Games List

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Name	Genre	Players	Year	Rating
Comment				Art

Final Fantasy VII	Action Adventure	1997	100
Mercenary Cloud and his erstwhile crew travel to every corner of the globe on land, sea, air, and chocobo to save their city Midgar and world from corporate evil and a villain named Sephiroth. This is likely the best game to ever exist. No part of this adventure is lacking, and when you think it can’t get better, it inexplicably does, and then gets better and better. Ludicrously fun and unbelievably detailed. I resisted playing this game fully for decades as I’m not a fan of turn-based RPGs and wanted maturity and perspective before diving in. I could instantly see why Final Fantasy 7 is likely to not be bested ever again.
The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask	Action Adventure	2000	100
A mischievous kid gains possession of a mask with incredible powers, Link becomes tasked with saving Hyrule in three days—repeatable by way of a time-altering ocarina—from this childish but maleficent force who aims to crash the moon into the planet, ending not only the kingdom but the world. One of the best games to exist, the story, beautiful visuals, highly emotional music, unique mechanics, and interplay between the three day constraint with a time-manipulation ocarina elevates this to high art. The feeling of impending doom looms over you at every moment as hour by hour that unwilling lunar body comes ever closer to making final contact, its tortured face always visible in the sky above. My #1 favourite game, this was an experience unlike anything before, and makes every game after it lesser for not being as innovative. If you allow the moon to crash (which to beat the game you’re required to let it be as close as possible) your save file is erased...creative genius beyond words.
Shadow of the Colossus	Action Adventure	2005	100
After a long trek, a nameless older boy sets his comatose lover down at a temple in a secluded forbidden land, and then ventures off with his ever-faithful horse Agro to scale and slay a multitude of living mountains to resurrect her. Set in a world made with so much care it feels as though the artists used a machine to observe an ancient time in an alternate universe, this is one of the most meaningful pieces of interactive art to have existed. Rich, sweeping, breathtaking Shadow of the Colossus is just as much about the destination as it is about the journey, the deeply moving music, the painting-like quality of the visuals, and the heights you have to soar to accomplish your goal. When this released I was taken so far aback by its controls and its technical acumen (but especially its visual aspects) I wondered if this might be a final pinnacle of interactive art. This type of game will likely never be made again nor surpassed.
Gran Turismo	Sim Racing	1997	100
Experience the romantic joys of the clean-lined automotive world. A killer racing game with an unreal jazz soundtrack that moves mountains with a shovel in terms of hardware. Nothing comes close to Gran Turismo in ambition, how they managed to put so much into such a small package and still have it be oodles of fun will always be a legendary feat of engineering and artistry. My first racing game, can you imagine my disappointment when nothing’s come close?
Resident Evil	Horror	1996	100
Strange partially-eaten bodies have been showing up at the forest outskirts of a peaceful Midwestern Raccoon City, a police SWAT team is sent in to investigate, but instead crashland near the Arklay mountain range and find false refuge at a dark mansion. Simply terrifying, never before had a piece of interactive media induced such fear. This progenitor horror was so shocking that in many cases the game itself had to be secreted away on top shelves at home out of reach of younger relatives as to not scar them by playing it...which many of us found a way to anyways! The Z-list live video introduction of the characters still provides entertainment although for different reasons today. Traversing the empty mansion to encounter your ‘first’ down that well-lit hallway, the moment when it turns around, in high 3D fidelity, was something never before seen. All this as my first horror game...lucky lucky me.
World of Warcraft	Adventure Other	2004	95
Azeroth is a world under siege, on one side are the Alliance led by humans, and the other side are the Horde, led by Orcs—it is a world torn asunder with no resolution in sight, the craft of war is seemingly the only solution. Arguably the greatest MMORPG up until Wrath of the Lich King, if you freeze time at that expansion you had one of the most culturally consequential games to release. This was extremely fun due to its social nature, I was so excited for this back in the day that I would print out the maps from Blizzard’s site to tape to my wall and scour magazines for new screenshots. Go back in time and find me on Agamaggan exploring all corners of Azeroth!
Halo 3	Action Shooter	2007	95
Superhuman Spartan named 117, or Master Chief, must save humanity in a final push against the Theologian-led Covenant forces who seek the use of a life-annihilating weapon known as the Halo rings. One of the best modern shooters to have ever been produced, this journey to the end of the Halo series culminated a story that although simple and straightforward, was magical in its effect on the real-world. Halo 3’s release was unlike anything seen, more akin to an earthquake than a simple entertainment product; its adherents, would-be recruits lining up outside of game stores worldwide on its day of release to Finish the Fight (yes, I was one too outside at midnight on that fateful September day). Bungie kept their craft honed through two games for this legendary ending, the gameplay had nary a blemish. Halo 3’s multiplayer sustained so many for what felt like years upon years. There will likely never be another game release as eventful and jubilant as Halo 3—you had to be there.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2	Action Shooter	2009	95
Nameless American soldier joins elite unit of Western Coalition forces led by mustached Scotsman Soap, their goal: stop enemies of Liberalism by any means necessary. Ludicrously fun, this is the highest-order shooting game ever made. Story: the same affair from jingoistic shooting games but where this game truly shines, in a way no other game has shined since regardless of genre, is its multiplayer. Every movement, every weapon fired (knifeplay too!), is fun first, realism second (to a degree). As a result combined with the top-of-its-class maps allows for an experience frankly unlike any other. This was before the malaise that spread over all of gaming, the infinite profit sickness from purchased garish costumes and jingling gun trinkets. This multiplayer could be played indefinitely, and even nearly two decades later the same studio cannot match the perfection of Modern Warfare 2. A team with every part at peak performance made this, the golden age of gaming will always have Modern Warfare 2’s multiplayer as a king.
Super Mario Sunshine	Adventure	2002	95
Mario on a vacation gone wrong, guess who’s missing again? Criminally optimistic, gorgeous, relaxing, this is one of the best Mario games of its 3D-era. Its gameplay is solid, the story is casual and relaxing, and the artistic direction is so gallery-worthy even at the time I wondered how Nintendo could really surpass this. This was my first game for the (non-borrowed) Gamecube, the magic of that day will never leave me.
Silent Hill	Horror Adventure	1999	95
Harry Mason crashes his car with his orphan daughter in search for answers to vague questions, he winds up trapped in the living nightmare of Silent Hill. Highly disturbing, this game will ensure your discomfort for many nights. This very oppressive delve into the psyche of Harry stuck in the Toluca Lake area of Pennsylvania brings you as close to hell as is possible in game form. Simply bizarre, the graphics, story, and music/sound design are truly incredible. Soon after release I played this in the most peripheral sense...as in outside of the room, petrified.
Animal Crossing	Sim	2002	95
Raccoon landlord Tom Nook has entrapped you in a charming small town. Enjoy yourself citizen by picking up shells and you better respond to letters promptly—you don’t want to make your neighbour Mabel the Giraffe cry would you? Be a good person: befriend the other animal residents and whatever you do DO NOT reset the game while playing. If pure small town joy was a game this would be it. Cute, fun, meta I don’t know anyone who didn’t like this game, a whole living town on your little memory card. Do not try and cheat the system by moving the clock forward unless you feel like picking weeds for the next few hours. Say hi to K.K. Slider at the station for me.
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater	Action Adventure Shooter	2004	95
Solid Snake, commando extraordinaire, stalks the jungle to stop a mysterious and well-funded terrorist group and their superhuman officer class from doing something dastardly to the world. An impeccable game, the writing and very unique mechanics make you really feel like you’re with Snake trying to survive the human enemy and Mother Nature herself. Often dramatic, this game relishes in the exaggerated circumstance and larger-than-life characters, a smart move by Kojima (creator). I was oh so impressed by this title when it released. I think I fell in love when I killed a snake and was able to cook and eat it, only to become violently ill while trying to sneak through a locker room minutes later. What other game has such care put into its details? The fight with The End (sniper) was so heart-pounding and dynamic I still think back on it fondly as if I was there in real life.
