Nightmare in 1998 - the year games peaked

[Bazooka]

TR3 introduced crawling through vents I believe

Fair play, you got me on that.

[H-O-W-L]

I should let you know that Apocalypse is a far more interesting game than it seems, and you should look up some more detail on it before you play it to understand why it's so strange. The primary detail is that you were meant to play a nameless, voiceless convict that escaped alongside Trey, Bruce Willis's character. This is why he refers to an unseen "pal" and "kid" throughout the game. His voiceovers were never re-recorded for the switch in protagonist (which was a publisher mandate).

A shitload of money and time was spent developing the "Buddy AI" for Trey Kincaid, with him being able to work in neutral, aggressive, or defensive modes in combat and even try to race you to valuable items. This system was demo'd a couple of times but I don't think any build with it ever leaked. Neversoft quickly burnt out on the project, and started working on a jokey skateboard game... and then they got the Tony Hawk license, and history was made. I've only just got up so I can't remember more juicy details but they're out there.

Apocalypse is an interesting project either way, IMO.  It includes Poe so it's fantastic by default, but I love its late-nineties alt-goth/grunge/industrial aesthetic.

You know what's funny, though? The song by Poe that's used very prominently in Apocalypse? "Control". You know the only other use of Poe's music in a video game, that I'm aware of? Alan Wake, which uses "Haunted".

And of course, the most recent game by Remedy?
"Control".

:)

[purlieu]

Barely played that one. What was bad about it? Didn't it introduce vehicles or something? And was that the one that started with a weird bit where you're sliding down the side of a jungle pyramid or something?

There are some good bits in 3 but it's really, really disjointed. It jumps straight from a fairly straight-forward opening level (which does indeed start by sliding down a jungle slope) to one of the hardest levels in the entire series, has a level which is literally just an almost unnavigable maze, lets you choose the order you do the different areas, meaning the plot is almost non-existent, the difficulty level is all over the place throughout the whole game and, on first run through, you can potentially choose Nevada last meaning you lose your entire weapon stock a few levels before the end of the game. It also has the kayak, possibly the least usable vehicle in computer game history. And a section where you have a big gun and are required to blast away about velociraptors that goes on for so long that blasting raptors with a big gun manages to become boring.

I still enjoy lots of it, but I have no idea what they were thinking while they were making it. It's a bizarrely illogical and frequently very frustrating game.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

As a big fan of vents and crawling through them, finding extensive uses of ventilation systems in TRIII was manna from heaven.

[purlieu]

It's also good for staring at Lara's pixelated buttocks.

[Lemming]

TR3 at least manages to pull it together at the end with Antarctica. Great set of levels, albeit still a bit less tightly designed than TR1 or TR2.

Worst level set has to be London. The museum-based level can fuck completely off, and the two levels that precede it aren't exactly hot shit.

[purlieu]

Oh, I'm a big fan of Aldwych. Something about it being in a recognisable location, yet still being Tomb Raidery, and strangely epic in scale.
The level before it has the novelty of being in such an urban environment, but that wears off quickly. Lud's Gate is a fucking abomination. What level shall we do next, underground lair, British Museum or big underwater military area? I know, let's just mash them all together and throw in another almost unusable vehicle and call it a level.
The first Nevada level is neat, but the other two are ruined by the beige/khaki/grey colour scheme for levels that seem to go on forever.
The South Pacific ones also run into potentially dodgy territory, what with Lara landing on an island an immediately wiping out its entire indigenous human population (but it's ok because they're all cannibals!)

You're right, though, Antarctica is great. I know some people don't like the mine cart stuff, but I always found that a really fun take on the vehicle level. The Lost City of Tinnos feels absolutely epic, too, in a way the often claustrophobic TR3 tends to miss.

