General gaming

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• The Essential 100, No. 61: System Shock
• The Essential 100, No. 62: The Secret of Monkey Island
• The Essential 100, No. 63: Dune II
• The Essential 100, No. 64: Resident Evil 2
• The Essential 100, No. 65: Mass Effect

The Essential 100, No. 61: System Shock Posted: 22 Aug 2012 05:35 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF AUGUST 20 | THE ESSENTIAL 100, PART TWO The Essential 100, No. 61: System Shock Cover Story: A tense journey that pioneered the blending of the FPS and RPG. A tmosphere is a tricky thing to pull off. Neglect it until the introduction of a dramatic moment, and more often than not the result is a jarring shift in tone. Treat it as an afterthought to gameplay and it becomes little more than window dressing. It is only when all parts of a game, from the art, audio, and level design to the smallest details of its mechanics, come together in service of a sustained atmosphere that something special happens. That's when you get a game like System Shock. You are a hacker. Coerced into accessing an artificial intelligence named SHODAN aboard the Citadel Station, you pull off the job and go into stasis. Months later, you awaken to find the space station taken over by the very AI that you hacked. The automated security is hostile, the only remaining humans turned into terrible creatures. Alone, you piece together the story from your surroundings and figure out a way to deal with SHODAN.

The Essential 100, No. 62: The Secret of Monkey Island Posted: 22 Aug 2012 04:20 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF AUGUST 20 | THE ESSENTIAL 100, PART TWO The Essential 100, No. 62: The Secret of Monkey Island Cover Story: A guy walks into a SCUMM bar... S top me if you've heard this one before: A young chap named Guybrush Threepwood lands on the dreaded Melee Island in search of fame, fortune, and the opportunity to become a dastardly pirate. So began The Secret of Monkey Island, one of our medium's most entertaining and influential adventure games. The LucasArts title blossomed from the minds of a true video game super-group consisting of Ron Gilbert, Dave Grossman, and Tim Schafer; think of them as the Traveling Wilburys of our medium, only less folksy and a hell of a lot funnier. Your nautical journey throughout the world of Monkey Island was fueled by an upgraded version of the SCUMM engine originally popularized by Maniac Mansion. And like like that original title, Monkey Island's gameplay is completely inseparable from the narrative it sets out to tell. Each plot point and story beat unravels simultaneously with the actual act of playing, which feels a whole lot more satisfying than having your narrative delivering via troughs of unplayable cinematics. In order for Guybrush to complete his goal of becoming history's finest swashbuckler, the player had to simply play. The act of solving puzzles was indistinguishable from the forward momentum of the narrative. And speaking of those puzzles, Monkey Island went a long way towards ushering gamers into a world where illogical obstacles no longer frustrated players to no end. Gone were the asinine puzzles solved by sheer luck, replaced instead with problems and solutions that actually made some semblance of sense.

The Essential 100, No. 63: Dune II Posted: 22 Aug 2012 03:15 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF AUGUST 20 | THE ESSENTIAL 100, PART TWO The Essential 100, No, 63: Dune II Cover Story: A look back at the game that codified every aspect of the modern RTS. I t's arguable that Dune II was the first real-time strategy game ever, though the declaration easily depends upon how one defines a real-time strategy game. If we're talking about simply moving little units around on a battlefield without stopping to take turns, 1984's Ancient Art of War has the most legitimate claim. If we add to that factors like an economy with which to purchase units, Herzog Zwei can step up and take the crown. But if you throw in fog-of-war, tech trees, upgradeable buildings, multiple factions with unique units, and pretty much everything we've taken for granted as essential elements of a modern RTS, Dune II is truly the first of its kind. It even features mobile units that can be placed as buildings, just in case you thought StarCraft was doing something new there. The genre has been refined since then, but has scarcely deviated from the formula Dune laid down way back in 1992. Now, one would think that maybe just plain Dune without the roman numeral would have some claim here, but that one is actually an entirely unrelated and mostly forgettable adventure game that was originally thought canceled when development on what would become Dune II started. Pay it no mind. Dune II also has little to do with the books, and is set more as a follow-up to David Lynch's 1982 film adaptation, which was a spectacularly schizophrenic box office bomb with some fantastic set design and costuming. Some of that aesthetic comes through here, though there's no sign of Sting wearing Hawkman underoos. The plot isn't particularly important, however. The galactic Emperor has left the three Great Houses, the Atreides, Harkonnen, and Ordos to battle it out among themselves over who should control the desert planet Arrakis and the rare Spice that forms the foundation of the entire galactic economy. The Emperor is evidently not a very smart man. Still, it's probably a better sequel than the later books, if only because it doesn't feature a freaky slug king or toss away any attempt at metaphor by introducing a fleet of literal Jews in Space.

The Essential 100, No. 64: Resident Evil 2 Posted: 22 Aug 2012 02:41 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF AUGUST 20 | THE ESSENTIAL 100, PART TWO The Essential 100, No. 64: Resident Evil 2 Cover Story: Capcom's second attempt at survival horror had the protégé besting his master. O ne of my first encounters with an insultingly easy video game puzzle came at the tender young age of 15 while playing Capcom's Resident Evil 2. After hitting a dead end in the Raccoon City Police Department's basement thanks to a sealed manhole, what should I find minutes later but a steel, crowbar-like object referred to by the game as a "manhole opener?" By giving the solution to an already easy puzzle in the name of the item itself, Resident Evil 2 already did me more favors than the entirety of the first game; if you remember correctly, the original Resident Evil hid important items within other items, which could only be found via a thorough inspection of their 3D models on the menu screen. By depicting its collection of weapons, jewels, keys, and other assorted trinkets as flat, static 2D images, Resident Evil 2 sent a clear message to the player: that kind of crap wouldn't be happening this time around.

The Essential 100, No. 65: Mass Effect Posted: 22 Aug 2012 09:57 AM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF AUGUST 20 | THE ESSENTIAL 100, PART TWO The Essential 100, No. 65: Mass Effect Cover Story: Bringing peace to the eternal war between RPGs and shooters. I If you had a time machine and wanted an easy laugh, you could take a copy of Mass Effect back in time about 30 years and blow some nerds' minds. BioWare's Xbox 360 blockbuster combined three great passions of the 1970s pocket protector set with remarkable style -- namely, Dungeons & Dragons, Star Trek, and video games. What the heck, you can add trippy prog rock to that checklist thanks to Jack Wall and Sam Hulick's throbbing electronic game soundtrack, which felt like an extended meditation on Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon. It may have taken three decades for all of these things to finally come together into one glorious package, but anyone who spent every lunch hour during 1975 hiding their cutting-edge Mr. Spock fanfiction from the prying eyes of polyester-clad bullies would agree it was worth the wait. Mass Effect also managed to demonstrate that the tastes of geeks haven't changed too terribly much over the years: It netted impressive sales for BioWare and Microsoft upon its 2007 launch, catapulting Mass Effect to become the most successful new video game franchise of the past generation (or at least the most successful one geared toward a traditional video game audience, anyway).

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