Top 200 Games of All Time: 20 - 11

20: Tomb Raider 2

• Year: 1997
• System: PS1

The first dungeon of Tomb Raider 2 has the best string of Indiana Jones-esque traps. Slide down the steep embankment, flip over the spikes, grasp the zip line, and land near a campfire. Wait? A campfire? In the back of this tomb? 

Yeah, Tomb Raider 2 did everything bigger. You're not killing as much innocent wild life. Instead, you're going after Mafia types in Italy, Antarctica, caves. Lara's mansion is opened up a little more and has plenty of secrets. You rode a damn snow mobile, a boat. Lara got vehicles for Christ sake. And you fight a god damned dragon for the finale. 

Tomb Raider 2 took the great concept of the first, but fixed many of the problems of the first. 

19: Star Craft

• Year: 1998
• System: PC

The ultimate rock paper scissor game. Star Craft hit a perfect balance between the three factions. 

Zerg allowed you to cheaply and quickly throw masses of weak creatures at your enemy, creating the term Zerg rush and forever changing a strategy in all RTS games. The Protoss cost a ton of money, but gave us "you must construct additional pylons." And then you had the Terran, which ended up defining the look of the space marine in everything Sci-fi for the next two decades. 

Star Craft is still played competitively 20 years later for a reason. There's not been many RTS games that have come close to the king. 

18: Resident Evil: REmake

• Year: 2002
• System: GameCube

It was sort of insane that Capcom did a from the ground up remake of the original Resident Evil, less than 10 years after it came out. But here we are, and it's a piece of history. 

There weren't many remakes at this point. Metal Gear Solid is sort of a spiritual remake of the NES games, but other than that, I can't think of any. 

And instead of just rebuilding the same game, but higher resolution, they redesigned the mansion to make more sense. They recorded new lines of dialogue. All the puzzles were changed. The game still looks good today, partially because of the tricks they did like model the candle light so that it still reflects off the walls.  

I've memorized basically every Resident Evil game to the point where I can do an almost no gun shot Resident Evil 2 run, but there's something about the twisting corridors of the mansion that still keeps the fog of war in my mind. 

17: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

• Year: 2005
• System: PS2

Metal Gear Solid 3 is a perfect James Bond game. Out of control super villains, some of the best of the

series. (Sniper battle with the old man, the flame throwing Cosmonaut, Bee guy, your fucking mentor)

It has the perfect music queues, even having a parody of the James Bond title sequence song while you climbed a 400 foot ladder. 

Yes, the camo system and the heal system are too many menus deep, but you forget about that because you are playing on a canvas. This game is art. 

You may have noticed by now that when a game is able to make me cry, it generally gets on this list. I cry every single time the credits roll on MGS3. Metal Gear Solid 3 has the best ending to any game ever made. 

I can't wait for Konami to package up all the Metal Gears again, so I can buy a Metal Gear collection for the sixth time. 

16: Condemned: Criminal Origins

• Year: 2005
• System: Xbox 360

Condemned: Criminal Origins was not on my radar. I don't even remember how I ended up with it. Probably some sale or something. 

Condemned is the greatest hits of horror. An abandoned department store filled with creepy mannequins. You've got the school at night time. And a god damned library from hell. 

Condemned is one of the scariest games I've ever played. It's one of the most intense thrillers I've ever played. Condemned belongs in the True Detective universe and would be widely regarded as the best season. All around, Condemned is a complete melding of genres. It makes you feel as if you're playing a true crime story. 

15: Diablo

• Year: 1997
• System: PC

I used to have a Christmas tradition. We would spend all day at my grandma's house, followed by my

aunt's house, just generally having to interact with way too many people. 

We would come home and all I would want to do was have some quiet and listen to some music. I've always been very excited about Christmas and unable to sleep, so I knew I would end up staying awake most of the night anyway. 

I would turn the 24 hour Christmas Story marathon on, boot up Diablo, and do a run and see how far I could get. 

Sure Diablo 2 is a better game, Darkstone may have some life improvements, but Diablo 1 has the memories. 

14: Demon's Souls

• Year: 2009
• System: PS3

This is one of the few unestablished franchises that I preordered a game based off a trailer. I don't know what it was about this trailer, but I felt like this was going to be big. Not only that, but I never buy deluxe editions, but I did that too. 

