L - Lemmings! Suicide has never been so much fun...

Made by the awesome Psygnosis, Lemmings was released for the Amiga in 1991 was a smash hit. Puzzle/platformer, you are tasked to save the hapless lemming troop from doom by guiding them to the exit. By giving individual lemmings certain abilities, you have to traverse a platformed course to reach said goal. With the amount of tiny sprites, you would think the CPC would struggle to showcase a 16-bit homed game, but it handles it surprisingly well, much like it's Spectrum counterpart did also. By cutting down the amount of lemmings on-screen, the game works just as it should with all the levels and brilliant music intact. A game I have played on many platforms, the Amstrad rendition performs well given the limitations, and still makes it a top, top, top-yourself title. Let's Go!

Honourable Mentions - Leaderboard, Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge, The Light Corridor.

Amstrad CPC Coverart - Disc Version

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Q - Quizzical Quickies! My Top 10 Quiz & Puzzle Games

When all the butt-kicking, laser-shooting, spell-casting and tarmac-chewing business gets a little too much, many of us gamers turn to a puzzle game for a bit of light brain exercise and normally end up ageing rapidly in the process. They come in many shapes and sizes, some are single player stuff and others can provide a multi-player bit of mind mashing. While puzzle titles may not receive the exposure or awards that action/arcade games do, some have proved significant in the ongoing development of video games. One in particular. Here is my top 10 of the most puzzling, bamboozling and easily playable Quizzical games. Fingers on buzzers, let's begin.

The Academy Award's new design was not popular

#10 Buzz! (Series) - The quiz show in your own home; this series of Playstation titles was unique in it's presentation and interface making for a fun experience. Designed for multiple players and focused around the basis of the fictitious TV quiz of the same name, each player had a special controller to respond to questions or buzz in with the answer. Over the 18 titles released, each show is slightly different; alternate themes, question rounds etc.. All whilst remaining consistent to the premise. Many an evening has been spent at family meals with a little post-dessert Buzz! time. Enjoyable, amusing in parts and highly interactive. A fine series of games oh yes, until the questions run out of course.

#9 Pipe Mania - Simple but ingenious, this hit the 8-bit home systems with a storm, acquiring many awards in the process. Since then it has been ported and re-made several times on many platforms, sometimes going by the alias Pipe Dream. In the game, you are tasked to connect a pipeline together with a series of sliding tiles, all within a time limit. When the time expires, fluid that is due to flow down the pipe gets released. Becoming frenetic and happily maddening, it's a great one for the reflex's and eye-responses. Cheaper than a real plumber too.

#8 Plotting - Odd little game this, but quite clever and often forgotten about. You control a yellow blob who has the talent of shooting blocks with symbols on. You have to destroy the game board by matching the symbols up together. The twist comes in your skill to bounce the blocks of the walls/roof of the game area, so that they hit the right target. One of the best games on the GX4000 and for my mind, a neat looking puzzler overlooked unfairly thanks to it's big brother Puznic. (Which is not in this list. So there.)

#7 Minesweeper - We all know this one, or at least we should do. Either having chanced upon it whilst bored at work, it may have even been the first game you played on your spanking new Windows 95 PC; Minesweeper continues on with each release of the Microsoft OS, part of the furniture if you will. Mentally challenging, it's a bit of a clandestine morsel that manages to grab your attention almost by accident. If you haven't played it and you have MS Windows - Start/All Programs/Games = Bingo! Don't say I don't do nothing for you.

Mr Top was confident he would win the Chelsea Flower Show

#6 SpinDizzy - Nothing to do with that Egg-fella, this is an isometric gem that has a certain style and poise that is unmistakable. The player controls a spinning top of sorts, and you must guide it through many mazes and stages, at the same time collecting points and solving lift-puzzles. It has plenty in it to keep the brain ticking, but also requires the control expertise of a platform game. Re-made for the Snes as Spindizzy Worlds, it retained the quintessence with a lovely new 16-bit look. 

#5 Columns - SEGA's answer to Nintendo's runaway Gamboy hit (See #1), this colourful gem-dropper was to start and inspire series of similar games, but never quite having the quality this did. Played on any of the SEGA systems of the early nineties, matching those gems in lines seemed so effortless, but my word was it addictive. Many Game Gear batteries died a premature death due to Columns. Oh, and the silly TV receiver thingy. I thank you SEGA fans..

