Top 200 Games of All Time: 3 - 1 - The Finale

3. Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim

• Year: 2011
• System: PC

Whhhaaaaa? This is is a dumbed down game for WOW players. Where's Morrowind? Where's Elder Scrolls Online? You noob ass noob.

Morrowind didn't even have a journal. Elder Scrolls Online, although constantly evolving, is still a gate checked online MMO game. 

Skyrim did what other Elder Scrolls could not, break into the mainstream. The release was a cultural phenomenon. 

Yeah, some systems were streamlined and dumbed down, but this isn't a bad thing. To evolve, Elder Scrolls had to, and it paid off. 

I've put in somewhere around 180 hours on PC, another 40 hours on PS4, 5 hours in VR, and 80 hours

on Switch. And I'm not sick of it yet. I stare at the icon on my Switch all the time thinking about traversing the world again. 

Skyrim served a smorgashboard of giving you varying areas, call backs to older Elder Scrolls games, fresh new ideas, interesting dungeons, and political intrigue. 

And you know what? If Skyrim gets released again on PS5, I bet you'll buy it. 

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. 

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• 90-81
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Top 200 Games of All Time: 100-91

100: Zack and Wiki: The Quest for Barbaros' Treasure

• Year: 2007
• System: Wii

There were less than 5 games on the Wii that actually used the waggle for good. Zack and Wiki was the second best of those five after Wii Sports. 

Zack and Wiki was an interesting puzzle game. You would be introduced to a situation such as your plane crashing and you jumping out and having to find a way to slow your decent. Or a volcano with a locked door. And using the Wiimote, you would have to open an umbrella to slow your fall or grab a key and actually use it to unlock a door. 

This game does what most of those phone game advertisements promise. There's an order of operations to solve the puzzles and when you do it, it's incredibly satisfying. 

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: 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. 

Top 200 Games of All Time: 170-161

See games

• 200 - 191
• 190 - 181
• 180-171

170: Shovel Knight

• 
  Year: 2014
• System: Vita

I didn't know I needed Shovel Knight when I finally played Shovel Knight. I had just come off of a marathon Persona 4: Golden play through and had played through Uncharted 4 and COD Advance Warfare on the PS4. I was sort of exhausted from big experiences. 

Then Shovel Knight won my heart. 

The levels and enemies were a perfect combo to feel challenging, but totally do-able. You have a sense that you did something special, but obviously the game is built to allow you to win. I'm not that great at platformers and I made it far in Shovel Knight. 

It captured the feel of a NES game without any of the frame rate issues, cartridge limitations, a Nintendo seal of approval. 

169: Sonic Spinball

• Year: 1993
  
• System: Genesis

The frame rate was dogshit. I just need to get that out of way. Like single frames per second. But it was the early days of the 16 bit consoles. This was a common occurrence. So you adapted. You learned that the top right of the Spinball board had too much going on and things would crawl. 

There was a ton to do in this game. Lot's of objectives to complete to unlock chaos emeralds and boss fights. 

This was one of the first games I had for the Genesis, so I grew a fondness for it because I didn't have anything else. Even today, I dream of a rerelease where they redo the phsycis and give us the pinball game we deserve. 

Microsoft introduced Space Cadet with Windows 95. This is the pinball game most people remember. But Sonic Spinball was there first, and bette.... well not better... but FIRST!

168: Guerrilla War

• 
  Year: 1987
• System: NES

Guerrilla War was one of those games that just sort of appeared in everyone's entertainment center during the NES reign. No one ever bought it, but everyone owned it somehow, and it was a go-to multiplayer game no matter which friend's house you went to. 

I owned both Ikari Warriors and Guerrilla War to fill my top-down co-op combat games library. Guerrilla War was vastly superior. 

Large sprites, the characters moved quickly, and it felt innovative. One thing that Ikari Warriors was missing was the map being used to actually create varied and interesting scenarios. GW would have you rush through a wide open jungle where you could maneuver around. Then you would reach a village that had houses to hide behind, but you also had to be careful because the enemy could spwan from behind them. You'd get pinched between two high walls with machine gun nests on top and would have to throw grenades while dodging. 