And sure enough, Demon's Souls hit. (Maybe not as hard as Dark Souls) It was addictive to try to figure out how to get a better run. Fight your way back to the Tower Knight over and over again, only to get crushed over and over again. And when you just didn't have enough poison resistance, you could escape the poisoned swamp and go level up in the magic prison world instead. 

I'm glad we're going to get an HD remaster. This is still my favorite Souls game and I can't wait to play through it again. 

I sold my Deluxe Edition of Demon's Souls a few years later for $220. (Not bad for $80 purchase) and it funded me buying my jungle green Metal Gear Solid PSP. 

13: Deus Ex: Human Revolution

• Year: 2011
• System: PC

I didn't understand Deus Ex in the late 90s. I was still in the mindset that FPSs were run and gun, dodge

and hodge (?). I didn't know there was this thinking man's shooter. 

So when Deus Ex was rebooted with Human Revolution, it was a life affirming game. You can play Deus Ex guns a blazing, sneaking around, being charismatic as hell. There's even an achievement for beating the game without killing anyone. 

It's one of those games where you can see an alternate path and get frustrated because you don't have the perk to use it. 

The sequel was a little tone deaf and probably killed another game in the current series, but I'm hoping that Square will give the franchise another chance on the next generation. 

12: Duke Nukem 3D

• Year: 1996
• System: PC

Duke Nukem 3D was a refreshing pallet swap of Doom. While everything in Doom had sort of the same dark colors of the moon base, Duke Nukem 3D had brightly colored cities, apartments, and even a moon base. 

On top of that, the humor was perfect for 12 year old me. You could see pixelated boobies on the strippers. You could hear Duke quip sexual innuendos. I thought Duke Nukem was so cool, I actually wrote three Duke Nukem comic books. 

I had Duke fever so hard, I also learned how to setup a LAN so I could play deathmatches against my brothers in our house. I even got into the mod scene and figured out how to swap out map files to essentially have unlimited Duke Nukem. 

11: Final Fantasy IV

• Year: 1991
• System: SNES

Final Fantasy IV (North America) was the first time I felt like 2D sprites could convey real emotion.

You felt the hit when the twins sacrificed themselves. You wanted to rise to be a Paladin. 

And the sprites, look at that beautiful bastard next to this. That's a damn good looking sprite. 

Final Fantasy IV was the first time I felt games could be more than just a simple platformer or a simple sports game or a simple racing game.  If was the introduction to a lot of the Final Fantasy menu styles, job types, even names that are still used in Final Fantasy games. 

Final Fantasy IV still holds up as an epic adventure in some medieval setting. If you play a ROM, be sure not to save scum like your boy did. You may just save yourself in a dungeon you can't survive. 

• 200-191
• 190-181
• 180-171
• 170-161
• 160-151
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• 110-101
• 100-91
• 90-81
• 80-71
• 70-61
• 60-51
• 50-41
• 40-31
• 30-21

Top 200 Games of All Time: 180-171

See games

• 200 - 191
• 190 - 181

180: NFL Blitz 2000

Year: 1999

System: PS1

The original NFL Blitz was this great game. It had that XTREME 90s attitude. It took the stuff you liked about Mutant League Football, but got the license from the NFL. 

NFL Blitz 2000 is the perfect version of that game. It's the last football game I enjoyed playing. My brother's and I have some incredible memories of 4th and goal, down by 6, and the game hinged on inches. 

I've since played the arcade version much more, but I still think the PS1 controller felt the best for the game. The game still plays well, it just might not look great... you know... blowing like 12 polygon models up on a big screen isn't the best. 

179: Crash Bandicoot Warped

Year: 1999

System: PS1

I guess today's list has a theme, and that is 90s raditude. It was the height of Bandicoot mania. Sony was running commercials of the mouthy protagonist calling Mario out of Nintendo's headquarters for a street fight. 

The platforming never felt great in the first two Bandicoots. Developers still hadn't really figured out platforming in 3D. Some played it safe and did a sort of 3D perspective like Crash. Some played it safer and did a sort of 2.5D thing like Pandemonium or Ironman X/O Manowar. And some just went full in and we were so mesmerized that we ignored how bad it felt, Mario 64 looking at you. 

