Oh alright, you talked me into it.
[HEADING=1]25: Simcity 2000[/HEADING]
Sure there are city building sims out there now that are full of whizz-bang graphics and excellent technical design (tips head at Cities: Skylines) but to date there's never been one with quite the
charm of Simcity 2000. It's full of that naive optimism in the progress of the future that gave us The Jetsons, Back to the Future, and the Atomic Punk genre as a whole. There are so many little details that keep you smiling as you toil away on your city. The little musical ditties, the ridiculous articles that pop up in the newspaper, centering the screen on the helicopter too many times and causing it to spin out of control and crash like you had shot it down yourself. It's a timeless masterpiece, and a game all would-be city builders should experience.
[HEADING=1]24: Star Control 2[/HEADING]
Yes, Mass Effect is a pretty good series. That's mostly because it was trying to be Star Control 2. Taking what was initially a super simple game that flung two starships at a time into fights comparable to trapping ants together in a shaken up jar, Star Control 2 expanded outwards in every direction, giving you a whole galaxy to explore, alien races to meet, a huge mystery to solve and above all a war to win back. That's right- humanity
lost a galactic war before the game even started, and you're embarking on a grand adventure to set things right again. Some of the best game characters and writing I've ever seen. It's available for free now, and will totally suck you into its world. Speaking of worlds...
[HEADING=1]23: Super Mario World[/HEADING]
My favourite of the 2D Mario games. It gave me a tangible feel of moving through a whole country, experiencing different terrain as I went, and honing my platforming and combat skills as I went, all building to a final boss battle that tested everything I had learned. The whole package, from the level design, to the characters to the music was just pulled off flawlessly. An utterly class game, and a joy to behold for the 1st, 5th, or 50th time you play through it.
[HEADING=1]22: Grand Theft Auto III[/HEADING]
Yes, I know that San Andreas is the richest, most complete and best GTA ever made. But there's something about III that still gets me. It's not even Nostalgia- I didn't play it until just before IV released, I think. But from a game design perspective, III is the purest of vision. It doesn't have any parts that feel unnecessarily tacked on. In particular, this was the first one to have satirical talkback radio and commercials, and even as early as Vice City you could see they were just chasing that initial spark of brilliance it showed in III. Also the car handling is second perhaps only to GTA V, and the level design just seems like a perfect microcosm of a New York you actually want to play in. GTA IV and Driver Parallel Lines should have taken notes, but didn't. Give III an ingame map and it'd be just about a perfect game.
[HEADING=1]21: Super Mario 64[/HEADING]
There are few games that grab your imagination by both hands and scream 'You see? Games can be so much
more than you think!' For a lot of us- SM64 was one of the biggest. It was the bold step into 3D, and we knew there was no going back. At its heart Mario 64 is really simple: You enter a world, and jump and puzzle solve until you get the star, based on a cryptic clue. But the gameplay itself, reportedly worked on for the first
six months on Mario's movement alone, was so addictive, it really was like the first time you picked up the original Mario Bros and marvelled at how well the little plumber responded to your movement all over again. It's still a blast to play today- and it's legacy on game design ever since is incalculable.
[HEADING=1]20: Red Baron[/HEADING]
The most recent addition to my list, Red Baron is an entirely self-contained simulation of air combat over the Western Front of WW1. Had it just featured a handful of stock missions and an instant action mode, it would still be an excellent game. But instead, Red Baron was one of the very first games to involve a
Dynamic Campaign- that is, a campaign that once kicked off, plays out differently every time you try it. The experience of living through the war, starting on slower machines and (if you survive long enough) graduating to the much more powerful sky hunters of the war brings a personal touch to your journey that is hard to describe. The fact you can fully record missions, edit and play them back is just the icing on a brilliant, well researched and immensely entertaining experience.
