Antiquity, Rarity, Hilarity

I've got three games to talk about today. Depending on my stamina and how long it takes dinner to be ready, this may take more than one post. But I'm sure you can cope with that, and I'll endeavour not to finish on a cliffhanger… unlike current DVD-du-jour Alias which is currently driving Jane nuts with the cliffhanger that every single episode ends on. Me? I love it, but then I'm a sucker for that sort of thing and could happily sit and watch a whole box set in one go. I'm that lazy.

But I digress. Let's begin this triptych.

The Antiquity

Antiquity in question is actually not that old, hailing from 2002, but it's actually been sitting on my shelf gathering dust almost since I bought it for full price back upon its release. I've started it several times but never played it in any great depth.

"What is it?" I hear you ask. Well, it's a game with a ridiculous name. Divine Divinity, to be precise, which I can only assume is more meaningful in the original Flemish. It's an RPG by Belgian developers Larian Studios, who remain relatively little-known to this day, but are currently working on a sequel to DD.

Why did I start playing this? Well, several reasons. When I'm between "big releases" on the consoles, I often think about picking this game up again and playing through it but inevitably something else distracts me. This is much the same reason I have never completed Baldur's Gate II, despite the fact that I would very much like to. The main reasons I've decided to stick with it this time include firstly a thread over on the Quarter to Three forums discussing "Diablolikes" in anticipation for the as-yet-undated release of Diablo III, where DD's name came up, and secondly remembering that DD was one of the earliest suggestions for the Squadron of Shame to cover, being a game that garnered considerable critical acclaim on its initial release but is still a relative unknown.

So what is it, and why did it gain such acclaim? At first glance, it appears very much to be a Diablolike, right down to having an interface lifted almost wholesale from Blizzard's classic. However, it's once you get into the gameplay that it becomes very apparent that it's an extremely well-thought out game with a lot more depth than the hack-and-slash of Diablo. If you must compare it to things, it's a curious blend of Diablo, Baldur's Gate and Fallout – taking, as it does, the real-time "twitch" combat and single-character focus from Diablo, the huge world, character interaction, quest systems and ability to strategically pause from Baldur's Gate and the interesting barter-based trading system from Fallout.

It's a blend that works well. What we end up with is a game with considerably more variety than Diablo (not that that game's purity works against it – on the contrary, it is probably one of the contributing factors that makes it so addictive) and the depth of story and interaction of Baldur's Gate without any of the scary intimidating (for some) cogs and gears of AD&D 2nd Edition.

Plus it's huge. We're talking Baldur's Gate II huge here. You spend a considerable amount of time in the first village and the dungeon underneath it before going out into the wider world. And said world is pretty huge – particularly due to the fact that what initially appears to be the "overworld" map is actually just a fraction of a much bigger game area filled with things to kill and quests to complete. Part of the joy of the game is just exploring this world and discovering what it has to offer, but there's a well-structured quest system in place to give you a bit of direction too.

In the foreword to the game manual, the game's designers note that they hope that people will find "their own way" to play the game, and while there are always obvious limitations on any RPG system to do EXACTLY what you want, I do get the impression that you could play DD quite happily as a Diablo clone, wandering around the wilderness and killing things for experience and only completing storyline-critical quests. On the other hand, the way I'm playing is more like a "traditional" (for want of a better word) RPG where I'm travelling between places and attempting to complete quests in an efficient manner.

It's a really excellent game, but I can see the size and length putting some people off. I'm certainly glad I've decided to give it a chance though, as I'm really enjoying it and fully intend to see it through to the end.

The Rarity

This is a game I actually didn't think existed. I remember reading about it before it came out and then it disappearing without trace. The game in question is Space Channel 5 Part 2. I adored the first game on the Dreamcast and then again on PS2 when it was re-released, despite it being absolutely 100% the most gay game on the planet. And I don't mean that in an Internet-Fuckwad-"Gay-means-crap" sort of way, I mean that this game is super-gay. Don't believe me? Watch this clip.

