Games of the decade – Advance Wars 2

This next game is interesting in two regards, it’s in a genre that doesn’t have much wide appeal and it’s got an art style that I’m really not a fan of, especially in games like this, and yet it works and it’s brilliant.

If you say “strategy game” to most people these days they’ll either think of chess (because they have no time for your new-fangled ‘Playboxes’) or they’ll think of the various real-time strategy games that the market has been saturated with since Dune 2 and Command and Conquer got all up in our ass back in the ’90s. Thing is, though, the Advance Wars series (and I’ve personally picked Advance Wars 2 on the Gameboy Advance to feature as a Game of the Decade because that’s the only one I’ve played) is more like chess than C&C, a lot more.

The most obvious thing (and the most unfashionable thing) is that it’s turn-based, not real-time. You take a turn, the enemy takes a turn and when troops clash the CPU works out the result. Back in the ’80s most strategy games played like this and real-time games like Stonkers and Nether Earth were curios. As a result of the explosion in popularity of RTS games over the last two decades, though, the turn-based game has become something of a niche interest. Off the top of my head, the only two really big franchises that are still based around it are the Civilization (sic) series and Advance Wars; and Civ involves juggling and micro-managing a whole host of things: AW is just build-and-war gaming exactly like its RTS rivals. So why is it so good?

The main reasons, as far as I’m concerned, are twofold. The first is that turn-based strategy is actually really good and had plenty of advantages over real-time. The myth about real-time strategy is that it’s more realistic, more like a real war but this isn’t really the case – World War I and II were hardly over and done with in a matter of hours. Real wars involve troops moving slowly and battles often being prepared methodically. Real-time barely allows for this because everything’s going so fast but turn-based does. For that reason, Advance Wars feels much more like being in charge of a real war plan than the RTS titles do; if things go wrong it’s because you were a bad general not because you didn’t click fast enough. The second reason is something uncommon in turn-based games which makes AW a bit special: there seems to be no random element whatsoever. In most turn-based games, you see, there’s a random element thrown into the combat. This is intended to make things a bit more unpredictable but often they make things frustrating instead or just plain silly (players of the original Civilization remember the “battleship defeated by phalanx” scenario all too well). In Advance Wars, like chess, strengths and weaknesses are pre-determined and always the same. What makes the difference is taking advantage of various factors which alter, for example, defensive capability. Your entire infantry platoon taken out by the enemy’s artillery? You can’t rely on the random factor to protect you but you can rely on travelling through the mountains which will increase their defence score but decrease their speed. It’s utilising things such as this, not relying on luck, that make the difference between winning and losing this game. There are numerous types of land, sea and air-based untils to build and control and each has strengths and weaknesses to be learned and exploited. In addition to this the various commanders the player (and CPU) takes the part of have “special powers” which can be unleashed after saving up a certain amount of power (gained in-game) and which affect gameplay for a set number of turns when used. This game is about planning, thinking and understanding your strengths and the enemy’s weaknesses. Luck doesn’t come into it. It’s a true strategy game in that respect.

The only thing I don’t like, the thing I alluded to earlier, is that it’s all very cutesy and Japanese anime in style. Some people will love that, I prefer my wars to be a bit more serious. The storyline and character stuff that comes between the missions is also likely to have the marmite effect with regards to how people take it. But, believe me, it doesn’t detract that much from a brilliantly-designed, involving and playable wargame which has done more than any other to bring turn-based gaming back into the mainstream gamer’s conciousness.

Besides, there’s supposed to be a new “dark” addition to the series on the Nintendo DS which replaces the cute graphics with more grimy and realist ones. Hurrah.

Games of the Decade – Outrun 2006: Coast to Coast

I know it's not much of an all-action shot but this is the best I could manage whilst playing the game and holding a camera.

This next game o’ the’ decade is a racing game and it’s one of the most entertaining, accessible and, above-all, fast racing games I’ve played. Strictly-speaking, I’ve chosen Outrun 2006: Coast to Coast because, for me, it pips the original Outrun 2 but only just and most of the things I’m going to mention in this article apply to both.

