50 greatest games of all time (part 7)

25. Gran Turismo 2

   Remember how good we all used to think this looked? Okay, at the time way back in the year 2000 (just watched the whole music video for 'disco 2000' to try and find a gag reference, alas, none were found) it was a beautiful game, and maybe not as big of a leap forward as the original GT (graphically), but it still improved on it. So what makes this the better game? For me, it's the fact that there was over 3 times more cars (about 650 cars in total) including some classy second hand numbers, and for winning nearly every tournament, you'd win a car as well as some dosh, that didn't happen much in the first one!
   Playing a more recent gran turismo (I haven't played GT6 from last year mind you, so this is going to be based on GT5) makes you see, that while all the touches have been don, and a lot of depth added in to the game, such as way more cars, more tracks, more fantastic graphics, more variety in tournaments and so on, the AI is still the same as it always was. The problem there is that it never was very good. When coming up on a corner when you were in last place, seeing as all the AI cars would follow the exact same racing line, then you could just ride the curve of the opposing cars and sail in front without having to worry about breaking. This wasn't the end pf the world on the psone, but more recently, it's just not been good enough.
   Anyway, I'm not supposed to be moaning about gt5, but rather hyping GT2. It had what seemed like a good soundtrack when I was 12, though looking at what it had now, maybe it wasn't. Of course, you could also use the memory card to challenge your friends to use their best car against yours, as well as swapping cars with each other (just like Pokemon (gotta catch all the cars)).


24. Halo 4

   Controversial, but i for one thought it was the best one. Okay, so i never played combat evolved (the first one (though i did play anniversary, but couldn't get in to it)) but I've played all of the other core games in the series (basically, no Halo wars or Spartan Assault) and i genuinely thought this was the best one. I'm not going to claim it had the best story, let's face it, the plot of every Halo is nuts, but it did have the best gameplay, and a new enemy at last! Yes, the promeatheans were a tough bunch of bastards to take out, but it made a nice change from fighting the same 4 or 5 covenant types over and over, with maybe 1 level of flood if you were lucky.

   The shooting was much more crisp and less loose than the other ones seemed, as if they were all a bit of a frolic before, but this one seemed to get more down to brass tax and cut out the dumbness that had been a major part of the others (sorry Bungie). I'm not saying that every FPS has to be some serious army type thing, but I would like it to feel as if I'm actually killing something, not jumping around doing random shit.

   So, the story is you're awoken after putting your self in to stasis by Cortana (not the G Man) to save the ship that you're on from being taken over by the Covenant an crashing in to a planet. However, you crash on this planet filled with prometheans (the 3rd enemy mentioned earlier and nothing to do with the awful film of a similar name). Anyway, they team up with the covenant (can't remember why now) while you try to get rescued, all while Cortana (your sexy computer helper buddy) goes crazy because she's getting old (she didn't at any point ask to sit alone in her local pub reading a paper though). Before long, as always with Halo, there's deception, twists and turns and stupidly named artifacts that you're supposed to take seriously (the composer? give me a break). Needless to say, Master Chief saves the Earth (yep, they get back there eventually) and has the last laugh..

   The highly beloved multiplyaer returns, even though I never really got in to it on any Halo game (ODST was the best one because it was Halo 3 online with all the map packs included), but locally i enjoy it from time to time. It also had episodic DLC extras as well, but apparently most of them were pretty poor, and i played the first one and it was pretty average, plus, you couldn't play anything but the most recent one (at the time) in co-op. 

   

23. Tomb Raider (2013)

   Okay, so this game was mentioned in a previous blog post, but it was mentioned for being so good, so it should be no surprise that it appears on this list. I could never get in to the original Tomb raider games back in the Psone days, in fact, the only 2 bits I can remember are the bear pit which I kept falling in to, and the pool at her mansion (though that may be due to spaced). After I hadn't really played much of these, it seemed like a crazy idea to try and play Underworld of Chronicles (I was pretty tempted to give anniversary a shot, but I never did). So this left me in a position where a reboot was a great opportunity for me to jump in to such a well renowned game series and remove the memories of Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft (though those film's did have Chris Barrie in them them!).

   So a young Lara Croft is off on her first expedition, and pushes her weight around to make the crew go in to 'the dragons triangle' (like the Bermuda triangle), and funnily enough they crash (No doubt she's used to getting her way what with being rich, if I were Lara I wouldn't be off exploring, just living lavishly), but lucky for them, they happen to crash at the exact place that they were heading to anyway. As you go through the story, Lara goes through some horrific events like swimming in a pool of blood, getting stabbed, chased by a wolf, seeing friends killed and having to kill a guy for the first time (even though she's distraught, luckily enough, she calms down enough in 30 seconds for you to be able to mow down a whole village with her). The mystic story all culminates in stopping a ritual, with Lara fittingly using the classic double pistols to save the day right at the end (obviously she didn't realise she could've used to pistols before, does twice the damage, yeah?).

   It is the horrors you see through Lara that makes it so good, in potentially one of the best written characters in gaming history, as you follow her journey from noob to badass. It is a shame then, that all the others characters seem somewhat empty by comparison, but maybe that's just because Lara's written so well that nothing can match up. Gameplay's pretty good too of course, with some sneaking, fighting an jumping around, all the stuff you would expect really, but that too is done really well. The less said about the multiplayer the better, but it certainly was included on the disc (sadly (actually, it wasn't as awful as people made out, just dull really)). This is about the Journey of one character discovering herself though, and that's what it should be remember for.