167: Gekido

• Year: 2000
  
• System: PS1

I honestly had too much money when I was 14. I was paid something like $60 a week to babysit my brothers, which meant every other week I would go to the mall and blow it all on video games and paraphernalia. And on one of those trips, I bought the flour player multitap for the PS1 thinking, "Finally, every brother can play at the same time." 

And then I had a multitap and no games. So I did an internet search, "Hey Jeeves, what are the PS1 games that support the use of this $40 thing I bought."

Gekido Urban Fighters was on the very short list and was only $30. So I bought it and was surprised to find it was a really fun brawler that had a chaotic fighting arena mode that was Powerstone before Powerstone was Powerstone. 

166: Cool Spot

• 
  Year: 1993
• System: SNES

I was a dumb kid. I never knew with the hands of well placed marketing were massaging my brain subtlety. McKids... collecting those golden arches and cheeseburgers... didn't put it together. 

Cool Spot... literally the logo for 7Up, jumping around in platforming action, collecting more 7Up logos, title screen has him surfing on a bottle of 7Up... yeah, didn't think about it. 

In a way, I'm sort of glad. This was actually a really fun platformer. It ditched the normally rigid right angles of the platforms and instead the definitely rigid right angles into what looked like hand drawn backgrounds. And you'd flip around, spitting what I now know is Sprite, at all your enemies. 

165: Diddy Kong Racing

• Year: 1997
  
• System: N64

Why the hell haven't we had another Diddy Kong Racing game? Seriously, you ask people about this game and they get a far off look in their eyes and a smirk. Is it rights issues with all of Rare's characters? Does Nintendo hold the rights to a game from a studio that is a Microsoft shop now? 

When you think of the third person games where you flew, it was this, Rogue Squadron, and Star Fox. The air races were great, they literally brought another dimension to the races we knew from Mariokart. 

And, probably it's greatest accomplishment, this was one of the few games where the N64 controller actually felt natural. 

164: Kagero: Deception II

• 
  Year: 1998
• System: PS1

This is such an unique premise to a game. Soldiers come to your castle to kill you, some sort of witch/demon. You passively kill them by setting traps around your castle and luring them into it. 

I was first introduced to Deception II via a PS1 demo disk. The demo allowed you to kill three enemies and you had access to four or so traps. 

There were so many ways to set the traps and lure the guys into them. And then I accidentally discovered combos when my swinging ceiling axe knocked a guy into an electric chair. I played the demo for hours but could never find a copy of the game in the wild. 

Then as a college kid, just casually strolling through a second hand shop in town, I found a copy for like $45. A hefty price for a game that was 7 years old at the time, but I bought it, and to my pleasure found that it was as fun as I remember. 

163: Castlevania

• Year: 1986
  
• System: NES

Castlevania seemed so cool in the 80s. To have an adventure that had branching paths and secrets everywhere was unheard of. I really loved Simon's Quest and didn't know which one to put on this list. It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized how unfair Simon's Quest was. 

I had all the time in the world to come up against obtuse puzzles and to whip every brick in every wall looking for a secret. 

I fell off this series hard. I don't have the patience for any Metroidvania game anymore, but there was a solid few years where I would blow into the Castlevania cartridge and play for hours. 

162: Super Mario World 3D

• 
  Year: 2013
• System: Wii-U

The Wii-U had some great games on it. It's just too bad the controller sucked and had to be within 10 feet of the console and collected fingerprints like crazy. 

Super Mario World 3D was one of the best Mario games since Galaxy. This was an obvious throw ideas on a white board game. Nintendo would introduce a new mechanic in a level... and then just throw that shit away for a new mechanic in the next level and the next level. 

And damn if I don't love running around in the cat suit. 

If the rumors are true and this is coming to Switch next year for the Mario anniversary, everyone should pick this up. The game has so much charm, so many interesting ideas, and it just really light hearted.

161: Demon Sword

• Year: 1989
• System: NES

By now you've probably seen a theme with NES games that I like. They are all fast. Games on the

Nintendo tended to be very stiff and slow movements. (Fester's Quest anyone)

Demon Sword was fast. You'd quickly jump from tree to tree at breakneck speeds, tossing ninja stars, swinging your sword, and eventually fighting a boss. 

