Top 10 Lists: The Top 10 Collections

There's something about the whole "Buy 2 Get 1 Free" concept that drives the rational human mind into a crazed, irrational consumer who shells out money for something they don't really want or need. It's easy to understand: more bang for your buck. Everybody's looking to stretch their dollar and nobody can resist a bargain. Game collections are nothing new, it's been a staple of the PC market for quite sometime. But what I'm talking about it is a series or a large collection of great games bundled into one pack. Not only are these collections cheap, they're great games to boot. Here are my top ten picks for video game collections.

Capcom owes a lot to its Street Fighter series. Street Fighter II's gameplay still influences fighting games to this day. What's the first thing you do in a fighting game? That's right, you input the Hadouken and a Shoryuken. But Capcom's also had to live in its shadow as well. Many fighting games by Capcom have come and gone, but Street Fighter II is the most fondly remembered of the bunch. They followed it up with the Alpha series, which upped the graphics and gameplay of the classic SFII formula and added a slew of new, memorable characters. A Street Fighter without Sakura, Akuma or Dan would be unthinkable. The games took place in the series past but most things were the same: Ryu and Ken just wanted to fight each other, Bison wanted to take over the world, and Chun-Li was out for revenge. The Alpha series had a terrific roster of fighters. Not only did you have series mainstays and the new characters, but you also had fighters pulled from Final Fight--namely Sodom, Guy and Cody in Alpha 3. What, no Haggar? Alpha also introduced the CP II system in arcades which made the 2D sprites look more detailed, move more fluidly and made the game look more like an anime than just a collection of pixels. The CP II arcade system was used for, oh, pretty much every Capcom game released in arcades in the mid-'90s. It expanded on the super move system introduced in Super Street Fighter II Turbo which consisted of filling up three gauges. Once you filled up all three, you could unleash a devastating super. Alpha 2 is pretty much a remake of Alpha while Alpha 3 reintroduces old favorites like Blanka, Vega, and Cammy while letting the playing choose from multiple "isms" which are different playing styles. All three fighting games are terrific on their own, but added to the mix is the option to play whichever version of each you please and as a nice bonus you get Super Gem Fighter: Mini-Mix which is a spin-off that plays as a kind of hybrid between classic fighting and the Puzzle Fighter series all done in a humorous super-deformed style.

Who doesn't love a flight shooter? Hundreds of enemies and multi-colored bullets and missiles cluttering the screen while you frantically fly around trying to avoid them all. This collection has three of the Raiden Fighters and updates the graphics somewhat for the Xbox 360. Like most arcade series, if you've played either one then you know what to expect with the others. You've got a ridiculous amount of weaponry that manifests itself in all types of lasers, bullets, missiles and a few more unconventional weapons while you take on endless barrages of enemies and massive bosses while trying not to go cross-eyed with all the action going on screen. It's great fun for two players and you can play the levels in random order if you like. This collection also has the most insane amount of visual options I've ever seen. You want to play the game in black-and-white satellite vision? How about night vision? Or a completely different color palette? Aces has no shortage of ways you can absolutely kill your eyes. Classic shooter fun.

Game & Watch was what we had before GameBoys and PSPs. They were simple handheld games using LCD screens which begat the Tiger Electronic series of LCD games. I remember playing a Game & Watch version of Donkey Kong that I held onto for years until you couldn't find the proper batteries for it in stores any more. Anyway, Gallery 4 is a collection of initially six games but more are unlocked along the way including Zelda. You get the "modern" version of the Watch games with slick GBA graphics, but also classic versions as well that mimic ye-olde LCD graphics. It's a great retro trip or a good game for those that like variety and simplicity. The games aren't complicated and they're easy to pick up. They don't last long either, but they're varied and test reflexes more than anything. Kind of like the Wario Ware games, I suppose.

