NipplesAndToes23
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100 Hot Takes: The Best Games Ever Made
- Thread starter Piston Hyundai
- Start date
Piston Hyundai
Member
After much deliberation, I decided that Mega Microgames belongs on the list over Twisted because I actually played Mega Microgames.
I never had the chance to play Twisted on a GBA, and I haven't taken the time to set up an emulated version, but it's always something I've wanted to go back and play.
That is a video game.
Piston Hyundai
Member
#30: Sonic the Hedgehog 2
(Sonic Team - Genesis, 1992)
This is the part where the people who love Sonic 3 & Knuckles jump down my throat.
It wasn't too long ago that I was talking about how good S3&K was, but even if it earns a place on this list, it's still a little protracted at times for my tastes. There's value in the sprawling nature of the game, but there's a slight dip in quality once you get into the "& Knuckles" parts. The music is sorely missing the funky bluster of the prior half, and levels like Flying Battery and Sandopolis don't quite "flow" in the same way other levels do, which would be a fine change of pace if they weren't placed right next to each other in the order. There may be less frills, but Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is comfort food by comparison: something you throw on, play for an hour or so before the credits roll, and just feel good about.
As with any of the Genesis Sonic platformers, the simple act of running and jumping is half of the fun. The gameplay feels like it's been designed with one thing in mind: everybody plays Mario games with the B button held down. Movement is snappy and the physics are so rock solid that it made Sonic Spinball seem like a good idea. What's more, the level design plays off of this focus better than almost any other game in the series. Even ignoring the stage with the literal pinball flippers and bumpers, the design and gimmicks of each level utilize the momentum of the player in clever and novel ways. In addition to simply looking and feeling great to go across, Emerald Hill's corkscrews force the player to maintain their speed similar to loops but with the added risk of falling off to a lower level, and the wavy slopes of Chemical Plant Zone give the player the kind of ridiculous speed most people associate with the series while doubling as ramps that enable crafty players to take huge shortcuts. One of my favorite boss fights to do has quarter-pipes on the sides of its arena, letting you spend the entire duration of the fight in constant motion by running back and forth between the slopes, jumping off of the walls to hit Robotnik, and running back down the sides to preserve your momentum and do it all over again. The entire Genesis series has fantastic gameplay, but the level design in 2 makes it my favorite to play.
You could debate about which of the three Genesis games has the best soundtrack, but I feel pretty confident in saying that Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is the best looking of them. The entire game is a cavalcade of primary colors, charming character design, and detailed backgrounds. Even today, the amount of parallax scrolling in the first zone alone is astounding (Sonic Team must have been pretty proud of it, considering the background was used for the title screen in many prototypes of the game). The vibrant art goes hand-in-hand with the equally dynamic music, making each zone a joy to take in.
Whether you chalk it up to its brevity, the simple-yet-focused gameplay, or the fantastic aesthetics, not many games are as consistently pleasant from start to finish as Sonic the Hedgehog 2. There are better platformers out there (even one by Sonic Team themselves), but there aren't many I come back to as often as this. If you have a controller to play it with, seek out the 2013 remake (pictured above) ASAP.
#29: Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
(Naughty Dog - Playstation, 1997)
And this is the part where die-hard Mario 64 folks realize the implications of Crash Bandicoot 2's placement and lose their minds.
Look, I'm a huge fan of Super Mario 64, but at the end of the day, I'm coming to a platformer to do some damn platforming, plain and simple. I don't necessarily hate more open platformers, but exploration usually works much better for me when it complements the action and isn't the central means to an end. I'd be pretty damn happy if you gave me a straight line and filled it treacherous obstacles and creative, challenging terrain to navigate, and that's just what Crash Bandicoot does. There's a focus and purity to the early Crash games that I really admire, the first game in particular being one of the most challenging 3D platformers you can play. Unfortunately, there's a lot of rough edges with the systems of that game that prevent it from making this list. Getting 100% in the game through exhaustive runs of each stage is fun on paper, but the checkpoint system is rendered pointless when you're trying to do so, as a death resets the amount of crates you've broken (which is required to fully clear a level). The save system is also a little archaic and arbitrary, if not a total dealbreaker in the age of emulation and save states. There's an outstanding platformer in Crash Bandicoot, but these issues make an already challenging game frustrating for the wrong reasons.* The sequel, Cortex Strikes Back, addresses these problems while introducing some fun mechanics of its own.
Control is tight in the Crash Bandicoot series, making the core platforming a great time. While I may enjoy Crash Bandicoot's simplicity, there's only so much you can do with a jump and a spin attack. Cortex Strikes Back adds the slide to the moveset, which makes the act of getting around much more fun. It's a useful alternative to the spin attack, and the speed boost it gives you leads to a hell of a lot of sliding around and then jumping out of it (made just that much more rewarding by Crash's great little David Lee Roth animation as he does so). This also doubles as a long jump, so there's pretty much no reason to not always use it. The game throws belly flops and crawling into the mix, too, and while they aren't necessarily game-changers, they still add a bit more to the gameplay, rounding out the first game's admittedly basic repertoire. This isn't the only aspect that's been expanded upon, either.
Taking advantage of the hub world system popularized by its contemporaries, Crash Bandicoot 2 has a lot more variety in its settings compared to its predecessor. The disconnected sets of levels allow Crash to roam through space stations, sewers, and icecaps in addition to the kinds of jungles and ruins seen in Crash 1. The increased breadth of locations provides a refreshing aesthetic change, but they add some nice wrinkles to the gameplay as well. The new mechanics these environments employ (Dig into the ground to hide from bees! Ride a jet board around!) are just different enough to be a welcome change of pace without losing sight of the tenets of the genre. You do a lot of different things throughout the course of the game, but you never get away from mechanics central to platformers (even when you're on a jet pack later on, it's still about using your finesse and dexterity to avoid hazards as you progress). The mid/late 90s were a time where it was very easy for developers to fall into the trap of adding too many gimmicks and side-modes to a game of this format (see Earthworm Jim 2 and Rare's N64 platformers for examples), and Crash Bandicoot 2 deftly walks that line, something even its sequel cannot claim to do.
Not content with just expecting players to get every crate for 100% completion, Crash 2 adds an additional layer of exploration. As you make your way through the various stages, you'll notice the occasional aberration. Be it a unique marking on the ground, a suspiciously static set of Nitro crates, or a seemingly vacant series of islands at the end of a level, investigating these oddities will typically lead to a secret area or even an entirely new level. It's a smart method of fleshing out the game's levels without interfering with the linear nature of the gameplay, and it ends up playing out like an ideal version of the first game's gem system.
At its best, Crash Bandicoot feels like the intense, engaging platforming of Donkey Kong Country with a third dimension added to it. Naughty Dog has an impressive commitment to linearity, and their games are more akin to thrill rides more often than not. While that may lead to mixed results these days (the hands-off nature of Uncharted's QTEs and much of its platforming is still a bit of a sore spot for me), it pays off in spades for the Crash series.
*The N. Sane Trilogy version of Crash Bandicoot pretty much eliminates every problem I have with that game and would totally end up on this list. Honestly, having the polish of the second and third games plus the addition of Time Trials and the cut Stormy Ascent level probably pushes it past Cortex Strikes Back for me. I didn't expect a recent game to have an impact on the list so soon, but for the sake of this thread, just know going forward that the list will be treated as it was the day it was assembled. I'll probably end up doing something similar for 2017 games for a GotY thread if you really want to know my thoughts on what I liked this year.
#28: SSX 3
(EA Canada - Playstation 2, 2003)
The SSX series is the crown jewel of the EA Sports Big brand. The original game was one of the best of the PS2's launch, but it was the following year's SSX Tricky where the snowboarding franchise found an identity befitting the audacious Big label, ushering in an unforgettable era of over-the-top sports games. The boarders' personalities were amplified, the tricks escaped any semblance of reality, and the action was underscored by an atmospheric yet intense breakbeat soundtrack, capped off with boisterous in-game announcing by human beatbox specialist Rahzel. It was hard not to love the madcap spirit of Tricky (titled after the classic Run-D.M.C. song), which is why it's still a little conflicting to see SSX 3 tone things down a bit, finding a stylistic middle ground between the first and second games. On one hand, the slightly more grounded characters and tone make the game feel a bit less unique. On the other, you don't exactly have to worry about standing out when you're the best God damn snowboarding game ever made.
Thankfully, the arcade gameplay of Tricky has been preserved and even expanded upon a great deal. The control scheme is similar to Cool Boarders (where shoulder buttons are used for grab tricks and you pre-wind any in-air rotations before a jump using the D-Pad), but everything is significantly smoother than those games or even previous SSX entries. After learning the controls, doing everything just feels natural, and performing huge tricks is endlessly gratifying. Speaking of which, one of the best aspects of the entire series is the Uber trick system, where filling up your boost meter gives you the ability to drop all pretenses of gravity and straight up fucking breakdance with your snowboard. SSX 3 adds a tier system (meaning you have to do a few simpler Uber tricks to get to the nutty ones, including hidden Monster Tricks) as well as Uber grind tricks. They're all high scoring as you would expect, but there's also an incentive to do them in races, since you get a temporary bout of unlimited boost when you do enough Ubers. The game's races are entertaining in their own right thanks to the impressive amount of non-linearity in the courses, but having a reason to do tricks in them makes them much more interesting (How do you sneak in enough Uber tricks for unlimited boost without it getting in the way of a speedy run?).
Similar to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, SSX 3 introduces the manual, which allows you to string a combo along for the entire length of a session. However, the game smartly loosens the requirements for maintaining a combo compared to Tony Hawk, allotting you a brief amount of time after hitting the ground to start a manual before the combo is lost instead of dropping it the second you land. You also don't really have to worry about balancing the manual as much, keeping the focus on lining up jumps and navigating the terrain. I always enjoyed the score attack portions of SSX games more than the racing, but it wasn't until SSX 3's additions to the formula that it was given the depth that it deserved.
The refinements and additions to the gameplay are vital, but the biggest changes introduced in SSX 3 are by far to the structure of the game. The game's courses are still linear, but instead of being individual and disconnected, they're all linked together on one huge mountain with three different peaks. It can easily take around a half-hour to go from the summit of the highest peak to the bottom, and that's not counting the points where paths diverge. There's a lot of mountain to cover, and the open world flow of the game grants you the freedom to just mess around if you want to, which is something you couldn't really do before in the series. Scattered throughout each portion of the mountain are collectables (which can be deviously hidden) and Big Challenges, which are ironically bite-sized, unique challenges that are a fun contrast to the more involved action of the main career. The transition to open world gameplay can be a difficult one (especially considering the inherent lack of backtracking when going down a mountain), but thankfully the game includes what they call the session point system, which lets you warp to various points on the mountain, making it much easier to visit specific areas to attempt challenges or grab collectables. I'm not always into linear games adopting a more open approach (here's looking at EA's own Mirror's Edge Catalyst), but SSX 3 seems to have been made with every potential pitfall of open-world design in mind, and it's hard to argue with the results.
SSX 3 is the best game from EA Sports' golden age. Snowboarding has never been as fun in a game as it is here, and recent games have me convinced it'll stay that way for quite some time. If you have a capable PC, emulate this with PCSX2; it runs freakishly well and scales past 4K resolutions without a problem.
#27: Doom
(id Software - PC, 2016)
It's been a little over a year, and Doom still blows my mind.
Think about all of the missteps id Software made within the past decade or so. They may not be outright bad games, but Quake 4, Rage, and Doom 3 are all signs that id had lost sight of what made people fall in love with their work in the first place. That alone is enough to stamp out any faith one could have in a new Doom, but then you realize that most, if not all of the people that made the original aren't even at id anymore. Then you realize that the game was in development hell for almost a decade. Then you hear about how it was referred to at one point as "Call of Doom." Then you see the disastrous reception of the public multiplayer beta (which, to be fair, ran counterpoint to people's reactions to the game in behind-closed-doors showings). 2016's Doom had just about everything going against it, and yet here I am, talking about how there's only 26 games I like more than it.
Doom was made with an impressive understanding of what the series should be about: demons and shotguns. There's obviously more to it than that (the game is far from a retread of the original 1993 masterpiece), but John Carmack's decree really informs the almost comically-straightforward nature of the game. The best example of this is in the game's introduction, which sets the tone better than just about any other video game I can think of. Within three minutes of playing the game, you're given two things: the setup and a shotgun. You're treated to just enough story and character moments to get an idea of the tone and direction of the narrative, and then you simply get down to business in an arena full of Imps, explosive barrels and ammo. The prologue deftly tells you everything you need to know about the game: it's fast-paced, brutal, and could give a fuck about subtlety.
The game's absolute lack of tact is personified by its protagonist, the Doomslayer. You wouldn't expect a great character in the mute grand-daddy of the generic space marine trope, but the player character is written with two things in mind: the absurdity of one person going on to destroy all of Hell, and the simple fact that the player is here to kill some God damned demons. As a result, the Doomslayer is a seething mass of fervent anger and perfect hatred that doesn't give a hot shit about what anybody has to say to him. Not only is he treated by humans and demons alike as an unstoppable biblical force, everything he does in the game is done with such brutishness and vigor that it feels like he's saying "fuck you" or "shut the fuck up" with each action, be it in combat or while interacting with Samuel Hayden (the self-righteous, matter-of-fact UAC official that guides him throughout the course of the game). I wouldn't have expected to ever talk about great character work in a Doom game, but it's such a clever, subversive, and sometimes outright funny way of tapping into the power fantasy nature of the series.
Gameplay feels like a natural extension of what you would see in the original Doom games. Just like you'd want, the levels are secret-laden, huge and often open-ended, while the combat is all about evading projectiles and making the best use of your ammunition to annihilate the hordes of iconic (yet imposing) enemies. However, Doom successfully modernizes these genre-old concepts without bogging the game down in unnecessary mechanics that would serve only to get in the way (you never find yourself reloading anything but the Super Shotgun, for example). Levels are much more vertical now, since you have two more jumps than you had in the original. The double-jump greatly improves the combat, as the arenas become much less flat as soon as you earn the ability. One of the best moments of the game is the Argent Tower level, which mixes huge battles with heavy verticality and a bit of platforming, all while the environments convey a phenomenal sense of scale. In an unexpected twist, resource management is tied more to combat than exploration. The risk-reward of the Glory Kill system rewards the player with extra health for potentially dangerous close-quarters executions (weird to see Doom taking pointers from Duke Nukem Forever of all things), and the chainsaw has been changed from a novelty/Pinky-killer to a utility, as it magically turns enemies into ammo pinatas upon its use. It all feels like a fresh take on the formula without stripping the series of its identity, something which came dangerously close to happening during development.
While you'll still be rewarded with the occasional health boost, ammunition, or even early weapons, exploration in Doom is more defined by the optional upgrades and challenges. For the first time in the series, you can upgrade anything from your health, ammo capacity, to your arsenal's capabilities. Doom doubles down on the weapon variety of games like Shadow Warrior and Hard Reset, giving weapons a surprising amount of secondary attacks. Shotguns can double as grenade launchers, and the plasma rifle has a handy area-of-effect blast in addition to a stun bomb function. It can prove to be a more beneficial incentive to explore than health or ammo you may not even need. Bonus loot is one thing, but my favorite reward in a game has always been more content (bonus levels, modes, etc.), and even though the game doesn't quite have secret levels in the same way its predecessors did, the Rune Trials scratch a similar itch. Each level has multiple runes either in the critical path or stowed away in secrets, and interacting with them will take you to a brief challenge in a separate area. These timed challenges each put unique spins on the mechanics of the game, ranging from quickly destroying explosive barrels, getting specific Glory Kills with weapons, or surviving a battle with limited health. They're fun on their own, but they also award the player with unique buffs (similar to Call of Duty perks) upon completion. The secret levels of Doom and Doom 2 are missed, but the upgrades make exploration in the 2016 game much more satisfying.
I could go on about Mick Gordon's amazing soundtrack and the impossibly optimized idTech 6 engine that supports the game, but what I'm really getting at here is that Doom, against all odds, feels like an honest to God Doom 3. It adds a litany of updates to the gameplay as well as a surprisingly self-aware sense of humor without forgetting what makes it Doom. The multiplayer leaves a lot to be desired, but come on, man: we all know that's what Quake is there for.
#26: Super Mario Bros. 3
(Nintendo R&D4 - NES, 1988)
It's Super Mario Bros. 3.
Now that I've made my case for why it belongs on this list, let me get into why it isn't any higher than 26:
(Sonic Team - Genesis, 1992)
This is the part where the people who love Sonic 3 & Knuckles jump down my throat.
