Exodus: 3010 - The First Chapter (Amiga) - Guest Post

This week on Super Adventures, guest reviewer mecha-neko has returned to pass judgement upon an old Amiga game from the early 90s that's presumably set 988 years in the future. Unless the title's lying to us.

Happy new year, everyone! Can you believe it's been over ten years since I started playing games as mecha-neko for Super Adventures in Gaming?

Today I'm going to revisit a game from my childhood. It's also one of the first games I wrote about as mecha-neko, but it's not one that's appeared on this site as a Super Adventure.

Developer:

Temet

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Release Date:

January 1992

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Systems:

Amiga 500

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To celebrate its thirtieth anniversary, I present space survival management/flight sim Exodus: '3010: The First Chapter'!

System Shock: Enhanced Edition (PC)

Developer:

LookingGlass

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Release Date:

1994

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Systems:

DOS, Mac, PC-98 (EE version: Windows)

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm checking out the original System Shock, a game I've somehow never played. Well okay maybe I put it on for five minutes once and got scared off by the controls, and I did play the demo of the remake, but this is something I'm mostly clueless about. It's a big gap in my important video game knowledge. I mean up to this point I assumed I'd be playing as the guy with the chunky metal headwear from the box cover, but that's apparently a Cyborg Elite Guard. Seems like the player character is the guy in the sneaking suit on the right.

My gimmick for Super Adventures this year is that I'm playing games that have appeared on someone's top ten list and I found System Shock at #9 on PC Gamer's Top 100 from 1996... even though it actually came out in 1994. I guess it's the kind of game that takes a while to win people over.

System Shock was LookingGlass's next immersive sim or '0451' game after the Ultima Underworld games and introduced something absolutely crucial to the genre: a door locked with the code 451. There are many things locked with the code 0451 in many games, but this is its origin. The game probably introduced other things too, I'll let you know if I spot anything.

I'll be playing Nightdive's Enhanced Edition, which is an entirely different thing to Nightdive's upcoming remake. It's basically the same as the original game, just with modern resolutions, redefinable controls, video options, that kind of thing. They likely even patched a few bugs while they were at it. Plus it comes packed with lots of bonus features, like artwork, guides, the soundtrack (in MP3, FLAC and MIDI!) and even an interview with Warren Spector, which I need to remember to watch. It also includes the original version of game and a copy of DOSBox to run it in, just in case the Enhanced Edition isn't authentic enough for you. Very handy if you happen to be taking screenshots to compare versions.

Okay, I usually play games for an hour or so, but I suspect this is going to need a bit longer than that. I'll keep going until I've finished the first floor, or at least succeeded at something. I'm sure someone will eventually want me to flick an important switch and I will make sure that switch gets flicked.

StarFighter 3000 (MS-DOS) - Guest Post

This week on Super Adventures, heroic space reviewer mecha-neko has returned with a quick look at another classic game. It's Star Fighter 3000, by the people who made Stunt Racer 2000 (no relation to Stunt Racer 64). It came out on a few systems and on most it's kind of obscure, but on the Acorn Archimedes it was an actual big deal. I was browsing an Acorn owner forum called StarDot and it's in basically everyone's top 10 lists for the A3000... possibly because there aren't too many original games on the system to choose from.

Hey everyone! While rooting through all my old DOS stuff like Fade to Black and Halloween Harry, I've found another game I'm familiar with but haven't played in a really long time.

Developer:

FedNet

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Release Date: Acorn Archimedes: 19th September 1994 MS-DOS: 8th October 1996 Iyonix: April 2008

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Systems:

Acorn, 3DO, DOS, PS1, Saturn, Iyonix

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It may sound like a boxing game about robots in the future, but it's actually about spaceships and lasers! Wanna see?

