Transience's Top 222 Games

This was named Article of the Week in June of 2008.

transience compiled this listing of his Top 222 Games in May of 2008.

Preface

This list is dumb as hell. It's too big for anyone's good, and I could have made it a lot bigger if I wanted to include the plethora of crappy Atari, SMS and PC games I played back in the 80s, or the trillion stupid arcade games that I spent way too many quarters on. You know, back when arcades mattered. I also had discussions with four different people on whether or not skee-ball counted as a video game. They all told me I was an idiot. I told them I would kick their ass at skee-ball. They called me an idiot again.

But I like the number 2. It sounds good. Two two two. So, 222 it is.

It's probably wildly inaccurate. There's about 46 Final Fantasy games on it, another 97 Nintendo games, and a grand total of zero DEEP AND MEANINGFUL PORN GAMES.

Sorry.

There are a billion old games no one cares about and I'll probably hear "whoa, you're old" jokes about 49 times before I'm done.

awww yeah let's do this

The List

222. Blades of Steel (NES)

I remember the first time I played this thing, and I was amazed -- "whoa, the game just talked to me!" The BLADES OF STEEL voice will always stay with me, despite the fact that I have utterly no desire to ever play it again. Blades of Steel is pretty much the only hockey game I've ever played - it was memorable for its use of so-called "Konami sounds", something I can't quite describe but every Konami game had it in common, and for its awesomely pointless button-mashy fights. The entire time you're sitting there beating the hell out of each other, no one thinks to go and get the puck. Good stuff.

221. Pro Wrestling (NES)

This game is probably best-known for the classic "A WINNER IS YOU", but it's actually a fun little game in moderation. Extreme moderation. Pro Wrestling features six different wrestlers, each with their own unique move. I always liked Starman because of that running body slam move that you could spam to death against the computer. I used to always love playing this game on Playchoice arcade machines -- does anyone actually know what I'm talking about? -- because it was the perfect game to play for 700 seconds or however long it was. And I love the name KIN KORN KARN for whatever reason. What a name.

220. Keith Courage in Alpha Zones (TG16)

The pack-in game for the TG16, and the only game I had before my mother traded my TG16 for a broken dishwasher. (don't ask) Keith Courage is highly nostalgic for me.. until I start playing it, anyway. The controls are unresponsive and slow, the gameplay is repetitive, the engrish is great, and it was so easy to randomly game over. I had fun with this when I was a kid, but going to back to it, it's like "...why?"

219. Altered Beast (Genesis)

From the TG16 pack-in game to the Genesis one. Is it any wonder we stopped packing games in with consoles?

Altered Beast is pretty terrible, but the unintentional comedy factor redeems it. It controls terribly until you transform into some random beast that is a thousand times better than the inexplicably naked guy with baseball bats for feet. Watching him lose clothing as you get POWER UPs is pretty hilarioous, as are the random quotes -- WISE FROM YO GWAVE and WELCOME TO YOUR DOOM -- all of which make it a great throwback game for ten minutes.

218. Duck Hunt (NES)

Man, I hate this game. I just suck at it so bad. Whenever I play it, I have to go right up to the television and play like a four year old. I'm sure everyone did this when they were like 7, but I'm 27. :)

217. Star Tropics (NES)

Cool idea, terrible execution. Star Tropics was a nifty little Zelda clone that would be fun to play if it didn't control like ass. Seriously, you can only move in like four directions and when the game gets harder you're fighting the control more than the enemies. The result is a letdown of a game.

(And seriously, what was up with that weird copy protection in the letter attached? There has to be a story behind this.)

216. Arc the Lad (PS1)

A sort-of-fun strategy RPG that has one fatal flaw - it's like five hours long. Seriously. It's like the opening chapter to a book, and while the book improved by leaps and bounds in the sequel, this game is essentially ruined. The biggest plot twist is seeing the ending credits, if I remember correctly.

215. Ehrgeiz (PS1)

CLOUD AND SEPHIROTH IN A FIGHTING GAME THIS IS GOING TO BE SO GOD DAMN COOL

Man, what a terrible fighting game. This is the ultimate button masher, where you can get utterly destroyed by someone just doing the same move over and over. It's terrible. The "whoa I'm playing on Sephiroth omg" factor is the only thing this has going for it, and that wears off after about 173 seconds.

There's also a weird, seemingly unrelated adventure mode that I played for far longer than anyone else would have dared, and I had fun with that. Although I really don't remember a damn thing other than it was a repetitive dungeon crawler type thing. What a bad game. Fair or not, this is why I'm skeptical of Dissidia.

214. Gorilla (PC)

Haha. This is a huge inside joke between Heroic Mario and myself:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ncykt-YJO1M

GORILLA.BAS is a qbasic game that came with some version of DOS - 5.0, I think, not that anyone cares - with some of of the most hilarious effects ever. The awesome intro music. The exploding nuclear bananas. The taunting dance after you kill someone. Hitting the sun. This game is just hilarious, and while I actually liked the other game (Nibbles!) more, this thing is so funny that it's still worth playing. From GORILLA.BAS spawned a bunch of improved games like Scorched Earth and Worms: Armageddon, but I either haven't played those in a dozen years or never played them in the first place.

The guy in that video is insane - dude played way too much Gorilla back in the day. I like how he sits there and thinks for a second, then changes his throw by 1 degree, and then nails the dude. ha. What the hell.

Heroic Mario was so obsessed with it that he hit up google and found a remake that had tons of new features, from leaderboards to online play. We couldn't get online play to work -- too bad, because I would have busted his ass via nuclear banana -- but I did manage to beat the computer and get this amazing screenshot:

http://imgcake.com/img/60/gorilla.jpg

haha. this game is so classic.

213. Final Fantasy 8 (PS1)

It's so incredibly easy to make fun of this game, so I'll try to be brief. The gameplay is slow and boring, drawing is boring, GFs are awful, Triple Triad is something I hope I never have to do, the storyline is bad, but good compared to the disaster that is FF8's characters, I dislike making weapons, how enemies level up with you, and pretty much everything else about this game. It's probably the most disappointing game I've ever played, given the great track record of FF4/6/7. FF9 probably failed sales-wise because of how disappointing this game was.

It's not all bad, though. I like the music. I'm trying to think of other things that I liked, but I think I blocked them out. :) I'm just irrational when it comes to FF8.

212. Rampage (multiplatform)

One of those classic arcade games from the 80s that you can play forever. It's repetitive and kinda fun, and I used to play this thing endlessly when I was young. There's nothing noteworthy about this game whatsoever, though.

oh and Lizzie > Ralph > George suck it George

211. Super Mario Bros. (NES)

This is probably my pick for most "overrated" game of all time. I just don't enjoy it very much - I often end up dying by going too fast because I just get bored, hold run and go until I mess up. The gameplay is so unresponsive, which I could deal with if it had some fun level design.. but it doesn't until near the end, and I never bother to get that far. This game might be influential and all that, but it's aged terribly and isn't nearly as classic as Mario 3/World, if you ask me.

210. Battletoads (NES)

Man, I suck at this game. And I don't just say that because Battletoads is freaking hard - I'm probably worse than most, and I'm usually good at these kinds of games. Level 3 crushes me, and if I'm lucky enough to get past it, every other level brutalizes me too. I beat this game once using savestates and I still failed hard at it. Argh.

209. Mario 64 (N64)

Here's another game I suck at. I finished it without too much trouble, but I didn't really enjoy it at all. I think it's the controls - I pretty much hated the 64 controller from the start, I didn't like the camera at all, and when I tried to play it again recently on the VC, I couldn't even control Mario. I figured that was the classic controller's fault as much as anything, but I just didn't have much fun with this game.

I will give it one thing, though: its nonlinear design makes for great speed runs. Definitely a better game to watch than to play.

208. Super Baseball Simulator 1000 (SNES)

This is the one baseball game I got into. BS1K is fun because it's completely unrealistic, what with its equippable powerups and stat boosts and who knows what else. It's fun to blast people with all kinds of different hits or throw several balls at once to confuse the opponent. It also plays simple, meaning there's no learning curve. I love simple sports games.

207. Mortal Kombat: Deception (multiplatform)

3d MK games are really not my cup of tea. I don't like sidestepping and weapons and stances and god knows what else goes into them. That said, I liked this game for a totally unexpected reason: Konquest mode. In the awfully-spelled Konquest mode, you follow a guy named Shujinko - basically, a Shang Tsung clone - throughout his life and run around hitting trigger points like an adventure game. It's got an in-game clock, tons of optional stuff, and a full-blown story that was entertaining in that lame Mortal Kombat way. I never really played the main game much and I was always like "man why do i like this augh", but I *did* have a decent amount of fun playing through that.

206. Asteroids (Atari 2600)

I can hear the incessant Asteroids music just by thinking about it. It's probably the most memorable part of the game. Asteroids is repetitive as hell, but there's something fun about sitting there in the middle and shooting stuff. Whatever.

Also, I just found this quote on wikipedia:

On November 13, 1982, 15-year-old Scott Safran, of Cherry Hill, NJ, set a world record of 41,336,440 points on the classic arcade game Asteroids. He beat the 40,101,910 point score set by Leo Daniels of Carolina Beach on February 6, 1982. To congratulate Safran on his accomplishment, the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard searched for him for more than fifteen years, until 2002, when it was discovered that he had died in an accident in 1989. In a special ceremony in Philadelphia on April 27, 2002, Walter Day of Twin Galaxies presented a special award to the surviving members of Scott Safran's family, commemorating the Asteroid Champion's achievement.

oh

Comedian Jim Norton (Frrrrrrunkis) once got the high score for the game Asteroids. This led him to have his picture on a local New Jersey paper two columns from his hero, Ozzy Osbourne. This was discussed during the April 14, 2008 episode of the Opie and Anthony show.[citation needed]

.....oh

205. Gradius 3 (SNES)

I always liked Gradius's formula, with the powerups and the options and the different guns and such. I really enjoy this game until about level 3, where I inevitably die. The problem with Gradius's system is that if you die, you lose all your powerups and are stuck with this itty bitty pea shooter going up against a zillion things that move ten times faster than you. That's pretty much certain death. It's a pretty glaring flaw.

(I just hit up the codes page here and found out there's a 30 guy code. Huh. I'll have to try that, though it still ruins the fun of being able to blast everything on the screen with an arsenal of weapons. Actually, there's a cheat for that too apparently. Blah.)

204. Freeway (Atari 2600)

Freeway is, quite literally, Activision playing "why did the chicken cross the road?". It's nothing more than eight lanes of traffic, a bunch of cars moving at different speeds, and a chicken that can move in two directions trying to cross the road as many times as possible in 216 seconds. It looks like Frogger and is even less interesting. And yet, I get some strange kick out of this game. I don't get it. Let's move on.

203. Batman (NES)

Batman sort of takes Castlevania and Ninja Gaiden and combines them into one game: Castlevania's general level design and sub-weapons, Ninja Gaiden's walljumping and mean difficulty. One of my proudest video game accomplishments when I was a kid was actually beating the Joker. My best friend and I spent like two hours trying over and over, and I'm sure it wasn't very hard but I don't want to find out because it might ruin my childhood. I pick this game up and play it sometimes, but never get more than a few levels in. When I want to be tortured, I just play Ninja Gaiden.

202. Mega Man (NES)

One of the glitchiest games ever -- http://youtube.com/watch?v=nA_8WxrNYf4 what the hell is going on here -- Mega Man has the signs of being a really cool series but ruins it with annoying level design, lame powerups and frustrating difficulty. (Guts Man, what?) I guess there's something to be said for being the first in a series that produced some of the very best NES games, but I really don't care. It's worth a play just to see how badly 2 blows it out of the water.

201. Vandal Hearts (PS1)

This third-rate SRPG is most memorable for its hilarious death animations, where blood goes spurting out of characters as if it was Mortal Kombat. This is one of those stupid-yet-fun SRPGs that I played a ton of when I was a teenager but would never give the time of day today. The characters are hilariously ugly (look at them - http://charas-project.net/resources/Facesets/8237_1085601854.png ) and the story is dumb, but it *is* pretty fun somehow.

200. Beatmanix IIDX (PS2)

I love playing with keyboards and I like rhythm games, so I thought I'd adore this game. Plus, it's hard as hell. Seems right up my alley! Unfortunately, the controls are... clunky? I don't know, but whenever I play this I have to look at the keys constantly to figure out where my hands are and what I'm doing. After a bit of practice I got up to 3 stars or whatever it uses to measure difficulty, but I was always annoyed and couldn't do anything without struggling with it.

In conclusion, I don't like this game because I suck tremendously at it.

199. Rock 'n Roll Racing (SNES)

I think Blizzard made this game? Throw crappy classic rock in poor quality, some awesome quotes (*insert name* IS IN ANOTHER TIME ZONE) and some slide-y physics that mess with me and you've got Rock n Roll Racing. It reminds me of RC Pro Am, only not as good. It's a game that frustrates me but that I keep on playing for no discernible reason. Yay!

198. Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis (GBA)

I bought a GBA for this game. Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together is a SRPG that I love, and while this game is technically the same thing, everything about it is inferior in its own way. The gameplay feels really slow and unbalanced, the charm is completely sucked out of it, and it's just broken. I once set up an AI-controlled training battle to level up my guys that somehow lasted 31 hours. I'm not exaggerating, it took 31 hours. By the time I was finished, I blew through the game, which wasn't any less fun than struggling with lower levels (which it is in the original). Then I beat the last boss and the game locked up on me. grrrr

197. Wolfenstein 3d (PC)

The first real FPS, only with simple controls and just four weapons. Wolf3d was huge back when and was pretty much rendered obsolete by Doom a couple years later. I still like throwing on the ammo code (MLI!) and busting some Nazi ass every once and a while, but yeah, it's pretty dated.

196. Q*Bert (lots)

I had a PC clone of this called Hopper back in the day, and I played the hell out of it. Q*Bert always suffered from control issues because you're jumping diagonally and you'd occasionally jump off the board by accident, but jumping around trying to get all those god damn blocks the same colour was strangely fun. Even when this stupid jackass green thing would come, change all the colours and ruin all your hard work. What a prick.

@!#?@!

195. Astro Warrior (SMS)

awww yeah. Astro Warrior is a vertical shooter that I never was able to beat for the same reasons as Gradius 3 - if I died, I was this slow sitting duck with no weapons whatsoever. Astro Warrior is a lot easier to play than Gradius 3 though, and I have a far greater tie to it since THERE WAS NOTHING ELSE TO PLAY ON THE SEGA MASTER SYSTEM ARGH

194. Mortal Kombat (Arcade)

Oh, how I loved this game. Oh, how I kicked ass at this game. Oh, how future Mortal Kombats made this game look obsolete. Oh, how future fighting games would make the superior Mortal Kombat games look obsolete, making this game uber obsolete. or something. I probably spent hundreds of dollars on this thing back when, but it's almost completely unplayable now.

