Board 8 > The Board 8 Discord Sports Chat Ranks Their Top 100 Respective VIDEO Games pt. 2

(+) Yeah! (+)

#54. Portal (PC, 2007)
The game that launched a million memes. I knew even back then that that was annoying (especially because I was definitely familiar with that before I even had knowledge of the game), but of course I eventually played it and discovered one of the most elegant, yet snarky and funny games I've ever played. The puzzles in this game are fantastic and cleverly designed and felt really damn innovative for 2007. Especially when you consider just how much influence this game has now on puzzle games and its use of teleportation obviously, and also its physics. You also have the incredible origins of how it was just a Valve test playground or whatever for Half-Life 2, so it's pretty incredible that it became such a smash hit.

Going chamber to chamber as GLaDOS lobs insults at you, and feeling nice and satisfied as you solve the puzzles is its own great experience. The whole Companion Cube thing (which I feel like didn't really take off as its own Meme until a bit after the cake) was marvelous story-telling, legitimately making you feel sad for a cube with a heart on it by having it be the focal point of that puzzle section, using it for each segment there, until of course, it meets its ultimate demise. You monster.

And then you have the final section, where you break out of bounds after GLaDOS attempts to murder you, go through all the background of the facility, really feeling like you aren't where you should be, and finally have your climatic final fight vs GLaDOS, who is excellently voice-acted, by the way.

Game still holds up, and is the perfect length for what it is. Also wanted to say I remember playing the Flash version of it and that's what really drove me to play the real game.



Hint: This game supplied some fresh air to its series.

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#75 Outland (Xbox 360, 2011)


Housemarque is one of the more underappreciated developers out there. The Finnish company is known mostly for their arcade genre games like Nex Machina, Super Stardust, and Resogun, and I'm intrigued and hoping for the best with their upcoming battle royale game Stormdivers, but they have sprinkled in a few deviations from their normal offerings. Outland, a platformer with light metroidvania elements, is one of them and happens to be their best game.

The art style will immediately grab you with the dark background objects with a colorful scenery or sky to complement them. Objects in the forefront are more fluorescent so the unique art direction doesn't confuse the player. It never stops being gorgeous, and it really pops when you play any one of the game's riveting boss fights. These are the absolute highlight of the game. They're long but worth it. Housemarque is one of the best there is at providing the player with a thrilling experience.

The normal area-to-area stuff is your standard platforming and attacking enemies with limited combat moves, but the game borrows a light/dark system similar to Ikaruga to make the whole thing a fresh experience. You can change between being red or blue. In order to hurt enemies, you have to attack them using the opposite element, when dodging attacks or obstacles, you use the same element to avoid taking damage, but when platforming, you have to be the same element as the wall/floor/whatever or you will pass through it. They sometimes combine two or even all three at the same time, forcing you to be quick with your reflexes, though sometimes the platforming segments feature a crazy series of non-stop action that can be quite challenging (and exhilarating).

You can play the campaign or specially-designed challenge rooms with a partner, and it seems like a whole new experience. As he mentioned earlier, I played this with Nee back in 2014, and I distinctly remember a time when I completed a platforming segment, but he missed the final jump and was struggling to get up to where I was. I sacrificed my hard work to jump back down and work to ensure that he got up only for then me to struggle getting to the top. The things I do for B8ers...

For awhile, this was delisted, on PC at least, but it was relisted somewhat recently. If you are one of the unfortunate people who have yet to play it, do yourself a favor and go through this spectacular game. If you have gone through it before, do it again.

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My list so far:
100. Unholy Heights
99. Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure
98. Backyard Baseball 2001
97. Boxing (Atari 2600)
96. Mu Cartographer
95. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
94. Lego Island
93. Mercury Hg
92. Persona 4 Golden
91. The Gardens Between
90. Pure
89. Batman: Arkham Knight
88. Sid Meier's Pirates! (2004)
87. Aliens Go Home Run
86. Pac-Man Championship Edition DX+
85. Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors
84. Monster Rancher Advance 2
83. SimTown
82. Diddy Kong Racing
81. Super Mario Odyssey
80. Red Dead Redemption
79. Mario Party
78. Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus
77. Super Mario 3D World
76. God of War II
75. Outland

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Outland, now there's a quality game

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Are you implying the rest of my list up to that point wasn't!?

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Or maybe the page up to this point!

Or maybe just because we played that game co-op

Either way, how about a new game on my list:

#49. VVVVVV (PC, 2010)



VVVVVV took a simple concept, replacing jumping in a platformer with flipping, and made a simple game around that, but to great result. It plays fast. The individual rooms have loads of variety and some prety memorable challenges. There's an overworld to wander around in. There's trinkets to collect if you want more exploration and struggles. A lot of enemies have weird designs, like words and shapes and stop signs. There's just a lot that can be done in VVVVVV, but it all happens quickly. Most of the fluff is cut away to just focus on fun gameplay, and it's great.

There's not a whole lot of specific stuff to add, just that Doing Things the Hard Way and The Gravitron are both great challenge sequences. They're two bigger instances of things that are fun to just keep coming back to here.

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#74 Advance Wars: Dual Strike (DS, 2005)


There's something about a colorful game about war where a group of nonchalant, low-key sociopaths don't take things seriously as they sacrifice countless lives and shrug if things don't work out in their favor that just makes me grin. I'm not a sociopath, but the whole situation is played off as so goofy and ridiculous that I can't help it.

The Advance Wars series is a pretty standard TBS. You have a home base, factories to build units, neutral and enemy bases that you can capture, and multiple victory scenarios. Units have their own strengths and weaknesses that are more/less effective and more/less susceptible to other types of units. Terrain differences affect combat in predictable ways, and you get the picture. Intelligent systems does a good job at map design and scenario creation to keep things interesting. As much as I like the previous two Advance Wars, they weren't in consideration for my list. Dual Strike though goes bigger and bolder and just adds a ton to the series.

Each Commanding officer has a few unique moves at their disposal once a meter you fill through normal play is full. In Dual Strike, you command multiple COs at once and can use a combination power specific to that pairing. Some of these can be downright filthy, and sure that means the game has balance issues, but I don't play AW for fair fights. The game also utilized the dual screen by having some missions fight on multiple fronts that can easily be switched at any time. They also added plenty of new ground, air, and naval units, new modes including an incredible real-time one simply called Combat, and made an already robust multiplayer experience even better.

The amount of content in the game is obscene. Not everything may be to your liking, but there's just so much there that it can be overwhelming in a good way.

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#73 James Bond 007: Nightfire (Gamecube, 2002)


Goldeneye this, Goldeneye that, yada yada yada. Nightfire was THE James Bond experience, and I will hear nothing to the contrary. I can only faintly remember the campaign, and it probably was the best too, but that's not why I love it. It has one of my favorite local split-screen multiplayers.

I also say that from a favorable position because I primarily chose Oddjob, and in addition to his size advantage, you got to use his instant-kill rimmed hat. Man was I an asshole to my friends often choosing a broken character. Aside from that though, multiplayer was highly customizable for game, weapon, and AI bot settings. I have always been a fan of live systems in a multiplayer setting, and this might have be my favorite in a traditional multiplayer game. It is such a gratifying feeling than when you screen-look and see the last opponent alive is hiding away next to a rock or lodge in Skyrail when you bust out the guided missile launcher and watch as they futilely try to outmaneuver the final nail in their coffin.

Nightfire was weird that the versions had all sorts of differences in multiplayer options. PC had the most bots and maps but wasn't optimized properly or something because it's a technical mess. PS2 had fewer customization options, including allowing just a handful of bots. Xbox and Gamecube got the best of both worlds, so I'm glad I ended up buying one of the versions that allowed me to have the fond memories that I ended up with.

