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Wednesday, September 29, 2010

The Day

I was reading on Indie Games Blog today about a new game called, The Day. The Day is brought to us by Armor Games who have put a lot of great games on their site over the last few years and this one is no exception.

You play a game named Tia and the game takes place during her birthday. For her birthday Tia's father gives her a game card similar to something you'd see in Magic: The Gathering or other battle card games. You go around battling the other kids in your town collecting their cards as you win and eventually get to the conclusion.

The interesting thing about this game is you find out rather early on you're confined to this town which is really a camp of sorts. You're warned to not leave the area and go into the woods as the guards will shoot you on sight.

The card battling game is very simple but it's just the backbone to the games very short story. With two endings the game can be played in about 15-20 minutes and it's worth your time to play it.

You can follow this link to play The Day.

http://armorgames.com/play/6980/the-day

Wii Mote Plus

Nintendo has finally come to their senses and decided to integrate the Wii Motion Plus into the default Wiimote. Before you would have to buy a little doggle thing that plugged into the bottom of your controller to get the full effect of what the Wii was suppose to do when it launched but didn't.

I haven't had a lot of experience with the Wii Motion Plus but what little I have had I thought the controller was a little weird to hold with it sticking off the end. I always felt as though the doggle was going to fall off if I did anything really waggley. Personally I would be very cautious about buying a Wii Motion Plus for this very reason but buying a controller with the same default size as the regular Wii Mote with the Motion Plua added is right up my alley.

I do think Nintendo should of put this new model of Wii Mote out instead of the doggle but at least they're making the change to this and for that I applaud them.

Nintendo 3DS = $300...

Today Nintendo announced the release date for the 3DS in Japan. That date is February 26th with a North American and European release sometime in March. They also announced the price, 25000 yen or around 300 U.S. dollars.

The idea of a hand held costing 300 dollars especially one from Nintendo who in the past have always kept the price of their various hand held machines pretty low.

I know they're putting a ton of features into the 3DS and it does look to be an amazing machine but when you price your hand held higher than your current console it just kind of bugs me. I'm sure the 3DS will sell like crazy and I hope to pick one up myself but I will 100 percent be waiting for a price drop.

The one feature they're really showing off is the Gameboy and Gameboy Color virtual console that will be available on the 3DS. This will not include Gameboy Advance games at first but could in the future. Now in theory that's an amazing thing but looking at the state of the Wii's virutal console and seeing the wasteland of nothingness it has become I can only be skeptical of the new one. I mean we have major Nintendo releases that haven't been put out on the virtual console but we're seeing garbage like Aero The Acrobat 2 on the service when Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island isn't out yet. I just hope they actually continue support on the hand held VC after it launches but I have little hope of that.

Overall the games for the 3DS look sweet especially what I've seen of Super Street Fighter 4, it looks like the console version which I think is pretty impressive and if the 3D effects for it actually work I think it could be a fantastic way to play SSF4. I think the 3DS will do well and have good games but I also think Nintendo will need a little bit to get all the services and such in order and they need to support what they offer beyond the first few months.

(Yeah I repeated myself near the end, deal with it!)

Thursday, September 23, 2010

I finally finished Spelunky this morning!

If you don't know what Spelunky is then you need to just stop reading this and go here to download and play this wonderful game.

Spelunky World


Okay now that you've done that or you've played Spelunky before we can continue. Spelunky is a 2D platformer done in the "RogueLike" style, made by Derek Yu. What is a roguelike you ask? It's a type of game where usually the game is entirely randomized at the start and when you die that's it. No other chances no extra lives, one life and then it's the end. It all started with an old game from 1980 called Rogue and then moved on to games like Nethack and Dwarf Fortress and more mainstream with the Diablo games and their hardcore/hell modes. I've of course played Diablo 1 and 2 to death and liked my trips into the hardcore mode but they always ended in death and me quiting. I've messed with Nethack and Dwarf Fortress a little bit but I've had a hard time getting in to them.

It was probably sometime last year when I first played Spelunky. After seeing some videos of it online I decided to try it out. After a few very quick deaths at the hands of an arrow trap, a spike pit or just straight falling to my death I kind of stopped playing it. This wasn't any real fault of the game I just had to many other games on my plate at the time to spend the needed time with it. Lately I've been without a main game to focus on other than Team Fortress 2 so I decided to give Spelunky another go. Well here I am about a week or so later with 250+ deaths and I finally made it to the end of the game. I know others have had way more deaths and have been probably trying way longer but I'm proud of my win. I did it without robbing a shop and without a jetpack or a shotgun. The last boss was a dangerous adrenaline filled battle and one of the best boss battles for me in recent gaming memory.