   

22. Metal Gear Solid 2

   Sitting atop my lifetime pile of shame (in gaming anyway) is the first Metal Gear solid. I never finished it, I got it at rental, didn't pick up the night vision goggles and couldn't get out of the cave full of wolves. Worst of all, it's downloaded on my PS3, not 3 feet from where I'm writing this, but I know that I'll never play it. What I did play however, was metal gear solid 2.
   I still not sure what that that story was about, it was crazy. Something along the times of you go on to the big shell facility to rescue hostages, but it turns out that there's more going on, you have to stop the son's of liberty as Raiden (urgh) and fight off a bunch of metal gears whilst trying to figure what the ending is about when you can't tell what's really in the game and what isn't. Still. at least the idiot (Raiden) recognises Snake towards the end (took him long enough).
   So this game is more about the gameplay rather that the crazy story, there there are definitely some funny moments. It's greatly satisfying to get through an area without being spotted by anyone, especially if you'd done it in a cardboard box. There was the possibility to get all the dog tags too, although i never seemed to be able to, some of them just wouldn't seem to give them up, and why you could prise them from their cold , dead necks once you'd killed them is beyond me. Now we've all just got to wait and see if Metal Gear 5 (coming this year) will be another good instalment (as Metal Gear 4 was) in the series.


21. Super Mario Galaxy

   There's a lot of complaint that Nintendo don't come up with new IP's, but Mario Galaxy is the exact reason that they don't need to. This needn't have been a Mario game, it isn't like any other that went before it, but they knew that sticking Mario in the title would make it sell ten fold on what it would have done otherwise, and we should all be glad they did, because this was a great game.
   Okay, so it's your classic 3d platforming, with all the usual kind of Mario powerups, and you still collect stars (lumas technically, but close enough), but these could have been other things none Mario related, but it is, so they are. Basically, what's new here is the planetoid style levels. The levels take place on differing sizes (and shapes) of planetoids, some on one big one, some on many small ones and so on. It brings some very fresh ideas to platforming, like having to jump between small planetoids, using their gravity to get across a part of a level, or being chased around a small planetoid by a boss, or having to go around a more flat world to find something on the one side to match to the other, loads of different things really.
   Of course, it was such a good idea that Sonic Team decided to rip it off (and not very well, despite what some may say), but that should be taken as a compliment really. As for the sequel, i thought it was pretty disappointing, it just seemed to have the worlds longest tutorial as every level seemed to introduce to some new power that you would only ever see once again (There wasn't even Cat-Power in it!). This should not take away from the great innovation that this game was though, because it showed that platforming is a long way from over, and there's still plenty of ideas left to explore.

50 Greatest video games of all time (part 6)

30. Pro Evolution Soccer 4

(Note: Sorry, I couldn't find a single image that didn't make this game look bad).

   In my mind this has to be the single greatest football game of all time. Maybe it's just because I had some a memorable career made going, I'm not sure. What i do remember is the great editing system. You could change your kits to anything you wanted, add sponsors (good chance for jokes there) and even when going in to a match, you could decide which shirt/shorts/socks combo you wanted from your 2 kits (of course, this led to the difficult task of making 2 kits that were different enough to play against teams in similar kits, yet similar enough to be able to swap the shorts/socks around to make it look more interesting when you got bored of the kit you had (of course, you can't change the kit before then end of the season, that would be sacrilege)). Plus you could change players looks, appearance and stats which led to you being able to create teams of your friends or celebrities or a legends squad from your own team. You could also stick your master league (the career mode) team on to a memory stick (what an invention!) and take it round a friends to challenge theirs. I remember often having friends around to play a 4 team league with the teams from our own careers.
   But what about the actual game? Well, it was the just a slight iteration on the previous one (as football games tend to be), but at the time the ball was in their court and Fifa was down the tubes, so they didn't really need to do much. It was however, the first time players aged on master league so you could no longer just buy a team of world stars, and stick with that team forever, which was good because that tended to get boring pretty quickly (although this meant what i finally got around to signing Ronaldo (the classic Brazilian one, not this Portuguese wannabe), he was already past his best, whereas in previous ones he'd be the 60-70 goal a season man (and he cost an arm an a leg too).
   Of course also, as with all the Pro Evo's of the time, you had better empty out some memory card space before you start, because you're probably going to be filling them up with goals! Saving goals was great at the time, you could watch the old strikes, realise the ones that you had saved from when you first got the game really aren't that impressive by the standards you had when you re-watched them and then delete them, then regret it because you like being able to see all your old players that were involved it said match and then curse yourself for not keeping your own spreadsheet of stats for player records for your club, even though you had thought about it on the previous iteration of the game, and had this exact reaction then too! Or maybe that's just me.
   So this game doesn't make it for being a superb game to play, even though it was, but I've been addicted to a lot of football games down the years, it makes makes it for all these great extra touches which come together to form one glorious whole.


29. New super Mario bros. (DS)

   Okay, so we're about to run in to a heap of platformers, so strap yourselves in to a (mostly) 2d chair an get ready (although I will try and spread them out a bit).
   As mentioned earlier, I  was a Sega kid and so never really played any Mario games until I got to university where I lived with people who had grown up on Nintendo. They let me play some of the nes and snes classics, but I just couldn't get in to them, but when I got a DS I figured I might as well give it a go as it reviewed well, and even if it wasn't great, I'd still enjoy it to some degree. Much to my (pleasant) surprise though, it was great (hence why it's on the list)!
   If a person who had grown up on Nintendo were to play this, thought I'm sure they would think it was great, definitely wouldn't be any of theirs favourite. For me it showed what I was missing as a child whilst seeming to have a slower learning curve than the old games (which, having been playing a NES game 20 years later first was proving really steep) which allowed you to pick it up in your own time and at your own pace (maybe a little to slow at times (in 2013's Super Mario 3D world, this was very noticeable (as mentioned in a previous blog))). It's got a nice variety of different style of levels too, with some in swamps, some in the clouds, some in the desert, and they all looked great on the small DS screen too. Plus, as an added bonus, there was no gimmicky touch screen stuff (well, there was, but you didn't have to do it). It had great bits of speedy platforming (my speciality, and you'll see why soon), slower bits, puzzle sections and of course, the weird stuff in the ghost houses. Easily one of the best handheld games I've ever played, well, in fact, the 2nd best, as you will also see later.