[HEADING=1]19: Re-Volt[/HEADING]
Many games have tried to capture the magic of the original Super Mario Kart- not least the Mario Kart series itself. While I still count Diddy Kong Racing as the king of the console crop, this is one genre the PC always struggled in. But the one racer that really showed how it should be done on both consoles and PC, was Re-Volt (though an honourable mention to Blur). Re-Volt cast you as a set of escaped remote controlled cars- and your tracks were real world locations littered with themed weapons like firecrackers, water balloons, and oil slicks. There's something about the handling of these little R/C cars that just seems like they
nailed what such tiny, lightweight cars feel like. It's also Nintendo hard, so don't expect to just breeze through it like a walk in the park. Re-Volt will test your tiny car racing skills to the
max.
[HEADING=1]18: Timesplitters: Future Perfect[/HEADING]
The last of the great roving crosshair console shooters, Timesplitters 3 was the end of an era. An era where a FPS was allowed to be tongue in cheek, where it arrived in stores as a complete game, where it was crammed with as many characters, weapons and ideas as the developers had time to fit in there. It even had a map and mission editor! On consoles! Debate still rages as to whether the best in the series was 2 or Future Perfect, but for my money it's the 3rd game, mostly because EA (in perhaps the only positive meddling they've ever done) insisted that the singleplayer all tied together under a single protagonist. The fact Free Radical intentionally made the protagonist so stupid resulted in a scathing parody of the standard Vin-Dieselesque action hero. The unique gameplay of fighting alongside another version of yourself from the future or the past is pretty fantastic, too.
[HEADING=1]17: Just Cause 3[/HEADING]
After the stellar Mercenaries and the 'good idea but somewhat unpolished' Just Cause, the stage was set for these two competitors to see who could bring out the better 'military pyrotechnics' sandbox. To everyone's surprise Mercenaries 2 sucked balls, and Just Cause 2 listened to fans of the 1st and produced a standout title that took the crown with ease. It wasn't without fault though- releasing right in the heyday of the Quick-Time-Event craze, the game was riddled with them, and really brought the quality down. When JC3 released, not only were they banished for good, but Rico's grappling hook was now so incredibly useful, most players bypassed using cars entirely. An all round outstanding game, and so far the peak of the Just Cause series.
[HEADING=1]16: Star Wars Battlefront II[/HEADING]
There are some who say the original is the better of the two Battlefront games. Having recently picked it up I can see where they are coming from, but I still prefer the sequel. It's not perfect, but it has so much love and care packed in with all its content that you don't care about the rough edges. Plus modders have inserted the original game's content into the sequel now so there you go: two games in one. The campaign is what really elevates this title. Using the building blocks of what is essentially an arena conquest shooter vs bots, they've managed to get a story out of it that some have claimed has writing that rivals even KOTOR. These days I see SWBF2 as the ultimate Battlefield game- the final form of the Battlefield style shooter before Battlefield itself went completely off the rails trying to be COD with vehicles.
[HEADING=1]15: Unreal Tournament 2004[/HEADING]
Of all the 'X or Y' game choices, this one is the hardest. How do you choose between Unreal Tournament and its hugely expanded 2004 sequel? I love both games to bits for being the ultimate untoppable high-bar for arena shooters (Sorry Quake 3), but in the end I have to give it to 2004 for just being the Magnum Opus of UT- with so many modes and ideas packed into the one game. Not all of them quite worked, but enough did to give you a game that's replayable until the very end of time, thanks to UT's multiplayer bots being the finest ever created- so good that they have actually passed the Turing test, and can smack talk with the best of human opponents. Before PUBG came along, there was nothing...
nothing that got your adrenaline as jackhammering as a lightning fast Capture the Flag round with Instagib rifles ready to turn you inside out with a single hit...
[HEADING=1]14: Conker's Bad Fur Day[/HEADING]
As good as Rare's other platformers were, I couldn't get fully into them for two reasons- one was the large roster of moves you had to memorise, and two was the huge numbers of collectables that held back your game progress. Enter CBFD- where you have only about 3 moves, and all you collected was wads of cash. Now THAT'S a platformer I could get behind! But it turned out to be much, much more than a platformer. The story was genuinely touching and funny despite initially looking crude and immature. And out of nowhere, a full roster of multiplayer games gave the game immense replay value. If ever a mascot deserved to have a proper fully fledged sequel, it's gotta be Conker.
