Flack's Top 15 Games

[Flack]

I forgot to mention, Paradroid was written by Andrew Braybrook, who also wrote Uridium.

[youtube][/youtube]

I used to be really good at Uridium, but my reflexes are too slow at this point to be any good at it. My favorite part of the game was that you were (apparently) flying one of my favorite ships of all time, a snowspeeder from TESB.

[AArdvark]

Flack wrote about RobB:

games written by a single person don't tend to have a lot of quality control built in -- I'm looking at you, Jonsey

So Cluthu the Vextrex spider game wont be good?

THE
ALREADY PRE-ORDERED
AARDVARK

[Flack]

I keed, I keed ...

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Flack wrote about RobB:

games written by a single person don't tend to have a lot of quality control built in -- I'm looking at you, Jonsey

So Cluthu the Vextrex spider game wont be good?

THE
ALREADY PRE-ORDERED
AARDVARK

I'll be honest. NOTHING would give me greater pleasure than programming, in Assembly, a Vectrex game, except for finding true love and starting a family. But I'm a bit backed up.

I have opinions about auteur theory and how it translates to tested video games that I'll post shortly. I'm watching people burn their LeBron James jerseys at the mo.

[Flack]

#05. Lode Runner



Lode Runner is the second game in a row on this list that (A) was written by a single person and (B) changed my life. Lode Runner was written by Douglas E. Smith, a Washington state college student. The game was originally written on a VAX, then ported to the Apple II. Ultimately the game was picked up for distribution by Broderbund and was ported to dozens of other computer and console systems.

The goal of Lode Runner is to clear each level of packages. Once the player has collected all the packages, a ladder will appear that you can use to exit the level. Guarding the packages are a number of guards who will chase and attempt to kill you. Complicating things is the fact that the guards can pick up, move, and drop the packages.

While the player can neither jump nor shoot, he can dig holes. The guards cannot "see" the holes and will fall into them every time. The holes automatically refill themselves in a matter of seconds, so if you time it just right you can kill an enemy this way. (Bad news for you; they regenerate and drop in again from the top of the screen. Still, you'll earn a few seconds of free time as they struggle to climb out of the holes, and watching them suffer is oddly theraputic.) Guards carrying packages automatically drop them when falling into holes, which is a nice side effect. You can also safely walk across guards stuck in holes.

The original version of Lode Runner contained 150 levels, each trickier than the last. The game starts off with ladders (that you can climb), bricks (that you can dig holes in), and ropes (which, while traversing, prevent you from digging as your hands are busy). Later levels introduce blocks (which you cannot dig through) and traps (that you will fall through). Many of the levels are downright genius in their design, delivering many "Aha!" and "Oops!" moments game after game.

There were two things that made Lode Runner so great and helped it separate from the hundreds of other "level/platform" games released around that same time (1983). The first was the game's puzzle aspect. Running your way through the game's first dozen or so levels was a piece of cake, but after that, the levels became puzzles. And the puzzles, traps, and devious designs weren't always obvious right off the bat. Sometimes it wasn't until you found yourself at the bottom of a hole waiting to die that you could calmly sit back and say, "I see what you did there." And each level requires different puzzle solving skills. Sometimes it's a matter of grouping the guards, while other times it's figuring out a way to retrive a particular package, or navigating a series of traps.

The other thing that made Lode Runner and instant classic was its level editor. Included within Lode Runner was the ability to make your own levels, save them, and trade them with friends (assuming they owned Lode Runner, too). Not only did the level editor allow for the fun to go on forever, but it also made you aware just how terrific the game's included 150 levels truly were.

Lode Runner was soon followed by Championship Lode Runner, which ran on the same engine and included 50 difficult levels. Running through the list of platforms Lode Runner has been ported to is pointless -- it would be quicker to list the ones that the game wasn't ported to (and I can't think of any). Some ports are better than others (the NES one is pretty awful), but the C64, Apple II and DOS versions are all pretty equal. One thing I always liked about the Apple version was our joystick had two buttons. On the Apple, that related to "dig left" and "dig right". C64 joysticks only had one button and so you had to face the direction you intended to dig. Sure, it only takes a fraction of a second to turn around, but in Lode Runner, sometimes a fraction of a second is all you have to work with. It sure was convenient in the Apple version to be running away and digging behind you to trap guards hot on your trail.

