1. Deus Ex
2. Half Life 2
3. Grand Theft Auto Vice City
4. Fallout 2
5. Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag
6. Civilization V:
7. Grand Theft Auto IV
8. Max Payne
9. Bioshock
10. Mass Effect 2
1. Deus Ex
Deus Ex is a
giant bowl of Science Fiction nerd nectar.
There is an obvious Blade Runner influence about the dark and paranoid
world you inhabit. Most conspiracy
theories out there are referenced in the storyline including the Illuminati,
Men In Black and Majestic 12. While this
game that was made in 2000 looks crude by today’s standards it delivers well on
2 fronts: 1. Rewarding the player in exploring places off the beaten track.
2. Reminding the player that choices
have consequences that are not always obvious.
Both of these mean that hacking a certain computer in a locked office or
befriending a certain character can make the difference between a hard gunfight
with a boss or destroying them instantly with their unique ‘kill phrase’. The choices that you make in building up your
character’s skillset also determine the kind of game you play. As a cyborg the possibilities are open to
you on the one had deploying a drone that can knock out enemy robots with an
EMP, or giving yourself a set of lungs that can allow you to breath
underwater. A compelling and constantly
twisting storyline makes you constantly uncertain about your alliances and the
choice you make. And in the end there is
no set way to complete the game. There
are 3 possible endings encouraging you to embark on the adventure all over
again.
2. Half Life 2
Half Life 1 was scary at the best of times. A quiet day at the office as a Theoretical
Physicist ended with you accidentally opening a door to another dimension,
turning your mundane work environment into a living hell littered with vicious
aliens out for your blood. Talk about a
bad day at the office. The crude
graphics were made up by the nightmarish sounds you heard as you roamed the
blood stained halls of your workplace. Around
each corner is another nightmarish scenario that can’t be tackled in the same
way as the last one. How do you top
that? For a start Half Life 2 explodes
the size of your world to many times the size.
This world is full of many different environments from the dark and
disturbing zombie infested town of Ravenholm, to the terrifying calm of a sandy
beach wear a wrong turn can summon aliens from underground who will tear your
face off. Throughout these places ingenious
environmental puzzles block your path, effectively making this game a puzzle
game as well as a First Person Shooter.
These environments are also filled with non-player characters who you
unexpectedly bump in to, smoothly and somewhat informally moving along the
story, which makes a difference from the direct approach of many games (making
it more believable). But to my mind this
game’s unique selling point is the believability of it’s world, from the
remarkably life like facial gestures the characters shoot you, to your cold
introduction to life under a totalitarian alien regime as soon as you step off
the train.
3. Grand Theft Auto Vice City
I admit it! I was
under 18 when I played this which obviously explains all of those hookers I
beat to death. It must be true, I read
it in the Daily Mail. What this game has
in spades is style from the 1980s soundtrack to hurtling down a highway into the
sunset on the back of a motorbike………….until you crash into the back of a truck
and die a bloody death. When I got into
my first car (one of the few I obtained by peaceful means) I could hear Michael
Jackson’s ‘Billy Jean’ on the radio, and I knew that this was a confident game
full of swagger. The premise is quite simple; you are a mobster Capo sent out
to Vice City (basically Miami in the 1980s) to start and empire for your boss
back home, inevitably your empire outgrows your boss and the story advances
accordingly. Film references are
everywhere from Carlito’s Way to Scarface and the satire is full on and darkly
funny. GTA games to not encourage
perfect driving or even careful driving.
A fun challenge can be to see how many vehicles you can get through to
get from one end of the city to the next.
But if you cause too much mayhem the cops are on you. This is followed by more cops, the plain
clothes vice cops (like Miami Vice), the FBI and then finally the Army. Missions range from multiple assassinations,
frantic races, blowing up buildings with remote controlled helicopters and
dropping advertisements for a porn film from a seaplane. It is incredibly silly and often offensive
but the engaging world and multiple things to do keep you locked in.
