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The games that defi ned genres, pioneered mechanics and changed gaming forever!

DEVS SAY TOP GAMES MUST NEVER MADE SPECIAL We ask renowned game devs what The 15 most amazing The state of games games they consider a must play looking cancelled projects education in Australia

ou Must Pl

are some games that have left an indelible on both the games industry as a whole and in particular, and there are others that are so well espected that they are all but permanent fixtures on "The Best Games of All Time" lists. This isn't that type of magazine. Rather than looking at games that are simply superlative, we've instead focussed on those games that we think all should go out of their way to play - not just because they're good, but because of what they represent or the way in which they typified their genre or style. There's also one so bad you're guaranteed to win " t " ment. We also take a look at aming, games education in s never made and much, much

tions of games that are a hyper.com.au and tell us.

DANIEL WILKS Human Listicle

6 EDITORIAL Editor: Daniel Wilks Senior Writer: Dan Staines Art Director: Oliver Barles Senior Editorial Guru: Ben Mansill

EDITORIAL ENQUIRIES [email protected]

CONTRIBUTORS James O'Connor, Alex Mann, James Cottee, Mikolai, Heidi Kemps, David Hollingworth, Bennett Ring DEVS LIKE GAMES TOO THE BEST THAT NEVER WERE 60 Here are some of their faves 64 The 15 best games never made Group National Advertising Manager Cameron Ferris (02) 9901 6348 [email protected] Advertising Traffic: Alison Begg (02) 9901 6346 [email protected]

Pre-press Manager: Jonathan Bishop Production Manager: Alison Begg Circulation Director: Carole Jones

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Hyper is published by nextmedia Pty Ltd ACN: 128 805 970, Level 6, 207 Pacific Highway, St Leonards, NSW 2065 © 2013. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the prior permission of the publisher. Printed by Webstar Sydney, distributed in Australia by Network Services. ISSN 1320-7458. The publisher will not accept responsibility or any liability for the correctness of information or opinions expressed GAMES IN EDUCATION EDUCATION SPECIAL in the publication. All material submitted is at the 86 90 owner’s risk and, while every care will be taken I' lernding! Learn how to make games nextmedia does not accept liability for loss or damage.

Privacy Policy We value the integrity of your personal information. If you provide personal information through your ESSAYS participation in any competitions, surveys or offers featured in this issue of Hyper, this will be used 10 to provide the products or services that you have requested and to improve the content of our 14 FTL: Faster than Light magazines. Your details may be provided to third 18 IL2: Cliffs of Dover parties who assist us in this purpose. In the event of organisations providing prizes or offers to our 24 Burnout 3 readers, we may pass your details on to them. 28 Soldier From time to time, we may use the information you provide us to inform you of other products, services 34 Aerobiz and events our company has to offer. We may also 40 give your information to other organisations which DEFCON may use it to inform you about their products, 46 Divinity: Original Sin services and events, unless you tell us not to do so. 50 You are welcome to access the information that we hold about you by getting in touch with our privacy 56 4 officer, who can be contacted at nextmedia, Locked 59 Ride to Hell: Retribution o Bag 5555, St Leonards, NSW 1590 www.nextmedia.com.au 101 GAMES You Must Play

Top 100 lists are pretty great when it comes to fomenting conversation but trying to put a bunch of games in numerical order is a hard task. How do you decide that Half- 2 is a better game than Civilization? Both are supremely good, hugely influential and near perfect examples of their genre. So which one is better? Rather than running a Top 100 list, we’ve instead opted to list 101 games that we think should be played by anyone who considers themselves a . Not all of the games are amazing – hell, some of them aren’t even good – but they are all important in some way. Some of the games are fine examples of early genre tropes while others were hugely influential or genre defining. Whatever the case, we consider them all essential.

8 Pokémon Gold/Silver

The core mechanics of the Pokémon pokémon is no series haven’t changed much over number, but on the years. Sure, we now have 3D the series has s landscapes and an ability to parade new Johto regi our pocket monsters around like re-introduce th spoilt Honey Boo Boos, but Gold region, with the & Silver had just the right balance single-handedl of everything. These are titles of beloved map fr firsts: with the introduction of into the tiny litt the night and day cycle, trainers You might have now have to plan ahead to catch finding an orig special pokémon that only appear as HeartGold a at certain times; dual elemental have been relea types allow for more diverse we’d heartily combat options; and the friendship/ recommend happiness mechanic srengthens diving in to player relationships with their little CATCH ‘EM battling buds. The starter Pokémon ALL! are solid, and the 251 available

NieR

DEVELOPER: MOJANG PUBLISHER: MOJANG, Finding its origins amongst his quest, such as the pompous STUDIOS, COMPUTER ENETERTAINMENT the fifth-ending of the first talking book known as Grimoire TYPE: SANDBOX PLATFORM: EVERYTHING , NieR was destined to Weiss, provide more than enough THAT’S NOT NINTENDO be an odd title. Its mix of genres, character and entertainment to YEAR: 2011 and styles don’t always fill the stoic main’s void. Third gel, but provide an experience person hack n slash combat, top- quite unlike any other. This can be down shoot ‘em ups and even 2D seen firstly through the game’s platforming segments all make an , an ageing mercenary appearance – yet NieR continually that doesn’t subscribe to the grounds itself in an explorative immaculate appearance of other three dimensional RPG, all held RPG characters. His daughter is together by an engrossing ill, and he’s determined to find story and epic adventure. It’s a a cure for the strange virus that scattered title that really shouldn’t threatens to take her life. In actual work – yet somehow it does – fact, he’s really quite bland, but providing a journey worthy of the those that accompany him on upcoming sequel. If you haven’t encountered Minecraft yet you’re living wrong. The procedurally generated sandbox is a playground of possibilities, and one that

DEVELOPER: is so malleable it’s able to shift with every turn gaming seems to take. Currently appearing on a ridiculous PUBLISHER: SQUARE number of platforms, the -it-how-you-see-it title TYPE: ACTION RPG PLATFORM: PS3, X360 draws upon our basic instinct to create. Middle Earth, YEAR: 2010 Azeroth, and even a fully mapped out Death Star are but some of the amazing user-created content this title has spawned, not to mention a working 16-bit computer. But creation is only one aspect of the title, with other players focusing on exploring, adventure, combat or taking part in fan made multiplayer . What the future of Minecraft holds is uncertain, but from the AR demo we saw at this year – which projected a 3D Minecraft map onto a table via Microsoft’s Hololens – it looks like this title will continue to break the mould for some time yet.

9 Even if you've never played Deadly Premonition, there's a good chance you've seen this game in motion – its cut scenes are so unnerving and peculiar that several of them have gone viral. Like the iconic sequence where the protagonist sits at one end of a comically long dining table while trying to talk to a hearing-impaired elderly woman, as a wistful, whistling folk tune grows ever louder, overpowering the dialogue. The scene ends as he confides with an imaginary friend, divines the future from the shape of the cream in his coffee, and flashes an unnerving, maniacal grin. It's not immediately clear if he is a hero, a villain, or simply out of his mind. Deadly Premonition was directed by Hidetaka Suehiro, better known as 'SWERY', the off-kilter creator of D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die. While the story and themes have Deadly clearly been cribbed from , and the interface owes a great debt to old-school , Deadly Premonition Premonition is more than the sum of its influences. Rather than being ushered from one strictly linear story or action sequence to the next, the player is presented with emergent objectives in an open world, a JAMES COTTEE investigates a picture postcard country town in the Pacific Northwest. murder in a town that's like Twin The in-game clock dictates how residents mill about Peaks times a thousand... and live their lives, when businesses open and close, and what side-quests are available. As time passes the protagonist needs to eat, sleep, shave, change his clothes, and refuel his car. There is a still a great deal of that trademark Japanese gaming wonkiness: the awkwardness of the over-the- shoulder perspective, the finicky nature of the tank controls (especially aggravating on staircases), the derpy vehicle handling, the spindly text font, and a hundred other quirks. And as for the of the good citizens of Greenvale, well, maybe a better name for their town would be '.' But Deadly Premonition transcends all these quibbles, for its simulation aspects create a great deal of mmersion. It's also a comedy masterpiece. Every slice of the story is moreish, from the fruity puzzles, to the deadpan delivery of the oddest lines, to the cocksure attitude of the , FBI Special Agent York. York speaks frequently with his imaginary S NG friend Zach, an in-game explanation for the

DY RPG player's control over events. X 360, Game content is divided between 3 conventional real-world exploration and nightmare sequences where sick red spectral tentacles intrude from some dark dimension. n these dank scenes York is obliged to shoot or flee from shimmering zombie ghosts with mouths cut from ear to ear and spines bent over backwards so they can walk on all fours. These ghoulies are a novel take on the concept of undead body horror, and York's dream sequences are creepier still. By trying his own take on a David Lynch franchise, SWERY has pushed beyond the conventions of what s merely 'crazy' and has in effect divided by . Yet not all gamers have found his iconoclastic approach endearing. This could possibly be put down ambiguous marketing, where customers expecting a cross between and GTA found themselves playing a cross between Wild at Heart and . We get a clue to the game director's attitude to nteractivity when we're first introduced to York, as he discusses his conviction that Tom & Jerry cartoons are a metaphor for a consensually abusive relationship. This could well be a metaphor for the relationship between consumers and highly idiosyncratic Japanese game designers. We profess disdain for fetch quests, cheap monsters, and even cheaper quick-time events. Yet we cop it sweet.

10

101 GAMES

BioShock

DEVELOPER: KCET Question: What do you get when you combine Ayn PUBLISHER: TYPE: ACTION-PLATFORMER Rand with Walt Disney? Answer: Andrew Ryan – PLATFORM: PLAYSTATION, SATURN, XBLA, PSN wealthy industrialist, self-styled ubermensch, and YEAR: 1997 one of the most memorable villains in videogame history. Revolted by the altruistic decadence of American society, Ryan fled to the bottom of the ocean and built his underwater utopia: Rapture – an objectivist paradise where the artist would not fear the censor, and the scientist would not be bound by petty morality. Where the great would not be constrained by the small. : Symphony of the Night But like all utopias, it didn’t take long for Rapture to collapse under its own weight. Within a matter of months, Ryan’s undersea wonderland Symphony of the Night was a single vast, nonlinear . was transformed into a drowning hell, undone radical departure for Castlevania: a Thus the “” was born, by the contradictions inherent in its existence. thorough and inspired reinvention and – with the exception of a few In BioShock, we are granted the privilege of that would define the trajectory of less-than-memorable oddities – the witnessing Rapture’s death throes, of watching the the entire series for years to come. series hasn’t looked back since. great Andrew Ryan’s sanity disintegrate along with You see, before SoTN, Castlevania Just as importantly, SoTN is the his dreams. As you might expect, it makes for quite was a fairly side-scrolling first game in the Castlevania series a show, one that’s definitely worth your time… action-platformer: levels were self- to really double-down on the whole even if the final act is almost as big a disaster as contained and character progression over-the-top, frilly cravats and Rapture itself. non-existent. Realising this stained-glass-window aesthetic venerable formula had passed its that has since become a hallmark expiry date, directors Toru Hagihara of the series. The is also and Koji Igarashi looked to the incredible, and who could forget Nintendo classics Zelda and Super that expertly acted dialogue? “What for inspiration, introducing is a man? A miserable little pile of rudimentary RPG mechanics and secrets! But enough talk… have at replacing individual levels with a you!” Ahh, good times.

DEVELOPER: SQUARESOFT PUBLISHER: SQUARESOFT TYPE: RPG PLATFORM: SNES, PLAYSTATION, DS, IOS ETC. YEAR: 1995

Chrono Trigger

Developed by a “dream-team” catalogue. But more importantly of gaming industry superstars than that, Trigger is also – including the creators of Final mechanically flawless, featuring , , and an accessible and engrossing – turn-based combat system, robust is a work of staggering genius: a character development, and game so far ahead of the curve fights that remain as challenging in all respects that it’s (ironically today as they were 20 years ago. enough) essentially timeless. With The fact that Chrono Trigger has an endearing cast of memorable only received one (weird but by no heroes and villains, a complex but means bad) sequel and has since remarkably tight narrative, genuinely languished in obscurity is a mystery beautiful visuals, and one of to us. This is arguably the best game game ever written, it’s Square has ever made, and the an artistic tour de force that – in best they can manage for its 20th our opinion – remains unequalled anniversary is to release a remixed in all of Square’s voluminous back OST? It just doesn’t make any sense.

12 101 GAMES

Streets of Rage 2

More 80s than the 80s, 2 blends cutoffs with neon nightlife as a cast of hip teens take to the streets to clear out the trash. The city DEVELOPER: is overrun with criminals – AGAIN – and original THE BITMAP BROTHERS fighter Adam has been kidnapped. Old hats Blaze PUBLISHER: IMAGE WORKS and Axel return as playable characters, joined this TYPE: SPORTS PLATFORM: ST, time around by newcomers Eddie “Skate” Hunter , PC, XBLA and a big grappling lad named Max Thunder. The YEAR: 1990 quintessential beat ‘em up, stands out in the series as it discards the previous game’s handicap system, working to differentiate characters via unique move and skill-sets. Tweaks like Skate’s ability to dash if the right D-pad is double tapped enrich character choice, moving the series away from a cast of skin swapped fighters. Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe Weapons are numerous and varying, with knives being thrown, baseball bats swung and katanas slicing – as any good katana should. Yet whether The year is 2105. After being forced individual stats heavily affecting playing alone or with friends, it’s hard to find a title underground for decades, Speedball each player’s in-game AI. Match that beats the simple joy of punching, kicking and – the world’s most brutal sport – soundscapes are completely flipping through armies of bikers, and even has resurfaced in order to reclaim diegetic in form: comprised entirely robots in these dark, but always raging, city streets. its former glory. Fiercer than ever from the roar of the crowd or before, the sequel follows new team screams of tackled players – placing Brutal Deluxe as they work their a sense of anticipation on every clink DEVELOPER: way up a cutthroat ladder. Teams of the metal ball as it moves around , PUBLISHER: SEGA have expanded from five to nine the court. But most importantly, TYPE: BEAT ‘EM UP players, all vying to control a solid Speedball 2 is all too aware that it’s PLATFORM: ARCADE, MEGA DRIVE, XBLA, PSN steel ball – bouncing it off walls, a game, not a simulation, creating an YEAR: 1991 like obstacles, and players over the top experience that is still skulls – in an attempt to score goals one of the best multiplayer titles out or rack up the most points. Between there – even if it was made over 20 matches, players can be bought or years ago. sold, upgraded or benched, with

Super Meat Boy

ame that’s made for speed running, love letter to platformers everywhere. All elements s clever design are in some way a homage to the -worn genre: from cut-scenes that mimic the greats, o gameplay mechanics that draw from a lifetime of jump puzzling. Levels take the form of fast-paced challenges that require players to successfully navigate through a series of spinning, chopping and crushing objects. Quick resets and level transitions make death fleeting, keeping things as fluid and well-paced as the immaculate movement mechanics themselves. For a game with this much ood, the characters are far cuter than they uld be. The evil Dr Fetus – an ill- DEVELOPER: nnered foetus in a well-groomed jar TEAM MEAT but one example of “so wrong but PUBLISHER: TEAM MEAT TYPE: PLATFORMER ww”. What’s more, among the cast PLATFORM: PC, MAC, PS4, PSV nlockable meats hide cross-platform YEAR: 2010 e favourites such as Braid’s Tim or ecraft’s Steve, adding diversity to a title is not only a solid platforming experience, but a bration of games everywhere.

13 Space games can be intimidating. Thanks to their impossibly infinite settings, they often require more time and energy than other titles. Take , with its complex narrative and branching dialogue trees – not to mention the strangely addictive mining mini-games – or EVE Online, otherwise known as ‘that black hole waiting to destroy the very concept of free time’. Then come acronyms, also intimidating. Generally used to condense a complex phrase, they also happen to be a great way to make the unwise feel like they’re not part of something – kind of like they’re standing on the outside of a secret club where people no longer use full sentences – AYSOS? So when FTL gets affectionately recommended, and abbreviated, by those who are down with some heavy space shit, it can be truly alienating (…geddit? Space). But for those who actually breach this perceived barrier and bravely sit down with the game, it’s anything but. Built upon the strong foundation of the iconic Oregon Trail, FTL puts rockets on your wagon and shoots you into space. Encounters are text-driven, while still FTL: Faster remaining incredibly active thanks to real-time combat that involves managing crews, shields, weapons and all sorts of other space gadgets to gain an advantage. Than Light While yes this does sound like complicated space stuff, the beauty of FTL is that it starts simple. You begin with one ship, one race (boring old humans) and one mission – from here? It’s all about learning by doing. ALEX MANN has taken his protein As you jump from beacon to beacon, you are greeted pills and put his helmet on with a randomly generated scenario: whether it be a merchant ship looking to trade, a pirate vessel wanting to plunder, or a planet full of mindless space horses. Jumping from star system to star system, you begin to meet other races, encounter rock storms, space nebulas, or ion storms, and glean a little insight into how this universe is made up. It’s here that FTL really pulls you in, because while each playthrough is completely self-contained, the deep system means you’ll have a wildly different experience each time through. New ships are unlocked with different abilities and crews, all of which are completely customisable. Different races offer different quest options, while their active traits – like the Zoltan’s DEVELOPER: SUBSET GAMES ability to power part of the ship using their TYPE: TOP DOWN STRATEGY radioactive bodies, or the Rock’s skill when it PLATFORM: PC, MAC, comes to smothering fires – work to alter the way , IOS YEAR: 2012 encounters are approached. You learn only by doing… and yes, by dying; the difficulty system of ‘Easy’, ‘Normal’ and ‘Hard’ really means ‘Hard’, ‘Hella Hard’ and ‘HAHAHA GOOD LUCK’. Personally, when I first took to the skies I focused all y power on shields and weapons, as shooting things d not getting shot by things seemed like a surefire way of surviving this crazy ‘verse. I mean, who would waste time upgrading doors and sensors when you can have a ship armed to the teeth with lasers, missiles and blast cannons? This went well for the first few spans, but then when my ship caught on fire and my doors weren’t strong enough to keep it contained, or an intruder teleported in and rampaged through like a knife through butter, I began to see the error of putting all my space eggs in the one interplanetary basket. The truly rewarding part of FTL is that knowledge is power, and a captain who can prepare themselves for the worst – and still roll with the punches – will be the most successful. The fact that said knowledge comes at the hard won price of many wrecked ships in many previous games only adds to the victory. Oh, and if you skipped over the title, FTL means Faster Than Light. Welcome to the club, now get flying.

14 PLAY WITH THE BEST.

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are many things worth literature. You CARE DEVELOPER: rating in Final Fantasy VI, about these people: SQUARESOFT PUBLISHER: SQUARESOFT he game’s greatest strength you empathise with TYPE: RPG doubtedly its wealth of them and want to PLATFORM: SNES, PLAYSTATION, GBA, elling characters. Instead see what happens IOS, ETC. ncentrating on a single to them. YEAR: 1994 agonist, the narrative shifts Mechanically, FFVI’s us between an ensemble cast about as traditional as they diverse personalities, each come – , turn- h their own unique histories, based battles, the whole deal – and ts, and abilities. Enhanced by to be honest these elements have telligent and lively dialogue, not aged particularly well. However, he relationships that develop given the gorgeous and expressive between these characters visuals, memorable score, and as they journey together aforementioned cast of loveable imbues the narrative with characters, it’s not difficult to look onal depth and a poignant past the game’s shortcomings of humanity, the kind of which and appreciate it for what it is: an inarily reserved for film and enduring masterpiece.

Doom

Aw c’mon… we don’t need to tell you about Doom, do we? It’s DOOM, for god’s sake. The game that pretty much invented first-person shooters. Yes, fine: stuff like Maze War and Ultima Underworld and all came out before it, but it was Doom that propelled the FPS into mainstream consciousness, cementing it as the premier genre on PC for more than a decade. Doom was imps and pinkies and Barons of Hell and ARGH HOLY SHIT IT’S A CYBERDEMON RUN RUN RUN. It was DEVELOPER: the shotty and the chaingun and the glorious, screen- clearing BFG turning a horde of screeching demons into PUBLISHER: harmless piles of viscera and goo. Doom was the shit – IS TYPE: RPG the shit, as fist-pumpingly gratifying today as it was 23 PLATFORM: PC, , PS3 years ago. YEAR: 2010 But you don’t need us to tell you this. You already : New Vegas know. But maybe you were looking for an excuse to fire it up again, maybe try out some of the new mods that are still being made for it? Well, here you go: have at it. Fallout: New Vegas is a wonderful What really makes a F:NV a compromise, combining the superior game to F3, though, is accessibility and addictiveness the quality of its dialogue and

DEVELOPER: of with the hardcore characterisation. Unlike their ID sensibilities and depth of Fallouts counterparts in the Capital PUBLISHER: GT INTERACTIVE 1 & 2. AZZZs trite as it sounds, Wasteland, the NPCs you TYPE: FPS PLATFORM: EVERYTHING the truth is that this is a game encounter in the Mojave Desert YEAR: 1992 with something for everyone. If are not just thinly veiled quest- you want an easy-to-play run- kiosks. They are characters in and-gun adventure, all you gotta the proper sense of the word, do is skip the dialogue and turn possessed of idiosyncratic views, the difficulty down. But if you motives, and mannerisms. They want a challenging role-playing are charismatic and complex and game with a deep and rewarding – in some cases – darkly hilarious. narrative, then do just the Who could forget Fisto the opposite. The point is that you’ve sexbot? “Numbness will subside got a choice. Few games offer in several minutes,” he says – but that kind of flexibility. trust us: he lies.

16 101 GAMES

LandStalker: The Treasures of King Nole

At first looks a lot dust – for LandStalkers enemies like its RPG brethren – a fantasy stand brazenly out in the open. character fighting fantasy And boy does it look good. monsters in a top down fantasy Environments are expertly DEVELOPER: TAKUMI world. Yet take a closer look rendered, with an attention CORPORATION and you’ll find something a little to detail given to every little PUBLISHER: TYPE: SHOOTER more surprising. Gameplay is facet, complimented by fully PLATFORM: ARCADE, incredibly active, with the ability animated sprites, with a range YEAR: 2000 to jump drastically changing of movement going far beyond navigation. Flat levels suddenly the simple left foot, right foot, become vertical playgrounds and action frames. Not only is as platforming elements allow LandStalker a joy to play, but its players to climb and descend focus on active gameplay and Mars Matrix like no other fantasy title of its rich design went on to influence time. Combat is in real time, with beloved titles like Terranigma sword swings being triggered at (another must play for any RPG One of the arcade shooters to be displayed on a the push of a button, and random fan) and for that we are horizontal monitor, Mars Matrix mixes 3D elements with encounters are thrown to the eternally grateful. shoot ‘em up mayhem. Earth’s decaying, but the humans who have settled on Mars have been providing support for decades. Yet recently this relationship has become strained, and the occupants of Mars have decided to rebel, fortifying themselves for war. Players take control of Earth’s newest Mosquito class fighter, with two builds DEVELOPER: offering different stats that govern weaponry, power, CLIMAX mobility and speed. Instead of relying on power-ups ENTERTAINMENT PUBLISHER: SEGA and enemy drops, this title’s varying attacks are player TYPE: ACTION RPG PLATFORM: SEGA controlled, with button combinations allowing for a MEGA DRIVE switch between continuous streams, charge shots, and YEAR: 1992 piercing cannons at will, not to mention the ability to round up enemy bullets in a protective shield and then fling them straight back at foes. The active nature of Mars Matrix’s combat offers a shooter that no longer relies on the luck of the draw, adding a tactical element to the familiar dodge and gun mechanics.

Mega Man X

From its conception the time adjusting, but th series has been a brilliant study in is as smooth as you c game design. Its ability to teach teaching players the through play things in the first leve without the use of annoying tutorials alone without is legendary, but none do it quite dropping a beat, so well as . This game continuing to offer DEVELOPER: CAPCOM marks a huge change for the series: the same high quality PUBLISHER: CAPCOM the art-style – one that largely experience for the TYPE: PLATFORMER PLATFORM: SNES, remained the same from day one – remainder of the gam U, IOS YEAR: 1993 has been given an overhaul; screens But most importan now scroll comfortably from left to all, X marks Zero’s fir right, abandoning the forced camera appearance in the ser shift of previous titles, and new the blonde haired, sw movement such as wall and ground wielding robot that is slides completely alter gameplay. hands down Mega With all these changes you’d think Man’s coolest charact even veterans would need to take to date. IL2: Cliffs of Dover promised to be the ultimate combat of all time. It would recreate the most famous air war, the Battle of Britain, to a degree of fidelity never seen before… or for that matter, since. It would include every aircraft of the period, with a whopping 25 different aircraft in total, covering everything from the graceful Spitfire to the howling Ju-87 diver bomber. Every aircraft would include a fully switchable cockpit, which in laymen’s speak means every button and switch actually works identically to the real aircraft. Want to take off in that Hurricane? You’d better open the radiator, crank the fuel lever, switch on the magnetos and give it 10% throttle before hitting the starter button. Then you’d have to wait a minute to let the engine warm up before giving it any gas, otherwise your engine would fail within minutes. It had the most detailed graphics engine ever seen, and the cherry on the top was 128 player online battles. With industry legend Oleg Maddox heading up the development team, simulator fans could hardly believe what was being promised. IL2: Cliffs And they shouldn’t have, because the game that came out was an unplayable wreck, more Spruce Goose than SR-71 Blackbird. of Dover With more bugs than a mothballed Russian airfield, the game was plagued by massive issues that had with Team Fusion the community up in arms. Half of the systems in the aircraft didn’t work properly, with engines failing at weird times, the AI tending to eat dirt at the earliest possible opportunity, and more crashes than a drunken BENNETT RING is an enemy ace test pilot. The development team promised to fix these myriad problems via patches, but a year of work later and the game was still in a very poor state. Oleg ended up leaving the team – some would say in disgrace – and it wasn’t long after that Maddox games shut up shop. Despite its many issues, stubborn simmers refused to give up, and one of the most active communities around the game was the Air Tactical Assault Group. These were serious simmers, with an active server hosting missions that replicated the BoB battles. Some of their users happened to be software developers, and they soon began talking about fixing Cliffs of Dover. Thus was born Team Fusion, a passionate yet small group of modders who would spend the next few years fixing nearly every issue within the game. At the time of print the Team Fusion mod was at version 4.312, and I’ve been flying it at least once per week for the last six months. When combined with Reshade, another app which adds antialiasing to the game, this is unquestionably the finest looking flight simulator of all time. The world is so detailed that online flyers have to use landmarks to navigate. Meanwhile all of the aircraft systems now work perfectly, matching the historical data, and online battles of 70 or more pilots are LOPER: MPANY, common during peak hours on the weekend. It FUSION is, in a word, superb. 1C COMPANY AT FLIGHT SIM Team Fusion has spent much of the past year ORM: PC : 2011 developing tools to create new content, and the plan is to release new theatres of combat along with new aircraft in late 2016. That is indeed a long time to wait, but in the meantime the team has delivered the finest combat flight simulator I’ve ever played. With hundreds of missions freely available from the community, along with paid expansions by Desastersoft.de, this game truly shows how so few protected so much for so many. If you’d like to give it a shot, the following thread explains the slightly convoluted patching process, as well as eases you into flying these magnificent machines: http:// theairtacticalassaultgroup.com/forum/showthread. php?t=5058&p=52711.