One thing I learned as I played and did some research on Spelunky is it's never the game's fault you die. Some games are cheap with cheap pitfalls and unfair deaths. Not Spelunky, if you die it's because you screwed up. It reminds me of Demon's Souls as that was a game where the cheap deaths were minimal if there at all. When you first start playing Spelunky you need to take it slow, watch your surroundings. You have to look out for the arrow traps, the spikes all the enemies out to get you. It's one of those things that's hard to really explain but if you spend any time with Spelunky you'll see what I mean. The game is winnable at the start every time it's just up to you the player to make it to the end.

The only thing about Spelunky's randomness that is a big negative is sometimes items you want to find can spawn off the map. One example and a small spoiler is in the first level. In one of the levels in the first area a Key and a gold chest will spawn. You need the key to open the chest and get the Udjat Eye an items needed to enter the City of Gold later in the game. On rare occasions either the key or the chest can spawn outside of the level and you will never be able to get to them. It only happens every now and then but it is kind of game breaking but, you can still beat the game if this happens you just can't make it to the City of Gold. In playing over 250 tries the happened to me maybe 3-4 times and none of those times did I make it far enough to even think about the City of Gold.

In the end though Spelunky is fantastic and needs to be played by more people. I know I'm preaching to the choir on this game as it's been around for awhile and I'm late to the party on playing it like crazy but here it is. I have finished it and I plan on playing it like crazy for the foreseeable future. There is still a City of Gold for me to find and I will find it!

Right now Spelunky is available on the PC at the link I posted above. It is also coming out to the XBLA sometime in the future but I have no idea when exactly. Which ever way you play it you need to it's great!

Sunday, September 19, 2010

From Software announce Project Dark

This past week at Tokyo Game Show From Software makers of one of my most favorite games of all time Demon's Souls announced a new game. This game is tentatively being called Project Dark but many were claiming this could be a direct sequel to Demon's Souls or in the least a spiritual successor. Well by the looks of the following video it's at least a successor and that's okay by me. The game is coming out on the PS3 and the Xbox 360 next year and I cannot wait for it.

Demon's Souls had a definite ending that didn't really hint at the possibility of a sequel. The only thing that you never saw was the sixth world that's locked through out the whole game. If From Software can get the feel of Demon's Souls down and give us a whole new world to explore and new lore to learn about I'm all for it. Boletaria was an amazing world and I would love to see it again but I think I'm more excited to see the amazing stuff From Software could show us in a new land.

Anyway expect to read a lot more about Project Dark here in the coming months. I'm so freaking excited for it!


Here's the reveal trailer.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Ico, Shadow of the Colossus HD remake

So we finally have the official word on what the gaming community has known about for the last few months. Ico and SOTC are getting the HD remake treatment like God of War 1 and 2 and the Sly Cooper games had done to them. I for one can't be happier about this one.

I never had a chance to play Ico and I'm not into buying used games so I've never picked a copy up online or anything like that. Not wanting to miss the boat on SOTC I picked it up soon after release and was floored by it. I can't say anything about it here that hasn't already been said but the game is amazing and pushes the PS2 to it's limits. With the PS3 rerelease of these I'm hoping SOTC can be seen in all it's glory without the slowdown and lag the PS2 version had. And now I can have the chance to play Ico which as I said I never did but with this HD remake we're getting the European verison of the game which has more content than the US release so even people who have played Ico in the past can have a chance to see something new.

I'm not happy with all the remakes and reboots we're seeing in gaming in the last couple years as it just seems to be following suit with the movie and TV industry but this is a rerelease I approve of!

OMG! Phantasy Star Online 2!!!

The Tokyo Game Show is going on right now in Japan and there has been a ton of announcements but not really a bunch I really care about. Out of the big two that really interest me one is the Ico/Shadow of the Colossus HD remakes we've known were going to happen for awhile now and the announcement of Phantasy Star Online 2!

Any reader here knows my love of PSO and how I was unhappy with the series as it went onto handhelds and the 360 with Phantasy Star Universe. Something with PSU just didn't sit well with me as it didn't have the same feel as PSO did. Neither did the handheld versions I've played, something was always off, didn't feel right. If we have Sega taking what was so special about PSO and expanding on that, I'm psyched for it.

