I thought long and hard about whether to bring along my soft-modded XBox. Sure, it has a metric tonne of emulators and their respective roms on it, four pads and a delicious component cable for HD, but it’s not authentically retro is it? In the end my decision was made by the fact that it would be the only way to play arcade games during the day, and it would open up the possibility of four player Bomberman.

I was extremely glad I decided to risk severe back pain (and the extra £20 petrol money) to bring along the black anvil, not because of four player Bomberman (though that was a truck-load of fun) but more for a sumptuous little arcade game that originally appeared as a cocktail cabinet circa the time of my birth in 1980.

It took some time to persuade the guys there to pick up Atari’s - Breakout but for four players - Warlords, though initial comments concerning it’s archaic graphics were soon silenced by concentration and then drowned out with the sound of laughter. This is the first time I’ve ever seen a game inspire fits of laughter where people were actually rolling on the floor laughing. I kid you not. Best multiplayer game ever? It certainly is in my book. I’ve never been the type of person to covet that which I do not have, but I would give my left nut for a Warlords cocktail table.

Due to the overwhelming sense of contentment provided by my beloved Atari ST during the late eighties and early nineties, I arrived relatively late to the 16-bit console party. Another fabulous Christmas present, this time a lovely Super Nintendo, would break my console duck and provide some of the best gaming I’ve experienced to date. Back then the amount of buttons on the robust pad was a marvel in itself – just enough for a game of Street Fighter 2.

Super Mario All-Stars

The Super Nintendo I received that Christmas was the one with Super Mario All-Stars packed within. It was the only cartridge I owned for months, and it was the only one I needed. Super Mario Bros. 1, 2 and 3 were all included along with the previously unreleased The Lost Levels (unreleased here in the UK, that is – Japanese gamers will know this as Super Mario Bros. 2 – Japanese gaming cyborgs deemed it too difficult for us Western pansies).

All games feature a lick of 16-bit paint, and for once the updated graphics are not awful – on the contrary, the extra splash of colour augments what were already well realised sprites. The original Mario Bros. is a classic that never seems to age, and its sequel is a refreshing change in game-play. The real star of the show is Mario Bros 3, worth the admission price on its own, it’s a marvellous adventure with many secrets and surprises to uncover in its eight beautifully crafted worlds.

Super Street Fighter II – The New Challengers

Here is the real reason I bought a Super Nintendo. No longer would I look covetously at my best mate’s MegaDrive version of Super Streetfighter 2: Championship Edition. With 6 buttons on the standard pad, the SNES was the definitive home Street Fighter 2 experience. Unfortunately for me, this game wasn’t quite the genuine article.

Obviously, Street Fighter 2 Turbo is the one to own – the iteration that doesn’t feature the unnecessarily tacked on ‘New Challengers’ is by far the purer SFII experience (seriously – DeeJay? Do me a favour). Never mind, I still had lots of fun with this.

Jimmy Connor’s Pro Tennis Tour

A solid tennis simulation in a similar vein to Pete Sampras on the MegaDrive (another of my friends games that I was envious of). Jimmy Connor’s Pro Tennis Tour utilises the Super Nintendo pad’s multitudinous buttons offering the player a wider range of shots than its peers – drop shots, lobs, slices, top-spin, orgasmic yelp and swerve (left and right) each have their own button and are all easily accessible as a result.

The real appeal here is the eponymous tour mode, where the objective is to become the world number one in a year of globe-trotting tournaments. Each tournament win awards you with an amount of points relative to the importance of the competition, and you must finish at the top of the rankings in order to be successful. Compelling to say the least.

John Madden Football ’93

The arrival of my Super Nintendo coincided with a burgeoning fascination with American sports. Having had a taster of the action on the MegaDrive, John Madden’s Football ’93 was a no-brainer. Striking a brilliant arcade/simulation balance, Madden offered strategic depth for those who wanted it, but remained accessible to those who didn’t know their tight end from their elbow pads.

Super Mario World

Like Mario 3, but more: more power-ups, more levels, more secrets and more fun. Super Mario World has charm and wit in every nook and cranny, compelling you to explore and find every nuance. Platforming perfection. I dare you to play it without smiling.

NBA Jam

Why it took so long for someone to dream NBA Jam up, I’ll never know. Take everything that is fun and accessible about basketball and bring it to the fore: fast action, ridiculous dunks and hugely satisfying blocks and steals without getting bogged down in three second rules and zone defences – a recipe for success. Mind you, it would take even longer for someone to do the same to American football (a sport dying to be dumbed down, if ever there was one) with NFL Blitz.

