DAY 134 / GAME 134
Animal Crossing
Back in my mid-twenties for about a year I lived in a house with a few friends. We all shared the living space and with that the TV and game systems. Every once in a while someone would bring a new game home and we'd all get to check it out. One day, someone showed up with Animal Crossing and at the time it was completely new to me.
Animal Crossing is a very unique social hoarding neighbour simulator. It's hard to describe exactly what the goal of this game is, there's a number of things you can focus on. In short, you arrive at a small town and within this town you basically start a new life. You make friends with your neighbours, renovate your new house, collect things and furnish your rooms. You can send mail around town, dig for treasure, plant flowers and go fishing.
There's really no simple goal to Animal Crossing. I guess it's kind of a zen thing. The appeal is that each day runs based on a normal day/night cycle that matches your time zone and each day there are things to do. The weather changes and so do the seasons. If you're interested in fishing or collecting bugs, they vary throughout the year so simply playing for 8-10 hours in total will not do the trick if you want to sink your teeth into this game.
There are a number of sequels to this game on various platforms, though they are all very similar. The first release was on the Nintendo Gamecube, which was the version I played with my roommates 10 years back. They then released 'Wild World' for the Nintendo DS, 'City Folk' for the Wii and most recently, 'New Leaf' for the 3DS. Each release varied only in added features as the core gameplay is very much the same.
The neat part about having played this game in a household of a few gamers was how the multiplayer functioned. Up to four (if I remember correctly) players can set up housing in the same town. Only one player could go about his or her business at a time, but the town is persistent so changes made by one person were seen by all who 'logged in' afterwards.
So, with that in mind, you can only imagine what kind of nonsense went on. We were known for gifting shirts to fellow villagers with rude messages on them about each other, which the villagers promptly wore because they were so happy to receive a gift. We graffiti-ed each other's houses with big penises and other novelties and we planted 'pitfall' traps for one another to fall into. It was a blast.
More recently with the latest version on the 3DS I've been having a blast. Graphically updated with nice little additions to the town and internet functionality, New Leaf is addictive as ever. Being on a portable system means it's easy to switch on for a few minutes (or hours) to check out what's going on in the town, collect a few things, say your 'hi's and then put it away for the next day. Perfect for commuting.
Animal Crossing is one of those games that is enjoyable on a different level. There is no finite play structure, no end game, no bosses, no shooting and no killing. Not that I don't love those things, but it's nice to play a game once in a while where the social aspects, both real and fictional are the focus. Plus, you know, collecting bugs. That's a blast.
DAY 133 / GAME 133
Apocalypse
Back when I was in high school I remember seeing a newspaper article about a new game for the Sony PlayStation that was to star Bruce Willis. This new game, Apocalypse, was to feature a digital likeness of the actor, who was to fight alongside you in a virtual world ending scenario.
This was one of the first games to really push this as a feature. Digital renditions of actors had been used in past games, but then again they were all pre-rendered and other than Hell: A Cyberpunk Thriller I can't really think of many. Eventually Apocalypse was released to the market, only with a few changes from it's original concept. Instead of fighting alongside Bruce Willis, you now controlled him as the player character. Which was probably for the best since AI for that kind of thing was still in it's infancy and didn't usually function very well. (AI assistants tended to get stuck or die frequently holding you back or making levels much more difficult than they were intended.)
Apocalypse was released shortly after ONE, also for the PlayStation, which felt very similar overall. I was a little surprised to discover the two were completely unrelated during development considering how closely they turned out. Both games used dual analog stick controls, one for directional travel and one for directional weapon fire a-la Robotron and Smash TV. The camera was third person and sat high up with almost a top-down view, giving the whole thing a very arcade feel to it. Both games also had a future setting, including various laser weapons and robotic enemies.
Apocalypse is about just that. Bruce Willis is the only one who knows how to stop an insane evil scientist who wants to ensure his predicted apocalypse. In order to achieve this he has created his very own four cybernetic horsemen to carry out the necessary destruction. As Trey Kincaid, (Bruce Willis) you wield a number of weapons as you clear away wave after wave of enemies, which is a ton of fun as most of your weapons work as streams. Machine guns, laser beams, a sweet looking flamethrower; each swiping across the screen obliterating robotic monster after monster. I remember being particularly in awe at the look of the flamethrower since it was so rare for fire weapons to look half decent in a video game at the time. It usually just consisted of a stream of circular fireballs instead of a single animated drawing or effect that reacted to your movement. Basically, if anyone's ever played both, it's Alien 3 for Genesis vs Alien 3 for SNES. (The SNES one was much nicer.)