Right now PSO 2 has been announced for the PC for a 2011 release but no word on a 360 or PS3 version. Either way I'll take more PSO anyway I can get it.

Developer Spotlight - Locomalito

I was reading the Indie Games Blog and I came across what looked to be a fun game to play. This game was L'Abbaye des Morts. The game has a simple look to it kind of a throwback to the Spectrum and games like Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy. With anticipation I went quickly went to download it but found the hosting site for this one had reached it's limit and I could not do it. After some searching I found the developers Twitter account and sent them a message asking for another source to download this from. Being they're in Spain I was not expecting a response until today. Well I woke up this morning to find a response they had put the game up on Filefront. I jumped up and immediately downloaded the game and just a little while ago I beat it.

L'Abbaye des Morts is a 2D platformer in the most simple of definition. You can run left and right and jump, that's it. You do not have any attacks and you have to dodge any enemy or obstacle in your way.

Here's the story taken from the page on the Locomalito site.

In the 13th century, the Cathars, who preach about good Christian beliefs, were being expelled by the Catholic Church out of the Languedoc region in France.
One of them, called Jean Raymond, found an old church in which to hide, not knowing that beneath its ruins lay buried an ancient evil.


I thought it was interesting and in a game with out a huge drawn out story the one they've given to this one is good. The ending is fantastic and you don't really see many games with an ending like this one, if you play it make sure you finish it. That being said the game isn't really that long, it took me about an hour to finish it but now knowing what to do I could beat it in about 10-15 minutes. The controls are spot on, they're perfect. If you die it's because you screwed up, not due to faulty controls. The running and jumping have a great feel to them, I really like the floaty jumps without making it feel like your flying. Ths music is really good too, with it's simplicity they made some great songs that help set the mood for the whole adventure. This game is great a lot of fun to play and you should check it out if you're into this type of platformer.

Here's the link to this game on the developers site

http://www.locomalito.com/juegos_abbaye_des_morts.php


So last night as I was let down I couldn't download L'Abbaye des Morts I decided to try out some of Locomalito's other games. First up was Hydorah a 2D side scrolling space shooter, in the vein of Gradius and Lifeforce.

In the vein of is probably the wrong thing to say because this game could very well be a Gradius game it's that similar. If they were going for the ultimate in Gradius fan service they nailed it because this game is bad ass. The main ship looks just like Vic Viper and you get some of the standard Gradius weapons as you progress. I haven't made it to far into this one because let me tell you it's hard. It will break you down in parts. Everything you're up against is out to kill you including the walls and it's been along time since I've played a game where the walls kill you. I've been spending a lot of time playing DoDonPachi lately and this game is still kicking my ass so that's more proof of this game's challenge. And to dig it in further the games let's you save but you can only save three times during your campaign. This limit on saves makes for an even more challenging experience because you need to pick where you want to continue from and can't just go saving after each level. The game itself tells you to practice and get better and not to give up which I think is a nice touch. Again I haven't beat this one yet but I plan on spending a lot of time with it.

You can go here for this one

http://www.locomalito.com/juegos_hydorah.php


Finally after Hydorah had it's way with me I decided to check out 8-Bit Killer. This one is a FPS game done in the 8-Bit style. Think of something like Wolfenstein 3D but with simpler graphics but 8-Bit Killer has mouse support. This is the big thing that stood out for me as I played this one. It has mouse support but it's really tight for turning. I had to up the DPI on my mouse to get it close to what I wanted and it still wasn't exactly there. You can play using just the keyboard but I can't do that anymore so I have to use my mouse. I made it to the second set of levels of this one and had to quit because it was getting late but don't let that keep you away because it's good. It does not have a save function but the site says it's short and easy and I can attest to the game being easy but I'm not sure how long it is but I was at 2-1 when I quit. It has a story and weapon pickups and all the early 90's FPS standards. I really like the art style in this and if you like FPS you should give it a whirl.

Here is the link for this

http://www.locomalito.com/juegos_8bit_killer.php

The developer of the above games is again Locomalito. On their site they have a Philosophy of gaming. A list of things that they believe to be needed to make a successful game and have a happy gaming community. I've read the list and I agree 100 percent with the things they say. Games today are way to easy, developers can get so wrapped up in holding our hands they forget the challenge. The other big thing that's mentioned is the remaking of old games, yeah we want old school games! But we want new games with that old school look and feel. I don't want to get off topic in this so I'll post the link to the above mentioned list and you can read it yourself.

http://www.locomalito.com/filosofia.php


Anyway I know I've only been playing Locomalito's games for the past few hours but I've been blown away by what they're doing. These game deserve a look take a few minutes and go check them out. I'm sure you'll be pleased.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Some thoughts on the Halo series.

