A Peg Life Supplemental, Part 1

Well, it's finally happened. After numerous false starts and failed attempts I've finally written something substantial enough to be worthy of the Peg Life moniker. So substantial, in fact, that it surpasses my previous record of longest email I've ever sent. And it's only half finished. That's right. It's even longer than my 100 favourite albums email. Over 5,000 words and still more to come. I figured it would be a good idea to break it into two parts for two main reasons. First, it will hopefully be more easily digested by the reader in slightly smaller portions. Second, it's going to be a little while before I finish the second half and I didn't want to wait to let people start reading it. So without further stalling for time, I present to you Tony Hawkins' 50 Favourite Video Games of All Time (50-26).

50) Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego
Kicking off the list is a game that many people (even non-gamers) are likely to have heard of even if they never played it. While it's not the only game on this list to have a television show based on it, it is the only whose television spinoff was a game show. O! how I wanted to be a contestant on that show. I would have kicked ass. Meeting the Chief, shutting out a couple of ignorant American kids, placing all those rotating light markers in the correct locations on the map and winning a trip anywhere in North America, and then sealing the deal by shouting "Do it, Rockapella!" Ah, childhood pipe dreams. Alas it went as unfulfilled as my Kidstreet fantasy. Anyways, after looking up the show on Wikipedia I discovered it was the longest running game show on PBS and TV Guide rated it number 47 on its list of the 50 greatest game shows. Maybe I should bump it up a few places to match. No, that doesn't make any sense. So did the game make a lasting contribution to my geographical knowledge? Well, I memorized the flags of all the countries you could go to in the game. So, you know, there's that.

49) 1942
My memories of this game are heavily influenced by not actually playing this game. I never had a Nintendo as a child. [Damn cheap parents. Barely even shelled out the cash to rent one after lengthy bouts of pleading and petulant sulking.] Instead I used Microsoft Paint (back in the days of Windows 3.1) to draw the game's P-38 Lightning and an unflyably massive bomber covered in guns and spewing little orange dots behind it. I wasn't content to merely recreate a still frame from the game however. Next I would select the colour-select eraser tool which, in the version of Paint at that time, had a + in it that made it look like a crosshair. Using orange as the colour to erase I would then shoot down all the bullets thus saving my aero-protagonist from their freeze frame threat. Switching to black, I could proceed to blast off the enemy airship's battery of guns protruding from every horizontal rear surface. Finally, I would set my eraser-cannon to the green of the plane and utterly destroy it. Thus was the Battle of Midway won.

48) Brix
People other than mother and sister might know this game better as Puzznic. Or not at all. That is also a distinct and probable-to-the-point-of-near-certainty possibility. Basically you have a bunch of blocks that you can move left and right and you have to match up pairs so that they explode and disappear. Some levels have three of a given type and you have to line them all up at once or one will be left over. Of course there is a host of variables that affect your ability to move the blocks, such as gravity, teleports, bricks that decay, acid pools, elevators, etc. It was a pretty standard puzzle game, really. I had a shareware version that I played on our old IBM computer. Recently I was able to find a full version on the internet that I can play with a DOS emulator. I haven't, but I can.

47) Bust-a-Move
The name of this game confused me for the longest time. I thought it was called Bubble Bobble (y'know, cause the coloured balls are like bubbles and bobble has something to do with it somehow that I don't understand). Turns out that's another game entirely and this one is called Puzzle Bobble. Because it's a puzzle game. And bobbles or bobbling are still involved but with no more explanation as to why. Although maybe it's just to indicate that the puzzle game is a spinoff of the bubble game. There's a pair of lizard things that appear in both. I don't really care what the actual explanation is. As long as those lizards keep loading the coloured ball launcher and squeak out a hooray when the level is clear that's all that matters.

