#48: Super Probotector: Alien Rebels

Format: Super NES Genre: Shoot ‘Em Up Released: 1992 Developer: Konami

Curiously, this game was released as Contra III in the US and Contra Spirits in Japan but was renamed Super Probotector for the European market, and the main characters – two Rambo-esque commandos – were replaced with robots. I have absolutely no idea why the change was made – did Konami think robots would have a stronger appeal for the European market? Or would we be averse to the charms of two All-American heroes?

STOP PRESS: I’ve just done a bit of research about the change to robot characters, and it seems it was done because of a German law that forbade the portrayal of humans killing other humans drafted by the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons. (Sounds like something out of Big Brother doesn’t it? The book that is, not the TV show.) I presume the law no longer stands, as since Contra: Legacy of War on the Playstation the PAL versions have remained unchanged from the US versions. And come to think of it, if the law was still in place, Germans would face a serious games shortage – no Modern Warfare, no Tomb Raider, no Far Cry, no pretty much anything except Little Big Planet and Mario. But then again, perhaps there’s something to be said for not shooting your fellow human beings in the face… I mean, why can’t we all just get along?

This screenshot is from Super Probotector, but the others are from Contra III (the US version). Note the commando has been replaced with a robot.

Anyway, I digress. Super Probotector was one of my all time favourite games for the SNES. It was rock hard, but the frenetic gameplay and fantastic graphics were more than enough reason to persevere through the endless stream of imaginatively designed enemies. The bosses deserve a special mention – the giant, fire-spewing tortoise at the end of level 1 was a particular delight, and one of the game’s stand-out moments was the reveal of a giant metal skeleton boss (see image further down the page). After seeing off two annoyingly persistent little jumping metal skeleton dudes, their big brother forces his way through the giant metal doors behind you and tries to light you up with his flame breath. Surely a potent warning against picking on the little guys.

Gasp in wonder as the plane swoops towards the screen - all hail Mode 7.

Another stand-out moment was the Mode 7 plane on level 1 (see above), which swooped in and napalmed the ground beneath you. There was a time when all anyone who owned a SNES could talk about was Mode 7 (which was some clever graphical trickery that allowed 2D objects to be stretched and pulled to make them look (sort of) 3D). It was the classic trump card whenever the whole Megadrive v SNES debate reared its ugly head in the playground – the MD owner would sneak in an early attack by mentioning the Sega console’s higher clock speed, which the SNES owner would parry by pointing to the visual wizardry of the Super NES’s Mode 7 genie. The MD owner would then throw down the tried and tested “but the Megadrive has more games”, to which the Nintendo-phile would retort “but the SNES has got Mario”, and so on, and so on, until fisticuffs ensued or a teacher intervened.

One of the occasional top-down sections.

I recently downloaded an XBLA trial game of an early version of Contra (not Contra III – I think it was Contra II, which originally came out on the NES). I’d forgotten just how difficult and unforgiving the Contra games are – being hit by even one bullet means instant death, and some absolutely pixel-perfect jumping is required to avoid the various hazards thrown at you. Back in ‘92 I would happily keep retrying again and again to get through Super Probotector, but now the prospect of instant deaths, limited lives and no save game fills me with dread. After less than half an hour I gave up playing the demo, and couldn’t bring myself to purchase the full game.

All of the game's bosses were kind enough to reveal their weak spot with a great big red dot. Aim for the mouth my friend, aim for the mouth...

I guess it goes to show that the way I play games has changed – for me it’s not so much about the challenge nowadays as just wanting to see what comes next. I think games designers have realised this too – at some point they cottoned onto the fact that a lot of gamers just gave up if a game was too hard, which meant that most people would never get to see all of the lovingly created levels that the designers came up with. It’s safe to say that modern games are easier as a result – but there’s always the option to play on hard for the real masochists out there.

