A to Z Challenge: Joust

 Like I mentioned before, a lot of the early video games (and even some today) were pretty silly.  One of the silliest was Joust.

The concept was entirely weird:  you're a knight who pilots an ostrich-type bird.  On the screen are different levels that have teleporters on them to spawn enemy knights on birds.  You have to fly up and hit them from above; hit them from lower and you'll die.  If they die, they release an egg that you have to collect before it hatches to basically respawn the enemy.   And there's lava at the bottom that'll kill you if you fall into it.  The first couple of levels the bottom is solid but then the bottom starts shrinking to reveal the lava.  Oh, and sometimes a pterodactyl will fly around to try to kill you.

That all makes sense, right?  Yeah, not at all.  There's a quickie Robot Chicken sketch that just shows the gameplay and someone basically says, "WTF?"

Ummmm...what?!

But like a lot of these weird old games, it can be pretty fun.  We had this for the Atari...one of them.  I think there was both a 2600 and 7800 version.  Or maybe we just had the 2600 version that we played on the 7800?  Anyway, I'm not sure how far I got into it, but one of those where it was never that far.

I think there was probably an NES version or at least there is on my knockoff Gameboy thing.  

A to Z Challenge: Invasion & Battlecry (Robotech)

Because I have something else for R & had something else for B, I'm doing my Robotech PS2 games here even though Invasion was the second game made for the PS2--at least in America.

I've probably said it before, but the first Robotech PS2 game Battlecry was the main reason I bought a PS2 in the first place.  While they made Macross games in Japan, there was never really a Robotech game for older platforms or the PC.  Battlecry was really the first attempt on this side of the pond to create a game that would let you do some (but not all) of the stuff from the TV show.

Like most of these games, you don't play as Rick Hunter, Roy Fokker, or anyone like that.  Instead you're Jack Archer, a guy who's sort of like Rick or Roy but not.  The game starts when the Zentraedi invade Earth to steal the SDF-1.  The unfortunate thing then is you don't get to go with the SDF-1 to do some of the cool stuff from the TV show like battle in Saturn's rings or go to Mars or stuff.

You do get to be in the final battle to help the SDF-1 destroy Dolza's flagship.  Then a large chunk of the game is afterwards, trying to put down riots in the cities that remain after the "Rain of Death" and put down rogue Zentraedi in the wastelands.  The final battle takes you to deep space, where even if you win, you die alone in space.  Hooray?

The awesome thing about this game is instead of the side-scrolling type for older platforms, you can play from the cockpit or outside of it.  And best of all, you can change your Veritech between all three modes:  plane, robot, or the hybrid Guardian mode.  You have the Veritech's gun and also missiles to take down various bad guys.

Of course since this is mission-based, some of the missions can be a real pain in the ass.  For instance there's one where you have to escort famous singer/actress Lynn-Minmei and of course then there are Zentraedi who show up.  You could probably just scoop up her car and fly in Guardian mode to safety, but no, you have to painstakingly follow her car around while killing bad guys.  It can be very annoying.

Through most of the game, Archer has a female boss who's voiced by one of the women who worked on the original dubs.  If you're slacking off on a mission--or she thinks you are--she'll break in to berate you with something like, "Wolf 10, what are you doing?!"

While not a perfect game, it was really awesome for me to fly around in a Veritech and shoot Zentraedi pods and stuff like I was Rick Hunter.  

I was then excited for the next game a few years later.  They skipped over the "Second Generation" with its Hovertanks to go right to the "Third Generation" based on Genesis Climber Mospaeda.  The game is called Invasion because it's about the Invid, you guessed it, invading Earth and taking over.  You play as "Locke" a dude who can't remember who he is but gets a Cyclone and starts helping the resistance fight the Invid.  Like the other game you don't get to interact with Scott Bernard or other main characters a lot.

What was disappointing to me with this game is you only get the Cyclone (no Alpha or Beta Veritechs) and you're in its robot mode pretty much all the time.  You don't get to change to its motorcycle mode while fighting, which is kind of lame.  I guess they figured letting you do that would mess up the whole first-person shooter thing.

So most of it you're walking or running around while killing Invid mechs.  And then like "Ariel" in the TV show, your guy starts to realize that he's actually an Invid creation.  And then he helps to get the Invid Regis to leave Earth or whatever.

It was not nearly as much fun as Battlecry.  I don't know if there were development problems or what but it wound up being a cut-rate Robotech-themed HALO.

The problem with both games was since neither had an open-world aspect the replay value wasn't great as you could basically only do the missions over again.

On the RetroGame site there were a bunch of Japanese Macross games and two Robotech games.  One was just a prototype N64 game called Crystal Dreams that let you fly the Veritech from the cockpit or outside of it:

And another was a Gameboy Advanced game that was neat in that you could transform, though it was too slow.  That game let you fly as different characters like Rick Hunter, Roy Fokker, Max Sterling, Miriya, and Ben Dixon.

Most of both the Macross and Robotech ones on there are side-scrollers where you take on swarms of Zentraedi.  A strategy game would have been neat.  You could have played as Gloval in charge of the RDF or Breetai in charge of the Zentraedi and then reenacted some of the battles from the series.

A to Z Challenge: Hit & Run (The Simpsons)

 There have been games based on The Simpsons since the original NES in the early 90s.  I have two games for my PS2.  The first, Road Rage, was an OK game where you just drive various vehicles from the Simpsons universe to race people and stuff.

Hit & Run is a much better game that like The Godfather in my previous entry applies more of an open-world concept to let you somewhat experience the world of the TV show.  And like The Godfather, there are missions (starting with the "easy tutorial level") that have you go a bunch of places and meet a bunch of characters.  Sometimes you have to race someone or find stuff or do something silly like help Cletus collect his "flat meat" from the road.  There are 7 total levels and each one you get to be a different character:  Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, or Apu.  Each character has different phrases they'll use periodically.

The game does a good job of working in a ton of Simpsons references and locations.  Besides the Simpsons house (and Flanders') you have the school, church, power plant, Qwik-E-Mart, Android's Dungeon, and many more places.  You don't necessarily get to fully explore these places, but they are at least there.

The town is divided into a few different sections.  You start in the Simpsons neighborhood.  There's another section for downtown and another by the water and another up in the hills.

