I'm back, I'm back! (duh!)
Alright, this is my list: 8-)
TIE Fighter (Lucasarts, 1994)
To be frank, this game is pretty linear and playing it again means you do the same mission you've previously played before, but the combat is so exciting that I really don't mind the repetition. Now if only they have mods to randomly generate TIE Fighter missions....
Gunship 2000 (Microprose, 1992)
Microprose flightsims are always my lifetime favorite despite the dated graphics. Why? Because of randomly-generated mission! :) Take
F-19 Stealth Fighter for instance; there's no series of single mission you have to play sequentially. All you have to do is selecting certain parameters like combat theatre, rules of engagement (Cold War, Limited War, Full), and voila! A mission is instantly generated for ya. Even when you select exactly the same parameters again next time, your mission would be different from the previous one because it's randomly generated.
Your 'career advancement' doesn't follow a linear storyline or a linear sequence of missions; instead, it depends on your performance in those randomly generated missions. This really enhances the feeling of "career" as fighter pilot.
But the reason why
Gunship 2000 kicks ass is because it's also have randomly-generated campaign! While the campaign is merely semi-dynamic, your performance does matter in the mission; losing a misison will cause a setback on your side (reflected by the 'shrinking' of your 'territory'), while winning a mission will do the opposite.
F-16 Combat Pilot (Electronic Arts, 1989)
There WAS time when Electronic Arts made good games and really lived up to their motto "simple, hot, and deep". F-16 Combat Pilot is probably not that simple nor hot (what kind of 'hot' would you expect from a realistic flight sim?), but it truly a game with asthonishing depth.
On the surface, it just looks like similar with other 1989's flight sim with limited number of missions like Scramble, Tank Buster, Hammerblow, Deep Strike, and such; but after you finished every single mission then you go to the heart of the game: the campaign.
Now the campaign is a real gem! Even
EF2000 dynamic campaign is nothing compared to this. You're not only flying through the campaign by yourself, but you also play the strategic role to win the war! You are presented by a map where you have several airbases and a squadron of F-16s on your disposal, then you direct your aircrafts to attack enemy forces! Then it's up to your strategic decision: would you attack enemy airbases to reduce air threats, or should you deal with the tank columns that are moving to attack your airbase? And the enemy AI is fucking aggressive! Often you have to deal with immediate threats first before going offensive.
The better news is that the enemy is not sitting still, so if you're just sitting there then your ass will be busted! This is imitated later in smaller scale in
Gunship! 'passive mission'; where you'll lose the mission by doing nothing because the enemy is proactively attacking you.
Too bad the excellent depth of
F-16 Combat Pilot campaign has never been repeated today. Alright, it was copied later in
Total Air War's AWACS mode, but TAW was released in 1996, almost ten years ago!
Today we have 3D graphics and pixel shaders and such, but where are the exciting moments like taking off while enemy tanks bombarding your airbase? Moreoever, we're not only doing it for the sake of winning the mission, but within a larger picture of winning the war! Not to mention the aggressive, proactive AI. Alright,
LOMAC may have the most headachingly realistic flight models and such but still.......
Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon (Microprose, 1990)
Do I ever need to say anything about this one? Three words: ass kicking gameplay!
Sid Meier's Pirates! (Microprose, 1988)
See above.
Sword of the Samurai (Microprose, 1988)
While not as well known as the previous two, this one deseves a little more attention than it had. Like
Sid Meier's Pirates!, this is an action game where the player is doing the action not only for the sake of doing it, but to achieve a larger goal.
Starting as lowly Samurai, you can do so many things like exploring your surroundings, visiting your boss' castle, training yourself in swordmanship, or recruiting more army. As you explore your countryside, you can encounter bandits, saving farmer in distress, or even sneak up to infiltrate your rival's territory to weaken him. Of course those involve action sequences where you could get killed, so be careful!
Then you can visit the daimyo's castle; correct, he's your boss. You can attempt to be his most favored samurai, mostly by insulting your rival samurai and dueling him to death. In this game, the most favored samurai is a daimyo's successor, which means when your boss dies later, yo will be the one to replace him as the next daimyo.
But instead of waiting him aging to death, why not accelerating the process yourself? Yup, you can sneak into his castle to assassinate him, but you have to fight the guard first before engaging your boss in a duel. Beware, if you're wounded by his guards, the wound(s) will subtract the available hit-points when you're dueling against your boss later.
Unlike today's monotonous and repetivive FPS like
Doom 3 when you're doing action sequences just for the sake of doing it,
Sword of the Samurai actually enables you to do it as part of larger goal;
you are not only concentrating to win the action sequence itself, but carefully pick which one you should take to achieve success in the overall picture. Too bad, with today's 3D tech and such, they simply don't make this kind of action game anymore. Alright, we had
Deus Ex back then, but it was 1997, for crying out loud! Now you're shooting just for the sake of shooting!
Compared to
Sword of the Samurai, today's action games fucking suck. Suck, suck, and suck. Nyah-nyah!!
(alright Ace, feel free to scream "KAAAAAAANNN" again :P )
More to come, old game wanking reviews by KAN! ;)