Edge Top 100 - Opinion Bonanza - July 18th, 2007 [ « ] [ » ]

Obviously Edge is kind of still the arbiter of the video game canon (at least in the UK) just by default really and in spite of their efforts over the last two years to make the magazine as dull as possible. I’m not going to look any of these games up on wikipedia or think about it too hard or this will never get done so factual errors and ill informed opinions will undoubtedly abound (so business as usual LOL!). also worth mentioning I haven’t actually bought the “100 best games special” from which this list is drawn so I have no idea about the reasoning behind these titles inclusion. I just copied the list from an email a co-worker sent me…

1. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

No surprises. I’ve never played it all the way through. I’m more of a fan of the “light” Zeldas, Links Awakening, Wind Waker and Minish Cap are the ones I return to. That said if they released a £200 console tomorrow which would only play a new Zelda title I’d probably buy it. They’re just great games.

2. Resident Evil 4
I can see why this is so high, it’s an immensely enjoyable game.

3. Super Mario 64
This feels like it’s so high because of the innovations rather than the game play (which is great but not sure it’s up to Super Mario World)

4. Half Life 2
No idea

5. Super Mario World
Never having owned a SNES I don’t think I’ve ever finished it though I’ve played it 70-80% through a few ties via emulation and it never seems anything less than perfect.

6. Zelda: A Link to the Past
I think the Zelda game you play first is the one you like most. For me that’s the game boy iteration. For most people I know it’s this one.

7. Halo: Combat Evolved
Yeah it’s OK but I found the landscapes kind of drab and the pace a bit sluggish for my tastes. Mind you I don’t like FPS games so what do I know.

8. Final Fantasy XII
This game has been getting such good reviews I’m tempted to play it but FF games are such epic time sinks I don’t know if my social life could survive the hit.

9. Tetris
It seems kind of incongruous, seeing Tetris sandwiched between FF12 and Super Metroid. It seems like it has more in common with Chess or Sudoku or Conway’s Life, a rule set rather than an implementation. Sure implementations can be good or bad (obviously the original GB version is the high water mark) but the genius of Tetris is that it can survive in event he most basic electronic ecosystem. It’s DNA is so simple that it can be and indeed has been rendered on a wrist watch, on the side of a building, anywhere. It’s like the smallest, simplest thing that can be considered a video game. A kind of ludic atom.

10. Super Metroid
It still annoys me that the physics of the jumping and the swinging don’t feel quite right but that doesn’t really diminish what is essentially a master class in level design. Special thanks to Neil for doing many of boss sections for me. (and thus saving his SNES from disappearing out of a first floor window). the final set piece as you flee the collapsing cave system is amazing.

11. Yoshi’s Island
Emma and I played this recently (over the 2006 xmas period) in it’s GBA incarnation and it really is brilliant, the equal of Super Mario World in all but scale.

12. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
I really enjoyed GTA3 but felt that Vice City wasn’t an improvement in gameplay terms. More story, more peripheral crap like running bars, more slowdown. I think part of my general problem with the GTA games is that they don’t do a very good job of managing player expectations. They promise so much and it seems like such a wrench when you try to go into a building and you can’t or you leave a jack-knifed lorry blocking the road and once you’re 100 meters away it disappears. This is kind of related to the way you have to complete the missions, in spite of the fact that you have many choices re weaponry and cars you don’t really have any choice about the strategies for dealing with problems, you’re limited to options foreseen by the games designers. I know a guy’s going to try to run, why can’t I block his exits first? Syndicate excelled at this kind of sandbox strategising.

13. Ico
The gameplay here is pretty orthodox, a 3D rendition of the original Prince of Persia. Where it stands out is the atmospheric situation, the lightness of the story telling and the weight and solidity of it’s architecture. Probably the game best suited to the PS2’s capabilities

14. Super Mario Kart
Playing the SNES tracks on the recent DS incarnation shows the importance of track design in racing games. Also battle mode is great and the powerups are good in the context of advanced gameplay not only as a device to give new players a leg up, a big failing of the sequels.

