up to its presentation, there was a lot of anticipation, and when it was finally seen for the first time, the console didn’t even appear. The Wii was made public through the Wii Remote, the peculiar control that later came with the Nunchuk. Motion controls were here to stay, although in the future they were integrated into traditional controls. But the overwhelming success of the Wii cannot be understood without its dance partner, a video game that beyond serving as a demonstration of why the controls were so special, achieved the objective of bringing the whole family together in the same room.
Wii Sports was included in all the packs of the console, making it one of the best-selling video games in history. In the era of Wii and Nintendo DS, the concept of casual gamer was born, a term that has been used in a derogatory way for years, although Nintendo had the merit of opening the market to non-existent player profiles to date. Its sports game, which introduced tennis, bowling, baseball, golf and boxing, invited the user to imitate the movements of athletes to reproduce them in the game. That made it very easy for people who had no experience with video games to access the controls easily and without complications. Hence, in family gatherings it became a claim. All together in front of the screen.
7. Star Wars: Rogue Leader (GameCube)
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Nintendo lost its leadership position to the Nintendo 64, a shadow that continued to lengthen thanks to the success of Sony’s next console, the PlayStation 2. With GameCube, the Kyoto team offered a compact but powerful console, with a DVD-based optical format that they had manufactured as their own. The system hit the market in May 2002, almost two years after its most direct competitor. Among the launch titles was an exclusive that has gone down in history as one of the best games based on the saga created by George Lucas, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, a new chapter of Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, developed by Factor 5.
Unlike its successor, Star Wars Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike, which introduced missions on foot (the darkest point of the game), this title remains true to its playable principles and offers space battles in which we can pilot some of the Most iconic ships of the Rebel Alliance: X-Wing, Y-Wing, A-Wing, B-wing, Snow Speeders and even Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon. We can also try an imperial ship or Darth Vader’s TIE Fighter. As you can guess, Star Wars: Rogue Leader is set in the time of the classic trilogy, so it reproduces with great fidelity some of the best known battles, see the destruction of the first Death Star, the Battle of Hoth, the battle of Endor and a long etcetera.
In addition to showing off fantastic graphics, Factor 5 had all the classic Star Wars elements to build its audiovisual section, so that the soundtrack composed by John Williams is heard along with the rest of the characteristic sounds of the galaxy far, far away.
6. Tetris (Game Boy)
The Soviet Union was experiencing its last years before its decomposition, a time that would lead to the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev, leader of the Communist Party, in December 1991. A day later, the dissolution of the USSR was signed. Tetris was born in this time of uncertainty. Its creator, the Russian Alexey Pajitnov, tells in the book Replay: La historia de los videojuegos, by Tristan Donovan (edited in Spanish by Héroes de Papel), that he was an ordinary programmer and researcher. “Soviet law strictly prohibited the creation of businesses and rejected the concept of copyright or intellectual property; nothing could be done for personal gain, everything belonged to the State, ”he recalls in his interview. The truth is that there was a conflict with the licenses, so it was in limbo for a while. Henk Rogers is the one who got the rights to develop the game on the Game Boy. In fact, the title was not only a launch title, but it was included in the original pack of the console.
“For me, the Game Boy was made for Tetris and Tetris was made for the Game Boy,” says Rogers in an interview with Retro Gamer. Its fast and straightforward playability fit like a glove with the idea of portability of the system. “It had a small monochrome screen, but Tetris was perfect, because the blocks were easy to see and manipulate.” The game is today the best-selling puzzle title in history, with more than 30 million copies distributed worldwide. Fitting blocks has never been so much fun, and the proof that it is a formula that does not expire is that Tetris continues to release video games to this day. Now it even has a battle royale!
5. Super Mario Bros. (NES)
In the 35th anniversary year of the Nintendo Plumber, it’s always good to remember the beginnings of the characters. The mustachioed had been the protagonist of Donkey Kong, but his rise to stardom began with Super Mario Bros., a title developed for the Nintendo Entertainment System. “I wanted to make a game that was the culmination of all cartridge titles at the time,” says Shigeru Miyamoto in an interview posted on the Nintendo website. The Japanese creative was mainly in charge of the design, but the arrival of Takashi Tezuka was very “helpful”, according to the creator of Mario himself.
Super Mario Bros. went on sale on September 13, 1983. It introduces the two protagonists who were already present in the arcade version of Mario Bros., Mario himself and his brother Luigi, who manages the second player during multiplayer games . The main ingredients are what everyone knows: platforms, jumps, Bowser’s minions and a princess in distress. The Mushroom Kingdom ceases to be a peaceful place when the evil Bowser kidnaps Peach. Only Mario (alone or accompanied by Luigi) can rescue the princess from her uncertain fate.
This Nintendo production also premiered the Super Mario theme song, composed by Koji Kondo, also the author of the soundtracks for The Legend of Zelda. Miyamoto and his team laid the first pipe of a plumbing system, metaphorically speaking, that has catapulted Mario as one of the best-known protagonists in history, not only within the world of video games, but outside it.
4. Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox)
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It is curious that a saga like Halo, which is identified with the Microsoft and Xbox brands, was originally a product designed for Mac. In 1999, Bungie presented its new project at a MacWorld Expo, and it was done by Steve Jobs himself . That first demo already featured a similar design that the Master Chief would have when he finally debuted on Xbox. The Redmonds acquired the studio in 2000 and regained the title they had in place. Unlike the original project, which equally shared its third-person shooter approach, the final version placed a lot of importance on the plot. The developer managed to build a solvent universe that has been exploited beyond video games, with television series and new products that will be published in the future, although now 343 Industries and not Bungie is the company that has the reins of the saga.
At the time of the Dreamcast and before the release of the PlayStation 2, Microsoft decided to enter the video game business. It was in 2000 when the North American giant announced that it was developing the Xbox project, which was delayed until a year later. One of their launch games to compete with the PlayStation 2 and GameCube was Halo: Combat Evolved. We emphasized the quality of its universe, but the set works because playably it was a bomb-proof video game. In that first installment, Bungie demonstrated his ability with the artificial intelligence of the enemies, a hallmark that continues to be present in all Halo developed by Bungie (with Reach as the final product).
3. Super Mario World (SNES)
Takashi Tezuka remembers and remembers that the development of Super Mario World began in 1989. It was a shorter job than that of Super Mario Bros. 3, the main video game that dismissed the NES in style. “Shigeru Miyamoto said he wanted Mario to ride a horse,” reveals the creative in an interview published on the official Nintendo website. “I think he likes horses,” he laughs. “When we were developing Super Mario Bros. 2, he sketched a picture of Mario on a horse and hung it on a wall where we used to sit. When we started the development of Super Mario World, we worked on the concept of a dinosaur world, so I asked Hino to draw a reptile. ” Needless to say, the reptile ended up being Yoshi.
The power of Super Nintendo, together with the talent of creative figures such as Takashi Tezuka, Shigeru Miyamoto, Shigefumi Hino or Koji Kondo marked a new turning point in the genre of platforms. Super Mario World is obviously an evolution of the entire concept started on the NES, but its move to 16-bit opened the doors to new moves, levels, and uses of color that were simply impossible on the previous console. After a period of absolute hegemony in the hardware market, those of Kyoto saw that a piece of the cake was going to correspond to Sega, which with its Mega Drive left us another of the characters that have gone down in video game history, Sonic the Hedgehog.
The legacy of Super Mario World is indelible. The game also motivated the development of a prequel, the magnificent Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario World 2, in which we handle a baby Mario on the back of his faithful Yoshi.
2. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Nintendo Switch)
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The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Breath of the Wild have something in common: both were planned for one console and ended up being launch games for the next, despite the fact that the previous machines also received their version (with a much smaller distribution, yes). The Wii U concept did not take off and its sales were much lower than anticipated. It is not surprising, therefore, that Nintendo decided to release Nintendo Switch with a game as powerful as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Later came other big bets like Super Mario Odyssey, ARMS or Splatoon 2.
Within the series starring Link, Majora’s Mask was a kind of break from some of the usual conceptual elements of the series, but Breath of the Wild goes a step further and restructures its playable system. In a generation in which open worlds have become almost the standard, the Japanese studio outlined an organic exploration by which the player can explore every nook and cranny of the Kingdom of Hyrule. The adrenaline system, which establishes the hero’s endurance, as well as its more demanding combat system, make this title a challenge at times, especially at the beginning of the game.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is one of the brand’s darkest titles, at least when it comes to the story. Gone are the glory days of Hyrule, for the heroes fell to the hordes of Ganon. One hundred years after the battle that plunged the world into darkness, Link awakens from his long slumber as the last hope of ending evil. The dungeons as such disappear, but the shrines are puzzles in themselves that invite the player to use the various abilities of the Sheikah stone with intelligence: there is no single solution to problems.
1. Super Mario 64
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A real revolution. That’s what Super Mario 64 assumed when it went on sale. The plumber went from 2D to 3D with a round and magical video game, a masterpiece whose influence has continued to this day. Designed in a completely three-dimensional world, Mario traveled from Peach Castle to fantasy worlds, each with a rich and different setting. Setting the side scrolling aside allowed Nintendo to experiment with all sorts of new mechanics, milimeter-thought-out jumps, and dangerous and quirky final bosses. Nintendo 64 failed to beat PlayStation, but since its launch it has provided gamers with an inimitable experience. 120 stars, 120 challenges and thousands of surprises to discover.
There is an adjective that perfectly defines what Super Mario 64 was for many of the players who bought the console that year 1997: shocking. It was a unique sensation, of discovering something that in no other console had been possible to date. In FreeGameTips, in the year of its foundation, the game was received with a note of 10, a masterpiece. Later came other great platforms for the console (Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64, Conker), but the shadow of Super Mario 64 is immensely long. Its influence is in the vein of another of the console’s masterpieces, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
Of all the launch titles, FreeGameTips has chosen Super Mario 64 as the best. This comes to the fore in an important year for the plumber (or ex-plumber, according to Nintendo). On its 35th birthday (yes, in the midst of a pandemic), the video game has returned, this time as part of the Super Mario 3D All-Stars edition, which also includes Super Mario Sunshine (GameCube) and Super Mario Galaxy). There is always time to return to Super Mario 64, although in the case of this edition for Nintendo Switch the term is limited, as it will stop selling on March 31, 2021.
