General gaming

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• The Essential 100, No. 86: Dance Dance Revolution
• The Essential 100, No. 87: Shining Force
• The Essential 100, No. 88: Tomb Raider
• The Essential 100, No. 89: Myst
• Dyad Review: Tripping the Light Fantastic
• The Essential 100, No. 90: XCOM UFO Defense

The Essential 100, No. 86: Dance Dance Revolution Posted: 18 Jul 2012 06:01 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JULY 16 | THE ESSENTIAL 100, PART ONE The Essential 100, No. 86: Dance Dance Revolution Cover Story: Konami's rhythm music game proved that peripheral-based gaming wasn't a thing of the past. I  first encountered Dance Dance Revolution inside of an anime convention room smellier than most; in front of me stood a Weird Japanese Thing, and since part of my existence at the time involved indulging in Weird Japanese Things (hence the anime convention), I had to give it a try. Taking care to wipe the disturbing amounts of sweat from the plastic mat first, I asked the friendly fan for a song recommendation. A few minutes later, I had hopped my way through "Butterfly," one of the series' most obnoxious earworms -- and so began my brief courtship with DDR. Dance Dance Revolution's brief burst of popularity feels like one of those things that'll eventually make for a great segment on VH-1's inevitable I Love the '00s (unless this has already become a horrifying reality); given the strange and completely niche approach Konami took with the series, it made something of an impact on American pop culture -- to the point where a thoroughly American show like King of the Hill featured a sub-plot about a very DDR-esque game. Konami didn't come anywhere close to Rock Band level of market penetration, but back in my college days, a surprising amount of dorm rooms featured a plastic dancing mat, rolled up and tucked away somewhere (perhaps just out of sight from those who would judge).

The Essential 100, No. 87: Shining Force Posted: 18 Jul 2012 04:01 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JULY 16 | THE ESSENTIAL 100, PART ONE The Essential 100, No. 87: Shining Force Cover Story: Sega might not have created the strategy RPG, but they did make the genre accessible. W hen Sega's Shining Force entered the world in 1992, strategy RPGs had already been in existence for a few years. While Herzog Zwei and Fire Emblem each offered their own takes on multi-unit turn-based battles, for most Americans, the former's unpopular console and the latter's complete unavailability in the States made Shining Force their first strategy RPG experience. These days, the game stands as a remarkably no-frills experience; characters don't grow beyond their prescribed roles, spells are few in number, and the battles often boil down to luck (or AI stupidity) instead of strategy. But twenty years ago, this extremely basic approach finally simplified the strategy RPG formula just enough for console gamers to finally get what PC grognards had been crowing about for a decade. Just as Dragon Quest pared down complex computer RPGs for the console crowd, Shining Force did the same with the realm of strategy, and established the foundation of a genre that would be built upon for years to come.

The Essential 100, No. 88: Tomb Raider Posted: 18 Jul 2012 02:01 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JULY 16 | THE ESSENTIAL 100, PART ONE The Essential 100, No. 88: Tomb Raider Cover Story: Lara Croft's influence on gaming knows no bounds. I t's easy to forget that the now-jagged edges of Lara's polygonal world were once a thing of awe-inspiring beauty. Those awkward shapes that comprised the various sections of her body? Once as realistic a person as console gamers had ever seen. The strange blobs that slowly formed into enemies as they sprinted out of the darkness? Vicious beasts that added some true elements of horror to the spelunking experience. And those ancient structures that can hardly be identified now? In 1996, they sparked wonder into any player who stumbled upon their mysterious beauty. Looking back on it, Core Design and Eidos Interactive allowed gamers to live out a fantasy decades in the making by becoming an adventurer on par with Indiana Jones, and for that, we have to be grateful. Just take a look at the game's opening if you don't believe me. After receiving news of an ancient artifact buried deep within the Andes, Lara flies halfway across the world with the some good-natured spelunking in mind. The cinematic mise en scene of the opening cinematic is heightened as the music swells in a very John Williams-esque manner upon reaching the mouth of the frozen tomb. Lara opens the massive stone doors, only to watch in horror as her guide is mauled by a pack of rabid wolves. Any notion that your character might be a damsel in distress is quickly dispelled when she drops to the ground, pulls out her iconic pistols, and avenges her fallen comrade. Alone, Lara descends into the grotto, with the player only slightly aware of the adventure that awaits before them.