The objective was to rebuild your broken sword. So you start the game with a blade about as large as your forearm. And as you collect pieces, this shit gets wild. You think Cloud's buster sword is huge, this thing can get to be like 3 times the size of your sprite. 

And as an added bonus, the American cover art was that semi-homoerotic late 80s like buff shirtless dude with a sword. 

Top 200 Games of All Time: 190-181

See games

• 200 - 191

190: Medal of Honor

Year: 1999

System: PS1

I got a copy of the Official PlayStation Magazine. There was a center story that was an interview with

Spielberg where he talked about how exciting videogames as a medium was. 

He talked about how he could have symphony quality soundtracks with the disks and that technology has come far enough along to where the AI could react to what you were doing rather than just running at you. He talked about how they were programming the enemies to jump on grenades or take cover. 

I honestly didn't believe anything he was saying and expected the game to never exist. 

But we got it. Mission 2 especially stuck with me, the spy mission in the train station. You could hear some vague french music in the background that seemed to echo off the walls. The tension and anxiety built as you presented your papers to more and more German officers. 

189: Oregon Trail

Year: 1985

System: PC

Just the most brutal of dice rolls with every move you did. Would fording the river end with broken legs and lost supplies? Probably. Would half of your wagon party die of terrible disease, odds are in favor of it. And at some point would you spend too much time hunting and have to just discard a bunch of meat on the side of the road like white people actually did... you betcha!

But you know what, it was the only game on those somehow already outdated Apple II/DOS machines in your computer lab and you were happy to have it. Bang out your Mavis Beacon assignment and then switch over to the "learning" game. 

And when you inevitably died before reaching the west coast, you got to leave a curse word filled tombstone on the road, your semi-permanent mark on this game. 

188: Pokemon Red/Blue

Year: 1996

System: Gameboy

I came to Pokemon late. Long ago did the school yard stop talking of Red vs Blue vs Yellow. Everyone was looking to the next generation. 

My little brother bought a Gameboy Color fairly late in it's life and that's when I caught up on the classics. 

Pokemon Blue passed the time on a 4 hour car ride to the Ozarks in what felt like minutes. And that first game gave birth to my tradition of spending too much time trying to catch every Pokemon in the first grassy area and grinding up until I have a Pidgey maxed out with mega-pecs. 

187: Wii Sports

Year: 2006

System: Wii

Everyone knows the "dah dah dah dahhh dah dahhh dahhhhh" startup music for Wii Sports because this was the harbinger of the waggle revolution. 

Wii's were in such short supply that I spent roughly $100 more than face value and that was considered a good deal. After I got another Wii-mote and Twilight Princess, I legit could not afford another game for months. 

So you bet your ass I was playing bowling and baseball every weekend. I threw my arm out the first weekend I had this thing, throwing spicy fast balls before I realized you could cheese the hell of the controls. 

Wii Sports permeated the culture so much that even my grandma still has a Wii hooked up in her basement for the grand kids. She has two games, Wii Sports and a dancing game. 

186: Clock Tower

Year: 1995

System: PS1

The horror boom of the Saturn/PS1 era had it's hooks in me. After Resident Evil, I search for every

horror game I could find. 

This game had me staring at the PS1 mouse weekly at the local Babbages. The controls were dog shit. It was one of those move the cursor around the screen using the controller as if you had a mouse. 

But everything else around this game was great. The story had twists, the puzzles were hard but do-able, there were like eight endings, and anytime scissor man showed up, the music changed and you had seconds to figure out where to hide or fight. 

More than any other horror game of this time, Clock Tower force situational awareness on you. You needed to case a room as soon as you entered or else end up as a teenager chopped in half by a guy wielding giant scissors. You needed to know where you could hide or what could be used as a weapon.

185: The Simpsons Arcade Game

Year: 1991

System: Arcade

One of my fondest memories of my childhood was the day at Showbiz Pizza, for a buddies birthday, where each kid got a fist full of tokens, and four of us crowded around the Simpson Arcade cabinet. 

None of us had ever made it past the second mission. A third level was a schoolyard myth. "I heard it's in a blimp." "I heard it's at the Nuclear Power Plant."

