Old Computer Games Rock!

Hello fellow people! Sorta kinda continuing with the theme of gaming memories from last week, I have some PC-centric ones that I'd thought I would share with you! I was reminded of a bunch of these games recently, courtesy of the totally awesome YouTube channel Lazy Game Reviews, so go check him out!
My earliest memories of console gaming were absolutely similar to the ones I mentioned last week, but my earliest memories of gaming in general were actually found on the computer! I remember seeing the most basic of nonsensical bits as early as I can remember, and I definitely have a few memories of some totally unique and awesome games that were found there. My history doesn't stretch as far back as say the Amiga or Commodore 64, but hey, DOS and Windows man!

When my Dad bought a family computer for the first time around when I was born, it came with a version of the then revolutionary Wolfenstein 3D. It's a first-person shooter, one of the granddad's of the genre, to be precise, and had you take the role of B.J. Blazkowicz (yeah...), as you infiltrate the many lairs and dungeons of the Nazi regime. Your goal is simple: Kill Hitler. End the Nazis. Okay! Sounds good to me! You move around simple enough, opening doors and finding various guards to shoot and relics to gather for points, which when a certain amount is acquired, you are given an extra life. You have a simple knife, a Luger pistol, an MP40, and a chain-gun to find and use against the Nazi soldiers. Different soldiers can take different amounts of hits before they're downed, and this is most realized in the area bosses, one of which is indeed Hitler, albeit in a huge Mech-suit, and featuring some strange sorcerer powers to boot. The game was incredible for it's time, and I think, still a blast to play! It's incredibly simple and almost rudimentary, but the secrets and progression found in the gameplay are still trying to be matched today.


According to my parents, when I was still crawling around on the floor, my Dad would actually hoist me up onto his lap and let me control around the game. I'm sure I had no idea what I was even doing, but I was still technically playing the game. And indeed, this makes Wolfenstein 3D the very first game I ever played. Pretty cool, huh?

So yes, as it happens, I was indeed killing Nazi's before I could walk.

Of course, it didn't stop there, oh no. id Software, the developer of Wolfenstein 3D, went on to create the ultimate successor to Wolfenstein; one to surpass it in nearly ever way. Oh yeah, you may have heard of it. Released just a year later, I am of course referring to the one and only...

DOOM.

Oh yeah. I have a little more of a memory playing this one, to be sure. Once again courtesy of my Father, I'd get the chance to participate in the slaughtering of demonic hordes every so often when I'd go to his office and watch him play. I can never really forget the sound of those hell-spawn as they prowl around looking for you, and I'll also never forget the audible grunts that occurred if you were hit, and the picture of your face on the HUD that would slowly deteriorate with each hit. Ah, good times.

Doom is definitely a big name in the first-person shooter genre, and even in gaming itself. While in no way the original FPS, it is undoubtedly the one with the most influence at the time, surpassing even it's predecessor Wolfenstein 3D. As an unnamed space marine, referred to in popular culture as  "Doom Guy," is tasked with eradicating the creatures that spawned from the pits of Hell on Mars, and putting a stop to their hellish invasion. You have a bunch of weapons at your disposal, with many memorable ones including the shotgun, chain-gun, chainsaw, and the BFG 9000 (Big Freaking Gun, if you were wondering). With these weapons you must maneuver the maze-like labyrinths and corridors, defeating enemies along the way, finding secrets, and making your way to the exit, sometimes collecting those naughty Key Cards while you're at it. It's no big secret: Doom freaking rocks! Even years after it's original release, the game is still just as awesome, with a passionate modding community, and it's own sequels and re-releases. Doom set the gold standard for FPS's at the time, and in my mind, is still at the top of the pedestal.

Now by this time I think my parents were starting to notice the fascination I had with annihilating the hordes of Evil, so my Dad probably had that in mind when he started showing me some of id Software's older games, and the most noteworthy of them all, Commander Keen. Released before both Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, Commander Keen was a series of platforming games divided into various "episodes," like "Aliens Ate My Babysitter" and "Goodbye Galaxy!" And holy crap. Talk about being drawn into a game. As Keen, you land on various worlds and progress through a 2D level, with plenty of bizarre creatures and environments to see, as well as some collectibles to find. You can jump, shoot, and hop on a pogo stick. I think the environments most of all are what got me. They were so unique and cool, and very "alien." It was the equivalent of reading a sci-fi novel and describing the colours and textures of the surroundings. I became fixated on Commander Keen after I was shown it, and I remember learning from my dad the use of cheat codes to mess around with. I got stuck a lot so, for me, using a pogo stick to out-jump the screen and practically fly around the screen and map was necessary, but also totally rad. So, yes, while I guess you could argue that I wasn't playing the game properly, I was playing it nonetheless. I don't know how much more I can about Keen, but the entire game with all the episodes is available on Steam, and for the price that it is, I DEFINITELY recommend a buy.

