Second Wind

While recently many of the games I've reviewed have been commercial releases, punted out by corporations and professionals that produce multitudes of games and such in vast numbers. I thought I'd review something with skill and talent in that hasn't be blighted by the "Triple A" touch of video games I like to refer to as "Thrown enough cash at it to solve a 3rd World Country's starvation issues" and instead is made simply by a few people, with little more behind the motivation beyond the fact they WANT to make the game.

I really should review INDIE games a lot more. There's a lot more variation in the different games and yes, there's a LOT of crappy ones, but the true gems shine even harder for that matter. When you do find something that glorious, you cannot help but be impressed by the concept, the originality, the execution or all of the aforementioned aspects at once.

This one is a flash game from what I can tell so far. It might be available on other formats though as far as I can tell, it's just on flash. But what a game it is.

A little background, Rogue-likes, as the name suggests, are any games that fit a model identifiable with the game Rogue. In which you wander around a dungeon that's randomly generated and continue to progress to harder and harder levels, taking on harder and harder enemies while collecting weapons, items, spells etc to level up and hopefully get to the bottom and win the game. In a manner of speaking. Second Wind, takes the bare bones of this concept and removes the structure of dungeon floor space by having everything that happens as a randomly occurring event.

For example, on the first level, which is set in a dungeon, you'll explore places and perhaps happen upon a monster, an event of skill/strength, shops selling either weapons, armour or health potions, Non-Playable Characters that have their own interactions and quests, or one of the many avatars for what qualifies as Gods within the game itself. Finding one could mean finding another one in the next move, or not finding another one for the next 20 or so movements. So you could find a text that explains a snippet of the world you're in, and never see it again for the next 30 games, or bump straight back into it the next time you press "explore" but that's random number crunching for you.

This does get annoying when you NEED to get to a certain location in order to progress to the next level.

Each enemy is a parody or rip-off of other enemies found within similar games. Usually accompanying the enemy is a very out of place description, something jovially cutting about the genre and then something equally humorous to found when defeating said enemy. For the most part it's very light hearted on the humour and will often give you a chuckle (assuming you GET the reference) the first few times you fight the adversary.

Given the RPG roots, there's the usual Health, Gold, Level for each character. Health being the main decider between "alive" and "dead" though you can return once from death as part of the eponymous "Second Wind" ability. Your character will have 3 abilities during any fight depending upon which character you chose, of which there are around 20 different types of character from fighters to magicians, martial artists to knights etc. You'll also have Dexterity, Power and Armour ratings which will determine how much Armour Penetration you can do, how much damage you can do and how much damage you can soak up, in respective order.

The catch is that there's a BIG difficulty spike from the first level to the second level and you'll find sometimes that going too soon will result in you fighting enemies you cannot harm because you cannot get past the armour. OR you'll have to rely upon other attacks/abilities that will bypass armour entirely. Such as the Parry technique for fighters, that will return a % of damage back onto the enemy but you have to survive the damage first of all. So if you really cannot damage an enemy, you'll have to run and lose cash or die (and sometimes you can't run at all, because you lack the stats to succeed in running away like a prick).

Story wise, you're someone who has ventured into the dungeons of a world ruled by several Gods. Your purpose to rise to the higher levels, transcend realities and battle the Gods of the world. How you play and how well you do will determine whether you ruin reality or rule it as either MasterMcShitBag or a nicer person. Though the criteria for meeting such endings isn't entirely clear as to getting the best ending or middle ending, though the worst endings are clear for either joining the last boss or losing to him. As it turns out, the best ending is met by killing the last boss without killing any other Gods, which makes it a rather herculean task as the deaths of the other Gods will anoint you with the huge stat boosts that will allow you to fight the last boss on relatively fair terms.

Thankfully you can continue repeatedly in the third level as it's purported to be some form of ascension and as such, leaves you on another plane of reality where you can respawn ad infinitum. It doesn't make it mean much more than repeatedly having your arse handing to you.