#4 Bejeweled - Clearly influenced by the above title; the graphical likenesses can be seen but the concept is slightly changed. I say slightly, because you are still matching gems in lines, but this time on a game board, swapping the gems around methodically and carefully to achieve the score required by each level. Several variations of this exist including Blitz and Twist, the latter being my personal favourite. Popcap, the creator of Bejeweled had made a top class puzzle game, with potential to dominate. It's now available on most formats, online and of course as a mobile app. I still have never worked out why the creepy, rasping voice-over is included. A hallmark of the game though if a little unusual. 

#3 Klax - Another puzzler from the nineties that doesn't get the full glory or accolades it should, it has been ported to almost every home console and home computers. It looks stunning, and the concept is wonderful. A sloping runway feeds you tumbling tiles which you have to order in the game board to achieve pre-set goals. It provokes many aspects of puzzling; including reflex's, forward planning, assumption, luck and co-ordination. It's utterly fearsome in it's difficultly in later stages but still drags you back in with it's colourful, brash look and cheerful tunes. Klax-amaze!

#2 Lemmings - Guide those little green haired blighters to safety is your draft, saving as many as possible and progress onto the next fantastic environment. A silly game and notion on the outside, but on the inside.. Wow! Lemmings was yet another remarkable game made by DMA, who had a talent for showcasing somewhat dubious themes but making them amusing and absorbing. With different ways to beat each of the many levels, this is one for the ages that calls on all of your puzzling adroitness, but the real reason why it's such a great game is because it's so enjoyable and satisfying to play. Best of all, if you fail miserable you can blow all the buggers up for a cheap thrill. Nuke 'em!

An awesome sight. Tetris of course, not the Geyser!

#1 Tetris - I would find it impossible to believe that any gamer, or any person in the western world for that matter has not played this; the Russian block-stacker that has become the most famous puzzle video game. Alexey Pajitnov, the original programmer of Tetris, was working behind the iron curtain at the time of it's birth, so it's actually incredible the game was ever even allowed to be released. The PC's had the first bragging rights, but it wasn't until Nintendo got hold of it, sold it with the Gameboy, and the rest is history. If you have been living underground since 1984, you have a blank game board with on of 7 shapes falling down for you to arrange together into lines. It's as basic as they come, but it has the uncanny ability to completely suck you in, obsessed by reaching that next level. I cannot think of another title from the last 40 years that has been ported to almost anything with a display screen, it is that widespread and undoubtedly the crown emperor of puzzle games. No argument!

This may be my first list that everybody will agree on the number 1 choice, but feel free to make a suggestion if you think otherwise. Puzzle titles are a great leveler in video game genre's, there is always at least one that any given gamer will like, play and loose their hair too. The next post in this April challenge is more factual, as I look at some of the eye-raising and interesting stats over the course of video games over the years. R is for Record Role-Call!

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J - Jokes & Japery! My Top 10 Comical Games

We all like to have a good laugh now and then, so it stands to reason that  having the odd giggle at a video game is no exception. They may not be designed to be intentionally funny, or maybe the humour just happens by accident, but one things for sure it does brighten a game up with a bit of throwaway slapstick, a near-the-knuckle reference or a clever quip. These are my top 10 of games that have made me smile, or at times laugh like a drain. Most of these games are actually not brilliant, or highly praised, but they do have an element of comic genius that is hard not to at least raise a slight grin. Without further ado, Let's go!

The queue for the Demon barbers was always hell

#10 Lemmings - A game that many have played and been engrossed by, the puzzle/platform jaunt of rescuing chronically depressed rodents is amusing enough. Add to this the variety of comic and fantasy settings, death traps, the ability to make them explode and the look of the little blighters themselves; blue jumpsuits with a shocking mop of bright green hair. Crazy, barmy and funny, especially when you get bored and deliberately set them up to die en-mass, just for some twisted thrill. Oh no!

#9 The Simpson's Road Rage - Let's be honest here, most licensed Simpsons game are pretty poor, Bart's Nightmare and The Simpsons Wrestling to name but two examples. However, Road Rage was a little bit better, was actually playable and, like the show in it's early days, funny. With some excellent comical show-references for the fans, authentic voicing and some mad sequences and objectives, this was the best Simpsons title since the original arcade game. Not a brilliant game, but full of trademark Groaning humour.

