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[nynt9]

Time for 5 that didn't make it!

Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair

Speaking of VLR, this game is awesome. The first Danganronpa took me by surprise, and I really enjoyed it. The atmosphere was weird, but when I got on board with it I had a good time. But I always felt like the exploration was a bit tedious and the game never really reached its potential. But I like Phoenix Wright meets murder mystery, and the twists and turns were cool. Enter the sequel, where the setting is changed, the game is polished up to be way more fun, and the plot is ridiculous and mind-blowing (despite appearing otherwise initially)

I actually liked the additions to the trial system, and the trials in general were better written and more interesting. I cared a lot more about the characters in this one, and the setting was legitimately mysterious and unique. I think this game is better than its predecessor in basically every way. I enjoyed Ultra Despair Girls a lot too, but the conclusion in the anime was kind of disappointing. Would have preferred the series to conclude in a game, but I'm looking forward to the reboot in V3 for sure!

Team Fortress 2

Oh, Team Fortress 2. This game probably makes up for a majority of my online multiplayer time if you don't count WOW. I played this game SO MUCH. Especially during vanilla. Love the maps and characters, and playing Spy was genuinely really engaging and intriguing, both with friends and randoms. I had so much fun. Later on, with updates adding new stuff, at first I was pretty on board. 1-2 play style variations per class were great, but then the game became f2p and the quality of play on public servers dropped massively, and they added too many different weapons making the game feel random, eliminating the tight balance. I can't imagine playing the game today, but I had good times with it.

Beyond the regular game modes, I also enjoyed modded dumb bullshit. Prop hunt, where one team plays as pyros that lose health when they shoot, and other team controls objects like traffic cones and chairs, and they hide in the environment from the pyros, was pretty hilarious. It got old fast, but it was a good time. Then we had surf, as seen in the above image, which exploits the physics of Source to let you glide on angled surfaces. While racing surf maps were cool, PVP surf maps with actual fighting and objectives were even cooler. Had some pretty crazy times with them.

Check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZDhaf39R3I

The Talos Principle

I love puzzle games, I love games that explore philosophical themes, especially as they relate to computer science (my job), and I love Croteam. Hence, this game. First, I'd like to talk about the narrative. Delivered to you through an AI that talks to you and gives you moral and otherwise dilemmas to consider, the game has excellent writing that legitimately made me question my own beliefs. Few games can do a good job of that (and my GOAT sure does that too). The meta-narrative about sentience and reality was explored very well, and thematically integrated into the game itself as well.

Furthermore, the gameplay is brilliant. Remember what I said about puzzles that are hard to figure out and easy to execute? This game does that in spades. Later puzzles get legitimately confusing and require a lot of thinking and testing to solve. The mechanics are mildly reminiscent of Portal minus the portals, but they feel original. But the real meat of the game is in solving the secret puzzles. If solving the normal puzzles is mentally taxing, the secret puzzles are even more ridiculous. Not only are they challenging to find and intuit, but solving them requires juggling the main puzzle and the extra challenge, and some have solutions that require you to carry things over from multiple levels. It's really brilliant.

Quake III: Arena

And yet another multiplayer game that is among the best multiplayer games. Anyone who's played this knows that it's the purest form of competition in a shooter. Equal footing for each player, go. It's so fast-paced and requires both juggling of map information and denial, reading your opponent a la fighting games, and also pure aiming skill. High level competitive Quake is probably the form of competitive gaming that I respect the most. If you go and watch pros, it's inhuman.

That being said, I was never really super high level at the game, yet I was still able to enjoy it immensely. Playing with friends, bots and randoms all were fun in their own ways. The game is incredibly rewarding and when you get good, it's a blissful feeling. The fast pace makes it so that every moment is exhilarating, and you need to be constantly alert, on edge and at your best. Few games evoke this level of mental acuity. Q3A is probably the best competitive multiplayer shooter ever, and I don't see it being topped any time soon.

Overwatch

Aaand we have Overwatch. My GOTY from last year. Weirdly, games that are lower on my GOTY list from last year are on my main list while this isn't. That's partially due to me not having enough time to play OW these days, but also Gmod representing a bigger multiplayer passion of mine and taking OW's slot. I know it's weird and confusing, but whatever. I think in time with updates, it will craw back up. Regardless, I love Overwatch. Amazing designs and polish, awesome variety of play styles and characters, brilliant teamwork game.

I enjoy playing as pretty much every character, and can spin up a game and play any time without ever getting frustrated. The game just feels so good to play and I love everything about it. Actually, I'll just go play OW now. Good night!

 

[StarPhlox]

Wow!! These are actually pretty shocking choices to be outside the top 100!

Overwatch in particular seems to really jive with your interests so for it to not be within the top 40 is surprising. Team Fortress I never played but it seems like a decent version of Overwatch pretty much.

Talos Principle a lot of people stand by but I think it kinda has been forgotten because of The Witness.

Danganronpa games are easily top 50 for me. Well the first 2, at least. We will see what happens with V3 but I'm hopeful.

 

[nynt9]

Wow!! These are actually pretty shocking choices to be outside the top 100!

Overwatch in particular seems to really jive with your interests so for it to not be within the top 40 is surprising. Team Fortress I never played but it seems like a decent version of Overwatch pretty much.

Talos Principle a lot of people stand by but I think it kinda has been forgotten because of The Witness.

Danganronpa games are easily top 50 for me. Well the first 2, at least. We will see what happens with V3 but I'm hopeful.

I think right now is just not the time for OW to be in my list above GMod. Probably in a year or so it will replace it, but I don't have slots for too many multiplayer only games and they occupy a similar headspace for me, and I've spent a lot more time in GMod. Right now if I crave a MP shooter, I will either play Siege or wish I could play GMod like I used to. I can't have that experience back because the communities I was in no longer exist, but that experience is still dear to me. Over time, as Overwatch grows, and I grow more and more into it, it will surely crawl up my list.

Talos and Witness occupy entirely different places in the puzzle spectrum and while Witness is incredible and super polished, Talos does more with its premise so to me it has more lasting appeal as an overall package, even though Witness has more interesting puzzles.

I have too many VNs I like more than DR in my top 100 to make room for DR unfortunately. And I still think parts of the games drag, whenever you're not in a trial. If they cut the friendship/gifting stuff and just focused on plot with no empty days in between, I'd like it a lot more. That stuff feels like filler.

edit: anectode

Since I mentioned that I'm a compsci major, let me tell you about a game related thing I had. In my first year course project, I decided to develop a game. It was some top down 2D maze game, with traps, puzzles and enemies. Kind of like 2D Zelda dungeon meets Sokoban. I was making it in Java (shudder, but it was the language chosen by the course). Normally, in a 2D game like this, the easiest way to do levels is by saving the level design to a text file. The code would then read the text file and populate a level. Thing is, I wanted each level to have custom scripting and not just have levels be created from pre-constructed tiles and enemies. Each level could have unique objects that had their own code, enemies with unique AI and special traps. Now, there are better ways to handle this obviously, but at the time I didn't know. So what I did was that instead, every level would actually be a Java code file. I created a level editor in Java that would, based on your design and scripting, create a Java source code file from your design, then export it. Then, when you boot up the game, it would include that file, compile it so it can be run as part of the executable, and then loaded as a level. I know, horrifyingly convoluted, but I didn't know any better.

What I wanted to do was have the level editor loadable from the main menu of the game, and created levels to be playable without rebooting the game. Thing is, you have to compile your code before you can run it, so the level created by the editor, being a source code file, could not be easily integrated into the game when it was running. Now, this was in the time of Java SE5, where the language wasn't as fully featured as it is today. I decided to attempt this anyway. The problem is, this idea came to me at midnight before the project deadline. I went at it anyway. I wrote some really convoluted code to compile Java code on the fly, try to dynamically load it into the existing code, and call it. Now, this is pretty advanced stuff for a first year compsci major so I was flying quite blind. Also Java was not designed to do this at the time. Yet I persevered, and wrote the code. There was no reason it shouldn't work as-is, but it just didn't work. I surely made some mistakes when I finally finished my implementation at 4AM. I kept trying, but I had to present the project at 9AM. Eventually, I gave up, and never got to do it.

These days, I code in C++ and Python, and could easily do this with either, but back in the day it was an incredibly ambitious idea. In the end, my professor gave me an A, and he was really impressed by my attempt and idea, and I ended up TAing his course the next year. Sometimes ideas and trying are good enough! (Well, the main game itself was pretty cool and it worked totally fine so that helps too)

Non-programmer people: if this is unclear let me know and I can add more detail and explain stuff.

 

[AngmarsKing701]

OW would be in my top 10 right now if I had to make a list like this, but part of that is just I'm burying 90% of my available playing time (which admittedly isn't much) with it. Every time I look at my Steam list, I think "I could fire one of these up ... or I could play OW." And I play OW.

 

[nynt9]

Hey all, sorry I don't feel up to posting today. Had to drive 9 hours and compounded with me being kinda sick last week I just feel awful. Will keep up with the updates tomorrow.

Minor anectode though. I went to Comiket in... I think 2011. For the unaware, it's basically Japan's Comic-con. I was in Japan at the time it was happening, and decided to go. I think Ryukishi07 (of When They Cry fame) was releasing the visual novel version of Higanbana no Saku Yoru Ni, and me and the lady wanted to go meet-and-greet him. It was an incredible experience going to Comiket because of how ridiculously orderly the crowds were, but the funny part is I got interviewed by a Japanese TV crew there. Being literally the only white dude there, they wanted to get my hot take on the situation. At that time my Japanese was a bit rudimentary, but I was able to answer most of their questions. They asked me where I was from, why I was there, whether I was enjoying myself and whether I had come to see a particular artist or something. It was pretty amusing being singled out and interviewed like that. Not the first time I've been interviewed on live TV, but the first time I had to respond on my feet in a language I was struggling to speak, completely out of my depth. I hope whomever watched that enjoyed it

Ended up getting a bunch of doujinshi and the PS3 port of Umineko. Good times.

edit: I guess I lied, but I promise I will provide updates on Friday. Still recovering.

 

[nynt9]

Ok, sorry about the missed posts... time for some catching up.

35: Thief II: The Metal Age

This game is one of the best immersive sims of all time. It's also the best pure stealth game. I could sing its praises endlessly, but the main reason it shines so much is the level design. Garrett is useless in combat, so you really need to avoid enemies. As a result, it's all about the ways you can subvert the levels. All the locations feel like real places instead of designed areas to facilitate gameplay, yet they do a perfect job of facilitating gameplay anyway.

I'd like to point out that the reason Thief 2 works so well is that due to its relatively simplistic graphical style, you know every single object you can interact with in the environment. When modern games ramped up the visual complexity without having the environment interactability matching it, you end up having lots of pretty objects that are visual window dressing that you don't know if you can interact with. Which is why we end up needing stuff like detective vision - to point out what is actually interactable. The only exception being Bethesda games, where everything is interactable. The art style in Thief 2 is perfect for that, everything that's interactable is immediately obvious. Hence gameplay directly translates to the visuals. This perfect congruence is what leads the game to be incredibly immersive, and thus the amazing level design is 100% meaningful gameplay.

34: Quake

I'm going to be a bit lazy here, but Ahoy did such an amazing job dissecting Quake that I have to defer to him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OipJYWhMi3k That's seriously one of the best video essays on gaming.

For some of my own words though, Quake was the first true 3D FPS for me. And it still holds up entirely. The sequels abandoned the Lovecraftian aesthetic and focused on sci-fi instead, which meant that the feeling was lost. Mazelike level design, fantastic art style that makes the most of the few polygons they have, and incredibly satisfying combat are the names of the game here. Quake is still one of the best games of all time.

33: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

If you asked me a few years ago, this game would be way higher up in my list. Since then it's been dethroned, but it's still commanding a strong spot on my list. Defining the second half of the term Metroidvania, SOTN was a breakthrough for platformers. No longer was it just about running around and attacking things, now we had RPG elements. The character grew stronger over time, there was loot, a huge nonlinear game area, and a vast array of enemies and abilities. SOTN's influence is still felt in many games. Also, it used the 3D capabilities of the PS1 to create visual effects that were previously unseen in platformers.

I still play this game every year. It still holds up. Not only did the game innovate in many ways, it was also a tight-ass game that played really well and still does. It's a testament to the formula of this game that IGA and team were able to make like 6 more in the same vein without really causing fatigue for the formula (for me at least). I still love every one of these, but SOTN is right up there with the best.

32: Portal

Since I've been proclaiming my love for puzzle-adventure games, obviously Portal was going to be here. This game was yet another game changer. An incredibly high profile experiment by Valve, the game reached a massive audience and charmed many with its stark aesthetic, mind-bending portal mechanic and memorable story. Valve were brilliant to hire Kim Swift after Narbacular Drop. The portal mechanic is just so brilliant, and they did a really great job of teaching people this complex mechanic and designing a variety of puzzles with it. The game could have just been a straight puzzler, but the fourth wall break moment put it in an entirely different tier. I still remember how I felt when the ball dropped.

