Author Topic: Top 25 Video Games Lists! v. CableX's "Worse Than My Top25 VG Music" (pg. 62)  (Read 231538 times)

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Offline Zantera

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1120 on: March 27, 2015, 03:03:14 AM »
I think some of these will get some appreciation going:

16. Half-Life 2 (PC) (2004)


It's time for the obligatory Half-Life entry on the list. I will start off by saying that after having some minor problems of cutting down my list from around 30 games to 25, I decided that I wouldn't put several games from the same story on the list. By that I don't mean games in the same franchise or games featuring the same characters, but games that are following a storyline. Because narrowing it down to 25 games was hard enough, and I thought dedicating two slots for Half-Life (the original) and the sequel was a bit much. But anyhow, the original was groundbreaking, it was awesome, and most of us have nostalgic feelings of exploring Black Mesa and finding out what happened. HL2 was one of the most hyped games ever when it came out, and also one of the best examples of a hyped game living up to the expectations. There is a reason people loved it, there is a reason a lot of people (myself included) rank it over the first, and there is a reason people have been screaming for Half-Life 3 for over a decade now. There were so many memorable set pieces in this game, for example traveling through the canals on the airboat. Or infiltrating the prison, or the final part in the Citadel. As great as Half-Life was, the sequel managed to top it. I hope we get a Half-Life 3 one day, worthy of finishing the franchise, because at the end of HL2 a lot of things felt unclear and left open. Sure, you could always play Episode One and Two, but I think most of us really want a HL3. Gordon Freeman has become one of the most popular characters in videogame history, and for good reason.

15. Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne (PC) (2003)


Warcraft 3 and the expansion pack The Frozen Throne was my first real taste of a strategy game. You select what team you want to play as (Humans, Night Elves, Orcs or Undead), you start building your base, start building troops, a hero and then there are many different ways of approaching the game from a strategic standpoint. I remember spending hundreds or even thousands of hours, playing both against the computer, against friends and also online. I won some games out of pure defensive strength, and others by going on the offense with everything I had. The game is what got me into the Warcraft franchise, and what a great franchise it is. The popularity of Warcraft at the time was huge, and it didn't exactly disappear once World of Warcraft came out the following year, a game that is still around today, with over 10 million subscribers. What makes Warcraft so amazing to me is the lore, and Warcraft 3 told us many of the (now) classic stories about the different races. My favorite character is one of the night elves, Illidan, and you get to follow his journey from doing bad things to save his race, being outcast by his people because of his actions, and finally seeking power and becoming an anti-hero. You also have the classic story of the humans and how the undead plague swallowed their land, with the rise and fall of prince Arthas. There's so many good stories in the campaign mode, and there's a lot of fun to be had just playing the game as it is.

14. Super Smash Bros (Nintendo 64) (1999)


When Super Smash Bros came out, I remember me and my friends having similar geek feelings that I experienced almost 10 years later when they announced the Avengers movie. You have all of these characters that we know and love, and you give us an experience where they all meet up. Mario vs Pikachu, Donkey Kong vs Link. What I loved about Nintendo at the time was that they always put their focus on making their games fun. Super Smash Bros was essentially a fun take on your typical fighting game, in the same way Mario Kart 64 was a fun take on racing. Super Smash Bros came with a lot of button smashing, cursing and laughter, and I spent many late nights at a friend's house playing. We used to play with 4 of us and while we normally just tried to defeat each other, sometimes we ganged up on one specific individual and had a lot of fun hearing that person react in panic. It's by no means a flawless game, but the excitement of playing against each other with characters from different franchises was really cool at the time. I never got a chance to play any of the sequels since Nintendo had kinda left my brain at that point, but from what I have heard they were fairly good received, and it makes me happy that the franchise is still alive and kicking.

Offline Ben_Jamin

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1121 on: March 27, 2015, 12:32:22 PM »
You have to play the other SSMB games. The newer one is amazing.
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Offline ReaperKK

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1122 on: March 27, 2015, 09:14:04 PM »
WC3 almost made my list mainly because of the custom maps the game had. If you were bored you could always play a custom map and try an entirely new game time. Battleships was one of my favorite.