#8 How to Be a Complete Bastard - Based off a book written by Ade Edmondson, which he in turn based the primary 'Bastard' character off the role of Vyvyan from his hit comedy show The Young Ones, this is a really shit game. Literally in some cases. Hollow and simplistic gamplay, rubbish graphics and poor SFX, the one redeeming feature it had was it's totally bad taste brand of comedy. Whether it be farting to clear a room, poisoning the party guests with laxative or putting cling film on the toilet, it was full of black humour and fecal based slapstick acts. It did make me laugh a lot whilst suffering the torturous task of trying to play the game, so can be remembered for that at least.

#7 Leisure Suit Larry - Ha, the soft-porn movie of video games if you will. You get to play as Larry Laffer, the coarse, chauvinistic, jerky middle aged man with the sole purpose to find some good sinful times with women way above his station. His seduction methods usually end with joyful failure. Including adult dialogue full of sexual references, depiction and suggestion of saucy deeds and some coarse language, the humour content and subject matter of the game became infamous. Seedy rib-tickling at it's finest.

Not caring about the warping tunnel,
Dirk just realised He'd left the iron on

#6 Dragon's Lair - A unique game upon conception, this was basically a medieval fantasy cartoon that you controlled, later morphing into a platform title, but still containing the signature style of eccentric humour and sexual suggestions. The main source of fun comes from our hero, Dirk the Daring. He has an odd look for a knight on a quest to save his outrageously voluptuous princess. With a skinny build, clumsy stance and fighting style, manic over-the-top reactions to monsters and dangers, he's the Mr Bean of brave sword wielding knights. Lots of silly death instances too. Hi-Lair-ious!

#5 Worms - A classic Playstation war strategy game; the very idea of worms fighting to the death with a vast stock of heavy weaponry is funny to begin with, but there are so many tiny morsels of laughter contained. The pre-game cut scenes are great, the weapons are devastatingly amusing as are the sneaky references to other titles, such as a dragon punch from Street Fighter 2, and the cleverly comical but minuscule animation routines of the worms themselves. It's also excellent to play as a party game too. Kamikaze!

#4 Portal - Featuring the most unstable and surreal sentient computer since HAL, the combination of a dark-humored plot, the sometimes amusing consequences of using the portal gun and of course, the mish-mash of false compliments, mind-games and puerile insults chucked in your direction by our nemesis GlaDOS makes an intelligently witty game. Sinister, but side-splitting, and finished off by a fittingly warped but fun sing-song.

#3 Earthworm Jim - A robotic super-suit plus an average earthworm equals the craziest superhero ever, with some of the finest comedic grace ever to roam the 16-bit platforms. With the ability to use himself as a whip, shoot the maddest and baddest laser weapons and fight the likes of (get this!) Bob the Killer Goldfish and Professor Monkey-for-a-Head, this is a cracking can of worms to open and gorge gleefully on the laughs. I actually found this genuinely hilarious, and a pretty snazzy game as well.

#2 Point Blank 1, 2 & 3 - This threesome of gallery shooting games has the timid and tame comedy brand  inspired by The Muppets and similar material, but I always find myself smiling from ear to ear with the excellent cartoon design, wildly exaggerated characters and the shrieks and shouts of your hosts Dr Dan and Dr Don. This fun element takes away the serious gun shooting nature of the game and makes it a friendly and approachable series for the youngest of gamers. Some really marvellous highlights too, like the doc getting shot in the head or running manically from the cannibals flaming torches. 

Conker politely addressed the Houses of Parliament

#1 Conker's Bad Fur Day - Crammed full of eyebrow-raising bent humour, sarcasm, surrealism, slapstick and plagiarisms, the titular heavy drinking foul-mouthed money-grabbing squirrel is about to have a day from hell, and it's F**king funny! Some of the stuff included in this N64 cult classic are very near the mark, like the Tediz fundamentalists and the antagonists' name, Professor Von Kriplespac. Oh, and did I forget? A giant opera-singing turd as a boss character! However, even with all the coarseness and vulgarity you still find yourself warming to the little pissed-up nut collector, especially at the end. Not surprising that the remake felt the slice of the editors knife. Killjoys!

Phew, that was fun, some good memories writing that. So much so, I may be off to replay one of these titles imminently. Apologies for some of the bad language in this list, but hey, you've read it now so it's too late. Hope it at least made you smirk a little, and hopefully instantly search YouTube to find out if my number 1 pick really is as rude as I say it is. Tomorrow I bring you  the joys of death, sorrow and dismay with my top 10 deaths in video games. But it's the letter K you say? Well duh, K is for Killed!

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