I started this week by playing the Atari Anthology on the PlayStation 2.
This is a compilation of 85 games that were a mixture of the Atari 2600 console
and Arcade games, and with my borderline OCD method of decision-making, I tried
some of them in alphabetical order. I had a go on a 2600 years ago which my
friend Richard inherited off his Dad, and even with my age in single digits, I
knew that games had come on a long way since then. Most people who collect
and play these games now do so because they have some nostalgic investment in
it; I don’t have this but it’s an interesting concept nevertheless. The games
showcased by this compilation “Started a Revolution,” and from what I
understand about the 2600, it needed this shortlist! Many of the games released
for it weren’t very good, and contributed to the over-saturation of the market
that cause it to crash in the 1980s. Video games were in their infancy at that
point, and a lot of what makes them fun for me – an end goal, an engaging plot,
a challenging process and a satisfying resolution – just wasn’t there.
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| I like how the art for the early video games looked significantly better than the actual game... |
Due to the limitations of the hardware, and that the entire
concept of video games was still in development, the better games concentrated
on their playability. I had a lot of fun with 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe, a game played
over a 4x4x4 cube. There is definite strategy involved, but if you mirror the
computer’s moves, you’ll reach a draw. It took a while to beat but I managed it
in the end.
Air and Sea Battle was reminiscent of early shooters, in
which you play a gun turret shooting planes and helicopters out of the sky. Set
up correctly, you have two minutes to score more points than the gun on the
opposite side. As a single-player experience it’s over quite quickly; I’d
imagine it would be better with two players, but most things are!
When I needed a few moments to wind down, I had a go with
New Super Mario Bros U on the WiiU. I find that, with such wide gaps between
playing this game, I forget about some of the newer techniques and power-ups
and have to remember what they do before I can use them in any meaningful way.
But it’s a nice fun game that I don’t have to think too hard about, which is
exactly what I need at eleven o’clock at night!
Last Friday I beat Theme Hospital. I’ll put out a Backlog
Beatdown review next Friday, but developing the points I made last week: The
Epidemics and the Earthquakes are difficult to deal with, need to be included.
In the later levels, there comes a point where everything needed to beat the
level is basically done, and all you’re doing is waiting for the money to roll
in so you can progress to the next one. The Epidemics, which gamble some money
and reputation on being able to cure a certain number of patients in a certain
time and none of them going outside, and Earthquakes, which damage your
machines, appear at random and add some challenge to the game when everything
is done. It’s a harsh way to extend the game, but they needed to exist.
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| Oh dear, that doesn't look too good... |
Also the last level was deceptively simple to beat. I’d
researched all the cures, built all the rooms and trained all my doctors to be
as efficient as possible. While the criteria for beating the level is quite
high, I was waiting for a curveball I didn’t think was going to come. It
arrived right at the end: Most of the levels end on the next quarter of a year.
With the last one, it only ends at the end of the year – and you have to
maintain the standards until then. It took me longer than it should have to
clear it, as just before the year ended, an earthquake that destroyed a few of
my machines, a couple of doctors working on them – and my reputation. It took a
long time to pull it back, but I did, and finished the game I originally bought
in 1998!
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