So, if you know who I am - who doesn't? I'm one sexy beast - you'd know that my main purpose here is writing my own special blend of video game reviews. However, for a change of pace, I thought about writing a different type of review: a collective one, if you will... To uphold by rules and what-not, I made each choice a mini-review. There isn't a lot said about each game, but I gave each their dues.
Also, if you're expecting to see some Team Fortress 2, maybe Gears, some Guitar Hero, or possibly Bioshock, you've come to the wrong place. These are OF ALL TIME, which I can't stress enough. They haven't been around long enough to make a giant impact in my life.
Anywho...
Alex Takes a Look at His TOP TEN FAVORITE GAMES OF ALL TIME.
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10) Road Rash (PS1)
At number ten, a PS1 favorite of mine, Road Rash.
The premise was extremely simplistic: you pick a biker amongst a group of outrageous freaks, upgrade your bike, choose a race, win, then rinse and repeat. You needed to win at all costs, to get the money at the end, so each racer was equipped with his or her own special weapon. It was fairly common to pull up next to another rider and bash him over the head with a steel chain, or to have another rider kick you, sending you sliding across the road, into an oncoming truck.
One thing about Road Rash that really got me was the hilariously awful cinematics, performed by live "actors", and I stress that term. Whether you won the race, lost it, or got pulled over by the cops, there was a cinematic for it. One of my favorites was when, after you were pulled over, you had to escape a chasing Police Dog by jumping in the back of a Police Cruiser. That's tied for first place, along with the cinematic of the officer tying you to the back of his motorcycle and dragging you along the road, behind him. Seriously... Whaaaaaat?
The graphics were abysmal, the animations were blocky, the controls felt too loose at times, the cinematics were laughable, and the game itself was simplistic. Yet, Road Rash had a special charm about it. The hard rock background music, mixed with its pick-up-and-play feel, made me play this game for hours on end.
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9) Anarchy Online (PC)
Anarchy Online (A.O.), back when it was a major competitor in the MMO Market, was one of the first - if not *the* first - Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games that I felt attached to. I would spend days just playing it, leveling up my Martial Artist - who I got to level 47 before I stopped playing - and taking missions in a plethora of copy+pasted enviornments. The fururistic feel, variety of intense weaponry, multitude of customizable clothing and augmentations gave A.O. a feel all is own.
There were actually a lot of different classes you could choose from, and four races as well, each class useful in their own special way. My preferences were the hand-to-hand Martial Artist, who could take down people with a flurry of chops, and the ever-constructive Engineer who could build droids that would do his dirty work for him. No matter what class you chose, you were bound to find something you liked, and were bound to settle on a class that was almost a perfect match for your play-style.
What I loved about the game was that it was friendly. While the interface left to be desired - a cluster@#!$ of things polluting the screen at once - almost everyone you met was friendly in some way. In fact, standing outside of "The Mall" and whispering to people, asking for credits, managed to get you a ton of cash. Try that in World of Warcraft and see how easy it is. It's not. At all.
The graphics weren't entirely bad, to be quite honest. They were pretty good for the time period. The atmosphere of a sci-fi future engulfed in planetary and multi-corporatist wars was a change of pace from the standard dungeons and dragons. While plenty of things should have and could have been changed, it still remains my favorite MMORPG of all time, and number nine on my list. What's better is that you can play the game for free online legally nowadays, with options to subscribe. Enticing...
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8) Warcraft 3 (PC)
Oooh, Warcraft 3... This ate hours of my time at one point. It was a typical Dungeons and Dragons RTS, but it was refreshing, breaking free from the feel of Warcraft 1 and Warcraft 2. This one featured new characters, new units, and thankfully, new graphics to fit the feel of the times. The story was one of betrayal, corruption, and purification. Myself, being the medieval-preferenced gamer that I am, I loved it.While the Singleplayer was fun, and worthwhile to any RTS fan, it was the Multiplayer that kept me coming back.
What started out as simple skirmishes evolved into a variety of game modes that, oddly enough, worked and kept the game as fresh as it could be. Gladiators, Night of the Living Dead, Tower Defense, interactive Movie Makers, and, of course, the ever popular Defense of the Ancients. I never really liked DotA, and that never meant anything until the present day. When logging online, the only type of game you'll ever see IS DotA, played by players who perfected strategies and are ever vigilant of "newbies" who try to play alongside them. Luckily, there are some people out there who host other games types. Thankfully.
