*In regards to Zero Divide:* I have come to the conclusion that it was likely not a PS1 launch game. I had made a mistake and left a game that was definitely a launch title out of the PS2 video that I put out before this, and didn’t want to take any chances with this one. Some sources list Twisted Metal and Zero Divide as launch games, and while I’m positive Twisted Metal wasn’t, I couldn’t verify the latter, so I put it in (I also thought it’d be a better way to close things out than Total Eclipse.) Still, in my videos since then I’ve put disclaimers about games like that. I hope this clears things up, and I’m sorry for the inaccuracy.
Sony doesn't want to admit it, but Piracy was the main reason that made the Playstation famous. You could see Pirated PS Games everywhere back in the day, while you could rarely see Sega Saturn being pirated. :)
In Europe we also got Wipeout, what a game and the soundtrack summed up the 90s and vibe of the PS1 very well, at least in Europe it was associated with rave culture
The Wipeout games are amazing, and yeah, the soundtracks are pretty great. I recently played Wipeout Pure for a similar video covering the PSP’s launch, which led me to getting pretty into The Omega Collection for a while.
The PAL region was affected by the slow down so still not ideal. However, the PAL cases of PS1 games do look really nice. I wonder why it was exclusive to a region.
@@PhilipMarcYT Idk aswell, but it was not a good choice in the long rung since PS1 cases break very easily and it's hard to find replacements. ROTW would just need a random CD jewel case.
@@PhilipMarcYT That wasn't always the case. Games built with the PAL mode in mind (like Wipeout) and later PS1 games had for the most part figured out how to optimize games running at 50Hz. The dark ages of PAL games were in the SNES era for sure where all they would do is literally slow down the music and movement. The PS1 PAL games just had less frames as games would instead skip frames rather than slowing down the entire experience. In PAL territories, the 50Hz was already standard much before video games existed and companies didn't want to retool things to appeal to the US standards because they really had no reason to do so, at least until the HDTV revolution showed up (PS3/360) we then quickly adapted to the 60Hz standard. Though to this day, almost all modern HDTVs in Europe still support 50Hz for legacy content and half of the broadcasting TV channels still use 576p.
I'm so glad i got to live through Nintendo, Genesis, to SNES, to 3d gaming.. I was like 13 when playstation 1 came out, I had battle arena toshinden, and twisted metal, destruction Derby.. jet moto, formula 1 96.. man those were the freaking days.. then with n64 and Goldeneye, with the rumble pack!
You had to be there to appreciate console 3d graphics. CRT tvs would mask a lot of the faults we can see on modern screens and for the time this was mind blowing
Thanks for taking me down memory lane! We had most of these launch titles in 1996, and Battle Arena Toshinden was very fun and I logged many hours on that game, and the red bar supers were awesome, which was new since SF Alpha wasn't out yet. Extreme sports was hella fun!! It's pretty easy to get first place, the hard part was doing it with all sports types. Power server tennis blew, lol, but we could not deny the hilarity of the Agassi and Sampras knockoffs, just hearing the names made us laugh. OMG, Ridge Racer taught me how to drive!!! I got a madcats steering wheel and logged too many hours on this game. Beating the black phantom car and unlocking it was so much fun!! We made so much fun of Kileak, we never actually played it, it was horrible. When Doom came out, Kileak was a distant memory. Zero Divide was fun, but we had Street Fighter Alpha by that time, so we never played ZD. NBA Jam was fun, but we logged many hours of that game on the 16-bit consoles. I really thought War Hawk was a launch game, guess it came out later. Now that was fun, more fun than Ace Combat imo. Rayman was hella fun, but really hard. We had Lemmings too, so we played that a ton over Rayman. We didn't play Raiden much, and we never had Total Ecplise Turbo, or maybe it was the other way around 😂. Nonetheless, amazing part of many childhoods, and I'm just glad I got to experience the birth of true 3D gaming. These kids don't know how good they have it! 🤣
I had never heard of Zero Divide but man does it look awesome. I'm also very surprised to learn that Tekken wasn't a launch game (though it's within the launch window so...). Great and fair coverage of each of these games!
@@operator8014 -- The prototype, the Lockheed YF-22 first flight was 29 September 1990, so yes it makes sense. The YF-22 was developed into the F22. There had been other stealth aircraft before it, the F-117 Nighthawk and the B-2 Spirit.
Hey, thanks for making this channel. Its surprisignly difiicult to find genuine channels that really talk about gaming history even if its just a few titles or during a niche generation in gaming, keep uploading thanks
Battle Arena Toshinden was my 1st 3D fighter (then Tekken) when I got my PS1, and I was thinking about this a few weeks ago - not remembering the name. Thank you. Total nostalgia trip. I lost friends with ESPN Extreme Games. And Ridge Racer was my first racer. (Also, the T-Rex Demo was great as a kid who love Jurassic Park)
I hope you got to play The Lost World Jurassic park on Psone where you were the T-rex in select levels, along with a raptor, various humans and a Compsognathus in equally convincing digital form.
