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Once in a while, a game will come along, be regarded as pure genius by all the magazines, get released, and then...nothing. You know what I’m on about – all those games out there that are true classics, but suffered from miserable sales, due to little/no hype, advertising or consumer anticipation.
The world of videogames is a cruel one...a make-or-break situation in which, if the developers don’t cut the mustard, they can consider themselves out of a job. Similarly, if a game doesn’t sell, it’s banished to gaming hell and forgotten by the public, effectively turning years of hard work into a complete waste. Of course, this isn’t fair, but hey, that’s life. Even so, below are just a handful of these victims, which I’m making known to the world.
1) Giants: Citizen Kabuto
Released on the PC a few years back now, this game was way ahead of its time in every respect. Featuring three totally different playable characters, each having their own storyline, the game was a technical masterpiece, featuring weird and wonderful alien worlds, teeming with life...and unknown dangers.
The three characters included a marine (with a suspect Australian accent) and a strange, yet beautiful female humanoid with loads of magical tricks of her sleeve. However, the character that made this game really special for me was the Giant. The feeling of stomping around, staring down at the puny beings below, roaring at the top of your voice, making them run away was a unique one. What’s better, as the game progressed and you ate more, you actually grew to the point where you’d laugh life a mad man every time you toyed with an enemy bi-ped below, finally finishing him off by throwing him in your cavernous mouth.
The game oozed quality throughout...the weapons...the characters...the environments...the gameplay. It all felt so ‘right’, which made you want to explore the rolling landscapes, rather than have to.
All this was welded together with, what must’ve been, some of the greatest in-game humour ever. The voice acting was sublime, as were the scripts. The characters had so much...character.
This was a game that obviously had so much love, care and attention put into every minor detail. So much, in fact, that it would seem they barely had time to think of a decent name for it.
2) Blast Corps.
OK, let’s be honest here – we’ve all heard of this one right? Now keep your hand raised if you actually BOUGHT the game. Rare’s first attempt on the N64 was certainly the second truly original game on the platform (you need not be told what was first), but this didn’t manage to help its shelf status. While the thousands of happy N64 owners rushed home with their new beloved console in order to savour the delights of a 3D plumber, the poor ol’ Blast Corps team were left for dust, eliminating any chance of a 128-bit sequel for us fans.
Now I may not be much of a retro gamer, but who can name me another game which allowed you to tear apart a skyscraper by jumping on it with a giant robot? The idea is so simple – destroy everything in a nuclear waste-carrier’s path and guide it to safety, yet this was such blummin’ great fun.
Still, however much fun it was, if the gameplay remained the same throughout, even I would’ve got bored of it. So, Rare being Rare, they added that little something to it, that made it extra-special. Be it the hair-raising anxiety as certain-destruction approached, or maybe all those mini games stuck in to make the game last that little longer...or possibly it was the puzzles that gave me sleepless nights as I tried to work out what to do next.
Original games are very hard to come by these days, so if you’re getting fed up of the constantly generic drivel, grab yourself a copy of this and buy a hardhat with the change...for the full experience.
3) Jak & Daxter
Released last Christmas on the PS2, a time when all the big guns let out their most eagerly-anticipated games, Jak & Daxter somehow managed to get pushed out of the limelight. Having received very little hype at all, what with the likes of GTA3 just having been recently released, the game simply didn’t sell as well as it should of done, which is a great shame.
The team behind Crash Bandicoot had really gone back to the drawing board with this one and put some real effort in, unlike with the CB sequels. The graphics engine was superb, making it the most visually-impressive platformer of all time (I still think it looks nicer than Mario Sunshine). Environments flourished, having been constructed using a stupidly-large number of polygons, whilst the characters all had fluid, believable animation. All this, and minimal jaggy-ness and a super-smooth framerate left me thoroughly impressed.
Of course, I’m not that shallow – this wasn’t all the game had to offer. Although controlling two characters as one wasn’t exactly a new idea (look no further than Banjo Kazooie), it worked brilliantly with the games rich surroundings. What’s more, a problem which plagues just about all platformers – the camera system – actually didn’t apply to this game. Using the Dual Shock’s twin analogue sticks, the player could control the character with the left stick, and the camera with the other. Although this may sound a handful when you consider the action buttons and shoulder pads as well, it all worked without a hitch.