But all of this thoughtful chin-stroking still doesn’t change the fact that Super Probotector is one of my all time favourite games – I might have moved away from playing unforgiving hardcore shoot ‘em ups, but this game is a shining example of the genre. Any game that features a level in which you hang from the underside of a missile while shooting down an enormous alien spaceship must be doing something right.

Lewis

Screenshots from www.vgmuseum.com.

#47: Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2

Format: PC Genre: RTS Released: 2000 Developer: Westwood Pacific

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 is not only the greatest C&C game but one of the finest RTS games ever made. Yes, you read that correctly. Stick that in your non-Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 RTS pipe and smoke it!

Box Art for PC version

Ok, before I justify such a bold statement (I’m sure there are literally… 6 furious people right now) a bit of background. C&C: Red Alert 2 is a sequel to, unsurprisingly, C&C: Red Alert, itself a spinoff to the original Command & Conquer games. The C&C series are real time strategy (RTS) games. Essentially you build a base, collect resources, build an army then attack. A simple idea but when done well RTS games are as fiendish and tactically minded as a game of chess (note – I don’t play chess).

Set in a more or less separate universe to the first Command & Conquer, Red Alert depicts a world where Hitler never rises to power (somehow he’s stopped by a time travelling Albert Einstein – no, really). Instead of WWII we get a war with Stalin’s USSR. The suggestion is the people of the world just really wanted a war in the 1940s. Good thing there was another totalitarian one party state led by a psycho with a moustache. Otherwise we’d have just got bored. You play as either the Allies, pushing back the massive Red Army and defending freedom, or as the Soviets, bringing the revolution to the capitalist pigs of Western Europe.

Red Alert 2 is set a few years after the first game (in a world where the Allies won) where the Soviet Union still exists under the rule of Allied puppet leader friendly to the West. Except he’s not! He’s just pretending you imperialist idiots, and before you can say Fyodor Dostoyevsky there are Zeppelins in the skies above New York and Soviet tanks rampaging through Texas. The Cold War just got Hot.

I’ve always loved the C&C games. I was there at beginning, getting the very first C&C game on, slightly bizarrely, the Playstation (alright, I know technically Dune 2 was first but I never played it so it doesn’t count). One of my all time top gaming moments is the end of the NOD campaign where you get to decide which famous monument to destroy (for patriotic reasons I always went for the Palace of Westminster). Of course the gameplay is great, yadda yadda yadda but C&C games are known for their full-motion video (FMV) cut scenes.

FMV was already a bit of an oddity by the time of Red Alert, with most games preferring to use CGI intros and cut scenes. It was cheaper and I’m sure many designers probably felt they were less jarring than video scenes. But the FMV makes those games. In Red Alert 2 they are over the top, bombastic, ludicrous and hilarious they totally bring you into the games. Just watch the intro above. How can you not love a game which opens with an American President talking to an intern who looks suspiciously like Monica Lewinsky?

The C&C games which, to me, have been the weaker entries to the series are C&C: Tiberium Sun and C&C: Generals, and I put this down to the lack of/poor FMV. Generals dispensed with FMV cut scenes entirely and while Tiberium Sun still had them, the characters in them did not talk directly to ‘you’. For me at least it really made a difference. It made  playing the game a strangely detached experience.

Red Alert 2 also has the most finely balanced sides in the game, each with corresponding strengths and weaknesses. Being the Allies or the Soviets isn’t just window dressing, you really do play the game in a different way depending on which side you’re playing as.

An Allied Base. Quiet. Maybe too quiet...

There are just enough units to make the gameplay varied and interesting, but not too many to become overwhelming. I’m working my way through Red Alert 3 at the moment and while it’s fun they seem to have dispensed depth for variety. Though Red Alert 3 does have a lot more women with big boobs in it than the last ones. Swings and roundabouts.

The Soviets Invade! Bye, bye Pentagon

There is a sense of joie de vivre which can be seen and felt throughout Red Alert 2. Considering it’s a war game it doesn’t take itself to seriously, in fact in so many ways it’s stupid. You’re talking about a game where one of the military units at your disposal is a giant squid. Yet Red Alert 2 is a properly satisfying gaming experience.