This is high quality content this is impressive how you did this video. I must say I didn't expect these titles to be ps1 launch titles I always thought it was games like driver or tekken and other big hitters I love this nostalgia
ESPN Extreme Games 1 was a game I played more than any others when the PSX first came out. My friend and I played it constantly, and it had replay value where harder difficulties put more obstacles on the tracks. They did the same with 2Xtreme where harder difficulties made the game way better. Games rarely do that now, they just up the health values of enemies. My friends and I got so good at 1xtreme and could get first place every time we played. It’s still a fun game for its time. Tekken was another big launch game I remember playing right around release. Also ngl I think the 2D graphics hold up way better than the 3D graphics of the PS1’s day. But people really wanted those 3d graphics for some reason.. I always found Ridge Racer to be a boring racing game with its one track and no car damage models. So I think that’s why I enjoyed extreme games way more. You could do that music disc swapping trick with most early ps1 games, it was kind of a feature of the console back then, used to do it in Tekken all the time. Eventually games just needed to load all the time though so people forgot about it and stopped using it. I did own Total Eclipse too, I got it as a gift one year.. I felt so bad because it was one of the worst PS1 games i had ever played. Apparently the ps1 version was super sped up so it was nearly impossible to play well Bloody Roar was my favorite fighting game on PS1, it was sooo much fun
That game was excellent. I loved how all 4 of the things felt different to use. I always felt the luge was the best for experienced players because it was the fastest but you couldn’t hit much without crashing.
Idk why, but I always thought Jumping Flash was a launch game for the ps1, I totally remember that game around the time ps1 came out. Great video 👍 I remember how "real" these games looked at the time 🤣
It was on the demo disc included with the system. That’s one that I recall quite a bit. My uncle picked one up at launch and got Battle Arena Toshinden. But I remember playing the Jumping Flash demo quite a bit when he’d let me play on his system. Lol
Hey man, great channel. I remember playing the espn game non-stop with my sister, thinking "why the hell is this game so impossible" keep the channel growing!!!! With gratuity from Indiana
I have not heard that song from the Demo CD for the video intro in soooooo long. Thank you for the instant waves of nostalgia back to childhood. I remember messing with the T-Rex demo where you could make him roar, walk, etc.
Good memories, for sure. Ridge Racer was the best. "Whew! That was a great counter! you must be one genius of a driver! You gotta teach me!" Freakin' loved the enthusiastic announcer and the music... Even that crazy Gabber "Rotterdam Nation" BGM. _Especially_ that.
Just discovered your channel, really enjoyable video, very nicely presented 👌🏼 I had a PS1 not long after launch with Ridge Racer and Tekken. It was such an exciting time for video games with a clear vision of what the future held for us... and the future was PlayStation. Thanks for sharing, great memories 😃
I dig this video, thanks for sharing. I still have my copy of Battle Arena Toshinden and you are SPOT ON with your info on it lol. I do wanna go back and play Ridge Racer now, Ive never played it. Also, Zero Divide looks really cool.
Wow! I jumped from the Genesis to the PS1 right at launch and had some of these games. I loved Toshinden; Ellis was my jam - her desperation move/ultimate/whatever flurry was amazing to land. I thought Kileak was pretty good, but it got really difficult really fast if I remember right, plus I had not yet tried first person shooters at the time... later PS1 weirdo-shooter Jumping Flash was WAY more fun.
Thanks to everyone who's been watching my videos! I'm gonna try and hopefully get these out a bit more frequently. I have one more Launch Games episode in the works (this time on a non-Sony system) that I plan to get out sometime in April, and then hopefully finish and get out the '97 episode of PlayStation Top 7 in May. *Update: the next Launch Games episode is coming along pretty smoothly and I should be finished with it before the end of the April. As I mentioned before, it won’t be on a Sony system. I’d love to hear any guesses on what it will cover.
No love for Total Eclipse's phenomenal soundtrack? This oversight is criminal! Great video, nonetheless. Thanks for all the hard work you put into this.
You’re right, that game does have an awesome soundtrack. So many of the games here had good soundtracks that I actually had to consciously avoid mentioning it a few times to not be too repetitive.
I bought my Playstation less than a year after launch yet NBA Jam T.E. is the only launch title I ever owned. I think that's a strong statement about how quickly the library expanded and improved. Compare that to PS3 and beyond when the first year offered very little to get excited about.
One of the first game that my dad bought for us is Raiden for PS1. Game so much fun that every time I come home from school, I would glue myself to play that game
The part when you mention the Tips and Tricks magazine got me to remember all the time I spent writing down codes for Mortal Kombat. I think that magazine was wrapped in plastic but there would always be one open for me to lift the codes.
