Top 200 Games of All Time: 90 - 81

90: Dead Rising 4

• Year: 2016
• System: Xbox One

Dead Rising 2 and 3 sort of leaned into more mainstream story telling and video gaming. They lost a little of that weird from Dead Rising 1. 

It's a miracle that Dead Rising 4 exists at all. The game was almost finished when they decided to basically scrap it and start over. Not only does it exist, but Dead Rising 4 recaptures that weird from the original perfectly and is able to give you the greatest hits of the good things from DR2 and DR3. 

You start in a mall, which is better designed than the mall in the first one. Weapons crafting sort of took away from DR2, but DR4 finds a way to make it fun. You move through a military encampment, which then opens out into a full realized town, which is better than DR3. There's plenty of opportunity to drive over zombies, make wacky weapons, take the story seriously, or just mess around for a few hours. 

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."

The Top 200 Games of All Time: 150 - 141

See games

• 200-191
• 190-181
• 180-171
• 170-161
• 160-151

150: Grand Theft Auto IV

• Year: 2008
• System: Xbox 360

Grand Theft Auto never really sunk in for me. I hated driving, I hated gun fights, I hated racing, I hated staying fit, getting hair cuts, driving across town, getting murdered by the dumb physics, driving across the neighborhood, the final missions, and driving in general. 

I sort of lucked into Grand Theft Auto IV. I was grocery shopping at a Wal Mart around midnight and saw the huge line. I sort of thought, what the hell, let's see if they still have a copy. Well, the ended up splitting the line to open another register and guess who was second all of a sudden? This guy. 

I took it home and let it download all night long. And when I got home from work the next day, I started my journey. 

Don't get me wrong, I still hated the driving and the gun play was still bad, but I liked the characters. I wanted to see what the game had to offer. I saw it through and generally enjoyed it. There was still one of those classic annoying Grand Theft Auto final missions where you're driving while shooting, my two least favorite things combined into one 20 minute mission. 

Where I got the most out of this game though is the sandbox online mode. My two friends and I would load up, get weapons, and then choose where we were going to dig in and see how long we could outlast the cops. 

149: Dragon Quest Builders 2

• Year: 2018
• System: Switch

This is going to be the most shameful thing I say in this entire project, but I've never played Minecraft. 

I skipped out on it when it first came out because I wasn't doing much computer gaming at the time. And then by the time it was available on consoles, Notch turned out to be a terrible person. 

But I get it. Dragon Quest Builders 2 is an absolute delight. The towns people give you a request (build a bathhouse, build a barn) and as you fulfill their requests, the town gets larger and you get more tools. I spent way too much time in the second village area building and building and un-necessary building. 

If I had one complaint, it's that the combat gets in the way of my fun. I think you could completely remove that aspect and the game would be better for it. 

148: Army Men 3D

• Year: 1999
• System: PS1

This is the best Toy Story game ever made. No, it's not a licensed Toy Story product, but you played as the little green army men against the tan army men. Most of the game takes place in what seem like real battle fields, but then the tan army gets a hold of a weapon that can harness the sun's power and melt the green army. 

This game advertised to kids had a vast array of kind of complicated missions. You might need to sweep a mine field, or sneak on your belly into an enemy encampment, or drive a tank through an entire battalion of tan soldiers. 

The best part was the split screen two player deathmatch mode. One day in a particularly hard fought battle with my brother, I accidentally found a secret path up a mountain and outside of the map. But it was designed out. It wasn't like I clipped through the map where I wasn't supposed to be. There was a mortar up there and a Tinker Toy. When I picked up the Tinker Toy, it flashed "key." I spent the next year in a web ring with a dozen other enthusiasts trying to uncover what the keys do. We found two other keys in the multiplayer levels, but never figured out what they did. 

Finally, I got the idea to just email 3DO and a few days later, I got something from one of the devs. He basically said the keys don't do anything, they just thought it would be a fun Easter Egg. 

147: Jackal 

• Year: 1986
• System: NES 

Jackal was inspired by 1980s love affair of everything American military was cool. Drive a jeep around

with your buddy firing machine guns and grenades at everything. 

