Worth a Look - June 2013

I didn't do a Worth a Look last month, so here's a bit of a catch up.

Call of Juarez: Gunslinger

Developer:	Techland
Publisher:	Ubisoft
Platforms:	Xbox 360 XBLA/PC/PS3 PSN
Price:	Around £12
Demo available:	Yes

On the face of it, Gunslinger is a cut down slice of Techland's so-so Call of Juarez first person coyboy shooter series, however, after 5 minutes any arcade throwback will be reminded of classic shooting gallery games, like Operation: Thunderbolt or Time Crisis. The game does give you the freedom of movement you'd expect from a FPS, but the maps are quite small so you frequently find yourself pinned down behind some barrels or an abandoned cart or the shattered frame of a window. The game also has some really fun mechanics, like the ubiquitous bullet time, which comes in two flavours. Kill enough enemies and you can trigger Concentration Mode, which is your traditional slow-down-to-shoot sort of bullet time. Then there's Sense of Death, which triggers automatically and lets you can dodge incoming bullets. It's a fun little game and definitely blurs the line between modern and classic gameplay.

Pinball FX 2

Developer:	Zen Studios
Publisher:	Microsoft Game Studios
Platforms:	PC/Xbox 360 (Android/iOS/PS3 PSN as Zen Pinball)
Price:	Platform dependant
Demo available:	Yes

Pinball FX2 (also known as Zen Pinball) is not a new game, however it only came to Steam last month and for many PC owners when it comes to digital downloads, Steam is the only platform that matters. Each version of this game has a different selection of tables and none have as many as the Xbox 360 version, however they all seem to have the Marvel tables and the recently released Star Wars trilogy. As much as I love what Farsight Studios are doing with Pinball Arcade's collection of real tables, Zen have become masters of the video pinball genre. It's just a shame there's no cross platform purchases (not even between Xbox 360 and Xbox Games for Windows Live). PC gamers, get on this.

Thunder Wolves

Developer:	Most Wanted Entertainment
Publisher:	BitComposer Games
Platforms:	PC/Xbox 360 XBLA/PS3 PSN
Price:	Around £12
Demo available:	Yes/No

Back in the 1980s, there were two big helicopter TV shows (one of which was also a movie), Blue Thunder and Air Wolf. There was also a series of helicopter games by Sega called Thunder Blade. Now we have a modern game, brimming over with 80s kitsch called Thunder Wolves. Coincidence? I doubt it. As a retail product it's rather lacking in quality and polish, but if you fancy spending 3-5 hours blowing sh*t in spectacular style, then you'll probably get a kick out of this one. Like all the games I include in these round-ups, this one would be a perfect fit in a modern arcade.

Usually I include a trailer, but for Thunder Wolves I'm going to include Demonik Mayem's Never Player video review, because he's very funny. I can't decide if he's being sarcastic or he really did enjoy it as much as he appears to, but either way his enthusiasm is infectious.

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Top 10 platformers

They're usually cute and almost always fun, this month's Top 10 is all about platformers. It's a genre that doesn't get much love these days, but in the 80s and 90s it was a giant. Believe, cutting this down to 10 has been tough!

Donkey Kong

Before Mario was Mario, he was Jump Man and before he was saving Princess Peach from Bowser, he was rescuing his ex Pauline from the simian grasp of Donkey Kong atop what appears to be a half-finished building. This single-screen platformer was the real start of Nintendo's rise to power and it's still a brilliant game to play today.

Wonder Boy

Before Sonic and even before Alex Kidd, Sega's platform hero was Wonder Boy. Later games ventured into action role-playing territory, but this first game had the sense of speed and timing the later Sonic games would become famous for.

Rod Land

On the face of it, I have no business liking Rod Land, as it's not just cutesy, it's positively girlie, but I can explain myself. Firstly, much of my time spent in arcade was also spent with my niece, who's 5 years younger than me. One of the games we used to play was Rod Land, as it had a good two-player co-op mode; secondly, there's nothing cute about the way Tam and Rit batter monsters. If you've never played this game before, I'll sum up your attack with two words: wand suplex!

Ghosts 'n' Goblins/Ghouls 'n' Ghosts

I'm cheating here by including Ghosts 'n' Goblins and the sequel Ghouls 'n' Ghosts together. That's mainly because I can happily swap between the two, but also because in the middle of the action, it's difficult to tell them apart. As a kid, I was attracted to these games as much because you ended up in your pants when you took damage — a gimmick that remained in the sublime Maximo games for the PlayStation 2.