The SNES conversion of NBA Jam featured a nifty initials and password save system that kept track of your stats and progress, and even some nice unlockable characters that kept me coming back time and again.

NBA Jam is receiving an update soon courtesy of WiiWare, and I for one can not wait.

Super Mario Kart

The fact that I enjoyed this so much despite its horrifically unfair rubber banding AI drivers is a testament to how much Super Mario Kart has to offer. This game is an abject lesson in how to imbue your game with character. The drivers, the weapons, the tracks, the music – every opportunity is taken to offer the player an unforgettable experience. An early showcase of the capabilities of Mode 7, Super Mario Kart was one of the Super Nintendo’s killer apps which couldn’t be bought for any other system, and gave you the impression that it couldn’t be coded on any other system.

NHL ’95

My friend and I sunk many an hour perfecting our stick handling on NHLPA ’93 on the MegaDrive, and when I saw that it was available for my shiny (well matte-grey, actually) new SNES, I was over the moon. Imagine my disappointment  upon slotting that turd into the machine for the first time. The Super Nintendo conversion featured muddy controls, jerky animation and goalies that could stop a speeding bullet (unless the gun that fired it took a very specific route behind the goal), conspiring to create a game experience akin to having your balls scraped with sandpaper while Wayne Gretzky shook your head and called you his bitch relentlessly until you switched the damn thing off.

Luckily, around the corner (chronologically speaking) there was a conversion that would sort out all these issues and deliver a much more pleasant gaming experience. NHL ’95 featured the silky smooth gameplay of the MegaDrive’s NHPLA sped up a little and bolstered its longevity with fascinating career mode, trading and player creation facilities. Thank puck for that.

These titles provided a lot of entertainment for me at a time when I should probably have been out looking for girls or something else more productive, but in retrospect its obvious that I missed out on quite a lot the Super Nintendo had to offer: The Final fantasies, Zelda, Chrono Trigger, Yoshi’s Island, the Mega Man X series, Final Fight, Donkey Kong Country, Axelay, Super R-Type and myriad other shooters all passed me by. Twenty-twenty hindsight is a marvellous thing. Still, no regrets, eh?

It’s criminal that I was away from Braid’s hauntingly atmospheric world for so long, but it seems the break was exactly what I needed in order to tackle one of the game’s later, more devious puzzles.The difficulty of Braid’s puzzles is perfectly pitched. Some will be overcome as soon as they are encountered, while others will need some contemplation and experimentation. Then there are those that require some serious time out in order for you to come at them again at a later date – refreshed, renewed and able to look at things in a new way.

Here is the genius of Braid. Each puzzle is a mini epiphany: you approach with no clue as to how you are going to progress, and at some point in time it clicks; an enlightenment that leaves you amazed at your own brain’s ability to think laterally and in terms that it has never thought in before.

The virtues of Jonathon Blow’s time bending puzzle game are well documented: the hand painted visuals, the delicate soundtrack and time manipulation all contributing to the game’s unique atmosphere.

Not so well documented is its one big failing.

Braid’s puzzles make you feel intelligent. They stretch and exercise cerebral muscle you never knew you had, and as a result make you feel good about yourself – a rare achievement for a video game. Why then, is the writing so deliberately oblique and esoteric? Like an in-joke I’m not privy to, it left me feeling stupid, out of the loop.

The books that you encounter as a prelude to each level were confusing, but that’s okay. I was prepared to let them wash over me almost like ambience, letting their tone add to the magnificent atmosphere. I knew there were more amazing puzzles waiting for me through the next door.

I won’t spoil it for you, but Braid’s conclusion is wonderful. It features a twist that should be obvious given the nature of the game, but rocks you to the core nonetheless. Then comes the epilogue, which features more puzzling if you are to glean all of the game’s conclusive narrative.

Except it isn’t very conclusive at all. It is more confusing, slightly arrogant and pretentious guff that fails to punctuate the astounding final chapter of the story. I felt punished for not paying more attention; for not pouring over the game’s books; for not being intelligent enough to make sense of the Hiroshima references and mother/abandonment issues.

Normally, I don’t mind being left in the dark. Some of my favourite films and novels use this device to devastating effect at their conclusion. But the dichotomy of Braid’s empowering puzzles and enfeebling narrative gave this exceptional game a bitter after-taste.

Last week I placed my Atari STE in the loft alongside its three STFM brethren in order to make room for the impending arrival of the fourth member of the Game & Write clan. What better way to mark this sad happening than with a look back at my favourite games for the system.

