Beyond Good & Evil was a special game. I knew it within minutes of shoving it in the old Gamecube, and the buzz it generated - not just on this blog, but err, on Remi’s too (those were simpler times) - seemed instantly justified.
Alas, although BG&E received critical acclaim (from real people, not just us Internet hoodlums), it escaped the great idiot public’s attention. People ignored the game in their droves, opting instead for FIFA 2004 or some shit, while BG&E languished unloved in bargain bins. A tragedy.
Like Hardwar (and Psychonauts and Grim Fandango), BG&E suffered from the marketeers’ inability to encapsulate its nuanced brilliance in a single pithy sentence, and indeed the impossibility of doing so. “Photojournalism simulator where your uncle is a pig” just doesn’t quite cut it, nor does “superlative adventure game featuring a young heroine who must uncover an intergalactic conspiracy”. “Wonderful all-round gaming experience featuring a series of enjoyable mini-games and great music” falls similarly flat, while the lure of a well-realised alien world replete with half-human, half-animal denizens and beautiful scenery just can’t compete with the wonder of the 50,000 polygons used to model Wayne Rooney’s face.
I sound bitter, you say? That’s right, I’m bitter. Beyond Good and Evil is a criminally overlooked game, a game which should have been recognised as part of the missing link between old-school adventure games and the modern world. As it stands, the game has taken its place in gaming history alongside similarly tragic cases of mistaken identity - mistaken identity on the part of gamers everywhere, who thought it unworthy of their attention. Man, they were wrong.
Hardwar may have less enduring appeal than any other game on my list, but while it had its hooks into me, I played it intensely. For a few short months, it didn’t just have me addicted. It consumed me.
The game pitches you as an intrepid pilot struggling to eke a living on the inhospitable moon of Titan, having been abandoned (along with the rest of the population) by the merciless mining corporations a hundred years ago. So far, so Elite meets Total Recall.
However, what sets Hardwar apart from its generic space-trading brethren is the execution. The game world, in contrast to the vast algorithm-generated voids of Elite or the X trilogy, is compact, hand-crafted, and - most importantly - teeming with life. Where other trading games revolve around markets and numbers, being essentially glorified stock-market simulators, Hardwar throws you into a living, breathing world. Not an in-game day goes by without you being targeted by pirates, swooping in to plunder the spoils of someone else’s space battle, or spotting a hapless trader carrying goods that just demand special attention.
Hardwar’s optional storyline is the icing on the cake. Those who decide to take a break from hardcore trading to respond to the cryptic in-game emails stumble upon that staple of video-game plot devices, the global conspiracy. The true nature of the grimy, corrupt custodians of Titan is gradually revealed to the player through a combination of in-game missions and delightfully offbeat FMV sequences. The live action footage is undeniably made on a shoestring, but man, it’s great.
Hardwar may hold the dubious honour of being by far the most obscure game on my list, but I’d like to think that poor sales were no reflection on its quality. It was simply released at the wrong time, and - like games from Psychonauts to Grim Fandango which shared its fate - was impossible to market in a single sentence.
I’ll say it up front: Quake is the highest-placed first-person shooter on my list. And I know what you’re thinking. Of all the FPS games in all the world, why did I have to pick Quake? What does this dinosaur of a game have to offer that more refined, recent examples of the genre don’t?
The answer, for me, is uncomplicated fun. Since the halcyon days of Quake, when even being able to jump in a first-person shooter was a novel innovation, developers have sought to evolve the genre through the addition of what I can only term ’stuff’. Stuff like recoil on your gun, the need to stop firing and reload, missions and objectives, squad-based wrangling and, worst of all, the concept of stamina. While these features combine to give the player a more complete gaming experience, they’re not what I would call fun.
And fun is what Quake provides, in pure unadulterated form. Not for id Software the trappings of plot and storyline; no, Quake’s single-player mode threw you into a quasi-medieval, semi-futuristic landscape of zombies, ogres, gargantuan alien creatures and knights, all fiendish in their own way and none of them fitting any kind of theme, beyond “these guys are trying to kill you, kill them first”. Similarly, the deathmatch mode has no storm-the-base, free-the-hostages mission nonsense - just frag everyone in sight before they blow your face off.
Quake’s enduring appeal is part of what keeps it in the top ten, from its active open-source community who are still beavering away on the engine - with impressive results - to the numerous developers who have paid homage, such as Valve with their Deathmatch Classic mod for Half-Life. If you haven’t had much fun in a shooter for a while, give Quake another chance. You’ll be laughing as you rip some sap a new one with your quad rocket within minutes.
GTA III has been shamelessly copied so much since its release that it’s easy to forget, but make no mistake: it changed the gaming landscape. Its lasting influence is clear to anyone who picks up a gaming magazine - not only do countless games continue to ape its concept, but so unique is GTA that these games defy genre classification. Instead, they’re simply ‘GTA Clones’.
