DAY 304 / GAME 304 Deus Ex: Human Revolution

DAY 304 / GAME 304

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

      Deus Ex was a groundbreaking game at the time of it's release almost 15 years ago and still remains to be one of the better First Person Action RPG games, allowing a broad range of choice within it's gameplay and a brilliantly cyberpunk design.  Though it saw a sequel 3 years later, I never did try it and I heard it was missing a lot of what made the original title so great.  11 years later Eidos Montreal released a prequel that seriously modernized the title without watering down the greatest points.

    Deus Ex: Human Revolution amazingly enough, essentially rebooted an older title without killing a lot of what made it so great.  Human Revolution still plays very similar to it's predecessor, albeit with modern ideals towards gameplay.  You have a wide range of skill trees for upgrading your protagonist, allowing you to gear Adam for combat, stealth, hacking or talking his way through situations.  Combat is modernized though, including recharging shields and a cover system, two more and more common elements in most modern shooter titles.

     Human Revolution ended up being a simply terrific game.  It felt rewarding to be able to play the game a multitude of ways and offered some great replay value in that each playthrough could be totally different from the last.  Even more than that though, this game tied everything together with an amazing cyber-punk, Bladerunner inspired design that works so much better than it did with the first game as computing power has advanced so greatly.  Everything works so much smoother, functions like it should and looks beautiful.  

    I wasn't expecting Eidos to hit the nail on the head quite so perfectly with Human Revolution.  Deus Ex felt like one of those titles whose soul could never be recaptured in modern gameing.  And yet, I feel as if they've done about as best they could.  And even if Human Revolution wasn't quite the same as the original, it became it's own thing that was brilliant and beautiful and left me wanting more.  This is definitely a title that I will be playing through again in the near future, even after completing it multiple times already.

DAY 303 / GAME 303 G-Police

DAY 303 / GAME 303

G-Police

      G-Police was yet another game my brother brought home, seemingly chosen by the case alone.  With that in mind, it still turned out to be a pretty awesome and unique title.  In G-Police you pay the role of a pilot in control of a futuristic V-TOL Havoc gunship used to assist in policing colonies in space.  The game has you flying inside a city under a dome, compete with your usual cyberpunk 90's, Bladerunner influenced style.  
      Taking advantage of the new PlayStation dual-analog controller, G-Police handled perfectly.  This really was one of those few new games on the 32-bit systems that proved having 7+ buttons can be to your advantage.

    G-Police wasn't easy and my brother played it way more than I did so I never got very far.  From what I've read it does have a decent story, but I never experienced much of any of it.  The missions were great though and to be honest, if this game were to be rebuilt ground up with no other changes than the visuals, I'd buy it on the spot.  It was dark and fullfilled that want to fly a helicopter (or similar) deep in a populated cityscape.  3 axis combat was handled well, never feeling like a chore to force your craft to attack below or above you and darting in and about skyscrapers, under bridges and through tunnels worked as well as you'd hoped at the time.

   G-Police's biggest downfall was simply that it tried to do more than the PC's and consoles were capable of pushing at the time.  In order to keep the game from being unplayably choppy, view distances were reduced to the point where it was distracting.  You could make a minor adjustment to it, at the risk of slowing the framerate, but it didn't help much.  In the end it felt dark, like a lot of PS1 games at the time with their pitch black horizons.  
   And yet, the game pushed some serious mood.  Everything had a dirty future sci-fi style, towering dark buildings and future traffic flying about in street-like patterns.

   The more I think about this game the more I'd love to see it remade.  With all that the game engines are capable of now, all the atmospheric effects could really push this game to where it should have been a dozen years ago.  I'm trying to think of any game that has been released recently that is similar in style, but I can't think of anything.  Then again, I'm here at work late again and my mind isn't all quite there.

