Every February on whatever message board I'm hanging out on, I try to have a little stupid fun and do a theme month. Didn't pull it off last month, but usually it works out. Anyway this year, I'd like to present my Top 28 games of all time. This is a list I've been thinking about during a lot of down time at work for the past week, and I'm actually pretty proud of it. It's just my list of favorites, so there will be several games you've never heard of or at least never played. And there will likely be some that you'll go, "seriously? you like that turd?" Well, fuck you in advance. It's my list and I love it.
Anyway, I'll be posting one game a day with a blurb about why I love it so until the month is over, with my number 1 game being presented on Feb 28. Before we begin here is a semi-sorta sneak preview. Just a quick list of the honorable mentions. The ones that came so close and yet..... not good enough.
- Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess
- Fortune Street
- NiGHTS Into Dreams
- Final Fantasy Legend II
- Lemmings
The top 28:
28. Super Mario Bros. 2
27. Dig-Dug
26. Hero's Quest/Quest for Glory: So You Want To Be A Hero
25. Scorched Earth
24. The Saboteur
23. The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
22. Azure Dreams
21. Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant
20. Legend of Mana
19. Harvest Moon: Magical Melody
18. EverQuest
17. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
16. Rune Factory Frontier
15. Street Fighter Alpha 2
14. The World Ends With You
13. Pokemon Snap
12. Mother 3
11. Heroes of Might and Magic III
10. SimCity
9. Super Mario World
8. Chrono Trigger
7. Tetris
6. Red Dead Redemption
5. Persona 3
4. Resident Evil 4
3. Final Fantasy Tactics:
2. Valkyria Chronicles
1. Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King
I liked Mario 2, back in the day it got some heat for being so weird but I still loved it. I remember it took a while to clear, had some fun bosses and levels.
Top 28 of all time though? ......eeeeeeeeeehh
Id probably rate it 29th.
Same here.
#26. Quest For Glory/Heroes Quest : So You Want To Be A Hero
Heroe's Quest (later renamed Quest for Glory due to a lawsuit from Hasbro): So You Want To Be A Hero is one of those games that I always felt like never quite got its due. As far as I'm concerned this game is the predecessor for virtually every modern day large scale Western RPG. It combined the then standard gameplay of a typical puzzles of a text based adventure game (and later as a point-and-click game when it was remade),a small class system, a stat based character with a couple dozen skills that you would level up as you used them and progressed through the game, and a real-time combat system. It wasn't just the hybrid gameplay that made it special. The story was very novel. You were a guy trying to be something more than an adventurer. You wanted to be a hero. And while the game had its share of humor, it never crossed that line, so you always took the situation seriously even if at times it seemed like no one else around you was. I played and replayed this game at least a dozen times with the different character classes, trying to find new secrets, new ways around puzzles, and max out my stats so I'd have an even better character to import for its sequel. It's a PC classic and one of the games that my life revolved around as a teenager.
#25. Scorched Earth
I'm proud to say that I left a legacy at my old highschool. As of 1992 students were no longer allowed to play games on the library PC's. You know why? Me. Me, this game, and whatever other 9 people who were in the area. Scorched Earth was a turn based artillery game - an early predecessor to Worms (and also my introduction to Shareware). The gameplay was simple. Aim, adjust your power, adjust for windspeed, and try to kill the guy next to you before he killed you. Unlike a lot of games from the time it gave you the added ability to earn money and shop for more impressive weapons, shields, and other things that made the screen go boom. The graphics were crude, even for its time, but who the hell cared? It was fun. Destroying the CPU controlled opponents or friends. Regardless of who you killed, they'd go out with a snappy line or insult. It was also the first game that let me play with more than 4 people at a time. It was multi-player fun at its finest. Up to 10 people could play together, and that meant everyone got loud.... and ultimately banned from the library. And getting banned from the library is a surefire way to know you're having fun.
"And getting banned from the library is a surefire way to know you're having fun."
I don't think it's particularly hard to get banned from a school library...
Kicked out of the library, no that's easy. Banned for the remainder of the semester on the other hand takes some skill.
Scorched Earth was great at school.
Only the semester? My statement was working on the assumption that you were perma-banned.
Well in all fairness that was the spring semester and I was asked not to return to the school that fall. So maybe the ban would have held. Who knows.
#24. The Saboteur
Sometimes a leading character is so good, and fits the game so perfectly you can overlook a whole host of imperfections simply because you want to see where the story takes him and how he’s going to react to the next barrell of shit that’s thrown at him. That’s Sean Devlin, a foulmouthed Irishman (is that redundant?) defending the French by killing the Germans in WWII Paris, and his story is told in The Saboteur. The game itself is a stealth-combat take on the sandbox genre. The gameplay and NPC interaction is more limited than other sandbox games, but The Saboteur's focus on stealth gives it a very unique feel. The game has a few shortcomings, mainly in the driving sections, which play a major role in the game, but the rest of the game is so good it's easy to overlook. The characters, the soundtrack, the French setting... it captures a mood, time and place just perfectly. Oh and also, boobs.