"You too will come to understand fear, as I have."
When I bought this game a year or so ago, I suppose, the guy behind the counter said something along the lines of "You'll enjoy that one." I forget what he said precisely, but my response was "Yeah, I missed out on this one fifteen years ago."
Boy did I. Back in 2002, Eternal Darkness wasn't on my radar at all. The Game Cube it was playable on didn't interest me. But over the many years since, I've picked up more and more info about this fourth-wall-breaking psychological horror title, and I really want to see it first hand - and I don't really care for horror.
Some of the games on the 1001 list were always going to be hard to play. Arcade exclusives, obscure consoles, digital games lost to the world, that sort of thing. And then there's Steel Battalion, the Xbox Mech piloting simulator that requires a 44 button, two joystick, three-pedal controller set up.
I could drop a hundred-odd pounds on getting a secondhand set, but then I'd be short of an Xbox and a copy of Steel Battalion itself, which are definitely required to play. This one will definitely be a game to watch at this moment in time, and not a game to play.
The first time I saw a Total War title was on the BBC show, Time Commanders. Take a group of most likely non-gamers, present them a historical war to recreate in Rome: Total War, and have them command their troops to victory.
Back then, in 2005, I wasn't aware that it was even a playable game outside of the TV show, let alone that it was from the Total War series, whose second entry, Medieval: Total War, is on this 1001 list. What was I doing in 2005? Sure didn't involve PC gaming, though it was around the time where I heard some of my friends talking about building a PC. It sounded expensive. It seemed complicated.
Anyway, Medieval: Total War gives players control of hundreds of troops in a real-time strategy battle, and it is as daunting as it is intriguing.
"It's like Diablo, with a party."
"Great. I don't really like Diablo..."
I don't know anything about Dungeon Siege, so reading this isn't the best of starts. In truth, it's more than a Diablo clone. It's not even a clone, but it is a click and collect game. Lots of clicking. Lots of collecting.
Wow. The halfway mark. And it's only taken four years. I'm delighted I decided to not play every one of these games to completion, otherwise, I'd need to clone myself, and the world does not need that.
Where have we found ourselves this time around? It is 2001/2002, thereabouts. The PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube are holding much of the attention, but the everpresent PC is still home to some greats, and portable gaming is picking up some speed under our noses.
It is this period in video game history that I am most familiar with, and yet in the bucketload of games between Skies of Arcadia and Metroid Prime, I've had my eyes opened to titles that I never knew about, all thanks to this bloody long list of games.
It's finally time for The 501/1001 Milestone Awards. The Showcase of the Immortals. Has my world been turned upside down thanks to any of these winners? No. That'd be a tad extreme. But it has been altered for the better, just as the Emperor has foretold.
In a history spanning decades, and an industry worth billions, there are thousands upon thousands of games that go unnoticed because they're just games. I'm sure they mean something to someone, but to me, they are simply The Indifferent 5. They are, in no particular order:
I don't want this stunted slime in my sight again.
Actually, no. Those games I will see again, it's just I'll pull a face of confusion mixed with disgust when I do. This game, on the other hand... What Was That 1 Even Put On The List For?
Rereleasing games for new audiences, remixing old titles into new, combining the best of both worlds to create a classic. But it didn't work. What Was Mario Kart Super Circuit Even Put On The List For?
It's just... why? You already had two Mario Kart titles on there. Those two, for goodness sake.
Instead of that portable waste of space, we need to fill the 1001 list back up to 1001 video games, and there is a ridiculous oversight that boggles the mind and leaves me to scream only one phrase:
You Forgot What?!
I effectively traded my PlayStation to get my hands on The Getaway, and I got it so early in its life that I got the unaltered version, where you drive a BT van on a mission to sabotage the cops' phones or whatever it was. Can't remember. The point is, BT didn't like how they were portrayed in a digital recreation of the city of London. Like, all of it. It's not like the mission had them give criminals their van for nefarious purposes. We stole it. But this was the first game to really flirt with reality.
