It’s been a funny old couple of months for me in the land of videogames.

The last few weeks have seen probably the most incredible release schedule ever stretching right across several formats. And I’ve been looking forward to every one of those new games. I’ve waited to dive into this gaming paradise, reading all the previews and hype – I even booked time off work to spend a few days doing nothing but play and wallow in a glorious turquoise sea of new gaming love-piss.

Or so I thought.

So, Halo 2. Whacked it in my X-Box and started to play. Hmmm… well… it’s Halo again isn’t it? I mean its good and all – but it’s more of a mission pack than anything else. Granted, I’m sure on Live it’s something special. But I haven’t got Live, so I’m left with the one player game. I’ve played 2 levels, and now it’s sitting on a shelf. Shame. My other half bought it for me for my Birthday, and she’s wondering why I’m not playing it, having looked forward to it for the best part of two years. I feel bad. I feel like I’ve let her, and myself down.

"See, see, I don't need people when I've got gift-wrapped gaming. Hello. Hello? Oh you're not there either."

Ah well, at least there’s GTA San Andreas – what could go wrong here? Another £37.99 to prop up GAYME’s static share price. Get it home, turn down the lights, settle down with Dualshock and a large g&t and away we go. 2 hours later, I’m checking I haven’t scratched the disc, and I'm bagging it up again with the receipt, ready to take back for a refund. I feel cold inside. Surely, if I don’t rate San Andreas there must be something wrong with me? Every review (and I mean EVERY review) has lauded this game to the heavens – I enjoyed GTAIII, and Vice City up to a point, but this game… this game… I mean it’s just too big. I can’t find any landmarks, I don’t really know what I’m supposed to be doing… the graphics haven’t improved… and… and… I just don’t like it.

Ah – hold on. Doom 3. NOW we’re talking. I loved Doom. I loved Doom 2 and all the add-on packs I could get my old P200 PC to gobble up. And then there’s Quake 1, 2 and 3. Lovely. Good old ID Software will put a smile on my face. So, armed with a new Radeon 9800 Pro, new drivers, and a copy of Doom 3, I settle down in front of the PC, slip on my headphones and prepare to shut down out the world for a few hours. And all is well... for a couple of hours at least. Again, I want to love this game, but it’s ALL THE SAME. Walk through dark stunning looking corridors, something jumps out, shit your pants, turn, shoot. Repeat. Dullness sets in after an hour.

"Torch or gun? I'm so scared now. No honest, I am, I really am."

Something’s broken here. Things aren’t clicking into place like they should. Am I losing it? Has my love affair with Videogames finally withered and died? Is this the 20 year itch? These are 3 games which have been reviewed well by every publication I’ve read. I’ve even looked forward to these titles myself (regardless of the reviews). I should be oiling up and stroking my joypads over these titles. And yet, I just don’t “get” any of them.

Things are looking grim.

I decide to keep searching for something, something that will restore my faith in games.

The Getaway Black Monday. I have to say that unlike most, I enjoyed the first one. Massively. But hold on. Edge gives it 3 out of ten. Other reviews are pretty poor. The prognosis is not good. Everything is screaming at me not to buy this game. But, I follow my heart, and despite the three false starts above and all the warnings, I am utterly engrossed. Look past the dodgy controls and the fact that Sony has done fuck all with the engine of the first game to improve it, and you’ve got yourself a really enjoyable romp thought the streets of Laandun. Top stuff in my opinion. Maybe things aren’t so bad. (Christ, you'll be saying you like platformers next - Ko)

Well, it’s a start at least.

So I’m on a roll now. Maybe there’s some light at the end of the tunnel – so I get thinking. I recall a conversation with Fuseball and Ahchay at the Rodent bash in Bath. They both spent most of the night urging me to start playing Robotron. On and on they went. On and on and on and on in fact. By 1.00am I drunkenly agreed that I would do so – more to shut them up than anything. Now this is a game I’ve hardly played at all. On the odd occasion I did play it, I knew nothing of the dual stick control, so trying to work out how to configure MAME on a PC keyboard to make it playable was a drag, and so I never invested any time in it.

Well I now own a fully loaded MAME cab, so I fire that up at about 7.00pm, and get everything configured, and start up my first game. The next thing I know (and this is no word of a lie your honour) it is three o’clock in the morning.

Oh. My. God.

Manna from Heaven?

I haven't felt like this about a game since Missile Command. Enough has been written here about Robotron, so I’m not going to go into the intricacies of the game play – suffice to say I thoroughly endorse them. And I guess I never played it before, simply because it wasn’t in my local arcades in the eighties. Now MAME isn’t perfect in it’s emulation here I understand – it runs the thing at full speed (without the slowdown of the original 80’s machine). But hey, you don’t mind what you don’t know.

I swear, sweat, shake, shut the world off around me.

I don’t make the comparison with Missile Command lightly – if you’ve read my previous articles on Atari’s classic shooter, you’ll know how important that game was to me (and now is again – but more on that in my next article).

You guys know what I’m going through with Robotron right now, because most of you will have been there. I know this game is going to stay with me for a very long time. I bought my WotR “Eugenius” T Shirt, cause I liked the way it looked and I own a Defender machine, not because I worshiped at the cocktail cab of Robotron. Well now I know why that word "Eugenius" is spot on. 23 years after the fact: I get it.

So what am I saying? Don’t believe the hype. You say “potatoes” and all that. We can’t make ourselves like a game because we think we should. Christ, if we all liked the same games, there’d be no Rodent, no Edge. There’d be about 3 genres of games. We’d be on FIFA 2005 already (er…hang on a minute…) Read reviews by all means, but don't take them to heart. Some of my favourite games have been panned by reviewers (AvP on the Jag anyone?) Oh, and finally, just keep the faith. If gaming is in your blood, something always comes along to restore it.

Thanks Ian and Chris – you pulled me back from the abyss.

Cheers all.

AEROFLOTT, November 2004.

Next time: The quest for the “perfect game” of Missile Command is over…

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