DAY 8 / GAME 8 Pikmin

DAY 8 / GAME 8

Pikmin

            Pikmin is a special beast.    I loved my GameCube, but as with all my Nintendo systems, I only ever end up with a small number of games for each of them.  Usually less than ten games total for each, all the way back to the SNES.  Yet each of the titles I owned were very strong and even one of them is typically worth owning the console for.  Pikmin is one of these games.  Pikmin was a very unique title.  The only other game I consider close to design that I've ever played was Overlord, though a more evil and twisted version.  

            In Pikmin, you control a horde of little plant-like creatures who work together to complete little tasks you assign them.  Graphically it stands up well against newer HD games even though it went for a stylized character design with realistic surroundings.  It seemed suggested that you crash landed on a Earth like planet, and although humanoid, you are insect sized.  A lot of the charm of the game comes from traversing the tiny landscapes created in nature's forest-floor microcosm as you search out the broken pieces of your ship, so that you can return home to your family a la Toe Jam and Earl.

            Pikmin gives you 31 days to complete your mission and return home, or risk failure.  Each day cycle is 15 minutes, so you can't waste time and on a first run through may find yourself retrying certain days.  I had owned this game since 2001 and I hadn't finally beat it until this year.  I love it, but I did get frustrated since I never did want to retry days.  But this year, I was looking for a new game to play with my daughter Leia.  She picked this game out of my GameCube pile and was immediately charmed by it.  And so, with renewed vigor I made my way through the game and seemed to have none of the trouble I had in the past.  12 years later and this game held strong.  I mean seriously, this game could have been made yesterday and I wouldn't question it.  Pikmin not only looked good and handled well, it just oozed personality.  It's no wonder Leia loved it so much.  Right to the very end when Captain Olimar makes it off the planet, leaving the Pikmin behind and leaving Leia in tears.  It was really nice for the two of us to share this game together, from beginning to end.  Perfectly enough, Pikmin 2 had already been released years back.  So I scooped that up so we could continue the story together and after that, Pikmin 3.  Which we are currently enjoying a second time around.

          Pikmin is a game that I enjoy on so many levels.  It's enjoyable for games-sake, being very playable and overall relaxing with it's game mechanics.  It's also enjoyable because of it's visual and audio design.  But this is the case of a game being enjoyable from both myself and my daughter's perspective.  A game that there isn't enough of.  A game that is unique and appealing to adult and child without pandering to either audience.  I'm not sure, but I have the feeling that both of us will always look back to our time playing Pikmin.

DAY 7 / GAME 7 S.T.U.N. Runner

DAY 7 / GAME 7

S.T.U.N. Runner

            Like I said, I plan on jumping around a bit to avoid the monotony of me just listing every Sega Genesis game I ever played.  I'm not sure if anyone reading this had ever played S.T.U.N. Runner, but this was by far my favorite arcade game.  I was never big on the arcades.  Which is wierd, being someone so big on games.  The thing was, there was never really any arcades nearby our house, and I think overall I'd rather have the 'arcade experience'  (as Sega claimed) at home on my console rather than spend time feeding a machine quarters in what felt more like a club full of teens to me than a video game heaven.  Now that it's more of a nostalgia thing, with a different clientele; (Seemingly different, maybe it's all the same, only I've changed.)  I really enjoy arcades and I'd love to see them make a comeback.  
           
      Nevertheless, the few times I did make it to the arcade, it was one of only two that were nearby.  (That I knew of at the time.)  The no longer existing arcade near the food court of the Pickering Town Centre, and obscurely enough, the arcade at the National Sports outlet of all places, also in Pickering.  Our dad took us both places each time, and it was that kind of bonding experience that once again ties good feelings to video games in general.  I remember not getting into many games, having a console at home I kinda felt that I would only bother putting money into the ones that had neat peripherals;  Something that made the experience different than what I could get at home.  That stuck with me up until recently as I have now rediscovered classic arcade games I never knew I loved, like Missile Command and Gauntlet.  At the time I basically only played two games, Terminator 2 at the town centre and S.T.U.N. Runner at the National Sports.  S.T.U.N. Runner was great.  You sat on a real simple motorcycle setup that mimicked your avatar in-game.  The controls were this F1 style wheel, with gun triggers and grips that tipped up and down so you could steer, and tilt your canon at the same time.

             S.T.U.N. Runner encompassed a lot of what was visually appealing to me at the time.  Being the '90s, all visions of the future and CG rendering were these low-poly 3D engines with bizarre flashy colour palettes.  Kinda like what you found in Star Fox for the SNES, only not as nicely pulled off.  You saw it in all kinds of movies from Johnny Mnemonic to Lawnmower Man.  I guess it all kinda looked like TRON, but oddly enough not as good.  Still, back in the early 90's, for me it felt like the future.  Cruising through tubes in crazy looking hover-ship blowin' stuff up and racing the clock.  With all the retro arcades popping up here and there, I'd love to find one of these again.  MAME never quite did it justice.

