One of the first games I was introduced to on the 2600 was River Raid, back in 1982. I remember it vividly, as I was at my cousin David’s house, who was older than me, and he’d “baby sit” me so the adults could have some adult time hanging out in the dining room. We’d sit in the family room playing 2600, mainly River Raid.
This is an Activision game, and was later ported to Atari 5200, Atari 8-bit, C64, ColecoVision, IBM PCjr, Intellivision, ZX Spectrum, and MSX. The player controls an airplane in a top-down view over a river and gets points for shooting down enemy planes, helicopters, ships and balloons (for versions after the Atari 2600). By flying over fuel-stations, the plane’s tank can be refilled. The player can shift side to side and change the speed of the plane. Sections of the river are marked by bridges.
The game was highly acclaimed for its ability to stuff tons of map into small amounts of space. The map was huge and it fit on the disk because it’s randomly generated using a common starting seed, basically, imagine some of the Diablo dungeons…they’re randomly generated but the starting seed which starts the random process is also ‘random.’ (probably based on clock time which isn’t too uncommon). Atari, rather than try to make a random level each time used the level random generator to build a procedural based level rather than drawing it and saving it into the cart. GENIUS.
A more highly randomized number generation system was used for enemy AI to make the game less predictable.
Germany consider this game harmful to children, indexing it on their list of games “harmful for children” along with the game Speed Racer. It remained on their list until 2002 (since 1984) when developers petitioned it off the list before the PS2 launch of Activision Anthology (otherwise they’d not be able to put it in the game)
Some of the Germany reasons: Minors are intended to delve into the role of an uncompromising fighter and agent of annihilation (…). It provides children with a paramilitaristic education (…). With older minors, playing leads (…) to physical cramps, anger, aggressiveness, erratic thinking (…) and headaches (wikipedia)
All in all, a great game! To hear all the details on River Raid and our opinions, checkout TD Gaming Podcast Episode 78.
Left for Dead was by far my favorite game from the 2000’s. Never gets old.
I’d have to say that Elder Scrolls: Oblivion is my favorite game from the 2000’s as it was such a beautiful game at that time and it had such charm with everything from the soundtrack to the NPC’s. It was a wonderful game.
@EA not green-lighting any single player games: In my opinion, I would rather have a grander single-player experience rather than a tacked-on multiplayer with little substance. I like to go from one game to another, and multiplayer doesn’t do much for me if it isn’t the main focus of the game (ex. Team Fortress 2).
@Wii U: I am quite excited for this and I will definitely be saving up the money to buy the Premium Edition and a ton of games next summer. Also I really love the fact that it will not only have an HDMI cable included, but also a charger for the Gamepad. That way I won’t have to buy any additional items or accessories which would all add up to a higher price than what is shown on the box.
The 32GB of storage doesn’t bother me because I barely buy anything digitally so I don’t really need the space.
List of games that I would like to play on the Wii U:
-Bayonetta 2
-Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two
-Game & Wario
-New Super Mario Bros. U
-Pikmin 3
-Rayman Legends
-ZombiU
-BIT.TRIP Presents Runner 2: Future Legend of Rhythm Alien
-Trine 2: Director’s Cut