DAY 116 / GAME 116 Burnout 3: Takedown

DAY 116 / GAME 116

Burnout 3: Takedown

          The car racing genre has a pretty wide spectrum of different kinds of games within it.  All of which I love.  I've put numerous hours into games like Forza and Gran Turismo and an equally large number of hours into Need For Speed, Test Drive and Split-Second.  One of the more ridiculous but equally amazing over-the-top racing games I loved was Burnout 3 for the original Xbox.  This game offered some of the absolute best sensations of speed in an auto racing game, loose arcade controls that allowed you to dart around traffic and insane collisions that were immortalized in fantastic slow-motion.




          Burnout 3: Takedown earn it's 'takedown' title from the primary goal of the game.  Burnout may be a racer, but it's also a car combat game in a sense.  In two of the four modes of play the primary goal isn't to place first so much as it is to cause the most damage.  In the Road Rage mode, you aggressively cross the map trying to smash into other cars with your own.  When done right you cause the other car to flip, spin out or smash headfirst into oncoming traffic, destroying the car and earning you a higher score.  Whoever walks away with the highest score in the time (or lap?) limit wins.  

            Takedowns are the kind of thing you go out of your way to accomplish even in the regular race mode.  There's no much better than making your way to first place, all the while smashing opponents cars out of the race (and trying to avoid a similar fate.)  Takedowns are also something that Criterion has included in every Burnout title after this one and even in a recent Need For Speed game that was released.  (Most Wanted, which is very similar to Burnout: Paradise.)  
           Now, if you enjoy wrecking your car and creating mayhem, Burnout 3 also included a extra race mode that includes no racing at all.  Instead, you are placed at different  traffic intersections with the goal of biggest, most expensive accident possible.  The idea is to time your entrance best in order to collide with the most traffic, causing as large a chain reaction as possible.  Additional cars that enter the intersection almost never brake, so creating as big a pileup in the center as possible really helps keep it all going.  It's fantastic fun and great at parties.

           Takedowns aside, Burnout 3 is still a fast, beautiful racer with great controls and a decent soundtrack.  I really don't remember many 6th gen console games looking this fantastic.  As you increased in speed you eventually reached the point where the view around you becomes blurred and your focus is drawn to the horizon.  The already very high speed of the game now appears even more than it already is.  And it really is a fast game.  Near the end you unlock an F1 style car that reaches top speeds that are so high that I'm always surprised if I can go for more than a few hundred meters without getting into a massive wreck.  it's times like these however that really have a zen feel to them.  Darting in and out of traffic, unleashing your nitro boost and blasting across the asphalt, making each move perfectly, for a short amount of time you are above it all and nothing can bring you down.  Except the cement barrier you just hit.  And then it all comes down, you hit the accelerator and start it all again.

         My in-laws got this for me for Christmas one year and it was the best.  I've plugged countless hours into this game.  The arcade stylings of it all meant it was easy to pick up and play with ease.  Like a few other racers before it, even after losing my savegames I've picked it up and started from the beginning all over again and blasted through the whole thing without a hint of repetition.
             As much as I enjoy the newer Criterion games, I still like this one the most.  There's something great and mindless about race after race of crazy action racing with hardly realistic physics and the crash cash intersection mode is hours of fun.  I think I'm going to have to dig this one out again for old time's sake.

DAY 115 / GAME 115 Surgeon Simulator 2013

DAY 115 / GAME 115

Surgeon Simulator 2013

          With the advent of the Steam digital delivery service and other ways of now publishing and purchasing independently created video games, more and more experimental games have had the opportunity to become available.  

           The upside to this is that developers can now circumvent the typical big-budget release process, selling their games for less.  Cheaper indie games means that people are more likely to purchase something silly.  Something silly like Surgeon Simulator 2013.  Silly, and a TON of fun.

            Surgeon Simulator 2013 is absolutely ridiculous.  The game itself is borderline broken.  The controls are terrible on purpose and yet the goal is still to complete various surgeries, including a heart transplant, double kidney transplant and brain transplant.  Built for the PC, this game uses a combination of mouse and keyboard for controls.  The QWERTY keys each control the grasping of each individual finger on your hand while your mouse moves your hand around on the X/Y axis and a click of the right mouse button controls wrist motion while the left mouse button raises and lowers your hand.  So basically it's like doing surgery via a marionette.

