An A-Z of great PlayStation Games - Part 3: G, H, and I.

Part three of this mini-series of blogs brings us to the letters G, H, and I. 

My PlayStation collection has grown slowly over years to well over 120 games and while I do, and in fact just did, call it a ‘collection’, every one of my games was bought to be played and kept because it was enjoyed.

With this in mind I'm allowing myself the caveat of honourable mentions - something I’ve always resisted before.

I’m splitting these up into bite-sized chunks of three or four at a time, so here's the latest batch.

As tempting as it is to go for the sequel, with it’s wireframe ‘fix’ for the original’s minuscule draw-distance, it’s the first G Police that I remember most fondly and is the game I’ve selected to represent ‘G’ - even in the face of twin behemoth franchises GTA and Gran Tourismo.

Set in a cyberpunk future, G-Police puts you in control of a hovering police craft that is as close as you can get to a helicopter without the encumberment of rotor blades - it’s power instead provided by a pair of huge thrusters.

Much like Future Cop LAPD this is a mission based shooter. You fly inside huge domed cities, taking on gangs, criminals, and terrorists and generally upholding the law with an enormous amount of firepower.

Despite controls that pre-date the dual-shock gamepad, buzzing between buildings in pursuit of the bad guy’s is a pure joy. The cities themselves are one of the true stars of G-Police, clearly Blade Runner inspired with every available surface covered in advertising and neon and consisting almost entirely of monolithic skyscrapers the only thing in the game better than the environment is the weapons you are given to protect it.

Guns and rockets are the most pedestrian armaments available, with heat seekers and cluster missiles providing a little more sophistication to the art of serving the public trust.

At the top end of your available arsenal are the incredible Hyper Velocity Missiles, one of my favourite weapons in any game, they crack through the air like thunder and inflict massive damage on the target.

Today, one of the best things things about G-Police and it’s sequel is that they were produced and sold in huge quantities, and are therefore available to buy for about a tenner the pair on eBay.

Gen 6 was a great time for what became known as ‘AA’ games, those releases that didn’t have big budgets or weren’t part of a vast franchise. But these existed long before they became so ubiquitous with the low development costs of the hyper-popular PS2. Budget games were the cornerstone of the home computer market in the eighties in Europe, and even on the relatively expensive (to develop for) SNES there were games that fit this mould and obviously they were fairly common on the PS1 as well.

The best of them have something that’s hard to quantify, and Hard Edge, a rather strange beat-em with Resident Evil stylings from SunSoft on the PS1, is absolutely an example of this.

‘Charming’ is probably the best way to describe this game (known as T.R.A.G. in the US), with it’s bulky anime style avatars moving around fairly realistic pre-rendered environments, multiple playable characters, and beat-em-up gameplay ill suited to its tank controls; it’s definitely far from perfect, but it has good ideas and a style all of its own.

Trying to mix exploration and puzzle solving with melee combat, with this type of presentation, is a gambit that doesn’t quite work, but the boss battles scattered throughout the game are it’s saving grace.

Built in the time honoured pattern-memorising mould these encounters are great fun and fairly inventive. Enough so that you’ll want to see the next one which, when you think about, is about as ‘retro’ a motivation as you could ever ask for!

Arcade Soccer is a genre that seems to have been largely lost along with the coin-op meccas we used to play them in, however, while it doesn’t exactly rub shoulders with Hat Trick Hero, Konami’s International Superstar Soccer Pro Evolution 2 was probably the last game in the series to not break it’s back aiming for ‘realism’.

As the ‘Superstar Soccer’ part of the name suggests, this series began with an even larger nod to the superpowered shots and over-the-top saves of yore; with each team having a star player who’s stats in a certain area would far surpass those of the other players.

ISS Pro Evo 2 moved away from this, but in its place were players whose abilities were far in excess of what you would expect from players of their value on the in-game transfer market.

Tijani Banangida, for example, is legendary in the game for offering blistering pace at a bargain basement price.

