By Alec Meer on July 7th, 2009 at 3:04 pm.
Oh dear, is it my turn to froth away about the most formative games of my past? All aboard for a magical mystery tour down my winding memory lane, then. I’ll tell you this much: I’m definitely no Jim Rossignol.
UFO: Enemy Unknown
(Or X-COM: UFO Defense if you’re a colonial).
A couple of years ago, I woke up in a cold sweat, with a man’s name on my lips. I didn’t know what I’d been dreaming about (though I was pretty sure it wasn’t sexy), but the name troubled me: “Anatoly Kolotov.”
Hmm. Russian-sounding? I didn’t know any Russian guys. I recognised it, and was quite sure it had been dragged up from the very pit of my memory, but I just couldn’t place it. For weeks, I muttered it to myself, and asked everyone I knew if it meant anything to them. No dice. Google was no help either.
It was some random, otherwise unassociated mention of X-COM that caused the stereotypical punch to the gut/ head rush joy-pain of nostalgia. Of course – now I remembered Anatoly Kolotov. It was a name I hadn’t heard in almost two decades, but one which, it seemed, would never leave me. Anatoly Kolotov was my highest-ranking, most effective soldier in the original X-COM – the lynchpin of Earth’s defence against alien invaders. If I researched or found new armour or some new incredi-gun, Anatoly was always first to try it out. His kill-count was phenomenal. He wasn’t unstoppable – that was never the X-COM way – but he was always the most fearsome guy on the battlefield. He’d been with me since the very start of the game, and was still with me even as we were gearing up for the climactic assault on Cydonia.
One day, Anatoly Kolotov died. I don’t remember how, but I remember the shock. I remember feeling absolutely hopeless – how could I possibly save the world without Anatoly’s help? Something in my brain still has unconscious total recall, I suspect – that’s why I woke up shouting ‘Anatoly Kolotov’ in distress.
I do know I reloaded a savegame. It was not yet Anatoly Kolotov’s time to die, I reasoned. Nonetheless, the trauma of losing a character that felt so thoroughly mine, one I’d nurtured and developed rather than simply witnessed trot through a game’s scripts, was formative. This wasn’t Manic Miner losing a life or having to restart the level in Wolfenstein. This was someone I’d personally invested in, ripped brutally away from me.
Of course, ‘Anatoly Kolotov’ was just a randomly-generated name, and assigned randomly-generated stats that happened to make him a better survivor than his colleagues. There was nothing in any way Me about him. Yet he was an affecting enough presence to make X-COM a startling wake-up call to me – a realisation that game characters could be much more than colourful sprites and catchy soundbites. Mario? Sonic? Lara? Freeman? Nobodies. Anatoly Kolotov is my hero.
Scorched Earth
This turn-based artillery game – think proto-Worms – was my entrée into the world of multiplayer gaming. Not the namby-pamby two-man, splitscreen multiplayer of the Nintendo and Sega set, but a whole pile of people each out for themselves, rabidly determined to wipe out everyone else with a powerful cocktail of guile, brutality and wind-compensation. Temporary alliances were formed to take out particularly dangerous players, then broken the second they were dispatched. This was my Quake III, my Unreal Tournament, my Counter-Strike.
In truth, it was hotseat-based rather than LAN, but my particular experience of it was much more analogous to the remote multiplay we enjoy today. It was the game of choice in my earliest years of secondary school – age 12 or 13, at a guess – smuggled-in copies on floppy discs, played in the school computer room over lunchbreaks and, stealithy, during tedious computing and maths lessons. 30-odd boys would form into 8 or 9 man groups, then bomb the hell out of each other’s uni-coloured tanks. We’d often play multiple games simultaneously, so while your opponents took their turn on one PC, you’d run over to another game to take your turn in that one. As we returned to class, we’d chatter excitedly about what exactly what we’d done, how close the fight had been, and what we’d try next time.
I wasn’t a popular kid at school, which I’m sure surprises precisely no-one. That didn’t matter when I was playing Scorched Earth. The cool kids, the bullies, the nerds and the dunces were all united a few times a week by the common desire to destroy each other. The lion lay down with the lamb, and the thuggish rugby player with the nebbish bookwork. As long as you played the game competently, you were welcome, whether or not you got your ears boxed yesterday. Games are, it’s true, often about violence and hedonism and distraction and all manner of similarly frowned-upon factors, but increasingly, they’re also about community. That’s not a new thing. Scorched Earth gave me a temporary sense of belonging in an environment that otherwise spurned me. Yeah, it probably made me into even more of a geek than I already was, but hell – here I am.
The weapons were the main draw, of course. They seemed amazingly destructive – daisy cutter bombs and MIRVs ripping apart the landscape with fatal sunsets. A cursory glance at screenshots of Scorched Earth now reveals just how much work my imagination was doing back then, extrapolating primary colours and crude circles into breathtaking future-war.
Scorched Earth taught me strategy, it taught me tension, it taught me vengeance, it taught me cooperation and it taught me smacktalk. Hell, it probably even taught me a little bit of maths.
Legends of Valour
I haven’t thought about Legends of Valour for nearly 20 years. When I was coming up with my shortlist for this piece, I knew something was missing. I knew it was an RPG, I knew it featured buildings, and… well, that was it. Its name, its story, its setting, its developers – everything important was lost to me. I only had a couple of blurred, static images that flickered across my conciousness whenever I thought of it. I needed, somehow, to take a screenshot of my own memory and show it to someone.
I found its name only yesterday, whilst doggedly typing every variation of “90s PC RPG” I could think of into Google. I found a few frighteningly comprehensive lists, but scrolled right past Legends of Valour. The name alone failed to ring any bells. It wasn’t until I found one that included box shots that it hit.
I adored that box. Lavish, embossed, varnished, massive – it seemed as thought it should contain so much more than a mere game. The box was the reason I bought it – second-hand, I believe. I knew nothing about it otherwise, hadn’t even heard of it. I just craved that damn box.
Looks crass as anything now, but I still feel pangs of desire for it. Fortunately, the game itself came up trumps, at least to my ingenue’s mind. I’ve since discovered that it suffered a bit of a critical kicking from some quarters – especially its PC version – but for me it was a profound eye-opener. I’ve a feeling I had played a few RPGs previously, but I don’t believe any left much of a mark – tellingly, the entire Ultima/Ultima Underworld series passed me by. This was certainly the first one I really lost myself to, being set as it was within one (seemingly) huge city, to be explored at my leisure. Legends of Valour is, essentially, the reason I’ve spent the last fortnight replaying Morrowind for dozens of hours – my first encounter with the incredible freedom of open-world roleplaying. What, you mean I don’t have to go there? I can go over here instead? Or here, or here, or here? I’d had some experience of similar with text adventures, but for a 3D world to do it seemed inconceivable.