It was this day, armed with the power of capitalism, that we all got to experience Springfield's Discount Graveyard for the first time together. And this would also be the first time we experienced what became a 90's beat-em-up staple, the elevator level. 

Xbox live released this briefly on their service and it wasn't until I had the power of unlimited continues that I realized this entire game is only about 35 minutes long. The magic of an arcade game you only could play a few times before you ran out of quarters was gone. You started seeing the seams of how they ripped money from unsuspecting kids allowances. Had I not played that version of the game, this likely would've been comfortably in the 80 range. 

184: Spider-man and Venom in Maximum Carnage

Year: 1994

System: Genesis

Roughly 14,000 beat-em-ups came out in the mid-90s era and only about 10 of them were actually any good. This was a gem. 

The sprites were maybe a little blurry looking, but if you crossed your eyes and just paid attention to the bright colors, this game looked great. 

It was fast, the combos felt good, and it was one of the first good comic book games we got. It was precious. Do you remember how cool it was when the first Xmen movie came out? You know, before we got 36 Avengers films? It was special like that. 

I couldn't afford comics and the internet was in it's infancy, so I had no clue why the hell Spider-man and Venom were teaming up... or what Carnage was, but I knew he was bad and I knew we had to punch him. 

183: Street Fighter 2

Year: 1992

System: SNES

My cousin got Street Fighter 2 for his birthday. Our only fighting game experience at this point was Mortal Kombat, but there started to be murmurs of a "superior" fighting game on the playground. 

Well, my cousin took the hit for us. He asked for and received Street Fighter 2, eating $80 of his birthday budget. 

Like everyone, we discovered jamming buttons to make Ehonda do his fast punches and Blanka do the electricity early. Then we tried to figure out how we were jumping off the walls with Vega and Chun-li. And eventually one of us would accidentally throw a fireball with Ryu and spend the rest of the night trying to recreate it. 

I never got good at these style of fighting games where all of the moves required half or quarter circles. I want to be good at it so bad, but it's just not a thing that clicked. 

I'll still pop a quarter into a faded arcade machine, quickly beat Blanka, and then lose to Ken with a smile on my face. 

182: Super Mario 2

Year: 1988

System: NES

There's nothing worse than the ending to Super Mario 2. To find out your entire adventure was nothing but Mario's dream... get bent. That's creative writing 101. Don't kill the protagonist for a cheap emotional reaction and don't do dream sequences. 

The main reason it sucks is because Mario 2 (Doki Doki Panic) is actually a really good game. The level design is varied, the puzzle aspects clever, and it has some of the all time best Mario boss fights. Throwing bombs at Mouser, the classic Birdo fights that end ever level, and Triclyde who tested your dodging skills. 

I'd usually play it safe and use the Princess hover power, not realizing there was some benefit to being able to pick items up and dig fast with Toad or jump incredibly high with Luigi.

It's a shame Nintendo has decided to distance themselves as much as they can from this world. I would love a New Super Mario 2 on the Switch. 

181: Simpsons Hit and Run

Year: 2003

System: Gamecube

Crazy Taxi is an incredibly addictive game. Now what if you opened Crazy Taxi up to a larger world and dropped a Simpson's coat of paint on it. 

That's basically Hit and Run. This is by far the best Simpson's game ever released. The driving physics felt great, the mission structure was chaotic and had a great balance of barely beating it, but feeling like you accomplished a great feat. And the voice acting was top notch, something you would hope for with a Simpson's game. 

It was a blast to drive around Springfield and see where all the set pieces actually fit into the city. 

MarioKart 8

Over the weekend, I actually got my hands on a real life WiiU, in the wild.

My brother bought a WiiU a few weeks ago after getting a new job. He's always been a huge Zelda fan, so it was really only a matter of time. Well that time is now.

We played the new MarioKart and while it was fun, I did find myself missing older titles.

Some of the courses contorted and bent like a roller coaster, sending you in and out of water, really distorting what was happening. This was especially bad since we were playing with three players and had small screens.

I'm not saying MarioKart has always had courses built on the laws of nature, but at the very least, you could see how this track could exist. MarioKart 8 did not have this.

