The Brad Hole

Your just King of your Castle. A regular ole Lord of the Manor.

Karateka. One of the first games that really grabbed me. It took me forever to beat that game. I'd always get killed on the freakin' bird at the end. Incredible game at the time. I actually played through this again about a month ago on an emulator. Beat it my first run through.

Ah...the good old days. When we were blown away by a bunch of blocks put together to resemble a person. We've come a long way haven't we? Now people bitch that there's no reflection/transparency on some insignificant visor that has nothing to do with gameplay.

Prince of Persia 1... I remember I had remodeled all the levels for that game once using some fairly brokenesque editor. Loads of fun.

Karateka brings back memories, my god. Makes me remember International Karate Championship! Nemesis the Warlock! ... Thing Bounces Back? anyone?! And no one can forget the Adventure Construction Set by EA =)

Good games, all yem.

"When we were blown away by a bunch of blocks put together to resemble a person. We've come a long way haven't we? Now people bitch that there's no reflection/transparency on some insignificant visor that has nothing to do with gameplay."

You've really hit upon something here. I wonder if this sort of reaction doesn't subconsciously skew the thinking of developers away from gameplay. "If they're gonna bitch about visuals, we'd better make sure it looks great - screw gameplay!"

I think it's not just that players complain about visuals, it's that publishers and marketers like to deal with known quantities. Tell the publisher you need an extra $X to add in bump mapping and they love it; marketers can put it on the box, and you aren't likely to fail. The development cost is easily quantified. Innovative or even just well-balanced gameplay can be time-consuming to develop, may require trial-and-error and is far less marketable. Hence the enjoyable but cookie-cutter games we see.

For that matter, many game developers themselves would prefer to work on snazzy graphics; it's fun, show-offy, and safe. What's not to like? Compare that to the effort to develop a good AI, which is less appreciated and success is less predictable. Gameplay is even worse off than that.

Brad: I didn't realize you never really got to playing all the games you port.. you are still on my list of heroes for doing the SMAC/X-Carbon port :)

Whoa! (sorry about that)
The only one I recall finishing was Impossible Mission on the C64 (ah, that gymnasts' leisurely steps... RUN, dammit!).
What's the end of Centipede like?

As for the graphics factor: just days ago I was at a fasmily gathering, comparing with my sister about our nephews' current game addiction. "When we played 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' on the 2600, we could swear we saw the fedora, the whip, the creases on his dusty white suit, all on that clump of pixels..." she said.
Of course, our nephews just looked at us like we were crazy.

At the end of Centipede, you fight the "Queen". When you beat her, there's a goofy movie where the "wee people" tell Wally how great he is. They drop a hint about a "millipede" returning every 1000 years as a segue into a possible sequel. Shame they never got to it.