Imagine the contempt an RPG would suffer today if it was entirely based in just one city. But Legends of Valour made a virtue out of it, squeezing as much visual diversity it could from the town of Mitteldorf’s many districts. Guards here, bandits there, bloody werewolves here… Beneath it all, one giant, bewildering sewer/dungeon. Only a navigational genius wouldn’t get frighteningly, exhiliratingly lost. Yeah, the town planner should have been fired, but it meant endless adventures, endless exploration, endless confusion – and the sheer delight of somehow finding your way home again afterwards. As I wandered, I could converse with anyone, collecting random quests – indeed, fighting was something of rarity here. This was a town to live in, not one in which you’d paint the streets red with blood. Just as well, as the combat was a terrible mess of frantic clicking.
Then there’s the map. Oh man, the map. The Box contained a vast, fold-out poster, but this was not mere decoration. In fact, it’s perhaps the least decorative poster ever made. A simple, top-down map of the city’s layout, its only immediate purpose was to demonstrate where the city’s various districts were in relation to each other. On the left, a list of specific building names – but it didn’t reveal where any of those buildings were. That was my job.
Whenever I stumbled across a hitherto unvisited building, I reach for my pencil, found the structure’s name from the list, then diligently marked its reference number on the map itself. That map was mine – my own evolving cartographical creation, and a personal record of my adventures to date. You’d think shops and taverns would want to be found, but no matter – this was sublime roleplaying. I was my character, keeping and referring to my own notes. I can’t believe I don’t own that map anymore. My delight at finding a PDF copy is tragically immense.
Most of all though, I remember being arrested for vagrancy. Legends of Valour doesn’t have the Elder Scrolls games’ mollycoddled take on survival – food, drink and sleep were absolute necessities. Of course, sleeping in an inn was expensive, so an amateur adventurer such as I would find a darkened corner, curl up cautiously and hope for the best. The guards usually caught me. Bastard, hobo-bullying guards.
The more I read about it now, the more tragically clear it is that Legends of Valour was a massively flawed game. Such critical judgements are scarcely important when discussing formative games. It doesn’t matter now whether it did it with aplomb or not – Legends of Valour taught me the value of making my own decisions, unhooking myself from story and living in the game rather than simply playing it – traits now common to a great many of the games I most enjoy. Stalker, Morrowind, King’s Bounty, even World of Warcraft back when that ‘World’ still meant something: Legends of Valour was my first step to all of ‘em.
Dune II: Battle For Arrakis
History class, circa 1993. Mr [?] clocks that I’m not paying attention. Again. Of course, the rugby kids are making all kinds of noise at the back, but Mr [?] is ferociously proud of the school rugby team, so they get away with it. Scruffy, spotty, speccy little Alec Meer, though – he must not be allowed to while away the lesson by doodling in his exercise book.
Mr [?] walks over to me without my noticing. Grabs my book from my hands, leaving a biro trail down its length as it’s ripped rudely from underneath my pen. Holds it up in front of the entire class. “What’s this, Meer?” “N-n-n-nothing, sir.” “It looks like an aeroplane. Or a bird. Tell me what it is.” “Mmmnithommr.” “What?” “It’s an ornithopter, sir.” “A WHAT?”
Nervously, pathetically explaining what Dune 2 was to 30 sneering teenagers and a short, stern man with a hideous combover didn’t do me many social favours. It also didn’t stop me from compulsively playing Dune 2, the sterling grandfather of real-time strategy. I adored army-building, the steady climb up the tech tree, the vanquishing of rival Houses with my vast army, and the semi-cheat that made a Harvester’s spice load increase by 1% if you clicked on it. More than that, I adored the visual design. Looking at it now, I can barely tell half the units apart, but back then it was a realisation that there was far more to games than high-technology. Its crude sprites told a tale and painted a scene impeccably. When I wasn’t drawing Dune 2 units, I was playing Dune 2. When I wasn’t playing Dune 2, I was talking about Dune 2 – telling tall, exaggerated tales about improbable victories.
A small group of us built all manner of myths around the game, denied an internet to fact-check any of them. Cheats that didn’t exist, secret units that were the stuff of pure fantasy… There was even, one of us claimed, a rare version with a fourth playable House. They were yellow, and their vehicles could cut soldiers’ legs off, leaving them screaming and bleeding on the battlefield, at least until a Harvester ran over them. Oh, how we wanted that version. We knew it didn’t exist, but by God we believed in it anyway.
Dune 2, I suspect, was what made me a PC gamer specifically. It also left a subjective tumour in my brain which means I will never, ever enjoy any RTS as much as I did Dune 2 in 1993. I try, I really do, but it’s no good. This was the first game I ever fell really, truly head over heels for. You never quite get over your first love.
My second-ever published game review (and the first of any decent size) was Emperor: Battle For Dune, in 2001. Funny old world.
Gobliins 2
My father wasn’t terribly happy about how long I spent playing games (even though it was entirely his fault, his having provided the household with a ZX Spectrum and a BBC Micro a few years previous to the arrival of the 486 SX on which I played the five games listed here). Hearing his 13-year-old son shout “FUCK OFF” at the monitor whilst playing Syndicate probably didn’t help.
Gobliins 2, though, was the game that we could both enjoy, and both appreciate the other for enjoying. The puzzles were smart enough to convince him there was worth to them, and absurd enough to make me laugh. This was co-operative gaming: me at the physical controls, him at the mental ones. He seemed to grasp this French point’n'click adventure’s skewed logic better than I did, but would hint at his supposed solutions rather than outright say them – nudging me towards working them out for myself.
What did Gobliins 2 teach me? I guess that, like most of the others here, it developed my preference for a well-crafted world over precise mechanics. I’m fearful to revisit its pratfall-based gags now, but I suspect its tale of idiots somehow blundering through danger had some effect on my generally irreverent approach to my own gaming adventures. In hindsight, it also taught me that games can be a force for much more than mere hedonism. Like playing Scorched Earth with those Bigger Boys, it brought me closer to someone I (at the time) had a fairly fractured relationship with.
More than that, it was spinning a tale to the two of us, one we both participated in and directed. Television, movies, books – these kept people apart, alone, even when enjoyed in company. Games can bring people together – the shared wonder of pressing buttons to make a tiny world change in front of our eyes.
07/07/2009 at 15:14 Voidman says:
Indeed every one of those little pixelated X-com soldiers had a soul and I mourned their tiny if oft gruesome deaths in the line of duty.
Good times…
07/07/2009 at 15:16 Gundrea says:
Ah video games, a truer substitute for real war there isn’t.
