Top 200 Games of All Time: By the Numbers

Top Years

Years with the most entries on the list

1. 22 games: 1998
2. 12 games: 1996
3. 10 games: 1994
4. 11 games: 1999
5. 9 games: 1993, 1997, 2000, 2008, 2010

And the years with just a single entry: 1983, 1985, 2020. 

I don't think this is surprising. I think many people consider 1998 to be one of the greatest years in gaming. 

It also happened to be the year I was getting paid decent money watching my brothers and I had unlimited time to play games. 

Top 200 Games of All Time: 10 - 4

10: Age of Empires 2

• Year: 1999
• System: PC

Age of Empires 2 is the absolute peak of the real time strategy genre. All dozen or so kingdoms were balanced. You could win with the British or the Japanese or the Byzantines. It played like a fighting game, where you needed to learn what made your empire strong. 

And the buildings had scale. Traditionally, RTS buildings would take up roughly 4 squares to your characters 1 square. Well Age of Empires 2 had giant castles. Although not true scale, they made the game feel so much more realistic. 

There was nothing more satisfying than rolling up on an enemy with a half dozen Trebuchets or put in the cheat code and roll in with a missile firing Shelby Cobra. 

Top 200 Games of All Time: 30 - 21

30: Amnesia: The Dark Descent

• Year: 2010
• System: PC

I don't know if I've played a game that has gotten me as worked up as Amnesia: The Dark Descent. The only weapon you have is light and that light is at a premium. 

You don't know why you wake up in a giant castle. And at first, you don't really know there's an evil lurking underneath. That is until the first time your torch blows out and all of a sudden, there's something going bump in the night. 

And you dig deeper into the catacombs, you come across the water monster, one of the scariest scenes in games ever. My heart was in my throat the entire time. Eventually you make your way to the dungeon where things get more and more tense. 

Top 200 Games of All Time: 70 - 61

70: Darkstone

• Year: 1999
• System: PC

Darkstone is more or less a Diablo rip off. But like a really good Diablo rip off?

It fed my need for more Diablo. But it also filled a sort of general need for a role playing game. There wasn't this overarching hell is spilling into the world. There were fully populated villages to interact with. 

There of course were randomized dungeons. Dozens of enemies and spells and weapons. 

Darkstone wasn't better than Diablo, but in a time where Diablo clones were everywhere, Darkstone stood above the rest. 

Top 200 Games of All Time: 80 - 71

80: Warlords II

• Year: 1993
• System: PC

I didn't understand Warlords II for a long time. I had the Shareware version, so a lot of maps and characters were locked and if you clicked on them, you would get the "send a check or money order to this address." But I kept at it because what else was I going to do. I was getting like $5 in allowance, I couldn't exactly afford games. I survived mostly on shareware.

I'd play until inevitably, I would run out of units and die. I couldn't figure out how I was expected to win because the instructions were so obtuse. 

And then I discovered Gamefaqs. 

And then I started realizing checking out the ruins would get you treasure and maybe allies. And then I figured out how to make more units. And eventually I got really good at the game. 

Top 200 Games of All Time: 130-121

130: Streets of Rage 2

• Year: 1993
• System: Genesis

Streets of Rage 2 is what all beat-em-ups strive to be. An attainable win. Tough. Tons of style. That awesome 1980's movie-punk character design. Smooth frame rate. Variety of moves. And I think ultimately the most important part of a side scrolling beat-em-up, great couch co-op. 

Streets of Rage 2 really kicked off a lot of the 90s attitude. You had some American Gladiator-ass names like Stone and Blaze and Max Thunder. You had a playable character on roller blades. The entire city seemed to be made of brick held together by graffiti and hilariously translated signs like "It's Like Boo" and "Do! Baseball."

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. 

Top 200 Games of All Time: 200-191

200: Tetris

Year: 1989

System: Gameboy

Blasphemy! One of the top selling games of all time at 200? The inspiration for essentially every puzzle game ever made! 

Well buckle up, cause games that were inspired by Tetris show up much higher on this list. Honestly, out of all the games on my list, this one traveled and up and down the most. It peaked around the 30 mark, but I felt like I was supposed to have it there and not that I actually wanted it there. I like some of the other puzzle games better than Tetris, but that doesn't take away from how good it is. 

My list of favorite games was damn near 400, so the fact that this was in the top half of games I just considered good, says a lot.

199: Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time

Year: 2005

System: DS

Not starting off great. I can already see people jumping down my throat for putting this over Mario RPG. Well... I never had Mario RPG, but I did have Partners in Time and I found it charming and addictive. 

This was also the game where I learned about the rampant DS bootleg market. I bought this from Gamestop and then tried to re-sell it on eBay. And I got an angry email from my buyer. And then when I told the buyer I had no idea what he was talking about, I got 8 pages explaining different ways to spot bootleg DS carts. I gave the guy a refund at at some point lost the cart in my couch cushion. 