15. Pro Evolution Soccer 6
Whatever, too many buttons for me.

16. Street Fighter Anniversary
Why not Alpha 3 or 3rd strike?

17. GoldenEye 007
An FPS that I actually really like, showed how the genre should be done on a console.

18. Final Fantasy VII
I have a real love hate relationship with J-RPGs, this is appropriately kind of epitomised by the Final Fantasy games. On one hand I love the party customisation and the mini-max battling on the other hand I hate the random battles the extended cutscenes and the difficulty curve which is essentially controlled by the spacing of save points. I played FF7 on the PC the summer after I left university. There was a bug which caused my characters to be stuck in a room after 30 -odd hours of play. I never played another title in the series.

19. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Looks kind of interesting.

20. Civilization IV
I haven’t played 4 but I didn’t like 3 as much as 2. Basically I found there was too much to deal with. It seemed the series was heading in a very flight-simish direction, i.e. pandering to the established fan base at the expense of more casual players.

21. Okami
Structurally very similar to Zelda, with a more RPG character development system. It’s visually amazing, unlike anything else. The only problem is that whereas I never want Zelda games to end this seems to run out of steam around 40 hours in.

22. World Of WarCraft
I already have a job. this Southpark episode says it all

23. Metroid Prime
At first glance it looks like a first person shooter but really this game, is all about exploration. The developers elegantly captured the spirit of the original despite the radical shift in perspective. Unfortunately they also included the originals bastard hard and overlong boss fights. I’m not a fan of shoulder buttons at the best of times but after fighting the final boss battle in Metroid Prime it felt like my knuckles were about to explode.

24. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
I didn’t really get this. At first it’s mesmerising, you know the fluid animation (as long as you; but it starts to get a bit flaky about midway through and failed to introduce enough new stuff to keep me interested.

25. Sim City 2000
I don’t know, I feel that I should really like SimCity but I’ve never really felt absorbed by it, distracted sure, admiring sure. I’d prefer to see The Sims or Populous on the list. In fact I can’t believe The Sims isn’t on the list.

26. Advance Wars
Brilliant. If you own a Nintendo handheld and don’t own this game then you’re a fool.

27. Rez
I like this game but I’m not really sure why it’s so high in the list.

28. Perfect Dark
Not as good as Golden Eye.

29. Deus Ex
The small part of this that I played on the PS2 was very enjoyable.

30. Shadow Of The Colossus
Most over rated game ever. Whereas Ico it’s predecessor used the PS2s hardware perfectly the visual design and the capabilities of the platform are in perfect harmony Shadow… ignores the limitations and infact any notion of enjoyable game play to provide a game that looks great in screen shots but is actually a juddery frustrating hell of an experience.

31. Katamari Damacy
Very good. Not sure it needs any sequels.

32. Project Gotham Racing 2
Boring. Really boring. Seriously if I’m playing a car game I want to drive a fun car on fun tracks I don’t want to drive a Vauxhall Astra around Edinburgh.

33. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
The Castlevania series represents the biggest gap in my gameplaying.

34. R-Type Final
What!? seriously this is better than Ikaruga? Better than Raiden?? Better than gradius V??? Better than Radient Silver Gun???? NO! It’s pedestrian, and prescriptive.

35. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons Of Liberty
I don’t get Metal Gear Solid.

36. Battlefield 2
I have spectacularly little interest in WW2 FPS games. Why are they so popular?

37. StarCraft
Ditto. Popular in Korea and they’re living in the future.

38. Virtua Fighter 5
When I was a student and I had a lot of time on my hands, skint over the summer holiday i spent an enormous amount of time playing VF2 on the Saturn mastering the combos and the counters and the blocks and a thousand and one esoteric techniques that I was never once able to effectively deploy against Ben doing the same move repeatedly with Shun. I truied playing VF4 on the PS2 and frankly it looked ropey, the animation was still stilted and jerky and the characters were still bland. Life’s just too short to master Akira.

39. Secret Of Mana
Lots of fun. Not as good as Zelda: A Link to the Past with which it invites obvious comparisons.

40. Wario Ware Inc: Minigame Mania
All the subsequent Wario Ware’s have been pale imitations of the genius of the original. A deft and literate history of computer games as a computer game. If ever someone were to do a course in video game criticism, you know like people study film criticism and English literature, this would be a key reference work. Pretty much every genre is skilfully deconstructed to an atomic level.

41. Gran Turismo 4
Similar problems to PGR2 for me, though I probably prefer the GT series as the scenery and lighting are nicer.