I dream of a future where two countries will go to war and duke it out over a game of Civilisation
“He’s got an ironclad! Flee to the ocean!”
07/07/2009 at 15:18 Tom Davies says:
Dune 2 – I spent maths classes compulsively planning bases, (the book had squares in it! what was I supposed to do?).
I needed help and never got it, curse you Dune 2.
07/07/2009 at 15:20 a says:
That last bit was cute as hell, and reminded me of playing Tomb Raider with my dad as a kid. Good read. =3
07/07/2009 at 15:24 psilocybe says:
Shame about the 255-bug for the UFO-soldiers. I, also, reloaded a save after my elite troopers died (who got ther surname replaced with their accuracy number), and played on earth a lot longer than I had to. Resulted in a few useless soldiers. Sniff. :(
But, yeah, good times. Mass producing laser cannons to get stinking rich in no time, demolishing ships with blaster bombs and flying soldiers in through the holes.
I really should give it a go, it’s been a couple of years since last time.
07/07/2009 at 15:26 MacBeth says:
Dune2, yes. I’ve been playing it for the last few days via the glories of DOSBox in my lunch ‘hour’ (frequently extending beyond just one hour…)
Completely agree – it was my first and best RTS love – I hardly play them now. In fact I might go and play it right now, it’s a quiet afternoon in the office :D
07/07/2009 at 15:28 jalf says:
Ouch, apart from the RPG I’ve never heard of, that looks suspiciously like my list. I might add The Lost Vikings or Lemmings 2 to mine, but really, I got hopelessly hooked on all the other games on your list.
07/07/2009 at 15:29 MrBejeebus says:
I can’t join in with this stuff, you people are too old!
07/07/2009 at 15:31 Bhazor says:
That screenshot for Legends of Valour is just hilarious.
07/07/2009 at 15:33 Optimaximal says:
You do understand he probably wasn’t playing it for the game, right?
“Dad, why do you keep looking at the manual/box cover?”
07/07/2009 at 15:37 PaulMorel says:
Scorched Earth!!! Yes! I loved that game! Good call.
07/07/2009 at 15:44 Antsy says:
Dune 2 is a wonderful game and really needs a reboot. Just a shame Westwood isn’t here to do it.
I had Legends of Valour on the Amiga. I seem to remember it taking hours to install but that might just have been impatience. Also, it kind of sounds like a sequal to Loom…Legends of Velour!
I’ll get me coat.
07/07/2009 at 15:46 Major Disaster says:
Dune 2 superb memories, though I think Total Annihilation would be my first RTS love.
The special units in Dune II were cool if I remember, the sonic tank, poison tank and huge tank (which could self destruct).
Remember rigging up a network though the roof cavity with my flat mates in uni halls, think TA and TOCA were order of the day.
07/07/2009 at 15:51 Clovis says:
Reading this was really great. If I was a better writer I’d explain some of my formative games. I do remember playing baseball on the Atari 2600 with my Dad though. Unfortunately he could never handle more than a stick and one button, so co-op play ended witht he NES and PC.
I did want to say that there are plenty of websites and TV shows that make me feel like I’m not a weirdo for playing video games all the time. But I still feel like I’m the weird guy who feels that they are an extremely important part of my developement and culture. I don’t just play games to just unwind, I am a gamer. So, it is great to read you all describe your own relationships to gaming. Thanks.
07/07/2009 at 15:53 Dr.Danger says:
Nice writeup, all good games. Still play XCom to this day from time to time, nobody produced anything better. I preferred Terror from the Deep though.
Spent countless hours on Dune 2 and always with mates as well as my dad who always hovered around in the background to give some “tactical” advice.
Good times !
07/07/2009 at 15:54 Citizen Parker says:
SCORCHED EARTH!
Oh my, Mr. Meer, you have brought back a flood of memories.
My inner nerd is crossing his fingers that someone writes up Syndicate, Star Control 2, or Another World but the rest of me is rather enjoying hearing about games that I missed in their heydey.
I think what Legends of Valour was to you, Darklands was to me – that intense, tragically flawed RPG love affair.
07/07/2009 at 15:58 Morph says:
Grrrrrrr r r r
Great read Alec, this series is turning out excellently. Except ‘Meeriad Influences’, oh dear.
07/07/2009 at 16:02 Bahumat says:
Scorched Earth is forever in my “Top 10 Games Of My Life”.
It was the game that finally converted my mother from a rabid “Videogames will rot your brain!” into a “Well… okay. One more round.” mom. :D
07/07/2009 at 16:02 Lilliput King says:
What a beautiful article. Whenever people ask me what I mean when I say games are more than toys, I can point to the last section of this post and say exactly that.
Thank you Alec.
07/07/2009 at 16:03 Ian says:
Is the original and/or definitive X-Com game one of the ones that’s in the big 2K pack that just got released on Steam?
07/07/2009 at 16:06 jalf says:
@Iam: Yes
07/07/2009 at 16:15 phil says:
Dune 2 was a profound influence on me – it taught me some situations (the last mission for Artedies, running on a bog standard A500 at three frame a second) are fundamentally unwinable, hence abandoning the effort and cursing everyone involved as idiots (hello internet forums) is the only viable course of action.
07/07/2009 at 16:16 zak canard says:
@MrBejeebus Course you can join in, tell us!
07/07/2009 at 16:19 Clovis says:
@Citizen Parker: There’s already a great RPS “retro” on Syndicate. I loved that article and I’ve never even played the game.
07/07/2009 at 16:23 RuySan says:
good taste Alec. It’s funny how all of this games also mean a lot to me (except for Gobliins 2, since i only played the 1st and the 3rd). Just like with Jim’s entry, i now can understand how this is my favorite gaming website.
Just one more thing, you forgot to mention the insult editing in Scroched Tanks. Being 13 and having the opportunity of calling the other fat or big header were guaranteed laughs…and fighting.
07/07/2009 at 16:24 Zyrxil says:
Ah, Scorched Earth. By the time I had found out about Scorched Earth, my artillery game experience had been formed by Howitzer:
http://members.chello.at/theodor.lauppert/games/howitzer.htm
07/07/2009 at 16:24 RuySan says:
@Phil. I also played Dune on the Amiga, and i remember being a pleasant experience, with just lots of disk swapping and acessing at the beginning of each level
07/07/2009 at 16:28 solipsistnation says:
Grrrrrrr r r r
Yeah. That map is awesome.
07/07/2009 at 16:30 Antsy says:
I’m pretty sure I played Dune 2 on the Amiga with a HD install. Of course it may have been after i’d upgraded to a 1200.