Although Jak & Daxter wasn’t all that inventive, it didn’t need to be. It nabbed the best bits from many previous successful platformers, made it all work seamlessly and threw in a bit of quirky voice acting to keep the kids happy. Lovely jubbly!
4) Body Harvest
To my knowledge, no game illustrates my point more than this one – Body Harvest on the N64. Having been in development for years, Body Harvest was sneakily slipped out onto the shelves when no-one was expecting it, as though the creators were ashamed of their baby. If this is true, they are the biggest idiots ever to roam the Earth. Body Harvest was utter brilliance.
Even though the Saturn wouldn’t have been hard-pushed to display the visuals this game featured, and the animation was more than a little ‘stiff’, developers DMA ventured into unknown territory with a game that was not only so ‘unN64’, but also darn ambitious.
The basic premise was this – as a guy in orange armour and caressing a big gun, it was up to you to travel through various time periods to eliminate a whole load of nasty aliens. Ambitious indeed hey? Well why all the fuss about it?! Well, to be honest, I’m not quite sure.
Perhaps it was the unrivalled freedom. Pick any vehicle you like and just keep on driving until the fuel tank runs dry. I assure you, you will not drive past the same rock twice. Or maybe it was all those frantic moments of sheer terror at the sight of dozens of bugs, varying in size from you to a house, all charging towards you at once. Then again, it could have been that dreadfully-dreary music that constantly reminded you of how much of a pig’s ear you were in.
No, as with the rest of the games mentioned in this post, it was everything put together – the whole package. Take one element away and it just wouldn’t feel the same.
Body Harvest is a vast game that takes at least a gerbil’s lifetime to complete. Be warned – pick it up, and you won’t put it down.
5. No-One Lives Forever.
If someone asked you to list all the great PC first-person shooters ever made, you’d be there till Christmas. But the real point I’m trying to make is how many of you would mention this one? No? Why not? Never played it? Indeed.
NOLF dared to do what no decent FPS had done before it – make the lead character a woman. Still, that’s not why this game deserves to be in my list. This is – No-One Lives Forever is the funniest game ever created. Period.
Take things cautiously and you’ll often come across a pair of guards having a bit of a banter or a joke amongst themselves...the guy trying to sell the monkey is a classic moment in gaming history.
Still, NOLF wasn’t always a laughing matter, when things got serious, things got hard...very hard. Combat was fast, intelligent, and frantic and convincing death animations really gave the player some satisfaction from finishing them off.
Half-Life may have given you nightmares in bed, but I bet it didn’t leave you randomly chuckling to yourself on the bus to school. ‘I am sane...honest.’
So, there you have it – a handful of true classics that deserved more than they got. Naturally, there’s bound to be about a billion-and-one retro games I haven’t mentioned, due to my embarrassingly-poor memory, but you lot get the idea. Next time you pick up a game you’ve never heard of before, think twice before you put it back.
You have been reading...
Uncle Albert
The world of videogames is a cruel one...a make-or-break situation in which, if the developers don’t cut the mustard, they can consider themselves out of a job. Similarly, if a game doesn’t sell, it’s banished to gaming hell and forgotten by the public, effectively turning years of hard work into a complete waste. Of course, this isn’t fair, but hey, that’s life. Even so, below are just a handful of these victims, which I’m making known to the world.
1) Giants: Citizen Kabuto
Released on the PC a few years back now, this game was way ahead of its time in every respect. Featuring three totally different playable characters, each having their own storyline, the game was a technical masterpiece, featuring weird and wonderful alien worlds, teeming with life...and unknown dangers.
The three characters included a marine (with a suspect Australian accent) and a strange, yet beautiful female humanoid with loads of magical tricks of her sleeve. However, the character that made this game really special for me was the Giant. The feeling of stomping around, staring down at the puny beings below, roaring at the top of your voice, making them run away was a unique one. What’s better, as the game progressed and you ate more, you actually grew to the point where you’d laugh life a mad man every time you toyed with an enemy bi-ped below, finally finishing him off by throwing him in your cavernous mouth.
The game oozed quality throughout...the weapons...the characters...the environments...the gameplay. It all felt so ‘right’, which made you want to explore the rolling landscapes, rather than have to.
All this was welded together with, what must’ve been, some of the greatest in-game humour ever. The voice acting was sublime, as were the scripts. The characters had so much...character.
