Jdanddiet's Top 100 Games 2012 Part Seven: 30-11

Classy shooter Ranger X

30.Ranger X (Megadrive) (up 26)
I think I underrated this game in my list last year, hence a hefty rise in 2012.  I've had another go recently and it really is a polished little shooter.

29.Crysis 2 (Xbox 360) (New Entry)
Many decried its bland stereotypical war-torn city;  personally I found the game tough to get into (for a FPS) but once I got hang of all the upgrades and stealth options, had a blast. The way you could choose different methods to approach each scene really appealed to me.


28.Flashback (Megadrive) (down 18)
Flashback is a great platformer in the mould of Prince of Persia, but the cranky gameplay is starting to creak a bit.  Maybe it's because of that annoying section on the alien planet...

27.Desert Strike (Megadrive) (up 8)
Mike Posehn's classic shooter remains one of my favourite games on the Megadrive and one I'm still happy to play through.  The controversial (for the time) helicopter movement suits it perfectly and kudos should go to Mike for insisting on it.


26.Metal Gear Solid (Playstation) (down 9)
Snake slips a few positions.  He ain't looking as good as he used to.


25.Jet Pac (Spectrum) (New Entry)
Oh how did I miss this one last year!  The XBLA remake reignited my love of Jetpac, and as good as it was, it misses out whilst the original (also included when you bought the XBLA game) shoots into the chart at number 25.

The Great Escape

24.The Great Escape (Spectrum) (down 5)
The Spectrum's limiting colour pallette suited it perfectly;  it's open world structure was rarely seen in those days and the atmosphere was superb.

23.Mass Effect 2 (Xbox 360) (New Entry)
As much as I loved the original, it's breadth of options and upgrades left you feeling exceedingly overwhelmed.  ME2 simplified all that and concentrated on an intriguing plot and quite stunning opening scene.  A modern day classic.


22.Jedi Knight: Outcast (PC) (up 6)
Still my favourite of all Star Wars games...except for one.

21.PGA European Tour Golf (Megadrive) (up 38)
A massive rise for this immensely playable Megadrive sports game.  I bought it from a Crack Converters recently and discovered all over again how wonderful it is.

20.Bombjack (Spectrum) (down 6)
Like Flying Shark, it's a bit much to suggest it could be better than the arcade original, but it's still pretty damn perfect.  The terrible C64 version is another reason to have Bombjack flying the flag for the Spectrum in the top 20.

19.Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth (Xbox) (up 38)
I completed this amazing game last year and have since played it a couple of more times.  Boasting an extremely tense and odd atmosphere, some compelling (and difficult) gameplay, the stealth elements and lack of, well, action, deterred many.  Me, I think it's a classic.


18.Unreal Tournament (PC) (up 40)

Unfriendly locals in Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

The original and still the best imo.  The thrill of m-m-m-m-m-monster kills never dies.

17.Match Day 2 (Spectrum) (down 8)
Jon Ritman and Bernie Drummond's Speccy football masterpiece slips a few this year as it begins to tarnish slightly in the face of superior competition.  I still give it a whirl every now and then.

 16.Duke Nukem 3D (PC) (up 11)
I bought this 3D Realms FPS on XBLA recently so have been enjoying it all over again!  Inventive, funny and action-packed, I've always preferred it (certainly in single player) to Quake.

15.Chaos (Spectrum) (up 8)
Another Spectrum game that just never seems to lose its patina.  Neverending variations of spells and an excellent multiplayer game.

The Joker was masterfully voice-acted by Mark Hamill

14.Batman: Arkham Ayslum (Xbox 360) (New Entry)
I completed Batman: AA about a month ago.  At last, fans of the Dark Knight, the coolest comic book hero ever, had a video game to really do him justice.  It took me some time to get used to all the various controls (like most modern games) but it's testament to the thought that has gone into Arkham Asylum that it soon becomes second nature.  A modern classic of gaming and storytelling.

13.Star Wars Battlefront (PC) (up 3)
Battlefront hangs on in there and even manages a slight rise.  It's still huge fun and the abundance of fan maps means you're likely to be entertained for a long time.  With the threat of more 360 games looming, however, it's position could begin to look shaky next year...

12.Tenchu: Stealth Assassins (Playstation) (down 4)
Tenchu is a hard game to like;  awkward controls, dodgy camera float, terrible dialogue.  Yet it still manages to create an eerie, deadly atmosphere that captures me every time I play it.
 
11.Jungle Strike (Megadrive) (up 7)
Less nostalgic than its predecessor, but superior in every other way.  Multiple vehicles, more varied missions, hugely different objectives and locations.  A shooter marvel.

Jdanddiet's Top 100 Games 2012 Part Six: 50-31

50.Warcraft (PC-DOS) (up 4)
Yes?  Yes?  My Lord?  The humans are approaching! Oh jeez, I love Warcraft.  It's so...corny, yet fun.  Whether directing little human soldiers to their doom or working orc peons to the bone cutting down trees and mining gold, it's a game I can't resist spending a few hours with every time I play it.  A recent interview with one of its creators has rekindled my love of Warcraft once more and seen the game gently rise up the chart.

Taking on Medusa in Myth: History in the Making

49.Myth: History in the Making (Spectrum) (up 37)
Bar a forthcoming new entry, Myth is the highest Speccy riser in this year's chart, pipping Cobra by 8.  I've recently completed not only the Spectrum but also the C64 version for another article and actually thoroughly enjoyed both, despite their differences.  I couldn't however, bring myself to put a Commodore 64 game on this list.  Sorry!


48.Flying Shark (Spectrum) (down 5)
OK, it's not as good as the arcade version, but Speccy Flying Shark is still a pretty damned good shooter.

Jim Bagley's colourful Midnight Resistance

47.Midnight Resistance (Spectrum) (down 18)
A brilliant late-era run and gunner for the Spectrum;  yet its lovely graphics and some thrilling gameplay can't stop it slipping 18 places. 

46.Tracksuit Manager (Spectrum) (down 8)
Time has not been kind to this classic football management game;  even the earlier iterations of Championship Manager blow it out of the water.  I'm surprised it hasn't dropped more than 8 places.  (What are you talking about?  You wrote the damn list! - ED)

45.Micro Machines (Megadrive) (no move)
Codies super little racer manages to cling on to 45th place.

Use the Force!

44.Star Wars (Arcade) (down 20)
I fear this game is destined to slip down the chart;  let's be honest, I'm not likely any time soon to replicate that wonderful feeling you got sitting in that cab in an arcade...

43.Fifa 95 (Megadrive) (down 2)
Still one of my favourite footie games thanks to its simplicity.

 42.Revenge of Shinobi (Megadrive) (up 6)
This year's Megadrive resurgence continues with the fantastic Revenge of Shinobi.  Tough as old nails, yet always fair, it's a top game, although I don't think I should be letting my son play it.  (No mate, you stab that guy with your sword.  Well done, that's my boy!)

41.Die Hard Trilogy (Playstation) (up 8)
I was never a huge investor of the Playstation and only a small selection of games ever saw action in the Jdanddiet household.  A lot of that was probably due to the fact I played an awful lot of this, which boasted not one, not two, but three great games for your money.  Ho-ho-ho indeed.
 

Tron Deadly Discs: Oh no! It's the Recognizer!

40.Tron:Deadly Discs (Intellivision) (down 15)
My favourite Intellivision game slips this year as I've not had time to play it for quite a while.
 
39.Rebelstar (Spectrum) (down 7)
This Julian Gollop classic strategy game really came into its own with the two player option which was guaranteed to invoke a fascinating cat and mouse chase through the deviously-designed Moonbase.
 
38.Deathchase (Spectrum) (down 1)
Down 1?!  The bestest, quickest, wonderfulest Speccy game ever?  Alright, I'm still a bit sore Mervyn wouldn't let me interview him - but if he ever changes his mind, watch this one shoot up!

37.Rebelstar 2 (Spectrum) (down 15)
Rebelstar's sequel expands on the original by introducing a time limit and some nasty aliens, as well as a more convoluted task to perform (steal alien eggs and escape, rather than just destroy the computer).  It can be a bit frustrating however, so this and new entries see it drop 15 places this year.

36.Resident Evil: Director's Cut (Playstation) (down 15)
...As does this Playstation survival horror.  Essentially my "killer-app" for the PS, I happened upon the Director's Cut edition back in 1997 so here it is.  Boy, a lot of PS games look really nasty on an LCD TV!

35.Strider (Megadrive) (up 7)
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaaaa! (Son, give me the controller, your Mum's home)
 
34.Chuckie Egg (Spectrum) (down 21)
Nigel Alderton's superbly playable platformer is one Spectrum game that never seems to age.  I think I've been a bit harsh knocking down 21 places, but hey-ho...


