Dungeon Keeper

It is payday.

Why do you always have to play the hero? Even playing a flawed hero is still playing the good guy on a quest to defeat the bad guys. Who wants to do that over and over again? Who, instead, wants to let their bad side free to dictate the way things go? Who wants to be a Dungeon Keeper?

Part real-time strategy, part simulation, Dungeon Keeper is all kinds of different. You play as an evil overlord whose Imp minions are mining out your dungeon so that you can fill it with nasties to protect yourselves from the inevitable visit from a hero hoping to prove himself.

Will you smartly scope out your surroundings and build on the strengths of your forces and the needs of the situation, or will you flail around like a useless imp?

Einhänder

Enemy threat removed by your heroic attempt.

What do we make? Role Playing Games! What shall we release? A 2.5D sidescrolling shooter!

The developers at Square probably didn't chant that as they were making Einhänder, but that's what players got in late 1997: an unexpected title from an unexpected developer on an unexpected system that unexpectedly made enough of an impression to warrant a spot on the 1001 list.

What's it all about? I have no idea. The name comes from German to mean 'one hand', and refers to your ship having one hand to pick stuff up with. Where we go from there is anyone's guess.

I.Q.: Intelligent Qube

Again?

The puzzle game is a genre that I tend to avoid, mostly because of the lack of a storyline. I enjoy racing and sports as genres, and while they don't have an explicit story (FIFA's The Journey being the exception, obviously), you can infer one from the events that take place - a racer must overcome his rival to take the gold, a team must score a certain number of goals in order to progress through a competition.

Puzzle games... not so much. The story here is that some little bloke (most likely a full-sized bloke who just happens to look little from this distance) finds himself suspended in an infinite black void and is tasked by choosing which of the coloured cubes that roll/stomp towards him will be saved, and which will be left to fall off the edge and tumble for eternity. Or something like that.

There's no story, really, but there is a task to accomplish, points to score and rules to learn, so let's get to it.

Why is it a sphere?

DoDonPachi

Dododododododo...Your mission starts now. Are you ready?

"Bullet hell.", begins the 1001 entry to DoDonPachi, assuming you know of the phrase already. The idea that a shoot 'em up can be so chaotic and manic that the best way to describe it would be 'like flying through bullet hell'.

The term, so I read, grew in popularity because 2D shooters had to do more and more in order to compete with the emerging 3D games that were getting all of the attention. How does a 2D shooter do more and more? If it's not highly detailed sprites and over-the-top effects, then it's highly detailed sprites and over-the-top effects applied to twenty enemies at once culminating in a monstrous boss battle that requires players to dodge hundreds, if not thousands of projectiles.

Bullet hell.

Let's find out how hellish DoDonPachi can get.

Beatmania

*wicki wicki*

Source // Gaming History

What's hip? What's hop? What is hip-hop? I don't know, and I don't even know if hip-hop is present in Beatmania, the arcade rhythm game that makes disc jockeys of us all.

Armed with five keyboard keys and a turntable for those all-important scratches, players will keep track of notes falling from the top of the screen before jabbing the right buttons at the right time for the best scores, and the greatest sounding tunes.

You know what a rhythm game is, you've already seen PaRappa the Rapper on this list. Let's wait for the drop to get this one going.

Blast Corps

Smashing.

Destroying things is fun. Destroying things in a variety of different ways is fun. Destroying things against the clock can be pretty fun, though it does depend on the time limit. Destroying things because the 'plot' involves clearing a path for a runaway nuclear missile launcher with a tendency to explode on contact with anything attached to the floor is... well, it's Blast Corps.

Dozers at the ready, because we're about to crash with a purpose.

Final Furlong

Work, you damn nag!

Source // YouTube

Home consoles are dominating the market. The arcades are turning into ghost towns. What do you do to get players back into the habit of pushing quarters into coin slots? You mould a plastic horse onto a rocker and have players exercise their way to victory.

Thus, horse racing simulator Final Furlong was born. Not just a racing game, oh no, but a simulator. No time to sit in the saddle here. Stand in the stirrups and whip like there's nae tomorrow...

Bushido Blade

Rematch!

A while back now, I saw International Karate + as worthy of a top ten inclusion. Its move set was deep and your timing had to be right as it'd be over for you in a single move if it wasn't. Fast forward to 1997 and Bushido Blade arrives into the 3D fighting scene with a similar philosophy.

Put simply, when you're fighting someone with a sword and you button mash like a maniac, you should be punished severely for a single mistake, just like in life. Bushido Blade aims to bring realistic sword fighting into gaming, complete with tense moments of studying your opponents stance and lighting quick fountains of blood that signal a clear winner.

I can't wait to get into this one.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

What is a Game?

Before diving into this 2D action-adventure RPG platformer beat 'em up racing game (without reading any manuals or control schemes, naturally), I checked out a couple of reviews from notable YouTubers and they began with words to the effect of "I haven't actually played Castlevania: Symphony of the Night until now".

It's quite common that someone will have missed out on a classic title when it was first released and only manages to play it years, perhaps even decades later. It's not so common for the game in question to be regarded as one of the greatest titles on a console over the course of its history to be missed by players.

Symphony of the Night has its reasons for being glossed over. It's flat and sprite-based despite charging ahead on the PlayStation, which was wowing the world with depth and an extra dimension. Its title harkens back to games of old, but new and unheard of heroes were front and centre in gamers minds instead.

It is a title that a lot of people know of and few appear to have played. Let's see what I, for one, have been missing out on.