Though there's a fairly enjoyable story, it is hidden within "pages" that can be found as random events, detailing the events before the game, leading up to the game and the circumstances found now that shape the course of the protagonist. It can however be entirely bypassed and the game becomes "Whose balls do I break next?" while running around looking for more fights to get stronger and stronger. In these senses, it does become a grind fest and most people will find that, as the monsters get stronger, there becomes a limit at which experience is not gained as much and that is the game's way of telling you to move the hell on and kill the bosses already of that level.

The music within the game has become one of the few games where I've actually sat and done nothing in-game just so I could hear the music playing, particularly for Boss fights and the Final Boss fights. It's a suitable mix of epic and exciting that leads to a satisfying build up, though if you're too overpowered, can detract from the overall expectation of wanting a long, solid battle.

That having been said, it's not going to be everyone's game. You really have to have an affinity for a) grinding through levels to get to higher points and a rather expansive knowledge of tropes for, and around, dungeon crawlers, rogue-likes and other such games, but mainly anything closely associated with Dungeons and Dragons (the tabletop game, not the cartoon series... Even if Eric was whiny, but the best character out of the bunch). However for those that DO get this genre, as esoteric as it might be, there's a rather witty wealth of game contained within that will make even the most ardent player sit back and chuckle softly with a wry smile upon their faces.

Though having said all that... I now want to watch Eric and his shield running around, being sarcastic.

Morrowind

I really should have thought about reviewing this one sooner rather than later as this is a game I've found to be one of the main reasons I upgraded my computer's graphics card just to get the pixel shading effect on the water surface and was amazed by it as the first true example I'd witnessed of what a decent/good graphics card can DO to a system. (Back before the internet was common place to buy stuff online and having to purchase items based on whether a store had one and the hefty price tag accompanying the graphics card too). But in having played Daggerfall previously to Morrowind, I'd had an idea of what they were going to do with the game and the size/scope but even then, I was still blown away by the openness of the game.

It starts, as almost all Elder Scrolls games do, you wake up somewhere and realise "Oh shit, I'm here and this is a thing now". Daggerfall had you shipwrecked, Morrowind has you as a slave on a ship, Oblivion as a prisoner with no past and Skyrim you're on your way to be executed for the crime of having your head and neck firmly planted on your shoulders. In Morrowind's case, you awaken next to a nearly naked man who may or may not have recently decided you were the prison boat’s bitch, it's not entirely clear, but he does seem rather overly concerned to the point of asking how well you slept and what your name is... Some sort of "hump first, question later" approach it'd seem.

Before stepping off the ship, a guard approaches to check names etc, then you're frog-marched into a registry office and further details are asked of who you are, your star sign (generic stat boost/drain) and what kind of person you are either through generic questions like "If you were an animal would you be a) a pig, b) a cat or c) An Ocean Sunfish" which somehow concludes that your character class is nothing akin to what you answered. I prefer to pick my own for the fact I like to hit things with swords and clubs and knowing that some people out there will hurl fireballs at me, be a little resilient to magical attacks. You could go the potion making route, or thieving bastard route and pinch everything not nailed down, though you tend to find you do that anyway.

Here you can also select your race with its own racial bonuses ranging from being rather strong but dumb, to being gifted with magical power but unable to regenerate it or just being small and very annoying. In tandem with this, not every creature/race can wear every piece of armour either (unlike later Elder Scrolls games) and as such the beast type races can't wear standard boots or full helmets. Probably because the models would look dumb if they did that.

Once you're out the building, that's it. Save for a message saying to meet with Mr "X" in a town at some point, and this is where the game can be a make-or-break situation. You're free to do what you want, when you want and how you want with usually very few consequences. Want to do the main quest? Go ahead. Want to join up with various bands and groups and do odd-jobs and chores for them? Do that instead. Want to go raiding temples and burial chambers? Do that. Want to serve the dark gods and become their champions? Do it. You can even decide that living is for the strong, you're the strongest so GENOCIDE is the best course of action and can systematically slaughter EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER in the game... though some will put up a staunch defence even when you're maxed out on levels.