DAY 6 / GAME 6 GoldenEye

DAY 6 / GAME 6

GoldenEye (Nintendo 64)

            GoldenEye for the Nintendo 64 will more than likely bring back memories for a lot of gamers my age.  The Nintendo 64 may not have been my favourite 5th generation console*, but the one thing it did have going for it was the 4 controller ports.  Yeah, in the days before HD resolution and affordable big screen TVs, playing four-player split-screen on a tube TV wasn't easy.  But it was a kind of fun that can't be replaced.  Maybe it was the timing;   With the lot of us in high school at the time, there was nothing better to do after the bell rang then to head over to a buddy's house, each of us with our own controller, and rack up some kills.  

           

Developed by Rare in '97 and based directly on the James Bond film from '95, GoldenEye seemed exceptional at the time on various levels.  I remember first seeing it when a few of us popped by my old friend Mike's house.  (The same house we would end up spending most of our spare time group gaming at.)  I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one who was blown away by the graphics at the time.  What looked like photos of the actors mapped onto the game models made all the characters quite recognizable and all the levels featured familiar set pieces from the the movie.  Single player was great, and with all the unlockables it had tons of replay value.  But the true appeal of this game, something that Rare did so well, was some of the best FPS multiplayer, perhaps of all time.  I can't recall how long this was the game of choice for us, but I'm sure it was a good while.  I'm also pretty sure none of us never lost our twitch-response from this game, forever embedded in our muscle memory.  And if we picked this game back up today, it would be like we never put it down.

Here's to good times and crazy controller designs.


*(I had originally posted 64-it console generation, but was corrected as the 5th generation consoles weren't all 64-bit) 

DAY 5 / GAME 5 Out of This World

DAY 5 / GAME 5

Out of This World

             Also titled Another World, I played this title on the Sega Genesis when I was about 12.  Like a lot of Genesis games I played, this was one my uncle picked up back when my brother and I used to spend a bunch of time at his place playing video games.  

          Out of this World had a very unique look to it at the time.  A look that is somewhat resurfacing as indie games try to capture some of the nostalgia of the 8 and 16 bit era.  The developer used a special engine to rotoscope animation using a polygon rendering system.  So it was all flat colours, no outlines and a smooth overall look to the characters actions.  It was a similar process, or at least, a similar result as was achieved in Prince of Persia and later on, Flashback.  The game used strong but minimal colour palettes and the look of the world was that of something Frazetta may have come up with in another lifetime.  It was a blend of primitive rock and steel with tech from the future.  Laser whips and electrified cages for slaves carving monumental structures out of rock while Pterodactyl and sabertooth tiger like creatures roam the land.  

           This game was especially appealing to me since at this age I was looking for more 'adult' games in an attempt to feel older than I was.  Another reason why the Genesis was overall my system choice at the time.  Games like Fatal Rewind, Slaughterhouse and the Immortal were all over console.  I never had a cartridge copy of this game, but I actually stumbled onto a copy for the Sega CD which contained the sequel, Heart of the Alien, as well.  I had actually beat the game at my uncles house before I got this copy.  I spent quite a few hours with my brother on this one while my younger cousin watched us play.  You see, this game was tough.  Prince of Persia style tough.  You had to get every action quite exact.  While admitting our frustrations with the game, my uncle dangled this carrot in front of us.  He explained to us that near the end of the game, there's a part where you actually run into a bathhouse full of naked women (pictured).  Naked alien women mind you.  And as you can see, it was all pretty tame in it's 16 bit glory.  But you have to believe that we really wanted to see this game to completion at this point.  And we did.  It wasn't much longer after that tidbit of information that we pressed on through the rest of the game.  And the reward wasn't the women of course, it was getting to see the story to it's end.  For a game that was so very cinematic in it's execution, a rare thing at the time, watching this whole story playout (you could probably play through the whole game in a couple hours) was very fulfilling.  This game could very well have been one of the games that started my love for cinematic games in general.
        Out of This World's most recent 20th Anniversary release on Steam with updated graphics and audio FX plays quite well and I highly recommend it if you haven't played this game yet.  Or even if you have.

           

DAY 4 / GAME 4 Gears of War

DAY 4 / GAME 4

Gears of War

             There's always that one game.  That one game that pushes you over the edge to purchase a console.  Gears of War, and more importantly the trailer they aired left me wide-eyed and wanting more.  Gears was one of those games I dreamt about leading up to the day I finally got it.  Of course this made perfect sense.  Gears of War was a flagship title for the new Xbox 360 and Cliff Bleszinski even bragged that this game, his game, convinced Microsoft to double the amount of ram manufactured in the system, therefore upping the cost per unit.  

             The Gears series is great.  Controls were vastly improved over the majority of third-person shooters which were typically a bit more cumbersome in the past.  The cover-and-fire system was a fresh new thing at this point, (if not first introduced by GoW).  And of course, this was one of the first games I'd played on a 'next gen' system at the time where HD graphics were first introduced.  So not only were the graphics vastly improved as far as textures and poly count were concerned, but for the first time on a console I was seeing a leap in resolution.
         