Now, if you forgive me, I need to dig out my Russian hat and turn the Eiffel Tower into a giant electric weapon again. Or maybe fight for freedom and try to stop the Commies from blowing up the Statue of Liberty. ‘Incoming Transmisson’…

Ian

#46: The Settlers

Format: Amiga Genre: RTS Released: 1993 Developer: Blue Byte

The Settlers has to be one of my favourite games of all time. If you’ve never heard of it, think Age of Empires but with more personality and a lot less fighting – unlike most RTS games, in The Settlers waging war generally takes a back seat to gathering corn and chopping wood  (it’s called ‘The Settlers’ after all, not ‘The Warmongers’).

Perhaps the key to this game’s appeal is the graphics. It looked astonishingly beautiful at the time, and even today the game’s looks stand up well under scrutiny, exuding a sort of timeless charm. The tiny people who made up your kingdom were wonderfully animated – as they baked bread, harvested corn, went to work in the mines or even just sauntered along the roads you developed a real affection for them, and this made you all the more determined to protect them from the enemies massing at your country’s borders.

Losing land in The Settlers was heartbreaking. If enemy soldiers captured one of your guard huts, the front line would change, and any of your buildings immediately around the hut would burst into flames, leaving the occupants to hotfoot it back across the newly realigned border. The sight of homeless woodcutters, bakers and sawmill workers flooding over your border from their freshly razed places of work was enough to bring a tear to the eye. Watching the tiny refugees make their way back to the home castle would make me thirst for revenge, stirring me to gather a mighty army and cast down doom upon those cowardly enemies who would commit such a treacherous act, never resting until I had slaked my thirst with the taste of my enemies’ blood. Or something like that anyway. Without the slaking.

However, the best bit about The Settlers was the two-player mode. Perhaps uniquely for an RTS game, you could play split-screen head-to-head, although of course this carries the obvious disadvantage that your opponent can see exactly what you’re up to. Still, having the option to play on one computer was a nice touch, although it was definitely worth the extra effort to link two Amigas together for full-screen play.

Ah, those were the days! Alex from round the corner would lug his Amiga over to mine and I’d struggle downstairs with the spare bedroom telly so we could play Settlers head to head. We’d sit there in a state of rapt concentration, the only sound the frantic clicking of mouse buttons as we sought to strengthen and expand our settlers’ empires. Mum would occasionally pop her head round the door to check we hadn’t died of an embolism, usually bringing with her a plate of Penguins, Viscounts or, if we were particularly lucky, raisin Clubs. Ah, Club bars! Whatever happened to them? “If you like a lotta chocolate on your biscuit…” [Coughs] Hold on, I’ve come over all nostalgia TV clip show…  just give me a second here.

Right, I’m back. OK, so the thing about playing against Alex was that after a while the heartbreaking intensity of burning down each others’ buildings just got too much. I don’t know, perhaps we were both too young to face up to the horrors of war, but in the end we decided to make a truce, of sorts. I mean, after the 100th border-realignment-triggered bakery conflagration there comes a point when you just have to say: “Enough! Do you not care about the little people? Let’s stop this senseless waste! Hey guys, why can’t we all just work together to build a better world?”

And so rather than fight against each other to dominate the whole world map, we decided to limit our sessions to a time limit and decide who won by comparing the stats for land gained, wealth, corn production, wood production, and so on. OK, reading that back it sounds incredibly – for want of a better word – lame, but it certainly kept us happy. And if you’d only seen all those tiny helpless people fleeing from burning buildings, I think you’d agree with me that it was A BETTER WAY.

[Looks up to heaven as God rays filter through the ceiling, accompanied by angelic singing.]

Lewis

(Screenshots from http://www.lemonamiga.com/)

#45: The Beatles: Rock Band

Format: Xbox 360 Genre: Rhythm Action Released: 2009 Developer: Harmonix

[The scene - Abbey Road Studios, June 1962...]

