Video Games I’ve Enjoyed Over The Years (Part 6)
Welcome back everyone to another in the Video Games I’ve Enjoyed Over The Years series. We’re getting into the business end of the series hence the serious looking title picture. The last volume was a bit racing game heavy so let’s try to balance that this time with some alternatives.
This by the way is not a list of the greatest of all time or anything like that but more my personal look through my own history of playing video games so if you think I’ve missed a certain title it’s more than likely because I simply haven’t played it (Call of Duty for example) but anyway lets get back into the list as we continue with the Xbox 360.
23 BURNOUT PARADISE
This was (like split second) a very different kind of driving game. It’s set in a fictional place called Paradise City and it has a very much (not yet invented) Forza Horizon/ GTA/ Need For Speed feel to it. The game itself is what we call an “open world game” now this means that you have the freedom to do whatever you want whenever you want within the confines of the game. Just get in a car drive around and look for events like point to point challenges, races, stunt runs and so on. At this point it’s a case of cue the constant pause of the game to consult the map for where to go.. This is where open world sucks in my opinion. If you’re in a race there should be a set route that everyone has to take but this game does away with that. So you can easily start a race, go in the complete opposite direction to the rest of the field and win the race.. That can’t be right.. Surely??
That aside the game does look and feel superb.. you get to crash cars and smash things up and that’s always going to appeal to the inner 5 year old in me and although the map isn’t exactly huge it still contains plenty of varied environments with mountains and a sea front with industrial type estates and downtown area too. This is a game that got remastered onto Xbox One and it really does hold water and the remastering really works well.
This was a great choice for the Xbox back compatibility programme and the game still has the feel and gameplay quality that the makers intended it to have and the joy of taking out your frustrations on crashing other drivers and enjoying the slow mo animation of said crash made for a great depression therapy session.
24. TOMB RAIDER ANNIVERSARY
Speaking of remastering works. To celebrate the 10 year anniversary release the Tomb Raider team decided to remaster and remake (almost from the ground up in some cases) the first Tomb Raider game and give it the full Xbox 360 1080p high definition treatment for the new era. They’ve given Lara some new abilities like the ability to grab a thin ledge to shimmy across and then leaping off it and grabbing other thin ledges either behind or above her which gives the platforming elements of the game a whole new dimension. As does her ability to balance on top of high columns, climb poles and swing on thin poles like a gymnast would do (maybe Lara should think about taking part in the Olympics, just a thought)
The opening of the Peru levels (the caves) shows the levels of remastering at work and as you progress through the game you get a real sense that this is now the game that the developers wanted to make. We get rounded edges and the rocks look realistic. We get the full 5.1 surround sound experience as well. But what I’ll do here is talk you through some of the major changes because even though essentially it’s the same game with the (mostly) same levels there are SOME differences.
The cog puzzle in the lost valley is in the same chamber as the exit of the level behind the water fall and just seems to work better as a concept and this makes much more sense than having it a million miles away
The lost valley itself looks like it’s actually outdoors compared to just a black sky in the Playstation version
The Tomb of Qualopec has been given a radical make over too. Less in your face bright red and more gently shaded rocks and over all more believable
When you see the Tomb of Qualopec remastered as an example you see how much the developers wanted to not only go for more realism in level design (such was the trend in the 1990's for areas of bright stand out colour). The remastered version looks much more believable in this instance. They have also made the levels more technical and dare I say.. More difficult.
The remastering of the coliseum is the next big milestone of the game. This for me is where the remastering really shows through. In the PS1 version the Coliseum is a square because that’s all the technology allowed them to do. But you fast forward 10 years and you begin to realise that technology has come a fair way to the point where we can actually have a circular coliseum which may not seem like much but in a game where the attention to detail is such apparent it does get noticed.
The biggest change in the game is what happens at the end of the Greek Levels. After Palace Midas you drop into the Greek Sewers and have the cistern and Tomb of Tihocan levels. As I’ve explained previously. But in anniversary it’s different
The whole lower Greek levels are merged into one (almost) and simply called the Tomb of Tihocan with a fair bit of the original game chopped at this point and if I’m honest here I’m not sure why given that the transition from the blue bricks of the sewers to the cavern where the actual Tomb of Tihocan is, is very well done and a fun room to be in. Here although it does work quite well’ it doesn’t sit well with me cutting almost an entire level out just for the sake of making the game into a shorter game time. I don’t know why they’ve done this but I wish they didn’t as there were some good areas they cut out that they could have done some very exciting stuff with.
