DAY 90 / GAME 90 Fallout 3

DAY 90 / GAME 90

Fallout 3

          I never did play either of the first two Fallout games.  They looked pretty cool and I've considered going back and trying them a few times, but my first true Fallout experience was with the first FPS style installment, Fallout 3.  
         A friend of mine, Jesse, picked this up around the time it was first released and was showing it to me on his projector.  I had heard a few people going on about how excited they were for this game and I was expecting quite a bit.  So when I first saw this, I was a little taken back by the somewhat outdated graphics.  It took me a bit to catch on to what was so charming about this game, but it had kicked in right about the time I first saw the V.A.T.S. system in use.  
          Fallout 3 is a pretty unique game.  It's very much a role playing game within an FPS shell.  You have very clear stats and all the numbers are very transparent in the same way your typical RPG appears.  But at the same time it features a lot of great FPS elements and a ton of great exploration elements.  Fallout 3 is a game for people who want to explore, want open ended missions and the option to gibb mutants into a pulp of feet and intestines. 


            There really is a lot of different ways to explore the world of Fallout 3.  You can experience a variety of playthroughs if you're willing to take the time to go through this huge game more than once.  You can be good or evil.  You can pretty much wipe out anyone you come across, or leave everyone alone.   The first town I came across in the post-apocalyptic wasteland was one that worshiped an unexploded bomb.  You can talk your way into a mission where you find yourself with the option to either diffuse, or set off the bomb.  And the whole game goes through like this.  At one point I was trying to free a bunch of child-slaves from a town.  I was trying to be sneaky, but every time I tried it I alerted a guard of some sorts.  So I gave up and nuked the whole town after setting the kids free.  After that I wasn't able to shop there anymore..


              Fallout 3 is full of moments like that.  The game doesn't have one solution.  It changes depending on how you manage to make your way through the situation.  I once beheaded an eccentric millionaire, sending his head flying off the top of a tower overlooking the wasteland.  You can smart, sneak or brute force your way through areas.  No two people's experiences are the same.

              I had a ton of great fun with Fallout 3.  Everything from it's '40s and '50s aesthetics and music, to it's huge explorable landscape and it's variety in mission solutions.  Fallout 3 is the kind of game you play and then come to work the next day to talk about that crazy thing you did and discuss the different ways you each made your way past some obstacle.  Fallout 3's successor Fallout New Vegas has continued with all these good points and is equally enjoyable. And I've been itching like my pants are full of ants for Fallout 4.  Even if it's going to be a while before it's released, considering it hasn't even really been announce yet.

DAY 89 / GAME 89 Fable 2

DAY 89 / GAME 89

Fable 2

          It was a while before I purchased an Xbox.  I had a PS2 and a Gamecube for the longest time and put off buying the Microsoft until Halo 2 came out and I figured I may as well.  When I did finally get one, I ended up getting the crystal edition Xbox that came bundled with copies of Crimson Skies and Fable.  Now, I remember Peter Molyneux talking big about Lionhead Studio's new game Fable and I gathered it was pretty interesting.  But I actually never ended up playing it.  I watched a roommate of mine play through my copy a bit, but never did get into it.  

            Then Fable 2 was released for the Xbox 360.  The art and the concepts for it were gorgeous.  So much about it looked incredible.  And yet, it was a while before I got around to picking it up.  Eventually I got it on bargain, or something of the like and I played it for a little bit, but for some reason it didn't stick with me.  So I put it aside for a while until a friend of mine starting going on about how great a game it was.  I figured it deserved another try, so I tossed it back in the tray.

           Thank God I did.  Because in the end Fable II turned out to be one of my absolute favorite games.  I can't remember what it was about it that put me off on the first try, but all I can remember is how amazing the entire experience was.  Fable II had such incredible art direction.  It's one of the most fantastic fantasy settings I've ever experienced.  The world of Albion is full of charm, in it's most muddy depths and it's most colourful heights.  The designs are all around brilliant, from the fine details on the swords and muskets to the costumes, people, buildings and creatures.  

