55. Devil May Cry 1 and 4

3D gaming brought many changes but it took a while to translate fast paced fluid combat into that third dimension. PS1 games were riddled with clunky controlling games, slow moving at times, simplistic in its combat. In the early days of the PS2 generation Kamiya and Capcom were trying new things out for Resident Evil 4, a more action packed version. In one tech demo they managed to create a demo where the player can air juggle an enemy with bullets and once Kamiya saw that Devil May Cry was born. Finally fast paced, stylish and acrobatic combat has come to the third dimension with combat that has never been seen before. Devil May Cry blazed the way for a new kind of action game, one where the objective wasn’t just to kill the enemy but do so in style using a variety of techniques.

I first played DMC from the demo disc that came with CVX, demo discs were so big back in the day, giving us a glimpse into these groundbreaking games. The first 15 minutes were enough to sell anyone on the game, because of the air juggle. I can’t stress enough how mind blowing this was back in the day, that first time you launch an enemy and use ebony and ivory to float them is a moment of zen, i moment where the possibilities of the games action feels endless.

The full game took that idea and expanded on it in so many ways. Sure looking back now the paltry list of weapons is sad compared to what is offered in later games in the series but for its time it was more than most any game offered. What really stood out for me was the enemy design and how detailed their attacks and defense was. All of it documented in an in game encyclopedia that fills in as you discover the best strategies. The boss battles were show stoppers as well and devilishly hard, the game found a great balance of difficulty and experience where with just some practice what seemed insurmountable becomes beatable. The first game retained some of that RE DNA with it’s creepy castle and twisting hallways. I don’t think the series has matched the first in terms of atmosphere. Combat wise it’s rather quaint when you look back at it but it was groundbreaking for its time.

And now we skip ahead a few years, we shall ignore 2 cause it never happened and we will get to 3 later. DMC4 is like RE5, took a masterpiece of a game and tried to do more but in a sloppy way. In the case of DMC4 mechanically it’s superior to DMC3 in most every way, especially because of real time style switching which gives Dante access to all his moves without ever needing to enter a menu. The depth in combat is at a fighting game level of depth, masters of combat can pull off moves that a mere mortal can’t even comprehend how it’s done. DMC4 goes a step further by added a whole new character into the mix with Nero who is a simplified character but plays differently enough to keep things fresh.

The problem with DMC4 is how these characters were used, first you play the whole game as Nero and then play the game in reverse as Dante. Same locations, same enemies, same bosses, the outcry for this lazy backtracking was deafening and has left DMC4 with a sour history when in reality it should be celebrated as one of the best action games. Further iterations added 3 more characters, new modes and more, for those wanting to master an action game DMC4 was tops. I couldn’t get enough of Dante’s combat, Nero for me did not fullfill that same itch so I found myself only wanting to replay half the game. Still I hold DMC4 above many many games, easily one of the best action games ever made.

54. Horizon Zero Dawn

My surpise 2017 GOTY, here I thought a year with a new Zelda, new Mario, and new Mass Effect would live up to all my dreams. Not exactly as every game went open world and lost many of the best aspects of what made them great to begin with. Horizon though was original, also an open world game but one with a unique hook, gigantic mechanical dinosaurs roam the world. These enemies come in all shapes amd sizes, from the quick raptor like enemies to the hulking t-rex monstrocities that act like epic boss battles roaming the map. These battles are some of the best battles in any game this generation, it looks better than some movies in action. Why it works so well is because you don't have traditional guns, instead Aloy's arsenal of suped up old weaponry like arrows, grapple hooks, and trip wires make you slowly bring down the beasts piece by piece. Different parts of the dinos control different systems which change the way they can attack, knock out their radar and they cant sense you anymore, take out their turrets and it may fall off allowing you to pick it up and fire on them. Each enemy is unique requiring different strategies to overcome. Oh and when multiple ones get into fights it's like being in the middle of a Godzilla movie. Horizon an open world game where the enemies are the star, finding combat is a joy and that alone makes the world more interesting than most.