By the time I got into the magazine in the late 90s they didn’t have plastic wrap. I remember always looking through them at the store while my mom was shopping. I’m not sure if they had it before that, though.
Not 100% on this, but I don't think Zero Divide and Air Combat were available on launch day. I think Air Combat was released later in September and Zero Divide in December. Thoroughly enjoyed this video though.
There are a lot of cases in these older launches where different websites have different lists since it wasn’t quite as well documented. I know both of those don’t show up in some lists, but they also show up in a lot of others. In my later launch games videos I started putting disclaimers about titles like that. Edit: Didn’t notice your last part until later. Thanks!
I loved that you could insert a music cd while playing Ridge Racer. I swear that listening to The Verve’s Bitter Sweet Symphony knocked seconds off my lap time.
The Raiden Project is one of the best games overall on PSX. And one of the best SHMUPs ever made, in my opinion atleast. And it has really good music too.
Had the re-released 1Xtreme myself. My younger brother and I had a lot of fun with it despite almost never coming in a respectable place in races. That game really was brutal. 😂
Still playing Air Combat today. Me and my dad played the shit out of it in the 90s. We are still playing it who can finish it faster on each difficulty 😅
I played a ton of the following as a kid who had an early PS1: Battle Arena Toshinden Tekken 2Xtreme Ridge Racer Jumping Flash Destruction Derby and of course Crash Bandicoot
I love how on air combat it says “ bingo! “ For a kill , when bingo means you better turn that plane towards your home strip to land or you will run out of fuel
This was so early in 3D polygons that developers were still experimenting with things we take for granted today. Stuff like how the camera should behave, or how the controls should work relative to the display. Hence the bizarre cameras in the tennis game. They also knew nothing of the hardware's reach. Comparing late stage cycle PS1 games to these launch titles is amazing. It's nearly a generation by itself. The best comparison ever was the Ridge Racer bonus disc that came with Ridge Racer Type 4 late in 1998, four years after the original game shown here. It was the same game, albeit with fewer cars on circuit. However it ran at way higher resolution and double the framerate. It was amazing how much more performance they extracted from the same hardware when familiar with it.
I absolutely loved Total Eclipse: Turbo as a kid. I could never get very far, but I can remember being scared of the squid guy who’d laugh at you when you got a game over. Went back and played it on an emulator later, don’t understand why I liked it so much 😂
I think we all have games like that. I thought Star Wars: Episode I and Mission: Impossible were awesome games when I was a kid. They are definitely not good.
Oh man I traded my Pocket Pikachu to a friend for Battle Arena Toshinden in ‘99, but had no idea it was a launch title. I freakin loved that game, despite its clunkiness. I still have it too!
Neat video! I remember playing almost all of these, as my granny got me a PSX right at release in the UK (Early enough that it ended up dying because of the plastic rail housing issue). I have to say ESPN is not what I could call 'good' but I played it on a whim a few months aback and still had fun? It's just a pretty chill time speeding along kicking people off their luges. If it had more content and a better season or competition mode or something it'd actually bump it up enough that I could recommend it.
I had an early PS1 that died as well. I wonder if it was the same issue. Extreme Games definitely has its issues, but it’s also pretty cool for its time. I seem to remember it being the most popular series to feature skateboarding for PS1 before Tony Hawk came around.
just checked the view and subscriber count and??? Your quality is so high for being a relatively small account. You literally deserve so much more, great video and you earned another subscriber :)
Battle arena toshinden was one my first 2 games I bought back then. Quickly I adjusted to run n button mash for a good combos n dodging attacks. Loved those days learning how master games.
Damn I had the Windows version of Zero Divide, I completely forgot I played that game until seeing this. That wasn't the nostalgia hit I was expecting from a PS1 video.
What a great video. Thank you so much. You're talking about ace combat such an underrated game even now, and I like it what you said at the start( a lineup of game for EVERYONE), not like now hardly any game like ace combat or R.T.S game or helicopter games there was a good bunch of games both from ps1 and ps2 like I said not now on the newest console. Oh ace combat and a very small of other games like grand turismo are the only surviving game titles still going strong today ace combat has make 17 games 18 is on it way 2025 not even games like dead space didn't pass 4 and I loved that game.
If i remember correctly, I thought that mirrored, reversed tracks, and a combo of the two, were unlockable in Ridge Racer? This was the game that I bought at launch, and played it to death. Was a long time ago now though, so perhaps my memory deceives me!
Yeah, the mirrored and reversed tracks are what I was referring to when said the track has slight variations. It definitely would’ve been an awesome first game to get!
I'm one of the rare people that liked the Street Fighter Movie game. I haven't played it since those days but something about the timing and mechanics was appealing.
