My top 11 + honorable mention. Because every real geek has too much love to settle for just 10.
Honorable Mention - The first disc of Final Fantasy 7 (PS1)
All the rest can screw off, just give me a game taking place in Midgar and call it a day. Jak II wishes it could deliver this kind of atmosphere.
11 - Black and White series (PC)
When will Molyneux learn that RPGs just aren't his bag and that he should go back to making unusual but creative sim and strategy games?
10 - Half-Life 2 (PC)
Half-Life 2 almost
can deliver that Midgar-like atmosphere! Dropping lower on my list every day that shooters continue to be trite and overhyped. Was much closer to the top before Modern Warfare 2 was released. Seriously, Modern Warfare fans. Your inexplicable and overbearing enthusiasm made me rate Half-Life 2 lower than Kingdom Hearts. Is that the kind of world you want to live in?
9 - Kingdom Hearts (PS2)
Just the first one on this list, not the rest of them. There is no Kingdom Hearts 2 and Square's just playing a sick joke on us until they make the
real second game for the PS3 sometime in 2012.
8 - Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II (PC)
Infamous and Bioshock:
This is how you do a good/evil power system. Half the fun is in
mixing powers for different play styles and problem-solving solutions and the moral ambiguity found therein. Story is determined by relevant gameplay choices rather than arbitrary and banal black-and-white "interactive storytelling" dynamics.
7 - Devil May Cry 3 (PS2)
The Tony Hawk of the action genre. Read [a href="http://www.lostsystem.com/Analysis_DMC.html"]this analysis[/a] if you want my thoughts on this. In short: best connection between player attitude and character attitude ever.
6 - Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal (PS2)
Too many good things to say. No Ratchet and Clank since has ever measured up to its awesomeness and no Ratchet and Clank ever will. Finest showcase in level design you will ever see.
5 - Batman: Arkham Asylum (PS3)
I really
am the goddamn Batman! Connected back to the series I watched as a kid as well as the image I grew to respect from theaters and comics as an adult, and furthermore acts as an excellent benchmark for creative problem-solving in games.
4 - Dungeon Keeper (PC)
"This is not a wishing well, Keeper!"
-Narrator, on throwing gold into the sacrificial pool. Incredible and unusual strategy game the likes of which have not been seen since its time. Encompassed a bewildering number of different senses of pleasure and enjoyment, from the sadistic glee of ordering my Horned Reaper to mercilessly slaughter a group of heroes to the problem-solving involved in coordinating monsters and the sense of discovery and wonder of unearthing underground passages and hidden monsters--sealed away long ago when the humans dug too greedily, and too
deep. Demented sense of humor and one of the few perfect games I can name. Peter Molyneux's best work by far.
3 - Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium (Sega Genesis)
Best female character in any game: Alys Brangwin. Defined my ideal of the perfect woman. Also sports a detailed (well, for a
Genesis game, anyway) sci-fi world drawing from Dune, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, and Star Wars.
2 - The Secret of Monkey Island/Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge/The Curse of Monkey Island (PC)
If I need to explain these games, refer to the instructions at the beginning of Yahtzee's
Psychonauts review. Literally some of the first games I ever played on PC. The first was
Loom, but there's a reason
Monkey Island is on this list and
Loom isn't.
1 - The Dig (PC)
A Lucasarts adventure game in the same tradition as the Monkey Island series, but with a serious and mysterious tone as a group of astronauts finds themselves stranded on an abandoned alien world and have to find their way back home.
Carnagath said:
Thank you for acknowledging this game and proving that I'm not the only person who ever heard of it.
Neverhoodian said:
The problem with listing my top games is I always remember a few after the fact and go "oh man, how could I forget those?!" As a result, the list is never spot on.
Agreed. I wanted to put Sonic 3 and Knuckles and Metroid Prime on the list somewhere.
NeutralDrow said:
So you went/go to SCAD too, huh?
