Jolt Country

Inspired by Pinback's epic list, I have begun one of my own: Flack's Top 15 Games of All Time. I shot for 10, ended up with 20, and finally cut it down to 15, where it stands. My only concern is that in my haste I've left a truly great classic off the list -- in fact, I am already kicking myself in the booty over one omission.

I'll try to post one a day, but no promises.

#15. 720



I often joke that as a teenager, there were three careers I considered before settling on computers: professional breakdancer, professional ninja, and professional skateboarder. When it came to skateboarding I had it all: the skateboard, the stickers, the clothes, the magazines, the videos, the music ... I just didn't have the talent. Sure, I learned a few simple tricks here and there, but enthusiasm is rarely a substitute for athleticism, of which I had none.

As skateboarding grew in popularity it began to filter into all forms of entertainment, including video games. There were several skateboarding games for the Atari 2600 and the NES, most if not all of which sucked. And then came 720, the arcade game by Atari.

720 completely captured that era of skateboarding for me. It began with the cabinet, a big gray thing covered in neon-colored decals (hot pink, neon orange, cyan, and yellow, sitting on top of black and white checkerboard patterns). (Last year, Nike released limited edition 720 shoes, using those same colors. I own a pair, but I never wear them because, frankly, they don't go with anything.) Sitting on top of the cabinet above the monitor is a giant boombox. The boombox lights up and the speakers work, too -- that's where the game's sounds come from. The joystick is unique. In reality it's a spinner, with a rotating joystick attached to it at a slight angle so that you can spin your little skater as he leaps through the air on his skateboard. Underneath the control panel, the joystick connects to a plastic gear with some teeth, an optical metal disc, and a small bicycle chain. No other game uses this controller, and a rebuilt one will cost you $150, easy.

The game's playfield ("Skate City") is presented in an isometric (Zaxxon) view. In the middle of each outer wall of Skate City lies a skatepark, and in the corners are small shops where you can purchase upgraded equipment. Each piece of equipment is related to a specific game trait (you can spin faster with better helmets, go faster with better shoes, etc.) and each skatepark is dedicated to a specific event (a half pipe, a downhill slalom, etc.) Each skatepark requires a ticket to enter. You start with three, and earn more by scoring points. You earn prize money the same way, which can be used for equipment upgrades. Everything ties together; the better you do in an event, the more points and money you'll get. Do bad in an event and you'll soon find yourself trapped inside Skate City.

Your time inside Skate City is timed. Spend too much time there, and a swarm of bees will appear along with the spoken words (performed in that classic Atari voice), "Skate or Die!" (Incidentally this is where the name for Epyx's classic game "Skate or Die" got its name from.) The bees take different forms (a giant pair of scissors, a hypodermic needle) but the end result is the same -- if you didn't skate quickly, you died. The bees consistently increase in speed too, so you can't avoid them forever. If your score is close sometimes it's possible to pull off enough little tricks to get a park to open, but more often than not you'll end up in the fetal position after having been stung to death.

If there's one disappointment with 720 it's that the skating parts themselves aren't very complicated. You can jump, spin, and grind, and that's it. Even on the half pipe, all you can really do is spin (unless you want to grind to a halt). The only real trick in the game is spinning, and spinning faster.

One of my favorite things about 720 is that Skate City is alive. Cars whiz past, pedestrians get in your way, and other skaters perform tricks in and on the city's architecture. The center of Skate City is a giant park -- not that you'll have much time to explore it, what with the bees and all. If you're good enough to earn all the points you need in the city's parks, you can stick to the perimeter of Skate City and never cut through the center park at all -- which is a shame, because the center parks (each level's is different) are some of the most interesting parts of the game to explore.

Atari's 16-bit arcade hardware (Roadblasters, Paperboy, Indiana Jones) provided more than enough power to bring 720's Skate City to life. The colors, the graphics, the sound effects, the music, the digitized voices ... everything adds up to make 720 simply fun to play. As a kid I dreamed of finding some trick to give myself unlimited time or make those bees go away, just so I could spend more time inside the city itself, just skating and exploring. Not only is there an amazing attention to detail (something that knowing the hardware limitations of the time makes it even more impressive) but it's the attention to detail of things that don't affect the game play at all that's really amazing.