This was a game that obviously had so much love, care and attention put into every minor detail. So much, in fact, that it would seem they barely had time to think of a decent name for it.
2) Blast Corps.
OK, let’s be honest here – we’ve all heard of this one right? Now keep your hand raised if you actually BOUGHT the game. Rare’s first attempt on the N64 was certainly the second truly original game on the platform (you need not be told what was first), but this didn’t manage to help its shelf status. While the thousands of happy N64 owners rushed home with their new beloved console in order to savour the delights of a 3D plumber, the poor ol’ Blast Corps team were left for dust, eliminating any chance of a 128-bit sequel for us fans.
Now I may not be much of a retro gamer, but who can name me another game which allowed you to tear apart a skyscraper by jumping on it with a giant robot? The idea is so simple – destroy everything in a nuclear waste-carrier’s path and guide it to safety, yet this was such blummin’ great fun.
Still, however much fun it was, if the gameplay remained the same throughout, even I would’ve got bored of it. So, Rare being Rare, they added that little something to it, that made it extra-special. Be it the hair-raising anxiety as certain-destruction approached, or maybe all those mini games stuck in to make the game last that little longer...or possibly it was the puzzles that gave me sleepless nights as I tried to work out what to do next.
Original games are very hard to come by these days, so if you’re getting fed up of the constantly generic drivel, grab yourself a copy of this and buy a hardhat with the change...for the full experience.
3) Jak & Daxter
Released last Christmas on the PS2, a time when all the big guns let out their most eagerly-anticipated games, Jak & Daxter somehow managed to get pushed out of the limelight. Having received very little hype at all, what with the likes of GTA3 just having been recently released, the game simply didn’t sell as well as it should of done, which is a great shame.
The team behind Crash Bandicoot had really gone back to the drawing board with this one and put some real effort in, unlike with the CB sequels. The graphics engine was superb, making it the most visually-impressive platformer of all time (I still think it looks nicer than Mario Sunshine). Environments flourished, having been constructed using a stupidly-large number of polygons, whilst the characters all had fluid, believable animation. All this, and minimal jaggy-ness and a super-smooth framerate left me thoroughly impressed.
Of course, I’m not that shallow – this wasn’t all the game had to offer. Although controlling two characters as one wasn’t exactly a new idea (look no further than Banjo Kazooie), it worked brilliantly with the games rich surroundings. What’s more, a problem which plagues just about all platformers – the camera system – actually didn’t apply to this game. Using the Dual Shock’s twin analogue sticks, the player could control the character with the left stick, and the camera with the other. Although this may sound a handful when you consider the action buttons and shoulder pads as well, it all worked without a hitch.
Although Jak & Daxter wasn’t all that inventive, it didn’t need to be. It nabbed the best bits from many previous successful platformers, made it all work seamlessly and threw in a bit of quirky voice acting to keep the kids happy. Lovely jubbly!
4) Body Harvest
To my knowledge, no game illustrates my point more than this one – Body Harvest on the N64. Having been in development for years, Body Harvest was sneakily slipped out onto the shelves when no-one was expecting it, as though the creators were ashamed of their baby. If this is true, they are the biggest idiots ever to roam the Earth. Body Harvest was utter brilliance.
Even though the Saturn wouldn’t have been hard-pushed to display the visuals this game featured, and the animation was more than a little ‘stiff’, developers DMA ventured into unknown territory with a game that was not only so ‘unN64’, but also darn ambitious.
The basic premise was this – as a guy in orange armour and caressing a big gun, it was up to you to travel through various time periods to eliminate a whole load of nasty aliens. Ambitious indeed hey? Well why all the fuss about it?! Well, to be honest, I’m not quite sure.
Perhaps it was the unrivalled freedom. Pick any vehicle you like and just keep on driving until the fuel tank runs dry. I assure you, you will not drive past the same rock twice. Or maybe it was all those frantic moments of sheer terror at the sight of dozens of bugs, varying in size from you to a house, all charging towards you at once. Then again, it could have been that dreadfully-dreary music that constantly reminded you of how much of a pig’s ear you were in.
No, as with the rest of the games mentioned in this post, it was everything put together – the whole package. Take one element away and it just wouldn’t feel the same.
