My Top 10 Video Games

This list was hard, of course. There have been countless games played on many different systems throughout my life. I'm probably one of the youngest people that can say "Do you remember "Pong""? Not only do I remember Pong, but I remember enjoying it. For me, Pong begot Atari...which begot Nintendo....which begot Sega....which begot Playstation...which begot Playstation 2. With the exception of computer games, that's where I've stopped. I always told myself that I could play video games up until age 30. To me, being 30 years old was TOO old to play games. Certainly, my video games playing has diminished, but I still enjoy them. I think the people who USED to enjoy video games will ALWAYS enjoy video games. I know people in their 40s that play video games of some sort. I play them enough to enjoy them, without so much that I can't function as a grown adult. If people of ALL AGES can sit and watch their favorite TV shows for entertainment, why can't they sit and play video games for entertainment? Why can an adult play solitaire on the computer and be normal, but playing football on the Playstation be childish? Hmmm?

That being said, I rarely dust off the old PS2. I'll get into a groove where I'll play it for 5-6 nights a week, and then I don't hook it up for months. That's just how it goes. I'll regularly take a few minutes out of my day when I'm on the upstairs computer to play a few minutes of Crysis. It's quick, it's easy, and I'm back downstairs before anyone can say "Maximum Armor". That's obviously a Crysis reference that only Stephen will be able to get.

I'm going to list my Top 10 video games. I will include a few honorable mentions. One of them is Indiana Jones for the Atari. I saw a couple of clips on Youtube about this game a month or so ago. One was how to beat the game in 10 minutes, and another was a critique calling it one of the worst video games ever made. At the time, I thought it was good. After seeing how to beat it off of the youtube, I realize that I could have never beaten it at that age because there were things you had to do that there was NO way to figure out. For a long time after I got my Nintendo, I remember thinking, "I need to go back and beat that game". Other Atari games I remember liking included Asteroids, Berserk, Missile Command, Atari Football, Star Wars, and ET. I also spent a lot of time playing Atari Baseball with Isaac Smith at this house. I owned the game, but when I visited, I brought it and we played it. We loved it.

Most of the great video games were games I enjoyed playing with other people. I remember playing Eternal Champions with all the fellas in High School and College. I remember playing Blades of Steel and Double Dribble with my dad. I remember pumping quarters into the Double Dragon Arcade game at the bowling alley, playing Michael and Phillip Imbriano. Speaking of Philly, I played a lot of NHL Hockey against him at the Imbriano house. We literally played several 7 games series with his Chicago Blackhawks against my Buffalo Sabres. I played Half Life on the computer with Todd and Kris. Half Life was a groundbreaking game that revolutionized 1st person shooting games....or "murder simulators", as they were once dubbed by the video game haters out there. Good times, as evidence by my memory of them all. Oh yeah...I almost forgot "Romance of the 3 Kingdoms", which was a great war strategy game based in 2nd century China. Todd, Michael, and I played this on my Nintendo for hours.

Anyway, on to the list...



Best Video Games

#10 Twisted Metal 2.....This was a great game that Marc and I played religiously. It was kind of a futuristic car combat game. The game was cool, the action was very good. It was a very engaging game. It really got your blood pumping. The music was absolutely awesome. The first Twisted Metal and 2 or 3 sequels have blown. Twisted Metal 2 was so popular that it enabled the company to keep making newer versions despite the fact that they sucked. That is a tribute to it's greatness.

#9 Mortal Kombat 3.....It was hard to pick one of these Mortal Kombat games to put on this list because they were all good for their time. I'm putting the 3rd one on there. I probably played this one as much as any. We all played it, but I'm sure I played Marc more than anyone else. Kano made his return in this game, and although Baraka wasn't in it, they added the new combo feature which really improved the gameplay. To be honest, I think Eternal Champions was as much fun as any of the other fighting games out there, but it wasn't as popular and didn't garner the attention. They never made another one. They've made 1,000 Mortal Kombat games, though.

#8 Crysis....I got this game (and a wonderful computer to play it on) for Christmas. It was part of what will be my last big Christmas from my parents. An awesome machine to play an awesome game on, and I got to PLAY at Christmas...again...after all these years. And, I played throughout the Winter, Spring, and Summer too. This game might be the most amazing video game I've ever seen, much less played. It's heart pumping action. At some point, I'll play Stephen at this game. It's like Half Life in a way, but an updated version of it. It's like being in a movie. You're out there...with automatic weapons..and you have things you need to achieve. You can achieve them however you want. You can walk around and flank your enemy..you can rush them...snipe them or get close and choke them. You can even drive a vehicle into the midst of them. Total freedom. It's a thrill.