The graphics, while now considered a bit dated, are colorful and refreshing, the atmosphere differs in each level, the game controls like you'd *want* an RTS to control, and the gameplay - overall - is just plain fun. It was a no-brainer that I had to put Warcraft 3 on my list. With such great things said... Why isn't it number one?
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7) Half Life 1 (PC)
"Gordon Freeman, in the flesh - or, rather, in the hazard suit."
You're late to work, notice things are a little odd this morning, barely have time to slip into your hazard suit, are on-hand to test a new, rare sample, and manage to cause the fabled "resonance cascade". Welcome to the worst day of your life.
You know what Half Life is. If you don't, come out from under that rock and listen up. You're Gordon Freeman, a scientist working for the ultra-secret government research facility "Black Mesa". On an average day at work, you "accidentally" cause a resonance cascade, an event which essentially ripped a hole in a space and time and allowed the creatures from the world Xen to come into our dimension and start creating havoc. Your job, as Gordon Freeman? Save the world.
Essentially, at least. The original Half-Life is an FPS romp through underground laboratories, surface-bases, and alien worlds. You have your wits, a hazard suit, an arsenal of weaponry and your trust crowbar. If it moves, shoot it. If it moves and shoots you, shoot it. If it stands still and shoots you, shoot it. Hell, the scientists are going to die by the government's goons anyway: just shoot them. Gordon Freeman never speaks. You never see his face. He could be smiling the entire time, for all you know.
The graphics were actually pretty good, for their time, the controls were average, the voice-over work, while sometimes cheesy, was actually not bad. The gameplay was brilliant and the atmosphere really gave you the sense that the world you were plunged into was slowly going to hell, whether you could help it or not. Half Life, I pray, will be remembered for a long time as one of *THE* premier shooters of previous generations.
"Hey, catch me later, I'll buy you a beer!" ... Barney better hand us a bottle in Episode 3.
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6) Starcraft (PC)
Starcraft... What can I say about the game that got me hooked on Real-Time Strategy games? I'll admit, the singleplayer was not my favorite aspect of this game - as, I felt, some missions were simply fillers - yet the Multiplayer was sheer brilliance. Similar to Warcraft 3, many new game-modes were crafted years after Starcraft's release. I can still remember playing against a group of people, and when finished, looking at the clock to realize it was 5 o'clock in the morning.
It felt like "Starship Troopers" met "Aliens", which was a plus in my book. Basically, the Humans - Terran - were in a war against two alien races, the robotic/mechanical Protoss and the festering evolutionist Zerg, who were battling between themselves at the same time. Each side had its own strengths and weaknesses, and a unit that seemed to dominate all the rest. What I was happy about is that it didn't feel like a Rock-Paper-Scissors game, whereas Starcraft 2 seems to be turning out that way. However, no matter what unit you had, if you've played Starcraft, you'll understand me when I say "Carrier Spam".
That's... It. The graphics were colorful, there were a variety of detailed units and structures, games could last 30 minutes or 2 hours, and the soundtracks and voice overs weren't half bad. The futuristic music that lightly played in the background seemed to calm my nerved when one of my opponents decimated my entire army with a single line of siege-tanks. The funny thing about Starcraft? I still occasionally pop the disk into my computer and play a game or two to this day.
... I also know all of the Terran Unit Creation Speeches, and some of their speech files when you click on them. I know, I know, it's sad, but... I still hold true the fact that the ghost's creation speech-file is one of the best quotes in video game history.
"*Kssh* Somebody call for an exterminator?"
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5) Escape from Monkey Island (PC / PS2)
I remember, when I was a young lad with a hearty ambition, seeing "Escape from Monkey Island" on a store shelf. I asked my mother if I could purchase it, to which she agreed. When I took it home and popped the disc into my PS2, I was greeted by one hell of a hilarious pirate adventure game. It was simplistic enough that it did not require time to master, yet complex enough to keep me coming back for more. I believe I played through the game at least three times. This was, of course, before I knew of any other "Monkey Island" games.
You play as the delightfully stubborn Guybrush Threepwood as he rounds up a crew of [oddly misplaced] pirates in search of his wife's family's heirlooms, and his arch-enemy, LeChuck, who bested him in previous games. What results is a game full of hilarious dialogue, a wide variety of areas, some tough puzzles and a whole lot of bananas as Guybrush travels to the fabled, and dangerous, Monkey Island.