      What makes it even more fantastic is the uniqueness of the world itself.  Fable II is the opposite of cookie-cutter.  The character designs range from beautiful to hideous.  You can run around the towns and charm people, act the hero, or piss them off and fart in their face.  (Literally.)  You can make love, catch diseases, get pregnant, or get someone pregnant.  You could be gay, you could be straight, you could dress up, dress down, or cross dress.  Your strength or weakness, magical power, promiscuity and morality all show in your physical features.  You start as a child, a girl or a boy and you make your way to become the king or queen of a land full of people you've influenced one way or another.  

        In the end I loved this game.  It still looks gorgeous.  It sounds amazing. The soundtrack is smooth and calm and fantastic.  The gameplay itself is as simple as a brawler, but allows for more complex stuff on the side.  You can buy up real estate and rent it out.  Make friends and enemies, build up a library of emotes and a wardrobe to match.  Lionhead and Molyneux really made something special with this game and I'll always have a special place for it.

DAY 88 / GAME 88 Donkey Kong Country

DAY 88 / GAME 88

Donkey Kong Country

          The Super Nintendo was probably the one console I undervalued the most at the time.  There are so many amazing titles that I never owned for it, partly because it was my brother's system and so, I didn't really feeling like investing into it too heavily.  Secondly, we got the SNES late into it's release and really only had a Genesis for the longest time.  One of the many games that I had played quite a bit of, but never actually owned was Donkey Kong Country.  

             I remember when this game first came out, I was in a Zellers and I had passed by a display unit that had this on demo.  I stopped right in my tracks.  I hadn't noticed what was on display, but I heard this fantastic music, so I immediately backpedaled.  I really had to know what game this was spouting from because it didn't sound like anything a 16-bit system was capable of.  It was one of the underwater levels and it was fantastic. 


             Donkey Kong Country, like a number of SNES titles, was visually innovative.  RARE created the art assets for the game using 3D renders.  So, everything had the appearance of being rendered 3D on a system that would never be able to produce those kinds of graphics in realtime.
      Even with all that aside, the game was still terrific.  It was a side-scrolling platformer that was full of levels and more than enough challenge for even the most seasoned gamer.  The whole game dripped with personality and charm.  The levels ranged from the jungle, treetops, mines, glaciers, caverns and an industrial oil drilling operation.  You swim, slide, roll along minecart tracks, blast out of barrels and gather all the bananas your apey hands can grab.

              I never did play the other two parts to this SNES trilogy.  Even if I loved this one.  It was a while before I got back into this series.  I had a renewed vigor for the series when Retro Studios picked up the IP and started to release new games for the Wii and especially when they released Donkey Kong Country Returns for the 3DS, possibly the perfect platform for the series since the SNES.  I only wish I had an actual copy still for my Super Nintendo.  Maybe one day they'll bring it back to Wii Virtual Console.

DAY 87 / GAME 87 DiRT

DAY 87 / GAME 87

DiRT

          As a big rally fan and a big racing game fan I was very happy when Codemasters released DiRT for the Xbox 360.  I had played a few good rally games before; Sega Rally, WRC and Gran Turismo 3 had a decent rally portion.  But DIRT was way more polished than any other offroad racer I had played to date.  

       I played the demo a ton and one day a few of us were looking to rent a game for a night so I grabbed this.  Afterwards, since I was the one to return it but still had it for a few days, I played almost halfway through the main campaign.  When I returned it, even though I wanted to purchase the full game afterwards, I didn't feel like spending $60 on a game I had already half completed.  I figured I'd wait a little while for the price to drop and pick it up then.  

        Unfortunately DiRT disappeared off the shelves shortly after.  This coincided with the untimely death of rally legend Colin McRae.  Turns out DiRT was actually Colin McRae Rally 6 and known in the UK as Colin McRae: Dirt and Codemasters had worked very closely over the years with Colin.  I'm not sure if these two things are connected exactly, but it would be a while before I could get a copy.  I would have been just as good to pay full price for it in the end because I played the crap out of that game.  DiRT is possibly my favorite racer of all time.  