You know the phrase “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?” Well, the people behind Outrun 2 took that to heart and thank flippity-flop they did.

The original Outrun arcade game was a sensation when it first appeared in 1986. Basically, the player controlled a Ferrari Testarossa (unofficially, at least, Wikipedia claims that the game was never licensed and the likeness of the Italian supercar was used anyway) as it sped along five successive courses (which, with the exception of the first were chosen by the player as the road forks at the end of each course giving two separate options and meaning there are various routes through the game and several different endings) against a time limit; if a course is completed before time runs out then the timer is extended, if not then it’s Game Over. Whilst bombing along the roads trying to beat the clock the player also had to contend with other vehicles (all driving in the same direction as the player, interestingly enough) and try not to crash into them or, indeed, the roadside scenery as doing so would cause the car to either spin or, in the case of a serious crash, to flip into the air in a still-impressive bit of animation leaving the driver and his girlfriend sitting dazed on the road.

A screen from the original 'Ourun' arcade game, back when Fatcher was in power and young men driving unlicensed sports cars sped along roads at dangerous speeds.

That’s basically it – this was a pedal-to-the-metal driving game; there wasn’t very much call for careful racing lines and realistic car handling as seen in most modern driving game which take more after the Playstation smash-hit Gran Turismo. And yet, when Outrun 2 appeared in 2003 it might have had all the fancy trappings of 21st century gaming but it played more like the original than the realistic racing games that were most of its contemporaries for which we all ought to be thankful.

Something that strikes you about the original Outrun when you play it even today – it’s fast, really really motherfunking fast. This is one of the reasons that the various home computer versions, which appeared in 1987 following the success of the arcade game, were so disappointing – they couldn’t possibly recreate the arcade game’s sense of speed. One of Outrun 2’s main joys is that it has the original arcade game’s exhillarating sensation of rushing headlong along a long, winding road through some stupendously beautiful, almost fantastical, scenery. It handles a little more realistically than the original and there are (optional) manual gears but in its heart this is the same game that appeared in the arcades in the mid-80s. Add to this brilliant extra features, challenges and unlockables on the home console versions (including new courses, from the Outrun SP arcade game, on the Coast to Coast release) and an all-new “powerdrift” dimension to driving which allows the player to drift at collossal speeds around sharp bends (highly unrealistic, if exhillarating, which is why you’ll never see it in Gran Turismo) and you have one of the most enjoyable driving games yet seen.

Outrun 2 can probably be picked-up for a few quid second-hand for XBox or PS2 these days and, if you can’t do that, then there’s always the new version on XBox Live Arcade. Whatever version you get, it’s worth owning if you pine for the days of old-fashioned arcade-style racing when the only gears were “high” and “low” and when the brake pedal sat largely-neglected underfoot.

Games of the Decade – Jets n Guns

Caboom!

It’s a sad, but true, fact that there are several gaming genres that have fallen by the wayside in recent years, overtaken by fashion and the whims of the gaming industry which seems to think that people are only interested in playing variations on the first-person shooter (invariably set in either World War II, the modern era or the future; come on guys, there are more historical wars to pick from surely?) and Gran Turismo. One of these genres, once extremely popular, is the scrolling shooter. Unfortunately, it seems to have been a victim of the fad for polygon-based gaming: scrolling shooters really have to be side-on or top-down (into-the-screen based shooters have their fans but your correspondent has never got along with them, give me R-Type over Space Harrier any day of the week) and that means that, even if they use polygons, they retail an old-school 2D feel and certainly an old-school gameplay. “Boring” say ver kids, their sweaty hands clutching their moulded plastic XBox controllers, “it’s not 1995 any more, grandad, give me yet-another Call of Duty game! I WANT ANOTHER CALL OF DUTY GAME SO I CAN SHOOT PEOPLE IN THE HEAD LOL PWND!”

Kids are idiots.

(As a disclaimer I should point out that I quite like both racing games and first-person shooters but, dammit the industry, do we really need so many of them?!)

