Retro City Rampage and more....

It's October and there are many games coming out right now that my head is spinning!

One game I'm really enjoying is Retro City Rampage for the PC. You can read my impressions at Maximum Pixelation.

Of course, along with Retro City Rampage you've got the new X-COM which is fantastic, I've just got PC a copy of Dishonored sitting on my desk (yes, a boxed copy of a PC game...it's a very weird feeling), I still have to play Episodes 3 and 4 of The Walking Dead and let's not forget FIFA 13 and PES 2013!!! It's all a bit nuts and we've still got some great titles on the horizon with Assassin's Creed III, Need for Speed: Most Wanted 2, Hitman: Absolution and Far Cry 3!!

It's a great time to be a gamer.....and a bad time to be an adult with adult responsibilities! 

Lavan

FIFA, Pro Evo, FTL and other random musings

It's not fun being sick but it does leave me without excuses to post.

I'm writing for Maximum Pixelation - a very neat site about games. I've recently written a review for 10000000 ("10 Million") an iOS game that I am hopelessly addicted to. I have had many a numb-butt from sitting on the can far too long deeply engrossed in this game. You can check out my review on the front page of the site.

I'm also really digging an Indie game called FTL ("Faster Than Light") on the PC - it's best described as a Star Trek Captain combat simulator. You're a military ship trying to cross the galaxy and each jump results in a random encounter. In the battle encounters you have to juggle managing the controls for shields, engines, weapons and more. You also have to manage and direct your crew - there's a fire in engineering but the aft of the ship has been boarded and you also need someone to do repairs in life support - whom do you send where? While that's going on you have to manage your shields and weapons as an enemy ship bombards yours!

It's an absolute blast and, like "10 Million" it can be played in little bite sized sessions that are perfect when you're in a rush (though, much like that iOS game you may find yourself staying to play far, far longer than you intended).  What I also love about the game is the imaginary narrative about your ship's adventures that you no doubt start creating in your mind! I find myself drawn to Football Manager (PC) for the same reason. Both PC Gamer magazine and the website Rock, Paper, Shotgun have excellent pieces on FTL adventures that are definitely worth reading. 

This time of year brings football gaming and, unlike fans of the gridiron variety, connoisseurs of the beautiful game have a number of options. Most notable of these are FIFA 13 and PES 2013. I once made a name for myself writing absolutely massive and in-depth reviews of these kinds of games but I doubt anyone has the patience to read those kind of write-ups any more. I do think both games deserve some words because they are both absolutely phenomenal games and I'm trying to wrap my head around some kind of concise gameplay comparison between the two. Look for that either here or at Maximum Pixelation.     

X-COM and Dishonored both come out next week and that's another two games added to the list of things I want to play but don't have enough time to do so (but will anyway because, hey, who needs sleep?). I'm also really looking forward to Hitman: Absolution and Far Cry 3. Both of those games look incredible.

We'll talk soon. You bring the coffee next time....

Lavan

Armored Kill (360) and Soccer Gaming

Armored Kill, the newest expansion pack for Battlefield 3, comes out for general release today. It's actually been out for more than a week for subscribers of Battlefield Premium and after several hours of play I have to say it's a real return to form for the Battlefield series.

Armored Kill, as the name suggests, puts emphasis on vehicles and as a result it includes four absolutely massive maps. Along with the four maps there are 5 new vehicles (2 Tank Destroyers, 2 Mobile Rocket Artillery Vehicles and 1 Quad Bike) and an AC-130 Gunship. There's also a new game mode, 'Tank Superiority', which is Conquest with a single capture point, tons of vehicles and super-short vehicle respawn times.

As you'd expect, the big draw for any expansion pack are the new maps and the four maps in Armored Kill are bloody huge. Fortunately, the maps are littered with vehicles so you're not often stuck legging it to a capture point for 5 minutes. Armored Shield is probably my favorite and takes place in the Russian countryside with large plains, farms, fields and a small farming town. I enjoy the super-long sight-lines, the excellent variety between infantry skirmishes in and around the farming town and then the vehicle-heavy areas around the periphery. 