Along with Keen though, my Dad showed me what was kind of an oddity in retrospect: Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure. Now THIS game was weird! But just like Commander Keen, it's use of the environment and aliens to develop a sense of uniqueness and variety, not to mention being straight up cool, was something that definitely had a profound and positive impact on me. The game's story though was something I always had trouble wrapping my head around. Get this: you play as Cosmo, a little green alien boy, trying to find and rescue your parents after you find them missing while exploring a planet en route to, of all places, Disneyland. Yes, Disneyland. Anyways, like Keen, the story is split into several episodes, each with different locations and enemies. Cosmo himself can jump and use bombs on enemies, while also being able to climb and stick to walls via his suction-like hands. Once again, it is a 2D side-scroller platformer, with the objective of reaching the end, and, you know, not dying along the way. This game was loads of fun for me, but was also deceptively hard in certain parts. Of course, this could be both my nostalgia and childish mind at work here. I never actually remember beating this game, come to think of it, and that's probably because we were playing a shareware version, if I do recall. Shareware was a release method for older computer games that gave the consumer/player a morsel of the game, say, an episode or level, and leaving the rest up to purchase if you liked the game. For the time, I think that was a great model!

Which brings me a sad notion, however: I haven't beaten either Keen or Cosmo. The shareware model I mentioned above was likely the reason why I don't specifically remember completing either game, and that was mainly because I never got the chance to! Well, it is time to change that. My childhood demands it! I mentioned before how Keen is on Steam, which is a great way to pick it up, but Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure is a little more complex. It's practically abandonware at this point, meaning that if there's any download service that has it or the shareware version, a full version shouldn't (in theory) be hard to find. Granted, I actually am still searching, so if I find a way to obtain a copy, without having to locate a floppy disk, I will update this piece.

Now before I go, I have just one last game to mention... A few odd years after I played these games, my Dad (notice a pattern here? Thanks Dad, you're awesome!) found a particular FPS around the time of Quake. But I'm not talking about Quake, oh no, I'm talking about freaking Duke Nukem 3D.

Oh yeah. Balls of Steel. It's freaking DUKE NUKEM. A relic of the 90's if there ever was one. I'm probably not going to talk about this series any where else, at least not right away, so consider this your Duke Nukem fix. 3D is, shall we say, a crazy game. It is chalk-full of parodies, aliens, babes, weapons, and an ego the size of Uranus. The art alone should clue you in; notice the likeliness to Doom? Yeah, Duke Nukem man. He's got freeze guns, rocket launchers, a shrink-ray, and a jet-pack to boot. Much of what I said about Doom can actually be applied to 3D, so I won't repeat myself, but suffice to say that when I watched and played Duke Nukem 3D, and witnessed an alien soldier using a toilet, first-person shooters haven't really been the same. Mostly good level design, a kick'n soundtrack, and fast paced action make Duke Nukem 3D fantastic! So yeah, even though some of the pop-culture references are outdated, and the whole premise is just really weird and kind of misogynistic, it's a product of it's time, and I still think it can be appreciated as such.

Okay. That's it for now! Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed another trip down memory lane with me, and I wonder if you remember any of these old games? What old PC games do you remember as a kid?

See y'all Monday!

Donlevy Remembers Super Mario RPG!

It's the mid 90's. The Super Nintendo Entertainment System has begun to settle after years of quality content, and recent years of quality RPG's like, among others, Final Fantasy III and Chrono Trigger from Square. But lo, a game was soon to be released that would be unlike anything else at the time. It would be an RPG designed around mechanics usually found in a Final Fantasy game, with some new twists. And rather than a medieval land of magic and fantasy, the game would feature the story and style of...Super Mario? That's right, I am of course talking about the one and only Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars! Who would have guessed that a Mario-style RPG that many wrote off as a gimmick would be one of the coolest games on the console! Released late in the SNES's lifecycle on May 13, 1996 in North America, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars was a major hit, and a stellar RPG that lead to some notable spiritual successors, as well as having a profound impact on myself as well as many others.

When I was a wee lad, I went with my folks to a family friend's place, where they had a Super Nintendo with a bunch of games I had neither heard of nor seen before. Many I didn't get to experience at the time, but the two that they did play were...instrumental in my love for the Super Nintendo, and by extension and by no exaggeration, my love of gaming. The first one I'll talk about another time...but the other one was Super Mario RPG. I sat back in awe as they turned on the console and began a new game, and I witnessed the opening cinematic with our lovable plumber in pursuit of Bowser after he kidnaps the Princess. Mario enters the Castle and proceeds to immediately fight Bowser on the tops of two massive chandeliers.

The way the game played was entirely new and unusual to me, as I had never seen nor played an RPG before this. The methodological approach was different and intimidating, where it looked like a thinking-game of sorts. You could take time to think about what to do, and every decision seemed crucial to your survival. Planning out strategies to outbid and outlast your opponent in a chess-like match. You were like a director to a play, ordering "attacks" or "magic" or "items" to different members of a small troupe. It was so cool. I loved it at first sight. That was what an RPG was to me, and what it always has been since I saw Super Mario RPG. That is the impression that game left on me. It was strange...yet engrossing. But it didn't stop there, oh no.