46) Top Gear 3000
This is probably my least played game on this list. In fact I think I've only ever played it once. That "once" was for several hours, but I've never been able to play it since. I've downloaded several version of the rom but every time, without fail, it fucks up and the game is unplayable. Which is a shame because I remember it being one of the best racing games I've ever played. Of course, it's possible that the only reason it has made it onto this list is that I'm restricted to viewing it through the greased lens of my long term memory. Then again, the game did have an upgrade to your car that allowed you to tractor beam the car in front of you and slingshot yourself ahead of them. So, you know, there's that.

45) Police Quest II: The Vengeance (Honorable Mention: Leisure Suit Larry)
Police Quest is the F. Murray Abraham of video games. Don't ask me why, that's just the impression I get. Hey, remember the Mighty Mighty Bosstones? They were the Boutros Boutros-Ghali of ska bands. And ska is the Sierra text command based video game of musical genres. See how it all comes back around like that? That's just the way it is. I'll let you choose your own 2Pac metaphor to insert there. Have fun with it. Isn't that what the Police Quest series was all about? Well, actually the Police Quest series was a lot more serious than the King's Quest, Space Quest, or Leisure Suit Larry series. Apparently some police departments used some of the games as supplemental training tools. On a related note, the first Leisure Suit Larry game is the only training tool used by the Tony Hawkins Memorial School of Seduction. If you can get past the part where you have sex with the hooker and she leaves you tied to the bed in the hotel room then you pass the course. From there you can go on to get a graduate degree in Advanced Steve Smithery. Classes fill up fast, so if you're interested sign up soon. Axe body spray not included.

44) Solar Winds
In Solar Winds you take on the role of Jake Stone (probably the most common video game hero surname). Or more accurately, you take the role of his ship. Basically you fly around a lot, going from planet to planet investigating some kind of mystery or something. Sometimes you get into dogfights with other ships. These consist of flying in circles until you're behind the other ship and you can shoot them. Eventually you get to a part where you have to traverse the vast emptiness of space to another solar system. This isn't just a quick jaunt to a neighbouring planet with an enemy or two along the way. Vast and empty are the key adjectives in this particular section of the game. Be sure you have plenty of Proclaimers and Hootie & the Blowfish to listen to. It takes a while. From this description it may sound like a shitty game and I'm stupid and I don't know what I'm talking about. Well, you'd be right. Except about the game being shitty.

43) Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear
This was like a first person shooter except all tactical and shit. Excuse me: and sheeeeeit. It was a lot of fun when I played it multiplayer. Great graphics for the time. You could select from a wide variety of real weaponry and plan out your whole mission strategy. But the best thing about the game is how when you write about it years later you can hear the words in your head as if they were spoken by Joe Stover doing an impression of a black person. And sheeeeeit.

42) Alien vs. Predator 2
Actually, this might take the title from Top Gear 3000 as the least played game on this list. I only played through a few levels of the Marine section and first little bit of the Alien and Predator sections. What I played was pretty great though. It's probably the scariest game I've ever played, and that includes Silent Hill 3 and Resident Evil 1 and 2. I can grant that those games are creepier, but having a swarm of aliens charging at you over the walls and ceiling of a dark corridor is much more frightening than a few shambling zombies or even a mutant Doberman. There's a part that basically recreates the scene in Aliens where the marines go to find the colonists in the hived power plant and get attacked by the aliens, except there's just you and Ripley doesn't come crashing in with the APC when the shit hits the fan. You've got to get back on your own and by the time you reach the surface you're down to a sidearm and there are still dozens of aliens itching to sink two sets of teeth into your flesh. It got my adrenaline going.