While you progress through the game you'll level up skills by using them successfully, slashing with a sword does very little, but striking someone will gain some exp. Running everywhere will drain stamina but you'll gain running exp and level up there, likewise with jumping until you're able to leap over buildings and take big falls with minimal damage. Need to learn how to use light or heavy armour? Get hit while wearing it to increase effectiveness on using it but you'll need to repair it soon too.

This can be a case of falling at the first hurdle though, with some people not realising that having level 15 swords is NOT a good thing if you want to actually hit people with the swords. Thankfully there's places to learn and level up skills for cash to save you wasting your time flailing like a madman on fire while a worm systematically kills you via death by head-butting your ankle. Incidentally, the same can be said for throwing items, archery etc. There's a LOT of levelling to be done here and gaining levels in sub categories counts towards the bigger character level upgrades where upon you can designate boosts to other aspects of your character with extra bonuses depending on what you did a lot in the previous level upgrade. Just be warned that short sword skill and long sword skill are 2 different skills and you need to be careful which weapon you use, it can be fatal to be mistaken in that regard.

Main plot wise, you're "possibly" the new born arse-kicker god in "mortal" form. If you're really the god re-born, you cannot be killed, but that doesn't stop people trying/failing. You will investigate into various factions around the volcano-island of Morrowind and meet with various Gods and Demons to try and work out if you are the reborn god, reunite the parted Houses of the Island to then wage war (by yourself) on the demon-god and his immortality machine. With lots of backstabbing, skulduggery and walking around the lush countryside and burnt out ash plains of the land.

And fight Cliff Racers. The game's constant harassment in the form of a flying bird that can follow you anywhere.

There's a whole host of guilds to join from Fighters Guilds, Mages, Thieves (honour even amongst them), Assassins, Temples, Imperials and such all having their own jobs and systems, ranks and privileges and rewards upon reaching the upper echelons of the system. Though the jobs can be rather unbalanced or unfair in that the first mission for one guild can be just to kill some rats (and it's always rats) to using unheard of stealth skills to steal something in which you'll invariable fuck it up and look like a prick while running from the guards or losing some stats in prison.

Amongst all this are the specific missions from people you'll meet and encounter. The odd pervert that wants to see you naked. Someone that wants his ring found. Taxes and debts to be collected. Dungeons to be braved. Slaves to be rescued. Floating rocks and prisons to be visited. Mad cults to be torn apart and rent asunder. Flowers to be picked.

And Cliff Racers to fight.

As a character though, you can do a whole host of things. Become a magician and cast various types of magic from destructive fireballs and ice-blasts, to lock picking and telekinesis, addle people's minds, turn invisible, and negate damage and case shields of elemental types. Make and mix up potions to boost stats, or create poisons. Begin your own line of enhanced magical armour or clothing. Develop magical weapons and shields. Repair everything and sell it. Steal EVERYTHING. There is very little limit in what one can do within the game and even going so far as to explore the more seedy and darker regions of the game to own your personal slaves (and liberate them too). Travel from one place to another and...

Kill Cliff Racers...

That is a rather large gripe in the game. You can't sleep (and heal... usually..) if there's enemies nearby and with Cliff Racers they can fly and therefore follow you a long distance and over most terrain obstacles that every other enemy cannot do. They tend to attack in swarms and with the repeated hitting and staggering, will knock seven shades of shinola from your body and kill you before you can even begin offering a retort. Some gamers will employ the use of a mod that removes them completely from the game and find it becomes and much more enjoyable experience. Though I personally found it hilarious when meeting several barbarians in the game that had encountered a witch and needed help, one was basically an obnoxious man who "claimed" she was a witch, another actually was a witch, and the third took the piss out of me for assuming there's always a barbarian fighting a witch. A wonderfully amusing inside joke within the game at itself.

