Long before we had all this “hella cray cray” 3D gaming, we had what I grew up on as a young lad. It wasn’t fancy, and it wasn’t without it’s glitchyness, but one thing is for sure: some of the best games of all time are still the good ol’ fashioned 2D side-scrollers of yore. Of course, prioritizing which side scrollers are the best is a topic of much debate. Not only were there a ton of awesome side-scrollers coming out in the 80’s and 90’s, there was also the whole Sega vs. Nintendo feud which only got more heated once the TurboGrafx 16, Playstation, and other systems came out. If you have read any of my past blogs you know that I am a hardcore Nintendo fan, so expect at least a tad of Nintendo bias in this blog!
Any time a conversation about side scrollers comes up, you have to think Contra. This game brought us the legendary (and often incorrectly recited) code: up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Start! (Don’t yell at me and say that I forgot to say “select!” That’s for 2 players!) This game is still fun today, and for good reason. When you fire up Contra, you jump straight into the action; cutscenes need not apply. Machine guns blazing, bridges exploding as you step on them, even the 8-bit music is surprisingly catchy. Of course, one of the charms of side scrollers is the delight of having enemies constantly respawn every time the player backtracks one or two steps; and with this “feature” comes lots of deaths. Thankfully, if you entered the legendary code from above, you were rewarded with 30 lives, which made the game possible to beat. I still say the spread gun was the best. I always felt like people who preferred the “fire wheel” gun were mutants! Whatever your gat of choice was, it is safe to say that many of us still have fond memories of playing this game in two-player mode with friends as young lads and lasses. Ahhhh, nostalgia!
Normally I would probably start getting extra nostalgic right about now and start chatting up how I think Ninja Turtles on NES was awesome and that Super Mario Bros 3 is the best side scroller of all time (which it is)! However, this time around, I find myself truly inspired by a non-Nintendo game. In fact, it is a game on Xbox 360, or more specifically the X-Box Arcade. The game I speak of is the creepy, puzzle-filled, incredibly addictive side scroller that is Limbo.
Limbo is a brilliant game, which gets straight into the action, and challenges the player’s problem-solving skills in a side scroller format. The environment and creepy visuals are perhaps the game’s greatest features, as they keep you engaged, on edge, and creeped out in the most beautiful sense. Without giving too much away, you start the game as a young child, mysteriously awakening in the middle of some sort of creepy forest. You are not sure how you got here, or what you should do, but it soon becomes clear that this forest is extraordinarily dangerous. As a player, you find yourself travelling through the woods, trying to figure out how to overcome obstacles without experiencing a very gruesome death. And yes, when your character dies, it’s a good thing the color scheme is in black and white, because it is extremely graphic… and awesome.
Along the way, your character starts encountering what appear to be other young kids, except these guys don’t want you to help them build a tree house, they simply want to make sure you die, and die badly (they’re jerks). One of the great things about this game is that you have so many questions while playing it. Your uncertainty of what is going on is what helps create the uneasy and eerie vibe. In addition, this game is bold and chooses to use very little music to help keep you on edge. The emphasis is very much on the silence of the forest and the sound effects tied into the obstacles which challenge you.
This is one of those games, where you keep telling yourself- “OK, just 5 more minutes, then I’m going to stop playing” and then you find yourself absolutely unable to put the controller down. Pure and simple, this game is like sugar-coated crack combined with a Hollywood teaser. Although the game takes roughly 6 hours to complete, based on how quickly you can figure out the puzzles, it is easily well-worth the $9 it costs to download it through the X-Box arcade. This game is better than any side scrolled you have played in the last 10 years. Admittedly, this game is “hella cray cray” and also, pretty flashy. However, it manages to be all these great things while also keeping a beautiful sense of simplicity. It only has 2 buttons, for Christ sake! Long story short, this game is just amazing. Get it today! And no, Microsoft is not paying me to say this.
-Mike