41) The Simpsons: Bart's House of Weirdness
This is among the first (and probably one of the more obscure) Simpsons video games to be released. It came out in 1991 for the PC which was around the time my family got our first computer: an IBM PS/1 386SX. It had 2 megabytes of RAM, a 40 megabyte hard drive and a non-Windows graphical user interface. Bart's House of Weirdness was the very first game we got for it. Unfortunately the copy we purchased came on 5 1/4" floppies and our computer only had a 3 1/2" floppy drive. We had to take the disks to my grandpa's because he had a computer with both floppy drive formats and could copy the original disks to ones we could use. Even after the game was installed you had to use a boot disk to start the computer in the DOS prompt instead of the GUI in order to run it. The game itself is a pretty basic platformer. You have to go through various stages to collect a hat, shoes and sunglasses. Once you have these, a magical warp tunnel opens outside of Bart's window for some reason and you go through to defeat Sideshow Bob and rescue Krusty. It only stands up moderately well today, but firsts are often favourites.

40) Growl
More quarters found their way from my pocket into this arcade machine than any other. When I lived in Lac du Bonnet we didn't have a washer and drier for some reason (at least for a period of time) so I often had to accompany my mother to the laundromat when it came time to wash clothes. In the back room they had a few arcade games, including Growl. It's a Final Fight/Double Dragon style side scrolling beat 'em up but there's much more emphasis on using weapons than either of those games. The "story" is something along the lines of you being some kind of wildlife ranger but more hardcore (like Indiana Jones if he worked for the park service) and some poachers try to kill you so you have to kick their asses and rescue some animals. Obviously the rescuing is merely incidental to the ass kicking. In the opening scene you're sitting in a bar with your fellow fedora aficionados when some guy looking like one of the generic flunkies from Temple of Doom comes in and throws a grenade at you. You wisely duck beneath the brittle wooden table to shield yourself from the explosion then quickly grab one of the four rocket launchers that happens to be lying around. More poachers start coming in to finish off the job and the game begins in earnest. When you come across a guy whipping a tiger the brilliant line "Hey! Stop it!" is responded to with the equally Pulitzer worthy "What's it to you?" Such a dismissive riposte is clearly grounds for murderous action, never mind the animal abuse. When will poachers learn? Never insult a pissed off park ranger wielding a sword. Yes, a sword is one of the myriad weapons at your disposal, but it is not nearly as efficient as the poacher's own whip. With the whip you can strike enemies in front AND behind you. Because we all know how much damage a whip does when you swing it back. I never got there in the arcade (never got enough quarters from the creepy old man who used to hang out at the laundromat and watch kids play video games), but emulated on my computer I managed to reach the stage where the boss battle is against a tank. I'm not sure why poachers needed a tank, but I guess when the authorities routinely hang out in bars with bazookas at hand no one wants to mess around.

39) Blackthorne
There's nothing quite like a hero with a shotgun. Except a hobo with a shotgun. The best thing about this game (besides the smooth animation of running, jumping, and rolling) was the protagonist's physical attitude. He never raises his gun to aim. Every shot is from the hip. Unless you use the infinitely awesome no-look backwards shot where he just points the gun behind him and fires. It's not particularly useful in the game but it looks fucking cool.

38) Tetris
What is there to say about Tetris? It's Tetris. If you live in an industrialized nation and are not at least passingly aware of Tetris you probably died before 1985. You might as well ask what Pong or the Super Mario Brothers are. Or how about Pac-Man? Never heard of Pac-Man? You some kind of idiot? Is that what this is about? You're not some kind of idiot, are ya? You worry about people takin' yer jobs? Huh? Derk a derr? Maybe you'd be more comfortable playing with this rock. Here you go. Here's a rock. You have fun with that. No, wait! Don't eat-- You ate it. Well I hope you’re happy. I'm not giving you another rock. There's only so many to go around. It's a little thing called "limited edition." That's right. It was a limited edition rock. Don't ask me. I don't know how much it was worth. The market fluctuates. Supply and demand. Just dig through bowel movements for the next couple of days. If you wash it off real good it should be fine. Don't tell anybody where it's been though. Collectors don't look highly on items that have passed through someone's digestive tract. Depreciation. Look it up. And while you're at it, look up Tetris too.