18

DEVELOPER: AVALANCHE STUDIOS PUBLISHER: EIDOS INTERACTIVE TYPE: OPEN-WORLD ACTION PLATFORM: PC, PS3, XBOX 360 YEAR: 2010

Just Cause 2

ause 2 is an open-world action weapons and vehicles, including about blowing things up. You machine guns, rocket launchers, co Rodriguez: a suave Latino helicopters, fighter jets, tanks, and – type whose sole purpose most dangerous of all – the double- s to parachute into third- ended grappling hook. dictatorships and foment Using Rico’s grappling hook ection by exploding anything to cause creative mayhem is ging to the regime. This unbelievably gratifying. At first you es but is not limited to: fuel start simple, attaching bad guys to s, weapons facilities, factories, moving vehicles or explosive barrels, ts, skyscrapers, rocketships, but after a while you get bored s, statues, and offshore oil and start experimenting – and that, o help achieve this end, Rico ladies and gentlemen, is when the cess to a dizzying array of fun really starts.

Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask

DEVELOPER: Built in a year with assets originally constructed PUBLISHER: TYPE: RHYTHM-PUZZLE for Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask is – like PLATFORM: PSP, PS2, many great works of art – very much a product PC, XBLA ETC. YEAR: 2004 of its limitations. As the developers explain in an interview with (sadly deceased) Nintendo president , the game’s Groundhog Day-esque premise, in which the player is tasked with repeating the same three days over and over again, was simply a clever way of minimising production time. So too with the masks, which went from being an afterthought in Ocarina to a Lumines is bliss. Playing it – that rhythmically regulates the centrepiece feature in Majora’s, transforming Link’s particularly with headphones on action on-screen. A line – called identity and abilities in radical new ways. – is an experience comparable to the “timeline” – sweeps across the Majora’s Mask is a gloomy, eerily beautiful game. contemplating a Zen koan. It sends screen in tempo with the music, Even though it’s made almost entirely of parts you into a meditative trance, purging clearing away completed blocks. If recycled from Ocarina, it’s distinguished from its your mind of any concern that isn’t there aren’t any blocks to clear, the predecessor – and the rest of the Zelda series – by directly related to the arrangement timeline and music loop, reinforcing an oppressive atmosphere of omnipresent dread. of falling multicoloured blocks. your success and failure and There’s something scary about this game, with In crass, earthly terms, it’s a heightening the sensation of both. its insanely glowering moon (which is even more puzzle game a bit like : It’s a hypnotic, engrossing terrifying in the 3DS remake) and the crushing multicoloured blocks fall from the experience: the kind of thing you fatalism it represents. People who pine for a “dark sky and your job is to arrange them can lose hours to without even and mature” take on Zelda need look no further into single-coloured squares. Unlike realising. And if that isn’t the than this. Tetris, though, Lumines features a definition of a great game, then soundtrack of top-shelf electronica what is?

20 3

From the first few seconds Halo of lies with its multipla 3 hits the ground running – quite offering an incredibly genero literally– as the opening sequence amount of content in order to sees series hero fall enrich the experience for all out of the sky like a meteor, dust online players. Forge, an edit himself off and head into the fray that allows for level creation guns blazing. Promising to “finish and customisation, is only on the fight”, this title wraps up the of the many options this heft Covenant War by placing Chief package introduced, as new beside Arbiter in campaign co-op. treats such as varying modes Swarms of enemies are no longer scaled maps and camera DEVELOPER: filtered through narrow hallways, control all worked to create a PUBLISHER: MICROSOFT but rather placed on sprawling vibrant community of STUDIOS TYPE: FIRST-PERSON SHOOTER open battlefields, testing player gamers that single-handedly PLATFORM: XBOX 360, skills like never before. But by far put Xbox Live on the map. YEAR: 2007 the most groundbreaking aspect

DEVELOPER: PUBLISHER: JOWOOD ENTERTAINMENT, ATARI TYPE: ACTION RPG PLATFORM: PC YEAR: 2002

DEVELOPER: II PUBLISHER: TYPE: SANDBOX ADVENTURE PLATFORM: PS2, PC, When it comes to open world fantasy adventures, XBOX, OS X the Gothic series is criminally overlooked. It YEAR: 2002 achieves so much, especially considering when it was released. Characters are free to grow however they like, with the ability to wield a vast array : Vice City of weaponry alongside many forms of magic. Different world factions, such as dragon hunters, , and templars, make the world feel vibrant – Rockstar president all-star soundtrack sets the mood and alive while the choices you make have tangible and Vice City writer – wanted to with bands like Tears for Fears, rewards/consequences. Yet what makes this series prove games could be as visually Kate Bush, and Mötley Crüe blaring so clever is that skill-point allocation isn’t purely engaging as film, and with Vice from the radio, while memorable about buffing – it is physically noticeable. Sword City’s uber ‘80s kitsch, he seems to characters only add to main man fighting, for instance, is a real-time mix of chaining have succeeded. ’s boisterous charm. the right moves together to block, parry or dodge, The Miami inspired environment But no matter how many cars he alongside four different directional attacks. Players blends neon menus and sun-blessed crashed, or how many one liners may start off swinging their weapon awkwardly beaches with cold alleyways and dropped, Vercetti could never match with stiff limbs but as they train their skills (yes, smokey lounges, providing the the cold-hard-cool of Lance Vance: you actually have to find people skilled enough perfect playground for its characters cocaine dealer, club owner and one to teach you things – crazy right?) eventually find to recklessly lose control. With a of our favourite Rockstar characters themselves spinning, pirouetting and slicing their storyline that pays tribute to films to date. Like a well crafted mise-en- enemies to shreds. The fact that development is like and Goodfellas, Vice scène, all these elements help push far more organic than most titles, even by today’s City is an exaggerated take on VC beyond mere power fantasy, standards, makes progressing through this fantasy the corrupt, drug-filled world of creating an experience worthy of world a truly rewarding experience. crime and betrayal in America. An the silver screen.

21 101 GAMES

Papers, Please

Papers, Please is a grim, unpleasant game. It isn’t fun – it isn’t something you play to relax after a hard day at work. It is work. You are a checkpoint inspector working for the fictional but all-too-real totalitarian regime of Arstotzka. Your job is to inspect the paperwork of travellers attempting to cross the border and ensure everything’s up to snuff and on the up and up. Again, if this sounds like soul-crushing bureaucratic gruntwork, it’s because it is soul-crushing bureaucratic gruntwork. Papers, Please is a poignant demonstration of what Hannah Arendt famously calls the “banality of evil”. It makes you a solitary cog in a vast DEVELOPER: BLACK unfeeling machine and challenges you to retain ISLE STUDIOS your humanity. Do you let the sick woman in to PUBLISHER: INTERPLAY TYPE: RPG get life-saving medical treatment even though PLATFORM: PC her passport is out of date? Do you risk losing a YEAR: 1999 portion of your pay – which you need to feed your family – so that a husband and wife can reunite? : Torment A lot of games do moral gameplay, but Papers, Please is one of the very that does it well. It isn’t fun – it’s edifying. Which is exactly what good art Placing players in the role of an masterful prose of lead writer Chris ought to be. amnesiac immortal, Planescape: Avellone, Torment never buckles

DEVELOPER: Torment is a an earnest, under its own weight – it never LUCAS POPE philosophical game. Dauntingly feels pretentious, or wordy for PUBLISHER: LUCAS POPE TYPE: DYSTOPIAN verbose, it grapples with topics the sake of it. The characters you DOCUMENT THRILLER PLATFORM: PC, IOS typically confined to musty tomes encounter in this fractured reality are YEAR: 2013 authored by dead Europeans with sympathetic and memorable: you’ll unpronounceable surnames. What is enjoy spending time with them as identity? What is responsibility? Are much as you’ll enjoy unravelling the we merely the sum or our memories? philosophical conundrums Placed in the blood and dust-caked they embody. sandals of the Nameless One, Word to the wise, though: if you’re players are forced to confront these going to play Torment, make sure to questions head-on. install the HD mod first. It’s more or It’s heavy stuff, but thanks to the less unplayable without it.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

how you do a . about SoT is that it captures y Jordan Mechner, all the acrobatic finesse of the was original PoP but – thanks to its 989 and is regarded as clever time-reversal mechanic – asterpiece, combining avoids replicating that game’s toscoped visuals with discouraging difficulty. Because s precision platforming messing up isn’t an instant death mething wholly unique sentence, you’re encouraged to take able. Then came the risks, to leap with abandon from hadow of the Flame in platform to platform, sliding down ce of Persia 3D in 99. drapes and swinging from poles like hithouse. For a while a fearless little monkey man. You ed like the franchise are, in other words, free to revel in d, but then in 2003, The the Prince’s abilities: to go with the me was released and… flow. It’s glorious. our freakin minds. And then they ruined it with a incredible thing “dark and edgy” sequel. Sigh. 101 GAMESS

WarioWare: Smooth Moves

There are zany, crazy, ridiculous games and then there is WarioWare – Nintendo’s take on a Japanese variety show. Despite his ties to , ’s self-made mini-games leave the Mushroom Kingdom behind in exchange for the real world… well, quasi-real world. Characters like Jimmy T jive with a legion of disco kitties as players manipulate the Wiimote – known here as the “Form Baton” – in various positions to complete bite-sized tasks. High-fiving dogs, balancing brooms or shoving false teeth into an old lady’s mouth are just a few examples of the bizarre missions players must perform, made hectic by quick transitions under a gruelling timer. It’s a title best experienced with friends, passing the Wiimote among a group and laughing as each person struggles to keep up with the whacky tasks. This may sound eerily similar to an unrealistic Nintendo infomercial – and yet it’s anything but forced, as the pure craziness of Smooth Moves constantly catches players off guard. Such grace, they’ll cry! Such style! Such hors d’oeuvres… that’s WarioWare for you.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 DEVELOPER: SEGA AM2 PUBLISHER: SEGA TYPE: FIGHTER PLATFORM: ARCADE, Whether you're a fan of skate culture the Machine leading the charge. PC, PSN, XBLA or not, it’s hard to deny the charm Expansive levels transform everyday YEAR: 1994 of ’s second outing. urban environments into pro- The game’s arcade-y nature puts skating playgrounds, where both players in control of a large cast of collectables and secret locations rockstar skaters, complete with the work to give players tangible goals power to sail through the air with beyond landing a ridiculous trick. gravity defying bunny hops or chain But the fact that the solid campaign together ridiculous combos without mode is backed up by a two-player losing balance. The in-your-face freeform experience is the real attitude of the game’s soundtrack genius, rendering Tony Hawk’s Pro creates a space where four wheeled Skater 2 a game for all occasions - 2 anarchy feels as natural as breathing, simultaneously cementing it as one with punk heroes like Bad Religion, of the the PlayStation era's , and Rage Against defining titles. The large array of sequels in this list are proof that gaming doesn’t suffer from ‘sequelitis’ quite as much as some like to believe, and Virtua Fighter is the perfect example of a second game done right. As one of the first games to enter the , DEVELOPER: Virtua Fighter already had a unique push – but its PUBLISHER: focus on a rock, paper, scissors style of gameplay TYPE: SKATING PLATFORM: PLAYSTATION is what really set it apart form other titles. YEAR: 2000 With more control, a smoother frame rate and a much needed graphic overhaul, takes what made its predecessor so good, and simply does it better. Staying true to its nature, there are still no magical fireballs, rib-crushing harpoons or fantastical creatures, just a solid focus on kicks, punches and blocks. This requires players to read their opponents, answering attacks with the appropriate counter-attack, instead of chaining together a ridiculous amount of ups, downs, half circles and punches. At first the roster may seem a little small – but don’t let this fool you – as each character is completely unique in the way they fight and takes serious time to master.

23 It was inevitable, really, that you’d crash at that intersection. While many driving games are loving odes to cars, Burnout has always felt more like a cautionary tale – it’s insane that we trust millions of people worldwide to pilot fast-moving metal death traps – with Burnout 3 being the absolute zenith of the series’ car crash porn. The brakes exist only to be tapped so that one may slide around a corner at speed. When a game rewards you for driving as fast as possible on the wrong side of the road, crashing is a constant possibility. So when you were racing towards that intersection, with traffic entering it from multiple directions and your opponents right on your tail, you knew you were probably going to crash. And that was fine… better than fine, in fact. It’s the ‘Aftertouch’ mechanic that has made me think about Burnout 3 at least once every week or two since its 2004 release. I’m not thinking about these crashes in an erotic way, as J. G. Ballard and David Cronenberg suggest one might, but I do have a distinct memory of the UK games mag ‘Games TM’ declaring that the game was ‘better than multiple orgasms’, and there certainly are moments of extreme, Burnout 3: cathartic pleasure to be had. Aftertouch allows you to keep steering your vehicle after a crash has reduced Takedown it to a written-off wreck. Usually the camera flips around so you can see any opponents behind you, time slows to a crawl, and you do your best to careen MES O’CONNOR presents the your into your opponents. Crashing of 2004. will typically rip a chunk off of your boost bar, but if n land a takedown in Aftertouch, you’ll spawn with your boost replenished. The little triumphant effect the game plays whenever you pull one off é herry on top of a cake that was already

taking a disaster and turning it ralleled by anything else I’ve ever ving game, but even without it obably still be my favourite racer mendous piece of game design, a n which instances of good or bad ntingent on the risks you chose to to the game now, it’s not as good- calls, and the steering in the first set ock is pretty sluggish, but the thrills mediate. Success in Burnout 3 requires dangerous driving possible, whether ans narrowly missing on-coming cars iving on the wrong side of the road, or around a busy corner, slipping between s and shoving an opponent into a wall. eward factor of every action needs to be nd more often than not the risks are too turn down. t there’s Crash Mode, a Burnout fixture that rd g me perfected. Burnout 3 featured 100 crash and they remain the most viscerally satisfying imaginable. You hurl your car into traffic in the es of causing the biggest pile-ups possible, with e option of exploding your wreck popping up once enough cars are damaged. It’s the most satisfying, violent puzzle game out there. Future Burnout titles couldn’t reach the same heights as Takedown. 2005’s was tremendous, but traffic checking (which basically made rear-enders advantageous) made the races feel too safe, and ’s open world forsook the previous’ games track variety and became irritating to vigate after a while. Burnout 3 remains the point of not just the series, but the genre… just ber to mute the irritating DJ Atomika.

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ghter III: Third Strike is of its roster: playing competitively, ng of an oddity in the each character occupies their s series. A commercial own niche in the game’s tactical he time of its release, over ecology, necessitating a unique s it gradually attracted a approach, a unique overall strategy e following and became a for controlling the fight. This is fixture at tournaments like true even of superficially similar Super Battle Opera. Now characters: try playing Akuma like ly regarded as the pinnacle , for example. series – even better than On top of that, SFIII was – and nd Super Turbo – and it’s remains – a stunningly beautiful to see why. game, featuring gorgeous hand- rd Strike is an drawn sprites animated at a fluid rdinarily elegant game, 60 frames per second. The only y tuned and almost downside is the final boss y balanced. What really character, Gill. God we hate Gill. part is the completeness He is the WORST.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

In hindsight, it’s hard not to regard Knights of the Old Republic as a kind of prototype for Mass Effect. Both are space-opera RPGs that follow implausibly charismatic and their mixed-species entourage as they traipse from planet to planet in a bid to stop galaxy-ending evil. Both feature real-time combat that can be paused at whim, dichotomous morality systems, and a hub ship

where all your companions stand around waiting DEVELOPER: for you to solve their personal problems. Both were NINTENDO PUBLISHER: NINTENDO directed by and star TYPE: FIGHTING PLATFORM: SNES, WII/WII and Raphael Sbarge. U But of course the big difference between the two YEAR: 1994 is KOTOR is freakin . It’s lightsabers and wookies and blasters that go pew pew pew. It’s Jedi and Sith and the Mos Eisley cantina music that gets stuck in your head for days. With The Force Awakens just around the corner, the urge to revisit this – the best Star Wars game ever made – is just too strong to ignore. And now that it’s available for pretty much every platform in the galaxy, including Super Punch Out!! , you’d have to be a real poo-doo head not to give it one more go for old time’s sake. Before cornered the Nintendo. Again empowered with market in fighting games starring exclamation marks, it was more DEVELOPER: vaguely racist stereotypes, there of the same, but better looking BIOWARE PUBLISHER: LUCASARTS was Punch Out!! – Nintendo’s and with way more opponents. In TYPE: RPG PLATFORM: XBOX, PC, annoyingly punctuated NES/arcade addition to returning fighters from IOS, ANDROID title that played a bit like a rhythm the arcade/NES originals, SPO YEAR: 2003 game sans music. Viewed from featured a Chinese dude who would directly behind your transparent (or beat you with a stick, an effeminate tiny in the NES’s case) boxer man, French man with a curly moustache, each bout was essentially a boss and an fatass clown who’d clap you fight where you’d observe your into unconsciousness. opponents, predict their patterns, The best thing about SPO, though, and then beat them senseless. It was is that it isn’t as murderously difficult good cartoony fun. as its predecessors. We actually In 1994, Nintendo followed up managed to finish this one – without with Super Punch Out!! for the Super cheats, even!

26 101 GAMES

DEViCE6

Text-based adventures are the journey. Multi-layered pictures nothing new, but DEViCE6 is so scroll in different directions, while text-heavy it walks the narrow scientific diagrams dip in and out line between game and book. of colour and interactivity. Yet this title is so beautifully laid At first glance things might DEVELOPER: out and original that it’s hard seem strange and pointless, but PUBLISHER: NINTENDO to feel anything but engrossed. as chapters unfold it becomes TYPE: PLATFORM: GAMECUBE Each chapter requires the user to apparent that each section has YEAR: 2002 follow protagonist Anna as she a purpose, being necessary to explores a strange island. Lines solve puzzles and proceed. Like of text tiptoe across the screens a puzzle room entirely on your as if laid out in an E.E Cummings tablet or phone, DEViCE6’s clever : poem, splitting into different mix of intrigue, storytelling, sound paths that bend and wind, often and presentation gel together to Sanity’s Requiem requiring the user to physically make an experience ideal for a shift their device in order to follow mobile gaming world. Survival horror games often see players walking down dark hallways, dreading what they might find around DEVELOPER: the next corner. Eternal Darkness is no exception, yet SIMOGO PUBLISHER: SIMOGO what actually lurks in the darkness is quite out of the TYPE: PUZZLE ordinary by any game’s standards. While the generation- PLATFORM: IOS YEAR: 2013 spanning story still offers up plenty of traditional ghouls, ghosts, and villains, these only act as a catalyst for the real scares, seen as characters slowly begin to lose their minds. Strange things start to happen – and not only to the characters – but to the players themselves: televisions will suddenly mute during important dialogue, controllers will disconnect just as a zombie horde strikes, or, most horrible of all, game data will seemingly delete itself when attempting to save. There’s no doubting that games can be scary, but by breaking the fourth wall and trolling the gamer when they least expected it, Eternal Darkness found a truly unique way to get hearts racing.

EarthBound

Bound – otherwise known as Mother 2 – has had blesome history here in the west. For , the r series is as popular as any large RPG, but when Bound hit the Americas, sales were pretty damn

PUB . What’s more, its predecessor – released here thBound Beginnings – took 26 years to breach P ores, something Mother 3 is still yet to achieve. urprising, really, as the title comes as a refreshing nge to the fantasy-based hordes that dominate the re. Its real world setting grounds the title – with a of everyday kids dressed in ordinary clothes – only prise players with hilarious encounters that parody onal RPG tropes. Goblins and knights are replaced likes of ‘Extra Cranky Ladies’ or ‘New Age Retro s’, while relatable struggles with ‘Abstract Art’ or ding Coffee Cup’ bring the laughs home. While may be spent buying burgers or chatting to Dad phone, behind every suburban fence lurks a e new adventure straight out of the Twilight Zone. have taken a little nudge from Super Smash Bros, rthBound has finally received the attention it so nely deserves.

27 It’s tempting to simply describe Alien Solider as “a boss rush game,” but that would be doing it a grave disservice. Alien Solider isn’t just a boss rush game – it is the defining boss rush game to which all others are inevitably compared. It’s a test of adaptability, skill, and endurance, and it may be the greatest game in developer ’s entire body DEVELOPER: of work. TREASURE PUBLISHER: SEGA Alien Soldier is the sort of game that lets TYPE: BOSS RUSH you know what you’re in for from the moment PLATFORM: MEGADRIVE, WII VIRTUAL CONSOLE you press the start button. The first thing you’ll YEAR: 1995 see is a screen where you can pick an arsenal of weaponry from six different shot types. You can also set the HUD to an absurd variety of different display types – even obscuring info, if you’re that hardcore – and then you get to practice the controls to your heart’s content, learning about invincible teleport dashes, shot switching, and free versus fixed shooting. It’s a bit unusual for a game of this era to have a “tutorial” for the controls, but it’s absolutely crucial, because hero Episilon-2 is going to be besieged by foes from the moment he steps into Stage 1, and by God, you’d better know how to get past them because Alien you’re going to need all the health you can get just to beat the first worm boss. r What little there is for “levels” in Alien Soldier simply serves as connective tissue for the heart of the game: the incredible boss fights. What makes H Alien Soldier so special is that all of its bosses are memorable, be it from their design or an interesting gimmick or just how furiously resilient they hat’s a giant samurai armadillo. tic wolf riding a d blob

ulti- s.

se h ge pons? age: es xed, ngly health o tackle bination of ack to play

verlooked y late in the dely available apan and a benefitted mulation and eing spoken the hardest of come a widely- more people have en Soldier is a true ned game that has me, and an eternal oking for a fast, n experience.

28 REQUIRES SID MEIER’S CIVILIZATION: BEYOND EARTH TO PLAY

pre-order now AVAILABLE 9TH OCTOBER civilization.com

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©1991-2015 Take-Two Interactive Software and its subsidiaries. Developed by . Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth – Rising Tide, Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth, Sid Meier’s Civilization, Civ, Civilization, , Firaxis Games, Take-Two Interactive Software and their respective logos are all trademarks of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. All other marks and trademarks are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved. 101 GAMES

Wizball

Ah, the 80s: when a few pasty garage-dwelling weirdoes could make a game about a magic laser- shooting cabbage and have it published by a major software distributor. Wizball is a strange game: the kind of game that is very obviously the product of severe technical limitations and a great deal of hallucinogenic substances. You are the eponymous Wiz: DEVELOPER: FREE FALL ASSOCIATES a wizard whose planet has been invaded and turned PUBLISHER: ELECTRONIC monochrome by a race of evil aliens. Apparently lacking ARTS, ARIOLASOFT TYPE: STRATEGY other options, Wiz turns himself into the aforementioned PLATFORM: ATARI 8-BIT, NES, IOS, ANDROID laser-shooting magic cabbage and collects paint from YEAR: 1983 the aliens he destroys, which he then uses to restore his planet to its natural, multichromatic glory. But don’t let its weirdness fool you: Wizball is a precisely designed and punishingly difficult game – a physics-based shooter that forces you account for things like acceleration and gravity, and features a robust upgrade system. It’s one of the few C64 games we’d love to see remade for modern hardware – like the 3DS, maybe, or the Vita. With its momentum-based r: da ak gameplay, it’s all but crying out for touchscreen controls.

The original battle chess, Archon “King” piece takes the form of takes high fantasy characters a magic user, able to use spells and throws them on a checkered instead of moving to heal, revive board. Both sides host a unique or teleport their team in order cast of creatures: seeing light and to gain the tactical advantage. dark represented by dexterous Yet victory isn’t hinged on their unicorns fighting fiery dragons defeat, rather achieved by a or lumbering golems battling complete decimation of one side, dolorous trolls. Movement is grid or by securing all five power DEVELOPER: based with each tile providing points on the board. It may SENSIBLE SOFTWARE PUBLISHER: OCEAN an advantage for a matching sound like sacrilege to expand SOFTWARE colour, yet this is about as far upon the 'king’s game’, but TYPE: SHOOT-EM-UP PLATFORM: AMSTRAD, C64, as strategy will take you – as Archon breathes new life into an SPECTRUM, AMIGA ETC. YEAR: 1987 the real time battle system can old classic – plus now there are often cause huge upsets. The dragons.

