[quote="Roody_Yogurt"]Watching the gameplay videos available online gives me no motivation to revisit it, but hey, props to Psygnosis for making one of many memorably atmospheric games.[/quote]

Ha, I know, right? I want to make a freeform exploration game LIKE Brataccas, but not really with that control scheme or anything.

[size=200][color=violet][b]#98 - SNATCHER (1988, 1994, Sega CD, Konami)[/b][/color][/size]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/worpube.jpg[/img]

I think I look at visual novels and CYOA games in the same way that developers of action or adventure games look at text adventures. If you are writing the engine for a shooter or even a Galaga clone, seeing an article on something with no real video buffer has to make you roll your eyes. It has to! Most of the time the developers of these games are too ensconced in crunch to get to the outside world to insult text adventure creators, but I bet it is there. It should be there.

Well, that's how text adventure creators look at visual novels and CYOA games. Having to deal with 1, 2 and 3 versus all the ways you can type in your desire to shoot somebody sounds [i]easy[/i]. Moving an arrow up and down to select a course of action sounds like child's play.

The thing is, though, you can still make an entertaining game with a severely limited "vocabulary." Hideo Kojima directed what I consider to be the best visual novel ever, Snatcher.

* * *

... I have been stuck here for several months on the review. Snatcher is a good game, don't worry, but then I played "PT," the playable trailer that is also my Kojima, who is directing a new Silent Hill game.

PT was so amazing and so gorgeous I feel like a moron putting the same dude's Sega CD game on the list instead of it. Can we -- can we just agree that this is the Hideo Kojima slot and the guy is getting BETTER at his craft as he gets older. That never happens. Maybe with writers. But you normally hit a peak someplace and the rest of it is a slow, sad descent into irrelevance.

PT did a better job managing player expectations and horror than any other game I can think of. It deserves your consideration. It's absolutely the best teaser or trailer ever made. If you are alive on earth and if you've played it, then you know that is the case. It's obvious, I don't need to hammer it home. Yet it's not reviewable because I would hate to rob anyone of the experience.

The game puts you in a townhouse. Or a row house. Whichever. You can walk through the entire thing in a few seconds. Every time you do, you exit and enter ... the same townhouse. It doesn't sound scary or unsettling, but the house is a little different each time you enter.

There is a radio and a bathroom that is sometimes open and you just have this sense that someone is behind you and toying with you at all times. The Playstation 4's ability to render this terribly-maintained little home is up to par. I saw it on a friend's giant TV -- so much detail, so much texture. Roaches crawling about. Old black and white photos...

OK, I have it. This is what I have been struggling to write. The thing that PT does better than any other game is use the limits of the console controller in a first person game to inspire DREAD. If you're on a PC, you can turn around very quickly. You can look all around with your mouse or trackball and it's quite quick. You're a superhero, in game terms.

Game publishers can't let console and computer gamers play each other, because the console just isn't setup for it. And with that limitation comes the scariest parts of PT. Having to slo-o-owly turn around at console speed when you're convinced there's something else in the room. Add to it a brilliant console-exclusive puzzle and I have no problem saying that it was the 98th best game I've ever played.

I just wish I could afford a PS4.

And I really, really hope the new Silent Hill game is anywhere near as good as its trailer.

My hat is off to you, Kojima.

When I played BRATACCAS, I was impressed with how much it reminded me of Total Recall (you explore this alien planet with a seedy underside and it's unclear who are the good guys and who are the bad guys). Of course, back then, I didn't realize that it also predated Total Recall by four years, so hey, that's pretty cool.

The controls are atrocious, but again, looking at the year it was released, you have to respect the kind of depth they were trying to add to the game.

Watching the gameplay videos available online gives me no motivation to revisit it, but hey, props to Psygnosis for making one of many memorably atmospheric games.

I am replaying #98 so I get my WORDS. But it has been tough to find time. I'm on this though. I have been putting them to the front page and everything.

[quote="pinback"]In ABQ that is cutting edge technology.[/quote]

This is true. It was why the word "Breaking" in Breaking Bad was an anachronism. In Albuquerque, the matter that makes up the universe haven't split yet in the Big Bang. The technology of things being apart hasn't reached them yet.

In ABQ that is cutting edge technology.

When we visited the Computer Museum in ABQ, the kids played Space War against each other on a PDP-1 and then Pong (which was hooked up to a projector).

