The Last 37 - The Last of Abe's Top 100 Video Games - All Done!

[Abe Sargent]

Hello all, this is my finish to the previous two stretches where I count down my favorite 30 games, twice, add a few honorable mentions, and add a game later, with the result that I have already charted 63. I said, screw it. Let's add the last 37


Due to the lack of participation in the second dynasty, however, this will be much shorter and much quicker. Instead of spending between a half hour and a hour on each entry, expect just a few quick paragraphs. No graphics. Just a few paragraphs and then I move on.


Here are the first two dynasties:


Middle 31 - The Next 30: Abe's Top Video Games of All Time #62-#33 - Front Office Football Central
Top 32 - Abe's Top 30 Video Games of All Time - UPDATED 1/17/08!!! - Front Office Football Central


If reading all three today, I would start with the Top 32, then the Middle, and then this one, in that order. That;s how they were written, and that's how they read.



Enjoy!

[Abe Sargent]

Here is the list in its entirety up to now:




63. Pool of Radiance - PC - RPG
62. Wolfenstein 3D - PC - First Person Shooter
61. Military Madness - TurboGrafx - Strategy - Wargame
60. Serf City (aka Settlers) - PC - Simulation - Economic
59. Moraff's World - PC - RPG - Dungeon Crawl
58. Scorched Earth - PC - Strategy - Tank
57. Metroid - NES - Action/Adventure - Platform
56. MarioParty 5 - GameCube - Strategy/Action - Party Game
55. Deathtrack - PC - Action/Simulation - Racing
54. Dungeon Keeper - PC - Strategy
53. Triple Action - Intellivision - Action
52. Pac-Man - Coin-Operated - Action
51. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest - NES - RPG/Action - Platform
50. Bully - PS2 - Action/Adventure - Thug
49. Lakers versus Celtics - PC - Sports - Basketball
48. Street Fighter II - SNES - Action - Fighting
47. Sea Rogue - PC - RPG/Action/Adventure/Strategy
46. Archon: The Light and The Dark - Atari 8 Bit Computer - Action/Strategy
45. Fallout - PC - RPG
44. Railroad Tycoon 3 - PC - Strategy/Simulation - Economic
43. Mega Man 2 - NES - Action - Platform
42. Sid Meier's SimGolf - PC - Action/Simulation - Sports/Economic
41. Mario Brothers - Coin-Operated - Action - Platform
40. NFL Football - Intellivision - Sports - Football
39. Warcraft: Orcs & Humans - PC - Strategy - Real-Time
38. MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat - PC - Action/Simulation - Mecha
37. Metal Gear - NES - Action/Adventure - Stealth
36. Utopia - Intellivision - Strategy/Simulation - Real Time/God Game
35. Katamari Damacy - PS2 - Action
34. Super Mario Kart - SNES - Action/Sports - Racing
33. RollerCoaster Tycoon - PC - Simulation - Economic
32. Sea Battle - Intellivision - Strategy/Action
31. Baldur's Gate - PC - RPG
30. Guild Wars - PC - RPG - MMORPG
29. Monster Rancher 3 - PS2 - Strategy/Action
28. Master of Orion 2 - PC - Strategy/Simulation - 4x
27. Madden '99 - Nintendo 64 - Sports/Action - Football
26. Might and Magic VI - PC - RPG
25. TradeWars 2002 - BBS Door Game - Simulation
24. Star Chamber - PC - Strategy
23. Wing Commander - PC - Simulation - Outer Space
22. Tropico - PC - Simulation - Economic
21. Heroes of Might and Magic II - PC - Strategy - 4x
20. Final Fantasy - NES - RPG
19. Colonization - PC - Strategy/Simulation - 4x
18. SimCity 4 - PC - Simulation - Economic
17. Pokemon: Ruby & Sapphire - GameBoy Advance - RPG/Adventure
16. Star Control II - PC - Strategy/Adventure
15. The Legend of Zelda - NES - RPG/Adventure - Platform
14. Half-Life - PC - Action - First Person Shooter
13. Front Office Football 2001 - PC - Sports/Simulation - Football, Economic
12. Wasteland - PC - RPG
11. Europa Universalis II - PC - Strategy/Simulation
10. Civilization - PC - Strategy/Simulation - 4x
9. X-Com: UFO Defense - PC - Strategy
8. Angband - Unix - RPG - Dungeon Crawl
7. Magic: the Gathering - PC - Strategy/Adventure
6. Master of Magic - PC - Strategy/Simulation - 4x
5. Culdcept - Saturn - Strategy
4. Crusader Kings - PC - Strategy/Simulation
3. Ultima Online - PC - RPG - MMORPG
2. The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind - PC - RPG
1. Football Manager 2006 - PC - Sports/Simulation - Football (Soccer)

[Abe Sargent]

Here are some of the games that juuuuust didn;t make the cut for my top 100, despite serious consideration.


Chrono Trigger
Battle Chess
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance
Myst
Alone in the Dark
Rogue
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Zork II
Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight

[Abe Sargent]

101. Honorable Mention - Star Fox
Nintendo and Argonaut
SNES
1993
GameSpot Review – 8.6* (User review, from before GS gave reviews)
Action


Let's get things started off quickly with a chance to see one of the games just good enough to make the cut - and that's good ol Star Fox here.

There are a lot of thing sot love about Star Fox, from choosing your route through the system to the smooth and quick fighting. When a lot of 4th gen action games on all of the consoles focused on graphics over gameplay (especially true of the Genesis - ick), Star Fox was amazingly playable. The game ended waaay too soon, but you could play it through differently for a harder game next time.

Now, it gets knocked down because it's released three years after Wing Commander and barely better. It's smoother, and a bit prettier, and that's it - Wing Commander is way more complex and interesting.

You had three wingmen here, and they would all be annoying, flying off and asking for help, yet they didn;t live as much as the wingmen in WC either. Still, the game was a ton of fun for what it was worth, even if a bit behind the curve.