[HEADING=1]13: Perfect Dark[/HEADING]
Goldeneye's spiritual successor, and perhaps the most complete FPS ever made. It was so advanced that 20 years later some of its innovations have still not been caught up to by other shooters. Perfect Dark was the shining Gold Standard for all console shooters to live up to until Halo appeared and taught dudebros to settle for far less than we had before. PD's singleplayer may not still grip me the way Goldeneye still does, but it was deep and brutally hard, and immensely rewarding to complete. Its endlessly customisable multiplayer bots remain among the best in the whole industry, and for this reason it's probably the game I go back to the most on the N64- whenever I need a chillout blastfest to unwind, they're always ready to welcome me back.
[HEADING=1]12: The Saboteur[/HEADING]
[image width=700]https://i.ytimg.com/vi/IHPvcPzXphw/maxresdefault.jpg[/IMG]
A fine companion-piece to Mercenaries, this was Pandemic's bittersweet swan-song. And what a swan song it is. Setting a sandbox in Nazi-occupied Paris is a stroke of genius. In no-other sandbox is it more fun to mess around with the authorities, snapping necks, luring them into traps, or gunning them down in probably the best 3rd person shooting I've seen in a sandbox. The story is much better than your average open world game and the protagonist is intensely likeable (if you're not bothered by that 'Irish' accent). The verticality of the world is reasonably unique too- and had Assassin's Creed 2 not come out the same year with better climbing mechanics, The Saboteur probably would have received the praise it deserved. It remains today an absolute cult classic that you owe it to yourself to check out.
[HEADING=1]11: Mount and Blade: Warband[/HEADING]
[image width=760]https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcTI0RMsozNubfLpRaKIFX3BxZR91LiTfZxfGYTnbk7kk4XKxcUi[/IMG]
This is, quite simply, the finest 'make your own story' open-world sandbox ever created. If you've ever played Sid Meier's Pirates! you'll be right at home, but if not, it's like this: You start as a complete nobody in a medieval country beset by several warring factions. The game world is not the slightest bit interested in you and functions just fine without you. It's the anti-Skyrim. If you're going to make a mark on this world, you're going to have to earn it. Watch as the lords of the factions go to war and defect and are captured and ransomed and form friendships and alliegances, and get right in the thick of influencing them yourself. Or just raise an army and go plundering across the countryside, in massed medieval field battles, castle sieges, and town battles. And did I mention the melee combat? Forget Chivalry. Snub your nose at Mordhau- the best swordfighting in all of gaming is right here, in Warband.
[HEADING=1]10: Interstate '76[/HEADING]
Who would have thought that taking the ridiculous concept of car combat, giving it a gritty story of redemption and revenge, a Mechwarrior powered damage and weapon system and just about the coolest game soundtrack ever would result in just about the most groovy game you could imagine? This was the full package- a sprawling singleplayer campaign (split into 'scenes'), various one-off missions to test your mettle, and an instant action arena mode against any combination of heavily armed cars, busses and trucks you could imagine, all on giant sprawling maps of the U.S. Southwest. Twenty one years later, and it is still the king of car combat perfection. Twisted Metal doesn't even come close.
[HEADING=1]9: Operation Flashpoint: Game of the Year Edition[/HEADING]
There may be prettier war sims, with higher stakes, shinier equipment, and more fist-bumps, but this pioneer of open world warfare from 2001 is still the closest I ever want to get to
real war. The first game in what would become the ARMA series, OpFlash took everything you knew about war games and threw it out the window. You could be cut down in a single burst of fire. Enemies could -and would- engage you from distances of 300m or more. Tanks were machines of nigh unstoppable death for soldiers caught in the open.
It also let you lose. A lot. War games generally had you follow a linear string of victories until the game ends. In OpFlash- there were missions you would not win. Missions you
could not win no matter how much the game dared you to try. The utter indifference the game shows to the death of the individual soldier resonates deeply. And when I found, in one mission, the enemy had shifted the front line so rapidly I was now miles behind enemy territory, alone, struggling to get to an extraction point before enemy patrols and helicopters spotted my terrified lump of squishy flesh to obliterate with fire and steel... I felt a fear no game had given me before. That's when I was hooked. Flashpoint has a quiet earnestness to it, a certain soul that ARMA has never understood. It was a clunky and somewhat jagged looking miracle- a blend of 'show don't tell' conflict wrapped up in a huge world sprawling with bases, vehicles, buddies and satchel charges. No other game has you so alert while crawling under bushes at night, ready to plant your charge near the patrolling tank you're praying to everything you believe in doesn't spot you in the darkness...