One change at this point that I do approve of however is the idea of making the tomb guardian statues into a full on boss fight rather than just an enemy to kill like it was in the original Tomb Raider game.. This was a great move in my opinion.
The Egypt levels have been given the biggest change almost from the ground up. The emphasis is on nasty traps and obstacles and make up the hardest levels I’ve ever encountered on ANY Tomb Raider game. But like with the rest of the game the theme has been to make it seem more realistic (as much as you can with a game). So the wild golden theme has been replaced with a more pastel like sandstone theme
The puzzles have been re invented as well with some of these puzzles like the one above totally new to the game. Again what I think is happening here is the developers are doing what they wanted to do in the original game but couldn’t because of the limits with the technology at the time of the original game. But then again they almost didn’t want to make a Sanctuary of the Scion level so who knows?
Then there’s Atlantis which as you can see in the image above was.. cool but ridiculous at the same time. However look below to get an idea of the remastered version.
This is about sense of scale. Atlantis has huge chambers just like this and frankly it just looks cool with the sense of scale being immense and the ancient glowing symbols. This is the part of the game that visually looks amazing and really shows what the designers of the original game (who also worked on the remaster with a few new developers) wanted to do with these levels.
Final comparison is the boss fight in the first game it takes place on a small strange beige ledge that just doesn’t look right in the context of what should be a massive point in the game.
The new version of the first boss fight in the game feels more like an event. It’s in a much more impressive setting and the creature itself is rendered and optimised much better.
It’s easy to say that Tomb Raider Anniversary looks better than Tomb Radier 1 (I shouldn’t have to but people who are way more professional than me have pointed that out) but overall it is a better game and some of the levels have been thought out and redesigned in a very careful way. This has become the game that the designers wanted to make when they first made a Tomb Raider game and playing it again it’s clear that a lot of care and attention has gone into the remastering. It feels like Tomb Raider one and yet is something different and that’s the thing. A remaster when it comes to games needs to feel better than the original without taking away the charm of the original and this game manages it. Something that makes this game unique and special is the DVD of extras that’s included with the game. so if you want to listen to the full music score then you can do so. Other features about the remastering are also in there and it’s interesting to see that difference. An extra in the game as well is in game commentary from the developers so you can listen to them talk about the game as you’re playing it. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything like that before or since.
Before moving off Tomb Raider for good in this series. I’ll give a mention to Tomb Raider Underworld and why I haven’t included it in the list as a stand alone.
I want to qualify that this is NOT a bad game (per saye) but it is for me a bit weaker than the others in this series. It’s the beginning of what I like to think of as the current ridiculous era in Tomb Raider. For starters there’s constant background music.. Not ambience but MUSIC so the remoteness and feeling of isolation is taken out of the game. Although the music for the start of the Thailand levels is pretty good I must admit. And some of the levels (Valhalla for instance) just seem ridiculous. They look good but they have this ludicrous element to them
Some of the things you have to kill are pretty questionable with things like giant spiders in the Mexican temple or the human opponents which are numerous. The return of Jacqueline Natla as well as the idea that you can eventually sweep all before you by simply wheedling Thor’s hammer in the final stages of the game which makes the second level on the boat less fun
In short the idea of the game is to open up the gates to Helheim and work out what happened to Lara’s mother who she ends up having to kill anyway. So essentially that element of the story is a waste of time but the so called “doomsday device” that’s on the weakest spot of the earths tectonic plate system that will cause the death of all humanity is what proves to be the big problem. The end result being that Lara and her friend Amanda (friend who becomes enemy but then a sort of friend again) escape the throws of the device and essentially save the world from being blown apart. A good days work over all. But like I say it’s not the greatest Tomb Raider game by a long stretch.
25. MINECRAFT
Yes I’m a Minecraft fan. Laugh all you want but this is the game that broke a lot of records on Xbox 360, PS3, PS4 and the Xbox One. Those records include.. Intake of breath.
- Best-Selling Indie Game: Not including the console versions with big publishers, Mojang has sold 16,176,201 copies on PC and Mac. Mojang’s website now says that number is over 18 million.