Ridge Racer had one track but, if my memory serves me, the track can be played normal, reversed, and mirrored. I think that was how they claimed it had 3 tracks. I could be wrong but I remember something to that effect.
I think the PS1 is the only system that blew me away when I first played it. The jump from SNES was massive. You knew it was something special. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved every PlayStation since and I’m always impressed with the leaps in technology but that initial leap in the mid-90s was the biggest.
Raiden Project is still notable for being one of the better versions you can get of Raiden & Raiden II without an actual arcade board. Before this version of the game, there were fun ports on several platforms, but this version is significantly more accurate to the original arcade version. While it didn't show off the 3D capabilities of the Playstation, the 2D sprites are beautifully detailed and it also has a very memorable synth rock soundtrack. Many arcade fans of the 90s will instantly recognize several of the level themes. In my opinion, it is still recommendable and worth playing today if you are a fan of shmups. It's a classic game and an archetypal example of what shmups were like before the genre transitioned to higher shot counts and "bullet hell" shooters became the most popular style of the genre a few years later.
*In regards to Zero Divide:*
I have come to the conclusion that it was likely not a PS1 launch game. I had made a mistake and left a game that was definitely a launch title out of the PS2 video that I put out before this, and didn’t want to take any chances with this one. Some sources list Twisted Metal and Zero Divide as launch games, and while I’m positive Twisted Metal wasn’t, I couldn’t verify the latter, so I put it in (I also thought it’d be a better way to close things out than Total Eclipse.) Still, in my videos since then I’ve put disclaimers about games like that. I hope this clears things up, and I’m sorry for the inaccuracy.
Sony doesn't want to admit it, but Piracy was the main reason that made the Playstation famous. You could see Pirated PS Games everywhere back in the day, while you could rarely see Sega Saturn being pirated. :)
Didn't know pirated game existed for ps1
In Europe we also got Wipeout, what a game and the soundtrack summed up the 90s and vibe of the PS1 very well, at least in Europe it was associated with rave culture
The Wipeout games are amazing, and yeah, the soundtracks are pretty great. I recently played Wipeout Pure for a similar video covering the PSP’s launch, which led me to getting pretty into The Omega Collection for a while.
The PAL region was affected by the slow down so still not ideal.
However, the PAL cases of PS1 games do look really nice. I wonder why it was exclusive to a region.
@@PhilipMarcYT Idk aswell, but it was not a good choice in the long rung since PS1 cases break very easily and it's hard to find replacements. ROTW would just need a random CD jewel case.
You could play the game disc like a regular music CD. Was mind blowing back in the 90s
@@PhilipMarcYT That wasn't always the case. Games built with the PAL mode in mind (like Wipeout) and later PS1 games had for the most part figured out how to optimize games running at 50Hz. The dark ages of PAL games were in the SNES era for sure where all they would do is literally slow down the music and movement. The PS1 PAL games just had less frames as games would instead skip frames rather than slowing down the entire experience.
In PAL territories, the 50Hz was already standard much before video games existed and companies didn't want to retool things to appeal to the US standards because they really had no reason to do so, at least until the HDTV revolution showed up (PS3/360) we then quickly adapted to the 60Hz standard. Though to this day, almost all modern HDTVs in Europe still support 50Hz for legacy content and half of the broadcasting TV channels still use 576p.
I'm so glad i got to live through Nintendo, Genesis, to SNES, to 3d gaming.. I was like 13 when playstation 1 came out, I had battle arena toshinden, and twisted metal, destruction Derby.. jet moto, formula 1 96.. man those were the freaking days.. then with n64 and Goldeneye, with the rumble pack!
The announcer voice in destruction derby was epic
10/10 video. Can't stress enough how good this is for such a small channel. Get a patreon and make these monthy, unless you hate success!
Thank you so much! I just might go ahead and do that.
You had to be there to appreciate console 3d graphics. CRT tvs would mask a lot of the faults we can see on modern screens and for the time this was mind blowing
Yeah they weren't as pixelly as people show on youtube, like you said due to the CRT.
Thanks for taking me down memory lane! We had most of these launch titles in 1996, and Battle Arena Toshinden was very fun and I logged many hours on that game, and the red bar supers were awesome, which was new since SF Alpha wasn't out yet. Extreme sports was hella fun!! It's pretty easy to get first place, the hard part was doing it with all sports types. Power server tennis blew, lol, but we could not deny the hilarity of the Agassi and Sampras knockoffs, just hearing the names made us laugh. OMG, Ridge Racer taught me how to drive!!! I got a madcats steering wheel and logged too many hours on this game. Beating the black phantom car and unlocking it was so much fun!! We made so much fun of Kileak, we never actually played it, it was horrible. When Doom came out, Kileak was a distant memory. Zero Divide was fun, but we had Street Fighter Alpha by that time, so we never played ZD. NBA Jam was fun, but we logged many hours of that game on the 16-bit consoles. I really thought War Hawk was a launch game, guess it came out later. Now that was fun, more fun than Ace Combat imo. Rayman was hella fun, but really hard. We had Lemmings too, so we played that a ton over Rayman. We didn't play Raiden much, and we never had Total Ecplise Turbo, or maybe it was the other way around 😂. Nonetheless, amazing part of many childhoods, and I'm just glad I got to experience the birth of true 3D gaming. These kids don't know how good they have it! 🤣
I had never heard of Zero Divide but man does it look awesome. I'm also very surprised to learn that Tekken wasn't a launch game (though it's within the launch window so...). Great and fair coverage of each of these games!
