May the 4th Be With You - A Star Wars Videogame ranking

I've been a Star Wars fan since I can remember. 

My parents taped Return of the Jedi off of network TV around 1990, and I wore the tape out.

I rented a New Hope from the library. By the time I saw Empire, I was already buying books with schematics of the ships and Timothy Zahn books.

I play almost every Star Wars game that comes out, so over 40 years, I've played a lot of games. 

I feel like I'm missing something from this list, but I can't figure out what it is, so with that caveat here's my definitive list

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: 50 - 41

50: Hunter Hunted

• Year: 1996
• System: PC

Hunter Hunted is a game that I only know of about four people ever hearing of and less ever playing it. But it's a fantastic platforming adventure game that takes place in the post-apocalypse. 

Aliens have enslaved humans and these Minotaur looking creatures and make them fight for entertainment. You control Jake or Garethe Den (I'll let you figure out which one is the Minotaur) and work together trying to rebuild a car to escape the aliens. 

Every level has objectives and exits you must find. And the best part of the game is there are 20 or so co-op levels where you and a friend can play split screen and try to reach the objectives together. 

I still have a disk copy of Hunter Hunted, but in a terrible Twilight Zone like episode, no disk drive to be found. I check GOG, Steam, and the Epic Game Store at least a few time a year waiting to see if this gets added to the library. 

Top 200 Games of All Time: 60 - 51

60: Wario's Woods

• Year: 1994
• System: NES

I bought Wario's Woods on a lark. I went into this awesome retro place (that unfortunately didn't last long) and just asked them if they had any games that were like Mario or Mega Man. 

The clerk sort of shrugged and suggested Wario's Woods, Yoshi's Cookies, or Bionic Commando. 

Bionic Commando was a solid recommendation, but the only thing Wario's Woods and Yoshi's Cookies had in common was Mario characters. And in my opinion, Yoshi's Cookies kinda sucks. 

Wario's Woods is my favorite puzzle game of all time. You stack different... I don't even know what the hell they are... woodland creatures? Trying to get a certain amount in a row. Some of them require diagonal matches, some require two clears, some require two quick clears, all while Wario sits at the top of the screen crunching the play area. 

Top 200 Games of All Time: 110-101

110: NBA Jam

• Year: 1993
• System: Genesis

Tournament Edition was probably a better game, but I have better memories around the original NBA Jam. We were not a basketball family, but for some reason, this was one of the first games we got for our 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. 

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: 140-131

140: Liero

• Year: 1998
• System: PC

I always liked Worms, but it always felt a little slow. Especially when playing against the AI where you would have to wait long periods of time for them to make a move. 

Liero solves that problem. Gone are the back and forth of turns, instead, we play for keeps. This is Worms: the Death Match. 

You move quickly through the underground tunnels, using grappling hooks, and firing wildly, cutting through the mud. Sometimes you might just carpet bomb downwind from you, hoping you'll get a lucky bounce of the trenches you were building. 

Liero was a free download I found when I was looking for a copy of Worms on the internet, and it ended up being a blast to play against my friends. 

Top 200 Games of All Time: 160-151

See games

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

160: Assassin's Creed: Black Flag

• Year: 2013
• System: PS4

Assassin's Creed 3 sucked. It didn't have any flow to the game. The forest and tree jumping didn't replace the feel of parkoring through a city. 

On top of that, the story was pretty lame. And besides a few missions (like running through a Revolutionary War battle), I don't remember a damn thing about the game. 

So when Assassin's Creed: Blackflag was announced, I wasn't convinced. Luckily for Ubisoft, what the hell else was I going to play on my new PlayStation 4?

The ship battles were a blast, the small piece meal islands everywhere gave you unique scenarios you couldn't just run from, and the story both in the pirate world and in the modern world was fun.

The ACII trilogy left a lot of really interesting story lines open, ACIII took itself too seriously and killed the momentum of some of those storylines. Blackflag took it in another direction and just got so meta-snake-eats-tail-way, that it was great. 

An evil gaming company has figured out how to generate games based off the memories of former assassin's. And then the plot starts unraveling nefarious happenings at the fake Ubisoft. 

159: Urban Strike

• Year: 1992
• System: Genesis

The "strike" series was a staple of the 16 bit era, coming to a culmination with the fifth generation's

Nuclear Strike. Even though there were two Strike's on the newer consoles, the 4th generation's Urban Strike is the peak of the series. 