International Karate +

Copied onto one of those individually wrapped disks was Automation Compilation Disk #25, home of Pac-Mania and Solomon’s Key amongst others. As enjoyable as those two games were, it was game number 3 on the disk that would intrigue and eventually become my favourite fighting game of all time.

Archer Maclean’s programming genius is once again on show here: the huge move set, pixel-precise collision detection and intuitive nature of the controls have to be experienced to be believed. Genuinely funny spontaneous slapstick humour, superb sound and entertaining mini-games round off a unique beat ‘em up game that all fans of the genre should experience.

Trapped 2

On the surface, Trapped 2 is a light cycles clone. Scratch that surface and reveal so much more.

4 player action, distinct levels, power-ups and a ton of options make this Shareware title unmissable. Power ups include the ability to freeze your opponents, clear the screen, swap positions with others, boost the speed of your lightcycle and burst through the otherwise fatal energy walls left behind by the other bikes. One of the best multiplayer experiences I’ve had, but be warned: friendships will be tested to their limits.

Championship Manager ’93

Championship Manager ’93 is the time sink to end all time sinks. I had plenty of expendable time in my teenage years and loved spending hour upon hour of it creating rags to riches tales of Barnet becoming Premiership Champions and taking Scarboro to the European Cup finals.

This was the first Championship Manager to feature real player names and the last (along with ’94 and Italia expansions) to feature simple and super quick gameplay. Later in the series I would lose patience with micromanaging training sessions or choosing my star striker’s stud length and return to CM ’93′s buy players, pick team, choose tactics, play game, rinse, repeat formula.

One Christmas eve, my uncle and my best mate started a game mid afternoon. Eight hours later my friend and I were ready for bed. My uncle, however, played right through the night and was still at the computer when we got up Christmas morning ready to open our presents. This game should have had a government health warning on the box.

Frontier: Elite 2

Sandbox or open world games were very rare in the early nineties, so a game offering as much freedom as Frontier really made me sit up and take notice.

Frontier‘s huge universe is exactly what the player makes of it. You can become a trader, pirate, mercenary, miner, assassin, explorer: the list goes on and on. Immersive and atmospheric (partly thanks to the ‘Gazetteer’ novella supplied in the box), Frontier would give you a ship and say ‘off you go’. With no narrative or objectives to guide you, it was up to you decide what it was you wanted to achieve and how to go about achieving it.

Bubble Bobble

The only game I’ve ever completed twice in one sitting is a game that boasts the best co-operative mode of any video game I’ve ever played.

What at first seems like a simple platformer later reveals subtle nuances and secrets that take extensive play to learn. The ST conversion of Taito’s cutesy platformer hit is almost arcade perfect and as such is the most fun you can have as a goofy looking dinosaur blowing bubbles at wind-up robots.

Super Sprint

Another top quality arcade conversion, Super Sprint would always be the go to guy in any ST vs. Amiga arguement (it never received a conversion for the Commodore machine, as it was an Atari arcade machine).

Super Sprint shines in 3-player mode (two on joysticks, one on keys), its simplistic controls lending themselves well to competitive play. Nevertheless Super Sprint works well as a score attack game thanks to one of the best difficulty curves I’ve seen in any game. The drone cars gradually get faster as the rounds go on, seemingly miles behind one minute, they slowly make up ground until they are really applying the pressure. Heart pounding stuff.

These  games are my favourites, but the ST has so much more to offer (Speedball 2, Sensible Soccer, Sim City, Kick Off 2, Civilization to mention but a few) I feel I have barely skimmed the cream of titles available. Maybe more will be revealed in future posts.

One thing’s for sure: the solid foundation laid by my dalliances with Acorn and Amstrad machines was built upon by using the Atari ST. Here I have detailed some of the games I enjoyed, but my love for serious computing really blossomed too: DTP, pixel art, music, programming, databases and spreadsheets were all easily accessible using this machine, thanks to the wealth of software available on cover disks and in public domain libraries. I owe a lot of my IT knowledge and confidence to Atari’s beige beauty.

Though widely received as a vast and enjoyable game, Square Enix’s latest instalment in its blockbuster series received some criticism upon release. While some reviewers lauded its new features and dismissal of JRPG norms, others lambasted the developer’s disregard for its loyal fan-base, citing its linear level design and character progression. I was intrigued by these criticisms; if your usual JRPG fan was disappointed by these changes, then maybe XIII is the lucky number for me. This, combined with the ridiculously lavish production values (3 DVDs full of beautiful environments, detailed character models and skillfully rendered cut-scenes) and low price point (fifteen pounds) sucked me in.