The gameplay was also a long way from a sports simulation, and although some of that can be put down to hardware limitations, there are design choices present, such as the default camera angle and ease of performing the few available tricks, that suggest lack of horsepower wasn’t the only reason this game didn’t appear to be aiming for sporting accuracy.

It’s ironic then, that the feeling of the game is more like real football than anything else of its age. The pace of the game is spot on, and smart, challenging AI ensure that this is a game that’s just as good to play alone as it is with friends.

For those who don’t enjoy a good soccer game, I’ll point you in the direction of Incredible Crisis, a uniquely bizarre mini-game collection that follows the adventures of a family trying to buy presents for their elderly matriarch's birthday. It’s brilliantly bonkers fun, and another great PS1 game that can still be picked up for a very reasonable price.

 

An A-Z of great PlayStation games - Part 2: D, E, and F.

Part two of this mini-series of blogs brings us to the letters D, E, and F.

My PlayStation collection has grown slowly over years to well over 120 games and while I do, and in fact just did, call it a ‘collection’, every one of my games was bought to be played and kept because it was enjoyed.

With this in mind I'm allowing myself the caveat of honourable mentions - something I’ve always resisted before.

I’m splitting these up into bite-sized chunks of three or four at a time, so here's the latest batch.

It's probably a good time to reiterate that I don't play RPGs, too. So as to mitigate disappointment when we get to 'F'...

Driver is the best game I’ve never finished, and with very good reason.

Imagine you’re eating an amazing meal, a meal that takes elements from other meals you love and combines them in a new and exciting way. This is an exceptional meal. But, as you pick the last morsel from the plate you find that, beneath it, is mouldy human toe.

That mouldy human toe is Drivers last level. A mission that takes all the speed, freedom and excitement from the levels leading up to it and replaces it with anger, frustration and a complete lack of fairness.

Where once you were pulling J-turns in Miami alleyways you now crawl nervously to every junction. Where previously you sailed over San Francisco hill tops, the finale has you creeping through the workaday streets of New York.

I was good at Driver. I know it’s pretty weird to say you excel at what is essentially a story based game, but the handling of the cars in Driver, particularly the one given to you in the first set of levels in Miami, felt extremely natural to me. 

They were designed that way of course, it’s part of the game’s appeal, but I really felt at one with the cars, and would spend hours in the free play mode taunting and evading the game’s police, and then hours more in the movie mode editing it into my own personal highlight reel.

I read fairly often, when this game is mentioned , that people found the parking garage level at the very start of the game almost unplayably difficult - and that performing the list of moves required in the 60 seconds of in-game time was impossible.

I played that level so often, and with such a fastidious desire for precision, that I was able to complete it in less than half that time. I still have the video, recorded ‘off-screen’ using an old phone, uploaded to Youtube.

And so, to have endured the drudgery and frustration of the last level of Driver was to risk sullying the experience I’d loved to that point. So I choose not to. And when I replay the game I simply don’t bother playing it at all. 

When I finally got around to buying a region modded PS1 a couple of years ago, Einhander was the first game I imported from Japan to play on it. Until this point I had always enjoyed the game when I’d tried it via emulation. The explainable alchemy of a physical disc and a CRT TV, however, has never been stronger for me than it was with this fantastic horizontally scrolling shooter from Square.

Much of the game’s appeal comes from the audio visual design, with it’s industrial techno soundtrack perfectly accompanying the polygonal depiction of post-apocalyptic cityscapes. 

But it’s the game’s ‘claw’ mechanic that really sets it apart, as it allows you to collect weapons dropped by defeated foes and add them to your arsenal and, adding a further level of depth, they fire differently depending on whether they are positioned above or below your craft.

Wielding, selecting, and positioning up to three weapons at a time is a genuine thrill, especially when it comes to ensuring you have the most effective load-out to defeat the game’s creative and enormous bosses.