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker	Action Adventure	2003	95
Many ages have passed in the Hyrulian world, the high seas are the main means of travel and Link, the unassuming resident of a sleepy island, discovers his destiny: to stop Ganondorf from further drowning the world(?), and to do so with the help of his sentient boat. A brilliant title, the spirit of adventure is so strong in this cel-shaded extravaganza that your imagination makes the salty spray of the ocean smother the senses the same as the digital wind fills your boat’s sails. The idea of using the sea and its many islands as terrain was brilliant, and the real life map you could obtain (through means of which I’ve forgotten) helped in a genuine way, or at least it helped me quite a lot. Nintendo created art here.
Minecraft	Action Adventure Other	2009	95
Deceptively simple: you are block man Steve in block world, in block caves forests deserts hitting blocks, fighting blocky spiders and zombies and skeleton archers or simply digging and building blocky things. As the years have passed so much has been added to this game that its certainly lost a lot of its original charm, but if you freeze time around Alpha in 2010 you can see the magic of a nearly perfect form. That early version’s replayability is infinite as much heavy lifting was done by the player’s imagination.
We Love Katamari	Action Puzzle	2005	95
Na naaaa na na na na na na, Katamari Damacyyy. Prince of the Cosmos, tasked with rolling up the world rolls up everything: desk tacs and bugs, Fido, now the furniture, not my Toyota(!), uh oh now the house too, I think I see my family somewhere in that mass! Now he’s rolling up buildings to a grand orchestra, there goes the local office tower (is that Mr. Tanaka?), now even Mt. Fuji is victim to this runaway rolling. Everything is already one and this is just a formality, the ball is all and if you look hard enough you can see we’re really in the katamari now still, and from the inside looking out he is rolling us, picking up our beautiful stars too. I love Katamari, and if you love being alive, and love the world, roll roll roll with the good times.
Doom	Shooter	1993	95
Mars, or somewhere nearby in space, is under siege from the residents of ech-ee-double-hockey-sticks, your simple goal: shred, tear, annihilate to the exit. The progenitor of the shooter genre, simple, fun, revolutionary, everyone and their church-going grandmother has played this title. In some ways it feels like D00M has been around forever, just waiting to be unleashed.
Grand Theft Auto IV	Action Shooter	2008	95
Niko Bellic has finally come to the land of opportunity, the land of money, the land of big-breasted American women—all as promised by his cousin Roman. What he really found was destitution, corruption, and a culturally stunted Liberty City in a state of dreary continuous failure. This was the first GTA of the modern era and its gameplay, especially driving and ragdoll physics, felt real and had weight. The story of immigrant disappointment—complete with very appropriate, and very good music—is probably one of the few times any American creative team, be it from a videogame or movie or television show has looked at their own society and judged/portrayed it with honest eyes. A hallmark Rockstar game, this is and will probably be the best and most prescient Grand Theft Auto to ever release, a real snapshot of mid-2000s Americana its commentary on the insane state of US society as seen through the eyes of a perpetually letdown Eastern European never failed to amuse. Cousin, let’s go bowling!
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri	Strategy	1999	95
A colony has been made in the nearby Alpha Centauri system, you represent a faction and will try and fight for control of this new planet by any means. Essentially a better Civilization game, this science fiction version of Civ was extraordinary in its weirdness and depth. Despite never getting the chance to play it often I never quite played a strategy game that has hooked me the same way this title had, there seems to be an unnaturally infinite replayability.
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory	Action	2005	90
Agent Sam Fisher from the NSA’s black ops division Third Echelon is tasked with going the world over to stop America’s enemies (and by extension the enemies of freedom) from throwing the liberal order into disarray. An unusually good game, this exercise in applied jingoism has you hanging from pipes snapping necks and slitting throats, as well as interrogating America’s enemies foreign and domestic to one of the best video game soundtracks ever produced (by world renowned composer Amon Tobin). Not only is the art direction excellent, but (to my knowledge) introduced to the mainstream the mechanic of sound sensitive co-op multiplayer. The sound of your communications with your partner effected if enemies could hear you, positively mind-blowing at the time—at least for me. The soundtrack is so pitch perfect it is a critically acclaimed electronic music album first and a game soundtrack second; you can listen to it independent of the game and none would be the wiser.
Rimworld	Sim Strategy Other	2013	90
A very unlucky person(s) crashlands on a planet in the wild outer rim of this fictional galaxy, fight, grow, build, survive, escape. Rimworld understands what makes it fun: it is not just a game where the simple pressing of buttons creates the desired effects and you win, no, it takes the greatest lesson from Dwarf Fortress which is to create a new story for every playthrough. It is a storytelling game first and everything else second, things happen or don’t by some amount of alterable chance. Equip your colonist with a bionic hands to help them with surgery, a enhanced nose module to stop them from making spoiled meals, a helmet so they don’t get brain damage from a bullet, or extract a lung out of a prisoner to help with a child colonist who got skewered when bugs burrowed into your freezer room. This studio rarely makes a misstep with Rimworld and its many expansions, they only ever seem to improve the game and that is impressive in and of itself.
Star Wars: Battlefront II	Action Shooter	2005	90
Battle across the Star Wars Universe before and after the Battle of Yavin IV on planets such as Hoth, Dagobah, and even Coruscant using every weapon, vehicle, and character you can dream of. Pretty much the de-facto standard splitscreen PS2 game to play at friend’s houses, there is nary a single boring moment to be had battling for objectives in all the best Star Wars locales. Perhaps one of the last great splitscreen titles to have released before the widespread proliferation of (console) internet-based gaming. Even when cribbing its name modern day versions of Battlefront don’t even come within a country mile of the original Battlefront II.
Sonic Adventure 2	Action Adventure	2001	90
Sonic snowboards on asphalt down San Francisco hills and zooms through thick jungles to stop Eggman from further unleashing a living liquid monstrosity on the world. Somehow Sega managed to make a hedgehog, echidna, a fox, a bat, not only believably sentient with interesting personalities, but in this game at least, very very cool. The beginning stage of this game is one of the most memorable and is so exhilarating and open (like openhearted not open-world) that you feel like you’re back in the late 90s listening to Len’s Steal My Sunshine down the shore—the music of this city escapade fitting perfectly. On top of all that fun, there’s an entire cutesy mini-game called the Chao garden which allows you to raise bizarre creatures in a myriad of ways, strange and very entertaining to see them on your Dreamcast’s VMU screen. This title will likely be the best 3D Sonic game for the foreseeable future.
N	Other	2004	90
Simple yet stylish and addicting, this is the best 2D parkour(?) game. You go from point A to point B under an extremely strict time limit—extended by gold nuggets that give you around a second each—all as fast as possible, with mines turrets missiles and other obstacles trying to stop you. You fail, you explode, you try again. Finding this in 2004 on the Web was like finding a massive diamond ring at the beach. And the fact that it was free? Unreal.
The Sims 2	Sim	2004	90
Haspa haspa! Join the neighbourhood after spending the whole real-life previous day customising the start of your family, then spend the entire weekend hardly touching your real bed and instead elaborately constructing your virtual house. For the next month you’ll be living as your character: when your Sim goes to work, you finally take a bio break, when they go to the bathroom or take a shower you do too. This game is very addicting, Maxis perfected the Sims in this iteration, and to this day no one is yet to repeat the feat. Dag dag!
Left 4 Dead	Action Shooter Horror	2008	90
Pills here. A group of four survivors must battle a zombified world, get to the safe room and survive the horror of being left for dead. The ultimate cooperative multiplayer shooter, this broke so much new ground in so multiple genres it obviated an entire subsection of custom Counter-Strike and Half-Life servers. Valve made an incredible ‘director’ AI system to make each level, even in repetition, as exciting as possible; not just the zombie horde, but the musical cues, the special zombies, everything. Since most people had Xbox Live at this point this was on very regular rotation with friends, unreal fun.
