The History of Zaxxon #retrogaming #zxspectrum #c64 #arcade #sega #segagames #atari #colecovision

[Music] now then hello and welcome back to my video gaming channel retro gamer Diaries there are very few things that have captured the attention of Gamers more than the excitement of a space flight for almost as long as there have been video games developers and Gamers alike have been drawn into dark space and the Flash filled Grace of spaceship dog fights in fact all my favorite arcade games from the late '70s and early 80s include the likes of Space Invaders asteroids galaxian Defender Buck Rogers and my personal favorite Star Wars I mean even the earliest Proto video games like 1962 space War put players in the role of Daring spaceship pilots and over the ensuing years space based Shooters contined to evolve video gaming developers engaged in a space race in pursuit of innovative gameplay and graphics and the miss this driver for Innovation Sega released an arcade hit that would help Advance the medium and forever influence gaming that game was zon zon is a scrolling shooter developed and released by Sega as an arcade video game in 1982 and it was an immediate Triumph the game was one of sega's earliest Arcade Hits and helped Propel the manufacturer into further success zon has a number of Firsts to its name from technological innovation to new strides in video gaming marketing but its gaml is what has truly stood the test of time for many gamers zon is a classic space encounter in which you find yourself at the controls of an attack space shuttle spacecraft you must strafe the enemy asteroid City in an attempt to destroy fuel tanks gun and placements missiles and enemy aircraft and with the aid of an ultimeter you must Barnstorm your way through narrow wall openings lethal electronic barriers and deadly rocket fire a successful attack run across asteroid City leads you to a deep space dog fight with squadrons of enemy planes exciting stuff this it really is f and surviving the Perils of outer space brings you to another Aster City and I Showdown with the Insidious robot zon successfully destroying the evil Zs and the ows further play but with increased difficulty the game continues until all of your ships have been crashed or been lost to the enemy fire now what really made zon unique for it time was his isometric perspective using a technique called axonometric projection sega's designers were able to render the game in a pseudo three-dimensional third person perspective and what this meant is that the players could experience spaceship dog fight in four simulated directions side to side movement alongside their altitude Saxon allowed players an unparalleled sensation of three-dimensional gamep play now not only were the players challenged by the constant forward movement employed by earlier games like scramble but they had to contend with managing both the side to side movement and height of their ship to dodge obstacles including projectiles shot from attacking enemy ships and stationary turrets zon used several visual cues to help players maneuver their ship a more subtle and technologically Innovative however was the shadow cast by the player controled spaceship which grew or shrank based on its height altogether this made zon an exhilarating albeit challenging arcade gaming experience when zon was released in the arcades it came in three main cabinet types A standof right model a smaller cabinet model and a seated cocktail cabinet today the stand standard cabinet variation is among the most common and popular this cabinet features a relatively typical Sega styling of the time with Saxon side panel artwork the most defining feature of this version is a large metal flight control stick with an included trigger and a red light at top of that shines as the player fires the hardware featured a custombuilt Sega zon board this board would go on to power two other Sega titles super zaxon and Congo Bongo while Sega was responsible for the design of the game the cabinets were built by Gremlin a San Diego based video game manufacturer acquired by Sega in 1978 now interestingly Saxon was also the first arcade game to be advertised on television with a major TV commercial produced by Paramount Pictures part of Gulf plus Western the owner of Sega at the time the cost was between $500,000 and $1 million the commercial was aired on major networks and large cities across the United States the advert was in part produced by mathematical applications group the special effects company behind the movie Tron I like that movie the commercial was considered a massive success for its time Sega and parment attributed to almost doubling the sales even other arcade game developers admitted it helped draw waves of new Gamers to the arcades to play zon and games like it the game was a critical and Commercial Success upon releas becoming one of the top five highest grossing arcade games of 1982 in the United States zson would go on to receive ports to a number of G systems after its arcade release and many of these ports would themselves receive critical praise and go into top sales for their respective systems so let's sit back and enjoy looking at these ports on your vision atars in television video game system Saxon it'll blow you away Arthur [Music] a a a he oh he a [Music] for I [Music] the a [Applause] [Music] a he [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Music] [Music] d d [Music] he a well there you go that was all the ports of Zakon there were some good