Lode Runner has received multiple updates and facelifts. The guards became demons and backgrounds were added in the PlayStation version, and the game has more than once been dragged into the 3rd dimension (Lode Runner's Rescue for the C64, Lode Runner 2 for the PC, Lode Runner 3D for the N64, and Cubic Lode Runner for the GameCube and PS2). Lode Runner has been ported to the GameBoy, GameBoy Advance and Nintendo DS, and also appears on the Wii's Virtual Console, XBLA, and of course the iPhone. There are probably versions for your toaster and the computer that runs the antilock brakes inside your car, too.

Call me a luddite, but I like the original, 2D experience the best. The more things they add to the game, the further they get away from the simplistic yet challenging gameplay. There was a day when brains, more than brawn, ruled the gaming world. Lode Runner represents that era.

[Flack]

#04. Wizardry/Bard's Tale


Wizardry


Bard's Tale

Dungeons and Dragons is the most popular fantasy role-playing game of all time, but it is not without its drawbacks. The game requires a bare minimum of two people to play (the more the better), with one of those people acting as "dungeon master", the person behind the scenes who runs the game. Games tend to last days or weeks at a time, played in multiple-hour "chunks". Getting multiple players to commit to months of spending hours at a time playing a game is often difficult to do. If only a guy were able to kick Orc ass from the confort of his own home, at his own leisure, by himself, wearing only his boxers ...

Wizardry is, for all intents and purposes, a computer-based version of D&D. Like D&D, there's a lot of work that has to take place before an adventure begins. Characters must be created, inventory must be purchased, characters must be equipped with purchased inventory, parties must be assembled, and so on. Wizardry parties can contain up to six characters who move through dungeons in two rows (with characters 1-3 up front and 4-6 in the rear) so it's a good idea to put your stronger fighters in the front with your magic users behind them.

But unlike Dungeons and Dragons, there is no longer a need for a human Dungeon Master. That role in Wizardry is covered by the computer, who presents the mazes to you, tracks every detail of every character, knows every chart and performs every roll of the dice.

Wizardry was one of the first "party-based" computer role playing games. Like D&D, different characters possessed different abilities (fighters fought, spellcasters casted spells, thieves picked locks, and so on). Magic users were notably weak and helpless in early levels of the game due to armor restrictions and wimpy spells, but in upper levels their powers grew exponentially. (Tiltowait, bitch.)

I never thought of myself as being in a 2D game, but Wizardry seemed like "real space" to me. Although the graphics were rudimentary compared to today's games, "walking around" in 3D space made Wizardry's dungeons all that more real.

Bard's Tale was the spiritual successor of Wizardry -- it was everything Wizardry was, and more. Bard's Tale came with a map. No longer could you just press a letter and be taken to the inn or an equipment shop, you had to actually visit those places! Additionally, the somewhat limited creature graphics were replaced by ones both in color and animated. Skara Brae (the setting of the original Bard's Tale) was full of secrets, passages, and dungeons. At the time, it was the ultimate adventure game.

My buddy Jeff and I spent an entire summer playing the original Bard's Tale on the Commodore 64, and a few year's later we were doing it again with Bard's Tale II and III.

In 1991, Interplay released the "Bard's Tale Construction Set." I can't imagine a more exciting title, and yet the game never lived up to its promise. The biggest disappointment was that it was difficult/impossible to insert your own graphics into the game. Without that ability, all the adventures tended to look the same.

Wizardry invented the dungeon crawler and Bard's Tale perfected it. Unfortunately the genre has been replaced by games like Diablo (and later, World of Warcraft), but if you ask me, the ones that started it all are still some of the greatest of all time. Once you've beaten them there's not a lot of replay value in them, but I guarantee you'll remember the adventure for years and years.

[Flack]

I am thinking about making Strawberry Shortcake for the Atari 2600 #1 on my list just to rile you pukes up and get some people responding.

[Lysander]

Wait, what? That's a game? *interest!*

[Flack]

[youtube][/youtube]

[AArdvark]

I was hoping E. T. for the 2600 was gonna be #1!


This list is quite enjoyable. Please to be advancing ever onward.