I totally recommend giving Zero Divide a try if you can track down a copy (or emulate it. I won't tell.)
You know so much about games and their history. Really interesting stuff here. I want to play all of them.
thats insane to see an f-22 raptor in a game so old, really puts into perspective how far ahead of its time that plane was
Does that make sense? The first F22 test flight was in '97, and this game launched in '94? Was there a lot of publicity before that test flight?
@@operator8014 -- The prototype, the Lockheed YF-22 first flight was 29 September 1990, so yes it makes sense. The YF-22 was developed into the F22. There had been other stealth aircraft before it, the F-117 Nighthawk and the B-2 Spirit.
Hey, thanks for making this channel. Its surprisignly difiicult to find genuine channels that really talk about gaming history even if its just a few titles or during a niche generation in gaming, keep uploading thanks
Glad you liked it!
I love the funky fresh Longboxes but the standard jewel case is just so cute and efficient.
You could also unlock two special cars in RR by meeting certain conditions, can't remember what though.
I think those involve placing first at higher difficulties.
Man, I used to love Raiden and Extreme Games. Great video, lots of nice nostalgia!
Battle Arena Toshinden was my 1st 3D fighter (then Tekken) when I got my PS1, and I was thinking about this a few weeks ago - not remembering the name. Thank you. Total nostalgia trip. I lost friends with ESPN Extreme Games. And Ridge Racer was my first racer. (Also, the T-Rex Demo was great as a kid who love Jurassic Park)
It was jaw-droppingly gorgeous game and achieved it's peak in sequel.
Same,battle arena toshinden !
I hope you got to play The Lost World Jurassic park on Psone where you were the T-rex in select levels, along with a raptor, various humans and a Compsognathus in equally convincing digital form.
Rayman was quite a special game. Beautiful and imaginative.
Untested and brutally difficult also.
This is high quality content this is impressive how you did this video. I must say I didn't expect these titles to be ps1 launch titles I always thought it was games like driver or tekken and other big hitters I love this nostalgia
Thanks!
And Tekken came out pretty close to the launch, so it's understandable to think it was a launch game. I even thought that for a long time.
Rayman was absolutely epic. Kileak was ahead of its time.
ESPN Extreme Games 1 was a game I played more than any others when the PSX first came out. My friend and I played it constantly, and it had replay value where harder difficulties put more obstacles on the tracks.
They did the same with 2Xtreme where harder difficulties made the game way better.
Games rarely do that now, they just up the health values of enemies.
My friends and I got so good at 1xtreme and could get first place every time we played. It’s still a fun game for its time.
Tekken was another big launch game I remember playing right around release.
Also ngl I think the 2D graphics hold up way better than the 3D graphics of the PS1’s day. But people really wanted those 3d graphics for some reason..
I always found Ridge Racer to be a boring racing game with its one track and no car damage models. So I think that’s why I enjoyed extreme games way more.
You could do that music disc swapping trick with most early ps1 games, it was kind of a feature of the console back then, used to do it in Tekken all the time.
Eventually games just needed to load all the time though so people forgot about it and stopped using it.
I did own Total Eclipse too, I got it as a gift one year.. I felt so bad because it was one of the worst PS1 games i had ever played. Apparently the ps1 version was super sped up so it was nearly impossible to play well
Bloody Roar was my favorite fighting game on PS1, it was sooo much fun
That game was excellent. I loved how all 4 of the things felt different to use. I always felt the luge was the best for experienced players because it was the fastest but you couldn’t hit much without crashing.
Idk why, but I always thought Jumping Flash was a launch game for the ps1, I totally remember that game around the time ps1 came out. Great video 👍 I remember how "real" these games looked at the time 🤣
Same. That and Warhawk.
Jumping Flash and Warhawk are both ‘95 releases, but came a bit after the launch.
It was on the demo disc included with the system. That’s one that I recall quite a bit. My uncle picked one up at launch and got Battle Arena Toshinden. But I remember playing the Jumping Flash demo quite a bit when he’d let me play on his system. Lol
Such a great console. I have so many good memories of it. I couldn't believe my eyes how good it was.
these videos deserve way more attention, you clearly put a lot of effort into these man keep it up!