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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1123 on: March 28, 2015, 03:35:48 AM »
Got a bit late last night so didn't have time to update. But I'm here now!  :)

13. Thomas Was Alone (PC) (2012)


Thomas Was Alone is a minimalist puzzle and platform game, and frankly one of the most charming indie games I've had the chance to play. The game has a very simple premise, and the minimalist graphics style adds to that. You control these blocks in different shapes and forms, and your objective is to go through a level with various challenges, and end up with your block on a special marker. You start off with a red block called Thomas, a curious and observant red block who is looking for his purpose and trying to find companionship. Along the way you meet other blocks with other abilities, and eventually you face challenges where you need to use the abilities of each block to get through puzzles. This game sounds simple on paper, but it's all in the execution. The narration by Danny Wallace is spectacular, and even won the game a BAFTA Games Award. Through the script and the delivery of the narration, he makes you care about these blocks, and actually manages to give them personalities. I also want to bring up the music, which is just fantastic. Maybe even my favorite videogame score. It's really beautiful and adds even more emotion to this already fantastic game. I'm pretty sure this game has been released on most platforms now, and if you ever get a chance to pick it up, I highly recommend it. I got mine from a humblebundle fairly cheap, and I'm very happy I did. One of those special games, and a "can't miss" indie title.

12. Left 4 Dead 2 (PC) (2009)


Left 4 Dead 2 is the second game in the L4D franchise, one of Valve's babies. In a time when zombies are more popular than ever, it's no surprise that this game became as big as it did. The basic premise of Left 4 Dead 2 is simple enough. You play through a campaign as survivors trying to go through levels and reach the safehouse at the end, without dying on the way. The gamemode that sold it for me was Versus mode, which takes the basic campaign mode of a human team of four (trying to reach the end) by adding a second team of four, that plays as infected. Your job as infected is basically to stop the survivors, as early as you can, so that they don't get a high score. After all the maps are done, the team with the biggest score wins, so basically the team that has gotten the furthest as survivors across all maps. I liked the original campaign, but Versus was just so much more fun. You can play as various special infected, and what makes it fun is the strategic element. In order to pick off the human team, you can have several dangerous combos to pick them off. For example, the hunter is a dangerous one that can leap fast between walls and from high places, doing massive damage. The charger can run a player out a window and instant kill them, and the spitter can cause massive damage to a player who has been hurt enough that he is laying on the floor. It's a lot of fun playing as infected, and if you play with friends it becomes even more fun, since you team up and try to combo the other team to death. If you learn how to utilize various chokepoints in the maps, you can essentially kill the entire survivor team at one place, if you play your cards right. The game also comes with several other modes, but versus mode is the one I truly live for.

11. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (PC) (2012)


Counter-Strike is a franchise that has been with me since my very early gaming days. I played the game during the very first game that came around the millennium shift, in the 1.0 version already. 1.5 was a big one, and 1.6 became what most of us know as classic CS. It was followed up by attempts to make a new Counter-Strike game that was better, but IMO both Condition Zero and Source failed to deliver, and just felt like worse versions of the game, without the same feel to them, but better graphics. Global Offensive that came out in 2012 however, was IMO a very successful reboot, and it made the game justice. It's a team based FPS game with a simple premise. One team is the terrorists, one team is the counter-terrorists. If you play on a bomb map, the terrorists job is to plant the bomb and have it explode, the counter-terrorists job is to defuse it. You play a total of 30 rounds in the competitive mode, 15 rounds on each side, and each round is 2 minutes or so. The team that gets to 16 first wins, but the game can also end in a 15-15 draw. The current community is slightly frustrating, because they introduced a new market of adding various weapon skins, some of them you get after games, some of them you unlock from chests. But it has resulted in a massive interest for buying and selling, collecting, but also caused a major buzz in the community. The game itself is really fun, and it's not just a "go guns blazing" kind of FPS. You really need good teamwork or you're not gonna win. As terrorists you need to come up with strategic ways of getting into the bomb sites, because the other team will do their best to defend them. You need to rush together, use tactical smoke grenades and flash grenades, and you need to be a good aimer. If you're on the other team, communication is everything. If you see the other team approaching your bomb site, you need to let the others know, so that they can rotate and come help you. Overall a worthy follow-up to a classic game, and at this point I've probably put even more hours into Global Offensive than I did with classic CS.

Offline ReaperKK

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1124 on: March 28, 2015, 01:15:04 PM »
Never played Thomas Was Alone but L4D and GO are great games.

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1125 on: March 28, 2015, 03:22:53 PM »
Never even heard of Thomas Was Alone, but your description makes it sound great. I'll add it to my wishlist and see if I can get it on the cheap in future.

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Offline Jarlaxle

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1126 on: March 28, 2015, 03:44:44 PM »
Can I get put on the list?

