Cheers man.
Part two, where we discuss remakes (and a couple things I forgot) and why anyone who doesn't like Elite is a moron who should be shot, will be up the very second I can be bothered writing it.
EDIT: Which is right now.
Firstly, I'll tell you about some games I missed.
Firstly, everyone likes Halo, right? So, theoretically, Bungie's other FPS will be just as good. It's called
Marathon, and there's three of them. Personally speaking, I think its boring as all hell but owing to the fact that just about everyone in the world disagrees with me I'm linking to the stupid thing anyway.
Aleph One is an engine enhancement, or something. You'll probably need it.
Another thing I don't much like is Quake III, because I prefer singleplayer games (and also because Doom is the most fun multiplayer FPS, full stop). That's pretty subjective though, and QIII seemed alright from what I've played of it.
OpenArena does for QIII what the previously mentioned FreeDoom does for Doom - provides open-source content so you don't step on id's toes. Pretty good quality stuff, from what I've seen.
You will, of course, need an engine to play it.
Get this one. I have no idea if its good, but it
uses ray tracing, and ray tracing is great.
Speaking of arenas, Bethesda made
The Elder Scrolls: Arena available for free. This is, of course, is the original game in the series, and its... odd. It has D&D style leveling, which is really no better than that broken-as-hell skill based system they bought out for Daggerfall (I hate character levels) but at least it encourages specialisation. I haven't got very far with it, to be honest, because I got Daggerfall at the same time.
Other than that, this is basically just an
absolutely massive dungeon crawl. Pretty good fun, but don't go in expecting to be able to do much other than the main quest - this has remarkably little in common with the later games in the series.
Also, note to Bethesda: DESIGN A DECENT CHARACTER ADVANCEMENT SYSTEM YOU BASTARDS. Ahem.
Last original game for now:
Dink Smallwood. It's an isometric-style action RPG where you go around murdering ducks and hitting on your aunt. Or encouraging your uncle to hit her. Yeah, its bizarre, but I found myself quite enjoying it for some reason. Sure, the graphics are rubbish and there's no side quests or really very much to do other than kill things, but... the hero propositions his family members for sex. All other software devs take note please.
Right, remakes.
Everyone loves
Hurrican, which is, of course, a Turrican remake. I wish they'd kept the flatter graphical style of the original, but its still great fun. And its hard, too.
So long as we're talking about simpler games, I'll mention
Klass of '99. I don't know how many of you came across the original Skool Daze, but I did (on the C64 I think?), and although I've always liked the idea of a boarding-school game they don't really come up very often these days. Insert rant about over budgeted devs and publishers being unwilling to take risks here. Anyway, Skool Daze was thoroughly confusing as the game itself didn't give you any clues as to what the hell you were meant to be doing, but it was fun walking around punching kids who were smaller than you.
Right, I'm rambling. Klass of '99 is like Skool Daze, only it comes with docs so you can tell what you're supposed to be doing, which improves the gameplay immensely, I call tell you. It reveals itself as a charming little arcade-adventure set in a school. Odd but fun.
This was made by
Retrospec, who have also provided us nostalgia buffs with (among other things) remakes of the very awesome
Manic Miner and the less awesome but still great
Jet Set Willy. They've also made a version of
Cybernoid 2. Unfortunately, Cybernoid 1, which is one of my favourite games, shits all over Cybernoid 2, which is not. Therefore I can't be bothered playing the remake, so I can't tell you if its good or not. You peeps probably haven't played either, though, so your enjoyment of the remake might not be marred by its vastly inferior status. And I'm rambling again.
Next,
The Midnight Engine remake of Lords of Midnight and Doomdark's Revenge. Another weird Spectrum original, like most of the remakes I've spoken about so far (exception: Hurrican). A neat strategy/adventure hybrid, you're put in charge of four heroes who must each use their particular strengths to defeat the Sauron-esque Doomdark. There were a few ways you could do this, which means this game was one of the first to have multiple paths. Good stuff.