I love the idea of free-roaming in computer games. It’s always seemed to be what games are intended for, to give you the ability to do whatever the hell you want, without repercussions. The original GTA started the ball rolling, and titles like Carmageddon with their open-ended 3D environments and loose criteria for success evolved the idea. But the eventual 3D incarnation of the GTA series, GTA III, combined these elements so skilfully that it took everyone by surprise, and they’ve been copying it ever since.
Sure, it doesn’t have as many bells and whistles as its successors in the series. There’s no tyre-popping or motorcycle-riding, there are no big-name voice actors, and it lacks the tedious roleplaying aspects of San Andreas. But for me, GTA III was a revelation, and I spent more time playing it than any other game in recent history. The go-anywhere, do-anything ethos is so compelling that the missions sometimes seem an unwelcome and primitive distraction, but the gems amongst ‘em - and the variety of inventive strategies you can employ to beat them - keep you coming back.
Developers may have been brutally ripping it off ever since, but for me, nobody has managed to beat Rockstar North at their own game.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, apparently.
And the price of Wing Commander IV was very low indeed once I bought it on budget, years after its release. I was a fan of the first Wing Commander game, but sadly, it was the only one ported to the Amiga. Fast forward to the era of PC ownership in 1998 or so, and I could finally discover the remainder of the series.
It’s easy to see how Wing Commander IV was, at the time of its birth, the most expensive computer game ever produced, clocking in at a reported $10 million (fairly standard nowadays). Although its gameplay was severely limited by the PC hardware of the mid-90s (its SVGA, pseudo-3D graphics have not aged well), its vast budget had been lavished on its cinematic, ‘interactive movie’ cutscenes. And it showed.
I’ve said this before, and it wasn’t a joke: the cutscenes in Wing Commander IV make a better film than the actual Wing Commander movie.
Ironically, it’s the non-interactive cutscenes that are most enjoyable, the ability to choose between a couple of options at certain points - mostly having very little impact on the overarching storyline - being little more than a distraction. Somehow, the fact you’re taking over the role of your protagonist during missions makes the on-screen action more compelling all by itself. You are Mark Hammill.
I’ve been gradually creeping my way through the remastered DVD edition of the game. Even the high-res enhanced cinematics have stood the test of time, though the in-game sequences certainly haven’t, and Wing Commander IV remains one of that rare breed: more of an experience than a game.
I’m easily pleased. Give me an online action game where I can merrily blow things up, and I’ll be happy for hours. Give me an online action game that incorporates strategy and teamwork, and I’ll be happy for weeks.
There are lots of games that fit the description above, but few of them manage to strike the right balance between the complexity of their gameplay and the simplicity inherent in blasting things to bits. Unreal Tournament 2004 offers a dazzling array of game modes with something to suit any gamer, but for me, its Onslaught mode is the perfect blend of action and strategy.
Onslaught pitches your team at one end of a vast battlefield, with the enemy team at the other. You each have a selection of vehicles at your disposal, which you must use to capture territory sequentially. It’s as simple as that: there are no classes to worry about, no preset ‘missions’ aside from the core objective, nothing.
And yet, the gameplay is vastly more varied than anything Counter-Strike or Team Fortress or any of those other team-based shooters can offer. Shrewd individuals really can make a difference, and - in contrast to Counter-Strike in particular - no two rounds are the same.
Add to that its stirring music, often evocative environments and seamless network play, and UT2004 is a wonderfully absorbing experience that lasts and lasts. Shame no bugger seems to play it online any more, though.
It’s suddenly fashionable to create a list of your all-time top ten favourite games. Stan started it, and soon just about everyone in the world will join him, so I’d better pitch in.
I’ll be using the same rules as Stan: my list will feature my top ten games ordered on a purely subjective basis, though I will be attempting to compensate for any excessive childlike excitement that may have warped my perceptions at the time. There will be no more than one game per series in the list - which is just as well, unless you want to read about every Wing Commander game ever released.
Believe it or not, I’ve done something like this before. Written in the hallowed days of antiquity before I had a blog to post it on, my list of ‘top ten recommended games’ was the authority on gaming. If you had an Amiga in about 1995.
Click the image for the full list.
How will my modern list compare? Will it include such obscure classics as RoadKill, the Amiga 1200 top-down racer, or the latest in the series of Doom or similar?
I’ll tell you something for nowt: Zool, which I recommended despite professing to “hate it”, will not be appearing.
Stay tuned over the next week or so for the countdown!
I read a Usenet posting that annoyed me this week. I might as well quote it, because I’m lazy.
