AllOutWar's Great Old Video Game of the Week

[Alloutwar]

Inspired by this thread, and my growing appreciation for yesterday's games, I thought I might put together some thoughts on games from my catalogue that have special value or replayability, and share them with this group. There are two 'games' sub-forums down at the bottom, I know, but they are wastelands - one for Sports and one for RPGs, which will not suit all the games I have in mind.

With that out of the way - let's talk about a game!

MechCommander 2 (2001, MicroSoft)



What's better than a good, free game? How about a free game that is still being modded with missions, revisions, and changes? How about all that, combined with strategy, explosions, and 80-ton mechanical war machines?

The original game, MechCommander, took what had been a sort of tired, FPS-approach to the BattleMech world, and elevated it to a real-time strategy. Not the lame Warcraft/Starcraft style, where you mine crap and produce units and upgrades - a realistic strategy, where you run a team of hardened mechwarriors, dropped into a battlefield with limited tonnage and resources, and have to maraud through an entire landscape achieving certain goals.

Now controlling a fleet of MechWarriors may not be as interesting to some as actually piloting one Mech, but as a squadron for hire, you get to salvage enemy Mechs if you see fit - allowing you to grow your mech collection on the battlefield, as well as through regular purchases. You can configure your Mechs individually as variants - lasers, guns, PPCs, flamethrowers, missles, armor, etc - and then save the variants. Mechs range from tiny 25-tonners to huge 100-ton Assault class.

With the added salvage/money/mech design components, this game has a ton of strategic value over the standard RTS fare. With the added support units, such as minelayers, air strikes, and turrets, there are all kinds of ways to destroy your opponent - even if you are outnumbered. Some of the best missions are where you are severely limited in tonnage, and need to use your environment and support craft to take down much bigger enemies.



The missions do a good job of ranging - it's simple for a lot of them to fall into the run-around, blow-up-everything mode, and in the easier difficulties that's what you get. On the harder difficulties, or custom missions, you get anything from a decent challenge, to assured destruction of half of your mechs. There are nice twists, like meeting up with other forces, protecting bases or units, and having to work with 'green' ally pilots that run around and get blown up.

An added piece is individual pilot skills. Not only do pilots get a voice, name, and icon, but they amass kills, medals, and even promotions - earning a new mech piloting skill with each promotion. Since you have about 10 pilots, you get to know your guys. The voicing and short videos from inside the cockpit are a nice touch.

More good news: in 2006, MicroSoft made the game code public, meaning people could install it for mods. I grabbed it for pure playability. Others, like wolfman-X, used the code to improve the gameplay, do additional missions and campaigns, and create incredibly difficult scenarios.

Even years after first beating the game, I returned to load the original on one PC, and install all the modded versions on another for a true challenge. The result has been awesome, and for a net investment of $0, I couldn't be happier.

Give this puppy a try. What do you have to lose?

The Links:
Microsoft Source Code
wolfman-X's mods

The Final Score:

A top-notch sci-fi strategy RTS that is more about strategy, design, and some economic elements that most RTS's today. With no price tag, and user-designed campaigns freely available, the replayability, challenge, and depth is top notch. Eventually you can get bored with teh run-and-shoot method, so be sure to move up the difficulty or move on to another campaign to avoid stagnation.

[Coach Owens]

One game a week? Awwww man.

[StreetMedic]

Is it your intention to be the sole contributor, here, AoW?

[Alloutwar]

Is it your intention to be the sole contributor, here, AoW?

No, I just want to inspire discussion on a particular game, and share some for those looking for a real, meatty offering in this land of MMORPG, FPS-shooter, Real-Time Strategy crap-fest, all-graphics-and-no-replay-value world we live in today.

If someone wants to give their own in-depth review, screenshots, where to get, etc - by all means. I'd love to see them, especially for a few games I was unfamiliar with from the other thread.

Okay Coach...you asked for it! Two today.

X-Com: Apocalypse (1997)



The year was 1999. I was bored and needed a good, in-depth video game. I went to the local mall and stopped in the Electronics Boutique, and rummaged through the bargain $5 bin. This game looked interesting - fighting aliens, collecting resources, technology...how could I miss?

What I got, when installed, was a veritable crap-fest. Turn-based manuevering of guys, then waiting for aliens to pop out and kill them...then the world goes dark and you move your next guy. Action points for each bullet fired, each step taken. Blah. That's why I could never get into Mercenaries or whatever those other games were. Too much-micro managing, for not enough fun.

