#151 Wizball

Posted: 18th October 2012 by Jeroen in Games
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1

187th played so far

Genre: Shoot ‘Em Up
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 1987
Developer: Sensible Software
Publisher: Ocean Software

Continuing our run of “wow we’re getting close to 200 games… we need to play more pre-1990 games” we are taking on Wizball. It is our eventual hope that we will play so many of these that it will be okay to play games from 2001 again. Also Mario games. It’s been far too long.

Our Thoughts

Imagine a world devoid of colour. A spacey world with flying orbs and, for some reason that only Super Mario Bros. understands, a number of green pipes. Well the only hope is a wizard’s ball (yes that is an odd image) with crappy controls. Or, at least, different controls. Experimentation can be good… sometimes.

That is to say that the controls of the ship are crappy from the perspective of the wizard as for the player they are just incredibly tough. At the beginning all you are able to do is control the direction of the spin which in turn controls your speed and angle of jump. It is often said that games have been getting easier and this is one of those games that really backs that thought up.

Instead of a difficulty curve as you would traditionally find what Wizball appears to have is a 20 foot high wall followed by a gradual slope downwards. The most difficult part of the game really is the beginning, or whenever you lose a life in the early stages. In fact you are unable to really do much at all until you have successfully collected power-ups from enemies that randomly spawn offscreen. Did I mention that you need three of these to even start the main crux of this game? I’m pretty sure I did. Three? Three is just to start taking control of the ball… you need even more to do the main thing in the game. Not that we got much further, due to this difficulty spike otherwise taking days to take over.

You see, you need to start to fill the world with colour. To do so, you need to use your familiar/cat/sattelite Cattelite to gather the colour and then spread it around the world. Yes, that is the mission.

Yet, in spite of this, this game is remarkably addictive. Whilst it is difficult it never feels impossible and the more times you play it the further you get because you finally begin to understand the nuances of the game. Unlike John Madden’s Football, which we could not get a handle on whatsoever and were eager to finish as soon as we could, this game had a charm which hooked us.

Final Thoughts

Part of the difficulty of this game comes from the controls, but this is almost deliberately. The difficulty curve is different, but rewarding in that respect, in that you have to fight to really do the job you need to do. It’s actually quite neat, and while you’re expected to invest a lot of time in the game, that should pay off when you get far enough into it.

#190 John Madden Football

Posted: 14th October 2012 by Jeroen in Games
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3

186th played so far

Genre: Sports
Platform: Mega Drive
Year of Release: 1990
Developer: Park Place Production Team
Publisher: EA Sports

The Madden NFL series is one of the longer running sports series, bringing out yearly installments since 1990 – it started in 1988, but skipped 1989.

We’ll be covering the last installment in the series (at the time of the book’s publishing) at some point, but for now we go a few steps back, to one of the first games in the series.

Our Thoughts

We don’t get American Football. We haven’t played it and what we know of it is what we’ve seen on TV and in movies (The Blind Side mostly). This is not something that would matter to us most of the time, but is relevant here. You see, most games come with a nice tutorial mode. They ease you in and show you what to do. This game, possibly due to age… doesn’t. It shows. And it overshadows a large part of the game.

I’ll admit that we didn’t start off by reading any documentation – yeah, our expectations are different – but even then, once we looked it up it didn’t help gameplay much.

While there’s some action on the field, quite a bit of the gameplay comes from the strategy setup before every play (?), where you instruct your players what to do and how to work together. It’s quite complicated and mostly incomprehensible as to what’s going on. It gets in the way.

The second step here is that the controls are a tad annoying, but that’s a matter of learning it. There’s some nice action going on, just not a lot. Although that’s where the trouble comes in.

While there’s some action, it plays for a short while before it’s interrupted. Some sort of action is taken, and you go back to the strategy bit… and then need to wait until everyone’s in place and everything is ready.

It’s boring and unclear. It might make more sense if you know the sport it attempts to simulate, but for us, it was so incomprehensible that it was boring.