37) SimCity 2000 (Honorable Mention: SimFarm)
This was pretty much the pinnacle of the Sim-whatever games. Plumbing was a goddamned pain in the ass though. Um, that's most of what I remember about this game. That and whenever I started a city I would customize the landscape with a small elevated area on the edge of the map surrounded by water so I could put the prison there. Come to think of it, I might have played SimFarm more than SimCity. It might not have been a better game, but I had a lot of fun playing it. Oranges and cows. That's the way to go. Cause nothing goes together like orange juice and milk.

36) Need for Speed: Underground
They should have made the title of this game more literal: racing through tunnels beneath the earth. With digging machines. And of course it has to be realistic so it takes several weeks to get a quarter of a mile. Now that's excitement! They could put in a historical mode where you recreate the construction of the Chunnel and the New York subway, and fantasy mode where you follow the plot of Journey to Centre of the Earth and The Core. Ok, that's a shitty idea. What else am I going to do? Talk about how the graphics are good and there's a wide variety of races and customization options? No! I refuse to toe the line! I'm going to talk about The Core! Wasn't Delroy Lindo awesome in that movie? And how about that Aaron Eckhart? Or was it Thomas Jane? Oh well, they're the same person anyway. Just like Sarah McLachlan and Dido. Think about it. Have you ever seen them in the same place at the same time? Watch Timecop and you'll understand why.

35) NBA Jam (Honorable Mention: NBA Street 2)
The greatest achievement in NBA Jam was if you could perform a flipping dunk while on fire that breaks the backboard and the announcer saying "Boomshakalaka!" Even better (though you had to use a cheat code) was to enable dunking from anywhere on the court and doing that from under your own basket. This was also one of the few Super Nintendo games that had full motion video. Granted, it wasn't anything more than a couple of thumbnail sized three second clips, but still.

34) The Oregon Trail
Ah, The Oregon Trail. How many times have I died of cholera, or dysentery, or typhoid after months of "meager" rations and travelling at a "grueling" pace? Too many to count. And then there are all the oxen, supplies, wives, and children lost to drowning when attempting to ford rivers instead of paying to take the ferry across. But come on, ferries are expensive. What do I look like, a banker from Boston? It's all worth it though. You get to hunt a few buffalo and carry back 100 pounds of food. Or maybe all you can get is a squirrel and carry back one pound of food. Either way you tough it out till you reach the final stretch where you can float down the Columbia River to the promised land of Eugene, Oregon. Congratulations, puritanical settlers. All your hardships led to the development of the state with the most innuendo baiting nickname in the Union: the Beaver State. Second place: Missouri, the Show Me State.

33) NHL 2002 (Honorable Mention: NHL 2005)
These were the glory days of the NHL, when the Ottawa Senators signed a young upstart rookie named Tony Hawkins and went on to a record breaking undefeated season. Patrick Lalime played more shutout games in one season than most goalies do in their careers. Who can forget the inconceivably frequent double hat tricks? Well, maybe some can. It's easy to lose track among the ubiquitous 15+ goal games. Early in the season Hawkins broke Teemu Selanne record for most goals by a rookie. Soon afterward he would surpass Wayne Gretzky's record for most goals in a season. The playoffs were still weeks away and Hawkins proceeded to violate both achievements in every orifice an intangible object can have on his way to a 200+ goal season. Yes, it was a wonderful time for the Senators. They had a less momentous, but still highly successful, season in 2005 which to this point has been the last of Tony Hawkins' NHL career. Perhaps he will one day return to dominate the league, making Gary Bettman's wettest dreams come true.