Multiple ports of the game were released, including two different ones for the Commodore 64, and all of them suck. None of them were able to cram the detail and wonder of Skate City into the resolution of a home computer monitor, and home joysticks were never able to duplicate the feel of the arcade's unique controller. Even in MAME, the game doesn't "feel" quite right. The only way to really experience this game is in front of an original cabinet, which is why I bought one. And sometimes, late or night, I slip on my 720 Nikes, sneak out to the garage, and transport myself to Skate City, the land of skateboards, spinning tricks and killer bees.

#14. Galaga



Prior to Galaga, gamers had already pumped millions of quarters into Space Invaders, Galaxian, and Gorf. By the time Namco released Galaga, the concept wasn't new, but the formula had been honed and perfected. Most great games either define a genre or perfect it; in my opinion, Galaga does both. While Galaga obviously stood on the shoulders of Galaxian and improved the genre, it did it so well that no one was ever truly able to improve the formula. Gaplus? C'mon.

Galaga simply "got it right" by creating the perfect balance between memorization and skill. Players are greatly rewarded for memorizing the directions and patterns from which enemies come from (particularly during the bonus stages), but the rest of the game, as Jack Burton used to say, is "all in the reflexes." Galaga requires hand/eye coordination and twitch reflexes that, sadly, I no longer possess. That's not to say I don't enjoy the game or appreciate its place in history -- it's just to say that, frankly, I suck at it.

And yet there's always something beautiful about watching someone who is actually good at the game play. Amateurs move their heads and dart their eyes too much; real Galaga masters see the screen all at once. The mass of ships, the dive bombers, the laser blasts and the starry backgrounds all become one mass in the eyes of a professional. Amateurs focus too much on the individual details. Watch the enemies too close and a missile will get you ... and vice versa.

As a kid I spent many summer weekdays sitting in a bowling alley, back when my mom played for a league. Every Wednesday morning she'd pass me a handfull of quarters, most of which went into Galaga. (The rest went into Rally-X and a Black Knight pinball machine.) When the quarters ran out I'd just stand in front of the machine, pretending like I was playing it and acting as if I owned it. Once I even plotted the alien ships out on graph paper, in hopes of recreating them later using Lego bricks once I got home.

There have been many home ports of Galaga throughout the years. Most home computers received at least one official version along with dozens of knock-offs. To give you an idea how far technology has come, Tekken (PS1) contained Galaga as something to play during the game's loading screens. The original assembly code to Galaga is around 40k (24k compressed). And people are still playing it today. Galaga has been ported to every major console released over the past fifteen years on multiple Namco Collection releases, or you can just play it in MAME. Me, I've got it in one of those 48-in-1 multicade arcade cabinets. Thirty years after its release, I'm still playing Galaga. And thirty years after its release, I'm still no good at it.

Due to a numbering snafu, like Pinback, my list will also go to zero. Also, I will be changing my name to Pinback soon.

My Galaga high score on the PS3 is 108k!

I want to prepare you for something that's happened in all the other lists: you will hear the most terrible things. Now, you've kept us a bit at bay by not taking over two years to run through your list. The content beaver feeds. It FEED, Flack.

But we're lurking, waiting, watching, drooling.

AArdvark wrote:My Galaga high score on the PS3 is 108k!

My Galaga high score is 108, without the "k".

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:I want to prepare you for something that's happened in all the other lists: you will hear the most terrible things. Now, you've kept us a bit at bay by not taking over two years to run through your list. The content beaver feeds. It FEED, Flack.

But we're lurking, waiting, watching, drooling.

I've got a fairly thick skin and am ready to defend my choices. I probably should have just called it "15 Great Games" because like I said, I know I already left a couple of glaring omissions out (I'm going to take my lumps for not putting any text adventures on my list).

I actually bought (downloaded; which means they can erase my games at any time) Namco Museum. Mostly because of Bosconian. I found out later that the downloadable version doesn't include Bosconian, it has an updated version of Xevious, which I don't like.

Anyway, Galaga is my most favorite game out of the six games on the package.




THE
NEEDS REAL CONTROLS
AARDVARK

My Galaga high score is in the 900,000s, at which point I intentionally quit so it wouldn't roll over.

But it was set to "new guy every (x) thousand", instead of just the two new guys at 20 and 70 or whatever it was.

Flack wrote:I've got a fairly thick skin and am ready to defend my choices. I probably should have just called it "15 Great Games" because like I said, I know I already left a couple of glaring omissions out (I'm going to take my lumps for not putting any text adventures on my list).

It's also possible that the reason that Pinback and I were savaged when we made our lists was simply that we are unlikable sorts who took too long to post.

I think I got to stage 8 or 9 once on the Galaga at Oscar's Blues Bar. It was by far the best game I've ever played, and I am not sure if I've given it a go since.

