2011: Full of Video Game Anniversaries

In the latest issue of NAG magazine, I had a rare read of Miktar’s column. In addition to being a columnist and overseas correspondent (East coast of the USA), he is also a former moderator on the NAG Online forum – although was shunted out of the job, probably because he was a massive troll, according to some. It was bad for business.

But he brought up an interesting conversation piece. 2011 is chock full of anniversaries relating to video games. Landmark, revolutionary titles that paved the way for all the games you play today.

Let’s have a look at those he listed:

30th Anniversary: Ultima, Castle Wolfenstein, Frogger, Ms. Pacman

25th Anniversary: The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Castelvania

20th Anniversary: Street Fighter II, Sonic the Hedgehog, Civilization

15th Anniversary: Resident Evil, Pokémon, Diablo, Tomb Raider, Crash Bandicoot

10th Anniversary: Grand Theft Auto III, Halo, Devil May Cry

The ones I care about most here are probably Castle Wolfenstein (without it we wouldn’t have had Wolf 3D, RTCW, and every other game that followed in that series); Frogger (played it a hell of a lot as a child); Street Fighter II (hailed as one of the best fighting games of all time – the measuring stick to which all other fighters to this day are compared); Sonic the Hedgehog (come on…); Resident Evil (made survival horror the popular genre that it is – or was, anyway); Tomb Raider (without it, you probably wouldn’t have Uncharted, maybe even Assassin’s Creed either); Crash Bandicoot (played this a lot as a kid, too); Grand Theft Auto III (one of the best games ever).

But suspiciously there were a few left off the list at some point. I think most of the games he mentioned were released in November or December (I know because I looked them up). So there was some sort of trend he was adhering to.

I’d add in Duke Nukem 3D. It’s the last truly great game in that series, which even DNF failed to topple this year. Released at a time when people still used the term “Doom Clone”, it proved that it wasn’t just another rip-off title – it was THE rip-off title; the undisputed king of rip-offs, taking “inspiration” from several films and other games, as well as pop culture. But it had enough going for it to make it pound for pound the best FPS I’ve played to date, honestly.

Quake wasn’t brought up either. Major oversight there. Also released in 1996 like DN3D, it was the first fully 3D FPS, and debuted the Quake engine. Without this engine, we might not have had every other id Tech engine released to date, and probably every other id game released to date, either. Every Doom, Quake, and even Wolfenstein title to follow used a version of the id Tech engine. Many, many games from other developers to date have used id Tech engines as well. You wouldn’t even have Call of Duty, seeing as all CoD games to date have used snippets of id Tech code in the engines that power them.

Final Doom. All right, so it was a glorified double expansion pack for Doom II: Hell on Earth – but what expansion packs at that!

The Plutonia Experiment was particularly challenging. Created by the Casali brothers, it made Doom and Doom II seem like child’s play for the most part. TNT: Evilution wasn’t that spectacular, but it did see one of the most beloved guys at id get hired – and that man is Tim Willits, who still serves as creative director at id today. He started off as just a mapper, and fan of the original games.

If anything, Final Doom showed that fans could make a decent game, filled with challenging maps and maybe tad innovation that impressed developers so much that they hired them and put them on the payroll. This trend has continued to this day, with modders and mappers being picked from the modding community and given jobs. You often see this with companies such as Valve – Valve is predominantly made of former modders.

So anyway, 2011: what a year – for new games and old!

2011: Full of Video Game Anniversaries

Classic Game Collecting: December Edition

The other day I was in Tygervalley Shopping Centre once again, on a mission to get a replacement debit card, and to deal with this Rica registration business before the cut-off date, which is the end of this month.

After all that was done, I had some time to browse through some of local stores which stock video games. So it was off to Game, CNA, and then eventually Musica.

So there I was at Musica, which is probably one of my favourite places to look for classic games that I so love doing – despite the apparent fact that the PC games selection keeps getting smaller each year. It was here that I came across some good compilations as well as a real rarity too.

One of these was Tomb Raider: The Greatest Raids, which is a compilation consisting of the first four TR games in the original series. Anybody who has played any of these knows that Tomb Raider I and II are the best. This was priced at R199.

Then another compilation was Prince of Persia Trilogy, which had three PoP titles, Sands of Time, Forgotten Sands, and The Warrior Within. This was significantly cheaper than the Tomb Raider anthology previously mentioned – priced at R59.

But the greatest find was seeing this game: Commandos 2. That’s right, it’s been a good 9 years since its release, and yet there it was, Commandos 2: Men Of Courage. For R59, I was almost tempted to buy it, but I all ready have the game as it is, and I’m not sure it would even run on my system. I’ve had some bad luck with some classics that I’ve bought in the past.

It’s rare to see games that old in stores anyway, unless you’re talking about Deus Ex or something. I rarely come across anything older than 10 years (released in 2000).

Classic Game Collecting: December Edition

The Sims 3 Experiment: One House, Eight of the Biggest Gaming Icons Ever

I’ve played The Sims 3. There, I said it. Guess what else? I still have The Sims 3 on my computer – it’s been there for nearly a whole year.

