Battlefield 1943

PTFDigitalOnlyO

Source // PlayStation

An awful lot of first time Battlefield players site Battlefield 3 as their entry to the series, the consoles finally getting a smaller but no less impressive taste of the action, scaling from boots on the ground to dogfights in the sky.

As a nice little treat for those who were hyped to dive into the series, a bite-sized digital-only game was bundled with copies that aimed to give players a blast from the past, and a blast within a minute of entering a map.

Battlefield was going back in time, in more ways than one, with Battlefield 1943.

Gravity Crash

Those guys have got a rough deal.

Back in the early days of video games, you couldn't avoid a space shooter of one kind or another, be it Asteroids or Galaxian, or one of their many imitators. Throw in some physics to the gameplay and you've something like Gravitar and Lunar Lander, demanding precise input to float across the surface of another world, rather than slamming face-first into it.

Fast forward thirty years and developers are all nostalgic for those kinds of games, and we get something like Gravity Crash, a sort of twin-stick shooter, sort of physics sim.

Hopefully, we'll have learned enough about these genres by now to be good at it...

Bit.Trip Core

Don't.Trip Up

After throwing seemingly every version of Guitar Hero and Rock Band at us, and then confusing us with Art Style Intersect for a little bit, the 1001 list has found a game that sort of fuses all of those together in an homage to the 8-bit generation that is rhythm game Bit.Trip Core.

D-pads at the ready, eyes front and center, get ready to test your reflexes an- what are you looking at?

Batman: Arkham Asylum

"Oh, boo! You win again, Bats. Well, savour it. I'll get your next time."

When I was in my graphic novel phase, you could largely group what appeared on my shelves into three categories: indy's, Marvel, and Batman, who clearly stands head and shoulders above most comic book characters for all kinds of reasons.

The number of colourfully exaggerated characters he fights across Gotham City is enough to satisfy any reader, and the fact that Batman doesn't kill any of them means they can all escape the confines of their jail cells and wreak havoc again and again.

But these villains often have more than a few screws loose, so prison isn't always the right place for them. The correctional facility on nearby Arkham island, the Arkham Asylum, is more suited for the terrors that make a home on Batman's turf, and in Batman: Arkham Asylum, we get to see how even that can go all wrong.

Buckle up your Bat-belts, put on a gruff voice if you want to, and let's glide kick our way into this one.

Assassin's Creed II

"Nothing is true. Everything is permitted."

Source // PlayStation

Remember when Assassin's Creed games were good? No, that's not fair, let me rephrase it. Remember when Assassin's Creed meant something? When the overarching, convoluted conspiracies of the Templars and the Assassin's was a strange alternate history tale that was silly, but fun. Engaging.

In its heyday, I, like many other players, dove into the series head first and consumed it all. Brotherhood, if I recall correctly, was played so much that it gave my PlayStation 3 a yellow light of death, forcing me to purchase a new console (which I still have today for all of these missed games). I even read the books to see some of the stories from another perspective, and actually bothered to try and understand what was going on under the surface.

I couldn't explain it to you now, partly because it was ten years ago, but mostly because as the series grew, it lost focus, and now nothing makes any sense. It makes so little sense, even, that in the more recent games of the series, I don't even care about the modern-day story, instead thoroughly going through the alternate ancient histories so well presented for hours and hours and hours on end.

Oh... You didn't know there was a modern story? Let's get you up to speed for Assassin's Creed II then.

Canabalt

You ran 104m before just barely stumbling out of the first hallway.

I'm not sure where I first encountered the endless runner genre, or one of its champions, Canabalt. It may have been when I had an iPod Touch and wanted something to do on it, or maybe it was the talk of the town on some Internet forum - have you played this Flash game, maybe.

Once you're aware of it and give it a few minutes of your time, you tend not to forget it, even with a weird name. Canabalt. The one with the rooftops, yeah, I know it.

Stretch your legs, because we're about to go for quite the run.

Boom Blox Bash Party

Jenga with explosives?

Source // Wikipedia

When Steven Spielberg makes a game, you think Medal of Honor, not Boom Blox Bash Party, but that's where we're at.

There was always going to be a game on the Nintendo Wii about flinging something at wobbly towers and watching everything fall over in a physics sandbox. For many that game was Boom Blox, but refine it a little more and fix what was broken and you get the sequel, Bash Party, the one and only title you need if you want to see some chaos on your Wii.

