Q*bert

Q*Bert is a true classic that seems to be somewhat forgotten. It's not too strange though, since it is 35 years old. It was an arcade game made by Gottlieb in 1982.
It was converted to a lot of platforms, got a lot of sequels including Q*Bert's Qubes (1983), Q*Bert 3 (1992), Q*Bert 2004, Q*Bert 2005, and Q*Bert Rebooted (2014).
Although it may not be widely well known any more, it certainly has been popular, as all ports, remakes and straight up rip-offs can attest to.
My first contact with the game was the clone Q-Bic (1992) for the Amiga 500.

Q*Bert Arcade

Although not as widely known as Pacman or Tetris, Q*Bert certainly is as iconic.
Maybe not that surprising, since the character was developed before the actual game.
His snout was originally supposed to shoot boogers at the enemies and the game was briefly titled "Snots and Boogers" during development.

Early concept sketch showing Q*Bert shooting

@!#?@! was another suggested title, mimicking the comic-book style swearing that Q*Bert rewarded the player with if he got caught by an enemy (together with a garbled voice synthesis).

The goal of the game is to switch all the squares into a target color by jumping on them while avoiding falling off the pyramid or getting caught by the enemies.
The game gets gradually more complex as later stages have you jumping on squares multiple times to reach the target color, or having the squares revert back if you jump on them multiple times.
Since the complexity of the later stages make it more and more like a puzzle game, this probably makes Q*Bert the very first Action Puzzle game.
It did not manage to be the first game with an isometric view though, since Zaxxon (1982) was released some moths earlier.

As you progress through the game more innovative enemies appear, such as the snake Coily that chases you around the stage or the, Slick and Sam that changes back the squares they jump on and Wrongway that is turned 90 degrees and jumps on the "wrong side" of the cubes.

When Q*Bert falls off he pyramid in the arcade there is actually a physical clunk generated by a pinball table part smashing against the inner wall. Quite innovative, but not that surprising considering Gottleib mainly manufactured pinball games.

Rise of Nations

Rise of Nation (2003) is probably the epitome of the RTS genre.
Although it didn't really bring an awful lot new to the genre, it took good ideas from other games and made it in to a great whole.
It uses trade routes, similar to Seven Kingdoms (1997). Food resources from farms similar to Age of Empires (1997), only the player doesn't need to manually rejuvenate them. Progression of ages like in Empire Earth (2001), and so forth.

It was designed by Brian Reynolds of Civilization II (1996) fame.
Perhaps unsurprisingly then, you can research a lot of different technology as time advance, organized into Military, Civic, Commerce and Science.
This of course make it possible for different strategies, civic for instance increases the number of cities you can build and the size of your borders. Entering an enemies borders causes attrition damage to your troops.

You could play as 18 different civilizations, all with their own special rules and some unique units. For example the Russians has "the Power of the Motherland", which, among other things means spies are half price and attrition damage to the enemy is increased. They have unique units such as the Cossack. Germany has "the Power of Industry", which among other things means cities gather more supplies. They have unique units such as the Tiger Tank. And so forth.
Really this means you should adapt your strategy according to the nation you play.
Apart from the usual resources of lumber and food and so forth, there is also knowledge, that requires scholars and universities.

The expansion Thrones and Patriots (2004) added 6 more nations. It also added a "conquer the world" mode, where part of the game is played in a turn based style reminiscent of Risk, but invading/defending is done in the games usual RTS manner.
This added a whole new dimension to the game, and there are 5 different scenarios to play, all with somewhat different rules and goals. 4 of them are restricted to specific time periods: Alexander the great, Napoleon, The new World and The cold war. The last one "The entire world" takes your civilization from the Ancient Age through, Classical Age, Medieval Age, Gunpowder Age, Enlightenment Age, Industrial Age, Modern Age, and finally to the Information Age.

This mode is surprisingly only single player. Actually I never played this game in multiplayer, perhaps because I much preferred this game mode.

A physical copy can be bought for €4-8, there is also a slightly updated version on Steam for €20 released in 2014.

ABA Games

This weeks post will not be about a specific game, but rather an indie game developer.
I first encountered ABA Games about 13 years ago when I first played rRootage.

Behind the moniker ABA Games is Japanese Toshiba employee Kenta Cho.
He started programming games as a kid in the 80s on a NEC PC-6001.

He released his first Windows shoot 'em up, Noiz2sa, in 2002, and after receiving positive feedback has focused on the genre.
Cho has stated he creates games of the kind which he desires to play and distributes them (along with the source code) for the enjoyment of others without the intent of monetary profit.
Due to the open source nature of his games, many have been ported to different platforms, and a handful is readily available in the repositories of many Linux Distributions.

His games are "avant-garde" re-imaginings of classic arcade shoot 'em ups, using modern 3D graphics techniques to emulate older vector graphics. His graphical style was inspired by the game Rez as well as street billboards,

Abstract shoot 'em up Noiz2sa (2002) is a rather straight forward vertical shooter.
You shoot the enemies by holding the fire button, you slow down your ship by holding the slow down button. Each stage ends with a boss battle.

"Retromodern hispeed shmup" PARSEC47 (2003) is quite similar to the previously mentioned game, however holding down the slow down button also charges an alternate fire mode. The enemies are also slightly more imaginative than just square blocks and bosses consists of multiple target areas the player can destroy.

