It's been about 5 and a half years since I did my last Top 100 list. Due to my OCD and compulsion to constantly create lists in my head I think it's time for an all new Top 100.
My first thought was to reevaluate the old top 100, but fuck it, it's easier to pick 100 new games that I didn't have on the list last time. In the past 5 and a half years I've played more than I usually have, largely due to COVID. And in that time I've played a lot of new great games.
Plus, when I made the last list, I avoided adding multiple games from the same franchises. So I can dip back into the Dragon Quest pool and a few others.
Anyway stay tuned. Starting tomorrow we're doing this shit again.
My first thought was to reevaluate the old top 100, but fuck it, it's easier to pick 100 new games that I didn't have on the list last time. In the past 5 and a half years I've played more than I usually have, largely due to COVID. And in that time I've played a lot of new great games.
Plus, when I made the last list, I avoided adding multiple games from the same franchises. So I can dip back into the Dragon Quest pool and a few others.
Anyway stay tuned. Starting tomorrow we're doing this shit again.
Recently Spotted:
*crickets*
In the debate of, "are games art," the one game that always gets brought up as an example that they are is Flower. Personally, I don't think games are art, but I definitely agree that no game makes a better argument for the case that they are.
The very concept behind the game,"what do flowers dream about?", makes the case. And the execution is pretty incredible. You guide flower petals around a landscape, and reach certain marks. Simple, relaxing, fun, and they even found a way to increase the difficulty as the levels progressed without compromising the zen feeling you get from the game. It might also be one of the very few games that actually figured out a good way to use the 6-axis controller features for the PS3 and was worth playing.
For me this was actually the first digital purchase I made when I got my PlayStation 3. And from pretty much the minute I started it, I didn't put it down until it was done. Digital games were nothing new at that point, but I don't think I'd ever played one quite this polished. It really made me think that something special in the world of smaller downloadable titles was on the horizon. Journey would eventually crush that dream completely, but even as much as I dislike that game, it doesn't change how much I love Flower.
I need to play that one.
Defender was always one of my favorite Atari 2600 games. I think I've read somewhere that it was the first side scrolling shooter. If that's true, it's probably worth mentioning. He always have to pay tribute to the innovators, right?
But to me what always made Defender such a great game was getting to rescue the little people or astronauts or whoever they were. That really elevated the experience. I wasn't just flying around shooting aliens, I was also protecting innocent people from a fate worse than death. Even if those innocent people were pretty much just a small square block. I've always thought it was strange that such a cool idea was never really carried forward through other shooters.
Sadly, I never had my own copy of Defender. A guy that my dad worked with had it though, and his Atari was just for his grandkids, so I got to borrow it for a couple months once. Once. That was a pretty sweet time, and I got surprisingly good at it. I was definitely sad as hell when I had to return it back, but I can confidently say that thousands of pixelated humanoids were rescued from a life of alien servitude thanks to the time I devoted playing it.
"So we need a sports game that doesn't have a lot of sports that people actually play. And we'd really like it if you could find a way to make it really capture the late '80s. What do you got for us? And lo and behold, California Games was born.
California Games was the first "cool" game I ever remember playing as a kid. This was the game that the older kids who were really into the skater subculture complete with brand named skater clothing were playing. If you wanted the older kids to think you were cool, you either had to play this or Skate or Die (or maybe T&C Surf Design). But California Games was still the most mature, so it carried a little bit of extra cred.
Unlike a lot of the copycats though, California Games was also very good, at least most of the games were. Roller skating and half pipe were both pretty well put together. Surfing was tricky, but if you knew what you were doing, you could pull off some cool moves.
To me though, I think the standout game was always hacky sack. I think mainly because it was something I could see myself actually do. Although truth be told I totally couldn't. I was always good for one or two bounces off my foot and then it would inevitably fly across the room or take a weird angle and get launched off My foot into some place. I couldn't retrieve it. And then I'd be without another hacky sack. But I could always go back to California Games. The hacky sack was always waiting for me there.
I rented that game for a sleepover and it was a big hit for all of us teenagers.
I had California Games on the Atari Lynx. It was a surprisingly good. I mostly played surfing and BMX.