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| | OK, so I ve been talking with Greg a lot lately. Invariably our conversations lead to reminiscing about our fond college days. Special emphasis is always placed on the countless hours we wasted playing various video games. While on the topic Greg shared with me his top 25 video games of all time list. Impressed with his list I set about to compiling my own. And of course I need to share this list with my loyal readers.
I ll warn all that this is a very bampf-centric list and reflects much on my personal tastes... and obviously console games I owned will receive preferential treatment over those I didn t. There is also a bit of historical relativism here. The games of the 80s pale in comparison to modern games but at the time held an inexorable grip over every quarter I could get my grubby little hands on to. So here they are, with accompanying commentary:
25. Rush'n Attack (Arcade) A great side scrolling game that endorsed the wholesale slaughter of anyone even remotely associated with our arch nemesis, the Soviet Union. Flame thrower + Godless heathen pinko commie = flaming skeleton of American hegemony!
24. Tiger-Heli (Arcade) Along with 1942, the king of the vertical scrolling air warfare genre. The great thing about this game is you could not only destroy the non-descript enemy s airforce and navy, but also do irreparable infrastructure damage by bombing ship yards, train stations and other civil targets.
23. FIFA Soccer (PS2) When you consider my heavily documented hatred of soccer, you know this game s gotta be good. Probably the best multiplayer (as in 3, 4 or more people) sports game available.
22. Pirates! Gold (Sega Genesis) This game was way ahead of its time. Extremely open-ended. You could make your fortune by sacking and pillaging, selling merchandise, serving government officials, or rescuing maidens. You could be as altruistic or nefarious as you liked... although regardless you were still guaranteed a mutinous crew every couple of months... damn sailors and their insatiable blood lust... or maybe it was the onset of scurvy that was droving them into a crazed hysteria.
21. Rastan (Arcade) OK, this wasn t even a very good game. But it was a side scrolling action game where your charcter bore more than a passing resemblance to Conan. And therefore I was hooked...
20. Rainbow Six (PC) A pioneer in the FPS genre. A nice change of pace from the frenetic gore-fest pace of Quake-esque games.
19. Warlords (Atari 2600) This was one of the best Atari paddle games, a derivation of Pong where you could direct the little omnipresent white pixel at your oponent s defenses until you destroyed their king hidden within. The first game I ever played where more than 2 people could play at once. Historic!
18. Operation Wolf (Arcade) Remember this game? God it rocked! It had a pretty life-like UZI mounted on a swivel and you got to blast the hell out of everything with it! Yeah.
17. Kaboom! (Atari 2600) This was the best Atari paddle game ever. With some escaped convict mad bomber guy dropping bombs on you at some ludicrously fast pace. This was the true test of manual dexterity.
16. NeverWinter Nights (PC) This is an incredibly well thought out game, gaining this spot as much on technical merit as playability. I can t imagine a better approximation of the D&D experience brought to digital life.
15. Madden 2002 (PS2) The pinnacle of sports simulation. Just an all around great game... with the exception of the abhorrent Madden commentary.
14. NHL Hockey 97 (Sega Genesis) I think this was the pinnacle of hockey games. The newer ones with ever changing camera angles and such have lost the consistent feel of the older games like this classic.
13. Centipede (Arcade) Classic. Forget Palo Alto... Atari pioneered the mouse/track ball!
12. Time Crisis II (Arcade) The shooter genre doesn t get much better than this. The duck/reload pedal thing is pure genius.
11. Super StreetFighter II (Arcade) Greg and I poured countless quarters into this machine from our extremely slight college coffers. I guess that s the money most college kids would spend on beer. I m convinced Fei Long and T. Hawk were much more deserving of our hard earned coin!
10. Warlords (PC) "Warlord, the size of your genitals is astounding." Need I say more? Whatta great game!
9. Genghis Khan (Sega Genesis) Turn based strategy at its finest. Global conquest at it s most addictive!
8. Tecmo Bowl (NES) This game was incredibly popular. During my freshman year, ownership of this game could vault your social standing like you wouldn t believe amongst the freshman quad scene.
7. Space Invaders (Atari 2600) The true classic that would beget all others. I played this on my Atari 2600 tirelessly.
6. John Elway's Quarterback (Arcade) This was the monstrous arcade game that had the little spring loaded targeting thingy for passing. A great arcade football game. This was the only arcade game I ever played for almost a two year period!
5. Super Mario Bros. (NES) Another classic. So simple in today s terms, yet so rich and complex. I was the bane of Goombas everywhere.
4. Quake III Arena (PC) Undisputed heavyweight king of the FPS. It really doesn t get any better than this. Screw the mods, screw Team Arena... give me mystery Bones shotgun attacks and a leaping Hunter any day over that other pablum.
3. Pool of Radiance (PC) I swear I raced to my Apple IIe from the school bus every day for years to play this game. And I m talking about the original not the crappy recent remake... why must they always try to remake the greats?