DAY 302 / GAME 302 Serious Sam

DAY 302 / GAME 302

Serious Sam

      It's not often you hear of video game developers based out in Croatia, in fact, there exists only two:  Dreamatrix, who are reviewed poorly and Croteam, creators of the popular Doom clone Serious Sam.  Successful FPS games in the 90's did more than just try to copy what Doom had created, most of them either interweaving terrific stories or some genuinely new gameplay.  Serious Sam took what games like Doom had started and simply turned it up to 11.  I suppose if it was copying anything though, I'd say it's much closer to Duke Nukem 3D.  "Serious" Sam Stone feels a lot like Duke's character and his entire purpose of 'kicking ass' has really been amplified in this 2001 release.




     Serious Sam follows Sam Stone as he single-handedly fights an alien invasion across time and back to the Serian homeworld.  Croteam had spent over 5 years developing Serious Sam and although it may not have seen the praise of other AAA titles, their hard work certainly showed.  Unlike most FPS games at the time which are almost always indoors, which allowed for reduced draw-distance and fewer enemies on screen at a time, Serious Sam pushed for the opposite.  Their game engine allowed for levels which spanned huge football-field sized areas with tremendous draw distances and wave after wave of enemies that rush at you from afar.

    The real appeal of Serious Sam would be these huge open levels where you take on hoards of alien monsters who run at you kamikaze style, some firing weapons and some just looking to get close enough to tear you apart.  The large distances mean you could often strafe out of the way of gunfire, shoot-em-up style and you delivered your own lead punishment.  You always carried tons of weapons, loaded to the brim with ammo, which you needed because you were often running your barrel red-hot from constant firing.

   Serious Sam really was a unique title, all of it's own.  Going on 15 years old, it hardly shows it's age on PC and, though it didn't need it, has seen an HD re-release recently.  If you want something that's a blast to play and really is nothing but mindless gunfire, it's easily attainable online for dirt cheap.  I think I got a new digital copy recently via HumbleBundle.com.  Nothing quite like having a headless guy run at you with bombs in his hands as you tour ancient Egypt.

DAY 301 / GAME 301 Vigilante 8

DAY 301 / GAME 301

Vigilante 8

      There weren't many Twisted Metal clones out there, in fact, I can only think of two:  Interstate '76 and it's spin-off title for the PlayStation Vigilante 8.  (Though, looking into it I also see there was a sequel to Vigilante 8 and a Star Wars game Star Wars: Demolition.)  
         Though they appear similar from the outside, they both shine in a different light.  Twisted Metal, with it's hearses and monster trucks has a much more heavy metal feel to it.  Vigilante 8 however, with it's Corvettes, RVs and dune buggies, and it's disco score, had a very 70's feel to it.  Though both games did feel like they could have come from the same developer.

      Vigilante 8 was developed by Luxoflux which, believe it or not, only consisted of 5 people total.  You certainly couldn't tell, the game itself was on par with Twisted Metal which was developed by SingleTrac, which was (I believe) a somewhat larger, bigger backed company.  It featured a half-decent soundtrack which, once the game was loaded into the RAM, could be swapped out with any other audio CD you popped into the PS1's drive.  

    Vigilante 8's story is kind of interesting looking back now.  Apparently the idea is that in an alternate version of 1975 there exists a global oil crisis.  This has caused rampant crime in the US forcing the military to take over, and though the major cities are pretty much locked down, the surrounding areas have become free from law and order.  (Hence, the vigilantism.)  Beyond that, apparently a global oil regime wants to destroy the U.S. in order to ensure it's monopoly on petroleum.  

    Vigilante 8 was a terrific take on the whole vehicle arena combat game.  It was a nice changeup in vehicle choices compared to Twisted Metal and the level designs were a nice change as well.  It was also nice to have yet another two-player splitscreened game that my brother and I could enjoy almost equally.  Though our preference was certainly for Twisted Metal.  As I mentioned before, Vigilante 8 saw a sequel come of itself, as well as an N64 port of the game which had some bonuses above the original copy.  I also just discovered that quite a few years back there was a remake on the Xbox 360 titles Vigilante 8 Arcade.  (As it was released digitally on the Xbox Live Arcade platform.)  And though the original had a slightly different feel to it, I may have to pick this one up and give it a whirl.