Hitman 2: Silent Assassin	Action	2002	90
Agent 47 Postlethwaite is an engineered assassin-for-hire, traveling to exotic locales to eliminate enemies of random capital-holders who wish to play dirty. The story is secondary but the idea of becoming a barcoded assassin whose whole life is a vignette of death is pretty entertaining. The atmosphere of the game fit into the time it came out in an undefinable way, making it better than it ought to have been, maybe. I found the game fascinating, this is the best Hitman game and one of the best assassination games ever.
Falling Sand Game	Sim	2005	90
Sandbox in the truest sense of the word. Take a variety of elements—some games had more or less than others and extra features like heat (or take an existing game and modify the text file to add your own elements!)—and do anything and everything to your hearts desire: create a concrete cistern with water, touch a plant to it, let it become overgrown, light it on fire with lava. Use C4 on a giant wall that has an Eden of plants to see how much it can handle before weedkiller leaks in. The possibilities are as limited as your imagination. The Falling Sand forum (now very defunct and maybe even unpreserved) had a menagerie of Falling Sand games of all kinds—I browsed that relic of gaming history often.
Demon’s Souls	Action Adventure	2009	90
A lost soul must find the fire of...something in this dying world, be prepared to suffer and find joy in death. Hardcore would be the imperative word for Demon’s Souls, getting killed by a seemingly impossible enemy only to respawn with half-health at the beginning of the level with all enemies resurrected is an exercise in masochism that I personally find very appealing. Its only issue being the hardware limitations of the PS3 were so brutal it did feel like sometimes you were battling the game itself and the nefarious enemies within it. I was looking forward to this unique title and it did not disappoint; I wonder how many new controllers were needed because of this game.
Counter-Strike	Shooter	2000	90
Bomb has been planted. Bomb defused. Bomb has been planted. Spray paint a picture of a blonde chick with huge knockers. Terrorists win. DEAD LRY[Jenkins]: IEHAOIEHSGORGURG racial epithet* personal attack based on a question asked ten minutes ago [Urine10]: not a single letter typed, loud screeching, maybe domestic violence but won for you [O_blast]: the loudest fucking XS Project song you’ve ever heard interrupted by a burp when the bass drops This is one of the purest shooters to ever release, based on a mod for Half-Life nonetheless. So much fun even if you suck at it (like me).
Kerbal Space Program	Sim	2011	90
Little green men are your kerbanauts and you’re in charge of a fictional space program on planet Kerbin. Tasked with running it so many Kerbins will perish but that’s a sacrifice you’ll have to make a couple of dozen times at least. The modding scene takes a great game and makes it nearly unparalleled for fun non-trivial simulation. This game is really really fun; since its early access on Steam in 2013 I’ve watched something amazing develop, a real game for the science-loving masses.
Dwarf Fortress	Sim Strategy	2006	90
Strike the earth! You are in charge of an expeditionary force of dwarves who will inevitably spiral into madness because you forgot to give them beer like so many small yet stout men. Cryptic to the uninformed this game can provide infinite entertainment...if you know how to play it. As of the past few years there have been significant updates to the user experience. One of my favourite modes in this game is adventurer mode. I have routinely turned myself into an all-powerful necromancing vampire yes. It’s hard to believe it’s now been twenty years, what was super niche is now so popular, how times change.
Wii Sports	Action Other	2006	90
Strap on, popcorn bowl ready for the onlookers, prepare to bowl, golf, and tennis your heart out with your homunculi Miis in this very fun family-friendly competitive game. There is a lot of energetic spirit in this simple title, and playing with others trebles the fun. A word for the wise, when playing boxing try to get some distance from your opponent so you don’t accidentally whack your friend. To this day this is still entertaining, because its a game first and understands its mission: fun.
Ape Escape	Adventure	1999	90
White-haired bang-covering monkey supreme has let the apes escape via time machine abuse! You’re tasked with retrieving them (with a net!) throughout history. Set to one of the best videogame soundtracks with some killer visuals this was one of my favourite PS1 games as a kid, truly fun and made me crave crackers.
F.E.A.R.	Action Shooter Horror	2006	90
First Encounter Assault Recon. A John Doe part of a supernatural-investigating SWAT team uncovers an extremely powerful entity of the worst kind: a spooky little girl. The protagonist becomes a supernatural sinkhole and then has to fight his former employer. Where the game shines—aside from the unique/weird story and haunting atmosphere—is its extremely well designed enemy AI. The path-finding, the tactics they employ, are human-like. I found myself genuinely wondering if there was some secret way they were connecting me with other real-life players to get into shootouts with, why out of all FPSs does this have the best AI I’ve ever experienced? Sit back, die to unnaturally smart enemies and enjoy being scared and impressed.
Gears of War 2	Action Shooter	2008	85
The Locust swarm have begun to destroy the last vestiges of an already miserable surface civilisation via sinkholes, Marcus Fenix and his battle brothers including Dom and the Cole Train (WOO BABY) must go deep into the fray in a final effort to stop them. An earnest shooting game is a rare thing, but Gears of War with its hilariously beefy man’s men delivers with surprising emotion. Its 3rd person cover-to-cover gameplay was unique, and its chainsaw gun was a real blast; this second iteration was the best in the Gears franchise bar none. Many many long nights were spent playing Gears multiplayer as a whole, executing downed enemies even when interrupted by the lag switches was so satisfying.
Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War	Action	2006	85
Jets, missiles, lasers, nuclear annihilation, experience the insane conflict known as the Belkan War in the Ace Combat universe. A pinnacle of the arcade dogfighting genre, this complex and sad tale told by exaggerated live action cutscenes—that they clearly had a tonne of fun making—and a bombastic Spanish guitar score was five fireballs of fun out of five. When a team knows how to lean into exaggerating an obviously silly premise you get what this laser-toting, screaming-fit, face-in-the-shadows anime-voiced-cockiness game is.
Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2	Fighting	2006	85
Fight through the Dragon Ball universe as every character you can think of past, present, and future. This Tenkaichi was the pinnacle of likely all Dragon Ball Z games to come out (the best intro going to Budokai 3). The teleportation and arena gameplay mechanics are so viscerally satisfying that it’s hard to elucidate how incredibly fun this game is. One of its best features besides its immense roster being that it isn’t ‘balanced’ (in the modern sense) at all, because yes, Hercule should not be able to go toe-to-toe with Omega Shenron. This imbalance makes it so that when you’re split-screen with your friend and you whip him with a character who shouldn’t win, you find yourself in a state of gloating nirvana, a deep meditation on how dogwater they are at playing games.
Star Wars Episode I: Racer	Racing	1999	85
Podracing is a dangerous sport. Go fast but not too fast, turn carefully but don’t slow down. Your engine will break off, Sebulba will sabotage you. This racing game had no right being this fun, the levels were varied and multi-layered, the enemy AI was hard and the tempo of the races were exhilarating—even the customisation felt unique. One of the best experiences I had playing this was at an arcade attached to a theatre when Episode 1 had come out, the whole apparatus was a real life-sized podracer and yes it was as fun as it sounds. Now this is podracing.
SimCity 4	Sim Strategy	2003	85
City building extravaganza. Adjust taxes, watch cars careen off cliffs from accidents, and field complaints from your constituents to ignore. The amount of time I spent creating then destroying my cities were well spent (very fun). The music was especially good, it really felt like you were 30,000 feet above your fledgling town placing roads and creating the world itself.
Super Smash Bros.	Fighting	1999	85
Watch as your favourite characters you keep in your room gain the spark of life and proceed to beat the hell out of each other in the arena of your imagination, Mr. Hand. A groundbreaking fighting game, this honest and straightforward exploration of the power of imagination to make the impossible possible is very fun. Link throwing a fireball at Mario while Kirby inhales Captain Falcon, Pikachu electrocuting the Ice Climbers while Zelda shoots a gun at Fox, Donkey Kong smashing Yoshi into the raging river below. It’s possible to play this game then-and-now indefinitely throughout life.