Grand Theft Auto III might have got the headlines for driving like a maniac in a fictional city inspired by New York, but The Getaway got them for having you drive Alfa Romeos through Soho at high speeds while outrunning slightly offended Yardies. Or whatever. It's been a while. I really need to go back at play that janky looking cockney simulator again, and so should you.
Criminal exclusion, this one.
Aaaand, relax. It's time to go through The Top Ten for this latest batch of hopefuls. It could have been a top 20, but that doesn't cut through the fat enough, does it? There's hardly any point cutting 50 down to 20. Cutting them down to ten was a right pain, though, but I'm more or less content with what we've got here. They are:
10:Luigi's Mansion, Nintendo EAD
A surprising entry, perhaps, but I was going through the list and it leapt out like the ghosts that inhabit it. I'll get the hoover out in a minute.
9:Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec, Polyphony Digital
Snuck onto the list because I played so much of it as a teenager. It is showing its age, but I couldn't ignore it.
8:Metroid Prime, Retro Studios, Nintendo
Hooked me more than I thought it would, and stands out against almost anything you can throw at it.
7:Vagrant Story, Square Product Development Division 4
Just picturing what it looks like pleases me. Why does a PlayStation game do that? Pleasing artwork is what pixel art is for, not polygons.
6:Devil May Cry, Capcom
Oozing with style, it's a shame it shows me for what I am: a blithering, button-mashing idiot.
5: Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, Naughty Dog
Still to decide whether I play it on the PS Vita or find a PS2 memory card, but it's going to get played.
4:Halo: Combat Evolved, Bungie
Thirty seconds of fun. In today's hectic world, that should be easy to catch up on...
3:Grand Theft Auto III, DMA Design
Why wouldn't you put this on the list? It actually made people want to play a GTA title. What an achievement.
2:Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Konami Computer Entertainment Japan
I took one look at the screenshot I went with for the intro and remembered the sheer amount of technology that was stupidly optional in that one room, and never used in the game - or the series - again. Did you shoot up that bar?
Have you worked out what was better? Can you recall what console I went bonkers over at the tail end of this batch of games? There can be only one number 1, and its name is Advance Wars. I mean, come on, of course it is. It's a war on the go, in your pocket, with dinky little cartoon tanks. It's the dog's bollocks.
But how does it fare against all the other games? Where does Advance Wars rank amongst the 501 games I've looked at so far. Where do any of these latest titles lay in the grand scheme of things? Are they good enough to break into The Topper Than That 10?
The only games you should hold dear, until at least the next Milestone Awards, are:
10:Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, Neversoft
It's wobbling, it's shaky, the combo is going to come crashing down, hold it steady now...
8:Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, Konami Computer Entertainment Japan
It makes no sense, and yet it speaks so much truth. How, Kojima, how?
7:Faselei!, Sacnoth Faselei! meets Advance Wars, that's all I want.
6:Super Mario Kart, Nintendo EAD
Get out of here with your combined game. Nothing gets mixed with the O.G.
5:Tekken 3, Namco
I have played Tekken 7 since reminding myself that I owned it at the last Milestone Awards. It feels like Tekken. I'm still no good at it.
4:Advance Wars, Intelligent Systems
Oh blimey, it must be up against some fierce competition, huh? I want to play it, but apparently, I want to play some other titles more.
1:Metal Gear Solid, Konami Computer Entertainment Japan
Mmmmmmore mechs.
No obvious budging at the top this time around. Breaking the crushing grip that the greats have on their Milestone Award placements will prove to be a tough task, but there is still most of a decade and 500 more games to come and try their luck. Surely something's got to give. We can't have peaked already.
To find out, join me for the next one, Dungeon Siege. It sounds like it's harking back to the good old days with a name like that. I wonder what I'll think about it in however many months it'll be until the next Milestone Awards.
If you weren't a portable gamer, or if a 2D Metroid after eight years of no Metroid sounded like a silly idea, maybe you were getting set for the series to see something it has never seen before: a 3D, first-person action game developed by someone other than Nintendo.
