Silhouette Mirage

Reflector! Reflector! Hup! Hup! Hup! Reflector! Bambambambambambambam!

Some video game titles just scream 'Japanese release' to me, and Silhouette Mirage is one of them. You just don't get titles like that from western developers; titles that don't quite sound right and give few hints as to what's going on with the game itself, if any.

But a game is much much more than its title, and this one will have us platform run and gunning our way around the place, shooting things in particular ways. What on Earth do I mean by that?

Ape Escape

It works. It actually works!

I know these monkeys. Not personally - I know of them. I know they made their way into Metal Gear Solid 3 and Little Big Planet in one form or another, and I know they come from the Ape Escape series - but I've no idea what that series is actually about, other than capturing escaping primates.

The only title from the series to make the 1001 list is the first, and I suspect that the reason for its inclusion is not for the plot, which we'll get to soon enough, but for the fact that this is the first game to require players to own a controller capable of, and then use dual analogue controls on a home console (better slip that caveat in there to cover my arse in case an arcade title got their first...) - a controller configuration that I, for one, have been using for 20 years now, across multiple console generations.

I've certainly used the now-standard PlayStations' controller then, but have never played Ape Escape. I'm not expecting the greatest use of analogue controls in video game history, but I am expecting plenty of monkeys. Let's see what we end up with.

Bangai-O

The name means nothing.

I have only recently taken a look at the state of Sega Dreamcast emulation, knowing that I'm heading into that part of video gaming history. I didn't have a Dreamcast. I couldn't even tell you anyone who did have one - none of us needed one, the PlayStation 2 was just fine, thank you very much. But the PlayStation 2 didn't have Bangai-O, and that makes me... well, I don't know yet.

It looks like you're a little Mech shooting far too many rockets at something, and going by that alone, Bangai-O should be smashing. But I'm not going to go by that alone. It's time to fire it up and find out what's going on.

Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings

Wood: 100

It has not only been an age since I found myself playing Age of Empires for this 1001 blog but an age since I've been able to sit down and write this one after playing Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, the sequel to the Warcraft meets Civilization offering from Ensemble Studios.

The original game had kept my interest for a while until bone-headedness on my part scuppered my chances of a victory. I liked it and would be on the lookout for delayed but soon to be appearing Definitive Edition release.

To be honest with you, I very quickly forgot to keep an eye out for that, but not so for Age of Empires II, as it's the HD Edition that I'll be playing for this post.

How well will we develop our empire? Will I again run out of food and find myself with only a single villager on the map? Nothing can be answered into we dive in and find out.

Aliens versus Predator

I aint got time to read (the manual).

There have been (or will be) twelve films that feature the Alien, the Predator or both. Of those twelve, I have seen one, because how can you not have seen Predator? I say this just to make it clear that when it comes to playing Aliens versus Predator, I'm not playing as a die-hard fan of one or both franchises.

First-person shooters can take us to all kinds of places and have us do many different things, and their immersion can make for some great gaming moments. Aliens versus Predator does what it should always have done - give players the ability to immerse themselves into the boots of the Predator, the... feet of the Alien, and the shoes of the unfortunate Colonial Marine caught in the middle in three campaigns of action and suspense.

Knowing what I know, how long will I survive against these off-world foes?

Sega Bass Fishing

Enjoy your fishing.

I live on the coast. I can see the sea from my window. It's been like that for 30 years. How many times have I fished? Once. It sucked. I got the line stuck in a wall and didn't see the point in trying to retrieve it.

I don't care for fishing. I don't get fishing. Fishing for food I get, obviously, but fishing for fun or sport (is it even a sport?) I cannot fathom.

But I do, unfortunately, concede that it can be gamified quite easily, and that's what Sega decided to do, unleashing Sega Bass Fishing onto the world in the late 1990s, complete with fishing reel controllers.

Ugh. Let's get this over with.

Driver

You are the wheelman...

There are some games I really looked forward to on this 1001 list. Be they games I'd really wanted to play and hadn't or games that I haven't played since they first came out, there was also something upcoming that I knew I was going to enjoy.

I was going to enjoy going back to playing Driver for the first time in nearly twenty years, not because of its take on car chases filmed in the 1970s, but because of that driving test.

Infamous in its difficulty, this entry might be over before it starts...

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Hello. I wonder if I could have a moment of your time...

Zelda has never quite fully appealed to me. They've warranted watching them, in part or in whole, at speed or at leisure, across the systems that the series has spanned, but to get me sat down in front of a game of Zelda has been a task.

It wasn't until going through this 1001 list to actually take some time to play them that I've gone "No, actually, I think I get it now" with regards to just how good they are as games. I still need to go back to play A Link to the Past some more. I still want to, which is a little surprising to me.

Will the series' leap into the third dimension result in similar desires? Can The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time live up to the hype and convert me into a Zelda fan? I think it's about time I picked up a controller and found out.

Thief: The Dark Project

Did he see me?

At the time of writing, Emuparadise has announced that while its doors aren't closing, the contents of the house are nowhere to be found. Maybe they've been stolen by a thief, trained to deftly move through the darkness in a thieving simulator like Thief: The Dark Project.

A mostly medieval first person stealth-er dotted with steampunk and horror, Thief drops us into the shoes of Garrett, a thief (as you could have guessed) who will have to use his skills for missions he might not have thought he'd ever take on. Missions that start simply enough, but soon scale towards a plot involving some rather rowdy folks being welcomed into the world - and we're going to have to put a stop to that.

Get your gamma slider at the ready, because we're about to turn the lights off and skulk in the shadows.

StarCraft

You got my attention.

Millions upon millions of copies sold. Spawned an entire gaming culture in South Korea. Is the origins of the term 'Zerg rush'. Have I played StarCraft? Chuh, yuh, of course I've played StarCraft...

Took me twenty years, but I managed it.

The RTS genre has its bastions and mainstays, and while I'm rather familiar with Command & Conquer, I am most definitely not familiar with StarCraft, save for it being sci-fi and full of rushing Zergs. And I suppose it was one of the first e-Sports I knew about before I really knew what an e-Sport was. I don't know. I know it's got a dedicated following for one reason or another, and it's about time I found out what that reason was.