Wrecked: Revenge Revisited

DEVELOPER: Wrecked is a top-down combat racer where the goal is SUPERSONIC SOFTWARE to eliminate your opponents by either outracing them PUBLISHER: 505 GAMES TYPE: PARTY/RACING or destroying them. Have you played any of the old PLATFORM: PS3, XBOX 360 Micro Machines games? Well it’s like those, but purely YEAR: 2012 competitive. Simplicity is its chief virtue: five minutes is all it takes to grasp the basics, and then it’s just you and your mates hooning all over the place, blowing the shit out of each other with machine guns and homing rockets, trash-talking like your lives depend on it. In other words, Wrecked is the perfect – the kind of game that creates bitter rivalries and lasting memories, the kind of game you’ll keep thinking about long after you’ve stopped playing it. In this sense, it’s identical to its spiritual predecessor the criminally underappreciated Mashed. The only significant difference between the two is that Wrecked introduces shunting – a versatile and deliciously satisfying means of debilitating opponents and gaining the upper hand. Believe us when we tell you that shunting is the of all that is good and right in th universe. All hail the mighty shunt.

30 101 GAMES

Rez

An abstract rail-shooter set in to the simple pleasure of BEING in a Tronish computer generated this captivating digital landscape, of universe, combines electronica floating along its glowing vertices, of with mutating gridwork visuals letting the sound and visuals wash to create an arresting audio- over and consume you. Indeed, the visual experience unlike anything truly great thing about Rez is that else. It overwhelms the senses, it’s one of those very rare games intermingling sound, sight, and that you can enjoy even if you're touch to create a kind of synthetic absolutely terrible at it. synaesthesia – the hallmark of Broad accessibility is a trait designer . common to Mizuguchi’s games and When it comes down to it, you is manifest even in his latest work, don't really play Rez so much as you – a experience it. Yes, there are goals, the Rez that doesn’t quite capture and enemies, and levels and so on, the magic of its forebear, but is still but they're very much secondary very much worth experiencing.

DEVELOPER: PUBLISHER: SEGA TYPE: RHYTHM SHOOTER PLATFORM: DREAMCAST, PS2, XBOX 360 YEAR: 2001

Shadow of the Colossus

How is it that people doubt that stonework beasts as fearsome as videogames are art when games they are majestic. The colossi are like exist? massive things – even the smallest That anyone could think games are is larger than a minivan – but they incapable of the same emotional all have a weak-point. The trick is depth as cinema and literature when finding it. something as hauntingly, tragically Fighting and killing a colossus beautiful as this exists is baffling. is an exhilarating and gratifying The setup is: you are a young man experience – a boss fight like no named Wander. Mono, whom you other. But then when the final blow are sworn to protect, lies comatose is struck and they moan and die, and on a slab in a mystic cathedral. the blackness emerges from their To awaken her you must travel carcass and enters your soul, you the desolate Forbidden Land and slay the sixteen colossi: towering

DEVELOPER: PUBLISHER: SONY TYPE: ACTION-ADVENTURE PLATFORM: PS2, PS3 YEAR: 2005

hours en you emerge you’ll wanna do it all again.

31 101 GAMES

Civilization V

ies has been procedurally generated world. nd since its Leaders need to make a wealth o much so that of choices: ranging from passive d designers from decisions, like what technologies e branched off to research, to the more active – es such as Age whether to use diplomacy or force. Nations, and It’s a lot of pressure to put on one of becoming individual, yet the addition of the d, Civilization V advisor system cleverly stops things f as one of the from becoming too overwhelming, rategy games with players able to consult a group . Spanning from of experts without having to deal n of time to the with annoying tutorials. Strategy nt future, players is the key to success, and the e control of a game’s wealth of options make the storic leader experience far more than a mere s they set out war of numbers. o control a

Counter-Strike

Beginning as a humble mod of the other prerequisite that might be ever popular Half-Life, Counter- set. While these modes offered a

DEVELOPER: Strike quickly became known as distinctive goal, it was important the quintessential FPS multiplayer that they remained simple, as things PUBLISHER: TAITO TYPE: PLATFORM RPG experience; a mouthful, for sure, always came down to who could PLATFORM: ARCADE, TURBOGRAFX-16, but the game’s simplicity is what outshoot, outsmart and outlive MEGA DRIVE, allows it be so successful. Two teams opponents. True to its origins, YEAR: 1989 – terrorists and counter-terrorists – Counter-Strike grew organically face off, each with their own arsenal through modding, with new maps, of weaponry and the ability to skins and bots to keep expand these as rounds progress. players striving DEVELOPER: Success is governed by eliminating for the scratchy PUBLISHER: the opposing team or controlling a over-the-comms SIERRA STUDIOS TYPE: FIRST-PERSON SHOOTER map: whether it be through planting confirmation that PLATFORM: PC, XBOX, MAC, LINUX or disarming a bomb, rescuing or their team wins. YEAR: 1999 securing hostages, or meeting any The late 80s/early 90s saw a huge amount of co-operative beat ‘em ups dropped on the arcade scene. These games did one thing well: beating on bad guys was fun, yet Cadash offered a multiplayer experience with a little more depth. Combining four player madness (over two system linked cabinets) with an epic fantasy world, players are thrust into the shoes of a fighter, mage, priest or tasked with rescuing the King’s daughter from the evil Balrog. Character choices aren’t mere skins, but affect how you play, coming equipped with customisable gear, armour, and skills that improve as you level up. Each has their distinct advantages: the ninja, for instance, is faster than the others, with the ability to throw kunai at a deadly rate, while the priest is much slower with her holy flail attacks but can use defensive magic to absorb far more damage. Cadash’s high fantasy setting and detailed environments lay the groundwork for many games to follow, yet it somehow manages to remain one of the best.

32 101 GAMES

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines

Depending on how you look at it, Bloodlines is either one of the best games ever made or a colossal turd. The writing is brilliant, that much is incontestable. Troika’s twisting narrative goes to the heart of what makes the World of Darkness appealing: manipulation, deceit, treachery – politics. Not politics in the grand sense: it’s more like office politics, petty and parochial. There are no big ideas here, no heroic contest of ideologies. There is simply greed and naked ambition. DEVELOPER: Which is great. The problem is that, sans patches, PUBLISHER: EIDOS Bloodlines is an unfinished mess. For the first 20 hours INTERACTIVE TYPE: FPS or so, it’s not a huge deal, but after that... things take PLATFORM: PS2, XBOX YEAR: 2006 a turn for the worse. Creative quests and thoughtful level design give way to tedious combat slogs through endless corridors of respawning goons. There are boss fights. Stupid, awful, frustrating boss fights. Bugs become more frequent and more serious. Some are : Riot Response game-breaking. In fact, there is one bug that is both game-breaking AND nearly unavoidable. So: if you’re gonna play, make sure to get the Urban Chaos: Riot Response is tasks like “Get 10 headshots in unofficial patches first. You’ll be glad you did. a riotous (literally) first-person a row” that infuse minute-to- shooter set in a kind of near minute gameplay with a sense of future suburban Armageddon. purpose beyond simply getting to A gang of Warriors-esque the end of the level. Completing terrorists called The Burners has micro-objectives unlocks better overrun an unnamed American equipment and weapons with . As Nick Mason, head which to tackle harder micro- of the newly-formed anti-terrorist objectives, creating a potent group T-Zero, your goal is to take feedback loop that keeps you the terrorists down by whatever replaying levels long after the DEVELOPER: means necessary. narrative draws to a close. PUBLISHER: ACTIVISION What sets Urban Chaos apart Oh, and did we mention that TYPE: RPG PLATFORM: PC from other, similarly scenarioed you can tase a badguy in the YEAR: 2004 first person shooters is it’s gleeful balls until he bursts into flame? disdain for realism and emphasis Yeah, well, you can do that, and on micro-objectives: fun little it’s AWESOME.

er Mario Galaxy

are (almost) always a lot of big dumb fun, ario Galaxy is something else altogether. a joy to play: it sparkles with infectious glee, d flipping with such vivacity that it’s almost ot to get caught up in it. If you have any ul at all, it is almost guaranteed to make you and loud and dumb, like an idiot schoolgirl: EE!” It’s a happy game and it wants you to oo. presents what is arguably a highpoint for n terms of level design. Liberated from the gravity and a strictly contiguous world, designers let their imaginations run wild, ng beautiful sprawling playgrounds that – dibly – keep getting better as the game goes And then, once you finish the game and ot into the sun, you can go back and them all again, hunting for bonus stars and ive purple coins. e Wii didn’t have an abundance of must-have but this is one of them.

33 A couple of years back Japanese games company Kairosoft released a series of breakthrough strategy games for iOS. Titles like Games Dev Story, Pocket League Story, and Grand Prix Story managed to take complex strategy tropes and distil them into cutesy, pixel based titles with dangerously addictive gameplay. These $6 titles were basically digital crack, and anyone who spent several feverish days trying to build a software empire, take their pixel men to the F.A. Cup thing, or win the World GP will known just how compelling a series of sales charts, profit and loss statements, and simple icon driven controls can be. Aerobiz was doing all the above way back in the early 90s. An management simulator released for the Mega Drive and Super Nintendo, it certainly stood out amongst all the shooters and platform games that sat on videogame shelves back in those days. And if you were brave enough to purchase a game that featured a guy in a suit on its cover you’d soon find the hours and days slipping away as you began to obsess over aircraft capacity, trans-pacific Aerobiz routes, and whether Egypt was the sort of place you wanted to open a branch. That may sound abstract and confusing, but the MIKOLAI can’t be beat game’s core mechanics were actually super simple. on price and service You start by picking one of two scenarios, either 1963 to 1995 or 1983 to 2015, and select which international city you want to start in. The game follows a rough approximation of real history, so starting out in Beijing in the early 60s is going to handicap you from the get-go, whereas or New York make for a considerably easier job. Regardless, you’ll be competing against three AI controlled rival and ‘win’ by being the first to link the world and sustain profits for 12 months. Huzzah! You start your airline CEO career by sending

DEVELOPER: out lackeys to negotiate flight slots in cities, purchasing aircraft, opening routes, setting PUBLISHER: KOEI TYPE: BUSINESS SIM fares, and kicking off some marketing PLATFORM: SNES, MEGA DRIVE campaigns. Each turn represents a three-month YEAR: 1992 period, and once you’ve finished faffing about you can skip ahead to see how your decisions have played out via profits, sales, and passengers. All the above is accessed via a series of icons, and it takes about 5 minuets to figure out the basics. But as the years roll on and the competition and money start to ramp up you’re presented with an ever-expanding range of choices about money, routes, outside investments, and historical events to consider. I know that doesn’t sound particularly exciting when you read it out aloud, but like the best strategy games, Aerobiz manages to creep up on you, turning a series of numbers and charts into an unhealthy obsession. Two decades and several hardware generations later its addictive qualities are as strong as ever. I dusted off my Mega Drive and plugged the cartridge in for a quick session before writing this and ended up playing for several hours, taking my start-up operation from Hong Kong 1963 through to the early 70s before noticing it was well after midnight. And then I was back the following night to try and win a price war on the London to Paris route. That sort of behaviour isn’t normal. But it says a bunch about how far ahead of its time Aerobiz was. Now if you excuse me I’ve just taken delivery of new Concorde and have some rivals to crush…

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101 GAMES

DEVELOPER: CCP GAMES PUBLISHER: CCP GAMES TYPE: MMORPG PLATFORM: PC, MAC, LINUX YEAR: 2003

EVE Online

When it comes to being transported control comes a surprising lack of to another world, it’s hard to find boundaries. Where in other games one as dense and engrossing as you’d get banned for certain shady EVE Online. The amount of hours behaviour, EVE rewards the clever this game requires for any form of rogue. Key bankers have embezzled success is insane, but it’s all due billions thanks to well planned to the complicated nature of the scams, heists years in the community driven sandbox. Players making have managed to bring down have a generous amount of control long standing alliances and political by any game’s standards: huge differences can lead to devastating political alliances are formed, user battles. EVE does, after all, hold the generated banks rise to manage record for the largest-ever PvP battle the complicated economy and of all time. A lot of the game is data epic fleets are built over years and crunching, but when all hell breaks years of hard work. Yet with this loose, it’s damn near spectacular.

DEVELOPER: SCE PUBLISHER: SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT TYPE: THIRD-PERSON ACTION ADVENTURE F-Zero GX PLATFORM: PS3, PS4 YEAR: 2010

While the GameCube may not have flourished Down Under, a few titles made it worth its salt. F-Zero GX spearheaded these, a title that’s so fast 3 it’s almost maddening. While its N64 predecessor was responsible for the leap from flat tracks to three dimensional tubes, GX perfects the insanity The fifth game in the series but the come to mind) yet with everything so by placing its tracks on solid ground and increasing seventh and final in its chronology, beautifully rendered it’s hard to look the sense of speed as the environment whips by all God of War III pushes the franchise's away. Even though the story meddles at an incredible 60 frames per second. trademark action to its apex. and muddles traditional mythology, The game boasts over 40 drivers, each more marches on Olympus with Kratos himself is a testament to crazy than the last, complete with fully animated in tow, ripping, tearing and SCE’s knowledge of the subject cut-scenes alongside a fleshed out story mode. But maiming all your favourite Grecian matter. He’s no hero by today’s it’s not for the faint of heart, as even Baby Mode myths with a guttural roar. His new standards, but he is 100 percent raw is hard as hell. The speed and pace are mostly arsenal of weapons cleverly expand hubris. Greek heroes were incredibly responsible for this, but there’s also no sympathy combat beyond the Chains of Exile, vain, and often very flawed, and for those who fall of a track. Antigravity may be a with smooth changes allowing for the fact that Kratos fits the bill part of 's latest iteration, but the F-Zero seamless combos. The violence is perfectly not only manages to justify racers have been doing it for years, and man is it unashamedly brutal, with quick-time the game’s excessive violence, but still fun. finishers that can never be unseen makes him an extremely refreshing (’s and Herc’s brutal ends character in today's world.

36 101 GAMES

er Stone 2

its arcade origins with pride, our players against each other onal environments. Characters ent of moves to draw from, e fun to utilise one of the red around the landscape scape itself – to effectively

t, with the simple goal ove zero, but by far the from the ever changing particular stage sees ng it out on a crumbling le area grows smaller ly collapsing to send the sky – still throwing mple oasis to

e scrolling stages seen ions, but to this day as 2.

DEVELOPER: NANAON-SHA IV PUBLISHER: SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT TYPE: RHYTHM PLATFORM: PLAYSTATION, PSP From the epic music, to the tightly woven turn-based YEAR: 1996 combat, the last instalment in the original Phantasy Star series is certainly our favourite. The world has suffered a great collapse, and planet Motvia has become a barren desert. Dune-esque sand worms hide amongst the yellow seas while Biomonsters are actively attacking the remaining population. But young hunter Chaz Ashley and his companions are on the case, fending off hordes of monsters to find out who’s truly responsible for the sorry state of things. Enemies come as varied as you would hope from a sci-fi setting, with bug-like monstrosities standing aside dark magicians and hostile robots. Narrative cut-scenes are told through a series of -style panel illustrations, making it easy to stay on top of (and care about) the large rotating cast of characters. It may come as an indirect sequel to the The father of all rhythm hop, and reggae as they take the beloved Phantasy Star II, but IV is the scifi adventure games, PaRappa the Rapper is influential young pup through you’ve been looking for. simultaneously original, whacky everyday life lessons like getting and fun. Forget microphones, his driver’s licence, learning kung this isn’t about a bunch of tone- fu and even falling asleep at the deaf gamers dishing out terrible wheel. Not only does this quasi rhymes, but rather utilising the coming of age narrative gives PS1 controller to support main the game a direction and pace dawg PaRappa on his mission that modern rhythm games often to become “the man with the lack, but the songs themselves master plan”. are catchy as hell and sure to be Under the tutelage of stuck in your head for days. But DEVELOPER: characters like Chop Chop Master no matter what the situation, or SEGA Onion, players must match button how tricky the rhyme, every one of PUBLISHER: SEGA TYPE: RPG combinations with beats in call PaRappa’s problems has a solution PLATFORM: MEGA DRIVE, PC, WII and response situations. Tunes – you just GOTTA BELIEVE! YEAR: 1993 jump between straight rap, hip-

37 101 GAMES

Killer7

As far as directors are concerned, Goichi S aka Suda51 is one of gaming’s finest. His distinctiv style blends whacky with hyper-cool, often seeing quirky characters in the middle of over-the-top vio scenarios. follows not one, but seven of the characters as they shoot, stab and explode their w through an intricate noir conspiracy that blurs the between good and evil, black and white, or “what hell is going on?” and “yeah, ok I get it”. The characters in question are all assassins from Smith Syndicate, dressed to the nines in stylish at that they’re not afraid to get dirty. Each has uniqu characteristics and weapons such as the silent (an shirtless) knifeman, the cautious sniper, or the rab gunslinger. The game moves on rails, which might strange at first, but after following the clever cam angles that draw attention to the games slick art s it’s not hard to see why Suda51 is considered a ge albeit a whacky, slightly disturbed genius.

Ikaruga

Ikaruga won’t blow you away with originality, but it’s a rare example of meticulous design that you won’t find in many other titles. It all comes down to pure simplicity: the screen is limited to a vertical tube, with excess screen room being blacked out on the left and right; controls are tight and responsive; and gameplay revolves around a simple black and white mechanic. Enemies make up one of the two colours, with the players ship being able to switch between each. Having the same colour means devastating damage done to foes, whilst also allowing players to absorb incoming attacks in order to charge their special meter. The downside? They are DEVELOPER: now highly vulnerable to the opposite colour. As speed PUBLISHER: NAMCO TYPE: THIRD-PERSON builds, this simple concept engenders hectic gameplay, PUZZLER especially when bosses made up of both colours begin PLATFORM: PS2, PSN YEAR: 2004 to break through. But Ikaruga is always fair, and never impossible. If you ever wished Galaga packed a bit more of a punch, this is the game for you.

Explaining Katamari Damacy to of everyday objects to make someone who has never played it grow in size, and as it does it is kind of strange. You are the you’re able to attach bigger and Prince of All Cosmos, a tiny tube bigger objects – but don’t be headed green kid who dances fooled by how mundane it sound, with pandas and lives in a castle because it’s surprisingly fun. The in space. In order to help your dual thumb-stick controls work father – the King of All Cosmos – alongside the game’s physics recover from a drunken bender, to create a solid feeling of you must push a ball around on momentum, while a soundtrack DEVELOPER: TREASURE, G.REV Earth in order to collect stuff that is hard to define by any PUBLISHER: TREASURE, and make stars that will fill the genre creates a truly loveable SEGA, ESP SOFTWARE, ATARI TYPE: SHOOTER sky. You know, pretty standard. title sure to awaken your cosmic- PLATFORM: ARCADE, DREAMCAST, GAMECUBE, XBLA Gameplay focuses around a being. Speaking of, how did the YEAR: 2001 snowball mechanic, you roll King of All Cosmos get his job said Katamari ball across a field anyway? He’s such a jerk.

38 101 GAMES

Command & Conquer: Red Alert

It’s been almost 20 years since Alert wasn’t trying to be wacky… Red Alert came out and in that it just was. time there hasn’t been a single It was also a total blast to game with a more memorable play. Unlike the Blizzard-style

opening cinematic. We can see “rock-paper-scissors” balancing DEVELOPER: EA it now: Einstein... Hitler... “sooner typical of modern real-time PUBLISHER: EA TYPE: SHOOT-EM-UP or later time vill tell”... then the strategy games, Red Alert’s PLATFORM: MEGA DRIVE, SNES, AMIGA, PSP ETC. tromp of boots, that badass factions – Soviets and Allies – YEAR: 1992 bassline… and Hell March: glorious were internally counterweighted Hell March, the soundtrack for such that their strengths were ending an empire one base at a designed to compensate for their time. The great thing about Red own weaknesses rather than Alert is that it was so ridiculous exploit the enemy’s shortcomings. and at the same time so utterly We didn’t know this at the time, earnest and unironic. The sequels of course: we just built lots of were all good fun, but they were tanks, put on Hell March, and too self-aware, too focused on hoped for the best. No wonder we Designed by a mechanical engineering PhD with no their own overt zaniness: Red sucked online. prior experience making videogames, Desert Strike DEVELOPER: is a 2D isometric shoot-em-up based loosely on the . In it, you play as an attack helicopter on a PUBLISHER: solo mission to bring down a Saddam Hussein-esque TYPE: RTS PLATFORM: PC, Middle Eastern dictator. Unusually for the time, stages PLAYSTATION, PSN were sandboxish and designed to be approached in YEAR: 1996 a nonlinear fashion. The game would simply give you some objectives (take out the X, rescue the Y) and leave it up to you to decide how and in what order to achieve them. Because fuel and ammo were both strictly limited, planning was essential: going gung-ho was a recipe for disaster, especially in the later missions. As a result, Desert Strike is not what you’d call an easy game, or a fair one. Nevertheless, it sold like a zillion copies and spawned four sequels: Strike, , , and Nuclear Strike. None of them were as good as the original

Dark

The armoured bull bellows and from-the-co charges, its enormous horns aimed pumping mo squarely at your fragile little body. bloodthirsty One hit from this rampaging – represent monster was enough to almost kill Souls at its b you. Another will certainly finish the its worst, it job. You’re out of Estus, you’ve got and vicious no firebombs, and 2000 souls to What you ha lose. You’re frazzled and frustrated. that Dark So And then something magical about you. T happens. With a precisely timed roll, has been cu you dodge the beast’s assault and convenience leap at it from behind, driving your the-fittest g spear into its spine. As you watch its in the most life literally fade away before your Those who a eyes, you clench your firsts and yell: those who d , p “Eat it, you bastard! I GOT YOU.” Think you’ve got what Moments like these – these jump- it takes? You know you have to play Defcon the moment you see the first screenshots. Who can resist the sparse ghostly lines and colours that are so strongly reminiscent of War Games? In the surprisingly scant genre of strategic nuclear war games, Defcon hits it pitch perfect. It is not difficult to pretend you are looking at the Big Board at NORAD as you drive Defcon – it is more an end of the world control panel than it is a gaming facsimile. Everything is technical and ultra minimalist, which goes a long way to create a feeling that inside each pale city dot are a million dying souls, but your job is to view the world as a simplified set of units and targets and play for a mathematical win. There is no evil dictator pleasure that comes from wiping out a city in Defcon. Yet, it chills me every time. As one who grew up in Reagan’s 1980’s nuclear hair-pin trigger era, who ranks Fail Safe as a favourite book and movie, the premise is entirely plausible. Playing today, there’s a new feeling that Defcon represents a moment of madness in history that has passed, and thusly, Defcon stands, increasingly, as a historical memento. I hope I’m right. Much like Harpoon, to which it is almost identical, except the arena is the whole world rather than limited Defcon theatres of engagement, it plays both as a strategic and tactical game. The initial setup starts with choosing your country, then deploying land-based silos, airbases and BEN MANSILL believes in mutually radars, then naval units. Some countries are definitely ensured destruction easier than others, with the US being easiest of all thanks to having a relatively small area to defend and having a ‘back to the wall’ (its west coast) that usually doesn’t need to be defended. Or, so the theory goes. Fail to kill just one enemy missile-carrying sub and it’ll work its way undetected to where it will pop up in the most annoyingly out of your range place, at the worst possible time, and turn the game on its head. It’s headaches like this that make Defcon a game that, once it has started, locks you in with mesmerising concentration. Should I place missile silos to DEVELOPER: protect cities, or areas with military facilities? Should I hide my navy and try and decimate theirs with air power first, or gun it straight to where I think the bad guys are and get that aspect of battle solved (for better or worse) before the nukes start flying? The cleverest gameplay element that makes Defcon more than just a hit the red button game is that missile silos serve double duty as a defensive anti-missile/anti- air station, or can convert to launch your nukes. Thing is, it takes several minutes to reconfigure each silo, and once the process is started it can’t be reversed until complete. Timing is critical, second guessing the enemy as much as you bluff him. Get it wrong, and there is nothing you can do as you watch the incoming enemy nukes arc their way across the globe. Defcon can be played as a fairly detailed RTS, via micromanaging individual units. But there comes a point where there is too much going on, and the need to make bigger- picture decisions in a moment means trusting the AI. You can pause the game if you like, but shouldn’t. Let it start, then ride the rollercoaster of painful tense lulls with ever increasing action, culminating is a terrible crescendo of everything happening at once and the knowledge that winning is still, ultimately, losing.