The other maps are Alborz Mountains (a snow-covered mountain range with a valley on the other side), Death Valley (a forest and highway map that takes place at night under a full moon - the decreased visibility allows you to sneak around on foot if you want), and Bandar Desert (a bay-side town/city with surrounding desert). The Bandar Desert stage is the largest Battlefield map ever, it's apparently 2.5 times the size of Caspian Border, and I think it's too big for consoles. Since the 360 and PS3 versions of Battlefield 3 only support a maximum of 24 players I found this map far too expansive and even with vehicles to help me get around, I often spent more of my time driving around and looking for action rather than actually doing some shooting. However, I am looking forward to trying this one out on the PC as I imagine 64 players on a map this size would be perfect. 

A special note has to be made of the addition of the AC-130 to each of these maps. This is basically a CPU-controlled gunship that flies around the map in a set pattern. Each map has a designated 'antenna' control/conquest point that allows the captured team access to the gunship. Access to the AC-130 grants you the ability to use two human-controlled turret spots that allow you rain down hell upon the battlefield, but it also allows your team to use the AC-130 as a mobile spawn point. This latter perk is very cool as it provides a form of fast travel (since the AC-130 loops around the map) and also allows you to descend upon capture points paratrooper-style.

There's no doubt that whomever controls the AC-130 capture point has an advantage but much credit should be given to DICE for balancing things so it's not a game breaker. First off, because the AC-130 flies around the map in a set pattern the gunners on board don't always have sight-lines to ground targets. This stops them from just raining down fire on the antenna capture point and preventing the other team from trying to capture it. It takes a good 3-4 minutes for the plane to circle around the Battlefield which is enough time to mount an offensive. Second, it's not that hard to shoot down! The Armored Kill maps are not only littered with ground vehicles but they also have a number of choppers and jets and while the gunners onboard the AC-130 can fire off chaff and flares, the 'on-rails' nature of it's flight path can make it an easy target. Thirdly, shooting ground targets isn't as simple as point and kill - you have to factor in distance, how fast (and what direction) the plane is moving in, and also what direction your target is moving in. All three of these things ensure that the AC-130 doesn't spoil the game.

I'm really enjoying Armored Kill. I think it brings Battlefield back to the massive skirmishes the series is known for and is the complete opposite of the previous expansion (Close Quarters) that tried to ape Call of Duty. The emphasis on vehicles provides a ton of fun and even if you're not good at driving a tank or flying a helicopter, you can bust out your Engineer-class and have fun with your rocket launcher! If you're a Battlefield Premium member then you've already purchased this, but if you're not I definitely think it's worth checking out if you liked the larger maps in Battlefield 3.

Lavan

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In non-shooter news, today also marks the release of FIFA 13 and PES 2013 for consoles. The PC version of PES 2013 came out last week and apart from an online mode that is an unmitigated disaster (will Japanese companies ever learn how to do online play?) it's absolutely fantastic. I'll have more impressions in the coming days but I really feel this is a return to form for the series.

Not to be outdone, the FIFA 13 demo was also very impressive with some notable gameplay improvements and, as you'd expect, presentation and features that blow PES out of the water. I am really looking forward to trying the full version.

Factor in New Star Soccer 5, New Star Soccer (iOS) and the pending release of Football Manager 2013 and it's a hell of a time to be a football gamer!

Lavan

Mark of the Ninja (360)

Mark of the Ninja from Klei Entertainment is easily my biggest gaming surprise of the year. Klei are probably best known for the Shank games, 2D side scrolling beat 'em ups with an impressive art style but mediocre gameplay. With that modest pedigree, I am not sure what deal with the devil they made to produce such an excellent downloadable/XBLA game!

Mark of the Ninja is basically a 2D side-scrolling Metal Gear Solid without the frustration, the bat-shit crazy story, and the 6 hour cutscenes. The Metal Gear Solid comparison isn't lost on the developers who've actually included a funny nod to Konami's game in the form of an unlockable I won't spoil. By moving from 3D to 2D, Klei remove all the frustrations and limitations that are inherent to stealth in 3D games and create a streamlined platforming experience that's still full of depth and an absolute joy to play. 