Body Harvest is a vast game that takes at least a gerbil’s lifetime to complete. Be warned – pick it up, and you won’t put it down.
5. No-One Lives Forever.
If someone asked you to list all the great PC first-person shooters ever made, you’d be there till Christmas. But the real point I’m trying to make is how many of you would mention this one? No? Why not? Never played it? Indeed.
NOLF dared to do what no decent FPS had done before it – make the lead character a woman. Still, that’s not why this game deserves to be in my list. This is – No-One Lives Forever is the funniest game ever created. Period.
Take things cautiously and you’ll often come across a pair of guards having a bit of a banter or a joke amongst themselves...the guy trying to sell the monkey is a classic moment in gaming history.
Still, NOLF wasn’t always a laughing matter, when things got serious, things got hard...very hard. Combat was fast, intelligent, and frantic and convincing death animations really gave the player some satisfaction from finishing them off.
Half-Life may have given you nightmares in bed, but I bet it didn’t leave you randomly chuckling to yourself on the bus to school. ‘I am sane...honest.’
So, there you have it – a handful of true classics that deserved more than they got. Naturally, there’s bound to be about a billion-and-one retro games I haven’t mentioned, due to my embarrassingly-poor memory, but you lot get the idea. Next time you pick up a game you’ve never heard of before, think twice before you put it back.
You have been reading...
Uncle Albert
Nice post Albert!
Out of those games, I've only played two; Blast Corps and Body Harvest. Body Harvest was good, but Blast Corps was excellent! I loved it, such a breath of fresh air and I still play it sometimes today! True classic.
Another forgotten game is Actraiser. But the irony is that it's my favourite game, EVER! It crossed two genre's so well. Partly it was a platformer with some pretty good special moves and gigantic bosses, the other half it was a god-sim; looking after people, growing crops and making villages. There was something so satisfying and addictive about the game.
Another game I see us looking back on like this is, sadly to say, Doshin the Giant. It's most deffinately one of the most original games out for the GameCube. But whenever I say to someone that I've got it they give me a blank look. Somehow I don't Doshin will become a household name except in the world of Ninty's, it's a shame really.
Anyway, good luck with GAD Albert, although you don't need it :-)
Out of those games, I've only played two; Blast Corps and Body Harvest. Body Harvest was good, but Blast Corps was excellent! I loved it, such a breath of fresh air and I still play it sometimes today! True classic.
Another forgotten game is Actraiser. But the irony is that it's my favourite game, EVER! It crossed two genre's so well. Partly it was a platformer with some pretty good special moves and gigantic bosses, the other half it was a god-sim; looking after people, growing crops and making villages. There was something so satisfying and addictive about the game.
Another game I see us looking back on like this is, sadly to say, Doshin the Giant. It's most deffinately one of the most original games out for the GameCube. But whenever I say to someone that I've got it they give me a blank look. Somehow I don't Doshin will become a household name except in the world of Ninty's, it's a shame really.
Anyway, good luck with GAD Albert, although you don't need it :-)
Once in a while, a game will come along, be regarded as pure genius by all the magazines, get released, and then...nothing. You know what I’m on about – all those games out there that are true classics, but suffered from miserable sales, due to little/no hype, advertising or consumer anticipation.
The world of videogames is a cruel one...a make-or-break situation in which, if the developers don’t cut the mustard, they can consider themselves out of a job. Similarly, if a game doesn’t sell, it’s banished to gaming hell and forgotten by the public, effectively turning years of hard work into a complete waste. Of course, this isn’t fair, but hey, that’s life. Even so, below are just a handful of these victims, which I’m making known to the world.
1) Giants: Citizen Kabuto
Released on the PC a few years back now, this game was way ahead of its time in every respect. Featuring three totally different playable characters, each having their own storyline, the game was a technical masterpiece, featuring weird and wonderful alien worlds, teeming with life...and unknown dangers.
The three characters included a marine (with a suspect Australian accent) and a strange, yet beautiful female humanoid with loads of magical tricks of her sleeve. However, the character that made this game really special for me was the Giant. The feeling of stomping around, staring down at the puny beings below, roaring at the top of your voice, making them run away was a unique one. What’s better, as the game progressed and you ate more, you actually grew to the point where you’d laugh life a mad man every time you toyed with an enemy bi-ped below, finally finishing him off by throwing him in your cavernous mouth.