#13. Tetris Attack



I like, respect and appreciate Tetris just as much as the next guy, but Tetris Attack, especially in two-player mode, is simply more fun. And vicious.

In reality, Tetris Attack isn't a Tetris game at all. In Japan, the game was called Panel de Pon. Nintendo rebranded it "Tetris Attack" because "Panel de Pon" sounds like a Spanish explorer, and them they replaced all the quirky Japanese characters with ones from Super Mario World. The only things Tetris Attack has in common with Tetris are the name, and the fact that they are both puzzle games. Had the game come out today, it probably would have been named either Call of Duty 9: Puzzle Sniper or Guitar Hero 42: Block Rockin' Beats.

The goal of Tetris Attack is simple. The playfield consists of half a dozen types of blocks randomly piled together. The object of the game is to make blocks disappear by aligning three or more similar blocks. The only way you can move blocks is by swapping the position of blocks that are sitting next to one another horizontally. (In that aspect it's a lot like Bejeweled, except you can only swap blocks horizontally, not vertically.) It's easy to remove the blocks three at a time; to remove four or five, you'll probably have to arrange the blocks to get things lined up. Removing blocks causes the blocks above them to fall, which, if planned properly, can also lead to a chain reaction (a good thing for your score).

If Tetris Attack only had a one-player mode, it would be a nice, friendly game without the ability to end friendships or get people hit in the face with a Super Nintendo controller. (Un)fortunately, Tetris Attack includes a two-player mode, which makes those things both possible and probable.

The game's Two-player mode takes place in a split screen environment. Gameplay is similar to the one-player mode, except for one minor detail. Each time you get a combo (clearing anything more than 3 blocks), you send big blocks over to your opponent's side of the playfield. The bigger the combo, the bigger the block. My friends and I used to call this "pooping" on the other player, and each time we did it, we would say, "I POOP ON YOU!" Whenever you poop on the other player, your character makes a cute little sound. Each character's sound is unique, and each time you hear the sound you know you're about to get pooped on. If you hear the sound two or three times in quick succession, you're about to get pooped on a lot. If you hear the sound five or more times in a row, you're about to get hit in the face by your friend. The only way to remove the "poop blocks" is to remove a set of blocks that touches the poop blocks, which turns the poop blocks back into regular blocks that can be used to create combos to poop back on your friend -- at which point you would yell, altogether, "I POOP ON YOU!"

You can also play the two-player mode of Tetris Attack against the CPU, which is good because after a while not only will your friends no longer play against you, but you probably won't have any friends left. Pooping blocks of garbage on people does weird things to a relationship.

Tetris Attack isn't the first game to allow you to send garbage ("poop") on your opponent -- Dr. Mario and Bust-A-Move come to mind -- and it's not even the only Panel de Pon-style game out there (there are multiple Pokemon Puzzle games and some Puzzle League games, too), but there's something about the ability to completely smother and crush your opponents over a backdrop of bright colors, happy music, and cute Nintendo characters that's both sadistic and deeply enjoyable. This is the most fun you will ever have dismantling your friendships.

As Tetris Attack (the original) was only released for the Super Nintendo, the only way to play it is either on a Super Nintendo, or through emulation.

I am enjoying this list, Flack. Please continue.

pinback wrote:I am enjoying this list, Flack. Please continue.

Flack, I'd like to apologize for the horrible thing a random JC Denizen said to you. I don't know what it is about these lists that bring forth such bile. I just hope you realize that people like me and Aardvark are enjoying them.

It's okay, it's the Pinback. Get it? Back? Get it? A Pin ... back? Get it? BACK? GET IT?

[youtube][/youtube]

The best "punchline without a joke" ever.

#12. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2



Several years ago while shopping at the mall with my wife, she decided to check out a new women's clothing store so I opted to wait outside on a bench. Before long boredom overtook me and as my mind wandered I began mentally putting together potential skate paths. A guy could start at the top of the escalator, I imagined, railslide all the way to the bottom, transition to the top of the ATM machine, ollie off of that and grind down the hand rail next to the steps, landing in the small fountain at the bottom of the stairs. As I put the line together I could imagine Tony Hawk actually performing the tricks. That's the day I realized I should probably take a break from playing Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2.

