PC Games

Manhunter 2: San Francisco

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Publisher: Sierra
Developer: Evryware
Year: 1989
Platform: DOS, Amiga, Atari ST, Macintosh

Review: The Manhunter series is easily the most original idea that Sierra published.  The first game, Manhunter: New York, is not nearly as good as the sequel.  Unfortunately, you pretty much have to play it to understand anything that is going on in this game.

Aliens landed in 2002, setting up shop in New York (and then later, San Francisco). It took them less than three days to destroy the city, and less than a year to end the human resistance. Or so they thought. You have been assigned by the alien “orbs” to be a man hunter. Since some of the aliens’ technology is not as compatible with human beings as they thought it would be, you (along with many others) need to help them. You have no choice. You must investigate humans who are not obedient and report them to the aliens.

You are given a tracking device in which you can watch the perpetrator commit the crime. They are then tagged, and you can continue to watch where they go until the signal is lost (usually when they go under ground or die). You can also manually tag other humans near the perpetrator, and watch where they go, as they may be linked with the crime. You can then travel wherever they did and do some research.

Of course, you must help the resistance while you are supposed to be helping the aliens. Since the resistance cannot be overt, you must pick up clues and look for symbolism which will give you tips on what you need to do. Other man hunters will help, if they trust you. But gaining their trust takes effort.

Most of the game is merely going to places, picking up items, and manipulating them (which is fairly easy). There are also several arcade sequences. Some are easy, some are ridiculous, but only a couple add excitement to the game.  There is almost no typing needed and no mouse support.  You more or less move the cursor with the arrow keys until you land on something important. What makes this game challenging is the keen eye one must have to catch all of the symbolism and apply it to the situation at hand, or one further down the road. Definitely not a game for those who like to rush. The puzzles are long, difficult, and extremely satisfying to complete.

For the time, the music is scary enough and the graphics are well done, occasionally ribald and quite gory. Creepy for sure! Definitely not for the faint of heart. The atmosphere doesn’t quite approach scary, but there are definitely some tense moments.  One of the game’s charms is that real locations in San Francisco are used, such as Alcatraz, the Transamerica Building, Coit Tower, and the Bank of Canton.

While I can’t really recommend this game today to anyone but the hardcore adventure gamer (or those who love gory games), it holds a special place in my memory. And frankly, so does this guy.

Contemporary Rating: Low.  Controls were confusing, even in 1989, and requires playing the original (which I don’t recommend!).

Cruelty Rating:  Polite.  You can die and lose your progress, but dangerous situations are apparent. Saving your game at regular intervals prevents frustration.

PC Games

Top 50 PC Adventure Games: Scales

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To help you determine if the game might be worth playing, each game on the countdown will have both of these scales at the end of each review.

Contemporary Scale

High: Easy to pick up and play, even if you’ve never played an adventure game.  Highly intuitive.

Medium: Some frustrations that gamers today shouldn’t put up with, but is intuitive enough that if you like the story, you’d probably forgive them.

Low: Does not translate well today.  Unless you’re a completionist or the premise really strikes a chord with you, it’s best to avoid it.

Cruelty Scale

Merciful: Impossible to get stuck, and if you die you’ll regenerate right before your mistake.  Saving the game is only necessary if you decide to turn it off.

Polite: You can die, and you should save on a regular basis just in case.  However, you can never make the game unwinnable.

Tough: You can make the game unwinnable, but only if you’re being careless.  Your instinct will be to save before experimenting.

Nasty: You can make the game unwinnable by accident.  You’ll know you’ve done so, but it wasn’t obvious beforehand.  Save often!

Cruel: You have to worry about walking dead without any clue that you’re doing so.  Saving the game doesn’t prevent catastrophe, and it’s likely at some point you’ll have to restore back to a much earlier point in the game and replay entire sections.

PC Games

Top 50 PC Adventure Games

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As a kid growing up with an IBM in the 80’s, our choice of games were mostly limited to awful strategy games programmed in BASIC or adventure games.  Our family consumed a lot of these and we often played them together.  I fell in love with being in an adventure where I had choices to make.  I loved Choose Your Own Adventure books, but adventure games allowed for critical thinking.

Most adventure games have required hammering your way through a story while trying to determine what random inventory objects you’ve collected will help you advance the plot.  It was a limitation of the beast, though some games were able to take this idea and still create captivating stories.  The best games were so immersive that the puzzles were seamless rather than obtrusive.

I’m talking a lot in the past tense.  Not every game on this list is from the 80’s, or even the 90’s. Some quality adventures are still made, but they’re fewer and far between, and I’ve had less time to play what’s out there.  I have no doubt there are brilliant games I haven’t played.

Considering all the hybrids out there, what qualifies a game as an adventure?  For me, it’s when the predominant feature of the game that shines through is the story.  The Professor Layton games have stories, but they’re essentially pure puzzle games with threadbare plots thrown around them.  Half-Life has a good story, but the predominant feature of the game is in the action.  At times the distinction feels arbitrary, but I sense there won’t be any obvious games passed over.