Our problems with this game are not necessarily the fault of the game. As a sport American Football is difficult to shoehorn into an 16-bit gaming era. The number of plays available at each break give you a good opportunity to flex your tactical muscles but as a game it is because of these breaks that it does not flow well. However, this is an issue with the sport. I tried to sit through the Super Bowl and all the stopping and starting got tiresome so I flicked back to the screening of Sweeney Todd on Sky Movies.

Final Thoughts

Due to these inherant issues I am going to be very interested how Madden 2010 plays in comparison. My favourite sports games are fast-paced which require quick thinking and where fun and competition is central (see SSX Tricky or any game in the Pro Evolution franchise) but as a sport this may not be the case. Now ice hockey, there is a sport I am eager to try in gaming form. Come on NHL 10!.

#217 Pinball Dreams

Posted: 10th October 2012 by Jeroen in Games
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3

185th played so far

Genre: Pinball
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 1992
Developer: Digital Illusions CE
Publisher: 21st Century Entertainment

These days, pinball games are more or less a thing of the past. There might be a handful out there in casual games, but by and large, the industry has moved on. It’s not hard to see why. The genre doesn’t have many gameplay possibilities – two flippers, launch, and in the game, do some pushing to tilts. It’s therefore not a surprise there’s only three games for it in the list.

Still, in the past, these games used to be big, and this is where you can understand why. There’s a lot of visual fun going on, the mechanics are easy to implement, but allow for quite a few gameplay options and implementing new gameplay is as easy as moving around some elements on the boards and putting in a new set of graphics. In fact (and please forgive the diversion) on my earliest PC we pretty much had a set of pinball games that really just consisted of certain elements moved around to create a different game. Another game didn’t even keep up that pretense – it had an extensive toolkit to build your own pinball boards.

This game won’t allow it… but trust me, pinball a-plenty on this one.

Our Thoughts

I must admit, beyond that extended introduction, there is a limited amount to be said about pinball games – we all know the machines, how they work… no, they haven’t added three flippers and there’s no control reversal in this game, it’s all very straight forward.

The controls themselves are solid and physics good, it’s all tight and realistic, with plenty of ‘will it’ moments, but all of them ones you know you can prevent. The boards contain known elements – nothing fancy here, this is the same elements pinball machine makers have used for years, each with its own themed appearance, but nothing more than that.

The theming of the four available boards is nice. Some are conventional – I swear that every pinball game with themed boards has a space version (or at least a Space Age one) – but others, including the otherwise tricky Beat Box – is a less conventional music career based board. They look nice and play well – you can tell that there’s been a lot of time spent on polish for these boards.

Sound, by the way, feels extravagant – nice techno tunes with some appropriate sound effects. Not great, but somehow suitable for pinball machines. Interestingly the sound for the majority of the boards has not aged. Nightmare, a horror themed machine, could have easily been made a month ago as an iPad app… similar things can not be said for Beat Box which feels incredibly dated.

In short, yeah, the game’s more or less imitating the original pinball machines, down to the pings tings and other mechanical bits. One sided? Sure. But it works. It just does.

Final Thoughts

I remember my first pinball game. It was True Pinball and came with my Playstation alongside Supersonic Racers and ESPN Xtreme Games. I even sound myself watching a video of it on YouTube and feeling all nostalgic.

It’s true that pinball games are now relegated to the world of mini-games and cheap apps because… well games have moved on. However, we still buy pinball games because, like Peggle, there is a great ‘pick up and playability’ which is non-threatening and still a lot of fun.

#653 Guitar Hero

Posted: 6th October 2012 by Jeroen in Games
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6

184th played so far

Genre: Music
Platform: Playstation 2
Year of Release: 2005
Developer: Harmonix
Publisher: RedOctane

Time for a slight step back. We’ve played Beatles: Rock Band before, as well as played something from the same series through DJ Hero. Now it’s back to the game that (mostly) started this whole plastic instrument craze… Guitar Hero. The first one. Yeah.