101 GAMES

DEVELOPER: Metal Slug , NIXXES SOFTWARE BV PUBLISHER: EIDOS INTERACTIVE PLATFORM: PLAYSTATION, Paul Valery once described war as “a massacre PC, DREAMCAST YEAR: 1999 of people who don’t know each other for the benefit of people who know each other but don’t massacre each other.” Some years later, two American commando-bros dive into the enemy ranks, ripping through hordes of rebels with an insanely huge arsenal in tow. Heavy streams of gunfire cause chaotic explosions as planes, buildings and soldiers are all blown to smithereens. Yet despite its war torn surroundings, Metal Slug’s pulpy art-style manages to twist everything into a bizarre parody. Bearded POWs upgrade your armoury with goodies hidden in LegacyofKain:SoulReaver their oversized underpants, lazy guards argue over wanton pigs, and giant shirtless baddies bellow with laughter as they fire heavy machine guns. But Third person action games were into the pits of hell. What follows our American heroes aren’t phased, they continue in a weird transitional phase in is an ambitious adventure that to obliterate their surroundings, wrecking homes the late 90s. They had incredible pushes the Playstation to its limits, and leaving residents screaming alongside their vision, yet lacked the hardware to supported by excellent voice acting pets, who they grip with the fear of someone support it. That’s why revisiting a and a legendary soundtrack that who’s lost everything. If you look hard enough, title like Legacy of : Soul Reaver still kicks arse. The game’s combat there’s probably some thinly veiled political can be a bit of a drag. But a game also offers a flavour other titles commentary hidden among all the jovial madness, should be judged by the sum of its of its generation lacked. Different but we’ll leave that to you, we’ve just upgraded to parts, and Soul Reaver’s strength enemies have different weaknesses: bouncing tanks. comes from its rich lore, engrossing some perish if exposed to daylight, storytelling and strong characters. while others need to be set ablaze Kain, the protagonist of the first title, with a flaming brand, and then has to a kingly state amongst there’s those that need a good ol’ , yet when Raziel, his staking. Mix-ups like these are what loyal servant, surpasses him on the keep Soul Reaver feeling fresh, even evolutionary front, he casts him out despite its years.

DEVELOPER: ALTERACTION PUBLISHER: ALTERACTION TYPE: DRAMA PLATFORM: PC YEAR: 2002

Masq

Masq is a strange little project you an hour at most, but the options that is often overlooked due to its vary so much that you can replay the simple presentation. Released as story through multiple times without an episodic free to play flash game, seeing the same scenes twice. You Masq combines pulpy comic art may end up beaten and alone in jail, with choose-your-own-adventure happy and successful on a beach storytelling. The game puts you in or confused and pants-less in the the slick clothes of an up and coming street. Progress is entirely based on fashion designer, just days before a what you choose, and is surprisingly show that could make or break your progressive for its time, grounding career. The prospect might seem itself with heightened but realistic pretty bland at first, but the everyday twists and turns that will keep you scenario quickly escalates into a tale on the edge of your seat the whole full of deception, intrigue, sex and way through. Pretty impressive for a action. Playing the game will take flash game, don’t you think?

42

Bayonetta is gratuitous. It is Bayonetta has ridiculous and obscene and going for it. nonsensical in the extreme. Its The brainchild titular protagonist is a bootylicious Hideki “Devil M witch with weaponised hair and Cry” Kamiya, t guns strapped to her stilettos. She one of the tigh is an assassin hired by devils to kill and most tech angels and her preferred method accomplished of dispatching her targets is to ups ever made transform her hair into an enormous devotees will f gnashing serpent and consume appreciate in it them whole like cocktail wienies. combo system Because her clothes are also made mechanics, and of hair, executing this attack leaves challenges. Th DEVELOPER: Bayonetta almost completely naked. at beat-em-up PLATINUM PUBLISHER: SEGA/NINTENDO See what we’re saying? Gratuitous. run on Nonstop TYPE: BEAT-EM-UP PLATFORM: PS3, XBOX Obscene. Nonsensical. And totally, Mode. If it doe 360, totally awesome. at least once th YEAR: 2009 But craziness isn’t the only thing not doing it rig

999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors

First in what is now referred to as the “” series, 999 is a strange and unrelentingly bleak reminiscent of horror thrillers like Saw and Cube. The premise is simple: you and eight others have been kidnapped by a masked psychopath and trapped in a derelict ship that is rigged to sink in nine hours. On the ship are nine locked doors, each with its own series of puzzles. Your goal is to solve the puzzles, get the keys, open the doors, and escape before the ship is consigned to a watery grave. Complicating matters somewhat is the fact that you and your newfound companions have each swallowed a bomb. Break the rules of the game and boom goes the dynamite... and your guts along with it. Set apart from other visual novels by its confident (albeit uneven) prose and brain-twisting metanarrative, 999 defies expectations at every turn, masterfully Beyond Good & Evil cultivating suspicion and doubt to create an atmosphere of paranoia that’ll have you second-guessing everyone and everything – even yourself. It’s no easy task, describing a is superb. The graphics are… game as unique and ambitious pretty okay. Basically, BG&E is a as Beyond Good & Evil. BG&E is... fantastic piece of work – one of an , a platform the best games ever made. And it game, a third-person brawler, sold terribly. DEVELOPER: a , a photography Why? Lots of reasons, the most CHUNSOFT PUBLISHER: sim, and a . It’s a important being that TYPE: VISUAL NOVEL ham-fisted political critique, a made a hash of marketing it. PLATFORM: DS, IOS, YEAR: 2009 touching coming-of-age Seeking to atone for this heinous tale, and a heart- error of judgement, the French DEVELOPER: UBISOFT warming affirmation publisher announced a sequel PUBLISHER: UBISOFT of the power in 2009, but aside from a teaser TYPE: ACTION-ADVENTURE PLATFORM: PS2, PC, of friendship. It and leaked vertical slice video, GAMECUBE, XBLA ETC. features a pig in a no new information on the game YEAR: 2003 singlet, a Rastafarian has surfaced since. Ubi assures rhinoceros, and a giant us that it’s still in development, space whale. Protagonist Jade but since creator is sympathetic, charismatic, and doesn’t even work there a total badass. The soundtrack anymore… well, let’s just say we’re is wonderful. The voice-acting not holding our breath.

43 101 GAMES

DEVELOPER: INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS PUBLISHER: NINTENDO TYPE: RPG PLATFORM: GAMECUBE YEAR: 2004 A classic shooter with heavy But gun or no gun, the side- Rambo tones, Operation scrolling shooting gallery is still Wolf’s original arcade cabinet hard to top, with troops, tanks was known for its accuracy. and helicopters providing an Interestingly enough, the endless assault of targets to mow mounted uzi attached wasn’t down. Each level has a mission: a , but rather mapped get the ammunition, save the via the spatial positioning of the hostages, or take a rest… after barrel, with an in-built motor killing more bad guys. Just make allowing for some hectic recoil. sure you don’t hit the leggy Since those days, the game has blondes in the red bikinis – it : become one of the most ported makes little sense why they’re games of all-time, with only a running around in a third-world The Thousand-Year Door few of these (the NES, Spectrum village or dense and dangerous and Sega Mega Drive versions) jungle – but civilians are civilians supplying light gun capabilities. and you have a job to do solider. Gamer or not, everyone’s crossed paths with Nintendo’s rockstar plumber at some point, but whether they’ve tackled his RPG adventures is a different story. Building on its previous iteration, Thousand-Year Door sees Mario traipsing through a paper thin world in order to rescue the princess from someone other than Bowser. Joined by a host of unlikely companions, such as a DEVELOPER: ponytailed Goomba who can tattle on enemies, a timid TAITO Koopa who loves breakdancing, and a sultry Cloud PUBLISHER: TAITO TYPE: SHOOTING GALLERY Spirit full of hot air, Mario leaves his reckless head PLATFORM: ARCADE, NES, , bopping ways behind, opting for an active turn-based COMMODORE 64 system instead. Fights play out onstage, with crowd YEAR: 1987 participation creating an ebb and flow to the farcical combat. Audience members throw helpful items or stones at Mario based on his performance, all while props come crashing down or smoke machines obscure hit rates. Alongside excellent writing that is brimming with humour, quirks like this make Paper Mario a truly unique experience for the series, with Intelligent Syste rocking the sometimes repetitive Nintendo boat.

Okami

Drawing inspiration from series, Okami manages to take a well-worn formula and thoroughly improve upon it. Demons are on the loose, so Okami “Ammy” – Goddess of the Sun – descends from the heavens in the guise of a stoic white wolf. Every screen from the game is a tapestry in itself, as the rich art-sty e draws upon both Japanese watercolour and woodcarving techniques, emboldene when paired aside its classical Japanese soundtrack. Yet the game’s combat is where it really impresses, with Ammy’s attacks being dictated by the Celestial Brush, a sacred that allows players to draw glyph onscreen to control attacks, summon elements and alt their surroundings. This mechanic was so progressive it almost seemed to be before DEVELOPER: its time, as the initial PS2 layout required the brush to be controlled by the left PUBLISHER: CAPCOM TYPE: ACTION ADVENTURE analogue stick, when it’s far more suited PLATFORM: PS2, PS3, WII to the Wiimote or Playstation Move YEAR: 2006 controllers used in later ports.

44 Sonic the 3

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is in no way Chaos Emerald mini games that the most groundbreaking of Sonic pull Sonic out of his 2D realm an games, in fact a lot of it comes off onto a 3D plane. Loop de loops s as a rehash of the first two titles, both vertically and horizontally just tweaked and tightened. But if – creating some extremely cool you haven’t given the time of day to visual moments – and Sonic’s the world’s fastest hedgehog, this is wider array of navigational definitely the title for you. The game abilities help to maintain a strong pairs Sonic beside long time forward momentum. To top Tails, with players switching between things off, the game’s expansion, the two in single player mode, or Sonic & Knuckles, allows players teaming up in co-op. Levels are to experience things from series wide and expansive, making full use bad-boy ’s of the speed and pace that Sonic perspective, rendering S3 the is famous for, only broken up by definitive retro Sonic experience.

Ridge Racer

DEVELOPER: DYNAMIX, GAME ARTS PUBLISHER: Before its legacy was buried to maintain speed, it was also SIERRA ON-LINE TYPE: ACTION ADVENTURE under a series of E3 memes, the first mass market video PLATFORM: PC, MAC, Ridge Racer was responsible game to use texture-mapped 3D SEGA CD YEAR: 1990 for some huge changes to the graphics – which meant for the racing genre. It was the first time it looked crazy good. Namco game to introduce the simulation even sold it as “the most realistic element to arcade racers, with driving game ever.” Nowadays, players being offered a manual it’s no secret this statement didn’t or automatic experience. Cars stick, what with the game’s four felt fast and were able to modes being extended versions switch between first and third of the same track, but what has person views, while a cheesy remained is how damn fun it still commentator would announce is to burn around the streets of laps and time management. It Ridge City. So forget Daytona was the first title to introduce USA, we’re all about Ridge Racer… drifting as a mechanic in order Riiidge Racerrr! Rise of the Dragon

DEVELOPER: Do androids dream of electric sheep? Does William NAMCO “Blade” Hunter dream of Rick Deckard? The year is PUBLISHER: NAMCO TYPE: RACING 2053, LA is a gritty hell full of low-lifes, two PLATFORM: ARCADE, PLAYSTATION, PSP bit thugs and hermits that preach doom on the streets. YEAR: 1993 The mayor’s rebellious daughter has OD’d on a new drug – MZT – and Blade, ex-cop turned private dick, is on the case. This point and click adventure puts players under the timer, with decision and indecision sending them towards a vast number of possible outcomes, most of which are extremely unpleasant for the gritty detective. Hunter must work through a number of mysteries, including the riddle of his struggling relationship with girlfriend Karyn, all leading up to the mysterious rise of the so called “Dragon”. It’s hard to say which version you should play, as the Sega CD’s additional voice acting creates some heady noir tones, but it also has a reduced colour palate, lending everything a green tinge. What’s more, scenes like a sultry french kiss and the hint of intercourse had to be removed, being considered too “explicit” for sensitive console gamers. Ooh la la!

45 Divinity: Original Sin made a huge impact with gamers. So much so that the sequel is about to blow through its Kickstarter with weeks to spare, and every perk well and truly unlocked. So, what’s at the heart of this success? Well, to be concise, it’s because Divinity really doesn’t give a damn about what you want to play – it’s going to make you play it it’s way, and it’s going to be hard. It’s not going to hold your hand. It’s going to offer some impressive spell/environment interactions that can blow up in your face as often as you make them blow up in your enemies'. In short, it’s hard. Uncompromising. But that’s the game’s brilliance. Anything you do manage to accomplish feels like completing an entire game, and there’s a tonne more of that in Divinity. The game tries to teach you its unique beats and requirements in its first major quest line. After a couple of fights to show you how the game works, you barely draw your sword for what feels like days. In fact, if you’re playing in short bursts, it will be days. Instead, you’re investigating a murder, and a line of other quests. You pick up some friends, argue amongst yourselves, and Divinity: every time you think, well, this is little odd, and leave town… the guards warn you you’re going to get pwned. And you do. Big time. So, back to doing what brought you to this place to begin with; which will lead you out of town, but even then, Divinity is not for the Diablo click it ‘til it’s dead crowd. The turn-based combat might make you feel in control, but every opponent is well equipped to cut you down to size. They flank you, outnumber you, and will often make far better use of Divinity’s terrain than you can hope to, in the early phases of the game at least. Before every fight, you’ll want to make sure you know the ground, that you’re properly equipped, and that you know what you’re getting into. Otherwise, you’ll be looking at a whole lot of party wipes; this is a game that will train you to reflexively hit the F5 key and save. In fact, while you might think you’re done with the game’s brief tutorial, the entire first few hours is actually teaching you how to play the game and get the most out of it. It’s teaching you to be thorough, and to think about what people are saying to you. It’s teaching you to explore, and think outside the box. In one memorable instance, it also teaches you not to do things just because you’re an adventurer and you think you can get away with just about anything – by blowing you up if you dig up a certain filled in hole in the ground. Once you’re done with that, you get to leave the city, and even then the game makes you work for DEVELOPER: every screen’s worth of ground LARIAN STUDIOS PUBLISHER: you cover. Divinity wants LARIAN STUDIOS TYPE: RPG to challenge you, and by PLATFORM: PC, XBONE, PS4 challenging you it will make YEAR: 2014 you feel like you’ve earned every single victory. It’s also a game that will happily let you trespass in a house, piss off an important NPC to the point that he attacks you, and then let you kill him. What you do after that? The game doesn’t care, because you got yourself into this mess, and you should be smart enough to get out of it. I do love this game. Previous versions of StarCraft II® NOT required to play. BATTLE.NET® ACCOUNT REQUIRED. INTERNET CONNECTION REQUIRED. ADDITIONAL ONLINE FEES APPLY.

© 2015 , Inc. All rights reserved. Legacy of the Void is a trademark, and StarCraft, Battle.net, and Blizzard Entertainment are trademarks or registered trademarks of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc., in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks referenced herein are the properties of their respective owners. 101 GAMES

Pilotwings Puzzle & Dragons

Not quite simulator, not quite action, this strange SNES launch title floats somewhere between the lofty An RPG with a twist, Puzzle & isn’t available in Australia at the realms of definition. To attain a pilot’s license players Dragons sends players through time of writing, but if it ever must perform simple tasks like landing or taking off a fantasy dungeons alongside a makes its way to our shores (or plane; both of which can prove surprisingly challenging team of six monsters. Fighting is you venture abroad) we highly – but never frustrating. Controls are minimal, with turn-based, but offers something recommend the cheap-as-free the directional pad controlling angles while a single a little more suitable for touch download. button performs an action, like breaking or opening a screens than your classic text- parachute. The zen nature of the game make it almost a based combat. Players are dealt meditative experience – even when tasked with jumping a series of orbs, each made up of bodily out of a plane with the goal to parachute safely one of five elements: Fire, Wood, onto a target. Those moments of 16-bit free fall, angling Water, Light and Dark, with a your body ever so slightly or somersaulting through sixth thrown in that restores the air like a slinky, provide rare moments of gaming health. The aim is to align three tranquillity. But don’t get too caught in the moment, as or more matching orbs in a single an excessive tilt could send you rocketing to the ground. turn, as doing so will trigger This game really knows how to mess with your Chi. monsters with the corresponding colour to attack. Monster teams can be hand picked from over 2,000 available options made DEVELOPER: up of fantasy beasts, pop- GUNGHO ONLINE culture characters and even ENTERTAINMENT PUBLISHER: GUNGHO some religious and mythological ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT TYPE: PUZZLE RPG DEVELOPER: deities. It’s a simple concept, PLATFORM: IOS, ANDROID, NINTENDO EAD but one that’s addicting as hell, KINDLE FIRE PUBLISHER: NINTENDO YEAR: 2012 TYPE: UNDEFINED and perfect when on the move. PLATFORM: SNES, WII, WII U Unfortunately the original game YEAR: 1990

Red Dead Rede

After more than enough time all this r spent in the corrupt city streets wander of Grand Theft Auto, Rockstar’s a bandi western sandbox feels almost like a family m refreshing mountain holiday. Gone frontier are the stifling high rise buildings, spontan drug fuelled thugs, and constant the rea chatter of automatic weaponry, good le replaced instead by the calm and changin of the open range. Yet the doing t frontier world of is far so imm from peaceful: everyday is a fight it will co to survive as occupants struggle to be told make ends meet; posses take their around fair share and then some, while wild campfir coyotes, bears and even the dreaded long tim chupacabra stalk the landscape come. in search of fresh pickings. Amid

48 101 GAMES

Metroid Prime

When Metroid Prime was revealed for the first time in 2000, Metroid fans – including many of us here at Hyper – were aghast. It had been six years since Super Metroid, and after all that time, this was what Nintendo had to offer? A first-person shooter? What were they thinking? But as it turned out, Metroid Prime was not an FPS at all. It simply took the xploration/collect-em-all formula perfected Super Metroid and translated it into stunning st-person 3D. Even today, Prime stands as an nsely atmospheric experience: entering the Artefact Temple for the first time as rain snake their way down your visor and a cosmic afts through the air is as spine-shiveringly oday as it was 13 years ago. all the odds, Metroid Prime was not only a DEVELOPER: RETRO STUDIOS oid game – it was the BEST Metroid game. PUBLISHER: NINTENDO Zero Mission, better than Fusion… better TYPE: METROIDVANIA PLATFORM: GAMECUBE, Metroid. It’s a goddamn masterpiece, is WII, WII U YEAR: 2002

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

The first thing you need to know with in order to succeed. about MGS3 is that it’s the best Also, the jungle is just a really Solid bar none. It takes cool place to set a stealth game. place in the thick of the Ukrainian There’s something innately awesome wilderness – a unique backdrop about swinging down from a tree- DEVELOPER: KLEI that provides ample opportunity for branch onto an oblivious patrolling ENTERTAINMENT PUBLISHER: to expand upon the guard and quickly slitting his throat MICROSOFT STUDIOS TYPE: STEALTH stealth gameplay that is the hallmark before he has the chance to cry PLATFORM: PC, XBOX 360 of the franchise. The addition of out. It makes you feel like you’re in YEAR: 2012 mechanics such as the ability to an action film from the 1980s. The hunt for food and equip camouflage key difference is that, unlike most make the world of MGS3 feel 80s action films, the story in MGS3 robust and dynamic. It’s like the is well-written and moving. That environment isn’t just something you ending… god, just thinking about it The weird thing about videogame ninjas is that use to hide from guards – it’s a living makes us choke up a little. they’re seldom very ninjaish. ’s Ryu, entity that you need to cooperate Ninja Blade’s Ken, ’s Joe Musashi… they all look like ninjas, sure, but they don’t really act like ninjas. Instead of being stealthy killers that strike from the shadows, they’re more like bloodthirsty berzerkers, chopping down anyone and anything unfortunate enough to get in their way. Mark of the Ninja’s unnamed protagonist is the exception that proves the rule. He’s a master of stealth, darting silently from shadow to shadow, using misdirection and fear to keep hapless guards in a state of confusion until the perfect opportunity to strike presents itself. Uninterested in brawls, he DEVELOPER: is the king of the silent kill, swooping down from KONAMI PUBLISHER: KONAMI light fixtures and telephone poles before quietly TYPE: TACTICAL impaling his foes with his razor sharp katana. He is ESPIONAGE ACTION PLATFORM: PS2/3, XBOX versatile, lithe, and resourceful, possessing a suite of 360, 3DS, VITA tools and abilities to contend with every eventuality. YEAR: 2004 He is the ultimate ninja: the nameless assassin. And he’s not even 3D.

49 I can remember the exact moment Deus Ex clicked for me. It was fifteen years ago and I’d just scored a gig as a part-time editorial assistant for Hyper’s sister magazine, PC Powerplay. On my first day in the office, my editor and good friend David Wildgoose asked what I’d been playing and I told him “nothing” since I’d just bought a new PC and hadn’t gotten around to buying

DEVELOPER: any games for it yet. “Get Deus Ex,” he told me. “Get it on your way PUBLISHER: EIDOS TYPE: IMMERSIVE home. Leave work early if you have to.” REALITY SIMULATOR PLATFORM: PC, PS2, PSN At first I didn’t like it. Like many first-time YEAR: 2000 players, I struggled to come to grips with the game’s wonky gunplay and was overwhelmed by the multitude of skills and weapons at my disposal. I approached it like a first-person shooter, investing in the pistol skill and blasting my way across Liberty Island with my trusty 10mm. As anyone familiar with Deus Ex will tell you, this not an optimal survival strategy – especially for a first timer – and it wasn’t long before I was cursing Wildgoose for recommending what seemed to be a sloppy and unforgivably frustrating FPS. But I persisted. And, after much reloading and profanity, I made it to my first objective: the Statue of Liberty. My target – terrorist leader Leo Gold – had Deus Ex barricaded himself inside and so I needed to find a way in. Across an open courtyard I could see an entrance to the statue’s foyer… but it was closed, and locked, and DAN STAINES now has full guarded by a patrolling duo of terrorists and a small but access to your systems menacing security bot. What to do? My first insti ct was to go with what I knew and simply through. Crouched in the shadows, the guards with my 10mm and circle-strafe the robot, Unreal ament-style. Bad idea. The guards t down easily enough, but robots urned out – are bulletproof, while t certainly was not. It wasn’t until rth or fifth death that I finally he Rambo approach wasn’t going eeded a new plan. my inventory and saw that I had . I knew from the tutorial level that or taking out electronic devices, oot the guards like normal and th the EMP. But I soon discovered w a grenade without investing any olitions skill is a bit like tossing a hurricane: sure, I could throw the g the robot? No chance. Back to ard. the explosive crate. I wondered: he robot, and the guards, to the with my pistol? I couldn’t throw ut I could shoot a gun just fine… my head against a wall, why not hs? It took a couple of goes, and que chase around the courtyard, all fell into place and… boom. I had done it, and honestly? I was a simple solution but it was MINE. hen it clicked. That’s when I had been doing wrong. See, I’d or “the” solution – the one path I vs had wanted me to take – never here wasn’t any. The problem was it was up to me to figure what tools at my disposal. This is the us Ex: this is why Wildgoose had y it, and why I’ve played it more -dozen times since. It’s why Deus atest game ever made.

50 The best reason to buy an iPad

Your other favourite technology magazine now has an iPad edition featuring everything you love in the magazine plus exclusive extras each month including additional photography and video. Change the way you view your tech. Head to iTunes now to download the app. 101 GAMES

Splatoon

violent multiplayer shooter, through their own paint tracks. n splashes colour all over Apart from regaining ground, this re’s ever monotonous method of movement also recharges nd browns. Two teams face ink supplies allowing players to n isolate ee type sub and m to flo ve colo d of lik ything. ced bac ing soa to expl Yet this tion, as s, they’r ity to d swim a

Scorched Earth

A shareware artillery title, Scorched Earth plays kind of like a tennis game with pixelated tanks. The first tank serves, adjusting the angle and power of its shot to account for the shape of the landscape and strength of the wind. If they miss, the opposing tank returns a volley, going back and forth until someone finally hits their target. The victor is rewarded with a cash bonus, which can be spent on upgrades to weapons and armour. Items like the heavy roller won’t detonate on impact, but rather roll down a slope until it reaches the bottom – ideal for tanks situated in a ravine; napalm spreads fiery death across the ground, catching foes that are just out of reach; and deflector shields, well, they deflect. But a crafty player can still win with standard weaponry, as an enemy can be destroyed by a sudden lightning storm or an meteor shower, or even fall to their death if the ground is shot out beneath them – exiting the round in an epic DOS explosion. As far as games go, Mark LeRoi, aka the DEVELOPER: not many can boast the dark, immortal voodoo ACCLAIM STUDIOS TESSIDE sinister atmosphere of Shadow warrior Shadow PUBLISHER: ACCLAIM Man. The game begins with Jack Man; Jaunty, a ENTERTAINMENT TYPE: THIRD-PERSON ACTION the Ripper stabbing himself terrifying skeleton/ PLATFORM: N64, PLAYSTATION, PC, MAC through the heart for crying out snake hybrid with YEAR: 1999 loud – in full view of players at a surprisingly jovial that – all while a mysterious figure attitude; and the sassy plans the doom of mankind. Shaman Mama Nettie. Combat Based on the comic book series sees Mike dual-wielding all kinds of the same name, the game of weapons and items alongside a doesn’t shy away from adult wide range of Shadow

DEVELOPER: content or harsh language, yet powers. Pair this with a sprawling WENDELL HICKEN handles both in a way that feels non-linear world and some tight TYPE: TURN-BASED SHOOTER completely natural. This is mostly platforming, and it’s not hard to PLATFORM: DOS YEAR: 1991 due to the excellent writing see why you should stop reading and delivery of characters like and start playing.