Since it's called Hit & Run, a lot of what you do is driving.  You get the Simpsons car and other vehicles from the show (at that point, which was maybe like Season 15 or 16?) like a monster truck, a Shriners car, the Car Designed By Homer, and the rocket car bought by the bum who created Itchy & Scratchy.  You can even swipe the pink Cadillac that crashed into the Planet Hollywood-type place.  If you're a fan of the show--or were a fan until it jumped the shark about fifty times--it's a lot of fun just to have sort of a 3D version of Springfield to play around in.

Since it's somewhat open world, you can do the missions or you can just fool around, stealing cars and driving around Springfield.  One fun thing to do is rev the rocket car up and jump it off a ramp just to see how high you can get before smashing back down.  I also liked the Stonecutters tunnel that's complete with the classical music used in the show.  Near the end of the missions, the game transforms Springfield into a Halloween-themed version where you can drive around in the car from the "Homega Man" episode and stuff like that.

The actual "story" of the game is pretty silly and actually rips off a South Park episode where the boys find out Earth is the setting of a reality show.  Or maybe South Park ripped them off.  It's something I ripped off for Chet Finley vs The Machines of Fate only instead of just a reality show the aliens are making bets on human behavior.  While a sequel would have been rad the developer lost the rights before one could be made.

I haven't played the game in a while and at one point I loaned them to my sister, who probably lost them.  I'm sure by now they've made other Simpsons games, but this one is my favorite.

A to Z Challenge: The Godfather

 Someone at Electronic Arts or whatever thought it would be a really good idea to take the popular open-world game Grand Theft Auto and set it in the 40s with characters and missions based on The Godfather, one of the most respected movies of all time.  And while Martin Scorsese and Al Pacino and others hated the idea, I found it to be a really fun game both for the missions and the open-world play.

Like a lot of these games you don't play as a character from the movies.  Instead you make your own guy, choosing different facial features, body type, and clothes from a menu that was sort of like a trimmed-down version of The Sims.  Then you start as an "outsider" who joins the Corleone family and works his way up to becoming the Don of Dons, or head of all the crime families in New York/New Jersey.

There are two main components to the game.  The first are missions that are mostly taken from the first movie.  You have to protect Don Corleone as he's taken to the hospital after being shot, help Michael protect him in the hospital, help put the horse's head in the movie producer's bed, and take down the heads of the other families while Michael is at the baptism.  You can choose to do some right away, though some you can't really do at first, or you can wait until later.  I think you have to do a few just to open up the map a little.

The open-world part of the game lets you go to the territories of the five families.  You start in Little Italy, which is under siege from other families.  You have to take over various shops by bribing or coercing the owner with violence until he agrees to pay protection to you.  The more places under your protection, the more money you get.  Sometimes another family will then take the place over again and you have to go back.  There's also a warehouse and/or train yard for each of the other families that if you take it over, you get a lot more money flowing into your coffers.  The obvious goal then is to take over everything in Little Italy, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Hell's Kitchen, and New Jersey.

Each family has a compound that you have to storm to wipe them out.  It can be really difficult so it's not something you do straight off.  But once you take that family compound down, they won't be able to take over your businesses anymore.  The Corleone compound near Little Italy has health, ammo, and cars you can use and a save point.  Sometimes you can talk to characters like Michael (made to look not like Pacino), Tom Hagen, Fredo, other members of the Family, and even Mama Corleone, who doesn't really have anything interesting to say.

Besides the Corleone compound, you can go into various hotels to take them over and then use them as save points.  That's crucial as you expand your territory, because nothing is more annoying than doing a bunch of stuff and then getting killed (or having the game freeze or power go out or something) before you can find a save point.  The hotels usually also have ammo and health and phones you can use to get messages telling you where you need to go for missions.

Some of the hotels have gambling rackets that you can take over to add money to your coffers.  A lot of places have safes that you can blow up with dynamite to get some extra money.  Scattered around the map are doctor's offices where you can get healed.  You can blow up their safe or punch the doctor or nurse but then the cops will come after you.  You can also go to a couple of police stations and steal a police car and then turn on the lights and siren to make people get out of your way.  You can steal taxis too if you want. 

The other families will also have trucks you can rob.  First you have to stop them by ramming them with a car or shooting them.  The trick is as soon as you shoot it, the truck will floor it, so it's best to hit it with something high-powered in heavy traffic if you can.  Once the truck stops, you have to kill a couple of goons and then you get money and maybe some ammo or something.

To get around, you drive cars.  There are cars owned by the family that you can take or if you wreck that--or just want something faster--you can steal a car, though if a cop is nearby he might try to stop you.  Some cops walking the beat you can bribe to be on your payroll, which helps to take heat off you when you want to take stuff over.  There are also banks you can rob periodically for some money; the banks in Manhattan are the best-guarded but have the richest takes.  You have to get the money back to a save point before it'll count as being yours and the heat will die down.

It can take days to do all the stuff in the game.  Sometimes it can be frustrating, especially the compounds, docks, and railyards that are heavily guarded.  You get a variety of weapons like brass knuckles, a baseball bat, a pipe, a revolver, a pistol, a shotgun, and a machine gun.  Then there are upgrades to each weapon to make them carry more ammo and do more damage.  Like Wolfenstein or Doom, some weapons are better than others for different situations.  The pistols are better close-up or for precision shots (a shot to the head will instantly kill someone) while the shotgun does more damage but doesn't hold as much ammo and the machine gun does damage quickly but can run out pretty fast if you're not careful.

As you get more money, you can also change your character to reflect his new station.  You can buy fancier clothes and sunglasses and stuff like that.  And no you can't have a female character.

Even after you've done all the missions and taken over everything, with the open-world you can still screw around endlessly robbing banks, stealing cars, or just beating up random people.  Then you can get the cops to chase you and try to ditch them or really piss them off until you finally get caught.  It's not as much fun, but you can do it.

Anyway, while some would criticize the game for being a cheesy cash grab based on a beloved movie/book, I thought it was a lot of fun to play on the PS2 though I'm sure it was also made for XBox too.  I still have my copy that I could play if I hook up the PS2.

A to Z Challenge: Frogger

 Frogger was one of those games that became a hit early on with arcades and the Atari 2600.  And like a lot of games then, it had a silly concept:  you have to guide a frog across a road and then across a swamp to froggy heaven or whatever.  If you did it like 5 times or something you got to the next level.