I gotta mention Portal 2 though. It was incredibly disappointing. Sure, it had more jokes and memes, and a larger adventure feel, but the puzzles were a massive disappointment. A huge amount of the game was spent trying to find the tiny white spot in a giant room to shoot your portal at, and that was it. Other puzzles were incredibly straight forward, yet tedious to execute, and you know I hate that stuff in puzzle games by now. Portal 2 was a fun adventure game, but a terrible puzzle game. The co-op stuff was cool though.

31: Knytt Stories

The original Knytt and Within a Deep Forest by Nifflas were incredible indie platformers, and they came before the big indie boom. Then Nifflas announced a sequel to Knytt, his fantastic minimalistic atmospheric platformer/metroidvania. The game comes out, and it's amazing, better than the first in many ways. Beautiful art style, a world that is a joy to explore, serene yet creepy when it wants to be, and incredibly satisfying to play.

But wait, there's more. He included a level and campaign editor, which was incredibly easy to use and also powerful. In fact, the included game itself was entirely editable. It spawned a rather large community of creating levels, in which I was quite active. I created a lot of levels, and as fun as the game was to play, it was also incredibly fun to create more stuff, share it with people, see how they've used the engine and what they've made. The creations ranged from brutal precision platformers to storytelling experiments to dank memes. It was incredible. Possibly one of the best creation tools in gaming, and it's made by just one guy.

=======================

Alright, that would make for Wednesday's post that I missed. I actually considered putting in all 3 days of posts, but I feel like that would be overwhelming and content would get lost. Should I just keep posting at a regular schedule or catch up? let me know. I can also double up today and tomorrow instead of posting 3 today.

 

[NoFaceNico]

Vanquish in many ways kind of killed the third person shooter genre for me. Combining Platinum's tight, ridiculous gameplay with Shinji Mikami's sense of style, Vanquish is so pure energy. Character action games are generally melee combat based, but Vanquish makes the formula work for shooting. You can use cover and be lame, sure, but the game is all about mobility and speed. The rush you get from playing this game is unparalleled.

You took the words right out of my mouth... or fingertips.. typing. Whatever. You know what I mean.

I was hugely into the 6th gen of gaming but missed out on the 7th gen because I was in college during those years. When I finally got around to enjoying it, one of the first games I picked up was Vanquish. It was both a blessing and a curse because while Vanquish is one of the best games ever made, it blows the competition out of the water. I can't play Gears of War or any of those other third person shooters because can't get over how inferior they are the Vanquish. Not trying to overhype the game, it's just true.

But I do recommend playing those other third person shooters if only because they get you to fully appreciate the fluid action/shooting/speed in Vanquish. I tried Dark Void because without any sequel I was thirsty for similar gameplay and figured it was close enough. Nope. It plays like dogshit. The balance of gameplay elements is all over the place, you never feel like you're in control, you're just surviving levels like they're an obstacle course that shoots back.

Vanquish really will change the way you look at a whole genera.

 

[Spladam]

This thread is such a great read, you're well organized in your thoughts, describe things like a professional writer, and obviously have a real enthusiasm and passion for video games.

It's been very interesting reading about your experiences as a gamer in Turkey, and you have played a surprisingly vast array of video games through the years. I would like to echo the sentiment of others in that your memory of these experiences is astounding, I don't remember most of the plot of half the video games I've played, much less the little details you invoke. I'll say it again, including an honorable mentions list was brilliant, and it's going to be hard to top this 100 list.

I think this list being so comprehensive and the explanations being so convincing, this list has created far less controversy than list normally do.

I too beat SOTN once a year around Halloween, it's one of a few games I usually replay yearly (including Chrono Trigger).

I've still to this day have never played Thief II, and I regret missing that experience. I have it on Steam, so I'll try to make some time for it. Reading your thoughts on it and some of the choice steam reviews for it really make me want to go enjoy it. I also just picked up X-Wing Alliance which is the one Lucas Starwars game I did not play, and is considered by most to be the best of the X-Wing and Tie series (They are all on sale on Steam AND GOG right now for those who are interested, I got the GOG version. )

I wanted to ask you, do you read and write Japanese? You don't have to share, but I'was wondering where you currently live now. It's interesting as a person who grew up in the U.S. to read about others gaming experiences from around the world. I take it you speak 3 languages? Not including C+, Java, and Python hahaha (Which Civ IV was written in)

Speaking of which, I'm kind of disappointed as a fellow Firaxis fan that no Civilization game made the list.

-Edit: Oh, and what did you think of Knytt Underground?

 

[nynt9]

Anectode time!

Since I mentioned Knytt Stories, I want to talk about my favorite daventure that I created. It was an incredibly difficult exploration level. On the official forums, there were several different types of daventure, and I submitted it to the nightmare difficulty category, and even won an award at some point, if I recall correctly. Thing is, a lot of the ultra-hard levels were based on bizarrely specific platforming (the game is played on a keyboard and the movement mechanics are such that there is a minimum distance the character moves per each key press, which you had to fiddle with by bumping into walls if you wanted to get pixel perfect jumps). My level was different, as it emphasized Super Meat Boy-like momentum and "going with the feel" instead of being super precise. As such, my level was well-liked in the community.

Going further though, I added a series of secret collectibles that were even harder to find and obtain. They required familiarity with the quirks of the engine to get to, and the hidden paths leading to them were subtly telegraphed but hidden behind very difficult platforming paths. I even put out a challenge for people to collect them all. Soon, several members of the community were going at my level. There was one collectible in particular that was causing issues for everyone, and it was the result of a particularly long secret segment - it was easily the hardest thing to obtain in my map. People were constantly asking for hints. I was excited, but I noticed something. In my testing, I had accidentally deleted the block right before the collectible, so the platform to jump to for it was just a hair too short, and thus it was actually unreachable. Pushing out a new version of the level would break compatibility with saves, and it would lose me face. I tried to be cryptic about it when I pushed out a new version and not draw attention to my mistake after people had spent so much effort trying to get the secret. In the end I don't think anyone really ever obtained the item. Still have a chip on my shoulder about that :/

Knytt Stories is free, so if anyone wants to play this level, let me know and I'll try to dredge it up and provide it.

This thread is such a great read, you're well organized in your thoughts, describe things like a professional writer, and obviously have a real enthusiasm and passion for video games.

It's been very interesting reading about your experiences as a gamer in Turkey, and you have played a surprisingly vast array of video games through the years. I would like to echo the sentiment of others in that your memory of these experiences is astounding, I don't remember most of the plot of half the video games I've played, much less the little details you invoke. I'll say it again, including an honorable mentions list was brilliant, and it's going to be hard to top this 100 list.

I think this list being so comprehensive and the explanations being so convincing, this list has created far less controversy than list normally do.

I too beat SOTN once a year around Halloween, it's one of a few games I usually replay yearly (including Chrono Trigger).

I've still to this day have never played Thief II, and I regret missing that experience. I have it on Steam, so I'll try to make some time for it. Reading your thoughts on it and some of the choice steam reviews for it really make me want to go enjoy it. I also just picked up X-Wing Alliance which is the one Lucas Starwars game I did not play, and is considered by most to be the best of the X-Wing and Tie series (They are all on sale on Steam AND GOG right now for those who are interested, I got the GOG version. )

I wanted to ask you, do you read and write Japanese? You don't have to share, but I'was wondering where you currently live now. It's interesting as a person who grew up in the U.S. to read about others gaming experiences from around the world. I take it you speak 3 languages? Not including C+, Java, and Python hahaha (Which Civ IV was written in)

Speaking of which, I'm kind of disappointed as a fellow Firaxis fan that no Civilization game made the list.

-Edit: Oh, and what did you think of Knytt Underground?

Thanks for the positive words! I really appreciate it. I do have a passion for video games, it's why I studied computer science, even though I decided not to work in the field professionally because it seems like a miserable job. All the respect to devs.

I really try not to discriminate between platforms and genres too much, since I like games overall I try to experience different ends of the spectrum. Not everything appeals to me, but I try to give everything a shot. The honorable mentions list is absolutely essential I think, because there are so many games I like but not enough to fit in a top 100, but trying to order all of them is just exhausting.

Thief is kind of hard to go back to, but I think it's absolutely fantastic. If you want to get as close to it as possible in a modern context, there's a series that's pretty recent that you can give a shot to, which I'll get to in my list eventually I'm sure you know what I mean. The X-Wing series is great, really, but I just have some sort of mental block that prevents me from truly grokking 6DOF motion in games and being able to enjoy space combat. Ace Combat is as far as I can go in terms of flight combat, the rest just doesn't work for me. I hate tracking my shots ahead of enemies while trying to fly in space.

I do read and write Japanese. My wife is way more proficient than I am, but I'm decent too. The main reason I got better at Japanese is actually due to video games, and I'll get to the story of that soon enough as well. I live in the USA, and I do speak English and Turkish as well, but I am reluctant to call myself a Japanese speaker because I am not versed enough in casual conversation to really hold my own. Given a little bit of time, I can figure out text, which is why I'm very grateful for Japanese games not fully adopting voice acting.

I love Firaxis stuff, but my problem with Civ games is that I burn myself out on them too easily. Every Civ game release, I will spent 60 hours in a week playing the new game, then just feel absolutely disgusted with myself and take a break. I can't be moderate with those games so I kind of force myself to stay away from them. And sometimes I have these moments where I'm taking turn after turn and just not doing anything, waiting for research to complete and units to move and buildings to build, and I'm like "what am I even doing right now?" Still, I think they're the best of the genre for my tastes. I tried Endless Legend, and it's really cool, but it just doesn't have the same feel.

As for Knytt Underground, I liked it, but it was a big disappointment after stories. The art style was pared back, and I was hoping Nifflas would go in an even more creator-driven fashion, since Saira had level editing too. Instead it was a decent metroidvania with a pretty monotone art style. Still really enjoyed it, but it wasn't where I wanted the series to go.

 

[nynt9]

Hey, again, I had to take the weekend off. Just too busy and stuff. It's not like there was a lot of discussion going on anyway!

5 games that didn't make it:

Serious Sam: The First Encounter

This was the first FPS in a long time that felt like a good successor to the Doom ethos in a very long time. A large number of enemies coming at you in an open area, you move very fast and have to strafe and crowd control enemies while mowing them down. Sounds like such a simple formula, but so few games actually get it right. This wasn't Croteam's first game, but it was what put them on the map. For good reason.

Objectively, the designs and art style of Serious Sam are pretty terrible. But they make it work somehow. Headless dudes with bombs for hands (who yell at the top of their lungs somehow) who run at you and blow themselves up are really stupid. But it's amazing, and it works. The weapon variety is perfect, and it's real variety, each weapon fills a different niche and is essential to the play style. It's not easy for any game to become an instantly recognizable classic, but Serious Sam managed it.

The Darkness II

The first Darkness game was pretty cool. The Darkness comics have always been quite interesting, and the game was a good adaptation of that concept, if a bit clunky. The second, however, really delivered on the idea. Changing the art style to be more comic book-like, giving you 4 tentacles to control instead of 2, and the combat was vastly improved. The game was actually incredibly fun. It kind of reminds me of Bioshock 2 with its open ended combat, with being able to grab and throw objects with your extra tentacles, using the other ones to either hold weapons or attack enemies, and much more.

It makes sense that the game was made by Digital Extremes, who are responsible for assisting in Bioshock 1 and 2, and they made Warframe. These guys know their combat. Throwing a lot of enemies at you and having you try to scramble around to deal with them whichever way you want was a brilliant design. You have a large skill tree and can build Jackie the way you want. The premise of the game was brilliantly executed as well, and it had a surprising and interesting ending (with two endings you can choose from)! Overall, this game is quite underrated and very fun, and one of the better FPSs out there.

Blade Runner

I'll be topical here - with the announcement of the trailer for the sequel this feels like the right time to talk about Blade Runner. The original movie is in my top 5 all time favorite movies. This game captures the atmosphere and tone of the movies perfectly. Instead of playing as Rick Deckard in a poor imitation of the movie, you play a separate, unique character with his own plot. It's a point and click adventure game, kind of. It's pretty unique in that the game is quite difficult and brutal, and it's heavily driven by choice - it has over a dozen endings!

The tension in the game comes from the fact that time passes in the game as you do things, so you need to mind your actions. Also, you administer your own Voight-Kampff tests, and you must decide whether certain characters are replicants or not. The game doesn't make it obvious, so you need to gather your own evidence, do detective work and make a judgment call based on the information you have and your gut feeling. Of course, given that the game is time-limited, you need to make some calls and cut corners. Doesn't help that people are out to kill you as well. Really fantastic adventure game. Also, looking forward to Blade Runner 2049. Villeneuve is my favorite director and the trailer looks incredible.

Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares

This is the OG 4X game for me. It was on the shareware CD that I mentioned earlier, and it was fascinating. Being able to create a galactic empire, travel through black holes, trading, negotiating and fighting with other species, managing dozens of planets, exploring space, it was all fascinating. The pixel art style of the game ages really well, and the surprising amount of depth to all of the systems of the game are still interesting. The cool thing about this game was the fact that you didn't necessarily have to conquer all other civilizations to win. As a campaign progresses, Antaran ships, which are this incredibly advanced civilization controlled by the AI, from another galaxy, start attacking your galaxy. They are increasingly relentless and powerful with their attacks, and you need to be cognizant of having to deal with this. Thing is, in the late game, you can earn the tech to go to their homeworld and wipe them out. It's pretty difficult, but also very satisfying.

