Gaming
Games
7 Classic Games From India's Cyber-Cafe Era
From Road Rash to WWE Smackdown, here are seven games that changed our lives.
Video games in India do not draw huge audiences like the United States and Europe do, but the Indian market is bigger now than it was 20 years ago. More people enjoy mobile games than before with India emerging as one of the strongest growing markets for mobile gaming. Free-to-play games like Dota 2 have turned millions of gamers into MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) addicts that play for thousands of hours. However, there was a time when video games were a lot simpler, but harder to find. Your local cyber cafe or game parlour wasn't always guaranteed to have your favourite games. But when you could find these games, they helped shape game playing habits for years to come. Let's take a look at seven classic games that defined India's cyber-cafe era and why they were so great for the average Indian gamer.
Road Rash
Road Rash
© Electronic Arts
This is where it all began. Released in 1996 for the PC, Road Rash had an incredibly easy concept to grasp. You took part in illegal street-racing on superbikes, trying to topple the competitor and ultimately emerging the winner (or placing third, whichever was easier to pull off). Road Rash added an extra wrinkle to the mix – it allowed players to brawl with other bikers, first, with clubs and then a variety of other weapons such as crowbars and chains.
Knocking other racers off their bikes gave players a significant advantage because they'd become fodder for the police. However, the police could also end your hot streak if you fell behind. Forget about upgrades, money, repairs and physics. Road Rash was unlike anything we had ever seen up to that point. The best part? It had very low system requirements and ran without a hitch on most PCs.
Quake
Quake 3
© id Software, GT Interactive
Wolfenstein and Doom quenched our thirst for first person shooting but it was id Software's Quake that really put us in that competitive shooting mood. The game introduced the concept of multiplayer in shooters which was received wholeheartedly. Did you want to duel someone and see who's better with just the rocket launcher? Have at it. You could also play with friends and organize into clans, tackling objective game modes like Capture the Flag for the first time.
However, it was Quake's movement options that set it apart from the pack. Rocket Jumping was the biggest innovation, allowing you to reach abnormally high places by shooting a rocket at your feet and jumping at the same time. Strafe jumping and bunny hopping became go-to techniques that are still seen in competitive shooters to this day.
With its suite of multiplayer options, emphasis on skill and movement mechanics, Quake quickly became a hit. In time, it would also become one of the first games to truly excel as an eSport as the multiplayer FPS scene in North America was born. It would also be a competitive shot-in-the-arm for many Indian gamers, whether they huddled together in LAN games at IIT or scrimmed online at their local cafe.
Unreal Tournament
Unreal Tournament
© Epic Games
Eventually, the king had to be toppled and by 1999, Epic Games' Unreal Tournament had established its dominance. While its rival Quake 3 innovated in terms of movement, Unreal Tournament fought back with weapon variety, strong map design, bot intelligence and game modes. Who could forget playing Assault for the first time, especially when attacking an underwater facility and rigging it to blow?
The addition of Mutators further added to the variety, triggering effects like regeneration or explosions on one's death. Quake still had its stranglehold on the competitive shooting scene in India but Unreal Tournament quickly made in-roads, emerging as a more fully-featured game with fewer hang-ups. Of course, both games paled in comparison to a little-known mod that was making headway at the time...
Counter-Strike
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
© Valve Corporation
In 1999, Minh “Gooseman” Le and Jesse Cliffe released a mod that would change the face of competitive gaming forever. Dubbed Counter-Strike, it transformed the multiplayer in Valve's Half-Life into something more...tactical. There were two teams, Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists. Each team got some money to buy weapons, equipment, grenades and armour before the match started. Once the clock began ticking, it was either eliminating all members of the enemy team or planting/defusing a bomb.
Due to the realistic behaviour of weapons and damage (headshots were one-hit kills), you had to play carefully and communicate with your squad. Counter-Strike exploded in popularity – clans began emerging all over India, rudimentary tournaments were organized and the cyber-cafe culture pretty much became the Counter-Strike culture. Since being acquired by Valve, Counter-Strike's influence has grown significantly in India. Dedicated eSports coverage and high-profile teams have emerged over the years, cementing India as an eSports force to watch.
FIFA
The journey continues
© Electronic Arts
Pop-quiz question: What is the one game that always topped the sales charts in India? What is the one franchise that never fails to garner attention from your average Indian gamer? If you answered EA Sports' FIFA, then you get a cookie. Much like Road Rash, FIFA had humble beginnings in India. It was played mostly in cyber-cafes and featured modest visuals that didn't tax the hardware. FIFA's popularity ran pretty much parallel to the enthusiasm for real-life football and it didn't hurt that each new iteration innovated with its features and game modes.
The updatd rosters and associations helped FIFA remain the most authentic simulation of football in the world. FIFA 17 boasts cutting-edge visuals, a story campaign and extensive online multiplayer. At the end of the day if you just want to prove to your friend that your club is better, there is no better game than FIFA to settle that score!
Tekken
Tekken 3
© Bandai Namco Entertainment
The cyber-cafe era made one thing immediately apparent – people would pay to play games, almost as much as they'd pay for Internet surfing. So why not have a parlour dedicated completely to playing games? Certain places even acquired PlayStation 1 consoles to further entice players with games not available on PC.
Here's the thing though: Certain games work better within the 1-hour time limit than others do, especially if you want to play with friends. This is why arcade-style fighting games rose in popularity, led by Namco's Tekken. Tekken 3 dominated thanks to its wide range of characters, awesome music and cutting-edge graphics (for the time). It was fast and brutal but still incredibly well-balanced. Tekken still has a strong cult following in India thanks to its establishment in the early 2000s.
WWE Smackdown
WWE Smackdown
© THQ
Indians like football, cricket and Road Rash but do you know what else they're crazy about? WWE. Not just wrestling per say but World Wrestling Entertainment (or WWF as it was known in the day). To that end, along with Tekken, WWF Smackdown! 2: Know Your Role drove business up for video game parlours.
Along with a revamped career mode, up to four players could battle in a variety of different modes, usually involving ladders, tables and chairs. This was the first time that we had access to an extremely good mainstream 3D wrestling game. To this day, WWE games still enjoy a ton of popularity in India with tournaments for cash prizes and high-profile launches throughout the nation (some even bringing actual Superstars to India for the releases). Thank your local parlour for introducing you to it in the first place.
To conclude, we know that games change and become more complicated. Many of the games on this list have given way to newer and better iterations. But, nothing will ever replace the joy we felt when sitting down with these games for the first time. They may not have had the best graphics and there probably wasn't much choice. Nevertheless, these games were our childhood, our teenage years and so much more through the years that followed.