Of course each level got more difficult with more lanes of traffic, faster cars, snakes, alligators, logs going really fast, and so on.  With the logs, some you could wrap around the screen but others wouldn't, so you'd have to jump or get dumped into the water.  Which for some reason kills the amphibious frog.  But you did get to mate with a white frog sometimes, so there's that.  

My family had Frogger for the 2600 so I played it a bit.  I don't remember how far I got but I don't think it was really one with an ending.  The game was of course memorialized in an episode of Seinfeld where George buys an arcade version of it to try to preserve his high score, but of course fails at doing so.  There was a brilliant bit where you watch overhead as he basically reenacts the game while pushing the cabinet only to get stuck at the curb--something that isn't really a problem in the game itself.

You can probably get versions of Frogger for your phone or in various Atari or maybe even NES revivals and knockoffs.

Ribbit!

A to Z Challenge: Elevator Action

Picture it: the late 1980s in a pizza parlor in Auburn, Michigan.  My brother and I were probably in town for a basketball game my dad was coaching and we would sometimes play in only when it was a rout one way or the other.  Anyway, the pizza parlor had the arcade version of Elevator Action and we played it for a little bit.

The game is kind of silly like a lot of games back then.  You play as a secret agent who starts at the top of a building.  You have to find hidden documents in specially marked rooms with red doors and get them to the bottom.  Along the way there are bad guys who look sort of like the black Spy vs. Spy guy.  You have to shoot them and avoid their bullets by ducking or jumping or going into a room.  You can shoot out light fixtures to make it dark to help you escape sometimes.  The most grisly way to kill the evil spies is to crush them with the elevators if they're under them.  You can also get crushed if you're under an elevator when it comes down or if you perch on top of one when it reaches the top of the shaft.

The levels get more and more difficult as you go with more bad guys, more elevators (and escalators), and more stuff to find.  I'm not sure if it's one of those games with an end level because I've never gotten really far on it.

Elevator Action was not on the Atari systems but there was a version for NES, though I don't think we ever got it.  Probably just as well as it would have probably cost like $50 for a game that while fun would only be amusing for a little while.

A few years ago from Amazon Vine I got a knockoff Gameboy thing that came preloaded with a bunch of Japanese games.  Elevator Action was one of them.  So I got the chance to play it again and still haven't gotten farther than two or three buildings.  You can probably get one of those knockoff game systems for pretty cheap on Amazon, Wish, or Temu.  

The game does have a really catchy theme song that if you start playing you probably won't get out of your head for a little while.

A to Z Challenge: Doom

 The original Doom came a couple years after id Software's popular first-person shooter Wolfenstein 3D.  This screenshot is from one of the console versions where they pixelated a lot of the Nazi stuff and showed less blood:

While that game was set in Nazi Germany, Doom was set in the future on Mars.  You play as a Marine who has to clear out a bunch of demons who have suddenly appeared on the planet.  The gameplay is largely the same as you choose from different weapons and go around in first-person to shoot the monsters.  And a lot of the gameplay can be just feeling around for secret doors to find keys to open other doors or maybe other treasures.  It can be a real pain.

You start with a pistol and hand spike and then can get a chainsaw, shotgun, Gatling gun, rocket launcher, plasma rifle, and the BFG:  Big Fucking Gun!  The BFG shoots a green energy ball that kills or does major damage to a large area, but the downside is it needs time to recharge and has limited ammo and isn't something you can really use up-close, so most of the time you'd want to use the plasma rifle or the Gatling gun or the shotgun, though the latter has less ammo.

The final level can be kind of nerve-wracking as there's an anteroom and then this big room with a giant cyborg Minotaur who shoots missiles.  The nerve-wracking thing is unless you cheat, you have to kind of dance around and sometimes go back into the anteroom to find more ammo or health packs and then you have to worry where the cyborg Minotaur went; sometimes you'd just hear the shrieking and clanking of his robotic joints getting closer and closer...

Though really I think you could just slip past that dude, shoot the heads hanging up in the next room, and jump into the warp gate or whatever to end the game if you want to be a chicken.  If you aren't quick enough or the Minotaur isn't far enough away, he could come back to blow the hell out of you with missiles.  If you use the "god code" to cheat you don't really have to worry as you're invulnerable and can get unlimited ammo to just go up to him and blast him with BFG or ion bursts or rockets until he dies.

The sequel Doom II:  Hell on Earth takes you to Earth, though there's really nothing that recognizable as being on Earth.  You go around to more levels and fight more enemies.  I don't think you really even got new weapons or anything so it was more of an expansion pack than a whole new game.

One of the neat things was you could create "WAD" files that let you customize the weapons and stuff in the game.  If you were a really good artist/programmer you could probably do all sorts of neat things, but I just customized the weapons slightly to correspond to some Transformers fanfics I did.

The first one I did corresponded with Transformers: Xenophobia and an original character I created called Ambush.  He was basically a Special Forces type who turned into a Hummer or something like that.  His weapon of choice was a shotgun, so I recolored the shotgun to go with his green paint scheme.  I'm not sure I changed the other weapons all that much.  

I did another one for The Skyfire Adventures where in the first story the Maximal Skyfire, formerly the Autobot Jetfire, fights demons on some planet.  I forget which weapon I made Skyfire's; it might have been the plasma rifle. 

The other one I did was a Beast Wars one for a character I created called Outfox who was, of course, a fox.  His tail would have popped off to become a gun.  I think again I used the shotgun as the model for it.  I think I did a little customizing to make the Gatling gun like Rhinox's and the missile launcher like Optimus Primal's.  If I'd really had any skills for drawing and stuff, I probably could have made the chainsaw Dinobot's sword, the pistol Rattrap's gun, the plasma rifle Cheetor/Tigatron's gut gun, and maybe done something with the BFG.

I have no idea if I have any of those files saved anywhere or if I could still use them somehow.

I got Wolfenstein, Doom, and Doom II in a bundle from GOG.com a few years ago and found they weren't as exciting as I remembered.  Wolfenstein especially there's a lot of wandering around feeling for doors to find keys and treasure.  And a couple of spots in each game it can be confusing to know what you're supposed to do so I wound up wandering around and around until I had to go look up a video on YouTube to find out what I needed to do.  Shooter games are a lot more fun when you're, you know, shooting stuff.

A to Z Challenge: Conflict

Conflict is kind of an obscure game and a relic of Cold War times.  Even when it came out about 1990 it was sort of an anachronism.  It was also pretty damned fun.