For my money, Einhander is one of the very best horizontal shooters ever made. It’s a little shorter, and a little easier than many of its peers. But, honestly, I think that’s in its favour.

I’m a huge fan of both of the Fear Effect games, which will hopefully help you understand how great Future Cop L.A.P.D. is as I didn’t even consider selecting either of them for the letter F.

Despite a name that couldn’t be more bland, and box art that’s not much better, Future Cop is a fantastic mission based mech game that was originally conceived as part of the ‘Strike’ series and has a structure that never strays too far from that winning formula.

What is a nice diversion, though, is a secondary mode that can best be described as an arcade RTS. Precinct Assault pits you against a friend or AI as you send waves of tanks and helicopters at your enemy. The pace is much quicker than most games of its ilk, and to ensure things never get too cerebral, each player has a mech to directly control inside the walls of their own precinct.

So it’s two great games in one really, and they are so different from one another that it really does feel like you’re getting a double bang for your buck. On that note, actually, it’s worth noting that the game has recovered from an artificially inflated price from a few years ago and is now usually available for a reasonable amount, considering it’s quality.

See you next time for G, H. and I!

An A-Z of great PlayStation games - Part 1: A, B, and C.

Pretty much my favourite format of short form writing, the ‘A-Z’ - where I pick the single best game for a given console for each letter alphabet - usually means that games often overshadowed in more standard ‘listicles’ get a chance to shine.

The PlayStation is the earliest console that has been a constant in my collection since it was new. I’ve had games machines in my life going back to the mid eighties but would always sell, trade, or otherwise move on from them. 

However, I experienced so much regret soon after trading my Super Nintendo, that I resolved never to sell or trade a game or console I enjoyed ever again. So while it was technically the SNES that made me a 'collector', the PlayStation was the first game of that collection.

Which is all preamble to explain how hard it is going to be for me to pick just one game for each later for most of the alphabet with this machine. My collection has grown slowly over years to well over 120 games and while I do, and in fact just did, call it a ‘collection’, every one of my games was bought to be played and kept because it was enjoyed.

With this in mind I may mention one or two other games as I go. I’m basically opening myself up to the concept of honourable mentions - something I’ve always resisted before.

I’m going to split these up into easily digestible bite-sized chunks of three or four at a time, so let's begin, as is traditional in these matters, with the letter A, and continue on to C.

The Ace Combat series has grown into a sprawling, quasi-futuristic, melodramatic behemoth since the first game, renamed from Ace Combat to Air Combat in the west, was released 26 years ago. As you might imagine this first game is simpler and, while there is a plot, it is much more straightforward than those in the sequels, spin-offs, and it’s appearances in various other media.

There are fifteen or so real-world aircraft to choose from with performance more-or-less in line with what you’d expect from machines of their size and power but, fortunately, the attempts at realism end there.

Air Combat started out as Arcade game and, while the PlayStation version is not really a ‘port’ of its coin-op namesake, it very much keeps gameplay toward the fun and exciting end of the spectrum. I can’t remember if the missiles are infinite or so vast in number that they might as well be, but that should be indication enough that this is arcade action from start - via to death-defying canyon runs, high speed interceptions, and love-em-or-hate-em escort missions - to finish.

It has to be said that the first sequel adds a level of scale and polish to the original that should see it comfortably chosen to represent the series here, and it was a close run thing, but Air Combat includes a two player dog-fight mode that is brilliant in its simplicity and in which, with two decent pilots, battles can go on for a very long time time and take on a highly strategic structure.

Despite a direct sequel and many attempts over the years to create a ‘spiritual successor’, there has never been anything quite like the utter brilliance of Bushido Blade.

The developers, Light Weight, never made another game that even approached it’s quality, so Bushido Blade remains lightning in a bottle, a miraculous one-off who’s legacy has endured long after those of lesser polygon fighters has faded.

The game is most often celebrated for tense and brutal one-on-one battles that can be won with a single thrust or slice of your chosen weapon, and during which the tiniest mistake can leave you wounded, hobbled, or very very dead.