You flew a helicopter with limited fuel and limited ammo (you could pick up more) and you would get various missions. You may need to steal giant mirrors from the bad guys, rescue a plastic surgeon who did work for the cult leader, or blow up an oil rig. 

As a kid, this game just seemed limitless. (Checking a YouTube walkthrough, I realize now it can be beat in under 3 hours pretty easily) You could choose between a few different choppers. There were missions where you would drive a tank or run around on foot. 

For Urban Strike, there was some Bond villain like cult leader that you were trying to stop. The cult leader ran for president and lost the 2000 election, ultimately forming a coup of some sort. 

158: Fighting Force

• Year: 1997
• System: PS1

Anyone with a PlayStation 1 had this demo. It came with your PlayStation, it came with magazine demos, it came with any Eidos demo disks. And because you had this demo, you played the parking lot area in front of the evil headquarters or Dr. Zeng hundreds of times.

Somewhere around the 70th time, you realized there was a bazooka hidden in the trunk of one of the cars. Which in turn had you playing another 70 times trying to figure out what else was hidden. 

I bought this game eventually and it became a co-op go-to. Each of the four characters had different stats and a different special move. The frame rate stayed up, the combat was varied and challenging, and the interactivity of the environments kept things interesting. This is the last beat-em-up game to get it's hooks into me. 

157: Contra 3: The Alien Wars

• Year: 1992
• System: SNES

My cousin got a SNES three years before I had a Sega. I was still stuck on the NES. So when he invited

me to spend the night and fired up the Super NES for the first time, my jaw hit the floor. The colors were so vivid, the sprites so detailed, and in the case of Contra 3, you saw what Mode 7 could do. 

We launched into the first game, the background seemed to move independently of the foreground. Enemies attacked from all sides. Power-ups flew overhead. But your brain couldn't put everything together because your finger was on the machine gun and jumps buttons constantly. 

And in the Contra tradition, mission 2 was from a completely different perspective. Instead of the long shooting gallery we know from the first game, we instead had a top down perspective that became popular in the PlayStation era with games like Loaded. 

And then in mission three, you're flying through the air, jumping from exploded piece of city to exploded piece of building. And then there was the patented 90s motorcycle level. And incredibly varied boss fights. 

Contra 3 is the best of the series. 

156: Perfect Dark

• Year: 2000
• System: N64

The missions were better than Goldeneye. The designs much cooler. The weapons much more interesting. And you could play the entire story in Co-op mode. Perfect Dark was such an interesting game. 

There were definitely downfalls. Requiring the expansion pack to give the RAM a boost was a huge bummer and extra cost. In fact, when I rented this from Blockbuster the first time, they didn't tell me about the expansion pack and I lost a day of rental. 

And then there's the other downfall. The multiplayer had the standard death match, but there were also something like 100 scenarios you could play through co-op. The issue is, every time you added another player, the frame rate was cut by 3/4. So if you dared trying to get four people into a game, expect every flick of the joystick to freeze your screen right before jerking your gun 110 degrees. 

Perfect Dark HD fixed some of these issues. The game didn't age well, especially the N64 control scheme, but there were few other games (until Halo) pulling off the technical feats Perfect Dark did. 

155: Pocket Bomberman

• Year: 1998
• System: Game-boy Color

I've always enjoyed playing the various Bomberman games against my friends. There's a tenseness with

trying to move quickly, think quickly, without trapping yourself between a bomb and a wall. 

Pocket Bomberman took the top down perspective and flipped the same sort of game play into a platformer. There was a cat and mouse game of trying to plant bombs to take out the enemies, without taking out yourself. Sometimes the timing was frustrating as you barely warmed the mid-section of an enemy and other times you found yourself standing next to a bomb without much you could do. 

154: Syndicate Plus

• Year: 1994
• System: PC

Syndicate was my first introduction to the corporation owned future dystopia. Corporations grew more powerful until they replaced the world governments. People lived in squalor. The corporations came up with a chip they could insert into a human that numbed their perception of the world. This of course lease to cyber enhancements and advertising directly to the brain. 

You could choose to either play as the corporation or as the rebellion. Essentially you lead a group of four cyborg soldiers in missions meant to stabilize regions and gain control for your corporation. But this wasn't just corporate espionage and buy outs (there was a little of that), these corporations have no qualms about carrying out assassinations and bomb detonations to meet their quarterly goals. 