193. Doom 2 (PC)

I never got into the original Doom, but netplay (aww yeah 14.4 modems) made this thing a treat. Back in 1994 or 1995, I used to play deathmatch with a friend on the first level for hours. With every weapon at our hands and a small board with nowhere to hide, we killed each other so much that the game had to eventually remove bodies off the ground because there were so many of them. I had a ton of fun with that. We never bothered going past the first level and quite honestly, I'm not even sure if I would recognize anything after level 1.

192. Karate Champ (Arcade/NES)

When Karate Champ, one of the first real fighting games, was in the arcade I loved it. I was obsessed with it. When I got a NES, this is the game I had to have.

I'm not sure if Karate Champ for the NES was a million times worse than the arcade or if my childhood is just making me think this was better than it was, but the NES version truly is awful. I am the only one of my friends who has any idea how to actually control the damn thing, and even then connecting with an attack seems more like luck than skill. This game is pretty much a complete disaster.

But man, this thing cracks me the hell up. The awesome "BEGIN" and "POINT" of the judge is amazing. My friends and I used to have this amazing concept: Karate Champ drinking game, where getting POINTed meant you have to drink. Oh man, it's a good thing we never actually went through with that.

191. Double Dragon (Arcade/SMS)

The original beat-em-up? Maybe, I dunno. The original DD was overly simple, but it worked. I had a penchant for randomly falling to my death though, and Double Dragon 2 is so much better that this classic is better off left in the past.

190. Metroid (NES)

Even a crazy 2d Metroid fan like myself can admit that this game is crap. Samus controls like ass, killing enemies is an absolute nightmare because you can't duck and shoot, the ice beam is twice as weak as a normal beam, there's pretty much no smart way to regain life besides "grinding" which is truly awful, and half the time you'd copy your password down wrong. I believe this is the first game to utilize a nonlinear map and being able to retrace your steps, but who the hell cares when it's nigh-unplayable?

That said, sometimes I enjoy suffering through this game. I always die when I get to Kraid cause I get mega-lost, but I do enjoy something about it.

189. Spy Hunter (NES)

The classic music -- apparently called the "Peter Gunn theme" -- is the best and most memorable part of this game. Spy Hunter is good fun, glitchy as all hell, and fun to play going fast. Unfortunately, you can die really easily by going fast, so actually playing this game the smart way is a lot more boring.

and who the hell decided a spy hunter commercial would be a good idea i mean who the hell would get the reference ps it's awesome oh god

188. Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (PSP)

I thought this was really disappointing. A remake of Rondo had the chance to fix all of the classic CV games' flaws -- slow movement in particular -- but instead, it's as slow as ever, and maybe even more frustrating because it's a bit more difficult than normal CV games. Plus, there's this weird backflip move that's an insult to real double jumps everywhere. I had always heard that Rondo was an amazing game that never came out here, but I found it inferior to the NES ones. Maybe I just have higher expectations in 2008 than I did in 1988.

187. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GC)

My first -- and probably last -- 3d Zelda. That's not to say it's bad; rather, it's just an average game that doesn't stand out much. Sailing was boring (thanks to having to change the wind over and over argh) and I don't really like the exploration aspect of Zelda games. By the end of it I got bored and just FAQ'd the game straight through sans dungeons. I much prefer battling and dungeons, which are decent fun, but even that ends up being nerfed by the utter lack of difficulty. The only time I died was on the last boss and I didn't get a single optional heart. I only found like three heart pieces throughout the entire game. Again, not bad, just kinda eh.

186. Super Off Road (Arcade/NES)

Just a normal four-player racing game, only you get money to buy different parts, including a little nitro boost so there's some strategy involved. Not much, though. :) This was fun to play whenever I saw it in the arcade, and kinda fun for 15 minutes until the repetitiveness of the game got to you.

185. Warlords (Atari 2600)

Four player Pong?! Warlords is a game all uber old school gamers like; you get a little castle of blocks surrounding a dude, and if the dude gets hit you die. It's fun with friends, but I don't know how many people I can convince to sit down and play Atari with me these days.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=EVtIZNnVqE0

I like how this guy is proud of being able to defeat 1981 AI

also the scary little intro is amazing

184. Suikoden 3 (PS2)

We'll start with the good: the Trinity Sight System -- seeing the game through three main characters' eyes and perspectives during a conflict -- was a pretty cool idea, and doing the same parts three times was actually not too bad. It showed reasons and motivations behind everything, and the storyline was probably the most indepth of the series. (Not necessarily a good thing, but for something like this it worked.) It also had Sgt. Joe, kicker of asses. A game cannot be all bad if you've got this dude:

www.27runesgallery.iespana.es/4images/data/media/21/s3-joe.jpg

don't mess

On the flipside, the game had a ton of things that irritated me. I hated most town areas and got lost in them constantly. The battle system consists of three groupings of two characters, but you can only tell one of them what to do per turn (or something like that, it's been a while). That sucked. Overall, I struggled to have fun with this game, and looking back I'm amazed I finished it. I liked Suikoden 5 more, but its absolutely terrible pacing, hideous graphics and load times, and having other things to play led me to stop about 10-15 hours in and never go back. It's amazing how I feel obligated to finish a game when I, y'know, pay for it. :)

183. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (PC)

My introduction to Douglas Adams wasn't the Trilogy, the awesome TV series or the movie: it was this game, an Infocom/Adams collaboration which I played back in like 1987. This game confused the living hell out of me at a young age, from wondering what the hell a "buffered analgesic" was (and learning how to spell it) to why the hell I (or anybody) would lie down in front of a bulldozer. Despite the fact that this game came with a hint system, I was never able to figure out what to do at the Heart of Gold.

Fast forward a dozen years or so, me and a walkthrough played through this game, and it's still pretty entertaining. I have no idea why you spend a whole game searching for different kinds of pocket fluff and why there's always "no tea" in your inventory, but it's a good time nonetheless.

182. Donkey Kong Country (SNES)

I never got into this game the way others did - it's a pretty fun little platformer, but something about it made me disinterested in it. Maybe it's the fact that there's nothing but platforming, no real powerups or anything like that. Maybe it's the weird 2.5D graphical style, which was amazing for its time but messed with me because I liked good old 2D gaming. Maybe it's the fact that I'm just not very good at this game, and that I get impatient as hell and just run like hell through the levels and die a lot. I dunno.

(Never played DKC2 or 3, which are apparently superior. I gave DKC2 a run for about 3 minutes a few years ago on an emulator but had no real interest and moved on.)

181. Mario Kart 64 (N64)

One of the more frustrating games I've played. Four player kart? aww yeah! SMK was a huge fave of mine, but MK64 began the trend of Mario Kart moving from an easy-to-play racing game to more of a party game filled with too many items and too much luck. The levels were too long and I didn't really like the courses. It was still fun at times, but I always looked at it with SMK firmly in my mind, and it just didn't compare.

180. Track and Field 2 (NES)

ahh, the good old days, when turbo controllers were practically a necessity. I am a great button masher and even I can't come close to finishing this game without one. Track and Field 2 has double the events of the original, but aren't as fun to play two-player and some of the events are fairly annoying, especially if you're trying to beat the 1p mode.

179. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES)

okay first of all what the hell is going on here - http://youtube.com/watch?v=OyB0bWCwhlc

Zelda 2 probably would have been better received if it was a standalone title and had nothing to do with the Zelda name. Experience points, sidescrolling, fairly difficult - it's just not very Zelda-like at all. It's an all right game when taken out of the Zelda context, and everyone loves the upward/downward thrusts. Link's Smash movesets were practically made around Zelda 2, and Toon Link kicks ass in Brawl especially his d-air so aw yeah who cares about Zelda 2 woo Brawl for life

178. Castlevania: Lament of Innocence (PS2)

3d Castlevanias are often the black sheep in their series, but this game was kinda sorta fun. I enjoyed it but have almost forgotten everything about it - what I do remember is that fighting regular enemies was tedious because you didn't level up, and walking around them in 3d was just easier. I also remember an infinite money/items glitch which made the annoying last boss a lot more enjoyable. The 2d games own this thing but it's still worth a play - though not a replay. :)

177 - Life Force (NES)

Forget Contra -- this is the game the Konami Code was created for. Even with 30 guys, I need multiple continues to beat this game. The vertical levels always crushed me and I have a good time suffering because of it.

176 - Kirby: Canvas Curse (DS)

The only Kirby game I've played more than two minutes of, Canvas Curse is the first DS game that really used the touch screen well. Drawing lines and using all the different abilities was fun, but I had a hell of a time with it thanks to my left-handedness. The result is a game I enjoy but don't think I'd play through again unless I was really really bored.

175 - The Simpsons (Arcade)

I spent lots of time playing this back in the day, when I'd get up early to get unlimited coins on Saturday for $5. The Simpsons basically copied the Turtles arcade game verbatim but came out later, didn't really change the formula at all and was thus less memorable. If I saw this in an arcade with other people playing, though, I'd totally go get some quarters.

174. Sonic the Hedgehog (Genesis)

SAY GAAAAA. Classic. I miss that voice. Sonic is a series that you're supposed to play for speed, but the level design forces it into a platformer that feels ridiculously slow due to Sonic's crazy speed and the game's penchant for moving platforms and waiting around. I enjoy the first couple of levels because you can fly through them, but after that I either die from going too fast or just get bored and try to make impossible jumps. I've heard the sequels were more based on speed, but I'd never played them.. until two days ago when I randomly threw Sonic 2 on and got stuck in a wall somehow. Good times.

173. Marble Madness (NES)

DAMN YOU, BLACK MARBLE, I WILL END YOU.

172. Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law (PS2)

haha, what a horrible game. Birdman takes the Phoenix Wright formula and applies it with much more ridiculous results. Cases are about nothing, court sessions last like five minutes, cases end randomly for no reason whatsoever, and the game is beatable in five hours tops with none of those hours being particularly satisfying. It's just ridiculous and idiotic and hilarious and "....what?", and that's the only reason you'd ever play this game.

171. Front Mission 3 (PS1)

OH GOD IT'S FINAL FANTASY TACTICS MEETS XENOGEARS BEST GAME EVER

That was my reaction to this game in 2000, when this mech-based SRPG came out. FM3 featured a political Japanese storyline, meaning I have/had no idea what was going on and all the names were too "foreign" for me to actually remember it. I had a fun as hell time with this game, playing through one of the two paths, starting over, and getting halfway through the second path. Fun little game, but I doubt I'll ever play it again.

170. Gauntlet (Arcade/NES)

Whoever made this game is a god damn genius and probably made millions. Addicting game that ate quarters like no tomorrow? Life that slowly ticks down representing a timer for your next quarter (which you *were* going to put in)? People fighting over food because if they didn't get it they'd have to go get four more coins? What a fun damn game, though no one really knows why. They should put the original on XBLA or something. I'd love playing that.

"STOP GETTING THE FOOD YOU NOOB"

oh god never do this

ps Valkyrie > Warrior > Elf > Wizard suck it wizard

169. Combat (Atari 2600)

What an annoying as piss game. There is nothing in video games that can annoy a person like Combat - it's got the worst damn control, you can bend bullets and fly through walls, and there's *nothing* more frustrating than getting shot.

And that's why it's awesome. Combat's one of those dumb simple games that's just hilarious to play with friends. You'll inevitably start yelling at each other and say "you know what, f this game" at least once. And you'll both have fun. What a stupid, classic game.

168. Mortal Kombat 4 (Arcade)

The beginning of the end for the MK series. In MK2, I cared about learning every character and their fatalities and all that. In MK3, I learned the moves for most guys and didn't know a single fatality. In MK4, I just used Tanya exclusively. I don't even remember who else is in the game.

But I liked using Tanya! woo forward forward low kick repeatedly

167. 1943 (NES)

Here's another game where a turbo controller made it ten times easier. 1943 was a vertical shooter set in WW2 (as the name implies) where you customize your stats as you go. It's pretty difficult and you'll need to button mash or else you'll get overrun by tons of kamikaze ships. Lots of fun, but probably moreso if you had a turbo controller.

166. Shadowgate (NES)

This game haunted the hell out of me as a kid. That music when your torch is running out? yikes~

Shadowgate is an awesome point and click NES game with a really cool atmosphere to it. It's a lot of fun at first, but after a while it gets convoluted with its item names (key 1, key 3, bag 5, augh) and it's amazing that I actually managed to beat this as a kid. Within 10 minutes of getting stuck I'd be running to GameFAQs now. Watching someone play through it on youtube is a blast though for unknown reasons.

165. Final Fantasy 3 (NES)

Probably lower than it should be -- I played this game back in like 1999 and enjoyed it a good amount, but since then FF1 and 2 have received great remakes while FF3 remained in the past all that time. I had heard that the DS remake wasn't very good so I haven't tried that out yet.

FF3 is noteworthy if only for the bare-bones job system that it introduced. It's also probably the hardest FF game, and I bet most people that played this abused savestates to hell. Otherwise this game can really annoy you, especially towards the end. It also includes annoyances like mini dungeons and I seem to recall one dungeon where only one class could hurt the enemies or something. I don't really remember this game all that well, and whenever I go to replay it I inevitably get bored and stop because I'm not frameskipping it. It's like "why play this when I could play the superior FF5?"

164. World Heroes (Neo-Geo)

This fighting game is not particularly good. It's not even particularly original - there's two clones with hadouken and shoryuken moves, a dude who looks just like Fei Long and a dude that looks like M. Bison while having extendable limbs like Dhalsim. It doesn't even introduce anything interesting, except maybe the "deathmatch" levels where the level actually hurts you. But I have fun playing with Hanzo and Fuuma, and Bracket's cheap leg sweep is great fun for crushing the computer.

163. Strider (NES)

Fun game. Glitchy as hell. Wall jumping sucked, but the funny engrish story was a good time and I have fond memories of this game. Yay, weird sorta nonlinear action story games

162. Castlevania (NES)

classix. Holy Water is broken to all hell. I can't stand the control sometimes -- augh stairs -- and dying can make your life miserable because you won't have holy water for the boss which makes things 400 times easier (and in some cases, double/triple shot, making it 800 to 1200 times easier). But man, it's so classic.

161. Heavenly Sword (PS3)

Heavenly Sword does a lot of cool things. There's often up to 40 enemies on the screen, making for a fairly epic scale, and the combat system is ten times deeper than God of War. It relies on a counter system with three separate stances, and reaction time along with a decent difficulty level makes this pretty damn fun.

