My Top 10 Games

Hi everybody! Late last year, Bennett The Sage did four videos about his favorite games, musicians, anime, and movies, and they’re pretty entertaining, as well as informative. After watching them all a couple times, I figured it was about time for me to show you what my top 10 movies, games, musicians, and anime (as well as my top 10 books) are. So, from February to June, I’ll put up one post about the above mentioned topics. February will be games, March is anime, April will be devoted to movies, May will be the music month, and June will be devoted to books (The books post will be the hardest to make, since I’ve read a lot of books, and it’ll include some manga series, so it’ll take a little planning). So, without further delays, let’s take a look at my top 10 favorite games.

10) Diablo 1/2/3

The Diablo franchise is one of the oldest gaming franchises I’ve been devoted to, as the first game came out in 1996. True be told, I wasn’t able to play the first game until at least 6 months to a year after it cam out, because my Mom was mostly against me playing violent games back then. When I was a little older, she finally let me play the original game, and it was worth the wait! It was dark, gritty, gothic, and very action packed despite not having much of a story to it. Even today, I still play the original Diablo & Hellfire mission pack for nostalgic purposes, as well as the fact that it holds up quite well today.

Even though it still holds up today, Diablo 2 blows the original game away. Stronger player classes (Necromancer & Druid for life!), bigger world, better graphics, and a fleshed out story brought more players into the fold, and any players that may have been disenfranchised by the original Diablo. When the mission pack came out, the game was given new classes (Druid & Assassin), new items & monsters, a new land, a new part of the world to explore, and some addition to the story. Yes, Diablo 2 has perhaps surpassed the original game, and is still played today by fans. However...

This leads me to Diablo 3. When I did my review of the game back in July last year (Click on “***” to read), I basically said that while I hated most of the changes, I couldn’t bring myself to hate the game. My opinion on the game has slightly changed (I’ve begun to hate the game, but only slightly), but I still manage to enjoy the game. I still find that the classes bring something to the table, despite getting fixes (For better or worse) over & over. Again, read my review of the game to get a better understanding of my views on it.

9) Torchlight 1/2

Unlike Diablo, the Torchlight series has only been around since 2009, and thus is far more fresh in the minds of gamers. What really makes this game fun to play is that it’s gameplay (Regardless of whether it’s the 1st game or 2nd game) harkens back to the first two Diablo games. It’s very fast paced, tons of monsters swarm you & their corpses explode with loot when they died, the worlds are big (More so in the 2nd game than the 1st game), and the graphics make the world come to life (Like I said in both reviews, they’re rather colorful, but the 2nd game doesn’t have as much of a cartooney look to it). Still gotta get back to finishing up Torchlight 2 with the other characters (I got the Embermage, Outlander, and Berserker to finish up).

8) Dante’s Inferno

So far, I’ve never really talked about console games on this blog. The reason is simple: when I was growing up, my father used to be a computer engineer, and he believed that it was pointless to have a console when you already had a PC that basically did the same thing. I still subscribe to this philosophy, but in 2009, my dad asked for a PS3 for Christmas, and a couple months before, I was keeping watch on what was perhaps one of the few games on a console that entranced me. Plus, it was a loose version of one of my favorite books (There’s a hint for you for that list).

Though I haven’t turned the PS3 on in a while, I enjoyed Dante’s Inferno when I played it. Though it’s a bit of a God of War clone, there was enough of a difference in terms of combat that it felt separate from that game series. Also, the depiction of the nine circles of hell was impressive & beautiful in a dark sort of way. Not to mention the fact that the denizens of hell (both normal & boss monsters) were equally imaginative & dark. Hell, I even enjoyed the story of Dante’s Inferno, as it twists & turns the original story into something that feels different, but doesn’t completely stray from it’s source material. It also helps to have a kick ass website that rewards interactivity.

7) Call of Duty Franchise

As I said in my Modern Warfare 3 review (Click on “***” to read), the Call of Duty franchise has lost a lot of respect among PC players, and console gamers to an extent. With that being said, it’s safe to say that Call of Duty is incredibly popular, as well as incredibly profitable. The first two games on the PC (Call of Duty 1 & 2) were a good change of pace from Medal of Honor, which took the slower paced action-packed route. As sequels kept coming out, the franchise became more & more popular, eventually delving into modern times & beyond. Though the respect heavily vanished with Modern Warfare 2, it’s slowly come back, and I sincerely believe that respect has come back greatly with Black Ops 2.

If I can say one thing, I think that the Call of Duty games released by Treyarch tend to more adventurous that the games made by Infinity Ward (More so after Infinity Ward was weakened by departures & Activision’s actions toward the group). With Treyarch’s games on the PC, we went to the Pacific & Western Europe, various hotspots during the Cold War, and finally towards a possible future in 2025. With the games made by Infinity Ward, we’re still in this one world, and while things do move on, too much of it stays the same for it to feel truly new

6) Lego Island

Now, I was going to put this game somewhere in the 4-to-1 spots, but there’s two things that prevent me from doing so. Number one: graphically, while nice & colorful, haven’t aged all that well. Number two: while a fun game to play, is much more geared towards kids & young teenagers, and will come across as childish & repetitive in terms of gameplay & humor.

Having said that, this game is a blast to play. As I said, the world is a bright, colorful place where you just want to hang out in and have fun. The activities, while few & repetitive, are absolutely fun to do (Build & race cars & jet skis, drive an ambulance to do some rescues, etc), and you can customize just about anything on the island. Even the characters you come across (Primary & secondary) can provide you with some nice chuckles & laughs, as you don’t always know what they’ll do. As you can tell, fun is the word in this game.