I realize some of you have never really played adventure games; to be honest, many of the old games do not hold up all that well, and even the old ones I love often could not find an audience.  To help you decide if a particular game might be appealing for you today, each game will have two scales.

The first scale is how well a game translates today.  If the story is awesome, but the controls are so clunky or the parser so unforgiving that it would turn off modern gamers, then the rating will be low.  If it’s still easy to pick up and play today, the score will be higher.

The second scale will show you how cruel or fair the game is.  Can you put the game in an unwinnable situation because you forgot to pick up that knife on the beach fourteen hours ago?  That’s the kind of cruelty gamers just don’t put up with today.  I wouldn’t either, but I did when I was younger, and I still fondly remember some of those games.  On the other hand, there are plenty of games on the list that never feel unfair.  Hopefully, you’ll find these rankings useful in addition to my reviews.

I have played to completion around 120 bona-fide adventure games.  While to some extent I like over half of them, there are about fifty that I find to be pretty solid and ones I would gladly play more than once, and in many cases, have done so.  See you on Monday for DbT’s third countdown!

Video Games

Top 100 NES Countdown: Final Thoughts

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Wanted to thank everyone who followed this countdown.  It was a blast to do and I think I feel satisfied now that I’ve given the NES the due I hoped to give it when I dreamed of playing of every game.  I didn’t play every game, but enough.  My blog is just over a year old now and I’ve gained some followers who don’t know me personally.  My site is mostly about me, and I’m glad some of you have found it entertaining and contributed.

Tomorrow I will introduce the next phase of Death By Troggles.  Today, I’d like to hear some of your stories.  I know some of you have shared stories in the comments, but I’m guessing there are some that haven’t been mentioned yet.  So, are there any epic moments you’d like to share?  Did you throw a controller through the window?  Did you form any new friendships because of the system?  Propose to your wife during a game of Anticipation?  Heck, just say something.

Video Games

Top 100 NES Games: Statistics

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So who were the best developers for the NES?

Appearances in the Top 100 (more than one game)

Nintendo: 13
Konami: 12
Tecmo: 9
Capcom: 7
Rare: 6
Chunsoft: 4
HAL: 4
Technos: 4
Tose: 4
Atari: 3
Taito: 3
Data East: 2
ICOM: 2
Natsume: 2
SNK: 2
Square: 2
Sunsoft: 2
Tokai: 2

Nintendo is first, but they also created more games than any other company.  How about we take a look at their cumulative rankings?  Points are awarded on a reverse order basis.  For example, Bubble Bobble was #100, so Taito will receive one point for that game.

Total Points (top 10)

Nintendo: 871
Tecmo: 527
Konami: 523
Capcom: 436
Chunsoft: 306
Rare: 272
HAL: 254
Technos: 233
Tose: 194
Square: 159

Nintendo still reigns supreme, thanks to having four games in the top 10.  Tecmo, despite three fewer appearances on the list, jumps ahead of Konami thanks to three appearances in the top 10.  Chunsoft jumps ahead of Rare despite two fewer games thanks to my love for the Dragon Warrior series. Square also jumps to the top 10 thanks to its only two games being in the top 30.

Video Games

NES Games That Didn’t Make the Cut

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It doesn’t sound like anyone was particularly agonizing over any games in particular not making the cut.  Or if they did, they didn’t say anything.  That said, some visitors may be wondering why the games below didn’t make it on the list.  Take a gander and if you have a favorite never mentioned in the countdown, go ahead and mention it in the comments.

Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest:  Great idea, poor execution.  Incredibly slow game, with annoying pop-ups and not-clued-at-all puzzles.  Terrible translation really did this game in.  Game play itself is pretty good, and graphics and sound were great as usual, but the game is impossible without outside hints.

Ghosts ‘N Goblins: This game isn’t quite as hard as I remember as a child.  I just remember being insanely frustrated that you get hit twice and you die, especially with enemies that just appear on the screen with no way to dodge them.  I didn’t even realize you had to go through the game twice to reach the real final boss.  If it weren’t for the awful sound and repetitive graphics, I may have enjoyed it more.

Maniac Mansion: Funny adventure, but agonizingly slow with too many ways to put yourself in an unwinnable situation.  Besides, if you’re going to play this, the NES is probably the slowest platform to play it on.

Metal Gear: Fantastic idea.  Few games on the NES rewarded stealth over blitzkrieg.  But Metal Gear struggled mightily with awful hit detection, confusing directions, and terrible translation.  I’ve tried playing this several times and wonder why it was consistently a favorite of Nintendo Power.

Rush’N’Attack:  Just missed the top 100.  Kind of a poor man’s Contra.

TMNT 2: The Arcade Game:  I love this in the arcade.  I don’t care for this port.  There’s just something about playing this four-player with strangers that gives it an extra thrill.  Plus, the arcade version had better music and graphics.  On its own, this is just a medicore beat ’em up.

TMNT 3: Turtles Take Manhattan: This is a much better beat ’em up, and on a different day, this may have squeezed into my top 100.  But I just don’t think beat ’em ups got that good until the 16 bit era so few made my list.