For the SNES, there were few games more enjoyable and fun than Star Fox, yet another hit for the hit makers - Nintendo.

[Abe Sargent]

Let's do another:

100. Populous
Bullfrog
PC/Atari ST/Amiga
1989
GameSpot - 7.8*
Simulation - God Game


Populous had a lot of impact as a game, and it was fun to play at the time, but two overriding factors cause it to fall.

1. The game is horribly dated. Many games on this list are relatively timeless. Load up Xcom and play it today, or Might and Magic VI or Sea Battle. I played through Wastleland again just a few months ago. Populous is painful to play today. The controls are archaic, the graphics insulting, and the game boring.

2. Populous is not as important as we may have once thought. It was sort of contemporary of games like Sim City or Serf City or Civilization and came just before, but those are better, more refined, and spawned more clones. Utopia came years before and set the standard for graphic based civilization style games, so Populous wasn;t even that.

So what causes it to hit here at 99? Aren;t other games better then? Populous was still really good for its day. Sure, it might insult your eyes and senses today, but they have been refined by years of gaming. Populous was fine for its day, and it did take the God Game to its second rung on the ladder. It was a great game for 1989, it just does not stand the test of time well.


Let's hear it for people worshipping you as a literal, deity. This is where the term God Game came from.

(Sim City came out in 89, Civ in 90, Serf City not until 1993)

[Abe Sargent]

Let's do one more so that I have three done before I retire for the night:


99. Adventure
Atari, Inc.
Atari 2600
1979
Action/Adventure


This will be the only Atari game to chart, you can bet that. The Atari 2600 was rushed to production before it was ready because the Fairchild system was on the market for a while and Atari didn;t want to be last to the dance. The games for it were usually awful, even compared to comtempories. They snatched up the good arcade licenses quickly, and then made poor conversions of the games but sold them anyway.

The one, lone exception, the one bright star, is Adventure. Adventure was many firsts The first Action/Adventure game, the first game with a continue game feature, the first game with a creator easter egg, the first console game with inventory management and a world that changed as you interacted with it.

In Adventures, you quest through an area with many rooms trying to find Chalices and return them, picking up itmes like swords, and using them to fight monsters like dragons and bats. Drop and item and leave that screen, and it is still there when you return. Kill a monster in a room, and it is dead upon your return. Very innovative stuff.

The result is a game that was wonderful when it as released and majorly impactful. It was, by far, the best cartridge for the system. It was your moment in the sun.

[chesapeake]

Wow...this is an impressive list so far.

Adventure made a huge impression me when I first played it around 1981 or so. I remember playing and enjoying Populous when it came out, but it never grabbed me like a lot of other titles. I've always felt it was emblematic of Molyneux's work -- he dreams big, but the execution never quite seems to be there.

[Abe Sargent]

Modified:

Here is my first 63 modified, with the changes i would make based on new entries, and more playing with them:


63. Pool of Radiance - PC - RPG
62. Wolfenstein 3D - PC - First Person Shooter
61. Military Madness - TurboGrafx - Strategy - Wargame
60. Serf City (aka Settlers) - PC - Simulation - Economic
59. Moraff's World - PC - RPG - Dungeon Crawl
58. Scorched Earth - PC - Strategy - Tank
57. Metroid - NES - Action/Adventure - Platform
56. MarioParty 5 - GameCube - Strategy/Action - Party Game
55. Deathtrack - PC - Action/Simulation - Racing
54. Dungeon Keeper - PC - Strategy
53. Triple Action - Intellivision - Action
52. Pac-Man - Coin-Operated - Action
51. Castlevania II: Simon's Quest - NES - RPG/Action - Platform
50. Bully - PS2 - Action/Adventure - Thug
49. Lakers versus Celtics - PC - Sports - Basketball
48. Street Fighter II - SNES - Action - Fighting
47. Sea Rogue - PC - RPG/Action/Adventure/Strategy
46. Archon: The Light and The Dark - Atari 8 Bit Computer - Action/Strategy
45. Fallout - PC - RPG
44. Railroad Tycoon 3 - PC - Strategy/Simulation - Economic
43. Mega Man 2 - NES - Action - Platform
42. Sid Meier's SimGolf - PC - Action/Simulation - Sports/Economic
41. Mario Brothers - Coin-Operated - Action - Platform
40. NFL Football - Intellivision - Sports - Football
39. Warcraft: Orcs & Humans - PC - Strategy - Real-Time
38. MechWarrior 2: 31st Century Combat - PC - Action/Simulation - Mecha
37. Metal Gear - NES - Action/Adventure - Stealth
36. Utopia - Intellivision - Strategy/Simulation - Real Time/God Game
35. Katamari Damacy - PS2 - Action
34. Super Mario Kart - SNES - Action/Sports - Racing
33. RollerCoaster Tycoon - PC - Simulation - Economic
32. Sea Battle - Intellivision - Strategy/Action
31. Baldur's Gate - PC - RPG
30. Monster Rancher 3 - PS2 - Strategy/Action
29. Master of Orion 2 - PC - Strategy/Simulation - 4x
28. Madden '99 - Nintendo 64 - Sports/Action - Football
27. Might and Magic VI - PC - RPG
26. TradeWars 2002 - BBS Door Game - Simulation
25. Star Chamber - PC - Strategy
24. Guild Wars - PC - RPG - MMORPG
23. Wing Commander - PC - Simulation - Outer Space
22. Tropico - PC - Simulation - Economic
21. Heroes of Might and Magic II - PC - Strategy - 4x
20. Final Fantasy - NES - RPG
19. Colonization - PC - Strategy/Simulation - 4x
18. SimCity 4 - PC - Simulation - Economic
17. The Legend of Zelda - NES - RPG/Adventure - Platform
16. Half-Life - PC - Action - First Person Shooter
15. Front Office Football 2001 - PC - Sports/Simulation - Football, Economic
14. Wasteland - PC - RPG
13. Pokemon: Pearl & Diamond - GameBoy DS - RPG/Adventure
12. Europa Universalis II - PC - Strategy/Simulation
11. Star Control II - PC - Strategy/Adventure
10. Civilization - PC - Strategy/Simulation - 4x
9. Angband - Unix - RPG - Dungeon Crawl
8. Culdcept - Saturn - Strategy
7. Magic: the Gathering - PC - Strategy/Adventure
6. X-Com: UFO Defense - PC - Strategy
5. Master of Magic - PC - Strategy/Simulation - 4x
4. Crusader Kings - PC - Strategy/Simulation
3. Ultima Online - PC - RPG - MMORPG
2. The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind - PC - RPG
1. Football Manager 2006 - PC - Sports/Simulation - Football (Soccer)