It may surprise most gamers to know that there were Grand Theft Auto games before GTA III was released in 2001. I know, shocking. But there's no denying that GTA III has had the most impact, it was the first 3D GTA and it was the one that turned Rockstar into the multi-million dollar name it is today. You could literally put gaming into two time periods: post and pre GTA III eras. Since GTA III there have been numerous clones or games that try to incorporate a large, free-roaming gaming experience. GTA III caused controversy captured the media's attention and held onto it for years. Best known for its "go anywhere, do anything" approach to gameplay, maybe a better turn of phrase would be "go anywhere, kill anybody" to describe what gamers did once they were plunged into Liberty City with a cache of guns and a load of unarmed civilians. Vice City came along a year later and improved the graphics, added motorcycles and helicopters all while setting things in the '80s with a matching soundtrack. San Andreas came out in '04 and its easily the biggest of the three. Instead of just a big city to roam around in, we had an entire state made up of parodies of San Francisco, Las Vegas, and LA. Andreas applied the "more is better" maxim and overloaded the game with weapons, missions, mini-games, and an unlimited supply of extras. It's also the game that landed Rockstar in serious trouble with the Hot Coffee scandal, the details of which we don't need to delve into, but the end result has since dogged Rockstar. In any case, the GTA trilogy offers all three of these massive, genre-defining games for a low price. Pick this up and you won't need another game for a very long time.

There are three distinct types of Castlevania games: the classic level-by-level NES Castlevanias, the Metroidvania entries that started with Symphony of the Night, and the 3D Castlevanias that have ranged from awful to mediocre. Chronicles is a combination of the first two, in this collection you get a 3D, revamped version of Rondo of Blood (which western audiences were only acquainted with as Castlevania: Dracula X on SNES), the classic 2D version, and Symphony of the Night. Originally released on the Playstation and Sega Saturn, Symphony of the Night is the game that transformed the Castlevania series. You had an entire castle to explore and gained new abilities that would help you unlock previous areas you couldn't enter. There were also some RPG elements like leveling up and equipping different weapons and clothing. It's one of the games I bought the original Playstation for and it is a true classic in every definition of the term. On the other hand, the Rondos 2D and 3D are strictly old-school Castlevania where you go from left to right and complete level after level. Unlike Symphony, all you really use is the classic Belmont whip. One of the elements that makes it unique is that there are alternate paths in the levels, and Rondo added the "Item Crash" ability where you can use super-attacks with the subweapons, assuming you have enough hearts. I feel Rondo is a game people just didn't give a chance and Symphony is a must play for anybody.

Capcom loves collections. After a Mega Man collection, Capcom decided to pay homage to its popular spin-off Mega Man X. Pretty much the series is the '90s "gritty, in-your-face" version of the Mega Man games, hence the X, but it's actually good. The formula is pretty much the same. You have your Mega Buster and can charge up shots, you gain new powers from eight Robot Mas--, er I mean Mavericks, and all the bosses have weaknesses to certain powers. What was different was the X's abilities compared to classic Mega Man. X could dash through the air and on the ground and wall jump and climb, giving him much greater mobility. X could also upgrade his armor giving him new abilities such as stronger weapons, more durability, or smash into new areas with his helmet and boots. Great graphics and great music were not uncommon either. The plot is that it's the future and there's a new breed of robots called Reploids that are capable of making their own decision. Those that decide to rebel against humanity are called Mavericks and they're always led by Sigma who always finds a way to come back and in every game X and his buddy Zero have to team up to stop them. Eventually the series added animated cutscenes and the ability to play as Zero who prefers to use a light saber to X's Buster. This collection boasts six Mega Man X games plus Mega Man: Battle & Chase which is just another variant of Mario Kart. Admittedly X6 was a slap-dash follow-up and some X games are better than others, but overall you're getting pretty much the entire series in one package. Seven games on one disc is a great deal no matter how you look at it.

Released on the Wii and PSP, Metal Slug Anthology is SNK's celebration of ten silly, gory years since Metal Slug first shot its ways into arcades. SNK is no stranger to the collection, after all its calling-card was the NEO-GEO arcade cabinets which housed multiple games to choose from. Metal Slug was SNK's smash-hit in the action genre. The game had Contra-style waves of enemies and difficulty but with terrific 2D graphics (which still hold up, by the way) and a bloody sense of humor. Enemies were burnt to crisps, got blown apart and one even gets eaten by a killer whale! What's not to love? If you've played one you've played 'em all, though there is the occasional gameplay twist, it's all about shooting the bad guys with a variety of weapons, saving hostages, gigantic boss fights, and fighting in the legendary Metal Slug tanks. This collection has every arcade game, Metal Slugs 1 through 6 and the re-release entry Metal Slug X. Over this ten-year collection you'll fight with Marco and his army pals against robots, zombies, yetis, mummies, Martians, and of course the X Army. Mission All Over!

