Board 8 > Epyo's Top 100 Games of All Time (with write-ups)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Hey! I don't post that much, but I've been on the board for a long time, since 2006-ish.

I've made some longform "ranking" topics in the past, my favorite one was ranking EVERY WoW zone (as of Wrath of the Lich King), that was probably around 2009. I should do that again, that was a fun one.

Anyway, I will DEFINITELY finish this topic, because I already know what I wanna write for most of the games, I've written down some bullets for most of them. Except the top 10. How do you reduce your favorite games to just bullet points...

SOME FACTOIDS:

* There will be 8 games with "Castlevania" in the title!
* There will be 4 games with "Golf" in the title!
* There will be 15+ games that I would consider "Casual" games! I love casual games, for some reason. I'm tired after work, ok? Leave me alone.
* I like all genres, most of them are on the list somewhere...except perhaps "Fighting" games. Never liked those.

#100: Winigolf

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/8/7/AABIPnAADg3_.png

This was a free downloadable PC game in the 2000s. If you're brave, you can still download it and play it today! I just did, to make sure it's as good as I remember.

Simplicity is underrated in video games. All I really want to do in life is hit satisfying buttons. I don't need tutorials, I don't need stories, just cut to the buttons, man.

JUST LEMME PUTT!!!

There's a good design detail that keeps it interesting: after every stroke, the camera rotates to a new completely random angle, and you can't manually rotate the camera!! So you can't just line up your camera to aim, no, you actually have to aim by "eyeballing it", just like in real life.

And the level design captures the essence of minigolf: hitting a ball uphill, and accidentally hitting it hard, so that it falls back down, ending up even farther than it started. That third dimension is CRUCIAL to that essential part of the sport: getting pissed.

BEST LEVEL: The Pyramid. It's a perfect way to ruin your day.

Epyo posted...

* There will be 8 games with "Castlevania" in the title!
* There will be 4 games with "Golf" in the title!

Gonna bet that "Castlevania Super Golf" will be #1.

...yes I just totally made that up. But tag.

Tag. I usually don't comment much in these but I'm interested to see the rankings for sure

tag

BlueCrystalTear posted...

Gonna bet that "Castlevania Super Golf" will be #1.

...yes I just totally made that up. But tag.

OOH that would be amazing. Better than castlevania pachinko or whatever they do with castlevania these days!

I would also settle for castlevania peggle

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#99 Fall Guys

<img src="https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/vgQaT7JjuPjaEXwrUB8mwV.jpg">

The MMO genre started with MMORPGs. This somehow tricked the video game industry into assuming that "Massively Multiplayer Online" games have to be complicated. Because that's how MMOs started, with MMORPGs.

And it took 20+ years for anyone to figure out that mistake...

Because actually, EVERYONE wants to screw around 50+ people simultaneously, online. It's INHERENTLY fun. You don't have to make the game deep, or even interesting.

You don't even have to make the game good. Look at battle royale games. Janky as hell. Look at Fall Guys.

Just make ANYTHING, but let people play with 50+ people simultaneously, and they'll enjoy it!

BEST LEVEL: "Hex-a-Gone" is a masterpiece. So much strategy and tactics! Now that I think about it, maybe this game should be higher, for Hex-a-Gone's sake.

Hex-a-Gone is trash

Fall Guy wouldve been higher on my list as well before it went free to play. Not that Im obsessive with collecting skins, but now its at a point where you basically have to pay to get more than one or two of the epic skins in a season.

It was never perfect but I agree with it being stupid/fun which is totally fine!

Johnbobb posted...

Hex-a-Gone is trash

How come!! I've never heard of people not liking it!

Hex-A-Ring is trash but Hex-A-Gone is a masterpiece

Epyo posted...

How come!! I've never heard of people not liking it!

I feel like HaG suffers from ping/lag/etc more than probably any other challenge in the game. There have been so many times I've died from something dumb like the character not standing up quick enough to move again after a dive jump

Ahh that makes sense. Fall Guys jank would undermine the beauty of it quite a lot.

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#98 Desktop Tower Defense

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/6/2/AABIPnAADg6u.jpg

This was a free Flash game that was popular in the 2000s, hopefully you played it. You build and maintain towers, to defeat 50 waves of creeps, and then that's it, you beat the game.

It was my introduction to tower defense, and it blew my mind. I haven't felt the same impact from most later tower defense games.