198: Donkey Kong

Year: 1986

System: NES

This was the ultimate trial and error NES game. It didn't fell unfair like some games (Looking at you Bayou Billy, you piece of...) but it was challenging. Although it only had like 4 stages, they were a challenge every time you played there. There wasn't really "memorizing" the stages cause things would always bounce weird, frame rates would drop randomly, and there's always that terrible moment where you felt cocky and you tried to get one over the big gorilla. 

It never worked out and you always lost a life. 

197: Mariokart 64

Year: 1996

System: N64

My cousin dragged a kitchen chair into the room, attached a steering wheel to the kitchen table / entertainment center, and put pedals on the floor. I sat 18 inches from the screen and played until 3 in the morning.

I had played the SNES version of Mariokart and I was a seasoned veteran of Wacky Wheels on the PC, but nothing prepared me for the chaos of a 3D racing game.

I was total dogshit and still largely am, but somehow Nintendo pulling off four player split screen with very little slowdown was life changing. I only had one friend who had a TV big enough to actually play four player split screen, but those Friday nights locked in the battle mode were special. 

196: Sonic Adventure

Year: 1998

System: Dreamcast

That demo Sears had playing over and over again of Sonic outrunning the whale... that alone gets you on the top 200 list. 

To this date, Sonic Adventure is one of the few 3D Sonic games to feel fast and capture the general feeling of Sonic the Hedgehog.

If not for the short comings of the Dreamcast controller or some of the mid-game confusion around what you needed to do, this game would've been much higher on the list. 

195: Ice Hockey

Year: 1988

System: NES

Nintendo sort of knocked it out of the park on their first try. This game is old enough to where they could just call it Ice Hockey cause nothing else existed like it yet.

Some people might get pictures of Blades of Steel in their brain, but as soon as you talk about the fat guy, everyone knows this game. You built a team around a skinny fast guy, a very average guy, and a fat slow guy and dammit, that's all the strategy we needed in 1988. 

In instead of getting an expensive license like the NHL or Olympics, Nintendo kept it simple and opted for generic national teams of countries that probably played ice hockey.

194: CyClones

Year: 1994

System: PC

My dad worked with a bunch of tech nerds in the early to mid-90s, which meant every now and then, when I went to sign into the ole Hewlett-Packard on the weekend, I'd find random CD-ROMs and Floppy Disks hanging out. Most of the time is was dumb Simpsons WAV files, but sometimes I found find games. 

One of those games was CyClones. You know Raven Software, the people that bring you many of your favorite Call of Duty maps? This was one of their early gigs. 

I was used to playing Doom where everything technically lived on the same plane of existence or Duke Nukem 3D where if you dared press the Page Up button you'd shoot your weapon into a distorted reality. This was the first first person shooter to use the mouse look. Eat shit Half Life, CyClones beat you to the punch by 4 years. 

193: Costume Quest

Year: 2010

System: PC

This was Double Fine's Renaissance period. Their second coming. Costume Quest, Double Fine Adventure, Stacking, The Cave... all these very charming puzzle games in a time where we were duct taping chainsaws to our giant machine guns. 

This RPG stayed the perfect amount of time, once credits rolled you felt like it had reached a nice conclusion. You didn't have the grind you get in Final Fantasy games. I also happen to be working on a similar game with my brother at the time. Costume Quest beat us to market by a long shot and did it much better than we probably would have.   

192: Earthworm Jim

Year: 1994

System: Genesis

This slot was a constant battle between Earthworm Jim and Vector Man. I loved the 2D run and gun platformers of the Genesis era, but could only find one spot on the list for them. And that number is 192. 

They were able to have these big beautiful sprites and not sacrifice frame rate or speed. When many games would slow down character movement or felt like you were running through syrup, the Earthworm Jims of the world sprinted and fired a machine pistol.

This was one of the first games that I felt captured that Saturday morning cartoon / Ren and Stimpy art style.

191: LHX Attack Chopper

Year: 1990

System: PC

There was a time in PC gaming before the ASDW keyboard scheme wasn't standard yet and you would find your hands playing finger Twister on the keyboard. This was one of those games. Legit, I tried to play it on the Internet Archive and I couldn't figure out how to take off even.

My friends and I thought the maps in LHX were infinite. You could pick a direction and just keep flying, always finding little patches of enemies here and there. 

There was nothing more satisfying than loading up a Hellfire missile and firing it on a lone bazooka carrying infantry man on the ground. 

The best this game felt was when you locked onto a tank and while dodging it's ground fire just unloaded everything you had. The use of 3D space felt great (in 1990).

Spoopy Games: Random One Offs

As I've said, I was addicted to Resident Evil. I'd always flip through my Official PlayStation magazine looking for the words Resident Evil clone, I would write down the name of the game, and keep the list in my wallet for anytime I went to Babbages with some extra cash.

I ended up getting a lot of random horror games for the PlayStation 1 and 2. This learned behavior has followed me through to today.

Even though horror games have become more popular thanks to the rise of indie games and hot demos like PT, I still have fun hunting down the lesser known games.

So this list is essentially a mix of things that I didn't know were going to be important at the time and things that are still little known or played that have a special place in my heart.