The game was a strategy game that like a role-playing game used maps made of hexagons.  You had Blue, which had American weapons, and Red, who had Soviet weapons.  The weapons came in three basic categories:  foot soldiers, armor, and air power.  Each side would have factories to build new units.  There was a factory for armor and one for airplanes, with each having the capacity for some foot soldiers--the armor one allowed you to build better foot soldiers.

Each side had a "flag tank" that was an M1A1 for Blue and a T-80 for Red.  The tank was like the king in chess that when the flag tank was destroyed, that side lost.  The flag tank did have better weapons and movement than a regular tank, so it could sometimes be useful as a weapon, but you always had to be careful not to put it in too much danger.

The maps would have a variety of terrain:  plains, hills, mountains, sea, and marshes.  The plains would only take 1 movement point while mountains were 3.  Marshes and hills might have been 2.  Planes could fly over the sea for 1 point while of course armor and foot soldiers could not move on water spaces.

There were 16 different maps, 15 regular ones that at the end would give you a letter to unlock the 16th map, The Final Conflict.  Each map had different terrain that would provide different challenges.  There was one map with essentially two different continents separated by a stretch of water and islands, so the only way to destroy the enemy was to use planes.  Some of the islands had air bases so you could refuel your planes or you could build a tanker.  The challenge with that level is you can only defeat the flag tank with air power, so if you lose your air factory and your bombers, you're pretty well screwed.  You'd have to hope the red flag tank didn't park on a city and you could chip away at it with fighters until it blew up.  That would take a long time.

The way the weapons worked is you start only being able to make foot soldiers or the M151, which is a jeep with a missile launcher.  The next tier are Vietnam-era weapons like the M-60 tank, A-7 bomber, and F-4 fighter.  The next tier is more modern weapons like the M1A1 tank, F-16 fighter, and A-10 bomber.  In some levels then each side got a really expensive futuristic fighter, the F-23 (which doesn't look like the actual F-23 that never went into production) or the MiG-33, which probably didn't exist.

There were also helicopters in some of the levels that you made in the air factory.  Each side got two gunship types:  the Vietnam-era AH-1 Cobra and modern AH-64 Apache for Blue and the Mi-24 Hind and Mi-28 Havoc for Red.  The helicopters were usually cheaper than bombers but easier for enemy fighters to shoot down.  In a weird bit of censorship the "Hellfire" missiles for the Apache were changed to "Fire Dart" missiles.

Unfortunately for me, there were only a couple of levels where you could get the AV-8 Harrier jumpjet.  I think Harriers are neat and they're weird, which is part of why I like them.  They didn't really have a lot of use in the game except in those couple of levels as light bombers--and usually by the time you could build them, you didn't really need them anymore.  I would have liked to use them more often.  Red gets the crummy Soviet equivalent:  the Yak-38 that was used on their crummy "aircraft carriers."  But since the cost difference between that and a Su-25 "Frogfoot" bomber is so minimal, it's unlikely the computer would ever make any.

Another level was shaped like a snake with Blue in the tail and Red in the head.  The idea there was you'd have to bring any ground forces all the way around the snake to attack the other side.  Fuel would become a problem unless you have a supply truck to refuel your tanks.

The best way to cripple an enemy would be to destroy his factories.  One level in particular, my brother and I found a way to sneak a jeep in a couple of moves to attack the enemy's air factory.  You had to be really careful with how you moved it or else the AI would take notice and blow it up with a bomber or tank.  But when it worked, you could sneak up to the factory in a few turns and blow up the commandoes guarding it.  Then the computer would have to rely on tanks because you can't rebuild factories or make new ones.  That would give us enough time to build up our forces to attack.

The way you got points was by destroying the other team's units or claiming the city hexagons and airfield hexagons on the board.  All you had to do was park a plane or ground unit on it and it would change to your color.  If you move, though, the enemy can claim it and steal the points.  So it's best if you can park something on it and leave it there.  That also lets you refuel and repair damage to the unit.

The fighting in the game was kind of goofy.  If you selected to attack a unit, the screen would change to where half shows your unit and gives you options to Attack, Defend, or Retreat.  Under each one of those were sub-options that depended on the type of unit.  Airplanes would have things like "Accelerate" or "Roll" while armor units had options like "Turn" and "Adjust" and the foot soldiers had something like "Drop" where they'd just fall on their bellies.  

So if I have a bomber attack some foot soldiers, I could choose to drop a bomb or strafe them with my cannon.  The bomb does a lot of damage, but you only get a certain number while the cannon has unlimited ammo but does less damage.  Each unit had like 15 points.  If a bomb hit foot soldiers, the damage was usually something catastrophic, so no worries.  With a tank it might only do 10 points to a first-tier tank like an M-60 or it might do only 5 points to a more modern M1 or only 3 points to a head tank.  So you'd need to use a few bombs and if the target only has one or two points, you might just use the gun.

The game had text to go with each option and sometimes there'd be these silly paragraphs talking about how the pilots or drivers "glare into each other's eyes."  There was often one combination where if an enemy plane fires a gun, you Accelerate and then it'll miss and go on about how the G-Forces overtook the pilot's body but allows him to get behind the other plane.  An inordinate amount of time in each battle is spent "Look"ing for the enemy.

Sometimes the text would say "Engine Hit!" or "Pilot Hit!" to instantly destroy the unit.  The funniest was when it would say "Soldiers Hit!" and wipe out the foot soldiers.  Well of course the soldiers were hit; what else could you hit?

There were a couple of little goofs like where it'd say soldiers "droped down."  Or it would say a helicopter went over a ground unit "with a sonic roar" which would be impossible.  (The same for Harriers and A-10s that are subsonic.)  With M1 tanks there's sometimes a glitch where if you keep using the Defend/Smoke option the plane or tank attacking you will only use its machine gun instead of a bomb/tank gun.  It doesn't work all the time, but when it does, it can bail you out by limiting the damage the other side does.

Anyway, it was a really fun game for the NES that would have been more fun in a PC version where you could have expansion packs for more maps or weapons or even customize things.  

