1981 - Market Saturation and the Articulation of “Sperm Games”
I considered writing about something obscure or underpraised, but I really only want to talk about Eugene Jarvis’ Defender. There’s an old magazine from before the crash that Mr. Jarvis occasionally wrote for and he described “the sperm game,” a game with machismo designed for masochists. He clarifies that women can also be fans of sperm games. I think he can’t help using this gendered term because these games universally involve shooting and, well. You can also find quotes from him where he brags that the Time to Credit for Defender is about 30 seconds. That is, the average player will lose all their lives in 30 seconds. In that time frame, you will experience a dense layer of emotion ranging from panic to relief. It is overwhelming.
What makes this game the best of American arcade design is that the number of threats to the player are matched by the options the player is given. You can teleport away, you can smart bomb the screen. Control has an inertial, fluid range. It’s all in your power to win or lose.
One game I think is overrated from this year is Donkey Kong. I really like looking at the Rube Goldberg contraptions but movement is so stiff as to make me scream in pain. Miyamoto didn’t design for movement until he played Joust. I’m certain of that. Crazy Climber is better anyways.
1982: The year when Activision put rainbows on all their boxes
I’m gonna talk about three games for this year because I like each of them a lot and I don’t hear much chatter about them.
The first is Gravitar. The American tree of arcade games had its best harvest this year with Joust and Robotron 2084 already being mentioned. Gravitar gets less attention which is odd because it has a lot of modern ideas working for it. The level design is wonderful and you’re controlling with the blessed inertia based friction again. I’m particularly in love with the level select option. In order to warp ahead, you have to twist and shank the ship through a spiraled cavern in less than 30 seconds. Later the levels invert gravity, then become invisible. It rules.
I have a bad habit of comparing media to media. I’m going to do it twice because my nature is my nature. Rocky’s Boots is a Zachtronics game from the past. It’s aimed for children mostly but the latter stages are devious. A raccoon dances whenever you find a solution and i don’t think games have topped that reward since.
You have not played Zork III. The novelty of text adventures wore off after toying with the first one and you filed the rest away as curiosities only for the dedicated. You are me ten years ago. Zork III’s puzzles are beautifully designed, intricate mechanisms. They bear the fingerprints of truly alien minds. It is the closest I’ve experienced to a text-based Myst game. The prose is melancholic and weighty. I actually felt…feelings?
Overrated game of this year is…Pitfall. I mean it was probably good at the time and it’s quaint and charming but, like, why play it now? There are literally millions of platformers that exist, many of them more stimulating than this one! (I would never talk like this about Pitfall II or H.E.R.O. Those are dear friends)
Back when everyone was going nuts about Zero Ranger I came away thinking “This isn’t nearly as good (or readable) as I remember Strania being but maybe I should play that again to make sure” so thank you Zero Ranger for inspiring me to play more Strania, which is probably the best shooter of the decade.
Last night, as I waited to fall asleep, I wondered what modern shooter I should play. I have little knowledge of what’s been going on in the genre for the past twenty years so thank you!
this was recently a twitter meme so i’m bringing it back. your Favorite Game From Every Year, which i take to mean, your favorite game released in each year in your area, as part of your life
I’m guessing this holds up pretty well. another edutainment game, you navigate a large multi-story warehouse opening locked doors by solving science puzzles, collecting vehicle parts to build the ultimate car/plane/blimp etc to race the bad guy. pretty pixel art and got me interested in science. still remember it came on like 13 floppy disks.
an amazingly evocative world rendered in super-low-poly 3d. you are a chopper pilot working your way up the ladder of better and better copters, doing public service tasks around your simcity - putting out fires, breaking up riots, stopping car chases, etc. somehow really gave the feeling of being a living breathing world despite boiling down to a random quest generator. the presentation has a lot to do with it - this is the first appearance of Simlish as a language, the radio is hilarious, the sims are super expressive for how primitively rendered they are. needs to be seen in motion.
i drew my own map of the lego island that hung above my computer. played it incessantly, memorized all the songs, delivering pizzas, riding jetskis, upgrading my car. just a peaceful little world inside my computer.
maybe my most played game as a kid, led to a lifelong obsession with aircraft. this game ran like crap on my computer. My brother and I would buffer inputs on the keyboard (me flying, him guns) just so the game running at <10 fps would actually play. Nothing felt better than lighting up the cannons and watching the pixels peel off a Nazi bomber. came with a 300-page-manual that was basically a history of WW2 aviation. watch the video and be impressed this was out in '98.
techno ice-skating delirium. it probably doesn’t hold up but i had a blast managing franchises and cheating the hell out of the AI in this game. i still like arcade-style skating physics best.
I used to go on this forum called XeroCreative with my brother and build YuGiOh decks to battle strangers. weird software, my first real exposure to forum culture which eventually led me here.
03: f-zero gx (gcn)
04: espn nfl 2k5 (xbox)
best NFL game of all time
halo 2 could go in this spot
05: jade empire (xbox)
found silk fox lesbian route compelling for reasons i could only identify much later (i am a lesbian)
06: guitar hero ii (x360)
07: portal (x360)
08: gravity bone (pc)
i was really taken with what could be done artistically with such a short game. says one, not super profound thing, but says it super stylishly in a way that sticks.
09:
10: eve online: tyrannis
this MMO was my life for the better part of a year and i still miss it. a game dedicated wholeheartedly to player freedom, leading to conflicts that bled into the real world. EVE was the first and truest Metaverse.
11: bangai-o hd: missile fury (xbla)
port it to steam already!
12: counter-strike: global offensive
still the only good e-sport. counter-strike is the best cuz counter-strike is immortal. it can change as much as it wants but fundamentals are fundamentals, in the way of all good sports.
the best ‘new fps’ with its mixs of guns-blazing and stealth gameplay. politically found it quite affecting in its exploration of the wake of fascism
15: life is strange
16: stardew valley
17: getting over it with bennett foddy
think this is basically an unbelievable artistic statement. play it
18:
19: baba is you
20: kentucky route zero
21:
22: cricket 22
my “Games of the Year for me, as an adult, ordered by original release date” list looks a little different
Summary
79: asteroids
80: pac-man
81: defender
82:
83: dragon’s lair
84: tetris
85: super mario bros.
86: outrun
87:
88: super mario bros. 3
89: simcity
90: raiden
91: sonic the hedgehog
92: dune ii (+remakes)
93: doom
94: super metroid
95: command & conquer
96: command & conquer: red alert
97: dodonpachi
98: starcraft: brood war
99: street fighter iii: 3rd strike
00: counter-strike
01: super smash bros. melee
02: (sigh) metroid prime
03: f-zero gx
04: metal gear solid 3: snake eater
05: ninja gaiden black
06: (sigh) gears of war
07: halo 3
08: (sigh) gta iv
09: (probably, i haven’t played it) demon’s souls
10: vanquish red dead redemption
11: (probably) dark souls
12: counter-strike: global offensive
13: antichamber
14: wolfenstein: the new order
15: life is strange
16: stardew valley
17: getting over it with bennett foddy
18: (none altho i should play celeste)
19: pathologic 2
20: kentucky route zero (complete)
21:
22: