April 19, 2005
The Good Old Days…
The review of the i am 8-bit art exhibition in Wired today certainly took me back a few years to the days of ?LOAD ERROR and SYS 64738, so I thought that I’d have a little look back at my favourite games since the days of byte-sized computers.
OK, OK, only the first couple are 8-bit games, but this is MY nostalgia trip!!
Summer Games - Epyx
This was the first game that I ever played on my old Commodore 64. I loved the music (even now, I still find myself humming the Epyx theme), and the animation of the athletes’ sprite was incredible - well, comparatively incredible anyway (my previous computer had been an Oric 1 after all!!)
The game itself was a collection of 8 sporting events (100m, diving, pole vault, 4×400m relay, 100m freestyle, freestyle relay, gymnastics, skeet shooting) and each one called for precise timing with the joystick. It may sound like Hypersports, or one of the many other ‘joystick-wagglers’, but this game simply felt a lot more skillful.
My favourite event was the gymnastics - a springboard and horse - where there were all sorts of variables to consider, such as landing in the right place on the springbaord for maximum lift, moving the joystick to twist before hitting the horse and pushing off at the optimum time, somersaulting and landing correctly… There were many possible combinations, and you really felt good if you ‘nailed’ a particularly complex move.
Occasionally, I did have a few problems with my copy of the game when loading a new event (this was in the days of cassette tape storage) - sometimes I had to adjust the playback head on the tape unit to get it to work correctly. Admittedly, this was probably down to adjustments that I’d made previously in order to accommodate a slightly ‘dodgy’ C90 tape full of games!
Bruce Lee - Data East / US Gold
Who can possibly forget the sound you heard when the Green Yamo appeared on the screen?!?
Bruce Lee was basically one of the ‘old-skool’ platform-based fighting games. As Bruce, you had to collect all of the paper lanterns within a particular area in order to open a partition or floor to the next section. In the meantime, ninjas and the aforementioned Yamo would attack you and attempt to kill you. My favourite tactic was to wait for an enemy to fall from one platform to the next, and whilst he was still in mid-air, hit him with a flying kick!
As you can see, it’s a pretty straightforward game, and it could get extremely irritating at times, but for some reason, you always found yourself wanting just one more go!
Sensible World of Soccer - Sensible Software
I wasted utilised hours and hours playing this game (and spent a fair bit of time sadly discussing tactics and match results with other people at work too!)
Forget your FIFAs’, forget your Pro Evolutions’, forget International Soccer (one for the ‘64 kids there), ‘Sensi’ on the Commodore Amiga was probably the greatest football game of all time. There was simply so much detail in there - leagues from around the world, cup competitions, everything - and this was combined with fantastic playability.
You could buy/sell players, develop small clubs and turn them into into European giants (I once took Walsall FC to the European Cup final), but most of the fun was experienced when playing the matches themselves. You could play long ball if you wished, but I generally chose to play a fast, one- or two-touch passing game. However, I must admit that if I desperately needed to score, an accurate hump forward straight from the kick-off, with a touch of swerve applied, could almost guarantee you a quick goal!
I could so easily lose myself in this game, even now…
Wings - Cinemaware
As far as flight sims are concerned, I find the IDEA of them rather than the reality more appealing as I really can’t be bothered to put in all those hours of learing. Wings, however, was a completely different - a hell of a lot simpler, and therefore a hell of a lot more fun!
The game takes place during the First World War and it gives you the opportunity to fly in campaigns against historical figures such as Baron Manfred von Richthofen - the Red Baron. As the war progresses, newer, better, and faster planes become available to both you and your enemies, and the nature of the ensuing dogfights changes accordingly.
Doom - id Software
Do I need to say much about this game? The original Doom game was (to me, anyway) a bit of a revelation. The 3D games that I’d played previously were Dungeon Master on the Amiga, and Wolfenstein 3D on the PC, but this was a massive, massive step forward.
The level design (eschewing a simple grid-based system), tactics (hit a barrel and make it go BOOM!) and the demons from HELL (I remember peering cautiously around corners - particularly when I was in the an empty office at night), Doom was simply the Dog’s Knees (or was it the Bee’s Bo****ks…? Whatever!)
Is this game the most important, influential game ever? I’d say it’s not far from being so…
