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By Chris Plante June 3, 2010 |
BioWare's great unifier, Mass Effect 2 brought together glasses-pushing RPG geeks and mouth-breathing gunheads for the first time since... well, Star Wars, which it borrows from with humble reverence. Shooter, RPG, adventure, soap opera: ME2's such a pleasure, because it's so good at being disparate things to disparate people. Its good looks help, too.
After much debate on whether to include Mario space-tripping adventure (I talked to myself while taking a piss), I can confidently raise my arms to signal and shout, "Count it, baby!" Who cares if Super Mario Galaxy's not the most sci-fi game. It's excellent. Maybe top ten worth. Not just of sci-fi games, but all time. And look, it has a spaceship in it, so back off.
A great game built upon a universe created by a raging gay basher. Some people can separate the two. I can’t. Giving it a deserved spot on the list, but moving on. (And no, I’m not including Advent Rising. Not because of OSC, but because it sucked.)
Out of This World was doing cut scenes before they were cool. Nah, what set OoTW apart was its bold decision to drop text-based prompts and guide the player with expressions, sounds, gestures and imagery. Games today could still learn a lesson or two from its brevity.
X-Wing’s an exceptional film to game tie-in because it fleshes out bits of the film in a way the also befits its medium. Playing as an X-Wing pilot, it becomes slowly evident that the Rebels are sort of terrorist of their time. You disrupt convoys and launch surpise attacks. Guerrilla tactics prove effective in destabilizing the Imperial hierarchy. For a game about blowing stuff up in space, this is heady stuff.
Yet another sci-fi game that received plenty of critic love, but has sort of been forgotten over the last decade. Released in 1999 and set in 2007, Outcast set the player down in an alien world to close a black hole. The place looked like a craggy Earth and featured vast expanses of land. It was a technological wonder at the time, powered by a number of odd sounding things like ray casting and voxel engines that sound more alien than the game world.
I could have plucked anything from Introversion’s catalogue, but since I came to Darwinia first, it nabs the spot. Darwinia defies genres. Truly. Part God-sim, part RTS, part I still don’t know what, I can only describe it as bunch of fun little things to do. Fitting, as the plot behind the uber-strange graphics involves the first digital theme park.
Honestly, I’ve never had the patience to make my way through Elite. I recognize how it influences any number of titles, especially the early 3D space games, so it certainly belongs up here. But for me, its like the crusty old man in your office that earned his stripes when he won the Magnavox account back in the 80s and has coasted ever since. If you have a thing for eye-depressing wire-frame graphics, look up Elite. I’m sure it contains many great lessons in game
Long before console-based RTS became a punchline, Dune 2 struck a chord on the SEGA Master System. The Command and Conquer series especially owes Dune 2. It set the framework. The genre since has built upon it.