Top Ten 80’s-90’s Games!! (1#)

1: MONKEY ISLAND (1990 and Beyond!)

First of all I need to state that the only reason Day of the Tentacle is not in this Top 10 is because it is the best game EVER! (see my previous post).

Ooooh yes! The Monkey Island saga is known throughout the gaming world and is considered some of the best adventure games ever.

Monkey Island is the collective name given to a series of four graphical adventure games produced and published by LucasArts, originally known as LucasFilm Games through the development of the first two games in the series.
The games were created as a collaborative effort between Ron Gilbert, Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman. Gilbert worked on the first two games before leaving LucasArts. Grossman and Schafer, who also worked on the first two games, would enjoy success on other titles before both of them also left. The rights to Monkey Island remained with LucasArts, and the third and fourth games were created without the input of the original writing crew.

In ‘The Secret of Monkey Island’ - the game that started it all. You control the hero Guybrush Threepwood who wants to be a pirate, but he quickly learns that he must go through three trials to become a pirate. On one of his quests he meets the lovely governor Elaine Marley and falls in love with her. Just as he thinks everything is perfect, she gets kidnapped by the evil ghost pirate LeChuck.

In Monkey Island 2 - LeChuck’s Revenge Guybrush Threepwood returns in his search for the legendary treasure of Big Whoop. He is now a genuine pirate and has traded in his white shirt and clean shaved face for a dashing blue coat and a beard. This would not be a true sequel if we did not see the return of the villain LeChuck and so, in the true spirit of Monkey Island, Guybrush accidentally help bring back LeChuck who, of course, wants revenge. The game itself has evolved much since the original. It feels about four times bigger and includes four different islands. Some of the puzzles are very hard and therefore you can select to play the game on “easy mode” for beginners.

 

The Monkey Island series is full of spoofs, in-jokes, humorous references, and Easter eggs: so many, in fact, that entire web sites are dedicated to their detection and listing.

Running gags include lines such as “Look behind you, a three-headed monkey!”, the introduction “My name is Guybrush Threepwood and I’m a mighty pirate”, “How appropriate, you fight like a cow”, “I’m selling these fine leather jackets” (a reference to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure), and “That’s the second biggest XXXX I’ve ever seen” (and in EMI “That’s the second bigg… No, that’s the biggest conch shell I’ve ever seen!”), and the astounding fact that Guybrush can hold his breath for 10 minutes.

 

Many parallels have been drawn between the series and the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. This would be very appropriate since Ron Gilbert has openly admitted that sections of Monkey Island 2 borrowed extensively from the original Disneyland ride, such as the famous “dog holding the keys to the jail-cell”. However, he has also said that he thought the second movie (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest) may have ‘borrowed’ from the Monkey Island series too, due to many similarities (e.g. the cannibals, the coffin Jack Sparrow uses as a boat, akin to that used by Guybrush to find the Voodoo Lady, as well as Tia Dalma’s hut built on the bog, very reminiscent of the Voodoo Lady’s hut in the second game, and Jack Sparrow’s line “Look! An Undead Monkey!” is reminiscent of the line “Look behind you! A three-headed monkey!” from all four Monkey Island games).

Each game in the series features cameo appearances by Steve Purcell’s characters Sam & Max (who were featured in their own LucasArts adventure game, Sam & Max Hit the Road). The pair appear as voodoo idols in the first game, as costumes in a costume shop on Booty Island in the second, as toys in LeChuck’s demonic carnival and as light-formations at the theatre (in Mega-Monkey mode) in the third and as one of the possible aliases for Pegnose Pete in the World of Prosthesis puzzle in the fourth scene from Escape from Monkey Island.

Hmmmm RIP-OFF??

None of the games explicitly reveal the “Secret of Monkey Island” (although creator Ron Gilbert has stated that the secret was not revealed in any of the games, and that the true secret would be revealed if he got to work on the fifth entry in the series). LeChuck himself, when asked in the second and third games, refuses to answer the question; Guybrush can eventually prod LeChuck to confess that he does not know what the secret is.