28. Command and Conquer: Red Alert

   Most everyone of a similar age to me must have played this game, having been available on playstation and PC and the huge hype surrounding it at the time. It was still relatively early in the start of the RTS genre, and the fist C&C had released just the year earlier, also to much acclaim, but this game bought with it much more depth. There was a lot more variety, allowing you to unlock a plethora of new vehicles, troops and defences when you bought certain buildings and other upgrades. Obviously as a real time strategy, both (or more) teams all played at the same time, trying to gather resources and build up their base to not only prevent enemy attacks, but ultimately take down the enemy base.
   There was a multiplayer element but as i had it on PC and was never very tech savvy, I was only able to play it once, and it was so long ago i can't really remember it now (i did play a lot of red alert 2 multiplayer though, although Uri's revenge ruined that eventually), but it was probably disappointing as i realised as i got older, all you needed to do was be the soviets and build a bunch of mammoth tanks. I was there for all that time, with Tanya, a team of engineers and those floating transport things trying to sneak in and take their base over from under them when i could have done that all along, what a fool! (if you were the allies, just get one of those big boats instead of said mammoth tank).
   The campaign had an interesting plot behind it, if not fully developed, but that was done over the course of the whole Red alert/Tiberian series, but don't ask me to explain it, because I didn't play about half of the games (Including renegade, would you believe?). Stand alone though, the campaign missions were interesting as stages instead of just doing skirmishes over and over, and there was a map editor in there too. Of course, trying out a new strategy was always fun, but the question to ponder on the end of this is, what was the point of the walls?


27. Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped

   Back on the platforming pretty quick then, even if it is a 3D one. Crash had a great life on PS one, made as their mascot platform star to rival Sonic and Mario, a series of 3 great games, with carting and party spin off additions everything looked rosie for Crash. Ultimately though, Naughty Dog were only signed on until Crash 3, then they went off to make their own platforming mascots in Jak and Daxter (and god knows what they've been doing since, probably nothing of note). Sony gave up exclusive rights, with crash heading to the Xbox and Gamecube too and almost a replica of Crash 3 was released in the wrath of cortex (but with better graphics).
   So, the first Crash game was great, but as it was set on a tropical island, a lot of the levels tended to look the same, with the only real variety coming from riding a pig and boss fights. Crash 2 then bought us in to what Crash would become with the warp rooms leading to different variety of levels, then Crash 3 Perfected it. A great variety of levels, all the dodgy ones got rid of (bye bye jetpack), new types added (future!) and some old classics refurbished (great wall of china).
   It also added a multiplayer element (sort of) with the relics, used for time trial mode, where, you and a friend(s) could take it in turns to try and out-do each others time trial scores. So it wasn't technically multiplayer, but it could be used that way. There was plenty to go back fro too, with the relics being one, the box gems as well, where you had to get all the boxes, and a couple of bonus levels to find along the way as well. You could go back and access any of the previously completed worlds at your own leisure too. so when you had unlocked a new skill (eg. wompa launcher) you could go back and get the pesky box you just couldn't quite get to before.


26. Just Cause 2

   If the Saints Row series was GTA over the top, then Just Cause 2 is GTA gone mental! For one, the map is way too bug, I'll just get that out of the way right now, most of it is jungle and ocean, and it's crazy big, and there is no need, it just means that it takes forever to get across the map. On the other hand, this does mean more military bases, government hideouts, fuel depots and airstrips to blow up (even though they could've put this same amount in a map half the size). The basis of the game is you are an US agency operative sent in to Panau to take down it's rogue  leader, but ends up in some world superpowers struggle for oil where the mission ends with Rico (you) and Panay (the bad guy (no, not Razor Ramon)) fighting hand to hand on nuclear missiles high in the sky, because that makes sense, obviously.
   The main aim of the game is to cause chaos around the island, this unlocks the next story mission so that you can progress. Chaos is basically caused by blowing stuff up. You get great tools for this too. Firstly is your trusty arms/vehicle black market dealer, who will deliver what you want by chopper, right at your feet, any time, any place. Obviously you have to pay, and level it up before you can get the really good stuff, like RPG's, attack choppers, tanks, fighter jets etc. But by this point, money is never an issue anyway. Second is your parachute, that you can use as much as you want, and a lot of this game takes place in the air, due to it Panau being full of mountains and high up buildings, easy access to aircraft and number 3, a grappling hook. This hook allows you to attach to anything. See a plane below your chopper you want? No problem, simply jump out, grapple it and climb aboard. Have you got to chase a guy down in his car? No problem, just attach your grappling hook, open the parachute and enjoy a parasail until he comes to a stop (is it still parasailing if it's on the land?).
   So basically, you can fly around in your jet fighter, fire heavy missiles at a government base, set it on a collision course, jump out, parachute on to a ledge, shoot off some RPG's, call a tank in, parachute and grapple down to it, cause havoc, and when it's all done, there will probably be an enemy chopper waiting overhead to give you a 'lift'. It's simply one of the most plainly basic fun games I've ever played.

50 Greatest games of all time (part 5)

Why are there ads appearing on this blog? Just so you know, it has nothing to do with me, so... WTF?


35. The Darkness

   Note: This is another picture that might be from a sequel.