In 1997 Sega released Top Skater, an arcade game in which players stand on top of a virtual skateboard and race down skate-friendly tracks performing tricks and racing against the clock. It was the first 1st person (well, 3rd person) 3D skateboarding game I had ever seen, and I loved it. Every day I dreamed that some day Sega would port that game to either the Sega Saturn or the PlayStation. They did neither, but the following year a Japanese company released Street Boarders. Being a Japan-only release you couldn't buy it here in the states, so I downloaded it. It was the first PlayStation game I ever downloaded; at 56k, it took me about 3 straight days. The game itself wasn't too deep and it didn't have the same feeling of "freedom" that Top Skater had, but it was the first third person skateboarding game for the PlayStation and I played the crap out of it. (Those wanting to check it out don't need to import it; Electronc Arts purchased the distribution rights, and released it in the US the following year as Street Sk8er, because they're hip like that yo.)

Then along came Tony Hawk, which changed everything. Tony Hawk took the concept of a third-person skateboard game and dropped the player into a 3D environment in which gamers could roam, explore, and skate. The skate parks included within the game were like what people would build if money were no object, but what was even more entertaining were the real life locations -- the schools and warehouses, where anything you saw could be used as a place to skate.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater went from a game to a franchise with the release of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2. If there was one problem with the original game it was that linking tricks together, especially on the wide-open levels, was difficult to do. (The only way to link tricks was through grinds and railslides.) In THPS2, Neversoft/Activision introduced "the manual" (what most of you would call "a wheelie"). Manuals counted as a trick of their own, which allowed virtual skateboarders to link together dozens of tricks and rack up monstrous scores. In the first game, the goal was to pull off monster tricks. In the second game, the goal was to find ways to link them.

THPS2 is full of fanciful levels. In the first level (the warehouse) gamers can launch a helicopter by sliding across its blades, and open a secret door by grinding across a mounted airplane propeller. But for every outlandish level, there's a realistic one as well. I had the weirdest deja vu experience once while watching a documentary about a skatepark in Marseilles, France. I knew I had seen it before, but I couldn't remember where. Eventually I realized that the skatepark is one of the locations in Tony Hawk 2.

If you ever tire of the game's single-player modes, there are some great multi-player options as well. One of the most fun is Graffiti, where up to four skaters skate in a single level. By performing tricks, skaters can change the color of that part of the park their color; however, you can steal it back by performing a trick worth more points in the same area. There's also a "HORSE" mode where players can go head to head, one-upping each other. You can also play tag -- whoever's "it" when time runs out loses. All of these are fun and different enough from the single-player mode that they don't compete directly with it.

The game also includes one of the greatest soundtracks of all time. The CD medium afforded developers the ability to include full-length, CD-quality songs in their games, and Activision spared no expense in licensing some great songs for the game. Along with heavy hitters like Rage Against the Machine, Papa Roach, Anthrax and Public Enemy and Bad Religion, the company exposed gamers to lesser known bands such as Powerman 5000, the Dub Pistols, and Fu Manchu. Even when I wasn't playing the game, I was listening to the soundtrack. I eventually saw Fu Manchu live in concert as a direct result of being exposed to the band in this game.

Maybe this is a stretch or a bit hokey, but you know how Jake Skully in Avatar was finally able to run again thanks to his big blue alien Avatar? That's how I felt when playing Tony Hawk 2. I had the mind to be a skater, I just didn't have the body. I had always wondered what it might be like to skate the biggest ramps and pull off monster tricks, and in THPS2, albeit virtually, I finally get to see. In THPS2, you can play as Tony Hawk or any number of other professional skateboarders, both famous and obscure. Unlock enough things (or find the cheat codes) and you can play as Officer Dick or Spider-man, too. If none of those meet your needs, you can create your own character and adjust his/her skills to your liking as well. It's pretty easy to make one that looks like you, although in my case, I can never quite make them fat enough. The goatee, hair and nose are spot on, however.

The series went downhill after THPS2. In part 3 the developers introduced "the revert", another move that made it easier -- a little too easy, perhaps -- to link tricks together. Before long developers changed the format of the series into a virtual adventure. ("Go here. Talk to this guy. Go skate that. Do this trick.") For getting a game so right in 1999, developers have been getting it so wrong ever since then.

The spiritual successor to Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 is not even a Tony Hawk game; it's the Skate series (Skate, Skate 2, and Skate 3, all for the PS3/360). But if Skate is the quintessential "skateboard simulator", Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 is a great -- if not the best -- arcade-style skateboarding game of all time. It's well balanced, it's enjoyable, and more than ten years later, it's still fun.

Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 made its debut on the original PlayStation, which means you can play it on the PSX, PS2, or PS3. It was also released for the Dreamcast, the Nintendo 64, and the original Xbox. On your computer, you can either track down the PC version, or play the PlayStation version using an emulator (ePSXe). Most recently the game was ported to the iPhone, although like many iPhone games designed with a joystick in mind the control system is clunky. To add insult to injury, the original soundtrack has been replaced.

#11. Karate Champ



When I originally compiled this list I put Mortal Kombat in this slot, which I knew people would contest. After thinking about it a bit more, I decided I had to go with the original one-on-one fighting game here. Based on that logic, Mortal Kombat was out and Karate Champ was in.

Karate Champ was the first one-on-one fighting game, first appearing in arcades back in 1984. The thing most people remember about the game was its unique control system. Instead of a joystick and a few buttons, each player uses two joysticks to control his fighter. Once you learn the system it's completely intuitive and works perfectly. On a two-player cabinet, player one (on the left) uses his left joystick to move his character, and a combination of joystick movements to launch attacks against his opponent. For player two (on the right), the controls are reversed. If there is one detriment to the two joystick setup, it's that switching between player one and player two can be confusing, typically giving player one the house advantage.

There's no real back story here, no long introduction about why these two guys are continually battling -- no, all you get here is a bunch of ass-kickin' between "the guy in the white gi" and "the identical guy in the red gi". That's something that has changed over time within the fighting game genre. Both Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter had such rich character development that they ended up making movies about them. There's no Karate Champ movie (unless you count "Bloodsport" ...).

The best thing about Karate Champ is that strategy and skill almost always win out over random attacks. Attacks are distance based -- if you're too close your kicks won't connect; too far, and you'll be punching air. Launching an ill-timed attack leaves you vulnerable to a counter-attack (revenge is best served with a fist). There's actually quite a bit of strategy built into the game. Players also have the ability to duck, dodge and leap over their opponent's attacks.

Karate Champ popularized one of the longest standing arcade traditions of all time -- my friends used to call it, "Winner stays, loser pays." The last man standing at the end of each round continues playing, while the loser must insert another quarter to fight again. Hopeful challengers used to line their quarters up on the game's marque, reserving their chance to take a shot at the champion.

To truly enjoy (and be any good at) Karate Champ, you must memorize your player's moves. It's daunting at first since there are 20 unique attacks, but the pay off is worth it. Once you know the moves and can perform them on command, you can begin to strategically attack your opponent. Like I said, Karate Champ greatly rewards strategic players over button smashers (er, "joystick wigglers" in this case). Printed directly on the arcade cabinet are all of your moves, but who has time to read them when your face is getting kicked in?

Karate Champ was ported to multiple consoles and home computers, but once you've mastered the two-joystick control system, nothing else feels right. To truly experience the game, you'll need to do it while standing in front of an original arcade cabinet.

I've got one if you're feeling lucky, grasshopper.

I always wanted to take a poke at the dude sitting up on that ledge. He was SO smug.

It's been my experience that - in the places I've lived - people who play fighting games are gargantuan man-babies. Were kids pretty cool in Oklahoma, growing up, Flack?

Flack gave up the Internet for a week. I hope you're all happy. I blame the terrible thi- ah fuckit


FLAAAAAAAAAAAAACK

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:I always wanted to take a poke at the dude sitting up on that ledge. He was SO smug.

It's been my experience that - in the places I've lived - people who play fighting games are gargantuan man-babies. Were kids pretty cool in Oklahoma, growing up, Flack?

Surely you jest.

Other than football, the two biggest organizations in my high school were FFA (Future Farmers of America) and FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes). There was no computer club, and there sure as Hell wasn't a video game club. Basically, arcades were domainated by kids (mostly older, it seemed) that didn't fit into any of those clubs. Some arcades were scarier than others, but none of them felt truly safe. While I never felt like anyone was going to rob me, I didn't keep my quarters in my hand where people could see them, either.

The type of guys you're describing -- those jerks that put their self-worth (and yours) into beating you at a game -- were mostly relegated to pool tables around here. I'm sure you've seen the type, at least in movies: wanna-be cowpokes, with rings in their back pockets from cans of snuff, a spit cup balanced on the edge of the pool table, and a custom pool cue in a case (that they probably bought at the State Fair).

When it came to fighting games, most of the kids I ran into were just button mashers. When we did come up against someone who was really good, we quit playing them. Most of my friends had Super Nintendo systems by then, so we would just play Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter at home instead, where the competition was a bit more friendly and the music selection was a lot more rockin' (no tears in our beers, please).