AND it did the cool tower defense thing where YOU are designing the maze for the enemies to walk through. When I played other tower defense games later that DIDN'T have this feature, I was like, wtf, how do they not have this feature.

This game fundamentally changed my perspective on "balance" in video games. You quickly discover in this game, that certain towers are just plain overpowered. ...But, it's more fun that way. It's fun to learn what's good and what's bad.

Sometimes, what appears to be bad "imbalanced design" is more surprising and memorable, making it good design.

BEST LEVEL: Wave 49 (out of 50) is simply two Flying bosses--and they simply fly over your maze, giving you basically 0 time to kill them. Total BS. I love it, it's hilarious.

(picture taken from this enjoyable joke-speedrun https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRPdENMloVg )

Oh I forgot, I also did a "Top 61 Things to Stumble Across in Breath of the Wild" a couple years ago on B8. I really enjoyed writing that one. I saved that one: https://epyoblog.com/2020/11/21/top-62-things-to-stumble-across-in-breath-of-the-wild/

#96 Desert Golfing

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/6/4/AABIPnAADhCk.png

This is the only application I've ever enjoyed on a phone. I don't like using phones for anything.

But this game is just casual enough for me to pull it out, while waiting for the check at a restaurant, to play a couple holes, and put it away. The ultimate instant satisfaction game.

I'm also a big fan of procedural generation, and this is an all-time great usage of it, IMO. I just want to keep playing just to see what the next one looks like. And the next one!

(I also like the sequel Golf on Mars, but I think applying spin eventually gets tedious, and I end up going back to the more pure original.)

BEST LEVEL: I played one recently with a death pit, where you HAD to bounce the ball off of the far vertical wall of the pit. It was required, due to an overhang on the near wall, above the hole!!!

Tag! I liked your BotW topic. Fall Guys is the only one of these so far that I've played (and heard of >_>) so I'm looking forward to learning about plenty of new games here! Desktop Tower Defence sounds like something I would have spent hours and hours on back in the day, probably a good thing it somehow passed me by.

Thanks lol! The hardest part about write-ups is not making them too long... It's so fun to write about good games!

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#95 Riven: The Sequel to Myst

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/4/4/AABIPnAADhFY.jpg

I love the general concept of Myst--an immersive world of thematic logic puzzles, and an underlying "Myst"ery. Totally into it.

However, the original game's environments and story, are a little corny for me--the environments in the game were designed by an in-game character, to teach his sons some lessons, or something like that. As a result, the environments feel...like they were designed by some dad, as a lesson. So, fake, and corny. Not exactly immersive.

"Riven" improves upon this by having a way more interesting story and believable world to figure out. These are worlds with interesting alien cultures!

The whole point is that you have to understand the cultures to solve the puzzles, as opposed to being arbitrary logic puzzles (like some other games in the genre).

There are a couple of games very similar to Riven, all the way up in this list's top 20...

BEST PUZZLE: Figuring out an alien race's number system, by messing around with a weird Hangman toy you find in a schoolroom.

#94 Minesweeper

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/8/4/AABIPnAADhGA.jpg

I'm not a Tetris fan, but I *think* people like Tetris for the same reasons I like Minesweeper.

At first, it seems like a decent spatial/mathematical logic puzzle, with the convenient feature that it generates new puzzles endlessly.

But as you quickly master the puzzle, it transforms into a skill-based, fast pattern recognition game, with a high skill ceiling. The faster your brain can internalize the logic, the faster you go. Mouse dexterity becomes a big part of it too!! If I had to pick a game to "get really into speedrunning", I think I'd choose Minesweeper.

The big flaw in the game of course, is the 50/50 chance situations like in my screenshot above. Almost a dealbreaker, but I've heard this is fixable with mods.

BEST LEVEL: Expert level! The others are a little too easy--big numbers don't show up often enough.

Props to Karl Jobst's video about minesweeper speedrunning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2kWCfzJVVU

predicting What The Golf and Golf Story as the other two

Tag

Are your numbers off or did you skip #97?

Oops! Yeah just the numbers are off by one. Thank you!!!

Johnbobb posted...

predicting What The Golf and Golf Story as the other two

Aww I haven't played What the Golf, it looked really good though!! I think I was playing WoW or something nonstop when that came out, and I never got around to it... Maybe I'll play it now.

