Capcom vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000

Nobody believed

When the two biggest 2D fighting franchises decide to team up and just have a good time, the result is, so I read, Capcom vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000.

Not the first, nor the last of the vs. line of games for these two juggernauts, it is the latest one to be put in front of me in the hopes of finding a fighting game I like to play as much as Tekken. I like to look at them and admire them in the hands of experts, but so far my time actually playing any of these 2D titles is not so good.

Will Capcom vs. SNK buck the trend?

Jet Set Radio

"I'm hijacking the airwaves and terrorizing you with tunes"

If you're portraying graffiti in a positive light, you're going to need aaalll the light, if Jet Set Radio is anything to go by. Its cel-shaded visuals make the entire world pop out of the screen, much like a well laid out spraypaint design emerging from a wall. The kind that makes you go 'how the hell did they even begin to do that?', shortly followed by 'what does it even say?'

I'm no artist, and I've definitely not a skater, but this is a video game with all the effort taken out of the situation and reduced to simple button inputs, so I should be able to hit the streets running and get tagging.

But remember...

With that in mind, let's get going with Jet Set R-

Uh, yes. Thanks.

Giants: Citizen Kabuto

HUNGRYYY!

If you want to disguise a must-play game from me, just give it an absurd title that gives no hints as to what's going on within, like third-person shooter Giants: Citizen Kabuto. I have had this for some time now, but haven't ever touched it because the name does nothing for me. Not only does it not entice me, but it goes so far as to not even urge me to look for curiosities sake.

Until now.

Five alien lads on a holiday find themselves eaten by a space fish and deposited on an island that is home to creatures big and small. Mostly one very big one - a giant, if you will - and a lot of smaller ones.

Can they get their trip to Planet Majorca back on track, or will the islands' defence system - a whopping great big giant - get the best of them?

Crimson Skies

"When you hit the ground, tell 'em Nathan Zachary sent you!"

Source // Moby Games

There's quite a lot of history out there, isn't there? I mean, if we only focus on humans there are a good few thousand years to explore, and we've gotten up to an awful lot of stuff as a species in that time. But it's not enough for some people. History isn't cool enough until it's alternate history, a giant 'what if' that opens up untold avenues for stories and settings.

Picture the scene, then: it is the 1930s, and air travel has overtaken the road and rail networks of what was the United States of America, now a collection of independent nation-states fighting each other under whatever banner they're flying, for whatever beliefs they believe in.

Up in the Crimson Skies, piracy has made a return and Nathan Zachary is on the hunt for treasure. His pirate gang will follow him against all opposition, launching from their giant air-ship in customised, other-worldly aeroplane designs.

Will we glide through the skies or get shot down in seconds?

Paper Mario

"You always seem to beat up your enemies... Do you work out?"

From one colourful goofy-looking RPG to another. This time it's the Nintendo 64 playing the host to the second RPG title for the moustached plumber. The first, Super Mario RPG, didn't engage with me in any real way. It was showing its age, I suppose, and the characters weren't doing it for me.

Fast forward four years, with a new console to play on, and the second game, Paper Mario, has the chance to save the day and hopefully offer a Mario RPG that gets my attention.

I said Grandia II was predictable. I wonder if Mario is about to rescue Princess Peach from Bowser...

Grandia II

"You better practice if you wanna beat me"

A while ago I had a look at Threads of Fate, a colourful RPG full of weirdly proportioned, goofy-looking characters who I just didn't take to. The next entry on the 1001 list is a colourful RPG that is said to be as good a starting point into this type of RPG as you'll find... and happens to contain slightly weirdly proportioned, less-goofy looking characters that I might like instead? Maybe?

Grandia II follows the hard-man-for-hire life of Ryudo on his quest to make some money. I like to think of him as some kind of Witcher, just doing the messy jobs so that the cogs in the kingdom keep turning, but that's just me imprinting hopes onto a game that is about to show me what it can offer on its own, thank you very much.

I know absolutely nothing about Grandia II, and that obviously includes the plot, so it's another blank slate and a chance for me to play something new.

Excitebike 64

So you wanna be a champion?