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#50 Command & Conquer (Microsoft Windows, 1996)



Probably one of the most iconic PC games franchises of the 90s, Command & Conquer blew my mind when it came out. It was my first experience with Real-Time Strategy, and Westwood Studios mostly nailed it with this one. The company had released a previous RTS game in 1992, Dune II, which was kind of a proof of concept of the genre. With Command & Conquer, the team successfully iterated and improved on the design, resulting in a smash success.

If you've played almost any RTS game in the last 25 years, its easy to see how it was influenced by Command & Conquer. The game established the trend of providing live action video briefings before missions and full motion cutscenes after, which became very much in vogue for years. Gameplay is relatively simple with a straight forward base-building process, one single resource to collect, and a manageable tech tree. Both of the two factions are completely unique in design and aesthetics. Compared to today's strategy games, it's very pedestrian, but there was honestly nothing like it at the time. Another neat feature that we take for granted now was the ability to play a full campaign not only as the good guys, but also as the bad guys.



I know that it has not aged the best, although I understand that last year's remaster did a ton of work to bring the game along from where it was. The AI was rather pitiful and resorted to completely ridiculous cheats in order to make missions challenging. Command & Conquer still stands out to me as a classic experience that is simple to play and master, and introduced me to what became one of my favorite genres. And while without it, I might have eventually got around to playing some of the great RTS games in history, C&C was a wonderful first exposure to the genre that made my entry into that world so much more accessible.

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KCF0107 posted...

#73 James Bond 007: Nightfire (Gamecube, 2002)

nice

this didn't make my list but I agree with most of what you said here

Skyrail best map


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#49 Batman: Arkham Asylum (Playstation 3, 2009)

I think that so far this is the first time that two of us have ranked the same game in the same spot. So high five, MSG! I played this game somewhat late down the road, maybe five years after release, but it still left a huge impression on me.



I don't know really how to categorize this game. The game is confined to the titular location, which is not sprawling or anything, but has a lot of areas to explore nonetheless. You have some elements of Zelda or Metroid, where you are exploring the game and gain new gadgets that help you get around and access new areas. The gadgets are also used in the combat system, which is simple, fast-paced, and combo-oriented. It's similar to the early Assassin's Creed games, although I'm not exactly sure which game cribbed from the other. Overall, the game flow/loop is very satisfying and I was compelled to keep playing until I finished.

Similar to what MSG mentioned, I also never really played a Batman anything before this, or never really enjoyed Batman outside of the Nolan films. Never was into the cartoon or even watched it ever. But I enjoyed the story and the characters and it was fun to learn a lot about these people whose names I knew just through hearing people talk about Batman. Arkham Asylum gave me a new appreciation for the character and I really do someday want to get around to his other games.

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#41 - Rock Band 2 (360, 2008)


When the whole instrumental video game fad took the world by storm, I didnt see much promise in it. I was never big into music in general, or felt any desire to learn how to play guitar, or anything. But my friends got together when Guitar Hero 2 came out and decided they were all gonna pool some money together and get both the first games and two guitar controllers so we could try it out. My house was the place we always hung out at, so I was involved by proxy. It was easily one of the best decisions my friends have ever pushed me into making. I wasnt too into it at first; on Easy, its just a matter of finding one of three buttons and strumming at the right time. Then I bumped it up to Medium, and the dopamine really started to hit.

Guitar Hero 2 was definitely the clear better game of the first two. Harmonix had fine-tuned hammer-ons and pull-offs so they were far easier, which is necessary to play this game on Expert, and GH2 all-around provided a more accessible experience. In retrospect, it really should be on my list somewhere around the 80s, but ah well.

Then the news came out that Harmonix would no longer be involved with the series, and Neversoft would take the reins for Activision instead. Harmonix would then team up with rival company EA and create a new competitor in Rock Band. My friends planned on sticking with Guitar Hero, since it was an entity they already knew and loved, but I wasnt going to doubt Harmonix, and opted to splurge on all the equipment on day 1. By this time in our lives, we had graduated and were living separately, though several of my friends had an apartment together. I immediately brought everything over there so we could try it out.

It was an immediate hit. The guitar worked just as it had in the Guitar Hero games, so we knew wed still enjoy that, but the drums were a complete surprise for how fun they would be. And if everyone was drinking, the microphone was passed around for some great laughs. It was a staple of our daily lives for years, spanning the releases of both Rock Band 2 and 3. Except Rock Band 3 was a short-lived plaything for us. It was a fine addition to the series, but the keyboard was not a hot commodity in our friend group, and would typically get tossed to the side for the other 4 instruments. We were so over the fad by Rock Band 4 that it was never even brought up as a possibility to play among us, and the instrument gaming phase we went through officially died.

Rock Band 2 gets the sole nod on my list because they all provide basically the same experience. It had the best song list, the best aesthetics and visuals, and had Tour Mode, which was a fun way to change up the songs we were playing. Its also the time period when the DLC was getting super extensive and our list of songs available to us jumped up to the many hundreds. Rock Band has to be the single game Ive ever spent the most money on, and I dont regret a single bit of it.

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#53. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Wii U, 2017)
I think I've been a bit inconsistent with this game as far as ranking it against the other Zeldas. I remember my very initial reaction was thinking it was a good game, but maybe not "quite for me". Reflecting back on that I have no idea why I thought that. I am definitely more of a fan of a traditional style of Zelda, but I think once in a while it's good to try something a little different, as long as you're gonna do it well and it makes sense. And it absolutely does and did.

Firstly, I like the concept of do pretty much whatever you want whenever you want, as it specifically applies to a Zelda game since it's pretty opposite of what you're used to. You CAN play it more traditionally and visit your 4 "dungeons" in whatever order. But its up to you and the stuff you collect from around the world to dictate what you're able to do as far as the "dungeons" or the shrines. There's a ton to do, and it's one of those things where its more about the feeling of accomplishment in solving a puzzle, than the reward. And since finding those shrines and solving them generally feels good, (when they don't get repetitive), that keeps it fun. The shrines are sort of a more macro version of Mario Odyssey in finding and accessing them, but perhaps more micro in actually doing them, if that makes any sense. I guess the Koroks are more like the Odyssey Moons, but with less guidance on how to get them. So I wasn't really enjoying those as much as the temples. I love the giant Korok though (and the fact that Koroks have by now become a Zelda universe staple).

Getting around is fun, you can do it your style (or, if you've seen a speedrun, you know the drill), though I still find running/stamina systems to be a little detrimental to gameplay and that's still a point I don't really like here. Weapon breaking didn't quite bother me as much, but I had to fight the urge to not use stronger weapons because I might need to save them. I did ok with that. Still, the universe is vast, and its good to see Gorons, Gerudos, Ritos, and Zoras in this environment. The story framing of the warriors is fun and well done too. I do sort of wish there was a bit more music, though I get why they did what they did.

Anyway, I want to revisit this game at some point and try to find all the shrines and do all the secrets. I'm sure there's a ton I have missed, but in general, I liked its narrative, getting around, the open-world tone shift being a good fit, while still keeping a lot of the big Zelda style gameplay hits. Climbing those towers had nice payoffs too! Oh and also Zelda voice acting!!! And the game is beautiful. Coolest part of the game was definitely finding the Master Sword.



Next up: This game does not actually feature a character from Rugrats and their coworker, sadly.


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Chuckie Finster Kart

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#52. Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS, 2006)
JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE! JONATHAN! CHARLOTTE!



Next up: Another Castlevania game, just kidding its totally not a Castlevania game.

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I will just say I really like the portrait worlds as an extension of the castle though, and that you can keep going back to them. The way that's all laid out is well-designed!


