To celebrate our 10 year anniversary I think it's only fair that we do the exact same thing every video game magazine did whenever they reached a milestone... create a top 100 list. So that's what I'm going to do. I've spent the last couple weeks thinking this over and I have a list in front of me that I'm pretty happy with. No one else on earth will be happy with it, but as I always say, "fuck off it's my list and I don't give two shits what you think you little pissant." At least I think I say that.
Also, if you recall I did do a top 28 list a while back. However, that was 5 years ago and many great games have come out since, so even that top 28 has some changes in it. There's a few new games, a few games my opinions have changed on, and there was one really great one that I completely overlooked somehow when I made the list the first time. So rest assured there will be some very noticeable changes.
And it's going to go by fast. Since I've got that new job starting in just over a week, my free time may be reduced, so I'm going to try to get all 100 games posted within the next two weeks. I need to sharpen up my writing since this is a PR job so it's good practice. Writing about insurance benefits and filing medical claims is just like video games right?
100Sonic Adventure
99Kaboom
98Conquests of the Longbow
97Streets of Rage 2
96Lollipop Chainsaw
95Bloodborne
94 Crazy Taxi
93Bit.Trip.Beat
92Wii Ski & Snowboard
91RiverCity Ransom
90Dragon Quest Monsters
89Jones in the Fastlane
88Dark Cloud 2
87Professor Layton and the Curious Village
86MadWorld
85Marvel Vs. Capcom 2
84Torneko the Last Hope
83Crystal Castles
82Space Harrier
81Retro Game Challenge
80Final Fantasy VII
79Bulletstorm
78Rayman Legends
77Super Dodge Ball
76World of Goo
75The Magic of Scherazade
74Minecraft
73Fantasy Zone 2
72Golden Axe: Revege of Death Adder
71Final Fantasy Legend II
70Hotel Dusk
69Splatoon
68Pitfall
67Dragon Quest V
66SteamWorld Dig
65Street Fighter 3: Third Strike
64Order Up
63Hearthstone
62Monkey Island II: LeChuck's Revenge
61Bayonetta
60Galaga
59 Earthbound
58Super Mario Bros.
57Wii Sports Resort
56Pac-Man CE: DX
55Trauma Team
#9. Tetris
Well honestly I'm not sure what I can say about Tetris that hasn't been said before. It's the greatest puzzle game of all time, and lord knows I've played my share. From the introduction most of us had to it on the Gameboy to all the new dazzling versions with trippy colors, puyo pop blobs, 4 player competition, to whatever other features they throw into it in the new version to keep it "fresh" (silly developers), Tetris has been good and always finds a way to stay good...even with that infinite spin bullshit.
That said, even if my go-to is still the NES version of Tetris, I am happy with the majority of the newer features, particularly with different kinds of online and competitive head-to-head modes. Anything beats having to use the link cable to play with a friend. That damn requirement almost broke my original Gameboy when I was a kid. I was in a school carpool at the time playing again a friend who was one of those guys who would gets his whole body in motion when he plays a video game. He jerks his arms around, flails, etc. And when your two systems are linked together with a cable.... well that can and did create a problem. Bastard moved his arms (logically thinking that would help a piece fall in the right direction) and it ended up pulling the gameboy out of my hands and almost sent it flying out of the car window. Odds are the Gameboy would have been fine, and would have only left a small crack on the road, but it was a scary moment. Of course, even after that frightening moment, we went straight back to the game beause... well it's Tetris.
#8. Red Dead Redemption
I'm a fan of Westerns which is kind of unfortunate. The entire genre was once the single most popular genre of entertainment in the the US for over 30 years. Finding something with cowboys in it was just a matter of going to a movie theater or turning on the TV. By the mid 60's though, that was starting to change as burn out was setting in and the space race was creating more science fiction fans. And finally in the early, 70's Blazing Saddles, the greatest genre parody of all time, put the last bullet in the corpse. So, now a good Western film or show comes around every few years, but in video games.... there was pretty much nothing. You could maybe count the good Western games on one hand before 2010. And then Red Dead Redemption came along. And while the number of good Western games hasn't changed much it doesn't matter. RDD (and now it's sequel) are arguably all you need.
When I played RDD it was nothing short of a dream come true. This great open world, with all the classic trappings of a closing of the West story. And as open as the world was, it was never long before you'd come across something of interest (usually a bandit trying to rob you). And if that weren't enough, it also had the single greatest piece of DLC in the form of Undead Nightmare. Now it's Cowboys and Zombies (and poor Bigfoot). I literally have only one complaint about this game. It gives me a headache. Something about the motion of riding the horse actually makes my head hurt. Not sure what, but if I play for more than 30 minutes I end up with a migrane. Didn't stop me from playing for a very long time though. Some things are worth the price of pain.
So take whatever you liked about RDR1 and multiply it by 10, that's RDR2.
I've mainly played random PC versions of Tetris, from flash to freeware to God knows what. I'm not sure it's possible to make a bad Tetris game.
#7. The Last of Us
As a general rule I don't like games with realistic depictions of violence. Give me happy and fluffy or give me something that's so over the top violent that all you can do is laugh at it (i.e. MadWorld). But when a game is as critically acclaimed as The Last of Us is, you got to give it a shot. And damn, I'm really glad I did. The story may not be completely original in the greater world of media, but in the world of video games I don't think I've seen something like it or even a story told as well as Joel and Ellie's jaunt across post-apocalyptic America. The corpses, the blood, the cannibalism, the torture, and attempts of child rape are all pretty awful and disturbing, but Naughty Dog displayed it all in a way that made it compelling and made you want to see if things get just a little worse or a lot worse. And having to wait for a kid to go to bed in order to find out was a torture in its own right.
And to cap it off, holy shit what a great online mode. Too many times a piece of shit online/multiplayer mode gets thrown onto a single player game and you can tell it's an after-thought. Not with "Factions." It might be simple, but god damn is it addictive. I utterly sucked at it, and no that's not just my opinion. I had more than one asshole with a microphone bitch at me and ask me if I knew what the hell I was doing (to be fair I did not, I was new). That hardly matters though. Once I had a general understanding of what I was doing, I was having funeven if I did continue to more or less suck. And remember, as bad you might be, everyone can get lucky with a molotov cocktail once in a while. The game is a total package. An absolute must-play no matter what kind of games you like.
Well the good news is that The Last of Us doesn't depict realistic violence, so your prudery remains intact.
The finale is great, as is the ending to the story. The rest is pretentious mediocrity, but it's worth it for the pay off.
Thank goodness for that. My prudery is what makes me, me after all.
Because I never played it until last year. I think everyone else had moved on to other things by that time.
I never played any of The Last of Us single player but I did play some of the multiplayer on my friend’s PS4 and it was pretty enjoyable.