Thank you!
This was a damn good video and a nice trip down memory lane. Thank you.
Hey man, great channel. I remember playing the espn game non-stop with my sister, thinking "why the hell is this game so impossible" keep the channel growing!!!!
With gratuity from Indiana
been trying play ps1 games in chronological order even if for just a few hours, this video is just what I needed and entertaining!
I have a soft spot for Zero Divide. The soundtrack itself is phenomenal and the mini phalanx game is a great bonus.
I have not heard that song from the Demo CD for the video intro in soooooo long. Thank you for the instant waves of nostalgia back to childhood. I remember messing with the T-Rex demo where you could make him roar, walk, etc.
Good memories, for sure. Ridge Racer was the best.
"Whew! That was a great counter! you must be one genius of a driver! You gotta teach me!"
Freakin' loved the enthusiastic announcer and the music...
Even that crazy Gabber "Rotterdam Nation" BGM. _Especially_ that.
I find it interesting that the launch line up for the PS1 was completely different depending on which region you were in
Lot of variety and games in the launch
Apart from the tennis game they all same decent and would keep you happy and busy
Just discovered your channel, really enjoyable video, very nicely presented 👌🏼
I had a PS1 not long after launch with Ridge Racer and Tekken. It was such an exciting time for video games with a clear vision of what the future held for us... and the future was PlayStation. Thanks for sharing, great memories 😃
Glad you liked it!
Air Combat was brilliant!
It reminded me of the old school 2d shooters iso.
Like river raid
Pre-Tony Hawk gamer here...played a lot of 2Extreme. Kinda terrible in retrospect, but it's what we had before THPS blew up.
Good content, man.
Before Tony Hawk, I think my favorite skateboard game was Skate or Die on NES
It was on one of the demo discs. I found the sound effects of beating up the other competitors funny enough to keep playing. LOL
@@isntyournamebacon yeah I love the sound they’d make when they’d wipe out or run into stuff! it was fun and funny and very Xtreme
I use to love playing this with my brother
I really liked ESPN extreme games as a kid. It was hard, but satisfying to mess around in.
I dig this video, thanks for sharing. I still have my copy of Battle Arena Toshinden and you are SPOT ON with your info on it lol. I do wanna go back and play Ridge Racer now, Ive never played it. Also, Zero Divide looks really cool.
Glad you liked the video!
Zero Divide is definitely worth checking out.
Thanks for letting me know about Zero Divide, cool stuff
It’s definitely a cool game that’s worth giving a try.
Wow! I jumped from the Genesis to the PS1 right at launch and had some of these games. I loved Toshinden; Ellis was my jam - her desperation move/ultimate/whatever flurry was amazing to land. I thought Kileak was pretty good, but it got really difficult really fast if I remember right, plus I had not yet tried first person shooters at the time... later PS1 weirdo-shooter Jumping Flash was WAY more fun.
I agree about Jumping Flash. That’s an awesome game.
Zero Unit really looks impressive!!
nice visuals and many cool features
Thanks to everyone who's been watching my videos! I'm gonna try and hopefully get these out a bit more frequently. I have one more Launch Games episode in the works (this time on a non-Sony system) that I plan to get out sometime in April, and then hopefully finish and get out the '97 episode of PlayStation Top 7 in May.
*Update: the next Launch Games episode is coming along pretty smoothly and I should be finished with it before the end of the April. As I mentioned before, it won’t be on a Sony system. I’d love to hear any guesses on what it will cover.
No love for Total Eclipse's phenomenal soundtrack? This oversight is criminal! Great video, nonetheless. Thanks for all the hard work you put into this.
You’re right, that game does have an awesome soundtrack. So many of the games here had good soundtracks that I actually had to consciously avoid mentioning it a few times to not be too repetitive.
Hearing Ellis's theme during the toshinden segment sent me right back to 95 when I got my playstation.
The Battle Arena Toshinden soundtrack is just so good
I agree
Great video! I was lucky enough to get a PSX early on. I loved the original demo disc it came with. Great times! Subbed
Thanks for the sub!
I bought my Playstation less than a year after launch yet NBA Jam T.E. is the only launch title I ever owned. I think that's a strong statement about how quickly the library expanded and improved. Compare that to PS3 and beyond when the first year offered very little to get excited about.
One of the first game that my dad bought for us is Raiden for PS1. Game so much fun that every time I come home from school, I would glue myself to play that game
I still my OG playstation and most of these games... those are the only things that matter to me
Great list and good commentary. I really liked this video. I remember a number of these games being the first 3D & 32 bit gaming I ever played.
After watching this of course I had to go and read about the development of the PS1. Great video and a great history!
Thanks!
It’s definitely an interesting history to learn about.