The criticisms are certainly true. The crystarium is just pretty window dressing for an unremarkable and restraining levelling system, and the levels are so linear that they seem like nothing more than footpaths from one cut-scene to the next. With no towns, shops or mini-games to break up the rhythm of the game it’s easy to see why some would get bored. However, the lack of exploration and other distractions allows the game to concentrate on what it does well: the battle system.

The battle system is where Final Fantasy XIII really shines. At first it seems too fast and too simple, but as you progress, you unlock more abilities, more items, more roles and more tactical options. By the time you have mastered one aspect of combat, the game introduces you to another. By the time I’d reached the second disc, I was managing roles, switching paradigms and summoning eidolons, instinctively adapting to the situation at hand.

While repeatedly battling the same footsoldiers or wildlife down a winding corridor can occasionally get tedious, it’s never too long before you are presented with a real challenge, causing you to seriously rethink your strategy. It’s here that the new paradigm system comes alive.

In every encounter, the player takes control of a single character (the party leader) and the AI deals with the others. You can influence the AI behaviour by selecting from a number of paradigms. You can, for example, set your starting paradigm so that a synergist casts spells to strengthen your team, a saboteur casts spells to weaken the opposition, and a sentinel defends them as they do so. Once your team and their enemies are buffed and debuffed respectively, you can then shift the paradigm to one where ravagers cast spells and commandos wade in to deal damage to the enemy.

This balance between magical and physical attacks is vital in another of FFXIII‘s new  battle features: the stagger bar. Each enemy has their own bar, and once it is full they will become staggered and attacks will be much more effective. Ravagers are excellent at building up the bar, but it will quickly deplete unless the physical attacks of a commando halt its steady decline.

No convoluted plot, no side quests, no random encounters, no chances of getting lost and a gradual learning curve drip-feeding features into a deep and rewarding battle system all add up to the most accessible JRPG experience I’ve had since Pokemon Blue. I can see why fans of the series were disappointed, but FFXIII is an excellent jumping on point for newcomers.

This isn’t to say that FFXIII doesn’t suffer from some of the other JRPG trappings, however. The most glaring of which is the quality of the writing. I read a review that described the script as ‘A-level student’ quality, which is more than a little insulting to our fine academic institutions. Even a 17-year old should be able to write a story that can fully realise a character’s motivation, has a clarity of direction and isn’t riddled with stereotypes and clichés.

FFXIII‘s biggest crime is that it takes itself far too seriously – opportunities to poke fun at Snow’s over-the-top machismo are missed, Lightning is too brooding, Hope too snivelling and Vanille too peppy to swallow without some kind of light relief. A little humour would have added to the overall effect of the story, lending it pathos and humanising its epic science fiction theme. Who knows, with a little humour maybe I would have ended up actually liking one of the characters. Unfortunately it is impossible to see past their bludgeoningly stereotypical behaviour in order to identify with them. This makes the interaction between the characters baffling, almost nonsensical at times. That said, I do actually enjoy the story for the space-opera fluff that it is; kind of like a cyberpunk Neighbours.

Despite its shortcomings, Final Fantasy XIII has me returning to it regularly for thirty to forty-five minute play sessions thanks to its simple overworld, uncluttered narrative and rewarding battle system. Who knows? Maybe this is one JRPG that I will finish.

After a drunken night out with Nico’s cousin Roman, they stumble out of a club. The screen swims, and your previously solid control of Nico becomes a wrestling match with the analogue stick just to get him to stand up straight. Baulking at the thought of walking all the way back to Roman’s apartment (read save point) in this manner, Nico jumps into his cousin’s taxi. Unsurprisingly, controlling a car while under the influence is no easier than walking, and it’s not long before the local law enforcement take an interest.

Losing the cops proves extremely difficult for an inebriated Nico, who stubbornly refuses to drive a straight line, instead opting to drive into pillars and lampposts as if they were light-bulbs and he were a drunken moth. One concrete kiss too many and the car succumbs to its injuries. Without the wherewithal to run, and not yet in the possession of any firearms, it looks like internment is imminent. However, as the hapless officer reads Nico his rights, he is struck from behind by a rogue station wagon. At this point I am apoplectic; completely helpless and in fits of laughter. Maybe the cop’s partner thinks the wagon driver is an accomplice, or maybe he hears my guffaws – either way, he opens fire and within seconds Roman and I are dead. I say dead, but this is GTA and a respawn at the nearest hospital is moments away. So I continue with GTA IV’s claws in me deep.

