My Life in 10 Computer Games

During lockdown, I participated in the social media trend of posting lists of ten, one a day for ten days:  there was the list of ten albums, and the list of ten computer games.  They were posted at the time without any explanation, but now (a few years later, and now that it's the summer holidays) here is my list of ten computer games that have taken up more hours of my leisure time than they should have done --- or perhaps they're just the ones I like the most:

1.  Snapper

The first computer game we bought (as a family), on our first home computer: the Acorn Electron.  We programmed a number of games but couldn't save them as we had our Electron several weeks before we had a cassette recorder.  Once we had the tape recorder, we could save our programs and - more importantly - load purchased games as well.  Snapper is a straight rip-off of Pacman, with a few cosmetic changes, and we spent far too many hours on it.  

2. Around the World in Forty Screens (Repton 3)

 

In the 1980s and 90s, Repton was not widely known outside Electron and BBC Micro owners, which suprised me because for those platforms it was a seminal series.  I didn't play Repton or Repton 2 until years after they were released, but Repton 3 and the various spin-offs were high on our playlist, and in our house, that meant Around the World in Forty Screens.  Repton 3 is a 2D scrolling maze game, where you have to collect diamonds, kill monsters and avoid getting trapped or hit by falling rocks. 

The main aspect of Repton 3, though, was the ability to edit the characters and the maps.  You could load up the existing levels and change them, or adapt the default sprites and devise your own maps.  And we spent weeks and weeks and weeks doing this: we had Repton in Space.  This was in the era before discs and before mice, so every character or level, or both, had to be edited with the cursor keys and the space bar, and then saved to cassette.  Then you had to restart the system, load the game, load your new levels, and playtest them.  No wonder it took us weeks - but creating the levels was almost as addictive as playing the existing ones, and that's why Repton is in this list.

3. F-29 Retaliator

Eventually, we moved from the Acorn Electron to a PC.  Our first PC was a 286 with 640KB RAM, and we set about upgrading it - and the first thing was the monitor.  A colour monitor and a 1.44MB disc drive opened up enormous possibilities, including the option to play two or three different games in an hour (no more tape cassettes).  I've listed F-29 Retaliator here as it was the first game we played head-to-head:  with a serial cable, it was possible to connect two PCs to each other and play against another human being on another PC (in an adjoining room).  This was earth-shattering at the time, and that's why F-29 is on this list - my brother and I used to demonstrate this tech to any visitors, friends or family who came to watch.  And it was our first decent flight sim.

4. Command and Conquer

I received this for Christmas 1995 (my choice) in the big-box version shortly after it released and it too expanded my game-playing horizons.  I had been playing Dune 2 (its precursor) for months beforehand, and had read about the new Command and Conquer in magazines - I bought it without trying a demo. Full motion video.  A campaign that made sense.  Good in-game visuals and sound effects (especially the sound effects and voice effects).  And the ability to play head-to-head against my brother (who was Nod, and was always better than me).  It defined the genre, and I was there at the start (although I never finished either campaign).  I bought all the follow-ups, including the First Decade, and finished C&C3 (as GDI), but I still enjoy the original.

5.  Worms

This is straightforward comedy - playing computer games for fun.  After F-29 and Command and Conquer, Worms took us back to sharing a computer and taking it in turns to play, but what a crazy game.  My abiding memory of my 19th birthday is playing Worms with my parents and brother in my university room.  And then, several years later, introducing it to my kids, who love playing it with me (including the time that one of my sons deliberately took my turn and walked one of my worms straight into the sea!).  Light-hearted and crazy fun - as gaming should be.  And for me, the sequels became too complicated - the original was the best.

6.  Dark Reign: The Future of War

Command and Conquer spawned a whole range of copies and clones, and defined the Real-Time Strategy (RTS) genre.  Some were reasonable, some were clunky, and some - like Dark Reign - were actually very good.  This one had a unique (at the time) approach to the fog of war, and had a wider range of units than most games.  The graphics were a step-change higher than the original C&C, and the animation was also much smoother.  I only ever played it single-player, but it did have a long-standing online community.  