Freelancer (PC)

Developer:

Digital Anvil

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Release Date:

2003

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Systems:

PC

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This week on Super Adventures I'm having a go of PC Elite 'em up Freelancer. I've been meaning to write about this on my site for years but other games kept taking its place in the queue and it eventually got shoved to the back burner. But I played this game to completion back when it was new and I'm hyped to finally get around to jumping back into the Sirius Sector for some simulated space combat.

The game's by Digital Anvil, founded by Wing Commander developer Chris Roberts, who's probably better known these days as the man space sim fans keep throwing money at in the hopes he'll someday give them Star Citizen. Microsoft bought Digital Anvil in 2000, a few months after buying Bungie, but Freelancer escaped Halo's fate of becoming Xbox exclusive. Instead it remained PC exclusive, which still kind of sucks for console owners. If the Dreamcast could handle Starlancer, I bet the newer consoles could've managed the sequel.

Like Star Citizen, Freelancer promised a lot of ambitious features, like a dynamic galaxy with fluctuating stock prices, supporting thousands of players at once! And then the final game had a static galaxy supporting 128 players. It supports exactly 1 player these days, as the official servers were shut down 5 years after release, but I'm sure fans are still running galaxies of their own. It's all irrelevant to me though as I'm only going to be checking out the single player.

(Click the screenshots to gaze upon them in their full 1280x960 majesty).

Mass Effect 3 (PC) - Part 4: Extended Cut

THIS IS PART 4, YOU CAN FIND PART 1 HERE.

Around four months after release, Mass Effect 3 received an alternate ending DLC, with a price of absolutely nothing. The Extended Cut replaces the original ending, but not by default; it needs to be downloaded and installed separately. Unless you’ve got the Wii U version that is, then you’re stuck with the new content.

I actually think it’s great that the original ending’s still there for people to experience first hand, as we should be preserving content like this. Plus developers shouldn’t be able to edit our copies of a game to change the story without permission anyway!

Is it a good thing that BioWare ‘caved’ to their fans at all though? Does it set the medium back as an art form when customers can demand changes when a story doesn’t match their expectations? And does it actually fix anything?

 *** WARNING: ULTIMATE SPOILERS ***

Mass Effect 3 (PC) - Part 2

Welcome to part two of my epic four part review thing!

In part one I played through the prologue up to getting my ship back.
In part two I'll be going through a typical mission and talking about how the game progresses. I'll put my conclusion here along with the comment box.
In part three I'll be going one step further into madness and analysing that ending to figure out why people were so bothered by it.
In part four I'll be talking about the new ending, and whether BioWare did the right thing by retconning their art. Yes I realise that no one's going to still be reading by this point, but I'm putting a second comment box there anyway.

There'll likely be massive spoilers for the first two games, and I'll be talking about how some major storylines wrap up near the end. See, this is what happens when I actually finish a game for once, I feel like talking about all of it and end up ruining the whole story for people. You should be safe to skip to the conclusion though.

Mass Effect 3 (PC) - Part 1

Developer:

BioWare

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Release Date:

2012

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Systems:

Windows, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U

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This week on Super Adventures, I'm celebrating N7 day by replaying the first couple of missions in Mass Effect 3 and briefly... oh fuck it, I'm going to go and beat the whole game again. No sense in half-assing it after I finished the first two to get here.

Plus I remember there being a bit of controversy about how the game wraps up the (first) Mass Effect trilogy, so I'm going to go through the ending in excruciating detail and share my own thoughts on how it plays out, and whether people were freaking out about nothing. You're not going to get a 47 page let's play out of me, I haven't entirely lost my mind, but this shall be an epic four part article!

PART ONE is what you're reading now, where I'll talk about first couple of hours and show how the game plays. It'll likely spoil the last two games along with the start of this one but not much else.

PART TWO is where I'll talk about the game overall and give my thoughts about it. Likely to be more spoilery. I'll review the game at the end and give you a box to leave non-spoilery comments underneath.