Man, I could just torch dudes all day long.. Beautiful. (Let's not read into that the wrong way.)
Apocalypse was developed by Neversoft who worked on Spiderman, MDK, Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk. It included tracks from Poe and System of a Down and the game engine even allowed for their music videos to be displayed on various billboards throughout the game. A feature which was apparently used in Tony Hawk as well. The switch from sidekick to main character for Bruce Willis was also advantageous for them simply because they could now cut out a ton of voice capture that would have been used for back and forth conversation and instead just had him read out some one-liners.
I enjoyed this game quick a bit back when it was released. It's available now on the PlayStation Store, which I may consider grabbing sometime soon. It featured some great gameplay, fantastic level design and a solid overall feel. And hey, it's Bruce Willis. How many times has he saved the world now anyway?
DAY 132 / GAME 132
Crackdown
Back in 2007 Realtime Worlds and Microsoft Game Studios released Crackdown. A sandbox style, open world action-platformer where you deal out justice as a member of the 'Agency'. As interesting as it all seemed though, the big draw for purchasing Crackdown was that it came with an access code for the Halo 3 multiplayer beta.
A friend of mine, Matt, the audiophile, picked this up when it first came out. He didn't subscribe to Xbox Live and wasn't interested in Halo multiplayer, so after he had played through this he passed it on to me so I could try it out. At first, I only intended to play the beta, which was pretty great, especially being the first Halo on a next-gen system. But after I had spent my time the beta I figured I'd give this a whirl.
Although I didn't really have any real interest in Crackdown at first, as soon as I started playing it took very little time to grow on me. Like Grand Theft Auto, you roam a huge city full of missions. The world is open for you to explore, but the nice part about this game is that exploration is not only a bigger part of the game it's also well rewarded. You can build your character up, leveling 4 or so different areas 5 levels each. You can upgrade your driving skill, agility, weapons, hand to hand and explosives skills; each by performing actions related to those skills. Running over gang members with your car helps level up your driving skills, throwing a car at a gang member ups your melee skills, and shooting out the tires of someone's car ups your weapons skills.
The best part is searching for the agility orbs. In order to level your agility skill, you have to locate and collect hundreds of these little orbs littered all over the city. Most are up on the rooftops of various buildings. As you start out, at level 0, you can run and jump at a pretty exceptional level. You are a cyborg after all. But as you collect more and more of these orbs you can being to run and jump higher and higher, which is necessary to get to some of these orbs. Eventually driving becomes obsolete as you can now run and vault yourself across the city faster than driving any car. The city is spectacularly vertical. Once you get to level 5, you can make your way to the tallest point in the city, the Agency headquarters and overlook the entire city. It's pretty awesome.
With your over-the-top skills, romping through the city is a blast. You can target individual limbs when shooting, or individual wheels on a car; which is great as you can send a moving car into a roll if you shoot out the right tire at speed. You can pick up all kinds of huge items to swing at people, or throw, including the car you just stepped out of. I remember having a fight with a friend online that ended up just being the two of us picking up cars and throwing them at each other for a good 10 minutes.
For a game I didn't think I was interested in I sure ended up putting a ton of time into it. It's just such a perfectly addictive build of exploration and mayhem. In fact, it's probably one of the most solid sandbox games when it comes to the ability to pretty much go anywhere in the entire game. It's pretty each to pick up dirt cheap if you're ever interested in giving it a try, it's certainly hours of fun one way or another. They also released a sequel, which I just started playing and seems to be just as much fun as the first. Except that it doesn't include cars that transform as your driving skill levels up. Which was amazing.
DAY 131 / GAME 131
Sega Rally 2
One of the things I really enjoyed about the Dreamcast console was how it was reminiscent of the Genesis in the way Sega was sure to port a large number of their arcade titles to the home market. Some of the great early Genesis titles were just ports of their fantastic arcade cabinets. The Saturn seemed to skip this concept altogether. Maybe this was something to due to the turnaround or release schedule of the arcade market not lining up with the console market, or maybe it's just that the 5th gen consoles were all trying to push new and inventive titles on their own. (Or maybe I just never noticed them..)