Oh Halo the only reason the original Xbox had any success at all despite the fact it had other games on it that were way better and I don't mean Halo 2. Halo was the title that had so much potential until Microsoft in their infinite wisdom snatched up the developer Bungie and had them put out a castrated version of the game on the Xbox console. I've played all the Halo's up to Reach which I will probably never play because I no longer own a 360 and I don't plan on buying another one.

I like many other people bought Halo with my Xbox console. It was the game to own the "killer app" if you will. I got my machine home hooked it up and slapped Halo in the drive. A few hours later I turned the game off and I don't think I ever put it back in the machine. Having already played most of the game at a friends house before having my own I had seen most of what the game had to offer but what it offered wasn't enough to keep my attention for a real playthrough and me actually beating the game. To me Halo 1 was just a generic sci-fi fps game with uninspired locations and the same 5 enemies through out the whole game. From the beginning I had little hope for the console Halo after all the promise the PC version was showing to see all the stuff Bungie cut out to make it work on the Xbox it was a shell of what it would of been. It's like FPS lite, huge redicule, big ass hit boxes bland visuals and a cookie cutter story. Now with Halo 1 it did have the multiplayer going for it, with some fun maps and it was just basically fun, for what it was. It lacked online but you could still have a blast shooting at friends on splitscreen, in the end it lacked the long term staying power because of the lack of online. When I look back at Halo 1 all I see is a failure due to the move to console and the dumbing down of the whole FPS idea.

Halo 2 came out and it was considered the greatest gaming gift by many people. I remember going to pick up my copy and rushing home to play it. I was thinking the addition of Xbox Live support would make the series what it could of been on the PC and make the multiplayer a lasting experience. I've written an article about Halo 2 already earlier on this very blog so I won't go into super detail here but I'll share some thoughts. We all know the campaign in Halo 2 was garbage, a piss poor story that was worse than the first game plus who liked playing as the Arbiter? I'll tell you who, no one! Even with the great Keith David doing his voice no one wanted to play as someone besides Master Chief. It was like Metal Gear Solid 2 when we had to play as Raiden, nonsense! Bungie introduced the new revolutionary ability to duel wield weapons and the console FPS fans were beside themselves with love but it wasn't a new feature to the FPS genre. The first game I remember playing with duel wielding was Rise of the Triad on the PC back when I was in high school so that's sometime in the 90's (94 to be exact). So then we had Halo 2 online yeah it was interesting and I had some fun with it but the maps were garbage. Bungie should of just put all the Halo 1 maps in part two so people could finally play them online but nope, they know what the fans want so we get garbage maps even though the fans were crying out for the Halo 1 maps. I know that Halo 2 was the most popular Xbox Live game for a long time but I have no idea why bland broken online and you had way better options out there.

So now we have Halo 3 the next gen Halo on the new shiny 360! The first thing that grabbed me on Halo 3 were the graphics. I know that graphics do not make the game but this game looked bad it looked like an Xbox 1 game. Halo 3 should of been the best looking game on that system blowing away everything out there but nope it wasn't even in true HD, it ran at something like 640p. This was suppose to be the end of the grand Halo trilogy and it did a decent job of wrapping up the story and out of the three games it did have the best story and it's really the best Halo game but that's not saying much. It added the ability to use items which you can pick up and it was the big new feature, the new feature back in the 90's with games like Hexen again something not new being lauded as the new hotness in FPS games. I can't rag on Halo 3 to much because I played through the game 5 times and it's the first Halo game I finished and this game on Legendary is actually really fun. Now the multiplayer, argh. Again it's a game full of crap maps that just weren't that much fun. It had reimagining of some Halo 1 and 2 maps but I didn't want to see reimagined Halo maps I wanted the original maps not this crap. But Halo's online overall just has an unbalanced feel to it. I can't even count high enough to keep track of the number of times I was one shotted by someone after I've unloaded a whole magazine into them and they didn't die. I'm not the only one who I know whom had this issue but it's been the defining Halo online thing for me. When ever it happens in another game I always describe it being like Halo online. It's just a bad online experience I know it's popular but I think Halo is the online game for people who aren't really good at FPS and if you try to play the game like a FPS that needs precision to play you will fail.

