110: NBA Jam
- Year: 1993
- System: Genesis
I loved putting in codes to play as Bill Clinton. I loved keeping my on fire streak alive for five minutes against the CPU. And even though the Chicago Bulls were pretty much most over-powered team in the game, you could still put together a great defense against them.
And nothing felt better than hitting a 3 pt buzzer beater.
I loved watching my brother jumping for the reset button at the end of a match to try and save his record from an embarrassing loss being added.
109: F.E.A.R.
- Year: 2006
- System: PC
The first F.E.A.R. did a lot of really interesting things influenced largely by Japanese horror films from
the early 2000s.
It created an actual fear filled paranormal world. You never knew when you were going to see lights start flickering and particle effects warning you that the creepy Ring-like girl was nearby. Or the lights would go out and you would hear an unnatural croak coming from the corner of the room.
Then you would come to a section filled with enemy soldiers, but these weren't your standard bullet sponge enemies. They were smart. If the AI noticed that you tended to stay back using sniper rifles, they would start charging you. If you were a grenadier, they would spread out more. You had to change up your tactics or the AI would become smarter than you.
And this is going to sound weird, but I felt like it did real world office buildings better than Half Life. Cube walls looked realistic, kitchens looked like hospital kitchens, and lobby areas had complex fountains and artwork that you could take cover behind to regroup.
108: Valkyria Chronicles
- Year: 2008
- System: PS3
And among all those hype-realistic depressing games was this hand draw, brightly colored, anime, alternate World War I fake Europe. Yeah, it's a lot to take in.
But when you look past the artwork, there's a deep story line of oppression and racism. And an intricate strategy game where you have to plan out who's in your squad before a mission and then adapt to your surroundings. It's honestly, sort of a sister series to X-COM.
107: Rock Band 2
- Year: 2008
- System: Xbox 360
In 2008, most of my Saturday nights were spent eating takeout, sharing two bottles of wine, while my 
wife belted out song after song into the mic and I wailed on my plastic guitar.
It didn't matter that it was easy to cheese the singing or that the guitar only had five notes you could hit, Rock Band succeeded in making you feel cool. And that's the magic formula.
Importing the Rock Band 1 library. Buying a couple a la carte songs a week. Introducing the Beatles songs. Rock Band 2 stayed fresh. My wife and I were determined to complete our tour.
And then there were those rare instances where things came together and through the magic of USB dongles spidered together, you would find the perfect group to have all four instruments.
106: Mortal Kombat 2
- Year: 1994
- System: Genesis
Then my Aunt Bitsy came through at Christmas. At the time she was managing a video rental store and knew what the hot games were. She got us Mortal Kombat 2 and because of the studying and roughly $20 I spent on the cabinet, I hit the ground running. Firing off special moves and fatalities.
Life was good until my mom caught me doing a particularly brutal Fatality and I was forced to trade in my copy for a less violent game.
105: Goldeneye 007
- Year: 1997
- System: N64
Every few years, someone does a James Bond game, and there's always some marketing line about, 
"This is the next Goldeneye." (Spoiler, it isn't, although Nightfire got close) It wasn't until 20 years later when I went back and played a little and realized how terribly the controls aged.
But that doesn't take away from Goldeneye's legacy. I spent most Saturday nights of my freshman year of high-school sitting cross-legged, listening to the Toadies, playing proximity mines with my friends.
Unfortunately, since I didn't own a N64, and most of my friends did, they soon got to know the maps and all the secrets much better than me. So what it turned into was, "Let's all dunk on Dan."
104: Micheal Jackson's Moonwalker
- Year: 1990
- System: Genesis
It's true, this is a good platformer. Each map is loosely based off of Jackson's music videos. You would dance through the level, kicking enemies with your magical foot, every now and then you would make all the enemies dance with you and blow everything up on screen (see image), all while you rescued children who were being held hostage. (OK, that probably didn't age well)
There's even one level where you see a shooting star at the beginning and if you manage to catch the star, you turn into a Micheal Jackson mech with full missiles and everything.
And damn if they didn't do a hell of a job getting all of his songs forced through the sound chip in the Sega Genesis.
103: Far Cry 3
- Year: 2012
- System: Xbox 360
Far Cry 3 established an incredibly interesting villain from the start. He had these Heath Ledger Joker 
vibes, where you thought maybe you understood his ethos, and then he sticks a knife through his best friend's chest.
And then they killed the established cool villain about halfway through the game and you were left with a generic villain.
But it sort of didn't matter. Cause there was so much to do in the world. This game is the reason we got Ubisoft checkbox fatigue. But this game was the first one that did it right. Go hunt rare animals. Climb this radio tower. Assault this base. Make a backpack expansion out of like... I don't know 8 honey badger pelts and a bear claw.
102: Control
- Year: 2019
- System: PS4
Control is an incredibly interesting universe, one that I want to go back to.
You wake up, drawn to this vague government building. No one is around. You walk in. Meet this weird janitor that instructs you to keep moving on. You pass by cubicles and a mail room and there are bodies floating 20 feet in the air. There are these giant vaults built into the wall. You end up in the director's office, who lays on the floor with what appears to be a self inflicted gunshot wound. And then he starts talking to you.
And things just get weirder from there.
My one complaint... man... and I hope they fix this... the particle effects and powers you could use during a combat scenario taxed my poor PS4 to the absolute limit. I look forward to playing the remastered version of this on slightly more powerful hardware and I look forward to Control 2.
101: Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines
- Year: 1998
- System: PC
Our computer teacher knew nothing about technology in 1998. You could mess with him easily by 
putting a picture of the desktop as the background and deleting the shortcuts and watch him furiously try to click.
There used to be a Windows.exe that would flip your screen upside down, which would send him into a rage thinking a virus was downloaded until he clicked and the screen returned to normal.
Within two weeks, we knew we could take advantage of this class and we did. Someone snuck the shareware version of Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines into the school computer lab and installed it on the 6 PCs that didn't face the teacher.
Once our Mavis Beacon lesson for the day was completed in 20 minutes, we spent the next 40 playing the same two levels over and over again. When you boil it down, you could take away the military theme and just turn this into a puzzle game. You have 2-5 squad members that all have different tools and specialties. So it was about taking out a patrolling guard to get your lock picker to open a door for you. And distracting the machine gun nest to sneak your scuba diver into the lake.
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