To say that Metroid Prime needed to wow its audience might be an understatement. It was a radical departure from what came before, and it could well dictate what would come after it. But can you do Metroid in such a different way?
I know more about this title than I did Metroid Fusion, but I still don't know how it plays... until now.
You wait ages for a Metroid game and then two come along at once. That was the situation back in 2002, only I wasn't waiting for a Metroid game. I'd never played one at that point in my life - didn't know what people were desperately waiting for. Nintendo gave the fans something, though, and the 1001 list says we should play them both, starting with Metroid Fusion.
Described as the forgotten middle child, Fusion was released on the Game Boy Advance as a sequel to Super Metroid. Eight years had passed since the last release. Entire consoles had come and gone. Were players that hungry for the next part of the story?
"I was so scared then, but in a way it was really, fun. I mean, every boring day had been just the same for me. But this, this was the beginning of a real adventure!"
Source // MobyGames
There are games on this 1001 list that, for whatever reason, fill me with a sense of dread. Most of the time it's a game or genre that I just can't be bothered to play, but I push through it and probably come out the other side a more knowledgeable, less judgemental person.
Then there's Dark Chronicle, a randomly generated dungeon crawling, village building, steampunk mech constructing RPG that just overwhelms me. How on Earth am I meant to tackle this game? Where do you begin with a story that takes 50 hours to finish, and for that to not be everything the game has to offer?
Well, the likes of Final Fantasy X takes that long to finish, but I started playing that without any moaning. Why does Dark Chronicle cause me to stop and think?
Pick up and deliver. Fetch quests. On the surface, they don't sound so appealing, but the success of the Crazy Taxi series says otherwise. Driving old-school Taxi's across sunbleached cities at absurd speeds to the sounds of The Offspring is perhaps the best iteration of the pick-up and deliver mechanic there is, and Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller is the chosen title for the 1001 list.
I've only played the original for the PlayStation 2, so a few sequels later, what can this high tempo arcade title offer?
As far as I can recall, I've only ever played the demos of the early Burnout games, arcadey racers that have a particular fondness for metal crumpling in slow motion. They weren't bad demos if you wanted to race through city streets and ludicrous speeds, inches away from instant death, pushing your luck ever more in search of that little bit more boost for an increase in speed.
What the titles couldn't offer in fancy graphics and licensed cars, they made up for in thumping tunes and carnage, with Burnout 2: Point of Impact referencing the destructive nature of the game in its title. This is a racing game, and coming first is your goal, but it's not what draws you to Burnout, is it?
There is a definite love/hate relationship between me and the Battlefield series. When things are going well, it's incredible. When they're not... well let's just say I had some anger issues that have hopefully been worked out in the years since.
But that was with the later releases in the series. I didn't have a gaming PC when Battlefield made its mark in video gaming in 2002, so going back to the roots of a series I have previously thoroughly enjoyed (and equally hated) should be fun.
Battlefield 1942 takes us to the front lines of the Second World War, in theatres across the globe, from the streets of Europe to the skies of the Pacific. From the streets to the skies isn't just a throwaway line, either, as the game will allow you to fight on foot, from the back of a Jeep, inside a tank, or above all of that action, all at the same time, in the same game, with up to 64 people working in teams of 32.
In a list of 1001 games you must play, you'd have expected some titles that were similar to others, and some that were sequels in exceptional series. You can't have 1001 unique titles, and that's why everything felt like a space shooter back in the 1970s and 1980s: all the games worth playing were space shooters.
Here we are in 2001, consoles are common, technology is increasing at a ridiculous pace, and developers can do things we've never seen before. Or they play it safe and give their new overlords guaranteed sales, like you might argue was the case for Age of Mythology.
I liked Age of Empires, and when Age of Empires II turned up on this 1001 list, I liked that too. I enjoyed it more, because of the game improvements and ye olde world setting. That there was an HD Edition worked wonders for it, too. Ultimately, though, it was more of the same.
So what's Age of Mythology? It's more of the same, but weirder.
