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Editor's Note: Community member Reggie Carolipio takes us back in time to revisit some memorable moments in gaming storytelling. I forgot about having to read story bits in a booklet that came with Wasteland, because back then computer games didn't have enough memory to store all that text. Ah...the good ol' days! -Shoe
In the spirit of Dan Hsu's article where he discussed five games that he had obsessed over, here are five that I have enjoyed so much because they were as addicting as a good book. Playing them fired up my imagination, and driving through each narrative was like turning the page to find out where everything was going. Having solid gameplay mechanics was also a major plus in keeping the experiences alive.
These aren't listed in any particular order, but they each left behind some memorable moments that have either inspired or haunted me to the present day.
Forget the movie and dust off a flight stick instead.
Chris Roberts' series stands as one of my most favorite space sims to have tied together a story and fast, frenetic furball fighting within the vacuum of space. Before Aeris died, players had to deal with the death of Spirit in one of the series' twists. In the third Wing Commander, before BioWare made such story concepts popular, you were forced to deal with a traitor in your midst while trying to decide how friendly you wanted to be with the local grease monkey.
But the narratives could change depending on your performance, and I'd often fail a mission just to see what would happen next. When it went to live acting in Wing Commander 3, the cast was just as impressive as the gameplay with the hero played by Mark Hamill and Admiral Tolwyn's role going to the always talented Malcolm McDowell. Watching the game was as much fun as playing it, especially in how you wanted to fiddle with the dialogue.
As to which in the series I liked the most, I'd have to say that it's something of a tie between WC3 and 4. WC3 was utterly epic from beginning to end, and 4 took me to a universe surviving in a post-war environment with both sides warily still watching the other in a sort of "Cold War...now that official hostilities were over...in space" setup. But what I particularly like about WC4 is that the ending -- depending on what you chose -- is one of the most memorable in gaming for me.
We've gone from this (Wing Commander 4) to...Wing Commander Arena. How did that happen?
When Malcom McDowell is in your game grinning, it's never a good sign. For you.
One of my favorite games of all time, Wasteland brought a post-apocalyptic twist to Interplay's string of RPGs. I spent way too many hours on this game, tweaking my starting party's skills, planning out what I wanted them to learn, squirreling away skill points on level-up just in case there were undocumented skills later on that I might want, and freewheeling my way through the wastes. Didn't know the password? Fine, I'll just shoot my way through. Need a toaster fixed? My doctor/electronics guy has the skills. Oh look, a howitzer! I can fix that, and now I have a use for the spare shell that I had found. All I need is a target.
One of the more memorable things about the game were the rumors surrounding the printed paragraphs that described specific scenes in the game. If you decided to simply read through the paragraphs (which was discouraged because of spoilers), you'd find a thread that seemed to indicate that you would eventually fly to Mars and fight evil aliens to free their slaves.
It was pretty good stuff -- as well-written as "the real stuff" -- and quite a few people fell for it, posting threads with faked shots and attempting to hack the code to find out just what the trigger was to get it to go. It was a total fake-out, but it was an awesome Easter egg for its paragraph system.
And when the Fallout games came out, the obsession started all over again.
Just remember: The bird's the word.
Your party, ammo, and weapon of choice at a glance.
These guys need to find some ion blasters, stat.
These rats are about to explode like blood sausages. At least that's what will
be described in the results screen. We were still working with floppies, here.
The Bard's Tale 3: Thief of Fate
I would say that the entire series deserves praise because of how much fun I've had with it, but the third one was my favorite out of them. Automapping didn't help when my party could freeze to death in another dimension with the Mad God Tarjan on the loose and WW2 Imperial Japanese soldiers waiting in a time-shifting dungeon alongside Nazis and Red Army soldiers.
Even with the automapping, some dungeons were cleverly designed so as to look alike in all four directions leaving you to wander far enough to find something different and then realizing that your party strength has just been whittled down even more by the monsters in the way. One dungeon was simply one big, open space that had to be explored square by square for the secret door the party needed. I played through this again because the dimension-hopping story, combat system, funky monsters, and wide-open dungeons made it fun to simply grind through with another party.
Years later, I'd find myself in Ultima Underworld 2 where it brought its own version of world-jumping excitement as the Avatar traveled to places corrupted by the nefarious Guardian. And in playing that, I couldn't help but be reminded a little of the quests that I had run through in Bard's Tale 3 in search of a Mad God.
of bad guys all wanting a piece of your party. That white area displaying
the text would scroll like crazy if you hit them all with an area-effect spell
as every hit was displayed in turn, which was oddly satisfying in its own way.
Speed reading FTW!
One of my favorite RPGs, Saga came out at the end of the Saturn's life cycle, but I had no idea at the time that it would be one of the last titles to ever come out for it. Its grim, Wasteland-ish world set after some terrible cataclysm hid plenty of secrets to pore over and its "open world" feel invited exploration of every corner.
The real-time combat system allowing shifting positioning in order to get to those sneaky weak points that a few specific beasties hid away made every battle exciting. And the story, with its "Panzerese" dialogue and unique soundtrack, made this title stand out from the rest in many ways for me.
I recently sat down with it again, going through it and actually doing better this time around than I did last time (the last boss battle wasn't as hard as I had remembered it the first time...what gives!?). Its bittersweet ending might have some unspoken resolution with the Xbox's Panzer Dragoon Orta, but I still hold the hope that Sega might revisit Panzer Dragoon with another RPG again or at least consider re-releasing this as part of a compilation...or even updating its looks for today's player.
the wasteland, bullied by the growing power of the Empire seeking the technology of the past.
statistics through a gauge system listing its attributes, adding another layer of tactical diversity.
Looking at the latest footage for Final Fantasy 13, I can't help but wonder if the sci-fi look of Square-Enix's newest opus could have been Phantasy Star's destiny if it hadn't gone off into the direction that it did, not that there was anything inherently wrong with it. But I still wish that Sega had kept it as a pure RPG.
The 3D dungeons, multiple vehicles, and three planets of this sprawling RPG was a big thing on the Master System. A huge, brightly colored, top-down overworld that could be explored on foot or through one of the many vehicles that could be unlocked later made this an exciting game to play through more than once. The music kept pace with the story, and, a rarity at the time, its heroine Alis was no pushover.
I probably owe some of my own direction-finding skills on the road to when I had to memorize the mazes in the game in order not to get lost, especially when you were dropped multiple floors thanks to a pit trap (a few of the potholes around my hometown come close to making that a reality). For some reason, however, the later games dropped the 3D dungeons in favor of top-down ones instead, but I still played them.
The game has recently been made available again on these shores as an unlockable in Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection with the other three, Phantasy Stars 2-4, playable right from the start. If you're not averse to a little old-school gaming, the RPG fan in you might find some fun rediscovering these, especially now that you can pretty much save anywhere you want.
Phantasy Star mixed together sci-fi and fantasy and had a party of four instead of three.
could buy a blaster in the game anyway. But at least you had spells! SPELLS!
Since these titles first came out, developers have continued to push and test their designs, ideas, and imaginations within the crucible of their works. There's always time for Peggle, or a few rounds online with Call of Duty, but for those titles that make telling a story as important as challenging the player, the worlds that they introduce to the public eye can be just as remarkable.
