Top 10 Lists: The Top 10 Best Videogames Of All Time

Shorting out a list of the top ten videogames of all time is no easy task, neither objective, basically because there are so many great games, and all of them had made personal marks in every single person who played them. In my case, I gotta go with personal, subjective, objective and general aspects of videogames, and choose those who really deserve to be in a top ten. So these are the rules I followed, or tried to follow: 1, pick one game per genre; 2, that game must have made a deep mark in both gaming world and my personal world; 3, try make it as different as it can be from all the other Top ten videogame lists ever made (so expect no Final Fantasy VII, damnit, I am so annoyed of that videogame); 4, Every system and game is free to enter, this means from the NES to the Wii.

I think the opinion is unanimous if I state that this is the best Super Game ever made. Despite other super games being awesome, Super Metroid has everything a gamer wants to see in a game. The game-play is perfect (never a side-scroller has being so smooth and accurate), the graphics are awesome for it’s time, you have lots of weapons, it tangles with the story of previous Metroid titles, the music is probably one of the most atmospheric compositions you will ever heard in your life (whether is videogames or no), the difficulty curve is practically perfect and the replayability value is high. Super Metroid is for the world of videogames, and so the entire Metroid Saga, like the Alien saga to the movies: You just gotta put one of those in any top ten, and Super Metroid demonstrates that Lara Croft is not the real kick ass woman of gaming, that spot is saved for the all mighty, all awesome, all fantastic, and all perfect, Samus Aran. Now why don’t we get these kind of games more often?

Before W.O.W. marked the internet, made the phone bills rise like foam, and lobotomized lots of gamers all over the world, we had this little strategy game that made a lot of abuse being applied in many ciber coffee-shops and online communities. Starcraft featured a strategy and battle system that everybody could use, play and enjoy, mixing the simplicity of the controls, and the complexity of a well planned strategy in order to smash your enemies with an army of flying tanks. Gathering all the elements of classic Strategy games like using resources or conquering enemy bases, it added elements like upgrade your troops, prepare terrains for building more bases, and the ability to talk online with your partners, being this last one an addition on the last expansion of the series. Thanks to this strategy game, we now can enjoy W.O.W. although many people usually forgets it.

Everybody remembers the first time they played Wii Sports, we have to admit that Wii Sports is a pretty sweet game. The game exploits perfectly the controls of the Wii, the sensor of movement works smooth and flawlessly, and the variety of sports to play is incredible, from tennis to something as different as Boxing. This is the best sports game, not because it’s Nintendo, which is also awesome, but because it takes you into the game so much it makes you sweat, making this the most active and entertaining sports game ever made, and a game that will make everybody play, even if they had never take a videogame controller.

If there’s going to be any RPG game in the list, it’s gotta be a Final Fantasy game, and if it’s gotta be a Final Fantasy game, that must be IV, which is II for the occidental world. Final Fantasy IV brought staples in the series, such as turn based battles with the element of real time thanks to the time bar for the attacks, class changing characters, a team of five allies (instead of four like in the previous games which added an element of strategy) and a detailed plot that included treachery, love, and war. It also added the element of pseudo-orchestral music, thanks to the 16 bit channels of sound processor of the SNES. This is probably the most played Final Fantasy game of all time, despite VII being the most commercial and famous, everybody has played IV, with their SNES or their GBA. Now Nintendo is taking this title and remaking it in 3D for the DS. Yay!

Resident Evil 4 is awesome. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the game is perfect in every sense of the word, entertaining, well done, and so kick ass it even makes you forget of the ink ribbons and the stuck camera angles. Following the story of Leon Kennedy in his Spanish vacations, you will be faced to crazy villagers, sectarians, deadly blood thirsty monks, and a crap ton of different metamorphic monsters. Playing this game in a Game Cube is the greatest experience ever, and while the PS2 conversion is clunky and uncomfortable, there’s nothing like playing this game with your Wii. There are so many elements of this game, they are all so awesome, I don’t know where to start: The upgrading weapon system, the over the shoulder view, the aiming system thanks to the laser, the QTE’s (gosh, the PS2 sucks at that, but the Wii is as joyful as return to be a child), the length, the extra game modes, the replayability value, and the horror. Many Resident Evil fans criticised this game, for moving away from the formula of being scary, but I am Resident Evil fan, I played the very first RE game ever, and I have to say the following: “Thank you Capcom for upgrading the game so damn much, we needed this, especially since Resident Evil 3”.