A few years after the original they made "Super Conflict" for the SNES.  It was as disappointing as Age of Empires II.  Super Conflict added navies and some different air and ground units.  But the combat style changed to where it was pretty boring.  Basically each side just hammered the other.  There was none of the artistry of in the previous game where you had all the different options and goofy text.  You could do a shortened mode even where it just shows each side fire once and then tallies up the damage and ammo used (or shows one side or the other explode).  That shortens the game but takes most of the skill and luck out of it. 

There were some other annoying things too.  They made the "flag tank" about as useful as a commando unit.  The factories took longer to build things and destroying an enemy factory was all but impossible without a ton of firepower.  You only lose like 300 points for each loss, so it's really hard to drain an opponent of points.  Antiaircraft guns were really puny against aircraft.  And so on.

That made it a lot harder for an underdog to win.  So it never really won our hearts like the first game.

Replaying all 55 levels, it was kind of fun though not really difficult.  One time where because neither side had a factory, I just had all my units run to the top of the map and hide in the mountains.  The computer ran his units out of ammo and gas in pursuit so then we could pick off his flag tank to win.  Another time he stupidly ran his remaining T-80 out of gas and didn't reclaim the airport when he had the chance so his Hind helicopter (that I really had no way of downing) was stranded.  So they didn't really make the AI much smarter.

As the levels progress, you start to get factories and then planes and then navies--including the "flag ship" that was like the flag tank only on the ocean.  It could do some damage to planes and weak units but not a lot.  The computer's strategy was generally to wipe out your weak units like commandos, M1901 APCs, or Sheridan light tanks.  And then attack your factories.  If I left any planes or helicopters out in range of his fighters, he might attack those.  Generally I could just keep my bombers in the airport or aircraft carrier for the first two turns, after which he'd need to refuel his fighters.  And by then I might have destroyed most of them with my fighters, SAMs, or cruiser.

So most levels the computer had the upper hand the first couple of turns but usually by the third and fourth turns I'd have begun my counterattack that in a couple more turns would have the computer all but wiped out.  In all 55 levels I don't think there were many times I was really on the ropes, except maybe the first couple where you have such finite resources.  

There were a couple of better things vs the original game, like having an aircraft carrier lets you have a mobile base for your planes.  And it's kind of nice that stronger units like M1 tanks had more hit points than puny infantry.  It was kind of neat to have some different planes like the F-14, F-5, and F-18 fighters and A-6 bomber.  Red had the MiG-21 "Fishbed" and MiG-23 "Flogger" added. The addition of the "flag ship" made things more interesting as you had two options to end the game--or lose the game.

Though Conflict was never a really popular game, you could still find emulators of it online a few years ago.  I think it was one called Console Classix or something that had it and I replayed a lot of the levels.  And last year I played it on RetroGames, which also had Super Confict. 

That's right, baby, build me something sweet...

I was especially happy to see the cute supply chief for the Blue side again who always made me think of Lisa Hayes from Robotech--or later Captain Lisa Shaw in my story First Contact.  The red side got some Russian dude, so it was always good most of the levels you had to play Blue unless it was two-player.

Anyway, it's still one of my favorite strategy games to play, though I usually remember pretty quick how annoying it can be when the computer rigs a battle so my SAM battery never hits his plane or his infantry destroy my tank with "engine hit" or something like that.

I think mostly I like that unlike most other games it doesn't rely on reflexes to run, jump, and punch.  You don't need long strings of buttons for special combos or anything like that.  You need brains far more than reflexes.

A to Z Challenge: BattleTech

 My brother and I had a few BattleTech games for the PC.  I think the first one might have been for the IBM PC that still used 5.25" floppies--low density only.  Or it might have been slightly newer than that.  Anyway, this first game I never played all the way through but it was more of a role-playing game.  It was also so ancient that it had robots like the "Phoenix Hawk" that was a non-transforming Robotech Veritech, the "Locust" that I think was a Zentraedi BattlePod design, and a couple of others.

In the mid-to-late 90s they came out with a new batch of games that also had novels tie-in with them, some of which I read and weren't terrible.  The basic story was human space was divided into these different factions who each had armies of robots with human pilots inside.  Some of the robots were huge, heavily-armed, and slow.  Others were small, light, and fast.  And the Centurion made slow, steady advances.

Then came "the Clans" who were rogue groups of warriors from outside known human space.  They had a strict warrior culture and their robots were better than the ones the regular humans were using.  So the Clans were winning until they took a challenge to fight on Earth's moon and lost.  A fragile truce was then forged.  Meanwhile both sides were jockeying for position with each other.

The mid-to-late 90s games let you pilot different mechs from either side and do different missions.  I think in some you could also be a non-affiliated mercenary.  You'd do missions and try to acquire new and better stuff for your mech--or just get a new mech.  It was pretty fun, like a flight simulator but without a lot of flying, though some mechs have "jump jets" that use jets to fly short distances.

Target, Maximum Firepower!

There was another game later in the 90s that was a strategy game called MechCommander.  Instead of being in the cockpit, you moved the mechs around the board.  There were different missions, some of which could be annoying like trying to protect an ambulance through heavy fighting.  

Here's the list of games from my old web page, including some cheat codes:

Crescent Hawk's Inception - an early BattleTech RPG video game, your character, Jason Youngblood, must journey around the map to find members of the elite Crescent Hawks.  Then you must crack an underground facility to find a valuable prize - a Phoenix Hawk LAM that looks like a Robotech Veritech fighter.

Crescent Hawk's Revenge - a sequel to Inception, this old strategy game pits your Crescent Hawks against the Clans, who hold your father prisoner.  The interface is bulky and makes combat difficult.

Mechwarrior - The first of these classic games, you are royalty of a small planet who must form a band of mercenaries to track down the group who killed your family and disgraced you.  You only get five years and it's harder than Hell to win.  The graphics stink, the interface leaves a lot to be desired, but it's still fun because you get Mechs you can't get in other games like Shadow Hawks, Phoenix Hawks, and Locusts.

Mechwarrior 2 - It took a long time for this sequel to come out, but when it did, it kicked ass!  In this game you are a Clan warrior (either Wolf or Falcon) fighting the Refusal War of 3057.  You fly awesome Mechs like Summoners and Timber Wolfs with cool weapons to blow the hell out of everything.  You can advance from a Mechwarrior to the Khan of your Clan, fly over a dozen of Mechs, and are free to customize your Mech almost any way you want.  My favorite Mech was a Summoner loaded with about 700 LRM-20s.  I could take out Mechs long before they even could touch me.  Of course that only works with the invincibility code (Alt+Control+BLORB) after you strip off all heat sinks and jump jets.