As a Ninja, the game involves you infiltrating a number of secure facilities to reach your target. These places are crawling with guards and while you can try and take the guards on directly you won't last long (they have guns, you do not). So in true Ninja-style you have to go sneaking around and silently taking out guards. Just like Metal Gear, guards have a cone of vision but since you only have to worry about 2.5 planes it's a lot easier to manage how you hide and you don't have to worry about fiddling with the 3D camera. I say 2.5 planes because you can actually hide in the same plane as a guard is looking if you hide behind certain objects - so even though a guard is looking to his left, and you are standing the in the same x-axis to his left, you're hidden behind an object. 

A guard's cone of vision is increased if there's more light so a large part of the game is trying to stay hidden in the shadows. You can take out the lights by either switching them off (the more civilized way) or smashing them (the more fun way) but the latter can alert guards from the sound of breaking glass. Sounds you make create are represented visually by a bubble that radiates from where the sound was created. If a guard is within this bubble then he's alerted.

Speaking of alerted, like Metal Gear, there are a couple of states of alertness that guards can exhibit. If you make a sound or a guard spots you briefly (before you jump away into the floor above or below) he doesn't panic but instead goes to investigate the disturbance. If he doesn't find anything then he goes back to his station or previous patrol route. Wherever he saw or heard you last is represented by a fading circle on the screen. This can then be used to lure guards where you want them to go (into traps or into isolation). If a guard sees you for more than second then he goes into full-alert mode, calls the cavalry and starts shooting. During this period if you get out of sight there's a 10 second count-down on screen until the guards step down and return to the first level of readiness. 

My favourite guard response, however, is when one becomes 'terrified'. If you're able to kill a guard in a particularly gruesome way and allow another guard to find his body (or see his death) then he'll completely lose his shit and sometimes even start firing his gun randomly and take out other guards! 

There's nothing like stringing up a dead guard from a lamppost (Batman: Arkham City- style), drawing over a pair of guards to his body and then seeing the first guard absolutely lose his shit and shoot the other guard in a panic! It's brilliant. 

Of course, it's not just the guards that can detect you but also dogs (that have massive cone of detection for sound) and automated defense mechanisms such as trip-wires and lasers.

What Mark of the Ninja does masterfully is the generous checkpointing and the lack of punishment for being detected. The game check-points so frequently that whenever I was detected I would just let the guards kill me and then restart a screen or two away from where I was detected. This totally takes away any of the frustration you'd get in other stealth games from being found out. Likewise, you don't get punished for failing - each level has certain goals and challenges (like getting to a certain area without being detected or without raising an alarm) - dying and re-starting doesn't affect the status of these challenges so you don't find yourself swearing and needing to go back to the beginning of a level if you want to complete a challenge. These may be two minor points but they make a world of difference.

There are more than half a dozen assassination methods (pull a guy into a dumpster to kill him, drag him from underneath a ledge, etc) and each has a mini-skill component to it - when you sneak up upon an unsuspecting guard an X button prompt appears to initiate the kill. The moment you hit X an arrow appears on the screen and you have a 1-2 second window to move the right stick in that exact direction. If you pull it off then you complete a silent kill. If you don't, you still kill your target but he's able to make a noise to alert surrounding guards. It's a small touch but it adds another layer of skill to the game.

Different guards also require different tactics - the plain vanilla guards can be sliced and diced any which way you want but then there are elite guards with riot shields (so you have to attack from behind), snipers who can one-shot kill you, guards with gas-masks (in areas where you're exposed to poisonous gas) and more.

Like in Metal Gear you have a tone of gadgets at your disposal such darts (which can be thrown to destroy lights or switches), to smoke bombs (to let you pass laser beams and hide your location), fire-crackers (which can be thrown to draw a guard's attention elsewhere) and many more. 

Each of these are unlocked in an RPG-style progression. As mentioned before, each level has certain goals and challenges. Completing these challenges as well as completing moment to moment gameplay tasks (such as staying hidden while a guard passes you or silently killing a guard) earns you points. These points are then used to unlock new gadgets, new fighting/assassination moves and, later on, new abilities. 