33.Bubble Bobble (Arcade) (down 18)
Now this is one game that I never thought I'd like as cutesy platformers really aren't my thing.  Ever since endlessly playing a five level Spectrum demo (I think it came with the first issue of ACE magazine) it's been a fave, although as good as the Spectrum version is, the Arcade machine is the best.
 

Negotiating killer rabbits in Braid

32.Braid (XBLA) (New Entry)
Huzzah!  A new entry!  The only XBLA game on this list (I still get hot flushes at the thought of downloading games), it was one of my first purchases upon getting a 360 and I still tinker with the levels today, despite having completed it almost a year ago.  A lovely, quaint game that is also maddeningly devious in places.

31.Cybernoid (Spectrum) (up 22)
A recent article on Cybernoid in Retro Gamer magazine rekindled my love of Raf Cecco's classic.  An arcade game on your Speccy?  Erm, no, but it was pretty damn close!

Jdanddiet's Top 100 Games 2012 Part Four: 70-61

Casual urban violence in the original GTA

70.Grand Theft Auto (PC) (down 6)
The original GTA will always hold a place in my heart thanks to its random, pointless violence and thumping soundtrack.  I've never got on with any of the 3D versions so don't expect to see them in this list.

69.The Curse of Monkey Island (PC) (down 17)
The third in the famous Monkey Island games slips a few places thanks to new entries and the fact I haven't played it for some time.

68.Resident Evil 2 (Playstation) (down 24)
Another big faller...PS games really look awful these days when played on big screens.  Stick 'em on a portable CRT though and they're still tops.

high-kicking action in Kung-Fu Master

67.Kung-Fu Master (Arcade) (down 31)
It's sheer playability ensures KFM doesn't slip too far down the chart.  A 10p classic.

66.Gauntlet IV (Megadrive) (down 19)
Seems like these ten games are all big fallers...Nevertheless, Gauntlet IV is a great-value game for the MD;  the original classic Gauntlet game plus an updated version with RPG knobs on.

65.Silent Hill (Playstation) (down 35)
...And to the biggest faller of all.  I revisited SH recently for an article that didn't materialise past the idea stage and it staggered me how horrible it looked and awkward the gameplay was.  Time has not been kind, although it still has bags of atmosphere.

64.Cobra (Spectrum) (up 29)
Hooray!  A riser!  When I came to the Ocean segment of my Spectrum 30th Anniversary Celebration, I wanted to include some lesser known games.  This reduced my options for the well-known classics, and after a brief play of a few of them, there was only one winner: Cobra.  Joffa Smiff's finest hour.

The brilliant XBLIG game Dead Pixels

63.Dead Pixels (XBLIG) (New Entry)
This XBLIG game has been on my hard drive for months now and it still gets an occasional blast, despite having been completed several times over.  A loving homage to Resident Evil, River City Ransom and Zombie movies, it's a simple, yet ferociously entertaining shooter.  80 msp?  Ridiculous bargain! You can check out my Making of Dead Pixels here: http://jdanddiet.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/making-ofdead-pixels.html

62.Robocop vs Terminator (Megadrive) (up 4)
I played this again recently for another article idea.  Still had great fun, so it rises a handful of places.

61.Dino Crisis (Playstation) (no move)
Dino Crisis holds on to its position despite the PS-era survival horrors above.  Maybe the lower echelons of this list are where these games deserve to be...for now.

Sony Playstation Special Part 2

The stealth genre seemed to divide gamers in the late nineties and I was a big fan of two games in particular. The first was, predictably, the playstation update of Metal Gear Solid, a smooth and classy version of the classic series that welded in some amazing graphics, concepts and gameplay elements (who can forget the controller trick?) to superb effect. I remember being so blown away when I first loaded it up, that I spent the first hour just using the binoculars to study the enemy base.

Tenchu: Stealth Assassins took the MGS sci-fi setting and moved it to feudal Japan, in the process much simpifying the gameplay. Playing either the male (Rikimaru) or female (Ayame) ninja, your ten missions involved either terminating various wrong-doers or helping Lord Gohda against his rival Lord Mei-oh. Tenchu and MGS were both games that rewarded the patient; going in all guns/swords blazing would not only likely result in death for your character but also a low amateur rating in the ninja game. I think in terms of technical achievement and level of involvement Metal Gear Solid is a superior game; however once completed MGS I never went back to it, but even after defeating Lord Mei-oh, I returned many times to Tenchu in order to try and achieve those perfect "Grand Master" ratings. I bought a game called Ninja on the strength of Tenchu and was disappointed to find it a pretty but basic beat 'em up after all that cunning and sneaking.

