John Madden Football

Hut!

For a brief spell, probably around the time the Super Bowl came to the BBC, I was following American Football. It was fascinating in its own way, though far more fascinating to play in Madden NFL 11 than it ever was to watch.

It's a long series, Madden, and the line goes all the way back to John Madden Football, cramming as much of the sport into a cartridge as was possible. Did enough get crammed in there to make it a game worth playing, though?

Columns

Just one moirai go...

You wait ages for a Tetris clone and two come along at once - and neither are clones.

Columns will probably look familiar to you, if not because you've played it before then because you've probably played something very similar to it, likely on a mobile phone. It's one of those games that are so simple to get into that before you know it, you've missed the bus, and it's started to rain, and your bag's been stolen.

I don't use public transport, I have no idea what I'm talking about. The point I'm trying to make though is that Columns is so simple a game that it and versions of it can be found everywhere you look, so the gameplay must be pretty good to have survived in some form for all these years.

Dr. Mario

Fever!

In the notes I've made for these games, I've written that Dr. Mario was great, especially when someone else was playing my Tetris cartridge. In the 1001 book, Tetris is mentioned in every paragraph of the Dr. Mario write up, such are the similarities between the two titles - and yet they're not that similar, really.

Both involve falling objects that disappear when you stack enough of them together in the right way, but they do so with different goals, themes and mechanics.

I suspect you know all of this, having already played both titles, but for those of you who haven't, the Doctor will see you now...

Bomberman

Boom.

Source // YouTube

Hands up if you're surprised that Bomberman made the list. How dare you put your hand up, of course Bomberman would make the list. There have been more Bomberman titles than I ever imagined, and the first of two to make the 1001 list is the TurboGrafx-16 title that introduced multiplayer to the game - and that changed everything, didn't it?

Eye of the Beholder

"I would hide in the sewers. And that is where I think you should start."

Given my previous experience with first person dungeon crawlers of the 1980s, I didn't have high hopes for my time with Eye of the Beholder, which sees a game like Dungeon Master officially flying the flag of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons license.

Now I like D&D. I've played a fair bit of it, across a couple of versions and mediums, from tabletops to Baldur's Gate and the like, and it just so happens that after quite a lengthy period of time, I got back into tabletop RPGs (albeit with Pathfinder) just yesterday, so my head is there or thereabouts in terms of the mechanics at play here - but will Eye of the Beholder be there or thereabouts too?

A lot of games have claimed to transport the D&D rules from paper to 'puter, but sometimes those rules should stay on paper. Will that be the case here?

Powermonger

Pondering over the map, you prepare plans for battle...

When you turn the page to reveal Powermonger in the 1001 book, you're shown a screenshot that looks similar to the one shown above, and similar to a game like Populous.

If you had a bad experience with Populous, you are perhaps dreading your time with Powermonger, described as its spiritual and technical successor. Reading it makes it sound great. The land you play on is vast, almost staggeringly so, and its inhabitants all have names and jobs and histories within the world.

But what do you do with this playground? Probably fight a lot, given the title.

Out Zone

Destroy all of them. Goodluck !!

Source // RetroCollect

I couldn't tell you what kind of game Out Zone was even if you paid me. It rings no bells, its name gives off no impression, I simply don't have a clue what I'm in for.

Turns out that it's a kind of bullet hell twin stick (but not twin stick) arcade shooter. Cyborg soldiers must repel an alien invasion in the distant future of 2097. Who'd have guessed that? Sounds great - looks great. Let's jump in.

Pilotwings

LANDING OK

Two flight games in a row? And both of them are wildly different from each other? Alright then, how does Pilotwings handle?

In contrast to most, if not all games set in the skies until now, Pilotwings doesn't have you soaring over military bases shooting down other planes but has you floating over a flight training school, learning the basics of flying a biplane, parachuting, controlling jetpacks and more.

You're not trying to down a certain number of foes but to score enough points to get your pilots license and progress to more challenging challenges, putting your flight skills to the test.

It sounds like a nice and simple, relaxing little game.

G-Loc: Air Battle

Yahoooooo!!!!!

There is a fair chance that I may have come across G-Loc: Air Battle somewhere before, but completely dismissed it because of its title. It's not exactly a snappy, memorable one, is it? True to its name, though, the game features air battles and G-Force induced loss of consciousness.

Sounds awesome. I think it's about time we take to the skies and see what's up there.

Klax

Get three in a row... DIAGONALLY!

Not once have I come across Klax in my gaming history. I hadn't heard of it, it didn't ring any bells upon seeing some screenshots, it was completely new to me. It looked like a simple little puzzle game, though, so I didn't think I'd be in for a difficult time.