Unfortunately, the game is mired in flaws. The load times are *brutal*, which is pretty unacceptable for an action game, especially when you compare it to God of War's perfection on that end. The story is intruiging -- a girl wielding a cursed sword with incredible power but will kill her -- but the dialogue and characters are terrible, to the point where I no longer wanted to know the storyline behind it. This game teases you with potential but ends up flopping.

160. Street Fighter 2 (Arcade)

Classic, influential, gave arcades another ten years of life.. but man, this game is slow by modern standards. After playing hyper fighting, this game feels like it's running at half speed. It's playable, but not for very long.

159. Lunar 2: Eternal Blue (PS1)

"charming" is the word I'd use to describe this game. It's not really all that good - the characters and story are pretty bad (I've heard people say they like Ghaleon simply because he's trying to kill all the bad characters in this game), the graphics are fairly terrible.. and yet, it keeps you interested and it's somehow fun. That's more than I can say for the Silver Star Story, which I couldn't stomach for more than 30 minutes.

This would actually be a lot higher, but I tried playing it recently and it took me six plays in order to reach an hour of playtime before I moved on to something else. It just doesn't hook me like it used to.. this is true of a lot of PS1 RPGs for me.

158. Odin Sphere (PS2)

arrrggghh. So much potential - the 2d style is fantastic and it feels like a fairy tale. The loading times are so ridiculous that it takes you a while to even realize it's loading -- it's that long -- and the game seems fairly unforgiving with a very small margin of error, which is made worse by the fact that your attacks have a tiny bit of lag to them. I love modern-day 2d games and this has its charm, but the technical aspects of the game made it oh-so-disappointing.

157. Milon's Secret Castle (NES)

Oh man, this game ate me alive as a kid. It still does -- when I was like 19 I dedicated an entire day to beating this bastard of a game, and I had such a feeling of accomplishment the rest of the night because of it. You wouldn't expect a game where you shoot bubbles and collect musical notes to be hard as hell, but trust me, it is. What a fun difficult game.

156. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (GBA)

Man, where to start. The game plays slower than FFT, which is annoying. The idea of laws is kinda nifty, but the implmentation is a disaster. Almost as much of a disaster as the story and the characters. And I didn't like the addition of different races at all. You really can go on and on railing against the failings this game has.

There's something to be said about a SRPG with a job system though. Why haven't there been more job systems? There's FFT, FFTA, Tactics Ogre and... that's pretty much it. Plus, I love me some optional missions. I poured 75 damn hours into this game. FFTA is a total timesink and if you don't let it frustrate you, you can actually have a lot of fun with it. Definitely never playing it again, though.

155. King's Quest 6 (PC)

I couldn't get into the KQ games before or after this one - the earlier ones were just too archaic for my tastes and the later ones completely lacked any kind of charm. I adored this game though, it was fairy tale-y and the puzzles, for the most part, were fun and enjoyable. That damn stairs puzzle can go to hell though. Unfortunately this game has aged awfully, with hideous graphics and slow gameplay. Such is the way of oldschool point and click games.

154. Zelda: Minish Cap (GBA)

I was pretty excited when I started playing Minish Cap because it looked and felt like LTTP. I never played the Oracle games, so my last 2d Zelda was over a decade ago and I was looking forward to this. Unfortunately, I spent the entire game lost. The word I'd use to describe Minish Cap is "convoluted", because I'd spend an hour wandering around aimlessly and the world was not very fun to explore. I'd miss obvious things in dungeons -- or maybe they were just designed poorly, I don't know -- and the big/small stuff was really not all that cool. Dark/Light world was much better. Also, this game is easy as hell and I'm not sure if you can actually die. Kind of a disappointment, but cool to see 2d Zelda get one last hurrah.

153. Final Fantasy 2 (lots at this point)

Call me sadistic - I enjoy this game. The NES version is bloody awful, a game I suffered through until giving up near the end. The Wonderswan/PS1 version is something I spent a lot of time with, though, and I came to really like it for how customizable the levelling system is. Sure, that means you're going to beating the hell out of yourself and other such nonsensical stuff, and that you're going to be saving a useless weapon for the last boss because he's nigh-impossible to beat otherwise, but for a while I would play through this every few months in different ways. I rather enjoy this thing, bad as it is.

152. Ms. Pac Man (Arcade)

This is one of those 5/10, 6/10 games that you can play at any time. There's nothing to say about it. It's unremarkable and oddly fun if you come across an arcade machine, even though you'd never play the exact same thing at home. Whatever, let's move on.

151. Trauma Center: Second Opinion (Wii)

This game is a lot of fun, but I'm awful at it. I basically need someone to watch me and tell me what to do, because I can't think on the fly and switch tools naturally. I have to look and stop for a couple of seconds, and if you do that you're freaking dead. Wii Remote stuff just wrecks me in general.

Which is too bad, because this is intense and fun. And unique.

150. Final Fantasy Mystic Quest (SNES)

Most pathetic game ever. The main character's shrugging animation is one of the most pathetic, hilarious things I've ever seen. It gets me every time. The last boss can be one-shotted, the whole game is pathetically easy and it's the ultimate insult that this game was called "Final Fantasy USA". But there's something about it that makes me want to play it on occasion, and I have fun doing so! whatever

149. Rygar (PS2)

Press buttons, everything around you dies. Simple formula! The "platforming" wasn't very good and the bosses were a little annoying, but there was a 3d Zelda-like trial of tons of enemies that I absolutely loved doing over and over. This probably wouldn't be so high had I played any other PS2 beat-em-up before this one.

148. Dragon Warrior 4 (NES)

I think this is the biggest NES game by far, the ROM is like three times the size of the next biggest one that I have. DW4 is an ambitious game behind one unique idea: five separate chapters, and you don't meet the main character until the fifth one. It's a cool idea and I always love the beginning of DW/DQ games, so it works out well.. but Taloon's quest is freaking stupid, and the fact that DW3 got a remake and DW4's never came out here really hurts it. I'm looking forward to DQ4 for the DS, assuming it is indeed coming out here. It's been confirmed and unconfirmed about five times now, it seems.

147. It's Mr. Pants (GBA)

whoa what the hell

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ueZvTkVcz3Q&feature=related

WHOA WHAT THE HELL

Sure, it's just a block puzzle game where you have to make squares given the limited number of pieces you're given -- not all that dissimilar to what Tetris DS's puzzle mode did, though much more indepth and better -- but MAN IT'S A RIDICULOUS LOOKING UNDERWEAR DUDE EVERYONE SHOULD PLAY THIS

146. Mega Man Maverick Hunter X (PSP)

I never played MMX when it came out -- for years, I thought it was Mega Man 10 and that I (and the rest of the gaming world) simply stopped paying attention to the countless rehashes of Mega Man -- so my first experience with this SNES classic was a month ago on the PSP. MMX has some cool things that never existed in the originals -- jumping on walls, some cool weapons, powerups besides just weapons, weapons that recharge when you die, probably some other stuff that I'm not thinking of -- but is also kind of a frustrating game. Enemies respawn the second they leave your sight, which is annoying as hell. Wall jumping is a cool idea, but if you're going to force people to use it, why bother? I also didn't like the platforming at all. Fighting things and killing bosses is fun, but the jumping was augh. Give me 2 and 3 over this game any day.

Then there's the flaws from the PSP version. Holy awful voice acting. Holy slowdown.

145. Advance Wars (GBA)

Really fun, and really addicting. I couldn't put this game down the first couple of days I was playing it. But after a while the game got too complex for me, I couldn't keep all the strengths and weaknesses straight, and battles were taking way too long to be fun anymore. I think I was playing it wrong, I'm not really sure. I wanted to give it another shot but never got around to it - I also want to try out the new one for the DS, but my DS kinda snapped so uhhh let's go DS price drop

144. Parasite Eve (PS1)

This game is really cool - setting, atmosphere, ridiculous use of biology to tell a survival horror/RPG story - but gets absolutely murdered by the movement speed. Aya Brea needs some freaking Nikes or something, because she runs so slow that I cannot bear to play this game again. And it drives me nuts, because it's pretty damn cool.

143. Amplitude (PS2)

It blows my mind how Guitar Hero is so ridiculously popular while Amplitude went almost completely unnoticed. Amplitude is basically the same thing, only you play with a PS2 controller and move left and right to choose which tracks to play. It's a pretty damn cool game, with a far better soundtrack than Guitar Hero, and a game that I wish I had invested more time into. I should try playing this again. It's gotta be the controller that makes Guitar Hero so popular, and I can see why - even I like it more because of it.

142. Kung Fu (NES)

Sylvia! (Why is every old beat-em-up's premise "girl gets kidnapped, heroic dude goes and beats up an entire gang, awww yeah you saved me lets do it"?) Forget Double Dragon - I'm pretty sure this is the first beat-em-up of note. Classic sound, classic enemies, classic gameplay - Kung Fu is only like 8 minutes long, but you can play it endlessly.

141. Ghouls 'n Ghosts (Genesis)

This was my favourite of the Ghosts & Goblins games. Ghouls 'n Ghosts didn't really change the formula much -- I think the only real change were a couple of weapons and the Golden Armour -- but I had a lot of fun struggling through this game one checkpoint at a time. I got pretty good at it back in the day, but haven't played it in a longass time. I should dig it up again.

140. Warioware: Smooth Moves (Wii)

It's strange -- I thought Twisted was too gimmicky to be fun, and that Touched just wasn't very fun. What happens when you take a gimmicky game and add it to the gimmicky controls of the Wii? Good stuff, that's what! It's like two negatives equalling a positive. Smooth Moves has you hold the Wii Remote all sorts of different ways, along with some weirdass voice acting and phrases defining each position. The Wii feels like it was designed with something like Warioware in mind, and this is one of its best games.

139. Dragon Warrior 7 (PS1)

What a disaster of a game. It's like three hours before you get into a battle. The graphics are absolutely awful - it looks like LTTP, but ten years later. This game spent five years in development and this is the best they can do? Dear god. DW7 is insanely long, with the first disc being something like 70 hours. The whole thing is just a mistake. And yet, I had fun playing this thing from start to end. Why? God only knows.

138. Lemmings (everything)

I have no idea what to say about Lemmings. It's fun, or was fun anyway. I thought it got a little too complex in the sequels, but this one was just right. Well, the beginning anyway.

I would really be interested in seeing Lemmings DS. I think they made a homebrew version actually, but I never got around to trying it. Seems like it'd be a blast.

137. Street Fighter 2 Super (Arcade)

Super added four new characters and tweaked the gameplay and special moves a bit, but took away the speed of Hyper Fighting. The result was a game that, while technically better, was not as fun to play.

136. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Arcade)

*very* memorable, just because it was such a multiplayer hit in the arcade in the early 90s. Everyone had their favourite guy in this game - mine was Donatello, I think, thanks to his range with the bo. It's also, like the movie, one of the most quotable games ever.

HELP MEEEEEEEEEE (do not resist us)

135. RC Pro Am (NES)

RC Pro Am is a repetitive racing game, but a lot of fun. The music is so memorable in this game. Weapons are fun, trying to get as many gold trophies as possible before the AI goes superhuman and crushes you is is also fun, and getting new cars is pretty cool too. The best NES racing game.

134. NBA Jam (Arcade)

*the* 90s sports game. Everyone liked this game, to the point where you can quote it in a room and people will instantly know what you're talking about. Too bad the arcade version was so damn expensive - maybe the first really expensive popular arcade game. The SNES/Genesis versions were superior just for this alone.

133. Pokemon Pearl (DS)

My first Pokemon game. Pokemon is an addicting game with a lot of battle depth (if you want to bother learning the whole thing), but lots of little things in this game annoy me until the game feels frustrating. For one, the game plays so slow, it feels like everything could be done a second faster. The encounter rate is annoying, and the story feels like it's getting in the way. I like games like this when there's no world to explore, and Pokemon's big world leaves me lost more often than not. I imagine this game gets to be a lot of fun when you get to "serious" battling, but I didn't like it enough to get to that level. I probably would have fallen in love with this thing if I played it when I was a kid, but alas.

132. Vandal Hearts II (PS1)

Speaking of ugly-as-hell games:

http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/screenshots/0/199180/vh2_screen006.jpg
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/screenshots/0/199180/vh2_screen004.jpg

what the hell is going on in that second picture

VH2 is a game I really, really enjoyed thanks to being able to outthink the game. I never fought a random battle in this, I just spent an inordinate amount of time in each battle manipulating the AI. VH2 is your standard PS1 SRPG except that both sides of the fight move at the same time. Battlefields are huge, and fights can take like two hours if you're super-careful like me. But it's a lot of fun, even if the story is bad and the characters are worse.

131. Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden, Chapter 1 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa (PC)

Gotta have the whole title. Barkley Gaiden is actually not as funny as you'd expect it to be -- it has its moments, but it's not laugh out loud funny very often. The highlight of the game, and this is weird to say because it's a freaking RPGMaker game, is the level design and battle system. The game plays like SMRPG and each character is completely unique. It's only 4-5 hours long, but really, you wouldn't want this to be a 20 hour RPG.

130. Tennis (Atari 2600)

2d pong! That's basically what this is. You run around, move into the ball and hit it automatically, and points go on forever. Lots of fun with friends, and the computer is actually fun to play against too. Normal pong is boring as hell, but this is one of my favourite games from way back when.

129. Secret of Evermore (SNES)

Weird game. Square USA makes a game that's something like Secret of Mana, is quirky like Star Tropics, and isn't really similar to either. The main character has an obsession with B movies. Cecil from FF4 makes the greatest cameo not involving Miles Edgeworth. SOE is weird but pretty enjoyable until the last dungeon, where it just gets frustrating and annoying.

128. Blockade (PC)

Only like 20 people in the world have any idea what this is. It's a simple freeware game that's essentially a six-player game of the light cycles from Tron. I played this to death as a kid and can still play it today. Too bad it's so damned easy.

(Speaking of which, I liked the Tron arcade game. Haven't played it in like 15 years though, and I get the feeling it's better kept in the past.)

127. Bastard Tetris (PC)

Bastet will humble you. Bastard Tetris is an algorithm that's programmed to give you the worst possible Tetris piece. I figured it would slow me down, but not to the point where five lines is a decent game. Bastet is pure frustration, and it's addicting as hell. KH and I had a great bastet competition for a while - I got 9, he got 10, he got 11, I got 15. Then he got 19 and blew me out of the water. It's fun as hell to try and outthink said algorithm - and in the process, the greatest irony hits you: bastet is more of a puzzle game than the action/puzzle hybrid that it's based on.

126. New Super Mario Bros. (DS)

What a stupid name. I can't wait to talk about this in ten years. And I can't wait until the inevitable New Super Mario Bros. 2 for the DS2 that will be announced at E3.