Convinced now? But didn't you find it utterly infectious? That's the charm of Space Channel 5, a game which is essentially Simple Simon in a camp 1960s sci-fi parallel universe. Part 2 is more of the same, but it has the dubious honour of being one of the rarest PS2 games ever, at least here in the UK.

The reasoning? It has Michael Jackson in it for a few minutes, and was released around the same time as the TV report that suggested that MJ might be… you know, a bit wrong in the head (like no-one knew that already). As a result, the game was hastily pulled, never to be seen again – so much so that boxed copies of the game now go for up to £100.00 apiece. Yes, US-based readers, that's about $200 for one game without any peripherals or anything.

Fortunately, I had a stroke of luck in a browse through Amazon and managed to locate a seller who had the game for considerably less than £100 because it wasn't brand new, but it was pretty much untouched. As a result, I scored the game for under £50 including shipping, and I didn't think it was going to get any cheaper than that to get my hands on a genuine rarity.

But enough about the hard-to-findness. What's it like?

Again, it's super-gay, and super-fun. The gameplay remains fundamentally unchanged, though it adds both a strange two-player mode where one player is in charge of directional inputs and the other is in charge of pressing X and O to "Chu!" and "Hey!" as appropriate along with a survival mode. There's something about it, though, that makes you want to play it again and again, even though the whole game can be beaten in about an hour, and I think it's the infectious cheerfulness of the damn thing.

With the number of damn games that have been predominantly brown ever since Quake came along, it's always refreshing to play a game with lots of bright colours and cheerful music, where even the villains are entertaining rather than threatening. It is impossible to play either Space Channel 5 game and not come out sporting a huge grin on your face. And that's worth a lot – to have something that's genuinely uplifting to play is always a pleasure, and it's something we seem to get a lot less these days as graphics improve to the point where the Holy Grail of "photo-realism" is getting closer and closer.

The Hilarity

Castle Crashers hit Xbox Live Arcade this week after three years of anticipation and I'm pleased to report that it's an excellent game bringing back memories of chugging 50p pieces into the Turtles, Simpsons and Asterix arcade games (and being inevitably frustrated by the shoddy home ports).

It's also, to tie in with what I said about Space Channel 5, genuinely funny. Developers The Behemoth make a point of creating visually appealing games, as Alien Hominid will attest, but CC is filled with so many laugh-out-loud funny visual jokes that again, it's a game that makes you smile, and a game best experienced with friends, while drunk.

I'm out of time. There may be more discussion of any or all of these titles later. For now, I hope that's given you a taste of my current gaming. Screw big releases, these three are keeping me more than busy enough for the moment!

EBA is a masterpiece

Many of you may already feel this way – others may think I'm talking out of my arse here, but I present for you the reasons why Elite Beat Agents is, in almost every way, a complete masterpiece of game design. You may wonder the timing of this post if you haven't been following me on Twitter, but the fact is, following our discussion on the Squadron of Shame SquadCast about Okami, and bringing up EBA's finale's similarities with Okami's (yes, really) I had an urge to play it again.

The fact that my DS went missing for a short period threatened to stymie this plan, but I eventually located it. It had somehow found its way into a cardboard box filled with discarded letters and things which had, subsequently, found itself under a chair. Exactly how this came to pass, I'm not sure, but it had certainly hidden itself well, making the ability to boot up EBA again a pleasurable experience.

So, why is this game so good?

Play mechanics

EBA is a fine example of the old mantra "easy to learn, difficult to master". In terms of actually interacting with the game, all you have to do is tap on numbered circles on the DS' touch screen in the correct order, in time with some ever-decreasing overlaid circles, preferably in time with the overlaid circle hitting the numbered circle. This, to help matters slightly, is in time with the music. Occasionally you have to drag the stylus along a pathway as well as tap, or frantically spin a big wheel around (producing, as does The World Ends With You, the dreaded "is he playing his DS or is he masturbating?" looks on the bus) – but aside from these three different moves, that's it.