            DiRT focuses on 4 wheeled offroad racing.  Primarily rally, featuring Rally, Rallycross, Hillclimb and Crossover; as well as CORR and Rally Raid.  I was never big on Raid or CORR which features buggies and trucks instead of cars, but it was nice to mix it up a bit and the vehicle selection was great.  
          The Rally portion was perfect.  The locations were based on WRC stages and were not only beautiful to look at, but terrific tracks to race.  The pace notes given to you by your co-driver were immaculate.  It got to the point where I could enter a stage blind, having never tried that configuration before and nail every turn based on the accuracy of my co-driver.  

           Of all the racing games out there, DiRT has probably given me the purest, most engaging experience.  I felt the locations, the road and the car.  It's almost blissful when you start flying through perfectly executed turns with little or no traction, narrowly missing trees or cliffsides, listening to nothing but your engine and the sound of the gravel under your tires.  Luckily they made a DiRT 2, which was fantastic.  And then a DiRT 3, which started to move away from what made DiRT 1 & 2 so great.  Codemasters is working on a fourth, I'm really hoping they return to their roots for this one.

DAY 86 / GAME 86 The Maw

DAY 86 / GAME 86

The Maw

          One year when renewing my Xbox Live Gold membership I got a deal that included two Live Arcade titles and about 800 Microsoft points.  I ended up with an HD R-Type port that included R-Type 1 and 2, as well as a Twisted Pixel game called The Maw.  I remember trying The Maw when I attended my first PAX East.  It was pretty cool, but it didn't stand out as a game I was going to run out and buy right away.

         A little over a year ago Leia and I were looking for a game to play together on the 360.   The cover caught her eye and we decided to give it a whirl.  It's a simple game, fairly short and definitely the product of an indie developer.  But something about it struck a chord with Leia and it was all she wanted to play.   

        In The Maw you control what Leia calls the 'Jelly Guy'.  An dog-sized alien with one big eye and one big mouth.  You control him indirectly by controlling Frank, who keeps The Maw in check with a electro-leash.  Turns out Maw likes to eat.  Everything.  Some things he spit out, or some things aren't a good idea to eat.  But the little pink fluffy bunny things make him grow bigger.  And other beasts give him different attributes when ingested.  Spoiler alert, eventually he gets so big he consumes the entire planet.  It's pretty funny.

           The Maw was a pretty good game for Leia to get into.  It's a little morbid and a tad violent, but no moreso than Mario Brothers or Sonic the Hedgehog.  The gameplay is simple enough that although she prefers to watch me play it, she is capable of playing on her own.  Prompts for button presses are clear on screen and Leia was able to understand the relationship between what was on screen and on the controller.  In fact, the first letters she learned to recognize were A, B, X and Y.

          The Maw ended up being a great game.  On it's own it wasn't anything particularly special.  It was a cute little story and the core gameplay is pretty neat.  But this is a game that will always stand out as one of my favorites simply because it's one of Leia's and the result is that we spent some good times together playing this.  Even if it meant playing the same level over and over and over again because she said so.

     

DAY 85 / GAME 85 MDK

DAY 85 / GAME 85

MDK

          Back in '97 Shiny Entertainment, creators of Earthworm Jim, released an equally bizarre third-person shooter for PC titled MDK.  I never purchased a copy myself, but a couple of my friends did and I ended up with an install shortly after.  MDK, a title whose acronym is not explained, revolved around a crazy scientist, a janitor, a six legged robotic dog and a world threatened by alien strip-miners.  

            MDK has you controlling a space janitor, Kurt Hectic, who is unwittingly thrown headfirst into a war against a race of aliens who came come to earth with city-sized vehicles designed to mine out all the resources in their path.  You drop from the low-orbiting Jim Dandy through the atmosphere onto the strip-mining Minecrawlers, all the while avoiding incoming weapon fire.  Kurt just happens to be the only one on board who isn't either too old, or too legged to wear the special leather coil suit designed to save the human race.  