It wasn't too long ago that I was talking about how good S3&K was, but even if it earns a place on this list, it's still a little protracted at times for my tastes. There's value in the sprawling nature of the game, but there's a slight dip in quality once you get into the "& Knuckles" parts. The music is sorely missing the funky bluster of the prior half, and levels like Flying Battery and Sandopolis don't quite "flow" in the same way other levels do, which would be a fine change of pace if they weren't placed right next to each other in the order. There may be less frills, but Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is comfort food by comparison: something you throw on, play for an hour or so before the credits roll, and just feel good about.
As with any of the Genesis Sonic platformers, the simple act of running and jumping is half of the fun. The gameplay feels like it's been designed with one thing in mind: everybody plays Mario games with the B button held down. Movement is snappy and the physics are so rock solid that it made Sonic Spinball seem like a good idea. What's more, the level design plays off of this focus better than almost any other game in the series. Even ignoring the stage with the literal pinball flippers and bumpers, the design and gimmicks of each level utilize the momentum of the player in clever and novel ways. In addition to simply looking and feeling great to go across, Emerald Hill's corkscrews force the player to maintain their speed similar to loops but with the added risk of falling off to a lower level, and the wavy slopes of Chemical Plant Zone give the player the kind of ridiculous speed most people associate with the series while doubling as ramps that enable crafty players to take huge shortcuts. One of my favorite boss fights to do has quarter-pipes on the sides of its arena, letting you spend the entire duration of the fight in constant motion by running back and forth between the slopes, jumping off of the walls to hit Robotnik, and running back down the sides to preserve your momentum and do it all over again. The entire Genesis series has fantastic gameplay, but the level design in 2 makes it my favorite to play.
You could debate about which of the three Genesis games has the best soundtrack, but I feel pretty confident in saying that Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is the best looking of them. The entire game is a cavalcade of primary colors, charming character design, and detailed backgrounds. Even today, the amount of parallax scrolling in the first zone alone is astounding (Sonic Team must have been pretty proud of it, considering the background was used for the title screen in many prototypes of the game). The vibrant art goes hand-in-hand with the equally dynamic music, making each zone a joy to take in.
Whether you chalk it up to its brevity, the simple-yet-focused gameplay, or the fantastic aesthetics, not many games are as consistently pleasant from start to finish as Sonic the Hedgehog 2. There are better platformers out there (even one by Sonic Team themselves), but there aren't many I come back to as often as this. If you have a controller to play it with, seek out the 2013 remake (pictured above) ASAP.
#29: Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back
(Naughty Dog - Playstation, 1997)
And this is the part where die-hard Mario 64 folks realize the implications of Crash Bandicoot 2's placement and lose their minds.
Look, I'm a huge fan of Super Mario 64, but at the end of the day, I'm coming to a platformer to do some damn platforming, plain and simple. I don't necessarily hate more open platformers, but exploration usually works much better for me when it complements the action and isn't the central means to an end. I'd be pretty damn happy if you gave me a straight line and filled it treacherous obstacles and creative, challenging terrain to navigate, and that's just what Crash Bandicoot does. There's a focus and purity to the early Crash games that I really admire, the first game in particular being one of the most challenging 3D platformers you can play. Unfortunately, there's a lot of rough edges with the systems of that game that prevent it from making this list. Getting 100% in the game through exhaustive runs of each stage is fun on paper, but the checkpoint system is rendered pointless when you're trying to do so, as a death resets the amount of crates you've broken (which is required to fully clear a level). The save system is also a little archaic and arbitrary, if not a total dealbreaker in the age of emulation and save states. There's an outstanding platformer in Crash Bandicoot, but these issues make an already challenging game frustrating for the wrong reasons.* The sequel, Cortex Strikes Back, addresses these problems while introducing some fun mechanics of its own.
Control is tight in the Crash Bandicoot series, making the core platforming a great time. While I may enjoy Crash Bandicoot's simplicity, there's only so much you can do with a jump and a spin attack. Cortex Strikes Back adds the slide to the moveset, which makes the act of getting around much more fun. It's a useful alternative to the spin attack, and the speed boost it gives you leads to a hell of a lot of sliding around and then jumping out of it (made just that much more rewarding by Crash's great little David Lee Roth animation as he does so). This also doubles as a long jump, so there's pretty much no reason to not always use it. The game throws belly flops and crawling into the mix, too, and while they aren't necessarily game-changers, they still add a bit more to the gameplay, rounding out the first game's admittedly basic repertoire. This isn't the only aspect that's been expanded upon, either.
Taking advantage of the hub world system popularized by its contemporaries, Crash Bandicoot 2 has a lot more variety in its settings compared to its predecessor. The disconnected sets of levels allow Crash to roam through space stations, sewers, and icecaps in addition to the kinds of jungles and ruins seen in Crash 1. The increased breadth of locations provides a refreshing aesthetic change, but they add some nice wrinkles to the gameplay as well. The new mechanics these environments employ (Dig into the ground to hide from bees! Ride a jet board around!) are just different enough to be a welcome change of pace without losing sight of the tenets of the genre. You do a lot of different things throughout the course of the game, but you never get away from mechanics central to platformers (even when you're on a jet pack later on, it's still about using your finesse and dexterity to avoid hazards as you progress). The mid/late 90s were a time where it was very easy for developers to fall into the trap of adding too many gimmicks and side-modes to a game of this format (see Earthworm Jim 2 and Rare's N64 platformers for examples), and Crash Bandicoot 2 deftly walks that line, something even its sequel cannot claim to do.
Not content with just expecting players to get every crate for 100% completion, Crash 2 adds an additional layer of exploration. As you make your way through the various stages, you'll notice the occasional aberration. Be it a unique marking on the ground, a suspiciously static set of Nitro crates, or a seemingly vacant series of islands at the end of a level, investigating these oddities will typically lead to a secret area or even an entirely new level. It's a smart method of fleshing out the game's levels without interfering with the linear nature of the gameplay, and it ends up playing out like an ideal version of the first game's gem system.
At its best, Crash Bandicoot feels like the intense, engaging platforming of Donkey Kong Country with a third dimension added to it. Naughty Dog has an impressive commitment to linearity, and their games are more akin to thrill rides more often than not. While that may lead to mixed results these days (the hands-off nature of Uncharted's QTEs and much of its platforming is still a bit of a sore spot for me), it pays off in spades for the Crash series.
*The N. Sane Trilogy version of Crash Bandicoot pretty much eliminates every problem I have with that game and would totally end up on this list. Honestly, having the polish of the second and third games plus the addition of Time Trials and the cut Stormy Ascent level probably pushes it past Cortex Strikes Back for me. I didn't expect a recent game to have an impact on the list so soon, but for the sake of this thread, just know going forward that the list will be treated as it was the day it was assembled. I'll probably end up doing something similar for 2017 games for a GotY thread if you really want to know my thoughts on what I liked this year.
#28: SSX 3
(EA Canada - Playstation 2, 2003)
The SSX series is the crown jewel of the EA Sports Big brand. The original game was one of the best of the PS2's launch, but it was the following year's SSX Tricky where the snowboarding franchise found an identity befitting the audacious Big label, ushering in an unforgettable era of over-the-top sports games. The boarders' personalities were amplified, the tricks escaped any semblance of reality, and the action was underscored by an atmospheric yet intense breakbeat soundtrack, capped off with boisterous in-game announcing by human beatbox specialist Rahzel. It was hard not to love the madcap spirit of Tricky (titled after the classic Run-D.M.C. song), which is why it's still a little conflicting to see SSX 3 tone things down a bit, finding a stylistic middle ground between the first and second games. On one hand, the slightly more grounded characters and tone make the game feel a bit less unique. On the other, you don't exactly have to worry about standing out when you're the best God damn snowboarding game ever made.
Thankfully, the arcade gameplay of Tricky has been preserved and even expanded upon a great deal. The control scheme is similar to Cool Boarders (where shoulder buttons are used for grab tricks and you pre-wind any in-air rotations before a jump using the D-Pad), but everything is significantly smoother than those games or even previous SSX entries. After learning the controls, doing everything just feels natural, and performing huge tricks is endlessly gratifying. Speaking of which, one of the best aspects of the entire series is the Uber trick system, where filling up your boost meter gives you the ability to drop all pretenses of gravity and straight up fucking breakdance with your snowboard. SSX 3 adds a tier system (meaning you have to do a few simpler Uber tricks to get to the nutty ones, including hidden Monster Tricks) as well as Uber grind tricks. They're all high scoring as you would expect, but there's also an incentive to do them in races, since you get a temporary bout of unlimited boost when you do enough Ubers. The game's races are entertaining in their own right thanks to the impressive amount of non-linearity in the courses, but having a reason to do tricks in them makes them much more interesting (How do you sneak in enough Uber tricks for unlimited boost without it getting in the way of a speedy run?).
Similar to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, SSX 3 introduces the manual, which allows you to string a combo along for the entire length of a session. However, the game smartly loosens the requirements for maintaining a combo compared to Tony Hawk, allotting you a brief amount of time after hitting the ground to start a manual before the combo is lost instead of dropping it the second you land. You also don't really have to worry about balancing the manual as much, keeping the focus on lining up jumps and navigating the terrain. I always enjoyed the score attack portions of SSX games more than the racing, but it wasn't until SSX 3's additions to the formula that it was given the depth that it deserved.
The refinements and additions to the gameplay are vital, but the biggest changes introduced in SSX 3 are by far to the structure of the game. The game's courses are still linear, but instead of being individual and disconnected, they're all linked together on one huge mountain with three different peaks. It can easily take around a half-hour to go from the summit of the highest peak to the bottom, and that's not counting the points where paths diverge. There's a lot of mountain to cover, and the open world flow of the game grants you the freedom to just mess around if you want to, which is something you couldn't really do before in the series. Scattered throughout each portion of the mountain are collectables (which can be deviously hidden) and Big Challenges, which are ironically bite-sized, unique challenges that are a fun contrast to the more involved action of the main career. The transition to open world gameplay can be a difficult one (especially considering the inherent lack of backtracking when going down a mountain), but thankfully the game includes what they call the session point system, which lets you warp to various points on the mountain, making it much easier to visit specific areas to attempt challenges or grab collectables. I'm not always into linear games adopting a more open approach (here's looking at EA's own Mirror's Edge Catalyst), but SSX 3 seems to have been made with every potential pitfall of open-world design in mind, and it's hard to argue with the results.
SSX 3 is the best game from EA Sports' golden age. Snowboarding has never been as fun in a game as it is here, and recent games have me convinced it'll stay that way for quite some time. If you have a capable PC, emulate this with PCSX2; it runs freakishly well and scales past 4K resolutions without a problem.
#27: Doom
(id Software - PC, 2016)
It's been a little over a year, and Doom still blows my mind.
Think about all of the missteps id Software made within the past decade or so. They may not be outright bad games, but Quake 4, Rage, and Doom 3 are all signs that id had lost sight of what made people fall in love with their work in the first place. That alone is enough to stamp out any faith one could have in a new Doom, but then you realize that most, if not all of the people that made the original aren't even at id anymore. Then you realize that the game was in development hell for almost a decade. Then you hear about how it was referred to at one point as "Call of Doom." Then you see the disastrous reception of the public multiplayer beta (which, to be fair, ran counterpoint to people's reactions to the game in behind-closed-doors showings). 2016's Doom had just about everything going against it, and yet here I am, talking about how there's only 26 games I like more than it.
Doom was made with an impressive understanding of what the series should be about: demons and shotguns. There's obviously more to it than that (the game is far from a retread of the original 1993 masterpiece), but John Carmack's decree really informs the almost comically-straightforward nature of the game. The best example of this is in the game's introduction, which sets the tone better than just about any other video game I can think of. Within three minutes of playing the game, you're given two things: the setup and a shotgun. You're treated to just enough story and character moments to get an idea of the tone and direction of the narrative, and then you simply get down to business in an arena full of Imps, explosive barrels and ammo. The prologue deftly tells you everything you need to know about the game: it's fast-paced, brutal, and could give a fuck about subtlety.
The game's absolute lack of tact is personified by its protagonist, the Doomslayer. You wouldn't expect a great character in the mute grand-daddy of the generic space marine trope, but the player character is written with two things in mind: the absurdity of one person going on to destroy all of Hell, and the simple fact that the player is here to kill some God damned demons. As a result, the Doomslayer is a seething mass of fervent anger and perfect hatred that doesn't give a hot shit about what anybody has to say to him. Not only is he treated by humans and demons alike as an unstoppable biblical force, everything he does in the game is done with such brutishness and vigor that it feels like he's saying "fuck you" or "shut the fuck up" with each action, be it in combat or while interacting with Samuel Hayden (the self-righteous, matter-of-fact UAC official that guides him throughout the course of the game). I wouldn't have expected to ever talk about great character work in a Doom game, but it's such a clever, subversive, and sometimes outright funny way of tapping into the power fantasy nature of the series.
Gameplay feels like a natural extension of what you would see in the original Doom games. Just like you'd want, the levels are secret-laden, huge and often open-ended, while the combat is all about evading projectiles and making the best use of your ammunition to annihilate the hordes of iconic (yet imposing) enemies. However, Doom successfully modernizes these genre-old concepts without bogging the game down in unnecessary mechanics that would serve only to get in the way (you never find yourself reloading anything but the Super Shotgun, for example). Levels are much more vertical now, since you have two more jumps than you had in the original. The double-jump greatly improves the combat, as the arenas become much less flat as soon as you earn the ability. One of the best moments of the game is the Argent Tower level, which mixes huge battles with heavy verticality and a bit of platforming, all while the environments convey a phenomenal sense of scale. In an unexpected twist, resource management is tied more to combat than exploration. The risk-reward of the Glory Kill system rewards the player with extra health for potentially dangerous close-quarters executions (weird to see Doom taking pointers from Duke Nukem Forever of all things), and the chainsaw has been changed from a novelty/Pinky-killer to a utility, as it magically turns enemies into ammo pinatas upon its use. It all feels like a fresh take on the formula without stripping the series of its identity, something which came dangerously close to happening during development.
While you'll still be rewarded with the occasional health boost, ammunition, or even early weapons, exploration in Doom is more defined by the optional upgrades and challenges. For the first time in the series, you can upgrade anything from your health, ammo capacity, to your arsenal's capabilities. Doom doubles down on the weapon variety of games like Shadow Warrior and Hard Reset, giving weapons a surprising amount of secondary attacks. Shotguns can double as grenade launchers, and the plasma rifle has a handy area-of-effect blast in addition to a stun bomb function. It can prove to be a more beneficial incentive to explore than health or ammo you may not even need. Bonus loot is one thing, but my favorite reward in a game has always been more content (bonus levels, modes, etc.), and even though the game doesn't quite have secret levels in the same way its predecessors did, the Rune Trials scratch a similar itch. Each level has multiple runes either in the critical path or stowed away in secrets, and interacting with them will take you to a brief challenge in a separate area. These timed challenges each put unique spins on the mechanics of the game, ranging from quickly destroying explosive barrels, getting specific Glory Kills with weapons, or surviving a battle with limited health. They're fun on their own, but they also award the player with unique buffs (similar to Call of Duty perks) upon completion. The secret levels of Doom and Doom 2 are missed, but the upgrades make exploration in the 2016 game much more satisfying.
I could go on about Mick Gordon's amazing soundtrack and the impossibly optimized idTech 6 engine that supports the game, but what I'm really getting at here is that Doom, against all odds, feels like an honest to God Doom 3. It adds a litany of updates to the gameplay as well as a surprisingly self-aware sense of humor without forgetting what makes it Doom. The multiplayer leaves a lot to be desired, but come on, man: we all know that's what Quake is there for.
#26: Super Mario Bros. 3
(Nintendo R&D4 - NES, 1988)
It's Super Mario Bros. 3.
Now that I've made my case for why it belongs on this list, let me get into why it isn't any higher than 26:
- Super Mario Bros. 3 may have introduced the world map, but it wouldn't become a game-changer until later on in the series. As it stands in 3, it doesn't really do anything meaningful. It certainly makes the game easier (optional paths, warp whistles and Jugem's Cloud let you skip levels pretty easily, and Toad Houses shower you with power-ups and lives), but its purpose is frivolous at best beyond this. There are some dynamic moments in them like battles with Hammer Brothers, but these are often carbon copies of one another and get tedious after a few worlds. It's not without its charms (and great music), but it's arguable that world map's presence here makes it that much better of a game, especially considering how later games would make it an integral feature.
- The themed worlds are admittedly great (some of the most memorable moments in the series come from the giants of World 4 and the hellish platforming and darkness of World 8), but it also leads to an issue in level distribution. If you don't like the twist that a world brings to the table, you have to deal with that all at once, compared to earlier Super Mario Bros. games which kept an even distribution of stage types across the whole thing. For example, a majority of the game's water levels are localized in the water-themed World 3, which burns you out on them very quickly. It also renders power-ups like the Frog Suit nearly useless afterwards, but there's bigger problems than that as far as items are concerned.