[HEADING=1]8: Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven[/HEADING]
This game has, in my opinion, the best story ever told in an interactive medium. Ever. Fully fleshed out characters making difficult decisions based on their environment and having to live with the consequences. No other game on this list so comprehensively transports you to another time and place as this masterpiece. The cars are sluggish and have terrible top speeds, but I didn't care. I savoured every minute of the experience, and try to play through this game about once every year- retracing the steps of Tommy Angelo- the cabbie that fell from grace into the life of a 'made man'. It's also notable for actually giving you all kinds of optional missions to do in freeroam. Hard to believe this came out in the same year as Vice City.
[HEADING=1]7: Deus Ex[/HEADING]
Perhaps an odd choice for me considering I didn't grow up with it. I only played it for the first time about 5 years ago. But- since I was around when UT'99 came out and in general I couldn't care less about graphics, I was able to dive straight into the story and
incredible level design. Everyone always praises the seamlessness of Half Life's design, but I think Deus Ex really perfected it, with a finely balanced set of rewards for exploration without ever treating you like an idiot. This was the only game I've ever played where I found myself playing all through the night on a level... that I had already completed.
That's how good this game is at sucking you into the story.
[HEADING=1]6: TIE Fighter[/HEADING]
The first PC game I ever bought, TIE Fighter set the bar for space combat so high that some would say it
still hasn't been surpassed. Whirling through a giant space furball with lasers flying everywhere and giant cruisers and destroyers drifting past your cockpit viewport entirely upside down as they maneuvered around the battle got my blood pumping so much, that I'd often switch it off only to find my entire hand had cramped up from clutching the joystick so tightly. It's exploration of the Empire's point of view as a Galaxy wide peace keeping force is made so believable in its realisation, it could be argued that their depiction in this game is even more fleshed out than even the Star Wars movies allowed. A good story wrapped up in an outstanding handling flight simulation- TIE Fighter isn't just one of the best Star Wars games of all time- It's one of best games of all time- period.
[HEADING=1]5: Battlefield 1942[/HEADING]
It seems so bizarre the way all people seem to talk about with the latest Battlefields is the balancing: Buff this, OP that... how can DICE still be struggling with all that when they basically knocked it out of the park with the first Battlefield? You think behemoths are impressive? Try giving both sides a full fleet to use, with fully pilotable destroyers, submarines, battleships, aircraft carriers and planes themselves. You think flying in a 2 vs 2 dogfight is intense? try 32 aircraft duking it out at once over the skies of Coral Sea or Britain. In a time before ironsights and weapon customisation, DLC or player progression or all that other utterly useless padding, Bf 1942 just
worked. It was well balanced, had wonderful variety in weapons, vehicles, terrain and armies, and is a joy to play. Not to mention mods could completely transform the game, providing the genesis for the Battlefront series, BF: Vietnam, and BF2 with Desert Combat. Such a shame that when Battlefield finally returned to WW2 where it all started, BFV was the broken mess that we got out of it.
[HEADING=1]4: Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction[/HEADING]
As much as I'd like to give this spot to The Saboteur for its excellent gun combat, great stealth and humour, Mercenaries takes the honour as its wiser, more serious older brother. It's still not very serious, but it's depiction of a modern warzone is captivating. Different nations seek to carve up the territory, journalists try to get to hotspots to get good footage, and nobody wants to be seen publicly stepping on too many toes. Enter you, the mercenary that can do everyone's dirty work for them, and get paid handsomely for the trouble. Probably my favourite sandbox, Mercenaries just
oozes atmosphere, in no small part thanks to the outstanding soundtrack by Michael Giacchino- mixing bold korean drums with tense strings and haunting chorale during the quieter moments. It's an all-out action game and no mistake, but underneath is the impression that this is a world torn apart, with everyone trying to just do the best they can with the resulting situation. Also, it's refreshingly hard at times. Mercs expects you to learn the tools of your trade and
will test you, to the very limit. But when you're perched ontop of a mountain range, using your binoculars to scope out the base you'll soon be attacking... it's just pure magic, especially for players that can think outside the box in their approach to objectives.