When the FirstPerson Shooters appeared, they were nothing but simple, straight and flat lined. You just gotta start the level and run from beginning to end, shooting down everything that got in your way. Even Doom, being such an important name, is just flat and streamlined, hollow and empty, though fun and gory. But all the rules of the genre changed when Nintendo and Rare released the movie adaptation of Goldeneye for the Nintendo 64. Basically, and compared to other movie to game videogames, Goldeneye is God. The First Person Shooter element is still there, shoot everything that moves, but it added elements like research, gathering, achieve certain objectives in order to accomplish the mission, and even something unthinkable for a FPS: Avoid shooting certain enemies, or else the mission is failed. Following the movie, not in every single scene, but using what James Bond can give to us, the Rare geniuses take us from secret Russian labs to armoured ships, derelict snow fields and even a huge antenna placed in the middle of the jungle. You gotta play this game to understand why it is so awesome, and everybody remembers the first time the grabbed that controller and felt the rumble pack in their hands at every shot. Is a rejoice you can still experience today…if the f***ers bring it finally to the VC.

Street fighter 2 in the arcades was the game everybody played and preferred if the need to break jaws appeared during a conversation on who was better, Sonic or Mario (soon, we wont need this one, but oh well…) Street Fighter included all the elements for a fighting game: a great variety of characters, easy controls, awesome graphics and enough game modes to make you feel you really used that quarter really well. This game happens to be the beacon for both fighting games and arcade games, if Atari was shadowed by any videogame, this is it. Whether you like the American macho guy Guile, the heavy weight sumo master Honda, the girly girl Chun Li, or the kickass Ryu or Ken, you will enjoy those controls as you kick the butt of your pals, or while they kick yours, since this videogame is so awesome, everybody can play it, both button mashers and real players.

Wow yes, I think this game is not over rated, I think people usually forgets about how awesome this game is compared to other crap we suffer nowadays. The Legend of Zelda series has the most awesome videogames of all time, even if they are small ones (I am looking at you Crossbow training). Ocarina of time is the first of the series to be in 3D, and what a way to improve the series comparing it to the titles we saw in the NES, and the SNES. Those were already awesome, even The adventure of Link was cool, but Ocarina of time is just amazing. I mean, if somebody dares to find any negative aspect of that game, you gotta find him or her and apply a lobotomy into the brain with a nail gun. The story is perfect, the graphics are good enough to not overwhelm you but to make you “awe” at the view of the Hyrule Prairie in the dusk, or stop for a moment and let your jaw drop with the fire effects in the Fire Temple. Adventure games have never had such a great referent in Zelda, and Ocarina of time set the bar so high, not even the new Twilight Princess makes it look outdated. Is so good not even a next-gen videogame makes it look old. If Miyamoto is going to be remembered by gamers in the future, it’s gonna be for this amazing masterpiece, and for the next one in my list.

I know it can sound unfair, but where else can you place Mario but in his own genre? I mean, the first time he jumped into the 3D he threw a Monkey wrench to the platforming type of game, from then on, platforms had more than one dimension, and side scrollers grew small for him also. With the recent Mario Galaxy, this statement is clear than ever. I like to also say that Mario has so many games he can stand a genre for his own, so moving on. Everybody remembers the most important events in their life, even if they had no camera recorder to make a video out of them. One of the most important ones for me happens to be the first time I played Super Mario 64. You grab the cartridge, you turn on the console and there you go, welcome to the 3D. Mario brought you the future of gaming with Super Mario Bros, and thanks to Super Mario 64 we can now enjoy all the other 3D based games you have ever played in your life, including all the 3D titles on this list. What have you just say? Why is Mario over Zelda? Well, if you haven’t played Mario 64, you don’t know that it’s waaaay more awesome than Ocarina of time. I leave it that way.

What’s the most important thing a videogame should achieve? Is not to look good, neither detailed, nor even have a story. The most important thing a videogame should do is to be easy to play and let people play with it. Tetris is, by far, the most played videogame of all time so much not even Mario can defeat it. If you take one of the six main pieces in the game, it will surely be more recognizable than the chubby ass plumber. With the easiest set of controls ever made, just a button and a D-Pad, one sole screen in which the pieces start to agglomerate, and your task is to not let them accumulate enough to reach the top. Okey, the game is quite mean, you are predestined to lose at the end, but you can’t escape all the fun times and hours of entertainment this game gave you. This was number one when I first made my list, and it is still number one. Why? Why if I changed all the other games this is still number one? It has a reason: While other games will keep changing, Tetris will always stay there, being itself without a change, and it’s gonna still be awesome and fun. How many videogames can say that? Not many, I am sure.

List by james_corck (03/24/2008)