             The very fact that you can complete these surgeries, even with the ridiculous controls, makes the game challengingly intense.  Especially in my case, since I was playing this game on a laptop with only a trackpad instead of a proper mouse which is much slower to use.  When your patient is bleeding out because you nick'd his aorta with a bonesaw, you really need to be able to address the situation quickly.  Thankfully I discovered that there are two syringes on your table and one of them stops the bleeding.  Though, if you stab yourself with it, (and you will) your vision goes to hell and good luck trying to complete surgery with a marionette's hands while looking through a kaleidoscope.

    So, initially there are three surgeries to complete.  It's pretty damn tough, as I previously described.  I played this game on the couch nightly while Denise watched TV and every once in a while she'd look over and exclaim 'I hope no one thinks to preform real surgery after playing this.'  She's also come out from the kitchen only to find me hunkered over her laptop, trying to complete a double kidney transplant and asked why I was sweating profusely.  My forehead was seriously dripping with sweat as I tried so hard to yank out that last kidney from deep inside my patient.
     So then, you complete the first three surgeries and a new list of the same 3 open up.  You load it up and realize you now have to preform the same 3, only inside a moving ambulance.  At one point I watched in horror as the back doors swung open and my replacement heart flew out into the street behind us.  This was an all new kind of hard.  I completed the first heart transplant, even after the alarm clock flew up and into the open chest cavity, blocking my way.  But after this, I've yet to complete any more.  I've heard that the next chapter of surgeries takes place in outer space in zero g.

      I think I payed a total of about $2.50 for this game on a Steam sale.  Heck, I bought an extra copy to gift away because it's so much fun.  This brings me back to the start, I payed $2.50, the price of a coffee and had a hilariously good time playing the kind of game that wouldn't have existed in the same capacity years ago.  Developers may have had something like this published for full retail release, but it would have been $60 and I highly doubt I would have purchased it.  (Then again, I did buy Seaman..)  If this is ever on sale again, I highly recommend picking it up, even if you only plug a few hours into it.  Who knows, maybe one day you'll have to perform brain surgery.

DAY 114 / GAME 114 Bart's Nightmare

DAY 114 / GAME 114

Bart's Nightmare

          There were Simpsons games and then there was Bart's Nightmare.  This was, in my opinion, the best Simpsons game made to date.  (Though, I never did try Simpsons Hit and Run and I hear that's pretty good.)  I only ever knew of it on the Super Nintendo, which is part of why I never actually own a copy, but turns out it was available on the Sega Genesis as well.  Which is too bad, because I would have bought this for sure and right about now I wish I had a copy.
      While taking a quick review of the game to write this, I realise now it seems like it was a super short game.  But I guess since I never did get very far in completing it it felt as if it could have been a much larger game.

          I'm not sure what it is about the Simpsons games but they always seemed overly tough.  Bart vs the Space Mutants was absolutely impossible, Escape from Camp Krusty was not easy in the least and neither was Krusty's Super Funhouse.  This was no exception to that rule.  Bart's Nightmare was basically a collection of mini-games, each of which were, I guess, a dream within a dream.  The game starts with you as Bart, falling asleep while trying to write a paper for school.  In your dreams you wander about a bizarre and twisted version of Springfield; a windy overworld that gives you access to the dream mini-games.  You try your best not to wake up by avoiding pretty much everything.  This includes Otto's bus, mailboxes that twist into monsters, Jimbo's gang, Principal Skinner and Zzz's.  

       The mini-games are equally as twisted and cool.  The game now had the opportunity to play with all the different aspects of the Simpsons world.  There was an Itchy and Scratchy dream, where you fight your way through their cartoon world using various pickups, my favorite of which is the giant mallet.  There was a cellular scaled level, where you float around in Bart's body, fighting off germs using an air pump, over-inflating and blowing them up.  (We also get a cameo from Smilin' Joe Fission in this level.)  There's also a BartZilla level where you destroy Springfield with your laser eyes and battle with Mom-thra and Homer Kong.  A level where you dream you are Bartman, flying across the sky shooting down various Springfield residents and an Indiana Bart level.