52 101 GAMES

Hotline Miami

Hotline Miami is a top-down in the 1980s. Scarface’s Miami. Nicolas Winding Refn action- Hotline Miami’s sense of style scene simulator. You are a extends to its mechanics as professional murderer. Somebody well, which have been crafted to calls you on the phone, gives facilitate exquisitely satisfying you an address – an apartment, killstreaks. Finesse is mandatory a mansion, a nightclub – and and screw-ups are not permitted. DEVELOPER: SMILEBIT you go and murder everyone Finishing a stage means killing PUBLISHER: SEGA there, as quickly and stylishly everyone without getting killed TYPE: ACTION-PLATFORMY- SPORTS THINGY as you possibly can. Style is yourself, and since a single bullet PLATFORM: DREAMCAST, massively important to this PC, XBLA, PSN ETC. is usually enough to kill, you can’t YEAR: 2000 game – obviously. The whole miss a beat. Think John Wick. saturated-neon VHS vibe has Think Liam Neeson in Taken. been lifted wholesale from Drive That’s you. but somehow manages to avoid Oh, and also: the soundtrack? feeling derivative or cliched. It’s Orgasmically great. Even if you Few games have stood the test of time better than Jet gorgeous in its ugliness – brash don’t wanna play the game, check Set Radio. With its vibrant cel-shaded visuals, impossibly and grotesque, not unlike Miami it out. funky soundtrack, and uniquely subversive premise, it

DEVELOPER: feels as fresh and relevant today as it did when it was DENNATON GAMES released 15 years ago. This is Sega at the top of its PUBLISHER: game: confident in its voice and unafraid to take risks TYPE: SHOOT-EM-UP PLATFORM: PC, and pursue the new – even at the expense of mass- PS3/4, VITA market appeal. YEAR: 2012 And though it saddens us to say so, it’s easy to see why JSR never found the mainstream success it so clearly deserved. It’s an odd game and just a little bit too counter-cultural for conservative tastes. Look at who you’re playing: a rollerblading skatepunk on a mission to turn into a giant canvas for your gang’s graffiti. Add to that the fact the game was available exclusively on a platform few people owned and you’ve got a surefire recipe for obscurity. Thankfully, the HD re-release is now cheaply and widely available, meaning everyone who missed it first time around can now give it a go Don’t get it on Vita

Fire Emblem

The seventh game in the Fire DEVELOPER: Emblem series and the first to NINTENDO/ receive a Western release, Fire INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS PUBLISHER: NINTENDO Emblem: Rekka no Ken (i.e. Fire TYPE: TACTICAL RPG PLATFORM: GBA, WII U Emblem: The Sword of Flame – VIRTUAL CONSOLE or simply outside YEAR: 2003 of Japan) is widely regarded as one of the best tactical RPGs ever made, and for good reason Retaining the accessible but tactically rich rock-paper-scisso design of its predecessors, Rekk no Ken introduces a number of innovations that have since gon on to become series staples, including terrain types, multiple mission objectives, and a tutoria mode to ease beginners into th game. The last of these is espec noteworthy: with its tendency t 101 GAMES

Thief II: The Metal Age

It might come as a surprise to a strong focus on sneaking and, some, but the original more importantly, actual thieving. found its origins amidst a sword Everything and anything should fighting simulator. The developers be stolen, with difficulty levels were never truly happy with the dictating how hard said things are DEVELOPER: combat mechanics they had to steal. PUBLISHER: ACCESS created, so they pushed these The game also shifted the SOFTWARE TYPE: ADVENTURE aside in favour of stealth focused series focus from the paranormal PLATFORM: PC gameplay. Thus the Thief series to a more grounded storyline, YEAR: 1996 was born, with the first title seeing religious fanatics being responsible for most of the dominate the narrative as well celebrated gameplay elements – as providing context for some of : and yet Thief II seems to be the gaming’s more memorable levels. game that steals the most hearts. Missions like Bank or Sabotage The Directive By doing away with the more required meticulous planning, action oriented sequences of with multiple ways to approach the first, Thief II opts for a truly situations making Thief II a highly If you’ve been slugging away at any of BioWare’s stealth driven experience, placing repayable title. titles of late, you may be interested to know that Tex Murphy is where these kinds of dialogue trees initially took root. Realised in glorious , The DEVELOPER: Pandora Directive follows the hard-boiled detective as he struggles to make ends meet. But our boy has bigger PUBLISHER: EIDOS INTERACTIVE fish to fry, as the Black Arrow Killer is on the loose, TYPE: STEALTH the love of his life is becoming distant, and a strange, PLATFORM: PC YEAR: 2000 paranormal threat lurks in the shadows. Players navigate 3D spaces in first person, interrogating suspects or searching for clues that trigger cut-scenes and noir- esque asides that are sometimes gritty and others hilarious. Branching dialogue options allow players to make Tex a stand-up bloke, an OK guy, or downright rotten, with choices leading to one of six possible endings. Cheesy, old school but never boring, ’s mix of action, comedy and intrigue lead to a non-stop thrill-fest that is far from dated. To quote the main man himself, “’s like Jello, there’s always room for more.”

Super Smash Bros Melee

Nintendo is responsible for some of gamin recognisable faces, so a title that brought superstars together was inevitable. Yet the Super Smash Bros managed to be more th service – rather providing a fresh, accessib surprised gamers the world over. It wasn’t Smash 64 became an a-lister party game; Melee rocked around, things changed. Wh remained as accessible as ever, controls be mechanics tightened – making room for m players to take root. Advanced techniques to wavedash or DI (directional influence) d and competitive gamers, creating a nuance timing and skill over the button bashing sm once was. But the game is far from pro exc inclusion of event matches, arenas and a w both characters and stages all work to appe humblest of fighters. The thing is, Melee stil beautifully – just ask one of the record setti viewers who tuned into this year’s epic Evo

54 Advance Wars

Advance Wars is the gateway drug officer you pick, wh of the turn-based strategy world. fight and what unit Its in-game tutorial system and deploy. Before its re cartoony art style make it instantly with this depth had accessible, but when backed up by on western handhe deep strategic mechanics that allow then Nintendo belie for multiple playthroughs you’ve got strategy wouldn't fi a game that will last aeons. Its large outside of Japan – roster of characters, terrains and fact the game was s units cause levels to constantly shift that it Marco Polo’d and change, with fights taking place strategy favourites in the air, on land and at sea. These to the international can be altered by what commanding Advance Wars!

DEVELOPER: DATA EAST PUBLISHER: DATA EAST, BALLY MIDWAY TYPE: PUZZLE PLATFORM: ARCADE, NES, XBLA, PSN YEAR: 1982

BurgerTime

Assetto Corsa Games don’t always make sense. Take BurgerTime for instance: frantic chef, Peter Pepper, runs around kicking ingredients off platforms in order to make Simulating reality is a huge fight against the wheel for control, four delicious (and might we add, giant) burgers. ask. We’re still a long way from unlike the underwhelming rumble Surly sausages and enraged eggs chase him about, perfection as – let’s face it – of most titles. stops, which are eager to ruin the menu, only to be thwarted by a making someone in their living as crucial to racing strategy as the few precious handfuls of Peter’s perilous pepper room feel like they’re on the track layout of a track, are left completely or crushed beneath a giant burger filling. There are is fairly ambitious. in the user’s hands, and the options literally hundreds of other scenarios this gameplay understands this. It may not be as once pit-stopped are as accurate as could have slotted into, but for some reason we’re pretty as other games, nor have they are plentiful. glad it ended up in this crazy world. as many vehicles, but it stands out This is all barebones stuff, but The goal is to complete the menu without falling among its competitors because it you’d be surprised how many prey to your culinary pursuers, but while enemies focuses on the points that titles get the simple things wrong. can be defeated, the trick lies with picking the really matter. First of Another thing AC seems to right path, anticipating enemy movement and all, it’s made for a understand is that pleasing everyone adjusting on the fly. In truth, the game owes a lot DEVELOPER: KUNOS SIMULAZIONI racing wheel: the is as unrealistic as not feeling the to arcade giants and Pac Man, yet PUBLISHER: 505 GAMES force feedback is road beneath you, green-lighting the frantic gameplay, chirpy music and hilarious TYPE: RACING SIMULATOR PLATFORM: PC, XB1, PS4 hectic (and haptic), user generated mods to fill any jiggling movements of the antagonistic foods make YEAR: 2014 with hairpin turns gap players still may have in their BurgerTime a meal in itself. causing you to literally mechanical hearts.

55 There is something wonderfully different about the whole Yakuza franchise, and Yakuza 4 in particular. While each of the games contains very familiar ingredients – the quest system, the beat ‘em up action, mini-games and the like there is also a definite sense of other at play, of a culture unlike our own with some social mores and habits that aren’t like our own. It’s a delightful thing, having a game act as snapshot into another culture, simultaneously showing our differences as well as the universality of certain themes. It’s a game about brotherhood and loyalty, honour and sacrifice, friendship and betrayal. These are all universals, seen in stories throughout the world, but the game world in which these themes are played out is deliciously other. The first character introduced of the four protagonists of Yakuza 4 is Shun Akiyama, the owner of a loan company and a hostess club. While Yakuza 4 the concept of a privately owned, semi-legal loan company is a little odd, the activities surrounding the hostess club are much more alien. To make the club DANIEL WILKS lies like floor dragon successful you need to dress and train girls, playing to their strengths and personalities to make them ideal companions and flirts. One of the first things you face in the gritty world of Yakuza 4 is a tough guy who is just as happy to kick the shit out of someone as he is to lend them money essentially playing pretty princess dress-up with girls who professionally drink with men in bars. It’s about as far from the tough guy as you could be but it’s an intrinsic part GA GA of his character. ENTURE S3 The other three characters, Taiga Saejima, a hulking death row prisoner sentenced to die for a series of killings 25 years earlier, Masayoshi Tanimura, a young cop trying to solve the mystery of his father’s murder and its connection to the Taiga Saejima case, and Kazuma Kiryu, the hero of the Yakuza series and, by Yakuza 4, retired legendary yakuza turned orphan wrangler (or whatever you call a person who opens an unlicensed orphanage before turning his back on it, heading back to Kamurocho and punching a lot of people to death), are all equal part tough guy and incongruous quirk. Yakuza 4 is the apotheosis of the series (at least until the release of Yakuza 5), elevating the melodrama and machismo to the Nth degree, culminating in the most simultaneously macho and homoerotic way possible – a shirtless brawl on top of a skyscraper. For years Hyper has joked with the initialism WTHIWWJP (What The Hell Is Wrong With Japanese People) when referencing the strangeness of Japanese games, the heightened, odd realities in which some games take place or the casual mixing of sex and violence that often seems to go hand in hand. The initialism could be used with Yakuza 4 – it’s strange and definitely psychosexual, but it’s also one of the best, if not the best example of a Japanese game remaining strictly culturally Japanese but having that universal appeal that can transcend cultural boundaries. Playing dress- up with hostesses may be odd, but in the world of Yakuza 4, it’s a natural extension of time and place. If none of the melodrama, sexual tension or soap- operatics appeal, you can always find solace in the fact that it’s hard to walk down a street without coming upon a group of thugs menacing someone who is just asking for a good beating. Even if the story doesn’t grab you and the characters are too far afield to appreciate, you’d be hard pressed not to crack a smile when you bean a baseball cap and parka clad tough with a bicycle and follow the attack up by KOing his mate with a boot to the face and a polite curb stomp.

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If you want daily news and reviews about the best of PC gaming, point your browser our way, read some stories, and sign up for the forums to hang out with like minded gamers. SEE YOU ONLINE! Zone of the Enders

more fun than is produced by the legendary Hideo bots? Battling Kojima, the story is sadly a th swords, that’s from Metal Gear standards, but rest e 22nd century, assured cut-scenes are of the same nders follows Leo high quality, spectacle-based ilk. young colonist of When controlling Jehuty, players fly who stumbles across through areas firing an assortment per awesome of missiles, locking onto foes with h-suit, *ahem* a Zelda-inspired targeting system. bital Frame”, But the real heavy-hitting comes ut Leo qui kly when layers oost in close to ers the ins and out slice enemies to pieces, providing a he frame, and uses variety of combat options to choose newf un pow r from. Fast nd active, the game defend Jupiter’s really comes into its own during pulation from boss encounters, especially the evil military force intense challenge provided by those M. While the game approaching the title’s epic finale.

WonderBoyinMonsterWorld

So many games these days are arms. Levels are awash with colour, going for the grit factor. Look how complete with smiling tree stumps brutal is, how grizzled and happy mountains, seeing from is or how players leap across clouds, swim DEVELOPER: SEGA AM-3 … er … dark the Dark Knight is. through oceans and duck n swipe BLISHER: SEGA Sometimes all this doom and gloom their way through armies TYPE: SPORTS PLATFORM: ARCADE, can get a bit much, and you need of monsters (because DEVELOPER: DREAMCAST a game to remind you life doesn’t this is by far the WETSTONE YEAR: 1999 PUBLISHER: SEGA have to be so damn bleak. most effective mode TYPE: PLATFORMER PLATFORM: MEGA DRIVE, This is where in of attack). Shops VIRTUAL CONSOLE, PSN, XBLA Monster World comes in, a side peddle weapons, YEAR: 1991 scrolling adventure game that is armour, boots and unashamedly fantastical. The once potions while companions peaceful land of Monster World has can be found in dragons, wizards ironically been invaded by an army and fairies. of, um, monsters – but everyone If you’re searching for the video You may be asking yourself “How did a tennis still seems to be in good spirits, as game equivalent of antidepressants, simulator, not to mention an old tennis simulator, blue haired hero Shion has taken up this is it. make the list?” Surely, there must be other, more original games deserving of this esteemed reward? Well, dear reader, with a question like that, it’s evident you have never experienced the joy of playing Virtua Tennis. It’s not about having a knowledge of the sport, knowing which forms work, or who the hell Mark Philippoussis is – it’s about bringing into a 3D landscape. While there have been some significant improvements to the visuals, the gameplay largely remains the same. One side launches, or “serves”, the ball to the other side, who in turn returns that “serve” with a hit – continuing until someone shamefully, pitifully, humiliatingly misses and loses the point. But they aren’t ostracised, stoned, or sent to the racks like in the arcade days, they simply get on with the game until someone loses for good – THEN they are ostracised, stoned, and sent to the racks. Just kidding, unlike PONG Virtua Tennis is a family friendly title… still, one can never be sure what might happen outside of the game itself.

58 There are many outstanding contenders for the title of Worst Videogame of the Last Generation, but Ride to Hell: Retribution fails in so many ways and on so many levels that it transcends mere mediocrity. It is an instant anti-classic, and has rightly earned a place in the Videogame Hall of Shame alongside 64 and E.T. for the Atari 2600. The most striking aspect of Ride to Hell's DEVELOPER: EUTECHNYX mediocrity is its lack of polish, refinement, PUBLISHER: TYPE: ACTION/ADVENTURE presentation, and optimisation. Menus are sluggish PLATFORM: PC, PS3, and poorly-designed, and cut scenes begin and XBOX 360 YEAR: 2013 end abruptly and artlessly. The dialogue reads like place-holder text. The drab colours, grubby textures, and obnoxious lighting make everything hard to see, and the tawdry make characters impossible to relate to. Everyone has a surreal, exaggerated physique. Our hero is a grottier, more simian sibling of 's from Brutal Legend, the prostitutes look like rejects from the Barbie doll factory, and the myriad goons you will murder are all lanky, lumpy, and stumpy. When talking their jaws flap like they're broken Ride Muppets, and the quality control team failed to notice that nobody actually stands on any surface; everyone appears to be floating a good inch above the ground. Your to Hell: motorbike has the opposite problem: sometimes it will clip through the tarmac and hurtle downwards to oblivion. Retribution Your mission: to avenge your murdered brother by slaying large numbers of goons. You achieve this by belting them with a pipe wrench during sluggish and JAMES COTTEE was hoping the title of disorientating motorcycle chase sequences, and by this game wouldn't be so literal... ventilating them in some of the poorest cover-shooting encounters ever included in a full-price videogame. Guns become completely impractical at close quarters, hence the need for repetitive melee attacks. A mini-boss might take a good 50 or so stomps to the chest to kill, and by the time you reach that point your senses are deadened to the accompanying squelching, blood spurts, and camera shudder. Sometimes goons will pile into a room and forget to attack you, allowing you to line up perfect head shots while they just mill about. Pearl-clutching wowsers complain a lot about 'meaningless violence,' but here this spectre is given flesh. This violence really is meaningless. In Ride to Hell: Retribution, everything is meaningless. The true scope of this game's tawdriness is revealed when you start unlocking the sex scenes. Defend a lady's honour by inflicting grievous bodily harm upon a randy oaf, and she'll reward you with a rushed, confusingly- directed, and fully-clothed session of rumpy-pumpy. Pummel the ex of a lady mechanic, and she'll service you while still wearing her boiler suit. Talk about wearing protection. These animated 'rewards' have around the same level of articulation as the sex scene in Team America: World Police and are far, far less erotic. How can a game get absolutely everything so utterly wrong? The developers at Eutechnyx originally envisioned Ride to Hell as an open-world, GTA-like game of 60s biker vengeance, but over the course of five or so years of production difficulties the game was cancelled, then un-cancelled, then finally rushed to market as a load of slapped-together, mostly-linear tripe. In a perverse way, Ride to Hell: Retribution succeeds in creating an emotional connection with the player. Things that once seemed important like sex, violence, money, drugs, and vehicle customisation lose all value. The only thing that matters it plugging away at each poorly- designed challenge, dying and restarting until you beat it – until it's finally over. If you want to truly appreciate the very best gaming has to offer, then you have to sample the worst – and as gaming experiences go, Ride to Hell: Retribution is unforgettable.

59 DEVS SAY WHAT A ES You Must Play

Rather than just reading us It helps to train the brain to become banging on about the games more agile and improves strategic you must play, we thought we’d get thinking. Unlike the majority of some other authorities to chip in. games released these days, Heroes We cast the net far and wide and of Might & Magic 3 is a thinking invited developers from all over to game, not just a means to wile away tell us what games they think a few hours. everyone must play. Here are some of their responses. Sergey Vorobyev, (Deputy Development Director, World of Warships, Wargaming) TJ Wagner (Executive Producer, Chicago-Baltimore, Wargaming) Grand Theft Auto III defined 1 AND 2 sandbox gaming, and It’s a great example of making a really introduced whole new genre by combining it to the whole others. It’s a shooter without bullets world. You could that is mainly solving puzzles. The do whatever storytelling, music and characters you wanted – are all top notch. It changed the way given that it was I think about games forever. mostly violent, introduced a cooperative gameplay haha. However, mode that was fantastic and had as the series a lot of smart design decisions progressed, we included like emotes to help saw the game getting communicate with your partner. more layered and a more engrossing experience. The Andrew Karpiuk (Development latest incarnation, GTA V, has a Director, Mobile Development, huge, open world brimming with Wargaming) possibilities, an awesome physics engine, sweet graphics, thrilling Rovio managed to create a cultural story – it’s the complete package. phenomenon of our time. 17 games are united by the same franchise, Victor Avila (Vanir Project) support of 13 platforms and about For me, an absolute must play is downloads since 2009. By the SUPER MARIO BROS 3. way, the amount of downloads is This is a must play because it took comparable to the population of the 100% advantage of the console’s Earth in 1930. potential and if you play it today it is still every bit as entertaining as Michael Zhivets (Team Lead the day it was released. Gameplay Vision, World of Tanks, Wargaming) Andrew Goncharuk (BSK Games) HEROES OF MIGHT & MAGIC 3 EVE ONLINE

60 It’s not some old game that people a living universe, much like older usually will pick (because of impact legendary space games, and allow on gamedev and nostalgia). EVE players to travel and discover is my pick for must play because, unrestricted in any way. At the same if you want to see the future of time, we didn't want to go too far gaming, here it is. It is ahead of its and create an overcomplicated time, it will become mainstream hyperrealistic space simulation. only 10-20 years after but this one A huge, inspiring and dangerous, will be called the real first one. but at the same time easy to grasp EVE is a parallel universe, one big universe was our main intention. breathing world where people And we really think our open world actions affect anyone in this world, space game, crosslinked with over in the same way as in reality. 50 factions, made it possible for most players. Mario Mihokovic (LGM Games) In the words of one journalist Since we are game developers, I from months ago, "Starpoint Gemini hope you won't mind, but I'd like 2" can simply be put in a single to suggest our game as one of the sentence: "It is a mix of Elite, X Olaf Morelewski (Game games players should really try out. series and legendary Freelancer... Designer, LabLike) There are a number of spectacular best way to put it is that this is Eve (11 BIT games out there, but this one we are offline..." STUDIOS) personally attached to. Any player that craves real Because it touches the problem Our latest game is STARPOINT time massive space battles, of war from a completely different GEMINI 2, sequel to our first title discovering dozens point of view than any other game. released back in 2010. This game of planets and Survive the war as a civilian, not a has been released in Fall 2014, after different factions, soldier. one year in Early Access, and was improving very successful. A great part of this himself along Yoshiaki Hirabayashi (Producer of success was the fact we shaped the with his crew Resident Evil titles, Capcom) game much to players wishes and and ship, but (PS1, RELEASED ideas, and that path proved to be also doesn't IN 2000) the correct one. Communication have the time The game system is a perfect with our fan base during Early to study entire balance of action and strategy, Access was exceptional, and made encyclopedia the mixture of and 3D us realise that players (at least before playing polygons is an artistic triumph, the our community of more "mature" should really try gameplay is deep and rewarding, veteran gamers) actually do have Starpoint Gemini 2... and the darkly fantastical worldview a great idea of what kind of of the story completely sucks the experience they expect from Carlos Blas Garcia (Anima player in. Despite its age I think a space game, and also don't Project Studio) players today can still enjoy this hesitate to offer dozens of usable THE LAST OF US masterpiece – a true ‘must play’. suggestions on how to achieve Because it is a story-telling certain gameplay goals. masterpiece which mixes story and Nick Tannahill (Marketing Manager, Our initial idea was to create gameplay in an incredible way. Firefl y Studios)

61 DEVS SAY WHAT GAMES YOU MUST PLAY

JET SET RADIO FUTURE omnipresent in modern RPGs (skill JSRF is not only a one-of-a-kind trees, rare items with random mods, platformer skating game hybrid, set items, etc). It was also one of it is also one of the greatest the last 2D RPGs (before the switch videogame sequels of all time. to 3D around the year 2000), and Future takes the tagging from the has some of the best graphics of original and properly integrates it a purely 2D game. It's a must-play with the platforming, it goes wild game because its character and not exist in with character artwork and expands item progression are incredibly any other medium levels while somehow retaining their addictive and rewarding. Playing than a videogame. All tight design. It is a masterwork of with friends on the Battle.net online of this makes Braid nothing short of Japanese game development. service is one of the best possible a masterpiece. action RPG experiences. Jess Lebow (Lead Narrative James Ohlen (Senior Creative Designer, CI Games) Sebastian Gioseffi (Programmer and Director, BioWare) SID MEIER’S CIVILIZATION V Designer, Coff ee Powered Machine) Okay, so I’m kind of biased, in that If you are a fan of turn based BRAID, BY JONATHAN BLOW I love role-playing games and I love strategy, this is the quintessential It is a masterclass in game design. It role-playing games with stories. I’ve title. Why: multiple ways to win, takes the time-rewinding mechanic, been with BioWare for 20 years. procedurally generated resources, which is really interesting in itself, I was lead designer on Baldur’s massive re-playability through new and explores it to its deepest Gate and games like Knights of the civilizations and maps, and online and fullest, doing so without any Old Republic, and games like that, multiplayer. I have played this game unnecessary repetition or grinding so I love story-based games. And regularly since it came out, and I whatsoever. That alone would make this year, KNIGHTS OF THE FALLEN still find myself in situations I’ve it a must play game, b e story-based Star never encountered before. And takes a step further, a s RPG. playing co-op with a friend online not to tell a story or g –working together to take on a set of emotions, but t e Duncan (Producer, super high level AI – is an emotional sense (as opposed PopCap) roller coaster. It’s just streamlined, to the meaning I’m playing efficient, thought-provoking fun. or reference) : ARKHAM of the subjects KNIGHT right now. it explores, What I love about Chris Wilson (Lead Designer and entwining is the psychological Producer, Grinding Gear Games) traditional nges and what DIABLO 2 narrative and y do in that. So Diablo 2 built on the firm game mechanics way they treat the foundations of Diablo 1 to pioneer into something er [SPOILER] and many RPG tropes that are unique, that could way you find him in

62 DEVS SAY WHAT GAMES YOU MUST PLAY

places, and sometimes he’s in the architecture, sometimes he’s in billboards… the way they create that psychological tension in the storytelling. I love games that immerse you in their worlds and what’s going on. I think they did an amazing job. For us, its all about humour and we try and create in our worlds that humour, that accessibility and depth, but I thought Arkham Knight did a fantastic job of that.