The first FPS to make the list, but not the last (although given the state they're in these days, maybe it should be), the Darkness takes you on a crazy journey of revenge, involving mobsters, demonic powers, the undead (dressed in first world war uniforms) and literally another world. Jackie's (the protagonist, better mention that) story begins simply enough, you're in love with a girl (Jenny) and you're in the mob (probably not that normal, but a classic media trope). You go wrong in a mission though, and the head Mob guy (godfather?) orders your death, but it turns out that these otherworldly powers run in your family, known as the Darkness (The name of the game!( also voiced by Mike Patton, best known for Faith No More, but also plenty of other things that i shan't list off here))). Anyway, these powers help you escape your certain fate, but Jenny gets captured and killed!
Anyway, after that, you get revenge on her death whilst also trying to get rid of the darkness even though you end up embracing it. The great thing about this game (besides the great story) was that it had great FPS gameplay but with some very useful powers, the likes of which normally turn out to be lame in video games (but these weren't). These include, but are not limited to, big tentacle things (which you can see in the picture above) that impale/eat enemies, "creeping dark" which take out enemies from a distance and the ability to summon black holes. These powers can only be used in the dark though, so make sure to shoot out light bulbs. It also spawned a pretty good sequel too.


34. Fable 2

   Another game I never played the original of then (though I hear it's good, and the anniversary edition is coming out soon, so I might give it a go (that said, I never played the first Halo, so I played the anniversary edition, and couldn't get in to it)), but this game was great by it's own right. This game had so much to do, you could start a family, sacrifice people to a cult, build and furnish a house, play with a dog, hunt for bounties and more. Plus, depending how good/bad and pure/corrupt you were, you're appearance would change. You could get horns, a halo, get blue veins all over you (not varicose though, these are the good type of blue veins (apparently)) and get spotty, or even get un-spotty! Plus, as a dog owner, your dog would also change in to more or less evil breeds of dog, though I don't know who decides which are which. There are jobs you can get too (I know, sounds lame), but I got a ton of money from blacksmithing, and selling on what I had made, and it didn't take that long either!
   The story takes you on (another) tale of revenge, out to take down the man who killed your sister during your childhood, and you have to recruit 3 heroes to do so. This tales time, obviously, because that's basically the games, but as you get towards the end of the game, lord lucien (the antagonist) kills any families you may have had, and far more importantly, your dog (that bastard)! Obviously you get your revenge in the end, and it gives you the choice of 3 endings, and if your anything like me, you'd choose the family/sister/dog resurrection one, how could i go on without my dog??? In this case of this game, I would suggest giving the sequel (Fable 3) a miss, because it's a massive step down from this one, try the first instead, I know I should.



33. Minecraft

   Yep, that's definitely the kind of thing you could make. Minecraft has become a phenomenon, selling across nearly every platform possible, and to people of all ages, with all kinds of crazy things being made, from replicas of real, sprawling cities, to castles, to the Starfleet fleet, and beyond (just google it if you really need to see). Some people commit hundreds and hundreds of hours to making these things, but i struggled to put in an hour to make some crap tower. Don't get me wrong, I thought the game was great, why else would it be on the list, I just know for others it would be a lot further up the list. I spent a lot of time playing this game, but I couldn't get focused on one project, and about a third of the way through one, I would just start another.

   I also had the enemies turned off, because I got sick of creepers coming in and blowing up what I had just spent the last 15 minutes creating, but this made the game too easy, I just needed some happy medium. Co-op was a great distraction too, sneaking off from your friend that you  were sharing a world with, making something, then calling them across to see it, or even just having them over to your world to see what you had created (even though in my case, the other way round proved far more interesting). Yes, this game is great, and I really enjoyed it, but there was too much to do, I just wanted to picture something in my head, and it just be there without any of the work (the story of my life, really).

32. Dishonoured

      What was that about first person super powered based games? Okay, so this isn't a first person shooter, but it is in first person. This is a stealth game, at least it was to me, it didn't have to be, depending how you played it, where you were an assassin trying to right the wrongs that had fallen on yourself and the empress to be. The game is set in a steampunk themed world, with enemies on big stilts (as seen above), and others with superpowers too. The powers you posses in this are less evil than those of the darkness though, and include the likes of "blink", where you can teleport a small distance, "posses" where you can take control of other humans or animals (eg. fish and rats) and "devouring swarm" that summons a swarm of rats to kill an enemy. You probably just noticed a lot of references to rats, and that's because the main basis of this game is around the plague and how the upper classes would escape it.
   Another game with a great story, and a great twist, which i wont go in to too much detail on as it would spoil it, this another game that deserves all round praise for it's story and gameplay. The game didn't release with much grandeur, and though it was received well by critics, it seems it was mostly missed by a lot of people, which was a shame because it was an excellent game. As mentioned before, one of the main reasons it was so good is that you could play it like you wanted, you could use stealth to sneak through levels, or you could just go for it, all guns blazing. The collectibles were great too, because they helped boost your mild RPG based stats, and they weren't useless statues or a snippet of a diary entry that you know you'll never get all of, so, what's the point?


31. Wii Sports

   What's this doing on here then ay? Well, I'll tell you. When the Wii first came out, it was the likes of Wii sports and Wii play that made it seem like a great idea. Of course, in the end, with a slew of tat coming to the system, it turned out not to be (there were other good games though). Wii sports though, showcased what was possible for the system, and how you could play it, even with your elderly grandmother (or so I've heard, I never tried that personally). Of course, bowling and tennis were what it was all about, sure it had golf, baseball and boxing too, but for me, you only needed the bowling and the tennis. I remember being at university when this hit the shelves, and everyone cramming in to one room to play.
   So the multiplayer aspect was great. The single player just seemed to give you a chance to hone your skills for when the next gathering would be so that you could give yourself a better chance of winning. Plus, what was better than the constant danger that someone behind you would inadvertently smash you around the head, or that the wiimote would fly out of your grip and smash the TV (side note, I had that happen, but thankfully i missed the TV and just left a big dent in the wall, phew). So this game makes it in on multiplayer alone, but this certainly wont be the last game to make it in here on that basis.