Mechwarrior 2:  Ghost Bear's Legacy - This expansion set allows you to play as the Ghost Bears who are out to recover the genetic materials of their founders that were stolen.  Like the original Mechwarrior this is a simulator with a story that is a lot of fun, and you get to fly new Mechs like the Kodiak and Stone Rhino.  The last mission sucks and I've never actually beaten it, I used cheats to get by it.  The Stone Rhino and Kodiak are slow, but can carry a lot of firepower.  A great close-in fighter is a Stone Rhino with a couple of autocannons (which I named the Stone Rhinox after the Beast Wars character who packs two bad-ass chainguns).

Mechwarrior 2:  Mercenaries - This isn't an expansion set, but a whole new game.  Much like Mechwarrior you form a group of Inner Sphere mercenaries.  You start in the early 3040s and the game goes right to the battle on Luthien during the Clan invasion.  This game is loads of fun, except that you have to fly the bulky, slow, poorly-armed Inner Sphere Mechs often against the Clan.  Still, the game is sweet.  It is a vast improvement over Mechwarrior, as you get better missions, more money, and better stuff even if you can't negotiate contracts.

Mechwarrior 3 - Finally, the sequel to Mechwarrior 2 has been released. The game features awesome new graphics and many new Mechs. The controls are mostly the same, but there are some changes. What annoyed me was that there isn't an Autopilot. I hate piloting the thing myself between Nav points, it's usually so dull that I'd rather just have the damned computer do it for me. The story for the game is that you are part of the Eridani Light Horse finishing off the Smoke Jaguars on some planet, not Huntress or Strana Mechty. Most of the Inner Sphere Mechs are Inner Sphere OmniMechs, Mechs that are comparable to Clan Mechs (although they still aren't as good!) and there really aren't the typical Inner Sphere Mechs like Atlases, Centurions, or Commandoes. The game takes some getting used to but it is very cool.

MechCommander - A really cool strategy game.  The interface is much, much better than the antiquated Crescent Hawk's Revenge that predates it by about 10 years.  In this game you command a company of Mechs during the invasion of a Smoke Jaguar planet:  Port Arthur.  Your end goal is to capture the starbase so reinforcements can arrive.  First you have to establish a beachhead, harass the enemy supply lines, etc.  This game is hard without cheats, but still plenty of fun.  There will hopefully be an expansion set to it with new Mechs, scenarios, and a scenario editor.

Cheats:  Hit Alt+Control while typing these in.

Mechwarrior 2 - BLORB is the invincibility code, which is all you really need.

Mechwarrior 2:  Mercenaries - superfunkycalifragisexy is the invincibility code, again that's all you really need to win.

MechCommander:  Here you just type in the codes as are.

osmiu - invincibility

lordbunny - unlimited artillery (very helpful)

deadeye - perfect accuracy

lorrie - repair and resupply

rockandrollpeople - type on the Mission Briefing screen to get unlimited drop weight (it makes the last mission especially cool)

poundofflesh - gives you a million bucks on the Mission Briefing screen.

mineeyeshaveseentheglory - reveals the map and all enemies (that way you can kill everything!)

I haven't played any of these games for a while.  I think they came out with newer versions in the 21st Century but I haven't played those either.  It was kind of disappointing that just when the books were getting good they did this whole sorta reboot thing.

Like Robotech, there have long been rumors of a live action movie--often with some recognizable name involved--but they never come to fruition.  At this point the closest we have is Pacific Rim and Robot Jox. 

A to Z Challenge: Age of Empires

 For my A to Z Challenge, I decided to focus on video games.  Mostly video games I played, except maybe where a weird letter doesn't give me many options.

While I first thought of doing console games, I remembered one of my favorite strategy games was a PC game:  Microsoft's Age of Empires.  I bought the original game in late 1997; I think it might have actually been New Year's Eve.  And soon enough I was hooked on it.

The original game allowed you to create a city/country based on a variety of ancient Mediterranean/Middle Eastern cultures like Egyptians, Greeks, Phoenicians, Babylonians, and so on.  Different cultures would have access to different skills and different weapons.  Some like the Greeks and Phoenicians were good at making boats.  Some of the desert ones had camels.  One had villagers who came armed.  Egyptians had chariots and things like that.

When the game starts, you only get a couple of villagers.  The villagers gather food, wood, stone, or gold and also build stuff.  You start in the "Stone Age" with a very small variety of stuff.  Basically Flintstones-looking buildings and dudes with clubs.  Then as you advance to the Bronze Age and Iron Age, you get better buildings and weapons and so on.  By the time you advance in the Iron Age, you get siege weapons like catapults and some get "juggernauts" that are ships that can launch stones.  

The game has 2 players up to 8 or 10 or something like that.  The more players means the more conflict for the limited resources on the map.  You typically want to find supplies of food, wood, and stone to get to the Bronze Age and better weapons.  At the same time you need to make more villagers to gather more stuff and build more stuff, including defenses like walls and watchtowers.

The wood, stone, and gold your villagers can chop/mine and dump into storage pits or the town center, whatever is closer.  Food you start off only being able to forage berries, fish in shallow water with spears, or hunt gazelle/deer animals.  You can try to hunt elephants but it can take a number of hits to bring one down and in the meantime, the pissed-off elephant might stomp your villagers.  Once an animal is dead, you only have a limited time before it decomposes.  After you advance, you can build farms and a dock for fishing boats.  There are spots throughout the water parts of the map that show fish jumping.  You can also try to hunt whales, though that's less reliable because they'll disappear and pop up somewhere else.  The farther you send your fishing boats out, the slower it is to get food, which can be a problem.  The farms expire after a while and need to be rebuilt, so it can be tricky to keep your food stocked.

Another tricky thing can be if another player--especially an AI-controlled player--advances faster than you.  The computer of course has an advantage over a human player in being able to micromanage all the various villagers, troops, and priests you end up with.  Other times it might be that one player is closest to a bigger supply of resources.  If the other player(s) is advancing faster they might be able to slaughter your club-carrying cavemen with cavalry--including war elephants!

The ultimate thing to build is a "wonder," which for Egyptian-type cultures is a pyramid.  Greek-type ones get a statue.  Sometimes the objective for a scenario requires building a wonder or destroying the opponents.  In more free-flowing scenarios the objective is simply to destroy everyone else.

