General gaming

General gaming

The Essential 100, No. 56: Gears of War

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 05:01 PM PDT

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1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF AUGUST 20 | THE ESSENTIAL 100, PART TWO

The Essential 100, No, 56: Gears of War

Cover Story: Not about who does it first, but who does it best.

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f I asked for a show of hands from those of you who played through the original Street Fighter in arcades back in 1987, I'd be left with a whole lot of pockets stuffed with a whole lot of hands. Now if I asked the same question about Street Fighter II, I imagine there's not a single one of you who wouldn't have their hands raised high in the air. Among many other things, a reason for this is because it's not all about who does something first, but rather who does it best. It's precisely this reason why Gears of War for the Xbox 360 is so essential -- despite borrowing countless elements from previous titles, Epic's third-person shooter provided a wildly polished experience and spawned one of the most powerful franchises of this generation.

The timing of the thing honestly couldn't have been better -- it really was the first game that validated my day-one purchase of an Xbox 360. As much as I loved Call of Duty 2 and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, those were games that could be experienced in even higher quality on the PC. And while Dead Rising presented some unique ideas and situations, it didn't have the lasting power to stay in my disc drive for more than a week. But suddenly, just shy of a year after the 360 launched, Epic unleashed what is arguably their masterpiece onto the public. By the time you chainsawed straight through your first Locust, it became quite clear that the seventh generation of consoles was upon us.

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The Essential 100, No. 57: EverQuest

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 02:22 PM PDT

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1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF AUGUST 20 | THE ESSENTIAL 100, PART TWO

The Essential 100, No. 57: EverQuest

Cover Story: When MMOs met the mainstream.

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ersistent online RPGs had already established themselves by the late 90s. PC gamers had explored text-based multi-user dungeons with one another since the days of the BBS, Looking at doors and debating whether or not to Open them. Meridian 59 staked its claim as the first 3D MMO in 1996, a sign of new experiences to come with increasingly powerful hardware and a growing internet. Ultima Online came out the following year, a playground of creative player-versus-player madness that popularized the genre.

Then EverQuest came along in 1999. It resonated in a tremendous, unexpected way, reaching far beyond the assumed audience which had made Ultima Online a success. Players got hooked, then shared their experiences with friends who didn't necessarily play PC games. The converted became guildmates, in turn becoming recruiters when they gabbed with co-workers. Soon the game entered pop culture awareness. Well-meaning family members across the world asked relatives if they played the EverQuest tape on their Nintendos.

The Essential 100, No. 58: Farmville

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 01:16 PM PDT

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1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF AUGUST 20 | THE ESSENTIAL 100, PART TWO

The Essential 100, No. 58: Farmville

Cover Story: The most important game of the past decade (whether you like it or not).

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armville used to be the name of a game. These days, it's a curse, a joke, an insult, an annoyance, an obsession. It's social media's answer to Jehovah's Witnesses. Unless you want to be forever branded as a pariah by our gaming clique, Farmville is not a game you admit to playing.

But, what is Farmville exactly? Ostensibly, it's a farming simulation that is not entirely dissimilar from games like Harvest Moon. Here, you'll raise livestock, plow fields, grow crops and do all those things we've come to associate with agriculture and games associated with agricultural pursuits. What sets it apart from its peers is what many have diplomatically labeled as the 'social aspect'.

The Essential 100, No. 59: Warcraft

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 11:39 AM PDT

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1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF AUGUST 20 | THE ESSENTIAL 100, PART TWO

The Essential 100, No. 59: Warcraft

Cover Story: The birth of one of gaming's most successful franchises.

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hen the first game of what would arguably become gaming's most successful franchise was first released, hardly anyone noticed. It took months for many publications to even review Warcraft: Orcs & Humans -- the very first real-time strategy game from then-fledgling Blizzard Entertainment. Blizzard itself was a relative newcomer to the PC gaming scene when it set to work on Warcraft in 1994. Under the name Silicon & Synapse, they had mainly been known for console games like Rock 'n Roll Racing and Lost Vikings. They were as yet an unknown quantity among PC gaming enthusiasts--seemingly not worth paying attention to. That, of course, changed in a hurry. Within the space of a year, Blizzard was able to go from being virtually unknown to being one of the kings of real-time strategy; and from there, one of gaming's premier studios.

As a game, Warcraft is kind of the raw form of what Blizzard would eventually become. The angry quotes that result from selecting a unit too many times ("Stop poking me!") are there, as are many of the familiar units that would appear in subsequent installments. But there are key differences as well, like the fact that buildings have to be built next to roads (a feature that was axed by the time of Warcraft II). Being Blizzard's first real-time strategy game, of course, it's a long way from the polished experience offered by StarCraft, or even Warcraft II. Selectable groups are limited to a mere four characters, for instance, making micro-management paramount. The A.I. is also spectacularly stupid, and can be lead on a merry chase around the map by one unit while the rest of the army attacks. It's definitely pretty rough, especially in comparison to its immediate sequel. But it definitely set down the blueprint for what was to come.

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The Essential 100, No. 60: Bejeweled

Posted: 23 Aug 2012 10:40 AM PDT

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1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF AUGUST 20 | THE ESSENTIAL 100, PART TWO

The Essential 100, No. 60: Bejeweled

Cover Story: How PopCap's sensation made gaming accessible to an entirely new demographic.

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ust where did PopCap draw their main inspiration for Bejeweled? The tile-matching games of the 1980s like Shariki, Tetris, or Puzznic could have planted the seed. What we do know for sure is that the game first appeared in 2000 as a simple browser-based tile-matcher made by three young guys in a small Seattle apartment. This ambitious triumvirate tossed their creation onto the web under the decidedly un-catchy name, Diamond Mine. Though fairly sure of the game's entertainment value at the time, they couldn't have predicted the entertainment behemoth it would soon become.

Within a year, the game took off with online audiences and had its name changed to the much snazzier Bejeweled. Alright, for the few gamers out there who haven't played Bejeweled, what's wrong with you? Er... I mean, if somehow you've spent the last decade with your hands tied behind your back or living on an oil rig, Bejeweled only takes a few sentences to explain. On a playing field filled with different-colored gems, two adjacent ones are swapped in order to form sequences of three. (Get it? Match-three.) When you match three or more gems, they explode, leaving gaps that allow other gems to cascade down in colorful falls of sparkly wonderment. Bejeweled also includes combos and powerups and timers as well, but the complexity stops there. It's fairly amazing when you think about it -- that such an uncomplicated idea could be so much fun and serve as keystone to a multimillion dollar company.
Posted by Shri Krishna

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