Getting married to a cat-girl however was a bit odd. Though I can think of a multitude of idiots that would relish that prospect. While rising to the head of a guild only to fight and kill the leader was a good chuckle. Incidentally, the conversation aspect of the game is all based around talking to people and clicking keywords they (might if they like you enough) tell you about and inform you of upcoming events. Alternatively you can scare them if you're convincing enough but they'll hate you later, and bribe them a lot of cash to make them like you like some sort of emotional happy pimp. Or taunt them into fighting you and making it easier to kill them for free with no consequences (unless it's someone key to the story/plot) in a sort of "you swung first, I get to do what I want" kind of ruling.

The game however, for all its flaws and bonuses, reeks atmosphere almost from every pore of its fine and slightly pock-marked skin. The ambient music adds almost perfectly to the theme and setting of the game and giving a subtle grandeur to the game's production, to the point that the key theme features in later games too, most noticeably in the Skyrim add-on that takes place in an Island just off Morrowind itself, a wonderful little throw-back nod to this game. Music changes gradually to fit pace and setting, so a quiet wander through the lush forests and mountains will be rather soft in approach, while combat and fighting takes an almost faster pace with heavier drum accompaniment but nothing that ever becomes overbearing or taking the forefront in the game, always as a quiet aside to whatever it is featured before yourself.

The game does leave us with various choices throughout, some of which are obvious, others are a bit more judgemental and not as clear cut black/white in the morality issues. Most people will free every slave they find though one or two might play as in character as they can and keep slaves for themselves as pack mules in carrying around large amounts of loot and treasures from the dungeons. Other choices may leave you racking your brain over whether either decision is really the "better" choice, especially if there's not a clear cut solution to the situation and very little indication to the rewards either. "Take this diamond to my sister" and get mugged by their compadre who lifts the diamond back and returns it in a sort of star-crossed lovers idea. You can look past the misdemeanour and help them, or butcher the pair of them in their sleep, steal all their items and clothes and sell it for profit at the local trade/exchange for a nice new pair of shoes with +1 "fuck you" factor. (And -2 charisma, berk). But maybe helping them out well enough will net you a perfect, flawless diamond and their grace and favour.

Or kill some cliff racers.

Invariably some will compare this game to Oblivion and to be fair, that is the next game. But we can't compare an old game to a new game like that; we can only really compare to the previous game and showcase improvement. From the generic lands and awkwardly broken realms of Daggerfall, we've now this fully mapped, fully 3D world (Island...) with some of the most mind-blowing views and visions to grace a computer at that time (more so with the better textures sets available out there) While I shouldn't strictly do this, but the involvement of further add-ons that are officially made, open the game up into looking into the 2nd and 3rd of the "mortal" gods and their involvement and development since the end of the main game (or not as the case may be), or a huge sprawling Island just off from Morrowind where it's based more around a colder climate with its own setting featuring werewolves that haven't really made a return since the Daggerfall game, until the final big update from Morrowind's extra mods.

It's said that variety is the spice of life and there's certainly a lot going on in this game, various different weapons and materials to make those weapons from iron, steel, glass, obsidian etc, long swords, short swords, daggers, knives, axes, spears etc, magic as mentioned before, potions to boost any and every statistic, armours and makes of armours in great variety while also there's every precious metal one could expect to locate and find from steel plate to "demonic" sorts of armours (weapons too for that matter). A virtual library of ingredients to play around with to make potions, and all within a solidly made, gaming environment that doesn't utilise randomly generated areas.

Enemies range from worms and bugs, to larger lizards and beasts, to ... Cliff Racers... demons of fire, ice, storms, poisonous creatures, draining creatures, enemies to be made and defeated, of which, each have their own strengths and weaknesses. Buildings to take over and purchase, populate with your own decor and use their bonuses and extra features to impress... yourself. There's no online function or series here it's just you and the game and while in this age of online participation and social gaming, it can be a little daunting to be JUST yourself in this situation and nothing really coming in from the outside world.

Though to others, it's ideal.