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#94 Unpacking

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/4/5/AABIPnAADhKF.jpg

The second-newest game on the list (I think)! This is that pixel art game where you unpack someone's stuff, from moving boxes, over and over again, as they grow up through life.

There's a skinner box going on here: every time you click a moving box, and a fresh item pops out that you need to place, it's a pleasant surprise. What's gonna come out next?? Something new? Something you recognize and have unpacked 5 times? That's what makes it excellent, for me.

But yeah, the creativity and light puzzle solving is good too, and the pixel art can be pretty heart-melting. Great music too.

And it just really makes you think about life. I was mildly close tears for most of the game--not for any particular reason, but just because it fundamentally triggered some deep sentimental nostalgia about life itself, for me. It's a really unique profound feeling!!

BEST LEVEL: The one with the cosplay outfit in the living room. It just seemed like a really fun place to live for our hero, and I'm envious of it.

I'm playing Unpacking right now!

Epyo posted...

Aww I haven't played What the Golf, it looked really good though!! I think I was playing WoW or something nonstop when that came out, and I never got around to it... Maybe I'll play it now.

What the Golf? is extremely goofy but it's a fun time, even if it's pretty hard to call it a golf game half the time

a lot of references to other games in really cool ways too

OK I'm 20 minutes into What the Golf. It's pretty good! I'm not crazy about it, but maybe I'll like it more as I go. Yep I probably wouldn't even classify it as a golf game...

Johnbobb posted...

I'm playing Unpacking right now!

Nice lol!! Hope I didn't spoil anything =]

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#93 Doom 3

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/8/3/AABIPnAADhXL.jpg

As a first person shooter, yeah, it's nothing special. In fact, the combat is garbage, compared to the gameplay of original Doom.

But as a lonely atmospheric flashlight adventure, it's good! It's been said that Lighting can make the difference between a good game and a bad game, and I think iD Software must have taken that personally... And it paid off!

The game is about making players enjoy the lighting system--the story, the environment (an underground shadowy Mars base), creatures popping out of dark corners... It's a game where you NEED to turn off your IRL lights, and enjoy the in-game lights...

...And you should also put on headphones, to enjoy the sound of vents, pistons, and clanks. Half the enjoyment of the game is the clanks. There might be more mysterious clanking noises in Doom 3 than any other video game!

Another nice thing is, unlike other Doom games, you get to experience the sudden and mysterious demonic invasion (usually Doom games start *after* the fact). This makes it exciting to watch the base go from normal to totally wrecked, throughout the game. I actually even enjoy the audio logs--spooky stories that make the base feel more haunted!

BEST LEVEL: Hell. It's so euphoric to get there, after SO MANY levels of tech bases. But yeah, they also did a great job on it.

#92 Golf Peaks

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/4/2/AABIPnAADhYG.jpg

Golf Peaks is an unexpected collision of three things that I love!

1. I love mini golf (as evidenced by this list so far). I'm still waiting for my dream mini golf video game to exist. (The ones on the list are good though!)

2. I also love those real-life physical logic puzzle games like "Rush Hour", where they give you 40 puzzles, plastic pieces, simple actions you're allowed to take, and you mess around with it 'til you figure it out. This is basically one of those, but without all the hassle.

3. I also love card games, especially "solitaire" card games like this. I've even designed a bunch in my spare time!

So, as long as they didn't add anything annoying, this game was bound to be great. And it is! There's nothing annoying about it! Huzzah.

BEST LEVEL: I guess I like Chapter 2, when it's all still just grass and walls. Most pure!

Epyo posted...

OK I'm 20 minutes into What the Golf. It's pretty good! I'm not crazy about it, but maybe I'll like it more as I go. Yep I probably wouldn't even classify it as a golf game...

yeah it's definitely no Golf Story but just a fun little romp. Some levels are drastically better than others imo

1,519 holes into Golf on Mars and I just now learn that there's a spin mechanic. OK.

MrSmartGuy posted...

1,519 holes into Golf on Mars and I just now learn that there's a spin mechanic. OK.

OMG!!!!

I bet that's not uncommon though! I bet I was 100-200 holes in before realizing.

#91 Hydro Thunder

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/8/5/AABIPnAADhaV.jpg

By replacing cars with boats, you just end up with a more interesting racing game. It's just true. I genuinely believe all racing games should use boats instead.

