Honest Atari Game Titles

 

Star Trek

Created by Gene Rodenberry, this space sci-fi franchise got started in the 1960s as a TV series.  It only ran for three seasons, but made a lasting impression with audiences.  Eventually, this led to a variety of spin-off media including films, novels, a cartoon and (of course) video games.  One of the things that made Star Trek stand out was its rather utopian vision of the future.  In particular, characters tend to get along surprisingly well with one another.  Professionalism and maturity seem to be the ideals that humanity strives for the most in the 24th century.  Telling compelling stories in this sort of setting though, can be a real headache.

Ask anyone who has studied the art of script writing and they'll inform you that plotlines thrive on conflict.  In fact, if you sit down and watch most sitcoms, soap operas or "reality" TV programs that have come out over the last couple decades you'll notice that pretty much all of them revolve around rivalries and in-fighting between main characters.  The simple reason for this being, it's not easy to come up with interesting storylines if they lack interpersonal tensions.  On the plus side though, this difference helped Star Trek standout.  Here was a show wherein the challenge was more about putting heads together to solve a problem, avoid a crisis, or unravel a mystery.  Science fiction concepts were traded in and out from one episode to the next.  A lot of the stories were duds, but sometimes they could be thought provoking or at least memorable.  So...what does all this have to do with video games?

Well, as I briefly mentioned, there have been quite a few Star Trek video game released over the years.  They run the gamut from point-and-click adventure games to first-person shooters and space combat simulators.  Recently, there haven't been any notable new entries in the franchise.  This is partly because the Star Trek Online MMORPG has been keeping fans satiated, and also partially because games like Mass Effect stole Star Trek's thunder.  Even so, that franchise is just as interested in its third-person shooting and RPG mechanics as anything Star Trek related.   Hence, I find myself returning again and again to the question, "what kind of current day game would capture the essence of Star Trek?"  I'm not entirely sure, but to express it in a single word - talking.

Because of budget constraints, any given episode predominantly consists of conversations between characters.  Even on the rare occasions that action takes center stage there still tends to be a lot of discussions going on; punctuated by commands like "Engauge!", "Energize!" or "Make it so."  Assuming that the player takes the role of a starship captain or some kind of commanding officer, they should be spending the majority of their time doing the following:

• Soliciting Advice
• Giving Orders
• Accumulating Information

That's not to say they can't go places and do things.  Exploration is, after all, baked into the IP's DNA.  It's just that I can't really see a Star Trek game being any other way and still be true to it's roots.  The player shouldn't be flying a starship, firing weapons, or repairing a non-functional warp nacelle.  They should be telling other people to do those things, while they make the big decisions that decide the fate of their crew and possibly the course humanity.  

Alternative Quintet

Due to the ongoing pandemic, winter weather, and general economic downturn, a lot of people are stuck at home with time to burn.  Adding insult to injury is the drip feed of new games coming out right now.  In part this is because the industry is transitioning to next gen hardware, but also because of disruptions made to game development for aforementioned reasons.  Enter Cyberpunk 2077, the last big title of 2020 and the game everyone is talking about (for good or ill).  Now, I wouldn't consider myself a big fan of the cyberpunk genre, but I have seen "Akira," "Alita," "Robocop," "Hackers," "Minority Report," "Elysium," "Inception" (Yes, that's cyberpunk), "Ghost in the Shell," and the "Bladerunner" duology...to name a few.  I've also read William Gibson's "Sprawl" trilogy and "Bridge" trilogy along with the more contemporary "Altered Carbon" by Richard Morgan.  As far as video games in the genre go there aren't that many well known titles outside of Shadowrun and Deus Ex, but if you don't limit yourself to RPGs and are willing to a bit of poking around there are some interesting oddball titles that have their own unique charms.  Here are five that I think are worth mentioning.

