Replay: The History of Video Games (73 page)

Second World War first-person shooters are almost a genre in themselves. Picks:
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault
(2002, EA Games, 2015 Inc., PC: Windows, USA),
Battlefield 1942
(2002, EA Games, Digital Illusions, PC: Windows, Sweden) and
Call of Duty: World at War
(2008, Activision, Treyarch, Xbox 360, USA).
Call of Duty
’s massively popular present day offshoot:
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
(2009, Activision, Infinity Ward, Xbox 360, USA).

The modding of first-person shooters has also produced several great games. The prime cuts all got Valve makeovers:

• Team Fortress
  (1996, John Cook, Robin Walker & Ian Caughley, PC: Windows, USA): Carefully balanced team-versus-team multiplayer mod.
  
• Counter-Strike
  (1999, Minh Le & Jess Cliffe, PC: Windows, Canada & USA): A multiplayer phenomenon with a terrorism theme.
  
• Portal
  (2007, Valve, Xbox 360, USA): First-person brainteaser that grew out of the free student project
  Narbacular Drop
   (2005, Nuclear Monkey Software, PC: Windows, USA).
  

Stealth

• Castle Wolfenstein
  (1981, Muse Software, Silas Warner, Apple II, USA): The inspiration for
  Wolfenstein 3D
  but unlike Id’s creation it was a game of covert infiltration not gung-ho slaughter.
  
• Metal Gear
  (1987, Konami, Hideo Kojima, MSX2, Japan): The starting point for Hideo Kojima’s genre-defining series. The cinematic flair may have been years away, but the hide and seek play was already evident.
  
• Metal Gear Solid
  (1998, Konami, Hideo Kojima, PlayStation, Japan): A stunninreturn for the series. A tense test of player ingenuity and patience wrapped in the cinematic presentation Kojima first explored with the
  Blade Runner
  -isms of
  Snatcher
  (1988, Konami, Hideo Kojima, NEC PC-8801, Japan) and the point-and-click adventure
  Policenauts
  (1994, Konami, Hideo Kojima, NEC PC-9821, Japan).
  
• Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
  (2001, Konami, Hideo Kojima, PlayStation 2, Japan): Kojima’s movie director aspirations take centre-stage in the series’ most divisive game. For those who loved Kojima’s world its convoluted and intricate story was a triumph, for everyone else it was an indulgence.
  
• Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
  (2004, Konami, Kojima Productions, PlayStation 2, Japan): Set during the Cold War, this revisits series hero Solid Snake’s youth. The jungle environments felt expansive and liberating after the confined industrial complexes of the previous two games.
  
• Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
  (2008, Konami, Kojima Productions, PlayStation 3, Japan): Reflective entry in the series where an old and weary Solid Snake returns to the battlefield. Kojima’s anti-war message was never clearer.
  

As well as the first
Metal Gear Solid
, 1998 saw the release of two other landmark stealth games:

• Tenchu: Stealth Assassins
  (1998, Sony Computer Entertainment, Acquire, PlayStation, Japan): Ninja assassinations. The grappling hook-aided rooftop-to-rooftop movement is great fun.
  
• Thief: The Dark Project
  (1998, Eidos Interactive, Looking Glass Studios, PC: Windows, USA): Medieval thievery where audio clues were as important as visual ones for success. Try the third game in the series
  Thief: Deadly Shadows
  (2004, Eidos Interactive, Ion Storm, PC: Windows, USA), which opened up the thieving opportunities.
  

Other great moments in stealth gaming:

• Hitman 2: Silent Assassin
  (2002, Eidos Interactive, IO Interactive, PC: Windows, Denmark): Cold, calculated and precise assassinations are the order of the day.
  
• Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
  (2005, Ubisft, Ubisoft Montreal & Ubisoft Annecy, Xbox, Canada & France): Ubisoft’s
  Metal Gear Solid
  rival finally moved out of Kojima’s shadow with this taut test of patience and skill.
  
• Assassin’s Creed II
  (2009, Ubisoft, Ubisoft Montreal, Xbox 360, France): Parkour-inspired rooftop escapes and daring assassins in Renaissance Italy.
  
• Batman: Arkham Asylum
  (2009, Eidos Interactive, Rocksteady Studios, PlayStation 3, UK): The first
  Batman
  game to really capture the essence of DC Comics’ dark knight. The trippy psychological battles with the Scarecrow owe a debt to the fourth-wall-breaking encounter with Psycho Mantis in
  Metal Gear Solid
  . Of the earlier
  Batman
  titles two stand out:
  
• Batman the Caped Crusader
  (1988, Ocean Software, Special FX, Atari ST, UK): The game is plodding but the comic book panel visual approach was inspired. Sega’s beat ’em up
  Comix Zon
  e (1995, Sega, Sega Technical Institute, Megadrive, USA) repeated the approach.
  
• Batman the Movie
  (1989, Ocean Software, Amiga, UK): Ocean’s best movie tie-in, mixing platform-based, bat-rope action with high-speed Batmobile driving.
  

Horror

Much groping in the dark during the 1980s, but few scares:

• Alien
  (1984, Argus Press, Concept Software, Commodore 64, UK): Based on the 1979 sci-fi film. The elusive alien keeps players on edge.
  
• The Rats!
  (1985, Hodder & Stoughton, Five Ways Software, ZX Spectrum, UK): Panic-inducing real-time text adventure.
  
• Project Firestar
  t (1989, Electronic Arts, Dynamix, Commodore 64, USA): Had all the ingredients for what followed – dramatic close ups, careful use of audio, player vulnerability – but lacked the frights.
  