             The special combat suit contains a helmet mounted sniper rifle, loaded with a series of different bullets for different uses, which when detached acts as a machine gun.   The suit also is loaded with a ribbon chute which allows you to land your skydives and catch air drafts for platforming elements.  The whole game mixes a bit of gun combat, platforming and puzzle elements as you make your way through one city-sized Minecrawler after another.  You battle a series of Grunts who aren't too far off of the comical alien beasts in Halo.  They dance about and taunt you until you deliver a clean shot between the eyes, all caught on your HUD's bullet-cam.  

          MDK is full of ridiculous dark humor.  The printed manual was great, full of Dr. Fluke Hawkins' notes and sketches as well as his bizarre journal transcribed.   All the enemies and pickups are real weird.  The writing is absurd, right down to the Earth saving operation title, Mission: Deliver Kindness.  There's also a number of ideas as to what MDK actually stands for.  It's suggested that it originally stood for Murder Death Kill, but was reverted to it's dev name MDK for being too violent.  MDK could also stand for Max, Doc and Kurt, or Mission: Deliver Kindness.  

        MDK was a solid title for it's time.  It's just what you'd expect from David Perry and Nick Bruty of Earthworm Jim fame.  It even featured music by EWJ's Tommy Tallarico.  For an early 3D PC title it was solid and innovative, paving way for a sequel 3 years later which featured all three characters and playable.  MDK is available on Steam as is the sequel, which I enjoyed even more.

DAY 84 / GAME 84 TimeSplitters 2

DAY 84 / GAME 84

TimeSplitters 2

          There have been a few exceedingly special local multiplayer games in the past.  I covered a few of them already, two of the most notable being Goldeneye and Halo.  A lesser known, but perhaps even better FPS multiplayer title than the two of those however would be Free Radical's TimeSplitters 2.  

            Shortly after the release of Perfect Dark for Nintendo 64, a portion of the RARE development team split off and formed their own company.  In doing so, they created a true successor to Goldeneye.  First with TimeSplitters and then, with a more polished TimeSplitters 2.  If you've played it, you'd notice there are quite a few similarities between the previous RARE title and the new Free Radical title.  Namely the signature Goldeneye style armor/health gauge and the unique FPS controls which allow minor aiming separate from camera movement.

             TimeSplitters 2 has a lot of great things going for it.  The multiplayer is just one fantastic aspect.  Allowing the same 4 player splitscreen that you'd find in Goldeneye with all the same match settings you're used to, plus a ton more.  Similarly TimeSplitters also has a huge selection of multiplayer characters to choose from, pretty much every enemy character you discover in single player, plus a few extra.  This includes some really bizarre characters like a monkey, octopus, fishbowl and giant hand.  My old gaming group played this game a ton and it was my personal preference while other people were starting to push for Halo.

              Multiplayer was the big highlight for this game.  But the single player was worth the purchase on it's own.  TimeSplitters 2 featured absolutely fantastic animation, unique and well designed characters, great music tracks and an engaging storyline.  Free Radical tossed in some fantastic writing and comedy along the action as you make your way Quantum Leap style through a variety of timelines to retrieve time crystals in order to save history from an alien race.  

           TimeSplitters deserves a lot more attention that it ever got.  It's a real game for the sake of being a game.  Everything it does is just fun and sometimes ridiculous.  It's got some fantastic and serious elements to it, but those are softened with hilarious character designs and bizarre extras.  I love this game and I'll play it again as soon as I can find my copy.  It's really too bad Free Radical shut down amidst the creation of an HD version of this, along with a part 4 to the series.  We can only hope someone else picks both these projects up.  

Also for note: this is the game Shaun and Ed are playing in Shaun of the Dead.

DAY 83 / GAME 83 Super Mario Sunshine

DAY 83 / GAME 83

Super Mario Sunshine

          I've heard a few people talk of Super Mario Sunshine as the Summer Mario Game simply because it encompasses so much of the wonderful season within itself.  The abundant running water, beaches, docks and seashores.  The beaming sun, chirping birds, shorts, shirts, beach umbrellas and sunglasses.  In fact, this should probably be the winter mario game you play when you miss the summer.  