A year or so later I found the option of real-time action, instead of turn-based. Suddenly your squad would move, and aliens would pop out in real time - allowing for a thrilling action sequence. You can still pause, give orders, drop/throw things - but none of the drag of slow-as-hell action. Perfect!

You may be familiar with X-Com's earlier two titles - UFO Defense, or Terror from the Deep. Both hinge solely on that bored-to-tears turn-based approach, so I'm no big fan. Apoc does all that and better.



In X-Com Apocalypse, you begin by seeing an overview of the city, Mega-Primus. It's the only mega-city left on the wasteland of Earth, with most of humanity now on Mars or beyond. Your first task is to select a base, and begin outfitting it with labs, crew quarters, and the like. So there's a money element, a base design element, base defense, multiple bases (like a research lab, a manufacturing center, troop station, etc), and all kinds of fun. You can buy up to 5 or 6 different spots to host your guys.



This goes way, way in depth. From hiring and firing troops, lab technicians in 3 disciplines, and buying and selling vehicles, engines, weapons and equipment - there's a supply/demand engine, limited resources, and even ways to get extra income by raiding other corporations.

The game takes place on two scales - one is the city view, where you move your vehicles around, attempt to take down incoming UFO invasions, and do all your big planning. The other is the battle view, where you can see about 10 floors of a building and the area around it - running your guys up elevators, stationing them outside, or eventually even getting jetpacks and flying anywhere in the 3d environment.

Your goal is to stop the alien invasion, which can include shooting down UFOs, capturing them and researching them, engaging with deployed alien forces, or being called out to sites - a-la Ghostbusters - that report alien activity.

But it balloons to so much more, with a political element - there are all kinds of factions in the city, some that ally with you, some that work against you. If you make the wrong move politically, you may have to pay damages, or else be attacked at random by another organization. There's even a cult that believes the aliens are there to save humanity - they fight you and threaten you, and are susceptible to alien influence.

The game progresses as fast as you want - the difficulty goes based on your score week to week. So if you sit back and do nothing, the game goes slow: if you raid all kinds of businesses and get tons of money, grenades, and technology, the aliens get smarter faster.

Eventually it is your duty to hire scientists, and begin reverse-engineering the aliens - biology and technology. You need to understand their processes, their weaponry, and then turn it around to make useful weaponry against them. Eventually you must cross over to the alien dimension and take down their planet, one building at a time.



Some additional niceties: your squaddies can be either human, robot, or human/alien hybrid (with minor psychic powers). Robots have good physical attributes, but never improve. Humans can improve over time, and max their stats out with gyms and experience. You can rename them, assign them specific equipment or roles, and watch as the kills and awards mount up. The game automatically promotes them, from lowly squaddie all the way up to commander - with morale bonuses and penalties all rolled in.

Links:
Abandonia purchase ($4.99)

The Final Score:

X-Com Apocalypse gives gamers tons of choice - real time or turn-based? A few big bad ships, or fleets of robot bikes? Grenade launcher or lasers? The fun is in researching alien tech, improving your guys, building bases, and taking down UFOs. Replay value is huge, from the beginning - but once you get to the endgame in the alien dimension, interest wanes easily, and I want to start over. I've never even finished this game - but spent countless hours working on it.

Prepare for a challenge, save often, and don't get too attached to new recruits - alien brainsuckers come fast and furious.

[Coach Owens]

I got an underrated game for ya... The 2002 video game sequel to The Thing, appropriately named The Thing. Awesome game. Some flaws but very good for a game made by a company nobody has ever heard of (called Computer Artworks. There's not even a Wikipedia page about them)

[Alloutwar]

@Coach: thanks, I've added it to my Amazon wish list for this year. Not a big FPS fan, and with Mass Effect 1+2 and Dragon Age waiting, not sure I'll ever get to it - but it's in queue.

Next!

PTO: Pacific Theater of Operations (1993)



Let's step away from the PC for a second, and back to a time before I had a computer. We're talking the very early rise of SNES/Sega systems, 1993 era. I was 12 years old, had tired of the Super Mario fare, and was ready to sink my teeth into a little something better. On a lark I rented this strategy game, seeing the pictures and thinking like Top Gun on NES I would be flying and bombing stuff, only better.

You can't imagine my initial disappointment with the slow-moving war strategy simulation. But over time, after I bought the game and really got immersed, it was the first game to really demand and eat up hours of my time. I would have 12 fleets - battleships, carriers, subs - all fighting the Japanese all over the Pacific. My mother would come in, see me watching an AI battle between my fleet and the Japanese, and complain to my dad that I was in there watching the game play itself.

Koei really broke through the windows for me, making games not just about run/jump/race, single-night events, but about long-term planning and building and strategy. PTO is the game that changed my life.



