#51 Chuckie Egg

Posted: 3rd October 2014 by Jeroen in Games
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368th played so far

Electron_Chuckie_Egg_inlayGenre: Platform
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 1983
Developer: A&F Software
Publisher: A&F Software

Chuckie Egg, although not actually related, looks similar to Manic Miner, the predecessor of the not-that-interesting Bounty Bob Strikes Back. The point here appears to be to collect eggs instead of walking over floors and collect eggs. I’ll be honest – not that excited going into it, this seems too dated and awkward.

Our Thoughts

That played a lot better than we were expecting. First, the different objective of ‘just’ collecting the eggs makes the game a lot more bearable, quite possible in the early levels. The enemies – at the point we got to just ostriches chickens wandering around – are easy to avoid with a bit of care and the focus is as much on platforming, trying to avoid bottomless pits or falling too far.

The controls feel pretty good as well. Walking and jumping at once can feel a bit sticky – a problem I have more often with platform games – but they mostly feel good, tight and easy to learn. The only issue I had was that it could get a bit tricky to climb up ladders.

What impressed us, for a game of its each, how accessible it felt. On the first game, we easily made it to the third level, which even then felt possible to complete despite us not knowing the game. It felt incredibly welcome and fun.

The game’s story is odd enough that it’s worth mentioning here. Basically, you, Hen-House Harry (no Chuckie inside) have gone into the hen house. The hens patrolling the hen house don’t want you to, so finally show themselves as the murderous birds they are. It’s an interesting conceit which don’t match the actual levels, but instead comes across as an extreme excuse. Still, it seems as well integrated as any concept, and at least explains all gameplay concepts, more so than other games of its time.

Final Thoughts

Okay so when I first said that we should play this I may have gotten Chuckie Egg mixed up with Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg and, having never played this game on the Gamecube, I wanted to see the previous game in the series. Okay… so I don’t know as much about games as I would like like to have thought.

Anyway, despite being seen as a game that Wikipedia draws comparisons between this and Bounty Bob Strikes Back (well its predecessor Miner 2049er is but we haven’t covered it yet) but this game was so much more fun. Plus there are a lot of birds in it so I’m happy.

#952 UFC 2009: Undisputed

Posted: 29th September 2014 by Jeroen in Games
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0

367th played so far

4005209130325Genre: Fighting
Platform: Playstation 3/Xbox 360
Year of Release: 2009
Developer: Yuke’s Osaka
Publisher: THQ

After the release of the list’s second edition, 20 games were removed, with twelve of them unplayed so far. For completeness and because we wanted to try some of them, we decided to still play these twelve, but with shorter or changed write-ups. Today the ninth game – UFC 2009: Undisputed.

As has become clear from previous posts, we are divided (in a very simple way) in our opinions for fighting games. Peter enjoys them when they’re in the arcade style seen in games like Soulcalibur or Street Fighter (or Tekken or BlazBlue). I don’t think I really care that much at all (no you just don’t care… no thinking about it). Either way, realistic fighting games like UFC 2009 or the other removed game WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2010 are not as high on our list of games to try and we don’t mind as much that they are no longer on the official list.

Mixed martial arts, like wrestling, is not my thing. What struck me, playing this game, is how much more complicated it is – having punches and kicks, wrestling and holds involved – yet at the same time how much it comes down to similar mechanics. To participate, you need to have two modes of fighting to deal with, the standing up punching/kicking to get close, and then the wrestling/holding once you get close and possibly get your opponent on the floor. As much as it makes the sport more varied, and probably more interesting to watch, it also feels as if it’s more unified than seems to make sense for what should be this mixed.

What it leads to for us, though, is that there is a lot to remember. The tutorial runs long with several modes of controls to learn. They are partially changed by the type of martial arts your chosen, or homemade, character prefers to use, as well as their stats. Playing against each other we partially figured it out through experimentation, if only because the tutorials were incredibly slow to get through.