There is a lot of game under the surface with a very well written storyline and plot progression if you can stand to read it, rather than being told it through voice actors. Meaning there is likely a LOT of information regarding the story on the assumption the gamer has the patience to read, tolerate, comprehend and deduce the situations. Such a sentence likely scares off a lot of people but that's how it goes here. It's not for everyone and will require some people to accept some big initial failures until they realise the way they wish to play and tweak boosts and initial staring points until they get the character that works best for them.

And killing Cliff Racers.

Mortal Kombat (Original)

Sometimes a genre needs something that makes people sit up and take notice. Sometimes a classification of games needs some innovation, or a means in which it can stand tall and say "we're not like those other games" despite it being exactly the same with just some new characters. In the realm of beat-em-ups (not brawlers like Final Fight and Double Dragon) games like Street Fighter 2 tended to rule the arcades with its bright colourful graphics, its following of loyal fans watching as someone in a karate gi smacks a large fireball into another different coloured gi wearing karate man's face.

Of course Street Fighter 2 didn't start the beat-em-up craze, before that obviously was Street Fighter the original, other older games included Yie Ar Kung-fu, Karateka, Barbarian and such on home machines and older arcade games. But what Street Fighter 2 did do was to make the genre more appealing and more accessible with the special moves easier to do, (most of them were quarter circles with a button, charge moves or just hit a button REALLY fast). It went largely unchallenged until the arrival of something that popped up and caused international controversy with its excessive (at the time, nowadays tame) violence, gore and above all else, Fatalities.

Yes I'm talking about My Little Pony. (Like hell I am... I'll make people suffer that later) Mortal Kombat hit the scenes around 1992 depending upon your location in arcades and was quickly followed with a series of complaints and abuse hurled at it for some of the more violent aspects of the game.

At release, it was a game with 7 characters having been made initially by just a team of 4 people. 2 Colour Swap ninja characters (Sub Zero, Scorpion), token female (Sonya), lightning god (Raiden seemingly based on Big Trouble In Little China characters), Kano (Semi cyborg crime lord... any more clichés to add there?) and Johnny Cage (Jean Claude Van Dam rip off, but seeing as the game was originally an idea to movie->game Universal Soldier, you can see where that originates).

Each character had a standard series of moves from low and high punches, low and high kicks, sweeps, roundhouses and uppercuts. Blocking was implemented by not holding away from the target, but by pressing another button entirely and would result in a lot of Street Fighter fans being slaughtered at first by trying to 'block' incorrectly. Special moves were almost entirely unique to every character and required combinations of buttons rarely seen in fighters, from holding an attack button and pressing various directions, holding block and tapping directions, double tapping directions and then attacking with just a few using similar quarter circle moves from the aforementioned Street Fighter series.

What was more immediately obvious was that there was no cartoony approach to the game, the graphics were entirely digitised from photographs of actors dressed up to perform/pose for the moves and then placed into the game directly, rather than the designed and drawn out images of virtually every other fighter game out there.

The plot was almost entirely ripped from Enter The Dragon (cited as being inspirational) in which a group of people are called to an island to fight to the death against each other and then fight the main guy who has been a shitbag for quite a while, in a plot to take over the world if he wins 10 contests, he's already won 9. Shang Tsung being the final boss but not before having to fight your way through every other opponent (6 fights) your mirror self (another fight) 3 endurance fights (you vs 2 people on one life bar) and the "not quite lass boss" Goro, a 4 armed monstrosity that did far more damage than you ever could with a nuke. Only then could you fight the last boss, a wisened old man that could morph (Terminator 2 made it popular) into other characters, including Goro.

Each character has their own reason for joining the fray. Ranging from on-the-run criminal, to chasing-said-on-the-run-criminal cop, death seeking, thrill seeking, honour seeking, wanting to stop the bad guy, wanting to stop elder gods taking over Earth and getting some more recognition beyond shitty-film-star, the value added to each character ranges rather wildly for those trying to find purpose. "I need more cash" vs. "Saving the planet" firmly sorts out the pricks from the chivalrous ones.

