An A-Z of great PlayStation games - Part 4: J, K, and L.

Part three of this mini-series of blogs brings us to the letters J, K, and L.

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 on with the latest batch.

Here’s a fun fact: When Jet Riders (as Jet Moto was renamed in the UK) came out, I had no idea that Mountain Dew was a real product. I just thought it was a vaguely 7up themed creation from the development team. I’m going to go right ahead and say that this was because the brand had zero penetration outside North America in the mid to late 90’s, but I’m happy to be corrected. 

This is a game that has you race across various terrain on hover-bikes which, to the designers' credit, bear no resemblance at all to those from the Star Wars universe. Instead, the hovering bikes in the Jet Moto series look like, well, hovering bikes. Or, probably more accurately, hovering Jet Skis.

In a theme that’s true of so many older games, Jet Moto is really, really hard. It may look like an arcade racer, but there are layers of techniques and skills that mean the player's ability is tested from pretty much the second race, as you race over mountains, along wooded rivers, and over very uneven terrain.

But mastering the game’s mechanics, and learning it’s complex courses, is incredibly rewarding, and an investment of effort that will have you, eventually, feeling like a future-racing deity.

I have two games in my PS collection beginning with ‘K’, but I haven’t actually played either of them. I don’t even know where one of them (Knockout Kings 2001) has come from. Looking at game lists elsewhere doesn’t bring up anything interesting I've happened to play either, so I’m left with the rather uninspired choice of King of Fighters 98, which - despite being a very obvious selection - remains, both to me and many others, the best entry in that long running series.

It’s utterly beautiful, features a huge roster of characters, a culmination of techniques from the 3 preceding games in the franchise, and - thanks in part to near perfect balancing - feels fresh yet intuitive to play.

I haven’t actually played the PlayStation version but as far as I can tell it’s a very faithful port of the arcade original, although there are several other, potentially better, ports that are both cheaper and logistically easier to play.

If ISS Pro Evo 2 featured a kernel of ‘arcade soccer’ buried deep in its heart, Namco's LiberoGrande oozes coin-op gameplay from every pore.

In this wonderfully unrealistic effort you control a single player in a team from a kind of third person down-on-the-pitch perspective.

In play, you are able to pass, shoot, tackle and additionally call for your teammates to do the same. With this simple interface, plus a few flashy tricks, you set about taking on teams from around the world.

It’s a hugely entertaining game, with hidden depth and a variety of effective play styles.

I find it most satisfying to pull the strings through the midfield before breaking the defensive line and calling for that perfectly timed final pass - but it’s equally effective to ball-hog your way into the box with tricks and jinks before rifling the ball past the hapless keeper.

By the time this concept was revived in the ‘Become a Legend’ and ‘Be a Pro’ modes from Konami and EA respectively, football games had become obsessed with realism, and these modern versions play very differently (i.e. are not as much fun) as this game and it’s equally excellent sequel.