PART THREE is going to reveal my SHOCKING opinions about the unloved original ending of the trilogy, as I go through the final act in the aforementioned excruciating detail. This will have all of the spoilers, maximum spoilers.

PART FOUR is going to quickly go over the changes made for the Extended Cut and whether altering the story was a good idea. It'll also have maximum spoilers, plus a second comments box for you to chat about the ending specifically. If you want.

I'm going to be playing the Windows version so some of my issues will be PC specific (like not being able to click on anything without disabling the Origin overlay first). Also I'm using a fix to enable ambient occlusion on my Nvidia card, following this guide I found on the BioWare forums, so my visuals will look slightly sweeter than the default. Or maybe slightly glitchy and screwed up, it could go either way!

(Click the screenshots to expand them to their original resolution.)

Alien: Isolation (PC) - Part 2

Click this link if you want to return to where this all began: Part one.

Alien: Isolation (PC) - Part 1

Developer:

Creative Assembly

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Release Date:

2014

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Systems:

PS3, PS3, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Windows

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Today on Super Adventures, I'm taking a look at scary, stealthy, 'Alien' sequel Alien: Isolation.

Isolation was in development at The Creative Assembly around the same time as Gearbox and friends were working on Aliens: Colonial Marines, but while that project was very public (with expensive consequences for Sega when the finished product failed to live up to the trailers), Isolation remained hidden in the shadows until the year of release. Another big difference between the games is that everyone loved this one! It was a huge success with both critics and players!

I watched both 'Alien' and 'Aliens' in preparation for looking at Colonial Marines the other day, so I'm in a bit of an Alien mood right now. The thing is though, I'm coming from the perspective of someone who's never gotten on with survival horror games, doesn't like pure stealth, hates replaying levels, and doesn't appreciate too much of a challenge, so the game might not be the perfect fit for me. On the other hand it was a Christmas present from someone who reads the site and I kind of know a couple of people employed at Creative Assembly so I can't actually say anything bad about the game. I'm sure you understand.

But It's a first person sci-fi game with amazing visuals and critical acclaim practically across the board, so chances are that I'm going to end up liking it. I'll give it a couple of hours either way, sharing my thoughts as I go.

BEWARE OF SPOILERS FOR THE GAME AND MAYBE THE MOVIES TOO I DUNNO.

(Click screenshots to view them at a very reasonable 1920x1080 resolution with all the graphics on high.)

Wing Commander (Amiga CD32)

The first 'W' game on Super Adventures this year is... Wing Commander, on the Amiga CD32!

Yeah I realise that the original PC DOS version is likely to be a better experience, but I got this version bundled with a CD32 years back (on the very same disc as that piece of crap Dangerous Streets in fact), and I really should give it a try at least once.

Wing Commander is one of the big games from the early 90s like Doom and Myst that made the PC into a serious rival to the 16-bit game machines of the era, with its advanced 256 colour VGA graphics and... music. Sound cards existed a couple of years before Wing Commander, but this inspired people to buy their first Sound Blaster and turn their sensible personal computer into a gaming platform. Amiga owners were already jealous of the Genesis/Mega Drive at this point, they were getting ready to be jealous of the upcoming SNES, and now they had to be jealous of really expensive 386 PCs too! Sure all three systems eventually got a Wing Commander to call their own a few years down the line, but none could pull the game off with the same speed and visuals as the PC. Probably.

Anyway this is going to be the same deal as ever: I'll play it for an hour or two, share my opinions of how it's been so far, and then leave a comment box at the bottom for you to tell me that it's a good game and my 'review' sucks.

Star Trek: 25th Anniversary (NES)

This year is the 50th anniversary of one of the greatest and most enduring science fiction television series ever made... but there's no bloody way I'm playing another Doctor Who game, so instead I'm taking a look at Star Trek 25th Anniversary on the NES.

You might be wondering what this has to do with Christmas and honestly I can't think of a single thing. Well the stars in the background here do look a bit like snowflakes I suppose... also it's the 25th of December today.

