Seems I lost people. Well, I said I'd finish it off by the end of the weekend, so here's my top 2:
2. Arkham City / PS3
The best open world game I’ve ever played. Period. Such improvements from the original – which was out of this world itself. Better combat flow, gadgets, missions, side quests, artwork, character design, detective mode and tools, music… everything about this was a step up from Asylum.
It’s made a lot of lists here already, so there’s not really a lot to add that hasn’t been said. I didn’t completely finish it – never got thru all 440 Riddler challenges, or the challenge maps – although those were really fun to try and complete fighting as Nightwing and Robin. Playing as Catwoman was also pretty fun, and a nice little break/diversion. Tons of awards, 6 million units sold/shipped, and this deservedly gets a place at the top of my (and should for anyone’s) list.
Flawless game. Absolutely flawless.
1. Street Fighter II / Arcade
Where do I start with this game? This was my go-to arcade game for quite a few years. There was one arcade/pool hall that I frequented and spent a shit-ton of time and money on this game. Got pretty good at it too. There was one regular at the arcade that I got to know through this game that was one of the few that I had a hard time beating. While Ryo and Ken were my go-to characters (and I eventually learned Guile), this fucker could play any/every character and pretty much beat anyone – even using the clowns nobody could use - Chun-Li, Zangief, Blanka or Honda. This guy even came up with a four-hit power combo for Guile – because he had such a long leg-sweep reach. It was impressive – jump-in-punch, side uppercut, spinning back-fist, and a leg sweep. I don’t think any other player could do a four-hit POWER combo.
When the “Champion Edition” of the game came out, we all got a chance to play as the Grand Masters – Balrog, Vega, Sagat and Bison. I loved the latter 3 – Balrog was fuckin useless.
This was by far the most popular game at the arcade for a long time – with lots of people crowding around the system, with plenty of challengers always willing and forthcoming – we’d even go easy on the youngins/noobs … sometimes. Rarely did anyone have to play very long against the CPU, but that was always fun and challenging regardless. We’d organize tournaments, with brackets and seeds, and wager some hard dollars against each other. And of course, it spawned the famous phrases of "You Win!", and "Round 1... FIGHT!"
I never did follow the franchise past this arcade game – though I tried the PS3 versions of Marvel vs Capcom, and Injustice … I just couldn’t get into the fighting games with the PS3 controller. Give me a joystick, and 3 kick/3 punch buttons.
Thanks everyone for following along, even though most of you will never know the joy in slipping a 5.25” floppy into a 1541 disc drive and waiting a few minutes to play a highly pixelated 8-bit game that only had 6 levels of varying difficulty, with about 4 minutes of cycling midi sounds/effects. Thanks to Kwiji, Coz, and other fogeys for indulging me there.