"Good games are timeless." -Winky

[quote="Tdarcos"]I'd like to suggest the following.[/quote]

I enjoy suggestions!

[quote]SpaceWar - the 1957 game played on the TX-1 at MIT, that showed that computers could do more than crunch numbers and that there was something that your ordinary person could like.[/quote]

I had that at #46 on my old list. However, it was a ... remake that someone did for DOS in the 80s. Here is my write-up of it on the old top 100 thread:

http://www.joltcountry.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=34220#34220

So, the game I played wasn't PDP Spacewar, but a remake that was enhanced. I realized that I loved the remake so much because I played it with my brother, the two of us on the same keyboard. It also had a lot of mystique because I was still learning DOS when I had that game. It is not on this list.

[quote]PacMan - Inky, Blinky, Winky and Clyde chased more than just PacMan and he did more than eat dots, he ate more than $7 billion, a quarter at a time.[/quote]

Ms. Pac-Man is on my list. I try to combine games if they are really similar, like Ms. Pac-Man and Pac-Man, Ultima 6 and Ultima 7, and unlike Patty Flinger and everything else.

[quote="RetroR"][quote="Tdarcos"]I'd like to suggest the following.[/quote]

Here is a crib sheet for why ICJ's list is actually entertaining and worth reading:

1. He isn't IGN.
2. He only includes games that he personally experienced on an emotional and physical basis.
3. He doesn't shrill for products he "should" include, but doesn't know anything nor care about.
4. HE ISN'T IGN.

Retro[/quote]
5. He doesn't think one of the ghosts in Pac-Man is named "Winky."

[quote="Tdarcos"]I'd like to suggest the following.[/quote]

Here is a crib sheet for why ICJ's list is actually entertaining and worth reading:

1. He isn't IGN.
2. He only includes games that he personally experienced on an emotional and physical basis.
3. He doesn't shrill for products he "should" include, but doesn't know anything nor care about.
4. HE ISN'T IGN.

Retro

I'm pretty sure this list is not open to suggestion. I'm also pretty sure this list is for computer games only. I could be wrong about that, but if I'm not, then Pac Man doesn't count.

I'd like to suggest the following.

SpaceWar - the 1957 game played on the TX-1 at MIT, that showed that computers could do more than crunch numbers and that there was something that your ordinary person could like.

Pong - the first serious attempt at making a game that was of interest to the public.

PacMan - Inky, Blinky, Winky and Clyde chased more than just PacMan and he did more than eat dots, he ate more than $7 billion, a quarter at a time.

Colossal Caves Adventure - which started a whole new genre and probably pushed more men into becoming programmers because it got them on the computer.

Wolf 3d which showed that it was possible to develop something radically different, and what happens when (even when it's accidental) what it means when users can create add-in content for a game.

Doom which gave us non-rectangular rooms, different lighting and a really immersive pseudo 3D environment.



Which reminds me of an unrelated item about the #1 thing that has pushed photography and the development of e-commerce on the internet including encryption and the ability to accept credit cards. I'll discuss that elsewhere.

[quote="AArdvark"]I wanted this game to be good so I watched some gameplay on youtube. All I can ask is if you've ever beaten it.
[/quote]

No, sir! I played a lot of it when I got the Amiga going in my old house and ensured that it was solvable. I am going to play every game on this list to double-check before announcing it, which will also be fun. I want to have a directory on my computer with all the fun, old games.

When things calm down again in a few weeks, maybe we should all try Counter-Strike some night. I've seen videos but never played it.

[quote="Ice Cream Jonsey"][quote="RealNC"]Counter-Strike should really be on the list. Seriously.[/quote]

I decided to not put multi-player games on the list.[/quote]

I think you should rethink this, at least for games which are [i]purely[/i] multiplayer, or where that's generally believed to be the entire point of the thing. And those should be judged as if you're always playing against a bunch of anonymous 14-year old douchebags on the internet. CS is just as good with the idiots as it is with your buddies.

I actually played Brataccas at a Retro Gaming event a few years ago and was hung up on the interface. Really, this is the only game / whatever that I think could actually be served better than the original with a remake or port.

I wanted this game to be good so I watched some gameplay on youtube. All I can ask is if you've ever beaten it.


THE
INTERFACE OF THE DAMMED
AARDVARK

[size=200][color=violet][b]#99 - BRATACCAS (1986, Amiga, Psygnosis)[/b][/color][/size]

[img]http://i.imgur.com/vKEIUPN.jpg[/img]

If this new list accomplishes anything, I hope that it will convince some people somewhere that Brataccas isn't a terrible game with a terrible interface, but a great game with an interface that is "only" bad.