32) Syndicate Plus
There are a couple of problems with writing a list like this. Well, not the list itself. That's relatively easy and was actually quite a bit of fun to compile, having to think back over all the video games I've played in my life. The problems are with writing the parts like this, the individual entries. Because I'm not writing a greatest games list or something with any pretense of objectivity I can't rely on simply describing the qualities of the games that make them great. Spelling out the things that make the games my favourites doesn't make it much easier either. With anything so subjective there is often an indefinable je ne sais quoi that is of prime importance in labeling it as "favourite." Attempts at explication rarely make for entertaining reading: "I don't know. I just like it cause it's fun and I like it. I don't need a better reason. Shut up." So why is Syndicate one of my favourite video games? I don't know. I just like it cause it's fun and I like it. I don't need a better reason. Shut up. Also, there is a device in the game called a Persuadertron that makes people follow you around in a trance and pick up guns they find to shoot your enemies. I want one.

31) Worms Armageddon (Honorable Mention: Tank Wars, Scorched Earth)
Up until I started writing this entry the game in this spot was not Worms: Armageddon but Tank Wars. They're both the same type of game so I figured it's not much of stretch to just switch them out. When I got to writing I started thinking about the similarities and differences between Tank Wars and Scorched Earth, and then other games of the same type, and it suddenly occurred to me that I had overlooked Worms entirely when I was making the original list of games I've played. Since I'm not going to be writing about Tank Wars anymore I'll have to slip in one of the points I wanted to make about it here: the reason Tank Wars is better than Scorched Earth is that if rebounding walls are on and you set the power of your shot to 800 the shot will pass through the ground and ricochet around the screen until it hits somebody. That was always an awesome trick. But Worms Armageddon is better than both of them. Coming out almost ten years later, it's obviously better from a technical standpoint but the game's true superiority is in its selection of weaponry. Napalm strikes, flying sheep, exploding old ladies, Holy Hand Grenades. And nothing is so satisfying as walking up to another worm, lining up, and cracking him square in the face with a baseball bat to send him flying into the drink.

30) Super Mario Kart (Honorable Mention: Mario Kart 64, Rock n Roll Racing)
Not counting Super Mario World, which was bundled with the system, this was second only to Donkey Kong Country as the best selling game for the Super Nintendo. If you ever played a Super NES game, chances are this was it. There's a reason this is the top ranking racing game on this list. It's a shitload of fun to play. Mario Kart went 3D on the Nintendo 64, which definitely improved the battle mode (also contributing to this was the ability to have up to four players) but the 64 version has the disadvantage of having come out later and thus does not fit the First = Favourite equation.

29) Duke Nukem 3D (Honorable Mention: Shadow Warrior, Doom, Rise of the Triad, Wolfenstein 3D)
Anybody remember when Duke Nukem was a 2D platform shooter? No? Probably for the best. He got a lot more badass when he went FPS. Back in the day there were rumours of a Duke Nukem movie adaptation. Of course, at that point the films that had been based on video games included Double Dragon, Street Fighter, and Super Mario Bros. With such examples of sterling cinematic bravura how could they possibly go wrong with another video game based release? Hell, why isn't anybody snatching up this property today, what with the unqualified success of Silent Hill, Doom, the collected works of Uwe Boll? Oh right. Obviously no one has yet wanted to jump on that solid gold bandwagon. This is a shame because one of the most serious problems with the movies that have been based on video games is just that: they take themselves way too fucking seriously. This would hamper Duke Nukem considerably less than any other adaptations released to date. The game is essentially a parody already. A movie version need only concern itself with balls out, your-head-a-splode action and a few Evil Dead references and it would be massively entertaining. And speaking of Evil Dead, along with rumours of the Duke Nukem movie's existence it was speculated that Bruce Campbell would be cast as the lead. Unfortunately I think he may have gotten a little long in the tooth to assume the mantle these days, but at the time he would have been supremely perfect in the role. Oh well, at least we have Duke Nukem Forever to look forward to. If it doesn't spend another decade in production that is.

