YOUR GREATEST GAMES except for Aunt Alison who is lazy

FIFA/Pro Evo
Mr Do
Manic Minor
Super Mario Bros 3
Crazygame
One of the cave shmups
NHL (one of the first ones)
POP sands of time
Donkey Kong
Virtua Racer

Who doesn't love doing a list.

I'll do 5, in no particular order:

1. Dark Souls - Bloodborne is probably the better game overall, but this will always be special to me. First loves and all that, I guess. It took me 3 attempts to actually get into it, with its slightly impenetrable nature weirdly making it even more incredible to me. The first attempt I gave up against the Taurus Demon, whilst the second was the poison rats under the bridge leading to the Undead Parish (might have actually reached the metal bull, but the rats are what stood out). The third attempt I finally battled my way through those parts and managed to reach the lift between the Undead Parish and Firelink, which blew my mind. The way this seemingly linear path was actually looping me around to where I began, in a way that actually made sense, was amazing and produce a fantastic moment of realising how connected this world was, something that From games have captured quite so well since.

2. Hitman 3 - Really, this is "Hitman 3, when you have all the other games added into it". It is difficult to pick just a single game in the trilogy, as they admittedly each have their dud levels and when there is only 5 or 6 levels in the game it does stand out. With all the levels added into 3 though, it becomes easier to ignore the Colorados or Carpathian Mountains. This is one of those dream games for me, that just shows you an objective and leaves you to go and work out the best (or sometimes the most incompetent) way to complete the level. It can veer between slick skilled assassin to reenacting that sequence from Mulholland Drive in seconds. Blood Money did much of what is great in these games initially, but this trilogy managed to refine it and take it to a whole other extreme, offering multiple murderous playgrounds for you to fool around in. You can spend hours in each one and still not uncover every little hidden detail. It is game I can come back to time and time again.

3. Half Life - Cliched choice maybe, but there is a reason why it always appears in "best of..." lists. It redefined the most dominant PC gaming genre at the time and, really, gaming as a whole. It made gaming more cinematic, whilst doing so in an interactive framework. You perhaps could blame it for many faults in gaming that would follow, but that would be unfair to criticise this game for others' failure to emulate what it did so perfectly. The actual plot isn't much to write home about, but the delivery defined how to do it in gaming, letting the player really embody Gordon Freeman and never pulling you out of his shoes. The stories just playing out around you is still effective, despite the technology, that was already technically not that advanced when it came out. The fire fights themselves may not stand up quite so well, but the AI is still surprisingly effective, even occasionally putting modern shooting gallery style games to shame. Half Life 2 in many ways refined the formula, but did lose some of the charm of the original.

4. Slay the Spire - probably my most unusual pick, but I love this game a hell of a lot. The art style still doesn't do it for me and on the surface it might appear to be just a card game, but this is just an incredibly polished and balanced to perfection game. The four different characters play completely uniquely and have multiple viable options to change up how you play them. I can play this game over and over again and I never get bored of it. For a very long time, this was pretty much the only game I was using my Switch for and it fully justified the purchase of the system just by itself, being ideal for the handheld device. I've tried out a few card games since playing this (Griftlands, Roguebook, Monster Train to name a few) and none have come close to comparing to this real masterpiece.

5. Day of the Tentacle - The Monkey Island games are also great, but for me this is peak Lucasarts adventure game. The time traveling puzzles work brilliantly and it is one of the rare instances of a point and click game where you can actually say that the puzzles are a highlight. Plus you have a wide range of fantastic characters, both imagined and historic (I still to this day picture Benjamin Franklin and George Washington as they appear here). I'm sure I replayed this game many times as a kid and I never found it got old.

Also, couple of special mentions:

Half Life Alyx - the best VR game created and it ends up putting lots of other VR games to shame. Really shows what is possible with the format when a developer properly invests time and money into it. The Jeff chapter in particular is probably the most incredible experience I have had with any game. If I did a top 10, this would certainly be on it.

The Longest Journey - proves games can have great stories too. Almost put this in Day of the Tentacle's place, but it isn't quite as perfect as that game and I expect it hasn't aged quite so well. The superior puzzles also made me think Tentacle just edges it out.

Anything by Arkane - particularly the Dishonored games and Prey. I have struggled a bit with trying to replay these, which is mainly why I ended up not including any of them in my 5, but I still love what they do and it is good to see a developer still holding up the torch for immersive sim games.

Actually. There’s probably shit loads of games I love but fuck doing a big list.

It’s too gloriously hot for that

I especially like the honourable mentions of games you've never played. But you're right, most of them are great games

Games I played the longest are probably:

Populous
Age of Empires
Panzer General
Doom
Demise
Goldeneye
Lord of the Rings Online
Dark Age of Camelot

Games that made me go "wow":

Lords of Midnight
Ant Attack
Doom
Lord of the Rings Online
Eye of the Beholder
Ys 8
Baldurs Gate
Lylat Wars
Assassin's Creed Odyssey
Xenoblade (the one with the flying robots)


There's another list for "what games would I want to play now" and another for "what games have me the most fun" (eg Monkey Island , Mario Kart, Worms, LotRO etc)

For the Zelda (and Final Fantasy) games it's mostly along the lines of "I've played them enough to know, but not even close to finishing them"

Edit: Add Nier: Automata to the pile of shame and AC 4, Odyssey and Origins (Valhalla to a lesser extent) to the actual list. See, I knew there was stuff I was forgetting

Hmmm

In no particular order

Dark souls
Elden ring
Last of us
Mario galaxy
Ocarina of time

I could swap this out for another five easy though

I've never played the original either. I know they changed the enemy placement a bit but I've no idea if it's considered a better or worse version

I ended up cleaning the enemies out until they stopped respawning in a few of them (Blue Smleter, Sir Alonne, Lud and Zallen). Tedious, but it worked

They...aren't really that long.

You are very intelligent.