Before playing, we got the joy of unpacking. We’ve previously played the Xbox 360 editions of these games, as, well, it had better compatibility and such. This time we couldn’t – the first game is only available for the Playstation 2. That means we got to unpack a separate guitar (to be sold on soon), which was its own surprise. It’s tiny! So small! We could barely hold it properly!

Sorry. Let’s play.

Our Thoughts

Let’s see… quite a lot of this game is already familiar, with us having played later games in the Guitar Hero and Rock Band franchises. Simple, good enough – press the buttons, strum, stick to the notes appearing on the screen. The concept is simple, but of course with the speed and increasing number of buttons, it’s not that easy.

It’s a basic concept, later implemented using more instruments and with all sorts of other mechanics, but this is the simplest, most straight forward version. No fancy mechanics, just play the songs and follow the rhythm.

With that then, the strength comes from the songs. And these games are strong. The game sticks rather well to featuring rock songs, with a number of more famous ones, but also featuring a lot of lesser known, more obscure rock numbers that first of all are quite nice and more important serve as really good songs to play to. Still, it shows that the developers were genuinely interested in the music they were using and went for interesting picks – not as marketing driven, which works well for the game.

The graphics are nothing to write home about, but few people would notice anyway. There’s some customization available – for the character you use, the guitar and its skin – but it probably won’t affect you much while playing. You’ll probably want to unlock the songs first anyway – while there is a nice initial selection, you really can do with a larger group, and as this game predates DLC, that’s what you’re stuck with anyway.

The game suffers here because of the rights issues. The songs are based on the bands, not their actual performances, and no familiar faces show up. While it would have been too expensive to do so at this point, it at times distracts. Still, that’s just a small blemish on a music game that, by far, sticks to its gun and creates a solid first experience. It got refined and changed later, but that’s not the current game’s fault… it just makes our comparison more difficult.

Final Thoughts

Having recently played Beatmania it is only natural that we notice that whilst being eight years apart there is a lot of similarities with how these games operate. The fundamental gameplay is pretty much the same down to the crowd booing you if your performance isn’t up to scratch (pun unintended).ย 

As it has been already said the later Guitar Hero and Rock Band improve a lot on this game but it is always interesting to see a games origins. The dact that the guitar for the PS2 feels so much smaller when compared with later makes is something I never expected.

#336 Beatmania

Posted: 2nd October 2012 by Jeroen in Games
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0

183rd played so far

Genre: Music
Platform: Arcade
Year of Release: 1997
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami

Music games started out in the arcade. I think we can all agree on this since all the home peripherals that we have grown to love (by storing them on top of a wardrobe alongside that dragon kite you have no explanation for buying) started out chained to a box in a dark room where joy could be bought with quarters/50ps/100 yen coins. It’s such a pity the arcades are shutting down… they were a great place to waste money until the storm clouds disperse.

Our Thoughts

This is not our first dabbling with turntable games. In fact one of the best music games I have ever played (DJ Hero) featured a far more elaborate turntable controller than this one… but this was a whole lot more difficult.

This controller is an odd mix of keyboard and turntable, as such the majority of the inputting is done via the five keys rather than a simple scratch of the deck. Gameplay itself is what we have now come to expect of music games; press the keys or scratch the deck as instructions reach the bottom of the screen.

The reason that this is harder than other music games? Well, the layout of the keyboard section is rather confusing. 3 white keys, 2 black keys and all in a fairly small area where it is easy for your fingers to slip accidentally. The on-screen instructions also have the black keys be half of the white keys, rather than having five seperate ‘tracks’, creating just enough confusion when you have to think quickly.

The music selection itself is a little bit pants. The highlight is a remix of Moloko’s ‘Sing It Back’ which will be the first track you play… other than that there are one or two more famous tracks and a number which make you think “huh?”.