Paul: Mr Martin, Mr Martin, we’ve got a great idea for our band.

George: Yeah Mr Martin, its well gear.

George Martin: Now what’s all this about boys?

Pete: Well Mr Martin, The Beatles, the band I’m part of and, I guess, will always be part of, think it would be fab if there was some kind of game that allowed people to pretend to be us. They could sing our songs and play with pretend instruments and everything! Not that I would need to play it being, as I am, part of the Beatles. Ringo would like it though…

George Martin: Hmmmm, surely guitar based games are on their way out?

John: Of course not. Everyone wants to be part of a band, and the Beatles are going to be bigger than Jesus. And such a statement will just make us even more popular!

Paul: And maybe in 48 years or so two men will sit around and talk about the game and us, while stumbling over their words, trying not to laugh at their own jokes, and rambling about other stuff as well.

George Martin: Maybe you’re right boys. Though lets not do it now, do it in about 47 years or so. We’ve still got to record your first album.

George: And I want to learn how to play the sitar first.

Pete: Well I can wait that long. I mean, it’s not like I’m going anywhere!

John: [INAPPROPRIATE GAG DELETED]

Here’s the 3rd 101 Video Games podcast and, of course, it’s about The Beatles Rock Band. Listen as we talk about the Beatles, hymns, Lewis’ cousin Jake and whether John would have approved. Only 17 minutes this time, promise. And we don’t laugh at our own jokes as much:

Click above to listen directly through this site or click below to listen/download in your media player of choice:

Podcast 3 The Beatles Rock Band

Click below to see the very cool intro:

(You may have to skip through the E3 intro and bat away the pop-up ad – sorry, best vid we could find!)

Lewis and Ian

#44: Dog Walking

Format: Coin-Op Genre: Miscellaneous Released: 2001 Developer: Sega

As I’ve said before, this list isn’t just about the best games ever made – it’s also a chance to honour games that might not have won any awards but that nonetheless improved our lives, if only by raising a smile. Sega’s utterly random ‘Dog Walking’ coin-op (or ‘Inu No Osanpo’ to give it its Japanese title) is just such a game – hardly a world-beater, but bonkers enough to merit induction into the 101 Video Games hall of fame.

A wonderfully random promo pic for Inu No Osanpo.

I first encountered the game in 2004, when I was living in Japan. It became something of a hobby of mine to search out random Japanese arcade machines and, despite fierce competition from various taiko drumming simulators and trading-card-based soccer games, Inu No Osanpo stands out as one of the most bizarre – and compelling – coin-ops I’ve ever played. Naturally, it was only ever released in Japan.

The aim of the game is to exercise a dog by walking (or running) on a treadmill. The on-screen dog is controlled by a lead originating from the neck of a plastic dog in front of you, and the aim of the game is to steer the dog away from danger (like cars or other, bigger dogs) and towards points of interest (like cats). The idea is to get the pace just right so that the dog is happy – walk too fast and you end up dragging the dog along behind you, but walk too slow and it pulls at the lead impatiently.

Here's me suffering on Inu No Osanpo back in 2004.

In practice, playing the game is utterly exhausting. (See? Way before the Wii came along games were keeping people fit.) The treadmill is quite stiff, so getting up to speed is quite an effort, and slowing down is just as hard. The controls are also fairly lackadaisical – your dog never seems to go in the direction you want it to (a bit like the real thing I suppose).

But whether or not the controls are any good is rather beside the point – this game made it onto the list because it’s totally unique and brilliantly fun to play (and even more fun to watch, especially if someone falls off the back of the treadmill). Sega, we salute you. Now can you release this game in Europe please? Thanks.

(Here’s some (American?) guys playing Inu No Osanpo. They haven’t quite got the hang of it… The dog starts barking when you’re walking too slow or fast, and the musical notes appear when you’ve got it just right.)