07/07/2009 at 16:32 Dave says:
Yoko Okamoto. May he rest in peace and be revered for all time for saving us from the evil machinations of the Etherials and their evil minions!
07/07/2009 at 16:35 Dave says:
Argh may i burn in the hell reserved for double posters but i just got to Dune 2. ZOMG! i burnt hours of my youth away for that gem. Soon to be followed by Dark Reign…
07/07/2009 at 16:39 cullnean says:
bomberman 8 players 2 amigas and two tv’s and barry mugigans boxing on the c64
And a love of mulitplayer games was born, i rarley play singleplayer games.
i realise im missing out on some great games but i love dukeing it out with other players or just chillin with friends.
07/07/2009 at 16:41 DiRH says:
Man what u reminded me about X-COM.I dont believe it that i have forgotten.I had a soldier with the name John Parton.Parton in Greek where i come from means “Take him” and it awesomly happened to be my best soldier in using mind control !!!!.I was screaming all the time like Parton “Meaning Take him” John Parton “Take him”. So funny times he found his death when 1 of my other soldiers was mind controlled in ship and grenaded him :< I mourned that day.
07/07/2009 at 16:42 phil says:
@RuySan
It was pleasant, stunning in many ways, it’s just the last mission had too much going on once you opened up the map, so the Amiga didn’t just slow down, it started showing seemingly random frames of animation, some times seconds apart, with units (dozens of units) taking anything up to five seconds to respond though strangely the torrent of death’s hand missles was seemingly unaffected – I tired playing it that way for a painfully long time just to see the ending, but no, it was a beyond the capacities of man to complete, or at least a man, or rather a gangly adolescent.
07/07/2009 at 16:47 Jeremy says:
Man, seeing that old map really makes me miss some of those old RPGs. No cutscenes, no androgynous she-male, angst ridden and unwilling to be the hero. Those were the good ol’ days :)
07/07/2009 at 16:49 cyrenic says:
And for all these years I thought Pink Floyd was just exaggerating.
07/07/2009 at 16:49 cullnean says:
eye of the beholder!
07/07/2009 at 16:49 c-Row says:
So, when all four articles have been posted, will there be a poll afterwards? “Which RPS are you?”
07/07/2009 at 17:09 Rich_P says:
Alec looks rather pissed in that picture, as if he’s just been dominated by a spy in TF2 who repeatedly killed him using only the fencing taunt.
Jim, on the other hand, must’ve just seen goatse for the first time.
07/07/2009 at 17:14 jackflash says:
Ah, X-COM — still my favorite game of all time. And I completely know what you’re talking about when it comes to not quite being able to let your veteran soldiers die in that game. I named all my best troops after my best friends, and losing one in battle was just too much!
07/07/2009 at 17:18 ascagnel says:
Gargh. I hate you, RPS. Between XCOM/UFO and Morrowind, I won’t get any work done for my job & 3 classes.
07/07/2009 at 17:20 JonFitt says:
I played Terror from the Deep first, and the UI was improved in significant ways, but I always liked UFO for its land based setting. Creeping through a supermarket, or across the roof of a petrol station was obviously more recognisable.
Just having enough time units to make the shot that killed an alien, who was just about to murder a civilian in their home, felt great. I awarded mental medals.
Shuji Ishii was a hero, he’d sprint into the fray and stun the enemy leaders so they could be interrogated. Took a grenade on Cydonia, I hope someone went back for the body.
The XCOM games were the game that introduced me to squad tactics, bounding overwatch was a necessity, heavy weapon agents would stand back and cover open areas searching for the dreaded larger aliens.
Making your own entrance was also cool. The doors to alien ships were deathtraps, so when you got heavier weapons it was great to be able to blow a hole in an upper floor and fly in on jetpacks, zapping aliens confused in the smoke.
Good times.
07/07/2009 at 17:31 Bret says:
Ah, X-COM.
Worst thing is having your hero, the man who Earth depends on, having a really low psi score. Basically, it means that commander heroguy, at best, will be left to deal with Mutons while the worthless rookie is suddenly Earth’s one hope.
07/07/2009 at 17:35 JonFitt says:
The best bit was when you got to reverse the Psi trick on the aliens.
I’d take over one of their guys in a group, take pot shots at his buddies, and reserve enough TUs to pull the pin on every grenade he was carrying :)
Sweet revenge.
07/07/2009 at 17:43 Ginger Yellow says:
Funnily enough, Dune II was one of my most formative gaming experiences too, but I played it on a Megadrive. Amazing to think now that the single most influential strategy game ever worked pretty damn well on a console. Yet console developers seemed to have learned almost nothing about RTS design in the last 20 years.
Anyway, I think the PC RTS that was most formative for me was Total Annihilation. I was blown away by the terrain and the “real” ballistics, not to mention the awesome units. It was years before I found another RTS that captured that same feeling of wonder (Dawn of War, I think it was).
07/07/2009 at 17:52 Taillefer says:
It always amazes me how I was able to successfully play such difficult, complicated games at such a young age. I find it hard to imagine my niece or nephew playing through UFO.
07/07/2009 at 18:09 RuySan says:
@Taillefer. Exactly. I did play Civ being 10 years old (keeping in mind that english is not even my native language), and i don’t even imagine my 16 and 17 year old nephews being able to do it. I don’t think i’m that smart, it’s just kids these days have such short attention spans. It really depresses me
07/07/2009 at 18:32 Joshua says:
Imagine the contempt an RPG would suffer today if it was entirely based in just one city.
Man, I want that so bad. In fact, I tried to do it in Neverwinter Nights, but I just didn’t have the skill or desire to plow on (plus, I didn’t have an internet connection which made it tricky, even with the Aurora strategy guide).
I think I was intrigued by the possibility after Final Fantasy VII, which spent a significant chunk of its time in the main city. I honestly was a bit bummed when that part ended and the game turned into another globe hopping JRPG. Especially since the city was cooler and more interesting than any other place in the game by a wide margin.
07/07/2009 at 18:34 MrBejeebus says:
I like the sound of X-COM but I’m sure if I played it now it wouldn’t seem nearly as good as you all depict it as..
07/07/2009 at 18:40 BigJonno says:
Legends of Valour! So that was what it was called. I remember staring wistfully at a guide for that game in one of the Amiga magazines I owned (I can’t remember if it was The One, bought for the demos, or Amiga Power, bought because even before I left primary school I knew a bloody good magazine when I saw one) imagining how awesome it was.
I eventually bought the game, but can’t remember much other than A) how much I loved it and B) how awesome being turned into a werewolf and losing control of your character during the full moon and watching helplessly as you slaughtered dozens of guards.
07/07/2009 at 18:43 TheArmyOfNone says:
You RPS lads are brilliant. That is all, carry on.
