The Captain's Top 100 Computer / Video Games of All Time Part Four Dec 13 '06 (Updated Sep 18 '07)    Write an essay on this topic. Tweet Popular Products in PlayStation 2 Games FIFA Soccer 12 for PlayStation 2 From $39 Take 2 Nba 2k12 for PlayStation 2 From $32 The Bottom Line The concluding part of my Top 100 Computer / Video Games of All Time! At last it's over! 81. Bad Company (Atari ST) This Space Harrier-like game somehow managed to create a much better atmosphere than that Sega game and despite rather simple gameplay was a long-term challenge. Excellent graphics and good sound effects helped. -------------------------------------------------- 82. Disc (Atari ST) ?Audiogenic / ?Electronic Dreams Inspired no doubt by the disc battles in Tron, this game with lovely graphics and great sound took the concept a step further with different arenas, tournaments, genuinely different opponents, and extras such as some opponents possessing 2, 3, or even 4 discs. The idea was to destroy the wall behind your opponent, which corresponds to the supports under their feet. When they can no longer jump to the next support and you bash one out from under their feet, it’s game over for them. Of course they’re trying to do exactly the same thing for you… The interface was a joy, allowing complex and fluid movements with blocking and hurling of discs, all with a one fire-button joystick. Superb stuff. -------------------------------------------------- 83. MIA (Missing In Action) (PC) I remember all the fuss when “Desert Strike” came out on the Sega Megadrive. That game was quite fun but I never found it particularly inspiring, however this game took the same helicopter combat sim, gave it a whole load of bells and whistles, numerous missions and objectives, and an overall storyline based on the Vietnam war, with video sequences between missions. Well thought-out controls and challenging missions completed the mix for this excellent game. -------------------------------------------------- 84. Llammatron (Atari ST) Jeff “Yak” Minter developed this mental shoot-‘em-up back in the early days of computer games. It’s a simple concept but the manic gameplay and epilepsy-inducing visuals mean it’s still just as playable today (albeit not recommended to anyone who suffers from epilepsy, obviously). -------------------------------------------------- 85. Star Wars (Coin-op, Spectrum 2) Atari, Domark – The original game of the film, the striking wireframe graphics may look incredibly dated but the gameplay is excellent and the action firmly based on the battle around the Death Star and subsequent torpedo run. The Speccy conversion was surprisingly good and, despite the plethora of Star Wars games that have been produced since, still sticks in my memory. -------------------------------------------------- 86. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Coin-op, Atari ST) Atari / ?Namco, ?US Gold The official game of the film, this one was notable for some whip-cracking action and a terrific mine cart sequence. The conversion to home computer wasn’t too bad, but it did lose a lot from the coin-op original. -------------------------------------------------- 87. Passing Shot (Coin-op, Atari ST) This was definitely one of the most playable tennis games ever made. In addition to being easy to pick up and having a 2-player team mode, what added depth to this title (apart from the various playing surfaces) was the occasional random elements such as players stumbling. -------------------------------------------------- 88. Shufflepuck Café (Atari ST) Brunderbund Magnetic hockey style games have been tried many times on computers, with varying success. This is by far the best game of this sort that I have played – you have opponents with genuinely different playing styles (the guy who likes to constantly bounce the puck off the sides will make your eyes swim), and slowly progressing difficulty levels. The gameplay is always frenetic and great fun, though pretty much guaranteed to destroy your mouse... -------------------------------------------------- 89. Bio Challenge (Atari ST) The plot was something like you were a new type of android / engineered life form and had to defeat a world full of challenges to prove yourself. Or something like that, I really can’t remember the plot very much! What I do remember are the impressive visuals, animation, and addictive gameplay. One of the best-looking platformers of its day, and also one of the most playable. -------------------------------------------------- 90. Another World (Atari ST) ?US Gold After an atmospheric intro sequence you find yourself transported to another world with a pioneering graphical technique allowing for some of the most fluid animation ever seen on the 16-bit machines. I never really got into the sequel, Flashback, which I played on the Megadrive a few times – it just seemed like a normal platformer with flashy graphics. Another World, however, really felt like a new experience in gaming at the time and despite some fiddly moments with the controls, was a game that kept me coming back for more. -------------------------------------------------- 91. Bladerunner (PC) Westwood I like games that create atmosphere and this game had tons of it. A curious blend of arcade, arcade-adventure and pure adventure, this recreated the environments from Ridley Scott’s classic cyborg movie (my joint no.1 best science fiction film of all time. Multiple endings and authentically recreated gadgets from the film helped to boost its appeal further. -------------------------------------------------- 92. Discworld Noir (PC) Perfect Entertainment Though there are a few niggles with this game, it is notable for recreating the Discworld environment but incorporating new characters and a completely new plot, unlike the previous 2 Discworld games (though I enjoyed both the first game and Discworld 2: Mortality Bytes as well). With a keen sense of detective film noir as well as the Discworld-based humour, this one stands out to me as the best of the three games and a very worthwhile addition to any adventure game fan’s collection. -------------------------------------------------- 93. Grim Fandango (PC) LucasArts – one of the best 3D adventure games ever, the humour and puzzles (sometimes easy, often tricky, sometimes devious) were excellent and the interface really worked well of this particular game. (I’m not a complete point and click purist but the interface in 3D adventure games often feels lacking.) A great storyline too. Pretty close to perfect, in faxt. -------------------------------------------------- 94. Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 (Atari ST, Sega Megadrive) ?Gremlin Graphics The one-player version of this game was fun, but the split screen (vertically split) two-player mode was great. Go too near the edge of the tunnel and see sparks fly, and if you can time it right, ride underneath large trucks. -------------------------------------------------- 95. Indoor Soccer (Commodore 16) ?Mastertronic It wasn’t realistic, it didn’t look good, but at the time it was probably the best football game around. I loved it anyway – though of course I was only a little kid at the time! -------------------------------------------------- 96. World Class Rugby (Atari ST) Audiogenic Transferring the complex game of rugby union to the home computer was always going to be a tricky business, but the developers of this game did a terrific job of remaining reasonably authentic while creating an extremely enjoyable game. The southern hemisphere teams were of course very tricky to beat at first, and the game remained challenging but not impossible (apart from on the hardest difficulty level!). You definitely needed a sturdy joystick for this game though, the scrums were a real killer on the wrist… -------------------------------------------------- 97. Enduro Racer (Coin-op, Atari ST) Activision A motorcycle racing sim but with more of a motorcross element to it, you not only raced but had to jump over obstacles as well. The coin-op version features motorcycle handles that added to the feel of the game, but the computer conversion did a pretty good job of conveying the atmosphere. -------------------------------------------------- 98. North and South (Atari ST) – this extraordinarily fun game was a unique blend of turn-based strategy and real-time action, with cartoony graphics and a grouchy Texan randomly lobbing things at nearby armies whether they be Confederates or Yankees. This was a terrific game that would have been even better if we could have got the two-player mode to work! A rare hybrid genre that has rarely been attempted, and even more rarely achieved successfully. -------------------------------------------------- 99. Hostages (Atari ST) Infogrammes – less of a game and more a series of mini-games with a chohesive storyline to connect them, in Hostages you lead a team of crack agents on a mission to infiltrate a building where hostages are being held and, naturally enough, free them. The graphics and sound were excellent for the time and the game really built up atmosphere, despite radically different game styles in the mini-games – get close to the building without being picked up by the hostage takers’ searchlights; abseiling from the roof; taking on the hostages in FPS mode… Another rare style of game, and memorable (well, at least I remember it…) -------------------------------------------------- 100. Millipede (Coin-Op, various versions on Atari ST and PC) – Finally we come to one of the most frenetic shoot-‘em-ups ever made. Destroy the millipede before it gets to the bottom, avoid the spiders that try to kill you, collect the power ups, blast the blocks in your way, and generally try to stay alive which isn’t an easy task in the least. Gets progressively faster and more manic as it goes on – meaning that by wave 5 you’re already struggling to keep up! HERE ENDETH THE LIST ------------------------------------------------------------------- BUT THERE’S MORE… Programmers (and programming teams) who made a huge contribution to gaming (whether they have a game on the list or not) and their influential games, and comments if I got round to writing them…: Sid Meiers (Civilisation, Pirates, ?Alpha Centuri) – what can you say about this man? A genius of game design. Geoff Crammond (Revs, Stunt Car Racer, Formula One Grand Prix) – undisputed master of the racing game on the 16-bits and probably 8-bits as well. Not sure what he’s been up to since then but I’m sure that programming more racing games is among his achievements! John Ritman (Batman, Head over Heels, International Matchday, Matchday 2) – Pushed more out of the 8-bit machines than almost anyone. Last I heard he was working on coin-ops (but that was in a Speccy magazine over a decade ago!!) Jeff Minter (Llamatron, Yak Attack, Revenge of the Mutant Camels, Defender 2 on the Atari ST, and some lawn mower game I forget the name of!) – Jeff “Yak” Minter is one of the most well-known and popular names in the Atari community. Anyone who even owned an Atari machine will have at least heard of him, I guarantee. (If not, than shame on them!) The Oliver Twins (Many Simulators!!) Responsible for virtually all of the Codemasters output at one time (at least it seemed that way!) John Phillips (Nebulus, Eliminator) – one of the last great one-man game producing machines, I never really got into Nebulus but it was the most talked-about platform game of the ear. (Largely due to the clever graphics effect that made it seem as though you were going around a tower with a pseudo-3D effect using purely 2D shapes!) David Braben (Elite, Frontier [Elite 2]) – one of the most fondly remembered and emulated games ever, Elite was a milestone game in computer history. Rafealle Ciecco (?Exolon, Cybernoid 1 & 2) – I wasn’t much into his games I have to admit, but he made the Speccy do things Clive Sinclair surely never imagined. Will Wright (Sim City, Sim Earth, ?A-Train) – Created the popular “Sim City” game that spawned a million sequels, his games have a huge following of fans though somehow I got bored with Sim City quite early on. The Bitmap Brothers (Xenon 