To be honest, these are the games that continued to dominate my Playstation gaming. I tried a wealth of others of course: Dino Crisis used the same engine as Resident Evil but dinosaurs didn't hold my attention as much as zombies; I completed a brace of Duke Nukem 3rd person shooters in Time to Kill and Land of the Babes and found them great fun, if a little insignifcant. Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver was another game I played a lot of without ever quite getting the hang of the two planes upon which the game jumped between.

My time with a playstation wasn't helped by the acquisition of a new PC. Fancy graphics cards were commonplace, and in a direct opposite to the situation now, PC games were clearly far superior to their console counterparts. Half-Life, Baldur's Gate and the Jedi Knight games were far more beautiful and involving than the PS could ever compete with.

So I missed out quite a bit on the Playstation. I never played any of it's renowned RPG's such as the Final Fantasy series, Grandia, Vandal Hearts, Wild Arms or the Breath of Fire games. Many other games I played on the PC instead - Grand Theft Auto, Carmageddon, Alien Trilogy, Tomb Raider, Hexen, Doom were generally better on a computer - and other genres such as 2D platformers (The Oddworld games, Rayman) and the fancy early 3D games (Pandemonium, Tekken, the Crash games) all passed me by.

Retrospectively the RPG's are the games I want to try and experience now - but these are generally still quite expensive - so I'm hoping the future lies, one day, in downloading these classics to - in my case - enjoy as if it was 1997 all over again.

Sony Playstation Special Part 1

As with most of my consoles, I came late to the Playstation party, finally getting one around winter 1997. By then there was already an impressive array of games available for the machine as developers squeezed more and more out of the little grey wonder.

My personal killer app for the machine was Resident Evil. I had heard and read much hyperbole about this game and despite the dissenting voice of a close friend who detested it with a passion, I basically bought a Playstation just to play Resident Evil.

In the end I purchased The Director's Cut from Electronics Boutique for £30 and remained addicted to it for weeks and weeks. The survival horror elements were intriguing, but the appeal to me lay in the freedom of movement and strategy involved in preserving ammunition as well as the tricky puzzles - ironically enough the parts of the game that my aforementioned friend always took issue with.

I played RE through until completion, and then with the other character, Jill Valentine. With regards to the other criticsms of the game, I didn't mind the creaking dialogue as this held a certain charm and the movement was so fresh that it didn't feel clunky at the time. The only thing that sometimes annoyed was the animated door sequences but even this added to the tension when entering a new room. Nevertheless, RE on the PS has aged badly, but it still looks good on an old CRT telly. One day I will play it again, although the Gamecube REmake trumped it for me, offering a bigger and more attractive world to roam around in.

I've never been keen on racing games, but I got into a corker on the Playstation: Codemasters' Toca Touring Car. After initially struggling with the game, I jettisoned my old controller and got one of the spangling new analogue versions; suddenly the game became so much easier, but trickier at the same time! Toca offered realistic damage to the car and a tough challenge, and the themselves handled very well. I never understood how it stood in the shadow of the overrated Gran Turismo.

The Playstation also re-introduced me to Light gun games. I'd never really enjoyed them up until then, and if I'm honest not much since, but a 3d party pistol and the game Die Hard Trilogy left me in shooting heaven for some time. The 2nd part of this game (based obviously around the 2nd film, Die Harder) started off in the airport terminal and moved to the various locations featured in the movie. It worked very well and as I love the Die Hard movies, was hugely enjoyable. I never got into the third game - you drive around the city trying to defuse bombs - but the third person game set around the Nakatomi building I played over and over again. It's simple fun rescuing hostages and shooting bad guys. What more could you want?

1998 was the year of stealth, but before we get to that, there's a couple more games I want to tell you about. First was an early entry on the now-painful Medal of Honor series, Medal of Honor Underground. Somehow (can't remember exactly how) I got over my natural distaste of FPS games on a console (no keyboard/mouse control, natch) and hugely enjoyed this war-themed adventure through occupied France. Of course, along came MOH: Allied Assault on the PC a few months later and that was the end of Underground for me, but I did complete it eventually. Also, a natural progression from the RE games was Silent Hill which had atmosphere you cut with a knife and some genuinely terrifying moments. I gave up halfway through though as the puzzles - much trickier than Capcom's - just taxed me a little bit too much.