Your objective is to clear the enemy out of maps while rescuing POWs. This was actually the part I enjoyed the most, you could blow a hole in the side of a building and between 1-5 POWs would jump into your jeep. Then at the halfway point and end point of the mission a helicopter would land and allow you to unload your crew while dodging rockets coming from tanks and foot soldiers.

The immediate thing you'll notice is the striking color pallet. Your army green jeep is dropped from an airplane onto bright orange desert. 

In some ways this was a more intelligent 1942. The enemies felt like they were real people in Jackal instead of just swarms driving face first into your guns. 

146: Zork: Grand Inquisitor

• Year: 1997
• System: PC

There was an 8 year period, where if you were going to release a PC game, it was either a flight simulator (Tie Fighter), a point-and-click adventure (Maniac Mansion), or a graphic adventure puzzle game (Myst). Zork fell in that last category, except unlike Myst, it didn't take itself seriously. 

Zork is basically Harry Potter meets Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It's an entire world where magic and wizards exist in a sort of modern sense. The jokes all poke fun at how stupid everything is. 

It did have one thing in common with Myst, some of the puzzles were impossible without just trying every object on every object. I would've never gotten through this game without Gamefaqs. 

145: The Unholy War

• Year: 1998
• System: PS1

The Unholy War was a surprise. When I was broke as can be, I would buy used PlayStation 1 games

from Blockbuster. I had only seen advertisements for the Unholy War, but I couldn't really understand what it was. It sort of looked like a third person fighting game with monsters, but maybe it had some real time strategy elements?

And the answer is yes. It was a board game, where you could spawn more troops if you managed resources properly. And when you rode up on an enemy, the game would turn into a fighting game between the two chess pieces. 

This was one of the best two player games on the PlayStation. A game that flew under mosts radar, but should have been held up as one of the top games for the platform. 

144: Bust-a-Move 4

• Year: 1998
• System: PS1

There's two ways to have your match color/shape puzzle games. The ones like Tetris and Dr. Mario where the pieces drop at you or the ones where you shoot a piece at the board, like Bust-a-Move. 

I always preferred the Bust-a-Move style games. I felt like my brain handled the anxiety better and I was able to see patterns and combos easier. 

Bust-a-Move features our favorite dinosaurs, Bubble and Bobble, firing colored orbs toward the top of the screen, trying to knock like colors down. I played this for hours on the PS1. It was an addiction. 

143: Borderlands

• Year: 2009
• System: Xbox 360

Diablo, but a first person shooter, with humor, a cool art style, and split screen co-op? Unheard of in the

modern era. I thought couch co-op was dead. There were too many nights where a buddy and I would sit on the couch, intention just to have a beer before going out, and just scrapping out plans and getting Borderlands drunk together. 

The excitement of the random stat die everytime you picked up a weapon. Wanting to know what psychopathic boss was waiting around the corner. Desperately trying to sprint from the spawn point before you partner died. Untouchable fun for games at the time. 

142: Sid Meier's Civilization VI

• Year: 2016
• System: Switch

I'm a strategy fiend. I've been waiting for something to come to a portable system forever. Civilization was teased on the Vita, but ultimately we got a phone game port. 

Civ VI works better than it has any right to be. The switch controls are incredibly intuitive for a game that usually you are shortcutting your way around a keyboard on. 

This is a classic, "One more turn" game. You start counting your moves until the next upgrade is finished. And when the enemy is at your gates, you have to decide to finish out other upgrades or immediately throw every military unit you can crank out at the threat. 

141: Gladiator 

• Year: 1995
• System: PC

The wild west of the shareware period of PC gaming had me playing some really weird shit that a dude

in his basement programmed. I spent hours downloading a single 500 KB game from "FreeGamedemos.com." 

Most of those games were crap and I would end up deleting them immediately, trying not to think too much of the wasted modem time. 

Gladiator by Forgotten Sages was one of those rare winners. You had a budget and could build out a team of adventurers to fight an enemy army. It was four player co-op, and my two brothers and I would crowd around a keyboard, trying to get at the 9 buttons we needed to move and attack. 