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1127 on: March 28, 2015, 07:49:27 PM »
Thomas Was Alone is pretty neat, yeah. Not too tough puzzle-wise but the story is told in a very unique way. I should go back and replay it sometime.

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1128 on: March 28, 2015, 07:55:07 PM »
Can I get put on the list?
You're in!

Offline Zantera

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1129 on: March 29, 2015, 03:26:33 AM »
So we're entering the top10 :)

10. GTA V (Xbox 360) (2013)


The GTA franchise is one of those few game franchises that has really stuck with me the most, and always been there as I was growing up, similar to what the Zelda franchise was for a lot of Nintendo-players. I first got GTA II on my 7th or 8th birthday, and my dad who knew what kind of a game it was, had tricked my mom into thinking it was just a racing game (there's a car or something on the cover) and when I got it, a world of chaos and mayhem opened itself up for me. My dad usually pulled tricks like that, let me see way-too-brutal movies at a young age, and my mom did not like that very much. But I love the man, and in retrospect I feel very happy about those memories.  :lol GTA II was my entry, and I remember when GTA III came out, how revolutionary it felt at the time. From the 2D overhead camera, we got the classic style of GTA, as a third person shooter. GTA III was a really cool game, but my love for the franchise was cemented with Vice City, and especially San Andreas, which was just godlike. It came down to either GTA V or San Andreas for this list, and I'll justify my reasons for going with GTA V a bit further down. GTA IV followed San Andreas, and was better in some ways, but duller in others. It was a good game in many technical aspects, but the grey look of the game made it feel less enjoyable. And after years of speculating and wondering if it would ever come, GTA V finally came.

GTA V like HL2 is one of those games that despite massive hype, just managed to live up to it. There are some criticisms for the game, and I know the car physics gets some hate, but for the most part I really think Rockstar hit a homerun here. The decision to go with 3 main characters was risky, but really paid off. In GTA IV you had Niko Bellic who was just a charisma vacuum, but this time you get 3 distinct and unique characters, all with different feel to them. This also allows for more mixed gameplay, because I know myself and other people like to play the game in different ways. Most of us have probably tried that "I'm not gonna break any laws" style, and with 3 different characters you can create your own feel and style to them yourself by how you play. Los Santos is back as our main city, and it looks better than ever. The story mode introduces bank heists with planning, preparing and execution, and it's a ton of fun. That final heist was exciting as hell, and probably the best heist in a game ever. Across a giant map there's just so many things you can do. Racing, shooting, mini games like Tennis or Yoga, shopping for clothes, going all out chaosmode against cops.. the possibilities are endless. GTA V lives up to the hype, and it really deserves a place here on this spot. I was considering San Andreas, but the more I look at it, GTA V really is the better game. I have tons of nostalgic feelings towards San Andreas, and I had a blast in that game, but GTA V does top it.

9. Orcs Must Die 2 (PC) (2012)


Orcs Must Die 2 is essentially a third person tower defense, a modern twist on the genre. It's also one of the funniest games I have played with a close friend of mine, and the first time we played it, we probably spent 6 or 7 hours playing it. The basic premise is that you go through a set of maps, and there is a spawn point and there is an exit portal. Through the spawn point there will come waves and waves of orcs, and you must stop them from reaching the end. You do so by putting out traps, with different abilities. You have the freezing trap that slows them, poison traps, spike traps, fire traps, basically everything you can imagine. The orcs you face gets tougher and the maps become more challenging as you need to kill better and stronger monsters. There's also a few special ones like flying monsters that aren't affected by your normal ground-traps, so you need a strategy for those too. You have a specific number of how many orcs you can afford to let through the portal but still win, and there's also a competitive element that the fewer you let through, the higher your score will be. There's even achievements to go through all maps without releasing a single orc.

It's a fun and simple game that really draws you in after just a few minutes. It's easy to learn but hard to master. There's a lot of small details that adds to the magic of the game and makes it more fun. You can either play as a human or female mage, and for example you have a set of 5-6 (maybe) different costumes that you can unlock, by completing different tasks and achievements. You also have points to spend to improve or change some of your traps, so there is a strategic element to how you spend those points, what traps you decide to focus on. I would say multiplayer is where the game really shines and is the most fun, if you happen to have a friend willing to play with you. But I have also done some singleplayer and it's still cool. The advantage of going multiplayer is that if your friend happens to leak a few orcs, you can always swing in and help him out. It's a very fun and entertaining take on the classical tower defense genre, and as someone who got introduced to that genre through Warcraft 3 custom maps, Orcs Must Die 2 is the most fun I've had with the genre. The orcs also have some hilarious voice acting, for example one of the traps you can build is the spring trap, which on maps with a cliff is useful. Some of those sound effects when the orcs fly off the cliff are just hilarious.

