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.
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travo (2m)
The history of Westerns in this country is really interesting. For 40 years it was the most prevalent genre in all of film and television. From the 30s through the mid-60s we just couldn't get enough of them. But then as the space race over the interest of kids, and oversaturation finally kicked in. It started to go away. Then in 70's Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles pretty much buried it and ensured no one could take it seriously again. And really, since the 80s you can probably count the number of good westerns in film and television on two hands. It's a short list.
In video games good Western games are an even shorter list. You've got the Red Dead Redemption games, Stranger's Wrath, Oregon Trail, and a personal favorite Sunset Riders aka Contra with Cowboys.
Konami definitely knew what they were doing when they made this piece of arcade perfection. Take the counter model, make it a four-player game instead of a two-player game, and make it bright and colorful, just like Marty McFly in Back to the Future 3.
I think it tends to get overlooked on a lot of lists because most people only knew it from the home console versions. The genesis port was okay, but it cut out a lot. The SNES version was a little bit better, but even that still limited you to two players. To play the true game you needed to played in the arcade (or now on one of those arcade classics that pop up on modern day consoles).
If you've never experienced that version, you need to do yourself a favor and track it down. It's absolutely mad fun. Best of all, its not even too difficult, at least by '90s arcade standards. Just an amazing multiplayer experience.
Oh hell yeah! Loved Sunset Riders. Only ever played the SNES version though. Konami should rerelease it in some kind of bundle for today’s systems.
I never played any version of Sunset Riders. The arcade version is on Switch.
Oh wow. I had no idea that Sunset Riders was available on the Switch. Will definitely grab that.
The guys who made bit.trip.beat have really mastered the concept of taking retro game concepts and aesthetics and making them feel fresh and new. It seems like they only make endless runners these days, but before they went down that path they gave us an addictive little gem called Woah Dave!
This time they came up with a game that looked like it could have been in the arcades right around 1981, and even made some really odd arcade cabinet art to go right along with it.
Basically you play as Dave who runs around breaking eggs, collecting coins, and dodging suicidal monsters who want to knock Dave into the lava. Why is he doing all this? Who the hell knows. Maybe Dave is actually the bad guy and he's the reason why Yar felt like he needed to go get revenge later on.
Whatever Dave's purpose is, the game is short, fast paced, and addictive, just like those early arcade games that it was clearly inspired by. It also moves a heck of a lot faster and smoother than those games. If you could have gotten this in a handheld version, you were absolutely set for something you could pick up for 5 or 30 minutes and have a great time the entire time. I don't know if I spent the most hours on this among all my 3DS games, but I know I played more individual rounds of it than any other game. One of these days I'm going to have to pick it up for another system.
I recently saw angry video game nerd video of this, seems crazy and not good. The maze controls blew my mind. Never played this game though.
The mazes were not the smoothest idea in the world, but to their credit it was a good way to break up a lot of the platforming action. They were also pretty small in most cases. Really they were barely mazes. For the most part they were usually just a couple interconnecting rooms and nothing you could get lost in.I have that one and the sequel. Never opened them but bought on the premise that I liked SimCity. PLus at that time I was buying everything Natsume put out as I figured it would be collectible at some point.
I didn't know a sequel to the game existed until I started looking up some information on it for this post. It seems in fact there are four games in the series, although the last two never left Japan. But that sequel is apparently one of the most maligned PS2 games ever released. It was actually kind of entertaining to read a few of the bad reviews.