Gladiator is available on the Internet Archive to play. However, the pre-WASD keyboard mapping strikes again. It's basically unplayable because Esc is used so often, which is also the key to exit the emulator. 

My Favorites of 2016: 3-1

I wouldn't be a video game site without a proper top 10 list at the end of the year. Unfortunately, I
don't have games sent to me, or a full work week to dive into longer or stranger game, or even every current console, so there are some large gaps in this list.

There were some AAA games I still haven't touched this year that likely could've made the list. I didn't have time to dedicate to Overwatch and despite the want to play, I haven't touched Gears of War 4.

It was a tough list to put together. I started with 22 games I really liked and knocked it down to 15 hard decisions. Ultimately, I like my list. There's a lot of diversity on it. Lot's of great memories attached to the list.


So, without wasting further words, my top 3 of 2016.

My Favorites of 2016: 7-4

I wouldn't be a video game site without a proper top 10 list at the end of the year. Unfortunately, I don't have games sent to me, or a full work week to dive into longer or stranger game, or even every current console, so there are some large gaps in this list.

There were some AAA games I still haven't touched this year that likely could've made the list. I'm waiting for that Hitman full season to be pressed to a disk and I didn't have enough friends concentrated on one console to tip me over the edge to get Titanfall 2.

So, without wasting further words, here's game 7-4 of 2016.

My Favorites of 2016: 10-8

I wouldn't be a video game site without a proper top 10 list at the end of the year. Unfortunately, I don't have games sent to me, or a full work week to dive into longer or stranger game, or even every current console, so there are some large gaps in this list.

There were some AAA games I still haven't touched this year that likely could've made the list. Final Fantasy XV is something I anticipate, hoping that Santa comes through for me. Call of Duty campaign looks interesting this year compared to last years. And Xcom 2 and Dishonored 2 didn't make my must play list because of lackluster first outings. 

So, without wasting further words, here's game 10-8 of 2016.

Battlefield 1

Release Date: October 21, 2016
Played on: PS4

Battlefield 4 was my first real foray into Battlefield multiplayer. I played Bad Company, but not online. It seemed like an overwhelming community to jump into.

Battlefield 4 seemed like the perfect early PS4 game to show off the new hardware.

For the most part, I had a great time playing online. I was impressed by the all out war and chaos involved in Battlefield. And even though some players had a decade of Battlefield experience, I was able to hold my own and figure out the game modes and class system pretty quickly.

However, I was concerned with Battlefield 1 because the dynamic map changes that happened in BF4 often caused server crashes. With EA showing off very destructible environments, I was concerned that backing this over COD or Titanfall might bite me in the butt.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Release Date: August 23, 2016
Played on: PC

Deus Ex: Human Revolution was one of my favorite games of last generation. I've played through it three times, done my no-kill run, even played the sub-par DLC. I even thought about playing through it again before Mankind Divided came out.

I loved the freedom and exploration. How many side things there were to find. You could probably plow through a game in 12 hours, but it begs you to break into every office and read every email.

My excitement for Mankind Divided was too much for me to wait for the Steam sale a few months after release. I needed to be in that future world again.

Editorial: No Man's Sky

Release Date: August 9th, 2016
Played on: PlayStation 4

I didn't buy into the hype as much as most people. No Man's Sky always seemed like a survival game first, exploration game second, sci-fi adventure third. I thought it was a cool concept, but not the type of game I want to play.

I don't have time to figure out the survival parts of games like Don't Starve. In the limited gaming time I do have, I like to be able to hit the ground running with a clear objective and clean instructions.

My buddy put a solid 15-20 hours into No Man's Sky and generally he liked it, but there were times where he would call and say, "I just don't know what's motivating me. I'm doing the same things over and over again, but I keep coming back."

So he let me borrow his copy just so he had someone to talk to about it.

I did get a little excited as I booted the game up and saw the loading screen where it was generating my opening planet. I got a sense that this was my planet and no one else would see it.

What generated was a mostly green and rocky gas planet. I saw my downed ship and had some vague goals flashing on my screen that I need to collect some matter to get my ship going.