Offline ReaperKK

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1130 on: March 29, 2015, 06:21:31 AM »
I've never heard of Orcs Must Die but I love the TD genre. I was hooked from my first map in WC3. The way you describe sounds like it'd be something right up my ally. I'm going to try and see if my brother is game to play it today.

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1131 on: March 29, 2015, 11:22:04 AM »
Zantera, I wanna give you serious props for the frequency of your updates. You've had zero lag in this list whatsoever and I really look forward to GTA V once I have time to delve into it more.
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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1132 on: March 29, 2015, 12:40:08 PM »
GTA V is the only game on this list post-64 I've played. I got it over a year ago, and played it a little bit, haven't played it since. That hick guy's missions were BS so I gave up, and it took me forever to do that first store heist. I eventually had to just skip a section because it was impossible. Some of the multiplayer looks awesome, but I don't do online gaming.
Still a damn impressive game technically.
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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1133 on: March 29, 2015, 03:12:12 PM »
I really look forward to GTA V once I have time to delve into it more.

Come on, you know my raised highway bus suicide will never be topped Josh.  Just give up now.
     

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1135 on: March 29, 2015, 05:17:33 PM »
I really look forward to GTA V once I have time to delve into it more.

Come on, you know my raised highway bus suicide will never be topped Josh.  Just give up now.

That was fuckin stout. Not quite sure it beats my friend Kenny's use of ten cars as a fuse for a chain reaction explosion by shooting each one until they were smoking and one shot from detonating then shooting the one at the end of the line.
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Offline Zantera

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1136 on: March 30, 2015, 05:22:43 AM »
Thanks for the kind words black_floyd, I always do my best to keep updates regularly. Normally I want to update twice a day (morning and evening/night) but some days I just have other things to do as well. But updates on a daily basis are important to keep, at least IMO. Also, hopefully the list makes people interested in checking some new games out, and by the sounds of some posts I think it will. :)

8. World of Warcraft (PC) (2004)


Out of all the entries on my list, this was by far the most difficult one for me to rank. World of Warcraft came out in 2004, and has been around for more than a decade now. I wasn't there from the start, but I have been with the game since its second expansion pack, The Burning Crusade, which came out in 2007. This game has been with me for 8 years, and while there has been periods where I've taken breaks or said that I would quit, I kept coming back. Just when you think you're out, it pulls you back in. What I really love about the game is that it has been with me through my important years in life, and while I've had many problems, sad moments, happy moments and so on, the game has always become integral with those moments. It's especially clear with music, because music comes hand in hand with the game for me. Whenever I listen to an album, I can pretty much recall what character I was playing when I first heard that album, and where I was (zone-wise). WoW gets a lot of flack for being a game that ruins people, and destroys their life. I think it's a very silly thing to blame on, because it's really the person and not the game. I was fairly weak mentally when I was younger and I will admit to skipping tons of school, eventually flunking and having to spend a few additional years reading up grades, but I was also going through depressive things at the moment. Now that I am older and wiser, I play the game when I want and how I want, but the game doesn't control me. But I think that's a whole different topic that can apply to just any game.

Anyhow, World of Warcraft is a MMORPG, and for newcomers that stands for Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. Like I mentioned earlier I've had a few shorter breaks and pauses during my 8 years as a player, but still to this day I play the game on a daily basis. What's hard though is for me to rank the game. It's by far the game I have played the most, and I've sunk countless of hours into the game, but it's still only number 8? Let me start by saying that being new to the game is amazing, and my fondest memories of playing was by far in the first few months. I recommend anyone to try it out, because it's just so much fun in the beginning. After your initial phase of being a newcomer fades away, the game does lose some of its magic. It's inevitable and happens with a lot of games. And I had a few middle years around 2010-2012 where I honestly played for the sake of playing, rather than really enjoying myself. But in the last 3 years or so, I've found a new phase that I really enjoy, and I would almost call it an expert phase. Over these years I've gotten an understanding for the game and the world, both in terms of game mechanics but also the lore behind the story. I have played all the different classes available, and I have a lot of knowledge that I try to spread to the new generations. There's a sense of pride of having been in the community for almost a decade, and whenever there is a discussion about the game, no matter what topic, I usually feel like I can add something due to my knowledge. It's a great feeling, and that together with the last two expansion packs being among the best ones, that has helped me really enjoying the game a lot again.