50 Greatest Games of all Time (part 4)

Here i go again (on my own (note, i was going to say here 'we' go again to be more inclusive, but that wouldn't have worked for the joke))

40. Earthworm Jim 2

   The reason for the sequel here is that i played this first, before the original. I was a (relatively) small child at the time, and i got what games i was given, and didn't really know what was out there fully. This problem will come up again later.
   So, another 2D platformer, but one with a lot of humour, level variation and cows. The first couple of levels are just straight out of any platformer (except with more humour, eg. riding a stair lift while grannies fall at you), but then it starts to change. You have to bounce Pete's baby puppies across a field, go unsuited through a cave and there's a level in defender/Truxton style. Keep going and threre's a level which you use have an inflated head, one based on meat and more. That's not even mentioning the crazy ending. On top of all this too, it's hard. Really hard, like games used to be. I've probably only completed it once after attempting dozens, nay, hundreds of times down the years.
   What makes it stand out for me though, is the aforementioned comedy. It;'s probably the first really funny game i can remember playing, nowadays, in many instances, it has gone too far and ridiculously over the top, but in a simpler time like the early 90's, games could just be silly without detracting from the gameplay or story.

39. Red Dead Redemption

It's like GTA in the wild west, hell, it's even made by Rockstar too! It's a shame I don't like westerns then. Yet still, obviously this game did something right to make the list.
   This game is what i first described it as, GTA in the west, but that is not a bad thing. You go around, do what you want, steal horses, find a damsel in distress and tie her to the train tracks, go hunting or whatever.There was a great story too that involved tracking down ex running partners and assaulting hideouts (kind of a precurser for the hesists in GTA 5 now I think about it). Then there's a great twist ending too or course, which I wont spoil here.
   The multiplayer was fine, good fun, but like GTA 4's multiplayer, there wasn't really enough to do. Unlike the single player where there was lots, but sadly there wasn't some kind of group co-op story or something of the sorts, not that there ever is, but maybe one day, hopefully!
   One regret I do have about the game is never playing undead nightmare, the zombie filled DLC. By the time it came out, I had already traded in, and to buy it on it's own disc was too expensive at the time, then by the time it had come down enough, I'd moved on to something else, which is a shame, because I often find DLC content that completely changes what the core game is about can really make a game so much better.


38. Batman, Arkham City

   I didn't really 'get' what was so great about Arkham asylum, sure, the fighting mechanics were fun, and had a good story, but other than that, it just seemed boring. The puzzles were easy, it seemed perhaps too linear (not that I have a problem with linear games, but this just felt so forced) and there wasn't much to do. Arkham city changed all that.
   Much like the old Spiderman games, you were a superhero in a city, except this time, the city was a big prison. There were hundreds of collectibles with puzzles attached (some of them actually good, although some annoying because you wouldn't have the right gadget at the time, and have to remember where it was and come back later, which makes you think, why not just do all of them right before the last mission, ah well) and enemies to go and brawl with at your whim. There were bonus super villain bosses to be found that you could miss out if you didn't go searching, and there was the great touch of the bat signal leading you to your next mission. Not forgetting the Catwoman sections of the game too, which were a nice change of pace.
   The story was great too and kept you guessing who the real villain was all along (they all were really, but I mean the villain behind it all), and the game ended with a somewhat touching ending too, in a weird kind of way. This is another game that has took a franchise that already existed outside of games (not that Arkham asylum was the first batman game, far far from it infact) and made it work. Despite what many people say and think, a licensed game doesn't have to be bad.


37. Worms 2 (1997)

The first in the series to carry the name of worms 2 was what sent worms into where it is today. Okay, people wouldn't look at worms revolution (released 2012) and say that they must have it, but everyone knows that they are fun games, especially with friends.
   This game gave you so many editing options too, you could create weapons, change the settings (and there were lots), name your own team and squad members and best of all, create your own levels. Many hours of my life were spent playing worms 2 on a level shaped like a cock and balls (hey, I was 10), or somekind of insulting comment to whoever I was playing it with. There were secret bonus levels too, aside from just the random level generator, where if you put a certain code in, you would get a special secret level. I don't really remember where i got these codes from, but i must have found them somewhere because I had dozens of them.
   Worms was then., and is today a great game to play with friends, hell, i can turn it in to a drinking game now, but it's still got it's charm (and bizzare racial stereotype voices in the more recent iterations too) and fun and often sense of unfairness when you seem to find everything goes inexplicably against you and you don't really know why. So, I'm not so much saying worms 2 alone should be on the list, but the series should be, and as Worms 2 was the one that set it all in motion, that's why it's here.


36. Championship Manager 01/02

Note, picture not from any game of mine.
 
   Can anyone hear the name Taribo West without thinking of this game? Only if you haven't played it i would assume. I used to spend whole weekends playing this game, blasting through seasons in just a few hours, it was that addictive. There is much criticism of database games, with all the cm and FM series included in this, but this can't stop the enjoyment. It may well be the case that very little of what you do really affects the game, and it's just numbers against numbers generating random results, but of course, you don't think of that while playing. Besides, games are riddled with QTE's now, in fact, games like Ryse are one long example of this, and what's the difference there really? The advantage a database game such as this has is that you can leave it running whilst doing something else and doesn't have to take your full attention to enjoy, making it good to have on while watching something on TV, when drunk or a whole host of other activities (you can think of your own, it isn't hard).
   But what makes this the best one? Well, it was the last one before a visible match engine came in, which made the games take longer as well as it getting more complicated and lengthening the time it took to advance. You could decide in half hour on this game if you didn't like the team and wanted to restart, with more recent iterations (Football Manager these days of course) it could take you all day. Granted, I can't really comment on taking a long time on a cm game, I have been playing the same game of CM 03/04 for 5 years, and am 63 game years in. Yet still, I often take a break in it to go play a few seasons of this one.
   With the ease and memories, I'm not sure that I have ever played any game as much as i did this in the year it was current (I'm not taking about going back later, because 03/04 would be miles ahead by now), so perfectly streamlined and with a host of memorable names. Whatever did happen to mark Kerr?

