53. The Chaos Engine

(Various Home, Bitmap Brothers, 1993, Alt title: Soldiers Of Fortune)
Gaming constantly changes, but doesn't. Graphics improve, effects improve, voice acting, music, controls, every aspect of the visuals, sounds and style of videogames changes and evolves. Just check out Wolfenstein then Modern Warfare or Rally X then Forza 3. Gaming itself, however, stays the same. To true gamers, the old school is just as playable as the new school, because a good game is a good game, regardless of how it looks or sounds. Gaming constantly changes, but doesn't.

The Chaos Engine is a product of its time. Made by small, dedicated development team The Bitmap Brothers, Chaos Engine is a top-down shooter set in a dark, grimy dystopian future. As the game's legendary intro tells us, scientists experimenting with time travel technology have caused a rip and plunged Britain into chaos, freeing dinosaurs and mutants and disrupting weather, flora and fauna. Whats more, the technology has become sentient has must be destroyed.
Enter six battle hardened mercenaries for hire. Attempting to take down the machine (and charge a small fortune while they're at it.)

The game is a REAL hardcore shooter, two of the six characters (two players or one player plus CPU) run and gun their way through four worlds of total warfare, taking on a barrage of vicious creatures and collecting keys, power-ups and gold which can be spent levelling up your characters and their weaponry. Clearing bilghty of all evil will bring you up against the machine itself in a final battle to return the country to it's former sanity. Chaos Engine is infamously very difficult and a real test of the skills of even the very best gamers. Completing it is an achievement in itself, completing it on one life makes you some kind of freak.
The game is at its best on the Amiga, which is unarguably its home and one of the format's trademark games. While still playable on consoles, it feels like it isn't best suited, "The Chaos Engine: McDonalds edition" if you will. It's almost as if the game is too underground for Nintendo or Sega's broader demograph. This opinion is semi-proven by the censorship of the game on such formats. Trying to give The Chaos Engine "wider appeal" is to miss the whole concept of the game itself.

It seems like The Chaos Engine is simply a classic game, but it runs much deeper than that. Regarding my first paragraph, The Chaos Engine represents everything that should make a game... a game. It has action, strategy, storytelling, character development and optional multiplayer. It is a test of skill, nerve and reflexes. It unashamedly puts the odds against you and demands that you rise to the challenge, it has an interesting world populated with artistic characters and is backed with perfectly matched music and sound. Most importantly, it represents the imagination, solid planning and unbridled passion of its core developers.

Gaming changes, but The Chaos Engine transcends those changes, being everything a game should be while keeping the control, graphics and concept to the bare essentials. It is a game that stands proud and unapologetic and The Bitmap Brothers deserve recognition for their hard work and commitment toward it.

The Chaos Engine isn't just a game. The Chaos Engine is gaming.