More Video Games!

The following games are the favorites from our part-time contributors and readers! I'm going to go through the list and ones that they mention that I forgot about I'll comment on briefly. WOW, these lists have made me miss playing video games!

FIrst up is one of our video game consultants, DumbleGus. He got engaged recently, too! Congrats, buddy!

"So these are in no particular order. They're all awesome and just like my movie list, I can't narrow it down to like 10. NUTS TO THE RULES!"

Super Mario World, Red Dead Redemption, Jade Empire, Mass Effect 2, Hotline Miami, Bioshock, Fallout New Vegas, The Last Of Us, Metal Gear Solid 3, Assassin's Creed, Skate 2, Half-Life 2, Fable, Dishonored, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Earthbound, Persona 4 Golden, Shadow of the Colossus,  GTA Vice City, Blades of Steel, Far Cry 4, and Super Mario 3D World. 

Super Mario World (SNES)

Riding Yoshi while wearing the Super Cape was equivalent to Superman riding an unstoppable eating machine. 

Yeah, I should have had this on my list. "How good could a new Mario game be?" I foolishly said as I popped this game in. Whoa....that good. Got it. That's what I get for doubting Nintendo. The additions to the game made it great (the super hero cape, your new buddy Yoshi) and it was still familiar enough to pick up and not need a tutorial. It had secret levels, new bad guys...they really stepped their game up for the new system.  

 

Assassins Creed

"I wasn't going to stab you with my ring-finger-knife, but you wouldn't let me nap in that pile of hay!"

(def the best of them all)- totally agreed DumbleGus. I tried playing the 2nd one...I just couldn't get into it. This was one of those games that was like...a tech demo for the 360, "here's what our giant white box that overheats and melts off a processor chip can REALLY do," sort of game. Jokes about red-ringing 360's aside, I love this game and hiding in the hay is a great solution to avoiding all of life's problems!

Skate 2

Oh DumbleGus...this will forever be the game that makes me think of you. When we were wasting company money working at that awful video game store, you introduced me to the world of Skate. I had always loved the skateboarding culture but was too much of a klutz to do it in myself. This game made me feel like a skater. When the big tall doofus we worked with was like "there's no way you can ollie off that basketball backboard," and I totally landed it (after you showed me how), I was like "WHAT NOW, TALL GUY??? GO MOVE THOSE THINGS ON HIGH SHELVES!!" 

 "The most baller of all video game lists! (Drops the mic)"

Thanks again DumbleGus. Stay golden, pony boy. 

Next up is Dani Rouge. We love us some Dani Rogue. When she's not part-time writing for GGR, she's defending our country, serving in the military. You're welcome, readers. 

"Here are my favorites of all time (in loose order)" 

Skyrim, Assassin's Creed series (minus black flag because I play to kill things, not sail), Tomb Raider (reboot first then originals), Portal 2, guitar hero, Elder Scrolls Online, Indigo Prophecy, Saint's Row, The Arkham series

The Arkham Series

Every other super hero is jealous of Batman and how good his video games are. Rocksteady nailed it with this series. We can only hope that Superman will get the Rocksteady treatment soon as Andy speculated recently. 

Thanks again Dani. 

And now...the reader's lists. When you look at the lists Andy, Dani, Gus and I came up with, we hit a lot of the great video games. Our readers definitely helped filled in the gaps.  Here are some of the highlights. If the game got mentioned before, I'm not going to repeat it. 

Meghan Bepko gave us her top 10, here are the highlights:

1. Chronotrigger 2. Everquest 3. Heavy Rain 4. Secret of Mana... 7. Super Smash Brothers
9 Mario Brothers 10. Half Life

Super Smash Brothers Series

Of all the characters, Kirby is the most frightening. His hunger NEVER ENDS. He will eventually consume us all. 

OK, gotta talk about this one. The only people who claim to not like this game are the ones who suck and always lose. Nintendo found a niche with this game and Mario Kart; games that are fun alone, but a million times more fun with your friends, most of the time while cursing at each other and potentially breaking controller. 

So there's another game that people LOVE. I am not one of them...but I also can't judge. You love what you love, right? 

Pokemon

I knew about the cats and their love of "Pokemans" but Jay-Z? That's news to me.

Maybe I was too old for this game/TV show when it came out. Whatever my excuse is, the fanaticism that people show for this game is undeniable. There was a time when I worked for a video game store and I witnessed this first hand. I may not appreciate Pokemon and all it's iterations, but boy...do I understand. 