THE
HALO 2,
I CAN JUST TELL
AARDVARK

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Yeah, I've got a backlog of comments to type in this weekend.

When I moved to Colorado, I made a list of PROS and CONS between making a game using Graham Nelson's Inform, and a game in the Bard's Tale Construction set. It was down to one of those two systems!! I'm glad I picked making a text game. It seems silly now, but I was totally willing to spend six months making a Bard's Tale adventure instead.

[Flack]

Unlike most of those types of programs, I believe the BTCS creates an executable game that doesn't require the original program to run. A lot of those types of programs (Pinball Construction Set, Fireworks Construction Set, Racing Destruction Set) allowed you to create things, but you needed the original program in order to run them. Of course at least in the case of Fireworks Construction Set, I can't imagine anyone except other people who paid money for Fireworks Construction Set being interested in watching your virtual fireworks display.

Also, I found out that the program uses .LBM graphic files, which are unique to Deluxe Paint, which was a good choice for the Amiga version but a terrible choice for PC owners. If BTCS had allowed custom bmp or jpg files, I would probably still be making adventures with it today.

[Flack]

#03. Doom 1/2



The first 3D game I ever played was a crappy game called "Way Back" on the Commodore 64 back in 1983. It was joystick-based and I think the goal was to simply escape from a maze (I don't remember there being any enemies). In the early days of DOS gaming I also remember playing a 3D version of Pac-Man that put you down in the maze, eye level with the ghosts. And then there was Faceball 2000 for the SNES. While all these games were 3D in nature, none of them were genre-busters; simple gimmicks, nothing more.

Wolfenstein 3D arrived on the scene with a bang (bang!) and soon the market was flooded with similar-but-usually-inferior knock-offs. There was Blake Stone and Corridor 7 and Rise of the Triad and Spear of Destiny and a zillion others I forgot.

Then there was Doom. While Wolfenstein was good, it still felt like a game to me. The world of Doom actually felt like a "real" place. Doom could make you leap out of your chair if a monster jumped out and surprised you. Doom could raise your heartbeat and make your palms sweat. Down in the darkest parts of the game, Doom could actually make you afraid.

And with Doom II came network play. All you guys who attend LAN parties? You can thank Doom II. I learned how to network computers together so that I could play Doom II with other people. Back when I worked at Best Buy, employees would volunteer to come in and help close down the store after hours just so they could connect machines together with Laplink cables and play Doom II in the store after hours on the display computers.

And do you know why Doom is so high on this list? Because they have been remaking it for 15 years now. Seriously. They cal call it Duke Nukem', they can call it Quake, they can call it Half-Life, they can call it GoldenEye 007, they can call it whatever they want, but they're all basically Doom. Hell, for several years first-person shooters were simply referred to as "Doom Clones".

There are first person shooters today with better graphics and additional features (like jumping), but few of them are as fun as the original.

[AArdvark]

I don't like Duke Nukem because every time I respawn someone blasts me in .08 seconds.





THE
WONDER WHO
AARDVARK

im just not very good at FPS games.

[Flack]

Wow, after reading your comment I immediately realized I should have elaborated more.

Not only am I terrible at first person shooters, but I don't really care for them. Almost all of them give me motion sickness headaches. Ghost Recon is one of the few that doesn't (and one of the few I really, really like) but even at that, I'm not that good at it.

For some reason, in most modern shooters, the locals never look "familiar" to me. I'm okay in a normal level where I have to go from point A to point B, but in a deathmatch where I'm wandering around in circles, forget about it. Without a map feature, I'll be lost forever.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I mean to make a larger post on this, but what I like best about Lode Runner, at least for the PC, is how the speed is so perfect.

I have the Atari version nearby, and thanks to that programmable cartridge, I can play the real ROM on a real Atari 800. I should time the two versions to see if Lode Runner's speed is the same.

I also believed that the PC version was superior to the home console versions because you really need two buttons. I didn't know that the Apple joystick had two buttons! I guess I sort of always knew it didn't use that standard 2600/C64/Genesis joystick, but didn't fully comprehend the second button. This means I probably have to change the thread I posted here, which was statements nobody of right mind ought to disagree with.