Technobabylon is a classic point-and-click adventure game.  The story is told from the perspective of three different characters including a hardboiled detective and shut-in computer nerd.  The plot revolves around murder, blackmail and an AI construct.  While not likely to win much praise for originality, the game does have it's moments.  Defiantly worth checking out, if you are a fan of both cyberpunk and old-school adventure games.

Invisible Inc. is a turn-based strategy game in which the player is charged with carrying out a series of high stakes corporate espionage missions using an elite team of operatives.  Each individual player controlled character has their own strengths and weaknesses, as well as quirks.  The level layout, object and enemy placement is procedurally generated ensuring that things never quite play out the same way twice.

Observer, or if you want to get technical, >observer_ is a first-person adventure game staring the voice talents of Rutger Hauer (of "Bladerunner" fame).  It recently received an updated "system redux" version which improves the visuals and gameplay slightly.  At it's core though, this is a cyberpunk horror title, and a rare pairing of those two genres.  While it lacks much in the way of action, it does make up for it with a whole lot of style.

VA-11 HALL-A is best described as a visual novel.  Players take the roll of a bartender serving drinks to eccentric bunch of clientele.  Between sometimes lengthy chats with patrons, the player has to mix and serve drinks.  In their free time they can spend earnings on furnishings for their home.  A sequel is in the works entitled N1RV Ann-A, but it's unclear when (or even if) this title will come out.

Snatcher is what you get if you combine "Bladerunner" with the "Terminator" and have it made by Hideo Kojima (creator of Metal Gear and Death Stranding).  It's actually quite old, having originally been released back in 1988, there are over a dozen different ports of the game on various platforms.  It's an eclectic mix of action and puzzle solving from the first and third-person perspective with a little bit of nudity and gore sprinkled in.  Many versions are full voice acted to boot.

So, there you go.  If you're in the mood for some cyberpunk, but don't have a high tolerance for cyber bugs or eurojank, then maybe check one or more these games instead.  They may not have the breadth or flash of a big budget title, but a lot of heart went into creating them...and, when you get down to it, isn't that what all those mega-corps are lacking in cyberpunk stories?

Free and Worth Every Penny

In a relatively recent interview, acclaimed movie director Francis Ford Coppola mentioned that two of his most highly regarded films, "The Godfather" and "Apocalypses Now", were largely panned by critics in pre-release screenings.  In hindsight this all seems rather absurd.  Both motion pictures are currently considered some of the very best in 1970s cinema.  Conversely, look at what has won an Oscar for best film over the years.  Does anyone really hold "Driving Miss Daisy" or "Crash" in high regards these days?  The video game industry is no exception to this phenomenon either.  Giant Bomb's 2017 game of the year was PUBG, a FPS that was even then in the process of being overshadowed by other battle royale games.  Meanwhile, GameSpot is the only major outlet that has ever given a game-of-the-year award to a Souls-series game, despite the immense influence they've had on game design.  So, what I'm I getting at here?  Well...early criticism (particularly in the form of video game reviews) doesn't have much value even if it's coming from a profession source.

This is especially true when one considers early access titles or games that receive considerable post-launch support.  Pretty much any review (written or recorded) will inevitably end up out-of-date at some point in the future.  Generally speaking, patches and content updates improve the quality of a game, but not always.   Trackmania is somewhat famous for being noticeable worse in it's final form than it was earlier on.  Whether it be pre-release hype or restrictive NDA's, attendees of sneak-peeks or preview events have a troubling tendency to be of the enthusiast press variety.  In other words, it's glowing praise or nothing at all.  Of course, once the game is out in the wild, so to speak, the truth becomes known.  Sometimes it more or less affirms early impressions, but oftentimes that's not the case.  Regardless, down-the-road reviews tend to be deeper and more thoughtful in their analysis by virtue of taking the necessary time to digest what was consumed.  That's not to say that later, slower, and longer always equate to better criticism though.