Hacking is a mystery to most of us. Something involving the Internet, logging into systems you shouldn't have access to, snooping around private files for all manner of purposes, then leaving via the backdoor. No, leaving a backdoor, before leaving by the front. Just leaving full stop, because they're tracking your every move and reporting it to the cyber police!
While the thrill of skirting/breaking the law might appeal to you, doing time for the crime will mean you won't get the chance to clear your gaming backlog for a long while, and nobody wants that to happen.
Enter Uplink, a hacking simulator where you bounce through systems and crack passwords and steal files all from the safety of a video game. This is all a video game, right?
I liked Star Wars: Rogue Squadron quite a bit. I wasn't good at it, but it made me feel like a kid again, reminding me of when Star Wars was cool. Enter a new console generation and a mouthy sequel: Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader.
Once again, we get to pilot all the letter-Wings throughout the galaxy, beginning with the destruction of one Death Star, and ending with the destruction of another. The better we do, the shinier our medal cabinet becomes, and the more bonus content we unlock.
Strap in, get your targeting computers set up, and get ready to hear those TIE Fighters scream...
"Call your Momma in the room and show her how great you are."
This piste is quite delightful... I think it's very vital, to play (this game), that's right (one game), SSX Tricky is the title, here we go!
Ah, snowboarding. What is it about you as a sport that attracts so many development teams to you? 1080, Cool Boarders, Shaun White, Shaun Palmer, Shaun the Sheep... there's a snowboarding game for everyone, but are any as HYPE as SSX Tricky?
I know for sure that I played the PlayStation 2 demo of SSX Tricky, but don't recall having owned it or any other SSX title in my youth. I have a disc these days, a Platinum rerelease, showing how successful the series was, with Tricky at the top of the mountain, by most accounts.
Does it continue to show off all these years later?
I don't like Super Smash Bros. - I thought I'd get that in early just so you know where I stand. Fighting games I can get into and get behind, but this kind of brawler... it has never worked for me. I simply can't get behind it in any way.
So, when the 1001 list says you must play Super Smash Bros. Melee, what do you do? You play Super Smash Bros. Melee and see if you can justify your stance on the series, else revise your position on the matter. Let's dive right in before we get kicked right back out.
The MMORPG. Will I ever be interested in this genre? The next title to see if it can wow me is RuneScape. The only thing I know about RuneScape is that you ought to run and escape it. Thanks, Internet. Real helpful.
You are whoever you want to be in a simple, graphical, multi-user dungeon. The text adventures of the past are now the graphical adventures of the future in this free to play, no download needed, world of questing with your friends and a whole load of strangers too.
It's been some 18 years since its release at the time of writing, so playing it is a little different nowadays. RuneScape Classic was available until around this time last year, before being shut down for good, which leaves me with the closest playable version of the original game, Old SchoolRuneScape, recreating the game from around 2007. It'll do. After all, I don't expect to be spending ten years in this game catching up with the community...
When you finally take Advance Wars out of your Game Boy Advance, you might wonder what else you can put in instead. According to the 1001 list, old school RPG Golden Sun is worth a look. Well, more than a look, it's a must-play video game. I wonder why that is.
I've never heard of the series before, so I've no idea what I'm in for. There's no better way to find out than by diving right in.
"What?!? Even my medium tanks are defeated??? THAT NELL!!!"
Source // MobyGames
Help. I started playing Advance Wars after lunch, and now four hours have gone by, and I'm still playing it. It's just... it's quite good this. Oh, when will I find the time to play this?
I had a Game Boy Advance. I waited until the SP model to get one, but I got one, and it was a great little handheld. Why I never picked up Advance Wars for it is anyone's guess because this cartoony turn-based tactics game has devoured my attention this afternoon. I guess I just had absolutely no knowledge about GBA games back in the day unless I knew I wanted to own something.
Well, now I only want to play Advance Wars. Why is that?
"I am compelled - I must approach it and press A..."
Do you know what the RTS genre has been missing? Dopey-looking living carrots. Enter the saviour of the RTS, Pikmin.