Don't progress any further unless you're Wiimote has a strap and that strap is around your wrist.

Captain Forever

[COM: (Farbs) Help me. Help us all._________________________________]

Out in the emptiness of space sits the Nemesis, a ship that cannot be destroyed, and its pilot desperately needs your help. Every time it should be the Nemesis' turn to explode, space around it explodes instead, taking everything in the vicinity with it. The only way to stop this from happening is to keep the Nemesis from exploding, and the only way to do that is to destroy other ships and harvest their parts.

Sounds interesting, doesn't it? That's the premise of Captain Forever, a Flash game with a simple goal: survive. How? Up to you. Log in and get moving, pilot.

Bonsai Barber

Currently closed due to the vegetable equivalent of COVID.

What does the Wii remote remind you of? A sword-hilt? A tennis racket handle? What about just using it without much of an imaginary thing sticking out of the end, like it was a pair of clippers? But hairdressing isn't terribly exciting, is it? We can't make a game about cutting hair.

What about cutting vegetables and hedges?

And thus, Bonsai Barber appeared for Wii owners the world over to get clipping and trimming in the safety of a virtual environment. Why? I have no idea.

Borderlands

Pre-WUB WUB

Players love getting rewarded with new loot. Whether it is heaps of cash or experience to splurge out in shops or level-up screens, or new weapons and equipment to push your characters towards their strengths and personalities, getting more, better stuff, again and again, keeps us engaged.

So open-world first-person action-RPG shooter Borderlands gives its players lots of stuff. Like, more than a bucketload of it. Think three and a half million different weapons alone. I hope you like gathering loot. Or maybe 'swimming in loot' would be a better phrase.

Art Style: Intersect

a.k.a. Digidrive

Source // Nintendo

The Art Style series is back, or is it the bit Generations series? Either way, we're in for more utterly abstract gaming on the go with Art Style: Intersect, a game that involves... Uhm...

Probably better to just try and work it out as we go along.

Mega Man 9

"Be careful out there! You haven't done this in a while."

Source // MobyGames

Mega Man. You'd have thought that at least one of his six NES games would have made it to the 1001 list, but no, apparently not. It must be tougher to get into this highly acclaimed selection of games than we initially believed.

Mega Man 7 on the SNES wasn't good enough to make it. Mega Man 8 on the PlayStation wasn't good enough. It took until Mega Man 9 on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii before a main game in the series was deemed good enough to make it to this 1001 list.

Why? As you can tell, it wasn't because of the graphical power (two of) these consoles had. No, it made it to the list because of nostalgia for the Mega Man games that didn't make it to the list. Let's explain that a little more.

Fieldrunners

Don't you want to try shooting back?

Source // Steam

You're not bored of tower defence games, are you? Fieldrunners hopes not, because it wants to keep you glued to that new iOS device of yours...

Fingers at the ready, now.

TrackMania DS

Hold forwa- wait, again?

What did I just say, TrackMania? I said, "I'd much prefer to watch this one than touch it again." Why do you and the 1001 list insist I play TrackMania DS as well, a condensed (for obvious reasons) version of the TrackMania we're familiar with?

Well, at least we know what we're heading into.

TrackMania: United Forever

Hold forward?

I like my racing games to involve racing, far more often than not. Doesn't really matter too much what surface I'm driving over, or whether I have access to weaponry to launch in the direction of my opponents, if a racing game involves racing, it's aight.

TrackMania: United Forever involves racing, but only against the clock, and the times recorded by the hundreds of thousands of players who are determined to push the incredibly simple controls to the limit - and beyond.

Forget what you think you know about how cars and physics work, and hold on tight.

Drop7

Drop it, you've played enough.

Let's talk about addicting mobile phone puzzle games, shall we?

Scanning the list of upcoming games for the 1001 list a month or so ago, I came across Drop7, a title I'd never heard of before. Described by the writeup as a sort of mix of Tetris and Sudoku, but is neither, I was intrigued, and luckily for me, it was still freely available on the Play Store to download and give it a go.

Many hours later, phone batteries were dying through overuse, TV programs needed to be rewound to see what was missed, and even P2 is playing it far too often. I actually had to uninstall it from my phone to make sure I stopped playing it, only to download it for my Chromebook and, now, for the BlueStacks Android emulator on PC.

This is a staggeringly addictive game. Let's see what has got me hooked.