Armored Core: For Answer	Action Shooter	2008	85
Everywhere is a desert, nothing lives outside, and all conflicts are solved by mechs. Customise yours and go at 1000 miles per hour with an energy sword. Oh so fun, barebones story and all, going as fast as possible or shooting a million missiles at enemies was the reason for this game’s existence. This one went full-bore with a careless disregard for safety and that’s why this is a top-tier mech game.
Tekken 2	Fighting	1995	85
Fight through a gauntlet of extraordinary fighters including but not limited to: a grizzly bear, a space ninja, a boxing kangaroo, and even Satan himself. This is a peak of fighting games for me, simple, tight, visually interesting but clear, popping this in and button mashing with family and friends never gets old nearly thirty years on. Yoshimitsu wins!
Crazy Taxi	Racing Other	2000	85
All laws have been suspended, the police have become subordinate to the taxi syndicates, Earth is now one government controlled by taxi union leaders, the whole economy revolves around manically bringing people from one location to another as violently and as physically fast as possible. Originally a very well known arcade game, with how many times most people have played it in the arcade it was worth the money to get Crazy Taxi for the Dreamcast. Fun to watch, fun to play, fun for all ages this rent-is-due simulator knows exactly what it needs to be.
Star Fox 64	Action	1997	85
Fox McCloud the evil Andross is attacking again, we must fly our polygonal planes and never turn around for anything, we must go straight to defeat him! Super fun, this rail-shooter was the first I’d ever played, and its intelligent design with diverging paths between levels made its replayability high—which my local Blockbuster benefited from greatly. All of Fox’s friends, Skippy, Falco, the frog one, were real entertaining with their quips and expressions of angst and shock moving their little mouths like puppets. Yes, you must do a barrel roll for tradition’s sake.
LittleBigPlanet	Puzzle Other	2008	85
Child’s cloth doll in a plush world is put into fun games, traversing interesting soft places to lay their little head on a cushion made of straw, escaping a burning cardboard building, or even running from the jaws of a cardboard lion. The player’s imagination was really enhanced with this very fun game. Its so innocent and so comfortable this title felt like a nuzzling blanket over the mind, its warmth lasting as long as people made new levels for it. My levels were never anything more than flights of fancy to play with the excellent physics engine but like a kid playing pretend it was very enjoyable nonetheless.
Dead Rising	Action Adventure	2006	85
Frank West, he’s covered wars you know, drops on the best story of a journalist’s career in Willamette Colorado: zombies. A surprise hit, this was a very enjoyable title that knew its own material was inherently pretty B-movie, with a large amount of replayability considering it was a linear single-player game. The time ticks down but never feels imposing to the point of not feeling fun. Dress up Frank as a woman, stroll through the shops to some relaxing mall music, and enjoy cutting zombies in half with hedge trimmers, then take a picture of more zombies swarming a poor lady—1000PP, nice.
Kingdom Hearts	Action Adventure	2001	85
Sora is on an island living a carefree life with his very best friends, but was it all just a dream? They’re gone seemingly overnight, he’s found himself in possession of something called a keyblade and he travels through many fictional places, mostly Disney related, to get to the truth, or to Kaoru his crush(?). The story is confusing but this game is the mecca for many in the 2000s, it’s not hard to see why. The game’s intro (Simple and Clean by Utada Hikaru) is essentially an AMV (anime music video) that sets the stage so well I would awake before school to turn on the PS2 just to listen to the song, amazing. Four years after release friends with their Razrs had the song as a ringtone. Before release there was lots of hype, posters were in all the game shoppes I frequented. Curiosity bit me but unfortunately, I disliked the game, it bored me, the mix between Disney and anime never appealed. Combat, everything agitated me...which no one agreed with, but at least we agreed Utada Hikaru is a great artist!
Masters of the Elements	Adventure Puzzle	1997	85
In a mysterious, shadowy, but peaceful 90s-abstract-world you must use physics to understand and manipulate the environment. A completely unknown game to the masses this was an excellent introduction to building physics-based intuition for the youth, and because of its art and general unabashed weirdness it was intriguing to those older too. Maybe the first of its kind, it was remarkable to use the mouse to manipulate objects in real-time, it blew my mind, and the minds of everyone I showed the game to.
Heavy Rain	Adventure Other	2010	80
A father who loses everything must battle depression and kidnapping to secure what little is left of his shattered life...Jaaaaaaaaaaaasooooooooon! JAAAAsoooooon! In the modern day movie games are a dime a dozen and even action-packed games have hours upon hours of cutscenes, but, Heavy Rain was top dog. Heavy Rain’s realism was so lifelike that family members would sit and watch gameplay like a good TV show! Despite being highly linear its novelty made it very enjoyable because the developers focused heavily on story and unusual gameplay.
Portal	Adventure Puzzle	2007	80
This was a triumph, I’m making a note here: stuck inside facility with overseer of questionable motives, send help. You must solve physics puzzles using a portal gun. Groundbreaking mechanics and stellar writing courtesy of Valve made this title unbelievably popular for good reason. The Orange Box was a true smorgasbord of fun.
Mirror’s Edge	Action	2008	80
Faith is a runner transporting information out of prying government eyes in an unnamed Orwellian city. This beautiful game knows what it is, and because of that tasteful constraint it manages to be something amazing and fun—its linearity making it even more enjoyable. Story wise it’s bare-bones but still compelling, the music was fantastic making you feel as though you were really on the edge of the future, and the movement gameplay was truly novel at the time: sliding wall-jumping vaulting. Keep your pre-order yellow runner’s bag close, government goons are abound.
Star Wars: Republic Commando	Action Shooter	2005	80
The Clone Wars rage on and a crack commando squad (of clones, who else?) are tasked with various missions in service of the Republic. An extraordinarily tight shooting game, this is one of the only Star Wars titles I know of that makes you feel like you’re in the ‘real’ of the Star Wars world. Like a great movie or a good book you wind up developing a genuine sympathy for your compatriots, those who should be nameless clone commandos. It takes a lot to make that work.
Toy Commander	Action Adventure	1999	80
Child toy commander, leader of little plastic men and cast-iron cars, help us defeat the evil Teddy Bear Frankenstein. This unknown game is your imagination writ large. Very creative and clever it extrapolates on what it really feels like to use imagination to blow up a spider above the bathtub with eraser artillery from your toy tank. I’ve had this as long as the Dreamcast has been out, I thought “if all the games on this system were this good...wow the Sega Dreamcast’s got a bright future!”
Jade Empire	Action Adventure	2005	80
Something is brewing in ancient China, and you are tasked with doing something to stop some force of evil, something related to jade I can’t recall twenty years on. No matter, the combat and mechanics of this Xbox title are so stellar, so unusually good, that I can’t believe more people don’t know of its existence. You can play as three different people, I think? With different specialties? All skills of which are upgradable and highly satisfying to annihilate the forces of the Jade Empire with (are they the bad guys?! Why can’t I remember). Enjoy learning digital kung fu here only because it seems this is a completely forgotten title.
Call of Duty 2	Action Shooter	2005	80
Private Bob fights on the Western front, Ensign Vlad fights in the East, Sergeant Smith deals with the Africa campaign united in one goal: stop the Nazi war machine. Most people’s first 360 game, the graphics were quite impressive for the time and the campaign was really vicious fighting. One of the best levels besides the grinder that was Normandy and the entertaining throwing of potatoes in the USSR’s tutorial was El Alamein on the hardest difficulty (Veteran), a brutal battle whose ambush still drives me mad. Split screen was still enjoyed here but gave way to Xbox Live soon after.
Far Cry 2	Action Adventure Shooter	2008	80
Welcome to Africa, prepare the malaria pills. An unnamed(?) protagonist mercenary must kill random warlords for some reason while also sick. None of the story matters, but what does is the incredible depth of gameplay for the genre. Play on the highest difficulty and watch as every encounter is fraught with trials and tribulations: rusty jamming weapons, one bullet does a justifiably immense amount of damage to you, etc. Suddenly you’re forced to justify the most elaborate tactics just to survive and you can see where this game really shines. Being scared of everything killing you in an immersive (brush fire!) world is what makes Far Cry truly fun.