In PTO, you take the role of either the US or Japan. No other countries to play - they can ally with you, even send in some ships to help your fleets - but they stay out of the way. Much of the WWII genre is plugged up with landing at Normandy, and infantry/tank battles across the dry land of Europe. Not so with PTO - it's naval warfare, all the time, and tanks can suck it.

You are put in command of all naval fleets - from the carrier Enterprise and dreadnought battleship Yamato, all the way to the lowliest destroyer. You must create fleets, up to 16 ships in each, and strategically use them - defend bases, attack and occupy enemy bases, meet the enemy at sea, or sink them from underneath using submarines.

But it doesn't end there. You have to occupy bases with troops, and also supply fuel, planes, and building materials so they can repel enemy attacks. Ships get damaged and need repairs - some are minor and can be fixed at a few ports, but severe ones will have to be sent home to drydock. Ships that get sunk can be rebuilt in the shipyards, under a new name or class, in 6 to 24 months - the faster you build them, the more resources it takes.

Industry is a big piece of this game - Japans starts out weak industrially, but they have TONS of ships and bases. The US has relatively small forces - some scenarios have them starting with very few remaining ships - but are an industrial behemoth. The US can snap its fingers and produce hundreds of bombers - but without good supply lanes, they can't go anywhere.



Allies are important - as the US, some of your ships come from Australia, Great Britain, etc. You can request adi from allies, or give gifts, or even get neutral countries to join like Sweden, to increase your Intel levels. One of the most memorable games ever is getting everyone to ally with Japan.

PTO takes this warfare and occupation piece, and puts it together with an industrial engine, espionage, base management, political alliances, scientific research, and even a human commander element. Then there's individual crew experience, fatigue, a ship's raw Luck score - even the chance of plague or disease from shore leave in the pacific south. The result is a hugely engrossing game that can span years.



There are significant flaws to this game, as to be expected from a huge strategy sim from the early 90s. Here is a brief run down:
- Long, long battles. With 16 ships on both sides, and any number of air units or base units, battles that are 12 turns by default can last FOREVER. There's an option to have the AI take over, but it makes poor decisions, and you can't exit or auto-complete. You're stuck watching the action, even if its just moves.
- Three-target system for goals every time you arrive at home port can get old
- Commanders aren't real names (MacArthur, Yamamoto, etc) - just created ones
- Game can be taken advantage of by imposing military rule at bases, then gifting back some of the seized goods to increase loyalty (can be done infinitely)
- No specific aircraft types or ratings - just general classes (fighter, bomber, long-range bomber)

A few years later, PTO II came out, but the system had changed from a single turn system, to a dual turn system - one for PLANNING and one for ACTION. There was a ton more detail in ships, real-life commanders and plane models, and even land battles and routes - but it made it impossible to play, for me anyway.

Links:
Play now at Console Classics

The Final Score:

As close to timeless as a strategy game can get. Sure, the graphics are poor in today's world, but 17 years after it's release, I could still spend hours upon hours plotting and planning. So much depth - from politics and alliances, to research, to occupation, to sea battles, air battles, land battles...ship details, commanders, strategic goals, industry, and on and on. The AI limitations/exploits and simple pick-three-targets system can get old, and battles can take three FOREVERS due to all the units and CPU limitations - but for some reason this one will be timeless in my eyes.

[Coach Owens]

Woo, Koei! Dynasty Warriors is the greatest video game series of all time!

[ragecage]

AOW, have you been to gog.com? I think that site would be great for you. GOG stands for good ol' games. You can purchase classic PC games from 4.99-9.99 and you create a user account and when you purchase a game, you can download it as many times as you want. They are also patched to the latest updates for the game, game manuals, wallpapers, etc. Great site.

[acetoolguy]

AOW, have you been to gog.com? I think that site would be great for you. GOG stands for good ol' games. You can purchase classic PC games from 4.99-9.99 and you create a user account and when you purchase a game, you can download it as many times as you want. They are also patched to the latest updates for the game, game manuals, wallpapers, etc. Great site.

this...fallout 1&2 for 10 bucks...

[Alloutwar]

I've heard of it and checked it out. I may even use it for X-Com if I ever get back to playing it - my CD version never works, even with DOSbox or whatever installed. But most of these games I either own, or for the console ones I have the ROM for (or, for Playstation, I have an emulator and I play the CD in my PC). Something about owning the actual paper and instruction manual - I used to get a new game, play it for 10 or 20 minutes fresh, then go to bed that night reading the instruction manual to learn how it works. I still get excited when I see the PTO game manual - I dug it up in NH my last trip home and brought it to my house.

