Nato – Area 51
Remember this sci-fi/horror shooter? You played as an agent of the STAAR (Strategic Tactical Advanced Alien Response) military squad, fighting off an alien race known as the Kronn who are attempting to take over Nevada’s Area 51 facility. Well, OK, realistically, you just popped some coins in a machine and shot some soldier/alien zombie hybrid creatures, using a slew of weapons, power-ups, and explosive barrels to aid in your quest of alien eradication. That, and your almost impossible mission of avoiding the game-ending cutscene depicting your transformation into a Kronn monster.
Area 51 was actually built on a modified Atari Jaguar system, which let the game pop the baddies up as sprites while enveloping them in a 3D environment. Sure, it may look like nostalgic garbage right now, but for 1995 it wasn’t too shabby. The bad guys looked realistic for the time, as the sprites allowed for proper skins to be planted on our possessed soldiers – even if they just popped up and down like a shooting gallery.
Whatever, Area 51 was always a go to at my local roller skating rink, and I still remember watching my body get twisted apart as the Kronn aliens turned me into another mindless drone, as I never had enough quarters to finish the game.
Remy – Chiller
I have to give Matt huge props on this one, because when he brought up horror arcade games, I had the most amazing flashback. The kind you see in movies where other people need to snap to get you out of it.
The flashback involved me playing this arcade game and actually getting in trouble because of how utterly gruesome it was. I was, and I kid you not, six years old. Now let me tell you about that notorious game – Chiller.
First off, as you know if I am bringing it up, Chiller may STILL BE the most messed up game I have ever played. It is a game where you have a crossbow (think The House Of The Dead, which I will bring up later) and you are, well, shooting things. It begins innocently enough with a graveyard level where you are shooting bats and zombies and crap like that. It’s a little bloody, but no indication of things to come.
Level two, you are suddenly aiming the crossbow at two naked people who are chained up in a torture chamber. I kid you not. They are not monsters, just a guy and a girl. What?
The messed up part is, even in 1986, anywhere you shot the people there would be blood and damage, so the whole second stage just adds up to you helping torture two people. The game was actually at a mini golf course next to my childhood home, and the day my Mom caught me playing it was NOT a good day for me. She was afraid I might grow up to be a serial killer, but I am something WAY worse.
A writer.