2. StreetFighter II (Sega Genesis) I preferred the Sega version of this game to all the other numerous incarnations. It was still pure and nearly perfect. The ultimate fighting game. Blanka would kick the shit out of any of those Mortal Kombat pansies. This game emphasized skill and timing, not glitz and gore like the other imitators.
1. Doom (PC) The mother of the FPS (yeah, I know Wolfenstein came first, but it couldn t hold a candle to Doom). My entire sophomore year revolved around this game. Day and night. We even dreamt about Doom. We would tie our phones to our heads with socks so we could communicate cross-campus while playing co-operatively. We completely immersed ourselves in this game.
God we were lame.
Well, that s my list. I m sure I m forgetting a few... and there s one or two whose name I can t remember. Take it for what you will. I m sure I ll get plenty of responses pointing out omissions, but these are the twenty five that I remember having the most profound effect on my poor arrested development.
-bampf | | | OK, call me crazy, but I m almost certain that in Aphex Twin s Bucephalus Bouncing Ball, near the end of the song, they use a very short sample from the Atari 2600 game Yar's Revenge.
Can anyone confirm or disconfirm this theory?
The only reason I bring it up at all is because I m absolutely dumbfounded that a 2 second sound bite could stir a twenty year old faded memory from some tiny nook in the nether regions of my brain. Just from a physiological stand point I m quite enthralled by the idea.
Brains. They re pretty damn freaky. No wonder zombies crave them so.
Fucking zombies.
-b | | |
I m really beating the geek thing to death lately but I had one more tid bit of personal geekdom to share:
Most Sundays I stay down in Philly, giving me an extra night of marital(esque) bliss with Kristyn and then drive to work early on Monday morning (the other reason is that Stoner is all of 100 meters from the Turnpike ramp so it cuts an extra half hour of driving by not returning to my parent s). So anyway, this means I have to get up at 6:30 to get to work by 9:00 (instead of my usual wake-up time of 8:15). Bleary two hour commutes are simply no fun at all and I often find myself overcome by drowsiness.
Through years of depriving myself of sleep I ve come upon a system of avoiding falling asleep at the wheel (which although makes for a good BNL song is not a highly recommended passtime). What I do is repeat the Mentat mantra from Dune over and over:
It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the juice Sapho that thoughts acquire speed, lips acquire stains, the stains become a warning.
It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
The edict is quite apropos. Say it enough times and you ll be wide awake in no time. I m telling you, it works. Try it.
This had been a BampfBlog public service announcement.
-b | | |
That s right, I killed me a Svengar. The huge Aesir barbarian in my D&D game who has slaughtered all my best creatures time and time again for the last couple years was finally felled.
At last he felt the fangs of Set. Guess he taunted one too many snakes and it finally caught up with him.
Alas, the Priest of Mitra called upon his god to breath life back into the lifeless lump. But it was still a major moral victory for the bad guys (Go Set!).
In normal people speak- what I m trying to say is I had a really good D&D session last night. An epic battle complete with clashing titans, cool magic effects, the calling upon of a miracle, the party beaten into near hopelessness... it was really good. Very dramatic. The group rallied from the brink of total annihilation a couple times. A really good adventure if I do say so myself. Josh contemplated letting Svengar rest in peace... taking his rightful place by the side of Ymir in the Halls of Valhalla, but in a campaign that has lasted as long as mine and that is nearing completion it would be way too late to start a new character.
I can t wait til next session as the party is assailed by more snake beasts bent on their destruction.
God, I m a geek.
-b | | | In response to our unknown commenter (there are some clues but no definate identity) I ll give my first Bampf Book Club recommendations. I expect the impact on the book selling market to be immediate and considerable. My first three recomendations:
Douglas Adams: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Robert E. Howard: Conan (the first installment of countless novels)
Alton Brown: I'm Just Here for the Food
Not necessarily literary classics (save maybe Hitchhiker) but enough to get the uninitiated started down the right road.
Look for installment two next month.
-b | | |
A new feature on BampfBlog... the Book Review. I finished Robert Jordan s Wheel of Time last week. I burrowed the book from Kent, mainly because there s a RPG based on the series and Kent was threatening to run a game, so I wanted a little background.
I must emphatically warn everyone to not pick up any of the Robert Jordan books (they re up to ten in the series). They are bad. Extremely bad. The writing is really quite awful (even for the exceptionally low fantasy novel standards). The book is over 700 pages long and contains about 100 pages worth of material. Every minute detail of every inconsequential inn or village or path or tree is belabored upon endlessly. The pace was maddeningly slow. The only reason I finished the book was because Kent kept promising more excitement to come... and after reading a couple hundred pages I felt I had invested too much time to stop.
I ll give the guy credit... he has created a rich and complex backdrop and intricately weaves plot skeins, but he just can t effectively put them down on paper.