The turbulence in the water means taking a turn is more interesting--if you're bouncing too much, you'll have trouble, so you have to pay attention to waves and timing.

And, different boat designs are gonna clearly handle differently physically, so no more looking at wheel stats, or whatever, I don't know.

Track design can be really ridiculous, you can put giant ramps, and jumps, and cliffs in the level, and it's no big deal, because boats can safely land in water and flip themselves right-side-up afterward. (Indeed, this game has some wild tracks, such as "New York Disaster", an apocalyptic adventure.)

You can also add tons of shortcuts where you jump your boat upward, and it skims across some ground into somewhere cool, and that's awesome, everybody loves cool video game secrets.

It's just better!

BEST LEVEL: Nile Adventure. One innovation in this game is, most of the tracks are epic one-way adventures (not lap-based), like Mount Wario in Mario Kart 8. Nile Adventure is the longest one of these!

You have a lot of real unorthodox shit up in here

Epyo posted...

BEST LEVEL: Hell. It's so euphoric to get there, after SO MANY levels of tech bases. But yeah, they also did a great job on it.

My friend and I played this co-op, and when we got to hell and all our equipment was taken -- when ammo hadn't exactly been plentiful before -- we were struggling. I picked up a chainsaw, looked at him, and said, let's go. I then proceeded to charge in like crazy, sawing anything up that I could get near, which is not at all how I play FPS games. I'm more of the cautious, slow approach type. He struggled to keep up, and somehow I managed to survive through it.

Epyo posted...

Nice lol!! Hope I didn't spoil anything =]

nah but I just finished the level where she moved back home to her tiny room after separating with her boyfriend/husband and it broke my heart

The little details in this game or so good though. The fact that it wouldn't let you finish that level until you took down the picture of her and the boyfriend off the wall and stored it in a closed drawer was just devastating

CoolCly posted...

You have a lot of real unorthodox shit up in here

Thanks lol! I had no idea, I really thought all of these were mega-famous, especially Winigolf and Desktop Tower Defense. OK, maybe not Hydro Thunder.

azuarc posted...

My friend and I played this co-op, and when we got to hell and all our equipment was taken -- when ammo hadn't exactly been plentiful before -- we were struggling. I picked up a chainsaw, looked at him, and said, let's go. I then proceeded to charge in like crazy, sawing anything up that I could get near, which is not at all how I play FPS games. I'm more of the cautious, slow approach type. He struggled to keep up, and somehow I managed to survive through it.

Oh I forgot they take away all your stuff, that is a really great touch. Doom 1 does the same thing when you reach hell. Hopefully you made the chainsaw ringingingigning sound with your mouth while rampaging 0:)

Johnbobb posted...

(Unpacking spoilers) I just finished the level where she moved back home to her tiny room after separating with her boyfriend/husband and it broke my heart

The little details in this game or so good though. The fact that it wouldn't let you finish that level until you took down the picture of her and the boyfriend off the wall and stored it in a closed drawer was just devastating

Yesss, probably a better choice for "Best Level", but I wanted to avoid spoiling. And I really like the level I picked too, gameplay-wise, so, close enough.

OK here's an orthodox one though

#90 The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/5/1/AABIPnAADhmT.jpg

Obviously LttP is legendary, *and*, I extremely love the Top-Down Action genre. In theory this should be in my, like, top 10 all time. I LOVE swinging the sword in this game. It feels GREAT. Throwing that boomerang is WHY I PLAY VIDEO GAMES basically.

The dark world song? Basically the best vg song ever. The art style? Beautiful, timeless, perfect.

HOWEVER. Somehow, I have a lot of complaints that bring it down the list. I...don't really like the overworld (feels smol to me, yet still annoying to traverse), the dungeons (kinda annoying), the adventure (I get stuck a lot), the secrets (the useful ones are very hard to find IMO), and don't like the rewards and items that much, besides the sword and boomerang.

So basically, a little too much of a cryptic adventure, not quite enough action, for my taste. (Yet STILL gets onto the list, because it's still that good!!)

BEST LEVEL: Tower of Hera. I like the falling through floors stuff. The wormy boss is excellent too, and exciting with the risk of falling out of the fight.