Fighting Bowser was one thing...but then defeating him and then having a GIANT FREAKING SWORD crash into the castle with the title screen appearing, implying that the true game had only just begun, was enough to have my proverbial pants effectively shat. Mario goes flying out of the castle, only to land in his conveniently-placed house with a green pipe as a roof, and then...that was it. They turned off the game...but not before quickly showing me a later part in which, get this, BOWSER JOINS YOU. Yes, as a kid, the knowledge that you could pseudo-play as FREAKING BOWSER was the final touch. It was a tease, to be sure, but somewhere, somehow, I had to play this game again. However, it would be a long wait. For one reason or another, it would be years before I had the chance to play Mario RPG again. The times I tried to rent it from Blockbuster it was already out, and purchasing it wasn't exactly in the cards. These were the Dark Times.

Enter Microplay.

Do you remember this store? If you lived in St. Albert, this place once resided where the bike shop now is Downtown. A place I miss dearly, in retrospect. It was a favourite of mine to visit as a kid, as it specialized in video games new and old. A ton of games I remember seeing, but never playing, were here in some capacity, and I remember a few conversations I had with other kids who frequented it. Anyways, a feature of the store was the sale of used games, and you could put your name on a waiting list for games that were not in stock at the moment. Naturally, when I learned about this, the first game I brought up was Super Mario RPG. I was #5 on the list. And so I waited! But the months wore on...and eventually, all I had on my mind was this game. So I took to alternative means. On the rise was this unusual internet service called...eBay. A quick and easy search lead to what I was seeking! A fascinating service, indeed. Which, sadly, does not have the appeal it once did when concerning retro games. Nowadays, those prices are a bit much, to say the least. In any case, I managed, after years of searching, to finally get a copy of Super Mario RPG! The hunt was absolutely worth it.

So Mario RPG is pretty great. And when I say great I mean awesome. Like really awesome. It's graphics and music are fantastic, with a decidedly more elaborate and colourful Mario-style setting and tone. The character models, and especially the environments, have a hint of this clay-like look, and it translates surprisingly well on the SNES. The music was composed by Yoko Shimomura, who also composed the music for Street Fighter and Kingdom Hearts! The tunes she is responsible for will be stuck in your head for ages, as they still are for me (*cough* Forest Maze Theme *cough*). You'll come across Goombas, Koopas, and plenty of Toads in your quest for the Seven Stars, and you'll meet plenty of new faces and enemies as well. Smithy, Exor, Booster, Mallow, and of course the most beloved of them all, Geno.

Geno is in reality an ethereal God-like entity who is tasked with descending to the world below to help fix the Star Road, from which the Seven Stars have been taken from. Geno inhabits a young Toad's doll, and breathes life into it, becoming a key party member. Geno's nature is not unlike that of Gandalf's from The Lord of the Rings, with both being higher entities inhabiting mortal bodies to aide others. And something else: they're both BADASS. Geno has an attack he learns later on that, when triggered, effectively deals 9999 points of damage to an enemy. Geno Whirl, baby.

When I say "triggered," I mean in how user-input interacts with combat outside of menu decisions. Mario RPG puts a spin on the typical RPG gameplay elements that it incorporates, with chief among these being button presses that add to either a characters attack on an enemy, or defence from an upcoming blow. When timed right, these button presses can greatly effect a battle, adding that little extra oomph to finish off an enemy, or even when timed right, saving a party member. Character's magic also utilizes this timing mechanic in different ways for each attack, like in the aforementioned "Geno Whirl," pressing the attack button at the precise moment is only when it will deal the 9999 damage, otherwise, it's weak as fire balls. It's a minor system, but it offers a far greater amount of player engagement in what would otherwise be pretty systematic battles. Because of this, combat is fun, yet tactical. It's an innovation that has been carried over, and improved upon, by the other Mario role-playing series: the Paper Mario games, and the Mario & Luigi games. Oh, and I'm using this moment to shout-out those games as well, since their freaking amazing. I'll get to those another time. Mario RPG is also unique in that it never received a direct sequel after all these years. Fan petitions have tried for even a remake, but sadly, the ship seems to have sailed. Still, the fans continue, and many including myself wish for Geno or Mallow to appear in the Smash Bros. series at some point. It would be a perfect opportunity! Hear that Square Enix? Don't be a dick about your properties! Ahem.

But in the meantime, that's Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. It's a game that, too me, never really gets old, and I find myself constantly nostalgic for it whenever it's brought up. It is, if I think about it, probably my favourite game on the Super Nintendo. Fantastic. Just simply fantastic. The memory of the hunt in particular is one that will never leave me. This is a game that defined my love of RPG's, and my love for the pursuit and hunt for the games that have captivated and intrigued me. This is, in my mind, where it all began. Where the nostalgia became apparent. And ha, I wasn't even a teenager yet! I suppose THAT'S the power of this game! But hey in any case, thanks for reading! I appreciate it if you were able to sit through my rambling, and I hope my story had some positive impact!