Luckily for people who actually like games rather than just playing the same two over and over again for ludicrous amounts of money (yes, it’s a bit snobbish to say that; no, I don’t care) a few titles in this genre still trickle-out every year, largely ignored by the headshot kidz and boy-racers. Today’s Game of the Decade, published in 2004 by indie developers Rake In Grass and unknown to your correspondent until a couple of years ago is just one of these game and one of the best in the genre I’ve ever played. It’s called Jets n Guns.

No, that's not X-Factor contestant Rhydian but vain space-dictator Justin Perfect.

Now, I should point out at this juncture that I’ve only played the Gold edition of this game (unexpectedly given-away for free for one day via Game Giveaway of the Day, back in ‘08; a bargain I don’t expect to see repeated) which has numerous additons (such as extra ships to fly and extra levels to play) to the original although I’m sure that’s more than great as well.

In Jets n Guns you play a futuristic space-mercenary in his little ship and you take various missions for money. On these missions you shoot things, lots of things, many of which explode in spectuacular, often bloody and sometimes hilarious ways. There’s a thin plot running through the whole thing (accompanied by pre-level comic-style pictures in the Gold edition) explaining each level but really this is just a classic level-based blaster with the storyline adding a little atmosphere and an explanation for the scenarios each level is based around. Whilst many side-scrolling shooters have a power-up scheme throughout the level (meaning that the player is left vulnerable on losing a life since they tend to lose all their power-ups with it) Jets n Guns has a pre-level “shop” sequence where the player arms-up their fighter craft with whatever weaponry and armour they can afford. Naturally, beating a level leads to a cash injection which can then be used to make the fighter a bit more badass for the upcoming stage.

There are several things that make this game so much fun. The first is that it’s a really hectic, really exhilarating shooter. Pressing fire unleashes a bona fide hail of bullets/plasma beams/whatever at the enemy and, very often, they respond in kind. These aren’t all stoopid “fire off a bunch of glowing balls in all directions and hope they hit” enemies of the sort seen in so many shooters either; many of them take aim before firing meaning that the player can’t just casually fly through the levels lazily dodging floating bullets. If you want to survive you’ll have to weave and dodge as well as fire; this game isn’t just interested in showing you the pretty scenery (although that is very nice) it makes you work for it; you know, like games used to in the old days. When you complete a level of Jets n Guns then, fuck me, you feel a sense of achievement.

Of course, were it Rhydian then that ship I've just trashed would probably contain Simon Cowell which would make it twice as satisfying.

And it’s also funny in a way that doesn’t make the game seem cute or childish. One level sees the player escorting ships flown by attractive women and defending them from the unwanted attention of boorish male pilots of various extraterrestrial types whose ships have things like “Mr Loverman” painted on the side and who broadcast White Van Man-style comments over the airwaves just before you satisfyingly blast them to pieces. Another stage is set on a “perfect” planet overseen by a self-consciously attractive Alpha-male type who promptly sends his security forces against you as you trash his gleaming skyscrapers and blow the crap out of passing craft carrying his adonis-like face on giant TV screens. Even the violence itself is funny with poor, largely-defenceless spacemen with jetpacks being sent against your heavily-armed fighter and being messily blown across the screen in return with ridiculous Pythonesque amounts of blood.

And then there’s the variety of other features: the different weapons and add-ons (and, in the Gold version, the different ships) you can arm yourself up with; and the medals you receive for completing various achievements on a level; and the hidden rubber duck (really) bonus pickups; and the excellent ways of receiving extra money like the device you fit to your ship which broadcasts your carnage to a TV network and pays-out for extra gore. Someone put a lot of thought into this game and it’s paid off handsomely.

Okay, there are problems: there isn’t enough visual and audio feedback when the ship gets hit for my liking, the damage indicator would have been much more useful as a bar than the dial they use and it inexplicably doesn’t seem to support joypad control (although, on Windows at least, the excellent Joy2Key utility deals with this without too much hassle) but, for me, these are fairly minor quibbles. I love this game quite unashamedly and utterly and, when I loaded it up a few days ago to refresh my “feel” of it for this article I got sucked right back into it and wouldn’t leave it alone until I’d reached the next stage. This is a truly brilliant game and well-worth the asking price for those who aren’t afraid of a bit of old-school difficulty. It’s available for Windows, Mac OS and Linux. You can get a demo and order the full game from this link here.