- There's a load of interesting new power-ups in Super Mario Bros 3, but they never really get the chance to shine. You know, I don't understand the point of giving your inventory so many slots when it's almost entirely filled with Mushrooms, Fire Flowers, and Super Leaves. Kuribo's Shoe is a very fun gimmick, but the gameplay potential it has is never reached; across nearly 90 levels, the mechanic only appears once. The Hammer Suit grants you the abilities of one of the most notorious enemies in the series, but you could go through the entire game without seeing a single one. Normally, I'd be a bit more forgiving of that, but SMB3 is the only appearance of the power-up in the entire series.
Piston Hyundai
Member
Jesus, that last post was 23,999 characters long. Hell of a way to find out about GAF's 24,000 character limit.
Just so everybody knows, I'm going to post these one at a time from here on out. It'll give the really good games the space they deserve and should up the pace of the thread a little bit, since I won't have to hold onto any finished entries. Oh, and it'll totally ratchet up the views like how IGN does with their drawn-out lists.
See you with #25.
Just so everybody knows, I'm going to post these one at a time from here on out. It'll give the really good games the space they deserve and should up the pace of the thread a little bit, since I won't have to hold onto any finished entries. Oh, and it'll totally ratchet up the views like how IGN does with their drawn-out lists.
See you with #25.
Magic Mushroom
Member
DOOM. What a game.
Great post!
Great post!
Piston Hyundai
Member
I guess PCSX2 is fickle, since SSX 3 is the only game that runs pretty much perfectly on my end, even when bumped up to stupid resolutions.
AngmarsKing701
Member
Love these threads. Just spent the morning going through the list. I've been playing games for so long I'd forgotten some of the ones that would make my list. NHL '94! Sonic 2!
I can't imagine doing a list like this, but thanks for doing it. I love all the variety here, by the way.
I can't imagine doing a list like this, but thanks for doing it. I love all the variety here, by the way.
FallenGrace
Member
Sonic 2 is one of my favourite games ever. I spent hours playing that both solo and with friends going up. It would be on my list for sure.
WascallyWabbit
Member
Keep these up, I love the deep dives on these games, really takes me down memory lane
I tried Doom during the Steam free weekend and became bored of it after five minutes.
Yes, it is REALLY annoying when doing these types of lists.
Piston Hyundai
Member
#25: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
(Rockstar North - PS2, 2004)
When I was younger, Grand Theft Auto III was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen. Of course, stealing cars and going on rampages was a huge part of the appeal, but playing an action game that was so open was just insane in 2001. I played the living shit out of GTA III, but it wasn't before long that my best friend and I were literally counting the days until the release of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, feverishly poring over the strategy guide we had gotten early. The 2002 follow-up lived up to the hype at the time, but its ridiculous nine-month development cycle and roots as a mission pack for III are more evident in hindsight: the titular Vice City, for as great of a facsimile of 1980s Miami as it was, actually felt smaller than III's Liberty City, and the main story is comparably light, clocking in at only around 20 missions compared to GTA III's nearly 50. There was ample side content, but Vice City leaves you wondering what could've been done if Rockstar North had more time to work with. The answer to that question, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, was some next level shit. It's probably a little lazy to describe a sequel with "everything's better and there's a lot more of it," but it's the truth: San Andreas blows the whole Grand Theft Auto formula wide open.
Even now, the scope of the game is amazing. Throughout the story you participate in gang wars, plot a casino heist, steal a fucking jetpack, take a murderous pit-stop in Liberty City, and do all sorts of other felonious fuckery, but the best example of the game's breadth is in its namesake. Carl Johnson's story is more like a crime epic than a standard GTA campaign, and the setting is just as important in creating that feeling as the mission variety. All it takes is a single look to see that the state of San Andreas is dwarfed by modern sandboxes, but the game does a remarkable job of making it feel enormous. The story spans across three different cities (all of which larger than any of those in previous GTA games) as well as expansive rural backwoods, mountains and deserts. Each region has a distinct vibe to it, reinforced by little touches like unique weather effects, police vehicles, and pedestrians. The content of each region is also diverse, as they all offer their own characters, side-missions, and landmarks to interact with. Moving on from one region to the next always feels like a big deal, since you go through the fish-out-of-water feeling of getting to know a new city or environment each time. There was only ever one Vice City and Liberty City to get acquainted with, so getting that experience 4 or 5 times in a single game makes the game feel gargantuan (yes, I know the original game had multiple cities as well, but you get my point). The jump from city to full-on state could've easily been overwhelming, but San Andreas eases the player into everything, letting CJ's world slowly but surely get bigger as he meets new contacts, makes new friends, and discovers new opportunities. By the time CJ's brother Sweet rebukes him for forgetting about his Grove Street roots, it's very likely that the player has done the same exact thing, and that's one hell of an achievement.
The great thing about the size of San Andreas is that it really isn't really big so much as it is dense. Take Mount Chiliad, for example. Grand Theft Auto V's mountain makes the 2004 version look like a damn joke, but I can't recall any notable features other than a weird mural hidden on a wall and maybe a single race. Going off of memory, 2004's Mount Chiliad has a mission where you kill an informant in witness protection that's stowed away in a cabin, a tournament of treacherous mountain bike races, an ATV to fuck around with (one of the rarer vehicle spawns in the game), and several points for base-jumping or crazy vehicle stunts. San Andreas isn't just full of space for the sake of space; every area has something going on. Sometimes this may mean a collectable, but it's quite often something more substantial. There's a shitload of side content in the game, and while some things may be better than others, the rewards can make even the weakest content worthwhile. Sure, the dating mechanic may not be the most stimulating thing in the world (at least not without the Hot Coffee mod, ayyyyyyyy), but it unlocking the ability to retain your weapons and cash after death is a game changer. There's a whole lot to do, but as with the state itself, Rockstar North chooses to slowly open this content to you as you progress through the game instead of dumping it on you Ubisoft-style. The game's a buffet, but that doesn't mean they should let you binge and purge with it right away.
All of this would be a tragic waste if the moment-to-moment gameplay was no good, but San Andreas is the best playing of the PS2 entries. The game marks the point where the series escaped the lock-on ghetto on consoles and you could just play the game like a proper third-person shooter if you wanted. The lock-on is still handy for close-range battles, but free aim is an exponential improvement to the combat. Vehicle handling is also greatly refined. Driving in the earlier games in the series often felt like you were controlling RC cars (which, to be fair, is something you actually did in those games), and thankfully, the game tightens things up just enough without treading into the dreaded GTA IV territory. There's a plethora of new vehicles to mess around with, too, including some genuine surprises. I was someone who almost immediately went for the nearest helicopter when I finally got my hands on Vice City, so imagine how much I lost my shit when I came across the Hydra VTOL jet and the aforementioned jet pack for the first time. I can't deny that Grand Theft Auto V has better driving and shooting mechanics, but with so much to do/steal/kill/drive, San Andreas still manages to be more fun to play.
Vice City just barely had a touch of customization in the form of various outfits for Tommy Vercetti, but San Andreas fleshes it out into an entire system, adding many more layers to changing your character and any appropriated vehicles to your liking. You can make just about any realistic change to CJ that you want (sorry, no turning him into an eight foot tall white woman), and you can trick out tuner cars and lowriders to the level of some of the era's racing games. I'm a huge proponent of customization in games, but it's Rockstar's penchant for small touches that makes it memorable here. Depending on how much you weigh, what clothes you're wearing, or the type of car you drive, people on the street will react to you differently, and you can even respond in kind. It's possible to hear someone talk shit about your shoes, tell them off, and then get into a fight over it. Some of your choices even have gameplay implications (physical fitness can impact your sprinting and ability to learn new melee attacks, for example).
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas may have aged a bit more than some other games of the time (then again, it wasn't much to look at even back then), but it does scale better than almost any other game out there. There's so much more to the game compared to Vice City that I'd almost believe that there was another GTA released between the two that everyone forgot about. Open worlds are well worn territory at this point, but I still have to remind myself that SA isn't the biggest open world I've seen in a game. Sure, Grand Theft Auto V may be bigger and more polished, but San Andreas makes such great use of its setting that my brain is tricked into thinking that it's the larger game.
Oh, and Grand Theft Auto V doesn't have a God damn jetpack.
(Rockstar North - PS2, 2004)
When I was younger, Grand Theft Auto III was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen. Of course, stealing cars and going on rampages was a huge part of the appeal, but playing an action game that was so open was just insane in 2001. I played the living shit out of GTA III, but it wasn't before long that my best friend and I were literally counting the days until the release of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, feverishly poring over the strategy guide we had gotten early. The 2002 follow-up lived up to the hype at the time, but its ridiculous nine-month development cycle and roots as a mission pack for III are more evident in hindsight: the titular Vice City, for as great of a facsimile of 1980s Miami as it was, actually felt smaller than III's Liberty City, and the main story is comparably light, clocking in at only around 20 missions compared to GTA III's nearly 50. There was ample side content, but Vice City leaves you wondering what could've been done if Rockstar North had more time to work with. The answer to that question, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, was some next level shit. It's probably a little lazy to describe a sequel with "everything's better and there's a lot more of it," but it's the truth: San Andreas blows the whole Grand Theft Auto formula wide open.
Even now, the scope of the game is amazing. Throughout the story you participate in gang wars, plot a casino heist, steal a fucking jetpack, take a murderous pit-stop in Liberty City, and do all sorts of other felonious fuckery, but the best example of the game's breadth is in its namesake. Carl Johnson's story is more like a crime epic than a standard GTA campaign, and the setting is just as important in creating that feeling as the mission variety. All it takes is a single look to see that the state of San Andreas is dwarfed by modern sandboxes, but the game does a remarkable job of making it feel enormous. The story spans across three different cities (all of which larger than any of those in previous GTA games) as well as expansive rural backwoods, mountains and deserts. Each region has a distinct vibe to it, reinforced by little touches like unique weather effects, police vehicles, and pedestrians. The content of each region is also diverse, as they all offer their own characters, side-missions, and landmarks to interact with. Moving on from one region to the next always feels like a big deal, since you go through the fish-out-of-water feeling of getting to know a new city or environment each time. There was only ever one Vice City and Liberty City to get acquainted with, so getting that experience 4 or 5 times in a single game makes the game feel gargantuan (yes, I know the original game had multiple cities as well, but you get my point). The jump from city to full-on state could've easily been overwhelming, but San Andreas eases the player into everything, letting CJ's world slowly but surely get bigger as he meets new contacts, makes new friends, and discovers new opportunities. By the time CJ's brother Sweet rebukes him for forgetting about his Grove Street roots, it's very likely that the player has done the same exact thing, and that's one hell of an achievement.
The great thing about the size of San Andreas is that it really isn't really big so much as it is dense. Take Mount Chiliad, for example. Grand Theft Auto V's mountain makes the 2004 version look like a damn joke, but I can't recall any notable features other than a weird mural hidden on a wall and maybe a single race. Going off of memory, 2004's Mount Chiliad has a mission where you kill an informant in witness protection that's stowed away in a cabin, a tournament of treacherous mountain bike races, an ATV to fuck around with (one of the rarer vehicle spawns in the game), and several points for base-jumping or crazy vehicle stunts. San Andreas isn't just full of space for the sake of space; every area has something going on. Sometimes this may mean a collectable, but it's quite often something more substantial. There's a shitload of side content in the game, and while some things may be better than others, the rewards can make even the weakest content worthwhile. Sure, the dating mechanic may not be the most stimulating thing in the world (at least not without the Hot Coffee mod, ayyyyyyyy), but it unlocking the ability to retain your weapons and cash after death is a game changer. There's a whole lot to do, but as with the state itself, Rockstar North chooses to slowly open this content to you as you progress through the game instead of dumping it on you Ubisoft-style. The game's a buffet, but that doesn't mean they should let you binge and purge with it right away.
All of this would be a tragic waste if the moment-to-moment gameplay was no good, but San Andreas is the best playing of the PS2 entries. The game marks the point where the series escaped the lock-on ghetto on consoles and you could just play the game like a proper third-person shooter if you wanted. The lock-on is still handy for close-range battles, but free aim is an exponential improvement to the combat. Vehicle handling is also greatly refined. Driving in the earlier games in the series often felt like you were controlling RC cars (which, to be fair, is something you actually did in those games), and thankfully, the game tightens things up just enough without treading into the dreaded GTA IV territory. There's a plethora of new vehicles to mess around with, too, including some genuine surprises. I was someone who almost immediately went for the nearest helicopter when I finally got my hands on Vice City, so imagine how much I lost my shit when I came across the Hydra VTOL jet and the aforementioned jet pack for the first time. I can't deny that Grand Theft Auto V has better driving and shooting mechanics, but with so much to do/steal/kill/drive, San Andreas still manages to be more fun to play.
Vice City just barely had a touch of customization in the form of various outfits for Tommy Vercetti, but San Andreas fleshes it out into an entire system, adding many more layers to changing your character and any appropriated vehicles to your liking. You can make just about any realistic change to CJ that you want (sorry, no turning him into an eight foot tall white woman), and you can trick out tuner cars and lowriders to the level of some of the era's racing games. I'm a huge proponent of customization in games, but it's Rockstar's penchant for small touches that makes it memorable here. Depending on how much you weigh, what clothes you're wearing, or the type of car you drive, people on the street will react to you differently, and you can even respond in kind. It's possible to hear someone talk shit about your shoes, tell them off, and then get into a fight over it. Some of your choices even have gameplay implications (physical fitness can impact your sprinting and ability to learn new melee attacks, for example).
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas may have aged a bit more than some other games of the time (then again, it wasn't much to look at even back then), but it does scale better than almost any other game out there. There's so much more to the game compared to Vice City that I'd almost believe that there was another GTA released between the two that everyone forgot about. Open worlds are well worn territory at this point, but I still have to remind myself that SA isn't the biggest open world I've seen in a game. Sure, Grand Theft Auto V may be bigger and more polished, but San Andreas makes such great use of its setting that my brain is tricked into thinking that it's the larger game.
Oh, and Grand Theft Auto V doesn't have a God damn jetpack.
Glitchesarecool
Member
The fact that DOOM managed to make a character around Doomslayer with just transmissions between third parties (and lore findings) still shocks me. So often the silent protagonist is just boring, but Doomslayer is just so good because of how brutal his actions are.
Piston Hyundai
Member
What really gets me is the possibility that the events of the previous games are canon and that he's literally deified because of his actions in those games.
Brerlappin
Member
Dont forget the soundtrack, it deserves a mention for being absolutely fucking unsettling as hell. I love K&L2. Despite the middling gameplay, i honestly think its a great game overall. I might even replay it.
My favorite part of San Andreas, that isn't a feature in subsequent games, is that when you held down the kick button while you were standing on a car, CJ would stomp on it for as long as you held the button. I would climb onto the hoods of cars, stomp on them until the driver would try to drive away with me still stomping on it, and then keep stomping until the cars would catch fire. Then I'd jump off and run away as the cars exploded. I was so tickled by the fact that I could step on cars until they fucking blew up that I did this for hours. I never beat the main story.
Piston Hyundai
Member
#24: Streets of Rage 2
(Ancient - Genesis, 1992)
SEGA were undeniable in their status as kings of the arcade scene in the 80s and 90s. Whether it was earning their reputation in Japan with shooters like Space Harrier and Fantasy Zone, dominating the racing genre with Out Run, Daytona USA, and Super Hang-On, or making some of the best light-gun shooters ever made with Virtua Cop and House of the Dead, SEGA's coin-op dynasty ran the gamut, offering a brand of action for almost anyone. While their output would span a wide variety of genres and styles, a through line persists with nearly the entire catalogue: an unwavering laser focus on simple yet engaging gameplay and unforgettable aesthetics that often pushed the limits of the hardware it ran on. SEGA's arcade philosophy would extend to the Genesis, which was often touted as offering the arcade experience in your own home. It may have only ever been a console game, but Streets of Rage 2 as close to the perfection of those arcade ideals as SEGA has ever gotten.