The game is very colorful, and it controls rather well on a console controller. Guybrush manages to make comments on nearly everything he sees - adding to that hilarious dialogue stated above - the puzzles actually take time and logical thinking to solve, and in some cases, the game broke the fourth wall between game and reality. I salute this game as my favorite adventure game to date, with Grim Fandango coming in a close second. This was also the game that got me hooked on pirates, and Monkey Island in general. I'm in the process of trying to get the original games from eBay, or by similar methods.
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4) Twisted Metal 2 (PS1)
If I could, I'd group Twisted Metal 1, 2 and 3 all into one spot on this list, but I'll be fair.
So, Twisted Metal had one of the more simple premises, even simpler than Road Rash: pick car, blow stuff up.
That's it. You'd pick how many players you wanted - one or two - and then pick your chosen vehicle of destruction, whether it be Warthog in his army Humvee or Axel (pictured above) strapped into his two monster-truck wheels. You'd roll around a variety of levels, picking up power-ups and various weapons, and use these weapons to blow apart the competition, all part of Calypso's sadistically planned tournament, coincidentally, "Twisted Metal". At the end, the winner would receive one wish, which Calypso would usually corrupt. I played through each character just to see the ending cutscene. I loved Warthog's. He wished for the body of a 20-year-old, and received it, yet still had the head of a 50-year-old. It was pretty funny, in a game that really put a backseat to humor, and let the absolute carnage run wild.
Twisted Metal 2 had some pretty bad graphics - the above picture of from a PSP snapshot, yet it is very similar to the PS1 game - but it made up for them by featuring some destructible environments, controls that were actually GOOD, and an assortment of weapons that blew the enemy sky-high. Twisted Metal was just one of those games that got it RIGHT. Twisted Metal 1 was fun, as was 3, yet 2 remains my favorite. Twisted Metal Black was...
Listen, don't talk to me about Twisted Metal Black. I played it hoping it would bring back memories, but it didn't. It was an "alright" game, just not what it used to be.
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3) The Sims 1 (PC)
You woke up this morning and your kitchen was on fire, your toilet broken, and someone broke in and stole your prized table lamp. Work seems to pass by in an instant, and because you were in a good mood, you got a promotion. You come home and decide to make a quick meal, but forget to use the bathroom, as you usually do, so you wet yourself. To make matters worse, the meal in the oven has caught fire, and the firefighters stop by your residence for the second time this day. You decide to watch TV, but the channel is simply rerunning some B-Movie from the 1980s. It's getting late. You take a quick shower and hop into your bed, only to repeat the process the next day.
Welcome to The Sims.
Get it? Sims? SIMulation? It's a life-simulation, guys, plain and simple. There is no monster to defeat - unless
the hunger in your stomach counts - there are no weapons, no bad-guys to shoot or terrorists to stop. You just... Live your life. Create a little virtual persona, buy him a house, furnish it for him, then let him do his thing. Just don't let him cook. Apparently, cooking a TV Dinner - in the oven, no less - will almost always set the house on fire. This can truly be a boring game.
... Then why do I love it so much?
It was just the accessibility of the game that enticed me to play it day-after-day. I'd consider myself a gamer with a wide variety of interests - Puzzle Quest, Burnout, Gears of War, Grand Theft Auto, Peggle, Etc. - so I gave the Sims a chance and was instantly hooked. There's something about having a bad day and taking it out on a little virtual "you" who can't speak English, and can hardly go to the bathroom by himself without passing out on the floor. That's all that CAN be said about the game. It's that simple.
The graphics are detailed and have a semi-realistic feel to them, the sounds of your Sims complaining in Simlish add a bit of humor to the game, the control-scheme fits the feel of the game extremely well, it is easily picked up and played, and it serves as one of the better time wasters out there.
Plus, if you're trying to hook someone on video games, I'd suggest you start them with The Sims. Just a bit of advice.
In a side note, I'd also like to mention The Sims Online, which is basically The Sims 1... Online. Next to Anarchy Online, it was one of my favorite MMORPG's - if you can call it that - as I spent just as much time simply talking to people. I've met a lot of good friends in The Sims Online - Test Center, named Alex Lussier, REPRESENT! - who I still talk to occasionally today. Funny how it all works out, eh?
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2) Spyro the Dragon (PS1)
Gah! I already broke my own rule!
I can't just choose one here, folks. The only REAL Spyro games, the ones I consider true to the series and/or canon, are Spyro 1, 2 and 3, all for the Playstation 1. The games were action/adventure/platformers that had a childish feel for a mature audience. At least, I believe so. I'm older than I was when I first played them and I still love the games.
