Everything is Interesting
NeuroRacer is a video game designed by a team of researchers at the University of California, San Francisco led by cognitive neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley as a way to help with mental cognition.
It was designed as an intervention for ‘top-down modulation deficits in older adults.’ A study on 60-85 year olds showed that the multitasking nature of the game caused improvements in tasks outside of the game involving working memory and sustained attention.
Grim Fandango is a dark comedy neo-noir adventure game released by LucasArts in 1998 for Windows, with game designer Tim Schafer as project leader. It is the first adventure game by LucasArts to use 3D computer graphics overlaid on pre-rendered, static backgrounds. As with other LucasArts adventure games, the player must converse with other characters and examine, collect, and use objects correctly to solve puzzles in order to progress.
Grim Fandango ’s world combines elements of the Aztec belief of afterlife with style aspects of film noir, including ‘The Maltese Falcon,’ ‘On the Waterfront, ‘and ‘Casablanca,’ to create the Land of the Dead, through which recently departed souls, represented in the game as calaca-like figures, must travel before they reach their final destination, the Ninth Underworld. The story follows travel agent Manuel ‘Manny’ Calavera as he attempts to save Mercedes ‘Meche’ Colomar, a newly arrived but virtuous soul, during her long journey.
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Goat Simulator is a third-person perspective game in which the player controls a goat. There does not appear to be any kind of storyline or plot. The player is free to explore the game’s world as a goat, destroying things in the environment, running, jumping, and biting. According to the developers, Coffee Stain Studios: ‘Goat Simulator is like an old school skating game, except instead of being a skater, you’re a goat, and instead of doing tricks, you wreck stuff.’
The game boasts the fact that various glitches and bugs have been intentionally left in the game, as to add to the light-hearted entertainment value. Another gameplay feature is the ability to ‘lick’ objects with the goat’s absurdly long tongue, which will then stick to the goat’s tongue and can be carried and swung around to provide an alternate method of wreaking havoc on the game environment.
Surgeon Simulator 2013, a humorous medical sim, was initially created in a 48-hour period for the 2013 ‘Global Game Jam’ (the four developers spent an additional 48 days building the commercial version). The game is played in first-person perspective. A mouse is used to control the surgeon’s hand (holding the right button rotates the hand; the left button grabs items). Gameplay consists of various surgical procedures, for example a heart transplant. Extra modes are available after completion of the early operations, such as performing an operation in a moving ambulance with surgical instruments bouncing around at random, and operating in outer space where instruments float.
Reception for the game has been positive, with critics stating that although the game was hard to control, this difficulty was ‘part of the appeal.’ Ars Technica commented upon the narrator’s voice over, saying that it ‘belies the ridiculousness that unfolds as he flops and flails his way through surgery.’ ‘Rock, Paper, Shotgun, praised the game’s humor and fun, and said ”Surgeon Simulator 2013′ is not a brilliant game. But it is a brilliant joke. In the form of a game. It’s an idea that is a clean magnitude of awesome above 90% of what will be released this year because it is so absurd.’
‘Under a Killing Moon‘ is the third installment in the ‘Tex Murphy’ series of graphic adventure games produced by Access Software in 1994. It was one of the largest video games of its era, arriving on four CD-ROMs (although some material was duplicated among the four to reduce the amount of swapping).
The game combined full motion video (FMV) cutscenes with an advanced 3D virtual world to explore. After its creators reacquired the rights to the series, it was re-released on ‘Good Old Games’ in 2009.
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‘NBA Jam‘ is an arcade game first developed by Midway in 1993 by programmer and game designer Mark Turmell. The game featured 2-on-2 basketball and is one of the first sports games to offer NBA-licensed teams and players, and their real digitized likenesses. Midway had previously released such sports games as ‘Arch Rivals’ in 1989 (another 2-on-2 basketball game, on which NBA Jam’s gameplay is based), ‘High Impact’ in 1990, and ‘Super High Impact’ in 1991, but ‘NBA Jam’ was the company’s first major hit.
The game became exceptionally popular, and generated a significant amount of money for arcades after its release, creating revenue of $1 billion in quarters. Its success gave rise to a new genre of sports games which were based around fast, action-packed gameplay and exaggerated realism, a formula which Midway would also later apply to the sports of football (‘NFL Blitz’), and hockey (‘2 on 2 Open Ice Challenge’).
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PaRappa the Rapper is a rhythm video game (e.g. ‘Dance Dance Revolution’ and ‘Guitar Hero’) for the Sony PlayStation created by Masaya Matsuura (the former leader of the Japanese ‘Hyper Pop Unit’ PSY S) and his NanaOn-Sha company.
While the gameplay is not challenging for experienced gamers, the game is remembered for its unique graphic design, its quirky soundtrack and its bizarre plot. Despite being made in Japan, all of the game’s songs and dialogue are spoken in English in all versions. The game is named after its protagonist, Parappa, a 2D rapping dog with the motto, ‘I gotta believe!’ His name comes from the Japanese term for ‘paper thin.’