Horror games came of age with
Alone in the Dark
(1992, Infogrames, Frédérick Raynal, PC: MS-DOS, France) and the zombie-terror of
Resident Evil
(1996, Capcom, Shinji Mikami, PlayStation [Gamecube], Japan) sealed the deal. After
Resident Evil
, the world fell in love with video game nasties:

• Silent Hill
  (1999, Konami, Team Silent, PlayStation, Japan): A more psychological take on the horror game where running away was often the best option.
  Silent Hill 2
  (2001, Konami, Team Silent, PlayStation 2, Japan) was the fog-shrouded horror series’ high point.
  
• Fatal Frame / Project Zero
  (2001, Tecmo, Keisuke Kikuchi, PlayStation 2, Japan): Player vulnerability taken to the max. Your only defence: a camera obscura.
  
• The Thing
  (2002, Vivendi Universal, Computer Artworks, PlayStation 2, UK): The nagging fear that one of your party could be an alien makes this an exercise in looking over your shoulder.
  
• Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem
  (2002, Nintendo, Silicon Knights, Gamecube, Canada): Insanity as the source of horror.
  
• Manhunt
  (2003, Rockstar Games, Rockstar North, PlayStation 2, UK): Sadistic murder sim. Equally unsettling is the
  Lord of the Flies
  -esque horror of
  Rule of Rose
  (2006, Sony Computer Entertainment, Punchline, PlayStation 2, Japan).
  
• The Path
  (2009, Tale of Tales, PC: Windows, Belgium): A creepy and avant-garde take on
  Little Red Riding Hood
  .
  

Resident Evil
had numerous sequels and offshoots, including the acrobatic action of
Devil May Cry
(2001, Capcom, Hideki Kamiya, PlayStation 2, Japan), but the most significant was
Resident Evil 4
(2005, Capcom, Shinji Mikami, Gamecube, Japan), which realigned the horror genre by dumping shuffling zombies of old in favour of fast-moving horrors. Followed by:

• Gears of War
  (2006, Microsoft Game Studios, Epic Games, Xbox 360, USA): Steroid-enhanced action with tense gun battles from behind coer and a lead character who conveys a feeling of brute force. Not horror, but
  Resident Evil 4
  was an important influence.
  
• Dead Space
  (2008, Electronic Arts, EA Redwood Shores, PlayStation 3, USA): Terrifying sci-fi horror with exceptional audio.
  
• Left 4 Dead
  (2008, Valve, Certain Affinity, Xbox 360, USA): Desperate ‘flee the zombies’ co-operative action.
  

Finally, the natural disaster ‘horror’ games:

• Disaster Report / S.O.S.: The Final Escape
  (2002, Irem, PlayStation 2, Japan): Earthquake survival adventure in the mould of ’70s disaster movies.
  
• Disaster: Day of Crisis
  (2008, Nintendo, Monolith Soft, Wii, Japan): Multiple disasters and terrorists to boot, lots of side games divert from the main adventure.
  

Music games

A protracted birth with isolated dabbles until the mid-1990s:

• Moondust
  (1983, Creative Software, Jaron Lanier, Commodore 64, USA): Experimental sonic adventure. Also see the Lanier’s previous video game oddity:
  Alien Garden
  (1982, Epyx, Bernie DeKoven & Jaron Lanier, Atari 800, USA).
  
• Synthétia
  (1984, Vifi-Nathan, Michel Galvin, Thomson TO7, France): A music creation toy where players use the TO7’s in-built light pen to draw sound waves.
  
• Dance Aerobics
  (1987, Bandai, Human Entertainment, NES, Japan): Early dancing game that used Bandai’s Power Pad controller.
  
• Hostages: Rescue Mission
  (1988, Infogrames, Atari ST, France): Anti-terrorist action featuring early example of music that responds to player actions.
  
• First Samurai
  (1991, Image Works, Vivid Image, Amiga, UK): Each swoop and hit of the players’ sword adds to the musical accompaniment.
  
• ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron
  (1993, Sega, Johnson Voorsanger Productions, Megadrive, USA): Hip-hop loving aliens and a mingame where players must dance to the rhythm.
  

The vibrant
PaRappa the Rapper
(1996, Sony Computer Entertainment, NanaOn-Sha, PlayStation, Japan) and DJing cool of
Beatmania
(1997, Konami, Yuichiro Sagawa, Coin-op, Japan) established music games as a genre.

Japan dominated initially:

• Dance Dance Revolution
  (1998, Konami, Coin-op, Japan): Booty-shaking megahit.
  
• Guitar Freaks
  (1999, Konami, Coin-op, Japan): Introduced the guitar controller.
  
• Samba de Amigo
  (1999, Sega, Sonic Team, Coin-op [Dreamcast], Japan): Latin-flavoured maraca shaking.
  
• Space Channel 5
  (1999, Sega, United Game Artists, Dreamcast, Japan): Camp sci-fi chic starring Michael Jackson.
  
• Vib-Ribbon
  (1999, Sony Computer Entertainment, NanaOn-Sha, PlayStation, Japan): A platform game that generated levels based on the content of audio CDs inserted into the PlayStation. Followed by the Japanese calligraphy rapping game
  Mojib-Ribbon
  (2003, Sony Computer Entertainment, NanaOn-Sha, PlayStation 2, Japan).
  
• Mad Maestro
  (2001, Sony Computer Entertainment, Desert Planning, PlayStation 2, Japan): Classical music madness.
  
• Gitaroo Man
  (2001, Koei, iNiS, PlayStation 2, Japan): Ebullient guitar solo battles with your foes.