Lewis

#43: Skies of Arcadia

Format: Dreamcast Genre: RPG Released: 2001 Developer: Sega (Overworks)

Yes, that’s right another Dreamcast game for the list – no complaining back there. Hey, look, it’s not my fault that a signficant proportion of THE BEST GAMES EVER MADE were released on one particular console. (Funnily enough, I was never a big fan of Sega consoles before the Dreamcast came along, but I became a bit of a DC fanboy after I got one. Ah, Dreamcast, you were taken far too young! May you rest in peace in forgotten console heaven…)

In terms of set-up, Skies of Arcadia is pretty much your standard Japanese RPG fare:  a young boy from a small village is summoned by destiny to save the world by fighting random, turn-based battles across strange new lands filled with a multitude of manga-style characters, and so on, and so forth. We’ve been here before (Grandia, Final Fantasy, etc. etc.), but the difference with Skies is the sheer imagination that has been poured into the game world, along with the strong sense of ownership you feel over the characters.

The game world is composed of a series of floating islands that you navigate between using your trusty flying pirate ship. I couldn’t really find the screenshots to do it justice, but this floating world looks fantastic, and there’s a real sense of wonder as you explore new continents and find hidden treasures. In fact, finding the hidden ‘discoveries’ became such a distraction for me that I regularly abandoned the main plot in favour of locating these hidden gems, which were revealed by vibrations of the joypad.

Then there’s your ship’s crew – as you progress through the game you can recruit more and more members to your crew, each of whom provides some sort of boost when battling an enemy ship. (Incidentally, the ship battles are fantastic, and make for a diverting change from the usual monster battles – see the video below for an example.) The personalities of each of the characters really shine through, and by the end of the game you find yourself becoming quite attached to your motley crew of air pirates.

The big downside to the game for me was the random battles – I’m not totally against random battles per se, but there should be an option to avoid them if possible. Later on in the game you can purchase items that let you avoid all confrontation, but earlier on you have no option but to plough through whatever the game throws at you, which got frustrating at times. The hardest part of the game occurred about a third of the way through, when you were tasked with finding an item among a series of floating rocks. The trouble was, you were constantly attacked as you flew your ship between the rocks, and this one section became so frustrating that I almost jacked the game in right there. Thankfully I perservered, which was a good thing since the game got a whole lot better from then on in.

It’s difficult to say exactly what sets Skies of Arcadia apart from its JRPG ilk – it could be the imaginative setting, or the neat mixture of ship and monster battles, or perhaps the excellently crafted characters. Whatever it is, it had me totally hooked, and if you’re an RPG fan it’s an absolute must buy. (NB. If you’re planning to get it, you might want to look out for Skies of Arcadia Legends, an improved version that was released for the GameCube/Wii.)

Lewis

#42: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Format: Playstation 2 Genre: Sandbox Game Released: 2002 Developer: Rockstar

Whenever I think of Grand Theft Auto, I’m always reminded of the time when I worked in a computer game shop just after university (and before any smart alec asks, no you don’t need a degree to work in a computer game shop).

A frazzled-looking mother was dragged into the shop by her young son, and he made a beeline straight for the shelf with GTA: Vice City, eagerly thrusting the game box into his put-upon mother’s hands. Mum wearily approached the counter, purse in hand, ready to purchase the child’s treat. I took a look at the son – he couldn’t have been older than 11 – and said to the mother “Errr… you do know this game is an 18, don’t you?”

I’ve never seen such fury in a mother’s eyes. She swivelled the full force of her Gorgon gaze onto her cowering son, who could only tremble underneath the onslaught of her words:

“YOU NEVER SAID IT WAS AN 18!!!”

“But mum…”

“NO BUTS! OUT!!!”

I felt almost guilty as the defeated son was frogmarched out of the shop by his furious parent. Almost, but not quite.

It’s illustrative of a problem that didn’t really exist when I was growing up – parents have no idea what their kids are playing. When I was a kid, my parents didn’t really have to worry – games didn’t really get more violent than Mario jumping on the head of innocent (or perhaps not so innocent) Goombas – but a quick look at my Xbox 360 games collection reveals that about half of the titles have great big red age ratings all over them.

