The only PlayStation games I remember playing were Rival Schools and Simpsons Wrestling. Had a lot of fun with Rival Schools, Simpsons Wrestling not so much.
Video Games of My Life: Part Eight – 1997-1999: PSX
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 On 03/05/2014 at 03:06 PM by KnightDriver See More From This User » |
I already mentioned that I played Road Rash in Part Six of this blog series, but I kept following the series with Road Rash 3D and Jailbreak. Those were pretty terrible; so instead, I got my destruction racing on with Destruction Derby 2.
Notice the wider track
This was a fantastic game and much improved over the first Destruction Derby which had very narrow tracks. In DD2 all parts of your car took damage, and you had to watch which parts got weak and protect them. My favorite mode was Wrecking Racing. I always liked the mix of racing and combat. Arenas never interested me at all and just like Road Rash, my friend and I recorded some audio play-by-play. Today that would be a Let's Play video. I was so excited for Destruction Derby Raw when it came out, but it disappointed me. I forget why but it was probably that it emphasized more arena play.
Good destruction racing games were few and far between, however, and so I relied on the several ports of the FPS’s I’d already played on PC like: Doom, Final Doom, Duke Nukem: Total Meldown, and Quake II. Most of these series went downhill pretty quickly though: no other Doom after Final Doom or Quake after Quake II came out on PSX; and Duke Nukem suffered the Tomb Raider influence and went third-person for three more games - the first one, Time to Kill, wasn’t horrible, but it couldn’t hold a candle to first-person view Total Meldown.
The Laser Trip Mine. Set it and forget it.
My favorite of these was Duke Nukem: Total Meltdown, the PSX port of PC game Duke Nukem 3D. My friend and I played deathmatch and co-op through all the campaign missions many times. I still remember setting up loads of Laser Trip Mines all over The Red Light District and waiting to hear the explosion as my buddy turned a corner and ran into one. Fun stuff.
Ever since games like Gauntlet, I loved co-op play, and I was always on the lookout for new ones. A guy and his son at a game’s store up in Reading, PA recommended WarGames Defcon 1 to me and I got it. It was a vehicle shooter not unlike BattleTanx but with aircraft as well.
Tanks, Planes, and Mechs, oh my.
It was a total blast playing split-screen co-op through all the story missions (my favorite mode of play). I remember vividly making myself a Diet Dr. Pepper and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream soda during the marathon session we did to finish the game. Good times (said in the voice of Jerri from the Strangers with Candy TV show).
That was about it for me and PSX: combat racing, FPS's, and games with campaign co-op; but I discovered another game that came out the year Playstation 2 was released, Hogs of War. It’s a third person turn-based combat game set in WWI with pigs as characters. Even the world map was pig shaped.
"I will harvest them all commander."
You could play co-op throughout the long story campaign and then play multiplayer battles on unique maps. It was one of the few times I got two of my friends, instead of the usual one, to play a video game. Rik Mayall of Young Ones and Drop Dead Fred fame did the really funny voices for all the characters. I liken the game to Worms in 3D, but way better. I’ve tried all the Worms games and could never get into them, but this? Oh yeah, I loved it.
Sega Side Note: The Sega Saturn was out these years, but I didn’t know about it for some reason. I didn’t even get one until fairly recently so I could play Shining The Holy Ark.
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