Honestly, the systems in this game are more interesting and satisfying than any other in the genre. Resource management, transit, planetary prosperity are all factors you need to consider when colonizing. Or, you can just be technologically advanced and terraform planets. The tech tree in the game is frankly absurd, especially for when it came out. Civ has bonkers tech trees too, but every tech in this is way more meaningful than individual techs in other games. The combat system is pretty in depth too, as you can control individual ships and their attacks if you want to. Add to that how each race is incredibly different and render a different play style, and you've got incredible replay value. I still prefer to play this game over any of its sequels, and I play it every once in a while still.

Prey (2017)

I'll have to do a bit of evangelizing here. This game just came out, so it's not fair for me to put it on my list, but if I had to, it would be very, very high. This is the System Shock successor that I've wanted for over a decade. Creepy, atmospheric RPG-shooting in space? Check. Wide variety of ways to play, intrigue, openness... I don't know where to begin. This is honestly the best immersive sim I've played since the original Deus Ex. Just like Dishonored, this game has the feeling of "no what they will let me do this... wait, the do?" with how you can sequence break. The game also has one of the most interesting dynamic horror systems. The mimics you fight can turn into inanimate objects they touch, so when you enter an area, you are constantly on the lookout for objects that secretly might be enemies waiting to pounce at you. It forces you to constantly be on your toes and aware of your environment. As a result, the environmental storytelling and all the secrets you can find lying around are more naturally commanding your attention.

The environment and what happened there is just as important to the story of these types of games as anything. Talos is great, as there are central hubs from which you can access multiple areas in any order you desire, depending on whether you are resourceful enough. Use the GLOO gun to plop down foam to climb up a shaft, kill overpowered enemies blocking a path with some environmental resources, break through a barrier through various means and solve a puzzle that hides a safe keycode... It's all incredibly satisfying. There are other means of traversal too, but I don't really wanna spoil anything. The main intrigue of the game is a great motivator, and the premise ties into the environmental design perfectly. This game is amazing, and if you've been on board with some of the entries in my list so far, I'd recommend that you don't sleep on it.

 

[AngmarsKing701]

High praise for Prey. I played the first one but relegated this one to "probably not" due to all the developmental issues and delays. I'll put it on my radar.

Your inclusion of Serious Sam, even in your 100 that didn't make the cut, makes me curious whether we'll see something from Planet Moon Studios, either Giants: Citizen Kabuto or Armed & Dangerous. The former has some enjoyable gameplay variety and the latter has some fun gunplay variety.

 

[Magic Mushroom]

Love that Prey write-up.

 

[nynt9]

High praise for Prey. I played the first one but relegated this one to "probably not" due to all the developmental issues and delays. I'll put it on my radar.

Your inclusion of Serious Sam, even in your 100 that didn't make the cut, makes me curious whether we'll see something from Planet Moon Studios, either Giants: Citizen Kabuto or Armed & Dangerous. The former has some enjoyable gameplay variety and the latter has some fun gunplay variety.

Hey, you are right on the nose. Nice prediction My PC wasn't good enough for one of those games at the time, but I loved the other. I should go back and play the other one, honestly. I've seen a lot of praise for it on the LEVEL magazine in Turkey back in the day.

Love that Prey write-up.

Thanks! If it convinces any fan of immersive sims to not sleep on the game, then I'm happy. The game is awesome.

Bringing back the anectode!

So, flash back to 1996. I'm about 7-8 years old. Played through all the classic FPS like Doom and Wolfenstein and Rise of The Triad and whatnot. One day, we go to my uncle's house. Not far, considering we live in the same building (it was a large old house that my mom and uncle inherited from their mother and split into two - same house as my cousin's from the PS1 anectode). We talk about games somehow. My uncle mentions how Doom is really gory and hardcore, and he's surprised that I've already played it at my age. To be fair, my grandmother and I watched Alien when I was 6, and Predator was always one of my favorite movies since I was around that age. Anyway, I told him that those games are my jam, then he goes back to his room for a bit.

He brings out this CD with no cover art. It's not like a pirated CD-R, but it's clearly been handed down to him. I look at it. Along with the other corporate text and logos, it just says, in big red text: QUAKE. I ask him what that is, and he says that if I liked Doom, this will blow my mind. It's the next big thing from the developers. But he tells me not to tell my parents that I got it from him, because it's pretty gruesome. I tuck the CD away in my pocket, and go back home. Thankfully, at the time our PC was recent enough to be able to run the game out of the gate. And oh my god. My mind is blown indeed. A truly 3D FPS! With such strong atmosphere! Fast movement, 3D aiming, terrifying enemies, amazing complex level design, I'm instantly hooked. Really thankful to my uncle for hooking me up like that. That was also when my cousin was about a year or so old, and since then I've hooked up my cousin with a lot of my video game hand-me-downs. He was like a brother to me since we lived so closely. He kind of grew out of gaming but we had a good 8 or so years where we did stuff together all the time. Shoutouts to my uncle for always being a cool dude.

 

[StarPhlox]

Glad to have you back!!


These are some fascinating choices, albeit in line with your tastes.


The "evangelizing" for Prey is cool and that's a really good write-up for a game that presumably you've only been able to give one weekend of attention to. I like everything by Arkane that I've played so far and I think I watched a review that said basically "you will see two types of reviews for Prey: those that are knee-jerk reactions based on a single-playthrough and those that are going to come months from now and speak about its true brilliance."

I'm definitely still on the fence despite its good OpenCritic score of 82 as I've had plenty of other games to play and it looks as though it will get a deep price cut after a few weeks like Mirror's Edge:Catalyst and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided did. Not because they're bad games, but because they underperformed sales-wise. Can't buy every good new game at $60, unfortunately.

 

[nynt9]

Back to the main list! We're getting close now, with the top 30.

30: Axiom Verge

I almost said "this game was a great surprise", but it really wasn't. It looked excellent from day 1 of its reveal. The true successor to Super Metroid. It really delivered on every aspect of that. There have been many attempts to recreate Super Metroid over the years. Most of those attempts weren't even close. Of the ones that were, almost none of them were close in every way, and none of them really went beyond. Axiom Verge does all that, and it was all made by one dude as well. This is just incredible. The art style is retro in a great way while incorporating modern elements, the music is fantastic (one of very few video game OSTs I bought), and the controls are just right.

The real make-or-break factor of a Metroidvania is its world though. Is it fun to explore? Does it subtly direct you? Is it varied? Does it have a particular atmosphere? Is it memorable? Is it interesting enough to play through but not tediously difficult? Are there meaningful diversions that you clearly need more abilities to access? Are those diversions at places that you can remember and go back to? Will you even want to? With Axiom Verge, the answer to all of these questions is yes. I am very defensive of the Metroid franchise. I don't think Nintendo have done good on the franchise, and I don't think anyone else can. Except for Tom Happ. I think that if he were tapped to handle a new Metroid game, he would nail it. He gets it. And this is very high praise coming from me.

29: Half-Life 2 (plus Episodes)

For some reason, these days there's a narrative about HL2 not being good anymore. I'd say that's mostly bollocks. Sure, they're not for everyone, but they're still absolute classics. HL2 is just such an expansive adventure. That's a really good feeling to have in a game. You start with nothing, in a city full of an alien police force on your tail, and you need to save the world. You go through so many areas, each of them having their unique challenges. The game is basically a constant barrage of setpieces. The usage of physics was of course groundbreaking, and it hasn't really been surpassed by any other game in the genre.

I understand why people feel that this game is dated, but I think it holds up. The atmosphere is still palpable and unique, the gunplay feels good, the locations are still memorable and the setpieces are still fun. The game also has an absurd amount of mod support, of course. The game is still really snappy and fun to play. It sits just in that right spot between fast-moving oldschool shooters and spectacle driven modern shooters that it spawned. The episodes are fantastic too. Oddly, I don't really feel upset about HL3 not being a thing or the cliffhanger ending. I really enjoy these games and that's that. If we get more, cool, but I'm happy with things as they are. (Though I'd have loved to play Arkane's EP4, being a huge fan of theirs)

28: Metroid Fusion

This was the first Metroid game I played on release. It blew my mind back in the day. The SA-X sections were freaking terrifying, and they still are. Fusion is often criticized for being a bit more straightforward than other entries in the series, but what it lacks in that area it gains in atmosphere. It's definitely the most atmospheric in the series. Bringing together elements from other entries in the series with the premise of it being a science facility dedicated to bringing back other species is brilliant. Switching up your role by having you weakened and in need of acquiring X parasites is a really cool idea as well.

The boss battles in this are probably the best in the 2D series by far. Having each fight end with a fight against the X parasite is pretty cool, and the enemies are all horrifying monstrosities as well. Of course, the SA-X segments are the best. Having an enemy you can't beat, that is a way better version of you that chases you is great. The stealth aspect is handled great (probably was later an inspiration to the awful section at the end of Zero Mission), and the end of the game feels super satisfying after cowering from the SA-X for so long. Fusion is awesome.

27: F.E.A.R

FEAR is amazing. I love horror games, I love FPS games, especially ones with a good gimmick, and FEAR nails that. The bullet time in FEAR is amazing, and arguably the best implementation of the mechanic. The combat in FEAR feels incredibly meaty and the bullet time helps with that. But of course, the aesthetic of the game is the real winner. Alma was a great antagonist and really captured the time, being relevant to the Japanese horror boom in the west. Combining that with super powered soldiers is a pretty cool idea. The game did a fantastic job of blending its elements and telling a story, and it had amazing horror moments.

But of course, the real deal is the combat design and AI. Every encounter was hand-crafted by Monolith, with the AI being tuned to the arena for each firefight to corner you and outsmart you. The end result is the smartest AI in any shooter ever. They're incredibly aggressive, and know how to work together to flush you out. It's really brilliant, and it needs to be experienced to be understood. It's seriously incredible. The sequels were pretty good too, especially the ones developed by Monolith (don't wanna get into that whole business about the IP's rights) but not as good as the first one. I even enjoyed the third, played through it with a friend and it was a pretty entertaining romp. I'd even say it's an underrated game for what it is. But the first FEAR is a monumental game.

26: Doom (2016)

Speaking of monumental games, we have the new Doom. Again, much has been said about this game and how it does a masterful job of reincarnating the original. The brilliance lies in the fact that it doesn't just ape the original, but it updates the mechanics where necessary while staying true to the original. The end result is the game feeling both like the original Doom, and a modern adaptation of it. The Doom series is very important to me, and I was very invested in this game being good. For some reason, I felt that this was going to be good. I went in with high expectations and I was still amazed. Any single thing about this game being slightly different could have resulted in it being a disaster, but they just fully nailed it.

I'll just refer you to other folks on this one who've done a good job of highlighting some of its successes:
How Games Do Health | Game Maker's Toolkit
Finding the Fun in FPS Campaigns | Game Maker's Toolkit
The Brilliance of DOOM's Soundtrack | Raycevick
DOOM 2016: Action vs. Traction | Super Bunnyhop

Glad to have you back!!


These are some fascinating choices, albeit in line with your tastes.


The "evangelizing" for Prey is cool and that's a really good write-up for a game that presumably you've only been able to give one weekend of attention to. I like everything by Arkane that I've played so far and I think I watched a review that said basically "you will see two types of reviews for Prey: those that are knee-jerk reactions based on a single-playthrough and those that are going to come months from now and speak about its true brilliance."

I'm definitely still on the fence despite its good OpenCritic score of 82 as I've had plenty of other games to play and it looks as though it will get a deep price cut after a few weeks like Mirror's Edge:Catalyst and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided did. Not because they're bad games, but because they underperformed sales-wise. Can't buy every good new game at $60, unfortunately.

I generally ignore reviews, actually not even actively ignore them, they just don't really register for me. I've come to accept that my tastes diverge from them to the point that there's nothing I can gain from them. Even if I like games that are scored well, it's often for reasons that reviews do not pick up on. I also feel left out by reviews because they don't go deep on aspects of games I care about, like systems. For that I prefer youtubers instead, like Mark Brown, MrBTongue, Joseph Anderson, Noah Caldwell-Gervais etc. Even when I don't agree with them, I find that they're incredibly insightful and I learn a lot from their deconstructions of games, and it teaches me to be more analytical about games.

 

[Pachimari]

I need to ask; have you completed all of these games that's on your Top 100, or are they just the ones you've had the best time with? I ask cause I'm trying to do a small list of my own, but can't decide if I should only have completed games or not on the list.

 

[AngmarsKing701]

Loving 30-26, since I've played 4 of those. Based on that, I've added Axiom Verge to my Steam wish list.

HL2 is amazing. Still remember picking up that gravity gun for the first time and zinging saw blades at enemies.

Really happy to see FEAR here. Not only did they capture the bullet time perfectly, they nailed the slo-mo gore. There's nothing like going slo-mo, getting close to an enemy with the shotty, and absolutely turning him into wall art.

I'm stuck on the new DOOM. Some damn jumping section up a wall with moving trains or cars. Ugh. I fucking hate jumping sections in FPSs. I wish there was a "skip lame jumping section" button. Just let me shoot the fuck out of these demons with these awesome guns you gave me.