07/07/2009 at 18:47 unclelou says:
The bit about Legends of Valour are so spot on how it felt to be a more “innocent” gamer. Not jaded, naive about how games work, the lure of a big box and the adventures it will hold, and endless free time to delve into it. I only catch a glimpse of how it used to be living in games rather than playing them these days, and when a game manages it, no flaws will keep me from loving it.
I wonder if it’s only an age thing, or if the internet ruins it for younger people these days anyway.
07/07/2009 at 18:50 Smurfy says:
So far I’ve only ever played one of the “influential games”.
07/07/2009 at 19:02 Xercies says:
An influential game for me was actually turned out to be a joke. Like your Legends of Valour I couldn’t find it until now. It was Smashing Pumpkins Into Small Piles Of Debris and it had a Level Editor, and this small joke game got me into the whole modding and creativity scene. Yes that small game is what I am now. I just can’t believe it.
07/07/2009 at 19:04 Fumarole says:
I had forgotten about scorched earth. Such a great time. MIRVs were by far my favorite weapon for friend-destruction.
07/07/2009 at 19:16 Woges says:
The Dark Spire on the DS is less than a town (being a selection box of locations) and a dungeon and hasn’t been received with contempt (yet). Its premise is rather similar to ‘Warlock of Firetop Mountain’. It’s one of the ups of handholds that older designs can still be made.
07/07/2009 at 19:16 sinister agent says:
I remember Jungo. Just Jungo – I took off the surnames of long-surviving troops to save on confusion. Oh, he took out scores of bases and UFOs without even leaving the skyranger. But if things went south, he could zap off a muton’s nipples from two miles away before they even realised there was someone left alive. UFO was great like that, and I still remember a bunch of scenarios where one lowly rookie somehow finished off an alien base alone after everyone else was massacred, despite bleeding profusely from the head the whole time, and saving India from sinister alien forces in the process.
And the follow-up years later randomly generated a soldier with the exact name of my ex-girlfriend, who then died very early in a hideous friendly fire incident. It was a genuine accident, but somehow I still felt guilty about it.
07/07/2009 at 19:17 obo says:
When I was in college, I had two games running pretty much non-stop: The Sims and X-COM. They were linked by each game being populated by people named after dorm-mates.
So of course, to keep the two dimensions aligned, when something would happen in one game, something equal would take place in another. Did Joe cheat on Mary in The Sims? Mary shoots Joe in the back in X-COM. Tom died from an incendiary autocannon accident? Tom dies from a tragic cooking accident.
Besides the meta-dimension gaming, everyone who had a character named after them would ask how their people were doing. “Well, you’re having a lesbian affair with Julie, and you blasted seven aliens before you got turned into a giant bug.”
Good times.
07/07/2009 at 19:21 Vinraith says:
@Woges
Dark Spire is very much a Wizardry throw-back, and I couldn’t be happier to see that kind of game re-emerging. In a similar vein, the Etrian Odyssey games on DS are a true old-school Wizardry-like dungeon crawl as well, with the added benefit of having “in game” graph paper to draw your map (and believe me, you need one). The Etrian games are actually the reason I bought a DS, and the Dark Spire is a nice bonus. Old school western RPG’s and turn based strategy games are all I own for the thing (except for a dusty copy of Mario Kart that I never play).
07/07/2009 at 19:21 Theoban says:
EMBARRASSING REVELATION #123151
I used to rename all my X-Com operatives after characters from the Wheel of Time books.
Oh god it feels good to finally say that.
07/07/2009 at 19:27 Serondal says:
I don’t remember any of the names of my x-com solidesr mostly because they died so quickly I decided it was best not to learn their names for my own sanity :P I never very good at that game. At one point I got so paranoid I just started blowing up every building from range before I ever got close to it with missle launchers, still get pwned. I did end up beating though one of the few gameS I’ve ever beaten. I beat Ultima IV too which still surpises me to this day. I almost never finish RPGs. (among the few are FF7 and Chrono Trigger)
07/07/2009 at 19:32 DSX says:
God created Arrakis to train the faithful…. we need another Arrakis!
07/07/2009 at 19:36 Serondal says:
Btw I had the same exact experience playing Goblins with my father, the first one. He got the second and third one for me in time but he didn’t play them with me. He just happened to be layed off from work when he got the first one :P
07/07/2009 at 19:39 Hi!! says:
I loved this article.
07/07/2009 at 19:39 Shockedder says:
@Major Disaster
Dune 2. Good times,good times….
The uber-tank was the devastator, from the harkonnen. Packed quite a punch too, if you could get the thing over the strips of sand without the worms eating it all up like it was goddamn candy.
And, the sardaukar troopers, heh. ‘Greatest soldiers in the universe’ my bum; they made such a delightful squish sound after the harvester went over them.
07/07/2009 at 19:40 hydra9 says:
Oh, the hours I put into X-COM and Dune II. Both influential games for me.
And I had Legends of Valor. And kinda liked. But I *hated* the box.
07/07/2009 at 19:51 Psychopomp says:
The Gobliins 2 bit made me “D’AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.”
07/07/2009 at 19:52 jalf says:
It’s still perfectly playable today. A friend of mine who’d never played them before did so a few months ago. Of course the graphics aren’t exactly stunning, and the interface is a bit clumsy, but it’s still good fun, even without the nostalgia factor for those of us who played it “back then”.
Plus, it only costs a few bucks on Steam. So it’s not like you’re risking all your savings by trying it out. :P
07/07/2009 at 19:53 Alec Meer says:
Yeah, unlike the others here, X-COM is fascinatingly timeless: I revisit it regularly. The interface is a little frustrating in this day and age, but the game itself remains fresh as anything. For my money, it still looks lovely too.
07/07/2009 at 19:56 Serondal says:
Dune 2 was very interesting. Did anyone enjoy the Dune 2 remake (what was it Dune 2000?) And the newer remake with 3d graphics? I actaully enjoy the newest one I played it with my friend online quiet a lot and we had a good time. We’re both dune fanatics. He even went so far as to create a UO named Mua’dib (I can never remember where the ‘ goes) that only spoke in that sand people language ( can’t even remember, shame on me!) Any how he always did stuff like that ;P He had a Drow character on UO and used a 3rd party translator that made everything he typed come out in Drow, he even created the language file himself based on what he could find on the internets.
07/07/2009 at 19:59 JonFitt says:
The thing I miss from TFTD which wasn’t in UFO was the ability to reserve 4 TUs to crouch at the end of your turn. Crouching definitely makes you harder to hit and allows team mates to shoot over you, and in my mind seems to make you more accurate.