SoR2 is the best of both worlds when it comes to the gameplay. It's as pick-up-and-play as games get, but the character variety, range of attacks at your disposal, and the demanding higher difficulties give it an underappreciated depth and replay value. You could punch and kick your way through the game if you want, but to do well (especially on higher difficulties), you have to make use of grapples, desperation attacks, and character-specific maneuvers. Every playable character has meaningful differences, each bringing a unique style and special attacks to the table. Axel is an all-arounder with one of the best attacks in the game in his Grand Upper, Blaze is a speedy aerial attack specialist, Skate has the unique ability to sprint, and Max makes up for his glacial movement speed with absolutely devastating grapple attacks. All of the special techniques are surprisingly natural to pull off for a three-button game (you simply move into enemies to grapple them, for example) and combat in general flows smoothly, in part thanks to the doubled framerate over the first game's 30 frames per second. The best part of the gameplay, however, is how it effortlessly scales between low and high-level play. The relative simplicity encourages casual playthroughs where you can abuse stunlocks and Grand Upper dudes like a motherfucker, but higher difficulties deny you that luxury, instead demanding mastery of the character you play as and suffocating you in mobs of much faster enemies. A playthrough as Axel on Normal difficulty and a Skate run on Mania difficulty are substantially different experiences, and this depth elevates it past the contemporaries that the original game was aping, making it more than "the beat 'em up with really good music."
That being said, there's a reason the music is what everybody remembers about the series. I've talked about Yuzo Koshiro earlier in the thread, but his work in Streets of Rage 2 is widely considered his magnum opus, and I can't help but agree. Heavily influenced by house, trance, and techno music, Koshiro's score is an incredible medley of electronic dance music filtered through the iconic grit of the Genesis' distinct Yamaha soundchip. It's a perfect companion to the hectic, neon-soaked action on-screen, but regardless of any gameplay context, this is the best collection of music out of any game on the Genesis. The game's amusement park stage is accompanied by "Dreamer," an effervescent track that somehow manages to reflect the spirited surroundings without losing its appeal as fight music. The intense "Expander" underscores the danger of a late-game onslaught and features an absolutely grimy bassline, a prelude to the divisively raw sound of Streets of Rage 3. There's literally more great music than can fit in the game itself (the sound test features a handful of songs and alternate takes unused in the game proper), but the best use of it has to be in the final stage, where a reprisal of the intro theme immediately sets the tone and wordlessly informs the player that endgame is upon them. Yuzo Koshiro just had a talent with the Genesis that nobody else did, and Street of Rage 2's soundtrack isn't just the best on the Genesis, it's on the very short list of the best soundtracks ever.
That's not to say that the visuals and sound design as a whole don't do their part, though. Stages are varied and vibrant, while character sprites are much larger compared to their SoR1 counterparts, allowing the detailed designs to shine through. Sound effects make ample use of sample playback, improving the combat with meaty impact noises as well as memorable war cries and screams. Astute players may even notice some classic samples commonly used in hip-hop, like the Big Ben enemy's laughter and the "HIT IT" heard any time a motorcycle bandit throws a grenade. The music is transcendent, no doubt, but the game has a classic arcade aesthetic across the board.
I love arcade beat 'em ups like Final Fight and the various licensed Konami games from the 90s, but I can't help but feel that they could stand to be a bit less shallow. The nature of how arcades operate meant that they couldn't be much longer than a half-hour or in some cases even treat the player fairly. Free from these shackles, Streets of Rage 2 all but perfects the genre. The arcade experience coming home may be the best thing to ever happen to it.
(Ancient - Genesis, 1992)
SEGA were undeniable in their status as kings of the arcade scene in the 80s and 90s. Whether it was earning their reputation in Japan with shooters like Space Harrier and Fantasy Zone, dominating the racing genre with Out Run, Daytona USA, and Super Hang-On, or making some of the best light-gun shooters ever made with Virtua Cop and House of the Dead, SEGA's coin-op dynasty ran the gamut, offering a brand of action for almost anyone. While their output would span a wide variety of genres and styles, a through line persists with nearly the entire catalogue: an unwavering laser focus on simple yet engaging gameplay and unforgettable aesthetics that often pushed the limits of the hardware it ran on. SEGA's arcade philosophy would extend to the Genesis, which was often touted as offering the arcade experience in your own home. It may have only ever been a console game, but Streets of Rage 2 as close to the perfection of those arcade ideals as SEGA has ever gotten.
SoR2 is the best of both worlds when it comes to the gameplay. It's as pick-up-and-play as games get, but the character variety, range of attacks at your disposal, and the demanding higher difficulties give it an underappreciated depth and replay value. You could punch and kick your way through the game if you want, but to do well (especially on higher difficulties), you have to make use of grapples, desperation attacks, and character-specific maneuvers. Every playable character has meaningful differences, each bringing a unique style and special attacks to the table. Axel is an all-arounder with one of the best attacks in the game in his Grand Upper, Blaze is a speedy aerial attack specialist, Skate has the unique ability to sprint, and Max makes up for his glacial movement speed with absolutely devastating grapple attacks. All of the special techniques are surprisingly natural to pull off for a three-button game (you simply move into enemies to grapple them, for example) and combat in general flows smoothly, in part thanks to the doubled framerate over the first game's 30 frames per second. The best part of the gameplay, however, is how it effortlessly scales between low and high-level play. The relative simplicity encourages casual playthroughs where you can abuse stunlocks and Grand Upper dudes like a motherfucker, but higher difficulties deny you that luxury, instead demanding mastery of the character you play as and suffocating you in mobs of much faster enemies. A playthrough as Axel on Normal difficulty and a Skate run on Mania difficulty are substantially different experiences, and this depth elevates it past the contemporaries that the original game was aping, making it more than "the beat 'em up with really good music."
That being said, there's a reason the music is what everybody remembers about the series. I've talked about Yuzo Koshiro earlier in the thread, but his work in Streets of Rage 2 is widely considered his magnum opus, and I can't help but agree. Heavily influenced by house, trance, and techno music, Koshiro's score is an incredible medley of electronic dance music filtered through the iconic grit of the Genesis' distinct Yamaha soundchip. It's a perfect companion to the hectic, neon-soaked action on-screen, but regardless of any gameplay context, this is the best collection of music out of any game on the Genesis. The game's amusement park stage is accompanied by "Dreamer," an effervescent track that somehow manages to reflect the spirited surroundings without losing its appeal as fight music. The intense "Expander" underscores the danger of a late-game onslaught and features an absolutely grimy bassline, a prelude to the divisively raw sound of Streets of Rage 3. There's literally more great music than can fit in the game itself (the sound test features a handful of songs and alternate takes unused in the game proper), but the best use of it has to be in the final stage, where a reprisal of the intro theme immediately sets the tone and wordlessly informs the player that endgame is upon them. Yuzo Koshiro just had a talent with the Genesis that nobody else did, and Street of Rage 2's soundtrack isn't just the best on the Genesis, it's on the very short list of the best soundtracks ever.
That's not to say that the visuals and sound design as a whole don't do their part, though. Stages are varied and vibrant, while character sprites are much larger compared to their SoR1 counterparts, allowing the detailed designs to shine through. Sound effects make ample use of sample playback, improving the combat with meaty impact noises as well as memorable war cries and screams. Astute players may even notice some classic samples commonly used in hip-hop, like the Big Ben enemy's laughter and the "HIT IT" heard any time a motorcycle bandit throws a grenade. The music is transcendent, no doubt, but the game has a classic arcade aesthetic across the board.
I love arcade beat 'em ups like Final Fight and the various licensed Konami games from the 90s, but I can't help but feel that they could stand to be a bit less shallow. The nature of how arcades operate meant that they couldn't be much longer than a half-hour or in some cases even treat the player fairly. Free from these shackles, Streets of Rage 2 all but perfects the genre. The arcade experience coming home may be the best thing to ever happen to it.
Piston Hyundai
Member
#23: Bully
(Rockstar Vancouver - PS2, 2006)
Bully is the kind of game that makes you wonder why Rockstar doesn't try out E and T-rated games more often. I know I just got done fellating the Grand Theft Auto series, but it's not without its faults. Their warped cynicism and relentless sarcasm can be pretty funny, but after multiple generations of it, it grows a little tiresome. Maybe I'm just a little resentful of how the style eventually seeped into Max Payne 3 (Did anyone need to hear Max's thoughts on capitalism?), but the one-size-fits-all approach to writing wore thin for me by the time Grand Theft Auto IV came around, no doubt worsened by how often it clashed with the more serious and grounded plot. Then again, maybe the reason I grew tired of it was because between San Andreas and GTA IV, Rockstar's writing found a perfect home in Bully.
The trademark sardonic wit of Rockstar's games is a fitting companion to the dog-eat-dog (or perhaps Canis Canem Edit) world of Bullworth Academy. Bully's not without its similarities to Grand Theft Auto, but the game trades in gangs and cops for cliques and teachers, and the playful nature of the script feels a lot more natural as a result. No punchlines or quips leave you thinking "Is now really the time for this?," as dealing mostly in teenage mischief instead of outright criminality lends the game a levity not earned in the team's other works. Not all of the game's antics can be written off as "boys will be boys" (the main antagonist is quite the sociopath), but even in these moments the general tone feels appropriate. Bully is Rockstar's writing at its most consistent, and that leads to some of the most enjoyable characters in their catalogue.
It's only natural that a game centered around some of the prime social years of one's life would put such a focus on the people that protagonist Jimmy Hopkins interacts with, but Bully goes several steps further than what would be considered necessary. Whether it's the students and staff of Bullworth Academy or the denizens of Bullworth proper, the game's colorful cast is packed full of memorable characters across the board, and watching them interact with one another is almost always entertaining thanks to the writing and excellent voice acting. What's more, Bully is one of the only open-world games I can think of where every NPC is a unique character. That jock walking around going "ONE DAY I WANNA FIGHT A GORILLA" isn't just a random nameless pedestrian, he's an actual person (at least, in the context of the game itself). Some have a greater purpose than others, but every single NPC in the game is their own character with a unique model and personality. They even went through the trouble to give 99% of the characters a name. There's been a lot of praise for Rockstar's world design over the years, many people tripping over themselves to commend how "lived in" their environments feel, but I don't think they've yet to top Bullworth, a town where you'll come to know literally everybody.
Speaking of world design, Bullworth itself is an exceptionally well-designed town. I've mentioned before how I'm not normally too concerned about mise en scène or the mood established by video games, but it's hard not to admire the work Rockstar Vancouver put in to make Bullworth stand out. It retains the density seen in San Andreas while scaling down considerably and introducing a New England flavor not commonly seen in video games, giving it a rather pleasant atmosphere that seems almost antithetical to their other games. What really drives home that this isn't just another Rockstar setting, though, is that seasons change throughout the course of the game, giving the sense that time is actually passing. During Halloween you get to dress up and cause mischief, and all the other students are donning unique costumes. Christmastime leads to a snow-coated Bullworth as well as a whole set of missions where you help out a vagrant in a Santa outfit. While Grand Theft Auto's cities are designed for showdowns with police and insane vehicle stunts, Bully manages to find just as much entertainment in the small-town antics, and that's due in no small part to Bullworth.
The piece that brings Bully's delightful aesthetic together has got to be the music. Forgoing the licensed soundtracks typical of Rockstar games, Bully has an incredible original score composed by musician Shawn Lee. Having a consistent sound accompany the action is a great change of pace for Rockstar, especially when that sound is so God damn good. Lee takes the bassline for a motherfucking walk in each track, and there's no better example of this than the main, uh, walking theme. It's absolutely perfect for meandering around campus or in town, and just a great track in its own right. The soundtrack's also very dynamic, not only changing depending on gameplay context, but also switching up styles to suit the occasion. Getting into a scuffle with one of the Greasers will play a rockabilly style tune, while the grafitti tagging music takes clear inspiration from the Sugarhill Gang and 1970s hip-hop culture. There's plenty more examples, but regardless of what style Lee employs, the soundtrack is amazing shit from top to bottom. It even has the absolute best version of Carol of the Bells I've ever heard. I mean, shit, man, that track is so fucking good that it somehow found its way onto an episode of Vice Principals. When was the last time you heard of a video game track ending up on a TV show or movie?
Of course, I'm a gameplay-first kind of person at the end of the day, so I guess it goes without saying that I'm a big fan of actually playing the damn thing. Bully has the mission-based open-world framework of a Grand Theft Auto game, but it also has a pretty novel gameplay structure around school setting itself. You're expected to go to 2 different classes each day, and this takes the form of a brief minigame. These can be anything from English class word-finds, a Qix clone during art class, or gym class wrestling. They're fun little diversions, and thankfully never outstay their welcome. After five different levels of each class, you're allowed to cut them and do other things during that time, and they often give you vital upgrades like new fighting moves or better bicycles to get around on. It's a novel and rewarding system, but you can cut class entirely if you feel like being a delinquent, which is a nice touch.
This may sound crazy, but you can actually see the roots of Sleeping Dogs (the game many of Bully's developers would go on to make and the 71st best game ever made) poking out at the edges of the game. The hand-to-hand combat is much better than any of the GTA games, and you go on to learn new moves as you turn in collectables to an old army vet, a mechanic taken wholesale in Sleeping Dogs (Wei Shen's old master standing in for the vet, in that case). Getting around is made much easier by using the d-pad to toggle waypoints to various missions instead of fumbling with a map, again reappearing in Sleeping Dogs. In bits and pieces, the more accessible United Front Games approach to open-world games begins to take form in Bully, and it meshes with Rockstar's now-classic formula to produce one of their best-playing games.
For as much as they focus on world-building and narrative, Rockstar games are at their best when they keep the fun front and center, and that's just what Bully does. It may have all of the traits you associate with their other games, but the jump from AKs to slingshots makes all the difference in the world, admirably making a world-weary outlook seem lighthearted in the end. Grand Theft Auto is an all-time classic series for me, but Bully is Rockstar's finest hour.
At least, as a developer.
(Rockstar Vancouver - PS2, 2006)
Bully is the kind of game that makes you wonder why Rockstar doesn't try out E and T-rated games more often. I know I just got done fellating the Grand Theft Auto series, but it's not without its faults. Their warped cynicism and relentless sarcasm can be pretty funny, but after multiple generations of it, it grows a little tiresome. Maybe I'm just a little resentful of how the style eventually seeped into Max Payne 3 (Did anyone need to hear Max's thoughts on capitalism?), but the one-size-fits-all approach to writing wore thin for me by the time Grand Theft Auto IV came around, no doubt worsened by how often it clashed with the more serious and grounded plot. Then again, maybe the reason I grew tired of it was because between San Andreas and GTA IV, Rockstar's writing found a perfect home in Bully.
The trademark sardonic wit of Rockstar's games is a fitting companion to the dog-eat-dog (or perhaps Canis Canem Edit) world of Bullworth Academy. Bully's not without its similarities to Grand Theft Auto, but the game trades in gangs and cops for cliques and teachers, and the playful nature of the script feels a lot more natural as a result. No punchlines or quips leave you thinking "Is now really the time for this?," as dealing mostly in teenage mischief instead of outright criminality lends the game a levity not earned in the team's other works. Not all of the game's antics can be written off as "boys will be boys" (the main antagonist is quite the sociopath), but even in these moments the general tone feels appropriate. Bully is Rockstar's writing at its most consistent, and that leads to some of the most enjoyable characters in their catalogue.
It's only natural that a game centered around some of the prime social years of one's life would put such a focus on the people that protagonist Jimmy Hopkins interacts with, but Bully goes several steps further than what would be considered necessary. Whether it's the students and staff of Bullworth Academy or the denizens of Bullworth proper, the game's colorful cast is packed full of memorable characters across the board, and watching them interact with one another is almost always entertaining thanks to the writing and excellent voice acting. What's more, Bully is one of the only open-world games I can think of where every NPC is a unique character. That jock walking around going "ONE DAY I WANNA FIGHT A GORILLA" isn't just a random nameless pedestrian, he's an actual person (at least, in the context of the game itself). Some have a greater purpose than others, but every single NPC in the game is their own character with a unique model and personality. They even went through the trouble to give 99% of the characters a name. There's been a lot of praise for Rockstar's world design over the years, many people tripping over themselves to commend how "lived in" their environments feel, but I don't think they've yet to top Bullworth, a town where you'll come to know literally everybody.
Speaking of world design, Bullworth itself is an exceptionally well-designed town. I've mentioned before how I'm not normally too concerned about mise en scène or the mood established by video games, but it's hard not to admire the work Rockstar Vancouver put in to make Bullworth stand out. It retains the density seen in San Andreas while scaling down considerably and introducing a New England flavor not commonly seen in video games, giving it a rather pleasant atmosphere that seems almost antithetical to their other games. What really drives home that this isn't just another Rockstar setting, though, is that seasons change throughout the course of the game, giving the sense that time is actually passing. During Halloween you get to dress up and cause mischief, and all the other students are donning unique costumes. Christmastime leads to a snow-coated Bullworth as well as a whole set of missions where you help out a vagrant in a Santa outfit. While Grand Theft Auto's cities are designed for showdowns with police and insane vehicle stunts, Bully manages to find just as much entertainment in the small-town antics, and that's due in no small part to Bullworth.