Changes - Pokemon replaced with Pearl,Diamond, moved to #13
Guild Wars rises to #24
Star Con 2 moved to #11.
X-Com sneaks to #6
Culdcept slides to #8

[Abe Sargent]

98. Wishbringer: The Magick Stone of Dreams
Infocom
PC/C64
1985
Adventure - Interactive Fiction


As you can see from the games that just missed the cut, two other Infocom games - Zork II and Hitchiker's, were in the running, but Wishbringer is the only one to make the cut.

By the time Wishbringer was made, Infocom was established as the pre-eminent Adventure game and Interactive Fiction game company out there. They had released 15 other titles. However, Infocom had developed a reputation for some really nasty hard games. Hitchhiker's, for example, had things that, if you didn;t do in the proper order early, the game would continue, but you would eventually find out that the game was no longer winnable. That's mean. There were also puzzles and traps that were notoriously hard.

However, after perfecting their craft ,they decided to make a gentler game, more accessible to the wider audience, and with an eye towards younger players as well. Enter Wishbringer.

Wishbringer was your normal game with a Grue, an unusual world, and jokes like the Boot Patrol, which is a giant set of boots. The game is lighthearted and never takes itself too seriously, and it also includes the Deus Ex Machina of the wishstone itself, which could be used a small number of time to get you out of jams, but the game was complete able without ever using it.

They really pushed the theme of having rooms and puzzles with more than one solution, in order to allow creativity. The game was when Infocom was at the top of their craft.

It may not be the most influential Infocom game, but it is the one that is the most fun to play.

[Abe Sargent]

97. Planescape: Torment
Black Isle Studios
PC
1999
GameSpot Review - 9.0
RPG


I like games that go outside the box, and try to do something new and different. The RPG genre is rather defined, so when a game comes by like Ultima Online or Guild Wars that rejects these conventions for a better way, I really enjoy it. I reward them with my loyalty and high places on the list.

Planescape: Torment was a great game from a lot of perspectives. The idea that your character was nameless and unknown, and over time, based on how you played him, you would develop who he had been was really interesting. The idea that he would never die and was immortal was also interesting. The setting was wholly its own, compared with other video games, although based obviously on the D&D franchise and world.

However, there were some problems with the game I just can;t ignore. There were times I'd get flat stuck and have to look up what to do next. There were only a handful of NPCs that would join your team so there was little need for party management. And the ide aof no actual death, just restarting in the morgue you initially woke up in just wasn;t eneough of a deterrant. If you aren;t risking anything, you don;t have the same joys at winning.

Look at same of the other RPGs that chart highly. Angband doesn't even havea save feature - die once, and you are perma-dead and have to start over from scratch. Winning that is hard, but it means something. There are games where if you die you lose your gold, (Might and Magic VI), or lose all of your XP or whatever. Here you are just knocked back a few screens, and you cna do it over and over again. It's just not the same thing. Without a major risk, there cannot be a major reward.

Sometimes convention deserves to be broken, and sometimes it exists for a reason. You have to know the difference.

So yeah, the setting was cool, and the story intriguing, and the ability to change it really cool, and the idea was fresh, but the game is more than just ideas. It that area, Planescape stops being one of the best RPGs of all time and becomes merely good.

[Abe Sargent]

96. Crossbow
Exidy
Coin-Operated Arcade
1983
Action - Shooter


I'll provide a quick screenshot of this one just to show you:

It's to the left of Cheyenne:




When light gun and shooting games were in their nascent stage, Crossbow took them to the next level. At first, they were just shooting various things on the screen. One game was a quick draw game, another had you shoot targets at a carnival, and so on and so forth. Crossbow, however, was different. It was the next rung on the ladder.

In Crossbow, you choose which level to do next. Then your allies walked across the screen, and they had weapons, so they could defend themselves a bit from the monsters on the screen. What you are doing is shooting the monsters and pitfalls that are about to get to your allies. You might have a rolling rock, a trap, an avalanche to take care of, as well as bats and such.

Crossbow was quite different because, not only was the concept different, but as I mentioned, you could choose your path through the game.

It was not only fun to play, but it was the next level in shooters. It was ported to various consoles, but the coin-op remains the best version of the game, by far.

The name Exidy means a lot of quality to players of coin-ops in the late 70s and early 80s. Games like Mouse Trap, Venture, and of course, Crossbow, were fun and high quality games.

[Abe Sargent]

Originally Posted by chesapeake

Wow...this is an impressive list so far.

Adventure made a huge impression me when I first played it around 1981 or so. I remember playing and enjoying Populous when it came out, but it never grabbed me like a lot of other titles. I've always felt it was emblematic of Molyneux's work -- he dreams big, but the execution never quite seems to be there.

Thanks!

[Abe Sargent]

95. Robot Odyssey
The Learning Company
Apple II
1984
Adventure - Educational


There is little I can say about this game if you haven't played it. I could say it is unlike any game before or since. I could say it was one of the best pieces of educational software ever made, period. I could say a lot, but I won;t.

I will tell you about the game, however. In this game you have three robots that you use to pilot through the underground robot city. The robots are equipped with sensors.