The part when you mention the Tips and Tricks magazine got me to remember all the time I spent writing down codes for Mortal Kombat. I think that magazine was wrapped in plastic but there would always be one open for me to lift the codes.
By the time I got into the magazine in the late 90s they didn’t have plastic wrap. I remember always looking through them at the store while my mom was shopping. I’m not sure if they had it before that, though.
Ridge Racer was a BLAST!
Still one of my favorite racking games!
Not 100% on this, but I don't think Zero Divide and Air Combat were available on launch day. I think Air Combat was released later in September and Zero Divide in December. Thoroughly enjoyed this video though.
There are a lot of cases in these older launches where different websites have different lists since it wasn’t quite as well documented. I know both of those don’t show up in some lists, but they also show up in a lot of others. In my later launch games videos I started putting disclaimers about titles like that.
Edit: Didn’t notice your last part until later. Thanks!
RiiiiiiiIIIIIdge RACER!!!!! Lives rent free in my head for decades.
We had Battle Arena Toshinden and Destruction Derby when we got our PSX. So many hours on both for me and my brother.
I loved that you could insert a music cd while playing Ridge Racer. I swear that listening to The Verve’s Bitter Sweet Symphony knocked seconds off my lap time.
The Raiden Project is one of the best games overall on PSX. And one of the best SHMUPs ever made, in my opinion atleast. And it has really good music too.
Such a great video. 🎉🎉🎉
The Raiden Project is soooo similar to Striker Gunner for the SNES that I'm actually shocked it's not a sequel/remake.
I just looked it up. It does have a very similar look.
Great video!
Enjoyed from beginning to end!
ESPN Extreme Games is a great game ! And can be played with 2 players !
Only problem is that it's hard indeed...
I didn’t get a chance to play the 2-player mode, but I imagine it would’ve been fun.
Had the re-released 1Xtreme myself. My younger brother and I had a lot of fun with it despite almost never coming in a respectable place in races. That game really was brutal. 😂
Fantastic game.not sure how it would hold up today but we had so much fun with this. I guess the same could be said about a lot of ps1 games though
That was the game that was for play in the stores
@@chattingesque372 awesome, where were you living at the time
Played only Ridge Racer out of these, but I had many Games on the PS1 back then. Good Times.
If I recall correctly, Rayman was the best selling PS1 game of all time in Europe, which I find to be crazy
I still have Ridge Racer and Raiden Project to this day! 27+ years of owning these classics.
Still playing Air Combat today. Me and my dad played the shit out of it in the 90s. We are still playing it who can finish it faster on each difficulty 😅
I played Air Combat for the first time recently and it holds up well, my only complaint was that it was a bit short, I beat it in 4 hours.
I played a ton of the following as a kid who had an early PS1:
Battle Arena Toshinden
Tekken
2Xtreme
Ridge Racer
Jumping Flash
Destruction Derby
and of course
Crash Bandicoot
All good ones. Crash Bandicoot was the first game I ever owned (along with Jet Moto.)
Wow, and people thought the PS2's launch titles sucked. This makes the PS2's launch look like the Dreamcast.
Nice chilled video, subscribed!
Andy Legacy lol... that's Andre Agassi.. and the Sunrise guy is Sampras.
I love how on air combat it says “ bingo! “ For a kill , when bingo means you better turn that plane towards your home strip to land or you will run out of fuel
This was so early in 3D polygons that developers were still experimenting with things we take for granted today. Stuff like how the camera should behave, or how the controls should work relative to the display. Hence the bizarre cameras in the tennis game. They also knew nothing of the hardware's reach. Comparing late stage cycle PS1 games to these launch titles is amazing. It's nearly a generation by itself. The best comparison ever was the Ridge Racer bonus disc that came with Ridge Racer Type 4 late in 1998, four years after the original game shown here. It was the same game, albeit with fewer cars on circuit. However it ran at way higher resolution and double the framerate. It was amazing how much more performance they extracted from the same hardware when familiar with it.
i had 2xtreme back in the day and played it CONSTANTLY. god i loved it so much and there was absolutely no substance to it lol
I absolutely loved Total Eclipse: Turbo as a kid. I could never get very far, but I can remember being scared of the squid guy who’d laugh at you when you got a game over. Went back and played it on an emulator later, don’t understand why I liked it so much 😂
I think we all have games like that. I thought Star Wars: Episode I and Mission: Impossible were awesome games when I was a kid. They are definitely not good.
Last 25 years went so quick
Crackin video TLOG, got my sub 👍
Dude Zero Divide! I remember playing this game, but couldn't remember the name. "Your units gone".
Commenting to game the algorithm, you’re gonna go far kid 🎉🎉🎉
I appreciate it!
This was great! Thank you for creating it
Glad you liked it!