28) American McGee's Alice
And here we have another project that has plumbed the depths of development hell. Not the game itself, the movie adaptation. Wes Craven was initially attached to direct but eventually dropped out. Now it's in the hands of Marcus Nispel who directed Pathfinder (aka Vikings vs. Indians) and the remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Esteemed stuff, I know. He also did the video for Bush's Greedy Fly and was second unit director on National Treasure. Still not impressed? How about this? Sarah Michelle Gellar is signed on to star. She's had a pretty flawless resume since Buffy the Vampire Slayer, right? Ok, I can see I'm not getting anywhere with this so I'm just going to blow your mind instead. Sarah Michelle Gellar played the voice of Andromeda in two episodes of Disney's Hercules television series and Kevin Sorbo, who played Hercules in a different television series, went on to star in a show called Andromeda. Huh? Was that psychedelic enough for you? And I'm pretty sure Kevin Sorbo will be playing the Cheshire Cat in the movie version of Alice. Actually, the cast is probably just going to be Sarah Michelle Gellar and Kevin Sorbo. She'll play Alice and he'll play everything else. The White Rabbit, the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts. All of them Sorbofied. It will be an ideal opportunity to show his range. And his abs. It's in his contract. He gets at least five minutes of on screen shirtlessness in every project he's involved with. Also, the closing credits will not list his name but simply the character's name and "Sorbofied."
Alice - Sarah Michelle Gellar
Cheshire Cat - Sorbofied
White Rabbit - Sorbofied
Queen of Hearts - Sorbofied
Script - Sorbofied
Key Grip - Sorbofied
Producers - Sorbofied
I can't wait to see that movie. It will most certainly sweep the Oscars. Sorry, I mean the Oscars will be Sorbofied.

27) Heavenly Sword
Yes, I know God of War is supposedly a much better game but the fact is I haven't played God of War. I've played Heavenly Sword. The gameplay isn't even the reason it's on this list (although the levels that involve projectile weapons that you can guide to their targets using the motion controls of the Sixaxis controller are a hell of a lot of fun). The reason this game is on my list of favourite games is the dramatic execution. The acting in this game, which is not limited to just voice acting but includes detailed motion capture techniques, is superior to just about any game I can think of. Never before have I seen a video game come as close to recreating the cinematic qualities of film. A lot of people criticize the short length of the game, but I think it's actually kind of refreshing. Contrast it with something like Final Fantasy VII. It took me so long to go through that game that by the time I got to the end I had forgotten a lot of the plot from earlier on. Heavenly Sword, on the other hand, I was able to beat over a weekend which made for a much tighter narrative experience. That's not to say I don't enjoy games with long, complex plots. I do. Most of my top ten is comprised of these types of stories. But if the tradeoff to achieve the kind of presentation seen in Heavenly Sword, I'm willing to make that sacrifice once in a while.

26) Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (Honorable Mention: Command & Conquer)
It's hard to say which game should actually take this spot: Warcraft II or Command & Conquer. Warcraft would be the obvious choice, but I did spend a lot of time playing multiplayer C&C over a 33.6 kbps modem. Of course, I did the same with Warcraft. Good ol' dial-up. Did anyone else ever use Windows HyperTerminal to transfer files between two computers using dial-up modems? I sure did. That was old school. Windows 95 baby. Remember the background picture of a mountain lion that came with Windows 95? I think you had to have the Plus! add-on. It was in a theme called "Dangerous Creatures." That was an awesome desktop wallpaper. I'm going to find that picture and use it as my desktop. I hope I can find a widescreen version of it. Remember how on the Windows 95 installation disc they had the videos for Buddy Holly by Weezer and Good Times by Edie Brickell & New Bohemians? Remember Edie Brickell & New Bohemians? No? Remember how she married Paul Simon? Apparently they met when she was performing on Saturday Night Live. I think most people who have met Paul Simon met him on Saturday Night Live. Well, anyways, I'll give it Warcraft II because if you click on a sheep enough times it says "Bah ram ewe." Command & Conquer didn't have enough Babe references.

Tune in next time I send you an email when we will countdown from 25 to 1 to finish off the list. And please... Try the fish.

Tony Hawkins is resurrecting a dead horse