Crash Bandicoot Warped was the peak of the PS1 platforming. Naughty Dog would revamp the platformer on the PS2 and get it completely right, but we had Warped, and it had animals you could ride, attitude, and a solid challenge. 

178: Command and Conquer II: Red Alert

Year: 2000

System: PC

Rush rush rush rush rush to build that nuke. That was always my strategy. It worked maybe 1 in 6 matches, but when you pulled it off... nothing more satisfying. The explosion would bring your network connection to a crawl, and when things returned to normal, there would be a giant empty hole where your enemies buildings used to be. 

Command and Conquer was the third pillar of the RTS genre (Age of Empires and Star Craft being the others) and I felt like largely it was a dad's RPG. I don't mean in that it was meant for older people, but just every dad that had a computer loved Command and Conquer.  

177: Micro Machines

Year: 1991

System: NES

The Nintendo actually had a few really solid racing games and I couldn't decide which one to have on my list. I had Super Offroad on here at one point, but ultimately Micro Machines won out. There was something that sparked this childlike innocence speeding over pencil bridges across gaps and dodging blocks. Years before Toy Story existed, Micro Machines created that "alive" childhood universe. 

You raced cars, boats, and helicopters, and as you win races you collect the Micro Machine to put in your carrying case. The secret was... they ball basically controlled the same, but the environments could change things up. The tabletops gave you precision control, the mud caused you to slide across the the road, and the water ... well the water pretty much felt like the mud. 

176: Rocket Knight Adventures

Year: 1993

System: Genesis

Platformers were the norm at this time. Everyone wanted their hit mascot platformer. Mario and Sonic were giant piles of money in the form of sprite characters. 

Each of these platformers tried to have some sort of gimmick to separate them from the pack. Kid Chameleon had masks you could switch to to have different powers. Toejam and Earl had a funky soundtrack. 

And Rock Knight Adventures had a jetpack that allowed you to charge up and bounce off walls and levels were built with this mechanic in mind. You'd jetpack over obstacles and fling your sword at pig knights.

The levels were gorgeous, the sprites were gorgeous, this was just a fun beautiful game. Simple as that. 

175: Eternal Darkness

Year: 2002

System: Gamecube

Eternal Darkness was one of the most interesting horror game ideas, maybe not packaged the best, but fantastic despite itself. 

It played largely like a Resident Evil game, but a little more maneuverable. Find a key, find a tablet, progress to the next area. Oh yeah, and there was time travel. 

The ideas that went behind horror, breaking the 4th wall, making you question real life. Was my memory card deleting itself? Did the TV turn off? Did I just see a spider crawl across the screen?

All of this contained on the third place console and never re-released. It's a damn shame. The things they could do with VR. Can you imagine if they made it sound like someone was in the room with you? I mean, physically in the room with you. Only to have you take your VR helmet off, look around, and by the time you slid it back on, you were surrounded by creatures. 

174: Dead Rising

Year: 2006

System: Xbox 360

Dead Rising sold me on the Xbox 360. I had been leaning PlayStation 3, but I was a broke college kid, so the price of the PS3 kept me away from it.  I didn't really feel convicted about any of the new hardware. 

Late one night, maybe a week or two before it came out, I watched a preview of Dead Rising on X-Play. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Hundreds of high-def zombies, surrounding a car with a photographer standing on top of it. I watched the 3 minute trailer and went to Best Buy release day and bought an Xbox 360 and Dead Rising. 

I played the game for about five hours and was murdered by a horde of zombies. And then the game restarted and I realized I was at level 6. And then I died again, but this time 10 hours in. And I started the game at level 16. 

I realized I had been playing this game all wrong, trying to fight the mechanics instead of use them. Once it clicked, this became my speed run game. I'd run it over and over and over again. 

173: Nier

Year: 2010 

System: PS3

I still can't tell you why I like the original Nier so much cause I will spend the first 10 minutes warning you about the boring combat, the large swaths of open land with nothing to do in them, and the worst fishing mini-game I've ever played. 

But there was something meditative about the game. The soundtrack, the repetitive button presses put you into a rhythm to just relax your mind. I loved the NPCs. They all had the brand of weird you get from Zelda NPCs. Just the whole game in general felt a little bit like a David Lynch experiment. And then the ending slapped me upside the face. I didn't see the twist coming. 

