Zac's Top 10 Video Games Part 1

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.