My Favourite Video Game: Eloah
My Favourite Video Game is a guest feature from bands and artists where we set them a simple task… tell us about your favourite video game. In this feature, new age Dutch-Austrian jazz-pop band Eloah, accepts the challenge. You can read all about the choice below.
Well, when I grow up, I first owned an MSX2 computer (Philips VG-8235), and later on an MSX Turbo-R (Panasonic FS-A1GT), which, by the way I still own and occasionally use (with a 14 inch CRT screen). Whereas I spent a lot of time playing on these machines, I never caught up with the PC game development or with any other system – therefore, my favourite games are all MSX based.
Actually, I guess the music of some Konami games like Nemesis 2, Vampire Killer (to the rest of the world probably better known as “Castlevania”) or, of course – Metal Gear. Metal Gear 2, Solid Snake, subconsciously influenced me when writing my own music (some people say that our album “Ode to Brother Horn” sounds a bit Japanese…). By the way, Metal Gear 2 is arguably the best (tactical espionage) game ever released for the MSX system, together with SD-Snatcher (both of which I played through in the original Japanese without speaking the language (!!!)).
I also love the shooters by Konami – the Nemesis series (1,2 and 3), Parodius, and of course – Space Manbow. Incredibly playability and game quality (for MSX standards, of course). I also enjoy Hydefos (from Hertz)– again, the combination of distinctive graphics and music with game quality is – for me – just heavenly. And if my old friend “master” comes to visit (it’s his nickname, of course), we always battle against each other in F1-SPIRIT – The Way to Formula 1, Quarth (to non-MSX users probably known as “Block Hole”) – and, from the “newer” games, Bombaman by Team Bomba. Hours and hours of fun – with 256×212 pixels, 16 of 512 colours – and OPL4 sound. What else do you need?
I guess these games are my favourite only because I grew up playing them and never moved beyond them (MSX stopped in the early 1990s – although there are some news that Kazuhiko Nishi, the founder of MSX, is actively working on the continuation of the standard, and an MSX3, newest technology and fully hardware backwards compatible with the previous machines, will be real soon) For me, as an old MSX aficionado, that would be a dream come true…
Interview with Kazuhiko Nishi (3rd of September 2022)
Metal Gear 2 – Solid Snake – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_Gear_2:_Solid_Snake
Bombaman: https://www.teambomba.net/
Space Manbow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Manbow
SD-Snatcher: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snatcher_(video_game)