First things first, I knew I could name my planet and make my mark on this game. So, because I'm an adult, I named the system "PooPoo" and my planet, "PooPoo Junction."

So I start walking around, firing my mining laser at rocks, some plants, even a mini-brontosaurus looking animal. I was just getting a feel for the game.

And then I got a warning that my environment protection was running out and I needed to find a second material to stave off gas asphyxiation.

I didn't know where to get this material so I continued mining a bunch of things and seeing some numbers under requirements count up.

I wandered through some small, empty habitats that looked incredibly like the empty, soulless habitats in Mass Effect. And these little hyena bastards kept nipping at my heels.

Then only thing propelling me forward is that deep human need to check things off my list. I saw another question mark on the horizon, and I had to head toward it to see what it was.

Then I got a warning that my mining laser was out of ammo. I didn't know this could happen. It looked like an overheat sort of system. I was just firing at everything. But there I was, staring at a warning that I'm out of ammo and need to recharge it.

I still hadn't found the first two materials I needed, now I needed a third. I took a look at my inventory and I didn't have any of the three materials, but I had picked up the materials to upgrade something on my suit, so sure, I'll do that.

Since I'm out of ammo in my mining gun, the thing that gets me resources, I was now told to start hitting rocks and animals with my mining gun to collect materials. So I run up to a rock, hit it, see that the health of this rock only goes down about 1/20th of it's life and I sort of flip out at the game.

I was done, officially, 20 minutes in, I was done.

I didn't expect No Man's Sky to change my life like other people. I didn't even expect to like it. What I found was a completely competent, great looking game, that wasn't meant for people like me. And maybe later when they add updates and DLC to it and put in more of their sci-fi stuff, maybe then it'll speak to me. But right now, the No Man's Sky vanilla version is not a game I want to interact with.

And people, that's OK. Games don't have to change your life. Games can be just a surface level building block which what to build with. Look at how Minecraft started out. It was a game that was like, "I don't know, here's a couple tools, figure this shit out." Now it's the top selling game of all time.

No Man's Sky might not ever get near that level. In fact, it probably won't. But the backlash the dev team are getting from this is sickening. It's yet another poisonous well that is going to probably cause a few great minds in gaming to leave forever.

Doom (2016)

Doom was the game I coveted the most for the PC in the early 90s. I didn't get it until a few years after it had come out when my father got a hold of a CD with something like 40 games on there. I'm sure it wasn't legit, but we finally had Doom and Doom 2.

I played through both games several times, on various difficulty levels, with various cheat codes. I combed every inch of every map, discovered John Romero's severed head behind the end boss, attempted to kill every demon in the final room of Doom only to find that the room itself would kill you. I loved Doom.

Doom 3 didn't grab me the same way. I remember really liking it, but I also remember being incredibly lost. I'd wander hallways trying to figure out what I had to trigger for hours, not making any progress.

But Doom 2016... there's something special about Doom 2016.

Resident Evil VII Teaser

I usually stray away from demos and teasers. This is partially because of the very limited hard drive space I have on my PS4 and Sony's complete mismanagement of their download list.

The only other teaser I've downloaded this generation was PT.

I obviously have a soft spot for horror games, so it makes sense, but this is also because unlike a demo, teasers tend to be very different than the end product. It's a part of game history that in 10 years, someone is going to make an off hand comment about Resident Evil VII Remastered and I will tell them about this strange little teaser.

E3 2016

Another E3 hype train has left the station and after catching up on all the videos, I've got some things I'm excited about.

Nintendo did the thing they said they were going to do, they came to the show with just Zelda and Pokemon. I know I wasn't the only one that thought this was a bait and switch and we were going to see the NX.

Microsoft, Sony, EA, Ubisoft, and Bethesda all had OK showings, but there wasn't as much to blow your mind as there was last year.

Wacky Wheels

In late 1997 I had conquered Duke Nukem 3D. I wouldn't say I was tired of the game, but I could definitely use a break.

Also at this time, I started editing files that installed with games.