            This is part of why although Super Mario Sunshine isn't necessarily the best Mario title, (Most consider it a step down from Super Mario 64.) I still consider it a really solid title.  It really took the power of a newer system at the time and generated a real solid world.  A world full of summery things where you run around hosing off everyone with your water backpack, just as you would as a kid running around the neighbourhood in the heat of the summer.  

        Super Mario Sunshine was the second 3D Mario game released and so after how fantastic Super Mario 64 was, I can understand why some people weren't satisfied with this as a sequel.  My only complaint was that it would have used to be a longer game.  That aside I loved it.  In SMS you run around with a water pack on your back which you use to clean up the oily painty goop that a sinister dark-mario is coating the tropical resort of Isle Delfino.  There is little in this world I find more satisfying than cleaning something.  I don't mean picking up the toys off the floor, I mean taking a power-washer to a deck, or spraying mud off a jeep.  That instant gratification cleaning; this game was built for people like me.

         Everything looked amazing in this game.  The water effects were amazing.  It was clean, colourful and continued to do a great job translating all the 2D Mario elements into a 3D environment.  The camera functions a whole lot better in this than Mario 64.  Of course, they've had a whole generation of games to fix that issue.  
         I remember having a ton of fun when this first came out.  The group of us played this together quite a bit, working as a team to beat certain levels.  I always love those time when I get to experience a single player game with someone else.  It really makes that whole game more tangible when you share that memory with someone.  Jamie was the one to purchase this game and he got it just before he moved out to Ottawa.  So after he left, we still had to finish the game, so I dropped the cash on the full price game just so that we could finish it.  I thought there was a lot more to go, but turns out, we only had the final boss to beat.  In the end though, it was good to have a copy and it's a great game to play when you miss the summer.  Like, right about now.

DAY 82 / GAME 82 Dark Forces

DAY 82 / GAME 82

Dark Forces

          Shortly after Doom was first released, it's popularity generated a ton of clones in it's wake.  Some of them were pretty weak, but others took the First Person Shooter genre new places and generally helped it become what it is today.  I remember seeing an article in an old copy of the Adventurer, talking about the upcoming Star Wars FPS game Dark Forces and I got pretty excited.  

            This was released back when LucasArts produced nothing but the finest games for PC.  I remember playing the demo over and over again until I had the money to go out and actually buy a copy.  I absolutely loved Doom at the time and so combining that and Star Wars was like mixing peanut butter and chocolate.  The ultimate taste for a distinguished palate. 

         Dark Forces introduced a new character and a new storyline to the Star Wars universe.  You play Kyle Katarn, a mercenary with a history with the Empire who defects and helps the Rebel Alliance stop an experimental army of Dark Troopers.  Since it's a first person shooter, the focus is more on gunplay than anything else.  Though, certainly less than Doom, it still meant they had to invent some weapons for you to use within the game.  It still features the classic Stormtrooper rifle and Thermal Detonator, but also adds a mortar launcher, Bryar Pistol, concussion rifle and so on.  The other nice bonus is that some weapons have a secondary function as well, so it really adds to the range of attacks.

        The level design was fantastic.  Though it certainly improved with later iterations of the series, even with a very early FPS engine they managed to really capture the cold dark feel of the Empire.  Not to mention, one of the later levels, where you fight a Dark Trooper the combination of SFX and level design really made it frightening.  They also introduced a fantastic new ship, the Moldy Crow.  And as I've discussed before, the ships and tech of Star Wars is almost as important as the characters that use them.  

        At the time, this game was perfect.  FPS games were all about being able to explore a fictional world.  In this case, the brilliant world of Star Wars.  LucasArts really hit all the key notes with this one.  The story felt like it really slotted into the universe and they introduced just enough material to make it fresh and new.  I'm super glad they made this series and I'm grateful I enjoyed it when it was brand new.