The challenge, of course, comes with the patterns in which these techniques are arranged. On the easiest difficulty level, you're roughly tapping out the beat in quarter notes, occasionally with a few eighth notes thrown in later, but not that many. As the difficulty level cranks up, however, you find yourself tapping out "counter-rhythms" to what is already in the music, or drumming along with the rhythm section, or all manner of other things. Part of the challenge is in interpreting the on-screen patterns into physical movements and, subsequently, what they should sound like. By the time you reach the end of Hard mode and beat it, you'll wonder how anyone could possibly move a stylus that quickly.

Music

It may sound pointless to mention this, but of course a rhythm action game is made or broken on the strength of its music. EBA has a selection of music that covers a pretty wide range of artists, and doesn't limit itself to one genre. Okay, there's quite a bit of guitar-based stuff, but at least there's some variety within there, covering everything from Deep Purple to Avril Lavigne – and then besides that, there's some interesting tracks that you wouldn't necessarily expect to hear in a rhythm action game – Chicago's "You're the Inspiration" being one of them.

Addictiveness

EBA has the "addictiveness gene" down pat, and it achieves this in one very simple way – holding victory just tantalisingly out of reach, just ahead of where you are now. This is particularly apparent on the later levels of the hard difficulty, where you find yourself replaying songs over and over again, making a slight bit of progress each time. That slight bit of progress encourages you to try again, making you think that "next time might be the one". Four hours later when you still haven't finished the song and everyone around you never wants to hear "Jumpin' Jack Flash" ever again, unlike many games, you don't feel too bitter about the whole thing because you know for a fact that you're slightly better than when you started.

This brings up an interesting point. I Tweeted the other day that shooters irritate me for forcing me to replay the same bits and hear the same dialogue over and over again if you fail – the example that sticks in my mind most of all is one section of Gears of War that came quite early on, and is the reason I gave up playing that game and swore never to touch it ever again. Entering a room, you are helpfully informed over the radio that there are "enemies everywhere" and that there's a "sniper up above". Every time you try it. And said sniper has a habit of killing you immediately. So you hear this A LOT.

So why doesn't EBA irritate me in the same way? After all, hearing the same piece of music over and over again must grate. My theory is that because you're constantly interacting with EBA during the piece of music, whereas in a shooter some dialogue tends to come in a bit of "downtime" – either running between locations or in a cutscene – you notice the repetition less.

Emotional impact

EBA is the last game I expected to have a genuine emotional impact on me when I played it, but it achieves it brilliantly – and it does this in several ways. Firstly, there's the fact that the comic-strip "cutscenes" that precede each level are put together in such an entertaining way that, despite the fact you don't get much time to get to know the characters, you really start to care about them. As a result of this, you feel that there's a real sense of consequence if you fail. EBA is one of the few games I can think of where your failure actually causes other characters to cry – and I'm not talking some emo JRPG scene where a single tear falls from our normally stoic hero's eye – I'm talking full-on inconsolable bawling their eyes out crying here. This makes you genuinely feel bad if you fuck up, and is another reason to try the stage again.

Secondly, the choice of music is just perfect for each stage. The best example I can think of, which had me wiping my eyes when I'd finished it, is the stage surrounding the little girl "Lucy", whose father got into an accident and isn't coming home. Lucy is convinced he'll be back because he promised – and around the time of her father's birthday, she urges her mother to "get the house ready for Daddy". The emotion of this scene is clear from the opening of the preceding cutscene and continues throughout the course of the level, helped enormously by the choice of "You're My Inspiration" as the music.

I was also interested to see EBA dealing with themes that you don't often see dealt with – sure, dead parents are nothing new to, again, emo JRPG heroes, but to an innocent little girl?

OMG SPOILARZ

A proper finale

So many games fall at the last hurdle – the finale. Mess up the ending of your game and you'll send people away with a distinctly bitter taste in their mouth. EBA successfully avoids this by using what may be something of a cliché amongst Japanese games – the entire cast of the game coming together behind you to "pray" to you and give you strength – but every time I see it, it works brilliantly. And to tie in with the emotional impact I mentioned above, when you finally do reach the end of that final song, the characters are in such a euphoric state that it would take a cold and harsh person to not feel exultant right there with them.

So there you have it. EBA is a masterpiece… in my opinion, at least.