Personal favorite edits were replacing all the sounds in a German Monopoly ripoff with Simpsons and Beavis and Butthead sounds and replacing the taunts in Scorched Earth with very personal taunts aimed at my brothers.

So I started poking around my copy of Duke Nukem 3D. Most the files didn't mean anything to me, random DLL and map files. And then... then I found the holy grail.

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

Played On: PS4
Release Date: May 10, 2016

I have a weird relationship with Uncharted.

I love that I get to play a pulp adventurer, charming and gravity defying, Nathan Drake allows me to escape mowing the lawn for a few hours and explore hidden cities and temples.

On the other hand, the fire fights wear me down. Tedious and long, the bodies pile up and all I want is to get to the next cut-scene or quiet tomb.

But I've been on a journey with Nathan Drake, one that spans four games between the PS3 and Vita, and dammit, I needed to see it through.

Quick Vita Hits

The Vita is my darling. Even though the world didn't accept her, I love her.

She gave me access to dozens of PS1 games that I earn to play on the go, some of my favorite PSP games digitally, and introduced me to missed gems like Persona 4. Despite what most message boards say, the Vita also has a quality library of exclusives.

I'm locked in a hotel room for the next two months. I'll admit, the Wii-U took a lot of my couch playing time away from the Vita, but bringing the Wii-U with me wasn't an option. So I'm back to my old girlfriend.

Here's some of the more recent games I've been playing.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Played on: Wii-U
Release date: March 4, 2016 (Original November 19, 2006)

Many people don't like Twilight Princess because it's very vanilla. It rehashes a lot of stuff from Ocarina of Time. And they changed Link's sword hand. But we got this because everyone complained about Toon Link when Wind Waker came out.

All of those things mean nothing to me because:

1. I never had a Nintendo 64, so I never played Ocarina of Time.
2. I'm not a man baby when it comes to Toon Link, sword hands, or all the other things Zelda fans complain about.

I actually really enjoyed my time with Twilight Princess on the Wii in 2006. I have a Wii-U, so when the HD version of Twilight Princess was announced, it was a no-brainer, I was going to pad my Wii-U collection with this. 

The Division

Played on: PlayStation 4
Release date: March 8, 2016

When Ubisoft showed The Division at E3 the first time, it was when I realized, "Wow, the new consoles really are coming." It was the first game I wanted for my PlayStation 4.

Ubisoft has my number. If they slap Tom Clancy's name on a box, I'm probably going to buy it because dammit, I love my shooters to be based in a more realistic world. The Division is probably the most non-Clancy game Ubisoft has released under the name. Honestly, I think the game suffers from trying to shoe-horn some Clacy-ness into it.

I've been putting off writing this review as like most MMO type games, this one is constantly evolving and unlocking additional content. I've gotten to a point where I feel comfortable in knowing what the current version of The Division is.

Day of the Tentacle

Played on: Windows
Release Date: March 22, 2016 (June 25, 1993 original)

Warning: There are a couple of puzzle spoilers throughout.

In 1995, I spent most of my time in our dark, partially finished basement playing first person shooters like Doom and Wolfenstein.

I was also a giant Star Wars fan, so naturally I coveted Dark Forces. I wanted it so badly, but I was 11 and my paltry $2.50 a week allowance wasn't enough to cover the Dark Forces price tag.

Then one fateful day, I was taking in the giant wall of Sam's Club computer software, and I saw The LucasArts Archives Vol. 1. Ignoring most the games in the package, I saw Dark Forces included. My parents granted me a loan. I covered $30 of the package and forfeited my allowance over the next several weeks/months.

Dark Forces ended up being a three mission demo that came on it's own disk, but I couldn't see the text that said, "Demo" through the clear plastic window on the packaging.  I was taken like a chump. I can forgive the prequels, but this is the real reason I dislike George Lucas. (Just kidding, George seems like a really nice and cool guy)

It took me so long to figure out how to beat that terrible maze of a sewer level on Dark Forces, that the refund policy expired and I couldn't return this box of games.

Not wanting to feel like I lost money on the deal, I went ahead and installed Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle and what happened was magic.

I was immediately pulled into one of the toughest, funniest, and most rewarding adventure games I've ever played.