         The whole game was just so neat.  With the whole concept revolving around Bart's overactive imagination meant that the developer, Flying Edge, could really just go nuts with the property.  I really enjoyed the entire charm of the game.  It looked pretty great and sounded awesome.  As I recall it had a pretty neat soundtrack.  
         Bart's Nightmare also had some interesting inside baseball.  Apparently it was designed by legendary Atari game developer Bill Williams and moreover this was his very last job in the industry.  'Meddling' within this game development process drove him to leave for good and he was not happy at all with the final product.  He at one time referred to the game, lovingly I'm sure, as 'Bill's Nightmare'.  He then, unfortunately passed away 5 years later at age 38 from cystic fibrosis.  Now, despite Bill disliking the final product so much, I still enjoyed it quite a bit and I'd like to think I'm not the only one and perhaps he heard some good review after it was released.  I'd certainly like to think so.  

DAY 113 / GAME 113 Diablo II

DAY 113 / GAME 113

Diablo II

          I remember everyone being pretty excited about the launch of Diablo 2.  Now, at the time I didn't really know what Diablo was and I hadn't really played anything like it before either.  So with the launch upcoming a friend of mine lent me his copy of part 1 while I eagerly awaited for my preorder to be fulfilled.  So, shortly after, Diablo 2 was released and I popped by EB to pick it up.  I got home, started the install and flipped through the case and instruction booklet as I waited for the progress bar to reach 100%.  Then, the fated moment arrived.  I went to start up the game and it prompted me for the 'play' disc and the serial number, neither of which were in the box where they should be.  Good job EB.  
        I went into the store and explained the situation.  Luckily they didn't dispute the convenience of it all, but unfortunately they were right out of stock and I had to wait a week for a replacement copy.  So, in the meantime I made my way through part 1 until it came in.


        Diablo 2 was just this solid solid title that both chewed through your mouse and your free hours.  At a time when a lot of games were moving into realtime rendering engines, Diablo 2 instead stuck with prerendered backgrounds and sprites.  Since the isometric 3rd person camera was fixed and the sprites never had to scale, this worked perfect.  It meant Blizzard could use high quality sprites that looked fantastic, but didn't have to worry about them loosing fidelity if the camera zoomed in closer, or the characters moved in towards the camera.  But of course, the only issue with that method, as always, is that you are limited to a particular maximum resolution.  In this case 640x480 pixels, which is terribly low-def, or 800x600 with the Lord of Destruction add on, which is a much more acceptable.  

           Regardless, it still stands the test of time in my opinion.  When Diablo 3 was released, it came with a copy of Diablo 2 on a custom flash drive.  Since it turned out I couldn't run 3 without a video card upgrade, I ended up reinstalling Diablo 2 to play while I waited for my new hardware order to show up.  Though I don't have the biggest screen out there, (19.5" Widescreen LCD) I still found that the SVGA graphics held up and my romp through Tristram brought back old memories.  Heck, for a game released in the summer of 2000 it sure plays great.  Everything worked out quite well.  The inventory system was solid and simple, the game offered a myriad of different classes and skill trees to level into and the soundtrack by Matt Uelmen is in my opinion better than that of Diablo 3.  

             There was so much that was fantastic about this game.  The Battle.net online mode was nice and separate from the single player offline mode.  Playing with other friends was quick and easy, plus, spamming my one friend with hydra spells that brought his computer to a halt because of his video card, was always more fun that it should have been.  The different locations of the 4 acts were full of personality.  The rainy plains near Tristram, the dangerous tombs of the eastern desert, the creepy shamans and demons of the tribal jungle and of course facing off with Diablo himself in hell.  Blizzard of course has some of the finest artists in the industry and Diablo 2 shows this well.  The creature design is absolutely fantastic and is only limited by small sprite size and resolution.  The location design is unique and memorable, showing both care for visual style and playability.

          Diablo 2 represents the height of Blizzard games for me.  I certainly appreciate other releases since then, but I've always felt that this was their finest hour and that it best represented the brand throughout it's long lifetime.  I still absolutely adore the soundtrack and the game's playability almost 15 years after it's release.  I haven't even beat Diablo 3 yet, I put it down and haven't picked it back up yet.  I'm not sure if there's something about it I don't like, or if it just came about at the wrong time in my life.  Either way, I've always got more time for some Diablo 2.