The Essential 100, No. 89: Myst Posted: 18 Jul 2012 12:07 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JULY 16 | THE ESSENTIAL 100, PART ONE The Essential 100, No. 89: Myst Cover Story: Gaming's initial foray into the world of photorealism. G rowing up in the 8-bit era, I always had to use my imagination to picture what a video game world would look like in real life. I had to close my eyes in order to envision what the Mushroom Kingdom would be like if our perspective was freed from the shackles of the 2D plane. This was a fact that I came to terms with during my early years with the medium, mostly because I didn't know any better. I never fathomed that a game world would be so realistically rendered, to the point where I'd be able to completely fall into it without using my imagination. Then suddenly, Robyn and Rand Miller changed all of this. I booted up a game on my PC, watched as the Cyan logo formed across the screen, and realized that I didn't have to use my imagination anymore. With Myst, the world was already formed, and ready to be explored to my heart's content.

Dyad Review: Tripping the Light Fantastic Posted: 18 Jul 2012 11:48 AM PDT When I played Dyad at this year's E3, I had my doubts; sure, my brief encounter with the game had me wanting more, but when compared to the sublime Sound Shapes, I wondered if ][ Games' own take on rhythm action would provide the same longevity. I've always been a fan of music games, and in recent years, I've busied myself with the likes of Audiosurf, Beat Hazard, and The Polynomial in an attempt to "feel" some of my favorite tunes. The problem with those games, though, lies in the fact that their simple game play and audio visualizations show you virtually all of their cards after just a few sessions, and I had the same concerns about Dyad, given that its levels don't feature the same meticulous design as shorter expriences like Rez and Child of Eden. Thankfully, my premonition did not bear out; though its mechanics never grow too complex, ][ Games gives each of Dyad's 26 levels a distinct mix of rules and objectives that provide a completely different experience every time you play. As its name indicates, Dyad tasks the player with matching pairs of objects; as you fly down tunnels Tempest-style, blue and orange nodes will appear and fly towards your -- well, let's just call it a ship for now. In the style of Rez, highlighting one of these nodes will add to the soundtrack, and successfully matching pair after pair will make the background music both faster and denser. This is really only the beginning, though; as you advance through Dyad's many stages, the game continually adds different angles to the system you thought you knew so well. Matching pairs eventually gives way to sailing through the periphery of matched pairs (while avoiding that dangerous center), which leads to a lance attack that lets you blast through the nodes in front of you at the push of a button. And just when you think you've mastered a technique, the game sets up a minor wrinkle that you'll have to adjust for, like the enemies that can stop your lance charge dead in its tracks, or when grinding on rails transforms from highlighting a special node to attacking a foe whose laser retaliation actually creates said rail to grind on. This doesn't necessarily mean that each level adds a new slew of rules, though; some of the later ones involve a single objective, and in fact the difficult "trophy" levels often provide a theoretically simple, yet somehow maddening challenge.

The Essential 100, No. 90: XCOM UFO Defense Posted: 18 Jul 2012 10:02 AM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JULY 16 | THE ESSENTIAL 100, PART ONE The Essential 100, No. 90: XCOM UFO Defense Cover Story: With its unrivaled balance of tactics and tension, XCOM remains a masterpiece. I f anything drives XCOM, Julian Gollop's strategy masterpiece, it's the aliens. They lurk constantly in the background, pulling the strings on global politics, then striking without warning. Until you finally reverse-engineer their technology and attack their massive base on Mars, they always seem to be one step ahead. Their apparent intelligence invokes a special sense of tension that has kept strategy gamers coming back to XCOM: UFO Defense (UFO: Enemy Unknown in the UK) for nearly 20 years now. And it's a feeling very few games have been able to replicate over the years. XCOM began as a sequel to Laser Squad, a Gollop-developed tactics game for the ZX Spectrum and the Commodore 64. Gollop had been developing PC tactics games for about a decade up to that point, mostly for smaller outfits like Firebird Software and Target Games Limited. When MicroProse -- then the king of PC strategy -- expressed interest in a follow-up for Laser Squad, it was Gollop's big break. But MicroProse wanted more than an on-the-ground tactics game. Sid Meier's Civilization had just struck it big with its epoch-spanning strategy, and Microprose wanted strategy games with a similar sense of scope.

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