(2 more zelda games remain)

That Zelda hint I think Im picking up on a little extra meaning with that word choice

Oh man Hydro Thunder. I was really young at the time but I used to love playing that game at the arcade. No idea what my favorite level was but there were lots of cool ones.

That's why the Dreamcast was soooo good, so many great Arcade ports!

wallmasterz posted...

That Zelda hintI think Im picking up on a little extra meaning with that word choice

Hehehe.

(Actually I haven't played that game =S I just like referencing it anyway. I bet I would like it though, I like time loops, and games that are underappreciated. Although I don't like the N64 so maybe not.)

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#89 Dusk

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/7/0/AABIPnAADhoK.jpg

Dusk is an indie single player FPS, that is clearly inspired by classic Doom and Quake. I'm a huge Doom fan, so this looked right up my alley...

...And it totally is! Actually it's more Quake than Doom, having low-poly 3d models, chunky pixels, and Quake-like weapons. But I would say it IS much better than Quake. Quake is a good-feeling engine, but the design of Quake's levels, monsters, and guns, are just kinda bad. Dusk fixes that...by being Quake with better levels, monsters, and guns!

It sounds unimportant, but when you press R to reload...there's no reloading in the game, so you just spin your guns. It feels really really good. It's a magic "I'm having fun" button.

The atmosphere is surprisingly good--the first few levels feel like the Village section of RE4 (good!). In fact, now that I think about it, the chainsaw burlap sack zombies from RE4 are a common recurring enemy in Dusk.

BEST LEVEL: The Escher Labs. Several unexpected level designs/themes help this game stand out from other "throwback" fast FPSes of recent years, and this was definitely one of 'em.

Epyo posted...

HOWEVER. Somehow, I have a lot of complaints that bring it down the list. I...don't really like the overworld (feels smol to me, yet still annoying to traverse), the dungeons (kinda annoying), the adventure (I get stuck a lot), the secrets (the useful ones are very hard to find IMO), and don't like the rewards and items that much, besides the sword and boomerang.

So basically, a little too much of a cryptic adventure, not quite enough action, for my taste. (Yet STILL gets onto the list, because it's still that good!!)

Ever try rando?

azuarc posted...

Ever try rando?

Like randomizers?? I've watched a lot of streams with them, I do enjoy watching. I struggle with the real path through the game, though, and randomizers seem like they make it even harder, usually?

You are a legend for having DUSK on here.

Epyo posted...

Like randomizers?? I've watched a lot of streams with them, I do enjoy watching. I struggle with the real path through the game, though, and randomizers seem like they make it even harder, usually?

I legitimately never played LTTP before discovering the randomizer for it. If you've watched other people playing, and know the game, you can definitely complete one. It might path you in an unexpected way, but they're always finishable.

Yeaaah I bet I would love the randomizers, just have to sit down and actually do it, and maybe crank down the difficulty.

Snake5555555555 posted...

You are a legend for having DUSK on here.

Yesss. It is very underappreciated.

I have to admit, it took me a couple years to buy it, because when I first saw it on a Giant Bomb stream, it looked terrible.

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#88 Trials Evolution

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/9/5/AABIPnAADhqH.jpg

First of all, there are not enough games using this 2.5D style (sidescroller gameplay in a 3d world, e.g. Klonoa). So that alone makes these games rock.

Besides that, it's a platformer where you're on a motorbike! What's not to like! Motorbikes in videogames RULE, every time. The excellent physics and level design give the game a lot of depth and skill ceiling, but also, you're challenged only according to your skill level. You don't have to get Gold on every level...unless you WANT to. Genius.

These games also have a great sense of humor (explosions are funny, basically), that just put you in a great mood.

I chose "Evolution" over the newer "Fusion" and "Rising", because those games added a lot of distractions like in-game shops and Ubisoft currency garbage. Evolution really focuses on the gameplay.

I don't enjoy these games as much lately, because I'm into high framerates, and I think these are capped at 60fps sadly.

BEST LEVEL: Gigatrack. It's actually pretty boring, but the shtick is that it's just really long, like 6-10 minutes. Turns out, it's REALLY FUN to play Trials for that long without being interrupted!!! Nothing else actually mattress.

#87 Yoku's Island Express

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/6/7/AABIPnAADh2L.jpg

A traditional metroidvania, but pinball instead of combat. One of the best ideas, anyone has ever had.