The real "fun", if remembering button combinations like a surprise test-paper answer sheet is fun, was the option after the fight, to "Finish Him/Her" with a special move that simply killed the opponent. From burning them alive, to blowing their head off with lightning, punching the head off, ripping out the beating heart, pulling the head off with the spine attached and so on. It was this that would cause the greatest controversy. Not only would the fight have been over but unlike any other game at time, you could visit horrific and graphic violence upon people by pulling their heads off and letting the spine dangle freely, uppercut them off bridges and send them hurtling to their deaths in a pit of spikes which, unsurprisingly, were populated by a few decomposing bodies and heads.

Moral guardians went apeshit, the game's popularity soared and it became a standard to set other games to. That's not the say the game was any good. As with anything controversial, just because it IS controversial does not mean to say it's any good. Mortal Kombat was a mixture of hits and misses as a result.

With most of the memory of the game focused on digitised graphics, the character roster wasn't as large as that of other games (SF2...), the enemy AI could absolutely cakewalk any player when it chose to unless some severe AI exploits were utilised, computer characters were able to perfectly time attacks to dodge and counter with inhuman speed. Not to say that humans could do it at all, the reaction times and speeds of the computer could be set in such a way that no human alive would be able to do those moves because of the very nature of the moves. As such it was possible to be ludicrously punished by an AI looping a perfect series of moves.

The most fun however was rarely found in beating the AI, but in taking on other people and THAT is where the game found a loyal and eager fan base. Now could you not only fight someone one-on-one but unlike other games, you could choose to punish them at the end of the fight with a killer button combination that would humiliate the other player, and likely leave their character with fewer body parts than they had begun the game. There were however flaws in even this.

The game engine, had allowed for various impossible to escape from situations, akin to being constantly hit with the sweep move. If the other person didn't try to jump out of the attack, or didn't know to block and hold to crouch at the same time, there was nothing else to do but being butchered by a repeated series of hits that would end the game shortly after it had begun. Likely wise with punching, a series of punching could stagger an enemy and hold them into a combo unless they hit the block. Muscle memory from playing other games could leave them defenceless while they tried to block by holding backwards.

Characters were a little unbalanced in that some only had two special moves while some had three. Some of the moves could freeze or stun an opponent for a more powerful move (usually an uppercut) to boost the damage output of a move; some moves could be repeated ad inifinitum similarly to the sweeping exploits mentioned above.

Graphically the game looked impressive for using digitised images of real actors, sounds from real actors mimicking moves and pains, though the sample rate of the audio left a lot of arcade machines lightly muffled by the audio being exhibited. The music was barely recognisable aside from the attract audio that had almost everyone humming it as the arcades usually upped the volume for the new machine and it became its own ear-worm for anyone nearby. Even now, I can still remember the attract music theme but I'll be damned if I at any point, could remember any of the stage music, so vague are they that I'm not entirely sure they're not just the attract music again. Having said that, I can clearly remember various music from stages in street fighter 2.

The actual engine of the game always seemed unpolished and incomplete as a fighter. The moves and timing of the game seems to be clunky and awkward, which is not something often found in the later games of the series, though it was designed and coded by very few people, one could forgive that on a man-power basis, it still doesn't get around the fact that the control system in the game is finicky at best and frustratingly awkward at its worst when control is wrested away by others performing moves and combinations of attacks that can't be escaped from.

But then, what are controversies for. Were it not for the excessive violence of the game, the fountains of blood and claret being spilt and a huge moral outcry causing the birth of a games industry age rating system, it is unlikely that this game would have ever been anything more than a quick flash in the pan of unpopular gaming. However, with such high levels of public focus and attention, raising the name from an arcade discussion to international recognition which caused more people to go out and actually try to Sub Zero rip off someone's skull, this game became one of the most established franchises in the gaming industry for fighting games.

Not bad for some photos of cos-players and a few extra red pixels here and there, but as a game, I'd move on and look at the later instalments of the series. Particularly the #2 and #3 games. It has its place in history but it really should be left there to serve as a firm but flawed starting point.