The randomness of these spontaneous, non-scripted events make them genuinely hilarious and the tech that makes them possible is mind-blowing.

Liberty City is a stunning interpretation of New York City, replete with its own Statue of Liberty, Times Square, Central Park and myriad other re-imagined landmarks – albeit with kooky names. However, it’s not just concrete and steel that makes Liberty City such a compelling place to be. It’s a living breathing city where people go about their business, police officers chase crooks, ambulances rush to peoples aid, helicopters buzz overhead and tramps ask for spare change. I could spend hours exploring its nooks and crannies, learning its nuances.

Upon plucking up the willpower to ignore all these distractions, the player is met with a main story that is very entertaining, packed with endearing  characters and some engrossing set pieces.

All is not rosy in Liberty City, however. Reviews published at the time suggesting that each part of GTA IV could make a game in its own right were gushing and overblown. The mini-games (as ever with the GTA series) are a clunky and annoying obstacle on the road to 100% completion. Controlling Nico can be hit and miss at times, too. This is especially evident during indoor combat, where the fiddly controls resulted in a few annoying mission restarts.

The most disappointing part of GTA IV by a country mile is its expansions: The Lost and the Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony. The main game left me wanting more, so buying these was a no-brainer. The gameplay for these two chapters is virtually identical barring a few gimmicks, so what went wrong? The problem is that the characters in these chapters aren’t any where near as endearing as the cousins Bellic. Within five minutes of the main game, I was emotionally invested in Nico and Roman, laughing at their banter, and wanting to see what would happen to them next.

This is not the case with the expansions. In The Lost and the Damned you are controlling an idiot surrounded by a bunch of idiots led by an idiot. It’s very difficult to identify with a character you just don’t give a toss about. Similarly The Ballad of Gay Tony manages to have a protagonist completely devoid of charisma (yet you are supposed to swallow that he is a real ladies’ man) that must do the bidding of the idiots around him like some brainless automaton.

The lack of weighty narrative and character in these chapters is a real shame as the new vehicles and weapons they introduce are a lot of fun. The bikes are a lot easy to handle in TLATD, which really makes for some good chase scenes, and the skydiving in TBOGT is a great new way to see Liberty City and be impressed by that tech all over again. Also, checkpoints are more frequent in both extensions, which makes restarts less frustrating. The biggest redeeming feature of the expansions is getting to see the story from different viewpoints, as all three plot-lines interweave and you finally get to see what happens to those elusive diamonds.

Previously, I was a casual GTA player. I completed the original on the Playstation, and briefly played later instalments on friend’s consoles before briefly owning a copy of Vice City on the XBox (fated to be ignored with the release of the 360). GTA IV has ensured that the next in the series will be a rare day one purchase for me. A flawed masterpiece, but a masterpiece nonetheless.

While I was tapping away at my Acorn Electron’s oh-so-tactile keys, my uncle was beating the crap out of his Amstrad. He broke the space bar during one particularly infuriating game of Emlyn Hughes’ International Soccer – it still worked if you pushed it in the right way, but it didn’t sit right and couldn’t be relied on in a crisis. After a while, he moved on to pastures 16-bit, and he called me up and offered me his old Amstrad CPC. His offer was met with tears of joy (that’s right Speccy/C64 fans, TEARS OF JOY) and an emphatic yes.

I also inherited a big box of games (mostly originals if I remember correctly, piracy fans) and in amongst that box were a number of gems. Here are a few of my favourites:

Barbarian

Let’s face it, this was a schoolboy’s dream when it came out: naughty box-art courtesy of page 3 model Maria Whittaker and all the blood and guts the 8-bit micros could handle. I’ll never forget the first time I saw my uncle hack a guys head off, giggling with delight at the goblin that comes on to drag away the corpse and boot the head off-screen. Pure gaming gold.

This game should have been great in two-player. Unfortunately, in the absence of a no roll treaty, every match would descend into a gymnastics display as both players constantly gambol across the screen in order to avoid the inconvenience of actually hitting each other. This game was obviously designed well before the word ‘balancing’ was introduced into a developer’s vocabulary. Who in their right mind would make a game where rolling and kicking are the players most useful techniques? It’s testament to what Barbarian does right that such a glaring flaw can be overlooked.

