10. Guitar Hero – PS2

DDR may have brought Rhythm games into the general consciousness, but it wasn’t until Guitar Hero that the genre was fully embraced by the Western masses. And with good reason – from the control scheme, to the presentation, to the killer soundtrack, Guitar Hero arrived in the fall of 2005 and blew just about everybody away. Critics, dedicated gamers, and casual fans alike fully embraced what would become a sensation.

The game is fundamentally like the majority of rhythm games – play is handled through a large peripheral controller, and the objective revolves around pressing a combination of buttons in time with a song playing in the background. The game begins very simply, allowing for players to become accustomed to the control and idea of the game, and gradually goes to a place of tremendous difficulty. This variable challenge is a key component of a good rhythm game, balancing accessability to newcomers while also providing a true challenge to die-hard fans, and Guitar Hero pulls this off perfectly. 30 songs, 4 levels of difficulty, with a control scheme that is easy to learn, difficult to master, and mimics the idea of playing a guitar as best as a video game could hope to do.

And that’s what I think really makes the game work – it doesn’t pretend to have anything to do with actual guitar playing. It’s a celebration of rock music, of rock culture, of the rock fan. Guitar Hero has a wonderful sense of cheeky humor, from the over the top stage setups to the constant jabs at drummers, the game knows that being a seriously good video game doesn’t mean you have to take yourself seriously. The game gives anyone who’s ever tapped their foot along to a song a way to further engage with the music they already enjoy.

Guitar Hero had a 2006 sequel, appropriately titled Guitar Hero II. The game featured a longer soundtrack and a more sophisticated two-player mode, but was ultimately a disappointment (for me at least) because the list of songs couldn’t hold a candle to the stellar song list from the first game. Let me put it this way, can you envision any video game that prominently features Crossroads, Killer Queen, and More than a feeling being bad? That, my friend, is why Guitar Hero ROCKS.

Special Mention: Rez – PS2 and Ikaruga - GCN

Both of these games deserve a spot on the list, as I’ll soon discuss, but I had difficulty justifying their position on a list of the best games of the previous generation. While released in the US only for the PS2 and Gamecube, both Rez and Ikaruga were released in Japan for the Dreamcast, only later being ported to then-current gen systems. This brings up a whole other debate about what generation the Dreamcast belonged to; personally, I feel it kind of sits in its own little universe, not fitting with the PSX/N64 era or the PS2/XBOX/GCN era. Faced with such a conundrum, I decided to cheat, noting both as important releases from the last generation, while denying them official positions on the list.

Rez

Rez is maybe the only game I can think of where getting through the game, completing the game or getting a high score or some other definitive objective, is almost completely irrelevant. Rez is about the immediate sensation of playing Rez, achieving “synaesthesia”, providing a physical and emotional reaction to the experience beyond that of simple entertainment.

As a game itself, there actually isn’t much to write about. A rail shooter, in the vein of something like Panzer Dragoon, your objective is to shoot down enemy flyers, pick up power-ups, and defeat end-level bosses. The entire game can be played, start to finish, in about an hour. Unlike other modern shooters, the game is rather easy, and noticeably absent is that feeling of wanting to play again to “do better.”

But Rez is a game that demands replays, if only because there isn’t anything else like it, video game or otherwise. The intensity of the game experience, the way the music, the visuals, even the pulsing of the controller work together to create a heightened sense of awareness and focus that is almost scary in its foreignness. The music, the enemies, even the look of the level itself respond to the actions of the player, making every playthrough something unique.

If that review sounded trippy, then I have accurately reflected the experience of playing Rez.

Ikaruga

Ikaruga is a vertical, “hummingbird” shooter, and for my money, the best game in its class. No shooter, at least those familiar to western audiences, offers a more visceral and intense experience. In contrast to Rez, it seeks not to carve out a new experience, but take a very old genre, pull it out by the roots, and perfect it.

The philosophy behind Ikaruga is to present players with a ridiculously impossible challenge, then follow it up with a challenge that makes the previous one look like a walk in the park. During one’s initial playthrough of the game, it is not uncommon to audibly laugh in disbelief at the number of enemies on the screen. It is this aspect of the game that makes it so rewarding. This is for the hardest of core, those who thrive on repeatedly playing through the same levels of a game, learning and taking advantage of the smallest nuances, just to rise up into an elite class of individuals worthy enough to say “Yes, I have beaten Ikaruga (and it only took me 7 continues).”

