2=9=3>4=10>6=1>>>>5>>>>>>>>RockmanX NES
Rockman Minus Infinity best Romhack.
I just haven’t played a game that I feel tops those.
The Wonderful 101 was enough to knock Kid Icarus: Uprising out of the #5 slot though.
My Top 10 would probably be:
- Majora’s Mask
- Super Mario 64
- Ocarina of Time
- Super Smash Brothers (N64 and Wii U)
- The Wonderful 101
- Kid Icarus: Uprising
- Chrono Trigger
- Stronghold: Crusader
- Need for Speed: Most Wanted (PS2)
- Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance
X4 all day.
People argue about X like breathing but I think X1 and X2 are the best.
X6 has the best music.
Xenogears
Odin Sphere
Vanquish
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
Sonic 3 & Knuckles?
Definitely in no order and definitely not set in stone. Also Nier 2 will probably kick one of those out for sure.
…annnd right about now, it’s time for me to dig into this DMC4 Special Goddamn Edition… I feel like I’m a kid opening a large Christmas right now…
This is also an excuse to once again remind everyone that this game had THE greatest trailer ever.
I really can’t make a list of just 5. I think portal 1 and 2 would be in there though.
1. The World Ends With You
2. Deus Ex: Human Revolution
I can only definitively give a Top 2. The rest are too contentious for me to list only three more. Possible contenders include:
Portal 2
Ghost Trick
Braid
The Swapper
Mark of the Ninja
Chrono Trigger
The Walking Dead S1
Mirror’s Edge
this is the best list i’ve seen so far.
no offense to the rest of you !
Lists? Don’t mind if I do:
- Final Fantasy 10
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
- Super Mario World
- Persona3/4 (tied)
- Kingdom Hearts 2 FM
That, and I can’t remember all the games I’ve ever played.
woooo and there’s my honey dip “Gloria” with her fine azz— it was quite a disappointment that she’s not really a separate, “real” character.
yesss
:o Lawd have mercy
I played as Vergil right from the start, so now I’ve been spoiled. The dude is completely ridiculous, and of course I’m loving it.
Long post warning, I don’t expect anyone to read it, but hey if anyone does awesome.
Any favorite/best list is ideally supposed to force you to prioritize what aspects of whatever is being listed that matters the most to you, it’s supposed to teach you about yourself and distill the essence of what you like most and more importantly why. Let’s take the current topic of top 5 games for example…okay before you go off mindlessly listing 5 games you enjoyed playing, really ask yourself why does game x deserve a spot on your list over every other game you’ve ever played? what does that game to better or uniquely that other games don’t? what do you find most pleasurable about a game is it the controls? the mechanics? a certain genre?, art style? and why? what does it say about you as a person when you confront yourself and can admit you value aspect A over aspect B, what experiences in your life and parts of your natural personality have lead you to like what you like? How much agency do you truly have and what if any structures inhibit your agency? Rational choice theory, stratification, and so many other factors influence things as simple as your favorite games and you may not even realize it however, taking the time and effort to at least try understanding these factors and how they apply to you if at all can in my opinion lead to much healthier, happier, and more logical decision making in the future. @Pertho What say you?
That being said I’ve given the topic of favorite games of all time years to marinate in my head, it’s fucking maddening to juxtapose my love of say the elegant strategic charm of Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine against my love of the Se7en (film) inspired, horror dipped conspiracy theory of Condemned: Criminal Origins, but doing so is an enlightening exercise. This is my current top 5 in order and more importanly why:
- Assassin’s Creed Unity- I guess I just appreciate how polished and smooth a game it is
- Destiny- The abundance of content and fresh idea all included in the base game without needing any DLC is what sold me
- Call of Duty: Modern Warefare 3- I’ve just never played an FPS like this before it’s so different than anything I’ve seen before or since
- NBA Elite 11-Who doesn’t want religion mixed with their hoop skills?
- Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric-I’m just happy SEGA took the time to give us diehard fans who have been clamouring for Sonic Generations 2 the game we deserve
Okay real list lol:
- Shinobi 3DS
2D platformers have always been my favorite genre, ignoring the history, nostalgia, and evolution that it carries, there’s always been this pure cohesion between myself, the controller in my hands, and the game experience itself that no other genre quite reached for me, specifically 2D action/platformers. Platformers by definition place emphasis on the level design and atmosphere first and foremost, not to say that the character you control doesn’t contribute to the overall experience of the game itself, but I’ve just always admired how the genre puts the brains of the developers at the forefront as you can immediately grasp what there collective intent was, the type of experience they were going for is determined by what is not included as much as what is. The idea what what’s around you and taking up 99% of the screen matters just as much as the 1% (your character) you have control over makes me feel like there is more to the game than just what I do, that it isn’t about how I change the game as much as how I rise up to the level of the game pun intended and meet it on it’s own grounds yes again pun intended =P. 2D action/platformers simultaenously take this juxtaposition between space and character to the next level as the 2D plane inherently restricts freedom of movement, yet the action and the design of the levels/obstacles still expect you to work within the predetermined constraints and triumph, perhaps this is why so many gamers (notably Stuhart Hayden/kiniku buster) complain about 3D platformes not feeling as “tight” as 2D ones, it’s not the latter responds quicker to your input than the former as much as the layout lends itself to feeling more natural and smooth because you know your limits from the start being a 2D game. The guys at Griptonite Games understands this “tightness” principle better than anyone else by finding the perfect sweet spot between forcing the player to memorize the level, obstacles, and enemy patterns as much as adapting to them. It’s not just straight trial and error game play nor is it free form make it up as you go along it’s both you must memorize the stages, but also have a degree of flexibility and it just makes the combat and platforming so much more fun and satisfying than any other game I’ve ever played. I’m sure Exodus. can see the same principle applied to Volgarr The Viking.
- Contra: Hard Corps
The major mechanical difference between Shinobi 3DS and Contra: Hard Corps is how the former includes both close combat and ranged combat forcing the player to utilize both at different points as well as giving the player the choice while in Contra you have no sword combos, no melee attacks unless you count slide, all forms of attack are ranged guns each with wildly different properties and effective ranges, but still guns nonetheless. This alone places the emphasis on finding the optimal range and exploiting it vs enemies which are pattern based like Shinobi however, this game is pretty much entirely a mini boss rush, every enemy has a very unique attack pattern and the stakes are always high you’re almost never fighting some low level grunt or fodder type enemy, every enemy is a fucking boss literally which contributes to the already stressful and hyperactive feel of the game. The fast paced electronic music (done by Michiru Yamane), the far future cyberpunk visuals and especially the large number of wildly varying backgrounds, the snappy pace of the game play not just movement of you and virtually every boss, but how each boss victory is short lived as there’s always something equally menacing ready to take the place of the brunign scrap heap behind you all work in perfect unison to create an atmosphere that no other game before or since has even come anywhere near imitating. Admiring the game on it’s own merit as a super fast, and difficult yet also forgiving run and gun requiring twitch paltformign skills at times and featuring the most ominous and orgasmic visuals and music of any 2D game I’ve ever played alone is super impressive, but looking at it as a Contra game makes it all the more so. It innovates with featuring 4 characters each with 4 unique weapons giving the player some sense of identity in what is known as the ultimate badass simulator, and instead of featuring a thinly veiled excuse to kill lots of things there’s an actual plot and a damn rare one at that! Instead of killing some invading alien army, you’re tasked with defeating the hero who defeated those aliens, which is more cool if you played this game’s sequel which is techncally a prequel as Uprising: Hard Corps protagonist is this game’s main antgonist and the way you learn about him through branching paths and story bits makes the final confrontations all the more intense and satisfying. Which leads me to talk about the most impressive part of this game that no other game reallt comes anywhere near…choice yes the freedom of choice is very present in many games today especially WRPGs where they’re called sandbox games however, no game did it quite the way Contra: Hard Corps did. On any given run of the game you’re only playing roughly 50-70% of the stages that are actually in the game, the choices you make at the end of each level dictate not just what levels you play, but what order you play them in, as well as which final bosses you fight and even what the motivations of those final bosses are! That’s mind blowing when you remember this game was made in 1994! There is so much of the game you’re missing if you only beat it once, it’s so cool to see your choices so drastically affect your experience in a 2D side scroller, you don’t just get a few seconds of extar dialogue or a cutscene that is slightly different like some modern games which preach about how choice based they are, you get multiple levels, bosses, and endings that are entirely different from each other based on what you choose, that unique type of agency is nowhere to be found in other games in this genre nor is it done as well in games of other genres even with the advantage of time and technology. Any Contra fan owes it to themselves to go back to this game and experience all the different levels and bosses if they haven’t already, I suspect the majority of people who played this game only played it once or twice and had no idea how much content they missed out on.
- Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo
I’ve been playing this game competitively since 04, studying and practicing and just improving as much as I can and even now there is so much about the game I don’t know and so much potantial I feel I’ve yet to reach despite being pretty damn good at it. The same may be the case with many other fighting games, but truly no other game requires so much of the win to come from the player as ST, it doesn’t use fancy complex mechanics or gimmicks as a stand in for depth, it presents a few simple rock, paper, scissor fundamentals that even a little kid could grasp instantly and then proceeds to throw you off the deep end by forcing you to come to the realization that these simple mechanics and systems in the game can be manipulated in such complex and subtle ways so that the win and the method you get that win by comes entirely fro mwithin you not the game, it embodies the “easy to pick up, difficult to mater” mantra better than any other fighter ever because it was created during a time where even having a super meter was considered fancy so all the strategy and execution evolved while the game system itself stayed the same allowing for the player to go beyond the game while still being bound by it’s rock, paper, scissor structure. Timing, baiting, execution, footsies, rushdown, turtling, etc all the basic essential skills of all fighting games weren’t just birthed by the SF2 series, but in ST it feels just as if not more satisfying to pull off a cr mk xx fireball as it does to pull off a 24712382 hit combo in a modern fighting game because the design of the game forces each and every motion, every pixel to be the determining factor, you don’t get secod chances in ST, you either eat or get eaten because yo uwere 1 pixel or 1 frame off and that mentality forces both players to be on edge, to heighten their senses, to never get comfortable and always be at the top of their game. That and no exaggeration, but practicing and learning the fundamentals in ST will make you better at all other fighting games because those core skills can be molded and adapted int othe more complex and modern systems of other fighters which speaks volumes to how ST pierces the heart of what it means to be a fighting game.
- Dead Space 2
If Mass Effect 2 is a prime showpiece for how emergent game play is king, then DS2 is a prime showpiece of how linearity is king. Outside of what you want to upgrade you don’t have much freedom, you have set paths for the most part, the developers have you at their whims forcing you to play the game more or less as they want you to assuming you choose to continue playing, but this itself is not something to be looked down upon, as the greater degree of control on the part of the developer allows them to potentially create an experience that lives up to their artistic intention in whatever genre or type of game it is. In the case of DS2 it’s scripted to be the perfect marriage between survival horror and third person action, it’s a rare example of a game having it’s cake and eating it too it delivers the survival horror aspect almost entirely through it’s atmopshere leaving the action to it’s game play and yet it knows when to play to it’s strengths not letting either side of it’s genre bending core take over the horror aspects don’t detract from it’s action aspects nor does the action make the horror aspects less horror esque. The story and characters reflect the depressing and ominous atmosphere of the visuals, by what you hear and see yo ucan tell early on this is not a “Feel good” type of game instead you’re made to be alert at all times never to be comfortable if you allow yourself to be engulfed by the experience it doesn’t let go even when you want it to, the buckets of blood and gore are not excessive the violence only reminds you how messed up this world is and how the circumstances allowing such a fucked up far future to exist were birthed by very real and current human thoughts and feelings. No other horror games has such a detailed, harmonious atmopshere, the sound and visual design is simply in a class of it’s own other horror games use sound and lighting to create an atmopshere that will scare the player, but DS2 takes it a step futher creating an entire richly detailed universe and lore, a place where the things that you see in DS2 happen are believable and not as crazy and fucked up as they actually are because it makes you see how things could end up that way rather than lazily throwing it’s hands in the air saying “oh whatever it’s just a game don’t ask questions”. The sound and lighting design is used in dozens of nuanced and subtle ways to remidn the player that they may die the second they let their guard down, you can have all the ammo you want, it won’t matter if you don’t see a necromorph coming, but the impressive part is how even when you do you can still feel nervous that’s real horror there. The ook and feel of the game is the game, the setting is the main antagonist, in this weird, fucked up, but beautiful mashup of science fiction technolog and horror of twisted metal and blood and alien zombie DNA devouring once sound structures you feel like you already lost before the game even starts, you feel empowered by your action heavy game play, but the scenery suggests you’re really powerless and this constant shifting between the two makes for a very powerful and real feeling horror game. Like all the best horror DS2 scares you by what might happen as much as what does actually happen, it dives head first into suggestive horror as much as blatant scare tactic, you can walk into a room see a pile of bodies and guess what the story is there, then in the next room find out or not. The way the game looks and sounds contributes so heavily to the way you feel when you play, no other horror games has such a powerful atmopshere that acts as a personification for how fucked up humans can be, it’s a nightmare in game form tou can’t really udnerstand these words about it until you experience it for yourself late at night lights off headphones on.