Barry McGuigan’s World Championship Boxing

This is my favourite Amstrad game by some distance. I like it so much that every time I hear the music a sloppy grin plasters itself all over my mug. Creating a boxer and marshalling his meteoric rise through the ranks was compelling and rewarding, well ahead of its time. You could define your boxer’s style (dancer, slugger, bulldog etc.) and then refine his abilities by training in different areas between bouts.

The fighting itself is quite strategic; it’s very easy to punch yourself out early, depleting your endurance and causing your boxer to become sluggish and start using his face to soak up your opponent’s blows like a sponge. Instead, if you read your opponent and only throw punches when they are guaranteed to land, you will make short work of the early boxers. Defeating the champ himself is another matter entirely.

Rampage

Rampage‘s premise is brilliant in its simplicity. Turning the standard good vs. evil plot on its head by casting you as the rampaging monster, you score points by destroying as many cities and eating as many humans as you possibly can. Featuring superb co-operative game play, the Amstrad version loses out a little in its execution (I actually preferred my friend’s ZX Spectrum version), but is still great fun. Like all good co-op games (see Double Dragon, or Gauntlet on a stun level), it’s only a matter of time before you are duking it out with each other for the rights to grab the best pick-ups (or juiciest humans).

West Bank

Out of all these games, West Bank‘s gameplay – lifted wholesale from the coin-op Bank Panic – is easily the most timeless. You are a bank teller faced with three doors, as they open, you could be greeted by one of three different people: a robber, a civilian, or a fellow with a predilection for hats. Game play is simple: shoot the robbers, shoot the hats (shoot them all and you will reveal a bonus or a bomb – no prizes for guessing which you should shoot here) and protect the civilians and their money. Once you have received a deposit from each of the twelve doors it’s on to the next level.

Incidentally, West Bank recently received an iPhone/iPod Touch update in the form of West Bang (see what they did there?).

Match Day 2

Match Day 2 and Emlyn Hughes International Soccer served as catalysts for my burgeoning passion for football during the late eighties. Despite Emlyn’s ability to edit player names, its Ritman and Drummond’s vision of the beautiful game that graces this list thanks to its introduction of ball physics (I kid you not) to the genre.

The game had a unique system that would enable the ball to bounce off of players depending on the ball’s direction and the players momentum. It doesn’t sound like much, but it really added to the experience. It was now possible to chest the ball to control it, or put your striker through on goal with a glancing header, or bobble the ball over the goal-line with your scrotum Lineker-style.

Going back to it now with rose-tinted spectacles holstered, reveals a game that feels sluggish, and the constantly fluctuating power bar seems archaic, but my fond memories of being huddled over the amstrads cursor keys remain.

Target Renegade

I was obsessed with my friend’s Spectrum version of the original Renegade - after all, kicking dudes off their bikes will always be awesome – and this Amstrad conversion of the sequel gave me a way of indulging that obsession in the comfort of my own bedroom. It never felt as action-packed, but at least you could hit people with hammers.

Bomb Jack

Games are great when it’s fun to control the protagonist, and one of the most fun to control has to Bomb Jack. Shooting around the screen, desperately trying to collect the lit bombs for extra points while avoiding all manner of nasties is incredibly empowering (when it all goes right). I’ve played Bomb Jack on many systems, and never failed to have fun, and this is where it all started.

There were a great many games I enjoyed on the Amstrad (Jack the Nipper, Robocop, Batman The Movie, Skate Crazy, Green Beret…  I could go on), so many fond memories that I picked up another Amstrad CPC 464 from a local car boot some time ago (my original CPC was passed down to my cousin). Bizarrely, the space-bar was broken in exactly the same manner.

Thus began my journey through the world of video games. My father had chosen the path and I would stick to it diligently from that day forth. The mainstream wasn’t for me; Johnny Popular could keep his Spectrum, his Commodore 64, the Elk was for me. Further down the road I would shun the Amiga in favour of the Atari ST, turn my back on the Playstation and fling my arms wide open for Nintendo’s 64-bit beauty. Playstation 2? Pah! I’ll have a Dreamcast please!

My friends would always be looking down on me, but I was impervious to their jibes and taunts. Aside the occasional lapse (there were a few exclusives I would secretly covet, but they will wait for a future post), I was more than happy with my lot.

What follows is a potted tour through my gaming past. Each post will be a chronological record of systems owned and the games I most enjoyed on that platform. First up: the Acorn Electron.