1 & 2, Speedball 1 & 2, Magic Pockets, Gods) –The Bitmap Brothers created what were unquestionably some of the greatest 16-bit games ever. Most of their games looked great and played even better. More astoundingly, when they produced a sequel, they made it a unique game and significantly improved it from the original! FTL (Dungeon Master, Chaos Strikes Back) – possibly the oldest game with the biggest active fan base in the world, Dungeon Master forever changed the face of RPG gaming. Team 17 (Lemmings 1, 2, and 3D, One Must Fall, Worms, all the other Worms games…) – For Lemmings and Worms alone, Team 17 would be an important part of gaming history, but they did make some other great games as well. I just can’t remember what they all were, but then again I think they were more focused on the Amiga than ST at the time so probably not all their games were released for the system I owned. Sinister Developments – can’t remember all of their games, they were a Scottish-based shareware developer for the Atari ST. They tended to do remakes of classic games at the time, and always seemed to get that elusive addictiveness and playability just right in their games. They did a fantastic version of asteroids and a really good remake of Styx. You probably haven’t heard of them but I thought they deserved a shout! Chris Jones – ah, well he wasn’t actually a game programmer at all, but the creator of AGS (Adventure Game Studio). There have been so many high quality freeware adventure games released for the PC because of his creation that he just has to be given some major kudos on this list!! Freescape (Driller / Dark Side / Total Eclipse) – the Freescape team brought a revolutionary new 3D graphics engine to the 8-bit (and later 16-bit) computers, and their games provided a level of immersion into the game world previously unheard of. Actually I can’t remember if the name of the tea behind it was Freescape, or if that was just the name of the 3D engine. Either way, they made a huge impact on the gaming world. (I think their games and the subsequent 3D Game Studio were released through Domark??) Paul Woakes (Mercenary, Mercenary 2 – Damacles, Mercenary 3) – I’ve never played any of the Mercenary games but these space exploration games were hugely popular and made quite a few people borderline obsessive-compulsive back in the heyday of the 16-bit machines! Dino Dini (Kick Off 1&2, Goal!, Player Manager) – creator of some of the most addictive football (soccer) games of the decade. Sensible Software (Mega-Lo-Mania, Sensible Soccer) – now I was never a great fan of Sensible Soccer (I think most people either preferred Kick Off 2 or Sensible, but few really got into both games), but Mega-Lo-Mania was a wonderful game (as shown by the fact that it made my Top 100). Very innovative and creation designers for the 16-bits, Sensible were. Bullfrog (Populous 1 & 2, Powermonger) – Bullfrog turned ruler strategy games on their heads with the first Populous game, and then Powermonger. Gone were the days of working purely with numbers, each individual in your empire was… well, an individual, with individual skills (more so in Powermonger), and you could see what any given individual was doing at any given moment in real time. Add in Greek mythological God powers like earthquakes, floods, and volcanoes, and Populous became on of the most successful games of the 16-bit era – with Bullfrog going from strength to strength following that. Don Bluth (Dungeon Lair, Space Ace) – Don left Disney studios and set up his own company, producing some of the most visually impressive games of their time, especially in terms of the animation. The gameplay left something to be desired it’s true, but the games gained many fans because they looked fantastic and aesthetically were way ahead of their time. ------------------------------------------------------------------- The only graphics artists whose names I actually remember: Bernie Drummond – Batman, Head Over Heels (just call him “Isometric Man”) Tobias Richter – just remember him as being a famous Amiga artist and exponent of that machine’s (at the time) much hallowed HAM (Hold And Modify) graphics mode. As an Atarian I was of course obliged to bitterly decry anything Amiga-related!! The only computer game musician I can remember the name of: David Whittaker – more a C64 phenomenon than anything else so he kind of passed me by at the time, but I’ve known several people say they bought games just to hear his new tracks. You can find loads of them lurking around the internet if you’re interested, and of course player programs for the file type. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Great game publishers of the past (and possibly present): Activision, Anco, Audiogenic, Brunderbund (not sure if the spelling’s right on that one!!), Codemasters, Electronic Arts, Electronic Dreams, Gremlin Graphics, Hewson, Hi-Soft, Imageworks, Imagine, Infocom, Infogrammes, Level 9, LucasArts (at one time LucasFilm Games), Mandarin Software (don’t remember that many great games from them but they brought out STOS on the Atari ST and AMOS on the Amiga, which lead to a whole new wave of public domain games, and one or two commercial games, on those machines), Mastertronic, Microprose, Mindscape, Ocean Software, Psygnosis, Renegade, Ubisoft, US Gold Great Coin-Op Companies Atari, Bally Midway, Namco, Nintendo, Sega, Taito ** Apologies to those I’ve missed, I’m sure there are some!! ** ------------------------------------------------------------------- You will either be heartbroken or heartily relieved to know that I’ve finished now. (Or, more likely, you won’t care either way; even more probable is that thought that you will never know about this list in the first place…) That’s my top 100 games and a major trip down memory lane. Thanks for reading (if you did), CaptainD Top 100 Computer / Video Games Part One Top 100 Computer / Video Games Part Two Top 100 Computer / Video Games Part Three See also: My Top Ten Freeware Adventure Games (September 2007 Edition)

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