In UFO you just had to try not to spend those last TUs.
07/07/2009 at 19:59 Woges says:
Amazing how many people know exactly what you’re talking about when you say ‘I squashed them with the harvester’. UFO’s predecessor Chaos was a good game. I think there is a browser version about somewhere – it’s a game of mage chess.
I’ve played all the games mentioned by Jim & Alec to some degree in my misspent existence. I remember the top league in Brutal Deluxe being hard as hell… As I write seems Eidos publishing is no more wasn’t that Steve Jackson’s (of Warlock of Firetop Mountain fame) baby?
07/07/2009 at 20:08 Woges says:
The thing about UFO is that you get to manage the whole org, it’s a timeless design because of that small amount of game depth. Takes a fair bit of patience to get into compared to modern game efforts.
07/07/2009 at 20:28 Elman says:
I played X-Com about a year ago and I loved it. Sure, the graphics aren’t like Crysis, but they still look good enough, and the gameplay’s awesome: it’s aged perfectly well. The graphics will eventually grow into you, really.
In fact after that I played Fallout 1 and 2, which I hadn’t played before because I didn’t like the graphics :)
A few months ago I revisited it, this time without exploiting save&load and in difficulty 3. It’s a lot more enjoyable that way. I’m thinking of buying TFTD and playing all the way through this time (Last time I got bored… No wonder, since some of those missions are incredibly dull if you ruin the tension by exploiting savegames all the time). Maybe in Ironman mode, not even saving in the Geoscape.
I hope they’ll make a remake with a few improvements, better graphics and physics, and of course multiplayer mode. It’s one of the best games ever…
And I can’t find anybody to play XCom multiplayer with :( (Using UFO2000)
07/07/2009 at 20:33 Gassalasca says:
I am pausing half way through just to say
SCORCHED EARTH!!11!11!
I’m so glad other people remember it as fondly.
Living in a poor country, I had no computer of my own, and neither did any of my friends. So we kept barging into my aunt and uncle’s place in order to play gmaes like Scorched Earth, Lords of the Realm etc.
Good times.
07/07/2009 at 20:34 Woges says:
I think they recently made a browser mulitplayer version… yeah Laser Squad Nemesis. Just look up Julian Gollop on Wiki he’s still involved with games.
07/07/2009 at 20:40 GreatUncleBaal says:
Really enjoying these “Gaming Made Me” pieces. I remember getting tremendously excited about Legends of Valour when it came out because it apparently had real-time ray-tracing – I had no idea what that meant and still don’t. I ended up spending most of my time finding profitable trade routes and then gambling my funds away. I think there was also an underground zoo.
07/07/2009 at 20:51 OctaneHugo says:
Scorched Earth is the best turn-based game ever. Period.
07/07/2009 at 20:54 Tonamel says:
I’m exactly with you on Legends of Valour. I never accomplished anything in that game, but it was so much fun just wandering around looking at everything and just trying to survive.
07/07/2009 at 21:04 Dave says:
Chaos battle of wizards, that was awesome too. there was a java version but i cant find it anymore
07/07/2009 at 21:50 Clovis says:
I missed X-COM when it came out but did play the Jagged Alliance games. After playing those I finally got X-COM and it didn’t seem that great to me. Random soldiers is ok, but the crazy mercs in JA were better. I haven’t really enjoyed any turned-based squad games since JA either. I played through Silent Storm a bit but never really got into it.
07/07/2009 at 21:53 Shoe says:
X-Com does hold up well in most respects, but the interface problems aren’t minor. Having to re-equip each soldier manually is a game killer these days tbh. :/
07/07/2009 at 21:58 Larington says:
Yeah, the only one of these I don’t have fond memories of is Gobliins 2. I think I might still have my old copy of Legends of Valour back in Cardiff, I should dig that out and DOSBOX it.
07/07/2009 at 22:04 Elman says:
@Shoe : You don’t have to re-equip [so often] if you’re using XCom Util.
I can’t see any reason not to use XComUtil, for that matter…
07/07/2009 at 22:04 cowthief skank says:
Yeah MrBejeebus, you should try UFO. The UI aint too bad, functional but a little fiddly. Graphics a little ‘old’, but crucially allowing fully destructible environments. The times I accidentally levelled half a city…
I have a very poor long term memory so don’t remember the names of any individual soldiers, but I do remember the feeling when one of my old-timers died. Similar feeling in Cannon Fodder too.
UFO would definitely be in my list.
07/07/2009 at 22:08 Larington says:
Bloody hell I’d forgotten how immense that city was in Legends of Valour (Even by todays standards). I’ve got to revisit that at some point.
07/07/2009 at 22:11 toonu says:
XCOM, the perfect management game. The perfect turn based strategy game. And the perfect game from teh 90′s that “console” mates knew nothing about.
Buy it on STEAM now if you haven’t..and if you haven’t you are a fool. Deal with it.
07/07/2009 at 22:12 tapanister says:
God fucking damn it, Scorched Earth. After I forgot the name of this game, back in god-knows-when I remember looking through every single demo disk to find it in vain. And the disks had directories like shareware/entertainment/demos a whole bunch of stuff, and searching through all that in dos.. Or it might have been windows 95, I can’t even remember.
Damn it, every time I lost something I would recall being unable to find this game because I didn’t remember it’s name or what disk it was on, and out of the freaking blue I get a name and a screenshot.
That’s some creepy shit, I swear.
07/07/2009 at 22:13 Joshua says:
XCOM, the perfect management game. The perfect turn based strategy game. And the perfect game from teh 90’s that “console” mates knew nothing about.
Umm, it was released on the PlayStation. A damn good version too. It supported the mouse.
07/07/2009 at 22:15 tapanister says:
BTW, now that the original shock is over, it’s funny how in that kinda-old Warren Spector masterclass, whenever a guest was asked about emergent gameplay they’d talk about this game, in the same context as Alec does here.
“Suit up son, you’re going to Mars!”
07/07/2009 at 22:30 Bret says:
Spector shows his insight again.
In X-Com, my man was Colonel Blake. Best shot in the world, he singlehandedly, when the Commander was recovering from a nasty injury, took a Sectoid UFO while the rest of the squad was freaking out and being mind controlled. Psi Score 69 meant he was the only guy good enough to go to Cydonia, but not good enough to wield a psi amp.
07/07/2009 at 22:41 sinister agent says:
Yeah, I can see how playing UFO after Jagged Alliance 2 would make the former seem rather lacking. JA2 is wonderful, and better than UFO in many regards, particularly the personalities of the troops. I still think UFO has enough to recommend it though, not least on account of the more complex research and management sections, and the sense of being on the defensive and never knowing what the enemy will do next.