Repton

Basically a Boulderdash clone – albeit a slower, more considered one – Repton was the game that first got its claws in me deep. I remember my first play like it was yesterday: running along a corridor, happily digging away the earth before me, when CRUNCH! the boulder above my head that I had barely registered falls behind me, missing me by a hair’s breadth. Heart pounding, I continued ponderously. Looking back, this was when I became aware of the power of a video game to move me, and after that there was no turning back.

After being hooked by this thrill, I would go on to discover a deviously designed puzzle game where a faltering step could result in diamonds (collecting all of which is each level’s goal) cut off and out of reach, while a dim wit could result in loss of life to a monster during the game’s more hair-raising moments of action.

See it in action (YouTube).

Chuckie Egg

Nigel Alderton’s platform masterpiece is a rare beast as far as 8-bit games are concerned in that it still holds up to scrutiny in the harsh light of the 21st century. While aesthetically similar to Donkey Kong, only a few seconds of gameplay are needed to dismiss the notion that this is some half-arsed clone. The pace of this game, coupled with its solid jumping mechanics and responsive controls give the game a kinetic feel unrivalled by its peers. The main sprite is huge and really belts it around the screen, amazing considering the limitations of the hardware.

The level design is inspired: the ladders and platforms are well matched to the athletic qualities of Hen-house Harry, resulting in a game where it is fun just to control the main character. Add to this bonus munching emus and, later on, a giant angry game-changing hen, and you have one of the greatest platform games to come out of the bedroom coding era.

See it in action (YouTube).

Plan B

At a young age, this game was dangerously close to going over my head, but thanks to a distinctive monochrome hi-res art style and a large number of new rooms and secrets to discover, I persevered, and as I grew older, the game opened itself up to me.

I don’t remember the story behind the game, but my youthful imagination span quite a yarn around its simplistic gameplay of key collecting and computer destroying. Reminiscent of Speccy and C64 classics like Jet Set Willy and Manic Miner, with a touch of Jetpac, each play would reveal a previously undiscovered destroyable bit of scenery revealing a new room, and maybe even a new monster. It doesn’t sound like much, but it kept me coming back for more.

See it in action (YouTube).

Plagarism

The Electron is renowned for its high quality arcade clones: Planetoid, Snapper, Hopper, and Meteor by Acornsoft provided superbly playable versions of Defender, Pac-Man, Frogger and Asteroids to name but four, and Cybertron Mission is a version of Berzerk that really captures the claustrophobic and hostile qualities of its progenitor. Arcadians and Zalaga are admirable attempts at Galaxian and Galaga respectively and Deathstar, while expertly avoiding one lawsuit by setting itself up for a second much larger, successfully recreates that soil-your-pants thrill ride that is Sinistar. RUN COWARD!

The Electron was the machine that I cut my gaming teeth on, and the machine on which I first learned how to program and display graphics. Learning how to use this new arcane machine at a young age provided me with a solid foundation in computing and it will always have a special place in my heart.

Mirror’s Edge should be brilliant. A game that enables us pie-eating chuggers to experience the exquisite freedom enjoyed by the perpetrators of parkour should be an absolute revelation. So where did Mirror’s Edge go wrong?

Let’s start with the positives, the many things that Mirror’s Edge gets right. Most strikingly, the game is beautiful. Faith (our protagonist throughout the game) can say what she likes about the smothering homogeneity of corporate culture, but those fat-cats sure know how to build a city. The clinical white buildings splashed with the odd blue stair and orange billboard create a breath-taking vista.

The plot is divulged through series of animated cut-scenes which differ in style to the in-game visuals. Here, the art direction takes on a more hand-crafted style, and it is refreshing to see how the developers wanted to tell the story in a unique way: yes, they are just standard cut-scenes, but the style of animation here subtly changes the pace and feel of the storytelling, adding texture to the game as a whole. Faith’s narrative throughout is corny, but in a good way, like Sarah Connor’s in the two Terminator movies that weren’t eye-searing pain from start to finish.

The real innovation that Mirror’s Edge brings to the FPS table is how it manages to make you think that you are actually controlling a person and not just a floaty camera. Seeing Faith’s limbs in front of you interacting with the environment really adds to the immersive qualities of the first person perspective. If you run into a wall, Faith puts out her arms to stop herself. Slide under an obstacle, and her legs kick out in front. This doesn’t sound revolutionary, and it isn’t, but the sound of Faith’s breathing, the jolts of the viewpoint, the environmental sounds – footsteps, ricocheting bullets – and the fact that you can see your interaction gives the game a visceral quality that many other first person games would benefit from.

Oh, and it’s nice to be called ‘babe’ from time to time.