7.  Wii Sports

This is where the chronological ordering breaks down, but in around 2008 we (as a young married couple) invested in a Wii.  I'm not sure why, but we did, and we had a lot of fun with it.  You might call it a team-building exercise, or you could just call it entertainment.  We specialised in Wii Sports, and were particularly good at doubles tennis.  Nowadays, it's bowling against my two sons, and two-against-one (them against me) at doubles tennis.  They also enjoy the sword-fighting in Wii Sports Resort, but that's a whole separate game!

8. Lego Star Wars PC (2006)

Not to be confused with the various spin-offs and sequels, this was (again) the original Star Wars Lego game for PC, and I played it on PC first.  Before it was playable on any of the other platforms with their optmized-for-gaming controllers.  Yes, I've played those versions, and they are just as funny - and as always, better played with two or more people.  I never completed it (it's a long-standing trend, by the looks of it) because I got stuck with a puzzle with R2D2 who wouldn't stand where he was supposed to.  This was before YouTube really took off, and it occurred to me to watch videos of how to win the game - and the written instructions in the walkthroughs said, "Solve the problem with R2."  Yes?  How?  With the Force?  Fun, but frustrating - and then a decade later, my son solved the same game on PS3.

  

9.  Lego Jurassic World PS3

I'm probably breaking my own rules here, because I've not played this game - but it has had an impact on my life (courtesy of my son, who spent most of Christmas Day 2017 playing this on our lounge TV).  He was heavily into Jurassic World and Lego, and this was the perfect intersection.  He had the sense and initiative to consult online support when he got stuck, and he finished the game by the end of the Christmas holidays.  He then went on to work his way through the Lego Star Wars games as well.  The games are well-designed, have cute graphics and clever stories, and have lasting appeal as you try to get all the points, all the bonuses and all the characters.

I think he let me play it once! :-)

10.  Zenon  (Acorn Electron cassette)

I'm not sure how I missed this one out on my first run through, because I think this is the first co-operative game we (my brother and I) played as kids.  Zenon was a sideways-scrolling shoot-'em-up game, where you had to run to the end of each level, destroying as many aliens as possible along the way - without getting hit by them.  It was all standard arcade action, but with the (then) added twist that two players could play co-operatively at the same time.

It made my Christmas list in the late 1980s or early 1990s, and had the advantage of being only half the price of a 'normal' computer game at the time - Impact Software were onto a good thing.  The review of the game mentioned the two-player option, and that's what swung the decision for me.

Gameplay was simple and straightforward; each player lost a life if they lost all their health through collisions with the aliens or taking blaster fire from them.  There was a wide variety of power-ups to collect, including health and weapons, and if both players got the best weapon (the red laser) then they could do considerable damage to the aliens very quickly.

Now:  we completed this game.  There were around 200 levels (I can't recall), and my brother sat down early one morning, loaded the game (via cassette) and blasted our way through all of them.  We even saw the 'Congratulations screen'. But - to my frustration to this day - it came with a 'press any key to continue' so we saw the message, but because the level ended and the message showed so abruptly, we were both still pressing our gaming keys - run, jump, fire, whatever, so the message appeared for a second and then we were returned to the main menu - Level One.  Come on, game designers, do better!

Anyway, we stopped playing after that.  It's a shame really, because it was one of the best games on the Electron at the time - the graphics were above average but the gameplay set it apart (in two player).  Yes it was difficult, yes there was a high element of randomness in the game and no, there weren't any patterns - it was just run and gun.

And that's my list of 'my life in ten computer games', covering the mid 1980s to the late 2010s.  I haven't included Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds; Star Wars Battlefront 1 and 2, or Fortnite.  Maybe another time...