Marcus Nilsson (General Manager, Ghost Games) I always find it so hard because I play all these different games and they all are different. I’ll do this. The game that people absolutely must play, they need to dig up their old PS2 and find one on fucking Craig’s List, or whatever, and find a copy of ICO. Because Ico does an excellent job of communicating emotions through very subtle ways, but it’s an astonishing achievement in emotional storytelling without words. attention Martin Sahlin (Developer and to detail that Creative Director for Unravel, DICE has, not Coldwood Interactive) only artistically, but Wow, that’s so big. There are so also from a gameplay perspective, many. I must go for… honestly, I and then our knowledge of building think, yeah, JOURNEY is definitely shooters, in general, married with a must-buy. There are many other working with Lucas… because they must-buys, but that one. care a lot about what this game is. I think a cool thing about It’s not only about, do the bolts fit videogames is when you make the in the right way on the AT-AT, it’s core mechanic, like, the main thing way more than that. It's about the you do, moving from A to B, when "feel" of the Star Wars universe, and you make that really awesome. Battlefront captures that. They’re doing lots of other stuff that’s really cool. But the thing that Rachel Franklin (Vice President and they’ve done best of all is the fact General Manager, Studios) that just the simple action I’m going to say THE SIMS. of moving from A to B The Sims 4, of course. I think is super satisfying to do. because the relationship that you They’ve got it just right, the can have by controlling your little thing where you slide down person and their life is a game the hill and there’s just experience that you will not find in enough momentum to just any other franchise. fly over there. It’s very satisfying to play and, on top of that, there’s Sara Jansson (Senior Producer on lots of other stuff that’s brilliant Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, DICE) about it, too. But that’s what makes Absolute must-play. I will then it a must-play for me. choose… there are so many great games, I will choose BRAID. It’s one Patrick Bach (General Manager, of my favourite puzzle, clever- DICE) type smaller games that I think is STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT. something different from a lot of It’s Star Wars and it’s a DICE games. shooter. That’s it. I can go into detail on Sebastian Enrique (Developer of what that means, but I think most FIFA 16, EA Sports) people hopefully know what Star INDIANA JONES AND THE FATE OF Wars is, and I think the whole ATLANTIS. collaboration with Lucas, the whole It’s brilliantly designed. It’s a lot attention to detail, the focus on the of fun. It’s one of the games that core values of what the whole Star inspired me to become a game Wars IP stands for, married with the developer.

63 THE 15 GREATEST Games Never Made

Many games fall by the wayside and quite rightly so. For every great game there are a bunch of stinkers that were cancelled some time during production, but there are some cancelled games that truly stand out as those that died before their time. DANIEL WILKS takes a look at 15 of the games we wished had made it all the way.

64 THE 15 GREATEST GAMES NEVER MADE

inSANE : Dead Sun

When inSANE was announced at tendril with the occasional shot of a First intended as a title for PS3, 360 And PC and the Spike Awards in screaming mouth and ending with later considered as a possible launch title for PS4, 2010 it sounded too good to be a quick glimpse of a needle and a Legacy of Kain: Dark Sun was not, despite the true – was set terrified eye. It looked creepy as title, a direct sequel to the previous Legacy of to direct a survival hell and given Del Toro’s expertise Kain games. The story was set in the far future of being developed by , the when it comes to creature design and was most likely intended as a reboot developers behind Freespace, it would doubtlessly have been of the franchise. It would have involved a new Summoner, something at least unnerving if not clan of vampires known as “the Saradin”, one of and . The downright terrifying. whom would be the main character. Details leaked DEVELOPER: 30 second teaser Then THQ imploded and the online state the game would see Gein the SNOWBALL INTERACTIVE PUBLISHER: OCTAGON trailer that went with rights to the game, intended to destroying a human village but essentially being ENTERTAINMENT TYPE: ACTION RPG the announcement be the first part of a trilogy, went possessed by the soul of Asher, one of the slain PLATFORM: PC, DREAMCAST simultaneously to Guillermo del Toro. Since then, humans, leaving the main character with a revealed nothing and nary a word about the project has human soul and questioning why he was DEVELOPER: VOLITION everything you needed to been heard, despite the occasional driven to destroy the village in the first PUBLISHER: THQ know to get interested in the title rumour that something would be place. Of course this could all be false – TYPE: SURVIVAL HORROR PLATFORM: 360, in a montage on insectile looking announced “soon”. the narrative designer of the game, James PS3, PC parts, tentacles and other grabbing Smythe has implied that the leaked story summary is entirely wrong but has not provided any alternate narrative threads. The game would have featured both a single and multiplayer focus. The multiplayer was salvaged and released as the F2P , Nosgoth.

Stormbringer: Elric of Melnibone

Michael Moorcock, the unbelievably been cancelled. prolific creator of the Eternal Based on his most famous Ete Champion , a connected series Champion character Elric, the a of novels and stories (around 114 prince of Melnibone, wielder of at the moment, one of which is a soul sucking sword that provide Doctor Who novel) detailing the title of the game, Stormbringer experiences of a character destined a single player action RPG in wh to be reborn into every conflict players would have taken contro across the multiverse, hasn’t had an Elric, exploring the Young Kingd easy time when it comes to getting fighting the forces of both Law his novels translated into game and Chaos and commanding form. Every one of the games based armies. While the ambitious AR on his writings has been cancelled sounds interesting to say the lea before release. Stormbringer: Elric Moorcock himself wasn’t a fan o of Melnibone is but the most recent direction the story was taking a Eternal Champion game to have was canned. Alas.

DEVELOPER: PUBLISHER: SQUARE ENIX TYPE: ACTION PLATFORM: PS3, PS4, 360, PC THE 15 GREATEST GAMES NEVER MADE

DEVELOPER: ROCKSTAR SAN Hellraiser DIEGO/ANGEL STUDIOS PUBLISHER: ROCKSTAR TYPE: ESPIONAGE SANDBOX PLATFORM: XBOX, PS2 It’s hard to think of a movie less into a $2 million boondoggle that suitable for being developed into all but bankrupted the company. a NES game, but Color Dreams, Color Dreams later reinvented itself purveyors of unlicensed NES titles into Wisdom Tree, developer and (they bypassed the 10NES lockout publisher of Christian games such chip so as to avoid the licensing fee as Bible Adventures and Super 3D and the chance of their games being Noah’s Ark. Agent outright rejected) apparently paid somewhere between $35K and $50K for the rights to set a game in Clive Development of Agent started, and most Barker’s psychosexual universe of DEVELOPER: probably ended, in 2003. The game was never torture demons, infidelity and incest. COLOR DREAMS PUBLISHER: officially announced, so as a result there isn’t The game was to be a shooter set COLOR DREAMS a great deal of information available about in the Lemarchand Configuration TYPE: HORROR SHOOTER PLATFORM: NES the project outside of a general outline of the and built on an improved version of game gleaned from leaks, unofficial sources and the engine. That was data-mining. The game was said to be similar the first problem with the game. The in approach and scope to the GTA series, with NES wasn’t powerful enough to run players taking the role of secret agents rather the new engine, so Dan Lawton, one than criminals. A second project, this time by of the founders of Color Dreams, Rockstar North, also titled Agent, may still be in contracted an engineer to create a development if the 2013 renewal of the Agent new kind of cartridge that contained brand copyright by Take-Two Interactive is a Z80 processor, programmable anything to go by. Originally slated to be a PS3 array logic chips and an extra 4mb exclusive, and now posited as a potential PS4 RAM, making it capable of running exclusive, Rockstar North’s Agent is again an the game. Of course, the price of the open world stealth action game. Set during the cartridge and the fact that retailers Cold War, the announcement press release stated were shying away from unlicensed that the game would take players into “the world games meant that Hellraiser turned of counter-intelligence, espionage, and political assassinations”. Open world Cold W stealth action? Fingers crossed tha missing, not dead.

Gotham by Gaslight

Gotham by Gaslight was the first of DEVELOPER: DAY 1 STUDIOS DCs “Elseworld” one shots – comics PUBLISHER: N/A that transpose popular characters to TYPE: ACTION PLATFORM: 360, PS3 another time or place. The story saw a young Bruce Wayne returning to Gotham after taking a trip to to see Dr. Freud in an attempt to rid himself of nightmares brought on by the murder of his parents. On returning to Gotham, Wayne takes up the mantle of the Bat to fight the growing crime on the streets of his city and eventually becomes embroiled in the hunt for Jack the Ripper who has relocated to Gotham City. Little is known about the plot of Day 1 Studios’ Gotham by Gaslight as all that has been seen of the game amounts to screenshots of the title screen, a load screen and a 2 minute demo video of Batman running around in his giant leather cape, but if it stuck to the Jack the R pper story, or even transposed some well-known DC villains to the misty streets of Gotham circa 1889, Gotham by Gaslight could have been amazing.

66 THE 15 GREATEST GAMES NEVER MADE

Prey 2

Prey, although short, was a pretty a bounty hunter on amazing experience, combining Exodus, taking bountie portals, astral projection, to earn cash and give DEVELOPER: alien abduction and first opportunities to try an HUMAN person shooting into a just what the hell happ HEAD STUDIOS PUBLISHER: BETHESDA somewhat incoherent him in the years missin TYPE: FPS PLATFORM: 360, but thoroughly memory. Released ga PS3, PC enjoyable whole. Prey footage showed an op 2 looked set to take in which the player ca the concept even further, with bounties in any order the main character, U.S. Marshal interesting movement, Killian Samuels, being abducted FPS battles and the fre by the alien enemies of the first a dick to aliens. This la game and then deposited, years highlighted a lot, with later, suffering from amnesia, on playing for the demo p the Alien world of Exodus. Using innocent bystanders o his man-hunting skills learned as taking hostages and o

a U.S. Marshal, Samuels becomes being cool. God it look DEVELOPER: FREEDOM FACTORY STUDIOS PUBLISHER: N/A TYPE: BEAT ‘EM UP PLATFORM: 360, PS3, PC

High School Heroes

DEVELOPER: CAPCOM PUBLISHER: CAPCOM TYPE: RAIL SHOOTER PLATFORM: GAMECUBE There is not a lot of information remaining about High School Heroes aside from a little bit of gameplay detail and some screenshots, but what there is certainly gives us an intriguing glimpse of what looks like a pretty promising game. Set in a fantastical high school a-la Sky High or Kill la Kill, players would take the role of one of three super-powered students in a semi open-world environment. The final game would have seen the students beating their way through six missions and facing off against themed school gangs (one made up of creepy clowns), evil faculty and janitorial staff. Technically the game isn’t quite dead yet – although Freedom Factory created a playable prototype of the game they failed to find a publisher, so it was put on permanent hiatus. Dead

Originally announced as one of the failed to show at E3 2003, and Capcom Five launch titles along despite Capcom’s insistence that with P.N. 03, , Resident the game was still in development, Evil 4 and Killer7, Dead Phoenix was was cancelled soon after. Such an ambitious rail shooter that saw was the anticipation for the game players take the role of a winged that it became the centre of much warrior fighting gigantic enemies speculation and rumour for over whilst being aided and in turn aiding a year after cancellation, with IGN a ground based army. The scant positing that the game may have trailer footage made the game been retooled as a Kid title look comparable in terms of style and other speculating that it may to , making it quite have been retooled for handheld o hotly anticipated. Unfortunately, a subsequent platform. Given the despite hype and a handful of Dead Phoenix trademark lapsed in screenshots being released, nothing 2004 it seems unlikely that Capcom else was seen from the game. It will ever revisit the title. THE 15 GREATEST GAMES NEVER MADE

DEVELOPER: City of Metronome PUBLISHER: N/A TYPE: ADVENTURE PLATFORM: 360, PS3 It’s all too rare to see a genuinely man would have used to fight innovative new idea in a game. the corporation was sound – Most IPs are built on the recording, manipulating, mixing, foundation of games that came and even creating sound forms before – innovating on mechanics the crux of all action, with the and concepts that have proven player using them to manipulate successful in the past. City of objects and characters, scaring Metronome went in a pretty guards, soothing frightened different direction to everything slaves, shattering glass, bypassing else announced between 2005 and voice activated locks and the 2011. Set in the ramshackle city of like. Despite firm overtures from Metronome (strange that), players Sony to make Metronome a PS3 take the role of a young man exclusive, Tarsier failed to find fighting against an evil corporation a publisher for the project and that controls the city with a dream instead went to work on Little machine maintained by kidnapped Big Planet for Vita and Tearaway children. The weapon the young Unfolded, amongst others.

Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings Chrono Trigger: Many moons ago we had this – just a short canned visualisation Crimson Echoes game on the cover – issue 155 and some rough barely shaded to be exact – and to say that wireframe proofs of concept. we were excited would be The game eventually came out Here’s a cancelled game you can actually play to an understatement. The first in a much different form, sans completion – just don’t tell Square Enix you’re doing footage we saw of the game, Euphoria, on Wii, DS, PSP and it. Between 2004 and 2009 an international team of with Indy fighting hoodlums PS2. The Wii version in particular Chrono Trigger super-fans devised, wrote and coded a on the roof of a trolley car (or was horrible with terrible ROM hack to run on the original Chrono Trigger engine. tram as we properly call them) motion controls, an insufferable Based five years after the events of Chrono Trigger the had us veritably frothing with checkpoint system and game sees the original characters coming together anticipation, and the subsequent fragmented gameplay. We’re left once again to fight an enemy trying to change the past. tech demos showing how the to ponder what could have been The plot was designed to tie up some dangling plot new Euphoria engine would if the 360 and PS3 versions of points from Chrono Trigger as well as set up some plot allow for realistic animations the game hadn’t been cancelled. points for , allowing it to serve as a bridge and environmental animations Would that we could have played between both official games. In 2009, weeks before made us even more excited. it rather than watched Kingdom the ROM hack was set to be officially released and Unfortunately that was all that of the Crystal Skul when the game was already 98% complete, Square Enix sent a cease and desist letter. The timing can only be viewed as a dick move – the amount of press coverage Crimson Echoes had garnered throughout the years of development would have definitely put the game on the Square Enix radar months, if not years before the official letter. That said, the dick move does mean that a nearly complete version of the ROM escaped onto the Internet so can be played by anyone interested.

DEVELOPER: KAJAR LABORATORIES PUBLISHER: KAJAR LABORATORIES TYPE: RPG PLATFORM: SNES

68 THE 15 GREATEST GAMES NEVER MADE

Aliens: Crucible

One of the greatest “What ifs” in have seen the movi the history of gaming, Sega and previous games so Obsidian announced the RPG to the aliens. They a Aliens: Crucible on December 13, want to resort to c 2006. Just under three years later, scares for tension. T in February 2009, Sega announced would have also co the project had been indefinitely of permadeath – an suspended before officially character face-hugg cancelling the game in June of the would be effectivel same year. Some tantalising hints dead, with the as to what the finished game may character having th have contained are all that remain. option to instantly The developers were apparently put them out of trying to make the environment their misery, put and the situation scary as them in suspension opposed to the aliens themselves, or use them until rationalising that people would they burst.

DEVELOPER: OBSIDIAN ENTERTAINMENT PUBLISHER: SEGA TYPE: RPG PLATFORM: 360 PS3, PC

DEVELOPER: KOJIMA PRODUCTIONS PUBLISHER: KONAMI TYPE: SURVIVAL HORROR PLATFORM: PS4

DEVELOPER: PUBLISHER: TYPE: RPG PLATFORM: PC Silent Hills

Van Buren We finish on a game that seems to have been cancelled out of nothing but spitefulness, Silent Hills, a game that would unite two immensely creative minds, Hideo Kojima The Fallout 3 that almost was, and the New Californian Republic. and Guillermo del Toro, in the effort to scare the piss Van Buren was cancelled in 2003 The game was set to culminate out of you. First teased by the innovative P.T. (Playable when Interplay laid off their entire with a truly difficult choice – a Teaser), Silent Hills would have starred Norman Reedus PC development team. Although rogue NCR scientist would seize of Walking Dead fame. Although it was little more than we may never know the complete control of an orbital nuclear a walking simulator, with players only able to move and story of Van Buren, there was weapons platform in an attempt zoom, P.T. was voted by many outlets and gamers as enough information released or to wipe the world clean with a one of the scariest games in recent memory. Between leaked to let us know just what second nuclear holocaust, leaving August 12 and September 1, P.T. was downloaded over 1 we missed out on. Players would only his select few to repopulate million times. How could something with this much hype begin the game as a prisoner, the world. The player would never and talent get cancelled so soon after it was announced? with guilt or innocence decided be able to stop all of the missiles We may never know the full story, but it seems to be during character creation. After and would ultimately have to a parting blow from Konami against Kojima who was, escaping the prison, the player choose who lives and who gets apparently due to internal conflict, planning on leaving would then make their way turned into crispy critters. A the company after the completion of MGSV. Konami around the wasteland, influencing (buggy) tech demo of the game aren’t interested in rebooting the project, nor is Kojima, the tide of the ongoing war is available online if you want to and after having two videogame projects fall flat, del between the Brotherhood of Steel feel sad. Toro doesn’t want to even think about games at all.

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5 ‘Engrish’ 2 Memorable boss moments in battles videogames Psycho Mantis: Metal Gear Solid (PS1) – Zero Wing (Mega Drive) – “All Your The one where you have to unplug Base Are belong to US” the controller to stop Psycho Mantis Pro Wrestling (NES) – “A winner ‘reading’ your thoughts and plug it is you.” into the second port. The battle doesn’t just Metal Gear (NES) – “I feel AeroWings 2 (arcade) - “I never break the fourth wall, it nukes it from orbit. asleep” thought I’d be frying over a Bob The Killer Goldfi sh: 2 Samurai Showdown (arcade) – jungle” (Mega Drive) – A Dave Perry in-joke, pressing “Victoly!” any button will cause Bob’s fish bowl to smash and that’s that.

1 Really interesting 1 Game obsessed with peripheral Whiskey

Rez Trance Vibrator - Users were Yakuza (PS2) – Suntory quietly threw encouraged to sit on the vibrating some money at this, which is device while playing Rez because why there’s a whole mini game ‘reasons’… devoted to sitting around in a bar and listening to the bar tender drone on about 101 Japanese Whiskey. Games Lists

A list about lists because people love lists. Also, lists. MIKOLAI

1 Greatest mayor in videogame history

nt of 5 Games that were really product ads t o Pepsi Man (PS1) – A corporate is/was a 7-Up mascot in a fever dream in which Pepsi the US. The branding was is Man runs around Pepsi world removed for the Oz and in collecting Pepsi so he can European releases. Pepsi while he Pepsis. Mick & Mac Global Gladiators King Games (Multi) – Sold at (Mega Drive) – The McDonalds Burger King, with Burger King logo is right there on the product placement contained cover in case you were within, quite possibly confused. connected to Burger King Chester Cheetah: Too Cool to (SNES / Mega Drive)– The Fool (SNES / Mega Drive)– A cheap anthropomorphic red circle shill for Cheetos chips

72 THE 101 GAMES LISTS LIST

3 Videogame 5 Hip Hop inspired inspired videogames cereals Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style – Because Nintendo Cereal System people still cared about Wu-Tang Pac Man Cereal Clan in 2000 Sonic The Cereal : Bulletproof – Because people still cared about 50 Cent in 2005 GTA: San Andreas– An extended homage to early 90s West Coast hip hop Parappa the Rapper – ! – For those who fantasised about DMX wrestling in a strictly heteronormative fashion.

1 Game where the main character commits suicide 3 Iconic videogame Super Fire Pro Wrestling Special journalists (1994, SNES) – The lead character takes his own life at the end of Julian ‘Jaz’ Rignal – An industry veteran wh the game after falling down a around since the days of Zzap64!, but best nihilistic black hole and realising for launching Mean Machines magazine in 5 Great plot it’s all meaningless. You can helping to popularise the new wave of Jap twists thank Suda51 for that ending. consoles on the horizon Gary Cutlack – Founder of UK Resistance, w Bioshock – Would you kindly equal parts hilarious and incredibly misogy COD: Modern Warfare – That (back when that was ‘fine’ in the industry). nuke though Ste Curran – Wrote the Red Eye column fo Silent Hill 2 – How’s the wife? magazine and helped popularise what wou Braid – Creep much? become known as ‘new games journalism’. Metroid –Pee in the cup, plz

5 Most 3 Co t ov rsial expensive g me eview videogames of all time Driv3r (Xbox World) – Magazine gets exclusive front cover and (including a mention in the game manual, marketing) awards the (broken) game a 9/10 and wonders why readers Final Fantasy 7 – $145 million want to burn their offices down. Star Wars the old Republic - 1 Worst Outrun 2 (Sunday Times) - Random $150 million follow-up to bro awarded this 1/5, UK COD: Modern Warfare 2 - $200 Resistance responded with, million a successful “Find him (the reviewer) and GTA V - $250 million console kill him.” Destiny - $500 million Depression Quest PC FX – NEC followed up () – Helped spark their 10 million plus selling PC the Gamergate Engine with a weird mutant clusterfuck after a machine that only seemed bunch of basement to play Full Motion Video dwellers decided a titles, was several years late positive review was a to market, and sold less than direct attack on their 100,000 units. limp penises.

73 THE 101 GAMES LISTS LIST

3 ram fi ld 5 games in support dev lopmen s of marriage equality La Noire – Developed by Team Bondi here in y Tony Australia, La Noire went through Games two different that ma grammer publishers, seven n secretly years of development and over one hundred ridicul irtless employees resigning. Former staff described cash who it as sweatshop nightmare helmed by an out into angry maniac. Puzzle and Dragons ame, Forever – 15 years in $1.4 billion (via in-a was development, several game engines, and purchases) in 2014 quently numerous lawsuits later this finally staggered Candy Crush - $1.3 to the party and collapsed at the front door. (via in-app purchas – A cautionary tale of ego, 2014 Texas Penthouses doubling as studios, and flushing money down the toilet, all soundtracked by the gentle rustle of ’s hair. 3 Be l ted di ion reamca ts

Hello Kitty – Self explanatory Chu Chu Rockets - Sega of Germany commissioned artist T.Rachu to create nine custom Chu-Chu Rocket Dreamcasts to be given away as prizes Seaman – Because speaking to virtual fish and teaching them about life was briefly ‘a thing’ in Japan.

3 Reasons FMV 7 dumb decision in games never videogame history

caught on Nintendo (1995) – Hey kids, who wants to go blind? – Switch between cameras in a Sega (1995) – Unwanted lovechild sorority house full of half naked women in a spawned from an abusive relationship bid to stop them being kidnapped by freak between Sega Japan and its North vampires in Lycra. Apparently this is what American counterpart. people did before Internet porn. Commodore 64 Console (1990) – Play shitty Make My Video – Splice together your own old Commodore 64 games, on cartridge! music videos for INXS, Marky Mark and Kris But for more money… Kross. Minutes of fun. Pac-Man for Atari 2600 (1982) – Atari Voyeur – Nudity and sex. It was like produced 12 million cartridges for a console watching SBS, but you had to buy a Mega with a user basis of about 8 million. Were CD to experience the unsatisfying climax. confused when they failed to sell them all. John Romero will make you his bitch (1997) – Stupid marketing campaign is stupid 5 RPG The launch (1995) – Brought clichés forward several months with a surprise 3 Mega Man covers launch at E3 in Las Vegas. They should have held back and developed some actual that really make Amnesia software instead. you stop and think Orphan protagonist Atari passes on the NES (1983) – Atari was Breaking into houses and offered North American distribution rights Mega Man robbing people blind is to the Nintendo Entertainment System in Mega Man 2 fine 1983. Due to ‘reasons’ this never happened, Mega Man 3 Bratty entitled rich girl and it all went downhill for Atari from there. defying parents to seek adventure A good nights sleep will cure everything up to and including death

74 THE 101 GAMES LISTS LIST

1 Worst launch ever 1 Really meta game Gizmondo (2005) – more of a criminal enterprise than an actual game console, the Segagaga (Dreamcast) – whole shambolic story reads like a You assume the role film script. The handheld sold of Sega CEO and are approximately 25,000 units tasked with saving and lost $400 million in a the Dreamcast from single year before exiting failure. stage left.

5 Sexiest videogame 5 Failed executives (in no mascots particular order) Rocky Rodent Mohawk Tom Kalinske – Sega USA Howard Lincoln – Nintendo USA Boogerman Dave Perry – Shiny Entertainment Kazuo Hirai – Sony Japan 5 Overhyped games Phil Spencer – Microsoft USA Rise of the Robots (Amiga 500) – This was supposed to be a ‘SF2 killer’ back in the day, lulz. The Cube (mobile) – The secret prize at th centre was ‘disappointment’. Dikatana (PC)– Something, something, John Romero, whatever, whatever. Demon Soul 2 (Multi) – If you all love it so much how about you marry it. Destiny (Multi) – $500 million to develop, most of it on marketing spend

2 Baddest dudes 5 Best videogame to ever save the magazines presiden Hyper (1993 to present) – You’re reading it. It’s Blade (Bad Dude 1) been around since 1993, it’s one of the Striker (Bad Dude 2) world’s longest continuously running videogame magazines. (1992 – 1996) – British Super Nintendo magazine with a fondness for import games, JRPGs, and inspired art. Basically a fan letter to all things 3 Greatest Super Nintendo. 2 Worst Edge (1993 to present) – The first Controllers controllers magazine to really take videogames and the associated Sega Saturn (Japanese version) Xbox (original) industry seriously. Super Nintendo Pad Mean Machines (1990-1992) - DualShock (Playstation) Introduced and championed the emerging Japanese consoles making there way west. Inspired a generation of kids to start writing about games. EGM (1989 – 2009) – The go-to source of videogame news throughout much of the early and mid 90s, and of course there’s that whole Sheng Long April Fools thing.