[Flack]

For the longest time, IBM had the worst joysticks. And it's not like someone couldn't have just taken an Atari stick and stuck a PC connector on the back of it, but nobody did. Instead you had a series of crappy flight sticks and other stupid contraptions, until Gravis came along and saved the world.

But yeah, Apple sticks had two buttons, which made Lode Runner great and Choplifter great. On Choplifter, one button fired your guns while the other one turned your chopper 180 degrees. This was kind of important because jets were always blowing you up from behind, so it was a pretty good tactic to fly backwards (fly left while facing right). On the C64 version you have to do all this with one button, which is done by either tapping the button or holding it down. It works only because it's not a big deal if you happen to shoot while spinning around, but yeah, the Apple version was better.

Commodore had the best solution by simply adding a DB9 port and using Atari 2600 compatible joysticks. The best thing about this was, by the mid-80s pretty much everybody had a pile of Atari 2600 joysticks somewhere in their house.

--

I just (A) moved to a new room at work temporarily which has halted work on the list, and (B) my wife is out of town so I'm on kid duty at night which has halted work on the list, and (C) I've spent the last two days finishing a new episode of my podcast, which has halted work on the list. So basically, work has halted on the list temporarily. I'll nudge it along in the next day or two.

[RetroRomper]

Flack:

I found your esteem for Galaga quite intruiging because I hold a very similar opinion of Galaxian and oddly, for many of the same reasons that you express your enjoyment of making Galaga. Let me elaborate on why Galaxian is my number #3 game of all time..

RetroRomper's #3 Game of All Time...

GALAXIAN

Its 1979 and the neon lights and loud, faintly screeching digital sounds of an arcade go off in swatches much akin to sporadic firing of a gun range; located in a large, poorly lit and ventilated room, these islands of disconnected stimuli pulse and beep to the rhythm of whoever is currently caressing the joystick in their loving, appreciative hands. In one of these lone islands of noise and epileptic causing strobe lighting, a line forms behind an arcade cabinet that displays on its marque, an oddly shaped Gecko with wings framed behind a field of stars; an oddity such as a space born Gecko is lost to the masses however, as they are waiting with bated breath for the chance to add their own round of screeching, pulsating visual and auditory lamination to the world. Released less than a year after Taito's iconic Space Invaders, Galaxian was Namco's response to this arguably genre defining game. As opposed to the rough curvature, almost template exercise that Space Invaders is forced to conform to because of technical limitations however, Galaxian was the first cabinent to feature full color without the stocky movement animations or controls that Taito were forced to structure their own video game around. More importantly, there is an actual feel to the art direction, to the play style and movement of the ship and aliens.

This would become an important trait because games a decade later would take these simplistic movement controls and completely redefine them, resulting in the sub-genres of the shoot'em all, or SHMUP genre, known as "Bullet hell" and the games this element was tacked onto. But Galaxian was the precursors to all this and though it can be argued that Space Invaders did introduce the formula that defined this game, this genre, Galaxian was the first to take the basic equation and expand on it, creating a thing of beauty and polish that served as an example of what was truly possible to an industry of what can be accomplished when a definable expertise was honed in a medium to be a craft, to become a piece of art.

Galaga and Pac-Man would later come to cement Namco's place in the hierarchy of video games, but it was Galaxian with its formulaic yet inspired rendition of a fledgling genre that came just at the right moment, nearly hand in hand with the progenitor of the genre, to show exactly what was truly possible in an arcade, or for that matter, a video game.

But beyond the theoretical pangs of game design that Galaxian embodies, it was also the first game to truly engineer a desire in players to excel in a cabinet game. Yes, Space Invaders and Pong were earlier examples of games with a definable interest for their players to achieve a high score, but the fluidity of the ships and of the aliens and the not "slowly moving to the left or right" style held by Space Invaders, allowed players to show finesse and true expertise in a game for the first time. The now routine "expert play runs" of SHMUPS such as Ikaruga, Radiant Silvergun, Darius or even R-Type, wouldn't have been possible in the form they took if it weren't for the attention to detail, animation, and the wisdom of Namco of actually watching how people played their games and reacted to them, that was honed and integrated into Galaxian.

[pinback]

Not to mention that to this very day, Galaxian remains among the hardest shmups ever created.

I still suck at it, and I'm great at everything. Q.E.D., motherfuckers.

