Split the Atom

Here's something i came across on YouTube: A classic game from the Amiga, called Atoms!

 Original video located here. Accessed 29th August 2016

History will decree that the Amiga folded with the collapse of Commodore circa 1994. But what people may have forgotten is that the Amiga actually had a lifespan beyond Commodore: For a few years afterwards, it proved to be very accommodating that amateur developers, giving them a platform to come up with games of their own - much like how Steam does for amateur developers today. It was an interesting time and one that sadly gets overlooked by gaming historians.

And Atoms was one such game. It was a relatively simple game but damn, if it wasn't a lot of fun. It required players to place atoms in the grid and build up groups of them. Get enough atoms in a box (two in a corner box, three in a side box and four in the rest) and an explosion would trigger sending the atoms in corresponding boxes. The object of the game was to turn all the atoms on the board into the player's respective color. Again, this was a simple game and admittedly it took a while to get going, but once the players had enough atoms, it was possible to send off tremendous chain reactions in attempt to achieve victory. There was fun to be had, especially with multiple people, and it was hilarious to see a colossal chain reaction play out. It may have been brief but it never ceased to function as an entertaining party game.

Looking at this game through the perspective of modernity, there is no reason why a game this simplistic would ever work. It might work as part of collection of mini-games (ie Mario Party) but not as a standalone game. So why does this game so simple work?

The zany music? Yeah lets go with that

Where are you going?

Earlier this week, I posted some musings about a vague game called Sorcery. This in turn triggered memories of another vague game I played during the C64 era.
Behold: Quo Vadis!

Original video located here. Accessed 24th August 2016

This game is interesting on a technical stand point. As is my understanding, it was the first game in history to boast over 1000 screens! It was so enormous it took some sizable effort to squeeze it into the C64's memory! And it even was doing the Metroid shtick before Metroid was a thing!
And I will admit, from someone with an interest in traditional dark fantasy, there's something appealing in seeing a Crusader knight (as evidenced by the Christian cross on his shield) descending into an underground cavern to fight a horde of monsters.

But I didn't make much progress in the game itself - mostly because I had no idea what i was supposed to do. This may have been my first exposure to free-roaming gameplay but my young mind didn't realize it at the time. As such I was baffled as to where I supposed to be going and what I was supposed to be doing. And even now I admit this game was vague: Why, that ending message that appeared at the end of the game is indeed unclear whether the player had successfully completed the game or not.

But what was particularly frustrating with this game was the stiff controls: If the PC slipped and fell, he would plunge straight down with the player being unable to do a thing about it. The worst part of it was when the player slipped up on the rope and fell a long way down to the lava pit below. It was a long fall and the player was helpless to prevent seeing the PC plummeting to his doom. It was agonizing to watch and very punishing to the player's mindset (like the computer was saying: "Look what you've done you jackass!")/ Needless to say, I eventually gave up on this game and never looked back - until now of course.

Some good ideas but in the end, vague and frustrating.

What foul sorcery is this?!

 Here's something i came across during my travels on Youtube: A complete playthrough of the Commodore 64 game Sorcery:

 Original video located here. Accessed 22nd August 2016

You hear people of today describe the 8-bit era (or the 3rd console generation if you prefer) of gaming as being populated by games that are of brutal difficulty. People talk of the Mega Man games and the original Castlevania as being really tough, much like how Dark Souls is described today.
Mind you, that kinda does make sense from a designer's perspective because whatever the game may lack from a technical standpoint, it makes up for in offering a challenge. Make the game too easy and people won't have any reason to play it beyond the first successful completion.

Which now brings me to Sorcery. I played a lot of games on my C64 as a kid and this was indeed among the hardest I've played. This down to two factors: Firstly, this game was nothing short of vague in exactly what is trying to convey. Looking at the video over two decades later however and it seems clear: The player is required to pick up certain objects and use them in a particular combination. And, naturally, there are numerous red herrings abound which makes success in the game more a case of trial and error.
Secondly, there is a time limit that is nothing less than punishing: As established above, the player would need to apply trial and error to find the successful path to victory but the time limit does not allow for such experimentation. Thus it would seem multiple attempts would be required to find the successful path.
Make no mistake: there is little room for error. As indicated by the video ab0ve, the player would need to rush through the game and have their health drained with the dangers lurking at every turn. There are potions that can restore the player's health but they are more a hindrance when the greatest enemy is the clock. If anything I'm surprised someone actually managed to beat this game.