Based on this being a shorter game, we didn’t experiment with the career mode as much, but the character creator was appropriately in depth, to the point that you could spend half an hour just setting up your character. A lot of that comes from the ability setup, where there are loads of stats to invest in, not all as clear to us, and a large number of stats to invest – the initial pool has four digits, which ‘transforms’ into about 50 ‘points’ of the final stats. It’s fairly overwhelming even then.

I’m sure that, for fans of the league, this is an interesting game, but for us it can get incomprehensible. It feels like, considering its status, it might deserve a place on the list, but as a game with yearly editions, this particular one may not be notable. As always, it’s just not one that grabbed our interest (which is odd seeing how homoerotic you are able to make the fights).

#582 Counter-Strike: Source

Posted: 26th September 2014 by Jeroen in Games
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366th played so far

Counter-Strike_Source_(box_art)Genre: First-Person Shooter
Platform: PC
Year of Release: 2004
Developer: Valve Corporation
Publisher: Valve Corporation

As much as war is a big, easy setting to go to for many shooters, from Call of Duty to Metal Gear Solid and Halo, these days terrorism seems a bigger concern in our world. As it is nearer to our own experiences, it’s less commonly addressed, but some games do go there.

Counter Strike takes this to a place that, if it were more widely known, would probably draw some (minor) controversy. Only supporting co-op multiplayer, team versus team, it pits security forces against terrorist groups, all based on (at the time of release) real ones.

Following the release of the Half-Life mod of this name, the developers of Counter Strike were hired by Valve and, at some point, the game was ported to Half-Life 2 Source engine.

Our Thoughts

We previous played Left 4 Dead, another multiplayer-only FPS, although where the focus there was purely cooperative, and Team Fortress, a very standard multiplayer team vs team experience. Counter-Strike runs with the same mechanics, but takes a different twist. While balanced in numbers, both teams have different goals, often with one taking the initiative and another defending. Taking this approach, the entire game feels different, even if the underlying game is just capture the flag/protect the base/kill each other.

Aside from the setting, the game makes a few more concessions to reality not often seen in these. Rather than respawning on death, you don’t come back to play until the next round. This creates its own goals – usually, when defending, all you need to do is kill everyone else before you are killed yourself or the other group fulfils their directive, and in fact, killing all opponents means you win the round just as much as planting a bomb does.

This system creates short rounds, maybe two or three minutes each, rapidly allowing you to build up a pattern and plans, learning the maps even if you don’t know them yet and getting to work with people you might not have played with ever before. Although we haven’t had as much time to play with it, the maps also felt pretty balanced, with equal chances assuming equal skill (a strategy that worked well with the bots we decided to play with).

Moving away from the game, the map design is interesting. The maps seem intentionally small and simple, with a few sidepaths, but not enough to let yourself get lost or having to protect too many places. As interesting is the variety. The maps we tried had a wide variety of scenery, going beyond just putting buildings in different places to giving a completely different feel between locales, with differences in feel between industrial locations, deserts and caves. Each of these maps can have different play-modes and goals, including weapon restrictions between them.

Weapons can be bought based on performance in previous games – you earn money in rounds to spend on weapons and equipment in later ones. It lets you slowly upgrade to bigger weapons at a measured pace (especially if both sides are progressing at a similar pace), slowly building the chaos each round. Both sneaking and fighting are viable strategies, and when winning you probably want to do both – distract in one area while trying  to  go in using another, and one the buying mechanic allows you to specialize for.

Final Thoughts

It’s a fine line when it comes to this list about what edition of a game should be included. Counter-Strike: Source is on as a successful update, the original Shadow of the Colossus is on despite a lauded HD update whilst both the original version of Metal Gear Solid and its facelift Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes are entries.