The premise of Brataccas is that you are a genetic engineer named Kyne. You developed a way to engineer a super breed of man. The government wants this research to create a supersoldier, but Kyne refuses. He is framed for treason, there is a reward for his capture and Kyne travels to the asteroid of Brataccas for evidence to clear his name.

You are then dropped into a self-contained world filled with characters that have their own agendas, their own cares and desires. At no point does anyone give a shit about the well-being of the player of Kyne. It's surprising that the pages to the manual are even bound together.

Each "room" in Brataccas can have several different things going on. There are elevators, so that you can travel along the game's y-axis. There are characters to bribe. You can start a fight with almost anyone in the game, which was waay, waaaaay ahead of its time. The cops are trying to arrest you, sure, but they don't have omniscience. There are security cameras to disable, false leads, bartenders to get rumors from and a lone, hissing psychopath wandering around the asteroid that will try to kill you with his sword for no reason.

The room layout of Brataccas is compact and paranoid and uncomfortably put together. When you get arrested, you travel in real time behind the cop, who drops you off to the jail cell. You go through rooms that, when you start, you probably can't get to easily, meaning that the act of getting arrested in the game is initially interesting. (Years later, the act of getting arrested in the most famous series of games, GTA, simply cuts to a black screen. Brataccas was ahead of its time.)

There is a problem with the game, however, that every review addresses. Brataccas offers gesture-based mouse controls. And they are just as terrible as you might think with systems like the Amiga, Atari ST and Macintosh that used mice with physical balls.

It's terrible and inintuitive. This game would be famous if they didn't screw it up! You move forward by moving the mouse to the right, but then have to stop by holding the button and moving the other way. And you have to stomp that mouse. You have to slowly press down and move it the other way. You'll gesture to enter combat when you meant to jump. In a way, and I am admitting this is a stretch, the terrible gestures mean that you will randomly start combat with people minding their own business. Some guy that you might want to talk to might end up with a sword in the gut. It adds to the web of lunacy going on in the asteroid.

That said, when I played it on my real Amiga, I saw that the game lets you use keyboard controls. Great! I thought I would try that. And that's when the final mystery of Brataccas revealed itself to me: the gesture-based controls that everyone savages are [i]actually better[/i] than the keyboard controls.

Brataccas is just a game that requires time to learn its controls. It's like Defender in that respect, it's just that with Defender you feel like a spaceship captain and every NES game in the world mastered moving people with a gamepad. Because of the gesturing it's a game of skill with the most wide-open sci-fi world of its time. The speech bubbles are all in caps, with bizarre punctuation. The graphics mode for the Amiga has you at 640x200, which is a very silly resolution to try to do anything in.

Brataccas is the best example that I can think of of an attempt at a simulated, [i]uncaring[/i] world. And while I appreciate the quest arrow on Fallout 3 and BioShock, those games will always be a little less than they could be because they care about you in a way that Brataccas never will. It feels just as cold as life on an asteroid probably would be.

I guess I can also put it this way: when it comes to each game I've made myself, they always started in the design document phase as open-ended simulations where the player is dropped in and meant to learn and survive, just like (and even thanks to*) Brataccas. None of them have ended up that way because I haven't been able to achieve what this extremely goofy, yet charming, little asteroid-sim did manage to successfully accomplish. A world.

(*Specifically, the fact that you can start a fight with anyone in Fallacy of Dawn, and the one "CopBot" were inspired from Brataccas, along with the fact that I set Pantomime on a moon essentially the size of an asteroid.)

[quote="RealNC"]Counter-Strike should really be on the list. Seriously.[/quote]

I decided to not put multi-player games on the list. The reason for that is because all games are more fun when you are enjoying them with other people. And if you don't have fun friends, your appreciation for multi-player games would be less than someone with good friends.

My favorite on-line game was the old Quake II hack called "Jailbreak." It was in the top 20 on the old list. It has since been removed.

I've also spent the last six years playing Diamond Mind Baseball with some friends in a baseball sim. The game itself outside of multiplayer is not that great. It's good, not great. So the MP game I love the most and the one I've spent the most time with aren't up for consideration, but I appreciate the chance to mention it.

Counter-Strike should really be on the list. Seriously.