The last instalment (unless I decide to go for a Top 40, I have a tonne of these); I hope that the articles have been as fun to read as they have been to write:
•21. Max Payne (PC) – Constipated Main Characters Are The New Black
Bullet-time has become a much-derided gaming feature these days, with every developer in the industry seemingly including it in their games for no readily apparent reason. A few games do it well (Stronghold and F.E.A.R being two of the better known ones), but most seem to include it simply for the sake of having it.
Considering how prevalent Bullet-time is in games these days, it’s somewhat startling to realise that it wasn’t so long ago that we didn’t see the darn thing outside of Hong Kong action movies; that was until 2001 and the release of Max Payne. Max himself was the constipated looking hard-bitten New York cop taking on a horde of crims while diving around everywhere in slow motion, bullets flying past and blowing chunks out of the walls.
Often accused of being derivative of the Matrix (it isn’t; Max Payne was well into production before the public ever heard Keanu say “Woah”), Max Payne nonetheless brought a brand new feature to games that has well and truly stuck around to the modern day; even though it may have outstayed its welcome a little.
•22. NBA Jam (Arcade) – HE’S ON FIRE!
The big daddy of the arcade sports genre; NBA Jam was the first game to bring the idea of unrealistic sporting goodness to the masses, and is still one of the most memorable and fun to play. This very emphasis on fun versus realism is what makes the gameplay of NBA Jam so memorable.
The best feature was the ‘On Fire’ mechanic in the game; land three buckets/dunks in a row and the commentator (who had the greatest voice ever) would shout out “HE’S ON FIRE!” and your ball began flaming (this wasn’t as painful as it sounds). All of a sudden the net would catch fire every time a shot went in, and the giant, glowing, flaming basketball was certainly both an eye-catcher and a slap in the face to your opponent. Plus you could shatter the backboard too, and foul the crap out of everyone.
This game should also be credited with bringing the term “BOOMSHAKALAKA” into pop culture…but we don’t hold that against it.
•23. Dark Reign (PC) – 3D Terrain in a 2D Game? Brilliant
Poor old Dark Reign. Sure it met with a decent amount of success, but the game would have been an absolute smash hit if not for the release of the flashy Total Annihilation at the same time; a game with far superior graphics and far inferior everything else.
Nonetheless, Dark Reign was the first RTS to not just give us 3D, line-of-sight affecting terrain, but it also gave us units (and thus tactics) that took full advantage of this. Nothing in an RTS game was as downright cool as watching a column of enemy Tachyon Tanks headed towards your base, knowing that the fact they were hover vehicles meant they needed to stick to roads and flat ground. As they went through the mountain range outside your base, you would move in your incredibly fragile Spiderbikes. These units were cheap as chips and almost useless in a straight-up fight; however they’re completely all-terrain, and could decimate most enemy units if elevation was used correctly.
Dark Reign was just full of these kinds of ideas and tactics that no other RTS had even come close to. Whether it was units disguising themselves as game-world objects like trees, hover tanks travelling over water, or a super-weapon which created an earthquake (complete with rippling ground effect), Dark Reign not only brought 3D terrain to the table, but revolutionised the way in which it could be used.
•24. Civilisation 2 (PC) – Ghandi Just Nuked America
What kind of ruler would you be? See I always figured I’d be a benevolent Prime Minister/President or whatever, chosen democratically by the people to lead my nation to a better future. Civilisation 2 taught me that I am in fact a religious fundamentalist dictator (oh the irony for a confessed Atheist), leading my people with an iron fist and a lust for violence that makes Genghis Khan look at me and say “Damn he’s a bastard.”
Civ 2, more than any other game of the series released before or since, really gave you this completely undiluted feeling of ruling a nation and controlling its destiny. Starting off in the early days, you guide your country towards the future, researching new technology, building facilities, making money, and (if you’re like me) quickly declaring war on all your rivals and smashing them into the ground.
The complexity of keeping your little corner of the randomly-generated planet ticking along while balancing the needs of your people, the needs of diplomacy, the needs of your economy, and the need to kill things is supremely addictive. Civilisation 2 is still the ultimate power trip.
•25. Half-Life 2 (PC) – Lucky The Combine Love Their See-Saws.
Physics puzzles are the new bullet-time. Having some form of gravity manipulation in games is becoming pretty common now, but Half-Life 2 did it first, and did it well…even though most of the physics puzzles were fairly arbitrary (oh look, yet another conveniently placed ramp) with the benefit of some rather jaded hindsight.
The gravity gun (especially the super version found at the end of the game) felt so natural after the first couple of minutes that I spent a fair bit of time wondering what the point of having the other guns was; why would you mess with something as mundane as bullets when you can launch a toilet into someone’s head?
Of course all of this wouldn’t have been possible without the perfect implementation of a physics engine up to the task; thankfully this one was, although we expect nothing less than perfection from Valve anyway. When you get the glowy grav-gun at the end of the game and can pick up just about everything you can think of (including people) and fling it around like crazy, it gives you a special feeling and makes you wish you had this ability in real life; it would certainly make your next train trip entertaining.
•26. Neverwinter Nights (PC) – Build Your Own Dungeons (Dragons Not Included)
Ok, so the Dragons were actually included (obviously), but I needed something to write up there and I’m running out of ideas. Neverwinter Nights has a lot of things going for it, but the best by far has to be the editor that comes included in the package.
The game was marketed as being the first RPG to really provide the public with the means of creating their own pen and paper-esque D&D experiences, complete with a Dungeon Master, dice rolling, and guys pretending to be girls and dealing with the resultant crises of sexuality. BioWare delivered on this promise, stopping their offices from being burnt down by people wielding Matches of Arson +3 in the process.