The author was called to a friend’s relative’s house to investigate the strange behaviour of their PC. As the author expected, it was stuffed full of spyware and other nastiness, but curiously, it was in an even worse condition than that. Key services, such as its USB capabilities, its sound device and even Norton Antivirus were disabled. The owner didn’t have the experience to screw up her computer so royally, so what had happened? Quote:
She had phoned a number out of the local paper of a PC ‘expert’ who could solve any problem. He had come round and fiddled with the PC for a while and ‘Run something where he got rid of a lot of ticks in boxes’ (msconfig) - a few reboots and he had told her that the PC was damaged beyond repair and she would need a new one. The one she had was a Dell that she paid £900 for a couple of years ago and he wasn’t even selling her one - he said ‘Get another Dell because this would have happened a lot sooner on a cheaper PC’.
The bill for his expert advice lasting less than an hour?
£175 + VAT.
What? Arrrggh. Not only was the cretin unable to fix the problem, he advised the owner that the only way to solve her spyware woes - for that is all they were, before he wrecked everything else - was to get a whole new PC.
As the owner fortunately knew, PCs are not damaged ‘beyond repair’ unless they are actually a smoking heap on your kitchen floor.
This story really annoys me for a couple of reasons. For one, I see self-styled ‘PC experts’ advertising in the local paper all the time. I’d never dream of becoming one - far too much hassle - but I imagine that the majority are hard-working individuals who know their way around Windows and have chosen an innovative way of making some cash. They, and indeed all PC geeks, don’t deserve to have their reputation stained by idiots who have no idea what’s going on.
Secondly, everyone knows someone who’s, shall we say, a computer novice. To be honest, they don’t know their Internet Explorer arse from their Task Manager elbow, and they probably don’t want to, either. The idea that someone is making money off their ignorance - especially when they’re completely useless - is annoying.
And that’s why I saw BT’s Home IT Advisor service advertised a few days ago and thought “what a good idea”. It’s £9.99 a month (and you can ask them as many trivial and irritating questions as you like), or £25 for a single incident. Spywared-up? Computer won’t boot because you’ve had some monkey playing with it for £175 an hour? Call BT, who you can - presumably - trust.
I’m surprised no large company has thought to offer it before. Yeah, so there’s only so much help you can offer over the phone, and I dread to think of the huge array of differing circumstances the phone advisors will have to cope with, but it’s a start. Until computers are clever enough to take care of themselves, it sounds like a great service for the computer newcomer.
Could be a bit cheaper though.
Well, not quite, but it’s getting there. Benny has updated his blog.
With part one of a two-part article on Windows user account types, no less. Anyone who’s ever tried to do the right thing and run Windows as a mere mortal user knows that the experience is painful in the extreme, owing to the blanket assumption by third-party developers that everyone runs as the all-powerful Administrator.
It says something that even Microsoft’s own employees run their workstations as administrators. There is talk of a change in policy when Vista surfaces, a move that’s likely to upset some within The Beast, but should give the rest of us a workable system. In theory, at least.
User privileges is something that Linux has got right all along. Access to files and other resources is fine-grained, with users able to restrict the ability to read, write, or execute their files (or folder, where ‘executing’ becomes ‘traversing’) based on user ID, group membership, or lack thereof. Thus you can allow everyone to reach your public_html folder without letting them see the contents of your home directory beneath it; or you can make things read-only; or you can let your fellow users execute one of your programs without being able to read the executable itself, if you feel like it.
To most newcomers to Linux, this sort of control - and the need to be logged in as the root (admin) user to perform most system maintenance tasks - is a completely alien concept, because they’re used to being the Administrator on their Windows system and able to do whatever they like. File permissions have existed in Windows since Windows NT, but for the average home user - even the average home user with Windows XP Professional - this feature is deactivated by default and confusing if you turn it on.
In theory, better ‘limited user’ accounts in Vista should encourage their uptake and make the Unix-style permissions and user paradigm familiar to more users. In practice? Everyone will still run as Administrator unless Microsoft stops them.
Still, get yourself over to Benny’s blog and read all about the pain of limited user accounts in Windows XP. And perhaps give it a go. It’ll make your online experience a little bit safer.
If you’ve ever doubted my geek credentials, shame on you. You need look no further than this site to witness my insane devotion to all things sad and nerdy. For further proof, observe!
An Amiga on the Internet. Running the DS port of ScummVM. A Sinclair QL print server. An Xbox-based media centre. A rarely-updated blog with a backend written from scratch. Past projects, undertaken with minimal good reason, all.
And now, I’ve fallen for the ultimate geek affliction, the desire to run Linux in strange places. Thanks to the DS Linux project, it’s possible to surf the web, listen to stuttery MP3s, configure your wireless network connection and admittedly not do much else, all in the kind of user-friendly environment that only a command-line interface driven by an onscreen keyboard can provide.
Be still my beating heart!
Honestly, Linux DS is extremely impressive. Shoehorning the Linux kernel and a useful amount of the core functionality into the paltry 4MB of RAM available is a great achievement. But unlike ScummVM DS, it’s difficult to see the point of the project. Although I find it difficult to understand the desire geeky types have to attempt these difficult and ultimately doomed projects, my own track record indicates I know exactly what drives them. Tinkering is fun, no matter how pointless the end result. Sadly!