Here are some of the honorable mentions (I will comment on the most notable)

Crazy Taxi, Metal Gear Solid 2 and Morrowind (courtesy of Michael Swanson)

 Twisted Metal, Ocarina of Time, Mirror's Edge, Prototype, Limbo, and God of War, Guitar Hero 2 & 3...oh and QWOP (courtesy of Jessica Dillion, or JDilla if you nasty)

 Carmageddon (PC/Mac) Big Hero 6 Bot Fight (iOS) Kid Icarus (NES) Mutant League Football (Sega) You Don't Know Jack (PC/Mac)
Evil Apples (iOS) Rock Band (360) Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions (PS3) Uncharted (PS3) Joust (Arcade) (courtesy of Kevin Gaussoin check out some of his other stuff at ComicsOnline )

#1 Baseball Stars #2 Super Tecmo bowl (first two games to bring rpg elements into sports games, and very friendly to play seasons with your friends. I remember many long nights with Greg Maedl, Andrew/Brandon Sutphin and others playing those games.) #3 Everquest, #4 Bioshock, #5 Oblivion, #6 World of Warcraft, #7 Rock Band (many drunk nights with that game before SOMEONE spilled on the drums), #8 Legend of Zelda, #9 Final Fantasy 7 #10 Sim City (any iteration was fun) (courtesy of Casey Bepko)

Metal gear solid 4 The witcher 3 Dragon age origins Mass effect 2 Rainbow six Vegas Half-life 2 Spec Ops the line Bioshock (courtesy of John Gallagher)

 Metroid, Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy 10, Dragon Age Origins, Mike Tyson's Punch Out, Street Fighter II (courtesy of Alex Munoz)

The Mass Effect series, The Fallout series, Elder Scrolls Series, Far Cry series (courtesy of many readers)

Some of ya'll went old school, too! 

Warlords (2600) Trick Shot (2600) Dr. Mario (NES)  Quake (PC) Baldur's Gate (PS2) Burnout Paradise, Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Left 4 Dead 2,  Halo: ODST(360), Borderlands 2, Katamari, DDR Max 2, Elite Beat Agents, Geometry Wars (Courtesy of Renee Magierski) 

Halo: ODST

This was the most ambitious Halo game other than the original. It was the first time you got to play as someone other than the one man alien-killing-buzzsaw known as Master Chief. You got to be a human, an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper, to be exact. You were the the special ops of this time period. This gave the game a much more personal feel and you were fighting with and looking for your teammates. My personal favorite Halo game, good call Renee!

Street Fighter series

"For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday." Best. Line. Ever

F*** this game. My reason for saying that? I suck. Every time someone convinces me to play this game them, I get my butt handed to me. I'm super competitive and I hate losing. Plus, this game cheats. Seriously. If you've played against the computer, there are certain characters who are almost unbeatable because the computer cheats. This sounds like an excuse, but ask anyone who played Street Fighter IV and had to fight Seth. In talking to Ben Shaw (who has destroyed me in this game at least a hundred times), he explained his love of this game

When I first started playing, I thought it was just a button masher, ya know, kick, punch, block, etc. Then I found out about the super moves. I was like..."fireballs? Are you serious?" Then I realized there was a strategy to this game. It was like chess. 

John Belrose had his own take on it, too. 

For me, it is the over all character... A majority of them you could see in our world (Ken, Ryu, Chun-Li), some are so over the top you cannot help but like them (Blanka and Zangief come to mind) and the detail to the ones they made as tribute are very good (Fei Long being Bruce Lee, and Hugo Andore being Andre the Giant)

Joe Igasho gave us his reason for loving this game, too. 

Fast-paced action, in-depth fighting system that requires more than just button mashing, over-the-top super combos, massive roster of colorful and iconic characters including the First Lady of Fighting Games, Chun-Li...I could go on.

One of my former video game store employees and good friend, Steve Noel brought up a game that I didn't even mention and I was mad when he mentioned it.  

Red Faction: Guerrilla

bad day at work? Want to blow EVERYTHING up? This is your game. 

This game is easily the most fun, most satisfying and destructive game I've ever played. If you're unfamiliar with this game, you need to play it now. No...don't tell me why you can't do it right now. Make it happen. It's like Grand Theft Auto: Mars. The only difference: EVERYTHING is destructible. "Everything?" you say. Yes. Everything. Buildings, vehicles, people, bridges, giant factories...you could blow them up, or you could go John-Henry-was-a-steel-drivin'-man on it and smash it with your trusty sledgehammer. You get a plethora of weapons in this game; guns that shoot razor sharp saw blades, rocket launchers and my personal favorite:

The nanorifle: when you absolutely, positively have to disintegrate buildings, vehicles or armored EDF soldiers, except no substitute. 

What a list we put together! Thanks to all of you for your contributions and making this one of the most fun series of articles we've done here at GGR.