153: Super Mario Maker

• Year: 2015
• System: Wii-U

This was the first Mario game since Galaxy to capture that childlike wonder in me again. I could load

up a level in any Mario style I wanted and had an unlimited treasure chest of them. 

Sure, many of the user generated content wasn't great, but I was amazed that there was this universal language of Mario where I could hop in, understand the intent behind the designer, and then see a Japanese or French flag next to their name. 

Mario is Mario is Mario. It's a unifier. 

And then when I finally went into the build tools, I was almost overwhelmed at all the ideas, the creativity that flowed through my brain. I was instantly the 5-year-old, cross-legged on the floor, drawing Mario levels on graph paper. 

152: Resident Evil

• Year: 1996
• System: PS1 

I didn't know how much I needed survival horror in my life. I was definitely too young to understand this game when I first played it. The puzzles were a little over my head, (I spent dozens of minutes trying to figure out how to equip the Emblem as a shield) but the moment I figured out you could push the statue over the railing and get a key, I was hooked. 

My cousin and I did a controller pass, examining every item, and looking for a hint. We were always low on ammo (on account of killing everything in every room) and ink ribbons. Eventually I found Gamefaqs, printed out a walk through, and we made it through. (Although, we were out of ink ribbons at the end of the game and had to play the final 30 minutes over and over again until finally beating it)

I've bought this game in every form it's existed in. The Director's Cut (with a much worse soundtrack, but interesting "Arrange" mode), the DS post with some new touch screen sequences, and of course the remake. 

151: Die Hard Trilogy

• Year: 1996
• System: PS1

Die Hard Trilogy is three good games in one. 

There was the third person shooter that covered the first movie's plot as you scaled Nakatomi Plaza. 

There was the incredible light gun game that covered most of the plot to Die Hard 2. 

And then there was the incredible predecessor to Crazy Taxi, where you drove a taxi to grab bombs in time that covered the plot of 3. 

Die Hard trilogy was one of the most complete games ever made for the PlayStation 1. It's unfortunate that the sequel was lackluster because I would've loved to see what other John McClain adventures they could come up with. 

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.

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.

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.

The Order: 1886

Release Date: February 20, 2015
Played on: PlayStation 4

The Order: 1886 is notorious in that it was one of the games pushed the hardest for the PS4 launch and it probably had the most hype behind it. This was one of the games I pointed to when people asked why I picked PS4 over an Xbox One. 

The release however, earned very middling reviews and the game quickly disappeared from the collective conscious. 

I held off on buying it, assuming at some point Sony would give it away as part of the monthly offerings of PlayStation + games. 

Before that happened though, the price came down enough to where a buddy of mine just bought the disk. 

Wolfenstein: The New Order and The Old Blood

Played on: Playstation 4
Release Date: 

• Wolfenstein: The New Order: May 20, 2014
• The Old Blood: May 5, 2015

It's hard to talk about one of these games without talking about both at the same time. 

The current Wolfenstein reboot borrows elements from so many games.

The sneaking ability is that of Thief and Dishonored where you have to trust the AI to your periphery won't see you because you're stalking a soldier, crouched, and hoping you can land a melee blow without anyone noticing.

The combat is ultra-violent like something ID Games, Quake and Doom, would make.

The level design feels oddly like Resident Evil 4 and Metal Gear Solid in these Gothic castles with branching paths.

I don't think many people had this on their radar, but something about the reviews I read spoke to me and I had to get them both.

Dragon Age Inquisition

Played on: Playstation 4
Release Date: November 18, 2014

I was late to the party on this one. Like a lot of people, I was incredibly bored with Dragon Age 2 and wasn't quite ready to come back to Ferelden until summer of 2015.

I was pulled in almost immediately. All the role playing systems and great Bioware writing was in tact.

There was a rich varied world that I wanted to explore, NPCs and party members that I wanted to learn more about, and so many codex's expertly written.

Thoughts on Destiny

It's been a long time, but I've had some Destiny thoughts banging around my head.

The TL:DR is basically, if you have friends playing this game, or you really liked Halo, this is probably the game for you. I play this game, single player and multiplayer, with the game muted and listening to podcasts. 

The BETA of this made me feel like it was a Mass Effect world with Battlefield gameplay and Borderlands loot. I was incredibly excited about this.

I reached level 20 this weekend. I have maybe 3 story missions before I beat the game. I've played 10-15 competitive matches. So I've seen a lot of the content.