There are many theories popular among players, and at least one case can be made from each game in the series. One of these theories states that the bizarre revelation at the end of MI2 is the true secret of Monkey Island (again, Ron Gilbert has confirmed that the secret is yet to be discovered, in an interview with GameSpot). The fact that it was debunked in CMI, the theory states, is merely a retcon by the new development team after Ron Gilbert’s departure. Elements in the closing scenes of MI2 seem to support this theory, as do certain comments of pirates in the insult swordfighting section of the first game, asking Guybrush to “play along”. Members of the CMI team (many of whom were also part of the MI2 team) claimed at one point that they knew what the original secret was: that the storyline of the games was simply the fantasy of a child. Gilbert, however, has contradicted this in various interviews, saying that he never told anyone what the true secret of Monkey Island is. A large article about the subject can be found here.

Gilbert stated in a 2004 interview that when the game was originally conceived it was considered “too big”, so they split it into three parts. He added that he “knows what the third [part] is” and “how the story’s supposed to end,” indicating that he had a definite concept of the secret and a conclusive third game.

A fifth Monkey Island game has been rumored (and is the source of jokes in the fourth game), although no official word has been released from LucasArts. One significant hint at this is in the fourth game, when both the Voodoo Lady character and Guybrush make claims about involvement in “an unbreakable five game contract.”, similar to references made by the Voodoo Lady throughout the series. The company’s cancellation of the planned sequels Full Throttle: Hell on Wheels and Sam & Max 2: Freelance Police may indicate a strong reluctance to produce new graphic adventures.

During television network G4’s coverage of the 2006 E3 Convention, a LucasArts executive was asked about the return of popular franchises such as Monkey Island. The executive responded that the company was currently focusing on new franchises, and that LucasArts may return to the “classic franchises” in the next decade.

Keep your Fingers Crossed Peeps!

 

Top Ten 80’s-90’s Games!! (4# - 2#)

4: GRIM FANDANGO (199

This was one of the first Lucasarts titles to ditch scumm for the new GrimE ™ engine, rendering backgrounds in 2D, while the main objects and characters are represented in 3D, and allows the player to move Manny with a keyboard, a joystick or a gamepad. The main character “Manny” must collect objects and talk to the various inhabitants of the Underworld to solve puzzles in order to progress in the game. Like most other LucasArts adventure games, the player cannot ever get in a “dead-end” situation that would prevent progress forward due to “death” (as it applies in the Underworld) or some other unfortunate incident.

The Afterlife consists of the souls of those that have passed away, appearing as skeleton-like figures, and demons that assist in the workings of the Afterlife. Many of the characters are Mexican and occasional Spanish words are interspersed into the English dialog, also known as Spanglish. (In a strange twist, however, one of the Latino characters, Toto Santos, speaks Hungarian.) Many of the characters often smoke, which follows a film noir tradition. The user manual observes that everyone who smokes in the game is dead: “Think about it.”

The story unfolds in four episodes, each set a year apart on the Day of the Dead, November 2. It is from this festival that much of the game’s imagery is drawn—most of the game’s characters look like skeletal calaca figures. Like these figures the characters are not skeletons but depictions of souls.

Manny Calavera is a departed soul, serving the Department of Death in the underworld city of El Marrow by selling travel tickets to the newly-dead: the virtuous win passage on the Number Nine train, which takes their souls to Mictlan in four minutes instead of the four-year spiritual journey that sinners must take. When Mercedes “Meche” Colomar is not allocated the “Double-N” ticket she deserves, Manny realises his colleague Domino and his boss Don have been stealing these from the rightful holders and selling them off to the wealthy for profit, “sprouting” all who get in their way (shooting them with “sproutella”-filled darts, causing agonising death-within-death, flowers growing out through the bone). He joins the Lost Souls Alliance (LSA), a revolutionary group led by the charismatic Salvador, and leaves for the city of Rubacava in search of Meche, his demon driver Glottis in tow. Manny’s investigations draw him into a tangled web of corruption, deceit, and murder.