I also hadn't held a Wii-mote in nearly 3 years now. It felt foreign to me. I struggled to remember which hand to hold the nunchuk in. I couldn't remember any of the button names as my brother yelled out controls mid-race. After 4 or so races, I had a good enough grasp to hold first place in every race for the next hour.

The WiiU tablet thingy didn't feel right for me, but it seems to be a matter of preference. Those that were accustomed to DS or 3DS handhelds found it really comfortable.

We raced a good 20-25 races before calling it quits and as I left my brother's house, I couldn't help but think how much I would love to play the original MarioKart or Double Dash. (I never owned a N64, so there wasn't nostolgia for that version)

Something didn't sit right having extra characters show on the roster that are going to be DLC later on. Staring at Link and Tanooki Mario on the last row, knowing they would be paid DLC (and for a good price at that) felt so un-Nintendo. I'm used to Nintendo being that one company that releases their full game on one disk and that's what you get.

It's weird because on paper, this game is MarioKart. The tracks feel right, the carts feel right, most of the powerups feel right (except the sonic music thing, that felt like something from Vigilante 8) but somehow it didn't click.

Editorial: Nintendo Launch Retrospective

With the Nintendo WiiU launching back in November, there still isn’t an impressive library. My local game store has one half shelf dedicated to WiiU games. Most of the real estate has Wii overflow from the full Wii shelf next to it.

When you think about it, besides the Mario game that came packed in with the system, most Nintendo launches were weak on the software side. You got that one killer app, but for months, nothing else.

I’m going to break down the classic Nintendo 1^st party game, the biggest 3^rd party game, and the worst game at launch.

NES (1985): The NES had a soft launch, only releasing to FAO Schwartz in New York originally and eventually would find its way everywhere. It obviously wasn’t a blockbuster seller immediately, but this is the system that built the Nintendo name.

• 1^st Party: Super Mario Bros
• 3^rd Party: Kung-Fu
• Worst Game: Gyromite

Gameboy (1989): Again, hard to get concrete numbers and dates, the Gameboy managed to sell really well. Most people mostly used the portable as a Tetris machine for the first several months of its life, but eventually the Gameboy would go on to sell more than 118 million units.

• 1^st Party: Super Mario Land
• 3^rd Party: Tetris
• Worst Game: Baseball (bad port of original NES game)

Super NES (1991): The Super NES has one of the smaller launches in Nintendo history, but they launched with a much greater quality of games.

• 1^st Party: Super Mario World
• 3^rd Party: Sim City
• Worst Game: Gradius 3 (It’s not a bad game, just the worst out of the launch titles.)

Nintendo 64 (1997): Quite literally there were only two games at the launch of the N64 as far as I can tell, but both games were fantastic.

• 1^st Party: Super Mario 64, Pilotwings 64
• 3^rd Party: N/A
• Worst Game: Pilotwings (?)

Nintendo Game Cube (2001): The Gamecube is often frowned upon as one of the worst Nintendo systems to hit the market. I believe it was the best. But the launch was mostly ports from other consoles.

The Gamecube launched with 13 games. Not only did it have the weakest 1^st party launch title in Nintendo’s history, Luigi’s Mansion, it also only contained games that could be purchased for other consoles.

• 1^st Party: Luigi’s Mansion
• 3^rd Party: Star Wars Rogue Squadron II
• Worst Game: Fur Fighters: Viggo’s Revenge

Gameboy Advance (2001): The Gameboy Advance had a fairly limited launch line up. It had many games, but was almost all ports from other systems.

• 1^st Party: Super Mario Advance (Super Mario 2 Repackaged)
• 3^rd Party:  Castlevania: Circle of the Moon, Earthworm Jim, Rayman Advance
• Worst: Army Men Advance

Nintendo DS (2004): The Nintendo DS had a mildly better launch than the Game Cube. Since most games didn’t know how to use the touchpad yet, most had little reason to actually be on the DS, other than the cheap production value. The worst game, Ping Pals, managed to get many <1 10s="" 500="" america="" around="" ds="" in="" launch="" media.="" north="" of="" on="" out="" p="" sold="" somewhere="" still="" supposedly="" the="" units="" week.="">

• 1^st Party: Metroid Prime Hunters: First hunt
• 3^rd Party: The Urbs: Sims in the City
• Worst Game: Ping Pals

Nintendo Wii (2006): Nintendo Wii had a weak launch lineup with bang up marketing. Games that were broken like “Red Steel” were pushed like the second coming. The strongest non-pack in release, Zelda, was a Gamecube port. Now Wii fans have been treated to at best, three worthwhile releases a year.