But beyond this headline there is a level of complexity and attention to detail that is often forgotten. Chief among which is the balance of characters when paired with one of the 8 weapons, each with it's own distinct characteristics and effects upon the combatants.

Often, pairing particular weapons and characters will open up new moves and combinations, but, additionally, making an poor selection can have negative effects.

I remember in particular that arming the young warrior Tatsumi with the enormous sledgehammer opened up a few moves particular to that combination - at least one of which ended with him falling under the weight of the weapon.

Another that sticks in my mind is the pairing of female fighter Mikado with the long Nodachi sword that resulted in an overhead swing that caused the character to stumble forward under the inertia.

Add to all this the ability to run away from fights, 2 endings for each character, link cable support, and the ‘Code of Bushido’; a set of rules of engagement, for which the punishment for conduct unbecoming a samurai was the immediate end of your game - and you have yourself a genuine, spectacular, one-of-a-kind masterpiece.

A two horse race here, with CT Special Forces just beating out idiosyncratic strategy RPG Carnage Heart for the honour of representing the letter C.

If Carnage Heart focused more on the strategy and less on the RPG we would probably have a different result here as it’s logic-gate programming of the mech-army is an absolute joy, but it spends a little too long on other elements for my tastes.

CT Special Forces, on the other hand, doesn’t waste a moment at any point during your play time with it.

On first appearances everything about the game screams cheap ‘Metal Slug’ knock-off; from the unknown developer to the obviously GBA port graphics, this is not a game that would leap from the shelf at anyone - nor, to be honest, does it fill one with inspiration when it first loads up. 

Real world pictures of military vehicles and stock marching music clashes with the cartoon character art from the very beginning and, once you start playing, you’ll find slow moving sprites and aiming that is limited to left, right, and straight up. 

As far the prerequisites for quality run and gun action goes, the first impressions are not exactly inspiring.

But as you ascend the first three level’s ‘Snowy Mountain’, the assumption that the straight upwards aiming is fairly limited is belied as it really comes into its own in the structure of the levels; as much you can progress in the usual style of this kind of game, it’s safer and more effective to clear a path from below before progressing upwards.

And more diversity from the run-and-gun norm is revealed the more you play. In the second level, for example, there is a great looking base-jump intermission whereby you must use the direction and altitude meters to know where and when to pull your chute. 

There’s also sniper sections, where you see only a small scope-view on a otherwise black screen and have to search for, and save, hostages. There’s even ‘Twin Cobra’ style vertical shooter levels in which you pilot a helicopter and attack air and ground targets.

All in all CT Special Forces is an unassuming gem which is highly recommended for any genre fan.

 

Choosing the Best Game for every 'Modern' Console I Own

 This is the final part of a four part mini-series where I'm answering a question I wasn't actually asked...

For each of my 26 home consoles and computers, and 10 handhelds, which is my favourite game?

I’ve decided to break this down into 4 sections as, even with just a brief paragraph for each, 36 is a lot of games to read about in one hit.

Those sections will be as follows:

Vintage - Consoles and computers launched in the 70’s and 80’s. 

Retro - Hardware released in the 90’s. 

Handhelds - Any primarily portable console with its own, built in screen. No age restriction.

Modern - Machines that came out in the 21st century.

I’ve been listing in chronological order of system release, indicated by the date in brackets.

I did 'Handheld' consoles last time, and which just leaves the consoles I own that have launched in the last twenty years or so; those falling into my loose 'Modern' bracket.

Sony PlayStation 2 (2000) - Killer7

Much like the 3DS, for such a popular machine with a vast library of games, the PS2 doesn't have that many truly exceptional titles. Ironically, when I look at my collection I end with the impossible task of choosing between R-Type final, Killer7, and SSX Tricky. You couldn't ask for a more diverse selection, or a harder decision. One of the great Horizontal shooters, one of the great, subversive, narrative games, or an action sports title with no rival? So it's Killer7. Has to be. An incredible achievement. A hugely intelligent, complex, and intriguing narrative combined with gameplay delivered with peerless style and individuality. There really is nothing else like it. If Suda51 hadn't go on to... well... we'll get to that in a bit... suffice to that for a few years Killer7 was my favourite game ever made.