42. Rome: Total War
Or Scott’s game as it’s otherwise known. Having not owned a Windows PC for the last 7 years or so I’ve completely missed out on the whole Total War series which is a real shame as they look like they’re right up my street.

43. Bomberman
My favourite version of this long lived series is the Dreamcast edition, Bomberman Online. It has this amazing multiplayer mode where instead of merely killing your opponents you need to paint the floor with your explosions. 1. this introduces a level of tactics not seen in other titles in the series. 2. even weak players get to stay in for the whole match so it feel more accessible.

44. Super Monkey Ball
I’m still annoyed that Neil has the 3rd place slot on bowling on my memory card.

45. Company Of Heroes
Dunno.

46. Quake III
Pft.

47. Far Cry
Didn’t like it on the XBox. Sounds fun on the PC.

48. Puyo Pop Fever
Not as good as any of the other puzzle titles on the list, or indeed Tetris Attack or Meteos. Neither of which made it.

49. Animal Crossing
Really quite dull. Also, can be read as a sinister critique of late capitalist/ consumerist society.

50. Shenmue
I bought the American version just as my Dreamcast’s multi region chip expired and had to be taken out. I don’t think I would have liked it anyway.

51. Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire
I played Blue. It was OK.

52. Disgaea: Hour Of Darkness
OMG! OMG! OMG! I love this game. Memorably described by Simon Parkin as “pimp my chess”.

53. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2
Huh? Why choose 2? The third episode in the series is the best surely? I Mean 3 had a better combo system (ets face it the heart of the game) and a much smoother transition between ramps and ground than the previous engine. I saw Nick nosegrind a baggage rail for about 5 minutes once. Happy days.

54. Chrono Trigger
fixes pretty much all the problems that the Final Fantasy series suffers from i.e. no random battles, great sense of humour, continues to be interesting right to the end. Unfortunately they didn’t get rid of the interminable final boss battle. Panzer Dragoon saga, now that’s how you end an RPG.

55. Counter-Strike
Fun with friends.

56. Guitar Hero
Really really good rhythm action game.

57. Soul Calibur
Ruth beat me 13 times in a row by mashing buttons at random. I was annoyed at the time but I got over it and we’re talking again.

58. Tempest 2000
Dunno. I quite liked the original but I’m more of an Asteroids man really.

59. StarFox 64
I thought the consensus was this was a bit crap when it came out. I always enjoyed it, it’s quite easy but very replayable.

60. Pac-Man Vs
Is this a game?

61. Manhunt
Some people defend this game on the grounds that it confronts you full on with the nature of violence whereas most games have a kind of consequence free approach. That’s all very well but most people will get that point quite quickly and stop playing. Those that don’t will become inured to the brutality. Basically I don’t think it’s particularly responsible, I’d have more sympathy with the outcry against its sequels censorship had the gameplay of the original been up to scratch.

62. Jet Set Radio Future
The first was one of my favourite dreamcast games. When I played this one it seemed a bit slower but I’m sure with practice it would have been every bit as enjoyable and probably more so.

63. Lumines

64. System Shock 2
Never played it. Its predecessors (Ultima Underworld 1 and 2 and the first System Shock) were all very good though.

65. Darwinia

66. F-Zero GX
Motion sickness a-go-go.

67. Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved
I quite like this but prefer Grid Wars 2 for all the reasons outlined by Stuart Campbell.

68. GTR2
Is this a game? I’ve never heard of it. sounds like it might involve driving.

69. PilotWings 64
Never played it. Hopefully it’ll be out on the Wii virtual console soon.

70. Ridge Racers 2
I quite like Ridge Racer games. Nice and fast and not much concession to reality.

71. Ninja Gaiden Black
Looks lovely but I got stuck on the first boss fight.

72. Killer7
Looks nice but the description of the game play put me off forking out for this.

73. Puzzle Bobble (aka Bust-a-Move)
The original is by far the best in this series. Before they started messing about with oversized characters and pulley systems etc. When I was a student in Bristol there was a Neo Geo cabinet with this on in the local Pizza takeaway. 20p would see me though the 20 minute wait. I reckon this is the only game I’d be able to complete in the arcade.

74. Thief: The Dark Project

75. Burnout 2
Definately the best in the series. You can actually see more than 20 meters ahead of your car.

76. Ikaruga
Yeah it’s good but its inclusion in place of Radient Silvergun and Gradius V kind fo discredits the rest of the list in my view.