• 1^st Party: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Wii Sports
• 3^rd Party: Call of Duty 3, Red Steel
• Worst Game: Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam

Nintendo 3DS (2011): I’m still confused about the 3DS launch. As far as I can tell, there pretty much wasn’t software at the launch of the 3DS. Literally there were games, but not really. Most were rehashing of other games or games that hadn’t figured out the tech quite yet.

• 1^st Party: Pilotwings Resort, Nintendogs + Cats
• 3^rd Party: Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition,
• Worst Game: Combat of Giants: Dinosaurs 3D, Asphalt 3D

Nintendo WiiU (2012):  Jokes aside, I want this console to work. Failing consoles are good for no one. Still, it seems Nintendo rushed the hardware out the door knowing that it's tech specs wouldn't be able to compete with PS4 and Xbox One. There weren't a lot of launch games and besides the release of Pikmin 3, there really haven't been many game releases since launch.

Most of the third party games are ports of older games from this generation like Mass Effect 3 and Batman Arkham City.

• 1st Party: New Super Mario Bros U
• 3rd Party: Mass Effect 3: Special Edition
• Worst Game: Game Party Champions

I guess my conclusion from looking at all the Nintendo launches is that I should stop expecting these insanely great pack in launches like the SNES and N64. The launches weren't as bad as I thought, but there weren't many stand outs.

The business model has changed. Xbox 360 launched with nothing. Playstation 3 took forever to get some great exclusives out. Kinect and Move are both jokes. PS4 and Xbox One both have weak launches.

I guess I held Nintendo at a higher level. But nowadays, it’s all about the hardware sales. No one wants to take a risk on an unproven console and install base. 

Super Mario Brothers 3 vs. Super Mario World

Usually when someone talks about the greatest of the Mario games, either Super Mario Brothers 3 or Super Mario World are argued for.

Sure, there is the occasional person that throws Mario 64 or the original Super Mario Bros into the mix, but generally I think Mario 3 and World are the two best of the pre-2000 core-Mario games.

If I took an official vote, my bet would be that Mario 3 is the overall favorite.

It was the first game with the diverging paths world map, insane amounts of secrets, memorable boss battles, and that ridiculous combo of the maze like world 7 and difficult world 8.

I sat cross legged, challenging myself to beat the game without using whistles and saving that P-wing until the flying fortress level for several years.

Mario was fine tuned and indeed, Mario 3 is probably the best game on the NES, but I always tend to have a soft spot for Super Mario World.

It's partly because I didn't actually own a SNES and didn't get as much time with Super Mario World. There was a point where I did have some Mario 3 fatigue.

Super Mario World has its own bullet-ed list of features that could go bullet for bullet with Mario 3, like an even larger world map, more secrets, the introduction of Yoshi in a Mario game, and a diverse set of levels.

But I think it's more about the social aspects of the game. I remember setting up a 27" standard definition television on the bottom bunk of my cousin's bunk bed, his window open allowing the crisp autumn air to blow against our shirtless bodies, and draping sheets over the outside to give us a cave to fully escape into this other world. (It sounds like some pre-teen, homoerotic adventure now that I've typed it out)

We would scream, laugh, talk about small world's issues, discuss what we were going to blow our allowance on, and beg his mom to order us pizza.

It was a game that couldn't be beat in one weekend. We grew with the game. Sure, we might have beat Bowser after just a couple weekends, but that 55% completion on the save screen mocked us. We spent months finding all of the secrets we could, until we were forever stuck on the 5th Special level.

Eventually we noticed girls and more adult oriented video games like Resident Evil took over our Friday-post-roller-skating-game-nights. Super Mario World was packed into a box and largely forgotten about. It wasn't until last fall when I was given a family member's SNES and about 15 games that I remembered the magic.