Arcade racers tend to be arcadey in their driving physics, but there's no reason to not go down the simulation route instead, and that's exactly what Sega did with F355 Challenge, the Ferrari branded racer that tests your actual driving skill.
Supposedly. I don't have a three-screen arcade cabinet to try out, but I do have the PlayStation 2 port from a few years later, which was helpfully called Ferrari F355 Challenge, to really hammer that branding home. How will it stack up to the 'real driving simulator' that is the Gran Turismo series? Should we even compare the two? Have I waffled enough for this introduction?
While the first Grand Theft Auto game I played was the original, the first GTA game I consider to have actually played, rather than driven around in for ten minutes at a time, would be GTA III. Whatever happened to Grand Theft Auto 2?
I would answer that by saying that I didn't have the interest back then, but I'd be more correct in saying that I didn't have the knowledge that GTA 2 existed. Despite having a PlayStation at the time, I must have been playing something else. I can't even remember playing a demo like I had done with GTA.
Sssshhhhhh! We're not supposed to be here at The 401/1001 Milestone Awards, an unauthorized and completely irrelevant look at the latest batch of video game titles from 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die.
Don't tell anyone, but this Milestone Awards post will look over everything from Star Fox 64 to Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves in this one and my unofficial sources say that these awards are going to be full of bias and prejudice based on childhood memories, but don't let that stop you from finding out what I thought of these games - just be aware that the PlayStation might dominate...
We begin as ever by getting The Indifferent 5 out of the way, because they're games that I find to be particularly... gamey? Average? Just generally there? They're games that have to take a back seat because there are other, better games, but that's not to say that these are stinkers. I have it on good authority that I'm just opinionated and these may well be worth your time. They are, in no particular order:
Congratulations Konami, who continue to develop indifferent games.
Moving swiftly onto the award that nobody wants to get, though I've done absolutely no research into asking that question to anybody: What Was That 1 Even Put On The List For? It was an instant pick this time around. There was only ever going to be one winner/loser.
What Was Sega Bass Fishing Even Put On The List For? There's no pla(i)ce for you here.
A 1001 list needs 1001 games on it, so my insiders say, and they've come up with a title to replace that fishing travesty. The opponents you face still have scales, so long as popular media trumps scientific discovery, but these foes are an awful lot bigger...
We shout You Forgot What?! and we shout:
Trespasser is a forgotten gold mine of video gaming, and that video up there is (or was) often hailed as the definitive way to play a game on YouTube. It's so good, I think I'm going to have another watch of it this afternoon. Watching it is easier than playing it, that's for sure.
Uncovering The Top Ten is the real reason we're lurking in these Milestone Awards, however, so it's time to crack on with the best of the bunch. Fifty games, less those that involve fishing or are otherwise unnoteworthy, fighting it out to get to the top of the list. I said it might be full of PlayStation titles. Let's see if it is.
10:ChuChu Rocket!, Sonic Team
In a batch of games with the first 3D Sonic title, Sonic Team makes the top ten with a puzzle game about space mice fleeing from space cats. I think it's clear I have issues with that hedgehog.
9: Xenogears, Square Product Development Division 3
I kept playing and playing and playing and then caught a glimpse of a Mech and that was about it. Need to get back to it and hunt them down.
8:F-Zero X, Nintendo EAD Wipeout has competition, and it's taken me twenty years to realise that.
7:Banjo Kazooie, Rare
As one of the earliest games I remember watching on YouTube, it's got a funny kind of nostalgic place in my brain, despite not having played it to any real lengths at all.
6:The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Nintendo EAD
Credit to Nintendo for making something that I couldn't put down. I eventually did, of course, but then immediately wanted to pick it up again.
5:Quake II, id Software
A similar situation to Zelda, I was playing Quake for longer than I thought I would be playing it for, but it edges the juggernaut through its genre.
4:Half-Life, Valve
Speaking of the first person shooter genre... With so many ways to play it, Half-Life edges past Quake II, and while I prefer straight sci-fi over horror, I'll take some weird stuff happening in the style of Half-Life with no problems.
3:Snake, Nokia
You don't know how much I played this across my first few phones. I don't know how much I played it. I wouldn't even call myself good, but that's not going to stop it from climbing high on this list.
2: Tekken 3, Namco
A few fighting games in this latest run of games, but it's the 3D fighter in the form of Tekken 3 that stands above the rest in my eyes.
The PlayStation reached as high as the second spot; did it manage to reach number 1? The list contains Metal Gear Solid, of course it managed to reach number 1. This game was insane to me back in the day. You don't write to the addresses you find in the manuals unless you care, and by God did I care.
What else do I care about? Trying to cram these games into The Topper Than That Top Ten list, which contains the ten best titles from the 401 we've seen so far, at the time of writing. There's no consistency when it comes to these rankings any more, and certainly no objectivity, but let's see what's still clinging onto the highest spots and what has taken the place of those less fortunate.
10:The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Nintendo EAD
I have to say, I didn't think this one would appear this low on the list, even with me being a PlayStation kid, but here it is.
9:Quake II, id Software
When looking back, I might question how this one got so high.
8:Super Mario World, Nintendo EAD
The plumber still lives, though his platforming is plat-falling down the list.
7:GoldenEye 007, Rare
Only a few weeks ago, I was watching about how GoldenEye 007 speed run records are still falling, with players discovering strategies untried in twenty years.
6:Half-Life, Valve
Will O.G. Gordon rank higher than his sequel incarnation? This is the benchmark to beat.
1:Metal Gear Solid, Konami
I never thought I'd compare Metal Gear to Con Air but I have and it's stuck. This one might stay a while.
And that's that. That's another unapproved Milestone Awards list, and we won't officially appear again until another fifty games have flown in front of our eyes. The first of them to state what they've got is a little game by the name of Grand Theft Auto 2. I think I've played a few sequels to that one.
Whatever you think about these demonstrably biased lists, do game on. Games are gooood.
Another fighter, another game in need of some Dreamcast emulation, though the Dreamcast wasn't the first home for Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves, and that wasn't the first name for Garou: Mark of the Wolves either, but that's what we're playing.
Originally in the arcades and then on the Neo Geo, Mark of the Wolves simplifies some of the series' history to make it easier for newcomers to pick it up and play with any character they care for. That sounds like just what I need, so let's not waste time putting it to the test.
"Make your first move, so what's in gon' be? You're trapped in the new world of Street Fighter 3"
And once more we return to the franchise fighter, this time in the guise of Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, or Street Fighter II 3rd Strike: Fight for the Future, if you're that way inclined. The third game of the third game, 3rd Strike sees refinements and additions and polish to the foundations that have been progressively laid down in place since the series' origins, and like the last time out, I'm only going to be happy if I land a super duper flashy move...
"Play with three friends for the ultimate battle."
You might not think a game called ChuChu Rocket! describes itself, but it actually does. Sort of. Such a title doesn't tell you anything about the genre, or what it looks like, or how difficult it is, but - according to the story in the manual - it actually is descriptive.
Our task is to load safely load ChuChus onto rockets. ChuChu Rockets, if you will. And that's all the explanation you nee- of course it isn't. This is an action puzzle the likes of which I probably have seen, but the form I've seen it in wasn't ChuChu Rocket! but I'm willing to bet was inspired by ChuChu Rocket! because I can't think of any other game like it right about now.
I need to get a move on though, as these rockets need some passengers.
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?
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.
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.
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.