50 Greatest Games of all time, (part 3)

45. Assassin's Creed 2

   I didn't play the first one, I'll say that right off the top, I heard not particularly flattering things, so i gave it a miss, but then the word on the street for the sequel was much better. Assassin's creed 2 is a great open world stealth game, set in Italy in the 15th century (sort of, yet also in 2012). The setting was great, it looked beautiful and was very different from any open world game you had played before.
   As with all good open world's, there was plenty to do, both plot wise, and side mission wise to keep you playing for longer (if that's what you want). On the story side, you play as a man in the 21st century playing as an assassin in the 15th trying to uncover a secret plot by a secret organisation, but let's not spoil that too much. Gampelay can be fun, and challenging (just what you want really), with some assassination's holding you're hand too much, and not giving many options, but others letting you try all sorts of different methods. In addition to the stealth element, if you, like me, aren't very good at being sneaky, the combat is pretty good too, simple controls, but timing is key, and it looks great to boot.
   For me, this was the height of the series, I just started Black Flag the other day, and though you can tell the series has advanced, you can still see that so much of the game has come from, or been influenced by 2. We'll just have to hope they can try and keep it fresh, given that Ubisoft has decided to turn it in to an annual cash cow.


44. Sonic R

   Okay, I'll be honest, this game was terrible, it controlled so badly, the character's were so unbalanced it was mad, and who makes a 3D on foot racing game anyway? Yet still, I loved it, with it's whole 6 tracks and 1 hour game length time. I loved Sonic when I was young, and having a Saturn but no PS One, I didn't have a great choice in good games I could play, so naturally I was going to be getting sonic R. I hated it, and with friends we mocked it together, but then, i stopped playing it. I then realised, maybe i did like it in a way, and played some more. I got so good at it in the end, that within an hour, I could complete the game and unlock all the bonus characters (this became especially helpful when, after buying a PS One and leaving the Saturn on the shelf, going back to it, I found the memory wiped every time you turned it off, so if I wanted to use the bonus characters, I'd have to do it all over).
   It was a good game to play multiplayer in the end too, whoever I was playing it, we would both appreciate it for what it was, and nothing more, just a silly racing game where you could play as a floating puppet version of a two tailed flying fox who could run at the speed of sound.


43. Street Fighter 2

   Hadooken! (is that how you spell it?). I have never been a big fan of beat 'em ups. I always find i can rarely ever get to the end of the single player because I find them too hard towards the end, which leads me to frustration, which leads to me breaking something and turning the system off before I throw it through the window, yet still, this game was great. Yes, that definitely happened a few times whilst I was playing it, I had to get my game rage started early, I wouldn't want to have grown up without hearing "it's only a game" a million times over (which didn't help).
   As you can probably tell from that, I preferred multiplayer. Whenever you played against someone else, you knew you could always beat them, and vice versa, and leering the special moves was vital. (down, right 120 degrees, right and a). You could spend a long time just trying to make sure you could get the special moves correct, that way, when someone just tried to to the arm thing E. Honda, the slide with M. Bison, the Electric with Blanka, or the million other moves that if you repeated over and over again you could win easily (not against the computer though, somehow), you had a way to prevent it from happening to you.
   I suppose, to sum it up then, a great game to play with friends, even in this day and age (and now you can do it online so you don't have to see their hideous faces or make them squash), but you have to be patient, and have the skills to be able to get through the game solo.



42. WWE Smackdown! Here comes the pain.

   Okay, so if you're not a wrestling fan, you wont give a damn about this. If you are then you will know that this game pretty much set what current WWE games, even today play like. It introduced the 2 button counter (sadly removed), the multiple grapple holds and moves and much more. It also had a great roster, even though wrestling was on the downturn from the attitude era, it still had some heat, much more so than now at least, and the roster reflected it with the likes of Goldberg, who got caught in a game in his short spell in WWE and the man on the box, BROCK LESNAR!!!! (thanks Paul).
   It was also the last game that we got to see triple threat tag team ladder matches, which was very disappointing, as this was one of the match types i played the most, sure, they have 6 man money in the bank ladder matches on modern day games, but where's the fun of when you're AI tag team partner suddenly wins the match for you, when you're messing around with the announce table? Naturally it supported up to 6 player multiplayer, which was how many people the game would let you have in a match (and still is to this day, why?), not that i could ever get that many people interested in it.
   Just look at the picture too, riding a bike around a parking lot while the other player tries to jump at you from the top of a lorry, what more could you want from a game like this. It's one of the 'pass the time games' (as i like to call them), which tends to be most sports games, where you can just play them while you're mind wonders, or while kind of watching TV as well, but this was one of the best of these every made.


41. Saints Row

Note, this picture may be from one of the sequels.