Visually this is very much a trippy game. The intro movie features dancing Maoi heads and the videos that accompany the songs include sad rubber ducks, Legend of Zelda-style parodies and 8-bit side-scrolling shoot ’em ups. Oh those silly Japanese. They are all rather strange although it is hard to appreciate the craziness of it all when you are focused on hitting a multiple-note streak. The frequent interspersed ‘miss’ graphics dont’ help it much either.

The PS1 version we played was clearly ported straight from the arcade, much like Tekken and many other games from this era, which meant we could get as authentic experience we could… before reselling this on eBay. God bless eBay.

Final Thoughts

Trippy, tough and, I’m sorry to say, not always as much fun. The game gets frustrating quite fast and the controls hinder you more than they help… not helped by them not really being relatable. Hitting notes on a guitar just gives you more opportunity to look cool than playing a mini-keyboard nobody sees.

It’s an amazing predecessor that shows how many awesome games there were to come, but as a rhythym game, this is clearly still underdeveloped.

#400 Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike

Posted: 28th September 2012 by Mulholland in Games
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2

182nd played so far

Genre: Fighting
Platform: Arcade, Dreamcast
Year of Release: 1999
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom

And so Dreamfest comes to an end after a whistle-stop tour through some of the major genres in gaming. For this final game there were a number of games in the running which we will, of course, have to come back to later in the blog.

Since we are (annoyingly) behind on our fighter games it is time for us to get to another game in the Street Fighter series… as well as doing four games from 1999 in a row… we were really far behind.

Our Thoughts

In 1997 Capcom did a really ballsy thing when launching Street Fighter III… they decided to introduce a new roster of fighters at the expense of the vast majority of their already established characters. In the original incarnation of this game (since 3rd Strike rightly implies that this was second remake of Street Fighter III) only Ken and Ryu survived the slaughter and this version saw the reintroduction of staple Chun-Li. If we just look at this move… I mean that took guts. When Soulcalibur V decided to introduce new characters at the expense of old ones there was a sizable amount of annoyance on the interweb.

The main change that we can observe in this installment versus Street Fighter II is that things have slowed down. Is this a bad thing? Well it depends mainly on your style of play since in order to now win these bouts you need to try to string together counters and combos rather than rely on jumping and reaction time. (I love it)

There has also been a substantial graphics upgrade due to the rapid progression technology made in… wow 7 years apart? No wonder things look so much better. That being said, whilst the sprites and backgrounds are definitely improved the colours feel slightly more muted which, I guess, is to give this game a bit more realism despite the fact there are mutant stretchy monsters. Even so, don’t worry too much – while things look better, they’re still quite cartoony and realism hasn’t gone leaps up… In fact, the colour difference could just as much be the change in console we’re experiencing here.

Despite the obvious technological leaps in sound and graphics it does not feel as if there has been too significant a leap in gameplay (something which is hard in fighting games to be fair).The leaps between the first three Tekken games felt more substantial because, unlike Capcom, they don’t release the same game three times with minor tweaks and instead focus on an endgame. Then again, as I mentioned, in fighting games there is only so much you can revolutionise before you cross between genres. That’s why games like Grand Theft Auto get a lot of press because not only do they have the room to branch out and revolutionise but they take full advantage of it. Street Fighter III really did the best with their style of game (still vehemently a 2D fighter) could do with the technology available to them. Sinceย  playing BlazBlue and seeing how they chose to persure 2D cel-shaded figting I am not really looking forward to Street Fighter IV when we cover it in the future.

At the same time, as a counter point, you could ask whether that’s always a good thing… some of the best games out there came from people experimenting with genre boundaries and pushing them, meaning that we got roleplaying and adventure elements in our shooters. While I sort of noticed a slight difference in gameplay, the different characters seemed to make more of a difference there than the changes in the game itself and for all I know, the new characters could’ve been old ones with a different look. While they’ve tried some new mechanics (especially in the more exotic characters), it’s not universally so. At times, you wonder whether they tried.

