PixelJunk Shooter

Is that a warm, welcoming glow, or a hot, dangerous one?

Source // PlayStation

Gravity. Love it or hate it, it's here to stay, and as soon as it could be modelled to any degree of accuracy in a video game, games were built around obeying its laws, including a great many that subtly taught generation after generation how to fly - and crash - spaceships.

Lunar Lander, Exile, Gravity Crash and more I'm sure have crossed this 1001 list as physics-based challenges involving spaceships shooting enemy forces, bombing infrastructure, and rescuing stranded companions, and these games just don't stop coming.

PixelJunk Shooter is the next in line, but the twist in this PlayStation 3 title is that gravity plays as much of a role in-game as fluid dynamics. Are you ready to safely wrap your head around a lava flow?

WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010

Biscuits and Gravy

Source // Giant Bomb

Now we're talking. The UFC might be entertaining to you, but the weird world of professional wrestling is entertaining to me. Or was. Still sort of is, but not so much the WWE.

Anyway, the point I'm making is that ever since WWF SmackDown! on the PlayStation (yeah, that's right, too late for the N64 greats), I have had, on and off, a damn good time with WWE video games. Professional Wrestling doesn't make sense, and so neither do the video games based on it. Whether you're making your own superstar, picking the coolest of finishing moves, or smashing your opponent through all the announcer tables in every single match, these games are about having fun.

I've not played them all of course - as my interest in the 'sport' comes and goes, so does my interest in the video games - and one of the (lengthy) lulls in my attention meant missing out on WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2010.

What was happening in the WWE at this time? Who were the main eventers? This is as much a trip through video game history as it is wrestling history, and after my poor performance in UFC 2009, I'm ready to dive right in.

Shatter

Arkanoid + Gravity = Awesome?

Breakout didn't necessarily need another game, but when Arkanoid showed what you could do with the Breakout formula, apparently there was a need for another Pong-like block-smashing arcade game.

Fast forward an awfully long time, and the PlayStation Network is a new home for smaller titles to shine, and what better way to grab some attention than to stand on the shoulders of giants?

One part Breakout/Arkanoid, one part physics playground, Shatter wants to show you how far this gameplay can go.

One-Dot Enemies

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Source // Apple

The 1001 list isn't afraid to put time-wasters in the limelight, but many of them so far - if they've really not had anything else to offer gamers - have been artsy enough to get by without too many problems.

Noby Noby Boy, for example, is a 'game' about stretching until you're bored of stretching, then contributing your score to a collective goal. That's all, really, but its presentation is just as much of a talking point as its 'gameplay'.

But One-Dot Enemies is something else. It's Noby Noby Boy to the extreme, and it goes a little something like this...

Death Tank

Down a bit. Bit more. No, go back. Down again...

Source // Microsoft

Is there enough chaos on your couch? Do you even have local multiplayer in the games you're playing? Despite a remake on the Xbox 360 where online multiplayer was in full swing, Death Tank allows you and up to three friends to get your artillery hats on for some chaotic last-man-standing rounds of vehicular warfare - and then allows you to play against another four players online at the same time.

It seems to give you options, but what are you doing in the first place?

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.

Pac-Man Championship Edition

I think I've eaten the wrong pellet...

Source // Microsoft

When playing both Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man, I played a few versions scattered across home consoles and handhelds of the time, or thereabouts, with the obvious conclusion that you should obviously play some form of Pac-Man. Just... duh.

But all these decades later, the original designer, Toru Iwatani, has been brought back to create a reimagined Pac-Man, as though, the 1001 write up suggests, the Xox 360 was available to develop for in the 1980s.

And it's the only way to play Pac-Man, supposedly. It's Pac-Man Championship Edition.

Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins

When will you learn, Arthur? Wear more clothes and you'll stand a better chance...

The most difficult game ever released comes back after two decades for another shot? Can it hang in the modern climate of HD graphics and portable gaming experiences? Does Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins have what it takes to survive 2006, and do I have what it takes to survive Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins?

Well, we all know the answer the last bit...

OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast

How far are you gonna take me?

The leisurely driving - not racing - game that was OutRun finally got an arcade sequel in 2003 and that arcade sequel got an expanded remake in the form of OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast for home consoles a few years later.

Bringing the arcade experience into your living room, you're able to throw Ferrari's into vicious powerslides around stages that take you through a miniature road trip around the world, all to impress your girlfriend or a big guy known as Flagman. Or both, seeing as there is plenty of content to get stuck into here.

And just like the arcade games, getting stuck in is easy.

Gottlieb Pinball Classics

Tilt with care now...

A long time ago in this 1001 list, I played Pinball Dreams, an early attempt to bring classic tables onto television screens. A year or so ago, I played Flipnic, an attempt to reimagine pinball without the constraints of having to be played on a pinball table. Or make sense.

Now, though, we're back to attempting to bring classic tables onto television screens again, only this time with far more care and attention, in Gottlieb Pinball Classics.

If the name Gottlieb means nothing to you, don't worry. It means nothing to me, either. Say what? They did Q*bert? Well, apart from that, Gottlieb means nothing to me, but to pinballers, it means the very best, and this museum quality collection aims to show you why.

Earth Defense Force 2017

"We have to kill these people-eating monsters!"