Games of the decade – Wario Ware

For the next game in my Games of the Decade (the noughties, that is) series there’s not all that much that I can think of to say because, to be honest, it’s a game famed for its simplicity. It’s Wario Ware for the Gameboy Advance.

Let’s cut straight to the chase: Wario Ware is essentially dozens and dozens of extremely-simple minigames. The “plot”, if you can call it that, is that Wario (Mario’s evil nemesis type person thing) has set-up a software house to publish games and the games you get on the cart are Wario Ware’s output. The games themselves are gathered into “themes” based around different characters (who each have their own excellent little intro animation) and are played rapidy and at random. The player is given no instructions and almost-always has to work out how to play the games themselves which is easier than it sounds. The games have various genres from shooters to racing games to simple puzzles. No game is played for much longer than a few seconds and if the player “wins” they get a point, if they “lose” they lose a life.  If you score enough points in a level then you can take on a “boss game” for an extra life. It only ends when you run out of lives but to keep things interesting the games get faster, harder and are played for less time as things progress. Get enough points and you can unlock more gaming themes and characters and the option is always open to return to previous characters and attempt to beat your high score. There are also other extra games (“full games” based around Doctor Mario and the like) which can be unlocked by completing other tasks which the player can discover by themselves.

Wario Ware works for two reasons. The first is that it’s gaming at its most simple: plotting, complex controls and byzantine scoring systems simply don’t exist here and given that this game was released when console games were aspiring to become some sort of “true” artform and beginning to forget they were games at all this was a breath of fresh air. The second reason is that Wario Ware has tremendous personality, in fact it’s one of those games which could actually be described as charismatic. The games have tremendous graphics, amusing and charming sound effects and a terrific sense of humour: if you play this game it’s almost a certainty that several of the games will make you laugh out loud on your first play.

Playing Wario Ware is basically a joy. If you have a Gameboy Advance or a Nintendo DS then you really ought to own this game or one of its many sequels. You owe your console that, at least.

Games of the decade – Joe Gunn

Joe meets some kind of ninja-mummy thing deep within the Crocodile King's pyramid

And after Egghead Round the Med here comes another new game for an old platform which has made it into my top ten games of the noughties. Joe Gunn, an indie title by Endurion published for the Commodore 64 in 2007, is a brilliant retro-style platform arcade-adventure and the first Commodore game in a long time to make fans of other 8-bit machines green with envy.

The player takes control of the eponymous hero who must explore the 70 rooms of the pyramid tomb of the Crocodile King which he has happened to stumble across (oh yeah, Joe’s the accidental Indiana Jones!) and whose puzzles he must solve in order to escape alive. Gameplay is a mixture of platform gaming and puzzle-solving. Our hero can make running jumps, grab and clamber-onto platforms, search skeletons (there are a lot of skeletons lying around the tomb which can hardly be doing much for Joe’s morale) and other background objects for useful items and use these items elsewhere or manipulate features to try and solve the various conundrums the Crocodile King has protected his pyramid with. Despite the fact that Joe can perform quite a few actions these are all cleverly and easily carried-out using a standard one-button joystick.

Presentation is well above-par with the designers opting to use a sensible mixture of high-resolution attribute-based graphics for the backgrounds and low-resolution full-colour mode for the sprites. The general look and feel of the game has drawn favourable comparisons with the MSX classic King’s Valley (the new Spectrum conversion of which I wrote about earlier) – egyptian theme, small sprites, platforms and ladders. There’s a lack of in-game sound effects (a problem which Egghead Round the Med also suffered from) although this is compensated for by a good title tune and excellent and very atmospheric in-game music.