Kyle Katarn's Moldy Crow

DAY 81 / GAME 81 Sonic the Hedgehog

DAY 81 / GAME 81

Sonic the Hedgehog

          We never had a Nintendo growing up.  I had the impression that my parents didn't want to get us one, like perhaps it was inappropriate.  I definitely wanted one and I think I may have hinted at it, but I never asked for one directly.  Eventually the Sega Genesis was released and with it, Sonic the Hedgehog.  Suddenly things changed and both my brother and I decided it was time to ask for a console.  One Christmas, when Sonic the Hedgehog was released, our Grandmother bought it for us.  
             This was what it was all about.  A side scrolling platformer with way more polish than you'd find on an 8-bit system.  High colour sprites, rich, multiplaning backgrounds and fantastic audio; Sonic was fast and stylish.  I'll always consider this the game the true  beginning to my love of video games.  Thinking back I always imagine that if games never developed to this point, or if I had been born earlier and only had Atari or Colecovision in my teens, I may have never locked in any interest.  It wasn't until I connected enough with a character I could draw my own narrative from that this started to become a form of media I could really appreciate.

            The game itself was pretty straightforward.  You could take your time with the levels, but they were designed to be powered through at high speed.  The levels all had this fantastic design.  Even though it was all raster graphics, everything was rendered so it had a hint of 3D.  Extra colour range meant you could include shadows in your design, water and skies that looked obviously different and all the locations felt very interesting.  The bizarre tropical first level, the shifting ruins and magma of the second.  The terrifying underwater level, a pinball based zone, starry nightime zone and a final metalic robo-zone.  

          I remember it took me about a month of trying to eventually beat the whole game.  It was a pretty big deal.  Actually, it would be the first time I had ever completed a whole game.  And I'll still always associate the smell of cardboard and styrofoam with the first time we opened our own home console.  It's actually a pretty cool though too, that Leia also loves Sonic the Hedgehog, 20 years after I was first introduced.

DAY 80 / GAME 80 Cool Spot

DAY 80 / GAME 80

Cool Spot

          Cool Spot was way better than it had any right to be.  Developer Virgin Interactive must have decided that advertisement or not, they may as well make a great game out of it.  I remember the tv ads for this game being pretty awesome.  An advertisement for an advertisement, what an odd concept.

          Cool Spot was a super solid platformer.  It featured great animation, slick designs and an award winning soundtrack.  It all makes sense when you look at the team.  Dave Perry?  Earthworm Jim Dave Perry?  MDK and Messiah Dave Perry?  Yes.  Animation by Mike Deitz?  Mike Deitz, whose extensive resume includes Earthworm Jim, the Neverhood, God of War 3 and a ton more including the up and coming Kickstarter project, Armikrog.

            Cool Spot had all these great level designs.  Some of my favourite in a cute platformer.  Levels that are set in a miniature universe always have a certain charm; Katamari, Re-Volt, etc.  You start out at the beach, wandering around among crabs in underwear and make your way about the pier, up to a level full of toys and mice and then make your way back to the beach again.
            I was actually surprised by how easy this game was at the time.  It was rare for me to find a game that I would whip though in a short while, but this one I managed to finish with very little problem whatsoever.  In fact, I found it such a quick playthrough that I ended up trading it to my uncle for one of his games.  I regretted it a small bit, as I always do, but this game really didn't offer much in terms of replayability.  

           'Advergaming' wasn't a one-time thing and Cool Spot wasn't completely unique in that respect.  If you remember, Burger King had those $5 games sold in store.  There was a Pepsi-Man game, a Toyota Yaris game, a series of Cheetos games, a Domino's Pizza game and the list goes on.  But it was definitely the best.  I don't think you could ever get together another team like that one nowadays to produce a gem quite like this.

DAY 79 / GAME 79 Rocky's Boots

DAY 79 / GAME 79

Rocky's Boots

          Back before we had any game console, before we had a proper PC, we had a Commodore 64.  For years we hadn't actually hooked it up.  I have no idea why.  Maybe we were missing some pieces?  So most of the time the only thing it got used for was as a component to whatever couch-cushion spaceship my brother and I were building at the time.  Eventually it got hooked up to our TV.  We got a 5-1/4" floppy drive a Quickshot II joystick and a few games.  

            There were two games, one was a spelling or math game or something that was geared to my brother; the other was for me to play, a logic learning game called Rocky's Boots.  Rocky's Boots was this kinda puzzle game where you worked towards a solution for each level's circuit.  You used IF, AND and OR functions as well as a few other tools that functioned to delay the electricity flow in order to properly 'kick' out select targets.  