Halo ODST the 60 dollar expansion pack. Campaign was intersting, the fact it took a more stealthy approach was interesting and going back to a health bar made the game more of a challenge but in the end it was another crap Halo story with a to short overpriced campaign. Firefight which was a mode that teamed you up with 3 other people and put you against waves of Covenant much like Horde mode from Gears of War 2 could of been awesome but it lacked online matchmaking. Why make an online mode without matchmaking? It's a poor choice and I spent maybe 30 minutes playing it but with matchmaking I would of spent a lot more time playing that mode. I had some fun with ODST but it should of been a 20-30 dollar downloadable title, maybe in one of those summer of arcade thing they have on Xbox Live.

Now we have Halo Reach the last Halo game Bungie will be making. It's Halo with Jetpacks and for that I have one word... Tribes.


Overall I feel Halo is overrated and personally I don't think it's a very good series. I give Bungie their props for coming up with a decent console FPS control scheme but that's about the only revolution to the genre they've done. Lots of people love Halo but I don't get it you have way better games out there to play but to each their own.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Time for something a little off topic...

I was involved with the making of an animated video recently. It's not game related but I think people should check it out. The video can be found bellow. Leave some feedback and let me know what you think.


Thursday, September 9, 2010

Mushihimesama: Bug Panic

So another Cave game has been announced for the idevices! This time it looks to be Mushihimesama: Bug Panic. Now I'm not sure if this is Mushihimesama Futari or some new game but I'm hoping it's Futari. This is a game I have long wanted to play and on the iphone it would be amazing like Espgaluda 2 and DoDonPachi: Resurrection before it. It was announced a few moments ago on Cave's US twitter with a link to a reveal video which you can find below.





So a little research came up with this. Apparently this is the game they just announced. I don't know what to think about this one but time will tell.




This is the game I thought we'd be getting...

9-9-1999

Today is the 15th anniversary of the Playstation 1. It is also the 11 birthday of the Dreamcast.

The Dreamcast was Sega's last home console and it was one of the best. A special part of gaming died when the Dreamcast died. I don't think we'll ever see a console as special as the Dreamcast and that's sad.

I wrote an article about what I consider the greatest Dreamcast game, Phantasy Star Online a few weeks back so check that out.

I was so psyched for the Dreamcast I bought the Japanese console as soon as it was released and I imported a ton of games. I have most of my Dreamcast fighters for my Japanese system but any version is great. I don't really hold on to my old consoles due to lack of space but I have my Dreamcast and I'll have it forever.

I tip my hat to you Dreamcast! You're sorely missed!



Within a Deep Forrest

Last night I finished Within A Deep Forrest. This is a platformer made by Nicklas Nygren otherwise known as Nifflas. The game came out a few years ago but I hadn't played it until recently and it was a very good game.

You play as a ball the result of a mad doctor's plan to make a world freezing bomb and it's up to you to stop it.

The game which I've heard referred to as an "ambient platformer." The music is very mellow and the world feels alive. For a game with simple yet very good looking graphics the world you're in is as much a part of the story as the story is.

As the ball you bounce around the world solving very simple puzzles and collecting new powers. You get new materials which make your ball bounce higher or turn you into iron to help you sink into the ground when needed and even a fragile glass ball that has a whole level devoted to it's use and is really a pain in the ass to use.

The one thing about this game is for most of the it the game is just really mellow and it's a very relaxing experience until you get close to the end. As you get to the end the game get's crazy hard and I mean CRAZY hard. I played the game on hard which changes the ball handling somewhat and adds some new hazards such as fireballs and various things like that.

This is just a short few words on Within a Deep Forrest, it's a game I slept on big time as I'm fairly new to the whole "indie" scene so I hadn't heard about it until recently. If you're doing the same you should play it, it's fantastic. Right now I'm getting ready to play Knytt which is the game Nifflas put out after Within a Deep Forrest and you should play that too.

Links to Nifflas info and games!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicklas_Nygren

This is Nifflas' site. You can download his games here.

http://nifflas.ni2.se/

Bastion

Another game shown at PAX was Bastion. It's an isometric hack and slash action RPG. The game has a very interesting mechanic, as you play the game the game is narrated. Yeah at first I thought it sounded annoying but after watching the videos of it in action I must admit it looks or should I say it sounds really cool.

