Samba de Amigo

*Rattlerattle*

Source // Coolshop.co.uk

Ah, musical rhythm games. Why are you always so upbeat?

That's probably a silly question. Even a monkey could tell you why rhythm games feature popular music. A Brazilian monkey with maracas. Called Amigo. Titular star and frontman of Samba de Amigo.

We got to the title in the end. What's this about then?

Rocket: Robot on Wheels

Fishy, fishy, fishy?

Ernest Rutherford is quoted as saying 'that which is not is physics is stamp collecting'. Little did we know at the time that he wasn't referring to the various fields of science and how they look at the Universe, but accurately describing the gameplay of the largely unknown Rocket: Robot on Wheels.

Just how could a physicist at the turn of the 20th century know about a Nintendo 64 title released at the turn of the 21st? The miracles of science...

Quake III Arena

Bring it on.

I've still not played much of the series, but I do like a bit of Quake and this is the third time it's made it onto the 1001 list, in the form of Quake III Arena.

The multiplayer scene that had sprung up from earlier titles was strong and lively enough to warrant a game that focused on that aspect of the game, and so Arena is, as the name implies, a game for the masses to shoot each other across the network with all manner of sci-fi weaponry at blistering speed.

So let's play the single player mode first.

Planescape: Torment

Updated my Journal.

The isometric RPG is a genre I've seen much more than I've played. I saw them a fair amount in my youth, as friends would talk about the likes of Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights. These were friends who had the income and the knowledge to build their own PCs to play these games, and the likes of Fallout too, whereas I was just a console peasant, thoroughly enjoying that side of video gaming.

But I won't lie - I've missed out.

Having a lot of these games based on the Dungeons & Dragons license appeals to me because I'm familiar with the pencil and paper RPG, and Planescape: Torment is one such title. I'm not familiar with the Planescape setting, however - a bit before my time, I suppose - but we should be able to get right into this without too much trouble at all.

Outcast

By Yod Almighty, what is this?

Is there a more fitting title for Outcast? A game so ahead of its time that you absolutely had to have the latest PC of the era to run it, running code that modern systems would struggle to run for the longest time should players have wanted to go back and find out what they were missing in late 1999.

Ignored by consumers for games that they could actually run, Outcast is one of those titles where I suppose you just had to be there to understand what all the fuss was about.

So here I am, twenty years later, trying anyway.

Mario Golf

Nice On

Golf is, quite possibly, the worst sport in the world. Golf on the Game Boy was alright though when I used it as a break from other, better games that were frustrating me or boring me or whatever. This isn't Golf, but Mario Golf, and it's a sort of sequel full of colour and RPG elements on the Game Boy Color.

Will it drive a bigger wedge between me and golf, or will it help improve my game?

SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters' Clash

SHUFFLE PILE

When I first skim read information for this game, I thought it would be one that I'd probably have a hard time finding in order to play in the first place. It's a Neo Geo Pocket Color title, a handheld that I've never seen in my life. In my experiences, you either had a Game Boy Color to play Pokémon or you didn't. There was no Neo Geo round our way.

The Neo Geo Pocket Color itself had such a hard run competing against Nintendo devices that the number of games available for it wouldn't even fill a top 100 list, but, according to this 1001 list, there is a title that simply must be played, and it is SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters' Clash.

Take a bunch of SNK characters, a bunch of Capcom characters, make them into a Magic: The Gathering-style card game... oh we're going to be all up and down on this one, I can feel it.

Mr. Driller

The town is being overrun by coloured blocks. Whuah?

So the PlayStation Classic was released in recent memory to critical acclaim, I think it was, and one of the twenty titles was Mr. Driller, a colourful little arcade game from Namco that began life as Dig Dug 3.

"Why?" seems to be one of the more prominent questions people have of the PlayStation Classic as a whole, and now I get to ask why Mr. Driller finds itself on the 1001 list as well. Can drilling blocks really be that much fun? And how is a drill the best tool for the job anyway?

I suppose we'll need to dig into this one a little further.

Homeworld

This is Fleet Command. Reporting Mothership status.

I'm having a hard time writing this opening and I don't know why. On the one hand, I want to get across to you the idea that I like the concept of this real-time space strategy title but am put off by the fiddly micromanagement of units that'll inevitably come with it. On the other hand, I need to tell you that this is a three-dimensional real-time strategy set in bloody space, where, while there is an 'up' and 'down', lest we all get lost in space, every unit on every scale is capable of breaking free of the reference plane to attack units from above, or below; to evade by skirting around, over, under; to weave through pockets of units duking it out across all the axis.

This is Homeworld, and I sadly never knew it existed.

EverQuest

Don't forget: You're here forever.

If you're thinking 'isn't it a little late to be playing a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game first released in 1999?', know that you're correct. It is a little late to be playing EverQuest so long after it's launch, but this game is still up and running and free to play for new players going back through the history of video games to see what the must-play titles are.

Because there is literally no other reason to play it.

Front Mission 3

Mankind never learns.

Ohhhhh boy. It's time. It's time...

When I was but a teen, I had some kind of cheat/walkthrough magazine, and to be honest I don't even remember why I had this particular magazine, but inside were pages dedicated to seemingly endless amounts of spreadsheets, tables for arms, legs, weapons... I knew what none of it meant, but I saw that it was for a game called Front Mission 3, and from then on, I knew that this game was awesome.

I didn't know what it was about, mind. In fact, I was probably only vaguely aware that it was about Mechs, and if you've been following along with the 1001 list you'll know how far I gush over Mechs. As time went by, and I learned more about Front Mission 3, I knew I had to play it - but never did.

It is time to rectify that wrong. It is time to play what could potentially be the greatest game of--I'm getting ahead of myself.