NSMB could have been amazing if they had gone with the SMB3/World model instead of Mario 1. Why would you not have a flying ability a la raccoon/cape? On top of that, the powerups in this are awful, with the shell being the only powerup that I go out of my way to avoid. Just a terrible set of powerups. The wall jumping and stuff was cool, and I liked the level design towards the end a bunch, but damn, this could have been so much more. Certain Mario games are timeless for me because I can replay them endlessly - I never got an urge to play this after beating it at a friend's house in a day.

125. Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits (PS2)

"Hilarious" is the only word I can think of to describe this game. It's packed full of unintentional comedy, to the point where I couldn't put it down. The voice acting is so bad, it's good. The characters are so idiotic that you have to love them. And it has the best character of all time, Bebedora.

http://www.flyingomelette.com/arc4/arc4bebedora.html

What a ridiculous game. It's stupidly fun though, excepting the ridiculous last boss, one that I got obliterated by and never even turned the game on again. Arc the Lad really needs to work on these super duper ridiculous last bosses, man.

124. Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)

I recognize this game as the ultimate 2d platformer with its great themed worlds, awesome powerups (aww yeah hammer bros suit), and a few exceptional levels, but for some reason I just don't enjoy it. I think I played it out as a kid. I played this game to death and now I just never have any interest in playing it. It is, in a word, boring. Not sure why.

So instead of talking about how amazing this game is, I'll tell a story: when I was 15 or so, my friend and I were playing Mario 3 withour warping. We got to level 5, the level before the Kuribo's Shoe level. It was my turn and I wanted to do it, so I "accidentally" died. My friend did the same thing, so I died again. He said, "I see what you're doing here, and I'm not letting you play the shoe level." He challenged me in the Mario Bros. vs. mode and I died at warp speed so he would have to play again, then he did it again and I died too fast for him again. Then he ran off the level at full speed. I said, "You know, I have more guys than you."

My friend pulled the game out of the system, told me to go screw myself and threw the game. We never played Mario 3 again.

God bless The Shoe.

123. God of War: Chains of Olympus (PSP)

Kind of a joke of a game - five hours long, two and a half bosses, control has issues due to the lack of analog sticks, really easy until the last boss which is frustratingly annoying, etc. But for a handheld game, it's got console-level production values - it looks and feels just like a regular God of War game. Too bad there's only half a game there when all is said and done.

122. Double Dragon 2 (NES)

The Cyclone Kick. The Knee. These two hard-to-pull-off moves -- I'm still not exactly sure how to do the knee without a turbo controller -- added a fun factor that the original Double Dragon lacked. DD2's is just a lot more fun, and this is probably the best beat-em-up game on the NES.

121. Arc the Lad 2 (PS1)

I had a ball with this game. I probably dropped 50 hours on this game, a continuation of the way-too-short original where you meet up with the same characters aways in and, amazingly, they keep their same levels. (You can -- and will -- go over level 99 in this game, too. Pretty cool.) An optional mission system and the ability to recruit monsters made for a complete game where there's a lot to do. Like Twilight of the Spirits, this game has a ludicrously overpowered last boss -- the second to last boss has like 800 HP and the last one has 9999, what what -- but I was actually able to beat this one after a few tries. That was one of the more satisfying victories I've had in an RPG, and satisfying is probably the word I'd use to describe this obscure SRPG.

120. Tales of the Abyss (PS2)

I have a lot of bad to say about this game, so I'll start with the good: like other Tales games, this game is all about the battle system. Free Run or whatever makes it better than Symphonia battle-wise, and really, that's the entire reason you want to play a Tales game. I've always preferred the 2d Tales battle systems, but this is the best 3d one and I don't think you can really argue that.

Now then.

Bad load times? check. Bad characters? check, though this has always been true in Tales games. In fact, it's so bad that people think Jade Curtiss is a good character because he sits there making fun of all the characters for the entire game. Yikes. To make things worse, Abyss thinks it has a good story - it's a major focus of the game, along with a neverending supply of meaningless jargon that seems more suited for a game like Xenosaga than something like Tales. On top of that, there's the big complaint: town-hopping, where you run from town to town trigger pointing for hours at a time instead of getting to actually play the game. It reuses locations, it's way too long and drags, and I just find it a lot easier to make fun of this game because all the miscellaneous crap take away from the fun battle system, which is the whole reason I like playing Tales games.

119. Mortal Kombat 3 (Arcade)

A pretty drastic change from the wildly successful MK2. Sub-Zero without a mask? Completely different gameplay? Dropping many of the popular characters (what's up Kitana) from MK2?

The main change in MK3 is the whole "dial-a-combo" thing, where every character has one powerful combo if you can land it. This leads to characters with immobilizing attacks like Sub's freeze or Cyrax's net to be overpowered. But MK was never really about balance or about pure fighting, it's more about mindless violence and entertainment, and MK3 pretty much delivered on that front despite the weird dial-a-combos.

118. Castlevania 3 (NES)

Loved this game. It's tough, but it's fun and satisfying when you finally pass a level. The addition of different characters was pretty cool, though switching between them took entirely too long. Too bad that magician dude was pretty much useless. Well, actually, maybe s/he wasn't, they just didn't have the ability to get to hard-to-reach areas like Grant and Alucard, so I never used them. Anyway, C3 was pretty much the pinnacle of the level-based Castlevanias. I could never get into C4.

117. Ninja Gaiden Trilogy (NES)

I'll be honest: I sometimes have a hard time telling these games apart. NG2 gave you the ability to climb walls instead of having to make tricky walljumps, but beyond that, you could relabel the games and I probably wouldn't notice. So I just group them together. When I feel like suffering, I just throw a random NG game on.

Ninja Gaiden is known for two things, its awesome-at-the-time cinematic cutscenes between acts and its brutally unforgiving difficulty. The latter is what most people know it for - Ninja Gaiden combines annoying enemies with absolutely cruel timing -- like throwing enemies at you right in the middle of a jump, making you fall to your death unless you know it's coming -- and an annoying bit where, if you backtrack, the enemies will reappear on the screen infinitely. You can't step back and deal with them - instead, you have to just suffer and keep moving. Ninja Gaiden is a fun game that will wear on you until you either inevitable give up or decide you're going to suffer the whole way through. I usually do the former.

116. Tales of Legendia (PS2)

oh man, gon' have to defend this one

I fully accept that this game is terrible. This is one of those games that you show youtube videos and laugh about. This is one of those games you describe in detail to try and explain just how bad it is. It's terrible - the characters are so miserable, the only interaction for ~30 hours is just all of them making fun of each other, the voice acting is HIDEOUS, the battle system is a step back from Symphonia...

But, for some reason, I find a silver lining in this game. Most recent Tales games have a game-breaking flaw - Abyss with its town-hopping and overabundance of story, Symphonia with its incredibly bad dungeons - but Legendia doesn't pull any of that on you. The story is awful, but Tales games always have awful story so it doesn't bother me too much that it's even worse than usual. A lot of people complain about Legendia's battle system as a step back, but I prefer the 2d battle systems. I guess when Symphonia is your first Tales game you come to expect the 3d thing, but I bought this game simply because I had heard it was a throwback to older games. And there's a section of the game about 15-20 hours in where there's a cool atmosphere going on with lots of fun battles and dungeons. I enjoyed that part a lot. Legendia certainly isn't the best game around, but not the worst either.

115. Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (PS2)

Dungeon crawling, a crazy high encounter rate, unforgiving difficulty -- yeah, Nocturne is pretty old-school. It's like playing a dark Dragon Quest game in 3d. Nocturne's gameplay is fast and addicting, and the whole monster catching/creating thing is a lot of fun, even if it is a bit too complex at times. That brutal encounter rate and unforgiving difficulty -- seriously, why make it game over if your main dude dies and then give enemies loads of instant death attacks? -- stops me from really loving it though. I'm cool with difficulty as long as it doesn't annoy me. Nocturne's is fun 80% of the time, but then that 20% is like arghhhhh

and seriously what the hell is up with that Dante cameo I mean what

114. Super Mario Bros. 2 (NES)

I love a lot of things about this game. I love the different characters -- Toad > Luigi > Princess > Mario, by the way -- that give the game several different ways to tackle levels. I like the little coin slot machine thing. I like most of the bosses, a lot more than the other boring Mario bosses anyway. I like the hidden mushrooms and such. It's just a damn fun game.

113. Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan (DS)

I've never played Elite Beat Agents, so OUUUUUUENNNNNDANNNNNN will have to do. Ouendan is a damn fun game that's completely zany and over the top and ridiculous. The dumb scenes are stupidly entertaining, and the gameplay itself is addicting. The only problem I have with this game is that it hurts my hands if I play it too long -- and "too long" for me is like 20 minutes sometimes. Spinners kill my hands in particular. Screw them. I think being left-handed magnifies this problem (along with my hand getting in the way), but I may just be searching for an excuse, not being right-handed and all.

112. Final Fantasy 12 (PS2)

hmm.. where to start.

I find FF12 addicting. I love chaining things, it brings me back to my old days of grinding in old RPGs and the rewards are pretty damn cool. I can play this game for hours at a time just wandering around killing things - it's so mindless, but yet I find it kinda entertaining. Gambits are a damn cool idea, and I wish more (better) games had them. Being able to completely control AI is cool as hell. I wish you could control what HP characters heal at in other games -- SMT games, Tales games, etc.

The downside to FF12 is pretty much everything else. Characters are so boring outside of Balthier, who feels like he's written to steal the show at the expense of everyone else in the game. The plot feels like it's huge and important, but nothing ever really happens and I can't really remember a single scene. Areas in this game are HUGE, which is sorta cool, but dungeons are endless, huge open spaces that are tedious to traverse. Then there's the battle system, which is, for the most part, boring. I can't explain why FF12 feels boring when you're just navigating menus in other turn-based RPGs, but it is. Oh god, it is. It's made even worse by the fact that I like to chain, which put me about 15 levels above the game unintentionally. That made the battle system nothing more than setting up gambits, walking up to something and waiting for it to die, repeat ad nauseam. It's strangely addicting in the way that MMOs are addicting, but... yeah. Lotta complaints about this game.

111. Metroid Prime (Gamecube)

Metroid Prime is amazing. I think it's the most atmospheric game I've ever played - there's a feeling of isolation that you can just feel every time you play. I find it absolutely amazing for that reason. The music is great, the exploration is great, it's all just so immersive.

I'm also terrible at it. I have some perception issues that really screw with me -- it carries over to real life -- and Metroid Prime reminds me every time I play it. I am incredibly disoriented every time I play it. I think I failed the opening escape about four times, and that was just the start of it. I generally need someone to watch me and tell me where to go because I just get so lost in a first person game. I can barely handle it, but then when they throw different visors at you I am screwed. I don't think I've even been halfway through this game, but I always enjoy going back and playing the first half until it gets to be too much for me. I really love this game despite being so intensely bad at it.

110. Final Fantasy 5 (SNES)

In some ways, I really like this game. Job system is cool, of course. It's kind of a throwback to the NES days with having just four characters, characters that are pretty depthless and known more for what skills they've learned than their personalities. I really like the beginning of this game, the first "world" or so because there's lots to learn and it's just a fun time. I throw this on every three or so years even though I don't consider it one of my favourite games, because it's just something you can pick up and play.

My main problem with it is that it's so slow. Battles seem tedious and more importantly, you level skills so damn slowly. There's also not a lot of classes worth using, or so it seems to a relative amateur like me. There's a certain point where I just run out of things to learn unless I want to sit in a class for hours to learn the last skill, and that's just boring. I also tend to get lost halfway through the second world and just lose interest because the slow levelling / battle system isn't keeping me hooked.

109. Bionic Commando (NES)

Oh man, when I saw that "god damn" at the end of Bionic Commando as a kid, I freaked out. I had never seen something like that before! I called my brother and showed him, and we both reacted as if we found our dad's porn stash or something. Good times.

Bionic Commando's bionic arm is so much damn fun to play with. I used to be a machine with that thing, flying all around levels at warp speed. The beginning can be a little tough since you'll die in one hit, but once you get some life this game is a pretty simple, fun game. I cannot *wait* for Rearmed, which is out next week if it doesn't get delayed. That game looks absolutely amazing.

108. Marble Blast Ultra (XBLA)

Marble Madness in 3d! There's something like 60 levels, a jump button and a boost button, along with all sorts of usable items like helicopters or super jumps. Pretty damn fun game, though it gets freaking stupid later on. It's a fun game to play when the levels are simple and fast; when they get ridiculously convoluted and painful, it's more of a test of survival than anything, and who the hell wants to play a marble madness platformer i mean seriously

107. Minesweeper (PC)

oh god i love this game

http://transience.paragonsigma.com/screens/550.jpg

I was gonna do 600, but I got distracted. The worst thing about switching to laptops is that I no longer use a mouse, and Minesweeper is stupid with a touchpad. So I never play this addicting as hell game anymore.

106. Super Dodge Ball (NES)

So much fun. Sam is the best character ever. Why the hell is this game so damn rare? It's the only NES game I don't own that I want. I'd love to see a multiplayer, XBLA-esque game like this. Too bad they'd add super moves and all sorts of other crap. I love playing through this and crushing USSR. Suck it, Boris!

105. M.U.L.E. (NES)

This game freaks people out. What the hell is it? It looks so freaking weird to the uninitiated - but it's actually not that strange, it's just got a freaky style to it that messes people up at first. MULE is nothing more than a simple little stock market game, where you buy low and sell high. It's fun as hell, has a freaking awesome little chiptune theme and is something my old roommate and I used to play all the damn time before we broke up. We were hardcore about this stupid game. It's apparently influential and all that - the first "tycoon" game - but who the hell cares about tycoon games I mean really

104. Galaga (Arcade)

Anytime I see a Galaga machine, I *have* to play it. I'm not the greatest at it, but I can go for a while on one quarter, often to my friends' frustration as they sit there waiting for me to lose, or as I end up late for whatever movie I came to see, or as other people sit there wondering how long I'm going to take before they can play. What a fun game that I would never play consciously, but if I passed by it on the street I would absolutely drop a quarter in.

103. Golden Axe (Genesis)

My favourite beat-em-up (I think - never really thought about it). Yeah, the dwarf dude is totally overpowered, but who cares? I have a ball playing this, and I loved "The Duel", the optional mode that served as a sort of boss rush. This is probably the only Genesis game that I genuinely miss playing (not that I've played a whole lot). I think it's on the VC, I should grab that sometime.