Tying everything up is an amazing art style, genius level design and a great story.

This game looks absolutely gorgeous. Not only are the visuals crisp and clean but the hand-drawn aesthetic really steals the show. By going with a stylized, rather than realistic, look they're able to maintain a congruency to the visuals that really draws you in. You're playing a dark, gritty, ultra-violent version of a Saturday morning cartoon.

Animations are brilliant and often you'll find yourself wincing as the main character slices and dices his way through the game. Lighting and the way you're presented both in darkness and in the light is also masterfully done. When you're in shadow everything dims and has a highlighted glow to it. When you pop into the light everything gets saturated. 

The stages themselves are amazing with tons of detail and vary from ancient dojos to skyscrapers and subway tunnels. The weather effects are also very well done. My two favourite parts of the game are a stage early on when you're trying to infiltrate a compound during a thunder storm. The rain effects and the intermittent lighting are stunning. Likewise, towards the end of the game you're in the desert and have to battle sand-storms. What's neat is that both the lightning and stand-storms also have an effect upon the gameplay in terms of your visibility. 

Level design is very smart and I never once got lost. The way the stages are designed also afford you at least more than one way to get past an obstacle.

The cherry on top is a solid and really well told story. You play as a Ninja who has been chosen by his clan to bear 'the mark'; a tattoo using ink that bestows heightened senses and abilities to the recipient. The only downside - the longer you have the tattoo the more you begin to lose your sanity and eventually you're expected to kill yourself before you lose your mind. It's a very cool concept and the end chapter has a very neat narrative twist.  

This game, for me anyway, came completely out of nowhere. If it wasn't for a friend's post on a forum I don't think I would have even tried it. Ironically, I had just started playing Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker HD on the 360, finished the first level (20 minutes gameplay, 40 minutes cut-scene...I'm not joking) and then downloaded Mark of the Ninja. I'm not sure how I'm going to go back to Metal Gear after playing this. 

If you're a fan of action-stealth games you should get this game and even if you're NOT you should still check it out because it takes all the frustration out of stealth action and, all in all, I think it's the best game I've played this year and at $15 it is an absolute steal.

Lavan

Sleeping Dogs (PC)

Sleeping Dogs has an interesting development and publishing history. It was supposed to be True Crime: Hong Kong (the third game in the True Crime series) but then it was dropped by Activision somewhere through the development cycle. Thankfully, it was picked up Square Enix and the result is one of my favourite games of the year.

Sleeping Dogs takes place in Hong Kong with you playing as Wei Shen, a Hong Kong-born but American-raised police officer who's sent undercover to infiltrate the Triads. The narrative is your fairly predictable undercover police story - cop works his way up the latter, gets emotionally attached to the group he's supposed to be infiltrating, there's the question of mixed loyalties, he has to make a decision, yada yada. While I would have liked something a little less by the numbers, the story is still excellently told with some really memorable characters, some genuinely touching moments and fantastic voice acting. Much has been made of some of the Hollywood voice talent attached the the game such as Tom Wilkinson, Lucy Liu, and Emma Stone but the real star of the voice cast is lesser known actor Will Yun Lee who plays Wei Shen. Lee does an incredible job of bringing Wei Shen to life and yielding an emotional depth that's more often than not missing from most video game characters.

The story has a solid arc with a satisfying resolution that still leaves things open for a potential sequel.

I've mentioned more than a dozen times on this blog that I'm a sucker for any kind of open-world games because I just love exploring virtual environments. Sleeping Dogs impresses right off the bat because it takes place in Hong Kong. I've never been to Hong Kong but after 18 hours in Sleeping Dogs I feel like I've been in and around a fictional facsimile of the Pearl of the Orient. Something as small as driving on the left side of the road in right-hand-drive cars makes a massive difference in the feel of the world. Sleeping Dogs' fictional Hong Kong has 4 boroughs connected by highway with a hill/mountain in the middle. Despite the actual map size being small, the verticality of the city gives a great sense of scale to the map. Building, roadside and highway details are fantastic but I wish there were more buildings you could enter. When the sun goes down the city becomes a neon jungle with signs everywhere.