77. Football Manager 2007

78. Doom II
There’s something quite primal about Doom. It’s the video game equivalent of a early 80s video nasty. There’s something about it that’s like a 3rd generation VHS copy.

79. Secret of Monkey Island
I prefer the second one. Also Day of The Tentacle, but pretty much any lucasarts adventure from that period is pure gold.

80. Virtua Tennis 3
It’s like pong with better graphics.

81. Robotron 2084
No idea. can it be as good as Bangai-O? I doubt it.

82. Lemmings
Oh no! My mum used to hog my Amiga for hours on end sending these adorable creatures to their deaths.

83. Nights
I’ve only played the Christmas Special but I played those levels over and over and over again, the essence of what sonic team did best during their hey day; it’s all about the controls.

84. Phantasy Star Online
Moderately fun off line. Online 13 Germans always nicked my stuff. “MASAKKKKKER!!!!”

85. Silent Hill 2

86. Outrun 2006: Coast 2 Coast
I love Outrun 2. 2006 is obviously as good if not better but on the PS2 it just doesn’t have the insane crispness and draw distance of the XBox version or the arcade.

87. Mr. Driller
One of those games that allows the player to enter a state where perfect calm and concentration are constantly threatening to tip over into chaos and defeat. The 3 or 4 second gaps between each stage are some of the most necessary pauses in video game history.

88. Sega Rally Championship
Amazing what they can do with 2 cars and 3 tracks. Kind of makes the current trend for more tracks and more cars look a bit silly.

89. Tomb Raider
It’s easy to forget in the wake of it’s increasingly bad sequels and Nintendo showing everyone how to control people in 3D just how incredible this game seemed when it came out.

90. Devil May Cry
Didn’t really like this much. It’s quite interesting how genre and mechanics are becoming detached, thanks to their elaborate combo systems things like this and God of War seem to have as much in common with the Tony Hawk series as with their structural forbears, double Dragon etc.

91. Super Smash Bros. Melee
Basically all multi player games are going to be fun at some level because they involve playing with friends Super Smash Bros. series never struck me as anything particularly special, particularly compared to the Power Stone games which supplement their brawling chaos with a little more tactics.

92. Resident Evil
I never understood how anyone could give credence to the idea that the RE/Bio hazard development team had never seen, played or heard of the earlier Alone in the Dark. I mean seriously: Setting, atmosphere, control mechanism, pacing, inventory management all identical. I preferred Alone in the Dark’s Lovecraftian setting to the B Movie zombies of RE and the excruciating loading times (compared to AITD hard drive quickness) meant I never got far through Resident Evil.

93. Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
I think this may be on the Wii virtual console, may check it out.

94. Gitaroo Man
A really really good rhythm action game, though not, in my book, as good as the same teams later game “…Ouendan!”. Spoiled only slightly by the ludicruos difficulty rollercoaster.

95. God of War
I’ve never played this apart from briefly at Nicks’s place. I’ve seen him play it though and it looks pretty cool. My reservation is that the boss battles look really long and if there’s one thing I don’t like it’s protracted boss battles.

96. Wipeout
Why in a world where F Zero exists would anyone play this?

97. Tekken 3
Enjoyable.

98. Sensible Soccer
Still my favourite football game. Largely down to the fact that it has pace and responsiveness, two things that always seem lacking to me in more modern versions of the beautiful game. The problem with FIFA ProEvo etc. is that if you have a realistic looking player he has to do an animation after you’ve pressed you button, thus taking some period of time before he can kick the ball, otherwise your realism goes out the window. Sensi has no such separation between decision and action.

99. Psychonauts
There’s something about the overt wackiness of this title that put me off. May still pick it up though.

100. Crackdown
Sounds like fun but I don’t own a 360.

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So a pretty predictable list, less retro obsessed than most similar ones which I think is probably a good thing, though Elite, Exile, Populous 2 and Asteroids all deserve consideration. Personally I’d have put X-Wing in, The Sims, Tetris Attack, Bangai-O and Gradius V and Tony Hawk 3 instead of 2. I’d have cut most of the FPS games out along with anything with a Second World War* theme. So in summary: Meh.

*Can we all call it the Second World War please? There’s something appropriately serious about that, World War 2 sounds like a Hollywood sequel.