I recently got back into it, and decided to do something which I dabbled in a while back. That was to create a family, although not related, of the biggest names in gaming, and put them in one house.

As of writing this I all ready have seven.

One is none other than Duke Nukem. Duke has been around for nearly the past two decades, and has had quite a few games under his belt- one of which was no doubt Duke Nukem 3D, his most successful  game to date, which still sells to this day. Duke is currently pursuing the Law Enforcement career in the house, with hoped of becoming a super hero.

The next one is Doom Guy, otherwise known as John “Reaper” Grimm, if you’ve ever watched the atrocious movie based on the series of games. Doom Guy entered the gaming market after Duke Nukem, in 1993 [Duke Nukem was in 1991], and starred in a series of games that revolutionised gaming for years to come, as well as establishing first-person shooters as the popular genre it is today. Currently Doom Guy is in the Military career, hoping to become an astronaut.

Who’s next? Lara Croft. You couldn’t have a house filled with gaming icons without the Tomb Raider. Lara was probably the first real female character that you took control of in game, and had three big hits in the series – the first three games – before hitting a stumbling block, which was most of the entire series for the next several years. But, she came back in Tomb Raider Legend, and has since seen another two great additions to the long running series. Lara is currently pursuing a career in journalism [couldn’t get any adventure clubs or something, although they are probably present in one of the expansions, which I don’t have… yet].

The fourth one should be a give away by now, seeing as this in order of when they actually hit the gaming world. Yes, it’s the G-man. No, not that G-man, but Gordon Freeman from Half-Life. Gordon has never spoken in any of his games, and lacks that personality and attitude [although borrowed] of Duke Nukem. Still, he was the main protagonist in a series which saw FPS titles become more than mindless killing sprees, but added a little logic and puzzle solving in to the mix as well, along with characters that you actually game a damn about… instead of killing everyone. Clad in his usual science laboratory get up, he no doubt works at the science laboratory in the town.

The fifth one came just after Gordon Freeman in Half-Life, and that would be Garrett from Thief. Okay, so this guy is likely the underdog of the entire bunch. He’s been in three or four titles over the past dozen or so years [four if you count Thief Gold, five if you count Thief II Gold, which didn’t actually ever see the light of day], and is set to star in a true sequel in the series soon, Thief IV… or THI4F… or is it ThIVes? Anyway, Garret and the Thief series brought about a new genre in gaming, and that was the first person sneaker. Thief probably wasn’t the first game to do this, as Metal Gear had some of that sneaking stuff in it too, but Thief helped popularise it, and many games to this day, especially Splinter Cell and the likes, owe their gratitude to the series. No doubt, Garrett is in the Criminal career path, and likes to steal, or “mooch” off of other Sims.

The sixth one? There was a hint in the above paragraph. It’s Snake. Snake? Snake?! SNAAAKKKEE! Yes, Solid Snake from Metal Gear fame, with probably one of his best titles in Metal Gear Solid, of 1999. Solid carried on the appeal of the stealthy approach in games, sort of like Thief, but in a modern, militaristic universe. He has had numerous games since then over the past decade, some of which he didn’t even really star in, in a sense. Like Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater, or MGS 3 for short, which saw Naked Snake take the main role. Snake is also in the military career, and also has natural cooking and gardening abilities, which he picked up from his dad, Naked Snake, or Big Boss.

Number 7 would be a character who also cropped up in the 90’s: SHODAN. She’s appeared in two games in the System Shock series, namely System Shock and the sequel, System Shock 2. She’s been voted as one of the best villains to appear in a game, and one of the greatest all-round characters too. She even has the greyish-blue skin, complete with blue and green hair just like in the games and has an evil personality comparable to the real rogue AI.

In the game, Shodan is climbing up the rungs of the political career, seeing as she eventually wants to become the leader of the free world, or the neighbourhood at the very least. And she’s going to make people suffer and have fun while she’s doing it too.

Who will be number eight? Who do you think? Maybe we should have a vote, and you can leave your thoughts in the comments. So many choices, and you can only have eight in a household unfortunately. I guess I’ll be starting new houses with other characters who didn’t make this list.

Candidates who are on my list to make the eighth member of the household include: Agent 47 from Hitman, B.J. Blazkowicz from Wolfenstein, and some others.

The Sims 3 Experiment: One House, Eight of the Biggest Gaming Icons Ever

New Lara Croft Game to be Available Digitally

2009 went by without a Tomb Raider game. The last one was Tomb Raider: Underworld, in 2008.

Well now we know that a new game will be coming, but it’s not Tomb Raider: it’s just Lara Croft – Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, to be precise. And another first is that this game will not be available retail wise, it seems, but via digital distribution outlets, perhaps like Steam.

And there have been some details leaked about the game, which say that the game will be top-down isometric game designed for co-operative play. Players can choose to control Lara or some Mayan dude named Totec.