ports here and some perhaps not quite so good you would have noticed that that Itali 2600 and in television ports use a third person behind the ship perspective instead of the isometric Graphics of the other version I'm not really sure if that works for me I mean zon's all about that isometric perspective however there is one game it is a right stinker and I haven't shown it and I'm just going to show it now and it's the oric version of zon wow check it out absolute piss the game is slow simple Graphics poor sound it's definitely the worst port for me shame really cuz I am an aric fan it was my first computer and I have a little collection of a games and I have to say I'm proud of that but this game is a stinker anyway apart from that I have to say that many of these jaon ports were a commercial success the K Vision version was one of them zon was kolo's best selling non-bundled cartridge for the KOLO Vision up until 1983 it's got better graphic definition just like arcade games more ing screens more to challenge any game Wizard CBS kico Vision you can't beat the system the home computer ports were also commercially successful in North America and Europe Saxon received a Gold Award from the software Publishers Association in December 1987 for software sells above 100,000 units wow quite impressive also us Gold's home computer version of zon was ranked number two on the UK software sales chart in early 1985 and two computin listed zon fourth on its list of top Apple 2 games as of late 1985 based on sales and Market shared data so there you go Saxon was a musthave game except for that oric that's a turd of a game okay so what's next well Saxon would goone to inspire future isometric video games from others in the shoot them up Jer to the role playing and action games Beyond its Legacy of technical Innovation zaxon would spawn a number of sequels including the immediate followup super Saxon in this same year to later entries in the series like 1995 Sega 32x game mother base and 2012's IOS and Android release zon Escape also the original ta itself has seen a re-release as part of the Sega Genesis collection as well as ports to the Wii Virtual Console so let's have a look at these games starting with the super zaxon and the associated ports wow so many [Music] games so Saxon was followed by an arcade sequel in November 1982 Super zaxon now it has a different color scheme the player ship flies faster making the game more difficult and the space sement is replaced with a tunnel and the Enemy at the end of the second Fortress is a dragon although it did not do as well as original it's still a pretty good game let's have a look and then we'll look at a further five ports a [Music] [Laughter] h a a [Applause] [Music] [Music] f [Music] okay now we're on to zon's mother base 2000 which was released for the Sega 32x in 1995 it is the first Aon game to incorporate polyg on Graphics the game bore the zson brand only in the United States as the Japanese version was named Paris Squad and the European version was named mother base gaming critics generally remarked that the game was not similar enough to zon to justify the use of the brand well let's judge up by ourselves let's have a look at the game [Music] [Music] go [Music] ladies and gentlemen [Music] get [Music] go oh show [Music] ready [Music] a [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] ha a [Music] [Music] well there you go does this game have the zon feel well yes and on some levels it does have that zon look and for me I think the game is a good game I liked it right this is zon Escape which was released on October the 4th 2012 for IOS and Android devices similar to the Zakon motherbase game this game was also criticized for having little resemblance to the original so let's have a look at the game he well there you go that game's absolute rubbish so let's just move on nearly there folks my God so many Zach and games now we're on to the re-releases starting with Sega Genesis collection then we will look on to the Sonic's ultimate Genesis collection which is also known as the Mega Drive ultimate collection in the UK and then we will finally look at the Wii Virtual Console Port so let's watch that [Music] [Applause] s sh I liked making this video okay while zon may be relegated to the status of a cultural and historical footnote for many current Gamers its Innovation and its success are undeniable no question zon was one of sega's early arcade successes and helped to PVE a pathway for its future hits for me in many ways zson is an unsung hero of the arcade Golden Age it was a daring Pioneer breaking ground in design technology and marketing for the arcade and video gaming industry that receives less credit than it deserves so that was my video covering the history of Zon I hope you enjoyed en this video and if you did then please give a like or leave a comment however as always it's really appreciated if you would subscribe to my channel go on subscribe to my channel anyway until my next episode see you all very soon bye-bye Christ the or gameer

Channel: RetroGamerDiaries

Views: 775

Keywords: Sega, Sega Arcade, Retro Gaming, Sega Classic, Zaxxon, ZX Spectrum Zaxxon, Commodore Zaxxon, Wii Zaxxon, Dragon 32 Zaxxon, Apple II Zaxxon, MS-Dos Zaxxon, MSX Zaxxon, Atari Zaxxon, ColecoVision Zaxxon, Intellivision Zaxxon, Master System Zaxxon, 32x Zaxxon, Sega Classic Zaxxon, Arcade Classic, RetroGamerDiaries

Id: IFD7pI-JbX0

Length: 34min 27sec (2067 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 13 2024