I discovered Sega Rally 2 at Playdium, which is I guess an arcade, but always felt like something different to me. I had just gotten into WRC and other Rally Racing events and so I really took to this game. Shortly after, the Dreamcast was released and I scooped this up for it with no hesitation. Sega Rally 2 was the first rally-specific racing game I'd ever seen. They did a pretty solid job, using typical brands and liveries from the time and a range of terrain to drive through. Though they didn't seem to use any specific locations, they made sure to include desert, snow, mud and hillclimb stages to give you a taste of everything.
Though I don't remember Sega including a co-driver with voice over pace notes, they did include visual pace-notes on the upper screen as you were driving. So you saw yellow arrows that indicated right or left easy, medium or tight turns upcoming.
The car selection was great. They acquired rights to use real cars, which wasn't all to common at the time and really added to the experience since this was mimicking a real world event. Sega included pretty much all the WRC cars from the time including a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo V, Subaru WRX, Toyota Celica GT, Peugeot 306, Lancia Stratos and Ford Escort. Nineteen cars in total.
This was easily one of my favorite racing games at the time. Drifting and otherwise offroad racing was typically either sloppy or too stiff with most racers, but this seemed to control exactly how I needed it to. It still felt more like an arcade title than a game like Metropolis Street Racer or Gran Turismo, but that was also some of the charm. This was also just the first of a ton of great racers that became available on the Dreamcast and with it's twin-analog-trigger layout it really felt like they belonged.
DAY 130 / GAME 130
Nights into Dreams...
Shortly after the the Sega Saturn console was released, Sonic Team, the in-house dev team responsible for the Sonic games came out with a new IP. Nights into Dreams was an on-rails adventure where you switch between controlling two children and a dream creature, Nights.
Though not as successful as Sonic the Hedgehog, it was really the flagship title for the Saturn as Sonic X-Treme got scrapped and Sonic 3D Blast wasn't released until later that year. Not to mention, as neat as it was, 3D Blast felt like more of an offshoot of the Sonic series rather than an innovative continuation of the series.
Nevertheless, Nights was a good stab at a flagship game for a new system. It came bundled with a new controller featuring an analog joystick and analog shoulder triggers in order to compete with Nintendo's new N64 controller that comes standard which also featured an analog joystick. This controller worked especially well with a select few games and especially with Nights. Giving it you more fluid control as you fly through the Night-mare dreamscape.
Nights into Dreams was a fairly unique game at the time. With the latest console systems rolling out -the Saturn, PlayStation and Nintendo 64- a lot of developers were now playing around with the capacity to render in full 3D with little issue. So as they started to experiment we started to see new takes on old designs and new views of old locations. Players could now travel in more inventive ways than previous and enjoy new freedoms in their virtual worlds. Nights may not have always been fully 3D when it comes to travelling within the world, but it certainly worked well with the design of the game.
Kind of a bridge between 2D and 3D, Nights has you flying along predetermined paths at a decent pace, trying to loop your way through beautiful circuits within a time limit. The world felt like you were trapped within a dreamy snow-globe, some levels more like the inside of a jack-in-a-box. Nights pushed to use colourful, high-end textures that really helped sell the whole design.
I never did beat this game. Add it to the huge pile of games I owned and never completed. Of course, it certainly didn't help that it didn't have a savegame structure and needed to be run through in one go. That and at the time at least, it seemed pretty tough, especially with the time limit on each level.
I got this game, I think around Christmas time back in 1996. I remember playing it at my Grandmother's house in Toronto when I first got it. I guess I hauled my Saturn all the way out there in anticipation of getting a game or two as a gift and wanting to play it immediately. They finally made a sequel down the road for the Wii, which was actually a big draw for me to finally buy one, even though in the end I never did get around to buying it. (The game, not the system.) They've also released an HD version of the original for PC and Xbox 360, which I only found out about just now and I think I'll have to pick up ASAP.
DAY 129 / GAME 129
Rambo III
I've never actually seen a Rambo movie, ever. But my uncle had this game for the Sega Genesis and I played the crap out of it. I have no idea what the movie is about, but if it's anything like this game, Sylvester Stalone knifes a ton of dudes, saves some army guy from a prison and blows up tanks and helicopters with his bow and arrow; after he makes sure to tie on his bandana.