DAY 300 / GAME 300 Bioshock Infinite

DAY 300 / GAME 300

Bioshock Infinite

      Many people were disappointed with Bioshock 2.  Not that it was a bad game by any means, but merely that it was just more of the same and didn't reveal enough additional cannon within the overarcing plot.  Irrational Games (who created the first game) was already working on a 'proper' sequel while 2K was developing Bioshock 2.  This third title, Bioshock Infinite, served as a prequel to the first game, offering a whole new look at the insane world presented.  This isn't initially evident, in fact, you don't discover this until the end (it's not a game-breaking spoiler by any means.)  But what is nice about the whole game is that instead of having yet another game revolving around the dark underwater dystopia, we are experiencing a bright cheery dystopia-to-be in the clouds.  

    Like a lot of my favourite games, I know right away that I will not be able to summarize all the great things I experienced in this game with one post.  Bioshock Infinite was easily one of the most emotion driven games I had played for a long time and it's impact was only overshadowed by the brilliant the Last of Us that was released shortly after.  I've mentioned before how much a game that revolved around the father-daughter relationship sticks with me and Infinite is a story that really pulls on those strings.  I mean to say that the ending to this game made me teary-eyed like few movies could ever do.  (Except for Grave of the Fireflies.  Damnit.)

  If it was story alone that made this game remarkable, I'd still be raving about it.  But of course, like the previous Bioshock games this not only features technically incredible graphics, but also some unique and beautiful design themes.  Bioshock Infinite does a fantastic job at creating what would be a world set in 1912 would be like if they had stumbled across some far advanced technology.  A world where noone is stopping them from creating powerful monstrosities, godly tonics and a world with an altered moral compass.  

   Bioshock Infinite does not pull any punches.  Irrational games attacks issues that were prevalent at the time in the United States which include slavery, classism, religion and racism.  All of this poured on by the cloud city of Columbia's rule by one extremest madman Zackary Hale Comstock, who at one point (before the game begins) separates himself from the U.S. to become a giant floating warship of a city.

    Since I can't really get into too much detail, either due to spoiler material or simply time, I can just say this.  Bioshock Infinite is easily one of the greatest games I've played for a long time.  Not only is it a fun game to play in terms of solid gameplay, controls and level design, but it's also an incredible game to experience.  Especially if your goal is a great story.  This is one of those games that I really wished I had shelled out for the ultra-amazing special edition set.  Unfortunately they were bought up much quicker than was the case with Bioshock 2.

DAY 299 / GAME 299 Fantasia

DAY 299 / GAME 299

Fantasia

      I've wrote about this here before, that is that the number one genre of game I purchased for the Sega Genesis would be side-scrolling platformers based off of cartoon properties.  Tiny Toons, Tazmania, Castle of Illusion, Quackshot, Ren and Stimpy, Aladdin, Mickey Mania, to name a few.  Back when the Genesis was still new and most of the game I was buying were from the back of a poster, the kind you'd get inside a new game, there weren't as many cartoon games to choose from.  After how great Mickey Mouse and the Castle of Illusion was, I figured Fantasia would be a sure hit.  Especially since I was a nut for the film at the time.  

    My uncle warned me that this game had horrid controls and simply wasn't very good overall.  Trouble is I really wanted this to be a good game.  I bought it regardless and although he was certainly right about everything he said, I still enjoyed it quite a bit.  Looking back now, this really was a disappointment of a game.  I can't say much of anything good about it and I'm surprised I wasn't all out pissed when I bought it.  But like I said, there weren't many cartoon games at the time (thought they sure showed up afterwards).  

     Fantasia really was an awkward movie to make into a game.  I'm not sure who decided it was a good idea in the first place.  If only they were able to bring a little bit more out of the movie.  The game has very little to do with the film and really just feels like your standard side-scroller with terrible sluggish controls.  The music, though neat to hear at the time, was a very very terrible conversion from classical pieces into 16-bit chip-tunes.  It sounded like your microwave was playing Toccata and Fugue in D minor.