The piece that brings Bully's delightful aesthetic together has got to be the music. Forgoing the licensed soundtracks typical of Rockstar games, Bully has an incredible original score composed by musician Shawn Lee. Having a consistent sound accompany the action is a great change of pace for Rockstar, especially when that sound is so God damn good. Lee takes the bassline for a motherfucking walk in each track, and there's no better example of this than the main, uh, walking theme. It's absolutely perfect for meandering around campus or in town, and just a great track in its own right. The soundtrack's also very dynamic, not only changing depending on gameplay context, but also switching up styles to suit the occasion. Getting into a scuffle with one of the Greasers will play a rockabilly style tune, while the grafitti tagging music takes clear inspiration from the Sugarhill Gang and 1970s hip-hop culture. There's plenty more examples, but regardless of what style Lee employs, the soundtrack is amazing shit from top to bottom. It even has the absolute best version of Carol of the Bells I've ever heard. I mean, shit, man, that track is so fucking good that it somehow found its way onto an episode of Vice Principals. When was the last time you heard of a video game track ending up on a TV show or movie?
Of course, I'm a gameplay-first kind of person at the end of the day, so I guess it goes without saying that I'm a big fan of actually playing the damn thing. Bully has the mission-based open-world framework of a Grand Theft Auto game, but it also has a pretty novel gameplay structure around school setting itself. You're expected to go to 2 different classes each day, and this takes the form of a brief minigame. These can be anything from English class word-finds, a Qix clone during art class, or gym class wrestling. They're fun little diversions, and thankfully never outstay their welcome. After five different levels of each class, you're allowed to cut them and do other things during that time, and they often give you vital upgrades like new fighting moves or better bicycles to get around on. It's a novel and rewarding system, but you can cut class entirely if you feel like being a delinquent, which is a nice touch.
This may sound crazy, but you can actually see the roots of Sleeping Dogs (the game many of Bully's developers would go on to make and the 71st best game ever made) poking out at the edges of the game. The hand-to-hand combat is much better than any of the GTA games, and you go on to learn new moves as you turn in collectables to an old army vet, a mechanic taken wholesale in Sleeping Dogs (Wei Shen's old master standing in for the vet, in that case). Getting around is made much easier by using the d-pad to toggle waypoints to various missions instead of fumbling with a map, again reappearing in Sleeping Dogs. In bits and pieces, the more accessible United Front Games approach to open-world games begins to take form in Bully, and it meshes with Rockstar's now-classic formula to produce one of their best-playing games.
For as much as they focus on world-building and narrative, Rockstar games are at their best when they keep the fun front and center, and that's just what Bully does. It may have all of the traits you associate with their other games, but the jump from AKs to slingshots makes all the difference in the world, admirably making a world-weary outlook seem lighthearted in the end. Grand Theft Auto is an all-time classic series for me, but Bully is Rockstar's finest hour.
At least, as a developer.
WascallyWabbit
Member
damn, as someone who missed out on Bully the first time around i would love to seem them do a remake or a sequel
Piston Hyundai
Member
#22: Donkey Kong
(Nintendo EAD - Game Boy, 1994)
If you think about it, there was a time where Donkey Kong could've become a Nintendo also-ran like Mach Rider or Clu Clu Land, left only to be exhumed by other games such as WarioWare and Smash Brothers. It seems impossible today, but the Hell that Stanley the Bugman left in his wake led to a decade where Donkey Kong laid dormant in spite of its close association with Mario, with a 1988 rerelease of Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. being the only entry the series saw between 1984 to 1993. Thankfully, Nintendo apparently flipped the "give a shit about The Donk" switch in 1994 and gave us two different reinventions of the series at once. Donkey Kong Country is the clear standout, having revitalized the franchise as a whole, but Donkey Kong on the Game Boy (colloquially referred to as Donkey Kong 94) deserves just as much praise. Not only is it a damn near perfect portable game, it's also the best Game Boy game period.
The game's title really does it a disservice. It's entirely possible that someone that doesn't know any better could see the name of the game, pick it up and play it for two or three levels only to write it off as a port. The name and the first world of Donkey Kong directly invoke the 1981 original, but it's so much more than that. Upon completing the final classic level and getting the "ending," the game flips the script and reveals its true self: a charming, perpetually creative puzzle-platformer.
It baffles me to this day that people don't talk more about just how great Mario controls in Donkey Kong 94. It may be slower-paced than the likes of Super Mario World or Super Mario Bros. 3, but the gameplay's right up there with them. There may not be a run button (surely a cardinal sin for some Mario fans), but movement is exceedingly tight and you'll be too busy dicking around with the various other abilities to really care about the lack of speed. The side-jumps, backflips, and triple jumps seen in Super Mario 64 were first introduced in Donkey Kong (with similar flourishes and all), and they're just as fun to do here. The backflip in particular actually has a bit more nuance to it, since you end up in a handstand which you can use to avoid damage from falling objects. The tools at your disposal are among some of the best in Mario platformers, and the levels take full advantage of them.
The level design in Donkey Kong 94 is one hell of a balancing act. The stages deftly find the happy medium between platforming and puzzles in addition to leveraging small level sizes with a large quantity. There's about 100 different bite-size stages, chock full of interesting gimmicks and challenging obstacles. There are plenty of stages and boss battles that play more closely to the original Donkey Kong, but the main goal is typically to get a key and take it to a locked door to move on. Getting to the key and back is just as much about ingenuity as it is dexterity. You have to analyze enemy/obstacle patterns like in the original game, but you also have to take account of the myriad mechanics and power-ups that also populate the levels. DK94 introduces countless new ideas while also giving depth to classic mechanics, turning the trademark hammer into more than just a glorified bout of invincibility. Before long, you'll come across items and objects that take you into a level editor-like mode which allows you to place them anywhere in the level to help you make your way. The way the game uses these objects in particular is especially engaging, since it leads to more open ended puzzles. Hell, one of the stages is just an empty square with the key at the bottom and the exit at the top, where you have to form the path to the exit entirely on your own. You're introduced to new mechanics and uses for them every step of the way, but the game's method of tutorialization cleverly keeps downtime to a minimum. After each boss fight, you're given an intermission cutscene (I linked one earlier) where Mario chases after Donkey Kong, often employing these new mechanics along the way. It's a brilliant way of wordlessly teaching the player without disrupting the flow of the game. Overall, it's just astounding how all of this translates to the handheld experience. The pacing and size of the levels makes it excellent for casual play, but the extent to which the mechanics are explored prevent that from robbing the game of its depth.
I'm not one to particularly enjoy the look and sound of Game Boy games (it's just not my thing, for the most part), but DK94's presentation can be pretty amusing. True to the original, death animations are cartoonishly drawn out and have cute little musical stingers accompanying each. You almost want to go out of your way to get yourself killed just to see the animation and the goofy sounds that accompany it (the quick little "plunk" when you fall too far is pretty funny the first time). I'm typically ambivalent of the lackadaisical whimsy of many Nintendo games, but little touches like the pitter-patter of Mario's feet as he walks and the jingles that play during gameplay give it an indelible charisma that falls right in line with the original Donkey Kong.
When I was younger, I had a Game Gear with a copy of Sonic Chaos, while my brother had a Game Boy with Donkey Kong 94. I liked Sonic Chaos for what it was at the time, but he wasn't the one sneaking off to play with the other's handheld. DK94 is my ideal portable game, and one of the most ingenious platformers Nintendo's ever made.
(Nintendo EAD - Game Boy, 1994)
If you think about it, there was a time where Donkey Kong could've become a Nintendo also-ran like Mach Rider or Clu Clu Land, left only to be exhumed by other games such as WarioWare and Smash Brothers. It seems impossible today, but the Hell that Stanley the Bugman left in his wake led to a decade where Donkey Kong laid dormant in spite of its close association with Mario, with a 1988 rerelease of Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. being the only entry the series saw between 1984 to 1993. Thankfully, Nintendo apparently flipped the "give a shit about The Donk" switch in 1994 and gave us two different reinventions of the series at once. Donkey Kong Country is the clear standout, having revitalized the franchise as a whole, but Donkey Kong on the Game Boy (colloquially referred to as Donkey Kong 94) deserves just as much praise. Not only is it a damn near perfect portable game, it's also the best Game Boy game period.
The game's title really does it a disservice. It's entirely possible that someone that doesn't know any better could see the name of the game, pick it up and play it for two or three levels only to write it off as a port. The name and the first world of Donkey Kong directly invoke the 1981 original, but it's so much more than that. Upon completing the final classic level and getting the "ending," the game flips the script and reveals its true self: a charming, perpetually creative puzzle-platformer.
It baffles me to this day that people don't talk more about just how great Mario controls in Donkey Kong 94. It may be slower-paced than the likes of Super Mario World or Super Mario Bros. 3, but the gameplay's right up there with them. There may not be a run button (surely a cardinal sin for some Mario fans), but movement is exceedingly tight and you'll be too busy dicking around with the various other abilities to really care about the lack of speed. The side-jumps, backflips, and triple jumps seen in Super Mario 64 were first introduced in Donkey Kong (with similar flourishes and all), and they're just as fun to do here. The backflip in particular actually has a bit more nuance to it, since you end up in a handstand which you can use to avoid damage from falling objects. The tools at your disposal are among some of the best in Mario platformers, and the levels take full advantage of them.
The level design in Donkey Kong 94 is one hell of a balancing act. The stages deftly find the happy medium between platforming and puzzles in addition to leveraging small level sizes with a large quantity. There's about 100 different bite-size stages, chock full of interesting gimmicks and challenging obstacles. There are plenty of stages and boss battles that play more closely to the original Donkey Kong, but the main goal is typically to get a key and take it to a locked door to move on. Getting to the key and back is just as much about ingenuity as it is dexterity. You have to analyze enemy/obstacle patterns like in the original game, but you also have to take account of the myriad mechanics and power-ups that also populate the levels. DK94 introduces countless new ideas while also giving depth to classic mechanics, turning the trademark hammer into more than just a glorified bout of invincibility. Before long, you'll come across items and objects that take you into a level editor-like mode which allows you to place them anywhere in the level to help you make your way. The way the game uses these objects in particular is especially engaging, since it leads to more open ended puzzles. Hell, one of the stages is just an empty square with the key at the bottom and the exit at the top, where you have to form the path to the exit entirely on your own. You're introduced to new mechanics and uses for them every step of the way, but the game's method of tutorialization cleverly keeps downtime to a minimum. After each boss fight, you're given an intermission cutscene (I linked one earlier) where Mario chases after Donkey Kong, often employing these new mechanics along the way. It's a brilliant way of wordlessly teaching the player without disrupting the flow of the game. Overall, it's just astounding how all of this translates to the handheld experience. The pacing and size of the levels makes it excellent for casual play, but the extent to which the mechanics are explored prevent that from robbing the game of its depth.
I'm not one to particularly enjoy the look and sound of Game Boy games (it's just not my thing, for the most part), but DK94's presentation can be pretty amusing. True to the original, death animations are cartoonishly drawn out and have cute little musical stingers accompanying each. You almost want to go out of your way to get yourself killed just to see the animation and the goofy sounds that accompany it (the quick little "plunk" when you fall too far is pretty funny the first time). I'm typically ambivalent of the lackadaisical whimsy of many Nintendo games, but little touches like the pitter-patter of Mario's feet as he walks and the jingles that play during gameplay give it an indelible charisma that falls right in line with the original Donkey Kong.
When I was younger, I had a Game Gear with a copy of Sonic Chaos, while my brother had a Game Boy with Donkey Kong 94. I liked Sonic Chaos for what it was at the time, but he wasn't the one sneaking off to play with the other's handheld. DK94 is my ideal portable game, and one of the most ingenious platformers Nintendo's ever made.
Piston Hyundai
Member
In light of recent events, I feel the need to call an audible.
Next up is #15. I'll go back down the order as normal with #21 after that.
Next up is #15. I'll go back down the order as normal with #21 after that.
T.Slothrop
Member
Literally never heard a damn thing about Donkey Kong 94. Excited to check it out now.
By "recent events" do you mean the disastrous launch of the SNES classic, the dismissal of Steve Bannon, The Secret of Mana remake, or the bench clearing brawl between the Tigers and Yankees?
By "recent events" do you mean the disastrous launch of the SNES classic, the dismissal of Steve Bannon, The Secret of Mana remake, or the bench clearing brawl between the Tigers and Yankees?
Piston Hyundai
Member
It'll be clear when the next entry's up.
T.Slothrop
Member
Yeah, that's gotta be it.
Piston Hyundai
Member
#15: Team Fortress 2 (circa 2007-2010)
(Valve Corporation - PC, 2007)
This is a tough one to write. It's obviously unconventional to be talking about a game's greatness with a specific timeline in mind, and I knew going in that it'd be difficult to talk about Team Fortress 2 without it coming across as a eulogy of sorts, but with Half-Life's likely death knell having been delivered to us by writer Marc Laidlaw himself, it feels appropriate to take it a step further.
There was a point in time where Valve was the best in the world at what they did. The talent they had amassed over the years led to a fever pitch last generation, giving us year after year of incredible, landmark games from the company. This alone is worthy of the highest praise, but their unique position as owners of a digital distribution platform meant that great games became even better, as patches and updates significantly extended the longevity of their games, entirely gratis. Left 4 Dead 2 eventually received all of the prior game's content, but no work of Valve's benefited from this newfangled "games as a service" approach more than Team Fortress 2. At least, for some time.
I originally played TF2 on the Xbox 360 back at launch, and while it was clearly the short end of the stick in retrospect, it was still some of the best time I've ever had on the console. The more involved objectives were a welcome change from the straight murder I'd been committing on Gears of War and Modern Warfare, and the elaborate yet concise map design made a mockery out of the hallowed grounds of Gridlock. Each of the game's stock maps offered multiple routes to the objective (splintering even further depending on the abilities of your chosen class), ensuring that no two games played out the same way, even if the game's varied classes weren't doing that already.
The nine playable classes were the heart and soul of TF2. The diverse mix of abilities and weapons each class offered molded the gameplay more than anything else (it's ultimately what the game lived and died by), but the offbeat characters that represent these classes meant that they dictated more than just how the game was played. It's well worn territory now, but TF2 went against the grain with a refreshing comedic style, complemented by a memorable cartoon aesthetic heavily influenced by Norman Rockwell paintings. Each of the game's characters were rendered with a not-quite-cel-shading filter and sported unique silhouettes, making each class easily recognizable. The classes of TF2 were brilliantly designed with art direction and gameplay equally in mind, but there's a reason I'm talking in past tense.
TF2's post-release support (or lack thereof, if we're talking about the console version) is what made me get a gaming PC. The allure of new modes, more expertly crafted maps, and brand new weapons for each class was too much to resist, and when I finally gave up hope of Xbox 360 support and got into the PC version in late 2009, I may as well have been playing a sequel. Just the introduction of new weapons alone was a revelation: some of the new equipment may have been "side-grades," but others introduced new playstyles altogether (the Sniper's Huntsman bow allowing more mobile, mid-range combat, for example). The new Payload mode's conceit guaranteed action that took place across the entire map instead of just key chokepoints, while Arena infused the TF2 formula with the "one life to live" tension that I had grown to love so much in Gears of War. It was, in retrospect, the best time to be playing the game: gorging on the wealth of riches while being a part of the zeitgeist surrounding the game's future (What class was going to get the next update? What were they teasing in the latest blog post?) is some of the most fun I've ever had with a multiplayer game.
But even then, there were some troubling signs. The Demoman's first batch of weaponry never quite fit in with the rest of the gameplay, inexplicably turning him into a melee-based skirmisher of arguable value to a team. The optional hats and cosmetics added a fun little layer of customization to the once-identical characters, but they ran the risk of interfering with the integrity of the silhouette-based character designs and clashing with unique art style. The community soon fawned over exclusive hats and earbuds with the same zeal they had once used to scrutinize patch notes and gameplay design. I don't know that there's a single thing I can point to as the end of Team Fortress 2's golden age, but it was around the time of the Mann-Conomy Update where I had my "Principal and the Pauper" moment and realized that I had fallen out of love with the game.
By the time the September 30, 2010 update had come around, Team Fortress 2 was in a strange place. It soon became apparent that we were given too much of a good thing, as the saturation of maps and modes caused many of my favorites to fall by the wayside. Finding a populated TC_Hydro server was a difficult task in 2007, let alone 2010. Any semblance of cohesive character design had been destroyed by outlandish cosmetics and promotional items that said more about the games the player pre-ordered than the traits of the character. The sheer amount of variables in each class' loadout added an unintended guessing game to the combat, as you didn't necessarily know what an enemy player was capable of by a quick glance at them anymore. A subculture of micro-transactions, idling and trading had spawned, detracting heavily from the core gameplay (I'll be honest and admit that I'm not innocent here; many of the games on this very list were paid for by money gained through fleecing hats off of easy marks). There were still glimpses of brilliance here and there, but TF2 had been robbed of its purity, and much of what I valued about the game had begun to be treated like an afterthought.