I think the voice is Ron Pearlman actor and the voice of Fallout but I'm not sure. It is NOT Ron Pearlman. It is a friend of one of the sound guys working on the game. His name is Logan.

The game is scheduled to come out next year for the 360 and PS3 and maybe PC but I don't know 100 percent on that one.

Here's a video! Enjoy!

Duke Nukem Forever

So after weeks of rumors and whispering about Gearbox finishing Duke Nukem Forever we have the truth! Duke Nukem Forever is coming in 2011 from Gearbox. They had a playable game demo at PAX last weekend.

I watched some of the streams of the gameplay out there and it looks really really nice. The overall opinion from what I've read is that the game plays well and it's a lot of fun while keeping the overall feel of what we know about the Duke Nukem character.

The demo opened up with the last level from Duke Nukem 3D with Duke killing the final boss of that level as a tutorial of sorts. Then it pans out to Duke playing the game and getting oral pleasure from twins. Way to go Duke! That may be crass for some but it's classic Duke and I'm glad to see the game will have that kind of humor in it because it fits with the character we know.

The one thing I didn't really read and I'm extremely interested in knowing is how much of the game is what 3D Realms had done and what tweaks and fixes Gearbox have added. I can't imaging that Gearbox has made any super major changes because I don't think they've had the game for more than a year. It's probably better for them to keep it unknown which studios did exactly what just for the sake of getting this game out so we can finally play it.

Will it be good, who knows? Some people are going to be disappointed no matter what because this game is infamous for the development cycle and it's just a thing some people will hate no matter what. I still have high hopes for Duke and I don't think Gearbox is going to put out a bad game so I'm extremely hopeful the game will be good. What Gearbox needs to make sure is that they get the game done next year, we can't have another 12 years of waiting.

Either way Duke's back! Hail to the King Baby!

9-9-95

Fifteen years ago today the first Playstation was unleashed on the world. Sony releasing a console was considered a big risk at the time because in the past new upstart game consoles usually failed in a few months to a year never to be heard of again. After being unable to work with Nintendo to make a CD add on for the Super Nintendo Sony decided to blaze a trail on their own to make what would become one of the biggest console and video game brand name in history.

There isn't a whole lot more that can be said about the Playstation that hasn't been said in the past. It was responsible for many people who had never touched a game console in the past to pick up a PS1 and get into it, not unlike what the Wii has been doing in the last few years but the PS1 had a positive influence on gaming in general. Not to rag on the Wii but the whole release of the PS1 was similar to the release of the Wii.

I remember when I got my PS1 with a copy of Tekken and I was blown away. I couldn't believe how close to the arcade version of Tekken the PS1 version was and I was air juggling fools in no time. I use to be a huge fighting game player and suddenly having access to the more advances 3D fighters at home was freaking crazy. Eventually I picked up the first Toshiden which was interesting but in the end it wasn't that great of a fighter but it did look nice.

With tons of titles coming out at a very fast pace I've sure there were a bunch of games I never played but I tried my best to play as many as I could. I'm not sure if many people remember a game called Loaded. It was a top down two player Gauntlet clone. It was over the top violent with very dark and gritty levels and you and a second player smoking dudes and splattering their guts all over the floors as you run to the exit. It was a lot of fun to play and totally reminded me of Gauntlet which was what drew me to it in the first place.

The Playstation also saw the start of two of gamings biggest franchises, Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid. I was completely blown away the first time I played Resident Evil. I had never played the original Alone in the Dark so the whole survival horror genre was new to me. Playing the game at 2 in the morning walking through the hallways and having that dog jumping through the window scared the living hell out of me. Fantastic game and an amazing experience.

Metal Gear Solid was a landmark in story telling in games. Some people complain about the cut scenes in the MGS series but to me it was a fantastic way to get the story out there. The presentation was very well done especially the voice acting, it was top notch.

I should mention Kings Field, made by From Software who also made Demon's Souls. This was a first person RPG that came out close to the release of the PS1. I was mesmerized by the world and the overall feel of the game it was so cool to play a RPG where you actually went into building and houses. The people look at you as they talk to you and the immersion is there and for the time is was great.

Jumping Flash! First person shooter where you're a giant robot Rabbit shooting at bad guys it was crazy and a lot of fun.

I'm sure I've skipped some games and I know I skipped one big PS1 release but I don't want to mention that one just because I don't have anything to say about it.