Time Gentlemen, Please!

"I have.... friends. ....people on the outside who want to see me... eat some cake."

When I think 'point and click', I think 'Oh, no, please, anything but that'. Generally, that is. When I think about it in the context of this 1001 list, I'm reminded that I still need to go back to Broken Sword, Grim Fandango, and even Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. Oh, and a few Monkey Island adventures too.

Even though I know I'm awful at finding the often obscure solutions to the many puzzles in these games, their usually humourous stories and strong characters are worth putting in the time for. You can tell stories differently in point and click games. You can get to explore a character's thoughts and attitudes in ways that other games just don't touch.

But the genre had still fallen behind by the time 2010 rolled around. Wouldn't it be nice to go back in time and enjoy them in their prime? That's not the premise in Time Gentlemen, Please!, but this is certainly a love letter to the genre. One written by two foul-mouthed idiots, but a love letter nonetheless.

Aion: The Tower of Eternity

PvPvEvMe?

Source // MobyGames

I don't have the biggest history with MMORPGs, another genre that I run screaming from, come to think of it. These days though, MMORPGs that have found a spot in the 1001 list have likely been refined to the point where I'm not tearing my hair out trying to play them, and probably have free-to-play entry points for us newcomers to dive into.

Aion: The Tower of Eternity is the next challenger to try and show the world that you don't have to play World of Warcraft like everybody else, and it's still going a decade later, so let's find the download button and get going.

Demigod

FrankCavil is Godlike? Doubt it.

Source // Steam

The one video game genre I've avoided the most probably has to be the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. It's not just that I prefer to play single-player games, or shy away from team-based offerings - hundreds of hours spread across a few Battlefield titles will tell you that I'm not averse to this sort of thing at all - but because of the two big MOBA titles being so impossibly big and alien to me that no amount of free-to-play introductions would convince me that it was worth all the effort to learn umpteen characters inside and out just to compete.

I should probably roll the clock back a bit and tell you what a MOBA is, and what better game to do that with than one that's old, has a single-player version to get to grips with, and was hit by so many problems at launch that most people would have been put off from playing it in the first place.

That's right, it's Demigod.

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.

Sins of a Solar Empire

Boldly going nowhere.

4X games come in many forms, especially on the tabletop. Exploring, expanding, exploiting and exterminating comes naturally to humans, whether the backdrop is of the other side of the world or the other end of the galaxy, as is the case in Sins of a Solar Empire.

Dubbed a real-time 4X game, you don't even need to wait around for other players to finish their turns before you can focus on checking off your next X. The galaxy will evolve around you, military factions bombarding defenceless planets, flourishing trade networks linking allies together, and diplomacy serving as your last chance to turn a dire situation around.

Will we survive the vast expanses that lay ahead of us?

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky

"Cheeki Breeki!"

When your most important survival tool is a rusty bolt, you know you're living in some sort of Hell. When you're playing the prequel to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, you practically confirm it.

Not much has changed between Clear Sky and Shadow of Chernobyl. The world is still full of other-worldly artefacts and an awful lot of radiation, death can still come for you before you know it, but entire factions are vying for control over whatever is left, and you're in the middle of it all, a walking anomaly.

I didn't have the most successful of times in Shadow of Chernobyl, but I was intrigued by what it tried to do. Is the expandalone story of Clear Sky an easier entry point into this harsh universe, or just more of the same?

Get your bag of bolts ready and we'll find out.

World in Conflict

War is coming home.

What's the difference between strategy and tactics? Semantics? In video games, there is a difference between the two, which may become apparent in World in Conflict, an alternate history real-time tactics war game marketed and styled like a real-time strategy game.

You won't be base building or mining for resources here. There's just no time. A surprise invasion on American soil needs quick reactions and smart execution of orders as you use your environment as best you can to repel the Russian forces.

How long can your resistance hold out?

The Witcher

"People like to invent monsters and monstrosities. Then they seem less monstrous themselves. They feel better then. They find it easier to live."

Source // MobyGames

Geralt of Rivia hasn't been around the video game scene for too long, but over the course of just a few games that lean heavily on the more mature side of fantasy monster hunting that the source material provides, he has become one of the all-time greats.

Originally starring in a series of novels and short stories, it'd be a decade before he was picked up by a developer who wasn't really a developer, but a publisher of foreign games in their native Poland, CD Projekt Red. You might know their development history. The Witcher, The Witcher 2, The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077. And like Valve with Steam, they're the brains behind GOG as well.

They've done well for themselves since their first game, an action-RPG in the world of the supernatural and the fantastical, of monsters both inhumane and mere man and woman. The Witcher is here to collect the bounty and move on, and he's damn good at it.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

"Get out of here, Stalker."

As of 1986, 'Chernobyl' means only one thing, and it doesn't matter when you were born, you know what that thing is. The exclusion zone is still home to life but not quite as we know it, and the mysterious nature of an entire city being effectively frozen in time and swamped in radiation inevitably leads to other-worldly stories.

Video games are no stranger to the call of Chernobyl. We've already gone through the eery stillness in one of the greatest levels in video game history in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and now, sort of via a book and film, comes S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, an alternate reality first-person survival horror game set in a region where nothing is quite as it seems.

Do we have what it takes to survive?

Microsoft Flight Simulator X

Don't sink? But I'm a plane...

Simulation fans can be hiding anywhere. My old barber had a flight sim rig, for goodness sake. The closest I've ever come is a cheap flight stick for use once in a blue moon. And would you look at that? A blue moon!

Microsoft Flight Simulator X is the tenth flight sim of the historic Microsoft Flight Simulator series, a run of titles that stretch back to the early 1980s, and, after a bit of a death following this game, continues into the future with 2020's Microsoft Flight Simulator.

