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I Have Never Played A Good Star Trek Game

Posted at 10:05 by Joe Martin with 42 comments

I’ve owned a lot of games in my life. I was also a bit of a Trekkie growing up. There have been points in my life where those two facts have overlapped and I’ve owned computer games that are based around Star Trek – but I’ve never played a good Star Trek game, ever. I’m honestly not even sure they exist.

I’ve played a lot of them, from idiotic non-games like The Captain’s Chair which offer a virtual tour of some of the ships in the series, to poorly thought out action games like Hidden Evil. The ones I’ve spent the most time with though are probably A Final Unity and Generations.

Generations is a particular sore spot for me, as I pressured my parents into pre-ordering it for me from America based solely on hype I’d read in a copy of the official Star Trek magazine.

Yes, I was that sad as a teenager. I like to think I’m a lot cooler now though, even if I still can’t grow a beard.

Written on 29th September 2009
Tags a final unity, adventure, captain's chair, deep space nine, elite force, enterprise, games i own, gaming, geek, gene roddenberry, generations, hidden evil, joe's beard, retro, star trek, the next generation, trekkie, voyager

Games I Own: Dungeon Keeper, Theme Park, Theme Hospital

Posted at 11:38 by Joe Martin with 16 comments

I was never any good at Dungeon Keeper – and when I say ‘not any good’, I really do mean that I was seriously pants at it. Something to do with being only 12 when the game came out and not really being interested in strategy games – which kind of begs the question of why I played it at all.

There are two answers.

Firstly, it wasn’t my game. It was my brothers and, while I can’t remember if it was a present or something he actually bought, I do know it was his. In the days when the family shared just one PC and my brother and I shared every game, it was inevitable that I would play it. Likewise, it was inevitable then when he stopped playing PC games and I moved out that I would steal it from him, along with about ten other games. Sorry, Sam!

Secondly, making people think that they liked strategy games even though they didn’t really was one of the things that made Bullfrog such a successful company.

Written on 26th September 2009
Tags bullfrog, dungeon keeper, games i own, gaming, molyneux, retro, rts, strategy, syndicate, theme hospital, theme park

Games to play with your children

Posted at 15:16 by Joe Martin with 36 comments

I don’t have children, but I do have a lot of younger siblings and nephews and nieces, and we've played a lot of computer games together. A lot of the experiences we’ve shared have been through the medium of joysticks and mouse clicks.

Looking back on that recently I’ve come to think that parents should definitely play computer games with their kids, even though a lot of parents are of the opinion that "games are bad for you" and "all games are violent". Absolute rubbish, every word of it.

Of course, some games are violent and there’s a huge amount of games out there which aren’t at all suitable for children – but violence, if handled responsibly, isn’t always bad and there are a lot of games that are good for kids. My parents had an inkling of this and I spent a lot of time playing either with my Dad or talking about it with him. It’s something I plan to do with my children too, heaven forbid, and something I reflect on every time I go into a shop and see a parent blindly buying Grand Theft Auto for their seven year old. Grrr.

This isn’t new thinking obviously – any number of child-rearing programs or handbooks will tell you it’s important to get involved and find experiences you can share with your children. The problem though is that if you’re not someone who’s ‘into PCs’ and your kid is then it can be hard going. Thus, here are some recommendations for games that are suitable for most children and which open themselves up to this kind of activity.

Written on 3rd September 2009
Tags advice, amiga, children, games, gaming, gta, indie, kids, lego, monkey island, my dad, retro, serious sam, star wars, thief, trine, world of goo

Games I have made

Posted at 11:31 by Joe Martin with 7 comments

I once heard that most music journalists are generally people who got into the business because they lacked the drive or ability to actually be a musician themselves. Likewise, I’ve heard it said that games journalists are probably people who lack the drive to actually make their own games.

For me, that’s pretty true and it’s bred within me a massive respect for game developers, because making computer games is damned difficult. Not only are there the technical issues of knowing how to code and how to actually make the game, there’s the management issues too. You have to know what makes a game good and, if you’re working as part of a team, you have to be able to keep a group of people focused on a single cohesive vision. You need a logical mind that knows how systems should function and what redundancies need to be built in for every eventuality.

Over the years I’ve tried my hand at making a number of different games, starting when I got a copy of AMOS for the Amiga 500+ we had at home and I started tweaking the example games that came with it. I didn’t get far, but I got a basic understanding.

Written on 9th July 2009
Tags amiga, amos, game development, hangover, interactive fiction, retro, text adventure, thief

I played Diablo 2 and I hated it

Posted at 10:14 by Joe Martin with 31 comments

So, I played Diablo 2, just as you asked me to. True to my word I got bit-tech developer Jamie to lend me his copy and I gave it a good ol’ go - by which I mean I played it until I didn't want to play it any more, then tried to persevere for another hour before giving up.

I was utterly underwhelmed by Diablo 2. It appealed to me even less than the very similar Titan Quest – and that’s saying something, considering how I enjoyed that game about as much as I’d enjoy passing a cupful of kidney stones all at once. I hated Diablo 2 because there seemed to be absolutely no need for me to be there. I actually felt that the game would play itself better if I just wasn’t there, as the entire role of the player is to click-click-click-click their character along a pseudo-random, utterly linear path that offers no real chance for exploration or involvement.