[HEADING=1]3: Crimson Skies[/HEADING]
Somewhere between the hardcore hair pulling simulations like IL-2 Sturmovik and the super arcade laziness of Rogue Squadron, there exists a sweet spot where you're given the full range of controls over your vehicle, but aren't punished if your revision on stall speeds and weight-to-thrust ratios isn't on point. In this sweet spot proudly sits Crimson Skies- the finest arcade flight combat game ever made. And no, not the Xbox sequel, I'm talking the PC original here. There are no other flight combat games with this much charm, sass, derring-do and reckless abandon as you, Nathan Zachary, lead your merry band of sky pirates through a story that progresses from light hearted treasure hunting to deeper double dealings and corporate conspiracies. You'll cross paths with a range of memorable characters both friend and foe, and marvel at the inventive alternate-world designs as they swoop and zoom between colossal zeppelins that open their gunports to trade broadsides just as the Spanish Galleons of old used to. Once again, a full range of instant action challenges await you, and each mission ends with newspaper clippings of the action you'd just lived through. Between that and the swashbuckling action music that gives way to a swinging 30's jazz when you complete your objectives, Crimson Skies is a taughtly paced, expertly designed and utterly charming aerial romp. Just play it.
[HEADING=1]2: Driver: You Are the Wheelman[/HEADING]
Speaking of that sweet spot between realism and pure arcade handling- what Crimson Skies did for aircraft, Driver did for cars. There's been precious few times where I've played a game that felt like it was made just for me, but Driver is special like that. The car handling
perfectly evokes the overpowered, fishtailing car chases of 70's crime movies, and when the cops start chasing you and the music changes, you
know it's about to get messy. It's still the most fun I've ever had in a game version of a hollywood car chase. What really elevates the game to legendary status however, is the Film Director mode. Every time you hit the streets, all your actions are recorded and can be played back. Not just like a replay, but you can pause the action, place your cameras, switch between the point of view of different cars in the chase, and have the whole chase play out like your very own car chase movie. For every hour I spent actually playing the game, I probably spent another 5 in the director mode. We need more games that can do this.
[HEADING=1]1: GoldenEye[/HEADING]
I love shooters. I love realistic tactical puzzle solvers like Operation Flashpoint. I like fast paced twitch shooting blastfests like Unreal Tournament and Quake 3. I like shooters you play with your friends like PUBG, and ones you play by yourself, like Far Cry. 1st person, 3rd person, PC or console, I can find plenty to like in a whole range of shooters.
But if I had to pick just
one? It would be Goldeneye.
It's a toughie. I mean, Perfect Dark improves on it in nearly every way, with multiplayer bots giving PD a near infinite amount of arena replayability. But there's one place Perfect Dark didn't top Goldeneye. Didn't come close. The singleplayer.
On paper, there are many things about Goldeneye that shouldn't have worked. Levels were designed before objectives, so there are rooms and hallways with no use for the mission. If an alarm is triggered, some levels will spawn infinite waves of guards to track you down- Forever. Sensitive mission equipment often sits close to things that blow up, and
everything in the game can blow up. There's no crosshair while you're moving. The small team of 7 (!) people that made Goldeneye were mostly first timers making it up as they went along, and as a result there are a lot of things in Goldeneye you don't see anywhere else.
But that's what keeps me coming back. Take the mission where you start unarmed in a prison cell. If you're crafty you can find some throwing knives, for silent takedowns. But the guards patrol on a completely randomised timeline. You may think the coast is clear because someone passed, only to find as you duck across the hallway that another is only 6 paces behind the first. It's these 'oh crap' moments that force you to improvise that continue to surprise and delight more than 20 years after the game released. We all have our favourite shooter, and usually for very specific reasons. I don't think I'll ever see a shooter made again with the same creative mindset Goldeneye was forged under, so for the time being, GoldenEye remains my favourite game of all time.