Robotropolis comes with a lot of puzzle like rooms you have to navigate using the robots. However, instead of steering the robot with controls you do something very different. You have to wire the robot to do things with tools inside the robot's body.

You can pick up various pieces of equipment that can be used on the robots in different ways, and then wire one or more robots to successfully navigate the room.

The wiring has logic gates and flip-flops that you have to figure out in order to get to do something. Perhaps you need it to pick something up, or move in a certain direction or coordinate with other robots or pass an N shaped room, or whatever, you have to configure your robot to do it.

The result was a challenging puzzle game that also taught logic and electrical engineering.

Fun and education combined into one very unique game.

Interested in playing it today, online?


droidquest.com


Check it out!


An image of you working on a robot to create a circuit:

[Abe Sargent]

94. Dark Legions
Silicon Knights
PC
1994
GameSpot Review: 7.0*
Strategy/Action


I really struggled with this one. I felt it deserved to be on the list, but it is basically just taking the formula from #46 Archon and updates it. However, it is not the only game to emulate another game and yet make the cut. Master of Magic, Master of Orion II, and Colonization each emulate Civ, and yet they are all on here. Crusader Kings and EU2 share some similarities, and both are on here. Thus, I decided to go with it.

Released at the same time as Warcraft, despite winning a ton of critical acclaim, Dark Legions was not the great game it could have been. Had it been released a year earlier, everyone would know it today.

You start the game with some points, use those points to invest in an army, then move that army chess-like over a map, and when one of your pieces meets one of your foes, battle begins and you each control your piece, fighting it out until one wins.

And that sounds a lot like Archon. Dark Legions additions, like choosing your own units, and adding things like rings you can buy to add stats to your guys, plus a more fantasy like and less chess like grid to play on result in a different game, that has a similar play style.

Of course, different units had different speeds, abilities, and strengths. The Vampire gained life after it hit, but it lost it at the end of each turn on the board. Another unit miight be invisible, a third could teleport, etc.

It was a blast to play.

[Abe Sargent]

93. Donkey Kong
Nintendo
Coin-Operated Arcade
1981
Action - Platform


Ah yes, the first platform game. The game that launched Nintendo, platform games, and Mario. (I mean Jumpman). Designed by no less a star than Shigeru Miyamoto, a guy who helped design Pokemon, Mario Brothers, Super Maro Kart, Super Mario Brothers, F-Zero, Kid Icarus, Super Smash Brothers, and The Legend of Zelda. This guy was hot, and here he was at his best.

The game became the iconic game of its day, replacing Pac-man as the game to beat all games. It resulted in court actions, and was the key player in some severe inter-company espionage when Coleco made the Donkey Kong for Intellivision really crappy so that the one for thier system would look so much better and thus, help to sell the system. They bundled Donkey Kong with the Colecovision to help sales of the final game system to hit the shelves in the very crowded generation 2 (Atari, Intellivision, Fairchild, Vectrex, Odyssey 2, Colecovision)

Nintendo and Shigeru introduced cut scenes to tell a plot. They made a smooth and fun game to play. Everybody wanted to play DK. In fact, when I look through INTV lots to buy them on ebay or garage sales, DK is always included in the cartridge lots. Everyone loved it.

Donkey Kong put Nintendo on the map. It was the game Coleco used to sell their system. It was the first platform game, the first game with cut scenes, the game that game us Shigeru, and the Mario universe, and much more.

Donkey Kong was also fun to play. And you can;t beat that.

[Abe Sargent]

I've decided to edit the title with the most current game on the list.

[Abe Sargent]

Okay, a bit of a technical problem. When looking over the list, I saw that I gave 65 twice. That means my numbering is off. I will change it now, and that moves #100, Star Fox, to honorable mention.

[Abe Sargent]

Here's a little teaser, the game at 78 on my countdown was released by a company that only made two games, and that's it. What game? What company?

[QuikSand]

Krazy Shoot Out by K-Byte.

[Abe Sargent]

Nope. I'll even give y'all one more hint. The other game they made, had it lived up to its hype, would have made my top 100, no question. One game made it, the other would have it it had held up the hype.

That's all you get, find out at 78

[Abe Sargent]

92. Goldeneye 007
Rareware
N64
1997
GameSpot Review: 9.8
Action - First Person Shooter/Stealth


Let's do another game before we end today's list with the best console FPS ever, period. Better, for its time, than Halo and other games. Flat out, Goldeneye was the best FPS, because it was a real game.

It incorporated variable goals, with a variety of different things to do, and many levels didn;t even require you to shoot and kill people, you could stealth around if you wanted, while others were just flat out combat.

Oh, and who could forget playing 007 in real life against your mates. That was one of the best multiplayer experiences you had. Goldeneye 007 laid the foundation for modern console FPS loving. I loved The Man with the Golden Gun variant. Hot. You Only Die Twice was pretty good too. I was not a fan of License to Kill though.


Anyway, various multiplayer modes, great single player game, and very smooth and playable game, and one of the few games for the N64 you will see even considered for the Top 100.

Enjoy!

[Abe Sargent]

91. The Bard's Tale
Interplay Productions
Apple II
1985
GameSpot Review: 7.9*
RPG - Dungeon Crawl


Ah, the classics. What is there to tell you about one of the classics of computer gaming? One of the classic RPGs of RPGs out there? What can I say that hasn't been said before? I could say it sucks, that probably hasn't been said before. It's not true, but it at least hasn't been said.

You had a bard with magical songs that could affect combat and in game things. You had cash, experience, classes - it was RPGs for the computer, only Bard's Tale was intricate, and great.

Oh, and remember this? You could port your characters from Ultima III OR Wizardry into this game. That was flat out incredible at the time. Taking character from completely different franchises and bringing them into yours? Awesome!

It had great graphics, including some nice 3D world view stuff, plus nice animations.