Super Smash Bros. Melee	Fighting	2001	80
The whole Nintendo roster has come to fight in one big melee. A technically superb (and fun!) game it padded out its character sheet, the only real deficit from the original, but introduced an element of something undefinable that moved the game out of place to me and into a more unnecessarily consuming experience. Roy was my favourite and when this released I remember scrambling to figure out how to get a memory card because of unlocking Ganondorf, the mechanic of unlocking characters in such dramatic fashion really surprised me. I was very excited for this title and it didn’t disappoint but I still winded up liking the original better for its atmosphere.
Power Stone 2	Fighting	2000	80
Anime-land is under duress, its chaotic and messy and bright and there’s only one group of conspicuous gems to save it or make it worse: the Power Stone (stones?)! A 3D arena fighting game extraordinaire, this game expanded my mind on what was possible in a fighting game, its 3D arena antics and progression felt very different. The only character I can remember is the creepy guy who later showed up in Soulcaliber with the three-pronged knife; Power Stone has great character design.
Black & White 2	Strategy Other	2005	80
From the void you are formed, your goal: increase your worshipers by any means you desire. Never have I ever had such a hard time installing a game in my life, despite that this was the most anticipated PC game for me. This was unreal amounts of fun. Black and White’s dynamism was always ahead of its time, having your choices (similar to Fable) affect the way your followers react or the way your god-hand looks.
Crash Team Racing	Action Racing	1999	80
Crash is forced into a Grand Prix with his friends and enemies. One of the best go-kart style racing games, the open world concept of traveling with your kart between races was pretty cool and felt new. Crash Team Racing was a favourite, the faster the better!
Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee	Action Adventure	2001	80
Creatures on this Oddworld planet are processed as meat, a small squat one gets an implant on his head and can do telekinesis, while the tall one gawks at things. A very deliberately odd game, its got a great atmosphere although I had no idea what exactly was happening. Its gameplay was also equally odd but I was entertained and was able to tell there was layers of subtlety I wasn’t entirely getting all those years ago.
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter	Action Shooter	2006	80
You are functionally-nameless special operations soldier in desert land #200, but you have super advanced technology. Advanced technology then being: drones, guns that shoot around corners. A fun game it did feel near future and most importantly the gameplay was tight and commanding your squadmates was not a pain, which was impressive in and of itself.
Grand Theft Auto	Action Shooter	1997	80
Commit crimes by playing as one of a few shifty characters who are clearly up to no good, Grand Theft Auto made you feel like a criminal from the outset. The story was nonexistent but the novelty of hijacking vehicles and running over pedestrians, gaining points for doing so, then getting into a shootout with police was very, very shocking at the time. I obtained this title a year or so after release and even back in those halcyon 90s word got around about a nearly evil game that no normal person should enjoy playing. I remember running a woman over and getting some amount of points and could feel the moral degradation...and thought how on Earth I was able to purchase this title!?
Combat Flight Simulator 3: Battle for Europe	Action Sim Shooter	2002	75
Dogfight and bomb in very realistic detail, set in World War 2. I cannot express how goddamn fun this game was. The ability to dogfight realistically, holes in wing and totally realistic mechanics for crashing, your wing getting clipped, blacking out because you think you’re a super pilot etc...I would fantasise about running home to play this for a whole day.
Tiny Tank	Action Shooter	1999	75
It’sssss Tiny Tankkkk! The affable little engine of destruction and chaos for the American $#!*ing empire that’s who; actually Tiny Tank is his slave name, he prefers Mechanacore Tank of Doom. He isn’t good at selling weapons to the American taxpayer but he sure is good at surviving the rigours of a dying planet. This was the most surprisingly funny games I’ve ever played, everyone involved in making this, the manual, the script, especially the voice acting, and even the assets were having an absolute blast.
Banjo-Kazooie	Adventure	1998	75
A bear and his pal woodpecker combine strengths to fight evil witch lady. Pure fun, this title has some great music and enterprising spirit. It knows it’s a kids game and because of that it excels at everything it needs to to be fun, ironically enough making it fun for all ages. I enjoyed the saccharine colours and I especially loved the use of the banjo in what felt like every musical cue.
Manhunt	Action Horror Other	2006	75
A capital murderer is about to be executed, at the last second he’s saved by an individual who presses him into the service of wealthy benefactors who wish to make something very sick: a live snuff film. In Carcer city, that gaping wound on the body of America, arguably the most dangerous and miserable realistically plausible place in fiction, this killer you play as brutally murders the scum of the city, while the game’s camera shows the executions from voyeuristic CCTV cameras. Dirty and very disgusting this game got a lot of flak back when it released, which makes sense as it’s basically a murder simulator that criticises the voyeurism of modern America and the entertainment industry’s role in emboldening it. The rundown factory heartland aesthetic was very prominent in those days since America was then fully deindustrialised, its people deracinated and fully drugged by pharmaceutical companies. I like game big much, unrestrained brutality is big fun stress relief plastic bag go over head no breathe, bad guy justified target feel resolution of sense of lack of justice, oogh.
Drakan: The Ancients' Gates	Action Adventure	2002	75
Dragon Whisperer Redhead Warrior Woman (who is actually pretty cool and not one-dimensional which is rare) must stop forces of evil from maybe opening a gate to some extradimensional extra-evil evil. I expected nothing from the gameplay even all those decades ago, but was pleasantly surprised. The mechanics of flying the dragon and the RPG-like elements of obtaining weapons were all genuinely fun. The story itself was simple but effective and the design of the bad guys were disturbing at the end especially, all the flesh and threshing. Who knew this completely unknown game would be so good?
Trauma Center: Second Opinion	Other	2006	75
(Cue that great nameless song) Doctor Generic Wunderkind is an expert surgeon in anime-land despite being twenty years old. A menagerie of ailments passes through this very busy hospital, use your Wii’s nunchucks to clumsily nearly cut the vocal cords of a singer with polyps in her throat or something, wow, exciting! The novelty of the motion sensing Wii controllers were the much of why this was enjoyable, the other parts being the fun music and the absolutely ridiculous story, how are there this many strange cases in one place?!
Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy	Action Adventure	2001	75
Jak and Daxter, the elf and ferret duo have an adventure that involves some sort of portal and an object (probably related to the Precursor’s Legacy) I can’t very well remember, there is also a green-haired elf that I liked a lot too. The demo for this was essentially one of my first games for the PS2, the game itself got a little lost in the shuffle of the million PS2 games that were releasing every month.
Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind	Adventure	2002	75
A prisoner awakes on a ship wondering why they’re the key to stopping some sort of apocalypse. Good luck! A very interesting and deeply mysterious game...Cliff things instantly killing me after jumping 400 feet in the air at 100 miles per hour into the unknown fog with those scrolls I found mysterious. The combat makes me agitated and is so lackluster it makes the game not fun. It was very hard for me to enjoy. The modded version on the PC that makes combat bearable makes this fun to play, but I do appreciate it for everything else.
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron	Action	1998	75
“Rebel scum led by infamous terrorist Skywalker commits heinous criminal property damage using modified and stolen vehicles, murdered unarmed officers of peace among the dead and wounded. Is your local space station next?” – Coruscant Senate Post. Play as the rebellion and fight the empire one battle at a time. One of my favourite Nintendo 64 games as a kid, I was fascinated by its depiction of the different ships in the hanger, as well as the general atmosphere of the select screens, sights, sounds. A favourite level was Hoth where you cabled the AT-AT’s legs, brilliant.
Tomba! 2	Action Adventure	1999	75
Pink-haired gibberish-speaking caveman Tomba has an arch-nemesis pig return...from the first game I think. This 2.5D title has satisfying movement and great sound design—I really like the dramatic music when something worrisome is happening in a cutscene, it sounds like the musical manifestation of danger. Since its release in America I know no one else who’s played this.