102. Disgaea: Hour of Darkness (PS2)

For its time, Disgaea was amazing. Huge numbers! Combo attacks! Throwing! Awesome maps for levelling! Lots of things exploding at once! Disgaea does a ton of things that make you say "whoa, that's awesome." It also does a bunch of things that make you cringe - and I'm not just talking about the story, which is disasterrific, but rather how obsessively grind-y the game is. There's not a lot of strategy to Disgaea 1, and there's a lot of things to complain about gameplay-wise. Back attacks don't work like they should, healers have a hell of a time levelling since you need to kill in order to get any kind of exp, and probably some other things that I don't recall offhand. It's kinda been rendered obsolete by Disgaea 2's far superior gameplay, but the original does have a lot more charm to it. Even if it does have nin nin nin ima ninja!!! nin nin nin XD

kill it

101. Big Brain Academy (DS)

Educational? Sure, I guess, but I get a kick out of these minigames. I like seeing how fast I can add for whatever reason. I like seeing how good I am at recognizing silhouettes of random things. I like that weird scale minigame. I like trying to set high scores and then try to get a huge brain score (which is more luck than skill, since some games are harder than others, but whatever). I don't really feel smarter while playing this thing, I just like the games. They're fun.

100. Vagrant Story (PS1)

Vagrant Story's presentation and style are unmatched on the PS1. Best opening ever? Probably not, but for its time it absolutely was. Vagrant Story's cinematics are top-notch, and something that I wish Square did more of on consoles today. If they would, y'know, actually make new games.

The downside to Vagrant Story - and it's a huge one - is the damn gameplay and weapons system. The whole turn-based attack system slows battles to a crawl. The idea of your risk going up makes it worse - that whole system should never have existed. And the weapons system is something I still don't understand. I made an awesome weapon by accident and stuck with it for the end of the game. I loved that thing. VS is a game I like playing on new game plus because I don't have to deal with that whole weapons system. If it was more traditional in that sense, I would have probably loved this game - as it is, it's a huge burden to a game that has so many huge positives.

and whoever created the snowfly forest will be the first one against the wall when the revolution comes

99 - Return to Zork (PC)

I'm not sure if there's another game that makes me more nostalgic than this one. This is the first point-and-click game with voice acting that I played, and it's quite entertaining and memorable. The characters are so over-acted and ridiculous, and it's got that quirky Zork charm that I really adore.

Of course, like most point-and-click games, this thing has aged horribly. The graphics are freaking laughable now. The game plays so god damn slow and it's so unresponsive. It's so easy to get an unsolvable game, making you start over. I still love this thing regardless though.

98 - Ms. Pac Man's Maze Madness (PS1)

This might be my pick for most underrated game. It's fun and simple, and plays kind of like Mario 64 with there being several different goals for each level - finishing it, getting all the fruits, a time trial, and getting all the pellets. The downside is that it's incredibly easy -- you should have died if you got hit a la oldschool Pac-Man instead of having a life meter -- but it still manages to be fun despite that pitiful difficulty.

97 - Tales of Symphonia (Gamecube)

Symphonia has a charm to it that makes it more endearing than other Tales games. I'm not really sure why, but I adored the beginning and loved just wandering around and fighting stuff. Lots of fun. The story is better than most Tales games, too -- not that that's saying a whole lot, but at least it isn't completely embarrassing like Legendia. And I like Presea for whatever reason.

Unfortunately, this game has the single worst set of dungeons I've ever seen. I will never forgive them for what they did to the Sorceror's Ring. Every dungeon is worse than the one before it. I got to a dungeon where you're being shot across the level via flowers (or something like that) and got so annoyed that I stopped playing it for a week. I went back to it and FAQ'd my way through every dungeon, but I can't see how anyone can claim this game is amazing when it's got dungeons that are just that bad.

96. Katamari Damacy (PS2)

Absolutely the most memorable of the Katamaris - who can forget hearing the "na naaaaaaaaa" for the first time? - and the music is by far the best of the series. In fact, I wish the later games would have used the original music, because a lot of the music is irritating. The levels were more memorable as well. I can remember struggling with Make a Star 4 for a good while - something I've never done in any other Katamari - and things like BA NA NA were a lot more memorable. Katamari 1 has a lot of charm going for it, probably because it came first.

But man, after playing Katamari 2 and 3, this game is unplayable. The physics are bad. The control is bad. You never noticed it when you originally played it, but the sequels just own the hell out of this game. I wish you could take the charm and music of this one and port it into the sequels, because it would be a fantastic game.

95. God of War (PS2)

Another "good for its time, but completely outclassed by its sequel" game. God of War lacked the epic scale of the sequel, and it had some truly annoying puzzles. There was this one rotating spike wall you had to climb that I absolutely hated, and the fact that it lacked boss fights didn't help. Of course, GOW1 still has the amazing presentation and fairly entertaining storyline and that makes it worth playing, even if 2 crushes it.

94. Super C (NES)

This is just a fun game that I play with friends. It's not as "classic" as the original or as refined as Contra 4, but the fact that it's the one I play multiplayer gives it bonus points. The only real problem I have with it is that there's a level where enemies swarm around you, and that just doesn't fly when there's a second person on the screen.

93. Hotel Dusk: Room 215 (DS)

Very stylish and immersive point-and-click game. Hotel Dusk is an attractive game with a neat storyline and a couple of really good characters, and is ideal for those who want a "serious" point-and-click game as opposed to the sometimes-serious-sometimes-childish Phoenix Wright.

Hotel Dusk has a bunch of issues though - awful trigger pointing at a couple of spots, some particularly bland writing while exploring, and gameplay that makes Phoenix Wright seem like Devil May Cry. The storyline makes up for the flaws, but it's not worth much on a replay.

92. Dragon Warrior (NES)

So, so, so outdated. Gameplay and movement are both really slow. That damn 'stairs' option -- augh! And that's nothing compared to the grinding involved, which makes the original Final Fantasy look like Super Mario RPG. I'm not sure if I've played a game that's grindier than the original DW.

And every few years, I pull it out, play it and can't stop. It's so damn addicting... somehow. The world is one of the more memorable in an RPG, since I spent so much time with it when I was like 8. I would never expect someone today to enjoy this, but most people 25 and over relate to this game.

91. Audiosurf (PC)

Audiosurf isn't the greatest rhythm game. It's definitely a lower class game that isn't really all that "fun", but it does one thing that owns every other rhythm game - letting you pick songs from your own library and creating note charts for them. I'm pretty huge on music and have probably 15,000 songs on my computer, many of them completely outrageous, undancable and pushing 500 bpm, and it makes this game a damn lot of fun. DDR has some awful music and I think Guitar Hero is even worse, so Audiosurf hits the spot. Sometimes when I want to listen to music I just throw it into Audiosurf and have fun.

90. Mario and Luigi (GBA)

The first time I played this, I loved it and thought it was better than SMRPG. For some reason though, I've never had any desire to replay it, and because of that I've kinda forgotten it. The main thing that sticks in my head was the "Zelda-like" puzzles, and the switching between characters to solve simple puzzles. Add in some stupid humour and a battle system that lets you dodge every single attack if you've got good timing, and you've got a cute, fun little RPG.

89. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PS1)

SOTN has a little something to it than the other Castlevanias lack. There's an atmosphere to it that makes it a bit more haunting and "fun", and the soundtrack is easily the best of the Castlevanias.

What SOTN has in atmosphere, it lacks in gameplay. Alucard moves so damn slow and I am forever lost in the huge, convoluted castle. The GBA/DS games really took the SOTN formula to the next level, and while the atmosphere of this game keeps bringing me back to it every few years, it's definitely not on par with the later games.

88. Rampart (SNES amongst others)

What a cool multiplayer game. There's like 10 seconds of shooting each other with cannons, followed by 30 seconds of Tetris-building to fix up your walls and acquire new castles. This repeats until someone fails to completely surround a castle. Rampart is awesome fun with someone that's good at Tetris, and is fairly boring otherwise. The multiplayer aspect is great though.

87. Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney (DS)

Man, this started off so good. Case 1 is intriguing and mysterious, and I like New Phoenix a lot. He's fascinating, if only because of the drastic personality shift. Case 1 might be a top 5 PW case for me.

From there, it's all downhill. Case 2's kinda fun because it's silly and light-hearted while not being totally lame, but Case 3 is the only case that in the AA series that I legitimately wanted to end. And you can insult aspects of Case 4 for hours, even if it's enjoyable because of the storyline. The prosecutor in this game is a joke, Apollo is kind of an afterthought since the spotlight is directed on Phoenix and Phoenix alone, perceiving is utter crap, the writing is weak at times, the detective goes from the awesome Dick Gumshoe to the walking, talking tutorial in Ema Skye... there's so much to be disappointed in here, and the biggest one of all is that you have to wonder where the series goes from here. It kind of suicided three games of fantastic continuity to make a weird game about Phoenix's backstory while not establishing any new, likable characters. All the new big characters were cheap, carbon copies of previous mainstays that felt like ripoffs.

And yet, it's an Ace Attorney game. I love this series to death. Even when it fails, I find it captivating and amazing to watch. And again, I loved New Phoenix, so it wasn't a complete failure. Just.. disappointing.

86. F-Zero (SNES)

Lots of fun to be had in this game. F-Zero's got cool music, fun gameplay and is fairly speedy for SNES standards. (Of course, the standard I compare it to is Mario Kart, which is slow as hell.) The downside to this game, and what makes it inferior to SMK, is that there's no two-player mode. If they added that, this game could have been amazing. Instead you just compete against yourself, and that's just not as fun. Master class is a fun challenge though.

85. Mortal Kombat 2 (Arcade)

I may have been better at this game than any other. Back when I was like 13 or 14, people that frequented my arcade actually knew me as "the kid who kicked everyone's ass at MK2". The best Mortal Kombat game came out at the height of arcades -- at least, when fighting games were at their most popular -- and I spent countless amounts of money and time getting good at this game. It doesn't hold up very well today, but this game was damn fun.

84. Track and Field (NES)

The ultimate button mashing game. Screw the Power Pad - just smashing buttons is something I love to do, and nothing proves your skillz like the 100 yard dash. I had a friend who was a button mashing god and we used to compete using this game, but he's long since gone and no one else gets into this thing like I do, so yeah.

83. Dragon Quest 8 (PS2)

Man, I have no idea what to think of this game. The beginning is one of the most enjoyable, charming oldschool RPGs around. The monster designs are the best in any game; the music and sound effects are the same classic, nostalgic DW goodness; the battle system is the same simple-yet-still-enjoyable that DW has employed for years. This game is, for the first 20-25 hours, addicting and amazing.

The problem with this game is that it's huge -- the world map is massive and lush, which I think most people love, but I'm always lost and never know where to go. I always feel like I'm wandering around aimlessly with no real direction, and if there was one game that I would buy a strategy guide for, it's this one. I ended up being so lost that I just gave up about 45 hours in, and I was probably only halfway through it. I plan on going back to it when I run out of new games to play, and I'm kinda embarrassed that I played all the way through DW7 while not finishing this game, one of the most impressive RPGs on the PS2.

82. Mario Bros. (Atari/NES/Arcade)

Funniest game ever. This idiotic little game has the worst control ever, and playing it multiplayer cracks me up. A friend and I bust this oldschool gem out and Stupid Things happen. I can't really defend putting this in my top 100 games because it's kind of impossible to explain how funny this game is. The control messes with you hard, and when you try to dodge enemies while dealing with it it's like "whoa! whoa! whoaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

so awesome

81. Final Fantasy X-2 (PS2)

Hoo boy. I am more conflicted about this game than any other.

What the hell is this thing? The opening is a Charlie's Angels meets American Idol meets nuclear bomb, and it gets worse and worse. The plot is not only disasterrific, it completely wrecks FFX's cool atmosphere and continuity. The characters in this are terrible, with the only chance at decency being a comic relief character that isn't lame as hell. Leblanc is probably the worst character I've ever seen, from that painful character design to that awful voice to that awful character to that disgustingly annoying theme to that absolutely dumb massage minigame. The missions are a collection of minigames that could not possibly be perceived as fun. Commspheres? ugh. Pairing monkeys? Go to hell. There are so many cringe-worthy moments scattered throughout this disc that I feel like breaking the disc would be cathartic.

But I love the gameplay. It's fast and fun. The job system -- excluding garment grids and dresspheres ugh -- is probably my favourite in RPGs. The 100 floor dungeon is great. I love Sphere Break. I played this damn game more than just about any other, dropping about 120 hours over a bunch of replays while getting pretty much everything in the game outside of random story scenes that no one wants to see. A lot of those were frustration because I messed up one tiny thing in order to get a mission complete and had to play again, but still, I *did* enjoy myself playing this thing.

And once I stopped playing it and came back to it a year later, all the desensitization and immunity I had built up to the awful story went away, and I was in absolute pain watching the scenes again. God, this game could have been so good without the girl power and singing and, well, pretty much all of it. Yeah, I guess not even Bin Laden could have saved this one.

80. Lode Runner (lots)

My first game, and while the original is old and unforgiving without the ability to save, recent versions have done a great job of taking the original action/puzzle hybrid and making it more playable today. The DS version was a lot of fun with its dual screen capabilities, and Lode Runner is quite an addicting game if you get into it. Of course, the Greatest Remake of All Time improved Lode Runner by so much that this game will always feel inferior, so it's merely a fun distraction as opposed to a top-tier game.

79. Super Smash Bros. Melee (Gamecube)

Pretty damn fun. I loved this game for the first 10-15 hours, then got bored of it and only played it sparingly until Brawl came out, which completely rendered it obsolete. Melee is an impressive game but I always felt like it was a pain to play half the characters unless you wanted to sit there and learn the wonky physics for each character, and who the heck wants to do that? The result was that I pretty much just played Samus and not anyone else. The only place where Melee tops Brawl was the Event Mode, but who the hell plays Smash for single-player modes?

(Yes, I'm aware that a lot of you obsess over this stuff and worry about collecting all the dumb trophies. I have no words, yet I must scream.)

78. Guitar Hero 2 (PS2)

The popularity of this game astounds me. I can't believe how it's blown up this big when other rhythm games are uber-obscure (or even looked down) -- I guess it's the crappy classic rock soundtrack that people relate to. I don't like GH's music, but I have to admit that sitting there playing with that fakeass guitar is strangely fun. Jumping around like an idiot and getting into the game is something unique to games, and GH immerses you like that.

I beat medium without a problem, but hard both goes faster and adds an extra button, and there's just no way to ease your way in. I was going to work at being able to pass more than a couple songs on hard, but my best friend sold it and I just don't care to drop $90 on a rhythm game when I could play the superior DDR.

77. The Guardian Legend (NES)

Part vertical shooter, part top-down adventure game. The vertical shooter part is fun as hell, with loads of different special weapons, lots of speed and a ton of action. The top-down action part is decent enough to keep you playing. Guardian Legend is completely unique and the levels are forgettable enough that replaying it is like a new experience each time.