          It was great.  For a learning game, it really didn't pander.  Or at least, I don't remember it that way.  Of course this would would be a much more interesting story if I turned out to be a programmer or an electrical engineer or something, but either way, it was still a cool thing to learn.  I was about 8 at the time, so it was certainly more my age range compared to other math and spelling games.  I think the closest thing to a non-learning game at the time was my dad's copy of Chuck Yeager's Flight Simulator, also on the C64, which was pretty much the digital equivalent of staring an aircraft's horizon ball.  Also, he always tricked me so I crashed into the hangar during takeoff.  

            Rocky's Boots may be the first game I ever had in my house.  I'm a little surprised how easy it was to find it on the internet too since all I could remember was that it was the 'raccoon logic game for C64'.  Now if only I could figure out the name of that game we had on the Mac Classics in grade 1.

DAY 78 / GAME 78 StarFox

DAY 78 / GAME 78

StarFox

          One day when we were hanging out at my uncle's place he showed us his new Super Nintendo.  The first game I ever saw on it was StarFox.  Now, StarFox was unlike most anything else on a console at the time.  Using what they called the Super FX chip built into each cartridge, Nintendo was able to create  3D rendered graphics that wasn't easy to generate on a 16-bit system.  (The FX chip was some kind of math co-processor that helped buffer additional frames for the console.)

          StarFox was fantastic.  It seemed like a groundbreaking game at the time.  Poly rendered 3D had this sense of 'virtual reality' or something to that effect.  Being rendered in realtime felt like you were more directly creating what was on the screen rather than pre-animated raster graphics.
             But of course, it was more than that.  It had a real personality to it that resonated with me at the time.  A blend of sci-fi mixed with what I would call a kind of cartoon element.  All the characters are animals, which at the age of 13 kinda added to the appeal.  

               StarFox is a solid game that, considering it's age, stands up well against newer 3D games.  One of the things I never realized about it until recently is how closely it follows traditional shooter games.  I always thought of it as more of an arcadey space simulator, but it really is just R-Type with a different camera view.  Enemies attack in lined up swarms with bonuses for destroying those groups.  Weapons and sheilds upgrade with pickups and boss fights are strategized based on their weak spots.
         StarFox is chock full of great moments too.  On the heels of Star Wars this game had a ton of levels influenced by the films back when there wasn't really any Star Wars games like this yet.  Attacking an enemy armada, flying into a ship and destroying it's core and flying deep into an enemy base.

           With 3 different routes to go through the game, it's short but it offered a lot of replayability.  Not to mention, it can be pretty tough at times.  This is the kind of game I love to pick up once in a while and play since it really doesn't get old.  Star Fox is one of those carts that always sits next to my Super Nintendo and gets included in a regular rotation.

DAY 77 / GAME 77 Rainbow Six: Vegas

DAY 77 / GAME 77

Rainbow Six: Vegas

          A few years back I attended a Ubisoft hosted conference in Montreal called ADAPT.  There was portfolio reviews and various courses for artists in both film and gaming.  One of the courses I took was presented by a 3D animator from Ubisoft who was working on the latest installment of Rainbow Six.  
       He had a few shots of Rainbow Six: Vegas and talked about how they had army guys instruct them on the proper way to rappel from a helicopter.  He showed us video of the animation team taping themselves practicing breach and clear tactics to better understand the actions and to drive the programmers in the room across the hall nuts.

       Shortly after I got back from Montreal I started to see announcements for the new Tom Clancy game Rainbow Six: Vegas.  I hadn't played a Rainbow Six game since the first one.  My brother had showed me some of Rainbow Six 3, which was quite a bit different from the original.  The original R6 had you laying out an exact tactical plan for a six member squad, then sitting back while it went into action.  Whereas Rainbow Six 3 was more like Vegas; A FPS game where you had squad control actions available to you.  

