LogFAQs > #950062907

50. Need for Speed: Underground (Gamecube, 2003)

The very best Need for Speed games all have an element of danger to them. Not just in the aforementioned speed, but in the illegality of the racing itself, or the risk of totaling or otherwise losing your ride. Need For Speed Underground (and it's slicker, but somewhat less engaging sequel) achieve that not by featuring the police, as so many other NFS games have done, but by steeping itself in the tuner / illegal street racing culture that was chic in the early 2000s, thanks in part to movies like The Fast and The Furious and Tokyo Drift.

At the time it was one of the most thematically cohesive and immersive racing games around, and I think that largely holds true. It's still, to this date, the best reviewed NFS game when you add up the reviews for each platform, and for good reason. It controls beautifully, whether its in the drift races, which are as challenging as they are exhilarating, or the fast-twitch action of the drag races, where you must drive a manual and hit your upshifts perfectly to stand a shot. Throw in the almost limitless customization options and the deep roster of import cars, and you've got not only a great racing game, but one of the underrated gems of the 2000s.

49. Goldeneye (N64, 1997)

If you read my Perfect Dark writeup, you likely intuited that this was coming at some point. Looking back on it now, it's amazing that we all loved this game and played it so extensively. The levels were iconic, yes, but the textures and character designs were hideous. We just didn't know any better in '97. This game was the multiplayer king in my friend group up until Smash took the crown and never looked back. It was just the right game at the right time, and it provided hours of fun and ridiculous arguments over what settings to use and whether or not it was fair to play as Oddjob (it was, imo). This is a moment in time we can't get back, but what a moment it was.

48. Ken Griffey Jr's Slugfest (N64, 1999)

Despite being a huge baseball fan for most of my life, I've never been a huge fan of baseball video games. But Slugfest came along at the right time, and featured my favorite non-Red Sox player ever as its star, and I absolutely loved this game. I got so good at it so quickly that in season mode, I was breaking the game by the All-Star Break. Turns out the game only allotted enough code for you to have 255 RBI in a season with a single player, so when you got to 256 it would reset that byte and start the count at 0. I had to keep notepads with my stats for most of my players once I realized this. Slugfest also had perhaps the first truly satisfying Home Run Derby mode. Given that this game came out in the spring of '99, leading into the iconic '99 All Star weekend at Fenway - for my money still the best All-Star Game / HR Derby combo to date, even putting my personal bias about the Sox and Fenway aside - and amid the "chicks dig the longball" phase, having a game that made an effort on the Derby mode was a big deal. By the time the Gamecube/PS2/Xbox gen came around, I was largely disinterested in sports games that played it straight, but I kept playing Slugfest for years beyond its supposed expiration date.

47. Bastion (PC, 2011)

Given how much I immediately enjoyed Bastion, which I played working overnights at the psych ward, my first job out of undergrad, it's a little amazing to me that I didn't return to any Supergiant offerings until diving into Hades about a month ago. Bastion is a masterful presentation - the visuals, the music, the gameplay all perfectly complement one another. The score is among the best in recent gaming history. Caeldonia, The Calamity, The Kid, and The Narrator are four distinct hooks that catch you almost immediately and keep you engaged as you unravel the mysteries and undo the damage. If you haven't played it by now, what are you waiting for?

46. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES, 1991)

I've never owned Link to the Past. I've never emulated Link to the Past.

But I loved Link to the Past.

I went to the Boys and Girls Club after school and during the summers when I was young, because my parents needed to work long, often overlapping hours to give us any sort of financial security. The Club had a rickety old SNES with some games, like Zombies Ate My Neighbors and Super Mario World and Link to the Past and some other stuff. It was an SNES that had seen some shit. It was such a fragile situation that if the cartridge was bumped even slightly while the game was playing, the save file that was playing would be erased. I have no idea to this day why or how this was possible, but as you might imagine, among adolescents, there were many bumpings of the cart - some accidental, some "accidental" - while my friends and I used the three save files to try to see who could beat the game first. It was this challenge that brought me to GameFAQs, as we all agreed - printing out a map of Hyrule would not only be cool, but useful.

Ultimately, I was the first to navigate both Hyrule and the Dark World to finish the game first. I won by maybe a day or two, mitigating the risk of lost saves by playing in small bursts at times when the more sociopathic kids were playing dodgeball or whatever. It was a truly unique spring and summer that we raced to complete LttP, and one of my fondest memories.

---

The Thighmaster