And I know this post is already way too long, but just for those who have never played an MMORPG, just a basic description. You create a character (or several) and there's several things you can customize. Alliance or Horde? Two opposing factions. What race? Alliance has Humans/Night Elves/Gnomes/Dwarves/Draenei/Worgen, whereas Horde has Orcs/Undead/Taurens/Trolls/Blood Elves/Goblins, and there's also Pandaren which is playable as both factions. After you pick a race you also pick one of the following classes Priest/Warrior/Hunter/Monk/Mage/Warlock/Rogue/Druid/Death Knight/Shaman/Paladin and then your journey starts. Some of these classes are so called hybrid classes, as in they can fulfill different roles. The roles are Tank/DPS/Healer. A Tank takes the damage, a DPS deals the damage and a Healer.. heals the group. A Paladin, Druid or Monk can fulfill all three roles, whereas some like Warriors or Priests can fulfill two, Tank/DPS and DPS/Healer in this example. Then you have classes that are just pure DPS classes, like Rogues or Mages. A Mage can either be fire, frost or arcane for example, but all three specializations fulfill the DPS role. A big part of the game consists of leveling your character from level 1 to max level (currently level 100), and once at max level you can do whatever you like the most. Find a PvE guild, raid with many other players to kill bosses for better armor/weapons, or PvP if you rather kill players. Or just enjoy the game in other forms, there's plenty to do.

Wow that was a long post, sorry. And cudos to whoever reads all of it.   :lol

7. Super Mario 64 (Nintendo 64) (1996)


It's a me Mario! Pasta Pizza, bippedi bappedi boppedi!
Of course there's gonna be Super Mario 64 on this list. Most iconic game ever? At least belongs in the top5 candidates for that IMO. Super Mario is one of the most iconic characters of all time, and I feel like Super Mario 64 was the game that really launched him into massive popularity. He had games before, and I even remember a friend being almost hipster about having played Mario on his Super Nintendo already, but with Nintendo 64 it became more of a global phenomenon. Just about every kid I knew had a Nintendo 64 and Super Mario 64 to go with it. People loved it, people talked it, and I was just sitting at home with my PS1 playing Spyro the Dragon. Hey guys, anybody wants to talk about Spyro? Oh nobody has a PS1? Who is this Mario? OK I will go now. :(

Back when this game came out, I would spend weekends at a friends house where we started the game fresh on the Friday, and as I spent the weekend at the friend's house, our goal was to complete it 100% by the time I went home on Sunday. The game is just so fun to play, and part of it is the various ways of how to move and how to attack. There's plenty of cool combinations whether it's walljumping and bouncing like crazy, or jump-diving on enemies to kill them. It was an easy game to learn, but the more time you put into it, the more you felt like a god. The global phenomenon it became also made the game more fun. Almost everybody had the game, and so it was an easy thing for us kids to bond over at school. "Oh you're stuck on this map in Mario? I'll come over and help you after school", and boom, you just made a new friend. Another thing that made the game truly amazing was the variety in the maps, and the quality in the maps. The idea of going into magical paintings and being transported to a different world was also genius. Collecting stars was fun, and some were truly challenging. But you had the desert maps, the flying maps, the snow maps, the underwater maps, and just about everything in between. Super Mario 64 will go down in history as one of the best games ever, and it's just such a special game. It has a timeless quality to it, and I played it as recently as a year ago and it still holds up. I think if I had actually owned the console myself and owned the game, this could have ranked higher.

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1137 on: March 30, 2015, 05:40:13 AM »
I'm pretty sure Mario was launched into massive popularity just a *little* before Mario 64, between the 40 million copies of SMB bundled with every NES sold, 20 million copies of SML, 10 million of SMB2, 20 million of SMB3, and 20 million of SMW etc. :lol

I've been replaying Mario 64 (DS version) lately, and it shows its age now even with all of the updates, but it was a landmark game for 3D platformers that created the mould for the later platformers on the console that improved on the formula.

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Offline ariich

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1138 on: March 30, 2015, 06:31:44 AM »
I'm pretty sure Mario was launched into massive popularity just a *little* before Mario 64, between the 40 million copies of SMB bundled with every NES sold, 20 million copies of SML, 10 million of SMB2, 20 million of SMB3, and 20 million of SMW etc. :lol
Yeah seriously. :lol Showing your youth here, Jimmy.