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#36. Horizon Zero Dawn (PS4, 2017)

I wait a year to play this for some reason. When I finally got around to it I was blown away. This game is gorgeous, this game is massive. The sense of scale is fantastic. The combat can be as simple or complex as you want it to be. The creatures offer so many unique experiences. You wanna stealth? Sure. Wanna be an all out attack monster? Sure. While the gameplay is insanely good, the graphics are top notch and the music/atmosphere is excellent. What really hooked me was the story. I was slow playing this, an hour here, an hour there. Then the story grabbed me and I played like 30 hours in a weekend. The backstory of this game is amazing. The world lore and detail on everything is so great. I love that stuff. I was so angry when the thing happens late in the game in a video log of something already well established. I knew it was going to happen, and it still was amazing. That was how good the story was. When you can get angry or sad over something that is very obvious, you have been drawn in. I am so beyond hyped for Horizon 2. It will be my get a PS5 game. Go read the Horizon story timeline sometime. They put so much random detail in there. Love this game. Play it. Random thing too, my best friend named his kid Aloy.



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#51. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night (PS4, 2019)
A game that to me, is Symphony of the Night but I think just feels better. As I mentioned in that review I love the style and gameplay of that game but it always just felt a bit slow to me and that feels more addressed here. I think it's not much faster, but just the right amount. That is "offset" (in a good way) by the game being notably longer and deeper, which I will appreciate in these kind of games to a certain extent. This game to me was a lot of the good parts of your GBA/DS Castlevanias combined with SotN- it has a nice deep level of customization around the souls and weapons, freeform enough in pathing, and it's fun to fill out the bestiary, craft items, and do the villager missions (KILL THOSE MURDERERS DEAD!!!).
The game looks stunning, I love its art style. I was afraid from the way it was animated it would play kind of sluggishly but it never feels that way. There's some neat enemies too like the cat heads and the rockers.
The plot makes it feel just like you're playing a castlevania game and there's a lot of references and continuation to the Curse of the Moon side-series, which I'll mention here too is another great set of games not in my top 100, but as this game invokes SOTN, those games invoke Castlevania 3. So that's worth playing too.

Some great voice acting here also with David Hayter and Robbie Belgrade

Anyway yeah. This was the update to SOTN I had long been waiting for, and I would say it surpassed it!



Next up: A GTA clone that should come as no shock that I love it.

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#48. Samurai Shodown (PS4, 2019)

Samurai Shodown feels like a fighting that was made specifically for me. Everything I want is here. Characters are unique and interesting, but also, fights play out so well.

SamSho is not a game of big combos. You just use a couple moves that hit hard, and they HIT HARD. Super moves can do like 50-80% damage. Some characters' heavy attacks can do like 25-35%. It sounds like rounds should just move lightning fast, but that's not the case. If a heavy attack misses, or even gets blocked, the recovery time feels like days. You can then get hit back with a big attack. Sometimes, using 40 of the light attacks will be more effective than using 4 of the heavy attacks. Everyone also has a weapon that they are doing the attacks with. You can also try to knock away your opponent's weapon, making it much easier to try the big stuff on them. Sometimes, fights turn into a giant game of chicken where both players are trying to not make the first major move, and it gets very tense as time winds down.

The real interesting mechanic is the rage meter. As you take damage, the meter builds. When it fills completely, you have access to a second super move. You can also use a rage explosion, which stops the timer temporarily, makes you stronger, and gives you access to a third super attack. The rage explosion is great for late game comebacks. Also, activating it during an opponent's attack or combo will get you out for free, giving you a second chance at life or letting you escape one of those 50% damage supers. It's super interesting because you can only use it one time per game, so if you use it in the first round, it's gone in the other rounds. The game is already intense with calculated attacks, but then trying to decide which round you want to try to salvage or go all in on, when the opponent can make the same call, just adds to the interesting possiblities.

There are two major points that really keep this game from being up around say, my top ten games. The first is that the netcode is pretty bad, an issue that pops up a lot in fighting games for some reason. Sometimes it gets choppy when I try to play someone who lives only 100 miles away. Also, not a ton of people play this, so it was hard to get matches in real life, and hard to get good matches online (and even when I do, they often run like poop). Because it wasn't quite as popular as other fighting games, I haven't had a chance to enter a tournament for SamSho yet. I was signed up to compete in one last April, but uh, you know, stuff happened. Edit right after writing this last night, but before posting it today, I found a free online tournament that happened last night just to get people together to play. I only went 1-2, but each match was a lot of fun and very intense. Every little tiny exchange can be so important.

Just to show how wild it can get, here's some footage from Evo. Starting 9:38 in the below video is the final round of this set, might be the single most intense round of a fighting game I've ever seen. This whole set was interesting, but that final round is so dramatic.

https://youtu.be/uDKhDDx2E2M?t=578



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48. Super Smash Bros. Melee (GameCube, 2001)

Although the original Super Smash Bros. was definitely an unexpected smash-hit (heh) party game, this was the entry that solidified the series as the juggernaut behemoth it is today. Melee more than doubled the playable characters, stages, and items, and added so much additional content and polish to the project that SSB64 looked so paltry by comparison. Where OG Smash had only a couple basic modes, SSBM had a single-player adventure mode spanning different Nintendo worlds, a whole gaggle of extra mini-games like multi-man melee and home run contest, and almost 300 collectible trophies featuring all sorts of Nintendo characters as a complete celebration of their history. And while Smash 64's menus were minimalist in visuals and sound, Melee's are sharp and sleek, and coupled with the best goddamn menu theme in video game history: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2Ax21yobJ0
Of course, it's all about the gameplay in the end, and Melee delivers there in spades; the speed and technical play of the game is still unmatched even three entries and 19 years down the road from its release. I'm not a huge fighting game person, so the competitive scene has never been a draw for me and I'm not particularly swayed by that in either direction, but it's a testament to the game's lasting quality that it's still so beloved.
And I'd be remiss not to mention just how memorable it was playing Melee for the first time back in 2001 - a friend of mine got the game on launch day and came over and we spent all night unlocking the full cast of characters (including playing a bunch of Self-Destruct versus games to get the requisite 700 matches for Mewtwo). In the months after launch, I remember a bunch of other gaming nerds at my high school getting together for tournaments using the in-game tourney mode. It's hard to beat that nostalgia, so Melee still has such a high perch on my all-time faves.

47. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Switch, 2018)

That said, it's hard to discount the most recent Smash Bros. game entirely. Ultimate has just an absurd amount of playable stages and characters, comprised of the entirety of the series' span. (Everyone is here!) The gameplay feels like the best evolution of the engine from Brawl to Smash 4 to today, and can stand on its own merits and differences relative to Melee. And whether or not you're fond of DLC in games as a concept, it feels at its best here, bringing in surprise characters like Persona's Joker, Sephiroth, and Minecraft Steve all into the Nintendo universe. The character balance is really good here too - as I've said earlier, I dont really play competitively, but I do know that a huge amount of the 80+ character roster is actively used in tournament play, which only speaks to the quality of the balance in general at any level of play.
The single-player story mode is good and charming, though not nearly as cinematically compelling as Brawl's Subspace Emissary. Though maybe a bit repetitive, it does a good job at following along with Nintendo's Smash mission statement post-Melee: celebrate the crazy variety of the game universes throughout all of Nintendo history.
On any given day, I could probably rate one of Melee or Ultimate above the other, but having mostly had my time with Melee run its course, I felt like Ultimate deserved to finish on top here. Either way, they're worthy of the claim to two of the best multiplayer experiences in all of gaming.

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Horizon Zero Dawn spoilers.

Fuck Ted Faro.