   All this and yet this game sticks with me as one of those great games from my childhood.  Of course, I'm sure a lot of this has to do with the fact that when I was 11, I only had a handful of games.  I can't even imagine what it would be like to be 11 years old now with the backlog of old titles available to play.  Those kids don't know how good they have it!  

    

DAY 298 / GAME 298 Hydro Thunder

DAY 298 / GAME 298

Hydro Thunder

      When I first got my Sega Dreamcast at launch in 1999 it came with a demo disc full of game demos and trailers.  This included the (very) recently released Hydro Thunder speedboat racing arcade game.  I can't remember if I rented this game before I bought it or not, but I did a lot of that back around the time I owned the first PlayStation and Dreamcast consoles.  I can't remember exactly when I stopped renting games, I know that at a certain point I felt it was a waste to spend $8 on top of the final price if I was going to buy the game anyway.  Because I usually didn't rent games just to play them that once, but more or less to try them out and see if I wanted to pay full price.  A practice which isn't as necessary anymore since most companies publish a downloadable demo and more recently full-playthroughs are available to watch on streaming internet sites.
       
       Hydro Thunder was probably one of the first titles I bought for the Dreamcast.  I loved anything that involved some kind of racing, this title was available at launch and at the time it looked absolutely gorgeous.  When the Dreamcast was released, it really was a huge jump up compared to the older 32-bit systems.  While the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 first brought us fully 3D rendered titles, the Dreamcast (and the later released PS2 and Gamecube) brought us cleaner, quality rendered titles were so many early issues were fixed.  Texture resolution was now much more acceptable, polygon counts were higher and allowed for certain things, like people, to look much less like a stack of boxes and anti-aliasing allowed for the appearance of finer resolution.  Hydro Thunder, which was first released the same year as an arcade title, took full advantage of this new processing power, creating, first and foremost, water that not only looked like water, but also acted like water. 

     Hydro Thunder was very much an arcade racing title.  Physics were over-the-top and races were all designed with a timeout in mind so that in the arcade, running the timer out meant popping in some more quarters.  In some titles this is a real bummer, but I never found this to be much of an issue with Hydro Thunder.  So much so they may have even adjusted the limit to be more lenient on the console version.  
       I really did love this game though.  It's not exactly a huge genre, noone else really makes a speedboat racing game.  So if you want to jet around in boats on maps that range from the arctic to an apocalyptic New York City, this is a blast.  They've finally release a long awaited sequel on the Xbox 360 titled: Hydro Thunder Hurricain.  I really should try it out.

DAY 297 / GAME 297 Castle Crashers

DAY 297 / GAME 297

Castle Crashers

      Another one of those easily overlooked indie games that showed up when Microsoft broke open the market with their Xbox Live Arcade e-store, Castle Crashers combined the basics of a side-scrolling brawler with some fantastic animation and HD graphics.  Castle Crashers, developed by The Behemoth, was a beat-em-up game where you smash your way through level after level of medieval mockery.  Up to four players at a time can control one of the four knights who fight to rescue the king's daughters, captured by the evil wizard.  As you make your way forward, demolishing foes with various weapons you pick up along the way, you earn points towards leveling up your character.  Each level you get to upgrade on of your stats, including agility, strength, health and so on.  Eventually making yourself much more formidable in the fight against ridiculous monsters, evil undead henchmen and gigantic creatures the likes of which you've never seen.

       The Behemoth does a terrific job of creating some amazingly unique designs.  The whole game has a very simple, graphic style which is much more common now, but previous to the big indie game boom was a very rare thing.  Taking advantage of the powerful new consoles, Castle Crashers includes a whole ton of high-quality 2D animation.  Though, I'm assuming it's a technical reason for older game not being able to contain as many frames of animation within their cycles; it could just as easily have been a case of noone bothering to put forth the effort into 2D game before.  With the exception of a few others, like Metal Slug.