From the ability to change the classes of your magic users in order to learn more spells to the bard songs, the game was the next evolution of RPGs for computers. It was the best RPG when it was released, and until 1988's Wasteland. Of course, the clever among you might notice that Interplay also created Wasteland. True, true.

Well, here is to another great game and a classic of the genre.

[Swaggs]

Lots of good memories from Goldeneye. We played the crap out of its multiplayer in college and still, on occasion, use some quotes from some of those games.

[hoopsguy]

You've pulled three games out so far - Planescape: Torment, Goldeneye, and Bard's Tale - that I just loved. I'm not sure where I would rate them if I put in the time to compile my own list, but I'm sure all of them would be higher than they are on your list. Of course, my interests in games seem considerably more narrow than your judging by the diversity of systems and game types that you have detailed over the three dynasty threads.

Love reading along to these threads, keep up the good work!

[Abe Sargent]

Thanks both of you!

[Abe Sargent]

90. Commando
Capcom
Commodore 64, PC, many others
1985
GameSpot: 7.5*
Action - Run N' Gun



Let's do another 1985 game next. Say hello to one of the most influential Run N Gun games out there, and one of the first. Commando set the bar for the genre and made it a household name. This vertically scrolling shoot fest was ported to every possible game system, from dead systems like Intellivision and Atari 2600 to NES, PC, Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari 7800, BBC Micro, Acorn Electron, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, and more. This thing was whored out as much as possible, helping to lay the foundation for games to straddle numerous multiple systems later. It seems like everything except the Aquarius got one.

The game influenced later Run N' Gun games including #69 on the list, and some of my personal faves like Gun.Smoke, which has a great coin-op version I loved, and Rush N' Attack which also had a very hot coin-op, which I used to own.

Commando was a strong and smooth game on most of the systems it was ported too. From grenades and moving enemies to dodging bullets and trying not to get scrolled to death, the game played strong and many a player spent hours killing off enemies.

So here's to Commando, one of the first and most influential Run N Gun games, a real system whore, and a blast to play.

[Abe Sargent]

Oh, and that game gives Capcom three games so far (Street Fighter II, Mega Man 2), and they also have #74 in my new countdown for 4 games in my top 100, which is a solid showing.

[Abe Sargent]

#89. Bejeweled
PopCap Games
PC and others
2001
GameSpot Review: 8.0*
Puzzle

http://www.bejeweled.com/


Okay, you might make fun of this, and I am prepared to take the hit, but Bejeweled is a major milestone in games as well as the cleverest simple game since #81 on my list later.

Look, Pac-Man was epic, but it was simple. Donkey Kong similarly, as well as Mario Bros. A game has to be fun, not necessarily Crusader Kings every time.

Bejeweled created a massively popular match three puzzle game, and it is the game that put Casual Gaming on the map. The Sims and RCT made dents in Casual Gaming, but Bejeweled was it. Bejeweled has sold more than 25 million copies and been downloaded more than 150 million times. That is simply staggering.

Not every great game is going to appeal to the core gamer. Some are just fun diversions, but Bejewled is a diversion that makes Minesweeper or Solitaire look like torture.

Flat out, it deserves to be on this list.

[rjolley]

Thanks for doing the lists. Always a good walk down memory lane reading through the reviews. I've found a game or two to try out as well.

[Abe Sargent]

Great! Glad ya like it!

[Abe Sargent]

88. M.U.G.E.N.
Elecbyte
PC
2001
Action - Fighting


http://mugen.en.softonic.com/


This is totally outside the box, and I admit it. MUGEN is a freeware game engine for fighting on the PC. You can make your own characters for it, create your own moves, and create an AI and then set up a character.

Many character's can be found online in a variety of databases. You can find almost any character that was in a fighting game, plus you can find characters like super heroes, Lion-O, Pokemon, and so forth. You can d/l these and add them to the game. You can also create and download the backgrounds. Many are from fighting games, and then you can d/l other things people have made as well.

The result is a game engine that is a cuisinart list of characters and settings that you want. You can play your favorites from other games against each other. I like a good Chun Li vs Superman fight. Or Blanka vs Spawn. Great stuff.

There are many databases out there you can find characters from, and the result is a ton of great scenes and fighters from all of your favorite games.

ow, what dings MUGEN is that the game plays a bit less grand. The controls aren;t perfect, but more like those of older fighting games with three punches and three kicks, and so forth. Of course, the game is from 2001 so you may not consider that a knock, but I just wanted to let you know.

You can find it on a bunch of sites, you can also find it bundled with characters and settings already. For example, there is a Marvel vs DC game you can download and play, and it has everything ready to go.

MUGEN is great fun, finding the characters out there is a blast (but not all look or play good, so you have to playtest them), and the result is the best fighting game for you that you can have.

[Abe Sargent]

87. Blaster Master
Sunsoft
NES
1998
GameSpot: 8.5*
Action - Platform, Run N Gun

Blaster Master came out after the initial great platform games for the NES. It was out after Metroid and Mega Man and Castlevania and Mario and around the same time as #79 and so forth. It was a game that decided to stand on the shoulders of giants.

The result was, arguably, one of the best platform type games for the NES, period. Blaster Master featured you in a car that jumped on and through platforms and you could shoot either left, up or right. You would come to some places that let you escape the car, and you could go places on the map, ,or enter special dungeon type areas. There you would move around and shoot and clear out the area, often finding items for you and/or your vehicle.

You can also find temporary items like lightning bolts and homing missles to help you out. Both your solider and your vehicle had separate health, so sometimes you would jump out and move to fight an enemy meant for your ar so it wouldn;t risk taking damage.

Eventually your vehicle can climb walls, hover, and swim, allowing you to get to more levels.

The multiple modes makes the game quite playable and diverse, and the game has a lot of bells and whistles built into it. It has made lists of the best games of all time before my personal Top 100, so that's not a surprise.

Where Blaster Master falls short is in a few areas. First of all, no password, saves and no codes. you have to play your way through the game from beginning to end, and the game can take a while. It's quite detailed. This knocks it down a lot.