07/07/2009 at 22:41 sebmojo says:
Amiga Dune 2 had lovely music – just a bunch of big long incredibly slow oceanic synth chords – would have taken about 2k memory, but it was mesmeric.
Loving this series, it’s funny how closely it tracks my own development…
07/07/2009 at 23:01 JonFitt says:
@Woges
<—- Gooey Blob
A terrifying spell. Pretty easy to cast unlike the dragons, but left unchecked it'll run rampant across the map absorbing friend and foe alike.
Chaos was probably the first non-arcade multiplayer game that I got into with my friends.
07/07/2009 at 23:02 Brass Gerbil says:
“…randomly-generated stats that happened to make him a better survivor…”
Everyone comes to it differently, though many never realize it at all, and still more spend their lives desperately denying it: the one and only Truth of the Universe. Welcome to The Club.
07/07/2009 at 23:22 Larington says:
I remember fancying the woman you get off with in Dune 1 all those years ago. Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was the idea of the person rather than the graphical representation on screen. Still, having replayed it recently and looking at how the game progresses she is a bit easy, in a getting in her filtration suit kind of way.
07/07/2009 at 23:22 Erlend M says:
I agree, and I’d say Dune 2 also still looks pretty good as well. I’d say the graphics of those games are awsome for 320x240x256 resolution games. And the music! I can still remember much of Dune 2′s fantastic MIDI music to this day, and UFO’s music was incredibly creepy and tense.
Also, UFO was probably the main reason why I was scared of the dark as a kid.
07/07/2009 at 23:23 kirrus says:
I wish I could have found a game to fully play and enjoy with either of my parents. My father sometimes watches over my shoulder when I’m at home, but never really contributes much, and verses isn’t really fair (I or my brother always bulldozed him :( )
I really wanted to try to play a myst game with him, but never did get round to it .
Is it kinda sad, that I’m and adult, and I never played or even heard of those games? My formatives were starcraft (oo, and the eagerly saved-up-for broodwar), and RA. (Yes, the first one. Not the E-A let’s totally screw everything up versions.)
07/07/2009 at 23:25 jalf says:
What? Dune 2 is virtually unplayable today. Have you tried it recently? The interface is nothing short of horrible. I tried replaying it not too long ago. I couldn’t. Same goes for Warcraft 1, although to a slightly lesser extent.
(Unless you were commenting on the graphics only)
07/07/2009 at 23:25 kirrus says:
*totally not cheating on the edit thing. Notice how I’m not cheating*
(not that I’m jaded about RA and EA or anything)
disclaimer – I work for positive internet, so have admin access to the site, in case something blows up. Hence not cheating to edit my post. Still, tempting…
07/07/2009 at 23:29 Arathain says:
I have exactly the same problem with Dune 2. I want to love RTSs and I… kind of do. But mostly I’m subconsciously comparing the way they make me feel to the way Dune 2 made me feel, and so they all feel lacking in some undefinable way that they can never surmount.
07/07/2009 at 23:47 Larington says:
Yeah, there are interface features not in Dune 2 or Command & Conquer 1 that make both those games unplayable for me now. Bit of a shame that, the way some elements of game design have progressed, whilst others seem to have atrophied.
07/07/2009 at 23:54 Mr Popov says:
I only played Dune 2 on the console (not sure what console it was, it was at my friend’s house). I do remember fond memories of x-com though I never was very good at it.
08/07/2009 at 00:08 Kilroy says:
Did Sierra/Dynamix they release the Quest for Glory series in the UK?
Those games launched my obsession with PC gaming as well as for world folklore and really stupid (pun-laced) humor. Music was memorable, still find myself humming the Meep’s song or Erana’s Peace and wondering where the hell it came from.
08/07/2009 at 00:09 malkav11 says:
I never owned and only barely played Dune II, but it made quite the impression on my young brain with the sandworms eating your units and the harvesters that could run over people and such.
08/07/2009 at 02:08 Arathain says:
A strange memory of Dune 2: discovering I could change the language of the voice barks. That was fun.
Most of my X-COM soldiers got the names of my friends, so I could be even more upset when they got killed.
08/07/2009 at 05:13 Saul says:
Ah, Scorched Earth. Very good pick. I’d completely forgotten about it until I read this.
08/07/2009 at 07:22 techpops says:
I was with you until Goblins, what an awful game that was. I came around a bit when I realised it was more of an experience shared with a parent than just a memory of a great game.
Still, I’ve always hated adventure type games unless they reached the very heights of what that genre could offer, like say Grim Fandango.
08/07/2009 at 08:43 Kieron Gillen says:
Baal: The Zoo was in the SE corner of the city.
I played it to death too, and also played it as a City-Based Elite.
KG
08/07/2009 at 09:07 Dexton says:
I took JA1 (JA2 even more so) over any of the Xcom games, I suspect just because I encountered them first. I continue to search for the next great turn based tactical squad combat game, Silent Storm was somehow disappointing although I enjoyed Fallout Tactics.
I agree about Dune II though, that game had me totally hooked. I remember telling my parents I didn’t want to go on holiday one summer because it couldn’t possibly be as much fun as the game was.
08/07/2009 at 09:11 Bananaphone says:
I never played Scorched Earth, but my favourite artillery game was a clone called ‘destruct’ hidden inside the old shareware game Tyrian. Spent more time playing that than Tyrian itself.
08/07/2009 at 09:30 Owen says:
Just brilliant Alec. I’m sure my copy of Legends of Valour is in my parents loft; will have to investigate. Although I hope you all realise that these write-ups officially mean you’re all old ;)
08/07/2009 at 09:50 Kieron Gillen says:
I suspect we’re very much aware of our decrepitude.
KG
08/07/2009 at 09:53 Jayteh says:
Interesting reading someones completely different journey through videogames
08/07/2009 at 12:13 AlmostGold says:
Good choices, and I wish I could remember what my scorched-earth style game was – I’m sure there was one, before Worms – but the real question is why this article is illustrated by a Colin Murray Sim.
Can Alec Meer really be…
08/07/2009 at 12:17 LionsPhil says:
“The interface is a little frustrating in this day and age”
That’s a killer for Dune 2 for me. I played C&C first, and got totally spoilt by group-select. Even if it took a couple of failed demo missions for the Cannon Fodder neurons to grok the economy part too. Ahem.
I’m just thankful that Sys Shock’s interface is just good enough to still be playable in this world of WASD.
08/07/2009 at 13:19 AbyssUK says:
X-COM is the greatest game ever made. I doubt it will ever be beaten and many many people have tried to better it.
I’ve played it again and again… and each time something new happens, new heroes are made and new stories come forth. The graphics are simple enough to give you an idea but they make your own imagination take over and add in bits, better gfx would take this away making the game somebody else’s and not your own.