Bomb Jack

I almost put Bomb Jack in the Top 10 Puzzle Games article, because this single-screen platformer has the same element of quick thinking strategy as many puzzle games. Whichever genre to pigeon hole it, Bomb Jack is a fast and fun little game that I don't think gets the props it deserves.

Toki

I first played Toki on the Amiga (I think it was a free gift with a subscription to Zero magazine), but it was originally an arcade game. It may not be the most well known platform game out there, but I have fond memories of playing it.

Mr Do's Castle

Let's be honest, in the case of a lot of arcade games it was difficult to really tell one game in a series from the other. The fact I often put whole series in as one entry in a top 10 (a la Ghosts 'n' Goblins and Ghouls 'n' Ghosts above) is proof of this. Then you get a game like Mr Do's Castle, Universal's sequel to the 1982 classic Mr Do, which appear in my top 10 maze games a month ago. The game didn't just change mechanics, it changed genre! To be honest, Mr Do's Castle is a remake of Universal's 1980 title Space Panic, but things had come a long way in those three years. MDC not only looks better, it plays better too. This is also much more than a platformer, it's also one of the best puzzle games out there too.

Bubble Bobble

First, OMFG how cute is Bubble Bobble? This adorable single-screen platformer inspired a wide-ranging series of sequels and spin-offs, some of which have appeared in this and other Arcade Throwback Top 10s.

Rainbow Island

This sequel to Bubble Bobble actually bears almost no resemblance to the original game, but the rainbow climbing mechanic and vertical platforming also set it apart from other games in the genre. For me, this is one of the most intelligent and downright playable platformers going.

New Zealand Story

I have a deep love for New Zealand Story. I can't really explain why, I just think it's brilliant. That little kiwi sure knows how to kick ass and with maze-like levels, strange forms or transport and some even stranger animal boss fights, this game kept me enthralled for years.

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Classic of the Month - Qix

Manufacturer:	Taito
Developer:	Taito
Genre:	Puzzle
Board:	Dedicated board
Year:	1981

During the early 80s there were a number of games that were based on painting, including Q*Bert, Amidar and this month's classic, Qix. The idea behind the game was very simple: using a diamond-shaped device to draw borders on the play field, you must trap the game's titular Qix (which looks a bit like the Mystify screensaver on Windows) and/or take possession of at least 75% of the territory. Contact with the Qix or if the Qix touched your cutting line, took a life and so claiming territory was about how cunning or brave you could be. To give the player even more to worry about, patrolling the edge of the game field were one or more Sparx. Like the Qix, contact with these critters is fatal, which means sometimes you are forced into the play field — even if you're not ready to move. What's more, once you create a border the Sparx can then negotiate those lines too, making the game even more challenging. Do you just go for it and try to carve out as much of a border in one go as possible or do you do it piece meal, dragging out the game, but also providing the Sparx with more lines to negotiate and therefore decreasing the chances they will come straight for you? The game also gives you two drawing speeds, fast and slow, the latter of which gives you more points, only adding to the player's dilemmas.

Like many games from that era, Qix is very sparse, but it also manages to offer game play that can be fast-paced or full of deliberation and tactics, depending entirely on how you want to play from one moment to the next. To go along with the sparse looks were sound effects that sound more like static than anything else. That wasn't uncommon in 1981 and in the case of Qix those primitive sounds suit the game perfectly.

Taito produced a number of sequels, including Qix II-Tournament and Super Qix, before taking the concept to create sci-fi themed Volfied a decade later. A number of home versions have been produced over the years, most recently Qix++ for Xbox Live Arcade (and no, I can't explain the C reference in the title), which added collectables and different shaped Qixes.

As early arcade games go, Qix inspired very few clones. The only ones I know of are Kix on the BBC Micro B, Styx for MS-DOS, Fortix on PC and Light Fish on Xbox Live Indie Games. Perhaps the most famous (or should that be infamous?) clone is the Gals Panic series by Kaneko, in which claiming territory reveals drawing of a scantily-clad Japanese girls and generic female anime characters. It's a shame that such a rock solid concept got used for such salacious purposes. So let's forget about that for now and see the original in action:

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