Nintendo Game Cube (2001) - P.N.03

With a cursory shout out to the brilliant Doshin The Giant, and due respect given to the utterly masterful Metroid: Prime, when I glance at my meagre collection of thirteen Gamecube titles, it's P.N.03 that jumps out as the one I'm most likely to throw in the machine and play. It's failure both critically and commercially is testament to what happens when you make a game that looks like it should play a certain way, but doesn't.

This happens quite a lot with video games, the most high profile game to fall foul of this is probably Brutal Legend; a real time strategy that looks like it should be a beat-em-up - although there were dirty marketing tricks in play with that too.

P.N.03 is not a third person shooter. Yes the perspective is third person and you absolutely spend the majority of your time shooting stuff, but this is a game with for more in common with Galaga than with Gears of War.

The enemies attack, throughout the game, in waves and patterns that evoke classic games all the way back to the seventies - what could be more 'Space Invaders' than only being able to move sideways while shooting and using the environment as cover? But despite this, there are aspects that are modern, even ahead of their time, as it was specifically designed to be as much fun to watch as it was to play. With slick, clean environments, an attractive female lead, and fluid, stylish animations, we're this to be released today it would be the latest Twitch sensation for sure.

Microsoft Xbox (2001) - OutRun 2

Although it eventually made its way, in various versions, to various other hardware, the Xbox will always be the true home of OutRun 2. The original OutRun is the seminal arcade game. To me it is a peerless example of the videogame artform and an unbeatable behemoth of driving games. Many pseudo-sequels followed in it's wake; Turbo, Europa, and Battle were all pale imitations that never seemed to really get what OutRun was about. It took 30 years and the oversight of Yu Suzuki to bring the magic back to the OutRun brand, and with it came the best driving game of the 6th generation and the last 'new' game I ever played in an arcade.

Microsoft Xbox 360 - Bayonetta

For me, the seventh generation was when consoles stopped having a discernible personality - the technological conjunction with the PC market seemed to bring about an era far removed from the home and arcade born titles that I fell in love with in the 80's and 90's. It's not to say that there weren't good games - I own far more from this era than any other - but true greatness was rare on the 360 (and even more so on the PS3). But greatness is exactly what we were given with Bayonetta - for my money the greatest beat-em-up ever made. To say that Hideki Kamiya has never made a bad game is an understatement. This is man who directed Resident Evil 2, Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe, and Okami... all before Bayonetta was even a twinkle in his eye. And he even followed this up with The Wonderful 101, a game very nearly as good. Each of these games is brilliant, but where Devil May Cry defined a genre in gen 6, Bayonetta re-defined it in gen 7.

Nintendo Wii (2006) - No More Heroes

My collection of Wii software, which, you may remember doesn't feature any Mario, Zelda, or Donkey Kong games, numbers 129 titles. Almost exactly half of those are physical releases and - most importantly - all of which are at least good, and, at best, they're No More Heroes Such was my love for the earlier games in Goichi Suda's catalogue that I essentially paid £245.67 to play No More Heroes. This was the price, including shipping, that I picked up a secondhand Wii and a copy of the game for a couple of months after it's release. In the 15 years between the release of NHM and Travis Strikes Again on the Switch, Goichi Suda didn't direct a videogame. If you've played (and deciphered) No More Heroes this entirely makes sense. It's themes of the battle between what a creator wants to achieve and what the audience wants to play are incredibly bittersweet, and to have them so expertly conveyed into a game that was original, funny, clever, and a blast to play must have been exhausting. It was a sad sight to see 'Suda51' promoting games he didn't make by playing up to the 'wacky' character that the industries unimaginative press had bestowed upon him. If he'd never directed again though, it would have been ok. For me, No More Heroes is an incredible achievement, a complex, meta, arthouse masterpiece that challenges both your gaming skills and the way you think about games. Not just the best game on the Wii, but the best game ever made.