It seems SO HARD to make an action game without combat, but it seems SO IMPORTANT to me to have more video games like this, to expand the appreciation of video games, to way more people. I feel like video games could be so much more than they are, if we find more ways to get away from combat. Overcooked is another example where I play it and think, ughhhh we need 50x more video games like this.

Is the game good? It's pretty good yeah, not the best metroidvania, but good. But the uniqueness is enough to make me worship the game enough to put it on the list.

I always liked Sonic Spinball too, even though, it's way too hard, which makes it way too hard to actually like it. Yoku is nice and easy though, hard to dislike it.

BEST LEVEL: Hmm hard to say...I guess just, the foresty areas in the beginning, have the most pinball feel. Later in the game, they try to get fancy, and sometimes it's not pinball anymore.

#86 Darwinia

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/1/0/AABIPnAADh22.jpg

This is one of the first non-Valve games ever on Steam. I haven't heard anyone mention it since like 2008. The game's ID on steam is a lowly 1500!

I like the look of any game whose terrain looks like Rollercoaster Tycoon's grid.

It fascinating because it is hard to describe. It controls like a top-down RTS, but you're constantly taking direct control of attack squads and turrets to get stuff done, so it's a micromanagement action game more than a strategy game. But you also have to gently guide these hordes of pikmin (darwinians), so that's a macro aspect.

It's all about the campaign though, a short adventure with a good variety in the level design & objectives. Each level's gameplay is very different, sometimes you're just controlling one little fighting squad through a big action stage, or sometimes you're carefully escorting a small group of pikmin, or sometimes you're generating hordes of pikmin and making them take over the map, etc.

I believe they just re-worked the game to run good on modern computers! That's really nice of them, for such an old game.

BEST LEVEL: Stage 8, Pattern Buffer, in the above screenshot. If I remember correctly, this level has the biggest fights of hordes of your green darwinians versus giant hordes of bad red darwinians

#85 Wii Sports Resort (Mostly Table Tennis)

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/8/3/AABIPnAADh5j.jpg

I love ping pong in real life, but embarrassingly, I somehow like Wii Sports Resort's Table Tennis a little bit *more*.

(Warning: Take this ranking with a grain of salt, because I played this game with friends and family, which is always a blast, even with a bad game.)

Even playing against the AI in ping pong is great. You can quickly figure out an unbeatable combo (hit far left, then far right), but soon the game will give you AI opponents that are *ready* for that and take advantage of it. Then it gets deeper, as you figure out the spin techniques and player positioning!

At the start of a volley, the game really helps you keep the ball on the table--aim wherever you want, it'll work. BUT as the volley goes on, the players start backing away, now you can easily miss the table...but you do still WANT to aim far left or right, to get your opponent out of position.

The other sports are fine. I'm pretty into the 2-player 3v3 basketball too: a basketball game where you cannot move--everyone is stationary. It doesn't really work, but it is fascinating!

BEST LEVEL: There's one high-level AI that ONLY BACKSPINS, (the FREAK), which keeps the ball in the air super long. It seems like a terrible strategy...and yet, it's really hard to beat!!!

#84 Sonic Adventure 2

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/6/4/AABIPnAADiFw.jpg

This makes the list for two reasons.

Reason #1 is City Escape, which is one of the best first levels ever. Mostly because of the song, yes. But some credit to its playfulness and surprises--snowboarding down concrete streets, grinding on stuff, running from a giant truck. It's just fun.

Reason #2 is all of the Knuckles stages. I think these stages are underrated and genius. They're intricate enough that you have to do a little bit of experimental problem solving to find the 3 emeralds to win, e.g. oh maybe I need to change the water level, or oh maybe I need to find a rocket that takes me 2000 feet upward. And since the placement is random, the replayability is much better than the other levels in the game.

I used to often find myself opening up my Sonic Adventure 2 file, just specifically to go re-play Aquatic Mine, Pumpkin Hill, and Meteor Herd, for no reason but to enjoy them. Or maybe I just wanted to hear the absurd Knuckles raps.

Also chao gardening is weird and good.

BEST LEVEL: Meteor Herd. It's so tall!! I love to go to the top, and do a Knuckles Digging Dive alllll the way to the bottom, straight into the dirt.

Trials was good for some laughs with b8ers online but omg am I bad at. Pure rage

Got all 180 emblems in SA2B for GameCube back in the day. Fun times

*Tracks*