Edge

a.k.a. Edgy

We're in a run of mobile games in the 1001 list as they keep coming, with the latest being a Marble Madness/Devil Dice looking puzzler by the name of Edge, or sometimes Edgy, thanks to a certain trademark owner.

In Edge, you pilot a cube around a level full of spatial challenges to negotiate and a giant void to avoid tumbling into, gobbling up style points for balancing like an absolute legend.

That won't make any sense until you've seen Edge in action, or better yet, play it.

Trism

Why would I need an accelerometer?

Source // MobyGames

It doesn't look like much, does it, but then you have to say that about all successful handheld puzzle games. Tetris. Bejeweled. Trism.

Emerging on the early iPhone, gravity-based match-three puzzler Trism was unlike anything else, completely changed the developer's life, and, like many puzzle games, will make your head grind to a halt.

Reset Generation

"Hey Hedgehog! Your groin is nice and soft, for kicking!"

Source // MobyGames

You have to wonder just how this 1001 list was created sometimes. One of the arguments against it was that it neglected handhelds, but I'm not so sure about that. I mean, here's a handheld title that also made it as a browser-based game, Reset Generation, an action-puzzler for your... Nokia N-Gage. Huh. Well, that's going to be a pain in the arse to find, isn't it?

Tomb Raider: Underworld

"I need Thor's belt to get his hammer, and I need the hammer to kill a God."

Source // MobyGames

After the reborn Legend, there was the remade Anniversary, celebrating the original Tomb Raider by polishing it up and showing it off in a modern action-adventure engine. To complete the trilogy, we would need Tomb Raider: Underworld, a grubby tale of extreme archaeology, with Lara just looking for her mum.

It's a sequel to Legend, first and foremost, so the sandwiching of Anniversary in the middle may be a little weird, but you'll manage. I know I did, nearly 10 years ago now. I was late to the party even then, grabbing The Tomb Raider Trilogy for the PlayStation 3, but made it through the story.

What is that story? Definitely going to need to jog my memory.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2

"Only a true leader plunges into the dark woods of defeat and emerges into the light of victory."

Tom Clancy has his name attached to quite a few video games but were it not for this 1001 blog, I don't know if I'd have ever played very many of them. Splinter Cell was obviously a big hit, but I was more into Metal Gear, and the other series often came across as games that you'd like far more if you were the type of person who read a lot of Tom Clancy books.

There's nothing wrong with that - I guess you know what you're getting into - but the games were generally the kind where you need to be invested in that world and setting to enjoy what otherwise seemed to be a bit of a generic shooter of some description.

Will Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 show me the error of my ways? That Tom Clancy titles can be just as impressive as any other shooter, even without the Hollywood setpieces? Let's outfit and find out.

Valkyria Chronicles

"I'll do it. Even going to war, I'll do it."

As Street Fighter IV has recently shown, stylish graphics can be just as engaging as photo-realistic depictions, and one of the games that I've always been aware of for its style but haven't yet dipped a toe into to find anything out about it is Valkyria Chronicles.

One part watercolour memoir, one part tactical role-playing game, Valkyria Chronicles takes players through the Second Europan War as a band of brave peasants determined to prove that nobody is going to get trampled on without a fight.

All I know about it before playing is that it looks mighty interesting.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl

[JUST... WHAT]

Source // Wikipedia

I still don't like Super Smash Bros. - I just want to make that clear before we start. I do not get the hype, I do not understand the devotion, I cannot contemplate how a fighting game that doesn't play as a fighting game can continue to make Nintendo console owners go nuts.

But here we are again, this time with Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and it is the turn of the Nintendo Wii to show us a good time.

I hope there isn't any unnecessary waggling...

Street Fighter IV

"I'll make this quick and painless for you, kid!"

Hot on the tail of Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix was the console release of the next great leap in the Street Fighter series. Had it gone 3D yet? Sort of, yes. Was it easier for newcomers to pick up and dive into? I'm told so, yes. Would it kick the fighting genre into a higher gear than that which it had been wallowing in recent times? Yes indeed.

What is it called already? Simply, Street Fighter IV.

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix

Because apparently, you can't have enough versions of Street Fighter II...

Source // MobyGames

There are more versions - not ports, necessarily, but versions - of Street Fighter II than there are games in an entire series of many well-loved IPs. Obviously, it's a little easier to release another version of a fighting game than it is to release another version of an action-RPG or something, but still, Street Fighter II has an awful lot of love, and the 1001 list wants us to experience it again.