   You might have been forgiven, before Saint's Row came out, that the GTA game series was nuts, as far as open world, car stealing, police fighting, hooker killing and gang busting games went, but Saints Row took it up to another level (so much so that GTA 4 was way too serious and was a huge let-down (for me anyway, lots of people don't agree, but each to their own I guess)). You could dress your custom character how you wanted, with clothes from all around the city bought fro different jobs, it had bizarre side missions, like insurance fraud, where you hurled yourself in front of oncoming traffic, and escort, where you drive around some important guy while a hooker gives him a 'good time' in the back.
   I'll be honest, thinking about this game makes me realise that I'm not sure what was in Saints Row 1 and 2, I'm totally getting them mixed up. I do love the series as a whole though, even after 4 came in for a lot of criticism (but i liked that they tried something new, they had to with GTA 5 coming just weeks later). The series, and studio also sold for a pretty penny too when THQ went bust, i hope it wasn't this games fault (ooh, 2 THQ games in a row now).
   Whichever bit was in 1 or 2, they were both great, with number 1 obviously laying the ground work for a fun series to rival what GTA had been doing so well before it, and has since (GTA 4 aside). It's zany antics, that just keep getting zanier with every game just make it stand out on it's own and not as just another GTA clone like so many others that came before it.

50 Greatest games of all time (part 2)

Let's make the nice round 5 shall we?

47. Dead Rising

Zombies in a mall, kind of like Snakes on a Plane. When the first Dead Rising hit, it bought a nice change in zombie based games, no longer were they survival horrors or run and gun, but something more basic fun, over the top silly, and yet great.
   The setting for the game is that you get stuck in a mall with zombies after an outbreak and you have to help save survivors before the army gets there to blow stuff up, so the whole game is set against the clock (much like me writing this before going to work). The particularly good part though, is the weapons, just go into a shop, find something on a shelf and use it. Want to smack someone round the face with a baseball bat? go for it. Want to lightly graze someone with a foam finger, go for it too. Want to get a you laser gun, find out it can be used as a real laser gun, and blast the hoards away, go for it! (note, you have to finish the game to get the real laser gun).
   Okay, so there wasn't combo weapons yet (these came in dead rising 2) but you could still pick up anything, run around and play as much of the story as you wanted, or none of it at all if you wanted and just go kill zombies, and you'd still get an ending, not a great one true, but you would still get to the end.
   So that's what makes it great, freedom, and of course, toilets being save points.

46. Star Wars Battlefront

Star Wars is back again! Star wars Battle front took the form of 2 teams facing off against one another to capture spawn points and kill other players to whittle down their remaining lives. Each match would give each team a set number of lives, which were consumed when you, or a team mate spawned and when you ran out, you lost. (you could also lose by having no spawn points because, where you gonna spawn from?)
   This may not sound great, hell, there wasn't even a story to it, but when you set it in classic star wars locations, notably Hoth, it bought the magic alive. There were tonnes of recognisable locations, from the original trilogy, and the prequels (boo). There were also ships, to fly and drive, you could take to the skies and see who could win the war of X wing vs. Tie fighter (pun intended).
   There was a good choice of modes too, both single player and multiplayer (Sadly the multiplayer only supported 1 on 1 gameplay, so my multitap was rendered useless for this game). There was simple one on one matches, or you could set a list of say, 7 maps, and the first to 4 would win, and then there was galactic conquest mode.
 players, head to head, to fight over the galaxy. You started with half each, with the idea to take every planet. Obviously to win a planet, you simply won the match, but it could be won back immediately if the opposition went back for the same one, often leaving you playing the same map over and over (I'm making that sound awful). Many a time I tried to do a full galactic conquest with friends, but after 4 hours, and planets still evenly split, we had to call it off, but it is do-able over the AI!.
   I just wanted to mention the sequel too, which was fine, but it added Jedi's, which were stupidly overpowered. With the third on it's way though (assuming EA can get online to work, unlike battlefield 4), this franchise could be reborn and loved by the people who played it the first time round, and find new people to it too.

50 greatest games of all time (part 1)

Everyone is doing 'game of the generation' now days, with the 360/ps3 coming to an end, but I didn't want to follow in the mould an instead I thought that I would do the 100 greatest games of all time! However, I found I could only find 68 games worthy of being on this list, and 68 isn't a very round number, so, after some cutting off the fat, here are my 50 greatest games of all time.

Before we begin I'd like to add the following warning going in. This list will only include games that I have played, and so won't include any games from certain systems I did not own, therefore, here is the list of systems I have owned, and thus what you can expect games to come from (chronologically no less)!
Master system, Mega drive, Saturn, Gameboy colour, ps1, Ps 2, Xbox, Xbox 360, Ds, Wii, Ps3, Wii U, Vita, Xbox one, and of course, varying home computers, though none of them ever powerful enough to play the biggest releases of the time, and mobile phones as well (as if anything off that would be included!)
Additionally, on top of this, there is some kind of order, with the very best towards the top end, and the not so very best nearer this top end, but there's no specific order, so whatever comes in at number 1 is no better than say, whatever comes in at 10, but would be better than what's in say, 30. Okay, got that?

50. Disney's Aladdin (Mega Drive)

   I understand this game was also released on SNES, but also that they were totally different games, so this is just thoughts on the Mega Drive version and should not be reflective of the SNES version. (BTW, what a terrible name for a console 'mega drive' is, genesis is way better, but as a Brit, I'll defend to the grave the fact that it is should be called Mega Drive').

   Back in the good old days of platforming, there were plenty of greats, I could have done a top some number of 2D platformers (and might), and this would be near the top. It was tough, hell, most games were back in the early 90's, but this had more of a challenge element, rather than making you feel the game was crewing you over like some others did. I was more used to mascot platformers, so weapons in platformers, and not being to defeat an enemy by jumping on his head were new to me, but made my enjoyment so much better. 

   It had all the classic platforming tropes of course, like springs (done in it's own way), collectible fruit (which you could throw! But not fire out of a rocket launcher, more on that later), bosses an of course platforms. As a movie tie in, you could be forgiven to assume it would be bad, but movie tie In's weren't always treated with as much disdain (not that some weren't, Home alone anyone?).