Oh man I traded my Pocket Pikachu to a friend for Battle Arena Toshinden in ‘99, but had no idea it was a launch title. I freakin loved that game, despite its clunkiness. I still have it too!
I think you got the better deal out of that. Reminds me of how I traded a Pokémon card (not even a holographic one) for a copy of Jumping Flash 2.
Good video bro, i hope you can keep up through all the years of the ps1 videos keep up
Thanks!
It may take a while, but I do hope to eventually make videos covering every year of the PS1’s life.
7:25 I do miss when games insulted the player lol
Then Portal 2 called the player character fat and they weren't allowed to do anymore.
Neat video! I remember playing almost all of these, as my granny got me a PSX right at release in the UK (Early enough that it ended up dying because of the plastic rail housing issue). I have to say ESPN is not what I could call 'good' but I played it on a whim a few months aback and still had fun? It's just a pretty chill time speeding along kicking people off their luges. If it had more content and a better season or competition mode or something it'd actually bump it up enough that I could recommend it.
I had an early PS1 that died as well. I wonder if it was the same issue.
Extreme Games definitely has its issues, but it’s also pretty cool for its time. I seem to remember it being the most popular series to feature skateboarding for PS1 before Tony Hawk came around.
just checked the view and subscriber count and??? Your quality is so high for being a relatively small account. You literally deserve so much more, great video and you earned another subscriber :)
Thank you! I appreciate it.
Battle arena toshinden was one my first 2 games I bought back then. Quickly I adjusted to run n button mash for a good combos n dodging attacks. Loved those days learning how master games.
I do remember the PS1 launch being this quiet. Took a minute for things to heat up
Damn I had the Windows version of Zero Divide, I completely forgot I played that game until seeing this. That wasn't the nostalgia hit I was expecting from a PS1 video.
Glad you mentioned the cd swap on ridge racer, that was one of my favorite things to do
man ridge racer was soooo fun...all about unlocking that black car!
What a great video. Thank you so much. You're talking about ace combat such an underrated game even now, and I like it what you said at the start( a lineup of game for EVERYONE), not like now hardly any game like ace combat or R.T.S game or helicopter games there was a good bunch of games both from ps1 and ps2 like I said not now on the newest console. Oh ace combat and a very small of other games like grand turismo are the only surviving game titles still going strong today ace combat has make 17 games 18 is on it way 2025 not even games like dead space didn't pass 4 and I loved that game.
Glad you liked it!
And yeah, Ace Combat is awesome. I’m glad that series has stuck around.
I didn't know SF:TM or Raiden Project were launch titles! Very cool.
If i remember correctly, I thought that mirrored, reversed tracks, and a combo of the two, were unlockable in Ridge Racer? This was the game that I bought at launch, and played it to death. Was a long time ago now though, so perhaps my memory deceives me!
Yeah, the mirrored and reversed tracks are what I was referring to when said the track has slight variations.
It definitely would’ve been an awesome first game to get!
I'm one of the rare people that liked the Street Fighter Movie game. I haven't played it since those days but something about the timing and mechanics was appealing.
Extreme was amazing and I highly suggest trying it of course I was a kid back then but still!
Also jet moto, time splitters, and syphon filter
Ridge Racer had one track but, if my memory serves me, the track can be played normal, reversed, and mirrored. I think that was how they claimed it had 3 tracks. I could be wrong but I remember something to that effect.
Yeah, you’re right about that. They definitely made the most of what they had.
Cool I just subscribed to your channel please post more videos like this
keep up the good work
I think the PS1 is the only system that blew me away when I first played it. The jump from SNES was massive. You knew it was something special. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved every PlayStation since and I’m always impressed with the leaps in technology but that initial leap in the mid-90s was the biggest.
The leap was so huge it killed the arcade business.
@@abcmaya overseas that is... Japan still relied heavily on the arcade industry (and does to this day)
@@abcmaya I never even made the correlation. You’re right though. Arcades started to disappear around that time. Not gonna lie, I miss them lol
Cool video man, new subscriber here!
Long boxes got me hooked!
OMG LOL I can’t believe ps1 came out in 1994! And I can’t believe nba jam tournament edition was a launch title!
Great oral report btw legend of games
Rayman was a launch title?! I sincerely didn't know
Raiden Project is still notable for being one of the better versions you can get of Raiden & Raiden II without an actual arcade board. Before this version of the game, there were fun ports on several platforms, but this version is significantly more accurate to the original arcade version. While it didn't show off the 3D capabilities of the Playstation, the 2D sprites are beautifully detailed and it also has a very memorable synth rock soundtrack. Many arcade fans of the 90s will instantly recognize several of the level themes. In my opinion, it is still recommendable and worth playing today if you are a fan of shmups. It's a classic game and an archetypal example of what shmups were like before the genre transitioned to higher shot counts and "bullet hell" shooters became the most popular style of the genre a few years later.