5) Borderlands 1/2

I’ve gushed nothing but praise about these two games, and I’ll continue to do so until the day I died. Regardless of which game, you were put down on one gaming’s most fascinating worlds, which contained some of gaming’s most interesting & bizarre characters. What really makes both games great is the fact that nothing is taken seriously, and the gameplay is just pure unadulterated fun, whether it’s by yourself, or when playing with others. It also doesn’t help the fact that both games had ungodly amounts of guns, an equal amount of oddball humor, and a game company that genuinely cares about it’s products & fans. 

Before I go onto the number 4 spot, I have one thing to say....................................TORGUE!!!!!!!

4) Duke Nukem 3d/Manhattan Project/Duke Nukem Forever

Much like Diablo, I had to wait a little before I could play Duke Nukem 3d, though not quite as long. Even when I had permission to play, my mother added the condition that I could only play it downstairs where she could see me (My father didn’t care, but went along with it anyway). Despite that catch, Duke Nukem 3d was a totally different experience when compared with what came before it. Gone was the side-scrolling, and instead we were given a 3d experience, lead by one of the most foul-mouthed (at the time) characters ever to grace gaming. Like some of the older games, there’s still a big enough community for the game, and said community continues to make levels for it.

So it came as a surprise when Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project was released in 2002. Originally tied into the main universe of Duke, it became a standalone game when it was realized that it might become connected to Duke Nukem Forever, which was still in development at the time. More surprising was that the gameplay mechanics were a throwback to the original Duke games, but it contained enough new material to keep it separate from those games. The graphics were a big improvement over those games, including DN3d, but they haven’t aged well over the years. The gameplay, despite being fun (It still is fun), gets repetitive rather quickly. This was the only game we got that dealt with Duke back then, and when DNF supposedly got canned back in 2009, many gamers though it was the last game that would ever have Duke Nukem. However...

2011 came around, and Duke Nukem Forever finally came out!...to mixed reactions. Diehard Duke fans enjoyed it, but the majority of gamers slammed it, citing graphics, dated humor, and Duke Nukem himself as the main problems of the game, not to mention the fact that some reviewers tried to compare DNF to Call of Duty (WTF!!!). It’s really tragic that the game has problems, because despite them, Duke Nukem Forever is a lot of fun to play. Despite the new setting, we still have the sexy, the machismo, and the cheesy one-liners fans expect from a Duke game, though I should say that Duke vocabulary was toned down somewhat in Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project.

3) Epic Pinball

Now here’s a game that ancient!

Coming in at almost 20 years old (It was released in November of 1993), Epic Pinball was one of the best PC pinball ever made. It’s really tragic that Epic Games hasn’t been re-released as a free download on their website, or as a cheap buy over on steam, because Epic Pinball is a easy game to pickup & play. While there’s no overall story (Makes sense, considering the game subject), each of the 13 tables have their own theme to them (Android has you building a...android, Crash & Burn puts you in a Formula 1 race, and Pangea puts you in the time of the dinosaurs, etc), as well as their own difficulty.

I really recommend this game. If you can somehow find the complete collection online as a download, or find the Wizardworks collection somewhere, go for it!

2) Jazz Jackrabbit

Yet another game that’s ancient!

Originally released on July 30, 1994, Jazz Jackrabbit is a hybrid of Sonic the Hedgehog style speed, coupled with frantic side-scrolling shooting action. Perhaps the funniest thing about this game is that it’s story is a fantasy version of Aesop’s classic fable: 3000 years after that incident, Devon Shell (The evil leader of the turtles) has captured Eva Earlong (The long-eared princess) of Carrotus in an effort to conquer the galaxy. The king of Carrotus sends it’s greatest hero, Jazz, on a journey through the worlds that Devon has conquered to get back the princess, and save the planet. It’s incredibly cheesy, but it’s a lot of fun at the same time.

Just like Epic Pinball, if you can find the entire file online, or somehow locate the CD that has all the episodes, go for it!!

1) One Must Fall 2097

Taken from “Seeds of Geekdom: My Father”:

“Let's rewind the clock a bit: it's the early 90s. 1993, to be more specific. We're living in a small house in Clinton, New York. At the time, we weren't poor, but we didn't have a lot of money. We didn't have a lot of full PC games, but we had plenty of demos. One of them was for a fighting game called One Must Fall: 2097, published by Epic Megagames (long before they became the popular Epic Games). OMF: 2097 was a fast paced games where two giant robots went toe-to-toe against each other, with the only goal of tearing each other apart. It was a fun demo, but the only problem was that it was...a demo. There wasn't any multiplayer (against another computer, that is.), there were only 5 out of the 10 pilots available, and there were only 3 of the 10 robots available. Despite that, me and my Father (sometimes my Mother) spent a lot of time playing against each other, and basically having a good time.”

“Forward to 1994, and we're still living at the same place, or so I believe (It was so long ago, I can't remember well). I believe I came home from school, and after doing my homework, my Father calls me into the computer rooms and asks if I wanted to play a game of OMF with him. Without batting an eyelash, I said "Sure!" I got over to the seat, and my Dad starts up the game. Both the demo and the full game start up the same, so I didn't know what was in store. My Dad selected the two-player option, and the first thing he said was "Well...let's see. I think I'm going to be...Raven." It was then that I knew that something was different, and when he selected a robot that was previously unavailable, I was bouncing off the walls in joyous celebration. I couldn't believe that he did this for me, especially at a time when we had to be careful with our money. Although I was never certain, I could have sworn that my Mom was in on this as well, so props to you Mom if you were.”

I don’t think I could say anything else about this game. Nope, can’t say anything else.

See you all next week, when we’ll look at a familiar devil hunter once again. Until then, stay Otaku!