When Joe Gunn first appeared it received widespread acclaim (and created some very pissed-off Spectrum fans, believe me, “right, who’s going to do a 128K version of this?”) and remains not only the best Commodore 64 title to have emerged in recent years but also, for me, one of the best games released in the last decade. It’s quite a tough game – the player is only given three lives and some of the monsters are pretty hard to avoid – and whilst the control setup works pretty well there will still be times when, in the heat of the action, Joe doesn’t do quite what is wanted of him, especially if playing with a joypad. Despite all that, this is an excellent title that shamelessly feels like it’s stepped out of the mid 1980s and well worth playing. The basic game is available as freeware although an enhanced commercial version for use on an original Commodore 64 has also been published on disk and cassette. Really, if you like platform games, puzzle-solving and have a soft spot for King’s Valley, the Rick Dangerous series and/or the Indian Jones films then I think it’s fair to say you’ll like this. And if, for some reason, you hate all those things then there’s still a good chance that you’ll like Joe Gunn anyway. Wotcha waiting for?

Games of the decade – Egghead Round the Med

Our hero wanders around the ship's cargo hold.

It might seem a little bit contrived to claim that a title for the ancient (well, early ’80s) platform the ZX
Spectrum is one of the games of the decade; a bit of nostalgia on my part, too much rose-tinted memories of being
ten years old and sitting around playing Head over Heels all day.

But it’s not. Jonathan Cauldwell’s 2007 indie release, Egghead Round the Med really is one of the best games I’ve
played this decade. It’s true that it’s in a genre I love – flick-screen arcade-adventure (action-adventure in
Americanese) but it’s the best example of a game in this style since Sir Clive’s machine’s heyday and easily one of
the best in the genre on that platform in the last thirty years, let alone ten.

So what makes this game so great? Simple: it takes elements of some of the best in the genre (Jet-Set Willy; Auf Wiedersehen, Monty) and adds to them in a way that works. Not only does this game use the expanded memory of the
128K machines (and I mean use, it’s a huge huge game) but it uses it well, in a way that doesn’t overwhelm the player whilst giving a great sense of freedom.

The plot involves our hero Egghead (one of those sprites who somehow manages to exude charisma despite only having a few frames of animation) having to save his friends who have managed to get themselves lost in various Meditteranean countries during a trip on Egghead’s yacht. There are two ways the game can be played: puzzle mode, which is an arcade-adventure involving having to find and collect/use objects and a more traditional collect-em-up mode which involves exploring the game and collecting all the objects to win.

The puzzle game is undoubtably the best – Egghead’s first task is to sail his yacht to one of the countries his
friends have become lost in which involves grabbing a lifesaver (to get into the sea) and then taking the anchor and
dropping it elsewhere so that the ship can move. After that, he has to get to the bridge and steer the ship to
France, Malta, Egypt or one of the other countries so he can embark.

The puzzle element means the game opens-up gradually with the player initially confined to the yacht and having to
actively reach the wider game. Once this is done, the player can try and attempt the different countries and their
puzzles in any order. This fairly non-linear way of playing the game helps with replay value, as does the size (140
screens!) and the sheer playability. ’round the Med moves smoothly and quickly and the different screens (each with
their own name, very important in this kind of game since it adds bags of extra atmosphere) are cunningly designed.

It has flaws – there are no in-game sound effects, some of the puzzles can seem a little badly-implemented (for
example, the anchor mentioned above needs to be collected and then dropped for the ship to move; if you carry the
anchor when you try and steer it it won’t work) but these are minor issues in a superior platform game. I think I’ve
played this more than any other Spectrum game in the last two years and I keep coming back for more. Despite the age
of the hardware, despite the faults, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that it’s in a genre no longer very fashionable this game deserves its little pedestal on this particular list.

Egghead Round the Med is freeware (another reason it’s on this list) and can be downloaded via Cauldwell’s own site.

Games of the decade – Peggle

Yes, it's a bit twee. But please don't let that put you off. It's brill, honest!

Peggle is a funny one, part of a genre sadly known as “casual gaming” (simple games are not remotely casual – try playing Galaga for details) it looks a bit crap on paper – basically a pinball varient that, whilst entirely based on skill, feels more like it’s based on luck much of the time since it’s so hard to predict beyond a couple of bounces where the ball will end up. And yet its extremely simple gameplay, beautiful presentation and wide range of features make this a modern classic, easily for me one of the games of the decade.