Ode to Game Music, Part I

This is one of those posts I've wanted to write for a long time, and I have a sneaking suspicion it will be a topic that I will return to regularly – covering, as it does, one of my favourite things about video games: the music. You might think it ironic that I am so interested in one of the more non-interactive elements of interactive entertainment, but the effect of some quality music on the experience of a video game is not to be underestimated.

My first exposure to video game music came very early on with enjoying the title-screen music compositions of artists such as Rob Hubbard on the Atari 8-bit series of computers. These songs formed a big part of the "identity" of a game, and many of these composers became micro-celebrities in their own right. In many cases it could be argued that the quality of the music was actually higher than the quality of the game itself – particularly as many of these early computers didn't really have the processing power to play complex (for the time) four-channel music as well as having a smooth gameplay experience and thus forced you to listen to not-very-interesting sound effects during gameplay.

Here's a couple of fine examples from "back in the day" that stick in my mind:

Zybex (Adam Gilmore)

Warhawk (Rob Hubbard)

Going back to these games now, they're somewhat primitive in every way imaginable, but I have to say, my fond memories of them can almost 100% be attributed to the music that played on the title screens. Both games are now relatively forgettable shooters, but Gilmore and Hubbard's music meant that I'm not about to forget them.

My next generation of computers was the Atari ST which, despite being very good at MIDI, had a shitty three-channel internal soundchip that was 1) considerably worse than the four-channel POKEY chip in the Atari 8-bit range and 2) constantly trumped by Commodore's rival machine the Amiga which had then-revolutionary stereo digital sound. However, a number of developers got around this fact and produced some excellent pieces of music. It has to be said, however, that these pieces of music were still largely confined to the title screens of games. Here's a few more that stick in my mind:

Obliterator (David Whittaker, Psygnosis)

This one sticks in my mind not because it's a particularly interesting piece of music (which, after listening to it again, it clearly isn't – and look how long it took to load the damn game) nor because it's a good example of the ST's capabilities (see what I mean about the horrible soundchip?) but because it evoked the atmosphere of the game nicely. Obliterator involved running around a space station shooting robots and solving puzzles – yes, the same shit we're still doing nearly 20 years later. It was quite a "solitary" game – you spent the majority of your time alone and attempting to navigate the environment using Psygnosis' incredibly weird icon-driven movement and action system that thankfully they abandoned after two games.

Obliterator also sticks in my mind for a second reason – the fact that the music adapted as it went through. The moody piece of music you hear in the video above eventually gives way to a more, for want of a better word, "cheerful" piece as you make progress. This is something that, to this day, I absolutely love. While Obliterator may not necessarily have had the technology to make truly dynamic music, I remember feeling the whole mood of the game shift when the music changed. Suddenly you weren't up against the wall in the dark surrounded by robots, you were a hero.

Gods (Nation XII/Bitmap Brothers)

The Bitmap Brothers were one of the earliest "celebrity developers" of the gaming world – developers who were held in the same regard as today's well-known designers and teams. In the earlier days of gaming, teams were much smaller and budgets were much lower so it was rather more unusual for a development team to come to the forefront in such a way.

One of the ways that the Bitmap Brothers brought themselves into the public eye was through their use of excellent music in their games – the music for Gods which you can hear above being one such example. This piece of music was played on the Atari ST version during the introduction sequence and is, I'm sure you'll agree, poles apart from Obliterator's chiptuniness – which brings us to another point – the Brothers' games also made far better use of the ST's hardware than almost any other developer out there, including taking advantage of the STE's enhancements, such as the ability to display a mighty 512 colours on screen at once (seen to lovely effect in Gods with a nice gradient sky background).

Okay, Amiga owners were laughing at the shoddy ST ports of many games, but the Bitmap Brothers' games made some of the pain go away. 🙂

I hope you've enjoyed some of these tracks. There will be more to come in the following entries!