Blood is one of the unsung heroes of first-person shooters during the Build engine era. While Duke Nukem gets all the press and people are still holding out hope for Duke Nukem Forever, I'd rather much see a Blood 3 sequel any day of the week. True DOS is a thing of the past, but this collection is every bit as entertaining as it ever was. This collection comes with Blood and its two expansion packs: Plasma Pak and Cryptic Passage. In addition it has GameWizard's guide to Blood which gives you tips, cheats, maps, secret locations and strategies with each segment hosted by a hot Elvira look-alike. What set Blood apart from other shooters was that it was 100% horror. No sci-fi or military themes going on here. Blood was about all things gothic and gory: gargoyles, spiders, demons, zombies, and bloodthirsty cultists just to name a few. Your arsenal was unique and every weapon had an alternate fire, plus you could dual wield certain guns. You dealt death with voodoos dolls, tommy guns, and my person favorite: dynamite. Levels had immense variety: you'd fight through carnivals, temples, graveyards, cities under siege, and even Crystal Lake! And that's just Blood, toss in the Plasma and Cryptic Passage and you've got an insane amount of levels to blast your way through. Of course the real star of the show was the blood. Heads came off, enemies were burned alive, and best of all they'd explode into a shower of blood, guts and limbs. If you love gore, horror, shooters or any combination, you'll fall in love with the One Unit Whole Blood collection.

A Nintendo console without a Mario game is like a ship without a sail. Things just wouldn't be the same, and neither would the SNES library. Nintendo pumped plenty of quality Mario games on the SNES: Super Mario RPG, Mario Kart and Super Mario World--but it's Super Mario All-Stars that I remember the most. This was a Mario over-load. You got Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros 2, Super Mario Bros 3, and Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels. Originally, The Lost Levels was the real Super Mario Bros 2 but was only released in Japan since they thought American audiences would find it too hard. Instead Nintendo repainted the game Doki Doki Panic with Mario characters and called it Super Mario Bros 2. Nintendo may have been lying to us for all those years, but all was swiftly forgiven once this came out. Also I remember there was a promotion, either through Nintendo themselves or through Nintendo Power where you could send away for a copy of All-Stars for an insanely cheap price which only made this collection all the sweeter. Oh, did I mention that all these classic NES games were remade with glorious 16-bit graphics? Later editions included Super Mario World as well as if you needed any more of a reason to pick this cartridge up.

It was a tough one to decide who was gonna be the king of the ring in terms of collections. Should it be based on variety, quality, or the sheer value of the number of games presented? Well The Orange Box succeeds in all those categories. Who would've thought a tiny company called Valve and their game about a bespectacled and bearded scientists fighting interdimensional monsters would lead to them becoming one of the biggest names in western gaming? The Orange Box was released for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 so nobody has an excuse not to have a copy...assuming you're not a strictly Wii household. This collection has five games and each one of them is great. There's the Half-Life games: Half-Life 2 and the expansions/continuations Episode 1 and 2. Just those would've been enough to justify the purchase, but Valve tacked on Portal and Team Fortress 2 because they love us so much. With the Half-Life 2 games covering single-player shooting and Team Fortress 2 satisfying all multiplayer gamers out there, initially you might overlook Portal but it turns out to be the collection's sucker-punch. It's funny, it's clever, it's unique and the length is just right. It would be hard picturing The Orange Box without it. Team Fortress 2 is in my opinion one of the best multiplayer shooters ever created. You have nine classes to choose from and each one is unique and has advantages over the other. They're all fun and easy to use, and the game is presented in a cartoony way that only enhances how fun it is. Plus since it's been released, all the updates, new weapons, added achievements, and new modes and maps have only given you more reasons to play. Half-Life 2 and the Episodes are truly great single-player experiences that you'll come back to time and again. Valve seamlessly juggles intense action set-pieces with so many other ingredients: driving, platforming, exploring, very rarely does a game cram in so much variety and pull every element off well. The Orange Box offers practically unlimited replay value, no matter what's your preference you'll find something to like in there.

Collections are a great way to catch up on a series or to get your gaming dollars to go further. I didn't include those cheapie, ten buck PC packages that give you two games but chose on collections that offered all or most of a series and based my decision on levels of variety and quality, and just plain my personal preferences. The only exception was One Whole Blood Unit which is just a collection of all its expansion packs, but I feel it's such a complete game package that it was worth including. Secondly, I love anthologies so it just made sense to do this kind of countdown. Lastly I tried to include collections that rather than simply ported a collection of games over to a disc also added a slew of bonus features, improved graphics, or just threw in a few extras to please gamers. And before you poo-poo a collection of games, just remember that quality and quantity aren't always mutually exclusive.

List by Geistosan (11/09/2009)