      Castle Crashers is a real blast when playing local multiplayer.  There really are few games that aren't.  Beating up wave after wave of gruesome opponents alongside your friends is about as good as it gets for spending time with someone.  Not to mention all the rediculously over-the-top animations and poop-propelled rocket deers flying all around screen, more developers should take note. Mind you, I think they did.  Castle Crashers really set a standard for other indie studios to follow.  Now what you can get under 100Mbs and under $10 is brilliant.

    I never owned a copy myself, only ever playing it with friends.  But looking back, I'd really like to pick it up sometime and slog through the levels myself.  It really was a blast.

DAY 296 / GAME 296 Einhander

DAY 296 / GAME 296

Einhander

      The more I write for this personal project, the more I realize I do really like shoot-em-ups.  I'm not particularly great at them, some of them are painfully difficult and some I can't even get more than 30 seconds into it before Game Over.  I remember one of the first shoot-em-up games, or shmups, was the WW2 game 1943 on our 286 PC at home.  Most all shmups at the time used your classic scrolling bitmap background and single-frame sprites populating the screen.  Advanced games included multiple layered backgrounds for a mutliplaning effect as well as more complex sprites with smooth animation.  

      Shortly after the 32-bit systems arrived on the market we started to see a lot of fully 3D rendered games.  Around the same time it also felt like shoot-em-up games seemed to be disappearing off the market.  It's possible that was all in my head, but it's a safe assumption that like side-scrolling platformers, classic shmups quickly became 'old' and 'boring' to publishers.  Thankfully, Squaresoft, famous for their J-RPGs, tried their hand at mixing the new 3D rendering technology with your classic side-scrolling shoot-em-up.  The result was Einhänder, a unique shmup game that was difficult to find and I've be waiting decades for them to re-publish.

    Einhänder felt just right.  Having not been initially designed for the arcades, it wasn't created to be an impossible quarter-muncher.  It was still difficult, but having only rented it for a weekend I still got to see a decent amount into the game.  
    Einhänder really took advantage of the switch from a sprite-based 2D scroller to a 3D platform.  Not only did we see panning backgrounds with fully realized perspective, but also fully rotatable ships and a camera that could adjust it's position as needed.  That meant that although the majority of the game featured a fixed camera that scrolled left-to-right, at times it could rotate to show the top of the ship, or switch to a 3/4 angle for bossfights or the like.

    Einhänder gets it's name from the gameplay concept that revolves around your ships articulated robot arm.  The single arm can steal weapons from enemies, drop and pickup new guns and rotate to change the angle your gun fires from.  Shoot-em-up games are always about surviving long enough to build up your arsenal, Einhänder is no exception, providing you with a large selection to help you through the levels.
       Einhänder was a beautiful shooter with a great soundtrack and very little holding it back.  Squaresoft has no excuse for holding this title back from the State-side market, especially with PlayStation's classic-game store online.  Between this game and R-Type Final I'd murder a great deal of bunnies for a proper HD remake.  Maybe one day I won't have to.

DAY 295 / GAME 295 Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2

DAY 295 / GAME 295

Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2

      Very shortly after the release of the Star Wars FPS game Dark Forces LucasArts released a sequel that felt like quite a bit of a step up in terms of production quality.  Dark Forces, released in 1995, a year after the success of Doom II, used a similar game engine and featured similar visuals.  Dark Forces used 2D sprite art for the weapons and enemies combined with a 3D rendered world, the best that could be generated at the time.  
     Only two years later, after the success of this first Star Wars title a sequel was released.  This sequel used a considerably more advanced game engine which included full 3D real-time rendering similar to that found in Quake released one year prior.  This sequel also contained live action cinematics with computer generated backgrounds and props, a huge jump up from the limited 2D animation found in Dark Forces cutscenes.

      Jedi Knight really showed what LucasArts was capable of at the time.  The Sith engine they used allowed for some large-scale open worlds, big enough for even an AT-AT to roam in.  The 2 CDs it played from allowed for some high-quality FMV cutscenes and loads of original audio tracks from the original movie scores.  This really was a huge thing for me, the Star Wars soundtrack was so perfect that it really brings the feeling of Star Wars to the games when applied.  LucasArts also really went out of their way to produce some quality live-action cinematics for this game.  Though they appear a little on the budget side of things now, at the time they were pretty amazing.  It's even noted as including the first lightsaber battles ever filmed since the original movies.  