#7 Madden 95....How do you separate the Madden and NCAA games? You can't really. All the EA Sports football games were similar each year they came out. I'm putting 95 on the list because it was MUCH better than 94. All of the games have been better than the previous one, but this one was much better than it's prequel. And, it was the version that was new when I was a freshman in college living in the dorm. Marc, Todd, Michael, Dwight, and I played this game like there was no tomorrow. Sadly, there WAS a tomorrow...and that tomorrow meant classes for which we were too exhausted to pay attention. That's what happens when you play video games until 3:00am. Having the EA Sports Football game this far down on my list is probably crazy, since I've played these football games more than any other kind of game...EASILY, in fact. But, since I've played this brand of football video game for about 14 years, it's hard to separate them all. Obviously, the newest ones are better than the older ones...but I'm going with this one because of the camaraderie we all shared via this game.

#6 Mario Kart.....This was another college freshman game for the Nintendo 64, which I didn't own. I had to play this in Marc and Todd's room. This game was just plain fun. It was so exciting and nerve racking that I was frequently laughing while playing because of the tension. Any minute, you knew you could get your clock cleaned by a turtle shell. It was silly, but it was just fun. I played it over and over and over. It wasn't cool or awesome, but it was just a lot of fun.

#5 Contra.....This game means 2 things to me...Stephen and Thanksgiving. It was an awesome (for it's time) action game that we played for hours. I always felt like it was kinda based off of Predator, slightly. Anybody who played Nintendo games back then know the following...up down up down left right left right B A B A select start. That code turned up in a few games. It gave you 30 lives instead of just 3 lives...and I needed them because your "partner" can steal your lives when he runs out. I think Stephen usually took about 50 of our combined 60 lives.

#4 Bases Loaded....This game makes me think of Summer. It was a wonderful Nintendo baseball game that my dad and I played a lot. The teams and player names were fictitious, and the players used metal bats for some reason that I haven't figured out yet...but the game was one of the best baseball games ever. A lot of my Summer days were spent going from the pool to my room, over and over. It was swimming and then video games and then swimming and then video games. This game was great. It looked good, and the controls were fairly easy to master. Like all good games, the music was pretty good. "PING"...that's the sound of Norkus blasting a "Thousand Hitter" Hinter pitch over the left field wall.

#3 Test Drive 4....A lot of the games I've mentioned involved either Stephen or my dad. This game involved both. It was a great racing game that we played a lot. It was very involving and full of action. We hooked Playstations up and could play the game on 2 different TV's. My dad liked it so much that, after Stephen went back home after that visit, he bought his own playstation and video game. I remember my mom telling me that he was making her sit and watch him play. I find that story hilarious to this day. My mom has that experience in common with most of the young women half her age who are made to watch their boyfriends play video games. The '69 Corvette against the Hemi-Cuda. What's not to like?

#2 Tecmo Bowl.....This game was awesome. It was Madden before Madden. Despite the retarded name, the football was great. The teams looked like the real NFL teams (color patterns), and they had an agreement with the player's association so they could use the real names..but they couldn't use the real TEAM names. They had made up helmets designs, but the actual colors and real player's names. Go figure. A little odd, but it didn't matter. They made Bo Jackson the most explosive player ever...and for some reason, made Cleveland Browns Runningback Kevin Mack with a stiff arm that could send anyone flying all the way out of bounds. Then, there was Lawrence Taylor. It was impossible to kick a field goal against the Giants because he could run through the line and assault the holder before the kicker could make it to the ball. The video game music is very soothing to me. I heard it a lot. It played one tune when one side had the ball, and another when the opponent had it. Also, you heard, "hut hut hut hut hut hut hut hut hut hut hut hut hut hut hut hut hut hut hut hut hut" until you finally snapped it. The violence on the field was pretty funny. The linemen looked like they were fist fighting each other, until all of a sudden one of them would go flying backwards. This game was great.


#1 Final Fantasy 7....Unlike most of the other games which were great because you were playing other people, this one was good all by itself. However, it was so good that you wanted other people to experience it. Some did, and loved it (Jon), some bought it, played it for a few minutes, and never touched it again (Stephen). It's a role playing game that involves lots of characters, background stories, and a great Sci-Fi plot that blends it all together. It would have made a great novel, or a long mini-series..but since it was a video game, relatively few people will ever experience it. There were games within the games, like Chocobo ranching. You could play for hours raising Chocobos to race without ever advancing the plot of the storyline. Like a lot of good video games out there (Double Dragon, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter), this franchise spawned a movie AND this particular GAME spawned a movie in Japan, which I own. The music ingrained itself into your subconscious.
I've played the Final Fantasy games for years. I remember beating Final Fantasy 3 on the Nintendo. I played FF 7 on the Playstation. It was just great, and will never be duplicated again. When it was over, there was no replaying it...for me, anyway. It would have been like trying to rent tuxes and getting your wedding party together to reenact your wedding. You can't do that. It's a one time thing.