This list discrepancy aside Counter-Strike: Source is a valuable edition to the list. Not just because it means Valve have another entry on the list but also ebcause it marks an unusual case of a shooter where you don’t immediately respawn AND you are able to take the role of the terrorist. After the global success of more gung ho shooters (yes Call of Duty I am looking at you) it is good to see some form of contrast get acknowledged.

#102 Tetris

Posted: 21st September 2014 by Jeroen in Games
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4

365th played so far

NES_Tetris_Box_FrontGenre: Puzzle
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 1985
Developer: Alexej Pajitnov
Publisher: Various

We’ve held off for quite a while, but it’s time. We’ve played Tetris often enough that we should be familiar enough to write this.

Tetris is the single best-selling game in the world, with 143 million games sold at the time of writing. It’s one of the most iconic and well-known games, together with games like Pac-Man, Space Invaders and Pong. It is a classic, and it’s a game we’ve been looking forward to.

Our Thoughts

I was just talking to Peter, asking him what we could say about Tetris. Just about everything that can be said about it has been said at this time.

Tetris is an incredibly addictive puzzle game. Its simplicity makes it easy to pick up, with no real control problems, and the difficulty ramps up gradually enough that you don’t tend to notice it until it’s too late. And only an actual game over is enough to end it – why stop when you’re nearly there?

From a game design perspective, there’s one thing that stands out to me – the decision to go for tetronimos, four blocks, works out well. I’ve played knock off games that allow other sizes. Three only allows for two blocks (using the current setup) and little challenge, five and higher increase the number of blocks, making it infeasible to plan ahead. It’s difficult enough in conventional Tetris when you have a bit of bad luck and get the wrong pieces, with different sizes it becomes unbearable.

It all feels perfectly balanced, pretty fine, and the reason it’s even now being sold consistently with no real changes made to the gameplay. Its thirty years of popularity are as telling as anything else.

Final Thoughts

As Jeroen said that I said; everything that can be said about Tetris has been said already. So, because this is such a pick up and play game just head over to this link here and play some rounds.

#897 Gravity Crash

Posted: 17th September 2014 by Jeroen in Games
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364th played so far

GravityCrashGenre: Shoot ‘Em Up
Platform: Playstation 3/Playstation Portable
Year of Release: 2009
Developer: Just Add Water
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

After the release of the list’s second edition, 20 games were removed, with twelve of them unplayed so far. For completeness and because we wanted to try some of them, we decided to still play these twelve, but with shorter or changed write-ups. Today the eighth game – Gravity Crash

Sometimes, describing the different parts a game consists of is enough to explain where it’s fun and where it’s flawed. Gravity Crash takes a lot of its controls from Asteroids and its responses to the environment from Lunar Lander, with every surface dangerous and every move tricky. Momentum is preserved, meaning that any move can soon be dangerous and any inattentiveness can lead to death. With the colours drained, this could be an early 1980s arcade game.

It’s no wonder that the book describes the game as ‘very hard’. You need to worry about fuel, collect deposits, kill enemies and do a precise Lunar Lander style landing to rescue your crew members from the caverns (yeah, tight caverns) that you’re moving through. It felt frustrating in the tutorials alone.

Where we did enjoy it was in multiplayer, where you both face the difficulties and it turns the game into a manic 1vs1 shooter… or a surprisingly fun and tricky racing game. There are several modes, actually, that use the engine for some quite different challenges, all pretty fun. To be honest, it would have been a lot more fun if there had been 4 of us playing it together.

It’s not a game that will be badly missed from the book, to be honest, as casual players (like us for these games) will probably get frustrated before too long. Still, it’s an interesting diversion even now.

