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!

Star Wars Videogames Special Part 2

The Phantom Menace was a rubbish title, and the film wasn't much better. Once this bandwagon got running, however, the Star Wars games came thick and fast and the Lucasarts assault on the gaming market hasn't really lessened much since. I went from a Star Wars IP starvation diet to the threat of death by gluttony. It was clear one had to be picky from now.

I still had an original Playstation but in addition to Dark Forces, the only other Star Wars game I played on it was Jedi Power Battles which was one of the many games released to tie in with the first prequel. It was quite a fun little caper, with some cool lightsabre moves, but a mere taster compared to the sumptuous meal of Jedi Knight which had gone before it.

However by 1998 the Playstation was starting to look increasingly dated and in any case I had a brand spanking new pentium PC which I soon modified with more RAM and a 3D graphics card that I won from PC Gamer magazine for writing a particularly witty letter. An early game I sampled was Tie Fighter, which by now had a budget all-inclusive re-release. It was pretty cool, and better than X-Wing from what I heard, but for one reason or another I never got round to playing any of the follow up space battle games.

So next up was the brilliant Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast. Still playing as Katarn, Lucasarts took notice of the lightsabre criticsm of the first game and hugely ramped up the sabre battles with all sorts of smart moves. Force powers were much improved as well making Outcast a pure delight from start to finish. If you don't like this game, you don't really like Star Wars.

Skipping over the Age of Empires-inspired Galactic Battlegrounds which never appealed to me thanks to its tinsy-winsy looking AT-AT's and the flawed Force Commander, I kept on the PC FPS trail with Jedi Academy. This game got mediocre scores in the PC gaming press (70% from PC Gamer if I recall correctly, a far cry from the glowing reviews for Outcast), but I still hugely enjoyed it and found it quite refreshing to be playing a new character rather than miserable old Katarn again. If you like Jedi Knight, you'll get something out of it for sure.

Also on my PC I played the multiplayer games Battlefront and Battlefront 2. These gave you the opportunity to go online (or on your own if you prefer, with and against bots) and slug it out within some of the most famous locations in the Star Wars universe. Like Academy, it also got luke-warm reviews, but it appealed so much to me that I bought them anyway. What's not to like about jumping into snowspeeder and plunging headlong towards advancing AT-AT's on the snowbound planet of Hoth? OK, it was a tad limited, and despite the prescence of "historical" and "galactic conquest" modes, there's no storyline to speak of, but with a huge variety in weapons, soldiers and vehicles, Battlefront is great. I downloaded loads of maps as well from the internet, giving it even further hours of play. Battlefront 2 expanded on the original with Jedi Heroes (and Sith Villains) plus a few more locations, chiefly lifted from the final film, Revenge of the Sith. It was more of the same, but if ain't broke...

So what came next? Well not a lot actually. I briefly dallied with Bounty Hunter when I finally acquired a Gamecube a couple of years ago, and its enjoyable enough, if a little flawed. The Rogue Squadron games appear wonderful to start off with, but achingly poor level design and those dreadful on-foot levels ruined them for me, especially as the Battlefront games had already done it bigger and better (in my personal timeline).
Knights of the Old Republic I tried, really tried, to get into, but just couldn't, finding the game too slow and clunky after the pure shooting simplicity of Battlefront. I bought its sequel, Sith Lords edition, recently for the XBOX so will give it another go I guess. Over on the PS2, the Lego Star Wars games are good fun, and I played a fair way through the Original Trilogy version, but found the stud-collecting a bit of a chore. Also for the PS2 I have Force Unleashed to play which received mixed reviews so I will approach that with no little trepadation. I think I've got an Episode III game somewhere as well as Republic Commando for the XBOX which I really should play as admittedly it does look good. With no home PC to command, the well-liked Empire at War RTS game is unlikely to get a play any time soon.

So retro-speaking, what have I missed out on? There were games such as Jedi Arena and Empire Strikes Back as long ago as the early 80's on the Atari 2600. They hold little appeal these days however, and neither do the various Spectrum incarnations. The Nintendo "Super" Star Wars games are essentially super-tough platformers - again this does not appeal and I presume Rogue Squadron on the N64 is merely a cruder version of the Gamecube iterations.