[Flack]

#02. King's Quest



I don't know how many of you were around during the early days of computer gaming, but I was -- and I can tell you first hand that for the most part, it was pretty lousy. Yes, there were some good text adventures, but for every good text adventure there were hundreds if not thousands of crappy BASIC-driven messterpieces. If you've never spent hours of your life typing in a crappy game from a magazine only to have it crash or not run at all ... consider yourself lucky.

Commodore and Apple computers were light years ahead of the comparatively klunky PC. The IBM PC was a business machine (that's what the "B" stands for). Long before the days of soundcards and external speakers, PCs were known for the shrill BEEPs they emitted from their internal speakers. Early DOS games were available in one of two limited color palettes. ("It'll do four colors, as long as two of them are black and white." - My Dad.) Different machines played the same games at different speeds, and having to boot from DOS all but guaranteed disk swapping. IBMs dominated the business world with Lotus 123 and WordPerfect, but in the early world of gaming, they were in dead last.

The PCjr was a watered-down and slightly more proprietary IBM, but what it lacked in hardware compatibility, it made up for with its improved graphics and audio capabilities. Shortly after the Junior's debut came the original King's Quest (KQ1) by Sierra Online. Prior to the release of KQ1, "graphical adventures" were simply text adventures accompanied by static pictures. In King's Quest, you could actually walk around and interact with your environment. Amazing!

I was 11 years old when the first King's Quest game was released and it was one of the first games I actually beat. The game was hard, but not impossible. Plus, if you got stuck, most of the puzzles could be solved with brute force by trying every item in your inventory on every object in the game until something happened.

King's Quest marked many firsts in computer gaming. Besides launching the graphical adventure genre, it had a giant budget ($700,000+, according to Wikipedia) and took 18 months to develop. Also, it was one of the first games to be created using its own engine ... which made developing sequels and other similar that much simpler.

Not only did King's Quest give birth to a popular series (I believe there are 8 official King's Quest games in all, not including the graphically-superior remakes and fan-made games), it gave birth to a genre. Along with King's Quest, from Sierra alone we got the Space Quest series, the Police Quest series, the Hero's Quest series, and the Leisure Suit Larry series. LucasArts followed suit and, using a proprietary engine of their own, created classics such as Maniac Mansion, Zak McKracken, Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max Hit the Road, and Labyrinth, among others. There were also dozens and dozens of similar games. I remember playing The Black Cauldron (based on the Disney movie), Dark Seed, Flight of the Amazon Queen, The Secret of Monkey Island, Willy Beamish, and so many more.

All of these games can be directly traced back to King's Quest, the original. Unfortunately the genre began to suffer when, to make them harder, developers began making the puzzles more obscure. It wasn't much fun to find out you hadn't performed a required task at the beginning of the game and having to start all over. Many times, objects vital to beating a game were overlooked by players due to low quality graphics. Another frustrating point for gamers was that these games had a bad habit of killing you unfairly, or dropping you into locations where your only option was to revert to a previously saved game (or, quit). "Save often" was a common mantra.

But unlike some of those later games, the goal of King's Quest (delivered to you by the King himself!) was pretty simple: obtain three treasures and return them to the King's castle. And this was done by wandering around this new graphical countryside and solving puzzles. It was an incredible gaming experience, one that has stuck with me for the past twenty-five years. I believe the first three King's Quest games all used the game engine, and all of them were a delight to play.

Although these "point-and-click adventures" (as they were often referred to as) were still being made in the mid 1990s, ultimately, 3D killed 2D. You people picked games like Redneck Rampage over one of the greatest genres of all time and ruined it for everybody.

While many of the older point-and-click adventures have problems running on newer operating systems, there are so many other ways to play them that it's almost silly. DOSBox will play almost all of these old games, including the original King's Quest, right out of the (pardon the pun) Box. The entire King's Quest series has been updated and re-released for modern systems and can be picked up for pennies on eBay. SCUMMVM, the engine used to run all the classic LucasArts point-and-click adventures, has been ported to everything, including the iPhone.

While it's hard to go wrong with any of the LucasArts or Sierra Online old point-and-click adventures, the original King's Quest is a great place to wade into the genre. Adventures await you, Sir Graham!