But it didn't end there, Horizon tells a great sci-fi story starring one of the best new protagonists around in Aloy. There are minimal RPG elements but they are there, upgrading, finding new gear and so on is still key. Guerrilla games are wizards when it comes to graphics, this world is so beautiful and rich, exploring always lead to vistas that made me gasp. It has great side quests, mini dungeons, a few puzzles, and its paced very well.  I bought Horizon from my latin american contact who gets games early, I did this because Horizon was coming out days before Zelda and that would not be enough time for me to enjoy it. So I bought it early and had two weeks to enjoy it and who would have thought I would enjoy it more than BOTW. Horizon sets new standards for open world combat and is far more focused than many open world games that think putting 500 icons around a map makes for good content.

Soul Reaver is one of my all time favorites too. It was the darker more adult oriented Ocarina of Time.

Definitely one of the most impressive games technically to ever hit the Playstation. Surprisingly, I installed this on my PC not long ago and it works well without the usual troubleshooting you have to do to run old games. May give it a playthrough at some point.

Another thing about the game, is how great it is despite having a huge chunk of unfinished content. It could have been even better.

robio said:

As much as I loved Blood Omen, I never touched another entry in the series aside from a couple minutes with Blood Omen 2. whenever the game gets a remake, and at this point in time I'm sure it will eventually happen, I'm going to have to really give it a look.

As someone who played every game in the series, I can confidently say that Blood Omen & Soul Reaver were 9/10 range, while the rest of the games were 7/10 range.

No idea why...obviously Crystal Dynamics have proven to be a great developer. But they dipped in quality before they took over Tomb Raider in 2006.

52. Tie Fighter and X-Wing Alliance

Early 90's PC was the PC's golden era and I didn't have a PC that could run any of the groundbreaking games coming out for PC, but my best friend did! So I would play all these games at his house and one of my favoites was Tie-Fighter, my friend had the flight stick and everything. Yes I played a game where every button on the keyboard did something while having a flight stick with multiple hotkeys and I loved it. This game made you feel like you were actually piloting a Tie or X-wing, not in a cheesy arcade way but a flight sim way. Every aspect of the ship was under your control from how much power thursts get, how to direct your shields, what speed to cycle through your lasers, kinds of radar, team commands and much more. I was in complete command of my ship, my squadron and the missions which had objectives which changed as the missions went on. Some missions have you defending bombers, some have you attack rebel bases, others support a giant screen filling star destroyer. It looked, sounded and felt like Star Wars.

The cool thing about Tie-fighter is that you get to play as the villain. You rise the ranks of the empire and meet all the famous villains including Grand Admiral Thrawn who was just created for the novels a few years before. How cool is it to have the emperor personally give you a mission thats on the down low from most of the captains, you get to see the ruthlessness of the empire first hand. Graphically it was a bit rough but it achieved what it set out to be which is a Star Wars flight sim. X-wing vs Tie fighter came out afterwards but it was a multiplayer focused game which I do not care for so I skipped it.

A five years later came the final entry into this sadly forgotten masterful X-Wing franchise, X-wing Alliance. I finally had a gaming PC so I played this at home, with my own flight stick and loved every second of it. There were massive graphical upgrades compared to Tie-fighter. Alliance tells the story of a new family that were smugglers but get embroiled into the galactic civil war and join the rebellion. You somehow end up flying the millenium Falcon for some missions including the epic final level which is the battle of endor. The whole game was worth it just for the battle of endor, this games would have some big battles but never anything on the scale of what was shown in ROTJ, until this game. Now they had to break up Endor into four levels to make it work but it worked. Capital ships all over, a death star firing its beam blowing up ships left and right and the endless swarm of Ties. The first endor mission begins with the famous shot of all the Tie's flying at the falcon, perfectly recreated in game form. The final mission has you flying into the death star to blow it up and of course escape afterward which quite frankly was a pain in the ass, but still you play the movie!

These games ruined all other space combat games for me. I enjoyed Colony Wars, and the Rogue Squadron games for the arcadey feel but nothing made me feel like the actual pilot of a spaceship. And not just any spaceships, the best spaceships, Star Wars spaceships. Missions would just play the same 4 star wars movie tunes over and over while a cacophony of classic laser sounds would be going off. The authenticity of the Star Wars space battles are why these games are so special.

Dvader said:

I didn't have a PC that could run any of the groundbreaking games coming out for PC, but my best friend did! So I would play all these games at his house and one of my favoites was Tie-Fighter, my friend had the flight stick and everything. Yes I played a game where every button on the keyboard did something while having a flight stick with multiple hotkeys and I loved it.

Did your friend's dad do the typical "I'm going to hover over these bastards while they use the computer to make sure it doesn't get broken" 90's thing dads would do?

