Video Games 1989

Video Games 1989: Several new titles such as Phantasy Star II, Golden Axe and Bonk’s Adventure, and Super Mario Land were released.

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Game of the Year 1989

Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards is won by Operation Wolf (8-bit) and Speedball (16-bit).

Arcade Games 1989

Atari Games releases the Hard Drivin’ arcade game, with filled polygon 3D graphics, physics simulation, and a force-feedback steering wheel. Sega releases Golden Axe, the first game in the Golden Axe series. Also, Atari Games releases S.T.U.N. Runner in arcades, a 3D polygonal vehicle combat/racing game.

Console Games 1989

Sega releases Phantasy Star II, a landmark title for the role-playing video game genre. Nintendo releases Super Mario Land on the Game Boy. It was the first to introduce Princess Daisy to the Mario series. Konami releases Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for NES, one of the first video games based on the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series. It was released after the show’s second season. Bullfrog releases Populous, one of the first commercially successful god games.

Lucasfilm Games releases puzzle game Pipe Mania, which lives on in other titles as a visual representation of computer or security system hacking. In Japan, Nintendo releases Mother, the first of a trilogy of role-playing games produced by celebrity writer Shigesato Itoi. Nintendo of America introduces Enix’s Dragon Warrior franchise to North America. In addition, Nintendo releases the Zelda Game & Watch.

Capcom releases DuckTales for NES based on the Disney animated TV series of the same name. Brøderbund releases Prince of Persia for the declining Apple II, having been in development since 1985. However, ports to other systems turn the game into a hit. Maxis releases Will Wright’s Sim City, the first of the “Sim” games and a revolutionary real-time software toy.

Other Console Games of 1989

Hudson Soft releases Bonk’s Adventure, introducing the TurboGrafx-16 mascot and starting the Bonk franchise. Techno Soft releases Herzog Zwei for the Mega Drive in Japan. Herzog Zwei is important for laying the foundations for the real-time strategy genre. Konami releases Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse. It was the third and final game from series for NES. Wes Cherry writes Solitaire and Robert Donner writes Minesweeper, which are bundled with Microsoft Windows starting from version 3.

Psygnosis releases difficult platformer Shadow of the Beast, demonstrating the capabilities of the Amiga and helping sales of the computer. Sega releases Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap.

Hardware 1989

NEC’s PC-Engine released in North America as the TurboGrafx-16. Atari Corporation releases the Lynx handheld console with color and backlighting. Sega Mega Drive released in North America as the Sega Genesis. Nintendo releases the Game Boy handheld console. Mattel releases the Power Glove controller for the NES home console.

How PC-Engine / Turbografx 16 was born?

Hudson Soft wanted more graphical power to it’s games but Nintendo wasn’t interested. Hudson went to NEC and PC-Engine (JP) / TurboGrafx16 (US) was born. It was extremely successful in Japan where it immediately outsold Famicom but sucked outside of Japan due to horrible marketing strategy. Lots of good games were never released outside of Japan.

Gaming Innovations of 1989

First game to use entirely digitized graphics was released – Exterminator. Same technology was later used for example in Mortal Kombat series.

Composed by: Retroconsole xyz