Does the above example show that modern parents haven’t quite cottoned onto the fact that games have become more violent? Or is it the opposite – are modern parents more aware of computer games, having grown up playing them themselves? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.

In terms of game violence, Vice City looks a bit tame now by modern standards – the cartoony graphics are a long way from the more realistic depictions in recent titles such as Modern Warfare 2. Indeed, perhaps the furore over the airport scene in the latter game indicates that video games have reached new heights of moral complexity (although in my opinion they have a very long way to go). Having said that, I still wouldn’t let my (hypothetical) kids play Vice City – as an adult, I can appreciate the humour and irony of a lot of the storyline, but I don’t think that young kids should be exposed to the various pimps, prostitutes and gangsters that populate the game.

Perhaps I’m getting too serious here – one thing that can be said about Vice City is that it’s very, very funny, perhaps the funniest in the series. I absolutely loved the inane chat shows on the talk radio stations – if I made a list of Nice Touches in Video Games, they’d be right up there, hovering around the number 1 spot (along with discovering that you can do handstands and swan dives in the original Tomb Raider).

[Click of dictaphone whirring into life] “Idea for new blog: 101 Nice Touches in Video Games. Whoa, no, hold on, make that 50 Nice Touches in Video Games. No, actually, 10 Nice… hell, who am I kidding, I’ve got enough on my plate as it is. OK, scrap that idea.” [Click]

The best thing about Vice City – like all of the GTA games – was just exploring the game world, looking for things to do. I’d occasionally attempt an actual mission, but the vast majority of my time was spent in various other pursuits, such as racing dirt bikes, stealing a police car and using it to hunt down criminals, finding hidden jumps, or attempting to nick a helicopter from the military base (that last one was difficult, but gosh darn it was worth it). Even just cruising around listening to the cheesylicious eighties music was a diverting pastime in itself (have a listen to the Flock of Seagulls song that accompanies the trailer below to get an idea of the awesomeness of the game’s soundtrack).

If you’ve yet to experience this slice of Miami Vice-inspired brilliance, I urge you to play it immediately. As long as you’re over 18 of course.

Lewis

(Screenshots from http://uk.gamespot.com.)

#41: Power Stone 2

Format: Dreamcast Genre: Fighting Released: 2000 Developer: Capcom

It was a tough call deciding between Power Stone and Power Stone 2. In the end I went for the sequel – perhaps Power Stone is the better game (it’s much more finely balanced than Power Stone 2), but the sheer mayhem of Power Stone’s second incarnation never failed to bring a smile to my boat race.

The original Power Stone was almost unique – a 3D fighting game in which the environment was just as important as the actual fighting. The focus was less on punching your opponent than on trapping them under collapsing walls or gunning them down with the assorted weaponry that materialises on the level. In this sense the game shares many similarities with Super Smash Bros., but I’m surprised that the Power Stone template hasn’t been used more often since the original was released back in 1999 – considering it was such a breath of fresh air in the generally stale world of fighting games, it’s spawned remarkably few imitators (I can only recall two – Kung Fu Chaos and a Naruto game I played in Japan).

Power Stone 2 was Power Stone with all the dials turned up to 11. The game switched from being two player to being four player – a move that was both its triumph and its downfall. The utter chaos of playing against three human opponents was a delight, but the major difficulty was persuading anyone to play against me for longer than about ten minutes. The game was so intense and so much was going on at the same time that most people I played with just couldn’t work out what they were doing – or even where they were on the screen. Full-on four-player Power Stone 2 – with all its diving  submarines, deadly gun turrets, screen-filling special moves and overpowered laser guns – had roughly the same effect on novice players as that Japanese cartoon that induced epileptic fits.

One of the best aspects of the game was the item shop. As well as letting you purchase new items, the shop allowed you to ‘mix’ two items together to create totally new weapons, which would then appear during the game. For example, mixing a kitten with a leg trap produced a panther (natch), and mixing the soap-bubble gun with a trumpet produced a loud speaker (which could knock down opponents). Trying out all of the various bizarre combinations was hugely addictive, and it gave you a big incentive to keep playing through the single-player game in order to find some of the rarer items.