Usually, the 1001 list is full of praise for a game, or it not full, heavily leaning towards the positive. If you can't avoid mentioning a negative aspect of the game, it'll get touched upon, but that's it. With the mouthful that is Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, however, the 1001 list was quite critical - well, it was critical of the distribution method and its limitations, at least.

Will this downloadable remix pass the time before Street Fighter IV comes to consoles? Does Street Fighter II deserve more than a cheap HD rerelease? Let's flex those button mashers at the end of our arms and find out.

Spore

Damn nature, you scary.

Games have allowed players to create all kinds of things - simulations of their lives, the cities they want to live in, the vehicles they want to drive, hospitals, theme parks, and zoos. If you had a creative itch, there was probably a game that could scratch it.

But what about creating the entire evolutionary tree of an interstellar lifeform? What game caters for that? What game starts us off in some chemical soup before allowing us to guide the hand of evolution towards a space-faring civilization?

Spore does. Let's see how intelligent this designer is...

Monster Hunter Freedom Unite

In the world of Monster Hunter you're never alone.

Source // PlayStation

I won't argue with the idea that monster hunting would make a good game. Giving players the tools and the freedom to roam the lands in search of gargantuan beasts to carve up and turn into armour and weaponry sounds pretty cool, and making it a co-operative experience is just a no-brainer.

But I have always been put off by the presentation of the series that does this kind of thing, Monster Hunter. It has always been too convoluted for my tastes, seeming like too much work for too little gain. Will portable offering Monster Hunter Freedom Unite give me a bite-sized starting point to dive into?

Wipeout HD

Cannon.

Source // MobyGames

When last we saw Wipeout, I said it was awesome and it'd only get better. At the times, others might have argued that the series only appearing on the PlayStation Portable was a sign that it had run its course. Yes, it was technically impressive, but it was lost on a handheld that wasn't bought in huge numbers and showed little sign of life on the consoles it belonged on.

And then an HD blend of Pulse and Pure for the PlayStation 3 was announced, a cheap little download that promised improved visuals and buttery smooth gameplay, and as a fan, you know I bought Wipeout HD in an instant.

SoulCalibur IV

"With our combined strength, we can end this destructive"... hang on, am I reading the right character here?

Source // PlayStation

The second fighter in quick succession is Tekken with swords 4, or SoulCalibur IV as it is properly known to the wider world. It was SoulCalibur II that was my introduction to the series, thanks to this 1001 list, and I came out of my time with it liking it a fair bit.

A console generation later and high definition graphics allow for character models to be insanely detailed (for 2008, remember) so that you can see all of Ivy's curve...d blade whip slicing through the air. Ahem.

Will I find this one as appealing as the earlier titles in the series? I hope so, I know that much.

BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger

The Wheel of Fate is turning.

It has been a long time since the 1001 list has given us a fighter, and an even longer time since it has said we need to play one with two-dimensional sprites taking the spotlight, but two fighters are coming along at once here, starting with BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger.

'Calamity' might as well be a descriptor of my efforts in fighting games. Notoriously complex and deep, the fighting genre exists for passionate fans to devote hours and hours in search of true mastery of a single character, let alone a single game.

Me? Just give me the one and looks cool and show me where the do stuff button is...

Space Invaders Extreme

Less 'Save the world', more 'Make some music'.

Space Invaders. Absolute classic. Nobody is going to forget it in a hurry. Thirty years later, though, and someone thought it needed to be extreme. Space Invaders Extreme is the result of mixing Space Invaders with Rez in a sort of psychedelic shooter sure to keep you playing until your thumb hurts.

I'm not sure what state the world is in, but I'm guessing this pilot doesn't care. Grab your handheld of choice and start shooting these aliens.

LittleBigPlanet

"An ethereal dreamscape of adventure and possibilities ... and you can go there now."

Source // Media Molecule

Some games are aimed at kids. Many more are aimed at adults. A few of them are aimed at big kids, and little kids, and weird kids, and creative kids, and LittleBigPlanet is one of those few. A platformer and a platform for, it gave the world the seemingly infinitely customizable Sackboy, a delightful avatar for all kinds of hand-crafted physics-based entertainment.

Surely I was too old for a game like this in 2008, right? Never.