Secondly, the game is difficult. That's not a bad thing. You could pick up a lot of platform type games during he NES era and do quite well before it got challenging. Not so Blaster Master. It was hard, and many people thought it was too hard.


Anyway, enjoy!

[Abe Sargent]

86. WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!
Nintendo
GBA
2003
GameSpot: 9.3
Action

Ah yes, WarioWare. I regularly say that last generation (the 6th) was won by the GameBoy Advance in terms of best games. The GBA had a ton of great games, and the DS has a lot too. I think the DS MarioKart is better than the Wii one, for example.

WarioWare is a simple game. There are a lot of enemies you must face, and when you do, you have to overcome a ton of mini-games, and many of those mini-games mock or mimic previous games, such as Zelda, F-Zero, Mario and so forth. You also have mini-games that resembles platforms like Metroid, and other jumping games. See also fighting games, flying games, word games, and even an RPG.

The result is a haphazard and large number of games of increasing difficulty. You can beat the game in a few hours, but then you can do challenges with different types and genres of games and different levels of games, with higher difficulties and what not.

WarioWare is really fun for all levels of gamers, from 12 to 72, and the game is easy to play and challenging enough for all levels of players. Even I, gamer for almost 30 years, get something from it. Yay!

[Izulde]

I need to either dust off my own thread on this or re-rate my Top 100.

[Abe Sargent]

Or both!

[Abe Sargent]

I had just entered a really nice, descriptive about game #85 and then Firefox crashed when I hit the submit button, so now I'm [issed. I lost like 15 minutes of work. I'll come back to this later.

[Abe Sargent]

85. Knights of the Old Republic
BioWare
Xbox
2003
GameSpot - 9.1
RPG


http://store.steampowered.com/app/32370/

After having typed this and losing this once before, I'm just giving you a quick summation. I previously had this really interesting and clever thing, and now, all you get is this:

Amazing:

Characters
Fleshed Out Setting
Plot

Sucky:

Game
Style
Mechanics


As a game, this game sucks, don't even buy it. As an experience, this game rocks, totally buy it. It is so easy, it's not funny. The game mechanics are poor when combined D&D + Star Wars, gets in the way of believing it is Star Wars.

So it gets here and no higher, because it has serious flaws.

[Abe Sargent]

84. Qix
Taito
Coin-Operated Arcade
1981
Action


Say hello to one of the classics of the coin-operated age. For about a 5 to 6 year span, the coin ops were the best games made. They outclassed all of the games in the first two gens, and it was not until the 3rd Gen and NES that games began to challenge coin-ops for supremacy, and Coin Ops were still better in many ways.

Therefore it is no surprise that I have had several Coin Ops in my countdown. Coin ops have often been at the forefront of games from the older games like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong through more recent innovations like Dance Dance Revolution. Understanding the important role they play is an importnat part of understanding electronic gaming.

Qix was a classic. In Qix, you had a box, and inside the box is a moving geometrical shape called the Qix. You had to move your cursor into the middl eo fhte box, and behind you would trail a line. If that line was hit by the Qix before you arrived on the other side of the box, you would lose alife. As you complete these lines, you close off more and more of the box, and the goal of the game is to complete a certain % of the box and then you tgo to the next level. There are also electrical Sparx that travel on the lines you make and try to kill you there as well. And there is a Fuse that starts on your line if ytou pause while building. So you have Qix and Fuses and Sparx chasing you, and you are trying to close off portions of the box, and as you do so, you make the level harder and harder since there is less place for you to hide and your enemies to move.





It was ported to a lot of systems and still getting released in the late 80s and 90s. There was even a 2000 version for the GBC.

Qix = solid gaming and lots of fun.



Interested in playing Qix online?

Qix



Qix is still a fun little diversion, and unlike a lot of contemporaries, you just can;t wade in with your decades of gaming skillz, and start raping it. I start playing some games from the arcades or the consoles in the early 80s and I can just play them for hours. This game still kills me regularly in the first stage.

[Abe Sargent]

83. Medieval: Total War
The Creative Assembly
PC
2002
GameSpot: 8.7
Strategy - Military, Turn Based



It is my unfortunate "honor" to bring to you #83 on the countdown. I am not happy about this game being here, because I am pissed off at the creators severely. They released an expansion for M: TW 2 that promised various features on the box, some of those features did not work, and they refused to patch it, instead moving to their next game. They announced that about 6 months after the expansion was released, that they had all moved on, and I have never been back to their website, I porbbaly never will, and I doubt I will ever again play a game by them.

M: TW was a good game, but not a great game, it had many flaws. However, I think it was the best of the TW line of games, because it's glaring flaw was the least there.

Half real time military simulation and half turn based strategy game, this game is known far and wide to modern PC gamers as, supposedly, one of the few great PC series in the 2000s.

I call BS. The game is good, but hardly great. It has some redeeming value, but it is hardly Crusader Kings or EU2, it is hardly Civilization or Colonization or anything like that.

The military half of the game has always ben really strong. Great graphics, great battles and great fun. This is where the heart of TW is. And because of this, TW gets into my 100 of all time.

Where TW really drops the ball is the other half of the game, which is always unbelievably easy to win.

Nobody wants to win a game with no challenge. I played through it once with the battles turned off, so I could concentrate on jus the strategy game and it was so mind-numbingly easy. It's like the strategy game was designed for kids in 2nd grade. Perhaps 3rd. A game like this should be this easy to win.

I loved the idea of individual provinces having special troop types that could only be built there by the owner of the province. I didn;t feel that they used it enough, but I liked it. So there were a few things to take away, but by and large, the mechanics were not well thought out (like building trade fleets by having a fleet in each province just sitting there, how dumb), and the AI was blisteringly stupid even on the hardest levels.

So a great half and a bad half make for an okay game. I mean it still has some redeeming value, just for the great side, and that's why it's here, but let's not overestimate it or anything.