It’s a bit hard to judge, really. It’s not an early entry where we can forgive the game for continuing to evolve, but this Street Fighter game also isn’t the pinnacle or innovator. It continues and adapts, looks and plays a bit better, but there’s just nothing to be wowed with. I think we’re just jaded now.

Final Thoughts

Is it a good fighting game? Sure, it’s probably about as close as you’re going to get in the 2D fighting realm at the time. It’s been improved on, and BlazBlue clearly feels superior, but it’s good fun. It’s simpler and more straight forward, and that’s a good thing – in the end, its simplicity means the game’s easy to pick up by someone like me, while still leaving plenty of room to master it. That might well be its one main advantage, though.

#396 Bangai-O

Posted: 24th September 2012 by Jeroen in Games
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1

181st played so far

Genre: Shoot ‘Em Up
Platform: Dreamcast
Year of Release: 1999
Developer: Treasure
Publisher: ESP/Conspiracy Entertainment

More Dreamfest!

As the third entry for our Dreamcast weekend, we’ve reached deep into the shoot ’em up genre to find one that was released on the Dreamcast. Bangai-O is an interesting one. Released in Japan only on the Nintendo 64, it was ported and adapted for the Dreamcast, which is the version that was released worldwide.

You know what? We just have to discuss it to show you.

Our Thoughts

This game? Imagine a manic shooter set (and no, this won’t sound original) on a space ship type of thing. You shoot in several directions, destroy lots of things, you know, buildings and such – sort of like Oids – and kill unspecified enemies. It really feels like a mixture of Oids and Jetpac to the point where you gain points by collecting fruit.

The controls for this are (at least by default) a bit awkward. The movement controls (D-pad) and firing controls (joypad) are on the same side of the Dreamcast controller, which means it can be difficult to do both at the same time. You sort of get used to it after a while (only sort of), but it gets in the way. There’s an alternative control method (also the original one in the N64 version, apparently) which used the four right buttons (like in Gunstar Heroes). It’s slightly less precise, and harder to switch over when you’re used to the original, but it might have been better to start off with.

You get two weapons to switch between (by switching between the operators of your mecha. Did I mention you were in a mecha? Woo! Mecha!). One’s lasers that bounce off walls, which is quite useful but difficult to aim sometimes, and missiles, which can be homing and feel stronger, but generally give you less control. One of the big differences between this version and the one on the N64 is in these weapons. They changed aesthetically but also in power since in this version they are both the same in terms of damage but in the N64 game there was an actual difference. This doesn’t change too much since in a tight spot you want to use the homing missiles instead of the bouncy one… but the option is there for replays and with 40+ levels that is a lot more gaming time.

The awkward controls get annoying, but overall the shooting of the game is good fun and quite nice. It gets difficult soon, but works well.

That’s not the memorable part of this game, though. It’s good, but we’ve seen it far more often – with about one in seven games on the list being shoot ’em ups, things get seen multiple times. One thing is done particularly well are the… I guess I’ll call it the bullet hell moments. Basically, you unlock your most powerful attacks by destroying the scenery around you (unlike in the N64 version where it is powered by fruit…). The attacks, unleashed by the right trigger, send bullets out in all directions and inadvertantly power up another bgi attack by all the destruction you unleash. In a boss fight it is an amazing way to whittle down their health bar as you watch 20-30 homing missles being sent their way. Rather cathartic.

The most memorable part is the Engrish and Japanese styling. Especially the Engrish. This will be our Engrish benchmark from now on. It’s grammatically incorrect, it makes no sense half the time, and it’s nearly comprehensible…they tried, but just didn’t manage. In fact, we weren’t the only ones wondering whether this was a serious translation, terrible as it is, or intentionally bad to make fun of all those traditions. After all, the story doesn’t matter – you just want to shoot more enemies. Still, you do want to play through, just to be baffled every once in a while… it’s just that far out there.