The game combines this mythical underworld with 1930s Art Deco design motifs and a dark plot reminiscent of the film noir genre. The design and early plot are reminiscent of films such as Chinatown and Glengarry Glen Ross. Several scenes in Grim Fandango are directly inspired by such film noir as The Maltese Falcon, The Third Man, Key Largo, and most notably Casablanca: in the game’s second act, two characters are directly modeled after the roles played by Peter Lorre and Claude Rains in the film. Despite this, Tim Schafer stated that the true inspiration was drawn from films like Double Indemnity, in which a weak and undistinguished insurance salesman is involved in murder and intrigue……………AWESOME STUFF…. if you havn’t played this game buy it NOW!!!

3: HALF-LIFE λ (199

In Half-Life, players assume the role of Dr. Gordon Freeman, a recently MIT graduated theoretical physicist who must fight his way out of a secret underground research facility whose research and experiments into teleportation technology have gone wrong. On its release, critics hailed its overall presentation and numerous scripted sequences, and it won over 50 Game of the Year awards in 1998-99. Its gameplay influenced first-person shooters for years to come, and it has since been regarded as one of the greatest games of all time.

With over eight million copies sold since, Half-Life is the best-selling PC first-person shooter to date. The Half-Life franchise has seen over 15 million sales.

The game was also released for the PlayStation 2 on November 15, 2001. A Sega Dreamcast port was made, but was cancelled just two weeks before release. The fully-playable Dreamcast version has since been leaked onto the Internet.

Most of the game is set in a remote desert area of New Mexico in the Black Mesa Research Facility, a fictional complex that bears many similarities to both the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Area 51, during May or December (as seen on calendars in the game) of 200X, meaning it takes place sometime between the years 2000 and 2009. The game’s protagonist is the theoretical physicist Gordon Freeman, a survivor of an experiment that goes horribly wrong when an unexpected “resonance cascade” (a fictitious phenomenon; see also constructive interference and prompt critical) rips dimensional seams, devastating the facility. Aliens from another world—known as Xen—subsequently enter the facility through these dimensional seams (an event known as the “Black Mesa Incident”).

As Freeman tries to make his way out of the ruined facility to find help for the injured, he soon discovers that he is caught between two sides: the hostile aliens and the Hazardous Environment Combat Unit, a United States Marine Corps Special Forces division dispatched to cover up the incident by eliminating the aliens, as well as Dr. Freeman and the other surviving Black Mesa personnel. Throughout the game, a mysterious figure known (but not actually referred to in-game) as “G-Man” regularly appears, apparently monitoring Freeman’s progress. Ultimately, Freeman uses the co-operation of surviving scientists and security officers to work his way towards the mysterious “Lambda Complex” of Black Mesa (signified with the Greek “λ” character), where a team of survivors teleport him to the alien world Xen to kill the Nihilanth, the creature keeping Xen’s side of the dimensional rift open.

2: TREASURE ISLAND DIZZY (1987)

Treasure Island Dizzy is a computer puzzle game published in 1987 by Codemasters for the Amstrad, Commodore 64, Spectrum, DOS, NES, Amiga and Atari ST.

It was the second game in the Dizzy series, and is the sequel to Dizzy. The game was developed by the Oliver Twins with graphics being designed by Neil Adamson and music by David Whittaker.

This game is quite different to its predecessor, with a new inventory system and improved animations. The game notably contains fewer enemies than the previous with the game more centred around inventory based problem solving. The aim of the game is to solve various puzzles in order to obtain a boat so that Dizzy can return to his friends and family, the Yolkfolk. To do this Dizzy must journey through haunted mines, tree villages, as well as underwater. The game also features a subquest (albeit one essential to completing the game) in which thirty gold coins must be collected. Such subquests were found in many of the sequels.