The Squadron of Shame SquadCast #7: Okami

Released today is the seventh episode of The Squadron of Shame SquadCast focusing on Clover Studios' beautiful game (poncey as it sounds, there really is no other way to describe it) Okami. Along the way we take in a lengthy journey into the depths of Papapishu's mind (fueled by Dance Mania and ADD meds), discuss why good is boring and evil is awesome (and Braid is either a work of art or emo bullshit) and delve into the "this could go on for months" territory of Eastern vs Western game design philosophy.

We also, as usual, discuss our personal piles of shame, including comment on Geometry Wars 2, Braid (twice), Soul Calibur IV, Star Control 2 (hold on, haven't we done that one already?), Siren: Blood Curse and, much to Pishu's disgust, EVE Online.

This episode features a triumvirate of hot Chris action, with Chrises "RocGaude" Whittington, "Iscariot83" Hernandez and "Papapishu" Person making an appearance, along with myself, Mark "Beige" Whiting, Tom "sinfony" Haley and George "Regulus Loves EVE" Kokoris.

Grab the M4A file here, or the MP3 file here. Alternatively, subscribe in iTunes or via RSS.

Enjoy! Please feel free to post comments here or on the Squadron of Shame's club page on 1up.com.

Return to Form

Hello again! After a short break it's time to jump back on the blog train. Today I thought I'd talk about board games, a passion that I rediscovered relatively recently with the aid of local friends Sam and Tom, and occasionally my wife-to-be Jane.

We've played a number of games in our now-regular Tuesday night sessions and it became clear to us very shortly after we started (with Risk, of all things) that there is much to explore that goes well beyond Monopoly – a game which is subject to a fair bit of snobbery from the people who are very much into the hobby. Saying that, having explored a number of less "mainstream" games now, I have to agree that Monopoly does lots of things wrong.

I thought I'd take a moment to share a little about our recent acquisitions.

Firstly, Pandemic. Pandemic is unusual in that it is a cooperative game where all players are striving towards the same goal – to beat the game. And this is very much a game that does not want to be beaten!

Players are assigned one of five random roles at the beginning of the game and are tasked with defeating four deadly diseases which are sweeping the globe. Each role has a particular special ability which is helpful in certain situations – the Medic is better at curing diseased locations, for example, so plays a key role in avoiding "outbreaks" – a location overflowing with disease to such a degree that it spreads further and takes the players one step closer to failure.

Each turn, players take four actions, which can involve moving through various means, treating patients to prevent outbreaks, researching cures by trading in cards and building research stations which help others to get around easier. At the end of the turn, the diseases spread further, potentially causing outbreaks, so it's important to ensure areas are "secured" quickly.

The difficulty comes in keeping up with the game. Do you treat patients or try and collect cards to develop the cures -the sole victory condition being the development of all four cures? What should others do? Do you have enough time?

It's a challenging game, even using the "easy" variant we started with. But it's fun. It encourages discussion and strategic thinking and is genuinely cooperative. I like it a lot, and it helps that the components of the game are of extremely high quality. So if you're looking for a challenging yet quite simple-to-play game that encourages teamwork rather than being at each others' throats, Pandemic is a great game to play.

Later: Puerto Rico.

Falling off the wagon

Starting to write this post feels somewhat like checking into rehab. For I have spent most of the evening, you see, in a semi-catatonic state staring into space listening to trippy music and watching the pretty lights. It's an addiction I thought I had freed myself of, but then they come along and make it so much better.

I am, of course, referring to today's release of Geometry Wars 2 on the Xbox Live Arcade. And by golly it's a corker. Not only have they added the one thing that I thought they could have added to the original (having your friends' high scores on screen as you play, rather than a meaningless "high score for this session" that was reset every time you quit) they've added a buttload of new modes to the game, each retaining the series' signature simple gameplay but adding a twist. We have a time limited mode, a mode where you're only allowed to shoot in "safe zones", a mode where you're not allowed to shoot at all… plenty of variation, but things never get more complicated than the dual-stick "move and fire" mechanic that has been around since Robotron.

And it's addictive. Oh so very addictive. Particularly if your friends are playing it too, as each time you pick a game mode you see your Friends Leaderboard. And if one of your buddies has quietly slipped in ahead of you… well, that just needs sorting out. Immediately. However long it takes.

