10 video games you didn’t realise are 10 years old
TRANSCRIPT
10 Video Games You Didn’t Realise
Are 10 Years Old
http://www.gamescdkey.com/news/10-video-games-you-didnt-realise-are-
10-years-old
Man, we’re getting old. It seems like only yesterday broadband was available in just a select few
homes and we were all cutting up bits of cardboard to use as makeshift screen‐dividers, but lo and
behold the gaming industry of 2014 is a completely different beast. These days wars are won and
lost on the difference between 30 and 60fps (and if you’re unaware of what that even means,
please take it from us – if you get involved in The Great Frame Rate Debate you’ll never come back
the same), but back in 2004 it was a simpler time. Open world games were still fairly fresh and
were yet to be inundated with minuscule improvements over a core formula, and shooters on
console were yet to be dominated by the annual Call of Duty machine. With all of these titles
though, they mostly hold up very well today – albeit in a far more polygonal form – but hey when
you watch an old film you don’t complain about the footage being all grainy or black and white,
right? Most of the time it’s part of the charm. Plus there’s a certain title on here that in the run‐up
to it being released, it was ahuge deal that you could actually see the main character chewing
gum. Not flying up into the sun and reigning down a handful of nuclear strikes like some horrific
Michael Bay nightmare – just moving his mouth to chew some gum. And if that doesn’t make you
realise how far we’ve come, nothing will.
10. Halo 2
The sequel to the game that single‐handedly proved first‐person shooters could work on consoles,
and in a spectacular way. Even if the end credits seemed to come out of nowhere and Master
Chief’s final line of “Sir, finishing this fight” brings about more cringes than a Jersey Shore marathon,
the vast majority of us played this for its spectacular multiplayer. It’s clearly such a perfected set of
mechanics that later this year Halo‐adopters 343 Industries are capitalising on it again, releasing
the ‘greatest hits’‐style Master Chief Collection in November, an Xbox One exclusive that aims to
emulate everything about Halo 2 in terms of gameplay whilst adding a lick of paint to the graphics.
But, being that the mechanics of the game are still going to remain exactly the same, it proves just
how timeless the likes of the overblown Warthog collision physics and general ‘feel’ the game has
become known for. It may be a decade old, but an old fashioned game of Halo will never lose its
appeal.
9. Burnout 3: Takedown
Switching gears to one of the most visceral and immediately satisfying games of all time, Burnout’s
unique mix of high‐octane carnage and superbly tight controls is still easily playable today just as
much as it was when it landed, producing enough of a bang to define a wealth of copycats
(Split/Second anyone?). Whereby previously in the first two games it was extremely important to
dodge every vehicle in your way, and the slightest knock at the wrong angle from your opponent
would send you careening over a cliff‐edge, in Takedown having a full nitrous bar meant being able
to ram everybody out the way – with specific bonuses and slow‐motion cutaway‐cameras when
you got it just right. Needless to say it’s the perfect blend of arcade sensibilities and semi‐realistic
physics models, put through the ringer of a game engine that prioritises speed over everything else.
If you’ve lasted this long and somehow not played this, get rooting through your local bargain bin
– you’ll never be able to blink the same way again.
8. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Yup, one of the most respected and influential games of all time, and it’s already a decade old. San
Andreas was one of those games that slowly drip‐fed elements of its gameplay out in the pre‐
amble, only to land and have a whole host of secrets and features still under wraps. It’s a plan that
Rockstar have rigidly stuck to, and back in ’04 with the world still reeling from the one‐two punch
of GTA III and Vice City, San Andreas landed in a blur of perfected gameplay, amazing characters
and one goddamn phenomenal soundtrack. From Guns n’ Roses – and Axl Rose on a radio station
– to warring green on purple gangsters, the personality on show throughout every single pixel of
Rockstar’s third 3D GTA welcomed you perfectly into a living, breathing city full of characters you
actually wanted to hang out with. Although GTA V provides enough programming wallop to take
on a string of cage fighters, San Andreas ushered in the same feeling of “How is this possible on
current hardware?!” back in the day too. Just as you got used to burning around Los Santos, it was
off to climb the skyline‐dominating Mt. Chiliad before nabbing a jetpack and chasing some
cropdusters home and grabbing a bite at the Cluckin’ Bell. Even if you got sick of this character‐
management side of things, this was an incredibly immersive experience.
7. Killzone
Remember when the phrase ‘Halo‐killer’ was doing the rounds? It’s been applied to everything
from Killzone’s militaristic sea of grey art assets to the mechanically‐cool Haze; a title that instead
ended up completely falling flat on its face when it finally came out. Killzone though is a series that
still sells just out of necessity – want a fairly decent, pretty shooter on your Playstation but are sick
of Call of Duty? Here you go. With last year’s PS4 incarnation Shadow Fall still retaining the series’
embarrassingly bad body physics, shooting is just as formulaic and phoned in as it ever was. But
then again there are some upsides to these titles; mainly that the collection of guns within them
are really meaty, Rambo‐esque dispensers of ammunition that are at least fun to pull the trigger
for, even if the collision is like poking through wet paper. With a pretty sweet squad mechanic that
saw you switch from main man Jan Templar (hardly Master Chief, is it?) to the ninja‐esque Luger,
the straight‐talking Gregor Hakha or the big, brash Rico Velasquez, Killzone definitely entered the
fight for FPS dominance with some neat ideas – it was just a shame that under some very nice
graphics for the time, was a shooter that just wasn’t fun to play.