The city isn't as large or detailed as GTA IV's Liberty City (after finishing Sleeping Dogs I went back to GTA IV just to make sure nostalgia wasn't clouding my memory) nor is it as large as Steelport from Saints Row: The Third, but it does have tons of character and each of the different boroughs has enough unique characteristics to make Sleeping Dogs' Hong Kong feel like a real place.

The real star of the game, however, isn't the story or the open world itself, but rather the gameplay and in particular, the hand-to-hand combat. Sleeping Dogs borrows heavily from the hand-to-hand combat system used in Rocksteady's Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City games. It's just as brutal and satisfying but it differs from the Batman games in terms of the timing (it's much less precise and more forgiving) and the increased variety with regards to moves, combos and environmental attacks. I actually enjoy it even more than the aforementioned Rocksteady games and it definitely sets the standard for hand to hand combat in open world games to come.

Gun-play is also really well done and it's important to note that you don't actually do that much shooting in this game - most missions still involve hand to hand combat and this is a nice change from the open-world norm. While the shooting is not as snappy or responsive as the excellent shooting in Saints Row: The Third, it's a lot better than GTA IV's (including the Ballad of Gay Tony expansion). There's also a severicable cover system and some Max Payne-esque slow-mo involved when you vault over cover or shoot out of a moving car. It's very neat.

Likewise, the driving is a good intermediate between the heavily physics-based (and almost too twichy) driving in GTA IV and the stop-on-a-dime crazy arcadeyness found in Saints Row: The Third.  As mentioned, the game implements some very cool slow-mo when you start shooting out of a moving car. The ability to shoot the tires out of chasing cars and see them flip into the air like something out of an 80s action movie is a bit over the top (and something I'd more expect to see in Saints Row) but still a lot of fun and very well done. Similarly over the top (and similarly just as fun), is the ability to car-jack from a moving vehicle a la Pursuit Force! If you hold down the A button while driving Wei opens the driver-side door (or sits up in his motorcycle seat) and if you get close enough to another vehicle a prompt appears and you hit A again and he'll jump from one vehicle to another. For some larger vehicles you then have to control Wei as he crawls around the top or side with the driver trying to shake him off! As I said before, it's completely over the top but a lot of fun and again, something I think should be included as an option in more open world games.

Another neat addition to the driving is the ability to press a button to automatically ram other cars. If you're driving and another car is beside or in front of you, if you press a direct and the X button your car suddenly lurches/jumps a few feet in the chosen direction. It's completely unrealistic but it adds another dimension to the car chases - particularly when you're being chased by the cops. If you're being chased by the cops in a GTA game the only ways to lose your tail are to either make it to a Pay & Spray location or get out of the cone of vision/influence of the chasing police. The latter system is also employed in Sleeping Dogs but you can also end a police chase by taking out a finite number of chasing cop cars by ramming them. This is a ton of fun but it also does take a lot of the tension out of police chases. I never once felt that an entire mission was going to go to shit because the cops were going to take me down - something I'm regularly terrified of in GTA.

Tying everything up in a neat bow is an excellent RPG-like progression system. Each mission you complete earns you both 'Triad' and 'Police' points. The more brutal your kills/actions; the higher your Triad score, while the more you try to obey the law while undercover (i.e. not running over pedestrians or killing innocents) the higher your Police score. These points are then used to unlock different abilities such as new combat moves or time-slowing bonuses during gunplay.

Those two meters, however, aren't the only ways you can evolve your character. Scattered around Hong Kong are random, miscelanous missions that unlock 'Face' (street cred) points. These points unlock global abilities such as a discount on certain items or secrets appearing on your mini-map. Speaking of secrets, as mentioned before, you can unlock new combat moves by earning Police and Triad points but there is a whole branching tree of combat moves that are unlocked by finding special jade statues. The story conceit is that these statues belong to your old Kung-Fu master/sifu and by returning them to him he teaches you a new move. The sifu character is actually quite well done and both he and Wei have some very interesting conversations.  Rounding things out are 'Health Shrines' that are hidden around the city. Finding and praying at each shrine increases your maximum health.