Sony Playstation 3 (2006) - Mirror's Edge

For all the flaws of PS360 era, it still managed to bring the world Mirror's Edge. This was a game that confounded a lot of players and as a result was a huge failure on release, with copies selling for single digits just a few weeks after launch. It's story was rote, it's style minimalist, the control's were complex, and it's first-person gameplay rarely featured firearms. It was a masterpiece. Expectation is the mother of disappointment, and marketing is the evil step-mother of expectation, and from that you'll gather my thoughts as to why the game was overlooked by so many in 2006. A fine reputation (and a far less than fine sequel) have followed over time, but Mirror's Edge will always be something of a curates egg, and all the better for it.

Nintendo Wii-U (2012) - MK8/Affordable Space Adventures

There are a lot of really good games on the Wii-U, I have about 30 in my collection with a pretty even split between physical and eShop - and I'm going to pick one from each, for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, Mario Kart 8. It's such an obvious choice from the boxed games. But's it's so incredible, and so incredibly popular, that there's little else I can really say about it. Secondly, it has been spruced up and re-released as the 30 million selling 'Deluxe' - so it doesn't really feel like a Wii-U game any more. But it's still a phenomenal return to form for the series after the abject Wii offering.
On digital, one of the last remaining Wii-U exclusives; Affordable Space Adventures.
The only game to make perfect use of the system's format - to that extent that is rendered un-portable. Affordable Space Adventures has you exploring an inhospitable world in a craft that has barely enough power and structural integrity to make it from one side of the screen to the other.
The ingenious gameplay has you cycling systems by manipulating sliders and other controls on the touchscreen, while piloting the craft on the TV. 
It's an original, brilliant, joyous experience but, unfortunately, one the likes of which we are unlikely to ever see again.

VR (2016) - Rez Infinite

Not really a system per se, but I've separated this out from the PC entry (back in the 'Retro' list) for three reasons. Firstly, I made that extra rule for the PC where I said I had to have a physical copy - and I don't think there are any VR games that come in that format. Secondly, I genuinely believe that VR can be the next true evolution of the video game medium, a medium that has stagnated now for 20 years or more. And, thirdly, I couldn't get through a list of best games without mentioning Rez.
Rez is in my five favourite games of all time. While it's natural home is doubtless the Dreamcast, I played it most on the PS2 and the Xbox Live Arcade. However, the Infinite version, which allows you to play the original in VR and adds a new, stunning, VR specific level, is the game at it's audio/visual very best.
And, in case you didn't know, Audio/visuals is at the core of this rhythm action rail shooter - an eclectic mix of industrial techno sounds, neon graphics, tight shooter gameplay, and zoomorphic design that are all woven together into a masterful whole.
The final level music is the best in any game, and the level 4 boss has to be seen, played, and beaten to understand what a work of genius it is.

Nintendo Switch (2017) - Astral Chain

I decided to include this in home consoles (rather than handhelds) as that's where I play it the most, and the game I've played the most on it has to be Platinum's incredible Astral Chain.
Ostensibly another of the company's beat-em-ups, Astral Chain adds exploration and some light puzzling to the mix, but the real hook is it's brilliant use of 'Legions', giant creatures, tethered, and bonded, to your character by the titular chain.
These enormous extensions of your player character (male or female can be chosen, with the other being integral to the story) add immeasurably to the complexity and the spectacle of combat.
There really is far too much going on in this game for me to summarise adequately, and to convey just how sensational this game is. It's far easier, on my brain and keyboard, to simply say that, after Bayonetta, this is Platinum's best game, just edging out Wonderful 101 for second place in their catalogue.