75 TECH THAT CHANGED the Way We Play

Gaming is intrinsically linked to technology, which is part of what makes it so exciting; tech continues to evolve at breakneck speed, bringing with it newer, more compelling ways to enter virtual worlds. It seems like every other year there’s a new leap forwards in gaming, be it motion-control, 3D, photorealistic graphics or . We’ve taken a look back at the history of videogames to highlight the fundamental technology shifts that changed the way we play. BENNETT RING

76 HAT CHANGED THE WAY WE PLAY

Atari 2600 - the birth of console ga ing Odyssey Let’s make it clear, the Atari 2600 likes of , Pac Man and was not the first gaming console Pitfall helping to drive sales until the to enter the living room. So why great gaming crash of 1983. is it on the list, when that honour Over the course of the console’s While it took four years to actually goes to the Magnavox six year lifespan, the hardware arrive in Austra ia as the Philips Odyssey? There’s one reason in within the Atari 2600 changed Odyssey 2001 in 1976, the original particular, which helped sales of this very little. The main CPU was a Magnavox Odyssey was first wood-grained console explode: it MOS Technology 6507, which ran launched in the US back in 1972, was the first console to popularise at the blazing speed of 1.19MHz. It officially making it the world’s the use of cartridges. While there came with just 8kB of memory, yet first commercial gaming console were dozens of consoles vying for only half of this was available to The price tag of US$99 was gamers’ attention in the few years software developers because Atari relatively affordable, even back prior, it was the Atari 2600’s use of had used 24-pin connectors on the then, and it was able to accept a microprocessor that allowed it to game cartridges due to their lower several different game cards to accept game code via removable price. An additional 128 bytes of play different games. Powered by cartridges, unlike other fixed RAM was included. Another chip either six batteries or an optional hardware consoles which were handled the display and sound, and power pack, this machine didn’t usually hard-wired to only play a was called the Television Interface even deliver sound at its launch single game. Adaptor, alongside a third chip to due to the ack of any audio At its launch in 1977 it was handle memory management and hardware. It also couldn’t do originally sold as the Atari VCS, I/O duties. When run on an NTSC colour graphics; instead players or Video Computer System, and television, the 2600 could pump were given translucent plastic it would take another five years out 128 different colours, but this overlays to stick to their TV, which before this groundbreaking was trimmed back to 104 on were only available in two sizes. platform received the name old- PAL sets. Keeping score whilst gaming school gamers know and love. It Unfortunately required the player to use the came bundled with twin joystick the stellar sales included notepad and pencil! It controllers, which would inevitably of the Atari also came with dice and poker break after a few hours of waggling, 2600 came chips, for use with other games. a gaming mechanic that has to an abrupt In 1975 Magnavox then launched thankfully long since died (although halt in 1983, a range of Odyssey consoles that many would suggest that bashing and many credit could only play the games that the X button is its modern-day the release of the were hardwired into the console, incarnation). Two more paddle game E.T. on the system making it considerably cheaper controllers were also included, with as one of the main reasons. to manufacture. The final model rotating dials, while a single game It was a hugely expensive game was 1977’s Odyssey 4000, which cartridge introduced the concept to make thanks to licensing fees, shipped with seven games and of bundling that remains popular to and a huge number of cartridges allowed for up to four players. It this day. were made to try to recoup these also enabled colour displays, but First year sales added up to just costs. When the game flopped this wasn’t enough to fend off the 250,000 units, as the market was thanks to the terrible gameplay competition from the Atari 2600, saturated with machines that could within, dragging down 2600 sales which was able to deliver a huge only play a single game, growing to in the process, it contributed range of gaming experiences 550,000 a year later. Yet just a year to the collapse of Atari, which thanks to its wide library of later sales doubled, as the public was divided and sold in 1984. software. With the market flooded came to the realisation that this Thankfully it’s possible to still by cut-price Odyssey consoles, console could play more than just enjoy a trip down Atari lane the 4000 was the last console a single game, hitting the magic 1 on several freely available PC made by Magnavox, which itself million sales in 1979. Over the next emulators, with the likes of Stella had been purchased by Philips few years the console experienced and z26 perfectly recreating the just a couple of years earlier. several major software hits, with the low-fi feel of the original.

77 TECH THAT CHANGED THE WAY WE PLAY

3D Hardware Accelerators – Saturn console even had dual CPUs so that one could handle the core goodbye2D,helloglorious3D gameplay logic, while the second could handle 3D duties, but it still wasn’t a dedicated 3D processor. No matter where you sit on chip that wasn’t sold to consumers, The Sega 32X and Super-FX chip the gameplay versus graphics instead being used by arcade for the SNES were some of the debate, nobody can understate games and OEMs. Products based first examples of console hardware the huge impact that the move to on the chip included the Diamond devoted to 3D, but it was the 3D graphics engines had on our Multimedia Monster 3D, Colormaster PlayStation and Nintendo 64 that beloved pastime. Shifting from a Voodoo Mania, Canopus Pure3D fully embraced the switch to 3D fixed camera viewpoint to a freely and several more. worlds. Nintendo’s hardware was moving view within a fully 3D It was a revelation, the first to use a 64-bit processor, environment increased immersion wiping the floor but it also had rudimentary 3D exponentially, which explains why with competitor’s 3D acceleration thanks to technology the vast majority of today’s games products when it came provided by Silicon Graphics for use use three dimensional graphics to performance. The in the system’s processor. engines. While 3D graphics were original Voodoo chip Fast forward to today and 3D made possible before hardware had 4MB of EDO RAM, acceleration is mandatory for any acceleration, their incredibly which operated at the gaming platform. In fact, many demanding nature meant that they same frequency as the would argue that the 3D accelerator were extremely rudimentary to GPU, at 50MHz. Over is the most important component start off with, with examples such the next few years the within a gaming system, and as Battlezone using primitive vector company released several many would claim that the PS4’s graphics to depict a crude 3D more cards, but faced 50% faster GPU is the reason world. However, the release of the stiff competition from the it’s outselling the Xbox One so 3dfx Voodoo Graphics card in 1996 likes of NVIDIA and ATI, and dramatically. With the evolution kickstarted the transition to a 3D closed its doors just a few of CPUs continuing to slow, dominated gaming world. years later. Remnants of its developers are finding more ways 3dfx was founded by former technologies still exist, with to offload work to the system’s employees of Silicon Graphics, a SLI being one technique GPUs, which are maintaining company known in the 90s for its that the company invented. healthy performance improvements. incredibly powerful – not to mention While consoles had With the introduction of VR in the expensive – 3D workstations used delved into 3D graphics near future, which will double the to make movie CGI. In 1996 the before this time, they’d performance demands on GPUs, company released its first product, relied upon their CPU to handle the we can expect 3D performance to the 3dfx Voodoo, a 3D Acceleration heavy load of 3D processing. Sega’s become even more important.

78 TECH THAT CHANGED THE WAY WE PLAY

The Control Pad Backwards compatibility Until the launch of the template for today’s control generation of consoles, which pads. The 1996 Nintendo 64 joypad includes the Nintendo Entertainment introduced the ide f n n l It may not be quite as System and Sega Master System, controller for the r fashionable as it once was, but the way we played games varied thumb, while 2000 backwards compatibility wasn’t depending on the game or platform PlayStation 2 contr always a given when it came to we were playing it on. There was pad finally introduc gaming. First debuting in the no such thing as a standardised a D-Pad alongside impossible-to-find control pad; instead we were twin analogue Atari 7800, forced to use whatever weird thumb sticks. It wa until then peripheral developers thought most also the first to console appropriate for each game, requiring introduce haptic owners console owners to buy several feedback in the were out of different input devices depending form of twin vibrat luck, with the on the types of games they enjoyed. motors. Today’s co likes of Sega The simple joystick that shipped have pretty much s never even with the Atari 2600 was one of the design, introducing considering this most ubiquitous, featuring a single and touch sensors to be an issue. It 4-direction stick with a single fire took the boffins at button. Another popular peripheral Nintendo to at this time was the tennis-paddle, popularise the concept of used with the enormously popular playing games from the last game Pong. This had a rotating generation on the replacement analogue dial that would control generation’s hardware. The list the position of the player’s bat on of its platforms that support screen, thus limiting its use to very backwards compatibility is specific games. exhaustive, including but Nintendo’s NES joypad not limited to the introduced the concept of a Advance, Game Boy Colour, 3DS, D-pad instead of a joystick, DS, DS Lite, Wii and Wii U; it’s and was designed to be held no wonder that many gamers in the palm of two hands, not often refer to the brand as one one. The meant the player of the few that actually cares could control direction with about its players. On the other their left thumb, while operating hand, nearly every PC game the action buttons with their right from the last twenty years is still thumb, and this design served as playable on today’s hardware, provided you’ve got the patience and enthusiasm to ferret out the fixes and emulators necessary to do so. Sony initially supported backwards compatibility, but dropped it from the launch of the Mobile Gaming – Game Boy PS4, instead offering a streaming service that remotely plays PS3 games on PS3 hardware and One of the biggest gaming genres would become home to a streams the video and audio today is mobile gaming, with massive hits, such as Tetri back to the player’s revenues forecast to grow by II and Legend of Zelda: Li PS4. This service 50% year on year, generating an Awakening. has yet to expected US$30 billion this year Interestingly, there have launch in alone. That’s more than console dozens of other handheld Australia. game sales for the year, by around platforms, but most have Microsoft ten percent. While today’s mobile untimely deaths. In chrono waited two games are powered by our order we have the Atari Ly years after the increasingly capable smartphones, TurboExpress, Bitcorp Ga launch of the Xbox we can credit the invention of Sega , Watara One to announce mobile gaming to the folk at Supervision, Neo Geo Poc backwards Nintendo, who were obviously Colour, N-Gage and sever compatibility for thinking well ahead when it released more handhelds that now its device, and it’s the Game Boy in 1989. wander the lonely halls currently limited to Designed by the same folk who of obsolescence. Only just 100 titles. Hopefully had created Nintendo’s massively Sony’s PSP platform this proves to be a major successful Game & Watch series, this has ever come close profit-spinner for the handheld featured a tiny 160 x 144 to the success of the company, ensuring back- pixel monochrome screen, powered Game Boy, though even compat support in the next by a 4.19MHz Sharp LR35902 Nintendo’s success doesn generation. processor along with 8kB of S-RAM. stand up well when comp Powered by four triple-A batteries, it gaming.

79 TECH THAT CHANGED THE WAY WE PLAY

Game Streaming

Sadly Australia’s large geographical size combined with our small population means we’ve yet to experience the next on our list of technological advances – game streaming. This refers to the removal of the gaming hardware from the player’s environment, instead hosted on a remote server farm. The layer’s inputs are fed to the server over the Internet, and the resulting video and audio stream is then fed ack to the player’s environment. The benefit is that the player doesn’t need to buy any expensive hardware r even games, opening up the possibility of subscription services that give access to a large library of titles. However, this technology is still in its infancy even in countries where it’s established, with the ikes of NVIDIA’s Grid and Sony’s Playstation Now still suffering from the overall slow speeds of today’s internet. This results in low-quality compressed video and high latency. However, as high-speed broadband becomes the norm, our Internet connections should have the necessary bandwidth to deliver high quality audio and video with loss- less compression, all at a latency that the player can’t detect. We’ve already seen this type of streaming computing revolutionise productivity applications, so it’s a sure that we can expect the same to happen with games, though it might take a lot longer than many expect.

MUD gaming and then MMOs

Long before gamers were firing Cave Adventure. Just two years up their 28.8k modems to shoot later came a MUD that would chew their friends in the face on up far too much bandwidth on the map19 in Doom 2 online, serious ARPANET (an early predecessor networking nerds were getting to today’s Internet) and be reborn their multiplayer fixes via Multi- a decade later as the hugely User Dungeons, or MUDs for successful adventure series, . short. These were the precursor Despite the limitations of the to the phenomenon of MMOs, and technology of the time, these allowed multiple players to connect early MUDs established many online to explore vast dungeons. of the genre rules that still exist The things is, most of these in today’s MMOs, including Role dungeons existed only in the Playing servers, PvP servers, and minds of the player. There was no -styled MUDs. The graphics engine for most MUDs, first commercial MUDs that could instead using text descriptions to run on PCs arrived in the mid 90s, build the world and lore around and in 1997 took out the top two the player. This is because the first spots on AOL’s most played games MUDs were created on mainframe list. However, the 1999 release of PCs housed in the laboratories of Everquest was the deathknell for universities and corporations, with MUDs, which fell from popularity to the very first arriving on the DEC become the niche genre that still PDP-10 computer, called Colossal exists today.

80 TECH THAT CHANGED THE WAY WE PLAY

The CD-Rom – PlayStation was also one of the first to attract attention from the mainstream and PC gaming goes big media regarding gaming violence, which probably accounted for its relatively decent sales despite its Many gamers would remember However, despite this advantage, atrocious gameplay. the PlayStation as the first gaming the memory limitation of cartridges The first console to ship with a platform to include CD-ROM proved to be an obstacle when built-in CD-ROM drive was again support, but they’d be wrong. It was games started using large audio and created by NEC, in the form of its in fact the NEC TurboGrafx-16 that video recordings. PC-FX. However, its inability to first released games on CD-ROM, in While it wasn’t the first game to handle 3D graphics meant that it the form of a CD-ROM peripheral. ship on CD-ROM, is widely received very little attention in the This was a massive shift for game credited with proving th Western gaming world. It was the creators, as until then they’d been importance of optical release of the 3DO that limited to cartridges and their puny drives. The large 650MB popularised the use of CD-ROM amount of storage. The Atari 2600’s capacity of these drives in consoles, though this cartridges contained a mere 4kb of discs allowed its platform’s high price and limited memory, increasing to 117.75Mbit on creators to deliver game range meant it didn’t receive the Super Nintendo Entertainment stunningly detailed widespread adoption. It was only System. Despite this, the largest environments: when Sony released games released for the SNES a total of 2500 the PlayStation in were only 48Mbit in size, while the high resolution 1994 that CD- smallest were a mere 2Mbit. images made up the ROMs became the One benefit that cartridges gameworld, each pre- preferred format did have was the ability to rendered in 3D. Another for games; it include custom hardware within 66 minutes of Quicktime took Nintendo a the cartridge, increasing the animations helped use more of the whopping seven capability of the console. In the disc space. years to ditch its case of the SNES, these were It wasn’t long before other game cartridge designs known as Enhancement Chips, developers realised that CD-ROM and use optical specialised coprocessors included discs could store several hours disks, adopting the Nintendo on a cartridge that would deliver worth of videos, which led to the Optical Disk format when the improved performance relevant unfortunate explosion of Full Motion GameCube arrived in 2001. to the game they sat next to. For Video games, or FMV for short. Compared to today’s 50GB game example, the popular Super-FX While there were a few genuine installs, the CD-ROMs of the past chip was a CPU designed to deliver hits in this genre, including The 7th seem positively tiny. Yet the move enhanced 3D performance, which Guest and the Tex Murphys series, to optical media was a huge leap made it a mainstay with early SNES there were dozens of FMV dogs, forward for game developers, giving 3D titles, such as Star Fox and with special mention going to the them the room to move that pricey Doom (which used the Super-FX 2). unplayable Night Trap. This game fixed hardware cartridges did not.

81 TECH THAT CHANGED THE WAY WE PLAY

Online gaming – no longer modems, LAN gaming also became very popular around this time. At the a solitary experience height of its popularity over 1000 gamers would attend the biggest Australian LANs, most lugging their Considering that nearly every triple killing” is etched into the minds of home PC into giant halls to wage A release now has a large multiplayer millions of gamers who used the 24 hour wars against friends and component, it’s hard to believe that popular Gamespy server browser foes. The introduction of high-speed just a decade ago online gaming was software, which easily allowed broadband had a massive impact still a rather niche way to play. We gamers to find nearby on LAN gaming, as the low ping can credit Microsoft with bringing servers populated by offered by local area networks online multiplayer to the masses players. In the age of dial-up, was now rivalled by cable and in 2002 with its Xbox Live service, distance was king, as playing ADSL connections. despite consoles first introducing on a distant server would introduce 2004’s introduction of World of multiplayer peripherals a decade game-wrecking lag. Warcraft saw online gaming reaching earlier, but the real credit has to go The open-nature of Doom 2 the masses, eventually growing to the PC. The widespread adoption introduced another major innovation to a subscription base of over 10 of dial-up modems meant that the to gaming in the form of mods, many million. It became such a cultural PC was opening the door to online of which would go on to become phenomenon that gaming long before the consoles, even more popular than the base devoted an entire episode to it. with a large variety of ways to play. game. Action Quake was the first to While the consoles had dallied Doom was the first game to introduce “realistic” weaponry and with online gaming via a range popularise the use of the TCP/ team-based gameplay, which would of peripherals in the 90s, it was IP network protocol to facilitate go on to inspire the still-massive Microsoft’s revolutionary Xbox Live online gameplay, yet it only Counter-Strike. service that finally made online supported a limited number of Alongside shooters, Real Time console gaming mainstream. modems and required technical Strategy games proved to be Its combination of VOIP, easy know-how to setup. It was only massively popular multiplayer configuration and quick matchmaking with the introduction of Doom 2 on offerings on the PC. Starcraft was removed many of the hassles that the PC in 1994 that online gaming one of the biggest, launching in 1998, had plagued other online services, really boomed, which then saw and going o the introduction of game server e-Sports ind browsers. “Let’s get it on with the Due to th

82 TECH THAT CHANGED THE WAY WE PLAY

Social Network Gaming

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when and where the social gaming phenomenon commenced, but there is no denying how massive it has become. Whether that’s for the good of gaming or not is for others to decide, but with the size of the market in the billions it’s a trend that we can’t leave off this list. Considering that Facebook only launched in 2007, the growth of this gaming genre has been staggering. There are now thousands of different games that can be played via social networks, and they’re making enough money to advertise on Free to Air television even more frequently than core games. Part of their success can be attributed to the wider net that these games cast – to play the latest requires either a console or PC, but to play Clash of Clans you simply need a PC or phone and a Facebook account. Facebook Game mods now has nearly 1.5 billion active monthly users, and they’re just one click away from installing any The ability to allow users to modify case of CS of these games. core code was a a sci-fi the Social gaming has phenomenon in the late 90s and deathmatc become so huge early 2000s that saw the birth into a team that there are now of some the biggest games in shooter us social networks existence today. Counter-Strike, weaponry launching devoted League of Legends, and DOTA all Sadly m solely to these originated as game mods to existing seems to h casual gaming engines, thanks to the developers of late, wit experiences. Gamee is handing over the tools for their arguing th the latest in a series of engine to an inquisitive public. DLC and e networks that hosts dozens Modding first began even earlier made deve of free games, placing the than these though, with MUDs often competing emphasis on gaming encouraging their player base to their add-o rather than sharing add to the codebase by creating are now ha photos or status new areas and puzzles. In the 80s tools to mo updates. mods tended to focus on cheats, much more modifying the game code to allow Team Fusio players to pass tricky sections, but on IL2 hav it was the creation of Counter-Strike creation of that saw the rise of Total Conversion base game mods. As the name suggests, these once they’ totally alter the base game into content wi something entirely different. In the the time. it TECH THAT CHANGED THE WAY WE PLAY

Motion Controls The commodifi cation Deemed by most serious gamers though hardcore users soon figured of game creation to be a flop even before it was out ways to trick the controllers. The launched, Nintendo’s Wii console success of the Wii saw Microsoft tools went on to smash sales records, trying to take it to the next step with eventually selling over 100 million the , removing the controllers units. The reason for its success was entirely. As the dearth of quality Thanks to the likes of and simple – it was the first, and possibly Kinect games shows, this strategy , game developers only, console to deliver working proved to be a failure, yet Microsoft no longer need to shell out tens of motion controls. More importantly, still pursued it with the launch of thousands of dollars for a license it did it in such a way that it opened the Xbox One. Sony went for a far to work on the latest game engine. gaming up to an audience that more traditional approach, copying It’s now possible to build a game didn’t need to know how to use a Nintendo’s technology with its Move with nothing more than the right control pad or keyboard. They could controller, while also adopting basic know-how and the motivation to simply point the remote at the TV motion tracking in its control pads. get it done, as all of the necessary screen, select the game they wanted Meanwhile PC users have been using software is freely available. to play, and then go through the basic head tracking hardware for Rather than charge up-front costs motions of the real world action around a decade in the form of the for these products, the engine they were replicating. While the TrackIR, but this is limited to niche creators instead go for a revenue accuracy of the motion tracking in use by simulation fans who need a sharing approach. For example, if the Wii wasn’t actually that great, quick way to move their in-game you build a game using the Unreal it did a fantastic job of faking it, avatar’s head. Engine 4, is entitled to 5% of the gross revenue after the first $3,000 per product, per calendar quarter. On the other hand, Unity Personal Edition is open to anybody who doesn’t make more than $100k per annum using the software – after that and the creator then has to buy the commercial edition of Unity. As a result of the dropping in tool prices, combined with the ease of distribution afforded by online stores such as , independent gaming has experienced a massive it

84 TECH THAT CHANGED THE WAY WE PLAY

well-specced PC, suggesting a total VirtualReality–thenextstep cost of ownership below $3,000. Secondly, they’ve largely solved the issues of nausea by lowering We’re taking a punt on this one, as upwards of $15 per session, which latency from player input to photon we believe that the next biggest may last for just a few minutes. update to below 20ms, while also leap in gaming technology is Games such as Dactyl Nightmare maintaining a minimum refresh rate literally right around the corner in routinely caused nausea in players, of 75Hz. Finally, approaches such the form of Virtual Reality. Many as the Virtuality pods hadn’t solved as HTC’s Vive, which allow players might doubt this prediction given the problems that today’s VR to walk about virtual spaces, get the untimely demise of VR in the prototypes have overcome, namely around the issue of fooling the early 90s, but we’re guessing many latency, high refresh rates, and inner ear into feeling what the of these naysayers haven’t tried the player positioning. yer is seeing. latest Head Mounted Display (MHD) In 1995 Nintendo rel As a result, we think prototypes. We have, and we’re the highly anticipated VR is finally primed sold on the technology, to the point Virtual Boy, but it too for the big time. After where we believe it will be as big as suffered from the sam trying several recent the leap from 2D to 3D graphics, if issues as the Virtuality demoes with the very not more important. system, albeit at a muc latest in prototypes, Older gamers will remember the more affordable price experiencing the sense popularisation of VR in the early The concept of VR die there” that only VR can 90s, led mainly by films of the time quickly as it arose, and e’re positive that this such as The Lawnmower Man. Until would take almost two o be a revolutionary then, the military had been the decades for technolog y. And not just for main consumer of VR technology, reach the point where t has massive potential paying upwards of $50,000 per finally feasible. fields of education, headset, plus several million Today’s consumer ehabilitation and more for the large workstations VR platforms differ ation. No wonder needed to deliver the graphics. It from the 90s versions made a US$2 billion was only in 1991 that a company in several key ways. bet on the tech when named Virtuality introduced it to Firstly, they’re far it purchased Oculus, gaming arcades. Costing around more affordable, ith the likes of Sony and US$70,000 per gameplay pod, and will be able to rosoft also beavering Australians were asked to pay run off a relatively on their own versions.

85 DEATH AND DYSENTERY: A short history of games in education

Commercial software is being used in classrooms around the country to help students learn, create, and connect. But what does Grand Theft Auto have to teach? Knowledge lover MIKOLAI dons his mortarboard, straightens his headmaster's gown, and goes in search of learning.

86 A SHORT HISTORY OF GAMES IN EDUCATION

Dying was part of the curriculum at my school. Once a month the teachers would march us up to the computer labs to play Pieces of Eight, a text based adventure game with a kink for gruesome deaths. Our efforts to find the treasure and escape the digital island would be cut short by shark attacks, pirates, loss of blood from leeches, drowning, a different kind of drowning, and clapped out 286 PCs crashing. This was viewed as character building, educational, and cutting edge. Commissioned by the Queensland Education Department and developed by schoolteacher Paul Holland, Pieces of Eight was distributed to schools throughout the country as a way to promote “a broa d range of problem-solving techniques and logical-thinking skills,” via “dynamic, collaborative interaction and co-operation.” A couple of decades later the groundwork it laid still holds true, but the software being used in classrooms is more likely to come from EB Games than the state education department.