The main reason that Peggle works is that it’s a highscore game. Unlike “hardcore” games which are often story-driven – all too often to the detriment of gameplay in the same way special effects films often spend too much time trying to dazzle and forget to tell a decent story (which reminds me, Avatar is out now) – highscore games are about achieving scores and either give the player a personal best to beat or, if they play with other people, an opponent to compete with and humiliate or be humiliated by.

And it’s in multiplayer mode that Peggle works best. Playing it on its own is like playing a high-tech version of an old-fashioned pinball machine; playing it with someone else is like competing in some kind of futuristic carnival game. It’s great fun aiming the gun and firing the shiny balls, trying to get the best angle to hit as many of the red pegs as possible whilst taking out as many blues as you can on the way; it’s even more fun when there’s someone else there to jeer as you bounce off a single blue and your ball careers into the gutter or gasp in annoyance as you hit dozens of reds and take out a cascade of blues before the ball makes a flukey landing in the bonus jar at the bottom for an extra ball.

Not everyone will like Peggle, some will be put off by its simplistic gameplay, some will dislike the somewhat “random” feel the shots can have if they’re not too good at judging how balls bounce. But I suspect most will see those as strengths, not weaknesses; a game that’s accessible and easy to play but takes real skill to master and yet is still a game where a novice can get a massive score with a lucky shot. There’s only one way to find out how you feel about Peggle and that’s to give it a try.

Games of the decade – Morrowind

This is my character. He might look a bit tasty but he's called Snively Pickles. Really.

Morrowind. Oh, where to start with Morrowind?! Well, I can actually trace this back with my excellent super-memory. Around November 2005 I picked-up a second-hand X-Box from one of my local(ish) gaming emporiums. Then I took it back because something small and metal was rolling around inside, then I replaced it with a new one (with a noisier hard drive but I wasn’t willing to lug it all the way back across town again) and realised that GTA: San Andreas and Knights of the Old Republic II weren’t going to keep me going for the coming year or so. I needed more games!

Cut to a week or two later and I’m reading a forum on NOTBBC where someone is bigging-up a fantasy RPG I’d never heard of and waxing lyrical about travelling from town to town, atmosphere and a few other people chip-in saying how good the whole thing is. I think “hmm, I’ve not really got into a CRPG since my Eye of the Beholder days, I might give it a try”. So I picked-up a second-hand Game of the Year Edition of Morrowind, the said game, took it home and started playing a game which, four years later, I’m still playing, still loving and still feel like I’ve only scratched the surface of.

Fans of Morrowind will tell you that it’s a world in itself; when playing the game you get to know it, get to know its nooks and crannies, quiet settlements, frightening crypts and dank, monster-filled caves like you do your home town. And all this is true but it’s only the merest paragraph in the Big Book of Why Morrowind is Great.

The game is usually played in first-person mode. Here, my brother's character stops to chat with an orc at a daedric shrine. Awkward small-talk ahoy!

When I played Morrowind I realised I was playing the type of RPG that the genre had always promised right from the early days of The Dungeon Master and Swords and Sorcery on the Spectrum right through Eye of the Beholder and Fallout in the ’90s. Finally, here was a game where the player creates a character, has them dumped in a world and is pretty much free to do what they want. In Morrowind, the non-linear nature isn’t the result of side-quests which can be done at will to supplement the main quest, the main quest is literally an option. If the player wants they can ignore it and just concentrate on rising through the ranks of the Fighters’ Guild, or becoming an outlaw, or a vampire, or (in the expansions in the Game of the Year Edition) going-off to deal with the Dark Brotherhood in the capital of the Morrowind province, or help build an imperial colony on the frosty island of Solstheim. It’s literally up to you, Bethesda (the development team) have actually said there is no correct way to play the game and when you play Morrowind you realise they mean it.

Everything is presented first-person and, unlike games like Fable, there are no fixed “routes” to follow. Tired of wandering along the road from one town to another? Why not jump over the fence and wander off into the wilderness? You can do that, you can climb any mountain you come across (or at least try to), swim across (and under) and lake, river or sea you find; get the correct spells or potions and you can even fly high above the landscape. The landscape is so open that it’s actually possible to plan out a journey to the lair of the game’s paramount villain from the start and pick a fight with him (although a level one character doing so is sure to get his arse presented to him on a silver plate with a side-salad and a helping of chips).