I won't deny that SM64 opened up the character to a new generation of gamers. I'm sure given another 5-10 years some gamers will be saying the same thing about Wii versions. :lol

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1139 on: March 30, 2015, 06:33:47 AM »
Fans of Mario 64 have you guys seen this? https://mario64-erik.u85.net/Web.html

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1140 on: March 30, 2015, 11:29:08 AM »
I had a N64, and only owned 5 games (they were fucking expensive), and this title was the most played. I don't even remember beating it, but it didn't matter. I even replayed it some years ago using an emulator (my poor console doesn't work anymore), and I was still fascinated. The level design is brilliant.

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1141 on: March 30, 2015, 11:50:15 AM »
As far as fav N64 games, Ocarina, Starfox and Mario Kart > Mario 64, but that was just me  ;D

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1142 on: March 30, 2015, 12:54:12 PM »
As far as fav N64 games, Ocarina, Starfox and Mario Kart > Mario 64, but that was just me  ;D

That's a tough call to make. Are we talking just single player mode? If that's the case, I don't think Mario Kart comes anywhere near Mario 64. Starfox, I'd say you have an argument. I can't speak for Ocarina as I have never played it.


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Recently, i played Super Mario 64 and i thought it was a great game, really enjoyed it (even more than Ocarina of Time).

Also, props for HL2 :tup

1. Final Fantasy VIII (1999)


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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1144 on: March 31, 2015, 05:34:10 AM »
Alright, I guess I underestimated Mario's popularity pre-64.  :lol
Anyhow, thought I would swing by with another update.

6. The Walking Dead (PC) (2012)


One of my favorite gaming companies of recent times is Telltale, and The Walking Dead is one of many excellent titles they have put out. They have a talent for writing really compelling stories and engaging characters, and in comparison to the tv-show where sometimes death of characters have zero impact on you, in this game you feel every death like a stab in the heart. Some more than others of course. The Walking Dead like the other Telltale games really has the feel and structure of a tv show. There are parts of the game where you walk around, interact with objects or people, and there are gaming elements, but most of the game really comes down to people talking, and making decisions. Sometimes you have to make impulse decisions, and those decisions will later follow you around. Maybe you did the right choice, maybe you didn't. With their most recent titles, Telltale has an episodic structure. They release their game in episodes (roughly 2-3 hours to play through, with some exceptions), and you kinda get a choice if you want to play them 1 at the time, or wait for 6-7 months and play the whole thing. In the case of The Walking Dead, there also is a Season 2, which is another game in itself, but if you have played through the original, then some of your choices carries into S2, which is essentially a sequel.

This is one of those games where I don't want to get into too many plot specifics, because a lot of the charm comes from your own choices and how the story is affected by it. But at the start of the game we meet our protagonist Lee, in the back of a cop car on the way to prison. The outbreak happens, and after a car crash you manage to escape. Shortly after you meet Clementine, a young girl who has lost her parents in the chaos. A lot of what happens next is about how you treat her, because you basically become a father figure, but also how you deal with the past of your character. Do you just flat out tell people about the criminal past, or do you try to go a different route with more secrets? I don't really want to tell more, because a lot of the twists and turns are better experienced if you go in fresh. I also think the characters becomes more real when you get to feel and experience them yourself, rather than having read about them before. IMO S2 was on par with S1, and you can get both on Steam, and all episodes are out in both, so you should have roughly 18-20 hours (maybe more, maybe less) of what's IMO the best version of The Walking Dead. The comics are superb, the tv-show has its good moments, but the Telltale game is really the highpoint.

5. Mario Kart 64 (Nintendo 64) (1997)


Mario Kart 64, still what I consider to be the funniest game to just sit down with 3 friends and play. There has been plenty of games since that has become almost party games, whether it's Guitar Hero or Rock Band, the kind of games you play when you have gathered a group of people, and you need a "simple" (enough) game that you can play against each other for glory and honor. I still consider Mario Kart 64 to be that ultimate game, and I've had tons of great memories with it. Favorite character? I mostly played as Toad or Yoshi, but I thoroughly enjoyed playing most of them. I remember thinking Luigi sounded so high when he shouted his "Yahoo" during turbo phase, and the game had more fun sounds like that one. Favorite maps? I honestly really liked most of them. Sure, some were more annoying than others, but I thought that some of the more annoying ones often had cooler design. Like the Banshee Boardwalk or Toad's Turnpike for example. Creative settings and plenty of things to worry about. The rainbow map almost deserves a mention on its own. The rainbow map was in many ways my first experience of how it would feel to be tripping on acid while listening to pink floyd or some crazy shit. Crazy times.