I've already played the PC/Amiga game, but this is supposed to be something entirely different; more of an action game than a point and click adventure I'd expect.

Star Trek: Bridge Commander (PC)

Today I'm playing Bridge Commander, a Star Trek space sim by Totally Games, the makers of the legendary X-Wing and TIE Fighter series, unarguably the best space dogfighting games EVER MADE. Well okay maybe that's debatable, but it's undeniable that people seem to like them and if this turns out to be even 50% as good then it'll be 1000% better than 99% of the Trek games I've played so far.

I like how it boldly proclaims 'YOU are the Captain. You have the Conn.' on the cover and has an empty captain-shaped hole to show that yes it's actually YOU commanding this ship! Plus you've suddenly become a bald man with a strong resemblance to Patrick Stewart and the crew are concerned that if you lean any further you'll fall off your chair.

Starwing / Star Fox (SNES)

Now that's how you do a title screen.

On February 21st 1993, Nintendo released in Japan a game so advanced that it came with its own own on-board RISC co-processor and so revolutionary that it introduced true 3D shaded-polygon gameplay to console gamers for the first time (probably). Anyway, that game was called Star Fox (except for in the countries where it was called Starwing), and seeing as it's just turned 20 years old I figured it'd be a good time to give it a look.

I can't say I haven't played this one before, especially as there's screenshots I've taken from it scattered across the site, but I can say that I haven't really played it properly. I've never last much longer than the first level before I got distracted by something and turned it off.

Starglider 2 (Amiga)

Today I thought I'd take a look at ancient 80s space shooter Starglider 2 and it's already been worth it just because of this art at the start. That picture is just plain awesome. Fortunately the developers realised that a some people would have to eventually skip past the picture to play the game, or to do whatever else people used home computers for in the 80s, so they thoughtfully provided a poster of it in the box.

Back in the day the developers, Argonaut Software, were known for their 3d graphics know-how and a few years after Starglider 2 was released they were hired by Nintendo to develop the Super FX chip for the SNES and program a certain famous space shooter starring talking animals in spiky starfighters. So yeah this game is pretty much Star Fox's older brother.

WarpSpeed (Genesis/Mega Drive)

This one was a request, which could either mean it's a hidden gem, or a steaming pile of shite someone wants to inflict on me for a laugh. I've already got a feeling I know which way it's going to go, but I'll give it a fair shot to prove me wrong.

I'm reasonably sure the game has nothing to do with Star Trek, the developers must have just thought that 'Warp Speed' sounded cool. It gives the impression that the game's going to be like Star Fox... in fast forward!

Star Crusader (MS-DOS) - Guest Post

That's one ugly-ass title screen.

Star Trek: 25th Anniversary (MS-DOS)

I just found out it's the 46th anniversary of Star Trek, so I though I'd celebrate this monumental occasion by playing an original series Trek game. Okay maybe I'm a few days late, but apparently the original version of the game came out an entire year late (and the other versions even later), so hey I'm not doing so bad.

This is the PC/Amiga/Mac game I'm playing by the way. There's two other games with the same name, one for NES and one on the Game Boy, but it seems that they're all entirely different.

Millennium 2.2 (Amiga) - Guest Post

Well, here we are. I tried to prepare myself for this with colourful games but that didn't exactly work.

As unanimously requested by the mecha-neko fan club, here's Millennium 2.2. Hope you like words!

This is among the most depressing title screens ever created.

The Earth fades to a dull grey/brown while a truly miserable main theme (YouTube link) plays in the background.

Thanks, Ed.

MegaTraveller 2: Quest For The Ancients (MS-DOS) - Guest Post

Before you came along with your 'Mass Effects' and your 'Old Republic of Knights' or whatever, we had MegaTraveller.

Space dogs in space!

Nomad (MS-DOS)

You know, I wouldn't be surprised if this game had something to do with space.