The only reason I m ranting so vehemently about this book is that I could have read three good books in the time it took me to dredge through this one. I m kinda bitter about that.
-bampf | | | This past weekend was Shore Con. Had a good time. I spent a fair amount of time mentally cataloguing all the gamer archtypes... fat pony tailed Comic Book Guy, dark vampire goth guy, strangely disconcerting probable sexual deviant old guy, skinny akward Columbine aspirant... well you guys know the types. Years at the Guild have desensitized me to these people beyond belief.
Anyway... played in four RPGs. Each one successively cooler than the previous. Even played a little Magic. Had fun hangin with Allen, John and Kenn. The rest of the time was spent trying to navigate New Jersey s completely inexplicable highway system.
We decided we really need to visit one of the Mega-Cons like GenGon or Origins some time. I m just a simple gamer geek at heart. Sad but true.
This also probably opens up the gate for Evan to try to drag me to an anime convention. Egad.
-bampf | | | Dammit, I really like Moby. I ve been a big fan of his for a long time (well before he became popular and mainstream). He takes a lot of flak for being so ardent and outspoken on his views. Granted, he s quite a bit more leftist than I usually like but I give him a lot of respect for it. Especially when he chides the insipid rock and roll culture. He s a true idealist when it comes to his views on music and what it could be... and should be. I think it s a nice added touch (and ringing endorsement) that he s become the antithesis to Eminem.
Anyway, caught a news blurb today about how he started a book club with his crew while on tour. Here s his take on the matter:
"We have a little box, and when someone finishes a book they put the book into the little box, and when someone wants a new book they look into the little box and find a book to read. It's very punk rock. Ozzy Osbourne used to snort ants. Led Zeppelin had sex with hookers on private planes. And I start an on-tour book club."
"Because one can only snort so many ants and have so much sex before one starts to long for the comfort and companionship of a good book. And remember, eating ants isn't vegan. Snorting them, though, is perfectly O.K. [Because] they don't die. They just start little ant colonies in your brain and sinuses."
Friggin hysterical. Like I said, I really enjoy Moby. I urge all to go out and pick up Play and 18- and if you want some old school, punk-inspired techno Moby grab Animal Rights as well. Good stuff.
-bampf | | | A week plus with no update? I m just getting lazier all the time aren t I? Well as a follow-up to the one post from last week, I managed to see the Two Towers trailer on the big screen last Friday (previously, when I made that post, I had only seen a tiny Quicktime version on some website). For this one I actually dropped to my knees in the aisle of the theatre and stayed in that position -arms spread in awe and reverence as if receiving some kind of cinematic communion- for the duration of the four minute or so trailer.
Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with me?
-b
| | | So, as I look back at the weekend, it had a strong wedding theme. Kristyn and her mom have been flitting about like crazed badgers attending to various arrangements. As a male, I ve found it is my job to stay out of the way and smile and nod a lot. And reassure. Reassuring that everything will be all right is paramount.
With the whole looming marriage and all Kristyn and I figured it would be a good idea to have our parents finally meet. It went pretty good. Larry recommended a crab house in Fairfield for dinner... neat place (bp- you should check it out). Their claim to fame is all you can eat crabs/crab legs/shrimp... they bring out trays just loaded with crabs and plop them down in front of you... we re talking mountains of crabs... at just about every table. What a sight. Kristyn took the opportunity to display her awe-inspiring crab devouring prowess. I refrained from the orgy of crab devouring gluttony, but my proximity to Kristyn meant I left covered in crab offal none the less.
Everyone got along swimmingly despite the disparate backgrounds/class distinctions/ and couth levels. Kristyn s dad spends ample time in the clubs and pool halls of Shippensburg, so he was accustom to Larry s more base demeanor. Plus they re both big pool players so that worked out well. Hopefully Chris will be able to join my family s annual pig slaughtering extravaganza this weekend. Fun for the whole family, y know!
Sunday we went to some kind of Wedding Convention thing at the Holiday Inn. Basically a bunch of merchants whose livelihood revolves around wedding services peddling their wares. There were a lot of people trying to sell us on services we already have purchased (tux rentals, flowers, photography, DJs/bands) but we did get to sample some of the cakes made by our cake maker (exquisite) and try some of the Holiday Inn banquet fare that they ll be serving at the reception (also very good).
Kristyn was almost heady with wedding excitement. That was cool. I hate to admit it, but I was much more apathetic. Our marriage has been such a foredrawn conclusion for so long it s hard for me to get overly excited... at least not til closer to the big day when the actuality of it all will certainly be nearly overwelming. In that respect I m quite anxious for that dweam wiffin a dweam...
All right enough of that.
-b
| | | Trailer... Two Towers... short of breath...
Can t breath... must... see... now...
So... good...
Head... spinning...
[thump] |
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