These days, TF2 is more of a Frankenstein's Monster of a video game than the competitive team-based shooter I fell in love with. The years and years of iteration have stretched the game thin, housing more weapons, modes, and maps than it knows what to do with, overwhelming new or even returning players with mechanics and miscellany that often does nothing to actually improve the game. Even worse, the ever-growing arsenal makes proper gameplay balance a pipe dream. The designs of the weapons and cosmetics alike are sometimes literally alien and evoke Saints Row more than any Norman Rockwell painting, and the player base seems just as concerned about trading these neon nightmares as they are with playing the game, if not more-so. It's all so sad to see coming from something that was once such an incredible experience across the board.
You want to know the really heartbreaking thing about it, though? It's all been a runaway success for Valve. Team Fortress 2 made so much God damn money that its monetization model is now the defining trait and driving force of the company. The TF2 model has effectively become the Valve model: games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2 have taken the same approach and turned Valve into a multi-billion dollar company, granting them the financial freedom to throw whatever shit at the wall they think will stick with little to no concern for quality control or what their fan base wants. To tell you the truth, I look at Valve today in the same exact way I look at TF2: an all-time great ruined by its own success. A bloated, heartless shell of what it once was, given no meaningful direction or vision except for the money that it generates.
The state of TF2 and the corporation that created it is enough to make the most stalwart of fans feel at least the faintest twinge of resentment, but above any anger I feel about the whole situation, I just find myself missing what we had. I miss Team Fortress 2. I miss the Valve games that would showcase boundless creativity and prowess on almost a yearly basis. I miss looking forward to what the future had to offer.
I miss Valve.
(Valve Corporation - PC, 2007)
This is a tough one to write. It's obviously unconventional to be talking about a game's greatness with a specific timeline in mind, and I knew going in that it'd be difficult to talk about Team Fortress 2 without it coming across as a eulogy of sorts, but with Half-Life's likely death knell having been delivered to us by writer Marc Laidlaw himself, it feels appropriate to take it a step further.
There was a point in time where Valve was the best in the world at what they did. The talent they had amassed over the years led to a fever pitch last generation, giving us year after year of incredible, landmark games from the company. This alone is worthy of the highest praise, but their unique position as owners of a digital distribution platform meant that great games became even better, as patches and updates significantly extended the longevity of their games, entirely gratis. Left 4 Dead 2 eventually received all of the prior game's content, but no work of Valve's benefited from this newfangled "games as a service" approach more than Team Fortress 2. At least, for some time.
I originally played TF2 on the Xbox 360 back at launch, and while it was clearly the short end of the stick in retrospect, it was still some of the best time I've ever had on the console. The more involved objectives were a welcome change from the straight murder I'd been committing on Gears of War and Modern Warfare, and the elaborate yet concise map design made a mockery out of the hallowed grounds of Gridlock. Each of the game's stock maps offered multiple routes to the objective (splintering even further depending on the abilities of your chosen class), ensuring that no two games played out the same way, even if the game's varied classes weren't doing that already.
The nine playable classes were the heart and soul of TF2. The diverse mix of abilities and weapons each class offered molded the gameplay more than anything else (it's ultimately what the game lived and died by), but the offbeat characters that represent these classes meant that they dictated more than just how the game was played. It's well worn territory now, but TF2 went against the grain with a refreshing comedic style, complemented by a memorable cartoon aesthetic heavily influenced by Norman Rockwell paintings. Each of the game's characters were rendered with a not-quite-cel-shading filter and sported unique silhouettes, making each class easily recognizable. The classes of TF2 were brilliantly designed with art direction and gameplay equally in mind, but there's a reason I'm talking in past tense.
TF2's post-release support (or lack thereof, if we're talking about the console version) is what made me get a gaming PC. The allure of new modes, more expertly crafted maps, and brand new weapons for each class was too much to resist, and when I finally gave up hope of Xbox 360 support and got into the PC version in late 2009, I may as well have been playing a sequel. Just the introduction of new weapons alone was a revelation: some of the new equipment may have been "side-grades," but others introduced new playstyles altogether (the Sniper's Huntsman bow allowing more mobile, mid-range combat, for example). The new Payload mode's conceit guaranteed action that took place across the entire map instead of just key chokepoints, while Arena infused the TF2 formula with the "one life to live" tension that I had grown to love so much in Gears of War. It was, in retrospect, the best time to be playing the game: gorging on the wealth of riches while being a part of the zeitgeist surrounding the game's future (What class was going to get the next update? What were they teasing in the latest blog post?) is some of the most fun I've ever had with a multiplayer game.
But even then, there were some troubling signs. The Demoman's first batch of weaponry never quite fit in with the rest of the gameplay, inexplicably turning him into a melee-based skirmisher of arguable value to a team. The optional hats and cosmetics added a fun little layer of customization to the once-identical characters, but they ran the risk of interfering with the integrity of the silhouette-based character designs and clashing with unique art style. The community soon fawned over exclusive hats and earbuds with the same zeal they had once used to scrutinize patch notes and gameplay design. I don't know that there's a single thing I can point to as the end of Team Fortress 2's golden age, but it was around the time of the Mann-Conomy Update where I had my "Principal and the Pauper" moment and realized that I had fallen out of love with the game.
By the time the September 30, 2010 update had come around, Team Fortress 2 was in a strange place. It soon became apparent that we were given too much of a good thing, as the saturation of maps and modes caused many of my favorites to fall by the wayside. Finding a populated TC_Hydro server was a difficult task in 2007, let alone 2010. Any semblance of cohesive character design had been destroyed by outlandish cosmetics and promotional items that said more about the games the player pre-ordered than the traits of the character. The sheer amount of variables in each class' loadout added an unintended guessing game to the combat, as you didn't necessarily know what an enemy player was capable of by a quick glance at them anymore. A subculture of micro-transactions, idling and trading had spawned, detracting heavily from the core gameplay (I'll be honest and admit that I'm not innocent here; many of the games on this very list were paid for by money gained through fleecing hats off of easy marks). There were still glimpses of brilliance here and there, but TF2 had been robbed of its purity, and much of what I valued about the game had begun to be treated like an afterthought.
These days, TF2 is more of a Frankenstein's Monster of a video game than the competitive team-based shooter I fell in love with. The years and years of iteration have stretched the game thin, housing more weapons, modes, and maps than it knows what to do with, overwhelming new or even returning players with mechanics and miscellany that often does nothing to actually improve the game. Even worse, the ever-growing arsenal makes proper gameplay balance a pipe dream. The designs of the weapons and cosmetics alike are sometimes literally alien and evoke Saints Row more than any Norman Rockwell painting, and the player base seems just as concerned about trading these neon nightmares as they are with playing the game, if not more-so. It's all so sad to see coming from something that was once such an incredible experience across the board.
You want to know the really heartbreaking thing about it, though? It's all been a runaway success for Valve. Team Fortress 2 made so much God damn money that its monetization model is now the defining trait and driving force of the company. The TF2 model has effectively become the Valve model: games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Dota 2 have taken the same approach and turned Valve into a multi-billion dollar company, granting them the financial freedom to throw whatever shit at the wall they think will stick with little to no concern for quality control or what their fan base wants. To tell you the truth, I look at Valve today in the same exact way I look at TF2: an all-time great ruined by its own success. A bloated, heartless shell of what it once was, given no meaningful direction or vision except for the money that it generates.
The state of TF2 and the corporation that created it is enough to make the most stalwart of fans feel at least the faintest twinge of resentment, but above any anger I feel about the whole situation, I just find myself missing what we had. I miss Team Fortress 2. I miss the Valve games that would showcase boundless creativity and prowess on almost a yearly basis. I miss looking forward to what the future had to offer.
I miss Valve.
TheRazielim
Member
Great write-ups. Puts all the journalist top #100 articles to shame, and you're doing it for free!
Keep it up.
Keep it up.
Piston Hyundai
Member
The recent Half-Life goings on made me want to get to #15 early. #21 will be next.
Camp1nCarl
Member
Really thorough explanation, and interesting choices. Obviously everybody has a different top 100, but I'm anticipating the rest of your list.
Piston Hyundai
Member
#21: Ristar
(Sonic Team - Genesis, 1995)
You can pinpoint the exact moment Sonic Team stopped being any good at making Sonic games: 1994. After the release of Sonic & Knuckles, the series pulled off a sick spindash downhill that didn't stop until about 2010, but that doesn't mean that Sonic Team was just spending their time poisoning their bread and butter. Ironically enough, just as the team began to falter with Sonic, they also branched out into other games and found a ton of success. Games like Feel the Magic: XY/XX, Puyo Puyo Tetris, ChuChu Rocket, and Phantasy Star Online are what come to mind when I think of the developer these days, but perhaps the sweetest irony of all is that Sonic Team's best game came to us almost immediately after their final Sonic game on the Genesis.
In broad terms, Ristar can be considered Sonic Team's answer to Kirby. Compared to Sonic, it slows things down considerably and has a tone much closer to Nintendo's pink puffball (right down to the Western-exclusive attitude), but unlike Kirby, Ristar actually holds my attention.
The gimmick central to the game is the titular Ristar's extending arms. It mainly serves as his means of attack, but the game's best asset is just how much it does with such a simple mechanic. For most of the game you'll use them to climb walls and swing along poles (which is where Sonic's trademark speed and pinball physics make a thrilling cameo appearance), but once you get a grasp (ugggggghhhhhh) on the grabbing mechanic, the game starts putting spins on it in almost every level. Soon after the opening worlds of the game, you'll find yourself solving puzzles with your hands, pulling tears in the background to reveal goodies, and doing some real technical shit in the game's many bonus stages. In a particularly inspired moment, you end up getting into a snowball fight with a troublesome enemy who had been messing with you throughout the ice planet's first stage. The game explores its mechanics to the fullest extent and often rewards experimentation, making it deeply rewarding to play around with.
Further distancing itself from lighthearted platformers like Kirby, Ristar betrays its jolly exterior with its rewarding level of challenge. The game opts for a more traditional health system in lieu of Sonic's easily exploitable rings (bringing a tension rarely seen in those games), and has a difficulty curve that may catch some people off guard. The game eases you in with a light introductory world and a relatively tame water world (which thankfully realizes that water is only a fun mechanic if it improves your mobility), but they stop pulling punches by the time you reach the third planet, where you may find yourself having to play a lot more conservatively. At times it's actually kind of jarring to see levels as difficult as the spirited Planet Sonata display such ebullience, but the contrast makes it that much more memorable to me. Seriously, there's just something amusing about going through a level with singing and dancing and thinking "Jesus, this is brutal." The same can't be said about the boss fights, however, as they drop the cutesy facade almost entirely.
The game's boss fights, particularly those at the end of each world, do a great job of putting the player on edge even before you're actually in them. It's a small detail, but the brief sequences that precede each fight masterfully convey anticipation and a general "oh shit" vibe, priming the player for the battle ahead. They're often drenched in a suspenseful atmosphere (complemented by a dramatic song that's literally called "Concentration"), and feature small details foreshadowing what's to come. Take Planet Undertow's fight with a hammerhead shark, for example: you begin in an underwater cave, swimming past multiple cages containing obscured sea life. A persisting off-screen banging shakes the screen as you make your way through, and the sequence ends with the reveal that the final cage, the largest one by far, has broken, leading into the fight itself. Each fight does something similar, and it's a great little touch that underscores the danger of the encounters.
So let me paint a picture of just how fucking good Ristar looks: this is a game headed up by the man responsible for the two best-looking Sonic games ever, released at the end of the Genesis' life cycle. Suffice it to say that Ristar is classic SEGA vibrancy through and through; a God damn party in your console at all times. It has some of my absolute favorite stage backgrounds in any game (the abstract mechanical nightmare of Planet Automaton is simply astounding), and the game's aesthetic as a whole is packed with variety. Ristar expands upon Sonic 3 & Knuckles' treatment of each stage's "acts" by making each half of the game's worlds feel like their own levels, linked mostly by theme and a prevailing leitmotif in the music. It gives you much more to look forward to with each stage, and makes the game feel like a fuller experience despite being about two hours long at most.
Now that I think about it, Ristar may be one of those rare games that gets better and better as you make your way through it. I find myself enjoying every aspect of the game more with each passing stage, and it actually saves the best for last with its final boss fight. You're given the most challenging gameplay, the most impressive art, sound effects that channel the best parts of the Genesis' grimy twang, and some of the most final boss-ass final boss music around (which actually syncs with the gameplay, intensifying around the same time the fight itself does). It's so well-designed that I can't help but beat it all in one sitting whenever I decide to play it.
With the release of the excellent Sonic Mania bringing the classic Sonic formula back to the forefront, I've been seeing a lot of people claiming that they don't "get" Sonic (which I honestly think is kind of weird, considering it's a fairly simple one-button platformer). To those people, I can't stress enough that you need to get your hands on Ristar. It has the undeniable style of Sonic Team's most charismatic 16-bit games while accomplishing the herculean task of being both pleasant and engaging, something I believe the Kirby series struggles with to this day.
I suppose it's a tragedy that Sonic Team's best work would end up being left by the wayside in favor of the oncoming 32-bit era, but I think we all know by now what happens when Sonic Team gets their hands on a good thing for too long.
(Sonic Team - Genesis, 1995)
You can pinpoint the exact moment Sonic Team stopped being any good at making Sonic games: 1994. After the release of Sonic & Knuckles, the series pulled off a sick spindash downhill that didn't stop until about 2010, but that doesn't mean that Sonic Team was just spending their time poisoning their bread and butter. Ironically enough, just as the team began to falter with Sonic, they also branched out into other games and found a ton of success. Games like Feel the Magic: XY/XX, Puyo Puyo Tetris, ChuChu Rocket, and Phantasy Star Online are what come to mind when I think of the developer these days, but perhaps the sweetest irony of all is that Sonic Team's best game came to us almost immediately after their final Sonic game on the Genesis.
In broad terms, Ristar can be considered Sonic Team's answer to Kirby. Compared to Sonic, it slows things down considerably and has a tone much closer to Nintendo's pink puffball (right down to the Western-exclusive attitude), but unlike Kirby, Ristar actually holds my attention.
The gimmick central to the game is the titular Ristar's extending arms. It mainly serves as his means of attack, but the game's best asset is just how much it does with such a simple mechanic. For most of the game you'll use them to climb walls and swing along poles (which is where Sonic's trademark speed and pinball physics make a thrilling cameo appearance), but once you get a grasp (ugggggghhhhhh) on the grabbing mechanic, the game starts putting spins on it in almost every level. Soon after the opening worlds of the game, you'll find yourself solving puzzles with your hands, pulling tears in the background to reveal goodies, and doing some real technical shit in the game's many bonus stages. In a particularly inspired moment, you end up getting into a snowball fight with a troublesome enemy who had been messing with you throughout the ice planet's first stage. The game explores its mechanics to the fullest extent and often rewards experimentation, making it deeply rewarding to play around with.
Further distancing itself from lighthearted platformers like Kirby, Ristar betrays its jolly exterior with its rewarding level of challenge. The game opts for a more traditional health system in lieu of Sonic's easily exploitable rings (bringing a tension rarely seen in those games), and has a difficulty curve that may catch some people off guard. The game eases you in with a light introductory world and a relatively tame water world (which thankfully realizes that water is only a fun mechanic if it improves your mobility), but they stop pulling punches by the time you reach the third planet, where you may find yourself having to play a lot more conservatively. At times it's actually kind of jarring to see levels as difficult as the spirited Planet Sonata display such ebullience, but the contrast makes it that much more memorable to me. Seriously, there's just something amusing about going through a level with singing and dancing and thinking "Jesus, this is brutal." The same can't be said about the boss fights, however, as they drop the cutesy facade almost entirely.
The game's boss fights, particularly those at the end of each world, do a great job of putting the player on edge even before you're actually in them. It's a small detail, but the brief sequences that precede each fight masterfully convey anticipation and a general "oh shit" vibe, priming the player for the battle ahead. They're often drenched in a suspenseful atmosphere (complemented by a dramatic song that's literally called "Concentration"), and feature small details foreshadowing what's to come. Take Planet Undertow's fight with a hammerhead shark, for example: you begin in an underwater cave, swimming past multiple cages containing obscured sea life. A persisting off-screen banging shakes the screen as you make your way through, and the sequence ends with the reveal that the final cage, the largest one by far, has broken, leading into the fight itself. Each fight does something similar, and it's a great little touch that underscores the danger of the encounters.