       Rainbow Six: Vegas was incredible.  It was one of the first few games I had gotten for my Xbox 360 and I had just purchased an HDTV and proper 5.1 surround system around the same time so I really got the whole experience.  The game looked fantastic.  A bunch of the game takes place in Las Vegas, so there's a few levels where you fly in via helicopter and fastrope down to your location so you get a great view of the strip.  R6:Vegas also used a combination of 3rd and 1st person and a cover system that functioned great back when it was still a new thing.  

      Rainbow Six: Vegas was a pretty tough game, but in a good way.  It forced you to strategize in order to properly complete each enemy engagement without getting completely destroyed.  Of course, you can plenty of tools at your disposal.  You can snake-cam through doorways, mark your enemy, prioritize targets and assign tasks to your teammates.  Then make the call, breach and clear a room with precision.  It also featured a great multiplayer mode, which I only tried the once and a 'terrorist hunt' mission mode which were fun single missions that gave you a bit more to play after you'd beat the main story.

      I really loved this game.  It's solid, everything feels very well researched and tangible.  The controls and tight and so is the cover system.  The weapons are clean and reliable and your team does what they're told and don't bug out or anything when performing commands.  I had a ton of fun with this game and the second one too.  I read they are working on a third, but it got scrapped and is getting re-worked because they weren't happy with it.  I totally pick this game up now and again if I just want to play a solid tactical shooter.  Like, tonight.

DAY 76 / GAME 76 Alien 3 (Sega Genesis)

DAY 76 / GAME 76

Alien 3 (Sega Genesis)

          Around the same time Alien 3 was released in theaters they had released a series of games for various consoles.  Now, as a huge Alien fan from a very young age, I was very excited when the third part was released in theaters.  My dad however, who let us see the first and second movies refused outright to take us to this one.  I never got a straight answer to why, but in retrospect we were probably too young anyway.
           Now, before I had a chance to finally watch the movie when it was released on VHS, Alien 3 was released as a video game.  I can't remember if I found out about it on my own, or if the first time I saw this was when my uncle was playing it.  But I do remember that I had someone pick it up for me because the first day I got a chance it play it was late at night when I got home.  

             I remember my brother was telling me about this game when I had gotten home.  He had a chance to play it before I did that day and he told me about how the levels had a time limit and if you didn't rescue all the captives in time chestbursters burst out of their chests.  So here I am, it's super late at night, everyone went to sleep and I'm playing this for the first time.  I'm having a hard time finding all the captive survivors and I notice the clock is counting down.  It's about to hit zero and in my head, I didn't want to witness this horrifying event so I bolted for the Sega and shut it off.

               Turns out it really wasn't as bad as I had imagined it.  But I still probably didn't need to see it late at night when I was 12.  The game itself was actually really good when I got into it.  It had very little to do with the movie itself, then again, the movie wouldn't make for much of a game back then.  For those who've seen it you'd remember that there was only one alien and no weapons in that movie.  This game is set on the same Fury 161 'prison planet' and pulls from the same visual designs for both the settings and some of the alien creatures.  But instead of looking for and trying to destroy one alien, you are fighting through hoards of various Aliens, including the dog type aliens, facehuggers, drones and guard aliens.  With a couple different mission types, including the primary one where you have a very limited amount of time to rescue a number of captives before they die.  

            I realized a few years later, after reading about the development of Alien 3 on the internet, that this game was being made while the movie was still in production and was probably based on an original script.  Reason being, there are these oxen carcasses hung up all over the kitchen areas of the game.  I had no idea at first what they were, but then I read about how originally the movie was scripted to include oxen which the prison staff used to help recover Ripley's EEV and haul it back to the prison.  One of the ox was attacked by a facehugger, instead of a dog as it was in the movie.  

             There were a few different variations on this title.  An NES version that was similar, but a bit broken, perhaps because it was adapted from this.  And an SNES version which is completely different.  I've only ever rented the SNES version, which is really good and has a slower pace but may be a better game overall.  I'd love to get a copy some day and complete it.  Either way, I love this Sega version.  It was fast-paced, full of the weapons from Aliens and set in some pretty cool levels.  I still love to pick this one up every once in a while and give it a good run.  I also still need to beat it, which is probably impossible anyway.