LogFAQs > #950003999

46. RollerCoaster Tycoon (PC, 1999)

RollerCoaster Tycoon was basically the right game, at the right time, for the right person. After growing up with SimCity 2000 and SimTower, and soon before diving into games like The Sims and even Animal Crossing or Harvest Moon, RCT landed right in the middle as a top-notch simulation-style game, though part of MicroProse's Tycoon series rather than with Maxis' Sim moniker. Coincidentally, in 1999 I was just starting to get into roller coasters (in real life) for the first time - my fear of heights gave way to an ambitious attempt at riding Kennywood Park's famous Steel Phantom roller coaster, and I immediately loved it and all of a sudden amusement parks (and roller coasters in particular) were my favorite thing in the world.
Of course, none of that would have landed so flawlessly if RCT weren't an absolute gem of a game. I think RollerCoaster Tycoon's finest quality is it's so well made that it can serve as a really strong instance of several different types of games for different people. It's an in-depth economic simulator if you really want to dig into the particulars of managing ride prices, advertising campaigns, and research of rides. (There's an awesome Youtube channel that I got into last year that delved into the nitty-gritty of little bits of the game to exploit them to extremes, like the guest pathing in the Hedge Maze rides.) RCT is also a fun game to just poke around in - you can name your guests and follow them around the park all day, or watch people race in the Go-Karts, and it's all rendered in surprising depth and detail.
But RCT works perhaps best as a complete game experience - the numerous scenarios require you to handle lots of different types of challenges in different types of parks. And whether it's tackling your favorite park in different ways, or just continuing to play even after passing the final goal, RCT is there for you. The ride builder is also excellent, comprehensive, and simple. It's very easy to complete a functional and okay coaster, and very hard to make a great one. There's just so much to love in this package, it's a game I still love coming back to even in 2021, and honestly that's even without having played its sequel RCT2 or the OpenRCT mod that is reasonably popular (at least, among said guy whose Youtube vids I watched). It's easily my #1 simulation-style game and I'd be willing to argue I have underrated it here, having not played it in several years at this point.

45. Everybody's Golf (PS4, 2017)

If there's one thing that all of us (well, most of us) writing for this list can agree on, it's that golf video games are a blast to play. After growing up with Mario Golf for the N64 and GameCube and having decent battles with friends for most of the 90s and 2000s, my roomates and I were particularly excited for Everybody's Golf, which landed right around the time I moved in with them in mid-2017. Having never played a Hot Shots Golf game before (but having heard good things) I wasn't sure what to expect, and despite being cautiously optimistic, I was still blown away.
The game's quality as a simple-to-play/easy-to-master Golf sim, paired with its colorful characters and boundless charm, made it instantly one of my favorite golf games of all time. The three of us blew through the main story mode, unlocking all the courses and tons of stuff for our custom characters, in a matter of weeks. We met up for multiplayer games basically every night. And we even played around with the somewhat ridiculous online mode that allows you to drive a golf cart around the course.
The tricky part here is, I don't own a PS4, and was always playing my friend's copy of this. After a couple months of heavy play, we moved onto other stuff, so aside from that initial investment I've really never touched the game since 2017. (I think we played one round of multiplayer a couple years back, but that's it.) If I had put enough time into the online leaderboards and playing the DLC courses and just generally getting into the game for a longer period of time, I think I could easily rate it a bit higher and usurp my all-time favorite golf game. But with my personal limitations, I remember the great times and a lot of details have been lost from memory - and thus it lands a little shy of the Top 40 here.

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it's an underwater adventure ride