You could play just random maps or there were some campaigns where your goals might be more limited.  I forget exactly what they were but it might be like to advance to the Bronze Age and build a fishing dock or something like that.  Or you might get only a set amount of units and have to defeat the enemy or whatever.  I was never that much into those as just playing random maps.

After a year or so they came out with the "Rise of Rome" expansion pack.  This added Rome and a couple other cultures.  I think Carthage was one where you got elephants like Hannibal.  Rome was similar to the Greek ones but had some better soldiers and I think not as good boats.  Their wonder was a colosseum.  It was pretty sweet.

What could make the game more fun is there were a slew of cheat codes.  Some were pretty useful like "pepperoni pizza" would give you 1000 food units.  Or "woodstock" I think gave you 1000 wood.  Those really helped when I was trying to manage a military campaign and didn't really have time to micromanage stupid villagers.  I never really felt bad about that because most countries (including this one) take out loans in times of war; I just considered it like getting a loan from the bank.

There were more fun things you could do like get "Photon Man" who was this dude in sort of a spacesuit with a laser gun.  There was another one who launched missiles that were a little less useful.  And there was the "Daddy Z" that was a car with missiles.  Sometimes it was fun to create some of those and go fry some cavemen or whatever.  Sometimes I'd just post a Photon Man in my village as a cheap defense so I'd have time to advance.

In the game, priests could heal guys and also sometimes convert enemy units to your side.  But the priests were really slow and weak--unless you used a cheat code.  Then they'd move like the wind and have a ton of hit points.  Since the map only shows what area you've explored, the fast priests would be helpful to quickly explore the map to locate resources--and the enemy.  And it was neat sometimes to convert things you can't build with your culture, like war elephants.  And a few times, I nearly got wiped out by the enemy and used the priest to convert some villagers and troops to stay in the game.

The danger with the priest code is sometimes the enemy would build a ton of priests and deploy them defensively.  One priest against another priest isn't likely to convert him, but when the enemy has a bunch of them, it can work a lot easier.  Then the enemy has your super-fast priest with a lot of hit points, who's almost impossible to bring down.

(Fun Fact:  When the priests would chant, to me it always sounded like they were saying, "Lemonade!  Lemonade!")

As I've mentioned before, you can build boats to fish but also to fight.  There are a couple of types of ships besides fishing ones.  Triremes shoot sort of like big darts.  They're pretty much just for attacking other ships.  Then there are the catapult ships that launch big rocks.  Those are mostly for attacking ground targets because the rocks are slow and other ships can just sail away before they hit.  There are also transports that you can stuff units into.  I think about 10 was the limit, though it might be more.  Transports could be essential if it's a map with islands and you need to land troops to take out the enemy's town.  Another use is if things aren't going great for you, you can load some units on the transport and hopefully sail away to another part of the map and start over.  Sometimes I'd take a couple of villagers and maybe a priest if I had them by then and drop them somewhere else on the map.  Or even just keep the transport in a distant corner of the map as a backup.

The Rise of Rome expansion added fire boats into the mix.  The fire boats are small, fast boats that basically have flamethrowers to set other boats on fire.  They can be devastating but they are pretty volatile so they can be destroyed fairly easily.  So you probably wouldn't want them hanging around with your main fleet or grouping a bunch together. 

I loved the original Age of Empires enough that I made a page for it back in 1998 or so.  It listed the cheat codes and some strategy and stuff.  Here are my Tips & Tricks, including the cheat codes I frequently used:

Since I’ve played Age of Empires a lot, in many situations, I thought I’d impart some wisdom to players or would-be players. As well, I’ve posted some cheat codes I found on the Net that, when used properly, can enhance the fun of the game.

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Tips

• Your first priority should always be to gather resources in a random map game. Build a lot of villagers and have them gather food and wood in the Stone and Tool ages, then have them gather food and gold in the Bronze Age. Once you're to the Iron Age you'll need to amass a large army, so work on food, wood, and gold.
• Don't worry about an army early on. Keep a small force on hand to repel an invasion, but just work on gathering resources and building the buildings you'll need.
• On any map with a lot of water, fishing boats are vital. They can get a lot of food and you don't have to sacrifice some of your existing food to build them, which is definitely a good deal. Just be sure to keep warships nearby in case the enemy decides to try and interdict your fishing operations.
• On an island or coastal map, naval supremacy is key. Upgrade your warships as soon as possible and build a lot of them. You can use them to disrupt the enemy's fishing, destroy targets on the shore, and to help stop invasions by land or sea. As well, warships can serve as excellent scouts and since they have higher resistance to conversion they can help rid you of pesky priests.
• If you have Monotheism, then you can drop priests behind the lines to wreak havoc on the enemy by converting guard towers or other buildings. Capturing a military target like a stable, archery range, or dock may also allow you to produce some units to cause the enemy some pain. Of course your units usually get destroyed, but in the meantime the enemy had to expend time and resources on dealing with the threat. If your enemy has Monotheism then things can get tricky, as your priest can get converted. This plan works best by using the cheat code to upgrade your priests described below.
• The best kind of troops to have are heavy cavalry, cataphracts, chariots, and other faster troops to begin your assault. Slower foot units like phalanxes, centurions, swordsmen, or legions take longer to get to the target and can be picked off easier by guard towers, ballistae, ships, or catapults. Elephants are slow, but have enough hit points so they can often whether the storm better.
• Whether on the offense or defense, numbers count more than the quality of troops. A swarm of axmen can take down a cataphract or legion. If the enemy starts an invasion or when you're ready to launch an offensive, build troops like crazy, as many as you can get. If you're in dire straits with the enemy inside your walls, then it might be smarter to produce axmen, archers, or scouts because they take less time to produce. Also have a few priests on hand to convert enemy troops and heal yours. Massed fire in the form of a group of archers, catapults, or ballistae can work great in repelling the enemy.
• It's best to fortify your city as soon as possible. You should have a villager or two get stone so you can build walls and guard towers to protect your city from attack. A good city plan is to group your buildings near each other, but so that your troops have plenty of room to maneuver. Spreading out only makes it harder to defend the city from attack. Put storage pits outside the walls close to resources, but leave military and other buildings inside the walls.
• A good trick to help defend your city while you are building up resources is to create a perimeter far outside the walls. Guard towers, warships, or scouts can help alert you to an invasion so you can be ready long before it gets to your walls. Another trick is if there are swamps that link islands or land masses, place guard towers and walls there to block them off. That way the enemy has to blast them before he can get to you and you'll have notice of how many and what kind of units are on the march. It also keeps the enemy from leeching off your resources by sending villagers into your territory to mine resources.
• Whenever possible, upgrade your abilities through the market, storage pits, and government center. Ballistics and Alchemy are two key upgrades from the government center that give you flaming arrows and cannonballs as well as ballista towers (if possible). Engineering, Nobility, and Architecture are also a great help, so build a government center as quickly as possible.
• Typically I strive to win through conquest, but you can take the easy route and build a wonder. If you want to do that, make a lot of villagers to gather resources and then construct the thing. You'll need to put it in a fortified location, away from the sea, so it will be harder for the enemy to destroy. Have troops nearby to put down an incursions, because the enemy will have to make an attempt to destroy the wonder or they'll lose. If ruins and artifacts are in the game, you probably won't be able to get all of them, but just make sure to have one under your control or else your enemy can beat you by controlling them. Walling an artifact with fortifications can keep enemies from making off with it and putting a guard tower at a ruin can keep the enemy from controlling it.