There’s a few more Japanese oddities like that. Most notably, the game over/continue screen is one of your main characters running around nude (dangly bits) covered up, with some white priest-type character leading him (think BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger‘s Taokaka’s cloak) and some other character taking pictures of this happening. It’s just freaky.

Final Thoughts

Treasure is quickly becoming one of those developers where I see their involvement in a game and I am looking forward to playing them. It’s not to the same extent as Rockstar, Nintendo or Capcom but it’s getting there… because from what I have played so far it appears they have some form of LSD in the water supply. Fantastic.

#423 Space Channel 5

Posted: 20th September 2012 by Mulholland in Games
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1

180th played so far

Genre: Music
Platform: Dreamcast
Year of Release: 1999
Developer: United Game Artists
Publisher: Sega

Woo Dreamfest!!!

I got this Dreamcast as a present to myself for finishing a piece of coursework weeks in advance and I can not believe how happy it has made me. I actually had a Dreamcast way back when it was actually being made… then, like most of my other games (including Bully and Halo) I sold it on.

Nowadays it is so cheap to get one of these bundled with a bunch of high quality titles and I have been planning this ‘Dreamfest’ (my idea for the name) for the first weekend in my PGCE year when I was free from all other worries… it took a while.

Like most of the games for the Dreamcast we have to play for this blog Space Channel 5 is one of those that I always wanted to play but never had the money to buy… until now.

Our Thoughts

It is hard to start a piece on Space Channel 5 without giving at least a mention to the court case. Everyone my age and above will have heard of the action brought against the makers of this game by Lady Miss Kier of the band Deee-lite. I won’t go into the facts of the case since a simple Google Search will do better than I could. However, as a fan I would urge you to check out their amazing album World Clique… but I do have to say that I see a resemblance between the lead character and the singer in the music video for ‘Groove Is In The Heart’…. don’t sue me!

Anyway, legal arguments aside there is one thing that needs to be said about this game… man does this thing have a difficulty curve. On the simplest level Space Channel is a game of Simon where you are a reporter named Ulala saving people who have been hypnotised into dancing (presumably dancing until they die). In order to save people, kill aliens and brainwash increasingly strange-looking robots you need to match their dance moves. Sound easy? It ain’t.

For one thing unlike game like Rock Band you have no onscreen metronome to keep you in time which means everything has to be remembered. It is hard enough in some cases to remember 12 commands strung together but when you have to do to this with the perfect timings… we things get really hard really fast. That being said this game is extremely immersive and has a great sense of humour so when you fail you are more than willing to come back.

Whilst saving civilians and… well, the world is a priority the main crux of the game is to secure ratings for Space Channel 5. You have dance-offs with fellow newshounds (JAGUAAAAAR!) and instead of an accuracy rating you are measured in terms of percentage viewership. You also can measure how well you are doing by the increasing size of your dancing entourage (which reminded me of the petal trail in Flower for some reason God only knows) as well as the enthusiasm of your backing band. When you fail the music becomes comically out of tune and it almost had me in stitches. The music is mostly reminiscent of 90s groovy house dance pop, almost retro sixties back to the disco era. (I might have looked silly at times while Peter was playing… I just had to DANCE). It works in the setting, meaning it’s no surprise these men and women do what they’re doing.

The graphics feel like they fit this style too. Very colourful, psychodelic at times, and while they don’t completely clash, they can be quite tacky. While per character they might be good, the colourful mass of people following you fit less. Even so, this colourful band just looks funny – there’s nothing like camp sailors following you, dancing in tune with their more butch captain, a hip hop diva and a jazz saxophonist. Yeah, that happened, no, it didn’t seem like it’d fit together, but it is fun.

The entourage all dance in tune, following you, which means you get a dancing crowd as you walk down (which looks awesome) and because it’s all in sync, most of our dancers tend to walk and act a bit camp too – now, they are dancers, so that might not be too surprising, but it feels slightly out there at the start.