     Jedi Knight was easily my favorite of the Dark Forces series.  The level design was really saturated with Star Wars feeling, I can still remember making my way through the vertical city of Nar Shaddaa and the desert canyons of Barons Hed, the whole time really lost in the idea that these were real places I'd been.  Sometimes I'm not sure what it is about a game like this and why it sits in my memories differently than other games, it may be in combination with the fact that FPS game were still new at the time and that particular experience became more ingrained for that reason alone.

     It was a long time before I felt like there was another Star Wars game that captured the feeling quite like this one did.  In fact, it wasn't until about 10 years later with the release of the Force Unleashed.  Games like this really showed that LucasArts cared about their properties and really wanted to push the technological and storytelling edge in the quickly growing video game world.  Games like this are why I miss LucasArts and the legacy they left behind.  

DAY 294 / GAME 294 Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

DAY 294 / GAME 294

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

      I didn't bring this title up during my Adventure Games Week back in the spring because I ran out of week.  I'd been meaning to return to it ever since.  Like a lot of people, Indiana Jones was one of my favorite films growing up.  I had seen Raiders when I was really young, a VHS copy my Dad had taped off of the movie network, and then Last Crusade shortly after it was released.  We also eventually watched Temple of Doom, but it didn't get the attention that the other two did, even though I can't say that one particular movie is better than any of the three.  They each have their charm.
          Eventually, in high school, I inherited an old tv and a VCR.  I grabbed the odd movie on tape when Blockbuster Video had sales on used items, but went out of my way to purchase a couple brand new.  Namely the Star Wars trilogy, Aliens and the Indiana Jones trilogy.  My small library eventually consisted of those movies plus Independence Day, Die Hard 3 and a blank tape I filled with Looney Toons episodes I taped off of Bravo.  My high-school after-school program consisted of me hanging out in my room, tossing on one of those movies and either drawing or modeling in 3D on my computer.  There was a time when I could have probably recited the entire Raiders and Empire script.  


       Like Star Wars, I was itching to spend more time in the worlds Lucasfilm had created.  With Indy though, it was more of a case of wanting to spend more time with Indy and his adventures.  Traveling to exotic locations, getting into trouble and uncovering ancient wonders, Indiana Jones personified adventure.  Really, what makes more sense than a point-and-click-adventure about adventure personified?
        I was pretty happy with the story behind Fate of Atlantis and I was surprised when they didn't take it any further.  There was an earlier Indy title which covered the Last Crusade, but wasn't nearly as advanced a game.  When Fate of Atlantis was released, but no talk of a fourth Indy film I couldn't quite grasp why they didn't adapt this onto the big-screen.


       Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis was one of the very few serious point-and-click adventures I'd ever played.  LucasArts had really built a fantastic system for this game.  Offering three different ways to play through the game, 'wits', 'fists' or 'team', you could cater to the want for a more puzzle heavy game or a more combat heavy game.  This is also one of the only games of this type I'd ever played that contained a scoring system which tracks all the puzzles solved and items found providing you with a total sense of completion, story aside, once you finished the game.


        Aside from getting stuck at a certain point and being unable to continue, I really did love this game.  For a while I really wanted to see a more visually advanced Indy title and even planned on making one based on 3D prerendered backgrounds, which felt advanced at the time.  Then, in 1999 a Tomb Raider style Indy game launched.  I bought it right away and sadly, never played it.  I'm not sure why.  I should see if I still have a copy and go back to it, though I'd imagine it's very dated.  In the end, I'd really rather see another Indy game like this.  The focus on pacing and story and locations.  And dialog of course.  Truth is, like the movie Aliens, Indiana Jones has influenced so many games now that the original almost has no place.  We've already got our Tomb Raider and our Uncharted.

      I think I'm going to go back and try to beat this game soon.  It's going on a serious 'short list' alongside replaying Mass Effect and Shadow of the Colossus. 