Critics consider this one of the most difficult Dizzy games as the energy bar system of later titles was not yet implemented and Dizzy is provided with only one life—contrasting with five in the first game and three in Fantasy World Dizzy, the immediate sequel, and most subsequent titles. Also unique to this game, the player is unable to select any particular item from the inventory for use—Dizzy simply puts down whichever item is at the top of the list. If Dizzy is underwater, and the snorkel happens to be at the top of the inventory list, he will put the snorkel down when the player hits “enter”, and instantly die. Treasure Island Dizzy therefore requires more foresight and planning than the other games in the series.

Adding to the diffculty of the game was the fact that the player had two main tasks to complete; the escape from the islands, and the collection of the thirty coins. Indeed, upon escaping the final island, the Shopkeeper character appears and tells Dizzy that he cannot leave without finding all thirty coins. Given that a number of the coins were hidden behind scenery, this second task proved to be more difficult than the main game. Infamously, Commodore Format printed a “complete” solution and map which did not include the hidden coins, frustrating many a player.

Treasure Island Dizzy can be downloaded as a PC game from the Codemasters website!

Top Ten 80’s-90’s Games!! (7# - 5#)

7: SONIC THE HEDGEHOG (1991)

Sega’s faster, edgier answer to Nintendo’s series of Super Mario Bros. games, Sonic the Hedgehog created a blue, spike-haired mascot for the company and propelled the Genesis ahead of the Super NES during the highly competitive Christmas season of 1991. Players guide the running, jumping, spinning, enemy-pouncing title character through six colorful, beautifully illustrated zones (including the Spring Yard Zone and the Labyrinth Zone), zipping through them with reckless abandon, or exploring them a little more slowly in hopes of finding hidden rings, lives, power sneakers, and other goodies.

The bad guys (such as Caterkiller and Dr. Robotnik) are memorable, there are cool obstacles to avoid (including spikes and lava) and fun bonus levels to play, and gameplay is butter smooth and nice and easy (probably too easy). The game that invented the “fast-scrolling, character-with-an-attitude” sub-genre, Sonic the Hedgehog is easily the most important cartridge ever released for the Sega Genesis.

6: DOUBLE DRAGON 2: The Revenge (198

Double Dragon II drops the rescue premise of the original game in favor of a revenge theme (hence the subtitle). Whereas in the original game, Marian was kidnapped, in the sequel she is shot to death by Black Warriors’ leader Willy right in the very beginning of the game, giving the game a much darker tone than the original. The plot deviates slightly in the NES version. While the revenge premise is the same, Willy does not appear in the game at all and a new final boss (the Mysterious Warrior) is introduced in his place.

The ending also differs between the original arcade version and in the NES version. In the arcade version, the game ends after Billy (and/or Jimmy) defeat their evil doppelgangers. The game shows a photograph of the Lee brothers and Marian. Marian sheds a tear that forms the words, “The End,” at the bottom of the screen. In the NES version, there’s an additional stage after the doppelgangers, where Billy and Jimmy must confront the Mysterious Warrior in a two-part final showdown. After they defeat the Mysterious Warrior, he tells the Lee brothers of the prophecy of his fighting style. Billy returns to Marian’s body to find her restored to life, as if she had merely been asleep.

5: GRAND THEFT AUTO (199

Grand Theft Auto is made up of a series of levels each set in one of the three cities in the game. In each level, the player has a target number of points to achieve, and five lives to attain the score. The player is free to do whatever he wants. The player can gain points by causing death and destruction amid the traffic in the city, or steal and sell cars for profit, although to get to the large target money amount to complete a level, players will usually opt to complete some missions. Even during missions there is still some freedom as most of the time the player is free to choose the route to take, but the destination is usually fixed. It is this level of freedom which set GTA apart from other action based computer games at the time. The PC releases of the game allowed networked multiplayer gameplay using the IPX protocol.