#47. Groove Coaster (Arcade, 2013)

Groove Coaster is a rhythm game experience that is an absolute trip on the senses. You stand in front of a big widescreen TV turned vertical. A single pulsing icon moves along a twisting, winding path (a coaster, you could say), while passing symbols for the notes you need to hit. The icon changes speeds and makes sudden turns, while the note symbols fly in from the sides and corners of the screen just to meet the path at the last second. Crazy colorful backgrounds are behind all this. It sounds like it's impossible to follow, but when I'm playing a song within my skill range and in the groove, it joins together so well and creates this amazing atmosphere.

The controls are two knobs, each with a big button on top. You can tap or mash or hold the buttons, and you can push and wiggle the knobs, all depending on the symbols that fly by. Each song also has hidden notes, where you can hit a button at an empty point and still get points. The wild display of gameplay plus these hidden notes really encourages playing songs over again to get to know them well.

The music doesn't have as broad of styles as say, Pop'n Music. There are a few different categories though. Vocaloid and Touhou music are present, which I know some people love, but I'm not that big on. There's a bunch of original creations by Taito musicians and rhythm game composing mainstays, which I do love. There's also a bunch of video game music. Stuff like Undertale and BlazBlue appear on the song list. There's also a lot of Taito music, of course. They're certainly not the most well-known assortment of games and songs, but I feel this is uniquely appealing to me. You may have noticed in my G-Darius writeup, a game by Taito, I stated that it was my favorite game soundtrack. There is a bunch of Darius music in Groove Coaster, including G-Darius. Daddy Mulk from the Ninja Warriors makes an appearance. Bubble Bobble, Space Invaders, and more classic games are represented, along with updated versions like Arkanoid DS, Dariusburst, and Space Invaders Extreme. Taito game music in general is kind of quirky, and I love it, and this category of music hits just the right spot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooBlOpKE6Bc



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Murphiroth posted...

Horizon Zero Dawn spoilers.

Fuck Ted Faro.

That damn Faro Ted

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#48 Jak II (Playstation 2, 2003)

Despite its ambitions, Jak II is kind of a silly game, and it really surprised me how different it was from The Precursor Legacy. It's not clear to me how Naughty Dog thought that they could suddenly make the character Jak "adult" and "serious" after what he was before. I guess the designers saw how games were trending at the time (the immense popularity of games like Halo and Grand Theft Auto 3 which both featured violent/mature content), and wanted to tap into that market a little. But not completely; Jak II might feature some gun violence and mild profanity and suggestive content, but nothing approaching a lot of the stuff you would see in GTA.



I think that stuff is fine, like I don't mind it. The game stands out with its sprawling world and satisfying gameplay that features a mix of new gun combat and the melee attacks from the previous game. It's a really fun game to play and rates so highly for me on that fact alone. Like The Precursor Legacy, the lack of loading screens in the world made everything feel incredibly connected together. A lot of cues were taken from GTA in the open-world design of the city, but the areas outside the city still felt a lot like a Jak game.

I don't know if the story still holds up though. The time travel nonsense is probably old by now, but I don't think anyone really plays these games for the story. It was serviceable and probably still is OK. Daxter is good.

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#35. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3, 2009)

So as I said in my UC3 write up, I had waited to play this and the original til right before 3 and played them each in a week. UC1 was really cool and you could see the groundwork for something amazing. Enter UC2. Uncharted 2 is almost the perfect movie is a video game. All the stuff from the original where combat was kind of a drag was fixed. The game is still gorgeous 11 years later. The places you go are so beautiful and cool. Yes it has the stupid blue men that take 13000 bullets but its is pretty brief that you have to deal with moronic super natural stuff. Sully is the man. There is a severe lack of Gabriel Roman. Wigs does an excellent impression of Lazerevic.



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#47 Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines (Microsoft Windows, 1998)

When it comes to games set during World War II, I think that FPS games in the vein of Call of Duty come to mind first. Commandos is a tactics game in that setting, in which you control up to six different allied commandos in a series of dangerous missions. It's a fun exercise in stealth and strategy and spawned several sequels and imitators that are also pretty good.



Each commando has a unique set of skills and it's game over if you lose one of them. The game is controlled in real time, and sometimes things can get a little frantic. Generally, you can't engage in open combat with the enemies, and have to use stealth or flanking to take people out.

The art in the game is really nice looking for its time, and whenever I see anything that looks like it I experience nostalgia. It also had a really fun/goofy style and atmosphere that made it feel unique. I'm pretty interested in the series reboot that is supposed to be coming up sometime soon; hopefully they can recapture the magic of this series.

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We are now halfway through! So here are the top 50 games so far:

#1 Rock Band 2: 366
#1 Mario Kart 8: 366
#3 The Walking Dead: Season 1: 364
#4 Super Smash Bros. Melee: 348
#5 Tecmo Super Bowl: 347
#6 Mega Man X: 282
#7 Batman: Arkham Asylum: 280
#8 Chrono Trigger: 277
#9 The World Ends With You: 267
#10 Final Fantasy IV: 266
#11 Final Fantasy VII: 247
#12 Mario Party 2: 246
#12 Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: 246
#14 Metroid Fusion: 242
#14 Mario Kart 64: 242
#14 Kirby Air Ride: 242
#17 Mega Man 3: 238
#18 Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow: 236
#19 Super Mario 64: 233
#20 Final Fantasy VI: 232
#20 Tetris Effect: 232
#22 Professor Layton and the Unwound Future: 230
#23 Pokemon RBY: 227
#24 Jackbox Party Pack: 225
#25 Fall Guys: 224
#25 Cosmic Star Heroine: 224
#27 Shadow of the Colossus: 221
#28 Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception: 219
#29 Mario Kart: Double Dash: 215
#30 Pikmin: 209
#30 Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin: 209
#32 Dark Souls: 208
#33 Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors: 206
#33 Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest: 206
#33 Uncharted 2: Among Thieves: 206
#36 Advance Wars: Dual Strike: 205
#37 Super Mario Galaxy: 204
#38 Yoshi's Island: 203
#39 Portal: 200
#39 Horizon Zero Dawn: 200
#41 Resident Evil 4: 197
#42 The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker: 189
#43 Hotel Dusk: Room 215: 187
#43 Borderlands 2: 187
#45 Super Mario World: 186
#46 Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker: 185
#47 Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies: 182
#48 Final Fantasy XIII: 180
#49 Simpsons Arcade: 178
#50 Red Dead Redemption: 175


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Excellent top 2

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#60 - Fire Emblem: Awakening (3DS, 2013)

A very good Fire Emblem game! It was pretty easy and had pretty boring map design but we hadn't had a Fire Emblem for five years and that one was Shadow Dragon so it was definitely a pick up for me. I had to get the download copy because Gamestop fucked me over by not getting enough copies to fulfill the preorders. They really crammed whatever mechanics they could into this title as it was probably going to be the last one had it not sold well, so we had the marriage/child character system, skills, pair up, and many references to the past games in the series which was a nice touch for people who had been with the series for a while. The DLC maps are some of the best ones in the series as well, touching on Lucina's actual past and bringing in battles between armies from previous Fire Emblem titles.

#59 - Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F (PS3, 2013)

In 2013 I had barely any knowledge of what a vocaloid even was, so this game was not even on my radar at the time. Though I learned about the demo going through some video game news, and since it was a rhythm game, I decided to try it out. This led me to purchasing the game and not just platinuming it once but actually getting it three times - the PS3 and Vita versions in the US and the JP version shared list. I actually am the first achiever for some of the NA Vita trophies. Check it out:

https://psnprofiles.com/trophy/2478-hatsune-miku-project-diva-f/15-a-place-to-unwind
https://psnprofiles.com/trophy/2478-hatsune-miku-project-diva-f/16-fabulous-furniture

This game also actually balances out the Vocaloids so while Miku does dominate the songs like always, you get to see a lot of the other ones as well.