You play as the lovable little dragon Spyro, with his DRAGONfly sidekick Sparx, as they were sent on quests to stop an evil villain, save the world - as always - and save Dragons taken captive. Sparx served other purposes other than being pure awesome - I'm sorry, he was, alright? He would change colors, indicating how much health you had left, and would disappear when you were about to die. I always tried to keep the little guy alive.
The controls were pretty sturdy, yet felt a bit tight at times. The sounds of the game were whimsical, and the voice-overs were bad, but "bad" in a good way. Funny dialogue came from a character who wasn't meant to be inherently funny. The games consisted of Spyro visiting a wide variety of landscapes, traversing separate "courses", and collecting keys of various shapes and sizes to unlock a trip to the next area, where the process would repeat.
They released a few games for the Gameboy, and a couple for the PS2 - and even one for the Xbox 360 - but I refuse to play them. Why would I corrupt the great memories I had of Spyro as a child with games that will surely be bad? Really, now.
... Having said that, they're coming out with a 3-D Animated Spyro movie, and I must say, I think I'll be seeing it. If you played the original games, you'd understand. Sparx, you Dragonfly, you. You were pretty awesome. Until David Spade started voicing you in the PS2 games. What happened?
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1) Paper Mario (N64)
That's right. My number one favorite game of all time is... Paper Mario for the Nintendo 64.
Someone was probably sitting down at a board meeting at Nintendo, stroking his chin and sipping some coffee, when it hit him. "What if we take Mario," he probably said as the others listened in. "... And flatten him, this time, not just 2-D. This time, literally... We could make it an RPG! Mario in Paperland... Mr. Paper... PAPER MARIO!"
Probably not, but you get the idea. Square - now Square Enix - alongside Nintendo tried this premise before, minus the paper. What came out of this was "Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars" for the Super NES. Undoubtedly, I had and played the game, and I liked it. It was pretty interactive, to be quite honest. I never got too far in the game, but the time I spent playing it, I enjoyed it thoroughly. It would simply seem that Mario was destined to playing Tennis and riding scooters for the rest of his days.
That is, until Paper Mario came along. You play as, obviously, Mario in a world that is flattened down completely. Bowser interrupts a party Princess Peach is holding, takes her away to his floating castle in the sky, and it is up to Mario to risk his life to save her, but you knew that. What makes this game different is that it is, as mentioned, a turn-based RPG. You will recruit companions along your travels - my favorite being the Koopa "Kooper" who spins in his shell and rockets it out towards his foe - and fight a variety of enemies. You can either jump on the enemy's head, smash them with your hammer, or use a special item like a "Sleepy Sheep" or "Fire Flower" to do damage. Each enemy has strengths and weaknesses, all of which can be avoided by use of a specific attack. For example, jumping on a Goomba with a spike on his head would hurt you, but slamming him over the head with your hammer only hurts him.
The game tries very hard to be funny, but the odd thing is, this approach works. The over the top humor in some situations, and dry-humor of others, makes for a hilarious action-adventure RPG. Mario never talks, so I found myself chuckling when the people he was talking to would always repeat what Mario would say in their own dialogue, so the player knew what was going on.
The game, even on the N64 - and now on the Virtual Console - is extremely charming. The visuals are beautiful and colorful, the game controls great, as you'd suspect it would, and the music and soundtrack is uplifting. The game really is a mature game hidden behind a childish shroud. Don't think for a moment that you are "too mature" to play Paper Mario. That is far from the case. It is a game to be enjoyed by all ages, and if you haven't played it before, I suggest you at least give it a chance. You can find it on the Virtual Console on the Wii, or even on eBay, I'd wager.
In a side note, the sequel for the Gamecube - The Thousand Year Door - was also incredibly well put together, and I recommend you play that as well. If I could, those two would be tied for first place on my list.
Also, don't even MENTION Super Paper Mario to me, that game on the Wii? No. That isn't Paper Mario. The first two Paper Mario games were true to the feel. I played Super Paper Mario, got to the first boss, and stopped. Where was the turn-based? Where was the feel of the originals? It was gone. It was no longer an RPG, in a sense. Just crap. If you played the originals, you'd most likely agree with me. Probably.
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Well, that's it. I finally did it. I've been meaning to list my favorite games for awhile now, so I'm glad I finally have.
