Making fun of a random list I found on the internet

First, take a few minutes and glance through this list of the "20 Games That Changed Gaming Forever." Or is it the "20 Most Innovative Games Ever Made?" The article's title says both, although they mean different things. Keep this list open for reference as we journey through it together:

#20: Portal
This is undeniably an innovative game, unless you want to consider the indie game Narbacular Drop that was the predecessor to Portal, and was essentially the same concept. It was made by the same team, and was pretty rough, so I guess I can concede this one. Portal was the first commercial game of its kind.

#18: Dance Dance Revolution
The article claims "Before DDR, music-based videogames were a virtually unknown niche genre. But DDR changed all of that with its patented "dance platform" that enabled players to bust a move instead of busting their thumbs on a typical game pad." So, while they acknowledge it is not the first music game (which it wasn't), it was the first to utilize a unique controller. I guess they forgot Beatmania, which had a DJ controller and came out a year before DDR? If DDR didn't actually innovate in the way they claim, then maybe it "changed gaming"? I don't know, the guitar hero series seems to have much more in common with Beatmania than DDR. I suppose that's debatable.

#17: Resident Evil
The article says "Alone in the Dark did it first, but Resident Evil made it iconic." So...it didn't innovate, then? I guess it must have "changed gaming", then.

#16: Bioshock
First complaint right off the bat, the article lists it as a 360-only game. I guess they forgot that it released on the PC simultaneously, and was also ported to the PS3 later? Now that that's over with: I just...I have no clue what this is doing here. It was a great game, but it was essentially a dumbed-down, steampunk version of System Shock 2. How does the article claim it innovates? "But the real spark in the BioShock experience was the realization that you could choose to be the hero or the villain"; "BioShock is also enormously influential for advancing steampunk chic." It was the first game with a morality system that let you choose between good and evil actions to affect the outcome of the story? No, that can't be it...that's been a part of gaming for a helluva long time. In fact right now I'm playing through Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, which gives you moral choices every five minutes and has two fairly different endings to the story based around that. So, Bioshock was the first game with a steampunk art style? Certainly not. That style has been a staple of (mostly japanese) RPGs for a long time. Did Bioshock change gaming? Not that I've noticed...what games after it have tried to emulate anything it has done? I really can't think of anything.

#15: Warcraft
"Though Dune II technically set the modern real-time strategy (RTS) genre into motion, it was Blizzard Entertainment's Warcraft: Orcs & Humans that turned a fringe game style into an international sensation." Changed gaming? Yes. Innovative? No. They admit that Dune II did it first, right in the first darn sentence!

#14: Final Fantasy VII
The article doesn't present a single reason for this game being innovative, because it just wasn't, aside from being 3D. But I can concede that it was definitely influential.

#12: Geometry wars
This entry says flat out that the gameplay itself isn't revolutionary. Anyone who has played Robotron can tell you that. Instead, the article claims that the way that Geometry Wars was digitally distributed has changed gaming by popularizing downloadable games. Um, I don't know about that. Even if we discount the PC and just make this claim for consoles, the first game on XBLA to hit a million downloads was apparently Uno. Maybe that helped just as much as GeoWars? I don't really know.

#11: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Hahahaha! I guess "identical to the previous three games, but this time it's not set in world-war-II! Oh and it added one new feature to the multiplayer that essentially gives players the ability to choose an unfair advantage over others!" means "innovative." I suppose you might make the claim that a few console shooters after CoD4 have copied its perk system for multiplayer, which makes it influential...but the fact that this is on the list but games such as Super Mario Bros. (the first platformer!) or Quake (the game that essentially created online multiplayer deathmatch) or any number of other far more famous and undeniably innovative games are not, is just ridiculous.

#7: Halo
There's no denying that Halo changed console gaming. Practically every FPS since then has had regenerating health, for example. I don't necessarily like the WAY in which Halo changed gaming, but it certainly has. Sigh.

#3: World of Warcraft
"World of Warcraft was by no means the first MMO, but it was the game that perfected the rules and the experience." Once again the article flat-out admits that the game is not innovative. Just because its the most popular game in its genre, does not mean it innovated, or even that it changed gaming! One might argue that MMOs today all try to copy WoW, but one could also just argue that those MMOs are all trying to copy Everquest, since that's what WoW essentially tried to do.