76. Chrono Cross (PS1)

Back in 1999/2000, this game was absolutely gorgeous. It's so water-y and vibrant, and the style is unmistakable. The scenes are cool, the atmosphere is top notch, and while it's not as gorgeous as it was ten years ago, it's still pretty damn nice for a PS1 game. Oh, and the soundtrack of course. It's a bit overrated, but Mitsuda puts together his last great work here, assuming you don't count his contributions to the Shadow Hearts series anyway. The style and the sound mix together for a really gorgeous experience.

The gameplay holds the game back though. Battles are slow, element system bites, experience system makes battles useless, and the worst part is how absolutely repetitive boss fights are. It's just not a good system. New Game Plus speeds battles up considerably with the fast forward option, but nerfs the difficulty of the game hard. I always try to replay this thing and always give up due to how slow the game plays. Which sucks, because I really enjoy everything else about it.

75. Jeanne d'Arc (PSP)

Level 5 knows how to do gameplay. Jeanne d'Arc adds some damn cool transformations, the Magic Pot from DQ8 and a lack of necessary grinding to the tried-and-true grid-based SRPG to create a really fun game. As good as Level 5 is with gameplay though, they're awful with characters, and the characters in this game are FFX-2 tier. Ignoring that though, this is the only SRPG not named Disgaea to hook me over the past five years.

74. Shadow of the Colossus (PS2)

The feeling that this game exudes is amazing. It's so lonely and desperate and silent, and the result is a game that's captivating to watch and play. The gameplay is nothing more than follow the sword, find the Big Thing, grab onto the hair, swing where shiny, repeat, but that's fine by me - this game makes you feel excited when you get to a colossus, accomplished when you hurt the colossus, sad when you watch it die, and determined when you watch the main character suffer afterwards, followed by doing it all over again. It's a feeling that sticks with you, and one that makes this game an amazing, memorable one.

Now if only it didn't take 10-15 minutes to get a colossus, I could put this game up in my top 50, top 25 even. But I absolutely hate going from one colossus to another, and the scenery and empty feeling the game exudes isn't enough to make up for the boring trip across the landscape.

73. Dr. Mario (NES)

The only so-called Tetris clone to actually stand out for me. Dr. Mario is lots of fun multiplayer and the music is so damn catchy. This is loads of fun if you have someone of equal skill level to play against. I had a friend who was absolutely ridiculous at Dr. Mario. I loved getting my ass beat by him.

72. Xenosaga 1 (PS2)

My single most anticipated game of all time, Xenosaga was absolutely amazing for its massive world and ambitious direction. It starts slow as hell (which I think turns a lot of people off), but once it gets going there's nothing like it. It feels like this massive saga that's going to span 500 hours and twist a dozen times per game.

And then, it just kinda lets you down. The gameplay holds this thing back, and the difficulty is frustrating (though not particularly difficult, just annoying). The battle system is really slow and you don't get "all" attacks until near the end of the game. By the time you can reliably get through randoms, you're watching the plot twist ending. When you go back to this game, it kind of hits you that nothing actually happens - it feels cool and massive, but there's just not a lot of substance there. It's amazing for setting up the Xenosaga world, but as an actual game it comes up a bit short.

71. Tecmo Bowl (NES)

Yum, simple NES sports games. Four plays, two buttons, 90 second quarters, endless fun. I think I prefer Tecmo Super Bowl, but I haven't played in a dozen or more years and I always go back to this one since I own it. I can crush anybody alive with Chicago and once won a bet that I could shut out a friend. Love this game, though it gets old if you play it too much (which I have).

70. Xenosaga 2 (PS2)

The black sheep of the series - it's short, the gameplay is, in a word, convoluted, and the character designs and voices are much different, screwing with people. I can see why people wouldn't like this game.

The gameplay is actually really good, though. The enemies have WAY too much HP, but the actual combat system is fantastic and one of the deepest in RPGs. Fighting bosses is a lot of fun. Like Xenosaga 1 it has some frustrating difficulty, especially with those ES crafts, and the encounters later on in the game are flat out annoying, but when you can kill enemies within a minute it's a blast. The storyline is also better than the original - give me the URTVs over Shion/KOS-MOS any day. Albedo shines in this game and the ending is among my favourites in all of videogames. Xenosaga 2 certainly has some flaws, but it's not any worse than Xenosaga 1 in that regard.

69. Contra (NES)

10 minutes of pure fun. Contra has simple, fun weapons, simple, fun bosses, simple and fun levels. I used to have a thing for trying to beat this with one guy, and I'd always die stupidly on the fifth or seventh level. I used to do it all the time without continuing though. This game is not nearly as hard as some make it out to be. The first four levels are pretty straightforward, and then it's just the weird chancy things that kill me.

My one problem with this game is a really hilarious and stupid one - I always play NES games on my GBA, and I played so much GBA Metroid on that thing that I instinctively aim diagonally with L and R, which obviously doesn't work in Contra. :) So I die, and start over, and die again, and go do something else.

68. Mario: Lost Levels (NES/SNES)

I have a thing for 2d platformers that torture you, and Lost Levels is the definition of that. It's got the awful control of Mario 1 -- maybe even worse since Luigi is the only way to go in this game -- but it gives you a sense of "awwww yeah" when you finally overcome a nasty level. I love struggling for 20 minutes on a level and then overcoming the obstacle that was messing me up. Fun damn game, except for 8-4 which is just kinda silly.

67. Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime (DS)

Dragon Quest meets Zelda meets Big Giant Robot. Rocket Slime is an adorable game where you walk around flinging your body at all sorts of things, rescuing all your slime friends, and create a giant Slime Mech to engage other giant robots in battle. Rocket Slime is cute and charming as hell, but so ridiculously easy that I don't think you could die if you tried. It's a mountain of fun but leaves you somewhat unfulfilled because of that pathetic difficulty.

66. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow (GBA)

I feel bad putting this as low as I am because I really loved it in 2003, but Dawn of Sorrow just kind of pushed it out of style thanks to being sliiiiightly better in almost everything, and it's been a while since I played Aria. Aria's got a better weapons system and doesn't have the whole sealing bosses gimmick, but I was *always* lost in Aria and I get a little frustrated with it unless I know where I'm going. Aria's a game that I like a lot when I'm playing it multiple times in a row for something like speed running or a second playthrough on hard, and something I should do again soon.

65. Strider 2 (PS1)

There's so much potential for 2d sidescrolling action games like this gem, but no one ever makes them. Strider 2 is 5 levels long with infinite continues, and after 30 minutes you're done with it (15 minutes with with Hiryu, 15 with Hien), but it's so damn enjoyable. Strider's blade is fun, the bosses are (mostly) fun, and trying to get a high rank can be an added bonus to a game that's so short and sweet.

64. Dragon's Lair (Arcade)

No game will ever compete with Dragon's Lair for how floored I was when I first saw it. You really can't compare anything today to passing by full motion video in the 80s when you're used to Pac-Man and Rampage. Dragon's Lair is nothing more than timed button pressing, but the action is funny, the death scenes are great, and there's a truckload of nostalgia shoved in there. Dragon's Lair is great for pulling out once every five years, trying to figure out what to do all over again, and packing it away again. I want to buy the DVD version but there's so many weird DL spinoffs and sequels and I don't want to buy the wrong one (which I did once -- whoops).

63. Super Mario Kart (SNES)

*the* multiplayer Super Nintendo game. Mario Kart is an easy-to-play game that doesn't take a lot of time to get proficient at, but you can spend countless hours trying to get great times and beating 150cc. Items are a nice balance between fun and making the game luck-based -- as opposed to the disaster that is Mario Kart today -- and battle mode is brilliant. 10 years ago, I was absolutely great at this game thanks to my brother and his girlfriend being competitive as hell about it. We'd play 150cc and beat the living hell out of each other and had a damn blast doing it.

This game is still pretty great, but my recent F-Zero obsession makes this game feel like it's in slow motion. I just get bored and end up turning way too early because I expect the game to move quicker than it does. Oh well.

62. Arkanoid (NES/Arcade)

Nobody ever made another breakout-type game after Arkanoid, because everyone was like "man, they nailed it". Arkanoid is pong perfection, with cool powerups that are equally valuable at different parts of the game, and some nasty difficulty. My favourite NES code is the continue code for Arkanoid because I'm pretty sure this is impossible to beat otherwise without savestates.

oh and level 3 can go to hell

61. Super Mario RPG (SNES)

I can't explain why, but this game is really, really fun. Battles are simple and dumb, but they're fun. Story and characters are... childish?, but again, it works. I seem to randomly put this game on out of pure boredom and then play it nonstop for a couple days straight. I love it.

...and then I get to Monstro Town, and something about that place just makes me lose my interest and I go to play something else. I think I've only actually beaten this game once or twice, and I've stopped there at least three times.

60. Disgaea 2 (PS2)

D2 takes the original's addictive gameplay and fixes the gameplay flaws - back attacks work "properly" now, characters level for using skills instead of just for kills - and adds a bunch of new features like felonies and the Dark World. The result is a superior game in any way with the exception of - somehow - the story, which is so bad that I actually missed Laharl. When you-know-who showed up in a cameo role, it was like "whoa, I miss this guy!", something I would never have expected to say. But Disgaea 2 is all about the endless grind-y goodness of SRPGs, and Disgaea 2 does a fantastic job in that aspect. The only problem is that sometimes you just get tired of grinding, and the storyline doesn't give you an escape since it's so bad. Oh well! I guess some people like that kind of thing, zam.

59. Beautiful Katamari (360)

Beautiful Katamari takes the fantastic We Love Katamari, removes its biggest flaw - the horrendous load times - and continues the trend of making things bigger and better, but loses something in the process. BK is just not as fun as previous games in the series. After playing the "big" level a couple of times, I get kind of bored and annoyed with doing the same thing, whereas in WLK I can replay it to death and never bat an eyelash. BK is definitely a good game and has great control, but I think the formula has simply gotten stale.

58. Jumper (PC)

Death by platformer. Jumper is a freeware game designed to make you feel bad about your gaming skills. It even documents how many times you've died and in what way. Jumper is amazing for what it is - a game that tests your skills at performing pixel-perfect jumps in quick succession. Throughout that struggle is sloooow improvement, progress, and then exhilaration at the end result.

4-4 can go to hell though. Something about the control just gets me there. I think it's my keyboard.

57. Mega Man 3 (NES)

The classic formula established in Mega Man 2 is preserved (and hadn't yet worn thin -- it's a fine balance), only with the awesome addition of the slide. Mega Man 3 is better than 2 on a technical level, but a.) I don't like the weapons nearly as much, and b.) the game is a bit tough at the start because you the bosses are a pain to fight without any weapons. It's not especially difficult.. more tedious and annoying if anything, and I never have any idea what weapon hurts what boss. It's just not.. intuitive, I guess. I blame them running out of robots. WHAT THE HELL WOULD SNAKE MAN'S WEAPON HURT THIS MAKES NO SENSE

56. Kid Icarus (NES)

Simple, addicting gameplay mixed with some of my favourite NES chiptunes. The levels offer a nice challenge without being too ridiculous. I like how you get powerups based on how many points you get, though I wish the score meter was visible and that you saw the intervals at which you levelled up your life and strength. I love playing this game after a few years, because it's a mix of nostalgia and me having forgotten the levels.

and whoever invented the Eggplant Wizards will get karmic retribution if you know what i mean

55. Zelda: Link to the Past (SNES)

This is like the ultimate 7.5, 8/10 game for me. Dungeons are good fun, but nothing that I get super excited again. Gameplay is nothing to write home about, but it works. Bosses are all right - better than Zelda 1 for sure, but I always forget which is which until I get to them. Difficulty is pretty decent. Everything just screams slightly above average.

But LTTP stands out in two aspects - world design, where every room in both large worlds are memorable and in music, where LTTP has one of my favourite SNES soundtracks. That pushes it from being an average game up to a game that's fun to come back to even 15 years later.

54. Warioware, Inc. (GBA)

The original Warioware is the most charming and fun entry of the series by far. Most of that is the simple as hell control setup - D-Pad + A, and no other buttons - and the other half is that the microgames still felt new and fresh. 9-volt's classic minigames are the best ones, and there's several minigames like the plane flying and Dr. Wario that make this game even more awesome.

53. Final Fantasy 6 (SNES)

I've ranted about my frustrations with this game many times, so I'll be brief:

- the encounter rate and battle system frustrate me, because they just feel tedious instead of being fun like other entries in the series. there's a reason everyone loves and remembers the moogle charm, and it's this game's fault;
- espers make characters essentially carbon copies of each other, which feels out of place in a 16 bit RPG;
- FF6 has some particularly awful dungeons -- Fanatic Tower, I'm looking at you, but both multi-party dungeons aren't spared, and if you played FF6A and completed the new uber-dungeon, I offer you some tylenol
- World of Ruin argh argh argh

and yet, the strengths of this game are unmistakable. really awesome atmosphere and a captivating story that spans over a dozen characters; highly memorable thanks to great pacing, the sense of danger that Kefka/Gestahl present, and cool ideas like the three scenarios early on and the awesome floating continent. those strengths make me coming back to this game over and over - I've probably played in 10 times, though I don't always finish it. FF6 is a mixed bag, but the good outweigh the bad.

though the bad aggrivates me so cause this game could be amazing argh

52. Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (DS)

This game has some flaws like sealing bosses and the weapons system - who the hell wants to grind in order to get a rare soul to drop so they can get the next weapon? - but it's tough to deny what it does so well: nice graphics and atmosphere, cool monsters and bosses, pretty good castle and fun gameplay. I want to say more but I have no idea what else to say -- oh, right, people love Julius mode, I should get around to playing that someday oh god don't kill me

51. Super Mario World (SNES)

I don't really get what attracts me to this game. The first 80% is easy as hell, which is something I usually don't like in my platformers. But just about every level in this game is absolutely memorable to me, from the ghost houses to the top secret area to star road to soda lake to forest of illusion to the castles to Bowser's back door. I love the levels in this game - sans the stupid auto-scrolling ones - and even torturous disasters like Tubular. I will often pick this game up on an off day, get all 96 exits in one sitting and then put it away again for a few years.

50. Zoop (tons)

Fun, fast, addicting puzzle game. Zoop is one of those Tetris-like games where stuff comes at you faster and faster until it's physically impossible to play on - I love those. Zoop is all about matching up colours and being able to see what the best way to line up things are, and that's something I'm really, really good at. So I love this underrated little acid trip of a puzzle game.

I wish it had multiplayer, that could be a blast.

49. Phoenix Wright 2 (DS)

No way around it - this is the bottom-tier PW game, having only four cases, one being a tutorial and case 3 being bottom-tier. It's also got Fran von Karma, who is a pain in the neck with all of her underhanded dealings in and out of the courtroom. I like case 2 more than most thanks to the awesome ending, but it's still not a top-tier case.