DAY 293 / GAME 293 Starflight

DAY 293 / GAME 293

Starflight

      Though most of the Sega Genesis titles my Uncle owned I was able to play pretty thoroughly, a few of them were somewhat over my head.  One of those games, Starflight, really grabbed my attention, but also required more of it than I could give back.   
       The copy of Starflight I played was apparently an updated version of an older 1986 DOS title remade for 1991.  Considering it's age, this game was way ahead of it's time.  Starflight was the influence for many modern space exploration games and was specifically the main inspiration for the Mass Effect series from Bioware.  In fact, the similarities between the two are incredible, and it wasn't until I was looking it up that it struck me how similar they were.  

        Starflight is a game where you build your crew from a variety of different galactic races.  Races which range from sentient plants, to androids to lizard people.  Your crew's composition is important since not all species get along together well and they each have different racial advantages and disadvantages.  As you travel the stars in a ship which you outfit and upgrade yourself, you encounter a wide variety of worlds which you are free to explore.  Using a fractal based procedural generator, this game from 1986 was capable of including 270 different star systems with a total of 800 planets.  Eight-hundred!  The game cartridge was only 8 megabytes.  

      As you roam these 270 star systems you can scan each planet, looking for habitable locations as well as valuable artifacts and minerals.  The entire process feels very much like Mass Effect.  You even have the option on some planets to land and deploy a ground vehicle to search for minerals and other goods which you can later sell to help outfit your ship and upgrade your skills.  If I remember correctly, there's even some giant worm beasts on the planet surfaces, similar to what you would encounter in Mass Effect 1 during your ground missions aboard the Mako all-terrain vehicle..

    I really loved the wide-open playability of Starflight back when I first played it.  Right from being able to build your crew and assigning their roles.  The game was somewhat technical and I never even scratched the surface on the whole story.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to get a hold of a copy of this soon to play it out and see just how much of Mass Effect is based on this game.  I'm constantly remembering more and more elements from Starflight that are so familiar I can't begin to imagine what is buried within the actual story.

     The only trouble with finding an old copy is that the original PC versions are very easy to find but the remade title for the Sega is much harder.  Especially since 'Starflight remake' brings up something different altogether, a fan made update it seems.  But the graphics are less than appealing.  

DAY 292 / GAME 292 Alien vs Predator 2

DAY 292 / GAME 292

Aliens vs Predator 2

      While in the Alien mindset, I may as well bring up one other Alien title I had enjoyed in the past.  Perhaps the only other one I haven't mentioned yet, Aliens vs Predator 2.  Aliens vs Predator was a comic-book series that expanded on the Alien universe, connecting it to the Predator series based on one small Easter Egg in Predator 2 where we see a Xenomorph skull amongst the other trophies in the Predator's ship.  The concept is that in a universe that contains the brutal Alien, also contains another species who hunts monsters like that for fun.  
        The Aliens vs Predator series is quite expansive.  The comic series has been running since the early 90's and spawned two movies as well as a number of video games.  The first FPS Aliens vs Predator title was well known for it's unique and popular online multiplayer as well as being a generally well translated game for it's content.  

       Though I never did play the first game, when the sequel was released I figured it was time I finally gave it a try.  Now, I can't say whether or not AvP 2 was better than AvP 1, since I hadn't really played the first and having never tried AvP's multiplayer I can't say that it was really good or bad.  But I was very happy overall with the bulk of the game's

single player campaign.  I say the bulk of it because there are essentially 3 different campaigns to complete.  There is practically a separate game for both the Alien and Predator as well as one for the Human Marines.
  Though I tried out all three campaigns, I took to the Marine one the most.  It's the only one of the three that I actually completed.  Though they each were properly unique and the Alien one was particularly inventive, the Marine campaign was by far the easiest.  Simply running and gunning through an FPS game is always the easiest solution.  Not to mention, the Marine portion of AvP 2 held true to a lot of the James Cameron Aliens tropes which we all know and love as one of the best sci-fi action horror movies.  You make full use of the classic Aliens weapons and tools like the motion tracker.  You get separated from your troop and wandering all alone through an abandoned colony has it's scary moments for sure.