Rambo III was a pretty solid game from the 'pre-Sonic' era. So far as I remembered when I was a kid, until Sonic the Hedgehog was released, the Sega and the Sega Genesis seemed a little more low-key. My uncle had a Sega Master system and a Sega Genesis when they were first released. He had it modded so that it would play imported Japanese games as well as the small number of North American releases that were out at the time. So there were a few games I had played before the Sega really took off in my household.
Rambo III was one of these older games I spent a ton playing when I had the opportunity to. It was a isometric top-down shooter where you control John Rambo as you gun your way through enemy lines and rescue Rutger Hauer as instructed by Red from That 70's Show. Though, when I was playing this at the time I had no idea who these actors were and they just seemed random enough to me.
There are about 6 levels in this game, a few of them have a mini-game at the end where you get to blow up a tank or a Hind-D helicopter using your longbow from an over-the-shoulder perspective.
Rambo was pretty tough, at least at the time it was. I haven't played it for well over a decade if not two. I never did make it to the very end; the furthest I remember getting in this game was probably just after the second level or so. This is the one where you enter the prison and rescue your old colonel buddy. If I remember correctly, you could only take about a hit or two before dying, combined with the number of those 16-bit style ball-bearing bullets flying around the screen this game could get pretty frustrating. But I could probably blow through the whole game pretty quickly if I gave it a try again now.
For a 16-bit game from '89 it looked pretty awesome. They tossed in a bunch of captures from the movie which looked pretty good. It had a pretty decent soundtrack and most of the audio was ok, though a lot of the sound FX are pretty dated and could have sounded better.
I had a blast with this game, it was pretty straightforward and fun to play right from the start. It really fits into that category of games that I played before I really got into games, but really stuck with me to this day.
DAY 128 / GAME 128
Sonic Spinball
After the release of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, I was pretty much good for anything Sega would release with Sonic in the title after that. Before Sonic 3 was out in 1994, Sega decided to take a side-step in the series and come out with a very unique title; Sonic Spinball.
My brother and I jumped on this one as soon as it was released. As soon as we turned it on it felt completely different. In my head it felt more 'American', though, to this date I can't find out if that was actually the case or not. Everything from the art to the content and characters weren't just reused or sampled from earlier Sonic games and if anything seemed to be closer to the artwork in the comics and cartoons that the older Sonic 1, 2 and Sonic CD content.
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Sonic Spinball was a crazy mix of a side-scrolling platformer and an electronic pinball game. Sonic himself acts as the ball in this game, as you run through sections until you come across areas that resemble pinball machine. You control both Sonic and the machine's flippers as you make your way through the level. Usually as it goes, you need to unlock access to the next area by hitting certain switched or portals using the flippers. You also have to avoid Robotnik's roboticized animals and other dangers until you've made it far enough to unlock access to each level's final boss. A final boss which was always a very creepy and almost frightening rendition of Dr. Robotnik. It the first level, instead of the usual Doctor piloting one of his ships with various attachments in order to attack Sonic, he has actually become a creepy scorpion like robotic creature. In a later level, his creepy face appears in a molten lead pit; it continues from there.
I never beat this game. I'm not sure I remember even passing the second level. Mind you, there were only 4 different levels, but the pacing was much slower than your typical Sonic game. In fact, that's another thing that was a little odd with this particular game. Sonic games are typically fast paced with a focus on speed, whereas this game requires you spend a ton of time in one area trying to hit that one dang button, just like with real pinball. It also contained a really neat pinball mini-game within this pinball game. In between levels you have the opportunity to play a simple pinball machine from the viewpoint of Sonic the Hedgehog.
Sonic Spinball was a successful little departure from the rest of the series. Although I'd still like to find out one day just why it's so different from the rest of the series which is typically very in-line with each other, or at least change slowly as they evolved from one another. I never was very good at pinball, I'm not sure if anyone really can be, it feels pretty random. So in the end, I never got to experience the whole game, but I sure enjoyed what I did see. In fact, I would have liked to have seen them either make a sequel to this, or have had whichever studio or team created this one taken the art direction into another side-scrolling game or similarly unique idea as this one.