Case 4 makes all of that up though - a thrilling, emotional case that never lets go of you. It's probably the tightest, most exhilarating case in the PW trilogy, and while I prefer 1-4 to it, it makes for a fantastic ending to a game that isn't always fantastic.

48. Wii Sports (Wii)

oh god

I am addicted to Wii Sports golf. I'm always trying to beat my -6. I'm also a Tennis master, with a ranking of something like 1950. If I lose a point against the best team, my ranking goes down. That's how crazy I am there.

The other games, I'm not as big on. Bowling is decent and fun multiplayer, but I'm not very good. Baseball is pointless and boxing is stupid. But I actually take a few days and play golf incessantly sometimes. Don't ask me why. I just love its stupid simplicity and my miserable attempts to master it.

47. Dragon Warrior Monsters 2 (GBC)

DWM2 is a nice middle ground between the original and DWM4 - it's more "modern" and bigger than DWM1, and retains the old style that Joker abandoned for new mechanics. It's also got magic keys, items that give the game a huge amount of post-game content thanks to an infinite number of randomly generated worlds. In a lot of ways, DWM2 is the best of the series.

It feels like half a game though. DWM2 abandons randomly generated worlds, but the result is a game that ends before you know it and a bunch of weird trigger pointing that isn't always fun. DWM2 starts slow, and once it gets going it's over, leaving you with just the randomly generated worlds. The result is a game that's slightly disappointing because it could have been *great* if it felt polished.

46. Mike Tyson's Punch-Out! (NES)

Punch-Out is more a test of reflexes and learning patterns than it is a sports game. Entertaining sound effects, stupid characters and over-acted motions give this game a hell of a lot of charm, and keep it fun for a long time. I love playing this thing in random spurts, and for a while I had a dream of beating it without getting hit. I'd always screw up on Sandman though. Those damn hands screw with my head!

One day, if I actually get motivated enough to speed run something again, I will do this game. This game has a ton of potential for speed running but for some reason no one's ever done it. Shame.

45. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (PSP)

It's amazing what a mission system can do for a game. Crisis Core is not really very good. The main story is like a parody of Square plotlines, with convoluted melodrama that makes you laugh and say "...man, what happened to you, Square?". The new characters get mixed reviews at best. The gameplay is fun, but the levelling system is completely random (which is a big negative), and the materia system is the single most broken thing I've ever seen. I completely broke this game without even trying and nerfed the hell out of the difficulty.

The missions are repetitive as hell and not very interesting, but there's something completely addicting about trying to do missions way above your level. The rewards aren't even all that good half the time, but you just keep on going until you've been doing them for hours at a time. It beats FFX-2's missions to death, and the gameplay hooks you. There's a bunch of things you can complain about, but overall the mission system takes an average game and improves it tenfold.

And I haven't even mentioned the FF7 nostalgia. This game is pure "fanservice", but unlike FFX-2 it's actually tasteful and appreciated. Crisis Core takes Midgar and makes it feel alive. I'm far from the biggest FF7 fan, but even I loved seeing Midgar in 3d. It made me interested in the long-rumoured-and-inevitable FF7 remake. I loved the music, most of which was taken straight from FF7. I loved seeing the Shinra Building again. I loved the Turks being (mostly) on your side. I loved the slums. I loved naming Seventh Heaven. I especially loved Nibelheim. But most of all, I loved seeing old characters return. Crisis Core is all about three characters: Zack, Cloud and Sephiroth, and I find that whole storyline captivating. The new characters and story are kinda sucky, but the game is born out of FF7 lore and and the relationships between the old characters are absolutely great. Crisis Core is really a must-play for any big fan of FF7.

44. God of War 2 (PS2)

God of War 2 stands alone in the action genre for its technical achievements. The over-the-top style, the intense music, the "epic" feel, all with a complete lack of load times -- these achievements are unmatched, even with new consoles having been out for a couple of years now. God of War is exciting and fun, a series that was very obviously going to be enormous the second you laid eyes on it. The idea of God of War 3 on the super-duper PS3 has me pumped.

The downsides to GOW2 are well-documented. The combat system is button-mashy goodness, unless you have to fight a boss, in which case it gets kinda blah. Those stupid medusas can suck my ass. One hit kills in the middle of an attack? Thanks! God of War is an unbalanced game, there's no way around it. The puzzles are okay for a change of pace, but aren't particularly interesting. That's not to say they're bad, but GOW is all about over-the-top action, not button-pressing and lever-turning. Fighting packs of enemies is great fun though, as are the QTE death scenes. Love those.

43. Final Fantasy Tactics (PS1)

The FF7 of the SRPG genre. You'd be hard-pressed to find a SRPG fan in the PS1/PS2 era that didn't start with FFT. FFT does so many things right, and the core of the game is the job system, something that has been almost completely neglected in the genre for some stupid reason. FFT is a game with a cool political story (the PSP version really made me like the story and characters more, even if half of it is because of the hilariously pretentious translation and ARGATH), seriously addicting gameplay and a nice difficulty level, save for a couple annoying fights (argh execution site i will end you). I love this game's class system. The only thing holding this game back from being top-tier for me is that I end up running out of good things to learn towards the end of the game. I get to chapter 4 and just get bored because I'll have learned all the good ninja/monk/lancer/etc skills and it's like "well, what now?" I often don't finish what I start when it comes to FFT.

42. Portal (multiplatform)

I've never played a second of Portal. I don't know how the game controls, I can't tell if there's anything about the physics that messes with me, I can't really complain about the game.

And quite frankly, I don't think it matters one bit. Portal is a weird puzzle/FPS hybrid that's absolutely amazing to watch/try to figure out together with friends, and the idea of shooting portals all around is amazing. There's something about the idea that just screams ingenious. Sometimes you sit there thinking about what to do, come up with something completely crazy and feel like a genius. Portal has that effect on you - the game lets you experiment with all sorts of wild ideas and gets you flat out giddy at the results. It makes the game feel fresh and exciting, something untouched in today's brand of games. (which isn't to say that today's games lack excitement and innovation -- Portal is just that exciting)

And that's not even getting to the quirky humour that Portal presents. Between the exciting gameplay and the wildly fun GLADOS, Portal is one of the freshest titles I've ever played. And it doesn't even really do anything special outside of the portal gun. It's just too bad it's only 4-5 hours.

41. Final Fantasy 7 (PS1)

FF7 is the rare game that doesn't do anything truly wrong. There's not a lot of peaks to the game - there's only a couple really great scenes, I can't think of a really fun boss, the characters are decent but never great - but the game never has a true flaw. What FF7 *does* have is a really atmospheric soundtrack and a plot that builds and builds throughout the first disc. The last few hours of cd1 - Nibelheim to Aeris - is the one part of FF7 that I think is great. cd2 drops the ball considerably with its lack of direction, but even then it's pretty enjoyable. FF7 is just a highly enjoyable game.

(of course, this thing needs a remake like no other - the graphics are pretty painful and the control is worse)

40. Actraiser (SNES)

Part sidescrolling action, part town sim. The sidescrolling action is the exciting part, but I have a strange fondness for the town sim aspects. Actraiser is pretty damn easy and you can get through it in a sitting if you really want, but I find myself going back to it over and over, even a week after I beat it. No idea why.

39. The Legend of Zelda (NES)

Combat > exploration for me when it comes to Zelda, and only the original truly comes through in that regard. Most people seem to get frustrated by the lack of direction and the packs of enemies that give them trouble, but I love it. That complete freedom, along with a world that isn't all that large is something that I like a lot in old games. You don't need 30 minutes to get across the map in Zelda 1. Zelda 1's brevity and different routes make this a game that's easy to pick up and play anytime.

(I always wanted a Zelda 1 hack that contained a multi-floor dungeon type deal - just room after room of enemies, with the difficulty slowly rising until it's absolutely brutal. Start with bats, then add the little brown slime-y things, then add Darknuts, then Wizrobes, then both, then both with fireballs -- whenever I tell someone this, they think I'm masochistic. Oh well.)

38. Geometry Wars: Galaxies (Wii)

Geometry Wars is fantastic. Take ultra-simple controls - just two analog sticks and a bomb button - add in loads of enemies and trippy backgrounds, and you've got an amazing shooter. Geometry Wars suffers a bit from being able to shoot in only eight directions, but once you get used to that, it's got an old-school arcade feel to it that feels fresh if only because it hasn't been explored in some time.

Then you've got Galaxies, where you add dozens of unique boards, new enemies, multiple drones that fight alongside you, and awards for reaching a certain score on a board, and you've got Geometry Wars with replay value. The Wii version isn't actually as good as the 360 XBLA version due to the constraints of the console, but the loads of new modes make up for it ten times over.

37. We Love Katamari (PS2)

Fun stuff. Improves on the original in every area but music, and the "big" level is among the best single levels of all time. WLK has some brutal load times as the board scales bigger, but ignoring that, this game is pretty much the ideal sandbox type game. A really good game to play hard for a week, stop for six months and then do it all over again.

36. Crystalis (NES)

One of the most impressive games for its time. Crystalis's world is huge by NES standards, but not so huge that you get lost in it. The storyline is pretty silly due to the awesome engrish, but tops everything but traditional RPGs in that category. Cool skills, enjoyable battles, addicting as hell music -- Crystalis is an ideal NES game. The only problems are the way you can't hurt stuff unless you're of a certain level and the amount of menu-hopping due to having enemies that can only be hurt by one of four elemental swords.

35. N+ (Xbox 360)

N is a mean, painful, addicting platformer. It looks simple enough - a little stick figure dude, a bunch of platforms and the occasional hazard - but soon the game ramps up the difficulty to often hilarious results. N isn't as rigid as Jumper, but the result is the same -- "oh what the hell", followed by massive death, a sense of ingenuity, progress and then excitement at pulling off a seriously hard level, followed by an even harder one staring at you one second later. N+ is pretty much the perfect platformer, complete with some 250 levels, crazy floaty physics that are fun to play with and difficult to master, and a simplicity that makes for a fantastic level editor. You can make levels in five minutes that are great torturous fun.

I think my favourite part of the game is the main theme, though. It loops endlessly for hours, and I never mind hearing it. Pretty amazing, really.

34. Dragon Warrior 3 (NES/GBC)

Best Dragon Warrior by a good amount. DW3 has the simplicity of the originals, but adds cool things like a class system, gambling on monsters, and a neat plot twist ending. It's easy to get lost once you get the boat -- such is the case of all DW games, really -- but the addicting gameplay and the class system keeps you hooked.

33. Zork (PC)

I can play this game without even opening it -- north, north, up, get egg, down, south, southeast, open window, west, open sack, get garlic, west, get all, move rug, open trap door, down, turn lantern on, north, kill troll with sword, etc etc -- and yet, I can still play it and have fun. I've beaten this game an uncountable amount of times over the past 20 years, and oddly enough, I don't really have much nostalgia towards it. I don't get brought back to my childhood or anything, it's just something I legitimately enjoy for completely no reason.

32. Uniracers (SNES)

The best SNES racing game - Uniracers is practically 1d since you only move in one direction, and that straightforward approach, along with some decent speed, makes for a really fun pick-up-and-play racer. The downside to this game is that it uses the Mario Kart formula of going faster when you're behind, but at least it's not pounding you with six thousand red shells. The result is a game that friends can play together regardless of skill level.

screw the anti-uni

31. Final Fantasy 9 (PS1)

Lots of good stuff in this game. The AP/skill system and unique characters battle-wise are probably my favourite parts, but the charming story and settings, Zidane/Vivi/Kuja and all the throwback aspects of this game are also great. There's a number of things you can complain about, from the load times to the battle speed to some particularly annoying characters (argh garnet/eiko), but the positives outshine them bigtime.

30. Metroid Fusion (GBA)

Eschews several Metroid mainstays to mixed results. The intrusive story and the lack of bomb/walljumping are just unforgivable to a freak like me, but the atmosphere it creates, along with the SA-X, makes it the most tense 2d Metroid by far. The story and lack of sequence breaking kills the most appealing part of Metroid games, though - replayability. It's still a great game with cool abilities and all that, but yeah.

29. Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together (SNES/PS1)

LUCT is kind of like the FF1 of the SRPG genre - it's far simpler than FFT, it's super grind-y and really unforgiving - and there's something completely addicting and fantastic that I adore. The battles are intense because one wrong move and you're dead for good -- which means you're hitting reset -- and they're really exciting when you pull off a perfect fight. The storyline is flat out hilarious, and the fact that there's three plot paths you can take gives the game lots of replay value. Just writing this makes me want to play it again. :)

28. Contra 4 (DS)

Pretty much the ultimate 2d action game. Three difficulties that were carefully thought out, a challenge mode that's absolutely crazy at times, and a ton of unlockables, including the original games. Great level design, neat bosses, powerups that are far more balanced than the original games. Contra 4 has so much love poured into it, something you can't say for a lot of handheld games. This might be the most impressive handheld game I've ever played.

27. Lost Odyssey (Xbox 360)

So damn close to being a game for the ages. Lost Odyssey's pros are flat-out amazing. The presentation and graphics are great - the jump in hardware shows the potential of a "next-gen" RPG, and it has me excited for the future. The gameplay is pretty good too - there's some things you can nitpick on, but for the most part it's a fun traditional battle system a la FF9. The story is ambitious and damn good. The characters and their interactions are pretty good, save for a couple of kids that JRPG developers seem to love tossing in if only to annoy me.

But Lost Odyssey is flawed, and its flaws kind of flow together to make the effect than it is. The load times are absolutely ridiculous, especially between battles, and the game has some seriously questionable dungeon design. The game also has a Suikoden-like levelling system where enemies just stop giving exp after a certain point. Put these three together and a lot of frustration occurs - bad dungeons with poor load times with no reward. The pacing is also brutal, and while the game has a great story, you don't always want to read the random, unconnected 20 minute stories that the game has laying all over the place. Fix these flaws and this could be a top 5 game - the strengths are just that good.

26. Street Fighter II Turbo (Arcade/SNES)

I'm not sure if I've clocked more time on any game than this one. Throughout the 90s, this is pretty much all I played with friends. The speed of this game is what attracts me to it so much - I push this sucka up to 10 stars and get battles over within seconds, and then do it again. I would put this a lot higher but I have no one to play with anymore - I'm really, really good at SF2 and my fighting game friend is used to newer games, so whenever we bust this out I end up winning like 27-1 before he gives up. Not very fun.