Source // Moby Games

Brainless games have their place on store shelves, digital or otherwise. You can't always have the epic storylines, the incredible characters, or the game-changing mechanics. Sometimes, you just need to put something into the world for people to have fun with.

That's surely the reasoning behind the release of Earth Defense Force 2017, the near-future story where the planet is descended upon by giant insects and the shiniest of robots, working together to annihilate everything in sight - which happens to be what you'll be doing, armed with every kind of weapon you can think of to deal with this monumental problem.

You're not afraid of spiders, are you?

Mario Kart DS

Mama Mia...

The longer this 1001 list goes on, the more I question some of the inclusions. Usually, that's as I come across them - a sequel that just tacks a '2' on the end, for example. But sometimes an entry lets me look back and wonder why clearly inferior versions of a game were considered must-plays.

This is the fourth Mario Kart title to be featured on the 1001 list. Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport are on here twice. Ridge Racer three times. Mario Kart... well, no spoilers, but it's not done yet, even after its fourth 'worthy' inclusion, Mario Kart DS.

Golden Tee Live

BORE?

Golf. Where would we be without Golf? Enjoying the countryside that bloody Golf courses take up, for starters.

I don't like Golf, but video game Golf can at least go wild and wacky and bend physics for the sake of a good time. And if it does try to stick to real-world physics (sadly, most of them do), then at least the courses - real or imagined - take up significantly less space than their real-world counterparts.

Golden Tee Live is the arcade smash hit of the Golden Tee Golf series - I think. It's hard for a non-Arcade Golfer to pull apart which line is which. The 1001 list wants us to play the game that brought the Internet and online leaderboards to Golfing arcade cabinets in airports, released in 2005, if that helps you narrow it down.

Ridge Racer

Seriously Sideways

Way back in the mid to late 1990s, when I first got a PlayStation, I owned Ridge Racer, the port of the arcade racer designed to show that the consoles could do just as much as the cabinets could. If you squinted and ignored this or that. It was a great little game, holding plenty of attention until Gran Turismo made itself known, and then never being heard of again.

Ridge Racer Type 4 capped off the console generation with a game arguably better than Gran Turismo, assuming you wanted arcade-style racing. Long before that point, however, the Ridge Racer series was effectively dead to me.

When the PlayStation Portable came to town in 2005 for us Europeans, Ridge Racer was there once more to show off the power of the handheld in a compilation game of sorts, Ridge Racer, or Ridge Racers in its original Japanese.

Yeah, the naming isn't brilliant for this series. Still, I can get behind a game that gathers together the best bits of a series, mainly because I a) only remember a single track from Ridge Racer and b) didn't pick it up for the PSP until a few years ago, second hand. My launch title of choice was Archer Maclean's Mercury if you wanted to know.

Right, let's get these wheels sliding.

NBA Street Vol. 2

Shootin' some B-Ball outside of the school.

I like basketball, but when I stand 5' 11" on a good day, with my *cough* athletic youth long behind me, physical games just aren't an option. Video games, though... they're always an option, and basketball has provided a great many titles that show off the sport.

Or rather, they show off an elaborately exaggerated version. An arcadey, rule-bendy spin on the sport. A take that attracts a larger audience than a straight-up basketball simulation does, with NBA Street Vol. 2 setting up the alley-oop this time out.

Three on three, first to 21, bonus points for styling and showing off... I'm looking forward to having a kickabout with this one. Well, a bounce about, I suppose...

Geometry Wars

Retro Evolved

You know what Asteroids needs? Colour. And not in the sense of Blasteroids, but in the sense of 'let's embrace vector graphics and go all out'.

Geometry Wars may be a strange title, but it's not a strange game at all. In fact, you'll be able to pick it up in no time and challenge yourself to do better on each and every attempt, just like Asteroids all those decades ago.

I do believe it's time to shoot some rhomboids in space.

Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller

Yah yah yah yah yah!

Source // MobyGames

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?

Super Monkey Ball

FALL OUT

A long time ago, back in the days of SMS and MSN Messenger, when emoticons were a thing, I'd often find myself using variations of this vaguely monkey-looking chap: @('_')@

I don't know how I stumbled across it, but something tells me I might have been inspired by Super Monkey Ball, a strange little game that I was aware of, but only peripherally. Its premise is simple. Take a strong hint of Marble Madness, but replace the marbles with monkeys in spheres.

Job done, game on.

Silent Scope 2: Dark Silhouette

"Watch out! The enemy is going to shoot!"

A long time ago, I bought an unofficial PlayStation magazine because it came with a VHS hype-reel for the soon to be released PlayStation 2. From memory (because I sadly no longer have it, nor any way of playing it, and YouTube only has similar videos, not the one I'm thinking of), it had footage of TimeSplitters, Unreal Tournament, Metal Gear Solid 2 and Silent Scope, among other games - I would hope.

The fact that I still have mental images of an arcade shooter set behind the scope of a sniper rifle floating in my head must mean that seeing this game had an impact on me. Perhaps I wanted to play it, like, a lot. I don't remember wanting to play it a lot. I remember damn near everything else on that video being more interesting, in fact.

Fast forward to right now, and Silent Scope 2: Dark Silhouette comes up on the 1001 list. Huh. It can't be that good a game, can it?

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?