So, for our first two weeks, we made some more recent, current generation selections for our Underdog Game of the Week. This week, we’re going to go back just a little bit further. After-all, every generation of consoles had it’s share of underdog games! For this weeks installment, we’re going back two generations, to the glorious days of the Nintendo 64! What’s our title? Goldeneye. Hah, just kidding. No, today we’ll be looking at WinBack!
Released back in 1999, WinBack was a third person shooter which had some pretty unique features for the time. Taking control of Jean-Luc Cougar, a S.C.A.T operative, yes you read that correctly, it is your duty to break into a terrorist controlled satellite installation that controls a top secret space based laser weapon. Ok, so the basis of the story is pretty similar to GoldenEye. Well, the joy of WinBack was not in its story, story telling, or characters. WinBack was a unique third person shooter, as it was one of the first to actually provide a cover system as you played. That’s right, that extremely common gameplay feature that we see in so many titles today, was really just breaking out with the onset of this title. WinBack was also one of the few titles of the time to provide multiple endings, depending on ways you played the game. There were three different endings you could attain, based on how long it took you to beat it.
While the singleplayer campaign was pretty forgettable, this new combat system provided some really great new possibilities for multiplayer. Shootouts were much more hectic, and strategic. GoldenEye was easily the big kid on campus at this time, so throwing in new features and cover really changed the way shootouts would work. Instead of just circle strafing each other, like a big family at a Bar Mitzvah, you would have to really use your environment to avoid you enemies. Diving behind beams, shuffling behind walls, and even being able to destroy cover being used by your foes created some really excellent and intense shootouts! The game was reviewed decently at its time, but was extremely overshadowed by GoldenEye. This led to a general lack of interest in the title, and while it was remade for PS2 in 2001, and a sequel was later made in 2006, the game just never got as big as it could have been. It wasn’t anything terrific, but it was pretty good for the time. This one will be a little harder to find, but if you see it at a local mom and pop shop, it might be worth picking up.