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Gitaroo Man is a 2001 rhythm video game developed by iNiS and published by Koei for PlayStation 2. The game features visual design by pop artist 326 (Mitsuru Nakamura) and an original soundtrack by Japanese band COIL. The player character is U-1, a young boy who finds out he is the last legendary hero of Planet Gitaroo, and the possessor of the Last Gitaroo, a legendary guitar.
Despite a number of positive reviews, the North American and European versions of ‘Gitaroo Man’ were produced in very low quantities by Koei and, as a result, have become somewhat rare; it is regarded as a cult video game. Around 2005 in North America, copies began popping up in GameStop game stores. This was due to a reprint by GameQuestDirect, similar to their previous reprints of PlayStation RPGs ‘Persona 2’ and ‘Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure,’ both of which were previously very rare.
Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri (SMAC) is a science fiction 4X (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate), turn-based strategy video game sequel to the ‘Civilization’ series. Sid Meier, designer of ‘Civilization,’ and Brian Reynolds, designer of ‘Civilization II,’ developed ‘Alpha Centauri’ after they left MicroProse to join the newly created developer Firaxis Games. Electronic Arts released both SMAC and its expansion, ‘Sid Meier’s Alien Crossfire’ (SMAX), in 1999. In the following year, both titles were ported to Mac and Linux.
Set in the 22nd century, the game begins as seven competing ideological factions land on the planet Chiron (‘Planet’) in the Alpha Centauri star system. As the game progresses, Planet’s growing sentience becomes a formidable obstacle to the human colonists. Alpha Centauri features improvements on Civ II’s game engine, including simultaneous multiplay, social engineering, climate, customizable units, alien native life, additional diplomatic and spy options, additional ways to win, and greater mod-ability. ‘Alien Crossfire’ introduces five new human and two non-human factions as well as additional technologies, facilities, secret projects, native life, unit abilities, and a victory condition.
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Sid Meier’s Civilization is a turn-based strategy video game created by Sid Meier and Bruce Shelley for MicroProse in 1991. It is a standard-bearer for the 4X genre: eXplore (reveal surrounding territories), eXpand (create new settlements), eXploit (gather resources), and eXterminate (eliminate rivals). The game’s objective is to ‘Build an empire to stand the test of time.’ It begins in 4000 BCE and the players attempt to expand and develop their empires through the ages from the ancient era until modern and near-future times. The game requires a fair amount of micromanagement (although less than a simulation game such as SimCity).
Along with the larger tasks of exploration, warfare, and diplomacy, the player has to make decisions about where to build new cities, which improvements or units to build in each city, which advances in knowledge should be sought (and at what rate), and how to transform the land surrounding the cities for maximum benefit. From time to time the player’s towns may be harassed by barbarians, units with no specific nationality and no named leader. These threats only come from unclaimed land or sea, so that over time there are fewer and fewer places from which barbarians will emanate.
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Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is an adventure video game developed by Capcom. It was first released as ‘Gyakuten Saiban’ (literally ‘Turnabout Trial’) in Japan exclusively for the Game Boy Advance in 2001. The game stars Phoenix Wright, a rookie defense attorney in the Fey and Co. Law Offices, owned by fellow defense attorney Mia Fey. Other characters include Maya Fey, Mia’s sister; Miles Edgeworth, a rival prosecutor; Dick Gumshoe, a scatterbrained detective, and Larry Butz, an old friend of Phoenix’s.
The game features five court cases divided into episodes. Each case flips between two game modes: investigation and the actual trial. In the investigation aspect of the game, Phoenix gathers evidence and speaks to characters involved in the case. In the trial aspect of the game, Phoenix defends his client using said evidence, cross examines witnesses, and solves the mystery surrounding each case. The court perspective is usually in the third person, while the perspective outside of court is in the first person. Since the release of the Game Boy Advance version, the Ace Attorney series has produced many sequels and spin-offs, in a variety of formats including Nintendo’s WiiWare and Apple iOS.
Jet Set Radio Future is a video game developed by Smilebit and the sequel to ‘Jet Set Radio’ (also known as ‘Jet Grind Radio’). It was published by Sega in 2002 in the US, near the beginning of the Xbox’s lifespan. Similar to the original, it depicts a future Tokyo where freedom of expression is outlawed. The user plays a character in the GG’s, a gang of in-line skating graffiti artists who skate around Tokyo covering up rival gangs’ graffiti, knocking over Rokkaku police, and dancing to the eclectic soundtrack.
The game uses a cel-shaded style of animation, and has been widely acclaimed for its unique music style, detailed art, and gameplay. The soundtrack introduces artists that are either foreign, not found mainstream, or work under gaming licenses such as Guitar Vader, BS 2000 (the side project of Adrock of the Beastie Boys), Hideki Naganuma, Scapegoat Wax, The Latch Brothers (including Mike D of the Beastie Boys, Richard Jacques, Chris ‘Wag’ Wagner and Kenny Tick Salcido), Cibo Matto, and The Prunes.
The Daily Omnivore 