Writing

Play With The Prose II, Semifinals: Road Trip

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With one week to go, we had to write a 59-word story about a road trip.  I was story #1.

The sun fell over Puget Sound as the crisp autumn wind rolled through Nelson’s yellow Mustang.  Thirty-seven years they had made this trip to the Northwest.  As tradition, they’d be staying somewhere new.  This year, Robinswood House. In two days, they’d be married.

Turning east on Interstate 405, Nelson shifted gears. Ethan’s hand met his. The sky turned red.

Matthew: Well, Ethan’s a funny name for a girl! Okay, just kidding, story 1, but I dig what you were trying to do here. I think you were a bit too reliant on the twist delivering some potency, however, that you didn’t really give much meat in the story. Maybe the twist was given up a bit early. WINNER: Story 2

Novak – These stories both really bring it.  They both manage to imply so much, without going too far.  #1 is definitely clearer in its meaning.  It capitalizes on recent political developments without being political itself.  I’m ok with political commentary, so I wouldn’t have held that against the story, but not everyone feels that way.  It isn’t the biggest reveal in the world, but the personal character history contained in the story is amazingly profound, and is deepened with the revelation. In the Close Call, #1 wins.

ANDY: I see you guys rolled your way into the semis. These entries are certainly worthy of a top four. #1 is a sweet little tableau. I enjoyed it, and the emotion comes across as sincere. In most circumstances, I wouldn’t have any gripes. Unfortunately, I have to be a little more critical as we approach the end, and my nitpick is that it feels like it’s just barely crossing the line into sappy territory. Well done to both, but my winner is #2.

Result vs. Sarah Johnson: LOSS (1-2)

And so my season ends.  It wasn’t my favorite story of the season, but I did put quite a bit of work into it.  I hoped to gain some poignancy without being corny, and I’m not sure I completely achieved that.

So far I’ve played three writing competitions at Casa de Leche.  I’ve finished 4th, 2nd, and now 4th again.  One of these days, Alice…

Video Games

1: Tecmo Super Bowl

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Genre: Football

Developer: Tecmo
Publisher: Tecmo
Year: 1991

Basic Idea: Ready! Down!  Hut! Hut! Hut! Hut!

Review: It feels kind of weird putting a sports game at the top of the countdown, but Tecmo Super Bowl is more than a sports game.  It’s also an arcade game that at times feels like an action game. And it’s so incredibly addicting.  I am not exaggerating when I say I have spent at least 2,000 hours playing this game. It’s tapered a bit over the years, but not completely.

I remember the first game I played.  My brother and I faced off, Chicago vs. Minnesota.  I was down by four points with only a few seconds left.  Using the reverse/flea-flicker, I launched a 50 yard bomb to Anthony Carter, who leapt over two defenders in a brilliant cinematic display, caught the ball, and gave me my victory.  I was hooked.

Every thing about this game was programmed with the idea of making every moment fun for the player. The extensive, detailed, thrill-inducing cinema shots enhance nearly every play.  The sound effects, from blocking to kicking, to the ball whistling through the air all make the game pop.  And, of course, being rewarded with a “Touchdown!” call is the icing on the cake.

But the game is more than all the arcade effects.  The play control is impressive, with the ability to dodge and cut with ease depending on the skills of each player.  My only critique of the control is that fighting off tackles has more to do with your ability to rapidly press the buttons than the strength of your player.  This put me at a disadvantage against most everyone I played with, as I just don’t have a fast finger.

The computer A.I. is pretty easy to figure out, so there’s little challenge there.  But there’s endless possibilities for friends to play against each other.  And we did.  Not only did we go through the entire 1990 NFL season multiple times with different teams, we also would use a second cartridge to play fantasy football on.  We’d draft teams, skip the games, count our points, and down lots of Mountain Dew.  This is the game I’ve played at 3 a.m. more than any other.  I also admit to playing many season using the coach function, just to give myself a challenge.

I am still crazy in love with the rosters. Randall Cunningham. Barry Sanders. Christian Okoye. David Fulcher. Wayne Haddix. Lawrence Taylor. Derrick Thomas. Ronnie Lott. Bob Nelson.  And, of course, Bo Jackson. I’ve changed my mind: Bo Jackson is my favorite boss on the NES. Finding ways to stop him, Cunningham, or Lott were the cause of friction. We would handicap each other. You can only run for a first down with Cunningham on 3rd down.  You could only use Lott once per four downs. Of course, if it weren’t for tackling being often dependent on button mashing, things may have been different.

This was also the first game to keep extensive statistics.  For a guy who loves numbers and records, this was a dream come true.

Add in awesome, awesome music, crushing injuries, a great halftime show, and a solid ending, there’s no other game I’d rather play.  The sequel on the SNES fixes a lot of minor issues with the game (e.g. no touchbacks, no blocked punts, clock issues) and adds some features (e.g. weather), but when push comes to shove I usually pick the original.  Tecmo Super Bowl, even today, remains a beast and as far as sports/arcade games go, has yet to be equaled.