And I agree with Fusion. The top of the class for that genre. Did you ever play Dark Castle? That was my intro to the metroidvania. Might have pre-dated Metroid actually.

 

[StarPhlox]

These games all have something significant in common: clinical sci-fi atmospheres!

I am one of the people who played HL2 (when the Orange Box came out) and only found it to be 'good.' Lot's of charming stuff like Alyx and the robot dog, but pretty boring moment to moment gameplay and its need to just stop after cliffhangers both in the main game and episode 2.

Metroid Fusion is probably my least favorite of the 2D games (if I'm counting Zero Mission and AM2R as replacements, that is) but I still adore it for the reasons you stated. Similarly, I think Axiom Verge is incredible and now I want to replay it.

DOOM was my favorite action game last year despite having almost no familiarity with the series. Good call!

FEAR I'll probably never play. Shame!

 

[nynt9]

Anectode!

Around the time Half-Life 2 was coming out, there was a big feud in the gaming community between HL fans and Doom fans. Doom 3 was coming out around the same time, and both were hotly anticipated sequels to genre defining games. Obviously, they could both be good, but the magazines and forum warriors liked to push the narrative that they were competing for the FPS throne. Being young, I got involved in this feud as well.

I love HL, but I'm a HUGE Doom fanboy. As such, I was super convinced that Doom 3 was going to absolutely destroy HL2. It would be this amazing horror shooter and HL2 would be cool but not that amazing. To be fair, back then I liked HL1 less than I did now. When it came out, the game was super difficult for me as I would get lost a lot and get wrecked in combat. I actually had to use cheat codes to complete the game at all, including noclip because I really couldn't find my way throughout the complex levels. The level design for HL1 is quite open.

Anyway, I was super hyped on Doom 3. When it came out, I really liked it! Sure, it wasn't the Doom sequel I wanted because it was more of a horror game, but I did enjoy it anyway. The monster closet design was entertaining and scary, and I liked how it turned exploration into a "risk vs reward" scenario by always spawning more monsters on you when you found a secret. I even liked the flashlight mechanic of not being able to hold it while holding a weapon. People made fun of that, and it was immediately modded out by fans, but I think changing that actually breaks the game. There are many segments where you are in pitch black darkness and you need to balance being able to see and being able to defend yourself. It's an integral part of the game. I understand that that's not what shooter fans wanted and it's ludonarratively dissonant, but it was a great survival horror mechanic.

Anyway, I was entrenched in the war but clearly HL2 was the better game. It took some time for me to accept that, but eventually I came around. Doom 3 is a neat game with some cool ideas, but HL2 was a game changer in so many ways. It took me until finishing HL2 to really connect with the HL IP. I remember how I had friends over when I entered the citadel, it was some sort of party my parents were holding and I had my friends who were the sons/daughters of their friends, and we were all amazed by the upgraded gravity gun. It was just a blast. I realized the brilliance of the game before, but that was when it really clicked with me.

At least I can feel some redemption by the fact that Doom had an even better comeback and Half Life never got the final payout it deserved

I need to ask; have you completed all of these games that's on your Top 100, or are they just the ones you've had the best time with? I ask cause I'm trying to do a small list of my own, but can't decide if I should only have completed games or not on the list.

I don't have a hard and fast rule per se, but it just so happens that I have finished all of these games (except P5) because I love them so much. Many of them multiple times. But knock yourself out, really.

Loving 30-26, since I've played 4 of those. Based on that, I've added Axiom Verge to my Steam wish list.

HL2 is amazing. Still remember picking up that gravity gun for the first time and zinging saw blades at enemies.

Really happy to see FEAR here. Not only did they capture the bullet time perfectly, they nailed the slo-mo gore. There's nothing like going slo-mo, getting close to an enemy with the shotty, and absolutely turning him into wall art.

I'm stuck on the new DOOM. Some damn jumping section up a wall with moving trains or cars. Ugh. I fucking hate jumping sections in FPSs. I wish there was a "skip lame jumping section" button. Just let me shoot the fuck out of these demons with these awesome guns you gave me.

And I agree with Fusion. The top of the class for that genre. Did you ever play Dark Castle? That was my intro to the metroidvania. Might have pre-dated Metroid actually.

Dude, if you like Metroid, you should definitely play Axiom Verge. It really is fantastic.

For me the defining HL2 moment was the aqueduct-ish area near the beginning where you move around barrels to solve physics puzzles and get past one of those ceiling vagina things. At that point I went "holy shit this game is going to be something else".

Yeah I forgot to mention how effective the gore is. It really makes a difference and helps nail the horror vibe.

I have not played Dark Castle! Didn't even know it existed. I'll check it out. Along those lines, are you familiar with Master of Darkness for the Sega Master System? It's a hilariously blatant Castlevania clone by the devs of Sega Bass Fishing. Not super great either, but it has kind of its own spin on it. I wouldn't recommend it but it's worth checking out to see how blatant it gets.

These games all have something significant in common: clinical sci-fi atmospheres!

I am one of the people who played HL2 (when the Orange Box came out) and only found it to be 'good.' Lot's of charming stuff like Alyx and the robot dog, but pretty boring moment to moment gameplay and its need to just stop after cliffhangers both in the main game and episode 2.

Metroid Fusion is probably my least favorite of the 2D games (if I'm counting Zero Mission and AM2R as replacements, that is) but I still adore it for the reasons you stated. Similarly, I think Axiom Verge is incredible and now I want to replay it.

DOOM was my favorite action game last year despite having almost no familiarity with the series. Good call!

FEAR I'll probably never play. Shame!

I covered most of this in the other responses, but as for HL2 I didn't care for Alyx or Dog at all, but I found the gameplay to be awesome. It took the best of fast paced old school shooters and added a lot of modern spectacle to it that's still mostly unmatched. I got to the point that I can quickly flick the mouse around and do crazy stuff with the gravity gun, picking up and throwing things very swiftly, and the fast movement lets you avoid enemies at the same time as well. The only arguable flaw of the combat is that the base combine have hitscan weapons but they're generally so weak that it's easy to deal with, and the combat arenas are never designed in ways that that's a huge issue. And since I didn't really focus on the characters (imo they're not the point) I'm not bummed about the story being incomplete. If HL3 ever happens I'd want it for the gameplay, not the story.

 

[Spladam]

I loved Fusion as well, I still crank that game up in the emulator and beat it every once in a while. When I first purchased it, I was fanatic about Prime on the GC, (which would be in my top 10 of games btw) and I had the Game Boy connector thing, I was stoked about how it added game elements to Prime, they were both favorites of mine in that generation.

Sadly, my GC stopped working two weeks ago, right after I found out I could not find the reciever end of my wavebird controller, and Prime is NOT the same in emulation, one of the games that just doesn't emulate right for me.

Was wondering if you've played AM2R? Probably the best fan made game of all time in my opinion and I'd put it high on a top 100 list, along with Axiom Verge. The fact that Verge was made by one guy is astounding, it's an instant classic that I foresee myself replaying for years to come.

I'm a huge fan of HL2 (sadly, it seems the story will never be finished...), but I have to admit, to this day, I've never finished Doom 3. I bought it twice, and have the BFG edition (which I've played the classic dooms that come with it more than I played the actual Doom 3), but the game just does not click with me. Did not capture the Doom feeling for me. I have yet to play Doom 2016, but I'm very much looking forward to it. There is just not enough time to play all good games...

 

[nynt9]

I loved Fusion as well, I still crank that game up in the emulator and beat it every once in a while. When I first purchased it, I was fanatic about Prime on the GC, (which would be in my top 10 of games btw) and I had the Game Boy connector thing, I was stoked about how it added game elements to Prime, they were both favorites of mine in that generation.

Sadly, my GC stopped working two weeks ago, right after I found out I could not find the reciever end of my wavebird controller, and Prime is NOT the same in emulation, one of the games that just doesn't emulate right for me.

Was wondering if you've played AM2R? Probably the best fan made game of all time in my opinion and I'd put it high on a top 100 list, along with Axiom Verge. The fact that Verge was made by one guy is astounding, it's an instant classic that I foresee myself replaying for years to come.

I'm a huge fan of HL2 (sadly, it seems the story will never be finished...), but I have to admit, to this day, I've never finished Doom 3. I bought it twice, and have the BFG edition (which I've played the classic dooms that come with it more than I played the actual Doom 3), but the game just does not click with me. Did not capture the Doom feeling for me. I have yet to play Doom 2016, but I'm very much looking forward to it. There is just not enough time to play all good games...

I never had a GC, but you can bet that the first game I purchased when I got my Wii was Prime, and the second one was Prime 2. A hacked WiiU does a good job of playing GC games as well, btw. And while dolphin isn't the optimal way to play prime, dolphin + VR is an AMAZING way to play prime.

I have played AM2R and I really love it, it was in my GOTY list last year. I could only make room for so many 2D metroids though, and I love Fusion more. The gameplay additions to AM2R are really good, but it's still constrained by the structure of M2.

As for Doom 3, I get it. It's not for everyone for sure, but I think it's pretty fun. But if you only have time for one, play 2016. 3 doesn't capture the Doom feel for sure, it's its own thing, but for what it is it's pretty cool. A horror shooter.

 

[AngmarsKing701]

I have not played Dark Castle! Didn't even know it existed. I'll check it out. Along those lines, are you familiar with Master of Darkness for the Sega Master System? It's a hilariously blatant Castlevania clone by the devs of Sega Bass Fishing. Not super great either, but it has kind of its own spin on it. I wouldn't recommend it but it's worth checking out to see how blatant it gets.
.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time in college (back in the 80s, so I'm an old) playing Dark Castle and Beyond Dark Castle on the Apple computers we had. I'm sure there's a shitload of nostalgia involved in my good memories of them.

While I don't remember playing Master of Darkness, you reminded me of Master of Monsters, a turn-based strategy game where you hold certain points on a grid map and generate monsters to go into battle for you. Christ I played that game for hundreds of hours.

Reminds me of the older stuff I played in those earlier generations. My brother and I played NHL '94 and had to keep our player stats in a notebook. I'll be interested in whether any sports games hit your list.

 

[nynt9]

I spent a ridiculous amount of time in college (back in the 80s, so I'm an old) playing Dark Castle and Beyond Dark Castle on the Apple computers we had. I'm sure there's a shitload of nostalgia involved in my good memories of them.

While I don't remember playing Master of Darkness, you reminded me of Master of Monsters, a turn-based strategy game where you hold certain points on a grid map and generate monsters to go into battle for you. Christ I played that game for hundreds of hours.

Reminds me of the older stuff I played in those earlier generations. My brother and I played NHL '94 and had to keep our player stats in a notebook. I'll be interested in whether any sports games hit your list.

Well I started gaming in the early 90s so some of that stuff is lost on me

I'm not a big sports guy, and I'm also not a big sports game guy, so I don't think one will make either list. My favorite sports games are ones that put a twist on the formula. Inazuma Eleven is pretty cool, for example. Also Rockstar's tennis game. I LOVE Hajime no Ippo the anime, and its Japan-only PS3 game is super awesome. Best boxing game I've ever played. I did spend a decent amount of time with the football manager games because they were popular around my friend circles. They're almost like turn based strategy/4X games which I love, so I can relate on that level. But "real" sports games always had confusing controls, and my lack of a firm grasp on rules made them difficult to play for me. I played some MLB on Vita for its RPG-like campaign mode, and I played some 2K NHL games for the fighting between players.

I'll give you a bonus sports anectode though. As you may guess, in Turkey (real) football (soccer) is very popular. In PE class in high school we were forced to play it all the time. I was decent at it but I just didn't care. I always played defense because my aim was bad but at least I could harass people. One day I'm particularly pissed and want out of the game, so I decide to foul. The other team's guy with the ball is coming at me, and I just run straight at him and just stonewall him. Thing is, he's shorter than me. His forehead hits my nose, and I break my nose. I'm excused from the game for sure, but now I have a mildly broken nose and blood all over myself (my friend was totally fine and we laughed it off later). Unfortunately the break was super minor and I was back at school the next day, and back on the field next week at PE. All I got was a very slightly misaligned nose bridge as a result :|

 

[Spladam]

And while dolphin isn't the optimal way to play prime, dolphin + VR is an AMAZING way to play prime.

This sentence kind of blew my mind, I didn't know we were there now. Just the thought of that makes me stop and daydream. Do you have a headset? Which one?

 

[SOME-MIST]

The Talos Principle

I love puzzle games, I love games that explore philosophical themes, especially as they relate to computer science (my job), and I love Croteam. Hence, this game. First, I'd like to talk about the narrative. Delivered to you through an AI that talks to you and gives you moral and otherwise dilemmas to consider, the game has excellent writing that legitimately made me question my own beliefs. Few games can do a good job of that (and my GOAT sure does that too). The meta-narrative about sentience and reality was explored very well, and thematically integrated into the game itself as well.

despite not making the list, I'm excited to see that people are starting the realize the brilliance of jonas kyratzes writing (or even consulting) even if they haven't delved into his lands of dream games. when the walking dead was very many individuals goty and they were hyping the story/writing, my goty was the sea will claim everything for the exact same reason (tho his games have way more philosophical oomph). it's lovely that he's been able to get contracted gigs for different larger scale games thru other developers.

