Anyway, the piece was simultaneously grumpy and silly - in keeping with the previous FF(P)S column I'd written. I'm pretty pleased with most of it, except maybe what I've written about UFO: Enemy Unknown...
What was the best bit of videogame news you heard last year? For me it's easy: it was the confirmation that there will be no remake of Final Fantasy VII. Back in May, Yoshinori Kitase (producer of Final Fantasy XIII) was speaking at a round table event in Korea, and more-or-less confirmed that it’s too bloated, over-wrought, and needlessly elaborate to bother recreating with current generation graphics and sound. Phew. Let’s all breathe a sigh of relief.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed FFVII back in 1997. At the time it was probably the best written (or best translated) RPG I’d ever played. The setting was truly novel. And in Sephiroth, Square had created the greatest videogame villain since, err, Dr Eggman.
But what purpose would a remake possibly serve? It’s already available for the PS3 and PSP via the Playstation Store, and if all the nerds who keep voting it into those “Greatest Videogame Ever!!” lists really think it’s “a masterful piece of story-telling”, I’m sure they can get over the dated visuals.
The truth of course is that much of FFVII’s popularity was directly attributable to its jaw-dropping looks, and that's exactly why the nerds know they need to secure some kind of graphical overhaul if it’s to maintain its stupidly high place in those stupidly irresistible lists throughout the years to come.
Me? I'm getting pretty bored of those lists. I'm tired of the acronym-filled orthodoxy that says OoT is the bestest, and GoW is the bloodiest, but CoD is the multi-player-iest. I'm sick of people in one breath moaning at publishers for not taking enough creative risks, before taking another in which they say decade-old game design documents need to be treated like holy manuscripts.
If only the kind of whooping idiots who fetishise videogames enough to dress up as the characters could channel a little of their passion toward games that truly warrant and need it. Videogame history is littered with the corpses of great game ideas, but what do we do? Rather than campaign to preserve or rebuild them, we let them fester on obsolete formats to be forgotten, and instead petition to get games remade that are already widely available.
Yep. Videogame “fans” are idiots. Luckily though I’m savvy enough to know that if you can’t beat them you have to join them. It’s clearly impossible to win an argument about videogames if you don’t have a list to back yourself up. So although it pains me to lump the following extraordinary games together into one highly ordinary format, here are:
The GREATEST GAMES That Should REALLY BE REMADE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE Because NOT ENOUGH People Know About Them And They're a BIT OF A PAIN To Try And Play As They Are
(in mostly random order)
I. I have no Mouth and I Must Scream (1995)
“For 109 years, I have kept you alive and tortured you. And for 109 years, each of you has wondered, WHY? WHY ME?”
Eventually we’ll realise that we’ve got it all wrong. The best videogames aren’t about escapism, they’re about training the player for the never-ending conveyor belt of psychological trauma that is life. This bleak, ethics-based, multi-branching adventure is close to being the best preparation possible, but it hasn't aged too gracefully, and now the majority of trendy videogame circles have completely forgotten about it.
It’s adapted from the short story of the same name by Harlan Ellison, and tellingly, the author was heavily involved in its development. Key to its success is the feeling of absolute futility as you’re pushed around by the omnipotent and malevolent supercomputer AM. Other games that claim to be twisted or disturbing generally give power to the player to inflict gratuitous suffering on others, but unless you’re planning a career in social media, that's generally pretty useless life-experience. Here, the situation is hopeless and you suffer a lot while struggling futilely to do something about it, making it one of the greatest life-simulators ever made.
II. Deus Ex Machina (1985)
“Tuesday evening, after tea and compulsory prayers, the last mouse tried to hide from Mankind, inside the Machine.”
Forget what you think you know, this is the greatest game ever made with “Deus Ex” in the title. It skilfully blends Shakespeare, Orwell and Ian Dury, has a brilliant ambient soundtrack, and contains voice-acting that arguably still hasn't been bettered twenty five years later.
It’s tempting to celebrate that a sequel or “re-imagining” has already been announced but that would almost certainly be premature. The mainstream videogame press has so far spectacularly failed to pick up on it - probably because there have been far more important news stories for them to run about the hottest cosplay girls at last year’s Comic Con – and this hardly bodes well for its chances of getting the recognition it deserves. Indeed, given publisher Quirkafleeg’s fledgling status, it would do well to ever see a final release.
I mean, seriously, if Mel Croucher’s return to the scene – who was, after all, one of the great videogame pioneers of the 80’s – is so ignobly overlooked, then we truly deserve every crummy and unimaginative videogame we get.
III. Segagaga (2001)
“Throw away your emotions and become a mindless machine. This is how you make successful games.”