Nier has been sitting on my shelf for about 8 years now, waiting for a replay in the New Game +. 

172: Wolfenstein 3D

Year: 1992

System: PC

A floppy disk labeled Wolfenstein 3D sat next to my dad's keys and wallet. He was working 3rd shift with a bunch of IT nerds. Every now and then he would come home with a handful of Genesis games, or a NES cartridge, but something computer related was special. 

I didn't know what this was. I didn't know if it was even something I was supposed to be playing. But I knew I had four hours before my dad woke up and I wanted to see what a Wolfenstein was. 

After a few times misspelling Wolfenstain in the DOS line, it finally launched and what was presented to me was magical. Nazi killer B.J. Blazkowicz moved around in a 3D space. And it wasn't like those busted ass multimedia experiences like 3D Dinosaur Adventure, this was an honest goodness castle filled with Nazis for me to kill.

I spent hours pressing space bar on every inch of wall, looking for that sweet sweet secret. And then one day, I loaded up a save, found the end of the level, and was introduced to Meca-Hitler. 

171: Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker

Year: 2010 

System: PSP

The crazy bastard did it, a full fledged Metal Gear Solid on a portable. Not only did Kojima and team figure out how to make a full fledged and good Metal Gear game on a portable device, but Sony released arguably the coolest version of the PSP, jungle green. 

I had fun sneaking around the guards and doing Metal Gear things, but the most memorable part of this game were the boss fights. You were always playing around with the best combo of weapons to bring in, trying to not call in an air drop if possible. It was a game of chicken, trying to get distance, drop some C4, and then baiting the tank into your trap all while dodging artillery being fired your way.

Being that this game ran on a UMD, there were some gates built so the system didn't self-destruct. Missions were generally limited to 3-5 rooms (large and highly detailed rooms) and there would be a ranking, comicbook style story telling, and a shop between. Peace Walker is woven into the fabric of Metal Gear canon and arguably changed the universe more than any other Metal Gear game. 

Zelda: Wind Waker HD

Release Date: December 13, 2002 / September 20, 2013
Played On: Wii-U

The 3D Zelda games only recently clicked with me. I always tried to start with Zelda 64, trying to understand the magic so many people experienced only to find the game really hard to stick with. It's one of those games that didn't age particularly well and runs on the fuel of nostalgia.

It wasn't until Twilight Princess that I truly enjoyed a 3D Zelda game.

I've made it my mission to go back and play some of the other 3D Zeldas to fill in this gaping black hole in my video game life.

I knew very little about Wind Waker other than the relatively young internet losing their shit over toon link. I vaguely remember my brother sitting feet from his SD TV, the hum of the tubes only drowned out by the uplifting adventuring music, sailing across the great sea. I remember briefly trying to track down a used copy for the GameCube around 2007 and finding that the price was above the original $60 for a used copy. But other than that, I knew nothing about Wind Waker before going in.

Spoopy Games: The Early Capcom Horror Games

Capcom went to the survival horror cash cow as often as they could after their success with Resident Evil 1. They were known for their beautiful pre-rendered backgrounds, stiff controls, 3-6 hour games, and campy voice acting.

There was a time where you could argue they were better at horror than fighting, something inconceivable in recent years.

And this, this is where my obsession started. The games weren't enough. I started buying Resident Evil comics (they are all terrible), Resident Evil action figures (really awesome), and even jackets with the Umbrella logo on them.

Resident Evil 0

Played on: Playstation 4
Release Date: January 19, 2016 (November 12, 2002 original)

Resident Evil 0 was always this weird outlyer for me. Resident Evil games sold me on gaming platforms, but as someone going off to college in 2003, I couldn't really afford to have both a Playstation 2 and Gamecube. I chose Playstation.

Much like Code Veronica, I stared at the box art and thumbed through the strategy guides, trying to complete the Resident Evil story in my mind. It wasn't until 2006 when a used game store started selling Gamecubes for $35 a piece that I finally got to play Resident Evil 0.

Most times when I booted up RE 0, I would inevitably stop after 30 minutes and go back to RE-make.

It's been exciting playing, almost like getting a throwback Resident Evil game in 2014.