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Simon
Beschreibung: "Simon's a computer, Simon has a brain, you
either do what Simon says or else go down the drain."
You can hear sound of jaws hitting concrete as copywriters across the globe
are stunned into amazement over that there Simon Says slogan from the
mid '80s.
The idea of the game is a simple one, as Simon likes to say. Follow the
pattern of lights and sounds for as long as you can remember them. The
lights show up faster the more sequences you correctly recall. The obvious
cheat is to write down each light in turn, but let's pretend we can't do
that...
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Snake
Beschreibung: This game has been around since sometime last
century, but it only recently took off since it came as standard on Nokia
mobile phones (or 'cellphones' as those crazy Americans like to say).
My Snake is a back-to-the-roots version of the game, with cheap sound
effects and a slight plasticky feel. The idea is to guide the snake to eat
the food. The sooner you eat, the more you score. And just like real
food-eating snakes, the more you gobble, the fatter you become. And don't
eat the walls — they taste of awful.
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Tic-Tac-Toe
Beschreibung:
What can you say about Tic-Tac-Toe? Erm... I used to play Noughts
and Crosses on the school bus when the windows were fogged-up with
child-breath. By myself. It got a little repetitive. I tried it blindfold
once, but then I knew I had to kick the habit.
Thankfully this version allows you to play with someone else, if you know
such a person. If you're lacking an opponent, the computer will gladly play
you instead, just like in that '80s film WarGames. But minus the
threat of a Russian nuclear war. |
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Asteroids
Beschreibung:
Let me take you back... back to a world before pixels. In those days,
all people had were lines. A company called Atari had recently wowed
crowds with their clever use of lines in a game called Pong, but now
line technology had advanced. It was 1979, and lines could be made to look
like spaceships and big rocks and flying saucers... as long as you squinted
a little.
And so, Asteroids was born. It's an elegantly simple game, but
beautifully gratifying. You float in space and shoot the asteroids, but the
more you shoot, the more asteroids you create. And be careful — you only
have one ship for each 10,000 points scored. |
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Hexxagon
Beschreibung: Hexxagon
happens to be one of those games that's easier to play than it is to explain.
You play as the red diamonds, and your goal is to take over the board by
leaping into the spaces adjacent to your opponent's watery globules. See
what I mean?
Hexxagon was an adaptation of the board game Othello written in 1992
by the now defunct Argo Games. My version is an almost identical
recreation of that original. Enjoy.
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Space Invaders
Beschreibung:
Japanese company Taito had the inspired idea around 1978 that killing aliens
was extremely good fun. So they invented a game called Space Invaders,
lots of history then followed, some people got rich and so on...
It's a simple game with simple graphics, but it has one of the most vital
assets for any computer game — gameplay. Modern games seem to forget this
with their fancy "3D graphics" and "millions of dollars". All you need is a
pointy green thing which shoots white stuff at a rampaging invasion of
wobbling blobs. They don't make 'em like they used to.
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Tetris
Beschreibung: Most people
have come to know Tetris through hours of playing on the Game Boy.
But the real hero is a one Alexey Pajitnov — a Russian genius with too much
time on his hands and an affinity with beards.
For the Tetris novice: shaped blocks fall into a pit where you must arrange
them so they fit neatly — a sort of juggling in one direction. The more
blocks you can place into a horizontal line simultaneously, the more you
score.
And remember to take a break every few hours.
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