These RPG-like systems not only add more depth to the gameplay, they give you another reason to keep driving forward besides the (very good) story. Sure you want to play one more mission because you want to find out what's happening to Wei, but you also want to do more missions so you can unlock cool new moves and abilities. It's very implemented and it's something that no GTA game (save San Andreas, which, incidentally is my favourtite) has done.

Special note has to be made of what an incredible PC port this is. Kudos to developer United Front Games for creating a PC version that isn't crippled and makes full use of the power of modern PCs. I played it on the PC using the free high-res texture pack and the results are stunning. The screenshot attached to this post is one I took on my own computer just using Steam's F12 capture - and it looks even better in motion. Best of all, you don't need to have a kick-ass rig to run the game at high settings - my PC is 2 years old and ran it just fine.

All in all, Sleeping Dogs is a fantastic game that I thoroughly enjoyed from start to finish. I loved being able to explore a fictional Hong Kong while kicking seven shades of crap out of Triads. The story may be a tad predictable but it's expertly written and still very engrossing. It took me 18 hours to finish it and I enjoyed every second.

Assasin's Creed 3 and Borderlands 2 are still to come out but I already know that Sleeping Dogs will most definitely been in the running for my personal game of the year. 

Lavan

PS Kudos also to United Front and Square Enix for some excellent cover cart by Tyler Stout.

PPS While the game still runs fine on the 360, if you have a solid PC I would definitely go with that as it looks much better and plays the same with a 360 controller.

Yesterday (iOS)

I used to really enjoy point and click adventure games but I've kind of fallen off playing them in the past 10+ years. Part of that has been moving onto other genres and part of that has been Lucas Arts' retirement from the genre. That said, there have still been a number of studios that have consistently been making point and click games in the interim. One of those is Pendulo Studios who made the Runaway series of games and The Next Big Thing. I actually own the first Runaway game (Runaway: A Road Adventure) but as with many games I buy during Steam sales I've yet to even download it let alone play it! However, one I finish Pendulo's new game, Yesterday, I'll definitely be checking it out to see how it compares. 

Point and click adventures are perfect for the iOS - touch substitutes well for a mouse, there're slow paced, bite sized and you can save anywhere. Yesterday does some really neat things to make the user-experience even more streamlined. Since the last 'new' point and click adventure I played was (I think) Grim Fandango I don't know if these are additions developed specifically for this game or if they're now the genre standard.

The most notable feature is that when you double click on an area of the screen your character basically teleports to that new region rather than walking there. It may seem like a very simple, almost trivial, addition but it really helps speed up the gameplay when you don't have to wait for your player to complete his slow walking animation to get around the screen. This also helps to prevent the monotony of hunting around your environment at a snail's pace. 

Another great addition is a button that you press that automatically highlights all the objects in the environment that you can interact with! This completely removes all the frustration inherent to the 'pixel hunting' that was an integral part of old point and click adventures. 

Both of these additions are fantastic because they allow you to focus on the most important aspects of a click and point adventure - the puzzles and the story. There is nothing inherently skill based or enjoyable about clicking around the screen on every pixel to see if it's selectable (and then waiting for your character to walk around while doing it).

The story of Yesterday is difficult to explain without spoiling but it basically surrounds the main character, John Yesterday, a researcher on the occult who awakes in hospital after apparently attempting to commit suicide. What follows is a fairly serious story that weaves together the occult, satanism, murder, a grand conspiracy (of course) and also an element of fantasy. You can tell from some of the dialogue that this was a game perhaps not written by native English speakers or possibly translated from a different language (Pendulo Studios are based in Spain), but it doesn't ruin the narrative at all and there's still some very good characterization. 

The puzzles are also well done in that they're logical and actually make a modicum of sense. Sure the solutions to puzzles in the Monkey Island games were hilarious but some of them could only be solved with trial and error. I've yet to find a similarly annoying puzzle in Yesterday and as a result you actually get a sense of satisfaction when you do find a solution.  