Playing Diablo 2 I was left with the impression that it didn’t matter what I did in the game, as fundamentally everything I did only ever had one logical outcome, so I may as well not do anything. I was stifled by the utter lack of room for player expression. You could level the same complaint against almost any FPS where players are funnelled through linear levels too, but at least those games are usually fast paced and full of explosions and a sense of interaction and puzzle solving. Diablo 2 didn’t feel that way to me.

Written on 5th May 2009
Tags blizzard, diablo 2, game journalism, gaming, hack and slash, necromancer, retro, rpg, warcraft, what game i played next

Games I Own: Doom 3

Posted at 17:40 by Joe Martin with 6 comments

In response to my last Games I Own blogpost someone asked me when I was going to start blogging about some of the really bad games I own. Well, now I am. I don’t like Doom 3.

Or, rather, I don’t like much of Doom 3. The first half an hour or so of the game is pretty good, despite being pretty much a straight rip-off of Half-Life, and there are some bits that really make you jump later on…but the rest of it? Bleh.

There’s three main reasons I don’t like Doom 3. The first is that it’s endlessly repetitive – dark hallways go on forever, punctuated only by utterly redundant outside sections and oh, another scared scientist. Worse, it doesn’t even seem like there’s any variation to the game; all I can remember of it is fighting endless bloody imps.

The second reason I don’t like it is that the game as a whole is massively contrived and manufactured. There isn’t a single part of Doom 3 that stands out as being an example of where game design and concept meet; this is a high-tech science base that’s supposed to be utterly self-reliant yet even the well-lit areas are dismal and dim. Everyone moans that there should be duct tape somewhere in the base, but I’m more concerned by the poor lighting conditions even before the demons appear. And a marine should have more important things to do then go fetch eggheads, right? And why doesn’t a single scientist decide to follow the man with a gun, or at least mug him for his weapons?

Written on 15th April 2009
Tags doom 3, games i hate, games i own, id software, id tech 4, john carmack, john romero, marine, mars, retro

My Guilty Secret: The Games I Haven't Played

Posted at 13:20 by Joe Martin with 30 comments

I’ve got a guilty secret when it comes to gaming, several in fact, which I’ve carried for an awfully long time and have occasionally haunted parts of my professional life. There are times when I’ve confessed these things and the result has universally been one of shock and disappointment. Quite simply; there are games I haven’t played.

Well, obviously. There are lots of things I haven’t played; awful tat like Imagine: Petz and so on. What I’m explicitly talking about here though are the reputedly great games out there which I’m expected to have played, but haven’t. Things like Diablo 2, for example.

It doesn’t sound like a huge issue, but it actually is. There’s a huge assumption out there that as a games journalist I should have played every game, ever – or at the very least I should’ve played every game that’s scored a 7/10 or more. There’s a consensus among readers and peers that a qualification for being allowed to review something is that a familiarity with every game like it. How can I write a story about Tomb Raider: Underworld if I skipped from Tomb Raider 2 straight to Legend and never even finished the first two games?

Written on 17th March 2009
Tags games, games i haven't played, games i own, gaming, metroid, ocarina of time, resident evil, retro, system shock, zelda

iDracula, it’s like The Chaos Engine on the iPhone

Posted at 11:08 by Alex Watson with 6 comments

Like The Chaos Engine (and Smash TV and numerous others), iDracula is a frantic shooter with a top down view and a principle mechanic that separates your character’s direction of movement and his direction of fire. Unlike games such as The Chaos Engine, in iDracula there’s no story, and only one level. That level is Spartan too – there are no doors to open, and no levers or switches. There aren’t even any wooden crates.

All you have to do is survive an endless onslaught of bad guys (and weirdly enough given the name, none of these bad guys are actually vampires).

It’s currently number 1 in the iTunes chart for iPhone and iPod Touch games, and it’s not hard to see why. It’s only 59p, the graphics are great and it’s action from the get-go. Given the title, you’d expect to be fighting vampires, but so far I haven’t seen any – I have however, killed enough werewolves to make enough wolfskin suits for a football team, plenty of creepy-crawly dudes and I’ve bagged enough wizards to remake Lord of the Rings.

Written on 3rd March 2009
Tags chaos engine, idracula, iphone, iphone games, retro

What I learned from Deus Ex

Posted at 14:16 by Joe Martin with 37 comments

“What did I learn from Deus Ex?” someone asked me on the forums the other week. My answer? Tonnes.

The things that Warren Spector’s seminal FPS/RPG taught me can be broadly divided into three things; things it taught me about games, the world and myself. The very fact that I can definitely point to Deus Ex as something educational says an awful lot about the depth of the game itself and about how much I love it, by the way. When it comes to Deus Ex I’m fully willing to admit to being a totally biased fanboy.

Deus Ex taught me more about computer games than almost any game I’ve ever played and a huge amount of that is owed to the structured non-linearity of the game. If you’ve not played it (and I’ll accept no excuses) then you should know that although Deus Ex is a very linear game, it’s also very freeform. The storyline is best described as elastic as, although you’ll always go through the same levels in the same order, their content can differ hugely.

My favourite part of the game is the New York hotel your brother stays in, The ‘Ton.

Written on 2nd March 2009
Tags deus ex, eidos, ion storm, retro, story, warren spector

Archive for the ‘retro’ tag

I Have Never Played A Good Star Trek Game

Games I Own: Dungeon Keeper, Theme Park, Theme Hospital

Games to play with your children

Games I have made

I played Diablo 2 and I hated it

Games I Own: Doom 3

My Guilty Secret: The Games I Haven't Played

iDracula, it’s like The Chaos Engine on the iPhone

What I learned from Deus Ex

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