#58 - Lost Dimension (Vita, 2015)

This game had a lot of potential. The basic example is you have multiple characters with various psychic abilities to defeat a boss known as The End. You have a number of traitors on your team, and every floor you must find the one traitor by bonding with your party members through the various quests at each floor. I don't actually remember the mechanic on how this worked, but I do remember having to do multiple playthroughs because one character kept getting chosen as a traitor before I could get their bond maxed out. This game also allows for you to sequence break in battle very well; there's one mission with a boss behind a locked door, with switches located all over the map. You could activate all the switches to unlock the room... or use the psychic who has a teleport ability and teleport your entire party into the boss room instead (though, like anyone else, he could be chosen as a traitor and could render this pointless.) There's several missions that have alternate ways to play and I felt it was very interesting to keep playing through the multiple times I went through the game.

#57 - Yakuza Kiwami (PS4, 2017)

This is actually the first Yakuza game I played. And I thought it was really good! Enjoyed pretty much all of it, the story, minigames, combat, and Majima. The climax battles were also a nice challenge - I felt none were too hard and they really tested how much you knew the combat system (well, except for the one where you play as Date). I feel like going from 0 to this game would make you like it a lot less, but that did not happen to me. Even taught myself how to play mahjong, oichi-kabu, and koi-koi (the best minigame) through this. It does have a lot of the stupid mini-games like cee-lo ported over from Yakuza 0 just to inflate the completion list, so that lowers it a bit in my rankings. And screw the car chase, doing it on Legend is still my the only thing standing in the way of getting the platinum in this, and I've tried it too many times to count.

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Some fun stats:

Nick has the most games in the top 50: (20)
KCF has the fewest games in the top 50: (3)

Makes sense as Nick has ranked the most and KCF the least.

More stats!

Arti: Most like MSG; Least like Eddv (no mutual games)

Bartz: Most like MSG; Least like KCF (no mutual games)

Cokes: Most like Naye; Least like Nee

Eddv: Most like MSG; Least like Naye, Nee (no mutual games)

KCF: Most like Nee; Least like Naye (no mutual games)

MSG: Most like Wigs; Least like KCF

Naye: Most like Cokes; Least like Eddv (no mutual games)

Nee: Most like Nick; Least like Eddv (no mutual games)

Nick: Most like Cokes; Least like KCF

Wigs: Most like Naye; Least like KCF (no mutual games)

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#40 - Mario Golf (GBC, 1999)


In this iteration of Mario Golf, you play as some no-name recruit to a golf academy. You begin taking lessons on how to use approach shots, power shots, and learn the mechanics of the game slowly and steadily. Taking these lessons grants you experience points that you can then use to boost your skills, just like Advance Tour (AT was functionally just a remake of this game, remember).

Once you have more stats, you can then choose to start entering tournaments, or challenging the club pros to a 1 on 1 match. In between all these main events are little side areas with crazy win conditions. You can stumble upon a course that has become completely overgrown and combines two holes into one, and you have to try and navigate this oversized hole full of only rough and deep rough and still make par. There is a Par 3 course that makes you hit all the greens and sink every putt to win. There is a club maker that can create new equipment for you to better fit your playstyles.

Win all the tourneys and beat all the pros, and youll eventually get to challenge the man himself: Mario. All said, this game was way ahead of its time. The story isnt anything to write home about, but its still kinda crazy to think that 90s Nintendo had the guts to try something like this, when their only previous golf game was just a sit down and play barebones experience with 3 whole courses. I bought this when it came out on 3DS Virtual Console and played through it all again, and it still holds up as a fantastic golf game experience. As the resident golf expert, I recommend this game whole-heartedly.

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#46. Space Invaders Extreme (DS, 2008)



oh hi, you may have noticed my last writeup that I name dropped the game Space Invaders Extreme. Well, here it is!

There's a few common links between this and other games on my list. It's a Taito with with wacky Taito music. Actions in Space Invaders Extreme all make sound effects, which link up with the music playing, a la Rez and Lumines. And it takes a simple, classic gameplay concept and gives it a whole bunch of flash and new twists and fast play, while still keeping the same core gameplay.

At its core, it's the same as always. The invaders come in formations, you clear them out, and sometimes hit UFOs that fly by. But the invaders sometimes have shields or shot reflectors or are massively large. They have a lot more formations. And they come in various colors. If you clear combos of colors, you unlock better weapons, like a bomb shot, a spread shot, or a big beefy blue laser. If you hit the UFOs, you get to play a mini-game which starts instantly, plays for like 15 seconds, and then you're right back into the action. These changes add a whole lot of features to Space Invaders, but also streamline and speed up the action so that it's rapid, constant fun.

There are also boss battles with huge invaders. The stage 4 boss is an incredibly creative battle, which looks really cool on the DS version of the game. Your ship ends up on the top half screen, and you have to reflect shots off the top to hit the giant boss on the bottom screen.



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#50. The Simpsons: Hit & Run (Gamecube, 2003)
Video games were inordinately unkind to The Simpsons over the years. Sure, you had the Arcade game, but even that at its core was a mediocre quarter-eating beat em up that only had value BECAUSE it was a Simpsons game, AND it wasn't completely horrible. Except it never had a console port until the more modern console generations. Yeah, bit of a hot take on that game, sorry. Also some of it runs pretty ugly- the main characters look good, but there's a ton of not-simpsons related stuff and it looks out of place- thinking about "Moe's bar" 1000 feet underground for example. The bosses include a wrestler? a Krusty hot air balloon? 2 gangsters? A bear? okay??

And then came The Simpsons: Road Rage. A decent Crazy Taxi clone, for as good a game as Crazy Taxi can be. It did not look very good, but it had enough characters and quotes to be okay. The lines wound up getting repeated a lot though, and all the Simpsons-related content felt very thrown in as if they were just references and nothing more. Here's... Chief Wiggum, saying some recycled line from the show as he picks up... Comic Book Guy, who wants to be driven to...Patty and Selma's apartment. Great. There were some specific interactions but not many. Mostly with Homer.

Simpsons Hit & Run really hit (pun) it out of the park though. This time, in GTA guise, with an actual story (not the greatest story, but it's enough for a video game plot-something something mind control soda) but the characters, the dialogue, the locations, and the missions are all now finally thoughtfully laid out and actually pay respect to the show. There's some legitimately funny stuff you would watch and laugh at as if it were a prime-era Simpsons episode. The neighborhood layout feels right too, and more guessed at in Road Rage.

The game is divided into a couple parts, where each time you're playing a different character, in a different part of town, as the story naturally lends itself to lead you to playing as the different characters. There's some references to well known Simpsons content, but the game stands largely on its own legs which works great. The gameplay is solid too. It's GTA, you know what you're getting. Mission-based driving gameplay. Drive through the items Homer stole from Flanders and return them to him. Stop at the Kwik-E-Mart. Take out Mr. Burns' surveillence bees. Drag race with Snake, while keeping your infamy meter low enough so Wiggum doesn't bust you. It's fun, controls well, and obviously is well-voiced. The platforming sections run a bit wonky- generally any time you need to get out of your car it plays a little slow, though that's how you get most of the collectibles, and it's still decently fun. There's a lot of different costumes and vehicles - that's where a lot of the straight references come into play and those are fine because they have nothing to do with the plot really.

I also enjoy the Ralph Wiggum run minigame races. The kid knows how to countdown a race. Those are probably the most frustrating parts of the game though gameplay-wise, oh well.

