Alien Zombie Death

Pew pew pew, just like the good old days.

The 1001 list is a mostly chronological trip through video gaming. While it appears here and there to lump together similar games, more often than not it's a case of highlighting notable titles as and when they get released, allowing us to follow along with the developments and look back at where we've come from.

That basically means that we're not going to end on a carefully selected bang - not unless you're the type of person who loves the PlayStation Portable and the teeny tiny downloadable titles you could find for it, titles like Alien Zombie Death.

The controls are simple. The graphics are appropriate for the file size. The gameplay evokes titles from a long time ago. But I've come so far in this 1001 list that it'd be silly to end it like that. Let's fire it up and see what it's made of. Maybe we'll end with a bang after all.

Max & the Magic Marker

Scribble me this.

Source // Nintendo

Remember Crayon Physics? Would you be more interested in it if that kind of gameplay was found in a platformer, instead of a physics puzzler? Would you want to play more of it if you were guiding a kid through a level, dealing with monsters and trying to catch an escaped cartoon drawing?

If you do, it seems Max & the Magic Marker will be right up your street, because that's pretty much what it is. Crayon Physics crossed with a platformer, and you can already imagine the kind of things you'll get up to.

Mighty Flip Champs

Flipping hell.

The two-dimensional platformer can already provide a puzzling time for players even before you introduce gimmicks like time distortion or, in the case of Mighty Flip Champs!, multiple overlapping stages, accessible through a quick hop into another dimension, but some players want and seek out these brain-melting games.

Still feeling dumb after failing to make swift progress through Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box, I'm about to tackle a 'simple little platform puzzler' that will inevitably begin to sprawl into something more monstrous in no time at all.

How far do I think I'll get? Not very, but I might surprise myself, right?

Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box

"You haven't figured it out yet, have you?"

The Professor and his cockney assistant Luke have returned at last, with a hundred-odd more brainteasers that all come together to tell us the tale of Pandora's box, though it goes by another name here: Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box - except in regions where it does actually go by Pandora's Box. Hooray for localization!

It was localization into English that took two years for this sequel, but you welcome the efforts, otherwise, you'd be solving everything in Japanese, which would add to the difficulty just a little bit...

Let's get onto this case before the clues all dry up then.

Muramasa: The Demon Blade

Blink and you'll miss it.

The Nintendo Wii was not a powerhouse compared to the bigger home consoles, but as sales figures have proven, the average consumer doesn't care about the raw numbers under the hood. They want a damn good time, and for many, that meant waggling a Wiimote controller.

You'd think that having players waggling a Wiimote in the same way as they'd waggle a sword would make for some great gameplay, but the developers behind Muramasa: The Demon Blade knew better than to churn out a crappy waggler. There are basically only two buttons in this game, and just look at what you can do with them.

Look. Up there.

There's a lot to look at.

The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks

Toot-toooooot.

Few people seem to like the best incarnation of Link that The Legend of Zelda series has ever seen, but I'm one of them. Wind Waker still looks fantastic to this day, and its Phantom Hourglass sequel on the Nintendo DS brings us more of his adventures on the go.

But what if you get seasick, or simply don't like boats? The best Link has you covered in The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, swapping the waves for the rails as you get behind a steam engine and criss-cross the land instead of the sea - and who doesn't like trains? Trains are great.

I'm looking forward to this one. Put your mask on and climb aboard.

You, Me and the Cubes

Careful now. Wouldn't want to fall off into the void, would we?

The Nintendo Wii is no stranger to odd games thanks to its motion controls, and neither is Kenji Eno, he of One-Dot Enemies fame not too long ago in this 1001 list.

On the surface, You, Me and the Cubes is a puzzle game about balancing people on cubes hanging out in the void. Underneath that surface, well, things get a little weird.

Scribblenauts

Write Anything, Solve Everything.

Source // Nintendo

They always say the pen is mightier than the sword, don't they? How can we best put that to the test? Pen vs Sword fight? Probably not that. What about the Nintendo DS game, Scribblenauts?

Maxwell's a clever chap with an out-of-the-box imagination - or he could have, depending on who is playing - and armed with a notebook that can summon anything into existence to help solve his problems, just like that.

That's quite a powerful pen to wield. I suppose it could even create a sword out of thin air, too. Can a sword do that?

Sin & Punishment: Successor to the Skies

"There's no escape from the Nebulox."

Back on the Nintendo 64, there was an on-rails shooter by the name of Sin and Punishment that was incredibly weird but playable, despite being a Japanese-only release. The only reason I know of it is because of this 1001 list, and my conclusions after playing it were along the lines of "well, that's was fun, I guess, but I don't really need more, do I?"

Apparently, damnit, we do need more, because it has a sequel on the Nintendo Wii, Sin & Punishment: Successor to the Skies, or your regional subtitle equivalent.

Last time out, mostly because it was all in Japanese, I had to hit the Internet to learn just what on Earth was going on. This time out... well, I've got to do the same.

