Format: Nintendo Wii
Release date: 2008
I’ve played many versions of Mario Kart, first on the Snes at a friend’s house, followed by my own copy of the N64 version. The Nintendo DS edition got a lot of play during the various anime conventions that I attended between 2006 and 2011, where you could LAN it up via Bluetooth with anyone else in the vicinity. But the version I truly have the fondest memories of has to be Mario Kart Wii.
It all started on the day I brought my Nintendo Wii into the office. This was back when I had a real job, working 9-5 in a marketing agency as a multimedia designer. My boss, John, and co-workers Luke and Chris, would often stay a little later after closing to enjoy a Grand Prix. The 8 races usually took less than an hour to play through, so it was a nice way to wind down after a hard day at the office. Relaxing. Civil. A bit of gentlemanly competition.
Or not.
I can’t believe I wasn’t sacked. On the very first day we played, I chose Yoshi, because he was always my character. I kicked the shit out of my co-workers, winning every race and almost putting them off playing ever again. So, next time, I decided to pick one of the slowest characters, Donkey Kong. Give ‘em a chance, y’know? At first I hated it; he is fat and lumbering, and corners like a dumper truck. But I soon realised that being a giant gorilla in a go-kart is ridiculously entertaining, because I no longer needed to drive around my opponents… I could go through them.
Smashing my opponents from behind and sending them into a bottomless pit became my tactic of choice when playing against my increasingly pissed off colleagues. John threw my Wii-mote at the wall multiple times, Chris would give me a look that could curdle milk, and Luke swore in pure rage, going red in the face, and even took up practicing at home on his nephew’s Wii, just so he could try and better me. There were occasions when Luke or Chris might sneak a win, (I don’t remember John ever finishing higher than 3rd), Rich was okay at the game, but preferred playing Fifa, and obviously when Paul played I had a real competitor for once, but he rarely wanted to. So, I left the office as the Mario Kart champion almost every single night. You might think that repeatedly pummelling a bunch of non-gamers at a child’s racing game would grow tedious or dull, but somehow it never did. It was hilarious.
Dome Keeper is an excellent little spin on the tower defense game, in which you play the role of a jetpacking miner defending his base from swarms of aliens, whilst searching for a hidden relic buried somewhere beneath him. And now, with this huge free update, you can play it with friends.
I want to talk about Cloudpunk, a game where you get to be a flying-car delivery driver in a futuristic cyberpunk city. Its world is an incredible achievement of environmental design, and while the gameplay itself may be basic, the city of Nivalis is a thing of beauty to behold. Nivalis is built out of hundreds of hand-modelled cuboid buildings; there’s nothing procedural about it. Apparently it took 3 years for the devs to design the city, and it really shows.
I do love me some quality pixel art, and it doesn’t get much better than this. Cast n Chill is a cozy side-scrolling fishing game by small indie dev team Wombat Brawler, with absolutely gorgeous visuals. It’s simple to play, and you you can dip in and out of it at your leisure, making it a fine addition to our collection of coffee break games.
Format: PS1 & PC
Release date: 1997
I’m not sure what to tell you about FF7. Simply put, it’s one of my all-time favourite games, and the hordes of fans it has makes me feel like a bit of a cliché to even include it in this feature. But I have to. It changed my life, I think. Before this, I had not played a game with such a deep and engaging story, an epic tale about a host of very likable characters, all unique and fleshed out with interesting back stories. It’s just wonderful.
It’s difficult to describe the levels of hype that I felt leading up to the release of Half Life 2, and I know I wasn’t alone. This was a generation-defining moment in gaming, the likes of which has never really been replicated, and likely never will, for multiple reasons. Not only was HL2 a huge leap forward for its artistic and technological design, it ushered in an entirely new way to buy games and changed the gaming landscape forever.
Format: PC
Year: 1999
Here’s another game that was introduced to me by my uncle Dave (who to this day, does the best impression of the monk from the first game out of anyone I know – “WOLOLOOOH!”) Anyway, I learned more history from playing Age of Empires 2 than I ever did in school. I experienced the brutal horde of Attila the Hun as he ravaged old Europe. I followed the rise of El Cid, and helped Ghengis Khan flood across Asia. I can’t remember much else actually, because my mind always turns to making a plague of Persian elephants to send at my enemies, crushing all of their puny houses and stamping their cities into the dust, mwhahaha! Ah man, it’s an absolute classic game, the first strategy game I ever played and thanks to the recent HD remake, is still a lot of fun even 18 years later.
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