So let me paint a picture of just how fucking good Ristar looks: this is a game headed up by the man responsible for the two best-looking Sonic games ever, released at the end of the Genesis' life cycle. Suffice it to say that Ristar is classic SEGA vibrancy through and through; a God damn party in your console at all times. It has some of my absolute favorite stage backgrounds in any game (the abstract mechanical nightmare of Planet Automaton is simply astounding), and the game's aesthetic as a whole is packed with variety. Ristar expands upon Sonic 3 & Knuckles' treatment of each stage's "acts" by making each half of the game's worlds feel like their own levels, linked mostly by theme and a prevailing leitmotif in the music. It gives you much more to look forward to with each stage, and makes the game feel like a fuller experience despite being about two hours long at most.
Now that I think about it, Ristar may be one of those rare games that gets better and better as you make your way through it. I find myself enjoying every aspect of the game more with each passing stage, and it actually saves the best for last with its final boss fight. You're given the most challenging gameplay, the most impressive art, sound effects that channel the best parts of the Genesis' grimy twang, and some of the most final boss-ass final boss music around (which actually syncs with the gameplay, intensifying around the same time the fight itself does). It's so well-designed that I can't help but beat it all in one sitting whenever I decide to play it.
With the release of the excellent Sonic Mania bringing the classic Sonic formula back to the forefront, I've been seeing a lot of people claiming that they don't "get" Sonic (which I honestly think is kind of weird, considering it's a fairly simple one-button platformer). To those people, I can't stress enough that you need to get your hands on Ristar. It has the undeniable style of Sonic Team's most charismatic 16-bit games while accomplishing the herculean task of being both pleasant and engaging, something I believe the Kirby series struggles with to this day.
I suppose it's a tragedy that Sonic Team's best work would end up being left by the wayside in favor of the oncoming 32-bit era, but I think we all know by now what happens when Sonic Team gets their hands on a good thing for too long.
Waddle Dee
Member
Just wanted to chime in and say that your write up for Ristar was fantastic (though I obviously don't agree with your brief thoughts on Kirby). Ristar is such a charming game. I often value games with a strong sense of focus than games that just seemingly throw everything at you. It's one of the main reasons why I adore the platforming genre and Ristar is one of the best platformers ever released for pretty much all the reasons you highlighted.
Piston Hyundai
Member
#20: Contra: Hard Corps
(Konami - Genesis, 1994)
Now, look: I don't want to alarm anybody, but you're better safe than sorry. If you have any significant others, you probably want to call them as soon as possible and make sure everything's on the up and up. I say this because there is a genuine, very real possibility that Contra: Hard Corps fucked your bitch. I'm sorry, but that's just the kind of game we're talking about, here. Contra: Hard Corps is a deep-dickin', barebackin', long-strokin' motherfucker that doesn't give a God damn about your time or patience.
Okay, I'll spare you the lame "poor man's Maddox" act, but if there was ever a time to play things up when talking about a game in this list, it's now. Contra: Hard Corps is the definitive Genesis game, the best of an era where 80s action movies were a pillar of inspiration, player characters were as fragile as the foot soldiers they decimated, and everything exploded upon death regardless of their biology. It's full of moment after moment of incredible action, but if you want to get to pretty much any of it, you're going to have to be good, no exceptions.
So much of what I love about Contra: Hard Corps can be found in just the opening stage alone. In the very first moments of the game, two key things are established: the (sometimes comically) over-the-top presentation, and the viciously uncompromising difficulty. Within seconds of beginning gameplay, you're treated to a buffet of explosions as you literally hit the ground running, demolishing enemies in one of my absolute favorite introductions to a game. The music's heavy, pulsing drums drive the action as you are quickly thrust into a ruthless gauntlet of enemies, attacking from high and low and constantly rushing you, demanding that you keep moving forward lest you get overwhelmed. It's actually one of the most difficult segments of the game depending on your character choice, as the placement of the first power-ups can end up getting you killed if you aren't careful, and it's not uncommon for new players to die or even get a game over before coming across the first sub-boss. The game expertly sets the tone, letting you know up-front that the game is a conveyor belt of gigantic, elaborate bosses, outlandish setpieces, and the most exciting gameplay on the Genesis. The price of admission, however, is heaps and heaps of skill.
I'm not going to lie to you and say that Contra: Hard Corps is the hardest game ever made or even the hardest Genesis game, but this is something that you play on its own terms. Smart bombs and powerful weaponry can be useful, but there's no easy way out and no shortcut home. It demands that you learn the arrangement of enemies and boss attack patterns, and anything less will be met with swift death. Hard Corps realizes that there isn't a whole lot you can do with hordes of weak enemies, so a majority of game is spent fighting bosses. These are the most sophisticated, creative, and challenging battles in the entire series, often employing novel gimmicks and taking place over multiple phases. It can be a lot to deal with at times, but in turn you're given a much more versatile skill set to fight back with compared to prior Contra games. Being able to change between each power-up at will is huge, but the slide is perhaps the most vital move in the game. It grants you a crucial few frames of invulnerability that can make all the difference in the world during gameplay, adding another dimension to the series' focus on deft movement. It's another tool at your disposal and not a free pass, though, since it can leave you exposed and get you killed if you get overzealous with your usage.
It can be a particularly brutal game at times, but you can't say it isn't fair. Normally, I'm not much of a fan of console games employing the often-draconian arcade mechanic of beginning a game from scratch upon a game over, but Hard Corps is designed with a heavy consideration of it. You'll meet failure time and time again, but it gets a little easier every time you pick yourself back up. It may not be visible during gameplay, but you accrue points as you play, granting lives at a steady pace of about one per level (should you do so without a game over). The game's progression of slowly learning the intricacies of new levels and earning more chances to do so as you master old ones is immensely rewarding, and a healthy reminder of why console games bothered inheriting such an antiquated philosophy in the first place. If only every game implemented these mechanics with as much grace as Hard Corps.
Of course, what I describe isn't something exclusive to this game in particular. There's plenty of others out there that reward skilled play with lives and make beating bosses and passing levels feel like triumphs, but the best part about Hard Corps' take on this cycle of gameplay is that when you reach the ultimate satisfaction of beating the game, you get to do it again. And again. And again. On top of having four different characters to play as (each with unique weapons and even abilities, in the case of the robotic Browny), the game splinters multiple times throughout the course of the story, taking the Rondo of Blood approach even further and offering a half-dozen different endings. It's a perfect way to introduce some non-linearity to the series, giving what was once a one-and-done kind of experience replay value several times over.
Hard Corps is the first Contra game I would consider to be "Modern Contra." Contra III took some steps forward, but felt like it was suffering an identity crisis: the Rambo knock-off protagonists clashed with the new futuristic industrial levels, enemy design felt more like a greatest hits than anything, and the generic music sounded like it could've accompanied any number of SNES action games. Contra: Hard Corps remedies all of this, establishing an identity that would persist throughout the series' next two mainline games, Shattered Soldier and Neo Contra.
Hard Corps has one hell of an aesthetic. It's gritty, bizarre, grotesque, and bombastic all the same. As if realizing how ridiculous the action of the original Contra looked in comparison to a presentation that treated it like standard military heroics, Hard Corps doubles downs both sides of the spectrum, turning the contrast into a tremendous asset. Take the original cast of playable characters, for example: You have your requisite hardline military personnel in Ray and Sheena, but then you have a God damn cybernetic wolfman with a gun-arm and a tiny robot running counterpoint to them. The enemy design, having undergone a significant improvement, also displays this running contrast. On one hand, Hard Corps' opposition features gigantic robots, goofy dinosaurs, and oddly-acrobatic soldiers that form like Voltron. On the other? Some of the most wonderfully horrific sprite art of the era, coming a long way from the series' blatant H.R. Giger roots. This is Contra at both its most self-serious and insane, and it's just amazing to see.
And then there's the music bringing the game's nutty bullshit together. Contra: Hard Corps' soundtrack is a suite of downright nasty, grimy, filthy electro-metal the likes of which could only be delivered to us by the Genesis' sound chip. Composed by a dream team of musicians (including a budding Akira Yamaoka as well as Michiru Yamane), the music is kismet for everything the game's going for. After all, what better companion is there for a game as audacious as this than such a Maxell commercial-caliber blast of FM synth "BUWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH" and ripping guitars? The soundtrack varies in pace and tone, but the ubiquitous style infects every track in one way or another. Even the game's triumphant "Contra the Blue Gale" has the characteristic FM synth grime poking out of its edges, as if to tell the player "don't worry, we didn't forget the freaky." The hard edge the soundtrack offers is sure to put some people off, but even on a soundchip as idiosyncratic as that of the Genesis, Hard Corps has a sound all its own.
After the release of Contra III, most of the development team from Konami broke off to form Treasure and went on to make Gunstar Heroes. Their work was an emphatic statement from the Contra ex-pats, presenting a bigger, wilder vision of the gameplay they had made their names on. The remnants of Konami must have taken this as a challenge, as Contra: Hard Corps would take elements from Gunstar for its own the following year, refining them and even alluding to one of the game's more iconic boss fights. How did Treasure take to this? Well, you'll never guess what made it into Alien Soldier, their 1995 Genesis magnum opus:
A God damn cybernetic wolfman with a gun-arm.
There's a reason that Treasure would pay homage to the employers that they had abandoned just three years before. Contra: Hard Corps represents the zenith of an entire console, an entire genre. It brings a class of invigorating, whirlwind run-and-gun action that is unmatched to this day. It takes a considerable amount of practice and discipline to see everything the game has to offer, but even when you ignore the gratification inherent to overcoming a great challenge, working towards that goal is one of the most rewarding things you can do in any video game. From the unforgettable soundtrack, the incredible boss fights, to the preposterous action that pervades every moment, Hard Corps has amazing things to show you with each passing level, and that's more than enough to make any hardship worthwhile.
(Konami - Genesis, 1994)
Now, look: I don't want to alarm anybody, but you're better safe than sorry. If you have any significant others, you probably want to call them as soon as possible and make sure everything's on the up and up. I say this because there is a genuine, very real possibility that Contra: Hard Corps fucked your bitch. I'm sorry, but that's just the kind of game we're talking about, here. Contra: Hard Corps is a deep-dickin', barebackin', long-strokin' motherfucker that doesn't give a God damn about your time or patience.
Okay, I'll spare you the lame "poor man's Maddox" act, but if there was ever a time to play things up when talking about a game in this list, it's now. Contra: Hard Corps is the definitive Genesis game, the best of an era where 80s action movies were a pillar of inspiration, player characters were as fragile as the foot soldiers they decimated, and everything exploded upon death regardless of their biology. It's full of moment after moment of incredible action, but if you want to get to pretty much any of it, you're going to have to be good, no exceptions.
So much of what I love about Contra: Hard Corps can be found in just the opening stage alone. In the very first moments of the game, two key things are established: the (sometimes comically) over-the-top presentation, and the viciously uncompromising difficulty. Within seconds of beginning gameplay, you're treated to a buffet of explosions as you literally hit the ground running, demolishing enemies in one of my absolute favorite introductions to a game. The music's heavy, pulsing drums drive the action as you are quickly thrust into a ruthless gauntlet of enemies, attacking from high and low and constantly rushing you, demanding that you keep moving forward lest you get overwhelmed. It's actually one of the most difficult segments of the game depending on your character choice, as the placement of the first power-ups can end up getting you killed if you aren't careful, and it's not uncommon for new players to die or even get a game over before coming across the first sub-boss. The game expertly sets the tone, letting you know up-front that the game is a conveyor belt of gigantic, elaborate bosses, outlandish setpieces, and the most exciting gameplay on the Genesis. The price of admission, however, is heaps and heaps of skill.
I'm not going to lie to you and say that Contra: Hard Corps is the hardest game ever made or even the hardest Genesis game, but this is something that you play on its own terms. Smart bombs and powerful weaponry can be useful, but there's no easy way out and no shortcut home. It demands that you learn the arrangement of enemies and boss attack patterns, and anything less will be met with swift death. Hard Corps realizes that there isn't a whole lot you can do with hordes of weak enemies, so a majority of game is spent fighting bosses. These are the most sophisticated, creative, and challenging battles in the entire series, often employing novel gimmicks and taking place over multiple phases. It can be a lot to deal with at times, but in turn you're given a much more versatile skill set to fight back with compared to prior Contra games. Being able to change between each power-up at will is huge, but the slide is perhaps the most vital move in the game. It grants you a crucial few frames of invulnerability that can make all the difference in the world during gameplay, adding another dimension to the series' focus on deft movement. It's another tool at your disposal and not a free pass, though, since it can leave you exposed and get you killed if you get overzealous with your usage.
It can be a particularly brutal game at times, but you can't say it isn't fair. Normally, I'm not much of a fan of console games employing the often-draconian arcade mechanic of beginning a game from scratch upon a game over, but Hard Corps is designed with a heavy consideration of it. You'll meet failure time and time again, but it gets a little easier every time you pick yourself back up. It may not be visible during gameplay, but you accrue points as you play, granting lives at a steady pace of about one per level (should you do so without a game over). The game's progression of slowly learning the intricacies of new levels and earning more chances to do so as you master old ones is immensely rewarding, and a healthy reminder of why console games bothered inheriting such an antiquated philosophy in the first place. If only every game implemented these mechanics with as much grace as Hard Corps.
Of course, what I describe isn't something exclusive to this game in particular. There's plenty of others out there that reward skilled play with lives and make beating bosses and passing levels feel like triumphs, but the best part about Hard Corps' take on this cycle of gameplay is that when you reach the ultimate satisfaction of beating the game, you get to do it again. And again. And again. On top of having four different characters to play as (each with unique weapons and even abilities, in the case of the robotic Browny), the game splinters multiple times throughout the course of the story, taking the Rondo of Blood approach even further and offering a half-dozen different endings. It's a perfect way to introduce some non-linearity to the series, giving what was once a one-and-done kind of experience replay value several times over.
Hard Corps is the first Contra game I would consider to be "Modern Contra." Contra III took some steps forward, but felt like it was suffering an identity crisis: the Rambo knock-off protagonists clashed with the new futuristic industrial levels, enemy design felt more like a greatest hits than anything, and the generic music sounded like it could've accompanied any number of SNES action games. Contra: Hard Corps remedies all of this, establishing an identity that would persist throughout the series' next two mainline games, Shattered Soldier and Neo Contra.
Hard Corps has one hell of an aesthetic. It's gritty, bizarre, grotesque, and bombastic all the same. As if realizing how ridiculous the action of the original Contra looked in comparison to a presentation that treated it like standard military heroics, Hard Corps doubles downs both sides of the spectrum, turning the contrast into a tremendous asset. Take the original cast of playable characters, for example: You have your requisite hardline military personnel in Ray and Sheena, but then you have a God damn cybernetic wolfman with a gun-arm and a tiny robot running counterpoint to them. The enemy design, having undergone a significant improvement, also displays this running contrast. On one hand, Hard Corps' opposition features gigantic robots, goofy dinosaurs, and oddly-acrobatic soldiers that form like Voltron. On the other? Some of the most wonderfully horrific sprite art of the era, coming a long way from the series' blatant H.R. Giger roots. This is Contra at both its most self-serious and insane, and it's just amazing to see.
And then there's the music bringing the game's nutty bullshit together. Contra: Hard Corps' soundtrack is a suite of downright nasty, grimy, filthy electro-metal the likes of which could only be delivered to us by the Genesis' sound chip. Composed by a dream team of musicians (including a budding Akira Yamaoka as well as Michiru Yamane), the music is kismet for everything the game's going for. After all, what better companion is there for a game as audacious as this than such a Maxell commercial-caliber blast of FM synth "BUWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH" and ripping guitars? The soundtrack varies in pace and tone, but the ubiquitous style infects every track in one way or another. Even the game's triumphant "Contra the Blue Gale" has the characteristic FM synth grime poking out of its edges, as if to tell the player "don't worry, we didn't forget the freaky." The hard edge the soundtrack offers is sure to put some people off, but even on a soundchip as idiosyncratic as that of the Genesis, Hard Corps has a sound all its own.
After the release of Contra III, most of the development team from Konami broke off to form Treasure and went on to make Gunstar Heroes. Their work was an emphatic statement from the Contra ex-pats, presenting a bigger, wilder vision of the gameplay they had made their names on. The remnants of Konami must have taken this as a challenge, as Contra: Hard Corps would take elements from Gunstar for its own the following year, refining them and even alluding to one of the game's more iconic boss fights. How did Treasure take to this? Well, you'll never guess what made it into Alien Soldier, their 1995 Genesis magnum opus:
A God damn cybernetic wolfman with a gun-arm.
