Madrid
This week we’re talking about video games with a Spanish designation of origin. Because in our country, for several decades, great games have also been made. We’re going to review a Top 5, based on the results of the ‘Playing at Home’ contest that took place a couple of months ago.
Commandos 2: Men of Courage
We start with Commandos 2: Men of Courage (2001, PC), by Pyro Studios. It is a real-time strategy game set in World War II in which we control a series of specialists to go behind enemy lines on the Western Front against the Nazis and in the Pacific against the Japanese. Compared to more modern titles such as Call of Duty, it shares the war setting, but not the mechanics or the style of play, which are very different. The Commandos saga is a slower game in which we must think carefully about our next step, almost like solving puzzles in each situation to survive using the techniques of each specialist.
PC Football
This Top could not be without sports games: we are now talking about the unforgettable PC Fútbol from Dinamic Multimedia from 1992. Pure football management, where it was more important to make signings, choose the strategy and even set the price of the sandwiches in the stadium bar than to play the game on the pitch (which was almost automatic). From PC Fútbol 2.0 onwards, our unforgettable Michael Robinson lent his image and voice to the game, which was a success within and outside our borders due to its detailed and enormous real databases of players and its sales strategy in kiosks. There is a beautiful story of an Argentine fan who with PC Fútbol got to know CD Leganés, played with them in the game and promoted them to the First Division long before this happened in reality, and became a super fan of the team. Afterwards, he has even travelled to Spain several times to get to know the club of his loves and its stadium.
The Abbey of Crime
We now travel to the eighties, to what is still known as ‘the golden age of Spanish software’. In 1987, Paco Menéndez’s ‘La abadía del crimen’ (The Abbey of Crime) was published for Amstrad computers, followed by Opera Software, based on Umberto Eco’s novel ‘The Name of the Rose’. The game was made just one year after its film adaptation starring Sean Connery. In the game, a graphic adventure, we must also unravel the mystery behind a series of murders in a fourteenth-century abbey. A game that lasts barely two hours, but which marked an era.
Blasphemous
More contemporary is Blasphemous (2019), from the Seville studio The Game Kitchen (incidentally, with some former Pyro Studios members). A modern game but with a pixelated retro look, which mixes genres in the style of Metroid and Castlevania with convoluted maps and also mechanics from the Dark Souls saga (such as its difficulty and rest stops). Something that makes Blasphemous unique is that its world is inspired by Andalusian and, by extension, Spanish art, folklore and architecture: its protagonist is a tormented penitent with a metal hood and there are many other references to Holy Week, places like the Triana bridge or Goya’s black paintings, all shrouded in decadent darkness.
Commandos: Behind the enemy lines
And we close the circle by returning to the Commandos saga, whose first part is considered the best Spanish game of all time, according to the ‘Jugando en Casa’ competition. Also created by Pyro Studios, it was released on the PC market in 1998 to revolutionise real-time war strategy with its specialists (green beret, sniper, sapper…) on the battlefield of World War II. At SER Jugones we have spoken with its creator, Ignacio Pérez Dolset (Pyro Studios) to find out some of its secrets (such as the fact that it was originally going to be called ‘The Dirty Dozen’), inspirations and to remember the great reception of the title by the public and critics. That’s it for this week’s SER Jugones, have a good time.