All things said. Finally a Simpsons game that feels like what one should've been. It all works and if you love the Simpsons, it's a must-play. Not really required though if you're not!



Hint: A 3DS game that is only probably on Arti's list besides mine.

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#45. Shinobi III (Genesis, 1993)



The Shinobi games started in the '80s arcades. They were ninja games, but they were kind of slow paced, stiff, and calculated in gameplay. Shinobi III came along a little later in the system's life, and despite not being the first game on the system, it finally kicked the series into the 16-bit era.

The highest point of Shinobi III is the control and movement options. Joe Musashi can run, slide, wall jump, double jump, dive kick, ride a horse, ride a surfboard, and more. The levels don't just focus on fighting enemies with your shurikens, but also about navigating the large areas with all these movement options.

There are a lot of levels with unique elements and memorable bosses (including a Mechagodzilla boss?). The action is well-paced and fair and there are a whole ton of hidden pickups and ninja abilities to use. It's easily the most solid platformer I've played on the Genesis (I'm not an expert on the system, but I think this still says something), It's a whole lot of fun to play through every time, and just feels like I'm doing a lot of cool things.

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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 seems Everybody loves Everybody's Golf

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#72 Super Solvers Mission: T.H.I.N.K. (PC, 1999)


While we are all somewhat close together in age I assume, years in age difference can be huge when it comes to playing edutainment games. While others have posted early-to-mid 90s games, I was born in the 90s, so by the time I started playing games on the computer, there were different edutainment games sold in stores. I didn't play many edutainment games to be honest. Most of them dealt with marine life or ancient civilizations, but the one that I always held in the highest esteem was Mission T.H.I.N.K.

You . There's a car assembly puzzle where you have to guide a car built by your design along a series of elevators that has to pass various conditions along the way. There's a maze of doors and hallways where you have to set traps for enemies that try to impede your progress. There's plenty more too, but at the end of each floor or however they separated the areas, there's a rather unique chess-like game where you have to get your pawn to the opposite side before your opponent does using a fixed set of items with different effects. While I had a lot of fun with each puzzle type, I honestly think what caused me to like it as much as I did was how each floor was home to progressively more complex puzzles that did a good job at enhancing my critical thinking skills in a different way than other video games did.

The sense of accomplishment from an edutainment game like this was unparalled for me, and for that, it is one of the games I first think of when it comes to nostalgia.

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#71 Grand Theft Auto III (PS2, 2001)


One of the most influential games in history, GTA III is not a token pick here. Yeah, Vice City and San Andreas improved upon it in virtually every area, but GTA III I feel was the best sandbox of the three. III took place in Liberty City, which is based on New York City. It's packed tight with a ton of buildings and a high population density to where you can't go more than a few seconds before running into drivers or pedestrians. This makes it the perfect game to just go wild.

Back in the early 2000s, my friends and I would have a printed sheet of all the cheats for the game. We would take turns inputting whatever cheats we wanted. Every weapon in the game? Put them to good use! Tanks? You got it! Flying cars? Have fun! Pedestrians tearing each other apart? Join in!

What we wanted was lots of mayhem, and GTA III offered plenty of that and then some.

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#46 God of War II (Playstation 3, 2009)

I go back and forth sometimes on which God of War game is the best, but it's always either 2 or 3. When it comes down to it, I really think that 2 just exemplifies what is good about the series. The pacing is non-stop, the climax is very satisfying, and the weapons and bosses are both really fun.

God of War II improved on the first game in just about every aspect, and particularly in the combat and the setting. Every attack just feels "better," and I can't really describe it any more than that. I also really like how the game has Kratos adventuring to myriad environments, meeting (and usually murdering) figures from mythology along the way. That's probably the top advantage the game has over its sequel; Mount Olympus just is not as interesting as everywhere else that Kratos goes in God of War II.

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Time for the........

EXXXXTREEEEEME BLOCK

#39 - Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (N64, 2000)


Tony Hawk is a series that prides itself on feeling good to play. THPS1 was fine, but options were limited by what was directly lined up to combo with. With the addition of the manual, Tony Hawk very suddenly became one of the most fun games to just pop in and play of all-time. Levels were no longer so restricted and were allowed to be more open. You could feel like a skateboarding god, comboing from line to line all over the place. Street skateboarding was super OP all of a sudden.

Sadly, I do think the levels took a slight step down from Tony Hawk 1, though. Only Venice and Philadelphia really bring back fond memories from my youth, compared to 5 levels from THPS1. But thats mostly beside the point, since the game just feels so much better to play. After 1 fun game, I wasnt sure it wouldnt just be a flash in the pan, but after a second amazing game, I was inspired to take up skateboarding myself. I was absolutely awful at it, and never landed a single kickflip or shove-it, but I could ollie and manual pretty well! One of my best friends was so into it, he got his dad to help him build a 7 foot tall quarter pipe in his massive backyard shed that we would take turns falling on our faces trying to skate down. I never did manage to pull that off, either, but thats not THPS2s fault.

Just to make sure I was being fair having this at the bottom of my EXTREME BLOCK, I went out and bought THPS1+2 on Tuesday and 100%'d it over the last few days. It is in fact still a fantastic game.

........ but not quite the best Tony Hawk game ever....

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#34. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (PS4, 2016)

Barely better, but the pinnacle of the series. Uncharted 4 does everything that 2 does but just slightly better. My main difference maker here is that this is the only game in the series I played the multiplayer at all. While the one mode is absolute trash. Fuck you pirate god asshole! The other modes I spent months playing with Wigs and Bartz and MSG and Icon and others. ONE DOES NOT CROSS GABRIEL ROMAN!!!!! The truck chase scene is one of the best parts of any game ever. It made me feel really good. Also this game has no supernatural crap bogging it down. Well except in the multiplayer....



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EXXXXTREEEEEME BLOCK (cont.)

#38 - Skate 3 (PS3, 2010)


I really like the entire Skate series, but its 3 that stands out to me above all the rest. I played most of it before I even knew it was a completely broken mess, and I still had a wonderful time.

The controls are great. Your left thumbstick controls the direction you want to go, while you use the right thumbstick to mimic what you want the board to do. If you hold down, you will crouch, and then you flip up, you will ollie. Flip up and to the right or left, and you will do a kickflip. Land on a rail while holding up and you will do a noseslide, while holding down will do a tailslide. If you hold a trigger, you will grab the board with your hand. It all feels incredibly intuitive in the first place, and the more you play, the more you will feel like you can do some crazy shit.

However, because of this control scheme, you arent just going around comboing from rail to rail like a Tony Hawk Pro Skater madman. Skate is much more grounded in reality, at least in terms of the tricks you are able to pull off, and despite what that screenshot I chose to include would indicate. Your typical combo in Tony Hawk might be 20 tricks long. Your typical combo in Skate is a pop shove-it into a grind of a rail until you fall off the end. Something you would see in a real skate montage.

HOWEVER. That does not mean that Skate 3 itself is grounded in reality. Oh no no no, far from it. One of its main modes is called Hall of Meat, where you purposefully bail and try to direct your skater into as much harm as possible, breaking as many bones and getting as many bruises as you can. Not gonna mince words here, this is easily my favorite mode.

But wait, theres more! Thanks to some trailblazers like HelixSnake (pictured above), players have found out that the code behind the scenes of Skate 3 is. shaky at best. As a result, there are some fabulous and insane things you can pull off, just by a few presses of a button. Here is Helix making his character completely implode several times:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpdvELrfFsU

Here he is, after he figured out that plywood can make you fly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0Vncc0B6TU

Long story short, Skate 3 is a wonderful and beautiful mess, and I love everything about it.