The best stuff for me is actually The Lost Artefact, the PC-only bonus disc that was released in 2000. It's a six level mini-game, is set in very un-TR locations, and is utterly fucking bonkers. You start in Scotland, head to Folkestone and the Channel Tunnel, end up in a French zoo, and then the final boss seems to be set in an alternate dimension. There are loads of totally off-the-wall secrets scattered throughout it, where you can meet the Loch Ness Monster, fight a load of kilt-wearing Scottish clansmen in a beautiful glen, find Stevenson's Rocket in the Channel Tunnel, discover Pterodactyls under the channel, free some dolphins from experiments, watch a Citroen 2CV drive itself, and get crushed by a meteor. Worth a play if you want your Tomb Raider experience a bit more psychedelic.

[Ferris]

What was the one with section set in Venice? TR2?

Never made it past that. My tiny child mind meant I was stuck in the canal at one specific bit, forever, while some twat in a window shot at me. Load of rubbish.

[purlieu]

Yeah, that's level two of TR2. If you couldn't get past that, you weren't meant for Tomb Raider.

[Ferris]

Yeah, that's level two of TR2. If you couldn't get past that, you weren't meant for Tomb Raider.

I finished TR1 and did all the collectibles and stuff so fuck knows why I couldn't work that bit out.

I blame everyone except myself.

[purlieu]

Curious.
There'll be one tiny switch somewhere or something that you missed, I'm sure. So many times I've found myself going round the whole level a hundred times trying to find the bit that I managed to walk past.

[Bazooka]

What was the one with section set in Venice? TR2?

Never made it past that. My tiny child mind meant I was stuck in the canal at one specific bit, forever, while some twat in a window shot at me. Load of rubbish.

Learn 2 Level Skip nub

[madhair60]

I've never managed to beat that level either. I'm embarrassed.

[Jerzy Bondov]

Spice World

Platform: PlayStation
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
(also made: Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, Ghost of Tsushima)
Developer: Team Soho
(also made: This is Football, This is Football 2, The Getaway)

One day in 1998 I was furious when I opened my Computer & Video Games subscription envelope and saw this:



This was everything that was wrong with where games were headed. It was everything that was wrong with the PlayStation. Games weren't supposed to be for people who liked the Spice Girls. But that's who the PlayStation was for. It was for people who went to clubs, people who had piercings, people who had interests other than games, people with friends. It was for cool people. That's why it was shit, and the Sega Saturn was the best. Nobody cool had a Sega Saturn. This issue had an article about the Sega Dreamcast, but on the cover they put a big picture of the Spice Girls. The whole world was going to shit and my favourite games magazine was going with it.

I still felt like that when the Dreamcast died its sad death, and I made the previously despicable treacherous act of going over to Nintendo for my next console. At least they understood who games were for: emotionally stunted young men. But now here I am, playing the game that represents everything that went wrong, for a thread. It's fine. It's fine.

When the game begins you choose a Spice girl to play as. I chose Posh, hoping for an extremely perfunctory low-energy vocal performance, which I got.

First you make a song. You can choose from five different Spice Girls songs. Each has nine samples which you can put in whatever order you like. I decided to endlessly loop the 'So tell me what you want what you really really want' part of Wannabe, because I thought it would be funny. It was, a bit, at first. Unfortunately the song you make here is used for the rest of the game. Not so funny now is it, fucker.



Next you practice dancing, which is a very basic rhythm game. As a highly skilled veteran of Guitar Hero/Rock Band/Persona 4 Dancing All Night/Taiko No Tatsujin I found this insultingly easy. My prowess was rewarded in no way, as there's no score.

Now it's time to record your dance with the rest of the girls! I did not understand this section. I thought I would have to recreate the dance from the previous part, but you don't get any prompts at all. I pressed buttons and they appeared at the bottom, and my mutant Posh Spice sort of jerked around on the screen, so I think what you're actually doing here is making up the dance, or 'freestlying' as the girls might say. Once you've done that, a voice says 'Okay. Let's work another girl through her... paces...' which presumably is the sort of thing that happens all the time in the recording industry. You can choose to copy the dance you just made, or record a unique one for each girl.

A voice then says 'Ladies, you are ready to kill' which I took to mean that the real game would now begin and I would get to snipe some Nazis. Instead you go to a television studio (which looks the same as the other places you've been so far, ie a purple void with flashing lights) where you watch the dance you've put together and listen for the millionth time to the impossibly annoying Wannabe remix you made like a total prick. The girls are then greeted with rapturous applause.