It's awesome for availability, but I can scour amazon or dig through my own collection effectively as well.

[Alloutwar]

Weekly...okay, more like daily.

Final Fantasy VII (1998)



Staying away from PC, but bouncing back up to the mid/late 90s. I was an avid gamer by now - too poor for a PC, so mainly SNES, and Sega Saturn, but eventually I had persuaded my parents to get me a Playstation, so that for the first time I was not the kid left behind in our upper-middle-class neighborhood. I had grown from general NES games, to SNES long-term strategy sims (ROTK series, PTO series, AeroBiz), with some sports and shooters thrown in (Virtua Cop, Virtua Fighter, NHL '93 and '94, etc). To me, the biggest RPG had been maybe Dragon Warrior? I had played a few Final Fantasy games a bit though, and was pretty excited once FF7 hit the shelves.

I had no idea what I was in for. As a 16 year old kid with two high school girls dominating my thoughts, to suddenly play a protagonist that had two female romance options - both of whom bore what my teenage mind saw as huge resemblances to my ladies - was amazing.



Final Fantasy 7 is another in the series - but unlike the earler D+D/historic fantasy worlds, this is a futuristic world, with technology, airships, and people with guns on their arms. There is cloning and huge mega-cities, an evil corporate conglomerate, shady science and experimentation, and even Godzilla-esque evil creatures. Combat is turned-based, sort of - it is measured in real-time, so the faster you decide your actions, the better.

You start out as an amnesiac soldier working for the company, but soon you turn against it and help the rebels. Then you have to take down the company via sabotage, fighting bosses and cleaning up parts of the doomed city that lives in darkness. Eventually you take on the corporation Shinra, and begin to see some of the monstrous evil you're up against.

Then, you are free to wander the countryside - indeed, the whole world - taking on bits and parts as you wish. Defend a group of environmentalists and their prized phoenix. Fly your airship to the arcade and take on enemies in the arena, or gamble your way to riches. There's seriously hours of gameplay in the mini-games alone.



A few things make this game truly stand out. The cinematic sequences, first off - seeing the characters rendered in lifelike, movie-quality images was awesome. The soundtrack also, with emotional highs, is tremendous. The personal connections between characters, and your engagement and emotional investment - maybe it was more intense at 16, but god I was emotionall invested in this game.

One big, awesome piece of the puzzle is Materia. Spells are no longer learned by just the mages of the group - they aren't even tied to a character. The Materia you get decide what spells you have available, and you can equip any on any character. With work (hours, and hours, and hours), the materia unlock the next spell, so that you have more and more powerful magics available.

Combine that with the equipment - different weapons have different bonuses, materia slots, powers and functions. It gets so that you never want to throw out a weapon, and for good reason. It can get mind-boggling juggling 10 weapons for each of 9 characters, but what the heck, inventory is unlimited.

This game brought with it such a depth - both in emotional content, and in pure range of things to do and places to go - that completely surpassed any mainstream game before it. FF7 brought RPG gaming out of nerddom, and into the mainstream.



Links:
Anywhere on the internets will have reviews and shrines to the game. To play it, I recommend a PS1 emulator on the PC, or whatever PS version you have.

The Final Score:

This game has a universe inside it. Sure, it's an RPG, and it's relatively linear - you have to beat the bad guy. But there's a whole world in here. Choose your materia, choose your 3-person team. Choose what to do, where to go - do you follow the storyline, or get the 2 extra characters? Do you fight the ultimate weapons, raise chocobos, get the magic Knights of the Round? So many mini-games make this game such a blast - and by gaining items, materia, teammates, it's just further and further into cool. The soundtrack and cutscenes were ground-breaking at the time, and as a bored, anti-social teenager, FF7 rocked my life.

One of the best video games ever made, hands down.

[ragecage]

I wish I was into RPG's then as I am now...

Next on AOW's review list is Parappa the Rapper. He rates it 10/10!

[YEAH DAAAAWG]

God FFVII was such an incredible game. Definitely one of the best games ever made. I did get the Knights of the Round. Took foreverrrrr.

[CCamels73]

I think its awesome that you "found" X-Com Apoc! I still love this game! And, like yourself, have never beaten it. Oh sure, I could have beaten it a few times on the easiest level, but where is the fun in that?
When I played, I would always keep a separate "team" of agents that would raid the temples about every other game day just so I can sell the psyclone drug that you get. That is, if I could keep the alien incursions under control... At any rate, I absolutely loved this game.

[FloydtheBarber]

Your review of X-Com has inspired me to give it a try.