 

[nynt9]

Sorry I wasn't able to post yesterday. I saw Metallica live and it was pretty awesome. But it also took so much time. Anyway, back to posting! Five games that didn't make it!

Giants: Citizen Kabuto

Since this game got mentioned in the thread, I should talk about it. This game is hella bizarre. For the uninitiated, it's a hybrid third person shooter/character action/RTS. Yeah, what? Let me explain. It takes place on an alien planet, and you can choose one of three playable options. First, there's the space marines. They have jetpacks, move as a squad, play like a third person shooter. Then we have the weird sea fairies, who can cast spells, swim, regenerate in water, move really fast, have melee weapons and can wreak elemental havok. Finally, we have Kabuto, a giant kaiju that roams the island and is one of a kind. Kabuto is your usual giant monster, but he can also summon smaller monsters that he can control like a semi-RTS. It's really odd.

Made by former MDK devs, this game has a goofy tone but can also be somber at times. Each race plays pretty well and is an entirely unique experience. It had a competitive multiplayer mode that was pretty bonkers, but I never really got to play it. Instead, you have three campaigns where you play through the story of each race in order. The fascinating part is that it's basically three games within one, and they're all really well realized and connect nicely to each other. I haven't played this game since release, but it's left an impression on me. I got it during a GOG sale, I should go back and play it sometime.

Within a Deep Forest

As mentioned in the Knytt entry, this is one of Nifflas's best games. It's also free! It's a 2D platformer where you play as a ball who can change its viscosity to bounce higher or lower. The same concept was used in his later game NightSky (minus the jumping) as well. You play in what's effectively a mini open-world, and it's also a metroidvania. You traverse through the world, obtaining different powers that let you transform and change up the gameplay entirely.

The level design is brilliant, and the game has a batshit crazy time travel storyline. Ostensibly, it's a prequel to Knytt. It's also pretty difficult at times, but not frustratingly so. The checlpoint placement is pretty brilliant. Explorating is really fun in itself because the platforming is so satisfying. There's also an absurd amount of variety to the level design. This game goes to show that you don't need to be amazing at asset design or even have an interesting character to have memorable, awesome gameplay.

Bayonetta

This might be one of the more controversial entries in my off-list, I guess. Well, such is life. I'm a big fan of Platinum. I've tried to get into Bayonetta many times, and while I really like it, I don't top-100 love it. The combat is great, the spectacle is amazing, but I just can't relate to the setting, art style and vibe. I like playing the game, but I just don't care at all about anything that's going on. It almost feels like form over function, even though the function is totally great. It feels too flashy, almost.

Ok, let me slow it down before I get lynched. As I said, I love Platinum and almost all of their output. This game is still better than most games out there. It's one of the best character action games. Just because it doesn't click with me entirely doesn't mean I don't enjoy it, that it's bad, or that I can't recognize its quality. It's weird, because I love this type of Japanese humor too. Devil May Cry, which has a pretty similar style, is my jam. But the muted colors in the world design, the pseudo-occult light flashes that all her abilities cause etc. just look garish to me. It's almost like Platinum are trying too hard. I mean, I know they are, and it's intentional, but it doesn't click with me. That being said, I'll still buy a Bayo 3 day one and defend the series to death.

Castlevania II: Simon's Quest

An odd choice? CV2 is the oft-maligned stepchild of the franchise. Part of that is deserved, part of that is hysteria caused by AVGN, I think. I get that the game is flawed. It requires grinding, is obtuse, and that fucking night prompt takes forever to load. Well, I still love this game. It's just really atmospheric, and it's basically an open world RPG in the form of a 2D platformer from the 80s. That's pretty mind blowing to me. Also, there's a ROM hack that fixes all those issues, and also includes better translation so that townsfolk actually give you good clues. Still, I really love the dreary vibe this game has.

I actually bought a famicom disk system in Japan to play this game in its original Japanese form. Let me tell you, the FDS is a piece of shit. It's janky, loose, can get damaged real easy, and you have to eject and flip the disk every time you enter the town. It's fucking horrible. BUT, I love that feeling of authenticity. The original version of the game. Well, regardless, I think this game is awesome. It has a feeling of embarking on a grand adventure instead of just going through a bunch of levels. I love that. Also, this game introduced Bloody Tears, which is hands down my favorite video game track ever.

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Speaking of black sheep sequels to classic games on famicom disk system, I also love Zelda 2. It's actually my third favorite Zelda of all time. The game is so brutal, and also has all the aspects I love in CV2. It almost feels like a precursor to the Souls series. Nintendo was really pushing the envelope with this sequel, and I'm sad that they never really returned to the formula. It would be cool to have a side-scrolling (at least when not in the overworld) Zelda again.

This game has a large open world, random encounters, dungeons, leveling up, boss fights, backtracking, multiple gameplay perspectives, all mind blowing concepts to integrate together. It's slightly obtuse, and way too difficult, but again, the obtuseness immerses me in its world via forcing me to explore more and try to understand everything, and the difficulty makes it really satisfying. It feels like a real adventure, and beating it feels like a huge accomplishment.

This sentence kind of blew my mind, I didn't know we were there now. Just the thought of that makes me stop and daydream. Do you have a headset? Which one?

Oculus Rift and PSVR. Day one backer of the Rift so I got the CV for free.

despite not making the list, I'm excited to see that people are starting the realize the brilliance of jonas kyratzes writing (or even consulting) even if they haven't delved into his lands of dream games. when the walking dead was very many individuals goty and they were hyping the story/writing, my goty was the sea will claim everything for the exact same reason (tho his games have way more philosophical oomph). it's lovely that he's been able to get contracted gigs for different larger scale games thru other developers.

I didn't know the name of the writer. I'm not familiar with his other works, but Talos was amazing. I too take umbrage with what many consider to be good story/writing in games Games that genuinely explore philosophical concepts and challenge the player are far and few between.

 

[AngmarsKing701]

Kabuto!

 

[SOME-MIST]

awww bayonetta D:

I didn't know the name of the writer. I'm not familiar with his other works, but Talos was amazing. I too take umbrage with what many consider to be good story/writing in games Games that genuinely explore philosophical concepts and challenge the player are far and few between.

well they originally hired Tom Jubert to write the story but Jubert brought in Jonas to co-write it. both individuals wrote the story but it's very much in a kyratzes fashion as all of his stories are philosophical (and often times political) in nature.

I think I have spare keys for the sea will claim everything if you ever wanted to give one of his point and clicks a run (shoot me a PM).

 

[nynt9]

Back to the main list! Getting to the entries that really mean something to me.

25: La-Mulana EX

This game is awesome. In many ways, it's a 2D Dark Souls. It also kind of echoes Castlevania 2 in some ways. The game world is huge, and quite open. It's kind of like a Metroidvania as there are many items to acquire to either assist your ability to progress or make you stronger. The difference is, it's a genuine mysterious adventure. There are many puzzles to solve, many secrets to uncover, and you really need to pay attention, explore and experiment to make progress. The temple you're delving into is a very hostile environment. Enemies and traps will kill you. You'll need to read tombstones and texts to find cryptic clues, locate where those clues apply and how you need to use the tools you have at your disposal to solve the puzzles. It's really incredible.

Beyond that, the presentation is great too. Neat art style, great music, brilliant world design that is vastly interconnected and elaborate make the game's world feel engaging and that's critical. You'll be doing a lot of going back and forth through all the areas, remembering minute details and realizing, hours later, when you read some obscure clue, that the one weird statue you saw on one screen is actually where you need to use this new item you acquired. The combat is pretty neat too, with a decent variety of weapons, huge amount of enemy types, and over-the-top boss battles that change up everything. Completing this game was one of the hardest things I did - not because the platforming or combat is challenging, but because it really requires a lot of thinking, note-taking and taking some time off to think things through and approach it with a fresh perspective. Thing is, it's not obscure random stuff like old NES games, all the puzzles are totally solvable, you just need to think laterally about the information you're given and remember things well. To me, a game that demands this level of attention and actually rewards you if you succeed is one of the best things the medium can do.

24: Metal Gear Solid

This was a game changer. We all know how awesome Metal Gear Solid is, how its cinematic outlook changed everything. But to me, the two main things that appeal to me about MGS as a series are the tone and the attention to detail. What Metal Gear nails is the balance between serious spy drama and goofy Japanese humor. You can have characters discussing the power dynamics of PMCs controlling the war economy one moment, then have a character who shits himself while hiding in a barrel. It's not easy to balance these in a way where these elements don't clash and undermine each other. But Metal Gear Solid was the first perfect example of doing this. Blending anime, western espionage and a bunch of other random shit is brilliant.

It helps that the game plays brilliantly and innovates in many aspects too. But I'll save that for later. The other thing I wanted to talk about was attention to detail. This is also a MGS series staple, but it started here. You can have endless codec conversations, ask about things you see in the environment, follow NPCs around and see them do humanizing things, pay attention to things and uncover a lot of stuff that gives the world more character. These are totally unnecessary from a gameplay perspective, and just adds to the game's budget. But they did it anyway, because having them makes the game feel immersive and real. Someone making the game had real love for it and added detail and decoration to show that love. And that's why MGS is awesome.

23: Wolfenstein: The New Order

Man, this is one of the best shooters ever. Yes, to me it's even better than Half-Life 2. I've said in posts discussing HL2 in this thread that I didn't really care for the characters. Well, here I did. In a freaking Wolfenstein game of all things! I love alternate history stories, I love WW2 stories, and this game combines both. The setting of the game is really cool, blending scifi, Nazi occultism and hubris, idyllic European vibes with Orwellian architectural imagery, and some Jewish mysticism. The end result is a world that is palpable and a joy to find out more about. The gameplay is great, featuring fast-paced shooting, stealth, a variety of weapons, an upgrade system that incentivizes you to experiment, sliding-and-shooting, dual wielding and more. It just feels like a blast.

But the real winner of the game is the sauce on top of all that. The game is chock full of setpieces. Both gameplay and story setpieces. Opening with an infiltration of a Nazi castle, the game goes through all kinds of areas and story beats. The train scene is incredible, the concentration camp is harrowing, the underwater bits are surprisingly engaging, and there are so many cool moments. It's all amplified by BJ's excellent narration. I love this style of narration in games, pioneered by Max Payne, where the main character comments on things with a poetic noir vibe. The characterization of everyone is great, including BJ, and the entire cast, their headquarters, their troubles, the side activities you do for them, all help sell the world more. The game has one of the few romances in games that don't come across as awful and cheesy. There's also a constant stream of new gameplay mechanics and gimmicks to keep things fresh. This game is incredible and it was a huge surprise for me. It's one of my favorite FPSs of all time. Also, I really love how they haven't rebooted the series and this is a sequel.

Wait, didn't I have the franchise rule? Yeah. Despite being direct sequels to each other and sharing so much, Oblivion and Skyrim are so incredibly distinct to me that I can't not include both. I've spent a combined 500 hours across these two games, and I could say so much about each of them. So yeah, Skyrim is here with Oblivion. I also really wanted to put Skyrim lower than Oblivion out of spite. The guild questlines are nowhere near as good. The seams of the world are more easily visible as the game feels more handwavey about your status in it. They give your character more prominence in the world, but the world reacts to you about the same amount it does in Oblivion. There's just less attention to detail on many things. But there are so many more things overall. Where to start? The game world is so much more varied and interesting to be a part of. It looking much better doesn't hurt, either. The combat is better, we finally have dual wielding and physics are used more in combat as well. Stealth archery is super broken, sure, but it's so fun that I can't get mad. The main quest is actually good this time around, and you actually participate in it, which feels great. And to be fair, The Dark Brotherhood and Thieves guild quests are still great, just not as satisfying. In general, there are many random small side quests that are actually pretty interesting.

It's really annoying though when every quest devolves into a cave that ends up in a Dwemer ruin inhabited by falmer. Like, seriously? That being said, Skyrim modding was a lot more entertaining, and I've spent a lot of time just breaking the game and doing fun stuff. The game provides you with more freedom to play the way you want, which is great. You can finally become a werewolf again too. In general the world is quit fun to explore and there's always something somewhere that will lead you further into an adventure. BOTW arguably has a better world, but there's more to do in Skyrim than exploration (that is enjoyable). Quests that send you into all sorts of places and scenarions (then culminating in dwemer ruins inhabited by falmer) make the world feel a lot more complete than a mostly-deserted but incredibly pretty land. There are bandits, patrols, forts, dungeons, towers, crazy hermits, artifacts, and just so much more. Skyrim's world is one where you can live a daily life as an adventurer, always finding stuff to do or places to go and things to discover. So many different species of creatures and flora as well. It's also pretty clear that without Skyrim, we wouldn't have had BOTW. I mean, the opening "out of the cave" revelation is a pretty direct homage to Bethesda games, among other factors. That being said, the game surely has its flaws, as in many ways it leans even further than Oblivion into streamlining and appealing to an audience who aren't invested in spending time with the depths of systems and rules, but it makes up for that by giving you so many carrots that are fun to chase. The dragonborn expansion was pretty great as well. (That being said, Shivering Isles is still the best) BOTW improves on some of these aspects, but Skyrim still feels like a more complete package and a more convincing world that I'm more inclined to revisit. In fact, I kind of want to do that now. I used to love this game a lot more. Maybe I've been beaten down by the negativity throughout the years. I might revisit the position in this list later on, possibly.

