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Remember when games where fun?
It's a favourite topic at Nerd Towers - when was the last time you played a really good computer game? Not just one of the modern-day run-of-the-mill shoot-'em-ups, or pseudo-3d platform games that saturate the games market today, but a really good game: one that you wanted to play, and play again, and then play some more.
Invariably those of us of a certain age immediately insist on going back to the 80s and the ZX Spectrum puzzler classics such as Head over Heels, Batman and so on. Then there are the die-hard adventure gamers who loved Everyone's a Wally and the Magic Knight series. Not many people admit to liking text adventures (when twenty minutes of trying every keyword resulting in "I don't know how to do that" the inevitable foul-mouthed rant would often reset the computer!)
Ok, perhaps there were some good games after that....
For the Wally crowd there were point-n-click adventures such as Day of the Tentacle (same warped humour and puzzle-solving conundrums). Head over Heels (a game where you had to push blocks around to escape from a sequence of rooms) could be likened to Tetris, albeit in a very vague passing resemblance. Worms was brilliant in its sheer simplicity - aim, shoot, repeat. Even for the shoot-em-up haters, many of us admit that Resident Evil was a pretty cool game (even those of us who couldn't get past level two).
But in the main, a shortlist of the top ten (twenty) favourite games for the three of us at Nerd Towers on a wet Sunday afternoon consists of games based on a simple idea. The Nintendo Wii is a classic example of this - none of the games for it (so far) are particularly brilliant, but the unique controller idea had everybody hooked, playing simple fast games for fun. Imagine Wii Sports on a Playstation 3, with one of those awkward joystick-based controllers. Boring! But on a Wii, even simple games are a lot of fun. In fact, many people - myself included - agree that the simple games offer the most fun. You can dip in and dip out without giving up an entire afternoon following some convoluted story or plot line, and play games that make you laugh.
One such online game that has got us all hooked (wasting away the afternoon when we should be working on real things like work)is Globulos.
It's simple but addictive. Play against your mates. Offer to play just three games to decide the winner. Then check the clock an hour later as you say "no, best of five/seven/eleven/thirty-five" and you're still bouncing your little balls around like crazy.
Like all good games, it's simple and fun and anyone can play. There's the perfect blend of luck and skill which makes you want to keep coming back for more. I love it (although, if my boss ever reads this and works out how many hours it's cost the company, it'll quickly find it's way onto the work's blacklist!)
Invariably those of us of a certain age immediately insist on going back to the 80s and the ZX Spectrum puzzler classics such as Head over Heels, Batman and so on. Then there are the die-hard adventure gamers who loved Everyone's a Wally and the Magic Knight series. Not many people admit to liking text adventures (when twenty minutes of trying every keyword resulting in "I don't know how to do that" the inevitable foul-mouthed rant would often reset the computer!)
Ok, perhaps there were some good games after that....
For the Wally crowd there were point-n-click adventures such as Day of the Tentacle (same warped humour and puzzle-solving conundrums). Head over Heels (a game where you had to push blocks around to escape from a sequence of rooms) could be likened to Tetris, albeit in a very vague passing resemblance. Worms was brilliant in its sheer simplicity - aim, shoot, repeat. Even for the shoot-em-up haters, many of us admit that Resident Evil was a pretty cool game (even those of us who couldn't get past level two).
But in the main, a shortlist of the top ten (twenty) favourite games for the three of us at Nerd Towers on a wet Sunday afternoon consists of games based on a simple idea. The Nintendo Wii is a classic example of this - none of the games for it (so far) are particularly brilliant, but the unique controller idea had everybody hooked, playing simple fast games for fun. Imagine Wii Sports on a Playstation 3, with one of those awkward joystick-based controllers. Boring! But on a Wii, even simple games are a lot of fun. In fact, many people - myself included - agree that the simple games offer the most fun. You can dip in and dip out without giving up an entire afternoon following some convoluted story or plot line, and play games that make you laugh.
One such online game that has got us all hooked (wasting away the afternoon when we should be working on real things like work)is Globulos.
It's simple but addictive. Play against your mates. Offer to play just three games to decide the winner. Then check the clock an hour later as you say "no, best of five/seven/eleven/thirty-five" and you're still bouncing your little balls around like crazy.
Like all good games, it's simple and fun and anyone can play. There's the perfect blend of luck and skill which makes you want to keep coming back for more. I love it (although, if my boss ever reads this and works out how many hours it's cost the company, it'll quickly find it's way onto the work's blacklist!)
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