There were only 4 cups x 4 maps in each, so 16 maps in total, but they were all so much fun. I had just started first grade and we had a group of friends who would go home to one of them after school and play. We even had a tournament sheet to keep score of who performed the best. But apart from the lovely racing mode which we all love, I also want to bring up Battle Mode, which was just tons of fun. Going around and protecting your 3 balloons, while trying to attack the other players. I didn't care much for the big donut-shaped lava arena, and also didn't play the skyscraper one that much, but the one with the colored blocks was so epic. We would even hold off attacks on each other for the first few minutes, drive around and set a bunch of traps on each block, and so we all had 1 fort each. It's not really a single player game even if you can play that and still enjoy it, but it definitely shines in a multiplayer setting, when you can mock your friends after beating them. The game comes with so many "last laughs" that it's crazy. I remember specifically a friend who was gloating because he was first with just 5-10 seconds left until goal, I came up behind him and managed to hit him with the most perfect green turtle shell ever, and his reaction of going from happy and joyful to angry and frustrated in just sheer seconds as I passed him right in front of goal... that's one of those hilarious moments I'll always remember.

Offline ariich

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1145 on: March 31, 2015, 06:24:38 AM »
I've got season 1 of Telltale's Walking Dead game on Steam already, as I got it in some ridiculous deal at some point, but I haven't got round to playing it yet. I've heard great things about it though, and your description has only intensified my appetite for it.

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1146 on: March 31, 2015, 07:35:04 AM »
Super Mario 64 and Mario Kart 64  :heart

Still have them and play them both and love them. 

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1147 on: March 31, 2015, 10:37:21 AM »
I found Walking Dead Season 2 to be a step down from Season 1 in pretty much every way but it wasn't -awful- or anything, just not as good.
Season 1 is fantastic though.

EDIT: Spekaing of, Humble just put the game on sale on their store  :lol
https://www.humblebundle.com/store/p/thewalkingdead_storefront
« Last Edit: March 31, 2015, 11:17:47 AM by Parama »

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1148 on: March 31, 2015, 05:16:01 PM »
Entering the top of the list now, these last few updates will be with 1 game in each. No worries though, I'm going away on Thursday and I have the updates planned out. Nr4 now, 3 and 2 tomorrow, 1 on Thursday morning.. no slacking off. ;)

4. Civilization V (PC) (2010)


When I was first introduced to the Civilization franchise through Civ IV, I thought it was kinda boring. I was probably too young to really appreciate the strategic elements, and the turn-based playing style felt really awkward. But I returned to the franchise a few years older and wiser when Civ V came out in 2010, and I'm not sure if it was just the game being better than the previous, but I think I had matured and learned to appreciate what the game had to offer, and I quickly fell in love with the game. It's a turn-based strategy game about building, expanding, leadership, companionship and tons of other things. You play as one of the nations and the simple objective is to beat the other nations and win. How do you win a game? You can win in many different ways, and that's what makes Civ so great. Obviously you have the domination win, which basically happens when you crush all the other opponents through warfare, and you're the last one standing. But if warfare isn't for you, you can also win a scientific victory if you win the space race, the first nation to assemble and send out a spaceship. There's also cultural victory, which happens when you complete the Utopia project (after getting five social policies maxed out), or a diplomatic victory, by getting support from other nations and city states in the United Nations. The different ways of winning combined with the different "racial traits" that comes with each nation makes it possible for you to be very strategic. Some of the nations have bonuses that encourage science for example, and others are more focused on the art of war. Combining what a nation is good at with trying to win in that style makes it slightly easier, if you know what you're doing. And also, what approach you have to other nations will also have an impact. Will you team up with other nations and have strong friendships, or go your own way and risk getting enemies?