My brother's character again, doing a spot of magical levitating over the daedric shrine. They want him to come down again "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!" he says.

And not only is the landscape open, it’s also full of things to explore and do. The game largely takes place on the island of Vvardenfell in the province of Morrowind and the island itself is split into regions each with their own flora and fauna and each run by a separate House of the Dunmer, the indiginous (and rather racist) population of the province. Exploring the landscape from region to region the architecture changes, different animals appear to menace (or just curiously observe) the player character, ruins and settlements are stumbled-upon and inhabited and forgotten caves and mines appear all over the place, often filled with as much hostile monsters and people as treasures.

Morrowind’s “open” RPG experience was developed in its prequels, Arena and Daggerfall (now available as freeware) but Morrowind removes some remaining restrictions. No longer, for example, are certain character classes restricted in what armour and weapons they can use. The move from the mixed sprite-and-polygons “two and a half dimensions” to full polygon-based 3D also removes the graphical restrictions of the original – no longer do monsters and objects’ perspectives go all “funny” when looking at them from above or below.

I’ve not even started on the many reasons I love this game. I haven’t told you about the sheer atmosphere – the beautiful night sky, the changing weather conditions, the excellent sound (I still don’t like going into Dunmer crypts when playing the game late at night, those whispering voices!), the little touches like characters walking around with torches when you enter a town at night. I haven’t mentioned the extremely complex and self-configurable magic system which allows even non-magic-using character classes to commit themselves to learning a little magic if the player is willing to put the time in. I haven’t mentioned the way the Dunmer Houses gift you a home if you rise high enough in their ranks and how you can fill your new home with trophies collected on your travels turning them into a personal museum. I haven’t mentioned the game’s customisability on the Windows version of the game whereby players can change and mod certain aspects of the game to make it more realistic or more challenging. There is so much about this game that you need to find out for yourself and if you don’t have a copy (and the Game of the Year Edition probably costs peanuts these days) and you’re willing to invest time in this type of game then there’s no real reason not to.

Of course, Morrowind isn’t perfect; the combat system is a bit wonky and there are a few features I didn’t care for (like NPCs spending all night wandering around the place and never going to bed, although the game lampshades this in conversations with some characters) but overall this is simply the best RPG I’ve played in over twenty years of gaming and which I’ve been playing on-and-off for four years and could well be playing for another four. It’s for that reason that it’s the first of my ten games of the decade.

As Crimbo draws near…

It’s that time of year again and, I’m pleased to say, the indie/retro gaming scene has done its yuletide duty and given us a new game for an old platform for Christmas. That’ll be Bob Smith’s pun-tastic All Present and Correct which can be downloaded directly from this link here.

I’d also like to take the opportunity to tell you all about the fantabulous Matty’s Ten Best Games of the Decade in No Particular Order which will be, erm, what I think are the ten best games the naughties have give us. And before anyone complains, it’ll only be the games I’ve played and I’ve not played that many new commercial releases in the last five years or so. So that’s why Bioshock isn’t there, just so’s you know.

Each game will get a wee article leading up to the new year. The first will be up in the next couple of days. Hold onto your hats!

I’m back, I’m back (but not in demin)

The novel reached the 50,000 words demanded by NaNoWriMo quite easily but it’s only about half-finished! T’is something of an epic, really.

"What? Write an article? Begone, medieval wench!"

Anyway, I don’t have a full article for you yet because, er, um… ooh, look

what’s that?! Why it’s Bob Smith’s Stranded for the ZX Spectrum, now ‘undenianced’ and available for free download. And, if you like that, why not buy the sequel from Cronosoft for whatever reasonable price it’s going for?

What? You still want to know about articles? Well, erm, to be perfectly honest I’m not quite sure what to write about. I’ve been playing quite a lot of

Daggerfall recently (now available as a free download from publishers Bethesda) and someone suggested last night that I give Dwarf Fortress a try so I might do something on one of those games. Or both of them. Or I might do one of those Sega Megadrive games I keep meaning to write about. We’ll see.