I hope I'm wrong - but I fear the golden period for myself and Star Wars games - the late 90's / early noughties has passed.

NB: I've recently tried Force Unleashed. Not particularly impressed so far!

Star Wars Videogames Special Part 1

Star Wars.
Everyone loves it, right? At least most of us did, until 1999 and the release of the Phantom Menace, but that's another story...

Of course, movie licenses have always been a big part of computer game culture, and Star Wars was arguably the primest target for any computer game. My first experience of playing a Star Wars game was, like many, the superb wireframe arcade machine from Atari - the sit-down version of course. I've blogged before about this classic (click here), but suffice to say when you're charging down the Deathstar Trench with Obi Wan Kenobi echoing in your ears, palms sweating in tension as that fiendishly small exhaust approaches and the famous music ringing out, you are Luke Skywalker, saving the known universe from the evil Empire.
Fast forward to 1985, and having recently acquired a shining brand new Spectrum 48k+, the first two games I spend hours and hours on are 16k games: Ultimate's Jet Pac and Micromega's 3D Deathchase, with the latter being a Star Wars game in all but name. Deathchase sees the player on a motorbike (speeder bike) charging through a dense forest (Endor), hunting down enemy bikers (scout troopers on speeder bikes) and tanks (scout walkers). Anyone who had seen Return of the Jedi and didn't pretend they were Luke Skywalker astride a speeder bike on the forest moon clearly had something wrong with them.

Then it all went a bit quiet on the Star Wars front. Domark's 1987 adaptation of the Atari arcade machine was too little too late (certainly on the Spectrum) and the isometric Return of the Jedi never appealed to me. So, having missed out in the early 80's thanks to having an Intellivision and no money to buy the expensive cartridges, it appeared, despite the enduring appeal of the brand, that I was destined not to take part in the adventures of Luke, Han, Leia et al.

Then, in late 1994 I acquired my second console, a Sega Megadrive. Shortly afterwards I foolishly laid out 200 quid for a mega cd unit (click here) and one of the first few games I bought for it was Rebel Assault.
Now this was more like it! The iconic music was present, and the fledgling CD format meant the proper orchestral music by John Williams, not that tinny metallic beeping from the arcade machine. The first level has you guiding a T-16 down a narrow trench on Tatooine and was frustrating but still enjoyable. After that, Rebel Assault becomes a strict on-rails shooter, but what the hell, it was Star Wars, it had decent graphics and you felt like you were taking on the Empire!

This was it for the 16-bit Star Wars era for me, however, and we pick up the story in 1996 with my first PC, and a year later, the Sony Playstation.
When Doom came out, there were a rush of First Person Clones, as you might expect with it being such a monster hit. Lucasarts didn't miss out and released Dark Forces for the PC and Playstation, but if I'm being totally honest with you, this game never grabbed me. By the time I got round to playing it, not only were the graphics outdated, but compared to games such as Quake and Duke Nukem 3D, the gameplay was positively archaic (no jumping!). A year or so later, I remember wandering into Electronic Boutique in Lakeside and seeing Masters of Teras Kasi on a demo Playstation unit. It looked and sounded great but I had reservations, so didn't buy it, a wise decision it turns out. A far better choice was Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight.
Jedi Knight was so different from Dark Forces, I still don't understand why they bothered to link the two games with the Dark Forces II prefix. Playing nebulous rebel footsoldier Kyle Katarn, Jedi Knight began within the towering spires of Coruscant and simply oozed atmosphere and authenticity. The advent of the CD-rom era had done Star Wars games a huge favour: here were the real sound effects, the real music and an authentic, immersive, experience. With a vastly improved engine, Jedi Knight allowed Katarn to leap around with gay abandon so giving rise to a number of tricky jumping puzzles. One abiding memory is the level when you're stuck in a ship that's crashing, a mind-muddling mad dash to the emergency escape pods. The game had its weakpoints: fashionable yet dreadful cutscenes did it no favours, the lightsaber battles were naff and the game didn't really change should you decide to "all medevil". It was (and still is) a great experience however, and one of the first few PC games that I played through several times.

But away from videogames for a moment, something was happening elsewhere that was about to really change the scale and frequency of Star Wars games. There was a new Star Wars movie coming out.

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.