25. Suikoden (PS1)

The original Suikoden will always be my favourite because of how swift it moves. Five minute plot points, four minute dungeons, two minute army battles. Suikoden just moves and the whole game is fun because of it. It's got an old school charm to it, and it's got a bit of replay value thanks to the whole 108 character thing. Because of its speed and length, Suikoden is a game I pick up and play all the damn time. It's certainly not flawless - please let me choose my own party instead of forcing four characters on me at all times - but the flaws are generally ones I have no problem looking past.

24. Lode Runner: The Legend Returns (PC)

The Greatest Remake of All Time turned a fairly cool action/puzzle hybrid into a much better game thanks to the addition of kickass weapons, bombs, keys and some cool music. Legend Returns features 150 levels, most of which are lots of fun, and a level editor for those who want to get hardcore into the game. I can't even think of a single thing to complain about when it comes to this game. It's pretty much perfect, with the only drawback being that it's not as fun on replays.

23. Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker (DS)

Joker changes a lot of the core DWM concepts by making the game much less malleable - you can't take a slime and give it max stats anymore - to mixed results. Joker has a cool world, great graphics and cool monster animations, and the breeding system is improved thanks to some gameplay innovations. This game *should* be the best DQM game just for the fact that the systems are modernized.

It fails in its attempts to "balance" the game, though. I miss the old skill system, the lack of stat caps, and some of the old monsters. DQM also feels rather short, as it's one huge fetch quest for most of the game (which is okay - you're not looking for story here), but then suddenly you're at the last boss. The last dungeon and stuff is really cool, but there's almost no postgame material to speak of and the one thing that could have made this game amazing - fighting online - is next to useless due to the fact that you don't actually fight people, but their AI-controlled teams, and half the teams on wifi are hacked to hell. argh.

(that didn't stop me from getting absolutely perfect monsters and dropping a good 85 hours into this stupid game though)

22. Ikaruga (Arcade)

A simple concept - black and white bullets. When you're black, you absorb black bullets and get killed by white ones, and vice versa. Take this idea, apply "bullet hell", and you've got the single most intense game I've ever played. Ikaruga is exciting as all hell and the difficulty is incredibly fun. There are some parts of this game - looking at you, level 4 - where I can't even fathom surviving at times, let alone trying to chain colours together for a huge combo. It's so much fun to get brutalized by this game. This is my only foray into modern shmups, and Ikaruga is so exciting that I want to find out what else is out there. A damn shame that it's only five levels. The level design on those five is freaking amazing though.

21. Tales of Eternia (PS1/PSP)

My first Tales game, and like most other people, my favourite. Eternia's got the same old plot/character disasters that are found in other Tales games, but good dungeons and fun gameplay make the game for me. Hardcore mode is fun, though a bit frustrating at times. All the optional stuff is great, and Sekundes is one of my favourite boss fights of all time. Fun as hell game once you get aways into it.

20. Phoenix Wright 3 (DS)

PW3 features an awesome overarching plot that connects the cases in ways PW1 and 2 never could. The whole Godot/Dahlia/Mia/Phoenix arc is flat-out great, and while Godot kind of fails as a prosecutor, he still makes for a fun guy to go against. Case 5 is not my favourite case in the series, but it's one hell of a way for the Phoenix/Maya trilogy to go out.

The downside to this game is case 2, which was a nice attempt at something a little different, but ultimately was a lower-tier case due to the crappy ending and villain. Case 3 kinda sucks until the last day, too.

woo jean armstrong

19. Dance Dance Revolution (Arcade/PS2)

The music is bad, but I like stepping to it. DDR has a bunch of fast songs with strong beats, and I love jumping around and killing myself trying to pass songs that make my heart hit 300 bpm. I put this away for months, then play it hard for a month straight until i get bored of doing the same 9-step songs over and over and failing 10-step songs miserably.

18. Shadow Hearts: From the New World (PS2)

My opinion on this varies heavily depending on when I last played it. I don't remember it very fondly because the story is pretty blah and the characters are all ridiculous, but the gameplay is freaking top-notch. The gameplay tweaks completely obliterate the broken battle system that is SH2, the sidequests are rewarding and the difficulty is absolutely perfect, excepting maybe the last boss which is painful (though very fun). SH3 probably has my favourite gameplay of any RPG -- and it's a disappointing follow-up that's too short with a paper-thin plot.

17. Tetris

Not much you can say about Tetris. Tetris multiplayer is great fun if you've got someone of your skill level, and Tetris DS was pretty damn fun against the high-level computers. Level 5 is a bit too insane for me -- and probably anyone -- but level 4 is a perfect match for me. The ability to play Tetris DS wireless multiplayer is pretty awesome too. woo Tetris

16. Final Fantasy 10 (PS2)

The first RPG -- or the first popular RPG, at least -- to do away with text boxes and go to fully cinematic, voice-acted scenes. The game that pretty much wrote the formula on what RPGs were going to be like in the next generation, and games spent years trying to catch up to its level. As far as I'm concerned, FF10 is just as huge and influential as FF7. FF10 does some great things like the sphere grid -- which gives you the best of both worlds as far as unique and overpowered characters go -- and the battle system, which is fast and fairly deep compared to other menu-based RPGs. The world of Spira is amazing, too, and the interaction between characters is really, really good, even if you don't like said characters. Like FF7, FF10 has a bunch of first-time flaws like unskippable scenes (especially before bosses argh darn you seymour 3) and some particularly bad voice acting, and the game walks in a straight line for nearly the whole game, but I'd say those don't really detract from the game too much.

15. Xenosaga 3 (PS2)

The Xenosaga series has two main problems: the slow and tedious battle system, and the pacing. The first 75% of the first two Xenosaga games, nothing ever happens, and then you get assaulted by cool scenes and wham, it's over. argh.

Xenosaga 3 fixes both problems, with a super fast (albeit simple, but it's still fun) battle system, and a game absolutely full of action. There is rarely any downtime in Xenosaga 3, and while the end is certainly a rush job and kind of ridiculously stupid, it's still cool because at least something is happening. Xenosaga 3 is the first Xenosaga game that's legitimately fun to play, and the storyline and characters all come to a climax here. It's not always a good thing - hi there Shion - but I prefer that to wandering aimlessly through space for no reason. The plot arc throughout the second half of disc 1 could be the best part of any RPG ever.

14. Mega Man 2 (NES)

Everybody has an old game that they feel is perfect - for me, it's Mega Man 2. Love the weapons, love the levels, love the gameplay, love the music, love everything about it. Most of the complaints I can come up with are things that came along later like the slide or being able to control the Rush Jet, but those don't bother me since I played this one first. MM2 is just perfect to me.

13. Phoenix Wright (DS)

The original will always be my favourite. It's got two huge cases as opposed to one like the other games, and it's got Miles Edgeworth in a starring role instead of as a cameo. Case 4 is my favourite in the series, and I like how we get to know the mainstay characters instead of them being known quantities like in later games.

12. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii)

I don't get it. I never really got into Melee, and this game is pretty much the exact same thing, and yet I like this game a hell of a lot more. I find it more "fun" - everything is just a little bit better. The characters are more fun to play as. In Melee I felt that there were only a couple characters that were easy to play as, and that you had to spend time learning each individual character in order to be good with them at all - in Brawl, I can pick characters up within a few minutes, and it's a lot more fun because of it. I like the stages a bit more, the SSE is better than the adventure mode of Melee, and the game just feels more "balanced".

I also have a friend that's of my skill level, and we wage huge Brawl sessions that are a lot of fun. That probably helps my enjoyment. Brawl also has online, which has been near-perfect for me. I don't use it very much, but it's something that's there, and I always have a few people I can play some games with. Brawl is a fun, comical game that's a blast to play if you have the right people around. This has become *the* multiplayer game for me lately.

11. Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (DS)

So good. POR removes the sealing gimmick of Dawn of Sorrow and adds a second character, giving the game a bit more variety. It also has a castle that I like a ton more due to its use of individual levels - this is the only Castlevania game that I don't get lost in. The whip returns, cool boss fights and a reasonable difficulty - Portrait is a fantastic game. Too bad it's got a couple of stupid flaws like game-crashing glitches, a stupid boss that charms you to death and that ridiculous cast time on Sanctuary. Other than that, awesome game. Richter mode is killer, too.

10. Chrono Trigger (SNES)

Just.. charming as hell. CT lacks an interesting story or characters, and the gameplay is pretty simplistic, but it's just fun. The game moves and is very addicting for an RPG. Good soundtrack and locations. It's got absolutely great balance between characters, and I like the bosses, they're pretty memorable. (especially you golem twins argh) I always find myself replaying this game. I didn't really get into it until two or three years ago, but now I just play it all the time. weird.

9. Dragon Warrior Monsters (GBC)

Most addicting game ever. I once lost an entire weekend because I couldn't stop playing this game. I think I even cancelled plans with friends so I could play this dumbass thing. I love the complexity of the breeding system, and I can spend an hour doing nothing but stare at charts and figure out what I want to do and how to do it. DWM is a little outdated, especially compared to its sequels, but this one is the only one that feels like a complete game. I could spend hundreds of hours just making monsters and enjoy every second of it.

8. Shadow Hearts (PS2)

At first glance, Shadow Hearts is a pretty average game - it's low-budget, the dialogue's a bit awkward at first, and the CG/voice acting is downright atrocious (though in a good way). Gameplay has some interesting quirks, but it's all pretty standard fare. SH1 is kind of a 16-bit throwback in the 128-bit era.

Where Shadow Hearts is amazing is in its presentation, atmosphere and sound. I don't know if you can call it "survival horror", but it's definitely dark and can make you jump on rare occasion. Its settings are fantastic, and there's a grimy style to it that endears itself bigtime. While the dialogue/translation is a bit awkward at times, the main two characters and main villain are as good as it gets. The dungeons are my favourite in any RPG, period - short and sweet. The game flies and, most importantly, is very fun on replays. Shadow Hearts is a pretty damn amazing game despite its low-budget constraints.

7. Shadow Hearts 2 (PS2)

SH2 has the single greatest collection of scenes in any game. There's a good dozen scenes that are just awesome, and the game is flat out hilarious. SH2 walks the thin line of having a good story while still being funny as hell. The production values are miles above the original, and while it's still got its share of issues on the technical end - occasional voice acting issues, "jaggies", and two dungeons that would be better off dropped - the good points are amazing. The ending is fantastic. The battle system is a bit deeper and not as repetitive. The difficulty is pathetic and the crest system isn't the greatest, but the game is so damn fun that you don't even mind. I'd call this the best RPG in my collection -- though not my favourite -- for its combination of great story, great scenes, good characters and quality gameplay.

6. F-Zero GX (Gamecube)

I believe this is the greatest game ever made. The only thing keeping it from my top spot is that I can't play it endlessly like I can the games above it.

F-Zero GX has it all - fantastic speed, high difficulty that's fun to play with, control that's responsive as hell, music that's fun to race with. The difficulty can really mess with you at times, but it keeps you coming back for more. There's tons of custom cars you can play with, racing staff ghosts on time trial is great, and then of course, story mode. Oh god, story mode.

http://www.somethingawful.com/automaticturban/junk/fzero.mp3

what an mp3 -- and it's so true

5. Final Fantasy 4 (lots at this point)

One of the more influential RPGs of all time, FF4 was the first to feature ATB, the first FF to have real characters, and had some of the first -- and most memorable -- deaths in RPGs. Being influential isn't why FF4 is so good though. FF4 is great because it's got a quick, effective battle system with some memorable characters, and because it's so damn climactic all the time. Every five minutes, something is happening. Characters are coming and going, saving you and dying, and the plot is really enjoyable. It's got some of the best boss fights ever. And it's so damn memorable and replayable.

Then there's the DS version, which adds a stiff difficulty level. It's a bit much at first, but after that it's like a ramped up version of a classic that's intense and exciting for nearly every battle. New boss patterns, on-screen maps and harder difficulty turn FF4 from a great game to an amazing one.

4. Final Fantasy (NES/WSC)

This is the only RPG that I can play, beat, then start over and play again. The class system hooks me, and the challenge keeps me playing again. FF1 is overly simple and I completely understand why other people don't get into it, but I love doing solo games. I love trying to beat it on low levels. I love frustrating myself with this charming game. I bet a lot of others think it's annoying and too grind-y for it to be any fun, but not me.

3. Xenogears (PS1)

When I was in high school, I kinda stopped playing video games. I had friends and sports and girls and god knows what else to occupy my time, and I just didn't like where games were going. I didn't like the 64 at all, 3d was becoming popular and I just couldn't keep playing Street Fighter 2 forever, so I stopped paying attention.

Xenogears is what actually got me back into games. I bought a PS1 for it. For its time, it was pretty shocking, and I marathoned this 60 hour game in a week. I was absolutely hooked on it. I remember a friend calling that I hadn't talked to in months that I really wanted to see, but I said I had to go because I had to play more Xenogears. As such, I think higher of Xenogears than anything else, and it's more nostalgic to me than games that are 10-15 years older. It's kind of like my FF7, if you will.

Xenogears certainly has its flaws - s l o w . t e x t . s p e e d, a sorta annoying encounter rate, questionable dungeon design at times, disc 2 - but I absolutely love everything else about it. I even excuse the flaws because they don't really bother me - except for the text speed on disc 2, because that's just insult to injury. I love the on-foot battle system. I love the characters more than any other game. I love the storyline, of course. It has my favourite soundtrack in all of video games. The whole game is just magical to me.

2. Metroid: Zero Mission (GBA)

The absolute zenith of gameplay. Zero Mission is responsive, easy to play, and I cannot think of a single thing you could change to improve this game from the gameplay perspective. The only thing it's missing is a difficulty level to match the gameplay, but I find that speed running creates a level of artificial difficulty that makes up for it. Bomb jumping is awesome, wall jumping is awesome, low% is pretty fun (and not too difficult) - this is a game I used to play endlessly because of its gameplay perfection.

Unfortunately, I've played this game so hard that there's nothing left to do. But it's still freaking amazing.

1. Super Metroid (SNES)

Definitely not perfect with that questionable control setup, and with all the improvements that the GBA games made this is fairly tough to play. It takes me a few minutes until I reorient myself to Super Metroid controls, and I still haven't figured out how to effectively shinespark.

Super Metroid has a lot of things that push it over Zero Mission though. The level design is just a lot more fun. Nothing in games is more fun to me than walljumping in the huge rooms of Maridia. The music is a lot better and more atmospheric. The difficulty is better, and the fight with Ridley is still one of the better moments in video games. Despite having played Super Metroid more than Zero Mission, I haven't really mastered it thanks to the controls, so I'm always trying to get better at it. There's lots of "advanced techniques" -- aka glitches -- that are tough to master but fun to play with. They also add a ton of sequence breaking if you want to go that route. There's a lot of stuff to play with in Super Metroid and it's timeless because of it.