Hey there! So I've long known what my top say 3 or so games of all time were. Its not hard for me to pull those games out when someone asks me what my favorite game of all time is. However, I was thinking in the scheme of things what are my top 25 of all time? Did I even know the answer to this question? So last night I sat down and decided to make up a list which you can find on my profile if your interested. Anyways, I thought I would start throwing down longer blogs of each game and why it meant something to me. These games aren't all "amazing" or in some cases even "good" but they are the games for one reason or another that has shaped my tastes in Video Games and to a larger extend media in general. Anyways with further ado......
Winback: Covert Operations
Back in the long past year of 1999 I was 14 and after briefly playing my cousins copy of Metal Gear Solid I quickly started developing a fascination for the game. Here is the problem. I had a Nintendo 64. Don't me wrong the N64 was a great system there are a ton of ground breaking games on that system. There however was NO Metal Gear Solid. So then one day while perusing the games at the rental store I saw Winback. My jaw was agape starting at the back of the box. Here was this cool secret agent guy. Back pressed against the wall like Solid Snake gun in hand. I had to play this. So after much begging (and whining) I got my way and my mom rented me the game.
Whats this?! A cover system!?
So after I got home I started the game. To my surprise the game did NOT play anything like MGS. You stood still and pressed a button to draw your gun and with feet firmly planted fired your gun. This was odd to me as run n' gun was the name of the game for most shooters of the day. Instead the game also highly prodded you to use cover. This was in fact the first game to use a 3rd person cover system.
Metal...Gear!?
So while this game didn't feature a metal gear it did very much feature a group of terrorists that were at a remote place that needed to be stopped. Enter S.C.A.T or Special Covert Action Team. Looking back that naming is...unfortunate. Anyways, the story starts off with an assault on the enemies base only to have your helicopter crash. Jean Luc survives but his team is gone so off you go on your journey to find them and stop the terrorists dastardly scheme. So looking back the story in this game is truly awful. Hey, hindsight and all of that right? Never-the-less between this and Metal Gear these games really left an impression on me. So much that I wrote a (probably incomprehensible) story directly inspired by both games. I still have the binders with the story. You know the 5-subject notebooks you used in school? Yeah, two of those full front to back with a story I wrote inspired a large part from this game.
Good Job, Jean Luc!
So, more or less that is it. Winback is a game that history is most likely going to forget. That is a bit of a shame because games like Gears of War and other 3rd Person shooters today owe a lot to the first few games like Winback and Kill.Switch that made progress in developing what became the modern cover system. In retrospect it isn't a great game and even for its time the writing was awful and the game play amounted to little more than a shooting gallery. But what a fun shooting gallery it was! If anyone is interested you can play the (slightly better looking) PS2 version of the game via PSN. I'm not sure I'd recommend this to anyone unless you already have a soft spot for it like me. However, its a game that influenced me and I'm really glad I had my time with it. Its super unfortunate that the Winback name was entirely drug through the mud with the awful release of Winback 2. That game was AWFUL. Quite possibly one of the worst games I've ever played. I couldn't finish it and folks I've played and finished some awful games like Vampire Rain. Anywho, this is #25 on the list. I'm not going to have a regular schedule for this stuff just basically whenever I feel like it. I'd be delighted to see in the comments if anyone else was as fascinated by this game as a kid as I was. I can't deny that this wasn't a good game but none-the-less it influenced me and my tastes. Till next time folks!
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