      The Alien campaign finds you crawling the walls, hunting humans and causing disaster among the enemy from the moment you first burst out a ribcage and wriggle away as an Alien Chestburster.  It's super fun and a great chance to play as the unstoppable Alien, but it's also difficult since everyone else has ranged weapons and you have to get close to do any damage.  The Predator however is useful at both close and ranged combat.  Still, something about the campaign stopped me from finishing it.  I'm not sure what it was exactly but I do remember it being somewhat dull compared to the other two stories.

   As I remember it, Aliens vs Predator 2 did a pretty great job of capturing the best of the content it was based off of.  Though it never stuck with me as being a particularly memorable game, it did have some great moments.  And considering the lack of quality Aliens games out there, this one is starting to stand out more and more over the years in my mind.  I really should dig this up and install it sometime, just to see if I can finish the other two campaigns.

DAY 291 / GAME 291 Alien 3 (SNES)

DAY 291 / GAME 291

Alien 3 (SNES)

      I've been playing a lot of Alien: Isolation since it's recent release a couple weeks back.  I could go on and on about how great a game it is, which is exceptional since there hasn't been a very good Alien game for a long time.  But I also haven't finished it yet, in fact, it seems to me I'm not even half-way through it.  Thinking back, there weren't very many good Alien games.  A number of them that were pretty good, but most all of them either tried too hard to create an action game out of of Alien 3, or were technically terrible.  I've already posted about Alien Trilogy on the Sega Saturn / PlayStation, as well as Alien Infestation on the Nintendo DS.  Two of the better titles to come out of the property.  I also posted about Alien 3 for the Sega Genesis, which was pretty good, even if it had little to do with the movie was based on.  I've yet to bring up however, the Super Nintendo version of this game that was released at the same time.

      Usually, when two consoles are as similar as the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis, you don't see two different versions of the same game built for each system.  Though it does happen, it's usually due to some inside baseball that gives one company the edge over the other.  In this case, I can't seem to find why the two games were so different.  In fact, it appears that the version of Alien 3 I played on the Sega Genesis was released the same year as the film.  It's also the version that is ported across most platforms, including the NES, so it doesn't even seem to be a Nintendo vs Sega thing.  Both the 1992 and 1993 Alien 3 games were developed by Probe and published by Acclaim, so why the two games were so different I have no clue.

     Though I fully enjoyed the Sega version I had played, Alien 3 for the SNES felt like a more thorough, thought out game.  The Sega version was fast paced, there was a strict time limit on each level and you had to run and gun through the entire game, memorizing each level or risk getting lost and running out of time.  The SNES title however was much longer and required the player to complete a number of smaller missions in order to complete the larger level.  There was 6 levels in total and looking back, the first one took a whole hour to complete.  That's a tall order for a console that doesn't let you save mid-way.  

    Probably since it released a year later and was developed specifically for a 16-bit console, the SNES version of Alien 3 featured richer graphics.  The visuals appeared to contain a higher range of colour, producing better gradients and much nicer weapon effects, the flamethrower in particular.  The game still has little to nothing to do with the movie, a movie where no-one had a gun and here Ripley is running around with the same famous loadout she carried in the end of the Aliens film.  Also a movie with one Alien, and of course she fights screenfulls of them in the game.  It seems to me that Alien: Isolation, with it's -being stalked by one alien the entire game- approach would apply quite well to the Alien 3 story.  Of course, even if it was a thing back then, (Clock Tower was the closest thing to it.) good luck convincing Fox to hand the rights to a non-action game.

    I never got very far in Alien 3.  I never owned a copy and always only played a friend's or a rental.  Not to mention, it was a super tough game.  It's one of the many SNES games I had wish I'd got a copy of and certainly one I'd buy in a heartbeat if it were published on either the 3DS or Nintendo Wii-U Virtual Console.  I'm still waiting patiently for the day.