But we're not in the future. Not yet. Let's fly all the way back to 2006 and see how skilled we really are.

Medieval II: Total War

That's not a hedge line, is it?

"I think I'd enjoy a sequel more", I once said, with regards to Medieval: Total War. "Oh yeah? Go on, then" replies the 1001 list, shoving Medieval II: Total War into view.

Sequel to the first game, obviously, Medieval II brings the middle ages into the modern ages with the new 3D engine first seen in the last outing, Rome: Total War. I've never gotten into these strategy games, but if I said I thought I'd enjoy a sequel more, I better at least play the sequel to find out, right?

Naked War

MOVE OUT

'What do you get if you cross Advance Wars with Worms?' I hear nobody saying, because as questions go, that's not ranked high on anyone's list. The answer, apparently, is a must-play game called Naked War, where units don't explode and turn into tombstones but instead lose their clothing and run around the map desperately searching for a promotion.

Huh.

GTR 2 - FIA GT Racing Game

Realism Redefined

I called GT Legends a 'museum for the forgotten', a game of old circuits and older cars, simulated to degrees far above what I was expecting. I like GT Legends, novice driver that I am.

A year later, the simulator picks up the pace considerably in the form of GTR 2 - FIA GT Racing Game, allowing players to get behind the wheels of cars from the 2003 and 2004 FIA GT Championships, complete with a dizzying array of realism settings and sliders to give you the closest taste of racing you can get without wearing flame retardant overalls.

I get the distinct impression I won't be winning many races in this one, but we'll see how we fare nonetheless.

Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords

"We have discovered a new type of energy pattern that will benefit our economy by +1 percent."

I should have known. Why didn't I think about the title just a little bit harder? Why did it take so long for me to realise that Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords was Civilization in space? Well, Alpha Centauri is Civilization in space, but you get the point.

GalCiv II is the next frontier. We've conquered the lands, now we need to conquer the galaxy. Ignore that I've failed in every attempt to win any Civ game, even those not on the 1001 list. We're in space now. More freedom to move around without bumping into a single other alien race, right? Should be a doddle.

ArmA: Armed Assault

"5, TARGET THAT MAN."

Previously, we failed to work our way through much of Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis, the military simulation that pulls no punches and demands your attention. I have since opened that boxed version to see what goodies were inside. Nothing, basically. The military isn't about goodies. It's about getting difficult jobs done without getting your colleagues killed.

Breaking away from Codemasters to show they could go it alone, Bohemia Interactive released ArmA: Armed Assault, the next step in their military simulator series. Just as demanding, just as convoluted, just as scary, this is probably going to turn out no different from their earlier game: I'm not going to survive very long.

Armadillo Run

Oh, snap.

You think Half-Life 2 is the only game with physics puzzles? Bah. You've not tried to get an armadillo to roll into an interdimensional portal in Armadillo Run. Also, what the hell have I just written?

SWAT 4

Open doors, shout loudly, zip tie everything, be back in time for donuts.

The SWAT team. Though seemingly every police officer looks like they belong to one these days, the highly trained and disciplined unit makes for quite the depiction in film, TV, and video gaming. Specialised team members all reading from the same page, acting as one to strike hard and fast to apprehend a suspect or bring a situation to a close. One part military force, one part psychological chess match, there's a certain appeal about the way they go about things.

In theory, at least. Perhaps. If you ascribe to that way of thinking. What am I trying to say here? That a properly trained SWAT team is an incredible asset, and that SWAT 4 is here to show you how tough they've got it. Yeah, let's go with that.

First-person shooters are usually all about going in guns blazing. SWAT 4 is about never having a reason to shoot. Can you make that switch?

Silent Hunter III

Dive! Dive! Dive!

For the good of the country, you have been asked - ordered, perhaps - to remain indoors wherever possible. If you can work from home, do so. Get yourself enough food to not need to go to the shops for a while (but don't be a dick and horde things you don't need), and settle in for what might be a long time. Keep your spirits up and help your neighbours, because we're in this together. Also, you're underwater in a metal coffin, dodging depth charges and naval convoys in the middle of the Atlantic. Good luck.

As I write this, the UK lockdown is easing (Wrongly? Rightly? 2021 will tell us, I'm sure), but the whole experience does put some perspective on the incredible lengths people will go to - must go to - in times of war. You know, they're being asked to change their lives, you're being told to stay on the sofa. It doesn't compare.

One of those insane feats is to willingly serve in a submarine crew, an experience faithfully recreated in Silent Hunter III, a Second World War submarine simulator. You're good with tight spaces, aren't you?

GT Legends

You're only supposed to take the bloody seats out.

My racing simulator knowledge pretty much begins and ends with Gran Turismo, but it certainly isn't the only game in town with realistic racing in mind. The PC is the platform of choice for simulations, and it's home to GT Legends, a celebration of vintage cars, stripped of all comforts and hurled around a track as fast as their ageing engines can manage.

I've been on a bit of a GT binge recently, but in the form of the board game Rallyman: GT. I doubt my skills at rolling dice will transfer to video games, but let's see how well we can race.

Façade

Uh, ha, yeah...

Games can simulate a lot of things. The physics of a race car, the communication between alien species, the horrors that lurk in the night. They're not always perfect simulations, sure, but they don't always need to be.

Case in point, social interaction and awkward conversation simulator, Façade, a three-person one-act play of an evening with Trip and Grace. On the surface, you would be forgiven for passing this one by. A play? Talking? About marital arguments? No, thanks. But this isn't any old game. This is more of an experiment in Artificial Intelligence. One we really need to see first hand.