It only takes a few minutes of browsing through an aggregated review website to find a recent review of an older game that is a bunch of poorly thought out garbage.  So, how can we seek out good criticism?  The unfortunately reality is forming a consensus takes time in much the same way one must wait for the cream to rise to the top of a glass of fresh milk.  That said, the thing that I think benefits critical discussions of video games the most is a wide variety of differing perspectives.  Obviously, the pitfall here is critics who are blind to their own biases or lack the empathy to relate to someone coming from a different view point.  This sort of thing is what leads to petty arguments rather than genuine debates. 

So, am I saying that reviews are trash?...kind of...yeah.  If you can find someone who has similar tastes to your own then that might be valuable, but could potentially lead to merely seeking validation over actual merit.  I strongly believe that only through hearing out differing opinions can one truly experience a piece of media to the fullest.  Alternatively, there are a number of streaming and video-on-demand services out there that let us see and to some degree judge a game for ourselves without actually playing or paying for it.  This isn't a perfect solution though, in that it's time consuming and (for better or worse) any particular part of a game may not be indicative of the overall experience.  Simply put, there are games that peter out after the first act, and there are games that take ten or more hours to really get going.

I guess in the end there aren't any perfect solutions to the problems associated with video game criticism.  Ultimately the best thing any of us can do is to stay one step behind the curve.  Given how FOMO driven gaming is these days though I feel like that strategy is only viable for someone who carefully avoids spoilers, has iron willpower, and doesn't mind only participating in LttP style discussions.  No matter what kind of person you are though, I have one piece of advice I hope you'll take to heart: 

Never trust a day one review of anything.

At best it will be ill-informed, and at worst a blatant attempt to cash-in on whatever the current zeitgeist is.        

Tempting Fate

Stanisław Lem though perhaps not as well know as Arthur C. Clarke or Isaac Asimov, was very much a Cold War era science fiction writer of the same caliber.  His lack of renown has much to do with him writing in his native language, Polish, as well as residing on the communist side of the iron curtain.  To this day, many of his works have not been translated into English.  In part it's because of his tendency for idiomatic expressions and wordplay (things which are very hard to convey in a different language and culture), but also because much of what he wrote was a product of the 1960s...or even earlier.  Hence, Lem's descriptions often suffer from some pretty glaring anachronisms.  Calling his works dated though, would be unfair in that he tended to fill his stories with philosophy, satire and criticisms that are just as relevant today as they were over half-a-century ago.  Though he often wrote about flawed utopias, his most signature trope is incomprehensible extra-terrestrial lifeforms, exemplified in his most famous tale "Solaris," but also on full display in another of his works - a novella entitled "The Invincible."

This space sci-fi adventure story is being adapted to a video game format by Polish development team Starward Industries.  This group of former Witcher series devs hope to have a level of success similar to what they achieved when adapting the writings of another Polish genre fiction author - Andrzej Sapkowski.  While not a third-person action RPG, the Starward team have made a smart move by embracing the story's dated elements via an atompunk visual art style.  For those unfamiliar, atompunk is the future that never was.  It's what people thought the future would look like in the 1950s and 60s.  In essence, it is a retro-future aesthetic with the signature bright colors, rocket-shaped starships, spacesuits with big glass visors, and of course ray guns.  It's actually a fairly underused art style that I'm glad is getting a chance to show off here.  

As far as gameplay goes, the novella focused on the crew of the titular star cruiser "Invincible" and an investigation into the loss of contact with their sister ship "The Condor" on the planet Regis III.  The original story features a lot of dialogue and traveling about under dangerous circumstances.  So it comes as no surprise that the developers hinted that the game would play like a mix of Firewatch and Alien: Isolation.  Despite adhering pretty closely to the source material, it does sound like there will be some deviations.  For one thing the protagonist will be a member of The Invincible's crew who has woken up from hypersleep late and has to figure out what is going on (not something that happened in the novella).  It all sounds very intriguing though, so, as one might imagine I have high hopes for this game and look forward to learning more about next year.