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#45 Dead Space 2 (Playstation 3, 2011)

I said before that Dead Space is the perfect Survival Horror game. Dead Space 2 is much more of an Action Horror game, although some of the survival elements are still there. And the changes it makes to the series elevate it for me.



The game plays at a much faster pace than before, and Isaac gets some new weapons and firing modes that help move the game along. The setting also changed from an abandoned mining ship to an overrun space colony, which introduces new Necromorphs and and some horrifying new situations. All throughout, Isaac's insanity continues to complicate matters. The designers decided to give him a voice in this one which helps somewhat with the story-telling and let Isaac take a more active role in things.

Other than that, it's really just more Dead Space, and I guess for me that's a really nice thing.

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#49. Picross 3D: Round 2 (3DS, 2016)
I love Picross and this would not be a good Wigs list without a Picross game around here. But what's important in a good Picross game? The trickiest thing is control and they're all bad on mobile, and even Switch makes that tricky. Truly, we shine here with a stylus and shoulder buttons, so the DS or 3DS reigns supreme. And then we add a good twist. Put the puzzle in 3D. So we have 3D Picross on the DS. Adding the extra dimension adds an extra layer of... dimension. I wish there were more harder puzzles, and it takes a while to build up to the more interesting ones, but it's still fun. It also has the circle and square variants, where you have the # of squares in that row broken up by 2s or 3s or more.

And then we add one more layer with 3D Picross Round 2. Firstly, it's on the 3DS not the DS so we're already a step ahead there. We add a second color, working with orange and blue, which isn't that uncommon a thing to more advanced Picross games, but still well-appreciated here. Anyway, everything just feels great here. The way you pop the pieces and how it feels when you do. The puzzles themselves are more interesting and complicated than in the first one. Plus there is a bit of flavor as the actual puzzles will just give you a nice little blurb about the thing you made that sound like Jon Bois tweets so that's always good for a laugh.

Anyway, I just really love Picross and I'd be remiss to not have one on here, and this is clearly the best one imo for its extra depth, good control scheme, perfect console for it, and little bit of humor, so here it is. Shoutout to Pokemon Picross though for being a free game where you never have to pay a dime, you just do a limited number of pokemon related puzzles each day. Solid.



Next up: A game that the first time I played it, I gave up on trying to advance because I owned it used.

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44. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64, 1998)

Talking about Ocarina of Time in 2021 feels like an impossible task: either you breathlessly explain why Ocarina is clearly one of the best video games ever made, or you unfurl a laundry list of flaws that summarize why it's severely overrated. So here I go, trying to straddle the line in-between the two and give a measured take of (perhaps) the most popular video game of all time.
Ocarina's combat was a really smart choice for 1998 - the Z-targeting system became the basis for Zelda swordfights in every other game going forward. Compared to Wind Waker five years later, though, the depth of combat options is a little lacking; most fights are either a couple of simple slashes or are a little sluggish and belabored (like the Stalfos). The dungeons are pretty solid overall though, similarly, I think later games got a little more creative with how items were used and didn't rely on anything nearly as tedious as constantly rummaging through the item menu to take on/off the Iron Boots in the Water Temple. And structurally, the game does a good job keeping things moving, not getting you bogged down in unnecessary sidequests (hey Majora's Mask) but giving you lots of cute optional mini-games and quests if you want to go down that road.
What makes Ocarina such a standout classic, for me, is its (at the time) unparallelled storytelling and atmosphere. Of course, the game's storyline is essentially a re-working of A Link to the Past, with the "collect 3 trinkets -> get the Master Sword -> travel to alternate world -> find all the 6/7 sages -> go beat Ganon" parts all fully intact. The 3D environments and characters, with their more comprehensive worldbuilding, bring this plot to life, actually giving faces and storylines to all of the Sages and their respective temples. And speaking of the temples themselves, their atmosphere is fantastic, from the music to their downright creepiness. If the child dungeons feel like a simple introduction to the game, the adult temples are where the seriousness of the plot begins to take shape. The Forest Temple brings home how much blight has befallen your cute childhood home, and the Shadow Temple is wonderfully dark, spooky, and weird.
I also adore the game's titular instrument and its fascination with music. There's something inherently satisfying about playing out tunes on the ocarina, whether it's for intended game purposes or just messing around with its simple functionality. (you can flatten or sharpen notes for some reason!) Even without being super relevant gamewise, there's something that always gets me with the sequences where Sheik teaches you one of the Temple warp songs on the ocarina - they're part of the many moments that (imo) still hold up to this day.
I don't think in 2021 Ocarina of Time is the revolutionary experience it was when first bringing over the Zelda franchise to 3D in 1998, but I do think its charms and general gameplay flow still hold up great. And as someone who's played and enjoyed enough of the Zelda games throughout the years, I feel pretty good about still placing it fairly high on the gaming pedestal, even despite its limitations.

43. Okami (PS2, 2006)

Fast-forward eight years to 2006, where a relatively unknown Capcom development studio took the core structure of Ocarina of Time and...outdid Zelda? Okami is a visually brilliant, cel-shaded adventure game where you take control of the sun goddess Amaterasu, in the incarnation of a cute white doggo with a sword. (Eat your heart out, Pokmon.) As Amaterasu, you wander around an open world, fighting enemies, completing quests, and accruing a myriad of collectibles, all while accompanied by a miniature traveling companion. Sound familiar? Sure, and Okami makes no real pretense of not being directly inspired by the Zelda franchise.
But the game absolutely stands on its own; the game's core gimmick is the "Celestial Brush", an ability that allows you to draw various symbols on the screen during battles for different effects. I can't speak for the game's many HD ports, which have improved controls, but on PS2 it was both a little clunky but still functionally fine. The game's combat also interestingly takes you into a darkened and portioned-off screen when you encounter an enemy on the overworld, meaning you have to "resolve" enemy encounters by defeating them or actively running away, instead of just being able to breeze by them on the map entirely.
What really endears me to Okami, though, is its story. Divided (largely) into three big sections, Amaterasu follows along with the stories of a legendary swordsman slaying a giant dragon, a palace cursed by a nine-tailed fox, and a snow-covered mountain housing the ultimate demon. All of these tales largely follow along to actual Japanese mythology, and are rendered beautifully in the game's lovely cel-shaded visuals. There's a whole host of little stories and sidequests adding color in-between, making the whole plot feel absolutely unique from not only the Zelda franchise but all of gaming as a whole. And the Eastern influences feel sincere, respectful, and earned by the game's narrative complexity.
I didn't end up checking out Okami until 2010, fully-cleared it, and haven't touched it since. And just putting together this writeup, I'm feeling inspired to bust it out and give it another go, the memories are so endearing and charming. It's a game that manages to take the structure of a Zelda game and make something greater out of those parts, and I can't recommend it highly enough.

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#48. Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes (Gamecube, 2004)
I first played this game on the PS1, and got it used. Of course, I got about a third into the game and was told to contact Meryl, whose codec appeared "on the back of the CD case". And so began my hours long search for some CD item in game hoping that it would give me the number I needed to call. I couldn't find it, and I had no instruction manual or anything to refer to, as my game came in a plain white sleeve. Perhaps blame the store for selling a copy of Metal Gear Solid without the case. I couldn't progress and gave up. Didn't even think to check the internet, or whatever existed of it at the time.

Flash forward some years later. Twin Snakes comes out, and at some point, after hearing so much rave about this series, I want to try again. So I buy a copy of Twin Snakes, thinking well, maybe I'll just figure it out this time. I got it used. It came in a gamecube case, but it was a plain case. Someone had printed out plain black Times New Roman size 48 text and put it in the case, and that's all it was. Again, I got stuck in the same spot. (in both cases, after taking like an hour to get through that first room of course... a Metal Gear Solid rite of passage). This time I looked up what to do when I got stuck and found sure enough, I was literally supposed to look on the back of the
"CD Case" I didn't have. I suppose I could've guessed at each number also!