#2: Grand Theft Auto III
Aside from the fact that it was just a 3D version of the standard GTA formula, I guess it did innovate.

#1: Doom
I'm mentioning this one because it's probably the best entry to this list. I mean, it started the FPS genre! Oh, what's that? Wolfenstein was the first FPS, not Doom? Nevermind.

So, now that I've established just how ludicrous this list is, how about all of the games that should be here, but aren't? Like, I don't know, the games that CREATED GAMING AND EVERY GENRE WE PLAY TODAY? Spacewar, Pong, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Wolfenstein, Dune II, Adventure...compared to any of these games, NO game of the last 10 years can even be considered "innovative" or "influential."

Quick Game Impressions

It's been a while since I posted. There's been no shortage of games to play, so here's what I've been playing:

IL-2 Sturmovik

Most flight sims are a bit too complex for me to take the time to learn them. IL-2 is different because it's not as hard to jump into and shoot up some planes. I especially like it because of all the interesting differences between the capabilities of WWII planes and modern jets. In Aerowings 2, for example, I can do a loop or immelman pretty much anytime because of the afterburner. With a prop plane, speeds are in general much lower, and you don't get enough thrust to do a loop or immelman a lot of the time. This means that height and potential energy plays a far bigger role. Also, because there's no missiles, IL-2 requires you to be right behind another plane, in close proximity, in order to even hit anything accurately with machine guns. It sure is rewarding when you finally do blast an enemy out of the sky, though!

Ghost Master
I remembered hearing about this a long time ago when it was released, and it sounded interesting. It was on sale a while ago so I nabbed it and tried it out. You control ghosts and try to scare all the humans out of a house. It's kind of boring and the controls suck. Luckily I didn't waste much money on it.

Zeno Clash

Here's a unique first-person beat-em-up. The style is some sort of weird mix between prehistoric and . . . I don't really know what. It's a lot of fun, but I wish it had a little more to the combat system. As it is, there's pretty much the regular punch which can become a three-hit combo, plus a charge punch, a grab which leads to two attacks, and a counter-attack. That's about it. There's some weapons, which are also pretty unique, but they're nothing new for the FPS genre. For an indie game, this one is pretty great.

Punch Out!

Nintendo put out a new, good first-party Wii game? Really?! That's right, Punch Out has been remade and updated for the Wii. It has a collection of fighters from the previous games, plus at least one new fighter in Disco Kid. The gameplay itself is exactly the same. You dodge, duck or block punches by recognizing the telegraph of the opponent, and look for an opening to knock his face off. There are no new moves for little mac. When I say it's the same, I mean it's EXACTLY THE SAME. It's not that big of a complaint because the formula is still great fun, but it would have been nice to see a little more gameplay. Being a Wii game, it also features optional motion controls for punching with the wiimote and nunchuk, and I really like it. There's the optional balance board for dodging, but I don't have one. I imagine it wouldn't work out well, because dodging requires a LOT of timing and I don't know if the balance board would be good enough for it.

Empire Total War
Really good! Kind of buggy. Not a big fan of the naval combat, but it's a good addition for those that want it. Just play this!

Dreamcast!

This week I decided to buy a new console. And by "new" I mean "I haven't owned one before". This is also the first and likely only console I own made by Sega. If you haven't guessed which console it is by now . . . well you're an idiot because it's in the title and there's a big picture of it right up there ^^^

Just why in the heck did you buy a Dreamcast? you might wonder. My answer: because it has some AWESOME games. Also, because it's just one of the best consoles ever, and here's why:

-it was the first console with online play, and yes people actually played it, and it was actually FREE. And it had cross-platform online play between the Dreamcast and the PC for some games before anyone else was even contemplating it

-it was the first console with mouse+keyboard support, with awesome FPSes supporting it like Half-Life and Quake 3

-It has hardware that's almost identical to NAOMI arcade boards, which means it got some kickass flawless arcade ports like Ikaruga and Under Defeat

-It was a console designed for hardcore gaming - it had simulations, fighters, shmups, platformers, adventure games, puzzle games and also many unique genre-defying games. The small number of FPSes released supported mouse+keyboard controls