Any questions or comments? Drop me a line here, I'll be sure to respond. Do you agree with my choices? Disagree?
I'm all ears.
Adios, guys. Until next time.
-Alex
Also, if you're expecting to see some Team Fortress 2, maybe Gears, some Guitar Hero, or possibly Bioshock, you've come to the wrong place. These are OF ALL TIME, which I can't stress enough. They haven't been around long enough to make a giant impact in my life.
Anywho...
Alex Takes a Look at His TOP TEN FAVORITE GAMES OF ALL TIME.
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10) Road Rash (PS1)
At number ten, a PS1 favorite of mine, Road Rash.
The premise was extremely simplistic: you pick a biker amongst a group of outrageous freaks, upgrade your bike, choose a race, win, then rinse and repeat. You needed to win at all costs, to get the money at the end, so each racer was equipped with his or her own special weapon. It was fairly common to pull up next to another rider and bash him over the head with a steel chain, or to have another rider kick you, sending you sliding across the road, into an oncoming truck.
One thing about Road Rash that really got me was the hilariously awful cinematics, performed by live "actors", and I stress that term. Whether you won the race, lost it, or got pulled over by the cops, there was a cinematic for it. One of my favorites was when, after you were pulled over, you had to escape a chasing Police Dog by jumping in the back of a Police Cruiser. That's tied for first place, along with the cinematic of the officer tying you to the back of his motorcycle and dragging you along the road, behind him. Seriously... Whaaaaaat?
The graphics were abysmal, the animations were blocky, the controls felt too loose at times, the cinematics were laughable, and the game itself was simplistic. Yet, Road Rash had a special charm about it. The hard rock background music, mixed with its pick-up-and-play feel, made me play this game for hours on end.
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9) Anarchy Online (PC)
Anarchy Online (A.O.), back when it was a major competitor in the MMO Market, was one of the first - if not *the* first - Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games that I felt attached to. I would spend days just playing it, leveling up my Martial Artist - who I got to level 47 before I stopped playing - and taking missions in a plethora of copy+pasted enviornments. The fururistic feel, variety of intense weaponry, multitude of customizable clothing and augmentations gave A.O. a feel all is own.
There were actually a lot of different classes you could choose from, and four races as well, each class useful in their own special way. My preferences were the hand-to-hand Martial Artist, who could take down people with a flurry of chops, and the ever-constructive Engineer who could build droids that would do his dirty work for him. No matter what class you chose, you were bound to find something you liked, and were bound to settle on a class that was almost a perfect match for your play-style.
What I loved about the game was that it was friendly. While the interface left to be desired - a cluster@#!$ of things polluting the screen at once - almost everyone you met was friendly in some way. In fact, standing outside of "The Mall" and whispering to people, asking for credits, managed to get you a ton of cash. Try that in World of Warcraft and see how easy it is. It's not. At all.
The graphics weren't entirely bad, to be quite honest. They were pretty good for the time period. The atmosphere of a sci-fi future engulfed in planetary and multi-corporatist wars was a change of pace from the standard dungeons and dragons. While plenty of things should have and could have been changed, it still remains my favorite MMORPG of all time, and number nine on my list. What's better is that you can play the game for free online legally nowadays, with options to subscribe. Enticing...
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8) Warcraft 3 (PC)
Oooh, Warcraft 3... This ate hours of my time at one point. It was a typical Dungeons and Dragons RTS, but it was refreshing, breaking free from the feel of Warcraft 1 and Warcraft 2. This one featured new characters, new units, and thankfully, new graphics to fit the feel of the times. The story was one of betrayal, corruption, and purification. Myself, being the medieval-preferenced gamer that I am, I loved it.While the Singleplayer was fun, and worthwhile to any RTS fan, it was the Multiplayer that kept me coming back.
What started out as simple skirmishes evolved into a variety of game modes that, oddly enough, worked and kept the game as fresh as it could be. Gladiators, Night of the Living Dead, Tower Defense, interactive Movie Makers, and, of course, the ever popular Defense of the Ancients. I never really liked DotA, and that never meant anything until the present day. When logging online, the only type of game you'll ever see IS DotA, played by players who perfected strategies and are ever vigilant of "newbies" who try to play alongside them. Luckily, there are some people out there who host other games types. Thankfully.
The graphics, while now considered a bit dated, are colorful and refreshing, the atmosphere differs in each level, the game controls like you'd *want* an RTS to control, and the gameplay - overall - is just plain fun. It was a no-brainer that I had to put Warcraft 3 on my list. With such great things said... Why isn't it number one?
