Favourite Games

Programming

Favourite Games:

  I began Game programming, mostly for economic reasons, however I have always been a keen games player. I now realise that far from being the easy option, coding games is actually the most difficult form of programming, since the routines have so much to do, in so little time.

  Here's some of my favourite all time games, there really should be a 'Spectrum' section, since that is where I spent most of my games playing life, but for now I'll direct you here for that kind of stuff.

  Many of the following games were revolutionary, but I won't bore you too much with all that now, I'll just say that I loved them!

DOOM: In many ways far better than its successor Quake, DOOM was a game engine to die for, literally. Also, the original had a style of graphics which was lost in Quake and the DOOM sequels which minimised the deficiencies of the engine and made the game look much smoother. (Though whether this was by accident or design I can't say). The only game to ever make me jump out of my skin! (I was sure I'd cleared all the deamons from that maze!)

Duke Nukem 1: Again, a lovely game engine for its day, and was actually my favourite of all time once. Duke taught me the importance of making games truly playable... how many games have been made which are just too hard to be fun?

Heretic: Used the Doom engine well, and added excellent creatures, the best feature was watching the creatures battle long after you yourself had died. Also, the haunting noise the monks made, used to scare me...(does this make me sound soft?)

Duke Nukem 3D: In single player game mode this had more everything than Quake. More laughs, more action, more interesting levels, more fun.

Commander Keen 1: The game which was fast, when all others were slow, even if it was by a little sneaky cheating.

Lemmings: Those darn things! Showed that you could have terrible sprites and yet have one of the most addictive games ever. It was challenging too, you felt that you may have just spent 3 hours playing it, but that you hadn't actually wasted your time!

Tempest: Fast, spectacular, and original. You don't see many of these today. The thing I think I learnt from this game, is that you simply cannot have too many things happening on the screen at once, your players can cope with it!

Theme Hospital: Great graphics. Great idea, (better than theme park). The idea of having independent sprites, who, once positioned, will interact based on their own set of rules, is a very powerful one.
Shame it is let down by a few silly bugs, (installation routine/professor's intro etc). Despite these, it is a really good program. [Note: Some of the guys down at Bullfrog read this and appologised to me for the bugs by mail, which was really very generous of them: especially when you consider the pressure we all work under].

Quake: A fantastic multiplayer game, which somehow manages to run smoothly over the internet, to give an experience somewhere between open warfare and playground games of tig.

My current favourites:

Metal Gear Solid: I generally hate 3D 3rd person games, but this piece of cinematic computer entertainment quite definitely deserves its acclaim as the best Playstation game ever.

Least favourite game:

Tomb Raider II: I hate this game. It is the most boring, frustrating, and soulless piece of rubbish ever written. The fact that many reviewers have never managed to get out of the first cavern, yet still rate it makes me angry, the fact that everyone bangs on and on about it makes me despair. Have these people never played DOOM, Quake, or anything remotely interesting?. It is also obvious to a programmer why the gameplay is so poor... after rendering all the landscape there is just no processing power left for any decent creatures to fight. Yes I know you could say I am missing the point, but staring at Lara's arse for hours is just not enough excitement for me, and if it is for you, then you probably need to get out more!!

A page from James David Chapman's website. Located at: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jchap/ Site mirrored here at: http://www.j.chap.btinternet.co.uk
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