"This is a really exciting project for Crystal Dynamics, we have created something completely new and very different to what people might be expecting," Crystal Dynamics general manager Darrell Gallagher said in a press release. "Lara Croft is such an iconic character in videogames, with Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light we have created what we believe is a truly original digital experience."

More details on the game will be made public at GDC (Game Developers’ Conference) this week.

Personally, I think there’s a reason that this game doesn’t have the Tomb Raider title in it. Because this isn’t a Tomb Raider game – not really. This is just some game to tide people over until the next TR release probably, sort of like Duke Nukem Manhattan Project was supposed to be a bridge between the main games in the DN series, namely Duke Nukem 3D and Duke Nukem Forever – except the latter title never did come out, or hasn’t yet, anyway. That sounds very optimistic.

Sorry for the Duke Nukem reference – I’m playing a lot of Duke Nukem 3D lately. But seriously, if it really was Tomb Raider, there would be a retail release, mass promotion, and new technology, not going back in time with top-down isometric views (not that there’s anything wrong with that – I’m all for retro stuff).

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Source: Gamespot

New Lara Croft Game to be Available Digitally

Road in Derby Named Lara Croft Way

Do you remember at one stage that was a vote where you could actually make it so that a road in Derby would be named after the legendary Tomb Raider heroine, Lara Croft?

Well, predictably, the results came in, they were very strong in her favour, and now the road is called “Lara Croft Way”. More than 27,000 people voted, and 89% percent of the votes that came in on the website were in favour for the name. And the votes were worldwide, not just in Derby. The road cost 36.2m Pounds to make. That’s a hell of a lot of money, but imagine in Rands!

Lucy Care (Councillor):

"The vote really captured the imagination of people from across the world and, despite my lack of gaming knowledge, I accept that a majority of 89% for Lara Croft is too overwhelming to ignore."

"She was created in Derby and deserves to stand alongside some of the more traditional icons of the city."

So even though Rebellion states that Rebellion Derby, formerly known as Core Design, is on shaky ground and is likely going to be shut down, at least they can take comfort in knowing that a road will be named after their most famous creation.

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Source: MCVUK

Road in Derby Named Lara Croft Way

Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft to get her own Street

As if having a palatial mansion with a training course and butler wasn’t enough, in Derby, UK, the city council is trying to get a couple of names for a new road, and one of the choices in the poll they’ve set up is “Lara Croft Way”. You don’t have to be a UK resident or in the UK to vote.

The other choices are Eagle Way, Griffon Way, John Flamsteed Way, Mercian Way
Merlin Way, Sorocold Way, and Steve Bloomer Way.

Two of these choices will be used for two stretches of the road, so Lara already has quite a good chance of at least getting one of them. We all have until January 31st, 2010 to vote, so get to it. The poll is bottom right on the page.

Who did I vote for? Who do you think? Lara’s all ready got 97% of the vote, so it’s pretty much a given right now. 22730 people have voted so far, most of them for Lara. 1% voted for Merlin Way. There’s all ready a Merlin Way in Derby, and Merlin might not refer to the Wizard, but rather Rolls Royce Merlin. HAHA!

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http://www.derby.gov.uk/
http://www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/news/Lara-Croft-makes-road-shortlist/article-1561225-detail/article.html

Tomb Raider’s Lara Croft to get her own Street

Eidos Gets Busy With Sequels

A Hitman 5, Kane& Lynch 2, a new Tomb Raider, Deus Ex 3, and of course the recently announced Thief 4 are all new games that Eidos has planned for the future.

The only other dev with this much going on is probably Bethesda.

http://www.gamingindians.com/2009/05/eidos-president-talks-arkham-thief-hitman-etc/

Eidos Gets Busy With Sequels

Anomaly: Square Enix Taking Over Eidos

Square Enix has taken over the publisher, Eidos. Eidos is apparently under Eidos plc, a subsidiary of Square Enix.

This means that Square Enix, a Japanese company famous for Final Fantasy, will have control over series like Tomb Raider, Hitman, and Thief. 

Other games from this publisher include Commandos, Deus Ex, Legacy of Kain, Timesplitters, and Fear Effect.

Anomaly: Square Enix Taking Over Eidos

Apocalypse Then: Tomb Raider Legend

On this day in gaming, Tomb Raider Legend was released in 2006. 

It was hailed as the return of Lara Croft and the Tomb Raider series, after the rather dismal Angel of Darkness and the average ones between Tomb Raider 3 and Chronicles.

It was also the first game by the new developer Crystal Dynamics, with Anniversary and Underworld following it.

Apocalypse Then: Tomb Raider Legend

Will the real Duke Nukem please sign up

It seems as though Deep Silver and Apogee Software are looking for a new real life Duke Nukem model. They claim that this has never been done in video game history before. Well, there is Tomb Raider- they search for a new Lara Croft just about every year...

I could once do a pretty good Duke Nukem voice, but I look nothing like Duke though. I don't take steroids, I guess.

http://www.dukeisback.com/

Will the real Duke Nukem please sign up