JD's Videogame Hall of Shame Part 1: Star Wars Masters of Teras Kasi

I love Star Wars games. Ever since I sat in that amazing arcade cabinet feeding twenty-pence pieces into it's coin slot and pretending I was Luke Skywalker attacking the Deathstar and not some schoolkid from Essex, I have played practically every different interpetation of George Lucas' space adventure, and if not greatly enjoyed them, then at least wasted away a not inconsiderable amount of time on each incarnation.

Early efforts such as the soundless Spectrum arcade conversion and the Mega-CD FMV-fest Rebel Assault had their good points but were limited by the hardware of the era and an obsession with new technology respectively. Star Wars: Masters of Teras Kasi had no such excuse: the playstation was the current machine of choice, with graphics and sound a ZX Spectrum could only dream of and an incredible roster of games taking advantage of it's huge user base. Any Star Wars game was always going to be hugely anticipated and massively overhyped.

And let's be honest, who's appetite wasn't whetted by the opportunity to engage in one on one light sabre battles or take control of the coolest Star Wars character, bounty hunter Boba Fett?

That's my main initial issue with this game. Back in 1998, the idea was a sound one, combining the world famous IP of Star Wars with the Playstation's genre of choice, the one-one-one beat 'em up. Maybe upon reflection this wasn't such genius, after all the characters of Star Wars offer such variety, it was always going to be difficult to shoe-horn them into a simple fighter. But try they did, and many (including surely George Lucas himself) must have wished they hadn't bothered.

First impressions are ok: the iconic "A long time ago" and plot crawl are present and correct as is the slow pan down to an unknown planet and John Williams' brilliant music. The plot itself (if you can call it that) sees the Emperor in a bad mood following the Rebel Alliance's destruction of his apocalyptic Death Star. Desperate for swift yet subtle retribution, he hires the feared assassin Arden Lyn to take out the key members of the Rebel alliance using the forgotten art of combat called - yes, you guessed it - Teras Kasi. Which, um, everyone seems to be an expert in.

The rebels, on getting wind of this, decide to face the challenge head on, so giving rise to a series of bouts between differing members of each faction. In the arcade mode your task is to beat an increasingly trickier opponent from either the Empire (or other neutrally evil characters such as a Gamorrean guard and Boba Fett) or the Rebel Alliance. There are a few other options allowing you to play against a friend, practice your moves on a static opponent, team play or survival mode.

So where does SW:MOTK start to go wrong? Well, from the time the fights begin really. All the standard beat 'em up trappings are present such as energy bar and timer and the battles take place at various different Star Wars locations such as Hoth, Cloud City and Coruscant. At the bottom of the screen is a power bar, and depending on how many yellow lights you have illuminated on it (achieved by landing blows) various special abilities which change from character to character can be used. Now the big problem here is that these "special" abilities can now by definition only be used very occasionally so Luke generally doesn't use his Lightsabre, Han keeps his pistol firmly holstered and Boba Fett is reluctant to prime his thermal detonators. So if you were hoping for sweeping and majestic lightsabre duels between Luke and his old man, you're going to be sorely disappointed. The rest of the game is just frighteningly average-bordering-on-disastrous. Opponents are either ludicrously difficult to beat or unbelievably stupid with supposed uber-assassin Arden Lyn particularly adept at hurling herself to her doom and automatically awarding you a round. The combination moves required for the special weapons are complicated and not worth the effort, either resulting in a missed shot, or worse giving your opponent the opportunity to launch a decisive attack in your general direction.

The background is just windowdressing with an infrequent spaceship or droid wandering past the only evidence of any life and the moves - such a vital part of any fighting game - just dull, unimaginative and ill-keeping with the characters involved (Darth Vader doing a daft flying kick just doesn't look right). This coupled with the cumbersome response to button presses and your character's slow turning speed make the game extremely onerous to play. The graphics I begrudgingly admit were ok for the time yet whilst the game gives the impression in screenshots of being 3D it's still really only in two dimensions. The incongrous nature of the scenes some characters find themselves fighting in grates hugely as well, a good example being the screenshot above of Boba Fett and the Gamorrean guard slugging it on Hoth.

Maybe there is an iota of pleasure to be derived from this game should you by some miracle persuade a friend to play it with you; the team play option at least sounds interesting.

But then so did a Star Wars themed fighting game.