The story is built to be one of those, "Humans are on the brink of extinction and this elite group of warriors called Guardians are our only hope."

It's a very standard setup. Earth is a nuclear wasteland, our Mars base has been over-run by enemies, the moon wasn't viable to live on, and we never got fully established on Venus. We are basically living on this floating space station/planet thing called the Citadel.

The story never really develops past that. It's really boring. The missions consist of, "Oh, there's some bad guys over there, they probably want something important, let's go see what it is. Oh, it's [Enter random computer system, power crystal, powerful weapon here] we should stop them. 

It really never expands beyond that. And most the missions take place in very similar looking caves or space bases. 

There are no NPCs in the game other than the merchants. Literally none. I'd pay to have the stereotypical marine commander stranded somewhere that I save. But there is no one. It is you, the enemies, and some other random players running around. 

And the other random players running around can ruin the experience sometimes. When I was trying to level up a bit to play some of the harder missions, I'd find a squad of enemies, engage them, then some dickhole that was 5 levels ahead of me would show up, kill everyone with one grenade and move on. Meanwhile, I miss out on a bunch of XP. (Also, because of the persistent universe, I can't pause the game. I hate when I can't do that.)

Most of the background of the world require you to log into Bungies' website on a computer and look at these "cards" you earn. It would work so much better if there was a Mass Effect like Codec. 

The loot system is a stripped down Borderlands system. As you level up, you find more powerful guns. Most guns will have one special thing like, "burns enemies." 

Now, they also want you to level up your gun. As you use the gun, you unlock extra abilities. The issue is, you will find a more powerful gun before you level up the gun your using. I'm thinking now that i'm level 20, that might level out a bit. 

You also can't get a lot of the really cool gear without playing a ton of the competitive multiplayer, which I will get to shortly. 

The best part of this game so far are strike missions. Basically, you and two other people play a really hard mission with tons of bosses and enemies. This is especially fun when you have a friend with you, which I do. 

You can play any of the story missions with friends as well. Once you hit level 20 (which is the artificial level cap) you can replay those missions on basically "Strike" difficulty and earn other gear and XP. 

There are also community events which are fun. You're running around on the planet, having a good time, and then a huge tank will drop in. Anyone in the vicinity can help take him out. It's a really fun and difficult battle.

The sound is just bad. The voice acting is really boring and uninspired. The guns sound just like guns in Halo, but they might have brought the pitch up or sped it up. There's this one gun that really sounds like a Needler. The music is pretty good, but since the other things annoy me, I mute the sound and listen to other things. 

So the competitive multiplayer is disappointing. Any levels beyond 20 can only be earned by playing these matches. It basically takes 10-20 matches to actual get the new level.

I hate Halo. I've never liked it much. The very first one was interesting to play split screen on a console. Beyond that, no Halo game has ever been fun. I've tried so many times to get into it. I've played every Halo except the one that came out last year. They just don't do it for me.

Multiplayer plays exactly like Halo. People bunny hop all around the map to keep you from shooting at them. They just launch grenades and spray machine guns into rooms with capture points, not aiming at anything, just hoping to get some kills. And the maps might as well all be "Blood Gulch" with a new skin on them. 

You can't even really play the multiplayer until you're at least level 15. I jumped in at level 7, was put on a team with a bunch of people level 5-13. We played a team of people level 18-20. We were dominated. 

Now, they supposedly even out the damage your weapons give, but at level 20 you have access to a bunch of better rocket launches, sniper rifles, special abilities, armor, etc. Basically, they are coming into matches where I have a knife and they have a sword. Technically they do the same damage, but the sword is still going to win that fight. 

Now that I'm level 20, I can at least survive a bit, but because everyone is bunny hopping around, there's not a ton of skill involved. You basically just have to spray machine guns and hope you hit. 

And matches where there are capture points are usually my favorite match type. However, the maps are small enough that when the other team sees you are capturing a point, they can get to that point before you capture it and just spam grenades. So it's a race to see who can get two points first, because you're probably going to keep them. 

If I had to give it a number, I'd say Destiny is a 5/10. I've had incredibly fun times playing with buddies co-op. But the story is boring, the competitive multiplayer is not my sort of game, and the story is not fleshed out enough for me to care. 

There's the framework for a really awesome and rewarding experience and I tend to think that 1) This was probably a Halo game at some point and 2) this was Bungie working out their MMO network code and figuring out what people would like the most. My guess is Destiny 2 will be a good 8/10.