The game oozed quality throughout...the weapons...the characters...the environments...the gameplay. It all felt so ‘right’, which made you want to explore the rolling landscapes, rather than have to.
All this was welded together with, what must’ve been, some of the greatest in-game humour ever. The voice acting was sublime, as were the scripts. The characters had so much...character.
This was a game that obviously had so much love, care and attention put into every minor detail. So much, in fact, that it would seem they barely had time to think of a decent name for it.
2) Blast Corps.
OK, let’s be honest here – we’ve all heard of this one right? Now keep your hand raised if you actually BOUGHT the game. Rare’s first attempt on the N64 was certainly the second truly original game on the platform (you need not be told what was first), but this didn’t manage to help its shelf status. While the thousands of happy N64 owners rushed home with their new beloved console in order to savour the delights of a 3D plumber, the poor ol’ Blast Corps team were left for dust, eliminating any chance of a 128-bit sequel for us fans.
Now I may not be much of a retro gamer, but who can name me another game which allowed you to tear apart a skyscraper by jumping on it with a giant robot? The idea is so simple – destroy everything in a nuclear waste-carrier’s path and guide it to safety, yet this was such blummin’ great fun.
Still, however much fun it was, if the gameplay remained the same throughout, even I would’ve got bored of it. So, Rare being Rare, they added that little something to it, that made it extra-special. Be it the hair-raising anxiety as certain-destruction approached, or maybe all those mini games stuck in to make the game last that little longer...or possibly it was the puzzles that gave me sleepless nights as I tried to work out what to do next.
Original games are very hard to come by these days, so if you’re getting fed up of the constantly generic drivel, grab yourself a copy of this and buy a hardhat with the change...for the full experience.
3) Jak & Daxter
Released last Christmas on the PS2, a time when all the big guns let out their most eagerly-anticipated games, Jak & Daxter somehow managed to get pushed out of the limelight. Having received very little hype at all, what with the likes of GTA3 just having been recently released, the game simply didn’t sell as well as it should of done, which is a great shame.
The team behind Crash Bandicoot had really gone back to the drawing board with this one and put some real effort in, unlike with the CB sequels. The graphics engine was superb, making it the most visually-impressive platformer of all time (I still think it looks nicer than Mario Sunshine). Environments flourished, having been constructed using a stupidly-large number of polygons, whilst the characters all had fluid, believable animation. All this, and minimal jaggy-ness and a super-smooth framerate left me thoroughly impressed.
Of course, I’m not that shallow – this wasn’t all the game had to offer. Although controlling two characters as one wasn’t exactly a new idea (look no further than Banjo Kazooie), it worked brilliantly with the games rich surroundings. What’s more, a problem which plagues just about all platformers – the camera system – actually didn’t apply to this game. Using the Dual Shock’s twin analogue sticks, the player could control the character with the left stick, and the camera with the other. Although this may sound a handful when you consider the action buttons and shoulder pads as well, it all worked without a hitch.
Although Jak & Daxter wasn’t all that inventive, it didn’t need to be. It nabbed the best bits from many previous successful platformers, made it all work seamlessly and threw in a bit of quirky voice acting to keep the kids happy. Lovely jubbly!
4) Body Harvest
To my knowledge, no game illustrates my point more than this one – Body Harvest on the N64. Having been in development for years, Body Harvest was sneakily slipped out onto the shelves when no-one was expecting it, as though the creators were ashamed of their baby. If this is true, they are the biggest idiots ever to roam the Earth. Body Harvest was utter brilliance.
Even though the Saturn wouldn’t have been hard-pushed to display the visuals this game featured, and the animation was more than a little ‘stiff’, developers DMA ventured into unknown territory with a game that was not only so ‘unN64’, but also darn ambitious.
The basic premise was this – as a guy in orange armour and caressing a big gun, it was up to you to travel through various time periods to eliminate a whole load of nasty aliens. Ambitious indeed hey? Well why all the fuss about it?! Well, to be honest, I’m not quite sure.
Perhaps it was the unrivalled freedom. Pick any vehicle you like and just keep on driving until the fuel tank runs dry. I assure you, you will not drive past the same rock twice. Or maybe it was all those frantic moments of sheer terror at the sight of dozens of bugs, varying in size from you to a house, all charging towards you at once. Then again, it could have been that dreadfully-dreary music that constantly reminded you of how much of a pig’s ear you were in.