Tricks

Here are some codes that I find extremely useful. I'll also explain how best to use them, because if you cheat rampantly then it ruins the game, but using codes in moderation can make the game better and more interesting. I'll also give you a few codes that I don't use much, but you may want to if you're into victory at any and all costs. To use the codes, just hit Enter and type the code in as indicated, then hit Enter again.

Code	Best Way to Use
pepperoni pizza	Gives you 1000 food. Use when you're under heavy attack or deep into an offensive when you need food to build troops or villagers.
woodstock	Gives you 1000 wood. Use when you're under heavy attack or deep into an offensive when you need wood to build troops, buildings, or ships.
quarry	Gives you 1000 stone. Build to quickly get materials for walls and guard towers.
coinage	Gives you 1000 gold. Use when you're under heavy attack or deep into an offensive to build troops, priests, or ships.
big bertha	Upgrades catapults to super-powerful Big Berthas. Great for when you can't get catapults or just as a shortcut to upgrading your catapults. Berthas cause a lot of damage around where the rock hits, so keep your troops away from where it fires at.
flying dutchman	Upgrades juggernauts to flying dutchmen that can go over land. It's fun to use and allows you to upgrade to juggernauts without wasting a lot of resources.
medusa	Makes it so villagers become Black Riders when they die. Black Riders then become heavy catapults. It's a great way to get troops quickly. However, the code only works on villagers who haven't ever been signed as a builder, repairman, etc.
photon man	Photon man is a great way to easily defend your city from a heavy attack. His powerful weapon and long range allow him to quickly wipe out an invading force. I only use him on defense.
reveal map	Reveals the map so you can see all the terrain. Doesn't show enemy positions, though.
hoyohoyo	One of the most useful codes. Your priests get 600 hit points and move like the wind. Always use this since priests are so weak and slow otherwise.

Other Codes

bigdaddy	Creates a missile car that can quickly wipe out everything. It's so powerful that it really tips the scales in your favor. I don't recommend it unless you really want to cheat.
E=mc2 trooper	Creates a photon man who launches ICBMs. Can easily wipe out any enemy buildings. He's very powerful, so don't use him unless you want to cheat.
icbm	Gives ballistae and nuke trooper longer range so they can hit just about anything. Allows you to take out anything without taking damage, so it really lets you cheat.
hari kari	Kills all your forces. It's kind of pointless.

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To me, using the resource codes really isn't cheating. In wars, nations always borrow heavily, so why should your war be different? As well, when you're out on an offensive, it's hard to control the gathering of resources. Any general in the field assigns someone else to supervise things at home, so if you're running a war in the field, it's easier to use the codes then trying to run both fronts.

Flying dutchman is a really fun code if you want to pretend you're fighting in some kind of weird fantasy universe where ships can fly. Big berthas are cool to easily get some land-based firepower, but they're a danger to your own troops because they cause so much damage around the target that if they hit close to your guys they can wipe them out too. Photon man is a last resort if the enemy is close to wiping you out. He can easily dispose of enemy troops to defend your home. Like I said, it's a last resort. Reveal map just lets you see the terrain so you can plan attacks. What general doesn't know the terrain before they launch an offensive? Medusa gives you troops really fast, so if you're under attack, it's a good way to go.

 The hoyohoyo code is great. Your priests can do far more, especially harassing the enemy behind the lines. A cool combination is to use the code and then go to the temple and buy the upgrade to double your priest's hit points. Then they get 1200 points, making them almost unbeatable. Just don't let them be converted by the enemy, because they're really hard to destroy.

With these tips and tricks, hopefully you can easily beat Age of Empires and have a lot of fun. This really is a great game with lots of possibility for game play. The campaigns can be fun, but sometimes the codes don't work so they're more challenging.

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When Age of Empires II came out, I was excited to play it.  Then disappointed.  The sequel takes place in the Middle Ages and there were some tweaks to the gameplay.  After a few times of playing it, I found I just didn't really like it and went back to the original game.

I never bothered with Age of Empires III, which was in colonial times.

Eventually they came out with Age of Mythology, which was more like the original game.  Except in addition to "wonders" you could make a Titan, who was basically a kaiju.  There were Greek, Egyptian, Norse, and some other cultures.  The Egyptian ones had an eagle-headed dude, the Greeks had a Cerberus, and then there was one other one.  The kaiju could do a lot of damage, but they weren't invincible and making one took a lot of resources--unless you cheat.

Besides the Titans, you'd also get magic spells, or blessing from the gods or whatever.  You could call down meteor showers and things like that.  Those spells could be limited--unless you cheat.  Even more than the original game, cheating could be fun just to rain meteors down on an enemy or have a swarm of Titans stomp all over them.

I guess they came out with an Age of Empires IV last year or so.  Like the second one it takes place in the Middle Ages but covers most of the major civilizations of Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa.  It's not really something I would care about.

I might still be able to play Age of Mythology or Age of Empires.  It might be streaming somewhere or on Steam or whatever.  I don't think my old discs would still work, though I'm pretty sure I have both games somewhere.

Maybe some snobs would sneer and say it's a bastardized version of Civilization or something like that, but I had a lot of fun with it.