Also, you can do silly emergent stuff like this too:

21: Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin

Yeah, I'm one of THOSE guys whose favorite Souls game is Dark Souls 2. I've talked about this in many different avenues, and there have been hours of video essays talking about this as well, so I don't want to retread too much. Let me try to itemize. What I like about DS2 are the varied, diverse world that feels uniquely somber

Spoiler

tapestry and odd forms, not developed by Ebb software

, combat that focuses on crowd control, build variety, the story, the feeling of adventure, the art style, the combat. I can go on and on and on as to why I prefer this game to other entries in the series. But I think hbomberguy covers many (not all) of my points (and I disagree with some of his points). Worth noting that the DLC for this one is particularly awesome. This is the Souls game I've played the most. Over 3 platforms, I have a collective of about 500+ hours in DS2. I freaking love it. I once wrote a long-ass rant to a group of friends in facebook chat, so let me copy-paste that here. I apologize in advance for the language and shitposting. Proceed at your own risk.

awww bayonetta D:

well they originally hired Tom Jubert to write the story but Jubert brought in Jonas to co-write it. both individuals wrote the story but it's very much in a kyratzes fashion as all of his stories are philosophical (and often times political) in nature.

I think I have spare keys for the sea will claim everything if you ever wanted to give one of his point and clicks a run (shoot me a PM).

Interesting. I'm tempted, but I also feel like I won't be able to get around to it for a while and I don't feel like wasting your key :/

 

[Pachimari]

Noooo, Metal Gear Solid is the pinnacle of gaming.

Wolfenstein and Skyrim are great games.

The Souls series should burn in a fire.

 

[Spladam]

I was wondering where the original MGS would fall on this list, I knew it would be there though.

Please tell me you played Skyrim on PC, because modding that beast was one of the best elements of it (much like Morrowind). I have you beat in hours on that game though, sadly, not even going to say publicly how many hours I have in it (my Steam page betrays that), mostly because of replaying it modded. I

love that game, and love Elder Scrolls. The final product on my PC is so far removed from the vanilla it's crazy (the duel combat mod makes so much ofa difference in combat) and I've not played the remastered, because honestly, my modded Skyrim looks better than the remastered Skyrim. Climates of Tamriel mod and Frost Fall mods are game changers as well imo.

I just started New Order for the first time, playing it on PS4 though. Looking forward to it now. Probably going to pick up Doom 2016 after that. Horizon Zero Dawn is still eating up some of my time now, and I FINALLY finished the main quest of Witcher 3 and still have the DLC's to play. How do we find time to play all these games though?

Oh, you probably know this, but since you mentioned it, one of the Dev's for BOTW actually stated that Skyrim (or Elder Scrolls in general) was an inspiration for some of the features for BOTW.

 

[nynt9]

Noooo, Metal Gear Solid is the pinnacle of gaming.

Wolfenstein and Skyrim are great games.

The Souls series should burn in a fire.

D:

curious to hear what your beef is though.

I was wondering where the original MGS would fall on this list, I knew it would be there though.

Please tell me you played Skyrim on PC, because modding that beast was one of the best elements of it (much like Morrowind). I have you beat in hours on that game though, sadly, not even going to say publicly how many hours I have in it (my Steam page betrays that), mostly because of replaying it modded. I

love that game, and love Elder Scrolls. The final product on my PC is so far removed from the vanilla it's crazy (the duel combat mod makes so much ofa difference in combat) and I've not played the remastered, because honestly, my modded Skyrim looks better than the remastered Skyrim. Climates of Tamriel mod and Frost Fall mods are game changers as well imo.

I just started New Order for the first time, playing it on PS4 though. Looking forward to it now. Probably going to pick up Doom 2016 after that. Horizon Zero Dawn is still eating up some of my time now, and I FINALLY finished the main quest of Witcher 3 and still have the DLC's to play. How do we find time to play all these games though?

Oh, you probably know this, but since you mentioned it, one of the Dev's for BOTW actually stated that Skyrim (or Elder Scrolls in general) was an inspiration for some of the features for BOTW.

Of course I played it on PC! My modded Skyrim is also a glorious mess. I love Elder Scrolls as well. At some point I had so many mods that nothing would work properly and my save file was unsalvageable, so I started over again, but I was totally fine with it. I really don't care for stuff like companion mods, but stuff like Midas Magic, borderless cities (whatever that mod is called these days), all kinds of flora and graphics overhauls, combat mods etc are my jam. Not to mention Enderal, which is awesome.

TNO is great, I have it both on PC and PS4, but I gotta say it was tough for me to enjoy it on console due to aiming. I'm not great with analog aiming, and the game, especially on harder difficulties, is pretty demanding. I hear Doom is still good on console though, and they're both fantastic games. Some people prefer Doom over TNO because of gameplay, and I'm a huge Doom fanboy like I said, but the story and setting and atmosphere of TNO are really special to me.

How do we have the time? That's tough to say. I try to dedicate a certain amount of time to gaming each day, and I don't sleep a lot. Maybe that helps As for BOTW, yeah, it's pretty clear that the game takes massive influence from stuff like Skyrim. I think some grandstanding based on Nintendo affection makes it hard for people to admit that there are similarities between those games (some threads have gotten pretty bad) but it's ok for companies to take inspiration from each other. Some of my favorite games are inspired by others - see Axiom Verge for example.


==========================

Minor anectode today, why not. I am super into metal, and I'm in several bands and whatnot. One of my bandmates in one of the bands got together with a producer friend who's super into Nintendo stuff and they made a Nintendo-core song (metalcore with chiptune). The dude has a modded NES connected to his recording software to get authentic sounds from it- they put together a pretty sweet track. So they asked me to do vocals on it, and I did. So I wanted to share that. If you're not into metal screaming, I'll share the instrumental version too. Unfortunately the producer guy got some pretty big customers after that and went into pop production, and we never returned to this material. It would have been awesome to pursue it, but sometimes you miss these opportunities I guess.

The vocal styles I used are often ironic, and the lyrics are 100% broken English from NES era games, like "I am error" and "A winner is you" etc.

I AM ERROR
Instrumental version

 

[StarPhlox]

The top 25 is starting with a bang! I have La Mulana-Ex but never got around to starting it. Meanwhile, I'll probably get to Skyrim for the first time when it comes out for Switch.

I looove Dark Souls 2 SOTFS (never played vanilla) and it would easily make my top 100. All the Soulsborne games would, I think. Initially I found the mobs annoying to deal with but the team was just going for something different from the expectation of Dark Souls 1.


MGS is right up there with my favorite franchises of all time. I love all of them (well...except for Peace Walker). Metal Gear 2 on MSX to MGS 1 is kind of like the when LTTP went to Ocarina of Time. It's great to play MG2 decades later and see how it feels like a demake of MGS1.

Wolfenstein:TNO I didn't love compared to say DOOM (2016) which totally blew me away

 

[Djostikk]

Woah, that escalated quickly. Interested to see what's next.

 

[nynt9]

Hey guys,

Sorry I took some time off from this. Came down with a nasty cold and been feeling like shit.

Anectode time related to that - when I was a kid, I had pneumonia. It was pretty miserable. I was bedridden for a while and I could barely muster the energy to even play something on my gameboy, which is what I'd do in bed normally. My dad, in an attempt to cheer me up, bought me something. It was a Blastoise plushie that was relatively large. I loved the shit out of that. Squirtle was my favorite gen 1 starter (not that my dad knew, he just got something cool looking that was Pokemon) and I thought Blastoise was real cool, so I really appreciated the gift. It kind of got me through pneumonia and it always gave me positive vibes. I still have it, but one of its shoulder cannons is torn. I should sew that back some time.

Another dad pokemon adventure, my dad took me to a Pokemon movie at the theaters. I think it was the second one - the one with Lugia. He found it so boring that he fell asleep. I didn't think he hated it back then, thought he was just tired, but these days he always refers to it as the movie he hated the most. It's kind of hilarious how much he hates it.

Time for 5 games that didn't make the list now.

Nightsky

I mentioned this when I mentioned WADF. This game is so infuriating, but also so entertaining. It's also on a lot of platforms. Basically, you control a ball that can either increase or decrease its traction, and you go through precision platforming segments. Sounds simple, but that's what makes it so brilliant. The usage of momentum in this game is unparalleled.

The thing with the simplicity of the game is that it gets to explore the depths of its mechanics to a ridiculous extent. I never knew there could be such a large variety of challenges and levels that one could design with so little. This minimalism is Nifflas's brilliance. He can take a concept and really do so much with it.

Blood

This is probably the best Doom clone. I was super into FPSs back then (still am) and while there were others who attempted the formula (Duke, Shadow Warrior, ROTT), none of them really felt like they nailed the atmosphere super well. Enter Blood. This game takes the grimdark aesthetic of Doom and transposes it to a different setting. I think atmosphere is really important in this type of game and that Duke and Shadow Warrior didn't take themselves seriously really hurt them for me.

Blood is great. It gets creative with its weapons, has amazing level design, mysterious atmosphere, great enemies, the whole package really. It was a revelation. It's still not as polished and varied as Doom I think, but it was the best attempt at the formula. The sequel didn't run on my machine back in the day and I never went back. Should I?

Silent Hill 4: The Room

I mentioned SH3 in my lists already, and I already talked about SH2. Everyone knows it's a classic so I don't need to talk about that. Instead I want to highlight 4. Featuring a different take on the SH formula that's way... weirder, The Room was a game that was at times flawed, but I think it's definitely underrated for what it tried. The first person segments really put you into the character, and the room being your safe space that slowly gets weirder and less safe reflects your character's emotional descent. In general, all the stuff that takes place in the room, including the peeping, is the best part of the game. I wish we got a whole game of that.

I know many felt the enemies were frustrating, especially the invincible ones, but I think that even further drives home the point about the room being a safe space, you treating it as a home, and encourages you to put yourself in the mind of Henry. I generally dislike the "it's supposed to be frustrating and miserable because that's the point" argument to defend flawed games, but in this case the flaws of the game definitely work in its favor. The game is just so unique, and it intentionally ignores SH design tropes to drive its point home. It's even less of a power fantasy than the previous SH games. The bizarre, uncomfortable feeling of this game is definitely very palpable though, and I think it's a must-play for psychological horror fans.

The Thing

Speaking of unique and frustrating horror games, there's The Thing. The movie is one of my favorites, and this game does a great job of capturing the vibe of it. It's a sequel to the original movie. Taking place in the same Antarctic research facility setting, it's a weird squad-based semi-shooter. The mechanics it has are incredibly unique, and I've never really figured out how they exactly work. Before I describe the mechanics, I just want to say that not being able to discover the "trick" to a horror game is what makes them scary for me. Amnesia, for example, became a chore rather than scary for me when I figured it out. The main reason this game is still so effective and memorable for me is that I've still not figured out exactly how it works.

Basically, for those of you who haven't seen the movie, The Thing is a parasite that infects people. At first, the effects aren't visible. Slowly, they become controlled by the parasite, then eventually turn into flesh monstrosities. The brilliant part of it here is that the phase between the infection and transformation is where people are intelligent and scheming, and do things to further the aim of the parasite. The game does a great job of this. You have squad members that can get infected. This seems to happen at non scripted locations. Party members are disposable, but very valuable. You need to watch out for their behavior. If they're acting suspicious, they might be infected, or maybe they're just freaking out. You can ask them to get a test, but if you are too pushy and untrusting of them, the squad can decide you're infected and kill you. Add to this that resources are super limited, combat is tense, visibility is low, enemies can be overwhelming and horrifying, and you have the recipe for a great horror game.

Audiosurf

This game was a revelation to me. It's a rhythm game in a way, but the tracks are generated from your music library. It's an autoscrolling avoidance game, when it boils down to it, but the algorithm it uses to generate levels based on your music works really well. Having the intense moments of your favorite songs turn into similarly intense gameplay moments is pretty awesome. Not much more to say about it, really. There's a decent amount of gameplay variety in that you can play as different surfer thingies that have entirely different mechanics (tetris-like stacking, pure avoidance, color matching, etc). There's a sequel too, but to me it never really hit the same spot. I'll just show you a video of the game instead of writing more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVInIWOpip4

 

[Gnome Scat]

Great write-ups, I'll definitely have to look through them more for some recommendations.

 

[StarPhlox]

Man I'm glad this thread came back before I bumped it with a RIP, OP


These are some curious titles to not make it! Nightsky I've been interested in for some time but never got around to while Blood I've never even heard of which is too bad because it looks awesome!

I really respect Silent Hill 4 and I think it's a shame what happened to that franchise. The Thing is super cool and it's so weird that it got a movie like 20 years after coming out. My copy of the game came with the DVD so that helped me get caught up on the lore back when it launched. What a crazy concept and an excellent horror shooter.

 

[nynt9]

Man I'm glad this thread came back before I bumped it with a RIP, OP


These are some curious titles to not make it! Nightsky I've been interested in for some time but never got around to while Blood I've never even heard of which is too bad because it looks awesome!