Civ V is a ton of fun. I got a friend hooked, and we spend a few nights a week playing it. It's almost too fun, because every time we play it, we look at the clock after a while and go "Holy crap, it's been 5 hours", when it feels like it has just been 30 minutes or an hour. Time flies in this game, because you're constantly thinking about your next moves. The turn based play style really works, because it almost feels like playing a board game with rolling the dice. The standard play style has players taking turns, but you can also adjust it so that everybody takes their turn at the same time, but it still waits for everyone. It's a ton of fun starting with one city and then slowly expanding into a big empire with more cities and a bigger border. What makes the game enjoyable is that all the different ways of winning are fun, so you get to be creative every time. I've spent loads of time in wars with other nations, but I also really enjoy a more calm playthrough, focusing on building and improving my cities. It's a game that demands a lot of time, but also gives a lot back to you if you give it that time. There's also plenty of different styled maps that you can play, for example a map that resembles our earth, or you can play a map with mostly ocean and small islands, or a big landmass. Maps can be huge or small, anything in between, and the special nation racial traits that I mentioned earlier are truly awesome. For example, Arabia has a double bonus on Oil resources, Egypt has a bonus to building wonders faster (pyramids for example) and England has a bonus to their navy and moving across seas. Usually the bonuses are related to something historical about each nation, and as you play a nation and you have the loadingscreen for setting up the game, you get a nice little text that tells you about the history of your nation. It's both educational AND fun!  :laugh:

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1149 on: March 31, 2015, 06:57:06 PM »
Super Mario 64 and Mario Kart 64  :heart
This.

Offline Zantera

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1150 on: April 01, 2015, 01:47:17 AM »
TOP3 HYPE!

3. Pokemon HeartGold (Nintendo DS) (2010)


Ranking the top3 was incredibly tough, and I think all three games in the top 3 could have been nr1, Pokemon especially. My history with the franchise started with Pokemon Red on my 6th birthday when I got my first Gameboy Color and Pokemon Red. One of the most special games ever, and one of the most memorable days of my youth. I had a blast with Red and became the go-to guy at my school for anything Pokemon related. People who didn't know how to complete Safari Zone and get Surf or Strength came to me, people who couldn't navigate the Team Rocket hideouts came to me. I felt like a god among men. Then came Gen 2, which IMO still holds up as the best generation of Pokemon. Silver/Gold/Crystal were a blast, and as much fun as I had in Red, it was duplicated in Gold. I managed to get all 251 Pokemons on my Gold, I had one of the most badass Pokemon teams around, and everybody at my school wanted to challenge me via Link Cable, and I ended up going unbeaten for 100 matches or something. I put tons of time into the game, I had probably at least 100 Pokemons at level 100, so whenever I was going up against another kid, I would switch around my team to keep them guessing. I was the Yoda of Pokemon at my school, to keep it short.

Then why aren't Red or the original Gold on my list? Well frankly, after getting back into the franchise around 2011-2012 when I bought a Nintendo DS, I picked up HeartGold, because it was a remake of the game I loved so much. And, it really is better in all possible ways. It's the same game but better graphics, added features from the latter games, and more pokemons added. There would have been no reason for me to justify putting the original Gold over HeartGold other than pure nostalgic reasons, and as much of a nostalgic as I am, HeartGold is the same game but better, hence why it's here. Upon revisiting this world again in the remake, I set out to obtain the same awesome team that I had in my original gold where I owned everything. Typhlosion, Umbreon, Scizor, Dragonite, Blastoise & Tyranitar. And I managed to get them again on my HeartGold, and after all these years it felt really nice for all the nostalgia. I always thought Gen 2 was the best Pokemon Generation. It had the best Pokemons overall (100 awesome new ones, plus the 151 classic), it had the perfect length of being able to revisit the first region after beating Elite 4, and the 16 gym length made it so much more fun than the shorter games. Let's face it, as much as we love Red/Blue/Yellow, those games were kinda short. Pokemon will probably always be that one special franchise to me, like Mario was for a lot of people, or Zelda was for many others. I did manage to miss out on Generation IV with Diamond/Pearl/Platinum and still haven't gotten around to playing those games, but apart from that I have been with the franchise since early days. It's not the same anymore, but I can still pick up my DS and play HeartGold and have a blast.

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1151 on: April 01, 2015, 04:55:59 AM »
The plural of Pokemon is Pokemons?  Huh.  Pokemans.

I like your list Zantera and I'm giving you br00tal hailz from NZ.  I really want that Walking Dead game...

Offline Bolsters

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1152 on: April 01, 2015, 05:58:26 AM »
The plural of Pokemon is Pokemons?
Nah, the plural is Pokemon. It's Lego/Legos all over again! :dangerwillrobinson:

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1153 on: April 01, 2015, 06:20:51 AM »
Oh yeah, plural is the same word right? I'll blame it on being sleepy this morning.  :lol

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Re: The Top 25 Video Games Thread! v. All hail Zantera and his list! (pg. 32)
« Reply #1154 on: April 01, 2015, 01:21:19 PM »
That generation is my favorite too, especially Crystal.

As for the remakes, never played them.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2015, 03:23:51 PM by Outcrier »
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