"Defeat autocreated huge battleships. Shootem up game" rRootage (2003) is a vertical shooter only containing "boss battles". Every stage consists of 5 enemies and each enemy has two forms, morphing into the second form when you have dealt sufficient damage.
As the amount of barrage increases on screen the game speed slows down, I'm pretty sure this is a feature, rather than a bug, since it would otherwise quickly get pretty impossible to play.
The really interesting part of the game is all the different game modes inspired by other games in the shmup genre.
In normal mode you have a limited number of bombs that can be used to rid a portion of the screen of the enemies barrage.
In Psy mode, named after Psyvariar (2000) secondary fire slows you down but allows you to brush up against the non-damaging portions of the barrage, which increases your Graze Meter. Fill it up and your ship becomes invincible for about three seconds.
In Ika mode, named after Ikaruga (2001), secondary fire switches polarity. Basically in this mode the enemies fires shots of two different colors, having the same color as the bullets makes you invulnerable to them, instead the damage is reflected to the boss.
In GW mode, named after Giga Wing (1999) your ship has a Reflect Meter which automatically refills. When it's full, holding secondary fire will surround the ship in a short-lived reflector shield. Any bullets which hit the shield will reflect damage back at the boss. 

"Sticky 2D shooter" TUMIKI Fighters (2004) is a horizontal shooter.
The title refers to the innovation in game-play since Tumiki 積み木 means building blocks.
According to Cho's website:
"You can catch the enemy's broken piece. Pieces are stuck to your ship and counterattack to enemies. You can also earn the bonus score by keeping many pieces stuck. Stuck pieces are destroyed when they touch a enemy's bullet.

While holding a slow key, the ship becomes slow and the ship direction is fixed. Stuck pieces are pulled in and you can prevent a crash of them, but the bonus score reduces to one fifth. Enemy's pieces are not stuck while holding this key."

"Speeding ship sailing through barrage" Torus Trooper (2004) is a re-imagining of Tempest (1981).
Race against the clock while shooting down enemies in an abstract tunnel, there is a regular fire button and an alternate fire button.
Each time you are hit you loose time and each time you defeat a stage boss you get bonus time.

"360-degree gunboat shooter" Gunroar (2005) is a naval themed shooter that has been likened to Geometry Wars (2003) or Robtron: 2084 (1982).
You control a gunship in a vertically scrolling game where you need to shoot other ships and land based turrets, each stage ending with a fight against a huge battle ship.
The interesting part of the game is the different game modes.
In normal mode you control the ship with the keyboard and while you hold down fire the ship remains its direction. There is also an alternate fire mode.
In twin stick mode, you use one set of controls to control the ship, and another set to control in which direction you fire.
In mouse mode you control the ship with the keyboard, but aim and fire with the mouse.
In double play you control two ships with a turret attached between them. You control each ship with separate sets of keys and both ships and the turret constantly auto-fires. This might be a really fun mode to try playing two players, controlling one ship each. If nothing else it will test your cooperation abilities.

You can check out the ABA Games website at:
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/

Dune II

PC cover

Based on the novel series by Frank Herbert and the sequel to the point-and-click adventure game Dune. Well kind of a sequel, in fact they where both released in 1992 and they where created by rivaling companies. Dune by Cryo Interactive and Dune II by Westwood Studios. Both games was published by Virgin Interactive.
The game was titled Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty, Dune II: Battle for Arrakis in Europe and Dune: The Battle for Arrakis for the Mega Drive (Genesis) port.

Although probably technically not the first RTS (Real Time Strategy) game, it was the game that established the "modern" format as used by the Command & Conquer, Age of Empires and Star Craft series, among so many others.

Stage select

The desert planet Arrakis, also known as Dune, is the only place in the universe that has the spice, melange. The spice is used for space travel and is what fuels the empire.
Emperor Frederick IV of House Corrino has proposed a challenge to each of the three houses. The house that produces the most spice will control Dune. There are no set territories and no rules of engagement.
The player chooses to play one of the following houses: the noble Atreides (blue), the insidious Ordos (green) and the evil Harkonnen (red).

Note: Frederick IV only appears in the Westwood games, he is analogous to Shaddam IV in the novels.

Mega Drive (Genesis) screenshot

The currency is credits which is rewarded by harvesting the spice. The harvester units are non-combat units and the spice patches is home to the giant sand worms, that frequently attacks units traversing the spice patches.

You use credits to build buildings and produce units, different buildings allows certain upgrades and the ability to produce certain units.

PC version playing as house Harkonnen

Although being a genre-defining game and a true piece of video-game history, the controls where rather clunky. You could only select one unit at a time and in order to move or attack, you first had to click the move or attack command button. This is the main reason why I couldn't get very far in this game back in the day, since the computer controlled enemies could of course do everything at once, and at lightning speed (at least in my mind).

Here's the intro video for all of you true nostalgics to enjoy.
The PC version sells for about €10-15 on ebay, the Sega version on the other hand goes for about €50-100.
This game was also released for the Acorn Archimedes computer, I've seen it be sold in a bundle with 7 other Acorn games for around €80, which would mean this game would be worth around €10.