I really respect Silent Hill 4 and I think it's a shame what happened to that franchise. The Thing is super cool and it's so weird that it got a movie like 20 years after coming out. My copy of the game came with the DVD so that helped me get caught up on the lore back when it launched. What a crazy concept and an excellent horror shooter.

Blood is great! It's developed by Monolith, who also did FEAR, Shogo, NOLF, Sanity, Aliens Versus Predator, Tron 2.0, Condemned, and most recently Shadow of Mordor. They're one of my favorite developers! You'll see more about some of these games in my list soon.

Back to the main list! This time it's all games I really care about. We're getting close!


20: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

Considering I'm a big fan of immersive sims, it's unsurprising that this one is on the list. VTMB is the most RPG-like immersive sim out there, combining White Wolf's World of Darkness role playing system with first person gameplay. Out of all the games in the genre, this one is perhaps the one that allows for the most options. You could pick one of many vampire clans in the WOD lore, and they all played pretty differently. Of course, the Malkavian route is infamous, with your character being insane, and able to have arguments with sign posts.

The game was unfortunately rushed and buggy, but the fan patches fix it up pretty well. The brilliance of it is that despite being so open ended, it has some of the best characters and levels in any game, and the atmosphere of gothic noir horror is incredible. There's been much written about this game, and I'm still kind of sick, so I'll just refer you to this: A Love Letter to Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

Forever Young, The Tragedy Of Vampire: Bloodlines

Not many games bother with such wide open scope. Bloodlines does. And it does what a select few videogames have articulated: giving us sudden, direct access to something wonderful and alien. But it’s drama, and pseudo-social, as much as it is videogame action. It is filled with brilliant artificial people. Bloodlines allows us – like a participant in some larger soap opera – to make decisions about what might happen to those individuals. In this case, it’s always something wonderfully dark. Bloodlines manages to be funny, humane (if not human), brutal, horrifying, and thrilling, all at once. Its vampires are larger than life and yet nevertheless alive. Their twisted traits come tumbling out in excellent dialogue and strange quests. It is heavy on heavy themes, ideas that might otherwise pervert the purity of any other action game. Seduction, sedition, schizophrenia, propaganda, pornography, purgatory: these thematic notions are the lifeblood of vampire fiction, and they’re essential what’s going on in here. The struggle between the vampire castes is at once noble and despicable, and picking your route between its pitfalls is a delight. Ultimately, though, this is about exploration: about seeing something out of the ordinary. Toxic tourism in vampiric clubland.

19: Sanity: Aiken's Artifact

So, like I said, Monolith! This game is one I spent an absurd amount of time with as a kid.
Sanity is a top-down adventure game where your character has access to a variety of psionic powers. A very large variety of them. You play as Cain, voiced by Ice-T, and you're basically a psionic special forces cop, fighting supervillains who are orchestrating a grand plot. The game feels quite meaty in its length, as you go through a huge variety of open-ish levels, fighting many different kinds of enemies with different powers, and very fun boss encounters.

But the real winner here is the experimentation you can do with the power system. You have health and mana, and you can carry a set array of powers with you. Powers include pushing, mind control, fireballs, summoning elementals, a variety of projectile/area of effect abilities, levitation, illusions, invisibility, shields, psi blocking, clones, anti-elemental abilities, zombies, telekinesis, and many, many more. It's frankly absurd how many options you have. And there aren't a lot of obvious best options either. Different enemy types have different weaknesses and you have to account for that. There are powers that straight up block certain elements and you need to prepare for that and utilize those powers too. Also, there are often civilians in the levels and you need to avoid hurting them, so you can't just rely on ridiculous overpowered spells, and those cost too much mana anyway. The game has a lot of puzzles, interesting level design, and fun combat. I've played through this game so many times that I still remember all the story beats and levels. I love it.

18: Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance

And now we come to my favorite Metal Gear. For many people, their favorite is MGS3, and I can respect that. However, I felt that MGS3 was a bit too complex for its own good when it came to ingame systems, and the semi-open approach didn't work well for stealth. Also, I generally prefer sci-fi settings to retro settings. Anyway, MGS2 is brilliant. Recently many have remarked on how forward thinking it was for its time and how it predicted certain societal problems we have today. Back when I played it, it really made me think about those issues, and it's always great when a game makes you consider real world issues. Beyond that, I loved the bait and switch Kojima pulled. I went in blind and was very confused. But I really admired the tenacity. It totally threw me off, and the entire game I was constantly amazed and surprised because of this.

The attention to detail in the game is ridiculous, and I mentioned how this was a huge factor for me in MGS1 as well. Well, here it's dialed up to 11, and that really increases the immersion factor. But my favorite part about MGS2 is the twist about the nature of the game and the mind screw it pulls on you. That was yet again something completely unexpected and blew my mind. Few games shook me to this level, and MGS2 still remains one of the most impressive and effective games I've ever played.

17: Deus Ex

And here, we have the original king of the immersive sims. Deus Ex is a phenomenon. It's an incredibly distinctive game that spawned a genre. I mean, there were games before it that did this, but Deus Ex was the one that really defined the formula. Unfortunately none of the sequels to the game have been able to capture what made it so great. What is the thing that made it great? Choice and immersion. The world was incredibly immersive for when the game came out, and the ability to shape the world with your actions, both at a micro and macro level, was what really helped sell the immersion. The art style, the conspiracy-based storyline, the array of characters you meet, scenarios you encounter and the wide range of solutions at your disposal are all things that elevate this game. There's almost an absurd amount of options you have due to the emergent mechanics. And of course, JC's incredibly deadpan voice acting is the icing on that cake.

I know it's kind of lazy for me to refer to writing by others to elaborate on my opinion, but I was really fascinated by John Walker of RPS's 2015 article series "Is Deus Ex Still The Best Game Ever Made?" - and I recommend that you check that out.

16: Dishonored 2

Originally, this spot in my list was held by Dishonored. Yes, yes, I love immersive sims and Dishonored is one of the best. Well, the sequel improves on it in basically every way. This game is so incredible. The level design is the best in the genre. With modern Deus Ex I've complained about levels feeling designed rather than realistic, and in Dishonored the areas feel incredibly real, and thus traversing them is incredibly satisfying. The setting of Dunwall (well 2 takes place in Karnaca, but I use Dunwall to refer to the entire Dishonored universe) is unique and brilliant, and the art design is incredible. The game does not mess around with morality, instead of judging your actions as good or bad, it simply has cause and effect, which I thought was a great way to handle killing versus stealth.

I love Corvo, he's my favorite video game character to play as. In D2 he plays even better, but the spotlight is stolen from him. Emily is even more amazing to play as, as her array of powers let you experiment with the mechanics even further. Beyond the powers, the game has a good (if simple) story, memorable characters and some incredible setpieces. Truly deserves to be called one of the best games ever.

 

[Djostikk]

Oh, man, I love that you love immersive sims, we need more of them!

 

[stn]

Shit, I never thought I'd see someone else mention Aiken's Artifact. I bought it many years ago for $2.00, have still never played it. Do I take the plunge finally?

 

[nynt9]

Shit, I never thought I'd see someone else mention Aiken's Artifact. I bought it many years ago for $2.00, have still never played it. Do I take the plunge finally?

Do it! It's a pretty unique game. Also let me know if you can get it to run. I haven't tried in a while so I'm wondering if it still actually works.

Here's an anectode. Mario Kart is pretty much my wife's favorite game. She used to play MKDS all the time. She was quite good at it too. We had previously dated, then broken up. Then we started hanging out together again a few years later. We would get together at the mall and play Mario Kart. There was clearly something going on between us but nothing spoken out. She had a boyfriend at the time as well (she was better at MK than him too). We were pretty evenly matched in the game so playing against each other was actually fun.

Her birthday was coming up, so I figured I'd do something nice and also communicate some more serious to her. She had a DS phat, and I bought her a DS lite for her birthday. She was pretty shocked and very happy, and couldn't believe I would go so overboard for a gift (they weren't cheap in Turkey). Eventually, she broke up with the guy and many years later we ended up married. Obviously this isn't what directly lead into our relationship developing this way but it's a nice little memory. Oh, also, after some practice I was able to consistently beat her at MK (though she still puts up a good challenge). And whenever Nintendo put out a new handheld, I buy her one as well as a symbolic remembrance of this. With the Switch we just share usage since it can be played as a console and we live together now. I've kinda lapsed in my MK8D skills so we're evenly matched these days. Gotta play more

 

[StarPhlox]

That's the cutest anecdote yet!

I just moved in with my girlfriend and she loves Mario Kart 8 Deluxe but she's not very good at it. I'm hoping that she can bump up to 150CC or Mirror just so I can do some unlocks because racing at 100CC is not fun for me

Really excited to see how the rest of this list shapes up. So many good choices in the top 20 already.

BTW I just got Yakuza 0 today and you should tell people what you think of that franchise.

 

[nynt9]

Time for 5 games that didn't make it!

Mortal Kombat: Deception

I've always been a fan of the Mortal Kombat games. I suck at fighters, but I've loved the aesthetic of this series. Beyond that, I like the batshit insane ridiculous story they have going. Midway/NRS have always packed obnoxious amounts of value into their single player content, and Deception is where it hit the peak for me. Featuring a full fledged semi-open world, a RPG-tier storyline, collectibles, secrets, multiple worlds, cutscenes, and a character you get to follow from his youth into his elderly ages as he progresses through his story and meets all the famous MK characters. It was pretty awesome.

I played this game on the PSP, where it was called Mortal Kombat Unchained. Having a full fledged campaign on the go was incredible! I had so much fun with this game. I didn't know shit about fighting games back then, so I couldn't tell the fighting system wasn't great, but as a casual player I really enjoyed the fighting and everything else surrounding it. I still really appreciate NRS put into their single player campaigns with modern MK games, though I do with they went back to a RPG-like adventure mode instead of the current "cutscenes then fighting then repeat" model.

Nioh

I'm a big fan of the souls games, and Nioh is a really valiant entry in that format. Combining the combat of Bloodborne with Team Ninja's more fast-paced character action-driven style, Nioh adds a lot more complexity to the fighting system and sets it in a pseudo-historical setting. There are a lot of minor things Nioh does differently to the souls games. It's level-based, it has randomized loot, and overall the focus seems to be slightly different. I really appreciated this take on the formula, and look forward to getting around to the DLC when I have time.

Now, it's not necessarily better than the Souls games, it does some things better, but some things worse - enemy variety is significantly less, levels aren't as polished in their design, and some bosses are more frustrating than interesting. That being said, this game is still excellent and a blast to play through, and it has true craft and love behind it, letting it stand on its own instead of needing to rely on souls comparisons. If they make a Nioh 2, learning lessons, I'm confident it can be better than many of the souls games. The change in quality and willingness to learn lessons from the alpha to the final version was huge, so I assume it's all uphill from here.

The Room

No, this isn't based on anything Tommy Wiseau-related. This is the iOS puzzler (that also later came to PC). The Room features you in a pseudo-lovecraftian setting, stuck in a room with a box of puzzles to uncover, where dimensions and reality are not what they seem. You fiddle with the contraptions, mess with perspective and think laterally. It's pretty great.

The game evokes Myst in ways, and also borrows from room escape games that dominated the Flash era. The art style really helps sell the mood, and the vague, alienating feeling evoked by the narration is quite strong. The game also has two sequels, expanding on the concept and adding a lot more to the scope, but my favorite is the first, because of how tightly packed and mysterious it is.

Aliens Versus Predator 2

You know how I mentioned how Monolith are one of my favorite developers? Well yeah, it's well deserved. The AVP games are incredible. They contain three entirely different campaigns with completely distinct play styles! The marines, the aliens and the predator. The marines play like a horror game, with you outnumbered by aliens and outgunned by the predator. They do horror really well, and AVP2 is hands down the best game for capturing the vibe of Aliens and Predator (the movies). Then we have the alien campaign. This gameplay is quite disorienting as you can walk on the walls and the ceiling, move very fast, have fisheye vision and can only use melee attacks for the most part. You need to sneak around when you're a facehugger, then stalk your prey and hunt them down. As the predator, you have a wide variety of overpowered gadgets and vision modes, to the point where they're overwhelming. You're the apex predator, but also everyone has their sights on you so you have to be at the top of your game. The story is pretty wild as well.

Beyond that, the game's multiplayer mode is also amazing. It's quite well balanced, and getting a full game going with all the factions is great. There are a variety of classes to pick from, and every faction is fun to play as. In single player, since the campaign is rather structured, you generally know what to expect and who to gear your approach towards. In multiplayer, you have to expect all kinds of threats at all times, so it's even more tense. Also people are really good at this game. There's a reboot as well, but it wasn't developed by Monolith (it was by Rebellion, who have the awesome Sniper Elite series but haven't really nailed anything else) and it's pretty lackluster. It's still decently entertaining, but if you have to play the series, I'd recommend prioritizing 2 > 1 > 2010.