4. Fallout
2
Fallout 2 is
the definitive cult game. Newcomers look
at it with and it’s fans with hints of
curiosity and confusion. Why are people
so into this incredibly crude looking game?
And indeed it is crude looking, the game may have been made In 1998 but
it’s graphics make it look a lot older. And
yet this game pretty much wrote the rule book of how to make compelling,
challenging and awesomely entertaining Role Playing Games (RPGs). As the
name of the game suggests it is set in the context of a post-apocalyptic world
that has survived a nuclear holocaust. You
are your tribal village’s ‘Chosen one’, the descendant of the ‘Vault Dweller’ from
Fallout 1, your quest is to leave the safety of your village in order to save
it. Between that main quest there are
many settlements and sites to see, loads of weird and wonderful characters to
meet and tons of side quests. Sometimes
places you go to play on contemporary topical themes such as Broken Hills,
where interracial tensions between humans and Super Mutants. Do you heal the rift and allow Broken Hills
to thrive or spread racial tension to the point of pogroms breaking out? In a mafia infested New Reno do you join one
of the mobs and rise to the top or ignore the families completely. Or you do as I did and rise to the top of the
ranks to gain experience and loot, and then come back to New Reno once you have
ridiculously powerful armour and weaponry……..and massacre all of the families
without exception. The script in your
interactions range from an incredibly silly burping competition to a tense
stand-off with the President of the United States who is disturbingly arguing
in favour of ethnic cleansing. The turn
based combat promotes careful thinking, making you feel like a chess player
armed with a Gatling Laser. Careful
strategic planning allows you to get out of some very sticky situations with
finesse, while simultaneously rewarding you with some goofy and spectacularly
ultraviolent death animations. The sheer
scope of the game encourages replayability, never mind the parts of the world
you never quite find the time to explore first time around. Only in Fallout 2 can you become a Boxer,
Made Man, Porn Star, Grave Robber, Karma Sutra Master and a Muck Digger all in
the same game.
5. Assassin’s Creed Iv: Black Flag
The third Assassin’s Creed was not what many people expected
or even wanted. A part of the problem
was that the bar had been raised so high by Assassin’s Creed 2 and it’s follow
up Brotherhood. The main character from
the third one was pretty boring, no one really had the patience for the economy
system on the homestead and no one particularly cared for the hunting
element. But the idea of naval combat
was introduced in the third instalment and players were only disappointed that
it didn’t feature more than it did. So Ubisoft listened and the natural follow
up as an Assassin’s Creed in which naval combat ran through most of the
game. And so Assassin’s Creed IV: Black
Flag was born, putting you as a pirate captain in the Caribbean during the
golden age of piracy; the period immediately after the end of the War of the
Spanish Succession from 1715 onwards. You
play Edward Kenway a pirate who stumbles upon the long running conflict between
the Assassin’s and the Templars (standard-bearers for freedom and order
respectively). Along the way in this
tale you meet legendary pirate figures such as Edward Thatch aka
Blackbeard. But ultimately the story
reveals that you are in the present day a test subject for a multinational
corporation owned by the Templars, making you explore Edward’s ‘genetic memory’
allegedly to make an entertainment product.
In reality you are a pawn of the Templars who are hoping to use what you
experience to accumulate more power. But
Black Flag’s ultimate selling point is it’s genuinely convincing and accessible
approach to making you a pirate.
Fighting ships and raiding them is very fun and swift with some quick
and smart thinking. Long voyages between
destinations are lightened up by your crew singing genuine sea shanties (including
my favourite ‘Drunken Sailor’) that you can collect more of. Violent storms at sea can turn up the tension
when you are facing off against multiple opposing ships, some of which are only
barely visible by their cannons roaring into action on the top of a towering
wave. The frantic pace of the action and
the score of activities and places to explore means that you can get a lot done
in a very short amount of time. In fact
busying yourself by doing your own thing can be much more fun than following
the story. The fact that you have to
acquire materials for upgrading yourself and your ship by raiding and exploring
means you have every excuse to get lost in the vast expanse of the Caribbean.
No comments:
Post a Comment