Voice acting is solid except for one swarmi character who has the worst East Indian accent I've ever heard! Seriously, Pendulo - if you ever revive that character in a future game I'm available to do that character pro bono! The visuals are very good with some really nice art direction. This was actually a PC game first (see the pic above) so the graphics shrunk down to an iOS device look very crisp and clean. 

Yesterday is available for $6.99 on iTunes which, in the crazy economy of iOS games, seems like a lot but I've had a lot of fun with it so far and definitely think it's worth a look if you're interested in a new point and click adventure. 

Lavan

Remember arcade machines?

Sitting here in the departures lounge of Pearson Airport playing Yesterday (impressions coming soon) on my iPad while waiting for my flight to board I suddenly found myself nostalgic for old arcade machines. Growing up I never really went to stand-alone arcades until I was a teen so my exposure to arcade games initially came from visits to the airport as a child. Being part of an immigrant family growing up in the UK,  my dad would often find himself going to the airport regularly to either pick up or drop off numerous relatives and family friends. I'm guessing most 7 year old boys liked to go to the airport to see the airplanes. Not me. I saved up my change and went to the airport to play games whose graphics and sound would blow me away.

In the mid-80s any and all my gaming at home was done on my trusty Sinclair ZX-Spectrum 48K - games on tape, monochrome graphics and tinny sound. So when I went to the arcades (er...I mean the airport) and got to play things like Gauntlet, Space Harrier, and Outrun I was completely blown away. Arcade machines were this magical, mysterious powerhouses of gaming that utterly annihilated anything you could experience at home. Playing them also involved 45-60 minute drive to get there which added to the sense of occasion and wonderment.

Arcade-ports (remember them?) were a major selling point for home titles but could never come close to the majesty of their cabinet versions. I distinctly remember getting Paperboy for the Spectrum as a gift and being delighted that I was playing an arcade game at home!!

As I got older, I started to hang out more at the local community centre which also had a neat selection of different arcade machines that would rotate every few months. I remember playing the crap out of Double Dragon (another gem I ended up getting the Spectrum version for) and it was the first arcade game I ever finished. Around that time more and more intricate cabinets would be on show when I made a trip to the airport. I don't think I've ever been more floored by a video game than the first time I saw Hard Drivin' and it's colored 3D graphics and the Afterburner cockpit cabinet was like something from another planet! I was convinced if I did really well at it then Centauri would reveal that it was all a training exercise and I was ready to be a real life fighter pilot!

I was too young to experience Walter Day's golden age of gaming when Pac-Man, Defender and Missile Command created an insatiable buzz around arcades but I was around to experience the madness that was Street Fighter II's appearance on the arcade scene. It was incredible - people literally crowded around machines like something from a movie. The game itself was also stunning - amazing visuals with these gorgeous, colorful sprites and detailed backgrounds....and why is that guy in the Guile stage jerking off? Furthermore, in the pre-FAQ era it was also something of a mystery - how exactly did you pull off those flashy moves? Would someone tell you how to pull off a dragon punch? Isn't that supposed to be Mike Tyson? How are you supposed to pronounce Ryu? (for the record, I think I spent a decade incorrectly calling him 'Rye-You')

I wonder, though, if it was Street Fighter II (and specifically it's port to the SNES) that marked the beginning of the decline of arcades. I know arcade machines were still doing okay a decade later but I remember that SF II on the SNES was the first arcade-port where I thought to myself; "Wow, this almost is as good as the arcade version." It was the first inkling that you could have a system at home that could produce visuals that matched those magical cabinets at the arcade/community centre/airport/chippy. And that is, in my mind, why arcades are pretty much extinct - you can now have those types of experiences at home without having to pump in quarters. In fact, your phone probably supports a version of Street Fighter II that looks better than the original arcade machine!

I daren't say it's a shame that arcades have died (its innumerably more convenient to play games at home) but I do miss that sense of awe and wonder that came with those cabinets.

Lavan