Grand Theft Auto has seven ‘radio stations’, plus a police band track, which can be heard once the player enters a car, however each vehicle can only receive a limited amount of these radio stations. In the Playstation port each car only had one station.

PC players can remove the CD once the game is loaded and replace it with an audio CD. The next time the character enters a vehicle, a song from the CD will randomly play.

The game’s title track is “Gangster Friday” by Craig Conner (who played all instruments on this track), credited to the fictitious band Slumpussy, and doesn’t appear on any of the radio stations With the exception of Head Radio FM, the names of songs or the radio station names are never mentioned in-game. However the soundtrack is listed in the booklet which comes with the Grand Theft Auto game.

The three cities in which the game is set are modelled after real cities, in terms of landscape and style. They are Liberty City (New York City), San Andreas (San Francisco) and Vice City (Miami).

Top Ten 80’s-90’s Games!! (10# - 8#)

So i’ve decided to do a run down and ranking of MY top ten 80’s - 90’s games…. I’m sure you will be able to guess a few of them… HERE WE GO:

10: SAM & MAX - Hit the Road (1993)

They are private investigators, or as they like to call themselves, “freelance police”. The pair live and work in New York City, but often travel to such places as New Orleans, ancient Egypt, the Philippines, and the Moon. They drive a seemingly indestructible black-and-white 1960 DeSoto Adventurer to most of these locations (including the Moon, which they achieved by stuffing the muffler with thousands upon thousands of match heads). Max often drives, despite being unable to see over the dashboard.

Their crime fighting technique involves brandishing their over-sized guns to intimidate criminals (it is not clear where Max keeps his weapon concealed as he is completely naked; when asked, Max always replies with “None of your damn business, Sam.”), but more often than not they need to rely on more creative solutions to vanquish evil. When they do use firearms Sam favors a gigantic revolver, while Max prefers a Luger. Sam and Max occasionally receive assignments from a mysterious Commissioner over the phone, but they usually just walk straight into trouble.

9: PRINCE OF PERSIA (1989)

Prince of Persia starts with the Sultan of Persia being called away to war in a foreign land. Sensing opportunity, the evil Vizier Jaffar seizes the throne for himself. The Prince is imprisoned, since Jaffar has designs on the Princess. The Princess is also imprisoned and she is given a choice with an hour to decide: marry Jaffar or die. The Prince has an hour to complete the game by saving the Princess and killing Jaffar.

The twist is that the game is played in real time, so the Prince must quickly complete the quest without breaks. On some platforms it is possible to save the game at the start of each level, though the time limit still applies. The only way to lose the game is by letting the time expire. If the Prince is killed, the game will restart from the beginning of the level, or in some levels, at a mid-way checkpoint.

The game also includes a power bar. Medium falls, blue potions, being hit by falling platforms, and sword hits take one bottle off the power bar, while major falls, being hit unarmed, falling or running on spikes and blades, kill the Prince instantly. The Prince can increase the number of bottles in his power bar by drinking larger red potions, usually hidden or in dangerous places, while the regular-sized Red magic potions restore one life each time they are consumed. There is also a green potion that made the Prince light-weight and one that made the screen flip around, depending on the level.

In the fourth level, the Prince is forced to jump through a magic mirror that tears his soul apart from him, always leaving him with just one full bottle. The soul, depicted as a semi-transparent copy of the prince, leaves the screen and will appear in two of the last levels. In level 6, when the prince jumps and catches on a platform to climb up, his soul closes the gate before him forcing him to drop to next level. In level 12, with the sword drawn, fighting the prince. Since the prince cannot hurt his soul without getting hurt as well, he has to sheathe his weapon and rejoin his soul by walking into it. This also adds an extra bottle to the prince’s power bar. In the game’s last level, the Prince has to fight and defeat Jaffar, a master swordsman. The Prince is reunited with the Princess and all is well.