So I thank you, Bizarre Creations, for providing me with a means of getting even less done than I normally do.

Meme-tastic: Your Debut Album

I'm not normally one for this kind of bollocks, but this one tickled me somewhat. Not in the bollocks. It did, however, make me wonder just how many of today's bands actually are taking the "random name" approach when it comes to 1. their own name and 2. their album titles. Particularly pretentious emo whiners.

Anyway. I came across this on PMOG, which I mentioned a couple of entries ago. There's a whole thread on their forums about this which is quite entertaining if you're into that kind of thing.

Here's the deal: First go to this link, which generates a random Wikipedia article. The article name is your band name.

Next, go to this link, which generates some random quotes. The last four words of the last quote on the page is your album title. Repeat this step if you want to generate some track titles.

Finally, go to this link, which is Flickr's "Explore the last 7 days" link. The third photo on the page is your album cover.

I came up with this.

My Debut Album — Featuring the smash hit "In the Wizarding World"!

The soul still burns

I remember Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast like it was yesterday. The first truly then-next-gen game that my friends and I played, it represented an absolutely amazing graphical extravaganza, not to mention an exciting evolution of the fighting genre into "proper" 3D.

"It actually looks real," is always the battle cry of some of my gamer friends upon the latest and greatest graphical revolution, and with Soul Calibur's amazingly lifelike animation (I was, for example, convinced that I could actually see the muscles tensing in the characters' joints) it seemed like we were a step closer to that.

Then there were the many long nights spent with other friends drinking wine, eating cheese and playing far too much of the game – to the extent that my buddy Ben managed to complete the game in 18 seconds with Astaroth. Excited by this amazing victory, he sent a frantic text message to me – "18 seconds with Astaroth. Suck my cock and worship."

Unfortunately, this text message never arrived. To this day, we're unsure who it actually ended up with, but it certainly wasn't me.

So now Soul Calibur IV is on the way, and it's looking interesting, particularly with the character creation options. Character creation is a sure-fire path to brilliance if done well, and the trailer linked to below shows that there's going to be some huge potential for fun, particularly when you combine it with the online play.

All I want when it comes to character creation is, frankly, either the City of Heroes character creation tool, or the WWF Smackdown 2 (PS1) character editor with next-gen graphics (and gameplay that's actually GOOD). Why Smackdown 2? Well, because it's the only game to this date to successfully allow us to create exact replicas of ourselves. And I mean EXACT.

Anyway. Here's some Soul Calibur IV action to damp your uglies.

Weirdness of the Web: PMOG

I came across this the other day when browsing through friends' Twitter profiles. As if Twitter didn't waste enough time with publicly announcing that you were taking a dump (a tweet that, mercificully, neither I nor anyone else that I "follow" has felt the need to share… as yet) I happened to come across something called PMOG on the page of one Jennatar.

PMOG stands for Passively Multiplayer Online Game and I guess it's one of those Web 2.0 thingies that you always hear people rabbiting on about. I was intrigued by the title, to be honest, so I decided to check it out.

PMOG takes the form of a Firefox extension that you install and it does all kinds of interesting things while you're just going about your normal daily life on the Web. Firstly, you gain Datapoints for browsing websites. Secondly, players sometimes leave items on webpages including Crates, which can contain Datapoints, Mines, which cause players to lose Datapoints (and which cause Firefox to wobble around like it's having a spaz attack), Portals, which link to another website with only a little hint about what it might be (though there are NSFW tags on ones which… well… aren't) and some other bits and pieces.

The great thing is, these things only pop up if you're running the PMOG toolbar, so you can make it leave you alone whenever you like. But then you'll miss out on the mysterious portal which has appeared on your Facebook page, linking you to a video of, I don't know, some dancing kittens or something.

It's an interesting idea and it's already made me check out a number of sites I'd heard of but never got around to investigating in any great detail.

Crap. As if I need another excuse to waste time on the Web.

M.U.L.E.

Many people who have been playing video games and mis-spending their youth (and beyond) as much as I have will have one game that really sticks in their mind from the "good old days", that they like to return to as much as possible and are gratified to discover that it's actually still good.