Mind you, when I originally played this, I figured that the vial of poison would be the item that would secure victory. I tried to persuade my brother but he was unconvinced.
Now, years later, it seem that I was right :)

Godlike

Here's a blast from the past: The classic Amiga game Gods:

Original video located here. Accessed 15th August 2016

I remember this being a big deal in the day, garnering loads of critical acclaim. A large amount of the praise came from AI: It adapted to the player's progress and adjusted itself depending on whether the playing was doing well or poorly. Looking at the video above, it may account why the player, at several points, seemed swamped by continually spawning baddies.

One can only wonder how such a thing would manage in today's climate of save states and detailed FAQs.
Not very well one would imagine

Under the Sea

At the moment, Song of the Deep has been doing the rounds. However, upon seeing the gameplay to this game I reminded of Search for Dr. Riptide.

Original video located here. Accessed 10th August 2016

This was a game that came out on DOS in the mid-nineties. Interestingly enough, it was made by an Australian developer - which was kinda rare for the time.
One look at the video above and comparisons to Song of the Deep are immediate: The player controls a submarine that goes in the depths of the ocean to explore and contend with various dangers therein.

However, looking back at the game from the distance of twenty years, I have to admit this game hasn't aged well. There are a lot of garish colors in the graphics, some of the sound effects are grating, and there are some sprite animations look kinda dumb. Still, I do admire this game for it's technical accomplishment: I do recall at the time that it looked a lot better than a lot of other DOS games that were around and even now I stand by that notion. I liked the use of the JASON (that's the mini sub that follows the PC around) and i will even admit that the music is surprisingly moody for a PC speaker soundtrack.

That being said, one has to wonder if the makers of Song of the Deep were inspired by In Search of Dr Riptide when they working on their game.
Probably not, but one can only wonder....

Star Wars got NES'd up

My recent post about the NES game Kung Fu stirred memories of another game I saw being played out on the NES: Star Wars.

Original video located here. Accessed 8th August 2016

In the years since I first saw this game in action, I became aware that this game has built up a rancid reputation as being one of the worst Star Wars games ever made. So how does it some twenty years later?
Well, I am somewhat baffled by the hate this game gets. At first glance the game certainly looks impressive and certainly better than a lot of other NES games at the time.
My research has revealed that a lot of the hate seems to be directed at the gameplay: What, with falling damage, fiddly controls, and a lot of 'blind faith' jumping (that being jumping into uncertainty and hoping you land on something on solid). Those are legitimate points but nothing that differentiates this game from the tough difficulty that was so commonplace in games of the NES era.
One could say that this game still suffers from the 'curse of movie tie-in' but it does a solid job of both following the plot of the movie and adding some new additions on top. And hey, I welcome any creativity when following a movie tie-in - after all, Super Star Wars on the SNES had the Sarlacc from Return of the Jedi as the first level boss.

My recollections of playing this game weren't really that spectacular: I didn't get very far largely due to the difficult nature of the game. And years later, I tried the adore-mentioned Super Star wars and I found that just as, if not more, frustrating.

So at the end of the day, this game may look impressive but the hatred it gets is still baffling to me. Granted it's not best Star Wars game but it certainly isn't the worst.
But if the hate of this game is down to the difficult nature, it must look odd now when people are getting beaten down by Dark Souls.

Everybody was Kung Fu fighting!

They say that you always remember the exact point when you encounter something new. Whilst, I do recall my first encounter with a console being the humble Atari 7800, whether it is Nintendo or Sega who got to me next is sadly lost to me. But I do remember my first encounter with a NES: My brother brought a friend around to visit and he brought this thing called a Nintendo around. And the very first game I witnessed being used on this device? A game called Kung Fu.

Original video located here. Accessed 25th July 2016

Looking back at this game, I have to admit that it's definitely not one of the brightest moments on the NES. My recollections of playing it involved a lot of cheap hits and insta-kills. Still, from a technical perspective, the graphics look impressive and the use of digitized speech is admirable. I will even admit that the in-game music is also kinda snappy.

But I think this game stayed with me because this was my first encounter with the 'rescue girlfriend as motivation' trope that gaming has relied on for countless times. And when compared to other instances that use this trope, ie Super Mario bros and Legend of Zelda, I think I had a greater investment in wanting the Player Character, Thomas, being reunited with the girlfriend, Sylvia. This may be attributed to that cutscene that appears in between levels commanding that Sylvia be rescued from Mr.X (man who comes up with such imaginatively named characters?!). Well, as a motivation, it certainly is effective.

Watching the video, I did finally get to see Thomas reunited with Sylvia - thus ending years of wondering XD But the ending text insists that this reunion will be short-lived. So what happened? Was there a sequel to this game? Do I even care?