The final part of the game is called 'Spice Network' and it's just some interviews with the girls. I watched it all for you. It feels like it goes on forever. Here are some selected highlights:

Mel C would like to be Demi Moore because she is married to Bruce Willis.

Victoria doesn't want their live shows to be too professional. "We're not about that."

The girls reminisce about going on a 'torture game' on Taiwanese television, where Mel C fell on her face and cried. 'It's mad out there.'

There's a good clip of Geri on a radio phone-in threatening to "come down to Seattle" and educate a caller on Girl Power.

It's not that hard to dance in those mad big shoes.

Mel B remarks that "Nelson Mandela has got girl power... boy power. Everyone's got it. Single mother parents have got it."

Victoria starts telling a story about exposing her breasts to a lift full of people in a posh hotel, but gets abruptly cut off by the credits.

That's the game. That's the entirety of Spice World. Not much of a world and honestly I didn't find it very spicy at all.

This game is 1000% not aimed at me. It's aimed at 12 year old girls, but it's difficult to imagine them getting much out of it. I'm not going to sit around trying to imagine 12 year old girls for too long. Just seems like a rum sort of thing to be getting up to. I was probably added to a list just for downloading this game. The police are almost certainly going to seize my Retroid Pocket 2. Luckily I can just point them to this thread, like a sort of 21st century Pete Townshend.

In summary, I will say now what I said in 1998: How in fuck did this end up on the cover of Computer & Video Games?

It isn't a game. But I can now recognise that my attitude towards the PlayStation was that of a  gatekeeping snob, and that this sort of thing was an inevitable part of moving games into the mainstream. 11 years later I spent £180 on the limited edition of The Beatles Rock Band.

Is it good? No. It's not. But it's not actually a game so it doesn't count.

NEXT TIME: Anchorhead

[Lemming]

Has to be said, I really love the art style the band is rendered in.

Mel B remarks that "Nelson Mandela has got girl power... boy power. Everyone's got it. Single mother parents have got it."

Leeds' main cultural representative, there, making us look great on the global stage. Cheers Mel.

[Jerzy Bondov]

Yeah the art style isn't bad. The original plan was to go semi-realistic and do motion captured performances, which wouldn't have held up nearly as well. Unfortunately the animation isn't so good and they just sort of shuffle around the place awkwardly.

[Mister Six]

Yeah the art style isn't bad. The original plan was to go semi-realistic and do motion captured performances, which wouldn't have held up nearly as well. Unfortunately the animation isn't so good and they just sort of shuffle around the place awkwardly.

Mel B, Jimmy Saville and The Pigeon Detectives. Burn it all down.

[Jerzy Bondov]

Oh I'd also like to make some sort of clever point about how the Spice Girls were meant to be all about female empowerment and then their game is about disembodied male voices ordering them around. So imagine I did that.

[Thursday]

But who is your favourite Spice Girl?

[Huxleys Babkins]

Mel C, obviously.

[Jerzy Bondov]

Then, Victoria, now, Mel B

[AsparagusTrevor]

Nobody cool had a Sega Saturn.

FTFY

[Jerzy Bondov]

I normally do this on a Wednesday morning but I haven't finished Anchorhead yet. Wandering around like an idiot. Apocalypse after that and then I'll have a Christmas break.

[Rich Uncle Skeleton]

Truly test your faith and play Off Road Challenge released on the N64 in 1998. We got given it for Christmas by some well meaning relatives but it was pretty dire. N64 Magazine called it an insult.

As for football games, ISS 98 is great. (The N64 version, can't speak for Pro on the PlayStation) Still really fun to play (just this evening in fact) and has all the important tricks like diving, shoving other players over and keepy uppies. Plus, the intro aside, the N64 version's got great music, which someone appears to have handily uploaded only 5 hours ago. Meant to be!

[Huxleys Babkins]

FIFA Road to World Cup 98 was also great. That and ISS 98 were the last hurrah of the "arcade" football game before ISS Pro Evolution changed football games forever a year later.