It can never be bettered.
08/07/2009 at 14:54 Jae Armstrong says:
Ah, X-COM. The game that taught me that going in through the door will get you killed. Always, always whip out that rocket launcher and go through the wall instead.
The day I discovered that you could do the same thing with UFOs if you used the demo charges… very few games have given me such a feeling of unadulterated joy.
As for re-loading, I would do it whenever anyone died. The FUCK I was going to let one of MY guys die. TFTD nearly killed me.
08/07/2009 at 15:18 JellyfishGreen says:
Keeping the X-COM flame alive: http://www.ufopaedia.org
I can’t believe you guys played these games as KIDS. I didn’t see a 386 until I was in university.
08/07/2009 at 16:25 Torgen says:
Also, http://www.xcomufo.com/
XcomUtil forum: http://www.xcomufo.com/forums/index.php?showforum=79
There is NO reason to play Xcom without XcomUtil. None.
08/07/2009 at 16:43 jalf says:
@Torgen: What does it do? Looking at the xcomutil website, it seems more like an editor/trainer if you want to screw around and basically make your own game:
So, assuming I don’t want to cheat, create new aircraft types or modify the stats of weapons, enemies or anything else, what does it do for me?
08/07/2009 at 17:11 Torgen says:
@jalf
You are allowed at the startup to choose which options to use or not. IMO, the most important is replacing the default Worst. Base. Layout. Ever. with something more defensible. Another good item is that it at least attempts to keep your troopers equipped the way you want them. Also, it slightly tweaks the abysmal starting tanks so that they are a but more survivable.
Although you can’t tell at a first glance, many veteran Xcom players use XcomUtil to make the game HARDER. Most people though use it to correct some things that were left half-done when the original devs were forced to ship the game by Microprose.
Go through the readme page and it will explain all the options to you one at a time.
08/07/2009 at 17:25 jalf says:
So it lets you remember soldier’s equipment layout? That’s handy.
The reason I asked is that I’m not really interested in anything that changes the game itself. I don’t need new base layouts or tougher starting tanks. What I want to see are features that improve the interface (for example by remembering equipment layout, or perhaps by adding the “reserve TU’s for kneeling” button that TFTD had), but don’t change anything in the actual gameplay.
08/07/2009 at 18:13 Elman says:
At the very least, install it to remember the soldier’s equipment and to fix the difficulty bug (This is a must, otherwise the game will be in Very Easy regardless of the difficulty you choose).
I guess the rest of the changes (Whether they make the game easier by making the rookies come out of the troop transport first, or harder by making the economy more balanced so you won’t be able to make a huge profit out of Laser Cannons) are for experienced players who have already finished the vanilla game. You don’t have to use those if you don’t want to.
Your transport will be able to carry weapons and your fighters will be able to carry troops, though. You can’t change that. But that’s not a problem, since nobody’s forcing you to equip them with weapons or troops.
More info at http://www.ufopaedia.org/index.php?title=XcomUtil
There’s no need to change the initial base. Simply sell one of the interceptors, dismantle its hangar, build another one at the north and build another living quarters. Then you dismantle the old ones and you’re good to go before the aliens even begin to think of attacking your base.
But, for the love of god, don’t keep the original base layout unless you’re playing at Very Easy.
08/07/2009 at 18:38 Woges says:
@JellyfishGreen
All these games also appeared on the Amiga which is probably why a lot of people played them as kids.
08/07/2009 at 19:45 EyeMessiah says:
“FUCK OFF SYNDICATE!” And then quickly turning off the monitor when my parents came in to find me busily doing revision and not cursing some mysterious cartel at all. Monitor switching off was never particularly confidence inspiring solution though. I lived in perpetual fear of my parents realising that the monitor being black didn’t mean that there wasn’t anything there. I remember a few, painful, progress erasing reflexive reboots too…
Kids have it too easy these days with all their alt-tabbing!
08/07/2009 at 20:02 EyeMessiah says:
Also, the first time I got base invaded in XCOM exploded my world (I certainly did not read the manual, so did not see it comming). I was completely amazed that I was getting to run about in my poorly constructed base, getting massacred by aliens, seeing it *from the inside*. Its hard to express.
I really wanted to tell someone — anyone, but I quickly realised that the adults in my home couldn’t possibly comprehend the awesomeness of what was happening – I doubted that they’d even be able to parse the graphics. My younger brother would understand in a few years, but at this point he didn’t even have a PC!
Anyway it was a great, and rare moment when a game truly exceeded my expectations.
08/07/2009 at 21:04 Mika says:
Legends of Valour was garbage even back in the day. Only decent thing was the graphics where it did a few neat tricks.
08/07/2009 at 21:19 ascagnel says:
EyeMessiah: When I picked up XCOM off Steam, I had the same experience. On a laptop. In the middle of class. Oops.
… the professor almost threw me out of the lecture.
09/07/2009 at 00:42 Alec Meer says:
Aye, I used to be delighted upon a base invasion in X-COM. “I get to see my own stuff!”
09/07/2009 at 07:47 Bret says:
I didn’t get one in my first playthrough, and paranoia meant game 2′s Muton invasion was a shooting gallery. I love the flying suit combined with the lifts.
10/07/2009 at 10:07 Pestilence says:
XCom and Dune 2 left have left a warm place in my heart.
Has anyone tried Super Dune 2? Its a hack/mod for Dune 2 <a href="http://www.cdosabandonware.com/std_games_details.php?gameid=1143" here.
It changes the playable sides to sard, fremen and mercs. Might be fun for kicks.
10/07/2009 at 10:08 Pestilence says:
oh for shame!
10/07/2009 at 17:59 fgbfdg says:
Yeah what’s funny is that there actually IS a special version of Dune II, mentioned above, with a yellow camp among other things.
Dune II, I think it’s the first game I played, and probably turned me into the nerd I am today.
11/07/2009 at 15:01 Alec Meer says:
The…. the yellow house exists? [My world collapses].
11/07/2009 at 16:41 bonuswavepilot says:
Oh! Oh! Scorched earth! I’ve been moved to comment (uninformatively) by pretty much all of the articles in this series, marvellous stuff.
I specialised in playing the psychological game – stocking up on dirtballs and seeing how many rounds of being buried it would take my mates to actually become apoplectic.
Good times.
13/07/2009 at 21:19 Marcin says:
Wow, Gobliins. That’s probably the only adventure/puzzle game I actually made progress in. Haven’t even thought of it in AGES … it actually had some halfway decent sound effects, I think? It’s probably better I don’t try to track down an emulated copy and let it live on in nostalgia.