Re: Games Discussion Thread
The best games that I’ve played and you haven’t:
Star Control 2
In my entire life, I have met one person who has ever heard of this game, mysteriously though it has occasionally been ranked as one of the best games of all time. This is because of the sheer quality of the game’s writing and backstory. The rest of the game is also good but in many ways it is incredibly simplistic by modern standards.
The core of the game is in many ways similar to a beefed up version of asteroids, with different ships battling each other one at a time. Every race has its own ship that all have their own weapons and all that, some of which are fairly imaginative and that’s all good. Your flagship is also customisable where you will have to be balancing your income between expensive modules and then your ships space with combat or strategic upgrades.
That brings us to the awesomer parts of the game. Returning to earth from your archaeological dig planet to find that an alien race has enclosed earth in an impenetrable shield, you embark on a quest to free the human race and defeat the evil Ur-Quan.
But like all well written things, are the Ur-Quan really evil though? If you bother to ask around the various races you can discover their entire star faring history. Every rise and fall brings about the reason as to just why they are dominating the galaxy.
But regardless, you can go build up your fleet and adventure throughout the stars forming allies and saving the day. So don’t be scared of this gem from 1992 just go and do it. Of course if you’re just interested in some cheap thrills maybe you shouldn’t bother, while the game is quite enjoyable it might not stand on its own without its plentiful story, imagination and writing. You can find it as freeware under the name The Ur-Quan Masters.
Tyrian
This is the best arcade shooter that has ever existed. It was reasonably big back in my youth in my area, but I never got the impression that it spread out much past that. Although despite that it still has a cult following and is often ranked highly by people who know of its existence as well. While Star Control’s cult following was because of the universe it showed though, Tyrian is praised for its gameplay.
While it is an arcade shooter it’s not really a bullet hell like other things such as Raiden, instead you have armour and shields that let you take a couple of hits. More importantly though you have primary and secondary weapons, then you have 2 side ship weapons. Then all primary and secondary weapons have ten levels each. Then there are about 30 different guns, then that many again in side ships, which works out to be right about a shit load of different guns for an arcade shooter.
What really nails the whole thing together though is its campaign mode, you start off with a weak ship, shields, guns and generator then as you go through the levels you get money and build up your arsenal to deal with levels as they get harder. It sounds so simple really but the point is it works. It works really well.
So what are you waiting for, go start blowing things up with the best thing Epic (the creators of unreal and gears of war) have ever built. It’s pure old school action. Also it’s full of hidden parts and cheats, including a hidden real time Worms type game if you type “destruct” into the main menu as well as 3 secret harder difficulty levels. This game has also become freeware under the title Tyrian 2000.
Evil Genius
What do you get when you cross the sims with dungeon keeper, you get evil genius that’s what you get. Apparently some of you guys have heard of this game before but it’s been a while since it’s been brought up so it’s only fair to the newbies that I talk about it again.
So the game is basically a campy romp into the world of what it’s like to be a stereotypical bond villain. You build your rooms like in dungeon keeper in your secluded underground base on a deserted island as your little workers run around in their bright yellow jump suits and construction hats with the British announcer lady declaring everything of importance that is happening. All to a similarly campy and very fun musical score.
The game is pretty long winded though, it is going to require a while to sit down and get to grips with just how to play it properly. In fact every person I’ve known to play it has gotten four to five hours into their first playthrough and then restarted. The key thing about this is though, they have always been perfectly happy to restart, you enjoy learning to play the game and then you enjoy restarting and actually playing it with all the knowledge you’ve gained.
The game will last you a while, but it’s not condensed fun, it’s consistently fun, you will be quietly smiling and sitting there for the many hours this game will take. If you can see it for $10 get it immediately, then next time you’re bored take it out and get into it. I’m pretty sure it’s also on steam.
System Shock 2
Now this is a game I’m sure many of you have heard of, especially if you’ve seen much zero punctuation, but how many of you actually went out and played it? Well if you haven’t you should because the game is great. Although compared to the other older games here like Tyrian and Star Control the complexity of an FPS means that its cult following has had less of an impact.
Then on the other hand while the game itself is a bit dated, for instance hit boxes don’t exist and things can sometimes be a bit slow and getting it to actually run on a modern system can be a hassle, things that are generally streamlined out of modern games. Now that more or less all the bad is out of the way, everything else about the game is good. It is well designed, the story is good it has good music and enough complexity to keep it interesting.
Paragraph 3: Shodan, Glados’ bigger, eviler and considerably scarier sister. If for no other reason meeting Shodan is enough reason to play this game. You’ve probably heard little snippits of her speaking before but I think things being in context do help add to her personality.
Getting a hold of a legitimate copy of System Shock could be a problem, it’s not supported anywhere and then to get it to run you will have to go back and forth between some forums downloading little patches and special .exe’s . It’s totally worth it though, assuming you are fond of Sci Fi FPS RPG that is.
Tron 2.0
Another Sci Fi FPS RPG, although considerably more FPS than RPG, Tron 2.0 didn’t really seem to make much of a splash although unlike everything previous to this I did play it when it came out. Although the developer went onto do some other games that you’ve probably heard of, like the first two F.E.A.R games, condemned and AVP 2 (which while excellent has not dated well), so they’ve got some good ideas rattling around in their heads.
The main thing that sets this apart from many other games is the meshing of the inside a computer aspect into every part of the game. You have to find new guns within the dumps of defeated opponents or within data blocks that also hold emails and permissions, then depending on the system you are currently running on you can have a certain amount of active subroutines, which are your armour and other abilities.
The game takes place in the middle of a war between corrupted virus files and the computer’s internal security programs. It shows that the game was written by a person who knows how computers work and that is just awesome, but even if you don’t have the ability to see that the game is good in and of itself.
At the end of the day while most of the other games here are sheer awesome in some way or really stand out for some reason, Tron 2.0 doesn’t so much, it’s just a solid piece of work. It’s a game made by nerds for nerds.
Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines
First things first, I’m pretty sure that at least 70% of you have played this game, which is good because it’s a fantastic game. The other less than 30% of you, go play this god damned game. As at least an acquaintance of mine I feel it is my duty to make you play this game.
It managed to generate favourable reviews but the games development was borderline retarded, resulting in the games developers, Troika, to shut down. This mean the game has more than a couple of bugs, including one in the unpatched game that made it unfinishable. That aside, this game has everything.
It is very well written, excellent replayability, good graphics, good music (this is full songs as well), a good plot and all that jazz. The combat is a little dull and repetitive and it’s hardly a fully-fledged action title but if you are paying attention to the story of vampire politics you will not go unentertained.
If you haven’t already getting this game from steam will not do you wrong, and if you think otherwise that’s your fault. As a side note this game was designed by men, which ironically means that there are none of the downsides to playing as a girl that there are to playing as a guy. That is, every girl in this game is bisexual.