-Despite its commercial death at the hands of the PS2, there is a dedicated homebrew and hacking community to this day, and there are still commercial games being made for the system! Karous came out just two years ago for the Dreamcast, and due this year is another shmup called Dux. Incidentally Dux looks like a crappy R-Type clone to me, but I have to give them credit for supporting the Dreamcast, and some people do like R-Type and would probably enjoy Dux

A Dreamcast goes for around $50 these days, and the games go for around $5-$10 at most. However, because of very poor anti-piracy measures implemented in the system, no one has to pay ANYTHING for Dreamcast games aside from the cost of blank CD-Rs. No boot disc or modding is required to play downloaded or backup games on the Dreamcast, and because all of those games are now out of print it's perfectly fine! If you have $50 to blow and you don't really want any of the current generation consoles, consider going back and discovering some gems of the last generation!

Mirror's Edge

About a month ago the PC version of Mirror's Edge was released. I anticipated this release because the game was a unique and new concept, and now that I've played it the concept does not disappoint. The mechanics of the game are fun and original, and while I was initially skeptical of a first-person platforming game, the game pulls it off wonderfully. The time trials are addicting and fun as well.

Unfortunately, the time trials are the core of the experience, because the story mode is very lacking. The game's developer, DICE, is primarily experienced with multiplayer-only games, and it shows, because the level design just does not work well a lot of the time. The mechanics encourage navigation of obstacles and finding ways to quickly traverse large areas, but the level design favors slow climbing and platforming puzzles. The mechanics also favor avoiding combat, and the player dies very quickly in combat. However, there are a handful of spots in the game which require combat, and these portions seem unfair and generally not fun. Finally, the game is very short, clocking in at perhaps 5 hours. This could be a good thing considering how inconsistent the level design is.

As I said, the real fun of this game is the time trials. I've never dabbled much in speed-running but I can see the appeal now. Experimenting with faster routes and tiny adjustments to squeeze a few more milliseconds off my time is a ton of fun. Once I had 3 stars on almost every time trial map, however, there just isn't much else to do in the game. There's a map pack coming soon, but it costs money, and I generally hate paying for any extra game content unless it's an actual expansion pack.

The mechanics of Mirror's Edge are great and fresh. With better single player level design, this could have been an excellent game. It's a shame how it turned out, but I hope DICE has learned some lessons and will make the sequel far superior.

System Shock 2

I've only played this for maybe an hour total and it is already scarier than anything I've played before. This includes FEAR, Dead Space, Bioshock, and Resident Evil 4. I'm not much for scary games in general, and as such I find it difficult to play SS2 continuously. I try, though, because it is undeniably a quality game. Here's why:

The gameplay is much like Bioshock. You explore a sort of living envinronment - a nonlinear world with unscripted enemy AI that will attack you on sight. There are weapons - with very limited ammo, of course - as well as "psionic powers", much like Plasmids in Bioshock. These can freeze enemies, move objects telekinetically, or light things on fire. Beyond Bioshock, however, is an extensive RPG-style stat system and inventory. Everything in the game must be dealt with in real-time. Nothing in-game will pause it, including inventory screens, computer interfaces, or stat upgrades. Of course there is an escape menu that lets you save, load, change options or quit, and this does pause the game. A totally real-time gameplay experience is a feature that many people consider Dead Space as famous for developing, but clearly SS2 came first, which surprised me. (On a side note, many people also consider Dead Space innovating the concept of a HUD built into the character's player model. This is also not true, because Roboblitz did it first. Interestingly, Roboblitz is a great game that was the very first to make use of the Unreal Engine 3, something people falsely credit Bioshock with.)

This always-real-time experience is part of what makes System Shock 2 such a scary game. If you want to stop and read a computer screen or a text log, you need to be careful because a mutant could attack you while you do so. If you want to shuffle your inventory around or use some items, you need to keep an eye out for enemies. It's very tense, made even more so by the fact that enemies WILL appear right behind you. The first time I encountered an enemy in the game was most astonishing. I was wandering through a corridor, and saw an item on the ground. I looked down at it to pick it up. When I looked back up and turned around, a mutant was an inch in front of me in the middle of swinging a wrench. I jumped out of my seat, my hands momentarily left the keyboard, and I took damage. When I regained my wits I bludgeoned him with my wrench, pleasantly finding that they only took a couple swings to kill. Every time I met an enemy, I experienced that same feeling of surprise and fear, because enemies appear infrequently and often startle you. As soon as they spot you, they will run straight at you and try to kill you, so any time you spot one of these mutants you have to immediately deal with it. This is different from Bioshock, where splicers will often ignore you if you're not very close.