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7) Half Life 1 (PC)
"Gordon Freeman, in the flesh - or, rather, in the hazard suit."
You're late to work, notice things are a little odd this morning, barely have time to slip into your hazard suit, are on-hand to test a new, rare sample, and manage to cause the fabled "resonance cascade". Welcome to the worst day of your life.
You know what Half Life is. If you don't, come out from under that rock and listen up. You're Gordon Freeman, a scientist working for the ultra-secret government research facility "Black Mesa". On an average day at work, you "accidentally" cause a resonance cascade, an event which essentially ripped a hole in a space and time and allowed the creatures from the world Xen to come into our dimension and start creating havoc. Your job, as Gordon Freeman? Save the world.
Essentially, at least. The original Half-Life is an FPS romp through underground laboratories, surface-bases, and alien worlds. You have your wits, a hazard suit, an arsenal of weaponry and your trust crowbar. If it moves, shoot it. If it moves and shoots you, shoot it. If it stands still and shoots you, shoot it. Hell, the scientists are going to die by the government's goons anyway: just shoot them. Gordon Freeman never speaks. You never see his face. He could be smiling the entire time, for all you know.
The graphics were actually pretty good, for their time, the controls were average, the voice-over work, while sometimes cheesy, was actually not bad. The gameplay was brilliant and the atmosphere really gave you the sense that the world you were plunged into was slowly going to hell, whether you could help it or not. Half Life, I pray, will be remembered for a long time as one of *THE* premier shooters of previous generations.
"Hey, catch me later, I'll buy you a beer!" ... Barney better hand us a bottle in Episode 3.
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6) Starcraft (PC)
Starcraft... What can I say about the game that got me hooked on Real-Time Strategy games? I'll admit, the singleplayer was not my favorite aspect of this game - as, I felt, some missions were simply fillers - yet the Multiplayer was sheer brilliance. Similar to Warcraft 3, many new game-modes were crafted years after Starcraft's release. I can still remember playing against a group of people, and when finished, looking at the clock to realize it was 5 o'clock in the morning.
It felt like "Starship Troopers" met "Aliens", which was a plus in my book. Basically, the Humans - Terran - were in a war against two alien races, the robotic/mechanical Protoss and the festering evolutionist Zerg, who were battling between themselves at the same time. Each side had its own strengths and weaknesses, and a unit that seemed to dominate all the rest. What I was happy about is that it didn't feel like a Rock-Paper-Scissors game, whereas Starcraft 2 seems to be turning out that way. However, no matter what unit you had, if you've played Starcraft, you'll understand me when I say "Carrier Spam".
That's... It. The graphics were colorful, there were a variety of detailed units and structures, games could last 30 minutes or 2 hours, and the soundtracks and voice overs weren't half bad. The futuristic music that lightly played in the background seemed to calm my nerved when one of my opponents decimated my entire army with a single line of siege-tanks. The funny thing about Starcraft? I still occasionally pop the disk into my computer and play a game or two to this day.
... I also know all of the Terran Unit Creation Speeches, and some of their speech files when you click on them. I know, I know, it's sad, but... I still hold true the fact that the ghost's creation speech-file is one of the best quotes in video game history.
"*Kssh* Somebody call for an exterminator?"
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5) Escape from Monkey Island (PC / PS2)
I remember, when I was a young lad with a hearty ambition, seeing "Escape from Monkey Island" on a store shelf. I asked my mother if I could purchase it, to which she agreed. When I took it home and popped the disc into my PS2, I was greeted by one hell of a hilarious pirate adventure game. It was simplistic enough that it did not require time to master, yet complex enough to keep me coming back for more. I believe I played through the game at least three times. This was, of course, before I knew of any other "Monkey Island" games.
You play as the delightfully stubborn Guybrush Threepwood as he rounds up a crew of [oddly misplaced] pirates in search of his wife's family's heirlooms, and his arch-enemy, LeChuck, who bested him in previous games. What results is a game full of hilarious dialogue, a wide variety of areas, some tough puzzles and a whole lot of bananas as Guybrush travels to the fabled, and dangerous, Monkey Island.
