Old Games

I'm 21 so I never really played much on the old Amigas or Spectrums (but I did have them) but what I did grow up on was the NES, SNES and the early PC games. My first major love was the original Zelda game. My goodness that was enthralling for the whole family. We use to play it together, make maps of the dungeons and generally have a laugh it was great. What I liked most were the adventure / platform games. Zelda and Mario were like good friends where you'd go off and have adventures with them... getting cool items, killing baddies and saving the princess and such.

As time withered on newer games came out and I don't think I really need to go into them but think of the greats of the SNES, like the Zelda games, Super Mario World and of course my FAVOURITE: Sim City. Sim City was a massive time sink for me and I still love it to this day. I've had an emulator of it for a while but never really got into it until a few months ago and I've been trying my hardest to get it going, though it can be a bit boring upon reflection. We never did get to Megaopolis status

There were also so many great computer games for the PC in the 90s and the amount of times that I cringed at the poor realisation that 4Mb of RAM just wasn't enough sometimes and convincing my dad to shell out the 100-odd quid to get another 4Mb put in was a truly great time. Some of my favourite old PC games are ones like Sim City 2000, Commander Keen, Kyrandia (1, 2 and 3 - though the PC wasn't fast enough for us to get very far on 3), Simon the Sorcorer, Star Wars: Dark Forces, Gazillionairre and the game that I'm building upto, X-COM: UFO Enemy Unknown.

Oh my goodness this is a good game. I think was voted the best game of all time or something (go check Wikipedia under the American name X-COM: UFO Defense). It is a turn based strategy game, which as we know with games like Final Fantasy, are notoriously addictive and difficult to complete. To summarise, the year is 1999 and UFO sightings have risen to an unignorable level and the UN has formed X-COM, the first and only line of defence against aliens. You have to build a base, shoot down aliens and then engage them on the ground level trying to capture or kill survivors and stealing their technology. The missions get harder and the aliens get tougher as you're expected to go into cities to rid them of alien terrorists as well as search out heavily guarded alien bases and destroy them. It's hard work, but like I said it's really addictive.

I just wonder though, why can't they make games like this any more? Sure MMOs like SWG are a lot of fun, time consuming and rewarding but they just lack that charm that really sets it off. It's easy to buy into a ready created universe like Warcraft or Star Wars but what about really making your own? It's games like UFO where you enjoy it's limits and crudeness. The music is really unnerving, the aliens hide in shadows until you have clear line of sight and it's certainly not uncommon to have you troops shot at from a dark corner that you forgot to check.

With the advent of 3D graphics game came the death of the platform game. No longer will you see games like Prince of Persia, Blackthorne or even the charming Lion King (it PWNS btw). I discount games like Tomb Raider and the new Prince of Persia purely because they just lack that certain something, that je ne sais quoi, that makes it worthwhile and fun. The Zelda games after Ocarina of Time let down that whole series and, as the great Yahtzee points again and again, the Mario franchise is like a dead horse that's been poked so many times with a stick that it gives the impression that it's alive. I never liked Mario 64 and the Mario Party series get boring quickly. Mario Kart was fun on the 64, an improvement over the SNES, but the Gamecube and DS versions were really lacking.

I'm not sure what it is but it seems that developers just try too hard sometimes. Two games that I'd like to highlight, in closing, for their simplistic brilliance are Portal and Peggle. I'm pretty sure they were both reviewed by Yahtzee so I suggest watching those videos for a more detailed insight into them but I think they are brilliant because you can spend hours trying to figure it out and yet for someone you can't stop giggling to yourself about how clever they really are. Some of the puzzles on Portal had me stumped for a while and the advance maps really tested me. It's almost a shame that I've solved them because when I did I got the initial joy and then the same sort of feeling that you get when you find out how a magic trick is done. And you're never the same after that.

Yahtzee reviews: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/profiles/view/Yahtzee%20Croshaw