Star Wars: Droid Works	Puzzle Other	1998	75
The pit, the droid werks, the Huttian hole, where all useful droids are made....by children 13 and under. This edutainment title was really fun for a kid’s game—sometime in 99 I was playing this on a friend’s family computer instead of outside, that’s how good—they put a lot of effort into this and it shows; what kid doesn’t like to build robots?
Fusion Frenzy	Other	2001	75
Welcome to the future where cool people compete by rolling around like hamsters in the underground wearing their sick early Y2K street clothes, wicked fresh. I played the demo often and enjoyed every minute, the game itself is standard party-game affair but cool and modern (for the time).
Myst	Puzzle	1993	75
Entering the world of a mysterious book you’ve fallen into called Myst you must find a way out. For its time a bombastically weird and interesting game, unfortunately for me I don’t like point-and-click games whatsoever with one exception. The story of Myst itself is great and so different visually it has certainly influenced much downstream. I’m very glad this game exists and I enjoy its strange 3D landscapes.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles	Action Adventure	2004	75
There’s a complex story in here about crystals and I bet it has to do with saving the world, not that I can remember it. I do not enjoy this type of game usually, but despite that I found myself a little enthralled by the strangeness of this Final Fantasy title when it released. There was a unique mechanic I really liked involving the Game Boy Advance. I remember it was nearly sisyphean to play alone.
The Sims	Sim	2000	70
Sul sul! Welcome to the neighbourhood, build your house and play what is essentially the living doll game. Eat, cook, clean, woohoo then clean again. This first entry into the series was quite novel but still in a kind of rough shape. A game like this benefits greatly from exaggerated asset counts among a few other things, but despite the lack of that here the prototype for a better sequel was lain at the foundation of Maxis’s franchise. The manual also provided a great guide on what books to read to understand the Sims as a concept better, and is still a good book recommendation list today! The Sims was fascinating to me when it came out, the idea of a virtual doll game seemed so obvious in retrospect I was surprised it wasn’t attempted before—I played this on the PS2 for the first time but it’s more commonly a PC title.
Rise of Nations	Strategy	2004	70
They keep on rising. A Civilization analog this allows you to fight, build, and strategise as a specific nation, America, Japan, etc. Its difference between the regular Civilization series is a little fuzzy to me but from what I can remember it’s more action-based, less turn-based...in some capacity. It was quite fun for 2004, how it holds up today is up for debate. The voice line easter eggs in the chat /99 or something like that were entertaining, they truly do keep on rising.
Warhawk	Action Shooter	2007	70
Planes shriek overhead, your PS3’s fan is shrieking too. This game had no story but damn was flying planes with friends online fun. Flying through tight spaces and hovering in corners shooting enemies down did not seem to get old, but like most PS3 games not many were even online in this game to begin with. Warhawk was good for what it knew it was.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004	Sim	2003	70
Recreate passenger-favourite flights in real-time and in excruciating detail—in which you immediately ignore ATC becoming a rogue plane international security threat—such as: LAX to Hong Kong, 14-16 hours or JFK to LAX, 4-5 hours. I don’t know what I expected getting my little blue glowing flight simulator HOTAS (hands on throttle-and-stick) setup...hey I can see the 110th floor again!
Fur Fighters	Action Shooter	2000	70
Anthropomorphic animals duke it out in some cool locales. This odd game had unusually creative character and environment designs. I played the demo for this so much when I got the actual game I almost didn’t even know what to do with myself.
Blinx: The Time Sweeper	Action Adventure	2002	70
Be wary of time traveling cats named Blinx. The demo for this game was very fun but as for the game I don’t remember anything aside from time manipulation elements which were radical and very entertaining. This title was left by the wayside by everyone.
Cities: Skylines	Sim Strategy	2015	70
Build your city in definitely-not-modern-SimCity (wink). After the disaster that was the modern SimCity in 2013 or whenever this quickly came out the pipeline. A fine game it passably continues the SimCity tradition where Maxis obviously cannot. Although like Maxis the studio has begun to fail its Sim obligations and now this game has two-hundred-million DLC packs much of which is to add what should be standard features. Better still, the sequel Cities: Skylines 2 is apparently dogwater! Yippee more shortsighted failure gristle!
Final Fantasy X	Action Adventure	2001	65
Japanese surfer Tidus goes on some adventure to save the world(?) with staff woman wearing a really long skirt and guy who plays combat volleyball; Tidus takes sports trips to indulge in floating drownball himself. This was beach aquamarine the game, which I liked but was not unique in the early 2000s. The story was beyond me but I do know is that if one more person told me how good Final Fantasy is I would break, so I got the newest iteration (10) and could not stand the melodrama (Tidus laugh), the gameplay, the writing...and the absolutely bizarre sports obsession. Even as a wee lad it confused me how they could hold their breathe in that water orb, no explanation just tacit acceptance, whatever it’s all contrived anyways. Most of the personal dislike was combat, but compared to the dumpster fire of games today it was certainly a decent game.
Kenshi	Action Adventure Other	2018	65
Across the rust-littered wastes a legless alien-bug Hiver slowly drags himself through the hot sand, a belly full of spoiled meat, a wooden staff for defence, a two-handed tool for a future one-handed fight on account of his other arm being shattered. Slavers clad in a hodgepodge of metal and leather crest a dune, they spot his pathetic crippled form. Frantic and vicious they sprint for a fresh slave, but, behind them, a group of single-minded Dune Walkers clambers over that crest too. Insects with no compunction or allegiance, the Hiver buries his head in the sand, curses his luck, and accepts his fate...until seconds later an inquisitive eye takes a peek and sees slavers dead or dying, the mighty stabbing legs of the Walkers unsteadily meandering back over that mound of sand, their mandibles having had their fill. The Hiver is safe, and look, free supplies! A lifetime of grueling manual labour escapes him for now. Otherwise known as the slaver dodging experience, Kenshi is incredibly fun despite being an absolute janky mess. Accept the jank, embrace the jank, become the jank.
Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars	Strategy	2007	65
Space crystals called Tiberium have landed on Earth(?) and now the Nod terrorists are exploiting its volatile yet highly energetic nature in a battle with aliens who also want it, and I guess the United Nations faction. The voice acting and cinematics in this game are superb, hilariously (and knowingly) B-movie in the most endearing way as usual for Command and Conquer. As for the game itself its fun for even those not particularly inclined to strategy, and a real treat to play with friends.
Hydro Thunder	Racing	1999	65
Hydro Thunderrrrr! A very fun arcade racing game, this elaborately built cabinet-and-seat was always blaring out as you walked by and you just had to put a few quarters in. The boats were all so very sleek and cool and the racing itself was intense. The whole thing was so loud and brash and colourful you couldn’t help but be entertained by the boldness of it all. It also came out on a few consoles but I only ever saw it (and had it) for the Nintendo 64.
Robotech: Battlecry	Action Shooter	2002	65
Command a super cool Gundam-lookalike-but-skinnier robot in anime-land that can transform at will! That’s about all I can remember about the game, and that it also takes place in space generally. Definitely fun to shoot stuff, and with the transformations felt like you were doing something ‘epic’ like a show, but with no real compelling story.
Dead or Alive 3	Fighting	2001	65
Do you enjoy buxom babes wrestling? Look no further, they can fight too. This game had no right being so enjoyable beyond its visual appeal, some of the arena mechanics were simply amazing, it really felt like you were fighting in a dynamic stage. To this day you still can’t find any games (that I’m aware of) that take advantage of the stage like this game does. The purple-haired fighter was my favourite when this came out, she was a real killer, yea...sorry I got distracted what was I saying?
Stellaris	Strategy	2016	60
Auto-generate an alien or human race and pretend to be a future Julius Caesar. What would be a really fun and frankly great game is mired by a deep lack of direction, so that every second or third year you come back to it and it’s a whole new game, but negatively. The gameplay is decent but suffers from schizophrenic management issues; Stellaris just devolves into a power fantasy in the end and instead of accepting that’s what the game is the studio tries pretending it’s better than that, like most people who play this. All-in-all the game is only fun for so long with the amount of money you have to waste to get anywhere with its ten-million expansions.