The game is very colorful, and it controls rather well on a console controller. Guybrush manages to make comments on nearly everything he sees - adding to that hilarious dialogue stated above - the puzzles actually take time and logical thinking to solve, and in some cases, the game broke the fourth wall between game and reality. I salute this game as my favorite adventure game to date, with Grim Fandango coming in a close second. This was also the game that got me hooked on pirates, and Monkey Island in general. I'm in the process of trying to get the original games from eBay, or by similar methods.
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4) Twisted Metal 2 (PS1)
If I could, I'd group Twisted Metal 1, 2 and 3 all into one spot on this list, but I'll be fair.
So, Twisted Metal had one of the more simple premises, even simpler than Road Rash: pick car, blow stuff up.
That's it. You'd pick how many players you wanted - one or two - and then pick your chosen vehicle of destruction, whether it be Warthog in his army Humvee or Axel (pictured above) strapped into his two monster-truck wheels. You'd roll around a variety of levels, picking up power-ups and various weapons, and use these weapons to blow apart the competition, all part of Calypso's sadistically planned tournament, coincidentally, "Twisted Metal". At the end, the winner would receive one wish, which Calypso would usually corrupt. I played through each character just to see the ending cutscene. I loved Warthog's. He wished for the body of a 20-year-old, and received it, yet still had the head of a 50-year-old. It was pretty funny, in a game that really put a backseat to humor, and let the absolute carnage run wild.
Twisted Metal 2 had some pretty bad graphics - the above picture of from a PSP snapshot, yet it is very similar to the PS1 game - but it made up for them by featuring some destructible environments, controls that were actually GOOD, and an assortment of weapons that blew the enemy sky-high. Twisted Metal was just one of those games that got it RIGHT. Twisted Metal 1 was fun, as was 3, yet 2 remains my favorite. Twisted Metal Black was...
Listen, don't talk to me about Twisted Metal Black. I played it hoping it would bring back memories, but it didn't. It was an "alright" game, just not what it used to be.
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3) The Sims 1 (PC)
You woke up this morning and your kitchen was on fire, your toilet broken, and someone broke in and stole your prized table lamp. Work seems to pass by in an instant, and because you were in a good mood, you got a promotion. You come home and decide to make a quick meal, but forget to use the bathroom, as you usually do, so you wet yourself. To make matters worse, the meal in the oven has caught fire, and the firefighters stop by your residence for the second time this day. You decide to watch TV, but the channel is simply rerunning some B-Movie from the 1980s. It's getting late. You take a quick shower and hop into your bed, only to repeat the process the next day.
Welcome to The Sims.
Get it? Sims? SIMulation? It's a life-simulation, guys, plain and simple. There is no monster to defeat - unless
the hunger in your stomach counts - there are no weapons, no bad-guys to shoot or terrorists to stop. You just... Live your life. Create a little virtual persona, buy him a house, furnish it for him, then let him do his thing. Just don't let him cook. Apparently, cooking a TV Dinner - in the oven, no less - will almost always set the house on fire. This can truly be a boring game.
... Then why do I love it so much?
It was just the accessibility of the game that enticed me to play it day-after-day. I'd consider myself a gamer with a wide variety of interests - Puzzle Quest, Burnout, Gears of War, Grand Theft Auto, Peggle, Etc. - so I gave the Sims a chance and was instantly hooked. There's something about having a bad day and taking it out on a little virtual "you" who can't speak English, and can hardly go to the bathroom by himself without passing out on the floor. That's all that CAN be said about the game. It's that simple.
The graphics are detailed and have a semi-realistic feel to them, the sounds of your Sims complaining in Simlish add a bit of humor to the game, the control-scheme fits the feel of the game extremely well, it is easily picked up and played, and it serves as one of the better time wasters out there.
Plus, if you're trying to hook someone on video games, I'd suggest you start them with The Sims. Just a bit of advice.
In a side note, I'd also like to mention The Sims Online, which is basically The Sims 1... Online. Next to Anarchy Online, it was one of my favorite MMORPG's - if you can call it that - as I spent just as much time simply talking to people. I've met a lot of good friends in The Sims Online - Test Center, named Alex Lussier, REPRESENT! - who I still talk to occasionally today. Funny how it all works out, eh?
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2) Spyro the Dragon (PS1)
Gah! I already broke my own rule!
I can't just choose one here, folks. The only REAL Spyro games, the ones I consider true to the series and/or canon, are Spyro 1, 2 and 3, all for the Playstation 1. The games were action/adventure/platformers that had a childish feel for a mature audience. At least, I believe so. I'm older than I was when I first played them and I still love the games.