Whilst a bit of a challenge to learn in the beginning, the editor is an immensely powerful tool (it was used to build the actual game by the developers) which has allowed the NWN community to build a huge amount of quality modules, including many single-player efforts which have far surpassed the official campaign. The editor (and the game engine’s modifiable nature) has also allowed numerous things to be accomplished which fall far outside the standard NWN experience, including persistent world servers (ala an MMORPG), sci-fi mods, machinima, and some other efforts which have to be seen to be believed.
All of this, as well as ongoing developer support, has ensured that Neverwinter Nights is still going strong today, despite having a sequel and being positively ancient by gaming standards.
•27. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (PS2) – Watch Yourself Die Over and Over and Over and…
Can you imagine how incredibly frustrating this game would be if you couldn’t rewind time at will? Missing a difficult jump only to fall to your death and have to restart from the last checkpoint every time; man that would be so damn terrible to play. Come to think of it, if you added twin pistols and a massive set of polygonal sweater puppets you’d have a Tomb Raider game.
Luckily the feature was in there then; luckier still that it worked so well, and was a tonne of fun to use to boot. Without it, Prince of Persia would have been an exercise in creeping along, taking each obstacle slowly hoping desperately that you can reach that ledge without dying. With the Sands of Time, an immense feeling of reckless abandon suddenly takes over and you will wall run, fling yourself at the ledge and care little if the risks don’t pay off; you can just have another go at it anyway.
When you did fall to your horrible, messy death it was almost a bonus, since it allowed you to watch the whole sequence leading up to the event in funky looking rewind. The time manipulation mechanic completely altered the way these platform/action games play, and has been an important step forward for games development in the future.
•28. Xenon 2: Megablast (Amiga) – Dum Da-da-da-da De-da Dum
This game is still the most difficult thing I have ever played in my life, and I’m pretty sure this was the very first game that ever made me swear as a little kid. The Bitmap Brothers-developed top-down shooter had many important features for the genre, including the ability for the player to temporarily reverse the scrolling direction of the levels, and a shop in which you could upgrade your ship with various new weapons and power-ups.
Most important of the new features, however, was that Xenon 2 was the first game to feature a commercially released song – Megablast (Hiphop on Precinct 13) by Bomb the Bass – especially one which was well known and highly successful. Besides giving us all the awesome theme music that sounded so different to the typical beeps and boops of the time, it also showed people that electronic music could be made successfully on a computer, particularly the incredibly common Amiga.
From this point on tonnes of dance music was being made on home computers and released to the public, much of it going onto be highly successful. So the next time you’re dancing around insanely at your favourite club, spare a thought for Xenon 2 putting the creation of dance music into the hands of Joe Public.
•29. Planescape: Torment (PC) – The Tale of the Chaste Succubus and a Floating Skull
Oh Torment, how I love thee. This game is, and possibly always will be, the greatest RPG of all time. Planescape: Torment eschewed the typical RPG ‘save the world’ storyline in favour of attempting to save your own soul in a quest almost certainly doomed to fail.
The player is cast as the Nameless One, an immortal who, upon dying, wakes up with total amnesia. Due to this he has been many different people over the course of his lives; from ruthless psychopath to charming hero and everything in between. When the game starts, the Nameless One has awoken again, and must seek out just who he was originally, and why he has been doomed to never knowing any real peace.
In your quest across the planes of existence, you will meet many other tortured souls; some will join you, many more will seek to interfere or stop you. However, the defining feature of this game was its emphasis on dialogue over combat; the entire game can be completed with almost no need to resort to violence (there are something like six compulsory combats in the game) if you are a good thinker and a better talker.
Thankfully, Planescape: Torment is the one game where good talkers are not in short supply. With over 800,000 words of very well-written script, this is the closest thing that the gaming world has to a true literary work. Torment is a truly deep, highly intelligent experience, made up of incredibly well realised characters and a beautifully tragic plot, and that rewards those that use their brains instead of their axe.
•30. Full Throttle (PC) – Most Violent Adventure Game Ever?
I’m sure many people would disagree with my choice of Lucasarts adventure game for this list. Surely one of the earlier, more revolutionary games would be better suited; something like Monkey Island or even Loom perhaps? What makes Full Throttle more deserving of a recognised great gaming moment?
No argument that there are plenty of games in the Lucas back catalogue which are better than Full Throttle (Grim Fandango and Daily Tentacle spring to mind), but none of those other classics was ever as perfectly cinematic as this one. From the very opening of the game through to the rather awesome ending sequence, Full Throttle differed from other adventure games of the time by being less of a humorous parody, and more of serious, standalone adventure (though quite funny its own right).
I love the irony of the fact that an animated adventure game, released at a time when FMV games were all the rage, beats all those pretenders into the ground by succeeding in providing an experience that felt quite a lot like playing a movie, particularly in the addition of some action sequences; plus the removal of the typical SCUMM engine clicky-verbs helped smooth out things nicely.
Full Throttle deserves to be remembered for being the first of the old, non-first person games to really make the player feel like the character, rather than just an observer.
Well we’ve reached the end of the Top 30 Gaming Moments; it’s been quite a ride, and an interesting experience trawling through my vast back-catalogue of games to discover the ones that really had an impact (for whatever reason). There were plenty more games that I could have added to the list (I have at least a Top 50’s worth), but many of them would begin overlapping each other, so we’ll just leave it at this.
For those wondering where Portal is (as it certainly deserves a place on the list), I have a separate, standalone article on Portal in the works which should hopefully provide an interesting insight into the background of the game and its development.
Feel free to leave me some comments letting me know if you agree, disagree or have your own ideas on really influential or important moments in gaming. Just remember that this list is not meant to be definitive, just my own personal feelings based out of my own experiences.
- Tim Sweeney
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