In a happy and contented world, this article would end here and I’d go back to my luxury yacht’s hot tub to finish dictating the concluding chapter to my second blockbuster novel. Unfortunately, this isn’t a happy and contented world, I only have housework to look forward to, and this article goes on to detail how Mirror’s Edge gets it horribly wrong.

The cracks start to appear almost immediately. By now I am more than used to the hand holding opening scenes of modern video games, and quite often I actually choose to play the tutorial in any given game, when offered the choice. I did so today, when playing the demo to EA’s more-of-the-same-please Skate 3. But Faith’s introduction to the world of running really takes the piss. “Press [LB] to crouch,” the game enlightens us, followed by “Now try to crouch.” Buh. This game assumes you’re a complete moron.

I’m reminded of how both Braid and Trials HD taught you the controls: a little bit of graffiti in the environment telling you the button and its corresponding action, and then an obstruction requiring you to use the new skill. Simple, unobtrusive, and certainly not insulting to anyone’s intelligence. This kind of tutorial would have fitted perfectly into Mirror’s Edge‘s ‘training ground’ premise. You then spend the rest of the compulsory tutorial following a girl called Celeste, and doing exactly as she does, like your in a incredibly dangerous but nevertheless tedious game of Follow The Leader. Wouldn’t it have been much more interesting to be given free rein, to explore Faith’s abilities and limitations as you explore the training grounds? This lack of freedom proves to be portentous of things to come.

In one of her corny monologues, Faith describes ‘The Flow’ of the rooftops as some kind of zen state of mind you reach when Running, suggestive of its fluidity of movement and intuitive route decisions. However,  you very rarely achieve anything approaching a ‘flow’ thanks to the linear nature of the levels and some obtuse design. Each scenario sees you making your way from point A to point B with very little choice of route to take. This wouldn’t be so bad if you could do so in a fluid, intuitive manner, but you cannot (at least, not on your first play through). Instead, you must stop and look for your next viable route (at this point there is often only one) or resort to the Flow-shattering press of the [B] button, which points you in the correct direction.

True parkour does involve meticulous planning of routes, jump distances, surface friction, wall heights etc. but Mirror’s Edge would be better off throwing out the old adage ‘look before you leap’ and just let go. Games are at their best when it is simply enjoyable to control the character. This is why Super Mario Bros. was a smash, and why its 64-bit younger brother successfully opened our eyes to 3D platforming; It’s just fun being Mario, regardless of what you are expected to do next. It isn’t fun being Faith; it’s a clunky, frustrating experience. A more open design, more freedom of movement and more route choice just might have made Mirror’s Edge spectacular. Opportunity missed.

Oh, by the way DICE, if you’re reading this, the illusion of chasing someone is shattered when you can see them just up ahead, waiting patiently for you to catch up as you bungle yet another attempt to jump over a waist high obstacle.

Luckily, there are two outlets for my oxymoronic thrifty abandon: XBox Live Indie Games (see Shoot 1-Up) and Apple’s App Store feature some super games at the bargain price point of 80MSP and 59p respectively. This week, my Star Bar fund was depleted by Rovio’s Angry Birds.

In keeping with the type of game that thrives on this platform, Angry Birds is accessibility distilled and pumped directly into your iPhone/iPod Touch. After the briefest of cut-scene explaining your plight (the pigs have stolen your eggs) you are presented with a structure housing your swine nemeses at one end of the play-field, and a catapult at the other.

The titular birds serve as the catapult’s ammunition. All you do is drag your little feathered projectile and let go to shoot him across the screen, hopefully bringing down the pigs’ ramshackle abode around their curly little tails. Kill all the pigs on one level, and it’s on to the next.

The structures and the birds themselves inject abundant variety into the gameplay. Each structure is built out of different shapes of glass, wood and rock, the properies and position of which inform how you must tackle any particular level to maximise your score. As you play through each chapter, you encounter different types of avian projectiles, further expanding the strategic possibilities: one lays an explosive egg when you tap the screen, others accelerate, or split into three. You must decide where to deploy these birds in order to exploit their full potential, as healthy bonuses are awarded at the round’s conclusion for each unused bird.

Angry Birds exudes charm thanks to its fabulous little touches. The smug, gappy grin of surviving piggies, the black-eyed grimace of a bird as he ricochets off a concrete wall – I haven’t played a game that made me chuckle so much in its opening 5 minutes for quite some time. But even after the mirth subsides, you are left with an experience that offers both immediacy and a deep challenge. An amazing package for just 60p.