Now, I joke, to be clear, but the GameCube wasn't exactly the destination console for the genre as it was. No, to get people - kids - interested in its mechanics, a game would have to look at the genre from another angle entirely, and space gardening is perhaps as strange an angle as you could get away with.
The military simulator is, as one might expect, not the easiest of genres to get into as a beginner. Demanding from the offset and fueled by realism, these games are nonetheless somewhat successful, spawning few imitators but a great many community-made mods and custom maps. The genre's success today is arguably thanks to Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis.
The year is 1985, and your humdrum existence in the US military is about to become an awful lot more dangerous, as you'll face the business end of all kinds of guns in this open-world tactical shooter.
I don't expect to get very far through this one...
"So all I have to do is push the Action button in front of the computer once I have the pictures, right?"
Source // PlayStation
I absolutely loved going back through Metal Gear Solid when it appeared on the 1001 list, so you might be able to guess how much I was looking forward to getting around to the PlayStation 2 sequel, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty.
While the die-hard fans would go on to buy Zone of the Enders to play the demo, I couldn't justify buying an entire game I wasn't sure of to play just a snippet of a game I most definitely did want. Instead, I had a VHS of that E3 trailer, and then a magazine demo finally arrived, and then magazine article after magazine article kept my interest until the game finally released.
Delayed in Europe, we got a bonus DVD as means of an apology, full of behind the scenes, making of stuff. I gave it its own case, complete with homemade box art. I think it may even have been done in Paint. If not, then Jasc PaintShop Pro.
The point is, I was quite a fan of MGS, and when I was done with MGS2, you can bet that I also bought MGS2: Substance when it came out, complete with gameplay tweaks and extra modes, including skateboarding. Madness.
So. Having not played it in a while, can I still get through the demo?
The shoot 'em up genre may not grab everyone's attention, but it still manages to see some stellar-looking video game releases that put up quite the challenge for newcomers and veterans alike. The latest in the long list of entries on this 1001 list is Ikaruga, a multiplatform offering whose name I'm sure I know but whose content I certainly don't. Apart from ships and bullets, I suppose.
I'm not too hot on shmups, so let's see how far my credits will take me.
"If there's no more dead, then I'm out of a job. Now go!"
The dead rise from the underworld. Royalty needs saving. Your underwear remains your last line of defence, as the Ghosts 'n Goblins series enters the third dimension in Maximo: Ghosts to Glory.
The jump from two dimensions to three is not always a pleasant one, but some games can pull it off. A hack and slashy platformer shouldn't have too many troubles in this generation, but will we? It is, after all, a homage to the no-nonsense, high difficulty Ghosts 'n Goblins, and I didn't get too far through that...
Mario vs Sonic. FIFA vs PES. Mario Kart vs Crash Team Racing. Similar games divide players into defending one or the other, often til death. Well, not often til death, but gamers will argue nonstop over which is the better of the two, and will rarely switch their stance.
Ratchet & Clank vs Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy was a popular one, with each cartoony platformer making a home on the PlayStation 2, and seeing a full trilogy emerge before the next generation of consoles would appear. But which was better?
I was firmly in camp Ratchet, having only played a brief demo for Jak & Daxter before making my choice. And I don't really know why I chose Ratchet over Jak. Probably the setting. Maybe the fact that Ratchet spoke and Jak didn't. Who knows. I haven't gone back to see what the other camp were playing ever, so this will be interesting, and I am looking forward to it.
For the longest time, I thought the closest I'd get to playing Luigi's Mansion would be its arcade release, a decade or so after the release of the twin-stick Ghost-capturing GameCube adventure that found its way onto the 1001 list. Thanks to grabbing a disc from somewhere, though, I'm able to play it in the comfort of my own home, as Nintendo originally intended.
For once, the bigger, lankier Mario sibling, Luigi, gets the starring role as he turns cowardly hero to save Mario from the clutches of spooky ghosts. Armed with a vacuum cleaner, because that's funny.
Do we have the courage to venture into Luigi's Mansion?
