Just ordered from Amazon.co.uk:
- Civilization IV (PC)
- Rome: Total War - Barbarian Invasion (expansion for R:TW) (PC)
- Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (GameCube)
Yes, I’m in a strategy mood. 
They should be here next week or so…
Archive for the 'PC games' Category Page 3 of 4
Few old games are as beloved these days as this as Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III’s 1992 classic, Star Control 2. If you somehow missed it and need proof on “how beloved” it is, check the end of this post.
SC2 , while technically a sequel, doesn’t follow in the genre of the first Star Control, which was a simple strategy game with 1-on-1 arcade battles (very playable, though - so much that most people ignored the strategy game and just played the “Melee” mode, choosing a fleet of ships and fighting another player, one ship on each side at a time, until one fleet was eliminated).
But this sequel was different - and, when I got it in 1992 and started playing it, I was quickly able to see that this game was unique.
In the early 80s, there was a guy from Wales called Jeff Minter, who founded a company called Llamasoft, which still exists today. He programmed for several 8-bit computers, such as the Commodore VIC-20 and the C64, and his games, although weird (even at the time, when games tended to be much more original than in the current age of clones and sequels), were usually very, very playable. And they surely had a lot of personality.
One of his earliest games was Gridrunner, originally for the VIC-20, later ported to other systems. It looked like a Centipede (a really old arcade game) clone, but it had a character of its own - for instance, the game ensured that you couldn’t simply stay in a “safe” place and just shoot enemies as they passed in front of you.
About 20 years later, Jeff created the ultimate version of his classic: Gridrunner++.
Looks weird, doesn’t it? But it’s a shooter, played with the mouse (and that simple fact makes it one of the most playable shooters ever - you’ll never feel comfortable playing one with a gamepad, keyboard or joystick again). There are enemies (quite strange ones, too, such as plush toys, soccer balls and such) to shoot, and sheep to catch (they increase your firepower, just like in real life :)).
This is the most recent game mentioned in this site, so far. In fact, I bought it less than a month ago. It’s not a huge game, I finished it in about a week, but until I reached the end, I didn’t play any other games at all. Because Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy in the U.S.) absorbed me completely.
Continue reading ‘Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy (PC / PS2 / Xbox, 2005)’
If you know this game - really *know* it (and the asterisks are a reference to it :)) - it’s one you’re sure never to forget. Like many of the best games, this one doesn’t have many fans, but the ones it has consider it one of the best games of all time - if not the best. To me, it’s certainly the best of its kind. Ladies and gentlemen… Planescape: Torment.
Torment is a computer role playing game (CRPG), and possibly the one which most deserves the “R”. The story is mature (and I’m not talking about sex or violence, although it has those, too - but described, not shown), thought-provoking, and deals with concepts never seen or even mentioned in a computer game. You play an amnesiac immortal who wakes up in a slab, inside a mortuary, with no memory of how he got there. His first companion is a wisecracking floating skull. He is in Sigil, the City of Doors, a city with portals to every plane of existence in the multi-verse, a place where belief shapes reality.
One of the best multi-player games I’ve ever played, and a staple of the “post-lunch afternoons” at my place for years: Tennis Critters.
What’s there to say? It’s a tennis game, but with chipmunks (and a penguin). It plays very well with one player on the keyboard and three using gamepads. There’s not a lot of customization (the chipmunks only differ in colors, they don’t have different characteristics), there are only two courts…
But it plays great. It’s fast, tough, and unforgiving, but when you begin to get good at it, the joy of beating another player, or, even better, of you and your teammate beating the other team, is a wonderful experience.
As I said, it’s not perfect - we haven’t played it any more since I bought Mario Power Tennis on the GameCube, since that one’s even faster, more involving, and, for a change, highly customizable, and the characters are actually different. But it’s still (along with Super Sprint, which I’ll write about in the near future, hopefully) possibly the multi-player game I’ve played the most.
Link: Official site.
It should actually be “Brian Reynolds’ Alpha Centauri”, but Sid Meier was (and is) the best known name, and it draws heavily on Meier’s original Civilization, so… Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri it was. By Firaxis Games, distributed by Electronic Arts.
SMAC, as the game is affectionately called, is still a very popular game these days among strategy fans, and for good reason. In my opinion, it’s still the best Civ-style game, and I doubt even Civilization 4 (which I can’t wait to have) is as good, in some respects. Unfortunately, it didn’t sell as well as it should have, because people these days lack imagination, and it’s much easier to understand what you get by inventing “The Wheel” or “The Alphabet” than what “Bioadaptive Resonance” or “Controlled Singularity” even are. In short, it scared many Civ fans, which was a shame.
But it has some things no other game of its kind has:
- style - the spartan interface, the voices, the graphics, the sounds, the descriptions, the movies. Unforgettable.
- characters with personality - Civ 3’s leaders, even though they’re supposed to be real life ones, have no personality. SMAC’s had. Who can forget Chairman Yang, Lady Deirdre, Sister Miriam, or CEO Morgan? They actually have different goals in mind, and act towards them. They all speak in their own way. And they all have great quotes.
- a story - yes, a strategy game with one. Really. And it doesn’t always end the same way (and I don’t mean just because you lose the game in the middle).
As I said… still my favorite game of its kind, after 6 years. You can probably buy the Planetary Pack (the game plus the expansion pack on a single CD) very cheaply, these days. And you really should.
Links: Wikipedia entry, Official site.
P.S. - did you know that this game has inspired 3 novels, a comic book and a GURPS book? Not bad for a turn-based strategy game…
Sango Fighter, again, is a game few will know. It’s a Chinese-made fighting game, in the Street Fighter mold. For MS-DOS. Remember that?
Since the game is Chinese, and not originally intended to be distributed in the West, it’s… well, exotic. The fighters don’t look angry, they look ceremonial, and painting-like epic. Their looks… let’s say me and my friends gave most of them nicknames, such as “the bearded guy” or “the barkeep”. Their battle cries… How heroic does “oyyyy!” sound? And you have to see some of the winning poses to believe them…
But it played great.
It was a game where you always felt you could become a little better - and not, like in more recent games, by memorizing and practicing a 12-button combo, but by using about 5 special moves per character (other than the basic ones). No matter how fast the other guy was, there was always a way to move faster and counter his move - not out of cheapness, but because you really could perform the counter-move faster. When we got good, we were really good - our matches became epic, as we countered move with counter-move with counter-counter-move. Wheels within wheels within wheels, and other Dune quotes.
This is the fighting game I’ve played the most in my life, with the second one being the PC port of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo. And I still have fond memories of it. Current fighting games seem to be either graphical show-offs, button mashers, or simply combo memorizing games… not Sango Fighter.
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