8: SUPER MARIO BROS. (1985)

Super Mario Bros. sports a “hero must save damsel in distress” storyline. The hero Mario, an Italian plumber, must save Princess Toadstool of the Mushroom Kingdom from the evil King Koopa. Mario is aided in his quest by his brother Luigi in two-player mode. In order to save Princess Toadstool, the Mario Bros. must conquer the eight worlds that comprise the Mushroom Kingdom. Mario (or Luigi) must make his way to the castle in each world and defeat one of the King’s evil minions, thereby taking control of that world. In order to reach the castle, however, Mario or Luigi must battle through three “sub-worlds” by either destroying or avoiding King Koopa’s henchmen. If Mario or Luigi successfully fights his way through the castle and defeats the evil minion, a Mushroom Retainer (later called Toad), is freed. Inside the eighth castle, the Mario Bros. will find Princess Toadstool.

It must also be noted that Super Mario Bros. is the best selling video game of all time, and was largely responsible for the initial success of the Nintendo Entertainment System, as well as ending the two year slump of video game sales in the United States after the video game crash of 1983.

Modern Kids Books

So today my brother sent me through a comedy email with a load of pics of various kids books covers that have been “updated” to fit in today with our modern culture. I thought I’d post them for your amusement.

Who’s the Biggest Cock… or She-Cock in Advertising???

This vid is pure genius… Charlie Brooker tacfully runs down the top 10 “Cocks” in advertising.

Pure Genius!!

Fallout 2 Expansion!…YES!!… FALLOUT 2!!!

It’s been 2 years in the making…. Fallout fan site “No Mutants Allowed” (NMA) user “killap” has finished their fan expansion that adds content that was originally planned by the Fallout 2 devs and some other new stuff!!!

“killap” has posted on the NMA forum a brief rundown of the expansion: HERE

you can download the expansion here:

US/UK - installer: download

US/UK - manual: download

Dust off that copy of Fallout 2 and get in there!!! 

Tricia Helfer gives us a glimpse of BSG Season 4

So as Tricia so kindly put me on her blog previously I added her to my blog in kind. I’m a BSG fan so I check her blog every now and then for info/news.

She’s recently added a picture/season 4 ‘teaser’ on her site and it certainly is leaving me hungry for more S4 info!

here’s the link: http://triciahelfer.com/new/?p=227

Looking forward to seeing you in Season 4 Tricia!!!!

Doing things Doggy Stylee!!

So my housemates have just bought a puppy!!!!

Yes it’s very cute and whines when it’s on it’s own.

At first I was a bit apprehensive of having a puppy in the house. My first concern was that as I’m allergic to animal hair it’s probably not the best pet to have in the house…… my second concern being that puppies.. much like babies tend to just empty their bladders whenever they feel like it….

Well into day 2 now and I must admit that even though puppy crap stinks big stylee. It is a welcome addition to the house… as it keeps my housemates busy (even if it does turn them into ‘blubbering fools’).

Anyway I’ll keep you posted on the dogs progress… i hope you are all looking forward to my next post on how to cook puppy kebabs!

REMEMBER KIDS… A DOG IS NOT JUST FOR CHRISTMAS……….. IT’S FOR BOXING DAY IF THERE IS SOME LEFT OVER!!!!

Keep on Running!!!

A person at work has decided to run the London Marathon (nutter!!!) for charity…. he’s currently chronicling his progress while he trains for it…. i say good luck… I’m sure I’ll be there cheering him on from the nearest water hole…. pint of cold lager in my hand

All please join in cheering him on.. feel free to make supportive t-shirts and banners etc..

Fight that flab…. get in there boy…!!!

For anyone interested in getting in on the action please visit:

http://www.onefatman08.wordpress.com

You can sent donations to me and i will happily pass them on… remember it’s for charity!!!