Simulation Games #1

Pilotwings (1990)
By: Nintendo EAD Genre: Simulation Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Nintendo SNES First Day Score: ???
Also Available For: Nothing

Despite playing the crap out of my SNES in my younger years I never really had that many games for it. One of the classics I kept meaning to get around to playing at the time, and in the intervening years as well, was Pilotwings but for one reason or another I didn't actually manage it until recently. Better late than never, I usually think in these cases, but I wasn't so sure here. Pilotwings was after all a flag-waving advert for the SNES's famed Mode 7, an early attempt at producing 3D graphics on home systems, and most early attempts at anything in games don't tend to age very well. Then again, F-Zero still kicks arse so hope remains while the company is good. It's also a game notable for it's almost total lack of violence. Okay, you can crash stuff but you can't shoot and certainly can't kill anything, with your objectives simply being to fly stuff well. I guess that makes Pilotwings a simulation game, albeit in a unashamedly arcadey way. It was a bit of a rare and precious gem all round for console gamers then.

Gravity Games #1

Lunar Lander (1979)
By: Atari Genre: Simulation Players: 1 Difficulty: Easy-Medium
Featured Version: Arcade First Day Score: 815
Also Available For: Nothing

I suppose it shouldn't really be too surprising that the very earliest days of the video games industry were dominated by science fiction-based games such as Spacewar, Computer Space, and of course Space Invaders, and unsurprisingly pretty much all of these involved shooting stuff. This late 70's release from Atari, however, not only involved no shooting, but it wasn't even a science fiction game - it was based on science fact! Space exploration was no longer an emerging concept by this point but interest in it was still high, so what better way to further engage the imagination than to allow us to participate (kind of)? Indeed, as if it wasn't obvious from the title, Lunar Lander allowed budding astronauts to re-enact the Apollo moon landings by carefully steering the landing module down to a safe, umm... landing.

Mobile Games #5

Pou! (2013)
By: Zakeh  Genre: Virtual Pet  Players: 1  Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Android
Also Available For: Blackberry, Apple iOS

Although I have my favourite game genres like everyone else, I have at least played examples of near enough every type of game there is. One that I hadn’t until recently, however, was that of the 'virtual pet'. They seem to go through odd little spurts of popularity and have ranged from simple dedicated devices such as the Tamagotchi to much more advanced releases for computers and consoles such as Nintendogs. Whatever form they took, though, I hadn't ever really been intrigued enough to try any of them, but then I discovered one just a few weeks ago completely by accident and decided to give it a try. It was, of course, Pou who is a 'cute alien pet who loves to eat and play' and was apparently dreamed up by Lebanese developer, Paul Salameh. His creation certainly looks amusing/ appealing enough but I was still sceptical about the virtues of his 'game'.

Crap Games #3

Ace of Aces (1990)
By: Artech Digital Entertainment / US Gold Genre: Simulation Players: 1 Difficulty: Medium
Featured Version: Sega Master System
Also Available For: Atari 7800, Atari 8-bit, PC, MSX, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum

The two games I've covered for this feature so far have been pretty stinky and they were both stricken with bad reviews in their day but neither received such a shockingly awful score as to fill me with the kind of unbridled fear that might be felt when surrounded by hungry zombies. This poor old Master System game did. I forget the exact magazine in question now but I do have a distinct memory of this game receiving a score of 15%. Considering that most game magazines had (and still have) a tendency to rate games on a scale of 50 - 100%, with average games receiving around 75%, a score as low as 15% was a real shock. Can any game really be that bad? Considering I actually quite enjoyed this game on my Speccy (albeit briefly), I'm very interested in finding out...