This was the last Dreamcast game Sega ever made, in which the history of Sega was celebrated, all manner of genres were fused, and one of the world's largest game publishers made an astonishingly frank attack on the derivative nature of 21st Century game development.
There have been a few indie games since (such as The Life of a Pacifist is Often Fraught with Conflict and Linear RPG) that have expanded on the idea of using videogames to critique videogames, but it’s just slightly more glorious to hear the message coming from one of the big boys. Of course, Sega have since gone on to completely ignore the moral at the heart of their own game by publishing dross like Stormrise and the 2006 version of Sonic the Hedgehog, but who can blame them? By giving up on making brilliant consoles that host beautiful, original games, they’ve been able to turn their fortunes around.
In fact, maybe I’ve got it wrong and this wasn't meant as a satire but as an instruction manual. Unfortunately, as things stand, you’ll have to learn Japanese if you want confirmation for yourself.
IV. M.U.L.E. (1983)
“Mechtrons are quick deciphers and efficient doers.”
It’s a game about economics. Big whoop. Except it’s also one of the best balanced and tactically nuanced multiplayer games it’s possible to play on a computer, and should really be recognised as a timeless classic to match Monopoly (or Settlers of Catan, to make a slightly more fitting board game comparison).
Freeware release Planet M.U.L.E. made a decent stab at keeping the dream alive in 2009, although it's lacking the kind of community it needs and which an Xbox Live (or similar) release would provide. At 400 points and with a slick tutorial, it's pretty easy to imagine that this could finally be the hit it deserves to be. What's more, it would probably only cost EA about $103 to do it, but I guess they're holding onto that cash in case they need to market more “shoot evil foreigner in the face” games to us.
V. Strife (1996)
“We lost our paradise in a single violent stroke.”
Timing is everything. In 1996, all we wanted to do was play Quake. Who could blame us? Carmack and Romero’s 3D juggernaut lacked brains but it had all the beauty. Strife had less than a month’s head-start to win our hearts, and by that point, its “really nice personality” was never gonna cut it.
It’s a shame, because graphics aside, Strife was by far the more ambitious game. There were voice-acted NPCs you could chat to. There were side-quests and multiple endings. Your character developed over time, both in terms of the narrative and his abilities. And the post-apocalyptic neo-medieval setting was pretty inspired compared to the gloomy corridors of so many other first person shooters.
A new version with the same ambition but with better sign-posting (in both its maps and which quests you should choose) could be a real game-changer. Borderlands just doesn't quite cut it.
VI. Mother 3 (2006)
“A tiny speck of uncertainty that steals into each bright day.”
Just because I'm not the world's biggest FFVII fan (pity him, for he is a troubled soul), doesn't mean I subscribe to the “all JRPGs are pointless snoozefests” school of thought either. Saying that all JRPGs are rubbish is a bit like saying, “all moustaches look ridiculous”: it's basically true but by speaking in such broad terms you risk overlooking some important exceptions.
The Mother series is probably the most important exception of them all, and it's both a crime and a tragedy that not one of its three iterations has made it to Europe. This is a series that's happy to ask the player to pause the game, make themselves a coffee, and reflect on what they've experienced so far. And unlike almost every other roleplaying game –Japanese or western – it’s sufficiently thought-provoking that you might genuinely consider taking it up on the offer.
There can be no “so much would be lost in translation” excuses for this. We need an (official) English language version. Now.
VII. UFO: Enemy Unknown (1994)*
“It is clear that we are fighting a losing battle on earth.”
I have a sexy recurring dream. It involves me using a machete to hack through a thick jungle. My arms ache and I’m not sure whether I can go on, but just as it seems everything might turn into a nightmare, I stumble upon a clearing. I fall to my knees to catch my breath, and to my surprise the air suddenly tastes cool and sweet. Smiling to myself I look up, and there, shampooing her hair in a waterfall, is April O’Neill from the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles.
“Will you play with me?” she asks, and turns around with a 3DS in her hands. Although I’m momentarily distracted by the cartoon contours of her body, it doesn’t take me long to notice that projecting out from the device in her hands is the geoscape of either UFO or Terror from the Deep- from this distance it’s too hard to tell.
“Is that-?”
“Yes. A full, portable version of UFO: Enemy Unknown. In 3D.”
“I thought... I thought it could never happen...”
“Oh it’s happened,” she says, moving closer. “And it’s exactly how you imagined it would be.”
“Really?! Wow... April... this is... well... it all seems too good to be true!”
She leans in, “Oh it’s about to get better. You know, they haven’t changed anything. It’s just how you remember it. Except you have to try the two player mode with me.”
Now she’s close enough to be whispering in my ear and...
Of course that’s where I wake up.
* This is of course already available on Steam, but it runs less well on my current set up than it did on the 75 megahertz machine I ran it on first time around.
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