Metal Slug

Thank You!

I really should have gotten around to playing Metal Slug sooner. I knew from the moment I first saw it years ago that it was something I'd want to see more of, but it never made it to the front of my mind until now, and that was a mistake.

Metal Slug is like Contra as drawn by Disney or something. It is a visual treat, but it's backed up by some solid gameplay too, both single player and co-operative. You must shoot your way through an armies worth of troops in order to defeat General Morden, and, if you're lucky, you'll be able to do so with the titular tank known as the SV-001: Metal Slug.

Run, jump, shoot. There's nothing to it. In fact, my first attempt should be a breeze...

Tomb Raider

What happens if I stand on Midas' hand?

Why did Tomb Raider come in a two-disc PlayStation jewel case, despite only having one disc? I need to know.

Mine has a crack in the front but is still holding up nearly twenty years later, the black dyed, green-fronted CD sitting behind it, containing if not one of the greatest games of all time, then the first outing of one of video gaming's most influential and recognizable figures, Lara Croft - and what a figure.

It is a time where the third dimension is all the rage, and developers are trying to find out what works and what doesn't. Will an exploration game work? Probably. Will a game whose character dual wields pistols work? Yeah, players like action. Will anyone buy a game fronted by a female character whose breast size was 'accidentally' set to 150%? I think they will, yes.

Save crystals at the ready, because we're about to go explore some underground mysteries...

Saturn Bomberman

Dynamite down the pants, explodo!

I thought that Super Bomberman could not be improved upon. It had everything it needed and looked good doing it. Why, then, would you ever need another Bomberman title on the 1001 list? Because Saturn Bomberman is better.

Look at that map. That's the story mode. Saturn Bomberman has a story. So did Super Bomberman but it's crap when compared to this. The Bomberman grid is there but is hidden amongst trees and lamp posts and you're blowing up ice cream, for some reason. It doesn't matter, it looks fantastic.

It looks so good in fact that I resolved, there and then, to try and get Sega Saturn emulation working - or working better for me in any event - just so I could play Saturn Bomberman.

Did I succeed?

Time Crisis

Action!

It still bothers me that I can't remember how or why I got a light gun for the PlayStation. I know I used it to play Die Hard Trilogy, and I'm fairly sure it was a straight up Guncon, which means it was made by Namco and probably shipped with Time Crisis, and yet I have no recollection of Time Crisis at all.

Did I get the light gun second hand? Am I thinking of a different light gun entirely? Did I even have a light gun of my own or was I borrowing it or playing at a friends house or something? These are questions with answers I'll never know, but here's a question with an answer I can: What's Time Crisis like?

There's only so much you can do in on-rails light gun shooters, but Namco added the one thing that was missing from them all until now - ducking into cover.

Most people in the arcades back then thought that light gun shooters were dangerous games. Now, if I were to stand up, I might be killed. But to us, behind this wooden crate, they're pretty safe - so to us, light gun shooters are safe games right here. We feel pretty safe. Do you feel safe?

PaRappa the Rapper

I gotta believe!

Source // PlayStation.com

I don't have the lyrical genius to succinctly introduce you to a dog, in a beanie, who solves his problems by learning valuable life lessons taught via the medium of rap. I just can't do it. But what I can do is say that I never owned PaRappa the Rapper as a child - or an adult, for that matter - because I wasn't really interested in it.

It holds a spot in our collective memories as being 'that game with the rapping dog and the onion karate teacher' because that's probably what most people saw PaRappa as - that one demo whose rap gets stuck in your head for a while.

Is there any substance to this little game then? I have absolutely no idea, but it just so happens that a remake has been recently released for the PlayStation 4, so let's get our rap on.

Pilotwings 64

No, he was the man. It was a really great move. He was inverted.

Way back when, I played Pilotwings and didn't quite get off the ground with it, despite the game taking place everywhere other than the ground. The controls were imprecise, or perhaps precisely too precise, and my level of skill was so far off the charts that getting into the office in order to take the various pilot license tests was an achievement too far.

Enter, then, Pilotwings 64, a 3D sequel, again releasing alongside its host console, the Nintendo 64, hoping to introduce players to the skies with a colourful cast of characters whizzing about a tropical island in hang gliders, jetpacks and gyrocopters.

Will the introduction of an analogue stick lead to more success for me? There's only one way to find out.

Resident Evil

Enter the survival horror.

We all have our favourite genres, and we probably all have genres that we don't even touch. Survival horror titles are one of the genres I don't even touch. Dark, dingy environments littered with things whose sole purpose is to make me shit myself in fear? Nah, not my cup of tea, that. Shame we've got a load of them on this 1001 list then, with the grandfather of the lot of them perhaps being Resident Evil.

Bravo Team of the Raccoon City PD's Special Tactics and Rescue Service have gone into the wilderness to investigate some strange murders, but all contact with them has been lost. Alpha Team is sent in to find them, but what they discover is something altogether more mysterious and deadly than a bunch of murders.

Before we start, let's get the warnings out of the way...

Still with us? Good good.

Quake

+mlook

"Hey, John, this 2.5D thing we've got going on for Doom is great and all, but we can do better, right?"
"Totally, John, we can add another 0.5D, I reckon."
"You mean we can get an actual 3D game going if we put the work in?"
"You bet, and it'd look great as another first-person shooter."
"That's a damn good idea there, John."
"Certainly is, John."

And that was how id Software got started on Quake...

When I got this PC of mine a few years back, I obviously had to test some of the standout games to see what this rig could even do. Not knowing a whole lot about PC gaming, I played it somewhat safe and started by chucking a load of Skyrim mods together, and that seemed to run pretty darn well. Convinced I had made the right choice, I fired up some old-school games which were, after all, going to be the majority of games I play on here. Quake was one of those titles to get a quick blast.

I have no history with Quake beyond that. I'd never played it before then, nor its sequels and spinoffs. The closest I got to playing Quake was playing Unreal Tournament on a PlayStation 2, and we all know how close that is to playing Quake (not very).

I knew of it, as a great many players probably do know of it, but I had simply not been around PCs when Quake unleashed itself upon gaming history, and given how monumental it was to that history, that needs to be rectified.

Let's ready our shotguns and prepare to enter the Slipgate.

Marathon Infinity

And beyond!

If you know a thing or two about Halo, you might well know that it was originally heading to the Mac before eventually ending up as the Xbox juggernaut it has since become. It was heading there because developers Bungie Software had a fair bit of history with the Mac, including an entire trilogy of Marathon titles, the third of which, Marathon Infinity, making its way onto the 1001 list.

Like Halo, Marathon Infinity is a first-person shooter set somewhere in the Universe that isn't Earth. You'll be fending off all kinds of monstrous threats as you navigate the maze-like levels to the best of your abilities, all the while pointing out references to the Halo series, should you know any.

Anyway, it's time to head towards infinity...

Harvest Moon

I want a combine harvester.

Not gonna lie,  Harvest Moon looks so dull that I've been doing all in my power to put off playing it for as long as possible. It is a pleasant looking little 16-bit farm simulator, complete with chubby cows, adorable chickens, mans best friend and some villagers and lots of farm antics and changes of seasons and work and ugh, just end it already.

It's like an empty Zelda. It's got that look, but where are the clear and visible threats to my wellbeing? What do I do? Why am I doing it? Let's attempt to find out.