That's all I'm going to say on this game, because I can't stand to play it too long on account of how I don't particularly like feeling startled a lot. I enjoyed playing Bioshock more, but I understand the reason many people prefer SS2, and even consider it one of the greatest games of all time. It's very high-quality, even if it doesn't appeal to me personally a lot.

Next up, Mirror's Edge!

Ketsui Death Label on the DS

This game is the entire reason I now own a Nintendo DS. After roughly 8 or 9 hours with the game I have no regrets at all.

If you know anything about shmups you probably know that Ketsui is one of the most highly praised games in the genre. It's also well-known that it is one of the rarest and most expensive games in the genre, because it never left the arcades. Guess what, now it is! Ok, it's not actually the full arcade game. It's a "Death Label" version of the game. This means that the game only contains bosses, of exceeding difficulty. This might seem lame to some people that a game consists entirely of 11 bosses, each of which can be beaten in a few minutes at the most. The game, however, offers much more than that. The insane brain-numbing bosses are a large part of Ketsui's popularity in the first place. It offers 9 different difficulty modes, each consisting of different sets of the bosses with different difficulties. The range of difficulty is such that one boss on Novice difficulty will be entirely different from the same boss at Very Hard difficulty, or even on Death Label difficulty.

Even though surviving every mode is difficult enough - although the game does give you progressively more starting lives so that eventually you should be able to conquer it - there is also a fun and unique scoring system in place, one that actually differs from the original arcade game. In the original game, scoring involved point-blanking enemies with the normal shot, which started a short timer and allowed you to kill enemies with the lock-on shot for large point-chips. It was fair simple compared to many Cave scoring systems, but enjoyable and not as restrictive as the chaining found in Dodonpachi or Mushihime-sama. In Death Label, some elements were retained. Namely, the risk-reward system of point-blanking enemies for more points. The closer you are to a boss while using lock-on shot, the bigger the point-chips you get, and the faster your score grows. At the same time, this increases your point multiplier. You can lower the multiplier by getting hit or by using lock-on shot to destroy enemies, so it is a careful balancing act to whittle down the health of a boss by point-blanking it with lock-on shot, and then deliver the killing blow with the regular (much weaker) shot, all without being hit at all. It's very challenging and involves changing your entire strategy on some of the bosses if you want to score well. I'm looking forward to re-learning all 11 bosses, in all 9 modes, to improve my score.

This is the first true bullet-hell shmup on a portable console, and it works surprisingly well. The fat DS is really great because of the big d-pad! The bullets are bright and colorful, which means they aren't hard to see on the small screen of the DS. If you have a DS, and you don't have Ketsui yet, do yourself a favor and go import it from japan. It's an awesome game.

Fallout 3, I-Fluid, and other odd things

Haven't posted in a while, so here's what I've been up to:

Fallout 3 is definitely awesome. It is basically oblivion with guns, from a gameplay perspective, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that because I liked Oblivion. I also have to admit that killing supermutants over and over is getting a little repetitive now, but everything else about the game is pretty great.

Another game I recently bought on a whim on Steam is a little indy gem called I-Fluid. Think of the game Gish, but in 3D. You play as a water droplet. Levels are set mostly on kitchen tables and counters littered with various fruits, breads, plates, silverware, and paper towels. Because the game is physics-based, you need to avoid the absorbent surfaces like paper towels and dry bread, because they will absorb you and kill you. There are a variety of goals, from 'go from point A to point B' to 'move all 7 tomatoes into the bowl'. Oh, that's right, you can also possess fruits and control them. The game is pretty darn creative and easily worth the $10 it is selling for on Steam right now (hint, go get it).

I also haven't posted since Left 4 Dead came out. As amazing as that game is, I haven't been playing it much, because I've finally broken down and decided to get a gaming mic. Left 4 Dead pretty much requires it for maximum enjoyment, and I could definitely use it in TF2 as well. Who knows, maybe I can finally look into joining a clan now that I'll have a mic (clans require them).