You play as the lovable little dragon Spyro, with his DRAGONfly sidekick Sparx, as they were sent on quests to stop an evil villain, save the world - as always - and save Dragons taken captive. Sparx served other purposes other than being pure awesome - I'm sorry, he was, alright? He would change colors, indicating how much health you had left, and would disappear when you were about to die. I always tried to keep the little guy alive.
The controls were pretty sturdy, yet felt a bit tight at times. The sounds of the game were whimsical, and the voice-overs were bad, but "bad" in a good way. Funny dialogue came from a character who wasn't meant to be inherently funny. The games consisted of Spyro visiting a wide variety of landscapes, traversing separate "courses", and collecting keys of various shapes and sizes to unlock a trip to the next area, where the process would repeat.
They released a few games for the Gameboy, and a couple for the PS2 - and even one for the Xbox 360 - but I refuse to play them. Why would I corrupt the great memories I had of Spyro as a child with games that will surely be bad? Really, now.
... Having said that, they're coming out with a 3-D Animated Spyro movie, and I must say, I think I'll be seeing it. If you played the original games, you'd understand. Sparx, you Dragonfly, you. You were pretty awesome. Until David Spade started voicing you in the PS2 games. What happened?
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1) Paper Mario (N64)
That's right. My number one favorite game of all time is... Paper Mario for the Nintendo 64.
Someone was probably sitting down at a board meeting at Nintendo, stroking his chin and sipping some coffee, when it hit him. "What if we take Mario," he probably said as the others listened in. "... And flatten him, this time, not just 2-D. This time, literally... We could make it an RPG! Mario in Paperland... Mr. Paper... PAPER MARIO!"
Probably not, but you get the idea. Square - now Square Enix - alongside Nintendo tried this premise before, minus the paper. What came out of this was "Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars" for the Super NES. Undoubtedly, I had and played the game, and I liked it. It was pretty interactive, to be quite honest. I never got too far in the game, but the time I spent playing it, I enjoyed it thoroughly. It would simply seem that Mario was destined to playing Tennis and riding scooters for the rest of his days.
That is, until Paper Mario came along. You play as, obviously, Mario in a world that is flattened down completely. Bowser interrupts a party Princess Peach is holding, takes her away to his floating castle in the sky, and it is up to Mario to risk his life to save her, but you knew that. What makes this game different is that it is, as mentioned, a turn-based RPG. You will recruit companions along your travels - my favorite being the Koopa "Kooper" who spins in his shell and rockets it out towards his foe - and fight a variety of enemies. You can either jump on the enemy's head, smash them with your hammer, or use a special item like a "Sleepy Sheep" or "Fire Flower" to do damage. Each enemy has strengths and weaknesses, all of which can be avoided by use of a specific attack. For example, jumping on a Goomba with a spike on his head would hurt you, but slamming him over the head with your hammer only hurts him.
The game tries very hard to be funny, but the odd thing is, this approach works. The over the top humor in some situations, and dry-humor of others, makes for a hilarious action-adventure RPG. Mario never talks, so I found myself chuckling when the people he was talking to would always repeat what Mario would say in their own dialogue, so the player knew what was going on.
The game, even on the N64 - and now on the Virtual Console - is extremely charming. The visuals are beautiful and colorful, the game controls great, as you'd suspect it would, and the music and soundtrack is uplifting. The game really is a mature game hidden behind a childish shroud. Don't think for a moment that you are "too mature" to play Paper Mario. That is far from the case. It is a game to be enjoyed by all ages, and if you haven't played it before, I suggest you at least give it a chance. You can find it on the Virtual Console on the Wii, or even on eBay, I'd wager.
In a side note, the sequel for the Gamecube - The Thousand Year Door - was also incredibly well put together, and I recommend you play that as well. If I could, those two would be tied for first place on my list.
Also, don't even MENTION Super Paper Mario to me, that game on the Wii? No. That isn't Paper Mario. The first two Paper Mario games were true to the feel. I played Super Paper Mario, got to the first boss, and stopped. Where was the turn-based? Where was the feel of the originals? It was gone. It was no longer an RPG, in a sense. Just crap. If you played the originals, you'd most likely agree with me. Probably.
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Well, that's it. I finally did it. I've been meaning to list my favorite games for awhile now, so I'm glad I finally have.
Any questions or comments? Drop me a line here, I'll be sure to respond. Do you agree with my choices? Disagree?
I'm all ears.
Adios, guys. Until next time.
-Alex