Final Thoughts

You have to experience this gae almost as much as you need to play – it’s an incredibly difficult and challenging rhythym game that I haven’t seen be this challenging anywhere else yet – but even without that element, the style is absolutely amazing and worth trying this game for. As tacky as it is, it is also engaging and makes you want to move, something you wouldn’t expect.

It’s tough, maybe, but that just makes it more worth it.

#399 ChuChu Rocket

Posted: 16th September 2012 by Jeroen in Games
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4

179th played so far

Genre: Puzzle
Platform: Dreamcast/GBA
Year of Release: 1999
Developer: Sonic Team
Publisher: Sega

Right now we’re writing you from a bank holiday weekend. With this meaning that Peter has some more time available (having planned ahead) and the general weather being grey, wet and miserable, we decided to put this time to good use… and play a number of games on our recently acquired Dreamcast. Let Dreamfest begin. Yay!

(I know we’ve played Sonic Adventure and Skies of Arcadia before, but in both cases, due to necessity, we played the Gamecube versions. These games are for the proper console)

To start off with, we go for ChuChu Rocket! (the exclamation mark being part of the title). I’d say because it had a distinct look on its own, but as I’m watching Space Channel 5 being played as I’m typing, that’s no longer as accurate. Still, this game has its own qualities, so let’s see how it holds up.

Our Thoughts

The struggle of cat and mouse is an old and classic one. Tom & Jerry is an earlier, more famous example, but it returns in many forms, and is, in its own way, one of the themes of ChuChu Rocket as well. Mice run around the field, in a straight line, turning when they reach a wall or when an arrow on the floor directs them elsewhere. Cats do the same (most of the time) and try to catch the mice. They eat them. You may have seen similar games before… the fact that the cats move like Pac-Man was a fact that did not escape either of us.

There’s a slight Lemmings-like twist, in that the mice can escape. You can make them escape by leading them to a rocket, which they can use to take off. Just don’t let the cat get there first – it’ll eat the mice already in the rocket. The goals differ per mode – in some cases, you need to get a certain number of mice in, or all of them, in others it’s your goal to get all mice eaten by the cat.

You influence the movement and mice and… cats by placing arrows on the floor. If a critter walks over it, it’ll turn to go in that direction. That way, you can lead them to their goal or away from it and accomplish your goals… or just watch them race around in circles. It’s sort of like Flight Control, but with less control and less harmful collisions (as long as there are no cats around).

One of its most interesting features at the time were the game’s online capabilities. You could go online and get new puzzles or play the multiplayer modes against or with other players around the world. Normal in today’s world, but an absolute revelation at the time – the game was being given away at one point specifically to promote this. In a way this was a plus point for the game but there were some critics who were quick to criticize how this was handled. When you consider that this tried out online playing before the Halo games were a glimmer in the milkman’s eye it may have been overly harsh.

Even without such features (which we could not test at this time), they game still holds up well. We played it mostly offline multiplayer, which worked as well. There are a number of team challenges that involve you solving puzzles and such together (and get in each other’s way while doing so). Most of these are also single player, with a one player only puzzle mode, which means that the online or multiplayer component isn’t necessary… but it is welcome.

There’s many more options that come into gameplay. Relative speed of mouse and cat matters sometimes, including a puzzle where you have to give the mice shortcuts so they don’t catch up with the cat in front of them, and you need the right amount of insight in combination with enough speed and accuracy to make it through the game’s faster levels. Because of the game’s instant feedback, this never gets annoying and you find yourself tweaking your strategy more and more – too often you feel close enough that you’re just there, even if you’re looking at the wrong solution. It can just seem too close.

The one thing that’s possibly worth mentioning the most is the music used. During certain vs. modes, you can get power ups, each with their own sound when they start… and often they just make you smile, even if they don’t seem the most appropriate – a speed-up power up is one that’s more about making you relax for example, while more appropriately cat mania (yeah, what you think it means) makes it clear who’s coming after you. The ‘mouse mania’ music was incredibly addictive…

The graphics aren’t hugely brilliant, but they’re pretty nice and suitable and work pretty well for the game. Sometimes the colour of your goal and cursor can be distracting, but the nicest parts come in the finale of the game – your rocket takes off and you see a flat view of the board, with cats walking over rather than next to you.