Croc: Legend of the Gobbos	Adventure	1997	60
Cute-toothed croc must do something with saving Gobbos I can’t fully remember, but the atmosphere of it all was pleasant and genial. Bog-standard platformer but because of its development in the mid-90s had an element of experimentation that belies later platformers’ styles.
MechAssault	Action Shooter	2002	60
Mechs are the new state of warfare in the dim future, command one and enjoy trying to run through buildings. A now-unknown game this was a real blast when it came out, although there’s not much I remember aside from deeply enjoying being a giant robot destroying buildings indiscriminately.
Prison Architect	Sim	2015	60
Tasked with building a prison, you need to balance safety and revenue. Despite not being a particularly good game if you like to manage things in a shallow way this can be entertaining. Also pretty good fun is the completely broken prisoner mode where you can escape from prisons you’ve designed or others’ prisons put up on-line.
Dark Souls	Action Adventure	2011	60
Lost souls anonymous called, they want their soul back. A pale facsimile of Demon’s Souls, this overwrought adventure thinks to itself: you know what would make an incredible game like the previous one? Stuffing ten-thousand disjointed things at every junction! Like a four hour movie Dark Souls attempts to be everything all at once, and as a result is an exercise in stamina.
Tenchu Z	Action	2006	55
This fun ninja simulator lets you dress up your ninja and go on missions with some pretty slick assassinations. Not only that but the cooperative multiplayer was amazing when it worked well, best played with friends. When G4 still existed we were incidentally ‘on the show’ as the only four (or six?) people still playing Tenchu Z online, as at one point the least played multiplayer on the 360 was this title!
Tonic Trouble	Action Adventure	1999	55
Formerly inanimate produce is coming alive...or people are turning into vegetables or...something. LSD the game is what this should be renamed to. Extraordinarily weird it was a standard 3D platformer if memory serves me well. Fun for reasons unexplainable, maybe tainted a bit by the chocolate milk and Ritz crackers I got hungry for while playing.
Glover	Adventure	1998	55
Being a magic circus(?) glove is hard work, roll balls of various compositions and weights to accomplish random goals to achieve a larger goal I can’t really remember. Something simple manages to be quite fun, especially when renting it for the weekend from Blockbuster or finding it as a stocking stuffer!
HSX: Hypersonic.Xtreme	Racing Other	2003	55
Welcome to alternative WipeOut, where you can also build your own tracks. If you enjoy WipeOut but want to sound mysterious and alternative Hypersonic whatever is just a darker version of it. Its greatest feature being the amazing track editor, many hours of enjoyment were had, many ships went flying off at eight-hundred miles per hour. There was a glitch where you could go outside the track boundaries and go infinitely fast on the ground, super fun. I’m convinced not a single soul knows of this game’s existence.
MechAssault 2	Action Shooter	2004	55
Mechs are still the state of warfare, but now you’re allowed to leave yours during a battle! Not much about this was novel aside from leaving the mech mechanic, something you’d think would be very fun but was only okay. Essentially the same as the first game but less gritty. I was very hyped for being able to leave your mech.
Monkey Magic	Action Adventure	1999	50
Sun Wukong borne from a meteor, you must go into the sewer and dodge dripping toxic waste. A very weird game that has no right to be fun but kinda is. This platformer has really interesting art at the least. The opening video when starting the game is hilariously and endearingly strange. Monkey Magic was based on a show I’d never heard of, and neither has anyone heard of this game either.
Halo Wars	Strategy	2009	50
Have you ever wanted to command a squad of marines to attack a Covenant squad of Jackals? This lets you. A random game that turned out a little less well than Bungie had hoped, it was fun just for the novelty of being above the world of Halo looking down instead of getting a plasma grenade to the face on the ground playing as the Master Chief.
Fighting Force	Action Fighting	1997	50
The favourite of a lot of meatheads with PS1s in the late 90s for some reason, you’re apparently a cop or a group of mercenary para-military cop-helpers...or something. You beat people up in 3D, which was fun and different back then, but this bare-bones game was just okay. Its forgotten nature made it a little more enticing to me as the years went by but only for artistic reasons.
Blade & Mount II: Bannerlord	Action	2022	50
Little stacks of knights that say ni! romp around fictional Europe, jankily and with zero humour. What would be a really fun game is sadly marred by this confused state of wanting to be an actual strategy game (the bad part) but then having a medieval combat simulator where the settings go up to ‘realistic’ (the good part). What makes it a little worse is instead of recognising that the game must fundamentally changed the oddball developers ignore that and have inconsequential updates constantly breaking all mods, the only scaffolding making the game really fun.
The Sims 3	Sim	2009	45
Des grobel...a malformed Sims game, Maxis had too many dollar signs in their eyes. Despite having such a large amount of assets the classic blunder occured: Sims 2 was so good, so popular, so widely loved that the mod scene for that game made Sims 2 a Sims 3 over time. No amount of expansions or packs or whatever could have Sims 3 keep up with its previous entry, and for another strange reason some features or mechanics of this third installment felt less real/detailed than the Sims 2. I was looking forward to this game like an addict looks forward to their next fix...to great disappointment.
Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life	Sim	2004	45
Inheriting(?) a farm is hard work, make the most of it one agonisingly slow day at a time. It felt as though I was told to enjoy this game but never did, it was languid, almost melancholic, and boring as a result.
Earth Defense Force 2017	Action Shooter	2007	45
I’m from Yokohama and I say, kill em’ all! A hilariously cheap game, that is a tonne of fun to play with friends, buggy (heh) weird and cheesy this title knows how to party—no ulterior motive like modern multiplayer games, no DLC, just pure action. Watch ten million giant ants come down from UFOs to spit acid at you and your friend, the same friend who is now flying off of a building because a mechanical wasp is trying to kill him while your two other pals are launching giant missiles at beetles?!
Hot Wheels Stunt Track Driver	Racing	1998	45
A trailer full of Hot Wheels errata winds up on your suburban doorstep, go crazy. It felt like half the fun from this game came from imagining the luck you’d have getting that many Hot Wheels at once, the other half was from the style of playing at the scale of an actual toy in your house.
Enter the Matrix	Action	2003	45
Neo no what are you doing, you’re not supposed to eat both pills! This janky computer game was very fun simply by virtue of being able to slow-motion jump and shoot like the movie (and that one detective from New York). I remember feeling like an u83r 37l33t h4ckz3r trying to play this. It had a good atmosphere.
Crysis	Action Adventure	2007	40
Can your box run Crysis? Mine absolutely couldn’t, but the few times I was able to play it it was gorgeous and fun...albeit not really a good game. This had no story, it was simply a graphics showoff and everyone played it for exactly that reason. For the frame I got to see every few seconds I tried throwing soldiers and being a supersoldier and I liked it.
Call of Duty 3	Action Shooter	2006	40
Sergeant McClintok Master Gunnery Chief Iwo Jima Bayonet Charge VD on R&R in Australia Man. This was a terrible holdover Call of Duty—with vehicles gimmick—before they started to move to greener pastures. I had exactly one good experience playing this: some domination/capture-the-flag map where we threw ourselves into the abyss to capture this one flag for what felt like nearly twenty minutes.
Avorion	Action Other	2017	40
Another blocky game, but in space. The only goal is to reach the Galactic Core, but in the meantime you fight loot and build your ship. It’s not a very good game but it’s fun and simple and has interesting ways to make your spacecraft different, of course whatever newest version nearly a decade later is probably so different it’s a whole new game, but the old version was fun.
Tak and the Power of Juju	Action Adventure	2003	40
A six-figure sum could fall into my lap and I still won’t be able to tell you what this game was remotely about. Completely forgettable. The platforming was presumably fine cause I don’t remember any complaints, but hell if I knew what was going on.