51. Gran Turismo 1 and 3

Yes there was a time where I became obsessed with a racing game, we all did. Gran Turismo was a phenomenon, a groundbreaking racing game that went on to become the premier franchise on the PS and PS2. When GT hit it blew everyone away with it's realistic graphics, best shown during the movie like replays. Yes look at that picture above, that was the height of 32-bit graphics. Another significant event happend with the launch of GT, the PS1 Dual Shock Controller was released, another legend was born. The dual shock has evolved some what over the years but it's design has remained for over 20 years, still my favorite controller.  The big deal was analog sticks have finally come to the PS1 and rumble, GT made sure to be a showcase for this new controller offering incredible analoge steering and rumble that made it feel like you were driving.

Never had I played a simulation racing game before, I am not a car guy so I didn't know much about anything with racing. GT was so different from anything else in the market, it taught you to properly race, tought racing lines, taught weight distribution, tought about the types of tires and their impact on grip. The licenses served as a driving school to ease you into this new kind of racing where you had to follow proper racing rules and physics (to an extent, you can bumper car your way to victory). What I loved most though was the game progression, you start with some junky car that soccer mom drives and slowly earn money, unlock different races and build your car garage with better cars. It was essencially a car RPG which kept me hooked until I beat every event and had the best cars. My baby was always the Viper, it couldnt brake for shit but man was it fast.

A weird thing happend to me where I would just buy the odd numbered GT games. GT2 came out at the end of the PS1 and I was aleady waiting for PS2. My friend had GT2 so we played together quite a bit, it make signifcant additions to the now looking back bear bones version of GT1. It's the better game but I didn't play it much so it means nothing to me. I waited for the next gen GT game, the one with graphics that could only be believed when seen.

Gran Turismo 3 was a mega sequel taking what was done with the first two and enhancing everything with the power of the PS2. The amount of cars was drastically reduced from GT2 to GT3 but with 180 cars it was still very impressive, the reason for the drop is because of how detailed every car was. The replays were stunning to look at, the care that went into each model clearly shows. GT3 was packed with content, loads of special events, rally races, formula 1 cars to unlock, endurance races, it upped the ante of the car RPG ten fold.

I put so many hours into GT3, I couldn't get enough of the reward loop, keep racing to get new cars to enter tougher events to get better cars, simple but perfectly effective. And during this many hours journey I would listen to the great GT3 soundtrack which had some great tunes incluong some Lenny Kravitz, 99 luftballoons, and Kickstart my heart! But my favorite was Judas Priest Turbo Lover which I had no clue said Turbo for like a year. Instead I would sing alone "I'm your TURTLE LOVER!!!!!!"  made no sense to me but thats what I heard lol.

I use to really enjoy Gran Turismo, until Forza came out.

50. Tekken 3

The fighting genre was never more popular than during the late 90s, arcades were dying and the shift toward putting those fighting gamae experiences on consoles was happening. But a simple port just doesn't work on a console, we want more. Tekken 3 was that more, so much more, like holy shit more. This game had everything, full CG ending cutscene for all characters, hidden secret characters like kuma and Gom, a 2D side scrolling brawler, and a fucking volleyball game. It introduced fan favorite characters like Hwoarang, Jin, Fury and the star of the show Eddy Gordo. Everyone wanted to play as Gordo, his capoeira fighting style was unlike anything we had seen in a 3D fighting game but the real kicker is that all you had to do was push buttons and Gordo will pull of some insane moves and make you feel like a pro. Tekken 3 set the gold standard for home fighting games, the craze this game set off I don't think has been replicated in this genre.

I still perfer Virtua Fighter's combat system to Tekkens's dial a combo but VF was so dry compared to the flashy Tekken back in the PS1 days. Tekken had the CG movies, the stunning graphics, the extra modes, the crazy characters. I never played 1 but my dad bought me Tekken 2 when I got my PS1, fighting games were one of the few games he enjoyed playing. He wasn't good but he liked to see the fights play out. His guy was Law, mine was Baek. Tekken 2 was fun but it was still mostly an arcade port. When Tekken 3 announced all the content it would have I was there day 1 and so were all my friends. We would have big Tekken play sessions, passing the controllers around in versus and trying to unlock all the games secrets. This was the last fighting game where I had that kind of experience, online killed all get togethers.  For it's time Tekken 3 was the king.