49. Lego Star Wars 2

   There was a time when the Lego games were so exciting, fresh and new, with plenty of unlockables (before achievements/trophies came and took that all away) to find that let you play as more characters. I know what you're thinking, why not the first Lego Star Wars? simple, this one is based on the original trilogy, that was based on the (shudder) sequels. What this meant is you could play through all the infamous sections of the movie and relive them, and who wouldn't want to be in star wars?
   As the second in the series you can't really say that it introduced the Lego series or style to the world, but for me it made it all the more better, as it was something I could relate to rather than just playing through a story I didn't care about (actively hated in fact) from the first one, despite it being a good game in it's own right.
   The Lego series still continues to this day, with IP's coming from everywhere, desperate to get in on some Lego action, and even a story created on their own, but for me I got tired of this game series years ago now, as it just feels like more of the same, no matter how many versions I try, but this isn't to take away from the original franchise that made the so popular.
   If you're not familiar with the Lego gameplay (as if there's anyone), you go around solving puzzles by changing to different characters with different skills, while smashing items to collect bits of Lego, and rebuild things, whilst also having to defeat the enemy horde. You can also play it 2 player. Okay, I made it sound Kinda lame there, but in Lego Star wars 2 it was still new, and a great franchise to do it with, including loads of locations, some great set pieces from the movies to use, and more characters than you could shake a stick, covered in one of those things that Jabba has in a jar, at. If only this was the first game and not the second!


48. Peggle

   A simple puzzler, destroying red pegs with plenty of games having come before it that could be compared to it (i won't list them all, or at all).. What's different? I'm not sure really, maybe it just came at the exact right time, or it may be the great experience i had playing it. It had a great mutiplayer element to it, local and online, and such a great amount of different challenges, with widely varying types of levels, as well as different characters to try out, with some being better at certain levels over others.
   I have recently been playing Peggle 2 (as recently as last night in fact), and it is still great fun to play, it is very similar to the first though, but that's not a bad thing. That's the kind of thing that makes Peggle great, it's hard to get bored of, permanently at least, you might overplay it and get annoyed by it, but give it a couple of weeks and you'll go and get yourself stuck playing it again, without having lost a step.
   Just to cover what it is, put simply, you aim and fire balls at pegs across the board, attempting to clear all the red ones, with special pegs (green gives you your special power, purple bonus points) and different ways of getting extra balls. On multiplayer, there's 2 game modes, which are different. One mode, you all have separate boards, and play at the same time, basically, it all falls down to 2-4 different people playing peggle by themselves, but also against others, trying to get the highest scores, and it's surprisingly tense (this mode exists again in Peggle 2). The other, you and on other take it in turns on the same board, to try and get the most points, and is much more of a tactical challenge, do you go for high points, or do you try and prevent your rival getting them? It's like chess (sort of).
 

   That will be all for today and I know what you're thinking, why wouldn't I do 5 after I was so insistent on making it a round 50 in the first place. Well I'm sorry, but things have got to get done, but never fear, the list will continue.

Thoughts on Super Mario 3d World

I'll just prefix this by saying I was a Sega boy growing up, so sonic has always been my bag over Mario, but with my purchase of a ds and a wii, i grew to appreciate Mario, not as much as I do/did Sonic, but now i see this is a great game series I missed.

As far as mascot platformers, it's not been a great year, Sonic the lost world, a divisive game to say the least, was disappointing in my opinion, many loved it, many loathed it, I fell somewhere in the middle, while it was a decent platformer, there was too much taken from mario galaxy, and save for the blue superstar, you wouldn't know it was a Sonic game at all. There was also Ratchet and Clank Nexus, but I didn't play that one, as i never really got into the game series, Crash was always my playstaion platformer of choice.

Onto Mario 3d world. I haven't finished it yet, close mind you, I'm just collecting enough green stars to take on the very last level, (post completion edit, turns out there's some sort of bonus space world) which is my first gripe, why must i collect green stars? In my view, collectibles such as these should be used to unlock extras, new power ups perhaps, or new characters or attires or bonus levels even, but making you have to get them in order to play the actual main game just annoys me and seems like a way to force you to put more time into a game that just isn't that long and is trying to compensate. I don't mind the length though in reality, although it is short, without this end annoyance, it would be just the right length for me, I'm just now starting to get wary of it, and it would be a perfect time to knock it out of the park with a fun last level and make me look back at it with enjoyment, rather than frustration which is currently building.

As for the meat and potatoes of it, the gameplay, it's pretty much what you would expect. The great gameplay in these games was established way back in Mario 64, a short 18 years ago now as it stands. Sure, it's still fun, but is new powerups enough to keep it fresh. The levels for me aren't diverse enough, and after some great ideas in Mario galaxy regarding this, 3d land seems like a step backwards. There is something said about going back to the roots and classic Mario platforming, but they had moved on so well in galaxy, it seemed like an opportunity to move forwards, rather than reflect this (all this galaxy praise aside, galaxy 2 I felt was too samey and didn't finish, so I guess I don't know what i want really).

Difficulty of this game it also interesting. The first 2 thirds of this game are too easy, then there's a massive difficulty spike that comes out of nowhere, and after being led into a false sense of security, it comes as a shock and it took me a while to catch up, which made me feel foolish, as I've always prided myself on being a good gamer.

I seem to be sounding really negative on this and i don't mean too, I have enjoyed it, I certainly wouldn't recommend buying a wii u for it, but if you already have one, and in the unlikely event you don't already own it, you should play it. If you are considering getting one in the future, for Mario kart for example, then it's definitely worth picking up as an additional game at some point.

So in summary, it's full of niggles, but overall a fun, classic platformer, especially for the older(ish) gamer who grew up on this kind of thing (although the 2d era was more me, but my love of platformers carried across into the switch into 3d), but also a good purchase for anyone.