- Largest Indie Game Convention: 7500 people attended MineCon 2013.
- First Country Modeled at Full Scale in a Video Game: Last year, the Danish Geodata Agency released a 1:1-scale recreation of Denmark. Yes, every building and feature of the 16,602 square mile country was accounted for. It includes four billion blocks.
- Largest Real-World Place Created in Minecraft: The UK Ordinance Survey created a map of Britain and its islands using 22 million blocks to cover over 86,000 square miles of land. Each block represents 538 square feet.
- Most Concurrent Players in One Minecraft World: 2,622 players crammed into a server run by YouTube channel Yogscast.
- Most Popular Game Beta: Over 10 million people played the beta between December 20, 2012, and November 18, 2011.
- Most Minecraft Snow Golems Built in One Minute: 70, accomplished by gamer Nachtigall Vaz.
- Most-Viewed Fan Film Based on a Video Game: “‘Revenge’ — A Minecraft Parody of Usher’s DJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love — Crafted Using Noteblocks” by YouTuber CaptainSparklez was viewed 139,888,399 times when it earned the record.
This is the original YouTubers game and where a lot of them start one Minecraft video by Stampylongnose has in the region of 50 MILLION views. This isn’t a game it’s a phenomenon and one that hasn’t slowed down much and is still played and loved by the wider gaming community some 8 YEARS after it was first released on console.
Something else new that will become a regular feature of the series from this point on wards is that the game receives updates on a regular basis. This is where things get added to the game at a later date after the release. Which to me in a way shows the pressure that developers started to find themselves under to meet deadlines for game releases and even then games still get released late.
Such examples in Minecraft include the additions of enchanting. Not an original feature but was added later.
The addition of the end came at around title update 9 along with the big boss of the game called the Ender Dragon (although killing the boss is not compulsory in the game)
The addition of Jungle biomes then followed
New texture packs were added
Jungle and desert temples (on some worlds) would naturally generate and be full of treasure (if you knew how to find it)
The addition of horses
The addition of ocean temples
The addition of the end villages
Trading with villagers
Different types of rock including granite and andersite
Different types of sandstone including chiseled and smooth.
The addition of battle mode which brought the joys of PC gaming to the console edition which was full of PvP mini games inside the game as a whole.
These are just some of the bigger changes on the list on top of sorting out the bugs and issues with the game which needed to be patched (torches not working properly for example) and the worrying trend for more and more games to have this makes me wonder if the advance in technology isn’t all that great after all.
But what makes Minecraft so great? it may be because there are so many ways to play and enjoy it and although there aren’t an infinite number of materials and colours (there’s 16 colours in the game) but the things that you can create and the designs are seemingly limited by the players imagination. On my old Xbox profile for example at a time when most people were building castles and palaces, I made a glowing jungle paradise (it glows at night because I used no fewer than 2,576 glowstone blocks which i placed in the ground and in trees to make the place at night come alive along with buildings, houses and man made pathways I can’t show you a picture but trust me it was a masterpiece (wink wink). But with so many ways to play this game and with the amount of continued developer support for the game it’s surely no wonder that so many think so highly of this game and I can’t really talk about gameplay or longevity because the game is still being played en mass and there’s still YouTubers and Twitch streamers playing the game today.
Minceraft is surely proof that you don’t need state of the art graphics and cinematic sound to have a game with such playability and longevity and maybe that’s the secret. It’s impossible for this game to look dated because some would argue that the game looked outdated before it really took off.
And lets not forget also that Minecraft also features a dynamic day night cycle as well as dynamic lighting and weather effects so it has plenty of things that other games for the time could only dream of (Forza I’m looking at you here)
Like it or laugh at it. There’s no denying the popularity of Minecraft and there’s no denying that it’s been standing the test of time for over 8 years already. There’s no denying that the constant flood of YouTube videos and Twitch streams show that the game is still as popular now as they were as YouTube was mostly used just to show people falling over. I still love the game and I see no reason why I should stop playing it yet (even though other games have now entered my life as well)
So on that picture postcard scene That’s the end of this edition. We’re at number 25 now but there’s still some way to go as we start to venture into the world of “next gen gaming”
Thank you for reading and there will be more from me soon