[Abe Sargent]

82. NHL Hockey
APh Technological Consulting
Intellivision
1979
Sports - Hockey

Ah the classics of classics. When the Intellivision debuted in 1979, it brought with it games that would change gaming, including very realistic sports games that defined the console.

NHL Hockey was a great game. Not only was it one of the smoothest games of the generation, with a remarkable response to you moving the men around and shooting the puck, but it was also a great simulation of a more difficult sport to port than Baseball, Football and so forth.

NHL Hockey had several various keys and very realistic gameplay. In addition to passing, shooting, and moving characters around, you could also trip people with your stick and knock them to the ground for a bit of time, and perhaps, when you did so, you might get called for a penalty, and then one of your players goes to the penalty box. You can even knock over players with a strong strike from your players as a goalie tries to dive to get a puck or is knocked off balance. You also totally feel like you are on ice.

The sports games designed by APh Technological Consulting are among the most advanced ones ever, and are better than a lot of ones for the NES in terms of gameplay. Trust me, if you lived and played games in the second generation of consoles, you know that the most advanced console games were the sports ones for the Intellivision.

Flat out, NHL Hockey was one of the best games from one of the best done genres on one of the best consoles of its generation. It was a joy to play.

[Abe Sargent]

81. Tetris
Alexey Pajitnov
Every System and Cell Phone Ever
1984
Puzzle


Ah, the greatest Casual Game of all time. The game that put puzzle games on the map. The bundled game that sold the original Game Boy. The game that pissed off Nintendo so much they sued Tengen.

Ah Tetris.

Who among us has not spent hours and hours playing Tetris over the years? Who cannot admit to some serious Tetris love? How can I even introduce it?


According to a quick wikipedia check, it has sold more than 70 million copies. You can play or variants online, on your cell phone, and more. Tetris is our modern day Chess or Checkers, a common game that unifies us all.

Here's to Tetris!

[Abe Sargent]

80. Oregon Trail II
MECC
PC, Macintosh
1996
GameSpot: 7.8*
Adventure - Educational

Say hello to the single best game for children, ever. This game, with an educational slant, was the defining game for children.

Many games that are made for a specific purpose OTHER than entertaining rarely entertain. Bible Adventures for the NES was flat out one of the worst games I've ever played. That's because it was not designed to be entertaining first. A lot of games that are meant to teach lessons or history are boring in terms of holding your attention and being fun.

Not so, Oregon Trail II. This was a fun game, and it had a great replay value too. You could choose the year you played in,and you could choose your starting locations, and those could really alter your game significantly. And let's not forget occupations and group leader.

This series was iconic, and this entry added a lot to the series from options and locations to items and animals and more.


Oh, and before someone else says it...

You have died of dysentery.

[Abe Sargent]

79. Ninja Gaiden
Tecmo
NES
1988
GameSpot - 8.7*
Action - Platform, Combat


This is the final platform game in my top 100. That means there are none other between 78-64, the finals games in my countdown.

Ninja Gaiden really pushed cutscene work to the forefront and was noteworthy as arguably the smoothest and best playing platform on a system built on the backs of platform games.

There were numerous jumps, and your character, Ryu, could cling to walls, jump up a pair of walls or use signs as platforms, and had numerous attacks including his basic katana.

The cutscenes are, frankly, among the best graphics for the NES and are beautiful. The narrative, scenes, music, and great gameplay led to Ninja Gaiden being one of the quality titles for the NES.

This gives Tecmo its second game in my top 100, since it also has Monster Rancher 3.

Like Blaster Master, Ninja Gaiden was criticized by some critics for its difficulty, especially in later levels. However, like Blaster Master, Ninja Gaiden was in a later wave of platformers that built their game on the back of great games like Metroid, Mario Brothers and Mega Man. I'd argue that, of course, it should be harder. Players had been playing platforms for a while. The difficulty of later games in the 4th gen would be praised, but during the close of the 3rd gen, instead it was criticized. That's just silly.

Ninja Gaiden is totally worthy of this spot.

[Abe Sargent]

78. Evil Genius
Elixir Studios
PC
2004
GameSpot: 7.3
Strategy

http://store.steampowered.com/app/3720/


Say hello to one of the most interesting games in our countdown - Evil Genius, from 2004. I referred to this earlier when I said there would be a game by a studio that only made two games.

In 1998, Demis Hassibas founded Elixir Studios after spending some time at Bullfrog and then Lionhead working on games like Theme Park and Black and White. He wanted to create a company that would make good, independent, PC games unlike the others that were getting made with their own new IPs.

His first game was the overly ambitious Republic: The Revolution, highly touted and highly hyped, but ultimately a failure, because various things had to be stripped out.

After Evil Genius, his studio was working on Blue Vault, which showed a lot of promise (PC Preview: Blue Vault - ComputerAndVideoGames.com, before closing down and getting bought out.

Evil Genius was beautiful. Many reviewers attacked it for several things. First they said it was just a clone of Dungeon Keeper, which is just stupid, and I will mention later. Secondly, they said it had a slow pace, but that's not a bad thing. Thirdly, they claimed that your inability to control your minions was frustrating and gad game design.

Let's take these one at a time: Like Dk, you are a bad guy, and you build a base with minions. And that's it for similarity. It's like saying Civilization and SimCity are similar because in both you are building social structures. This is a genre with so few games in it, I understand why each may seem similar to the other, but Evil Genisu is a lot different than Dungeon Keeper.

2 - The pace of EG can be slow at times, I agree. A speed up button would have been ideal.

3 - The design of the game is that you motivate people, or kill them to motivate people, and not actually control them, and that is very realistic. Plus, you CAN control your henchmen, just not your minions. So you do have some control.

There are some issues. Acts of Infamy become relatively meaningless later int he game. Why bother doing them at all, unless they advance the plot? I finished my last two games with very low notoriety and, as a result, I had an easier tome of it . In the early game, there are some objectives that require you to have a certain notoriety and I would have liked some more similar requirements later. I also think that reasearch is a bit too haphazard and a cleaner way to do research would have been nice.