- Mass Effect 2
In a nutshell Mass Effect 2 combines the best of the third person shooter with the best of the RPG genre, but to say that and nothing else makes the previous statement meaningless. An RPG is defined by the stat and number crunching as well as how the player character affects the world he/she inhabits and while it can be argued ME2 doesn’t go far enough in it’s pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons roots, it does do that former RPG aspect justice by assigning the player choice of what skill they wish to level up however, it’s the latter RPG aspect that makes this game worthy of my top 5. There are countless open world games where the player has freedom to run around and do whatever they want, but most of those games make it all too obvious that what you do is following a loosely scripted structure of the developer anticipating what you as a gamer might choose and creating situations where it gives the illustion of choice more than actual choice, ME2 on the other hand while constricted by the limits of current technology does come closer to offering true nuanced freedom and world changing power than any other game both on the maco and micro scales simultaneously. There is a richly detailed world full of different aliens, plaents, cultures, visuals, etc but plenty of other games have that too so what makes ME2 special is how it goes above and beyond to let the player change this world and giving the player the emotional and psychological weight of their options, it simply doesn’t offer choice to go route A or route B, no you’e given the full context and implications of how your choices may cause a ripple or an avalanche down the road, it makes you stop and really think about your choices more deeply than other games because the context of what is at stake is so vivid. Mass Effect is the only franchise where I get to have natural flowing conversations with dozens of people and have them not feel forced or too “gamey”, but instead like the direct result of what I choose to do and say at what time, the universe in ME2 is not at my whims either I’m not playing God that would be a cop out, instead I’m able to gain or lose as much agency as I the player chooses, I have not just the choice to change the situations I encounter, but am forced to confront how I feel about my choices long after I make them, that’s a powerful feeling. There were times I had choices during a conversation and would just put the controller down and think for 10 minutes or longer what I should do, again powerful shit. You get a true sense of what’s at stake here, the game is still a game, but ME2 makes you feel it’s more than that it’s a product of your personality and inclinations takign the themes of true science fiction and applying the moral quandries to it’s central story. The shooting mechanics are tight and the rock, paper, scissors design between armor, health, and shields force you to switch weapons and again choice pops up in how you play with your weapons, powers, and teammates, in this game moment to moment what you do truly matters, something insginificant can come back to bite you in the ass later, and that’s not even getting into how the save files come into play. In a nutshell it feels like a much more complete game and universe than anything I’ve ever played it has it’s own thing going on, I the player just wandered into it.
Before I thought about it and made this post, I fully expected myself to include Mario, Sonic, Zelda, and Mega Man in it, lo and behold shocking to me more than anyone else they’re nowhere to be found =/.
I’m about to wake up at 5 to move to Houston, so the list will be short but sweet. Maybe I’ll expand once I get to a hotel tomorrow.
- Suikoden 3
- Final fantasy 6
- Soul calibur 2
- Dmc3/bayonetta2
- Metal slug 3
Jak 2/3
Crash Bandicoot 2
Demon’s Souls
Project M (Smash Bros. Brawl mod)
Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time is my all time favorite game. Just finished 100% for like the fifth time. This shit is like a love letter from your crush. I could go on for a full web page on how much I love this, but I’ll restrain myself. I wouldn’t trade this game’s existence for a new Crash Bandicoot.
Honorable mention to the Kingdom Hearts franchise for the best soundtracks of any game ever.
Since OZ went gameplay I’ll go story.
- Fire Emblem 4/ Dragon Warrior V
- Final Fantasy Tactics
- Zero’s Escape
- Last of Us
- Majora’s Mask/Twilight Princess
Not gonna explain these because I really can’t without ruining good stories. Also I refuse to choose between #1 and #5.
Woman was scared she was actually having to fix a sam-ich.
DMC4: Special Goddamn Edition!™
Some of these sections are have really exposed how rusty I got at DMC4 without playing in the past several years… I am ashamed to say I’ve actually been killed 4 times so far----in a game where previously, I did nearly everything there is to do before. The electrified floor + multiple flying “Gladius” attacks eventually got me. I can’t even remember what the timing was on the dodging (that cool little “table hopper” move with Nero) of the electric floor—I remember seeing people do that before in videos…but that section is done…now I’m up to the forest area; the fight with Credo (one of the most entertaining boss fights in the game, imo) is next if I recall.
This is making me want a real sequel once again… not a “redux” that features the high-school looking “Dante”, either. This stuff here is the real deal, and I want more of it.
Small tidbit I remembered from the first go-round — always change the gun button on Nero to something else like L-trigger. It’s much easier to do regular “combo stuff” while saving up that godly Charge Shot 3. I am not sure how anyone could fight regularly while charging CS3 if it’s on the default “X” button.
*also–I see that the 6-count still works on the dice game. I wait until the number I want is shown on the topside, then count to 6… hit on the 6th turn and that number will be there again, so that will be what you get.
Bought Wolfenstein: The New Order yesterday. What was I doing with my life not having played this yet? I mean yeah the 360 version has 4 discs bought who cares when the gameplay is this slick?