No, as with the rest of the games mentioned in this post, it was everything put together – the whole package. Take one element away and it just wouldn’t feel the same.
Body Harvest is a vast game that takes at least a gerbil’s lifetime to complete. Be warned – pick it up, and you won’t put it down.
5. No-One Lives Forever.
If someone asked you to list all the great PC first-person shooters ever made, you’d be there till Christmas. But the real point I’m trying to make is how many of you would mention this one? No? Why not? Never played it? Indeed.
NOLF dared to do what no decent FPS had done before it – make the lead character a woman. Still, that’s not why this game deserves to be in my list. This is – No-One Lives Forever is the funniest game ever created. Period.
Take things cautiously and you’ll often come across a pair of guards having a bit of a banter or a joke amongst themselves...the guy trying to sell the monkey is a classic moment in gaming history.
Still, NOLF wasn’t always a laughing matter, when things got serious, things got hard...very hard. Combat was fast, intelligent, and frantic and convincing death animations really gave the player some satisfaction from finishing them off.
Half-Life may have given you nightmares in bed, but I bet it didn’t leave you randomly chuckling to yourself on the bus to school. ‘I am sane...honest.’
So, there you have it – a handful of true classics that deserved more than they got. Naturally, there’s bound to be about a billion-and-one retro games I haven’t mentioned, due to my embarrassingly-poor memory, but you lot get the idea. Next time you pick up a game you’ve never heard of before, think twice before you put it back.
You have been reading...
Uncle Albert
The world of videogames is a cruel one...a make-or-break situation in which, if the developers don’t cut the mustard, they can consider themselves out of a job. Similarly, if a game doesn’t sell, it’s banished to gaming hell and forgotten by the public, effectively turning years of hard work into a complete waste. Of course, this isn’t fair, but hey, that’s life. Even so, below are just a handful of these victims, which I’m making known to the world.
1) Giants: Citizen Kabuto
Released on the PC a few years back now, this game was way ahead of its time in every respect. Featuring three totally different playable characters, each having their own storyline, the game was a technical masterpiece, featuring weird and wonderful alien worlds, teeming with life...and unknown dangers.
The three characters included a marine (with a suspect Australian accent) and a strange, yet beautiful female humanoid with loads of magical tricks of her sleeve. However, the character that made this game really special for me was the Giant. The feeling of stomping around, staring down at the puny beings below, roaring at the top of your voice, making them run away was a unique one. What’s better, as the game progressed and you ate more, you actually grew to the point where you’d laugh life a mad man every time you toyed with an enemy bi-ped below, finally finishing him off by throwing him in your cavernous mouth.
The game oozed quality throughout...the weapons...the characters...the environments...the gameplay. It all felt so ‘right’, which made you want to explore the rolling landscapes, rather than have to.
All this was welded together with, what must’ve been, some of the greatest in-game humour ever. The voice acting was sublime, as were the scripts. The characters had so much...character.
This was a game that obviously had so much love, care and attention put into every minor detail. So much, in fact, that it would seem they barely had time to think of a decent name for it.
2) Blast Corps.
OK, let’s be honest here – we’ve all heard of this one right? Now keep your hand raised if you actually BOUGHT the game. Rare’s first attempt on the N64 was certainly the second truly original game on the platform (you need not be told what was first), but this didn’t manage to help its shelf status. While the thousands of happy N64 owners rushed home with their new beloved console in order to savour the delights of a 3D plumber, the poor ol’ Blast Corps team were left for dust, eliminating any chance of a 128-bit sequel for us fans.
Now I may not be much of a retro gamer, but who can name me another game which allowed you to tear apart a skyscraper by jumping on it with a giant robot? The idea is so simple – destroy everything in a nuclear waste-carrier’s path and guide it to safety, yet this was such blummin’ great fun.
Still, however much fun it was, if the gameplay remained the same throughout, even I would’ve got bored of it. So, Rare being Rare, they added that little something to it, that made it extra-special. Be it the hair-raising anxiety as certain-destruction approached, or maybe all those mini games stuck in to make the game last that little longer...or possibly it was the puzzles that gave me sleepless nights as I tried to work out what to do next.