However, let's talk about the awesomeness of EG for a bit. This is a clever game, obviously lampooning the James Bond franchise, with a lot of wit. The items and their description can be funny, you see the game go after a lot of conventions, and the result is a great game with tons of style.

Evil Genius is a lot of fun to play because it knows what it is trying to do, and they introduce a lot of mechanics that are flat out new for gaming, such as the World Domination Screen mechanic.

In all, EG is a game that could use some betterment, but so do a lot of the games that hit around here. It was a sign that Demis would not follow Peter's footsteps but could instead make good games, but Demis promptly left gaming and now works on making AI for computers.

Here's to Elixir Studios and a fun game.

[Abe Sargent]

77. Command and Conquer
Westwood Studios
PC
1995
GameSpot - 9.3
Strategy - Real Time

Until StarCraft, Command & Conquer was the best RTS out there. It was better than Warcraft II, and just a great game. The characters were more interesting, the scenery better, the units and play balance better, and the music was flat out awesome.

I need only to tell you three words, and you instantly know what soundtrack I am talking about - Fight. Win. Prevail.

YouTube - C&C: Tiberian Dawn - Fight win Prevail (music)

C&C also introduced, what, in my opinion, is arguably the most interesting character in PC gaming in the past 15 years - Kane.

C&C was one of the THE franchises of the PC for a long time, as the PC came to be dominated by four genres of gaming: Casual Gaming, RTS, FPS, and MMORPG. C&C was a cornerstone of one of those, and its games were regularly better than Blizzard's with one obvious exception noted earlier.

C&C had interesting missions that took the game engine to its, limit, great videos, and was a lot of fun. You had to like C&C. If you didn;t, you were just a GDI slug.

Please note., C&C introduced a lot of the conventions of RTS gaming that later followed in games like Warcraft II. Westwood had released Dune 2, so the creators of the RTS genre were perfecting it long before Blizzard did.

Ultimately, Warcraft was a better game in 1994 than C&C was in 1995 on the back of Warcraft, so Warcraft charts higher, but C&C belongs in the conversation, no question.

[Abe Sargent]

76. Overlord
Triumph Studios
XBOX 360
2007
GameSpot - 7.5
Action/RPG

One of the few games from the last few years to make my list, and one of the fewer games from the most recent generation of consoles is Overlord.

In case you don;t know, Overlord is a game where you play a bad guy, who can swing a sword/axe/hammer, fight, cast spells, and oh yes, order minions around to fight, grab things, and use special abilities.

It's a bit like Pikmin, which was always fun, but it has a load more character and fun built in. Overlord is a blast to play, and you love the world that they built, with your evil character running around.

They also have a bit of a morality system built in. You can be ultra evil, killing hapless peasants and whatnot, or you can be sorta evil, saving peasants from monsters and stuff, so that they will make things for you.

The result is that you can be chivalrous, and whatnot, but still evil, or like chaotic and hapless, and still evil. In fact, the interesting thing, is that if you choose the more nice evil path, a lot of quests seem just like the "good" guys from RPGs. You are selfishly tearing into goblin homes and such for treasure and experience, just like "good" heroes do, and as such, the game really throws into question the whole morality of high fantasy in a very clever and subtle way.

So, in summation - Overlord good. Overlord evil.

[Abe Sargent]

75. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Capcom
DS (GBA in Japan)
2005 (2001 in Japan)
GameSpot: 8.8
Adventure

Phoenix Wright is credited with reviving the modern day Adventure game movement with a lot of new Adventure games in teh casual gaming world popping their heads back up.

This game was very fun to play, with an interesting story that sometimes was quite intricate as well as fun play. The Japanese version was for GBA but the DS one in America added an additional adventure that used the DS in clever ways to help solve crimes.

For those unaware of Phoenix Wright, in teh game you play a defense lawyer in the near future when criminal trials only have three days at most, defendants are generally presumed guilty, and there is a lot of corruption. You have to find evidence, then object, press witnesses, show evidence, and so forth, in order to try to win a court case. It's a ton of fun, no question.

Face it, everyone has watched and liked court drama. Well, this is court drama as a video game, and frankly, it seems like we should have had games like this earlier. Quality, fun, courtroom, fun, and quality.

Yay!

[Abe Sargent]

74. Microsurgeon
Imagic
Intellivision
1982
Action

After the first wave of games came out for systems in the 2nd generation, a number of independent companies began to spring up, making games for various systems. This is when Activision got started. A variety of companies made games, like Quaker Oats.

The 2nd gen was not kind to developers. Names of developers were not given and they were poorly paid. Companies wanting to bring developers from in-house development companies for Atari and Intellivision would have to try hard to find out who even worked there.

Into this realm stepped the most imaginative independent company of hte 2nd generation of consoles - Imagic. Their games included Atlantis, Demon Attack, Dragonfire, Truckin', Safecracker, Beauty and the Beast, and of course, Microsurgeon.

Microsurgean was very innovative. You piloted a small capsule through a patients's body and shot and killed infections, tumors, kidney stones, and so forth. You might have to fend off viruses, white blood cells, and more. It was a health related shooter, and that made the game quite interesting.

As a result, teh game was one of the most interesting of its generation.

Here's a screenie:




From the wiki page:

Microsurgeon was noted as "among the most innovative computer/game software for 1982-1983" at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It tied for "Most Original Game" of the year in Electronic Fun with Computers and Games magazine, December 1983

[Abe Sargent]

There are just ten games left.

[path12]

Originally Posted by Abe Sargent

His first game was the overly ambitious Republic: The Revolution, highly touted and highly hyped, but ultimately a failure, because various things had to be stripped out.

I was so excited about Republic from those early previews and so disappointed with how it turned out.

Also, Qix!!! I burnt a lot of quarters on that game. Thanks for that link!