#944 MLB 09: The Show

Posted: 13th September 2014 by Jeroen in Games
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363rd played so far

MLB_09_The_Show_PS3_coverGenre: Sports
Platform: Playstation 3
Year of Release: 2009
Developer: SCE San Diego Studio
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

After the release of the list’s second edition, 20 games were removed, with twelve of them unplayed so far. For completeness and because we wanted to try some of them, we decided to still play these twelve, but with shorter or changed write-ups. Today the seventh game – MLB 09: The Show

We are not, in any reasonable sense of the word, baseball fans. Softball was a fun game to play during gym (P.E. if you are a Brit) classes back in school, although never a particular favourite, and I enjoy watching it for, maybe, ten minutes at a time. For the most part, when watching it, it feels like there are very few fun things going on, there doesn’t seem to be much that’s watchable. It reminds me of that classic episode of The Simpsons where Homer gives up beer and has the startling realisation that it was getting drunk that he enjoyed during his visit to a baseball game rather than the sport itself.

The lack of interest in baseball carries on, to be honest, to the game. A part of it (as is the flaw with so many sports games – remember John Madden Football?) is that we don’t understand the sport, so it can be unclear what happens. Another part are the controls – as with so many annual games, the controls have been refined through many iterations, and while there are tutorials, the muscle memory required takes longer to be trained than the game expects in any other modes. It’s also the fact that with these smaller reviews we are spending less time on playing the games. This means that games that rely on the mastery of complex controls to get the most out of them are going to be a lot less enjoyable to us. The fact that this is a sport that we neither know or care much about did not help here.

The clumsiness is present in many places. Bars show up when pitching that we didn’t see explained before (and used some awkward ‘press the button here’ mechanics) and running bases seem to have buttons almost randomly switch meanings depending on where you are standing. I’m sure it makes sense at some point, but it’s unintuitive to learn.

The game does its best to look good, but it doesn’t feel accessible enough for someone like us, just starting to play the game.

#495 Age of Mythology

Posted: 9th September 2014 by Jeroen in Games
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362nd played so far

Age_of_Mythology_LinerGenre: Strategy
Platform: PC
Year of Release: 2001
Developer: Ensemble Studios
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios

This is a game played out of order – Age of Empires is the parent series under which Age of Mythology falls – but we’ve played other games out of sequence before, so who cares, right? I don’t. I bloody loved this game when I was younger.

 We’ve played this together with the Titans expansion, although (for our purposes) that didn’t seem to matter much.

Our Thoughts

One of the problems when playing these games is that it can be difficult to forget what followed. Age of Mythology, in its mission setup and storytelling, owes quite a bit to how Starcraft did it a few years earlier, while Warcraft 3, released a year later, looks and plays better.

Then again, there are some clear signals that story mode and single player might not have been the highest priority. Unlike the aforementioned initial comparisons, the story mode follows a single hero and army, an Atlantean one, while you do not play any of the other (pretty unique!) armies. While you can see how it would make vague sense as a way to focus the storyline, it feels like the game is mostly ignoring those armies for many people’s main mode of play.

Playing against bots or other humans gives you a better feel of how the armies are different. The main place where this can be seen is in the selection of your deities. Each army has a choice between three different ones, giving you some unique powers and access to different minor deities. They nicely allow you to focus your army on different elements, based on how you prefer to play and what you find you need during the game. It’s an interesting system – clearly integrating the mythology, spells and more into your game while not making it too major, too complicated or too… RPGy over strategy. You just miss out on that during the main campaign.

Well I never missed out on that since in the year that I played this game (not continuously but I never really had many games on the PC as a kid. Plus I am a bit of a dork for mythology so I had to play this game ad nauseum to make sure I played as every possible deity. The game really shines outside of the campaign (which I think was meant to be the point anyway) with a variety of  intelligent AI opponents which you can mix and match depending on your mood or method of play.

Now I know that they could not include all the mythologies in the world as that would make for an insanely large pantheon and a lot of 3D modelling… plus they went for the most popular ones which was a decent move. However, with the expansion they went for the Titans which is really cool but would have been even better if alongside those they could have included some Central American deities like Quetzacoatl or maybe some Inuit gods such as Sedna and Nanook. Maybe if the Extended Edition is successful a proper sequel with these extras might happen.