Original games are very hard to come by these days, so if you’re getting fed up of the constantly generic drivel, grab yourself a copy of this and buy a hardhat with the change...for the full experience.
3) Jak & Daxter
Released last Christmas on the PS2, a time when all the big guns let out their most eagerly-anticipated games, Jak & Daxter somehow managed to get pushed out of the limelight. Having received very little hype at all, what with the likes of GTA3 just having been recently released, the game simply didn’t sell as well as it should of done, which is a great shame.
The team behind Crash Bandicoot had really gone back to the drawing board with this one and put some real effort in, unlike with the CB sequels. The graphics engine was superb, making it the most visually-impressive platformer of all time (I still think it looks nicer than Mario Sunshine). Environments flourished, having been constructed using a stupidly-large number of polygons, whilst the characters all had fluid, believable animation. All this, and minimal jaggy-ness and a super-smooth framerate left me thoroughly impressed.
Of course, I’m not that shallow – this wasn’t all the game had to offer. Although controlling two characters as one wasn’t exactly a new idea (look no further than Banjo Kazooie), it worked brilliantly with the games rich surroundings. What’s more, a problem which plagues just about all platformers – the camera system – actually didn’t apply to this game. Using the Dual Shock’s twin analogue sticks, the player could control the character with the left stick, and the camera with the other. Although this may sound a handful when you consider the action buttons and shoulder pads as well, it all worked without a hitch.
Although Jak & Daxter wasn’t all that inventive, it didn’t need to be. It nabbed the best bits from many previous successful platformers, made it all work seamlessly and threw in a bit of quirky voice acting to keep the kids happy. Lovely jubbly!
4) Body Harvest
To my knowledge, no game illustrates my point more than this one – Body Harvest on the N64. Having been in development for years, Body Harvest was sneakily slipped out onto the shelves when no-one was expecting it, as though the creators were ashamed of their baby. If this is true, they are the biggest idiots ever to roam the Earth. Body Harvest was utter brilliance.
Even though the Saturn wouldn’t have been hard-pushed to display the visuals this game featured, and the animation was more than a little ‘stiff’, developers DMA ventured into unknown territory with a game that was not only so ‘unN64’, but also darn ambitious.
The basic premise was this – as a guy in orange armour and caressing a big gun, it was up to you to travel through various time periods to eliminate a whole load of nasty aliens. Ambitious indeed hey? Well why all the fuss about it?! Well, to be honest, I’m not quite sure.
Perhaps it was the unrivalled freedom. Pick any vehicle you like and just keep on driving until the fuel tank runs dry. I assure you, you will not drive past the same rock twice. Or maybe it was all those frantic moments of sheer terror at the sight of dozens of bugs, varying in size from you to a house, all charging towards you at once. Then again, it could have been that dreadfully-dreary music that constantly reminded you of how much of a pig’s ear you were in.
No, as with the rest of the games mentioned in this post, it was everything put together – the whole package. Take one element away and it just wouldn’t feel the same.
Body Harvest is a vast game that takes at least a gerbil’s lifetime to complete. Be warned – pick it up, and you won’t put it down.
5. No-One Lives Forever.
If someone asked you to list all the great PC first-person shooters ever made, you’d be there till Christmas. But the real point I’m trying to make is how many of you would mention this one? No? Why not? Never played it? Indeed.
NOLF dared to do what no decent FPS had done before it – make the lead character a woman. Still, that’s not why this game deserves to be in my list. This is – No-One Lives Forever is the funniest game ever created. Period.
Take things cautiously and you’ll often come across a pair of guards having a bit of a banter or a joke amongst themselves...the guy trying to sell the monkey is a classic moment in gaming history.
Still, NOLF wasn’t always a laughing matter, when things got serious, things got hard...very hard. Combat was fast, intelligent, and frantic and convincing death animations really gave the player some satisfaction from finishing them off.
Half-Life may have given you nightmares in bed, but I bet it didn’t leave you randomly chuckling to yourself on the bus to school. ‘I am sane...honest.’
So, there you have it – a handful of true classics that deserved more than they got. Naturally, there’s bound to be about a billion-and-one retro games I haven’t mentioned, due to my embarrassingly-poor memory, but you lot get the idea. Next time you pick up a game you’ve never heard of before, think twice before you put it back.
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Uncle Albert