You wait for ages for a motocross title, and then two come along at once. One with elastic physics in Elasto Mania, the other Excitebike 64 for the Nintendo 64, a sequel to 1984's Excitebike.

I don't recall ever having played Excitebike, and I've certainly never played Excitebike 64, though I do own it. If I can get around to owning a working N64 to go along with it, that'd be great, but until then, I'll just have to run its bits and bytes through an emulator.

After bouncing around the weird world of Elasto Mania, a more traditional, more grounded motocross experience is probably what I need. Let's see if Excitebike 64 offers it.

Elasto Mania

Booooing.

I'm writing this a little after the release of Trials Rising, the continuation of the Trials series that sees players navigate extraordinary circuits on a quest to perfect the physics and then, if skilled enough, exploit the physics in search of faster and cleaner runs for bigger and better scores.

I thought 'ah, it seems there was a game like Trials way back in the year 2000, this should be interesting', only to find that the actual Trials series itself dates back to the year 2000. So what is this Elasto Mania then? A competitor that died out? Inspiration? Something altogether completely different? Just a neat little game worth playing?

Guess I'll download the demo and find out.

Diablo II

"What choice did I have? I ran."

Source // Moby Games

We're going from the oft-voted 'greatest PC game of all time' to a Guinness World Record holder with this entry: the fastest selling video game of its time, players the world over couldn't get enough of hacking and slashing their way through thousands of foes in Diablo II.

The first Diablo title has already had its time to shine on the 1001 list, and I wasn't really taken with it. Does the mega-selling hit sequel do anything different in order for me to see it in a better light?

Deus Ex

I never asked to wear sunglasses at night.

So here it is, the greatest PC game of all time. Apparently. At one point, at least. Deus Ex, the first-person action RPG about conspiracies and cover-ups and augmented human-cyborg hybrid things who never had a choice. Only here, you do have a choice. Many choices.

Deus Ex is a sandbox of possibilities, enticing players to control JC Denton in any way they see fit: a sneaky, stealthy operative; a guns-blazing killing machine; a hacker avoiding everyone at all costs. They're all possible to various degrees, but which will we find the success with?

Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes

I wanna take you for a ride!

I like Marvel. I like (the characters I recognise from) Capcom. I like fighting games. I should very much like to be taken for a ride in Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes, a fighting game that pits Marvel vs Capcom.

Who fancies Captain America vs Guile? Magneto vs M.Bison? Ryu vs Ken? They're all here, ready to team up with two other fighters to get stuck in, three on three, in a game that is so focused on the flashy moves that my capture methods can't even keep up with them, but I'll try my best anyway.

I'm ready for some button mashing.

Banjo-Tooie

Wuh huhauh wuhuah wuh...

We're back in this bright green platform playground are we? Smashing. I said Banjo-Kazooie was better than Super Mario 64 when I had the chance to play it, so how does the imaginatively titled sequel, Banjo-Tooie stack up to both?

Does it follow the fine tune and perfect it approach? Does it cram in yet more collectables to hunt down? Will it make use of even more of the N64 hardware? Is that even possible in the distant past that is the year 2000?

Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn

You must gather your party before venturing forth.

I have been looking for an isometric RPG that suits me just fine for a little while now. I've not been actively looking, but I've been aware that they've been coming since the likes of Planescape: Torment, and it seems that the next on the 1001 list has been described as 'probably still the pinnacle of the Western RPG'.

Based on that, here's hoping that Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn is the kind of game I'm looking for - a deep story, lots of gameplay options, engaging to both the new and old players...

It's time to roll up another a character.

Prefect Dark

"Find out as much as you can, Joanna. There's a gap in my records."

How do you follow up first-person smash GoldenEye 007? The original plan was to follow it up with Tomorrow Never Dies, but without a license to do so, Rare would have to come up with something else. The result? Corporate espionage and alien conspiracy theories in the form of Perfect Dark.

Huh. Not what I thought Perfect Dark was about, I have to say, but I'm not familiar with it at all, owing to that whole 'not having an N64 back then' thing. Even when it got an Xbox 360 remaster, I was still in Sonyville, enjoying whatever else I was playing at the time.

So what did I miss? Twice?