DAY 112 / GAME 112 Terminator 2 Judgment Day

DAY 112 / GAME 112

Terminator 2 Judgment Day

          I've said it before, I never really did spend very much time in the arcade.  The times that I did primarily consisted of myself, my brother and my dad pumping quarters into the Terminator 2 arcade game.  This was the on-rails light gun shooter with two gun controllers mounted on the cabinet with a pivot.
           I think most people my age remember this game.  It seems to me that it was in pretty much every arcade around and of course, T2 was still fairly new at the time so it was pretty relevant.  My brother especially loved this game, so I found that it was usually my brother and my dad playing it while I watched, which was fine because it was pretty much impossible anyway.

          Seriously though.  This game was designed to eat quarters.  Even with two people going at it there was no getting past the first level.  The only reason I knew any other levels existed is because the demo screen showed them when no one was playing.  Which is too bad because all of the other levels looked way more interesting than the first level.  The first level was simply the introductory level where you have to escort the T-800 Terminator to the time machine and send him to the future.  This is part of what made it so tough.  Escort missions are always overly difficult in past games and this one was no exception.  There was a portion of the game early on where you have to protect a pickup truck while trying to stay alive yourself and the whole ordeal was almost impossible.  

          Still, each time we tried.  There's a good chance that in total, we spent the cost of a console game in quarters on this one.  All in the hopes we could make it to the later levels; which included the labs at Cyberdyne Systems, an escort level where the T-1000 is chasing the police van in a helicopter and the final levels in the steel mill.  Graphics on the arcade version were pretty good too.  They even shot footage for this game during the making of the movie.  Arnold Schwarzenegger, Eddie Furlong and Robert Patrick all appear in this game as sprites based on this footage and end up looking pretty awesome.

            When the Sega Menacer was released for the Sega Genesis, which was a light gun unit made to compete with Nintendo's Super Scope; there was only a handful of games available to use with it.  6 of them came as a bundle in one cartridge and there were about 7 more, one was an adaptation of the Terminator 2 arcade game.  With how much we played this in the arcade, you can be sure we picked this up to go with our Menacer.  It looked pretty close to the arcade cabinet graphically, but it was equally as impossible.  In fact, even though we owned it, we still never beat that first level.  

DAY 111 / GAME 111 Resident Evil 4

DAY 111 / GAME 111

Resident Evil 4

          Resident Evil has been a fairly long running series which started on the PlayStation and has had 8 games in a consecutive storyline and at least 5 or 6 other side games, an interactive attraction in Japan, a number of live action movies and a series of animated movies.  It's really hard for me to pin down exactly which title was my favorite, but if I had to choose, it would probably be Resident Evil 4.  
         It seems to me this is a pretty common choice among fans, most people I talk to feel this was the best of the series.  Resident Evil held it's formula pretty tight throughout the anthology until this one.  The game used 3D renders overtop of pre-rendered backgrounds, a fixed cinematic camera and controls locked to that perspective.  This was the case with Resident Evil 0, 1, 2 and 3: Nemesis and only changed slightly with Resident Evil 3: Code Veronica which offered realtime rendering, but stuck with static cameras and controls most of the time.

            Resident Evil 4 made some major changes in design and ended up leading the charge in action game design.  Instead of the fixed camera Capcom decided to move the camera over the shoulder of the protagonist and had it follow in a similar field of view as most FPS games.  Of course, with the power of the next generation consoles, everything could now be rendered in realtime while producing very similar quality to what was previously pre-rendered.  This all new setup allowed for a much more fast-paced and action oriented game with quicker and more accurate aiming and more elaborate levels.

              Everything that was at all clunky about the earlier games had been cleaned up.  The inventory system was improved, level loading is considerable faster and the game itself was easier to navigate and complete without getting stuck on puzzles that were difficult simply due to low resolution graphics.  Some people complained that this game was far too action oriented and lost it's roots as a survival horror.  And although this complaint has some merit, some people would also complain that any survival horror with big guns really lost that 'survival' and 'horror' aspect.  But I always felt that mood and design are more important and that Resident Evil was due for a change since really, the original design was more or less a product of what was available in terms of console power at the time.