There's a reason that Treasure would pay homage to the employers that they had abandoned just three years before. Contra: Hard Corps represents the zenith of an entire console, an entire genre. It brings a class of invigorating, whirlwind run-and-gun action that is unmatched to this day. It takes a considerable amount of practice and discipline to see everything the game has to offer, but even when you ignore the gratification inherent to overcoming a great challenge, working towards that goal is one of the most rewarding things you can do in any video game. From the unforgettable soundtrack, the incredible boss fights, to the preposterous action that pervades every moment, Hard Corps has amazing things to show you with each passing level, and that's more than enough to make any hardship worthwhile.
TheRazielim
Member
That intro is probably the best opening for any kind of action game.
Piston Hyundai
Member
I didn't want to take away from Hard Corps during its entry so I didn't get into it, but I started to draw a lot of parallels to 2016's Doom in my mind as I was working on it. They both contrast the straight-faced surroundings with the ludicrous in-game action for comedic effect, and both games' intros set the tone as quickly and as well as they possibly can.
Piston Hyundai
Member
#19: Mario Superstar Baseball
(Namco - GameCube, 2005)
This is another one of those games where I feel the need to explain myself a bit more than normal. Most people could take a look at a majority of the games on this list and understand (if not agree with) their placement on a list like this, but not too many people really give a shit about Mario Superstar Baseball. It was a fairly late GameCube game, having been released in the middle of 2005, so not a lot of eyes were on it in the first place, but it's not like critics did much to help ("I never would have thought that Mario and Jose Canseco would have a lot in common, but they both tarnish this great sport," reads Game Informer's incendiary 7/10 review). It's tragic that this ended up being the Mario sports series that fell by the wayside (people didn't take to the inferior Wii sequel, either), because it's probably my favorite competitive local multiplayer game, period.
There's a lot of different ways I can tackle this one. For starters, Mario Superstar Baseball has perhaps the highest pedigree behind it. It's all but literally a Family Stadium game (better known in the West as RBI motherfucking Baseball), but injected with an even more arcadey Mario flavor. That alone has the makings of an all-time great arcade sports game: it features all of the power-ups and special moves you would come to expect from a Mario sports game, but combined with the simplicity of Famista and RBI. But that doesn't really cut it. It's a brilliant game on paper, but the true reason Mario Superstar Baseball ranks so high is because when you're playing it with somebody who knows the ins and outs of the mechanics and wants the win just as badly as you do, it becomes a war, a nine-inning crusade fought with a deep roster, copious amounts of special moves that dance gallantly on the line of fairness, and most importantly of all: mind games.
What nobody tells you about Mario Superstar Baseball is that psycho-sodomy becomes a huge part of local play very quickly. The game's a fantastic time whether you're playing it against the CPU or somebody else, but the methodical pace of the sport leads to a metagame unique to multiplayer, where the players are constantly trying to get in each other's heads. Even before you pick up on the finer details of the gameplay, you can use the basic mechanics to seriously fuck with your competition. I greatly prefer batting in most baseball games, and while stepping up to the plate in this game as satisfying as it is accessible, the person on the mound holds an irresistible amount of power. Ironically, there aren't that many clear cut options when it comes to pitching: you can either throw a standard pitch, charge it up for more speed, use a consumable special pitch, or try to fool players with a comically slow change-up that's more difficult to hit and starts with the charged pitch animation. Four choices may seem paltry, but there's a crucial distinction to be made: you have control of the ball in mid-air. There's no option for a curveball because you make it yourself. The amount of control you have is inversely proportional to the amount of power you give the pitch, so if you just tap the A button you can throw balls that shift left and right at will, which opens up all sorts of options in screwing with your opponent. There's plenty to do with these pitches (you can even give it the bare minimum amount of power to start the charge-up animation while retaining a solid amount of control if you really want to throw someone off), but my personal favorite method of terrorizing the batter is one that starts off swerving outside, but then wavers back towards the plate for just a fraction of a second before finally ending up outside. It can be frustrating as hell to be on the receiving end of this, but getting the better of a wily pitcher can be just as sweet as pitching a strikeout.
Like a lot of the best sports games, there's a hidden depth behind Mario Superstar Baseball's pick-up-and-play nature. It's a very easy game to learn, but it becomes a different beast as you play more and more of it. New players will be able to learn the rules of the sport and how to play, but some mechanics and quirks aren't explained in detail, leaving players to discover them throughout the course of their time with the game. Power hitting is a bit more nuanced than expected: the power of a charged swing will quickly degrade after it peaks, forcing those looking for a home run to time their charge in addition to their swing (Pro-tip: the length of time it takes for a change-up to charge and reach the batter will make timing a perfect power swing impossible, often thwarting more powerful batters). Players will probably get the hang of stealing bases pretty quickly, but just advancing the runner right away can leave you open if the pitcher calls you on it. However, advancing just as the pitching animation starts prevents this and even gives you a speed boost, emphasizing that the player keeps a close eye on the smallest of movements by the pitcher and providing another opportunity for psychology in local play (Another pro-tip: Sometimes hit a different face button instead of A while pitching. It doesn't actually do anything, but it'll trick an opponent stealing glances at your controller into thinking they've attempted to steal at the perfect moment, trapping them between bases if you call them on it). There's a lot to consider into once you've covered the basics, and the most vital piece of that is probably the game's roster.
Mario Superstar Baseball has a very memorable cast, but I don't mean that because Mario and the gang are the most recognizable characters in all of video games.
Let me ask you something.
Take a look at this. What do you see? If you say "one of those little dudes that were fun to stand under as they popped out of the ground in Super Mario World," you'd only be half right.
Montgomery "That Bullshit" Mole is the greatest infielder and lead-off man in the history of all of baseball. If this little brown fucker makes contact with the ball, he's probably getting on first base. If he gets on first base, he's definitely making it to second. Monty is so God damn fast that if the defense doesn't catch the ball within like a second after it lands, that dude's getting a triple and there isn't anything your sorry ass can do about it.
And God help you if you send a ground ball his way.
While Monty Mole may be the cream of the crop in my opinion, Mario Superstar Baseball's entire roster is full of players that are valuable in one way or another. The characters you would expect to have certain strengths and weaknesses live up to that (Bowser is a monstrous hitter but painfully slow, Diddy Kong and Yoshi are fast, etc.), but there are a lot of characters who bizarrely end up being dynamos. Birdo is an underrated power hitter and an excellent fielder, and Dixie Kong is probably my favorite pitcher in the game despite a mediocre rating. If a character doesn't have decent stats, odds are that they at least have a unique ability that can come in handy. In addition to special pitches and swings usable by team captains (read: the dozen biggest names in the game), each player has a passive ability that gives them an offensive or defensive edge. They range from Monty's insane speed boost to being able to climb the wall at the back of a stadium to intercept what was to be a home run ball. There's a blatant disregard for the rules of baseball at times (Bowser can just knock a baseman the hell over on occasion), but what's a Mario sports game without some good ol' fashioned bullshit? It may seem like all of these features would turn the game into an unbalanced mess, but there's a decent amount of interplay between these abilities that add a small strategic component to making your team (and failing that, you can straight up turn any silly mechanics off if you want). If Monty's speedy fielding or Yoshi's tongue catch ability is killing you, you can counter that with Mario's fireball swing and deny them possession of the ball in the first place. It's hard to make a bad team in the game, since I can't think of one character that doesn't have any redeeming qualities. Well, except for the Pianta, but he's never had any redeeming qualities to begin with.
While Monty and Dixie may be my key players, they aren't actually available from the start, and this is where the game's main single-player mode comes into play. While the gameplay in Challenge Mode is fairly standard (compete in baseball games and minigames to build a team to take on Bowser), the unlocks make it all worth it. In addition to unlocking a new player with each team you complete the mode with, Challenge Mode also features the "Superstar Quest:" a set of unique goals for every player in the game to complete, which persist throughout separate playthroughs. Upon completing a player's set of star challenges, they become a Star Player, allowing you to toggle a boost to all of their stats during exhibition games. This may not seem like a big deal, but having a team full of Star Players turns the game into Mario Superstar Baseball Turbo, amplifying the action at every angle (players like Monty, Diddy, and Toadette are all but guaranteed to make it on base if they bunt, for example). Playing against the AI doesn't quite reach the same heights as the multiplayer does, but the unlockables improve the multiplayer to the point that it's worth playing through for that alone.
People rag on it for being a slow, boring game, but I've always enjoyed baseball because of the pacing. I can understand why some wouldn't like it, but when you're invested in a game, the moments between pitches are filled with a kind of tension that is unlike any other sport. Mario Superstar Baseball may escalate the action that occurs when the ball is in play, but it's special because it somehow manages to make that anticipation that comes before a pitch is even thrown just as over-the-top. Maybe it speaks more to the people that I play it with, but it remains one of the most enthralling games you can play with others.
(Namco - GameCube, 2005)
This is another one of those games where I feel the need to explain myself a bit more than normal. Most people could take a look at a majority of the games on this list and understand (if not agree with) their placement on a list like this, but not too many people really give a shit about Mario Superstar Baseball. It was a fairly late GameCube game, having been released in the middle of 2005, so not a lot of eyes were on it in the first place, but it's not like critics did much to help ("I never would have thought that Mario and Jose Canseco would have a lot in common, but they both tarnish this great sport," reads Game Informer's incendiary 7/10 review). It's tragic that this ended up being the Mario sports series that fell by the wayside (people didn't take to the inferior Wii sequel, either), because it's probably my favorite competitive local multiplayer game, period.
There's a lot of different ways I can tackle this one. For starters, Mario Superstar Baseball has perhaps the highest pedigree behind it. It's all but literally a Family Stadium game (better known in the West as RBI motherfucking Baseball), but injected with an even more arcadey Mario flavor. That alone has the makings of an all-time great arcade sports game: it features all of the power-ups and special moves you would come to expect from a Mario sports game, but combined with the simplicity of Famista and RBI. But that doesn't really cut it. It's a brilliant game on paper, but the true reason Mario Superstar Baseball ranks so high is because when you're playing it with somebody who knows the ins and outs of the mechanics and wants the win just as badly as you do, it becomes a war, a nine-inning crusade fought with a deep roster, copious amounts of special moves that dance gallantly on the line of fairness, and most importantly of all: mind games.
What nobody tells you about Mario Superstar Baseball is that psycho-sodomy becomes a huge part of local play very quickly. The game's a fantastic time whether you're playing it against the CPU or somebody else, but the methodical pace of the sport leads to a metagame unique to multiplayer, where the players are constantly trying to get in each other's heads. Even before you pick up on the finer details of the gameplay, you can use the basic mechanics to seriously fuck with your competition. I greatly prefer batting in most baseball games, and while stepping up to the plate in this game as satisfying as it is accessible, the person on the mound holds an irresistible amount of power. Ironically, there aren't that many clear cut options when it comes to pitching: you can either throw a standard pitch, charge it up for more speed, use a consumable special pitch, or try to fool players with a comically slow change-up that's more difficult to hit and starts with the charged pitch animation. Four choices may seem paltry, but there's a crucial distinction to be made: you have control of the ball in mid-air. There's no option for a curveball because you make it yourself. The amount of control you have is inversely proportional to the amount of power you give the pitch, so if you just tap the A button you can throw balls that shift left and right at will, which opens up all sorts of options in screwing with your opponent. There's plenty to do with these pitches (you can even give it the bare minimum amount of power to start the charge-up animation while retaining a solid amount of control if you really want to throw someone off), but my personal favorite method of terrorizing the batter is one that starts off swerving outside, but then wavers back towards the plate for just a fraction of a second before finally ending up outside. It can be frustrating as hell to be on the receiving end of this, but getting the better of a wily pitcher can be just as sweet as pitching a strikeout.
Like a lot of the best sports games, there's a hidden depth behind Mario Superstar Baseball's pick-up-and-play nature. It's a very easy game to learn, but it becomes a different beast as you play more and more of it. New players will be able to learn the rules of the sport and how to play, but some mechanics and quirks aren't explained in detail, leaving players to discover them throughout the course of their time with the game. Power hitting is a bit more nuanced than expected: the power of a charged swing will quickly degrade after it peaks, forcing those looking for a home run to time their charge in addition to their swing (Pro-tip: the length of time it takes for a change-up to charge and reach the batter will make timing a perfect power swing impossible, often thwarting more powerful batters). Players will probably get the hang of stealing bases pretty quickly, but just advancing the runner right away can leave you open if the pitcher calls you on it. However, advancing just as the pitching animation starts prevents this and even gives you a speed boost, emphasizing that the player keeps a close eye on the smallest of movements by the pitcher and providing another opportunity for psychology in local play (Another pro-tip: Sometimes hit a different face button instead of A while pitching. It doesn't actually do anything, but it'll trick an opponent stealing glances at your controller into thinking they've attempted to steal at the perfect moment, trapping them between bases if you call them on it). There's a lot to consider into once you've covered the basics, and the most vital piece of that is probably the game's roster.
Mario Superstar Baseball has a very memorable cast, but I don't mean that because Mario and the gang are the most recognizable characters in all of video games.
Let me ask you something.
Take a look at this. What do you see? If you say "one of those little dudes that were fun to stand under as they popped out of the ground in Super Mario World," you'd only be half right.
Montgomery "That Bullshit" Mole is the greatest infielder and lead-off man in the history of all of baseball. If this little brown fucker makes contact with the ball, he's probably getting on first base. If he gets on first base, he's definitely making it to second. Monty is so God damn fast that if the defense doesn't catch the ball within like a second after it lands, that dude's getting a triple and there isn't anything your sorry ass can do about it.
And God help you if you send a ground ball his way.
While Monty Mole may be the cream of the crop in my opinion, Mario Superstar Baseball's entire roster is full of players that are valuable in one way or another. The characters you would expect to have certain strengths and weaknesses live up to that (Bowser is a monstrous hitter but painfully slow, Diddy Kong and Yoshi are fast, etc.), but there are a lot of characters who bizarrely end up being dynamos. Birdo is an underrated power hitter and an excellent fielder, and Dixie Kong is probably my favorite pitcher in the game despite a mediocre rating. If a character doesn't have decent stats, odds are that they at least have a unique ability that can come in handy. In addition to special pitches and swings usable by team captains (read: the dozen biggest names in the game), each player has a passive ability that gives them an offensive or defensive edge. They range from Monty's insane speed boost to being able to climb the wall at the back of a stadium to intercept what was to be a home run ball. There's a blatant disregard for the rules of baseball at times (Bowser can just knock a baseman the hell over on occasion), but what's a Mario sports game without some good ol' fashioned bullshit? It may seem like all of these features would turn the game into an unbalanced mess, but there's a decent amount of interplay between these abilities that add a small strategic component to making your team (and failing that, you can straight up turn any silly mechanics off if you want). If Monty's speedy fielding or Yoshi's tongue catch ability is killing you, you can counter that with Mario's fireball swing and deny them possession of the ball in the first place. It's hard to make a bad team in the game, since I can't think of one character that doesn't have any redeeming qualities. Well, except for the Pianta, but he's never had any redeeming qualities to begin with.
While Monty and Dixie may be my key players, they aren't actually available from the start, and this is where the game's main single-player mode comes into play. While the gameplay in Challenge Mode is fairly standard (compete in baseball games and minigames to build a team to take on Bowser), the unlocks make it all worth it. In addition to unlocking a new player with each team you complete the mode with, Challenge Mode also features the "Superstar Quest:" a set of unique goals for every player in the game to complete, which persist throughout separate playthroughs. Upon completing a player's set of star challenges, they become a Star Player, allowing you to toggle a boost to all of their stats during exhibition games. This may not seem like a big deal, but having a team full of Star Players turns the game into Mario Superstar Baseball Turbo, amplifying the action at every angle (players like Monty, Diddy, and Toadette are all but guaranteed to make it on base if they bunt, for example). Playing against the AI doesn't quite reach the same heights as the multiplayer does, but the unlockables improve the multiplayer to the point that it's worth playing through for that alone.
People rag on it for being a slow, boring game, but I've always enjoyed baseball because of the pacing. I can understand why some wouldn't like it, but when you're invested in a game, the moments between pitches are filled with a kind of tension that is unlike any other sport. Mario Superstar Baseball may escalate the action that occurs when the ball is in play, but it's special because it somehow manages to make that anticipation that comes before a pitch is even thrown just as over-the-top. Maybe it speaks more to the people that I play it with, but it remains one of the most enthralling games you can play with others.
Kiddy Dong
Member
M O L E M A N
Seriously, he's the stealth GOAT.
Seriously, he's the stealth GOAT.
WascallyWabbit
Member
lol that was the best write up yet, that game is still one of my favorite sports games of all time
Piston Hyundai
Member
Hah, which ones?