THURSDAY,SEPTEMBER5,2002
OLD SCHOOL GAMIN'
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 9
Top five old-school games of all time
By Jordan Tucker Jayplay writer
WARNING: Geek-speak follows. Some terms may be unfamiliar to those with good hygiene.
Here's a top five, all-time, old school video game list, as far as console and PC goes. Seems we're gonna need to do a little talking about pig-looking bosses with Superman symbols on their chests (Gannon in Zelda), a baaaaaad man named M. Bison (Street Fighter 2), and Steve DeBerg floating — and I mean floating, so high it goes off the screen — 100 yard bombs (Tecmo Super Bowl).
TECMO SUPER BOWL for Super Nintendo (Tecmo,1993)
Photo Illustration by Eric Braem/Kansan
You sports people out there know you still play this game. If you don't, it's only because you wish you still had that Super Nintendo your cousin bogarted from you back in '95. In my opinion, this is the football game for the ages. It's quick (wait, are seconds faster in Japan or something?) simple, relatively deep and strangely addictive. Last summer, my roommates maniacally played this game for four hours a night, all the while keeping a sticky-note list of "records" tacked on the wall. I'm sure Randal Hill is smiling somewhere knowing that he can still put up 380 yards. There's a whole mix of allure that keeps this one going, especially keeping a poker face while setting up the infamous "X" play and, yes, dropping back 30 yards to throw a 100-yard bomb with Steve DeBerg or, say, the mighty David Klingler. Hey, just remember: If you yell "jump," your wide-out will hear you.
STREET FIGHTER II TURBO for Super Nintendo (Capcom, 1993)
Hail, hail... This is the masterpiece series that started up the huge fighting game trend of the '90s. Capcom's 2D fighting engine revolutionized video games and set the tone that still finds its way into the next-gen 3D fighters. The beauty of the game lay in that classic engine, mostly in its fluidity, complexity and style. Combos, buffering, chains, counters, cross-ups... yup, Capcom started it all. Yes, SFII Turbo wasn't the only Super Nintendo Street Fighter. The first one was great, but Turbo stuck in speed and the ultra-cool bosses from the Champion Edition. The sequel's
sequel, Super Street Fighter II, wasn't so bad, but the corniness killed it in the end specifically Flaming Dragon Punches and, c'mon, T. Hawk? The classic Capcom engine, sharp graphics, giant learning curve (from button mashing to "How d'ya like my Four Fierce Dragon?" ) and the coolest, most diverse selectable characters around sit this one on the throne in the kingdom of fighters.
JEDI KNIGHT-DARK FORCES II for the PC (LucasArts,1997)
Hooooo boy, am I gonna catch some hell for this choice. I had to stick a first-person shooter in here, and I know all of you IN the know are thinking Doom or Quake II. Id software had the FPS lockdown in the '90s: Wolfenstein the pioneer, Doom the successor, Quake the masterpiece, and Duke Nuken/Shadow Warrior as everyone's fave FPS porn. But LucasArts really took it to the next level. JK had the great multiplayer of Quake II, the intensity of Doom single player, and that little thing some of you might have heard of — THE STAR WARS UNIVERSE. What really made the difference were lightsabers, a new innovation for FPS's. An offensive, defensive and sheer-style weapon, the saber added a whole 'nuther dimension to the game, which all other FPS's back then lacked. Nothing like walking out into the open to see some dude standing there and pzzzzzzzzssshhh, his fire's up, yours follows, and it's on. Lighting effects were so damn slick and the coolest mod level I ever saw was on JK. You too could fight in a giant, centrally located night club where The Prodigy's "Breathe" pumped in the background.
MEGA MAN SERIES for Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Play Station, Play Station 2 (Capcom, 1987-2002)
see TOP FIVE on page 13
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