As long as we're talking fantasy games, here's a couple of remakes of the first-person RPG that started it all: Dungeon Master. The first,
CSBWin is the purist's choice, and was made by reverse engineering the Atari ST version of the game. Since I owned an Amiga 500 as a kid (and own an A500 and an A500+ now, not to mention the commercial Amiga emulation package Amiga Forever) I'm legally required to tell you that that makes this a massive pile of shit, but really its not bad. The other is called
Return to Chaos. It differs from CSBWin in that it hasn't been generated from original source code, but is instead a 'play-alike'. Both have superior modding capabilities, if that's your thing. Take your pick.
Moving on,
Sentry. Remake of Sentinel, the 3d game where you play a robot vampire. Gameplay is kind of hard to explain, but it focuses around avoiding being seen by the titular guardian, or any of his minions. To do this, you drain rocks and trees of power and use said power to create robot husks which you can then teleport yourself too. Eventually you'll be in a position to drain the Sentinel itself, and once you do you'll move onto the next map, of which there are something like 10000.
I love the original, and while I don't find this entirely satisfactory (its a lot easier, and is apocalyptically ugly) it hasn't stopped me playing it. Quite a lot.
Anyway, its one of those surreal 3d games you don't really get anymore (blah blah blah oooh the evils of the games industry), and I recommend it wholeheartedly.
Another surreal old 3d game is
Cholo, here given a very fancy makeover. If you like the idea of guiding a little robot around a post-apocalyptic city, possessing other robots and trying to render the place inhabitable for humanity again, you'll enjoy this. I do.
Its by
Ovine, who've released some other remakes, but nothing I really give a shit about.
Then there's Elite. Elite is one of those polarising games; most folks will either shit themselves with joy or take one look and go, 'what in the name of Satan is this drivel?'. I'm one of the former, and I can honestly say the only game I've spent more time playing than this one is Doom (I quite like Doom). I look forward to the time when I control all of humanity with an iron fist, and can begin systematically exterminating the scum who don't love this delightful little program. I mean, could there be a better feeling than crushing some idiot who attacks you, and then selling him into a lifetime of slavery? Fuck no!
For the uninitiated, Elite is a freeform space game. At the start, you're given a basic trader's spaceship, and are sent out on your merry way to make as much money as you can, and thusly upgrade your ship with better weapons, shields and the like. There's no plot, although you will eventually be contacted by various parties to complete various missions. You can ignore these if you want.
On your way, you'll be attacked by pirates and rampaging aliens. You can smuggle drugs, guns, and slaves. If the trader's life doesn't appeal, hunt down criminal scum for the bounty on their heads, or become a miner. You can even plunder honest traders of their cargo if you want, but beware of the police and bounty hunters.
There's a bunch of inferior rip-offs out there, including a number of commercial games. Fuck them. If you want some
real hot space action, get either
Elite: The New Kind or
Oolite (you have to visit the
forums to get the latest version though). The New Kind is purer; it's a vanilla remake of the original. This means its all about you, baby. Pirates spawn around you, and you won't be able to fly in and save any poor, harried freighter convoys. However, it does have a wireframe mode, which is how Elite should be played.
Oolite is much fancier. It incorporates elements of the Acorn Archimedes version, such as pirates etc. being spawned en route to the various planets, as well as OpenGL graphics. While this is nice, since you can play the hero as mentioned above, it does mean avoiding fights is too easy (just go by a circuitous route to the planet and you'll be fine). But unless you're a pissy wimp you'll go charging in without any weapon or shield upgrades, so this isn't the game's fault.
Furthermore, Oolite has modding capabilities, and a dedicated group of obsessives who are bringing out plenty of good stuff, ranging from new ships to sound upgrades to new factions and missions. Unfortunately, it runs remarkably slowly, at least on the Windows version. Play TNK if you have a rubbish PC.
Anyway, that's it for now. There's probably a few things I've missed (Paradroid comes to mind now that I think about it), but I'm on the radio in half an hour, so they'll have to wait. Enjoy.
PS. Here's a list of Spectrum related remakes I just found.
http://www.rebelstar.co.uk/remakes.htm