Turok: Evolution	Action Shooter	2002	35
Brutally kill random anthropomorphic dinosaur soldiers and wildlife. A senseless game, a poor one that manages to be a very fun prehistoric murder simulator. If you want a friendly non-human Postal or Manhunt play this and watch heads splat. Enjoyed this game maybe a little too much on release—viscerally satisfying in a primitive way.
Modern Warfare 3	Action Shooter	2013	35
A significant downgrade from Modern Warfare 2—not even in the same class. There is no story, the gameplay inexplicably sucks and isn’t fun despite its predecessor being one of the best shooting games ever. Simply a sloppy title.
Sim Theme Park	Sim Strategy	1999	30
Don’t be deterred by the deformed child shrieking lifelessly on the cover, this game does have an inkling of a shadow of fun. This oddball attempt at a Rollercoaster Tycoon clone for the PS1 is really so bad, but its so simple, and so pathetic you can’t help but make a little malformed park for these bobbing creatures that spawn from the aether at your entrance. Enjoy watching people scream for a bathroom as you delete the last path out of the park, trapping them there forever to spooky Halloween music (that was not even half bad). What a weird title.
Tonka Construction	Other	1997	25
TONKA! construction noises TONKA! jackhammer sounds TONKA! big yellow truck backing up TONKA! An actual child’s game where not much really happens, a child’s game that has so much yellow everywhere and is so rudimentary it inadvertently becomes entertaining.
No Man’s Sky	Action Adventure	2016	25
Dreadfully boring, this game has some technology behind it and not much else. There is no real story, it’s just a mishmash of ugly aliens, you go from saturated world A to unsaturated world B to scan Z and build X, all numbers and planets and species that mean nothing; the game appeals the most to spurned 30+ year old men who substitute owning a home with building a virtual base and traveling abroad with space fantasies. At first what looks like a lake is really simply a pond—it suffers severely from procedural generation disease, akin to Daggerfall but worse. Infestation syndrome also wracks No Man’s Sky, a perpetual beta or even alpha is its symptoms and it will never get better. The modern gamer is so mentally broken the studio behind it has now been rehabilitated via free half-baked expansions similar to bribing a fat kid with candy.
Spore	Action Sim Strategy Other	2008	20
Playing god from the cellular level all the way to flying around in a spaceship, but make it not good. Somehow the team over at Maxis failed at making a game that sounds inherently fun...fun. The beginning stages were a joy, especially the creature creator, but this whole debacle was a result of failed expectations via the gaming magazine hype machine. I acquired this on release and felt embarrassingly betrayed that I wasn’t blown away, I was a little deflated as the joy of the beginning waned.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO)	Shooter	2012	20
Here’s a bought key to buy a box to buy a gun skin. Introducing Golden Dragon RARE M4 that will sell for $10,000 in two years, add the modern gamer’s favourite accessory: the dangling key-chain of a semi-nude 4000-year-old anime child. B2B[Sales_bYOTCH]: HEAD in the GAME get ur fucking HEAD IN THE GAME claims to be able to doxx you, vape break behind his condo his dad got him, goes 1-13-3* [nolif3]: pro-gamer kills everyone from angles that don’t obey Euclidean geometry [Cervessssa]: whining in Spanglish, loud smacking sounds a slipper hitting linoleum, you can hear his fat through his laboured breath DLEI[lIlIlIliiii] Chinese player cursing your entire bloodline because of a single missed shot, he WILL claim you’re of Korean or Japanese ancestry* This is such a dogwater shooter; every person is personally invested to a degree that would get them committed twenty years ago. Not even fun if you’re great at it (I don’t play this highstrung crap).
Sonic the Hedgehog	Action Adventure	2006	20
Terrible game in comparison to the Sonic Adventures especially, can’t remember anything about it aside from Sonic being with some human and everything about the gameplay itself being really drab, and boring. All I can recall is getting this and then wondering how and why this can be so much worse than Sonic Adventure.
Dragon Ball Z: Sagas	Fighting	2005	20
Budokai’s physically and mentally enfeebled brother, why this game was made I’ll never understand. Deeply confused by its existence I played it for a few hours and recognised that I got scammed: barely any characters in its roster, the combat blew. It was unnecessarily restrictive, forget about having fun it deserved the trash, but I put it back on the shelf...and kept the horrible experience to myself.
Sherwood Dungeon	Action Adventure	2005	20
Green purple blue and yellow knights you must run around with other children whose parents won’t pay a WoW subscription and pretend to know what’s going on in this infernal game. Stumbling upon this was like a fever dream two decades ago, I assumed no one was playing it until I loaded the Flash instance or whatever and there was literally over a hundred people meandering around. At least it’s something to do for bored kids back in the day.
Warpath: Jurassic Park	Fighting	1999	20
Do you like movies about gladiators? Have you ever seen a grown T-Rex naked? Have you ever been to a cretaceous bathhouse? No one believed me when I said there was a Jurassic Park fighting game, but alas with the advent of information technology the proof is beyond the confines of my humble abode. I picked the wrong week to stop huffing prehistoric fossilized jenkem. This is so marginally fun even for the novelty its really only worth looking at in passing.
Starbound	Adventure	2013	20
Something bad happens in space and you’re meant to help somehow? A Terraria-like game that really seems like it would be fun, but never is at any point—remarkably shallow, an empty vessel where a complete experience is supposed to be.
Phantasmagoria	Horror Other	1995	15
The story is inscrutable to me but I remember very attractive women and highly weird point-and-click shenanigans. It was fun in a distinct way, but a pretty poor ‘game’. Played this a few years after release I was so confused by it all...it made me a little nervous, it felt leery and adult.
BRINK	Action Shooter	2011	15
An unknown story, unknown people running around awkwardly around water and futuristic towers, I have never seen something come-and-go so quickly. It looked modestly appealing, for inscrutable reasons, maybe its clean colours like Mirror’s Edge; despite that it managed to only get me to play for about an hour and half and never again.
Universal Studios Theme Park Adventure	Other	2001	10
Soulless living advertisement of a game. I could not believe my bad luck getting this title, I only thank god it wasn’t the very first game I played on the Gamecube, a game to despoil that purple beauty. My abject confusion was palpable when I was forced to pretend to like this game (it was a gift...), but when you only have one or three games even the worst titles become at least vaguely interesting, even if it’s for their stupidity.
Two Worlds	Action Adventure	2007	10
An evil arch-mage does something evil, and he’s also conveniently right outside the starting area waiting to taunt you. An absolute trashcan of a game, that if you don’t mind touring the badness of you’ll actually have a bit of fun exploring this bug-riddled mess. Advertised as an Oblivion clone it piqued my interest and boy were they wrong but it was evident from press releases it’d be an insane title.
SimCity (2013)	Sim Strategy	2013	5
I’d like to introduce EA’s kid: Executive-abortion Sludge-goop Failson Always-online Rebrand-cocaine-frenzy Golden-parachute the Thirteenth, born March 6th, 2013, here’s his picture :) why are you throwing up?
Superman 64	Action Racing	1999	5
Arguably one of the worst games in existence. If you love flying aimlessly (with the worst controls) through glowing, floating hoops in a dead city this is for you. Lex Luthor is trying to kill you Superman, fly through these hoops to make him upset. The only part that can be construed as fun is going back to the late 90s and journeying to the Blockbuster so your expectations are completely different than our convenient modernity, regressing to a childlike state, and using your frost breath once and picking up that car in the beginning and flying around until the timer expires. On release this was the first game I played that was 3D and also ‘open world’—in the absolute most liberal sense of the phrase—that involved flying as opposed to something on rails like Starfox 64 and that was kinda fun if you used your imagination. Failing was a little interesting too cause Lex’s laugh was on repeat in a kind of dementedly entertaining way.
Championship Motocross	Racing	1999	0
There is nothing redeemable, graphics, gameplay, music in this horrendous game. Like a curse it got passed on to me from some lucky soul and its been a pox in my CD case going on two and a half decades. The controls especially make me want to shatter my wrists.