 But technicalities aside, Gears stuck with me because it was dark sci-fi that told it's story well.  It offered an overall design that was gritty but beautiful, full of incredible architecture and levels that begged you to stop mid-action and look around.  One level in particular had you are caught out in the rain and all the surfaces glistened with running water.  It was art, pure and simple.

         At first, when I started this blog, I thought it would be funny to not seriously rate the games.  Using a 'star' rating system that was jokingly ambiguous.  But the truth is, it's going to feel silly I realise, giving all the games '5 Star' ratings because the point of this project in the end is to show that I really do have 365 'favourite' games.

DAY 3 / GAME 3 Katamari Damacy

DAY 3 / GAME 3

Katamari Damacy

             So, the thing about Katamari Damacy is that it's good example of Penny Arcade's power over my purchase decisions.  It's been about a decade since I've actually browsed game review sites for suggestions regarding new releases.  They nitpick, categorize and well, do their job really.  But I can never get behind how negative it all feels to me.  Over the years things have changed, there's lots of ways to get a good feel for a game before playing it.  Trailers, demos, walkthroughs; all kinds of material to base your own opinion.  And of course now, with gaming being a much more popular media to ingest, it's easy to find a friend who can recommend a particular game.  And for me, a recommendation from someone I know is worth more than a hundred reviews from someone paid to play.

           That's how Mike and Jerry of Penny Arcade fame have always felt to me.  When one of them recommends a game, I have never been steered wrong.  We may not be friends, but we definitely see eye-to-eye when it comes to games.  Such was the case with Katamari.  I remember one of them described it in such a manner that caused me to quite actually drop what I was doing at the time and take a run out to buy it.  I hadn't seen anything about it outside of their recomendation, I barely remembered what it was called, but I had to have it.  At first I was a little disappointed.  I was sold on the idea of rolling up this ball so big I could eventually be rolling up actual people.  For the first couple levels it seemed as if I may make it there, but I would probably just be making a whole ball of thumbtacks and erasers.  But it payed off and soon I was rolling up cars, houses, and then whole islands.  It was great.

             Katamari had a quirky Japanese charm I hadn't seen since the Dreamcast first came out.  Games like Pen Pen Tri-icelon and Don't Panic!  Seaman seemed like they were too oddball to get sold in the western market.  Absurd and totally off track but I loved them.  Katamari brought back that same feel.  An odd game that didn't try in the least to appeal to a western market, but it caught on nonetheless. 

             Now I'm totally in the mood to go play some Katamari..
Out of a rating of a number of stars, I'm going to give this game:        A Whole Bunch of Stars.

DAY 2 / GAME 2 Sonic CD

DAY 2 / GAME 2

  Sonic CD

             As the ball get's rolling on this project, order is still a bit of a question.  Although I'd like to jump around to break up any monotony, I think I'd like to get some of my absolute favourites out of the way first.  Even though, as the project will prove, there are a lot of games that are my favourite.

             Sonic the Hedgehog was the first console game my brother and I ever owned; the Genesis our first console.  I've played other games before then, and I'll get to that down the road.  But this was special.  Sonic was the first game I knew I wanted before even seeing it in person.  And during a time when consoles were dominated by only one mustachio'd mascot, I really was rooting for a new face.  I liked Sonic, it was fast. Featured sharp, clean graphics and great audio.  All of which was proper for a flagship title on a new system.  And Sonic himself was quick and full of energy which was something I could relate to as a 9 year old boy.

            

So now, why Sonic CD?  Simply put, in my experience it was the finest of the series.  Apparently when Sonic 2 was being produced, it got split into a Japanese and American team and ended up as two different games.  The Japanese one being Sonic CD and the later becoming Sonic 2.  Sonic CD took full advantage of the CD drive and single-handedly sold me on the add-on unit.  It had a terrific soundtrack, more replayability than most other Sonic titles and had an overall harsher, more heavy metal feel to it even.  It felt solid and the controls felt tighter and faster than 1.  It even featured some amazing short intro and ending animations done by Toei Animation and Studio Junio in Japan.  

            I still pick up this game and play it now and again.  More so than any other Sonic title.  The Time Trial portion even added that bit of replayability for jumping into a favourite level here and there.  It's been ported a number of times, even to mobile platforms, so it's easy to get a copy.  The most recent HD re-release of the game is fantastic as well, featuring both the US and Japanese sountracks (which differed for some reason) and even remastered video clips which look amazing.  This is definitely one of the more timeless titles of my past and I find it amazing that 20 years later I'm now sitting down and playing it with my daughter.

Star and number rating systems are silly and can't sum up a game in any way.  But if I were, say, to rate this game, out of a number of stars, I would simply give this title, All The Goddamned Stars.