Rhythm Heaven

How many times will I mistype Rhythym?

I'm not terribly in sync if this 1001 list is any indication. There have been many different must-play rhythm games for me to practice with, some I like, some I hate, and pretty much none that I'm skilled enough to get anywhere with.

And so Rhythm Heaven sounds like it's going to be a challenge, but as its 1001 write up mentions, it's done by the same folks as the later WarioWare titles, and the accompanying screenshot looks like it's welcoming enough for fools like me, so I am feeling quite positive about it.

How long will that positivity last? At least it looks more interesting than Guitar Hero.

Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story

"Do I look like I need logic? Listen, I NEED to breathe fire!"

The Mario & Luigi line of handheld RPGs have surprised me, and they have annoyed me. I'm surprised by their control scheme and the mechanics of controlling both brothers at the same time, but I'm annoyed at how even an hour into a game - on a handheld console, remember - I'm still sitting through tutorials as the story crawls into view.

Superstar Saga on the Game Boy Advance kicked things off, Partners in Time gave us four characters to juggle, and now Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story takes us on an adventure to a part of the Mushroom Kingdom we really didn't need to see, did we?

Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure

Good show!

The Nintendo DS has two screens, so players could play two games at once, right? Something going on up top and something else going on down below. I mean, kids these days are smart enough for that, aren't they?

I'm fairly sure such a line of thought wasn't what spurred the development of Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure, but that's sort of what's going on, with the thankfully added benefit of pausing between both games, a platformer up top and a puzzler down below.

Henry Hatsworth is on the hunt for a dapper gold suit, but the adventure to get it will be unlike anything you've played before. Tea time's over, gentlemen. Onwards!

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars

"The city is out there for the taking, just waiting for an enterprising man like myself, and you're making penile jokes."

We're not finished with Grand Theft Auto just yet, but we are taking a bit of an unexpected departure to the handhelds of the day, with a callback to the top-down GTA's of yesteryear, in a story set very much in the thick of the GTA IV present that we've seen so much of.

When I said Liberty City is full of stories, I meant it, and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars follows the criminal (obviously) life of Triad member Huang Lee, returning to the city to avenge his father's murder, and whatever other shenanigans he'll inevitably become embroiled in for various criminal enterprises.

It might look like a step down from Episodes of Liberty City, but this little package can still pack a punch.

Dissidia Final Fantasy

"Destiny is at hand. We might as well enjoy it."

The 1001 write up for Dissidia Final Fantasy does a far better job at introducing it than I ever could.

To paraphrase it, Final Fantasy combat involved characters standing in place, attacking nothing in particular, and watching numbers spring out of their opponent's heads, but Final Fantasy cutscenes or spin-off movies showed incredibly animated, over the top action where characters did the absolute opposite of sitting still.

Dissidia Final Fantasy is an attempt to merge those two things together. To let Final Fantasy characters fight it out in a way the RPG series hasn't seen before, all in a dense package on the PlayStation Portable.

It's one of the few physical PSP games I've got left, and coming to it 12 years late is better than never coming to it at all.

Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride

"Your father looks strong and powerful. You're a bit weedy compared to him."

Even in 2010, remakes of old games for new systems was something for publishers to consider putting some money into, and the 1001 list has thrown up another one from Square, again on the Nintendo DS, but for another RPG series with a great many numbered entries in the series, Dragon Quest.

Originally released in 1992, and having already seen a 3D remake on the PlayStation 2, it is this most recent remake - at the time of the 1001 list - of Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride that should grab our attention.

A blend of 3D environments and 2D sprite work, along with a few more additions and enhancements to the game itself, this version of Dragon Quest V should serve fans and newcomers well. Does it?

Eliss

Play with two hands.

Touch-sensitive devices, usually mobile phones, are one thing, but devices capable of accepting and keeping track of multiple touch inputs are another beast entirely. From point and click to drag and drop, and now pinch to zoom and beyond, the multitouch accessibility of iOS devices, and the explosion of mobile gaming on them, lead to quite a few possibilities for developers to explore.

One man took multitouch and ran with it, creating the graphically stylish puzzler known as Eliss, a game that only a mobile device could allow.

Oh...

Dead Space Extraction

"Oh, I hate spacewalks."

The 1001 write up for Dead Space Extraction hypes it up, as you'd expect, before ending with the line "A shame, then, that it bombed on release."

Was it because the Nintendo Wii wasn't the right fit for a gory first-person trip through Dead Space? The 1001 write up says such a game could only have happened on the Wii, but a few years later it'd be ported to the PlayStation 3 with its Move controllers, though that wasn't known at the time.

Did it bomb for being an on-rails shooter, an oft-ignored genre albeit one that could make use of the limitations the Wii had? Was it just not a good game in the eyes of the masses? Was it on the 'wrong platform'?

Whatever the reasons, the 1001 list is all about highlighting must-play video games, whether they were adored by the masses or not. Have we all missed something special in Extraction?

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...

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.

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.