G A M E S

 Just going to mention some of my favourite and inspiring games.

Besides board games like Monopoly and Payday, the first games I enjoyed were Choose your own adventure books.

A simple memory game, but an enjoyable way to get kids to read books.

A friend at school during the choose your own adventure craze, brought an interesting more advanced book based game to school.

Be an interplanetary spy. 

This was a different choose your own adventure. Instead of simple choices the player completed puzzles to move to a new page in the story.

Here is a sample page showing some puzzles that advanced the story.

The next story book evolution was my favourite. Fighting Fantasy by Steve Jackson games.

It was a LITE version of Role-playing games that did not require a Game Master. 

The book included a game sheet. My father was a Tattooist so I used his photocopier to create as many game sheets as I needed. I eventually made my own stories and my game sheets also had a picture of a person for adding armour. It had hard, leather, cloth, and legendary swords and armour inspired by Wonder Boy in Monster Land.

Speaking of Role-playing games my next game I enjoyed was Dragon Master Flipsider from Milton Bradley Games. MB and Parker Bros merged into Hasbro.

It was a simple Role-playing game as a board game. The player advanced through the dungeons fighting monsters and gaining XP!

Now we move into hard-core gaming territory. Saw this in Mindgames when I was younger.

This was the starter pack that I purchased and in no time at all I purchased the box set.

This game was so cool because it included detailed maps, that were essentially blueprints of towns.

Image from boardgamegeek.com

You could exit cars and enter buildings etc... One of the maps was a huge circular arena on an island. When I saw the movie Deathrace I immediately thought of Car Wars.

I glued the car tiles to each other so when the car was destroyed, I just "flipped" it over. Sounds familiar?

A "lookup table" that allows you to calculate if your car looses control and skids.

And then the most hard-core of all...

This is what you want if you are really into gaming.

Rifts is hard to top, but I believe current video games are close...

This is a RPG in a video game. Multiple story paths and extreme attention to detail. Played this to death. Currently have the ultimate starting save game. Have only discovered Sanctuary, Concorde, Drive-in, Abernathy Farm, Rocket Diner, Diamond City, and the Castle. Once you have a total of 40 settlers or more the Castle becomes available. I am just starting the game and I already have full artillery support and 1200 cryo cells and the Cryolator. Industrial water purifiers are a must have.

This is another RPG in a game. Not as much detail as Fallout 4, but the Recycler Charge allows for the coolest feedback loop that allows the player to obtain maximum raw materials. Get Heavy Leverage Class 2 and two recycling charges from the security centre safe to kill the Telpath in the Neuromod division at the start of the game. This allows the player to unlock 80% of the Neuromod Division at the start. Above the Telpath is an office that contains the "unlimited" neuromod fabrication kit. You will need the games most important weapon to get it. The huntress' bow caster. Happy hunting!

Another cool game with alot of attention to detail. Can be hilarious at times, due to the deadpan attitudes of the protagonists. They share the players WTF attitudes to the unfolding horror that is HELL-A. They also seem horrified at the people who made such a brutal game world. Kill 100 zombies without dying for a handy $2500 bonus!

Here it is. Perfection? Close enough. Excellent RPG elements, but it takes Shenmues Quick Action system and minimizes it to a perfectly balanced level to create an "interactive movie". Getting the shiv upgrade for clickers is my number one priority. 

Going to add cyberpunk 2077 to the list because of the mission The Hunt. After some hacking and a really cool usage of the "braindance" system to track down the missing kid. I found myself in total awe. It was though I had just been in the Hollywood movie The Bone Collector. Best game mission I have ever played. On the buggy version 1.0 avoid the mission The Ride and Human Nature. Complete all the police missions and the roads will be full of cars and people will be walking around everywhere.

One last thing....

Was a collector of C+VG, Zzap64, and CU magazines. After I got my first PC, I found this magazine in my local newsagents.  It had a section in it that showed the reader how to hack save files using DOS debug. Finishing a game, that opened a save file editor,with some hidden bonuses would be a real reward. Just a thought...

Currently watching movies like Ready Player One, the Matrix Trilogy, Johnny Mnemonic, the Lawnmower Man, and episodes like X-files Kill Switch to completely immerse myself into VR(although my machines would be SEMI-VR). Also studying concept art of Geof Darrow, Syd Mead, and the manga of Akira, Ghost in the Shell, and Metal Slug.