              Resident Evil 4 may have changed a ton about the series, but what I love about it is that Capcom still managed to capture everything that is so special about these games.  Just like the older titles, you manage to find yourself a part of much larger operation than what you initially encounter.  You start out in a small European village, the victim of the Las Plagas parasite and it goes from there, building and building until as per usual you end up in a high-tech laboratory.  RE:4 offers an amazing soundtrack, absolutely fantastic creature design and levels that drip with mood and personality.  On top of it all, it offers a fantastic game+ mode.  When you complete the game, playing over again offers benefits including wild game-breaking weapons that would be terrible on a first playthrough, but are a blast on subsequent runs.  An option I wish was added to more and more games.

            I remember seeing an E3 announcement for this game back when I was in college.  It featured Leon making his way through a bizarre haunted mansion while being chased by some odd tentacle creature.  After that it was a while before I actually picked up the game, I'm not sure why but I never did buy into this right away.  When I finally did borrow it on a friend's recommendation I realized none of what I saw in the E3 demo was in the game.  I guess it turns out it was part of a completely scrapped version of Resident Evil 4 that never made it to the market known as 'Hookman RE4'.  Either way I'm more than happy with how it eventually turned out and I must have played it through a number of times.  If anyone wants a copy it's now available dirt cheap in an HD remake available on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

DAY 110 / GAME 110 Super Mario 64

DAY 110 / GAME 110

Super Mario 64

          When the Nintendo 64 was released, as a Sega boy I was hesitant.  For those of you who owned consoles back when you were younger, you remember the 'console wars'.  See, when you were a kid and couldn't afford to spend all your money on games, you had to make a choice.  You had to decide between Sega and Nintendo, because your parent's sure weren't going to buy you a Genesis and a Super Nintendo and when the next generation was released, you had to decide between Sega, Sony and Nintendo.  On the upside, since I had a brother, we managed to each end up with our own console.  My brother sided with Sony and got a Playstation, but I was still a Sega diehard and got a (and to a certain degree regretted) a Sega Saturn.

               Now, the Nintendo 64 was still new when we had our consoles and neither of us were big on any Nintendo properties outside of Mario so we didn't push for an N64.  But I remember people talking about Mario 64 when it was released.  Unlike any other game at the time it offered a true free-roaming 3D world including, best of all, flight.  PlayStation had Crash Bandicoot, but it wasn't released yet and wasn't full free-roaming 3D.  Sega had Nights, which offered a bundled controller that included an analogue stick to match N64's, but most of it was 'on rails' and so also not true free-roaming 3D.  

               Eventually my brother saved up enough money and bought himself a Nintendo 64.  I can't remember if he actually owned Mario 64 or not, but at the very least I borrowed a copy from a friend and made my way through as much of it as I could.  Like Super Mario World before it, this was a launch game for Nintendo's new console and with it the number 1 selling point.  The Super Nintendo was the console you bought so you could play Super Mario World and the Nintendo 64 was the console you bought so you could play Mario 64.  

             As far as I was concerned, Mario 64 did a proper job of translating a classic 2D game into a 3D world.  Nintendo created a new world that took all the right elements from past games and pushed them into these perfect new adventures as you made your way through Princess Peach's Castle.  Hopping into various paintings and other portals that led you into a wide variety of bite-sized worlds each with a number of different goals to complete.  Some of the most interesting and memorable worlds came from this game including the swirling sands of the desert levels, the floating levels in the sky, the foggy sunken pirate ships, snowy mountains and the Hazy Maze Cave, (ok, I just really love that name.)

              There's so much that's enjoyable about this game.  It's just a real fun game that's full of hidden bits and pieces and is just a blast to roam about in.  There is a ton of available levels to find in the castle, which is something I felt was lacking in comparison with Super Mario Sunshine.  It also included a memorable score some of which made it's way into Super Mario 3D Land; in fact, it may even be my favorite Mario soundtrack.  I don't still own an N64, but luckily I am able to own this in a couple versions.  Both the remastered copy for the Nintendo DS portable and a copy on my Wii through the Virtual Console system.