Final Thoughts

These days you’d find this game – as so many others of the area – on your mobile or iPad. It’s hard to imagine how it’d deal with some things, but it feels it could work. Still, that’s not a bad thing about this game – it’s brilliant fun that has you banging your head against the wall repeatedly as you play it, and the challenge is still difficult and frustrating. That’s something that won’t change.

One thing that this game made me wish for was a large group of local gaming mates who would want to come round with pizza and beer (Pepsi Max for myself) and play retro games as part of an all-nighter… a man can dream though…

#917 Flight Control

Posted: 12th September 2012 by Mulholland in Games
Tags: , , , ,
1

178th played so far

Genre: Management Simulation
Platform: iPhone, Nintendo DS
Year of Release: 2009
Developer: Firemint
Publisher: Namco

Of the larger consoles on this list the one we are most likely to finish first will be the iOS games. Like the majority of people in the world I commute and as such like to use this time playing on my iPhone instead of using the travel time to get extra work done. Since most iPhone games on this list are renowned for their ‘pick-up-and-playability’ I have actually played all the iPhone games we need to cover… it’s just a matter of us being able to write them up for this blog when I am otherwise working super hard on lesson plans. Besides, you won’t believe how difficult it is for me to wrestle his iMachines away from him to play the game.

Our Thoughts

When I first picked up Flight Control the only thing I knew about it was that the book called it a management simulation. What immediately came to mind was Theme Hospital set in an airport… totally not the premise.

Later ports of this have been released on PSN and XBLA but in order to really get the most of this game you really need a touch screen like you find with an iPhone, iPad or DS. Why? Well the game relies on you being able to direct planes from the air to the runway without you having them crash into each other in midair. This is fun and challenging on a touch screen because you are able to deftly use your fingers… I can only imagine the simulated carnage when using a regular controller.

The premise is outstandingly simple, so simple that since it’s release in 2009 there have already been a number of decent games that have developed on this concept in the form of crossroads and train tracks. This remains king, however, because of the route freedom. Your ability to play this game relies on plenty of things; you need to be able to multi-task, think quickly and, most of all, make creative convoluted routes that allow your planes to land successfully whilst many planes of different speeds are queueing up for the runway. It also requires you to keep an overview – while you’re dealing with the bottom left corner, the planes coming in from the top might otherwise crash into your planes circling around waiting for an opportunity to land.

In terms of levels the people at Firemint have been truly giving people value for money. A year after its intial release they did a complete graphical overhaul to bring it into line with contemporary iOS software as well as a reaction to the many related games that had started to crop up on AppStore. This has also resorted in a much-lauded HD edition as well as many new levels (even one requiring traditional 3D glasses!)

Whilst the idea of guiding planes to runways does not sound much in ways of variety of gameplay there really is a number of interesting ideas at work. Different runways have different difficulties that do not simply signal that there are more planes. An example of this is a level reminiscent of Heathrow in December where runways periodically switch on and off meaning you really have to think on your feet. Then there is a level apparently set in Australia where planes make emergency landings every now and then and it is up to you to reroute 5-10 planes to make sure no crashes ensue. Then there’s the level set on the moon, where asteroids and other rocks come by occasionally to disturb your planes… or crash them.

Games like this are aimed to be simple but addictive and this has drawn comparisons by some games journalists as the iOS equivalent of crack cocaine (it’s chocolate). A few weeks ago I even awoke at 7 on a Sunday morning with an urge to land some planes whilst having Arrested Development on in the background. This really is the epitome of an interesting concept done very well.

Final Thoughts

While the game won’t provide you with hours of fun or an in depth world, this is one of the casual games that is just incredibly addictive. It’ll never take you long and a loss doesn’t feel bad, but it does keep drawing you back to better your score. Good enough for us.

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