Final Thoughts

Right, now that we have done this out of order we really need to get to Age of Empires when we need to do a strategy game in terms of the statistics it will probably one we will look at to make sure we’ve done more of the series. I thought we had done it…. but it turned out to be Rise of Nations.

It’s nice to have a game that delves into mythology the way this does. Okami was the same in that respect since it took something so mythical and made an amazing game out of it.

#972 The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai

Posted: 5th September 2014 by Jeroen in Games
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361st played so far

ThedishwatercoverGenre: Fighting
Platform: XBox 360
Year of Release: 2009
Developer: Ska Studios
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios

After the release of the list’s second edition, 20 games were removed, with twelve of them unplayed so far. For completeness and because we wanted to try some of them, we decided to still play these twelve, but with shorter or changed write-ups. Today the sixth game – The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai

I’ve been looking forward to playing The Dishwasher – in fact, it’s one of the games on the list that made me want to continue playing these. Not because I’m a big beat ’em up fan – while I enjoy them occasionally, Peter loves them more than I do – but because the concept of an undead (recently resurrected) violent dishwasher just sounds amazing.

In gameplay, a lot of it is the same kind of brawler you see in other games, loads of enemies, attack to defeat them, with some of them having special defenses, requiring different weapons and attacks. What makes that more interesting are the magical powers you get being a dead samurai dishwasher. Aside from running up the walls, you charge your magic energy to be unleashed for bigger attacks. There are a lot of different weapons to use (which we mostly used in the excellent multi-player arena), with clear different styles, making the game a lot more interesting that way.

As much as that made the game interesting, the really interesting part of the game is the art style. A simple handdrawn style (although still detailed enough to draw the attention) combines with a fairly monochrome look, using mostly browns and reds with any colours, enhanced by the amount of blood splattered in the game. It pulls you away from the action, in a way, allowing you to focus more on the combos and fighting instead as much on what is going on in the world.

What really wowed me about this game was the multi-player section. This is in part because the single player parts of the game gets really difficult really quickly but also because it is fun to compete with someone in the stakes of ‘how many more robots can I decapitate than you’. Whilst in some ways I do understand why a game like this was removed from the list to make way for new titles I think it would have made for a better game than some others (which I won’t mention) which maintained their place on the list.

#259 Earthbound

Posted: 1st September 2014 by Jeroen in Games
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3

360th played so far

EarthboundGenre: Role-Playing
Platform: SNES
Year of Release: 1994
Developer: Ape/HAL Laboratory
Publisher: Nintendo

SNES FEST! (Last time, honestly. For now at least)

When I first unlocked Ness as a character on the original Super Smash Bros. I had no clue whatsoever who he was or where he came from. Little wonder really since at that point in time no game in the Mother series was available in the PAL region. In fact it took until late 2013 until I was able to play this game through legal means other than importing consoles and cartridges.

Seen by many in the know as a cult classic today we at Pong and Beyond turn our attention to Earthbound. (We? I let go of the controller after ten minutes and didn’t get it back)

Our Thoughts

It is a curious thing that Earthbound has never been available in Europe and Oceania yet was made available in the American market (as well as in Japan obviously). I say this since one thing the game is widely known for in the gaming community is its satire on what is typically viewed as American values. The fact that most of the buyable health items in the first town you visit are typical American fare (french fries, cookies, hamburgers etc.) are just the tip of a game where hippies have been brainwashed to kidnap a kindergarten volunteer. Now pretty much everyone in UK is game for a bit of satire; especially at the expense of our friend’s across the pond. This is actually something we were talking about a month or two ago as Peter was playing through Grand Theft Auto V. Made by a British game studio, to some point it applies and uses that vision of American values, it makes fun of it just as often, and probably not as noticeable all the time. Now I can not speak for the people of Australia but I can imagine them feeling the same way.  Anyway, we can play it now. Good thing we didn’t bother trying to play it at the beginning to the blog all those years ago.

