Snatcher (Sega CD, 1994)

The trouble with being a lifelong adventure gamer is that eventually you run out of classic adventure games. Snatcher had been at the top of my to-play list for a while, waiting for the moment when I'd finally buy a Sega CD. After a few years, I scrapped that idea and decided to go the emulator route.

Snatcher has a bit of an odd history. It's the first of two Japanese adventure games produced by Hideo Kojima, and was originally released in 1988 for the MSX2 and PC88, two Japanese computers. Those versions ended on a pretty bad cliffhanger, and in 1992 the game was rereleased on the PC Engine with a third and final act. It was this version that was translated and released in America and Europe in 1994, exclusively for the Sega CD, of all systems. For a number of reasons, including the mature rating and the fact that it played nothing like the FMV titles that most of us associate with the console, the game was a complete flop in the US and dropped off the radar. Snatcher is the epitome of a cult classic, and today it has a fair number of devoted fans.

The Japanese adventure game evolved entirely separately from the western equivalent; it's more closely related (though not nearly as un-interactive as) the visual novel. Instead of a text parser or point-and-click interface, the genre conventially lets you choose from a menu of verbs, with submenus for the objects you can apply them to. These mechanics are first seen in The Portopia Serial Murder Case, a 1983 computer game that actually predates King's Quest I. (Snatcher contains at least a couple references to this landmark title, which has been fan-translated and might be worth checking out.)

These mechanics make for a much more linear and controlled experience. Snatcher has few puzzles, and much of the game consists of simply looking at and investigating everything there is to see in each room. The game for this reason avoids all of the major pitfalls (pixel hunting, uninspired puzzles) of early western adventure games, although it's very easy and took me about six or seven hours to finish. To add excitement, a few shooting gallery segments are thrown in. These play just fine on a controller (you move the crosshairs on a 3x3 grid), but the dedicated gamer can choose to use the Sega CD's light gun. Like all action sequences in adventure games, they're just fine unless they're at all difficult - one such segment at the very end of Snatcher very nearly caused me to quit the game.

Snatcher would be forgettable, but for the plot and setting. It has all the hallmarks of a classic Hideo Kojima game - suspenseful, terrific attention to detail, a very advanced and unique piece of genre fiction. It even has one extremely long cutscene, at the very end of the game. The game is billed on the title menu as a "Cyberpunk Adventure", and the big influences this time are Blade Runner and the Terminator series. As with Metal Gear Solid, Kojima uses overtly political themes, centering around Cold War paranoia and the effects of the arms race. In his own peculiar fashion, he invites you to stop being cynical and care about these themes with a strikingly sentimental appeal.

The characters are well-defined and memorable, although you'll find plenty of sci-fi cliches, including an amnesiac main character. Any discussion of Snatcher must also take account of this fact: it is widely considered to be the first game with generally terrific English voice acting. Although contained to the cutscenes, there's plenty of it and it makes a huge difference. You can tell the localization team really cared about the project; I can only think of a few better examples with this standard of localization (the later Persona games, and the fan translation of Mother 3).

Like most of Kojima's games (with the exception of the original Metal Gear Solid), it makes few major innovations, but you can't help enjoying the ride.

Star Wars: Tie Fighter Collector's CD-ROM (PC, 1995)

Here's a genre that's deader than the adventure game, so dead that nobody seemed to notice its passing: the flight sim. While you can still see the occasional arcade-style flight game, will anybody ever make a game with the balance of careful joystick manuevering and complex controls that Tie Fighter mastered in 1994? This game has never been surpassed, and won't be anytime soon.

Tie Fighter is a tough game, but I don't think I've ever played a flight game, or any action game for that matter, with such an emphasis on strategy over acrobatics. While good flying skills are useful, this is a game that inspires you to think hard about how to approach each mission. If you fail a mission a few times, there are many ways to get the upper hand; the targeting system, communication with wingmen, and the balance of power between engines, shields, and lasers all give you a way to improve your chances. The controls are daunting at first, but gradually become intuitive.

This is also a game that knows what to take from the Star Wars license. The starfighters are there, of course, and Vader and the Emperor play bit roles. But you're far removed from the events of the movie; from your perspective, the evil Empire is just a benevolent superpower out to promote law and order in the far reaches of the galaxy. Sound familiar? It's supposed to. Here's an excellent essay that will really want to make you play this game.

Halo: Fantasy for the Privileged

First person shooters are escapist fantasies, more than most genres. Doom and Duke Nukem 3D put you in the shoes of an 80s action movie hero. Half-Life is a revenge of the computer nerd fantasy.

Halo is a fantasy for the privileged child. The story of the Master Chief is not the story of the underdog, no matter how many Covenant ships are against you. You are pretty much invincible, and allies and enemies all seem to respect this. No character in this game really doubts your capability in any respect; everyone seems to have full confidence in you, and you don't disappoint them.

I had fun playing this game, or I least I wasn't bored enough to quit. But Halo has definitely lost whatever lustre it had. The characters are cut-out. There aren't enough enemy types to spread through ten levels. Worst is the level design itself - as if the areas weren't bland enough, they have the balls to force you to run through an identical-looking region three or four times in a row, in the same level. On more than one level. (We'll see what people think when the HD remake is released.)

I know this is a landmark shooter, but the repetition kills its fun value, at least in single player. The woefully underrated Timesplitters 2 was just a year later, and it solved this problem admirably.

Executor, we must build additional pylons. Executor!?!

I suck at real-time strategy games. Building my headquarters, training a well-balanced and effective force, with only a guess as to the opponent's strength, strategy, and even location; it all makes me...exceedingly anxious. I get paranoid, and never make the bold move necessary to be a good commander.

When I was 10 or 11, I had a friend, the son of a youth pastor, who was addicted to Command and Conquer: Red Alert. I used to come over, watch him play, and admire his skills. The opening FMV, in which Einstein builds a time machine to go back and kill Hitler, unintentionally causing the rise of a greater Soviet threat, was fascinating to me. My friend's father eventually limited the time he could spend playing "war games," but by that time I owned the first C&C myself (a gift from another friend). I loved the FMVs (I was a child of the 90's), but I could never muster enough enthusiasm for the gameplay itself to finish it.

Last week, I finished my first RTS: the gold standard of the genre, Starcraft. It took me months, but I did it. And I have to say that it was, on the whole, not fun. I can appreciate how the different races, each forcing fundamentally different strategies, remain so delicately balanced. I even enjoyed the simple story of humans and honor-loving aliens joining forces to remove an infestation of large insects. I love that the outworld Terrans all sound like hicks. But it is very likely that, for me, the RTS will forever be a chore.