Powerslave/Exhumed

I love Doom clones, I love ancient Egyptian mythology, so I love Powerslave. Well, this is more of a Duke Nukem cline I guess. The premise is most similar to Serious Sam - you're a special forces solider sent back in time to Ancient Egypt to fight mythical monsters and aliens. Yeah, now that I think about it Serious Sam must have been influenced by this. Before talking about the game, I wanna mention the music - it combines middle eastern motifs with some rock/metal influences like Doom, and it's awesome. You have enemies that range from regular anubis head dudes and mummies to grotesque monstrosities, it's pretty cool. You have a decent variety of weapons including spells, but it's not really as varied as Doom. One nice thing is that some enemies can curse you and turn you into a mummy, which gives you a new spell as well.

Anyway, the game's level design is pretty cool. pyramids, temples and generally mazelike structures are abundant. There's a bit of a metroidvania type element where you can obtain items that give you access to previously inaccessible areas in earlier levels.Overall, it's a pretty sweet game. There are some issues though. The PC version runs on the Duke engine whereas the console version is fully 3D. The PC version looks a lot better IMO, because the pseudo-2D geometry looks better with the sprite enemies. However, the controls aren't great and the game doesn't let you save at any point, and the combination of those two can lead to some frustration. That being said, it's a pretty unique take on the formula and I'd still recommend trying it.

That's the cutest anecdote yet!

I just moved in with my girlfriend and she loves Mario Kart 8 Deluxe but she's not very good at it. I'm hoping that she can bump up to 150CC or Mirror just so I can do some unlocks because racing at 100CC is not fun for me

Really excited to see how the rest of this list shapes up. So many good choices in the top 20 already.

BTW I just got Yakuza 0 today and you should tell people what you think of that franchise.

Get her to play more! She'll get the hang of it. Maybe let her play with a real controller because the joycons are pretty trash in sideways mode IMO, and my wife and a few other of her non-mainly-gamer friends always think that small controllers are hard to control because the way you angle your thumb means that pushing your thumb upwards pushes the analog diagonally upwards. This means they think they're doing a straight up movement but end up doing a turning movement instead. With a more real sized controller (also one that doesn't constantly freaking desync) this problem is less egregious.

Also, Yakuza games will get mentioned by me in this thread. But not yet.

 

[nynt9]

15: Half-Life

Well, considering my praise for HL2, this probably isn't surprising. Before Half-Life, the FPS genre was something else. The genre focused on mowing down enemies in semi-abstract, mazelike structures. Story was told either through implication or outside of the game. The games focused primarily on action. Half-life changed that. It brought storytelling and cinematic elements to the genre. It was mind-blowing for its time, and still is. The opening sequence and everything going wrong is still one of the most memorable gaming moments. Then we have setpiece after setpiece, set in the deteriorating labs of Black Mesa, and it's great.

What made Half-Life great wasn't limited to its cinematic aspects either. The gameplay was actually great. There was a wide array of weapons that all played differently, and the level and encounter design constantly switched up, forcing you to experiment. The level layouts were still mazelike as well, just designed to be more lifelike and evoke more storytelling. It was quite incredible how story beats coincided with new gameplay elements, be it new waves of aliens, soldiers, the ninja commandos, Xen, and more. It took the tried and true formula established by Doom, but recontextualized it entirely by putting window dressing around it to give everything context. Honestly, it's worth remembering for that alone, but the game is also fun as hell, and still tense. Also, the official fan remake Black Mesa is a good way to experience the game in a modern way as well.

14: Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia

It's kind of surprising that the final IGAvania (no, I don't count that weird XBLA one) was the best. Portrait of Ruin was easily the weakest, and given how frequently these games came out, one would expect a POR follow-up to be pretty weak, but somehow they turned it around. Even the art style that's been used for many games now was changed, never to be used again. The art style is awesome, by the way. So, out of all the games that follow the SOTN formula, why is OOE the best? Well, the controls and combat are the most interesting, I think. You have glyphs that give you a great variety of gameplay. The encounter and level design remains challenging throughout, while also remaining consistently varied. Not only does this game has as much environment variety as Portrait, it actually does cool stuff with its environments and is consistent. Also, just when you think you've seen it all, you get to the real castle and you realize there's a lot more game to be had.

The tone of the game is really solid, evoking the European setting that the franchise takes place in more than ever with its gorgeous gothic art style. Maybe Aria/Dawn had more variety in abilities, and maybe SOTN was more tonally consistent, but Ecclesia actually learns from the flaws of all its predecessors and is the most well-rounded, enjoyable and interesting game in the series. It's truly a pinnacle, a "best of" of the IGAvania. It also has the best bosses and enemies in the series. Also, that attacking uses your MP that regenerates give the game an almost Souls-like flavor that I appreciate more over time. Overall, this game is one of the, if not the best metroidvania ever, and one of the best platformers ever as well.

13: Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

RULES OF NATURE!

I actually considered just writing that and leaving it at that, but I should probably explain a bit. I love character action games. I love Metal Gear. This combines both. I love all the characters, I love all the music. The gameplay is amazing. The writing is amazing. Even the visual style is amazing. It's the best character action game for me. Platinum nailed Kojima's tone while adding their own flair to it. Completing this in revengeance difficulty is one of the best gaming experiences I had in recent years. The zandatsu system is great, I love the parrying mechanic, the way Raiden controls is perfect. How the music transitions from instrumental tracks to vocal tracks is brilliant. I love Armstrong and his monologue. I love every single moment of this game. The DLC is great too. This game is the hypest shit.

12: The Chzo Mythos (5 days a Stranger, 7 days a Skeptic, Trilby's Notes, 6 days a skeptic)

Ok, I'm cheating here by including 4 games in the slot of one, but these games are absolutely not separable. For those unfamiliar, The Chzo Mythos is Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw's (yes, Zero Punctuation) point-and-click horror adventure series. It started off with 5 days a stranger, a haunted mansion slasher tale that took some interesting turns. Yahtzee, being a writer himself and a fan of the genre, was looking to subvert tropes in cool ways. You play as Trilby, a cat burglar looking to rob a mansion, but turns out that there's a bunch of random people there, they can't leave, and it's haunted. Things take an interesting turn. But then, the series gets really interesting and bizarre. 7DAS, the second game, takes place in the far future on a space station. Echoing stuff like Event Horizon and Alien, it is a really weird sequel to 5DAS that takes the lore in a very interesting direction and adds more questions than it answers. It's pretty amazing, and even better than 5DAS. Both games nail the atmosphere of their subsequent horror influences, and have incredibly tense and scary scenes that are somehow super well done in a p&c engine.

Then we have Trilby's Notes, where we go back to Trilby, set a few years after 5DAS. This one is a text-controlled adventure instead of a point-and-click. It explores what happens to Trilby after the events of the first game, and dives deep into the lore of the series, giving it a lot of backstory and depth. TN is pretty awesome, and is one of the creepiest games out there. Here Yahtzee starts to really draw from Lovecraft as he expands the setting. Elder gods and all. Finally, we have the conclusion of the saga in 6 days a skeptic, which takes place in the middle of 5DAS and 7DAS. This one is the most bizarre entry in the series, including clones, hallucinations, prophecies, time travel, alternate dimensions and more. The conclusion to the series is pretty incredible, and these are pretty much the best adventure games I've ever played. The atmosphere is incredible, the storytelling and lore speak to exactly the things I love about horror stories, and they're super interesting and well-crafted. There are some awkward moments here and there, but considering all the writing, programming, art and music is done by Yahtzee, which is pretty incredible. Also, this series is pretty clearly the influence for the Slenderman figure. If you want a fun time, you can watch Yahtzee's retrospective Let's Play on his games on his youtube channel, it's pretty entertaining how he looks back on his most famous creation and points out design decisions. There's also a Trilby game he made later that's not part of the mythos but simply a stealth game, Trilby: The Art of Theft, and that's pretty cool too. If anything, it's worth worth checking out to see how he made a competent stealth platformer in Adventure Game Studio and minor mythos easter eggs.

11: The Last Of Us

"You know Ellie, we really are The Last Of Us." - Nathan Drake

Played in normal, this game is an incredible cinematic third person shooter. Despite the attention put into Uncharted 4, TLOU is Naughty Dog's magnum opus. The tale of Joel and Ellie as they make their way through a ruined New England is full of downs and even further downs. Environments are created with incredible attention to detail and an artistic eye. Combat is visceral, the story is grim and we grow to care for both of the characters as they're put through hell and go through all kinds of harrowing setpieces. Both human and infected encounters are interesting and engaging in their own ways, which is usually not the case in games that have human and nonhuman encounters. The performances by everyone involved are simply incredible, the directing is impeccable, and all the trials and tribulations are both very entertaining and depressing. This game is a very special experience.

That's when you play in normal. If you play on hard, or even grounded, TLOU is an entirely different game. Suddenly it's brutally difficult. You can die very easily so every encounter is terrifying. You need to play perfectly, plan every move, use every single resource that is incredibly scarce very carefully. You can't rely on detective vision either. Then this game becomes a fantastic survival horror experience. You start to notice how good the AI is, how they try to corner you, flush you out and act like real people who don't want to get shot while running straight at you. You notice how enemies react to hearing you're out of ammo, how stealth is really important, how everything you do matters. Then does the game become not just a masterpiece of storytelling and theme, but also of gameplay. I've played through TLOU many times, and beating grounded was one of the toughest yet most satisfying experiences I've had in gaming. Simply incredible. Sidenote: usually when a single-player heavy third person shooter has a multiplayer mode, it's passable at best. TLOU's multiplayer mode is one of the best multiplayer games out there, and it would be worth it on its own even without the campaign. Transferring the survival concepts of the single player across, then adding stakes to each match in terms of faction progression makes you care about your survival just like in the single player.

 

[Nuu]

I tried Half-Life 1 some months ago and it hasn't aged too well to me. The pacing and level design is pretty bland, if ambitious. Metal Gear Rising was pretty close to making my previous list. If I had a top 200 instead it would rank like #103. Really fantastic game, but I can't stand the name of the genre Neogaf uses. "Character action" sounds stupid and makes little sense. I never played the 3rd Castlevania DS game, but I remember enjoying Dawn of Sorrow out of all the metroidvania Castlevania titles, even more than what I played of Symphony of the Night. The Last of Us is good, but is unfortunately very weak in gameplay and is very repetitive. I didn't play it in hard and maybe it's much more satisfying when done so (similar to how Odin Sphere is).

 

[NipplesAndToes23]

Man, you play some obscure shit.

 

[AngmarsKing701]

Revengeance is on my Steam wish list.

I'm spending a ton of time with Shadow of Mordor right now in advance of Shadow of War coming out. How does Revengeance compare?

 

[FallenGrace]

Loved The Last of Us. Didn't expect to going in but it was a surprisingly engrossing experience with great characters.

 

[nynt9]

I tried Half-Life 1 some months ago and it hasn't aged too well to me. The pacing and level design is pretty bland, if ambitious. Metal Gear Rising was pretty close to making my previous list. If I had a top 200 instead it would rank like #103. Really fantastic game, but I can't stand the name of the genre Neogaf uses. "Character action" sounds stupid and makes little sense. I never played the 3rd Castlevania DS game, but I remember enjoying Dawn of Sorrow out of all the metroidvania Castlevania titles, even more than what I played of Symphony of the Night. The Last of Us is good, but is unfortunately very weak in gameplay and is very repetitive. I didn't play it in hard and maybe it's much more satisfying when done so (similar to how Odin Sphere is).

I think HL1 requires a particular mindset to be played, and if you're not in the mood, it's kind of off kilter. Character action didn't originate on gaf, I think. The name is kinda nonsensical but I don't think a genre name really needs to explain an entire genre. It's an abstraction. You could technically say something like "third person action-brawler with technical combat" but "character action" does the same job and is less verbose. I think OOE is better than DOS for sure, so give it a shot if you care. TLOU is decent when you play it on normal, but on hard it becomes a different game, and the themes of survival hit harder because you're actually scrambling, and the ludonarrative dissonance is reduced a lot. And it becomes more of a horror game.

Man, you play some obscure shit.

I've played a lot more obscure shit, they just didn't make my list!

Revengeance is on my Steam wish list.

I'm spending a ton of time with Shadow of Mordor right now in advance of Shadow of War coming out. How does Revengeance compare?

Revengeance is a linear game that lasts 4-7 hours, but it's an incredible blend of cinematic and gameplay-based action. It's more comparable to Bayonetta or DMC. I really dislike the Batman/Mordor style of combat (even though I love Mordor) because it's based on looking good instead of playing good. There's no challenge or complexity to it. So beware of MGR if that's why you like Mordor.

Loved The Last of Us. Didn't expect to going in but it was a surprisingly engrossing experience with great characters.

Same! I was expecting it to be a decent romp but it was incredible.

 

[NipplesAndToes23]

19: Sanity: Aiken's Artifact

So, like I said, Monolith! This game is one I spent an absurd amount of time with as a kid.
Sanity is a top-down adventure game where your character has access to a variety of psionic powers. A very large variety of them. You play as Cain, voiced by Ice-T, and you're basically a psionic special forces cop, fighting supervillains who are orchestrating a grand plot. The game feels quite meaty in its length, as you go through a huge variety of open-ish levels, fighting many different kinds of enemies with different powers, and very fun boss encounters.

Oh shit, a game with a black dude!