As a role playing game Earthbound doesn’t take itself too seriously and is a very obvious influence on the recent release of South Park: The Stick of Truth. You take on the role of Ness, a child with psychic abilities who (despite being 13) is out on an adventure to save the world from aliens. I raise the point of him being 13 since neither of his parents seem to really care that their son is battling brainwashed human and aliens armed with a tennis racket and his ever-growing PSI powers.

Seeing how this is a 2D RPG from 1994 the battle sequences are fairly stationary compared to what we are now used to (we are truly spoiled) but one thing I do like is the absense of random encounters. It is always the bane of RPGs like Final Fantasy and Pokémon where all you want to do is go from point A to point B and suddenly the screen gets sucked into a black hole and you are faced with some form of lizard creature. What Earthbound does is instead is place the enemies on screen so you have at least have some warning of impending battle. What this also means is that if you can run into their back you get a surprise attack (and vice versa also happens). My favourite thing about the combat, however, is that once you reach a certain level not only do enemies run away from YOU but you don’t even have to battle them, the experience points are just added to your total.

On the whole, Earthbound is able to balance a seriously constructed game with a good sense of humour. We all know of games that take them far too seriously and, as such, it is a breath of fresh air. The fact that this plays so well after being released 20 years ago (only the battle screen and some graphical things reveal its age) is so incredibly impressive and is why it will probably be one of the games we play for a while after covering it.

Final Thoughts

There are a few dated parts to the game – the amount of grinding can be frustrating sometimes and the save system is fairly limited. Still, the game is incredibly charming, with a fairly creative and different setting and a lot of nice touches. I’m absolutely happy that we got to try it – and it seems like Peter will continue to play this for quite a while longer.

#272 Uniracers

Posted: 28th August 2014 by Jeroen in Games
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0

359th played so far

Uniracers_boxartGenre: Racing
Platform: SNES
Year of Release: 1994
Developer: DMA Design
Publisher: Nintendo

SNES FEST! Okay we get it.

If you’re like us and have followed our exploits, you will know we’ve played quite a few racing games already – and we played more outside the blog. Most of them use standard vehicles – cars are popular, karts and motorcycles are too.

Until today, however, I’ve never heard of a unicycle racing game. Let’s do that today.

Our Thoughts

First – this game was released as Unirally in PAL territories for some reason. I’ve not been able to find a reason why, but there’s presumably one.

Racing unicycles is not what I usually think of as something that would be a speedy race. When you see that the unicycles in the race are unmanned, distinguished by colours (and name, which seems to come with abilities we never entirely figured out) on the screen, you know a lot of the game is abstracted away.

All of that comes down to a game that, while supporting plenty of fun racing, focuses as much on the stunts. You race over what seems like colourful beams (reminding me of straws), jumping to get ahead (properly executing stunts giving you a speed boost, which is obviously a big part) and having fun with jumps, jumping between different levels and going through loops. With the changes of colours, the game feels speedy.

With that, the racing is fun. We intentionally got stuck in multiplayer and had great fun. Aside from the simple races (which are tricky enough to keep up with, having to find the right path for the first time can be confusing) there are challenges like ones to score the most points in stunts. It’s a brilliant little game, a shame that its legal troubles kept it from becoming bigger. It might not be as fast as F-Zero, but has as many tricks, if not more, as Pure. Amazing enough for a new old-style racing game with more going on than it seems at first.

Final Thoughts

One thing that we didn’t mention earlier was a bit of a glitch that we experienced during multiplayer. Player One was normal but for most of the game the unicycle I was controlling as Player Two wasn’t even touching the track. It was a bit annoying since you get speed boosts for successful tricks and I had no idea when I was in the air or ‘on the ground’. Then again in a way it added to the craziness of the whole thing.

Still, it is a novel racer from the people who later became Rockstar North. So how a company went from this to making Manhunt remains a rather curious question.

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