ALL ROADS LEAD TO OREGAN >> Using games for educational purposes isn’t exactly a new concept. Chess was used to teach military tactics back in the Middle Ages, and various European writers and philosophers debated the merits of games and childhood development throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. But it wasn’t until the late 20th century that technology and the education system began to catch up with all easily be made fascinating enough would go on to sell the theories that had been sw rling to put over the dullest facts.” 65 million copies around. These fledgling ideas about over ten iterations, ‘Gaming as a Technique of games and education came to a forty years, and Analysis’ was an influential paper head in 1971, when a U.S. teacher multiple platforms; released in 1954 which argued that named Don Rawitsch used his numbers that games had the potential to reshape school’s mainframe computer to place it in the same education. As it explained, “A program a text based adventure to league as the Halo se virtue of gaming that is sometimes compliment his history class. The The success of The Oregan w overlooked by those seek ng Oregan Trail focused on a settler Trail helped legit mise the idea grander goals is its unparalleled mak ng his was across the U.S. in of computer game assisted advantages in training and the 19th century and proved hugely education and inspired a new kind educational programs. A game can popular with students The title of software Titles like Math Bla P LEMONADE STAND PIECES OF EIGHT THE OREGEON TRAIL

(3 classics you >> www.coolmath-games.com/ >> www.playitagainproject.org/games/ >> www.archive.org/details/ play right now) 0-lemonade-stand pieces-of-eight/ msdos_Oregon_Trail_The_1990

87 A SHORT HISTORY OF GAMES IN EDUCATION

combination of education and gameplay, it pursues a more organic style of learning based around titles that students already play. It’s an approach supported by Daniel Donahoo, Director at Project Synthesis, a Melbourne based education consultancy group. He believes that open-ended commercial titles offer children “things that educational software built around (old) industrial models of learning couldn’t. It offers Remember the Mavis Beacon Touch Typing using commercially produced them agency; the ability to control 90s cartoon based on and the Carmen Sandiego series all software and writing courseware and shape their own experiences Carmen? No? made their debuts in the early 80s to go with it,” says Paul. “I became and learning. It offers them a Lucky you! under the ‘edutainment’ banner, part of a trial group of teachers sandbox in which they can play.” attempting to reframe maths, exploring the classroom use of John Burns agrees, and says typing, and geography in a way that computers and what they could that the potential for commercial was more accessible to kids. offer. I especially liked getting the software to teach is almost While these early titles were students involved in group work, endless. “GTA allows senior created with defined learning problem solving, and storytelling.” students to capture and edit their outcomes, there were teachers own narratives in a genre referred willing to look further afield, and CHOCOLATE-COATED BROCCOLI to as Machinima, for instance. explore the use of commercial >> According to John Burns, Here they have a wealth of tools games in a classroom environment. Director of Creativity & Innovation for professional storytelling that One of these outliers was Paul at International Schools Services, they would have previously been Holland, who would go on to the evolution of educational games inaccessible to them. Sandboxes develop the aforementioned Pieces follows three main epochs. “The like Portal allow learners to explore of Eight. first is the traditional ‘edutainment’ and experiment with realistic “I started using Apple IIs and approach, more commonly representations of physics…” was soon involving my classes in referred to as chocolate coated broccoli. These games typically A PHD IN GAMEBOY… >> The last take a learning experience that fifty years have seen the traditional students dislike and attempt to ‘recall and repeat’ classroom Paul Holland on make it more interesting through a environment replaced with more Pieces of Eight gaming experience.” “Next we have the ‘ of learning movement. In 1985 I was asked This school of thought to join and then focuses on creating a manage a group community of learners developing software through the use of for Queensland rewards such as badges, schools. One of our achievements, experienc first tasks was to points, trophies and design some titles. more.” Mine was Pieces of “Finally, and the most Eight. I’d always loved promising, is games pirate stories and in based learning. Here particular Kidnapped students leverage and Treasure Island, contemporary so combined that type of story with the Infocom videogames such as Minecraft, style of game. I drew a small map, converted it Portal, and even Grand Theft into a room map with hidden objects, created the Auto to create, collaborate, and game logic and a story narrative and designed showcase their learning in the interact ons. My group was based in the new ways.” Department of Education’s media production It’s this last example that branch so it was easy for us to hire in freelancers has had the most obvious to help with programming on each of the impact on education and versions. It was released on Apple II, BBC micro, student engagement in recent Commodore 64 and IBMPC years. Rather than trying to shoehorn an awkward

88 A SHORT HISTORY OF GAMES IN EDUCATION

dynamic methodology. These days sustainability curriculum, that’s it’s all about a student’s ability when games hum.” to find and evaluate information TheDSEffect before applying it contextually. THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT… >> A Games obviously lend generation of students rais d on themselves to this style of learning, Mario Brothers, Sonic, and Duke While schools have increasin and respected international Nukem are currently making turned to commercial softw publications like the NMC Report their way through the education to help facilitate learning, have stated that commercial departments ranks, assumin the Nintendo DS stands software has the potential to directorial positions and starting out amongst videogame increase student’s “ability to to have real input on polic And system due to its flood of problem solve, collaborate with unlike their predecessors, they educational and ‘self help others, and ultimately learn understand that commercial software. The success of educational content and skills.” games and education aren’t arly r eases lik Brain It’s a mantra that’s found mutually exclusive. Tra ning created a short- support in many schools, Granted, there are numerous lived craze for these titl especially in more progressive issues to overcome, including the ghost of which l v enclaves like North Fitzroy, curriculum requirements, lack via eBay and your loca Melbourne, where Sim City has of teacher training, the need to Converters. been used to teach everything assess student work, limited class from social studies to English. time, and computer access. But According to one of the the notion that commercial games teachers involved, “Students were offer real opportunities to learn, required to blog, read gaming create, and connect is no longer manuals, and present orally about the subject of scorn and derision. their progress in the game. This As Marianne Malmstrom, a is a powerful way of integrating Cognitive Architect from New the English requirements into our Jersey recently stated, “Games are curriculum, because students use the way people are connecting. their literacy skills in a meaningful People think of social networks as context… Even with the generally being Facebook. But games are harder to engage students, I saw the social network for little kids. Mine self-c so much evidence of them totally And I don’t see how education can learn immersed in the unit. They were ignore that for much longer.” envir learning so much without even knowing it!” While these trials have helped promote the use of commercial software in schools, the integration of games and education in classrooms is still decided on a largely ad-hoc basis. According to Jess, a primary school teacher from Brisbane, “The programs I use in my classroom are pretty straight down the line educational, there are some games in them to encourage the kids to stay engaged but I haven’t used anything like Minecraft… With the games that my kids use, they’re more of a mid program reward rather than the point of the activ ty.” And as Daniel Donahoo warms, good teachers are still the most crucial aspec of any educational policy. “There is the assumption that games teach. Games don t teach. Just like textbooks don’t teach. Games are content they are spaces where students are exposed to things and it is the teacher who brings them to life.” “When teachers are using Angry Birds to teach physics, or when a teacher akes SimCity and uses it to build a un t around civics and government, or when a teacher uses Minecraft to engage with

89 SAE QANTM Campuses: Adelaide | Brisbane | Byron Bay | Melbourne | Perth | Sydney | Online Courses offered in Animation, Audio, Design, Film, Game Development and Web & Mobile.

www.sae.edu.au Phone: (02) 6639 6000 Games Some do, but not everyone. There are a few roles in Education games that people seem to recognise before enrolling, like ‘game designer’ or ‘level designer’, but I also find that new students don’t In lia necessarily know what it means to actually occupy those roles. So they definitely SAE Qantm learn that there are a lot of different ways to contribute We asked ADAM to a game, and find that there RUCH, department are different aspects that they coordinator for gravitate towards. Games and Animation at SAE Sydney, to talk How important is about what the collaboration between school offers students on projects at students. SAE? Are you aware of any independent teams that Do students typically come have formed between SAE to SAE with a specific idea of graduates? what they want to do in the This is extremely important. industry? Do you think their We focus on project attitudes towards and ideas work, making games and about game development prototypes, and students change over time? are almost always working

CG Spectrum

Looking to get into game development? There are more places to go, and more options available to you, than ever before. We chatted with some of the schools out there to get a better sense of the current state of games education in Australia, and talked with some alumni who have gone on to make cool things. by James O'Connor

90 EDUCATION SPECIAL

in a ‘simulated studio’ What sort of challenges environment. We believe that do you need to prepare not only are the technical students for aside from skills required to use any teaching them how to design particular piece of software games? Does SAE focus on important, but that being the realities of the industry able to collaborate is vital. as well? It’s very unlikely that anyone One of those challenges is will have a career without the group work – we know collaboration, so we want that working in teams is to give our students the unpredictable, and handling opportunity to practice that that is not easy for all while they study. There are students. That is a reality of a few teams who have gone the industry – of the whole on to work together outside world, really – so it’s an of college including the guys important one to address. from Pygmy Tyrant – Trent Our internship program, Naylor, Willis Smith, Dhani which is built into the course, Wong and David Coonan. prepares students to present These guys were college themselves in a professional mates who founded their way. We also help students successful indie studio after build an online presence and collaborating on their major a portfolio, both by building student project at the SAE the content, and by actually Sydney campus. working on the showreels and portfolio sites themselves. ALL OF OUR in Australia, having the You offer campuses all Personally, I am very experience of Qantm College around Australia – will up-front about the realities LECTURERS COME which was founded in students get the same basic of finding work in large TO THIS INSTITUTE 1996. This enables SAE to experience at any of them? companies, about the state provide students with both Are guest lecturers ever live- of the Australian industry, WITH YEARS OF a solid academic foundation streamed across campuses about the opportunities EXPERIENCE AND and professional industry or anything? (and challenges) of running knowledge so they’re ready Each of our campuses an indie studio, among INDUSTRY ACCOLADES to hit the ground running. works to the same other things. But I am curriculum, but this is really a fundamentally an optimistic Can you point towards any framework, not a laundry list person, so I use that kind of should become more stable success stories from recent of tasks to complete. Even honesty as the foundation and we should see long-term graduates? within a campus, the studio for effecting real change sustainable growth. We’re really proud of projects are usually themed over time. the achievements of our around a set of ideas that The Australian games What does SAE offer graduates. Our success are one way to approach development scene was that makes their game stories include Melbourne the learning outcomes for rocked somewhat by the development course unique games graduate Jair Wallace the unit. These change over ‘bust’ of a decade ago, from other schools? who is doing great work time: different lecturers bring when a significant amount For starters, we have a with Australian games different ideas to a unit, of foreign investment dried wide range of disciplines studio Twiitch, designing different student groups up. We’ve been working here, so students can work and executing user interface interpret the project briefs in hard to address the impacts together in teams including systems as well as core unique ways, and that’s part of this on our local creative animators, audio producers, multiplayer battle systems of the design of these units. media sector and specialists, web developers etc. We also for games such as Orcs vs We want our students to have mainly by ensuring our build up a theoretical or Knights: Heroes of War. a more personal experience, students graduate with first-principles knowledge Brisbane graduate something in their portfolio a more rounded skillset. about games throughout Adam Single has joined that speaks to their identity We want to ensure they the unit, to give students an the ranks of successful as a creator, rather than every qualify with the aptitude understanding of what games gaming programmers and student graduating with the and attitude to work both in are that transcends whatever is co-organiser of the Game same assignments in their large development studios technical skills they will pick Technology Brisbane meet- showreel. across different specialist up. We want to answer the up. Adam returned to study at That being said, all of areas, as well as in smaller question “what is a game?” or 27, having left his former life our lecturers come to this indie teams on projects that “how does this game work?” as a café manager to pursue a institute with years of retain intellectual property for regardless of whether it’s passion for technology. experience and industry Australia. built in Unity or UnrealEngine Halfbrick is another success accolades – and they know If we can gradually build or GameMaker. story. The company is at the what it takes to succeed. Our a more stable foundation We are one of the oldest forefront of the Australian academic rigor challenges of developers working on and most experienced games development industry students to be original and original game ideas, the providers of tertiary games and was founded by SAE push the medium forward. Australian gaming industry development education graduate Shainiel Deo in 2001.

91 AcademyAIE of Interactive Entertainment Campuses: Sydney | Melbourne | Canberra | Adelaide | Perth | Online Course offered in Game Art and Animation, Programming, Design and Production, 3D Animation and VFX for Film

www.aie.edu.au Phone: (02) 8814 8800 (Sydney Campus)

I could best utilise my skills should I choose to remain in Australia. AIE felt like a good fit and I have been fortunate enough to able to bring of your labours come to life know what their passions are that experience and shape are all the elements of what yet, try to see what you enjoy the curriculum across the makes a person an invaluable and what you don’t. The organisation. team member when making great thing about the world a game. of game development is that Aside from design logistics, you can absolutely give it a what do you think are the What advice would you give go without having to study most important things to a potential student who it. Education institutions like ALEX CARLYLE, Head for games development wanted to enrol in AIE but AIE will help you take your of Design at AIE students to learn? ultimately wasn’t sure what skills to the next level and Sydney, is an industry A professional working they wanted to do within the can provide structure and veteran. He was the attitude and the skills to industry? industry expertise, but you project lead on both see a project through from They should do their can try your hand at the The Getaway and LA concept to completion. Even research and make sure they basics in the comfort of your Noire. for industry professionals understand what the different own home to see what you those are still the toughest disciplines do in the game like to do. What prompted you to challenges ahead of them. industry, but ultimately I move from full-time game Knowing when to push hard, would encourage any student From your perspective, development to education? knowing when to let go of to identify and follow their what’s the most rewarding I didn’t study game an idea that isn’t working, passions. If you know what part of getting to teach development to get into the working effectively in a you love to do and you get game design? industry and throughout my team, planning and scoping the opportunity to do that Amidst the opposing career I have done a lot of appropriately and staying you are on the right path. opinions of what game is recruiting and training of the distance to see the fruits For those students that don’t better than the next, the junior designers, so I have differing walks of life of always had an interest in the students, and the varying burgeoning education sector. levels of skills and interests During the last few years I within the discipline, is a have got to know some of united passion for creativity the people who work at AIE and the dream to go out into and I’ve also had the pleasure the world and make truly of working with some of ground-breaking experiences the graduates who had for players. It is refreshing impressed me. More recently to be surrounded on a daily the landscape of game basis by that raw desire to development has changed put those ideas into practice. across Australia. My career Having the opportunity to and experience has always help shape them and provide been centered on large-scale a pathway for success in the AAA development, which industry is both humbling and is no longer present here, rewarding. leaving me considering where

92 EDUCATION SPECIAL

to ensure they know what create a game suitable for of projects that are ‘about they’re getting themselves commercial release. to hatch’ after quite a bit of into. Typically, that means incubation. We’ve had nine either having a team that has Who is the Incubator for? projects successfully pitch for worked together, or coming What sort of student is likely a share of $300,000 in grant in here as an individual with to benefit from it? money we’ve made available a well-considered plan for a Primarily, the Incubator is for to our Post-Incubator teams solo venture. people who want to actually over the past two years, start and grow their own and that’s helped some of Does the program target business. It can also benefit them to keep focused on the business of independent folks who simply want to their projects long enough development as well as the be a part of a commercial to do things like get on to DAN TOOSE, logistics of building a game? game project, which is super Steam Greenlight, and be coordinator of the Absolutely. Arguably the valuable on your CV when approved for development AIE Incubator most common thing that you go to apply to a major on the major consoles. Some program (and former folks trying their hand at games studio. However, most of the Greenlit game include editor of Hyper), indie development fail at is of the key benefits we offer, Bearzerkers, Evergreen, spoke with us about the business side of things, like access to scholarships Dragon’s Wake, with what the AIE because they’re typically and grant funds, best serve Collateral and Orbitor both Incubator can offer motivated by their passion for those who are trying to get in Early Access now. One of aspiring game games, and don’t think about something sustainable going our teams has a deal in place makers. how to run a business around and need a boost at the start. with a publisher that we’re that until it’s too late. We still not able to discuss, but that’s Can you outline the need to help with production Can you outline any success obviously a major win. Incubator Program for us? advice too – There’s a stories from the Incubator What is it exactly, and how massive difference between program? What sort of feedback do can students become a part making a small student At this point, our biggest you get from students after of it? project game and trying to success stories are in a series completing the program? The Incubator Program is It’s generally all been very something AIE came up positive, which is a big deal with as a means to help our to me. There are many times Advanced Diploma graduates when I’ve seen someone who wanted to go indie. wrap up at the Incubator and This was something that not really get as far as they seemed really necessary once thought they would have the games industry shifted when they first arrived, but from being almost entirely have still come and talked to about medium to large me about how they’ve had studios working with major an invaluable experience that publishers into this new age they needed to have. I think of independent development. the fact we’ve got most of We take anyone who our graduates wanting to stay has proper development on here as Post Incubator chops, whether they’re an teams speaks volumes about AIE graduate or not, but I how they see the place. screen them pretty carefully

93 CG SPECTRUM WE MAKE SURE WE GIVE STUDENTS ENOUGH CREATIVE Online Only FREEDOM BUT ALSO Courses offered in Game Art and Animation OFFER CONSTANT GUIDANCE WITH http://www.cgspectrum.edu.au/ Phone: 1300 654 592 LESSONS

employable level faster than any other school. We are able to do this through small class sizes of ten students in their second year and give You offer an online diploma, or less, in-depth correlated grads the proper skill set to how does this differ from the lessons and full time, highly succeed in the industry. experiences students might experienced mentors that are have on-campus? Can you there for our students every What’s the split between still encourage collaboration step of the way. focusing on digital art for in this set-up? films and digital art for The technical hurdles that you How do you cater to games? Are there separate encounter providing online students who arrive not courses, or does a lot of the education encourage you to We talked to Nick entirely sure what sort of knowledge taught apply to come up with creative and Fredin, director and artist they want to be? both? innovative solutions that end co-founder of CG We understand not everyone While taking the diploma of up enhancing the students’ Spectrum, about their knows exactly what they Screen and Media students experience. This isn’t online online school, want to do when they start learn the 3D design pipeline education where you sit there established in 2011. school. It can take some in a hybrid form. We teach and watch a video and that’s time to find out what really the foundational skills that it. We meet with our students What is the main focus of CG makes you excited and this every artist needs, whether live, look at their homework Spectrum? What might draw is something we nurture in film or games, to be and give meaningful critiques. potential students to this by introducing all aspects successful by building a game We record all of our classes school over others? of the 3D pipeline over the and the assets within it. Doing so students can review them At CG Spectrum our main course of a year. We are very this allows students to gain at any time, and we have focus is providing an excited to be announcing our a fundamental knowledge designed our curriculum optimised education that Advanced Diplomas that will that they can then build upon in a thoughtful way that will truly lead to relevant give students the chance to in the second year of our encourages collaboration. employment after graduation. really focus on a specific craft Advanced Diplomas. A common situation that We aim to teach students students find themselves in the latest skills by providing is biting off more than they a cutting edge curriculum can chew and becoming created and taught by frustrated when they can’t industry leading mentors. We complete projects. In a have created our programs collaborative situation this by finding out what skills becomes a nightmare and studios are looking for in students often abandon artists and what makes projects. We make sure someone employable. We we give students enough then hire the best artists creative freedom but also from around the world to offer constant guidance with implement the studios’ lessons that build on each advice and to create our other and merge naturally own unique curriculum. Our into collaborative projects. It’s courses are designed to the only way you can offer take someone who has the optimised education of this passion and dedication to an calibre online.

94 Where EDUCATION SPECIAL Does It Get You? To get a better understanding of what you can actually do with a games-focused degree, we Hacknet reached out to several former students who have, since finishing their degrees in Australia, been involved in the making of games that have received commercial release.

“A computer science degree helps a lot”, says Trobbiani. “Coding for games is still just coding, on most VEGA Conflict levels, and having those strong technical skills behind me let me start making things interested in making games, and programming, with a sub of substance earlier, and and had played around and focus on mobile application guided my development as made a few experiments programming. This unusual a ‘games coder’ in a really before then, but hadn’t really background and knowledge good way.” be considering it as a career, base made me much more “Having a really strong or something that investing a useful in an industry that was understanding on the lot of time into would ever see newly transitioning to mobile MATT TROBBIANI language you’re using, and anything good come of it.” and web.” While Tito says Studied: Computer how to think about problems that her work experience is Science, Adelaide from a coding and systems now more important than her University (2011) point of view gives you a lot degree on a resume, she also Worked on: Hacknet more options.” believes that she wouldn’t be As with a games-focused able to work overseas without V In August, Matt Trobbiani degree, being around people it. “While at this point the completed work on the helped. “I learned a lot more degree is looked at less by the long-gestating Hacknet. It’s at uni when I was writing companies I go to work with, a game about hacking into my own projects outside of it is still vital to have for the computer systems to lift data, the course work, but being immigration, visa and other sort of like a modern Uplink. around those people, and administrative processes. It It’s clever and funny and in that environment, really is definitely safe to say that fantastic, and is clearly the kept my motivation up to without it I would not be result of a lot of hard work. keep improving and gave me working at EA right now.” “Making games is really hard”, good people to talk to about ANNA TITO Trobbiani admits. “If you’re projects.” Studied: Game Design, making something new or While he was there, RMIT (2011) innovative, there might not be Adelaide University was Worked on: VEGA RESPONSE good answers out there for also host to the Game Conflict, Ice Age Village RATE ‘how do I do this’.” Development Club, which To find people for this feature, I Trobbiani says was a great V Tito’s career has taken her put callouts on three Facebook way to network. “Talking to to a few developers around game dev groups and asked a few people there about the indie Australia before ultimately industry figures for help me find scene, development, code leading her to EA Capital graduates who had made use of – everything, was amazing. Games Austin, where she their degrees. Within a few hours, Two people in the club – Chris now works as an engineer. 32 people sent me messages via Johnson (Expand) and Izzy “I definitely think (my Facebook, offering to help, and Gramp (Intergalactic Space degree) was instrumental several more e-mailed me. Others Princess) are basically totally in the beginning”, she says. contacted me on , equalling responsible for me starting “I chose a slightly different around 50 all-up. I didn’t have to to take game development path at the time focusing look hard to find people, which is seriously. I’d always been on a double major in design a great sign for the industry.

95 over the last few years. Her accomplishments are too many to list here. “I used my education as a lever to begin working in games before I graduated the first time. I started out working on tiny game projects providing sound effects for other students. After I graduated, I took a job in QA to learn Stormrise more about development holistically”. She believes that “The course really helped me her research work is one of to put things into perspective the reasons for her success. and bring me back down to Forget Me, Not “I think most importantly of earth with my preconceptions all, each passionate push I about the industry. Everyone have received from each of knows about the ‘ideas my supervisors and course guy’ stereotype of amateur instructors to keep going developer, who acts like some down this rabbit hole is kind of gameplay brains trust. something I have valued from I was very much this person, my education at many points and had no real tangible in many ways.” skills in game development”. Rypers now feels far more equipped to work in the SHANE RYPERS industry. “It taught me the Studied: Bachelor tools, the methods, and the from what he learned. “My of Interactive importance of iteration and education was very arts Entertainment, QANTM continual self-improvement. focused while my current Brisbane (2014) It also taught me a bunch of line of work is more technical Worked on: BioGloom, inter-disciplinary stuff like focused. Regardless of Snack Attack. modelling and programming how technical my job gets, that helped me work better.” there is usually an element V Since finishing his degree, of creativity where my arts Shane Rypers has worked background comes into play”. mostly on Android and iOS games for clients. “When I set my mind to work in this industry, I wasn’t sure that a university course was TRENT ATWOOD the way to go”, he says. Studied: Advanced “The seemingly normal Diploma in Game Art, progression was to go work AIE Sydney (2000) in the QA trenches until you Worked on: Cinematics were good enough to call for AAA games some shots.” The course he ended up doing, however, V Trent Atwood is the Lead was extremely enlightening. ELIZABETH THRELFO Unreal Technical Artist at Studied: QANTM Waterproof Studios. “I believe Sydney, Bachelor my education contributes SALLY KELLAWAY of Interactive to me landing jobs on AAA Studied: Bachelor HOW DOES IT Entertainment (2010) world class titles”, he says. of Music Technology LOOK ON A Worked on: Forget Me, “However, I believe that (Honours, 2010), Griffin RESUME? Not most employers also look University, Masters in We asked Paul Baker, 2002 AIE for experience and learning Design Science, Sydney graduate and current head of V Elizabeth Threlfo has beyond the classroom University (2014) Three Phase Interactive, whether worked on several of her own especially when hiring for Worked on: Stormrise, indie companies look at degrees projects since graduating. high profile projects. My London 2012, sound on a resume. “CVs are used “Probably the most advice for students is to add design for Firelight to work out if someone could significant game project I’ve to their formal training with Technologies. possibly fit the role, and education worked on has been ‘Forget other software packages.” He is an important part of that”, Me. Not’ which explores feels the things he learned V Sally Kellaway has had a he says. “Degrees are preferred dementia using the metaphor fifteen years ago remain tremendously varied career, over shorter courses. We don’t of data corruption”, she says. useful, even when the work working on several AAA really have a preference of one The game was nominated for he is doing is different titles and smaller indies institution over another.” a Freeplay award this year.

96 EDUCATION SPECIAL

IF YOU SPEND YEARS AT UNI CREATING THINGS THAT CAN MAKE UP YOUR PORTFOLIO, THOSE ARE SUPER VALUABLE BY THE TIME YOU WANT TO GET A JOB The Sims Freeplay She jumped right into her basically like a 3-year long course out of high school, interview”, she says. “All of and acknowledges that the hard work I put into my she has learned a lot since assignments not for grades, finishing. “The actual content but for the satisfaction of of my studies haven’t been pushing myself creatively much more than an intro to ended up showing my tutors the world. After my studies I that I was fairly capable, realised I had quite a gap in which in turn lead to me knowledge, even as I worked getting an internship at ACMI in the industry as a designer. before applying for a position Since starting out as an indie at Firemonkeys.” She was I’ve spent much of my time particularly fortunate, as one Anna's Quest improving my skill set across of the interviewers had acted programming and design as a mentor at RMIT and had especially”. Studying also seen her course work prior helped her to make friends to the interview. She believes degree motivated out of her that was published by within the industry. that it isn’t so much her that has landed her this job. “If Daedalic Entertainment. degree as the hard work her you spend those years at uni He designed, directed and creating things that can make wrote the game, and was up your portfolio (instead of the lead artist and animator. just passing), those things are He believes his degree super valuable by the time helped him to develop the you want to get a job. No game. “There were basic one cares about the grades practical electives that you got or the list of subjects helped in obvious ways, you completed or the uni you like animation, web design, went to, all they care about project development. But USING YOUR is what you can SHOW them there were also compulsory SKILLS you can do.” theory subjects on things OUTSIDE OF like entrepreneurship (which GAMES a lot of students rolled their ASPEN FORSTER Aaron Milan, a second year eyes at) that I was personally Studied: RMIT, Bachelor student in Game Design at AIE surprised by. These went a of Design (2015) Sydney, is also the director of long way to making me think Worked on: The Sims wearable tech start-up company in a business-minded way, Freeplay Forcite Helmet Systems. They’ve which has to be considered developed a smart ski helmet to at least some degree V Aspen Forster is currently that records video, pairs with when making games.” His working at Firemonkeys, EA’s your phone so you can talk degree taught him not only big Melbourne mobile studio, to friends, and tracks you via how to build his game, but which is a job she got through GPS. “I didn’t have experience also how to market it to her studies. “My course was with design, and the whole Daedalic. time throughout the AIE course everything I learned I was able DANE KRAMS to apply immediately”, he says. Studied: Master of “From creating presentations, Creative Industries, to project management, design Queensland University feedback, understanding player of Technology (2012) engagement... I was able to Worked on: Anna’s transfer this knowledge into Quest product design with the team”. Milan is a great example of how V Dane Krams released game design studies can be Anna’s Quest this year, a applied outside of games. point-and-click adventure

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