6. Def Jam: Fight For New York
Over to something that was most definitely fun to play though, and easily one of the best fighting
games of all time, as well as a great title for multiple friendly showdowns – Fight For New York was
the sequel to Def Jam Vendetta, an off‐the‐wall title that saw wrestling developers AKI take a large
amount of real life rappers, and create overblown in‐ring versions of them. Being that AKI were on
top form back in 2004, this sequel remains imminently playable and graphics‐wise actually holds
up pretty well. By adding in a wealth of environmental interaction as well as taking the fight
everywhere from clubs to parking lots and construction sites, what really makes FFNY so special is
the combat system, which delivered the hits and finishing moves with enough force to level the
entire West Coast. With a fantastic career mode and a bonkers roster that gave you everyone from
Henry Rollins to Snoop Dogg (the latter turning up as a kung‐fu master), all voiced and with perfect
likenesses, FFNY is a hidden gem of the shiniest quality.
5. Chronicles Of Riddick: Escape From Butcher
Bay
It’s rare that a series of ongoing games manages to be better than its filmic counterpart, but both
2004′s Escape from Butcher Bay and Assault on Dark Athena in 2009 easily trump the half‐good
half‐godawful Chronicles of Riddick movie, as well as giving last year’s ‘Riddick’ a run for its money
in the entertainment stakes too. Why, you ask? Well how about the fact they have one of the most
perfect first‐person melee systems ever put to game, along with a stealth system that sees you get
all Predator on a series of guards and violent inmates? As was becoming increasingly popular in
first‐person gaming, developers were realising certain actions just kind of sucked when done in this
sort of view, therefore titles like Riddick or Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas started to swing the
camera out away from you when doing things such as climbing ladders or shimmying along ledges.
Combined with developer Starbreeze’s incredible talents and Vin Diesel’s more‐badass‐then‐a‐
derriere‐in‐lockup delivery, it all came together to provide the best realisation of his gritty world of
space‐convicts and throat‐shredding aliens so far. All that, and it actually told you how Riddick
received his ability to see in the dark too, which was the only thing people actually wanted to know
from the films in the first place.
4. Ninja Gaiden
Few names in the gaming realm usher in a clench of the fists and the speaking of names through
gritted teeth, but “Nnnja Gdnn” is easily one of them. Often cited as one of the most unforgiving
and unrelentingly hard games in existence, it still had a brilliantly tight fighting system that saw you
flying around the screen in a blur of sword‐swipes and ninja stars, occasionally grabbing a demon
for a spinning sky‐high piledriver. Yes, a rebooted Ninja Gaiden had landed on current consoles,
and it wasn’t going to bow to your level whatsoever. With a first boss that went down instantly in
the history books as having a checkpoint set far before him, only to then be incredibly tough even
if you could get back to him without losing half your health. The whole thing separated the
hardcore from the casual, and a whole host of potential fans were not just shown the door – they
were booted straight through it while being laughed at from behind.
3. Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes
Still an incredibly controversial title just down to its very existence – how dare Konami take what
was a ‘Sony franchise’ and make the rebooted version a Nintendo exclusive? What about all the
fans that devoted their time to knowing their Otacons from their Ocelots? Brainiac developer
Hideo Kojima didn’t seem to care, as he allowed developer Silicon Knights to wipe out all existence
of the original Playstation version, re‐recording all the dialogue and creating a whole new set of
cutscenes to boot. And man, those cutscenes. By this point MGS 2 had been released and we’d
seen the likes of Solidus’ octopus armour – hell even a vampire running on water was now
something we’d learned to accept ‐ but last we checked Snake wasn’t backflipping onto the back
of incoming missiles, nor was he coming across like some OTT fusion of western character design
and eastern action‐animation. Considering all that changed in terms of gameplay was the addition
of the MGS2 first‐person camera and a shiny new graphics engine, the new game we saw just made
this version of MGS 1 a strange and off‐putting one.
2. Half-Life 2
If you needed any more convincing that 2004 was one of the best years for the industry (before
the next entry, anyway), look no further than the unveiling of Half‐Life 2, Valve’s physics‐based
playground that completely revolutionised almost everything about first person shooters.
With great character designs and interactions that were done entirely in the first‐person, it really
put you in the shoes of one Gordon Freeman as he got lost in a world of social oppression and high
tech gadgets, letting you form a bond with lead female Alyx and her pet robot Dog (who wasn’t a
dog) along the way. All of that and we haven’t even mentioned the combat which is the meat of
the game, and what you’ll be doing the most of. It’s a great indicator of how replayable HL2 is that
the physics of the world and the way the weapons handle are just so laser‐focussed and weighty,
it never gets old to use the Gravity Gun to pluck any number of objects off the ground and fling
them at your adversaries, along with utilising a range of heavy‐duty weapons to fell your foes.
1. Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater
It might not have sunk in at the time, but back in 2004 we got a double‐whammy of gruff‐voiced
goodness (which is a good thing, being that 10 years later Kiefer Sutherland’s whispering
performance is nothing in comparison). For some fans this is the greatest game of all time, and also
the one that’s strikes the perfect balance between zany off‐kilter Hideo Kojima‐madness and hard‐
hitting emotional beats that tie everything together nicely. Snake Eater might have a ludicrous
name – and an even more ludicrous (yet loveable) theme song – but it’s still the keeper of one of
a few endings that the vast majority of gamers will admit to getting all teary eyed over. If by some
chance you’re yet to experience MGS 3, grab yourself a copy and get stuck in. Sure you’ll have many
questions over why there’s a man made of bees coming after you, or that an older gentleman
actually possesses the ability to photosynthesise, but just go with it, as when you find yourself
battling a giant Russian man who can conduct electricity with a missile launcher… you won’t care.
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