Some retro games hold up better than others. Some age gracefully despite limited technology. Others remind us just how far we have come since those early days of one-man programming teams. Others are so well-respected that they spawn modern-day remakes or sequel after sequel… or endless variations on Xbox Live Arcade.

My particular fond memory is for an early EA title for the Atari 8-bit range of computers named M.U.L.E. This game involved four colonists from a diverse range of species attempting to make the best use of the resources a small planet named Proc Irata had to offer… yes, that planet's name is indeed "Atari Corp" backwards (and this wouldn't be the last time Atari Corp would have their name used as an element in a game, with Red Rat's Laser Hawk following a few years later pitting a lone chopper against the forces of the "evil Proc Irata". One wonders if Atari had any say in all this.) and, as these things tend to go, to make as much money as possible by the end of a period of time that was set according to the "difficulty" level. I use the term "difficulty" loosely as, unusually, the difficulty setting in M.U.L.E., rather than simply making the computer players harsher and cheaper, it actually added new layers of complexity to the game.

M.U.L.E. was played on a month-by-month basis, with each month being a game turn split into several phases. First up was the Land Grant, where a cursor moved over the single-screen landscape of the planet one plot at a time, and players competed simultaneously to be the first to press their fire button to claim a plot. Different plots were good for different things – mountains were good for mining, the river valley running down the middle of the map was good for food production and everywhere else was good for energy production. This stage, despite its simplicity, was teeth-gnashingly frustrating in the way a good board game is when someone pips you to nabbing, say, the sheep port in Catan.

Next up, players took it in turns to actually manage their plots and assign them to particular purposes. This was done on a strict time limit, so players had to make decisions quickly. In order to assign a plot, players had to outfit one of the titular M.U.L.Es for energy, mining or food production before taking them out onto the map and dropping them into a plot, taking care to place them carefully, otherwise the M.U.L.E. would simply escape. In this phase, if players had time, and if they were playing on one of the higher difficulty levels, they could also attend a land auction for an additional plot of land, scan an area for its suitability for mining the more precious minerals and finish their turn by wandering into the pub to receive a "gambling bonus" according to how much time they had left.

Next up was production, which was sometimes preceded by a random event affecting production of one or more of the resources. This could be anything from sunspots increasing energy production to a pirate raid stealing stock from the colony's store. This random element added some tension to the game and also meant that someone who looked like a runaway victor could have their big plans scuppered at short notice, which was always immensely satisfying.

Finally came the auctions, where players were able to sell their surplus stock either to other players or the store. Auctions were handled in an interesting manner, with players setting buying and selling prices by walking up and down the screen. If two players met, they would exchange goods and money until one or the other moved away. If no players wanted to buy or sell, goods could also be bought or sold from the colony's stores (for very high or low prices respectively). After the auctions, the four players were ranked according to their net work before the whole process repeated again another five to twenty-three times.

So that's how M.U.L.E. works, and its simple yet elegant mechanics, along with its good sense of humour throughout, make it a game that's still fun to play today. Interestingly, though, none of these things are the reason why I remember M.U.L.E. so fondly, because I was much too young to understand how to play it properly when I was first introduced to it.

Rather, two things stick in my mind. Firstly, there was the music.

I defy you to not be humming this masterpiece of the POKEY chip all day. Evoking an appropriately adventurous sci-fi feel (in my mind, at least), M.U.L.E.'s theme is one of my favourite video game themes of all time.

Secondly, there was the "characterisation" of the game. In The Squadron of Shame's podcast, we've often discussed the merits of having a truly immersive game world. And M.U.L.E's, while simple, worked brilliantly. Each alien race was distinctive and had its own character, despite only having about three or four frames of animation at most. The fact that this strange little world had its own curious rules, such as catching the little white dot (the "Wumpus") on the map rewarding you with extra money, made it all the more appealing to be a part of – and made you feel a little sad when the ship came to pick you up on the last turn.

M.U.L.E.'s a game I remember fondly for all the wrong reasons – yet fortuitously, it still plays very well today. I highly recommend exploring its curious charms – ideally, with three other people.