Thank you for stopping by my humble blog. If you’ve been keeping up with my recent series it was a repost from an earlier run that I had on 1UP. I certainly miss that community of gamers, and the many stories, reviews, and articles that they shared. Many of the staffers went on to get jobs in the gaming industry, and a good number of mutuals kept in touch thanks to Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. I enjoyed posting every weekday, and had well over a thousand blogs written before the site closed down. I saved a good portion of them, and have been sharing them on, and off here for the past few years. The favorite games series got a lot of feedback from the community. I think it worked best to figure out what type of player that I am. If you went through the list you would notice there were no MMOs, no RTS, no games from LucasArts, and no games from Nintendo. This doesn’t mean that I do not think they have developed a top-20 game. Far from it. The list I created was specific to a certain question. If I was stuck on a deserted island which game would keep me entertained longer than any other one. Which one hit the notes of the game play experience that I enjoyed best. Some people might read into it which were the games that took me longer to get bored of than any other. If I were to create a list of 20 essential games that everyone must play, or 20 games that changed the market then it might be entirely different.
Below is my favorite games of all-time list as of 2006.
I went back to the list after the series, and thought about all the games that’ve played since the days of 1UP. It’s hard to believe it’s been 17 years since I originally posted it. So I decided to update it, and see how much would really change. I’m sure it might be different in a couple of years, or even next month if I think about it long enough.
As of May 2023 here is how my new list stands.
3. Sonic Mania Plus.
This was actually a gift from my kid to me. I was absolutely blown away by the experience. I told my family if I went back in time to 1992, and told myself that there would be a Sonic game made by an independent studio that was as good as the best work from Sonic Team then I would have never believed it. On top of that this game would bring back Mighty, and Ray from what EGM called the greatest arcade game ever made; SegaSonic the Hedgehog, then I would have called myself a liar. And yet here I am, happy to admit that as a Sonic fan, all of the things I wished had happened with the franchise eventually did. It just took 26 years to get there. This is a credit to Christian Whitehead, PagodaWest Games, and Headcannon. I just hope the team is secretly working on a worthy follow-up.
5. Carmageddon Max Damage
To be fair I think that Carmageddon Max Damage, and the original
Carmageddon with the Splat Pack are just about even. I could find a hundred things that I enjoyed in one over the other, and yet never decide on which was the better game. I appreciate that Stainless Software got the rights back to the franchise they created, and were able to bring it up to modern platforms. I only wish their team, and budget were three times larger. I hope that in another decade the studio, or at least former members might get one more crack at the title.
10. Hot Rod
As wonderful as DragonBall Z 2 is, and as passionate as I am about it there were other fighters that I enjoyed more than it in the past two decades. Plus that game came with a lot of negative baggage, so I think it's better to replace it on my list. The game now taking up this spot is Hot Rod. Not just any version of this Sega gem, but the 4-player cabinet with the dip switches set to default. That was a racing game that I could literally play forever. In fact one summer I played this game on one quarter for more than six hours. If I ever win the lottery this is definitely one that I’m putting in my game room.
12. Shadow of the Colossus
As much as I loved Resident Evil, I think I enjoyed the experience created by Fumito Ueda even more. Shadow of the Colossus should be in every Sony player’s library. I’m still partial to the original Playstation 2 version. There is something to be said about how much performance Team Ico was able to squeeze out of the hardware. You can’t look at modern Zelda games, and not see the influence it had on the industry. I pray that The Last Guardian wasn’t really his final goodbye. I want to return to his world at least one more time.
13. God of War Ghost of Sparta
It takes a very special game to push Top Skater down one spot, and take Chrono Trigger off the list. When I originally put together my list God of War II had yet to come out. That might have been on the list instead of Chrono Trigger. In fact every subsequent GoW game raised the bar higher, and higher. To me the peak was actually in the Ghost of Sparta. You can go back to the series I wrote to see how amazing this game was over every other title in the library.
15. Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha
Samurai Showdown II is easily a top-5 fighting game in my book, however I think I got more miles out of Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha. The game, balance, animation, and of course character design from ARIKA will always be the best generation for the series.
17. Spider-Man Miles Morales
For a moment I thought about replacing the Incredible Hulk Ultimate Destruction with Insomniac’s Spider-Man game. The Sony title does owe a lot of the locomotion, and wall running mechanics to the Hulk. The sense of power it much different. I really enjoyed the Miles Morales version more than the Peter Parker story. It was almost neck-and-neck to be fair. These are the only pick up, and play games that recreate the magic of Bionic Commando.
18. Panzer Dragoon Saga
Final Fantasy VI may be the best game in the series, but in the end I thought of the game that I enjoyed a little bit more. This was Panzer Dragoon Saga. The rare, and now highly collectable game for the Sega Saturn. The mix of action, storytelling, and adventure made it unlike any other RPG I have ever played. I only wish more people got a chance to play it too. Perhaps someday Disney will buy out Sega, and start cranking out sequels to their amazing library.
I would like to know how your gaming tastes have changed over the years, and if you were stuck on an island which would be the only game you couldn’t live without. Let me know in the comments section please. As always if you would like to sponsor me
please visit my Patreon page and consider donating each month, even as little as $1 would help make better blogs and even podcasts!
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