Anyway, I really enjoy stealth gameplay, and this is one of the kings. The story is well done and is just a little bit off the rails but still within the realm of being coherent before Kojima went completely insane, while still having so many of his nice touches. A favorite of course is the Psycho Mantis fight and switching the controller ports and the memory card reading scene, which is something younger me still found awesome. I think the game works better in its Twin Snakes form than the original too (which I did eventually play as intended as well).The characters are well-rounded and memorable. The plot does get a little stock footagey and drawn out, as is MGS, but I think its still a well told game with a lot of heart.



Next up: A very popular Nintendo game with a play on words in the title

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55. Mario Tennis (Nintendo 64, 2000)

Not only is Mario Tennis the most fun tennis game around, it gave the world the greatest gift a game could give: Waluigi.

For that, how could it not make the list?

54. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (PlayStation 2, 2001)

I can't say for certain that this is the weirdest Metal Gear Solid game, but I feel pretty comfortable assuming that it is, We all clamored for the Tanker Demo, and I assume we all loved it. Then we get the full game, and SURPRISE, it's Raiden. And he's doing nude cartwheels. And Snake is there in disguise (though not much of a disguise if you were a fan of Escape from New York, which was very clearly an enormous influence on Kojima in the making of this game, especially when you consider the stuff they had to remove due to 9/11). It just gets progressively more batshit from there. And I loved every minute of the madness.

Gimme an HD Remake Director's Cut, Kojima.

53. Super Monkey Ball 2 (Gamecube, 2002)

Super Monkey Ball was a good game, and an unexpected hit for Sega. It had satisfying single player and multiplayer modes. It was, actually, the first video game my brother and I could reliably get our parents to play, because Monkey Target, Monkey Bowling, and Monkey Billiards were easy to understand and be competitive at (I'm not sure another game has done Billiards as well since, to be honest)

Super Monkey Ball 2 took everything that was good about the original and exceeded it. The levels got wilder, longer, funnier, and more challenging. Challenge mode's secret stages turned all of those factors to 11. The multiplayer expanded, introducing games like Monkey Baseball and Monkey Boatrace, and improving the preexisting games significantly. The series never again reached these heights, but man, for a couple of years, this game got nearly as much play in my life as Smash did.

52. NBA Jam (Arcade, 1993)

I previously stated that NBA Street Vol. 2 is the best basketball game of all time, and I stand by that. It's a perfect blend of arcade style theatrics and realistic basketball a la NBA Live or 2K. But the incorporation of those high flying theatrics is owed almost entirely to NBA Jam, the second best basketball game ever, but certainly the most important. This is a game whose success was so pervasive within basketball culture that you can feel its influence in modern NBA broadcasts and arenas. The entire idea of a "heat check" three exists because of Jam. NBA Jam players figured out long before NBA GMs did that threes and dunks win games. We talk about the way Madden influenced the NFL all the time, but for a game so objectively ridiculous as NBA Jam to have had the influence it did is just as impressive, I think.

51. Donkey Kong (Game Boy, 1994)

Donkey Kong 94 exists as both a sequel and reimagining of the Donkey Kong games of yore, while also surpassing them in every way. The game opens with the familiar classic Donkey Kong run to rescue Pauline... except when you finish the fourth level, DK isn't as down for the count as he seems. The rest of the game unfolds over 9 increasingly difficult and vibrant worlds, each requiring different skills and applications of those skills, totaling 101 levels. DK Jr swings through to disrupt your progress at times, and Mario apes a few abilities from Super Mario Bros. 2 to even out the playing field. And, as I recall, you can only save after beating a boss level, which happens every 4 stages. The whole affair proves to be the absolute perfect presentation of one of the all-time classics.

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#44 Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume (Nintendo DS, 2009)

Despite being the third game in the series, this one acts as a prequel to the original Playstation game. It's also the first one that I played. My brother had the other games and for some reason lent this to me to play on my DS. I enjoyed it so much that I played through the other games later.



Covenant of the Plume plays something like a tactical RPG. The battles are fought on an isometric grid in a turn-based fashion. Like other Valkyrie Profile games, combat with party members uses the face buttons as a means of controlling each character's attackseach character uses a different button and your effectiveness comes down to timing the attacks properly. How many characters engage in combat depends on how you position them before launching an attack.

The main character, Wylfred, a human who led a tragic life in which his father was killed and claimed by the Valkyrie in the afterlife. His family left in poverty, he blames his circumstance on the Valkyrie and swears revenge. Shortly afterward, Wylfred is also killed, but is given another life by a demon, along with an ability that will sacrifice the life of a friend in exchange for immense power. The rest of the game concerns Wylfred's role in a war between kingdoms in the world of humans as he prepares to slay the Valkyrie. It's a tragic and more mature story than most and I found that fresh.



The game is impossibly hard. The only reliable way to win battles is to sacrifice your allies in order to power up Wylfred. However, the more allies you sacrifice, the darker circumstances become and the more of a "bad" ending you receive. The neat thing about the game is that you can start a NG+ and retain some of Wylfred's power, which lets you make it through the game sacrificing fewer people and get progressively better endings. It's a neat mechanic and gave me a reason to finish the game multiple times. The game itself is not very long, and the story changes depending on your actions, so playing through a few times was not a chore. If you want to go even deeper, there are some post-game scenarios to take your characters into once you tire of the main game.

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I liked the original many moons ago

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EXXXXTREEEEEME BLOCK (more cont.)

#37 - Snowboard Kids 2 (N64, 1999)


God this game rules. I really enjoyed Snowboard Kids 1. Out of nowhere, here came this new series that was basically a kart racer in disguise, but you did tricks off ramps to get coins to spend on item boxes and weapons. It was ingenious. It had some good variety in the courses and characters, and was a blast to play with friends.

But it wasnt until Snowboard Kids 2 until I realized the potential this series could have. Flips were made much quicker, leading to more technical tricks. The levels were cranked up to 11. You say the first game had a night course and an amusement park? Fuck it, this game has you snowboarding in space. You want more? How about they go back in time and race a velociraptor. Oh, thats still not enough for you? What if the kids all get blasted by a shrink ray and then have to race over a piano and through the sink over dirty dishes as they blast through one characters house? And every character has their own outfits for all the different, weird courses. Like, they all have Halloween costumes for the haunted house race. That first picture I posted shows Slash in his space suit. There was no real need for them to go that far, but they did, and its that level of polish that made me really love this game.

And that wasnt enough. Apparently, at some point, they were like hey, why dont we put some boss fights in our kart racer? At one point, you have to shoot bombs at a fuckin snowman tank. Then you have to fight whatever the hell this demon robot is.


I have no recollection of what BK is. Is he sponsored by Burger King? Fuck if I know.... BUT REALLY WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS GAME IT WAS SO AHEAD OF ITS TIME

And the music is just mwah (pretend I did like a chef kiss). I still go back and listen to this games soundtrack every now and then. Sunny Mountain, Wendys House, and Hurry! Hurry! are some sick jams. And the first 40 seconds of Lindas Castle give me goosebumps. Maybe my favorite 40 seconds of video game music ever, and Im not even exaggerating. I never learned even the basics of playing the piano, but I remember sitting in my room with an old Casio keyboard teaching myself how to play the ending credits song. God I have a ton of memories of this game. I dont think Ive played it in over a decade, and now I really want to. I hope I still have my copy, cuz they sure aint cheap nowadays.

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