Of course, Power Stone 2 was not without its flaws. I’ve already mentioned the confusing multiplayer mode, but there was also the character line-up – some of the new characters brought in for the sequel didn’t quite fit the art style of the originals, or the supposed Victorian setting of the game (Jack – presumably ‘The Ripper’ – was one of the original characters). I particularly disliked Gourmand the chef, who looked a little bit like an early Mickey Mouse villain.

However, the sheer explosion of imagination contained within this game more than makes up for its shortcomings – any game in which you can whack someone with an umbrella before setting a kitten on them has the thumbs up from me.

Lewis

Christmas Special Podcast 2009

The beautiful Amstrad CPC 6128k. With colour monitor.

It’s the 101 Video Games That Made My Life Slightly Better Christmas Special Podcast! Listen as we ramble about games we got at Christmas, games that Lewis played this year that Ian didn’t, Gants Hill roundabout, Avatar, Guy Ritchie and Batman. A lot about Batman.

Click above to listen directly through this site or click below to listen/download in your media player of choice:

Podcast 2 Christmas Special 2009

Batman on the Amstrad CPC 6128k

#40: NBA Jam

Format: Super NES Genre: Sports Released: 1993 Developer: Midway

You’ve probably noticed that there are precious few sports games on this list – the reason being that I hardly ever play them. I’ve never quite been able to get to grips with football games (people I’m playing against often wonder why I cheer when they score – it’s usually because I thought I was controlling their team), and the only sports game that has successfully piqued my interest in recent memory is Golf on Wii Sports. Back in 1993 though, you’d have had to pry the joypad out of my hands with a crowbar to stop me playing NBA Jam.

It’s not like I even like basketball – in fact I find it incredibly boring – but somehow this game managed to make basketball not only bearable to watch but actually exciting. Its first stroke of genius was to get rid of all those surplus players on the court – with only two players per team there’s none of the usual confusion you get with sports games over which player you’re controlling and where they’re going to pass the ball next and hold-on-I-didn’t-mean-to-pass-it-over-there-damn-you-computer-for-cheating-oh-now-you’ve-gone-and-scored DAMN THIS MACHINE. No, none of that.

The second wave of the genius wand ensured that all of the gameplay knobs were turned up to eleven – you don’t just slam dunk the ball in this game, you leap 30 feet into the air, spin 360 degrees, do the splits and dunk the ball so hard the backboard shatters, as multiple flashbulbs erupt in the audience and the announcer builds himself into a frenzy.

Realistic? No, but who cares, this is a video game, right?

"BOOMSHAKALAKA!"

Speaking of the announcer, the sampled speech was a real highlight – speech was rarity in games before the CD-based consoles arrived. As I remember, the announcers didn’t have that many soundbites, but for some reason they never got repetitive (maybe I was still tickled by the novelty of people speaking IN A GAME). The best bit was when a player scored three points in a row, which caused him to (literally) become ‘on fire’, accompanied by the commentator booming “HE’S ON FIRE!”. The phrase has penetrated my brain to such an extent that I still find myself thinking “HE’S ON FIRE!” every time I do something noteworthy in a game.

‘Achievement: Brumak Rodeo 10G’

[Thinks] “HE’S ON FIRE!”

"HE'S ON FIRE!"

But the true brilliance of NBA Jam emerged in multiplayer – the game was good when played alone, but it was utterly fantastic with four players. Along with Super Bomberman, it was one of the first games to be compatible with the Super NES multitap – imagine kids, you had to fork out £20 just to play with more than person! – and the two games barely left my SNES for the whole of 93 and 94. You can keep your Modern Warfare 2, just give me NBA Jam, four controllers, a bottle of Virgin Cola, Maid Marian and her Merry Men on the telly and several flavours of Push Pops, and I’ll be happy.

Lewis