Few games in recent memory capture the spirit of old arcade games. Gameplay in Ikaruga hinges on a simple mechanic – color. All enemies in the game are white or black, firing white or black bullets, respectively. You control a ship that, with the push of a button, changes from white to black and vice versa. While white, you are impervious to white bullets, die from a single black bullet, and deal far greater damage to black enemies. The reverse is true when you are black. A simple idea that, when put into practice, offers play that is remarkably complex and punishes imprecision with failure.


Both of these are gamer’s games – you can’t sit down with a big Smash Bros/Halo crowd and make an evening out of Rez. These are intense, personal experiences that are unlike anything else out there. They’re the type of games that should be appreciated even more in a growing market of sequels and clones.

11. Super Smash Bros. Melee – GCN

The original Super Smash Bros. (for the N64) was the game every Nintendo fan had dreamed of since they were a kid. This Gamecube follow up uped the ante with more than double the amount of characters and stages, along with a richer battle system that didn’t betray the original aims or feel of the series. For those of us who picked up a Gamecube at its 2001 launch, few games other than Super Smash Bros. Melee ever made it into our systems for the next year or so. For some, not many other games ever made it into their systems.

Smash is one of the great equalizers in video games. You can take it to the hardest of cores, learning the nuances in each of the 25 characters, perfecting combos, learning to maximize the resources of every stage and every item. Or you can button mash the night away with your friends, delighting in seeing Pikachu get the best of Donkey Kong and Bowser. The brilliance of the concept is that it taps into something appealing to anyone who has ever played a video game. The game is extremely fast and action-packed, it’s funny, has a wonderful art design to it, and really works hard in look and sound to pay homage to the history of video games (as told by Nintendo, of course).

This game remained on the Gamecube best-seller list during the entire life of the console, and that reason alone would have made it worth consideration for this list. More than that though, is the sense of community this game brought. Just about anybody with interest in video games played and loved this game. It would be impossible to count the number of evenings spent between a group of friends, a stack of pizzas, and this game.

Extremely well made, as accessible as it is deep, and simply one of the best multiplayer experiences of all time, Super Smash Bros. Melee belongs in every Gamecube owner’s collection. Though to be honest, it probably already is.

12. Resident Evil 4 – GCN/PS2

This game is what the Resident Evil series should have been from the beginning. I had never been a fan of the series, despite my best efforts. Enticed by the stellar graphics, unique game design, and intriguing story, I attempted these prior games on several equations. Despite their strengths, in the end I found the games to be unplayable. The human characters were difficult to control, aiming and shooting a gun was even harder, and overall gameplay itself was just tedious. Awful controls completely broke these games, which is a shame, because if under that control scheme those games offer half of what Resident Evil 4 does, those games have got to be stellar in their own right.

When RE4 came out for the Gamecube in 2005 (the game would later be ported to the PS2, and is soon to come to the Wii and PC), all rules were broken. Out were the old controls, and in was a far more fluid 3rd person experience. It still doesn’t control like an average third person shooter, but then again, this game isn’t a shooter. It’s a “survival horror” game, which is marketing-speak for an action-adventure game where you fight icky monsters and solve spooky puzzles. The controls finally worked, and well, finally making putting the challenge of the game in the actual gameplay. Equally worth noting is that this hard-M rated game was a Gamecube exclusive for the first year of its existence. For a console that often got a bad rap as being “kiddy” with the lack of a Halo or Metal Gear, Resident Evil 4 changed a lot of attitudes about what Nintendo’s purple cube could do.

Along with innovation, this game also brought series staples along, doing things RE fans had come to expect from the first game onward and doing them better than ever. The graphics and sound are among the very best of all time. The animations, environments, atmospheric sounds, character design – everything comes together to amount to a legitimately creepy experience. Which brings us to the story, which is incredible, but would be a sin for me to spoil here. Let’s just say that an investigation into the kidnapping of the President’s daughter brings our heroes to a remote location where Evil Resides (get it?).

Resident Evil 4 is challenging, gorgeous, innovative, long, with a memorable and engaging storyline. It’s one of the finest examples of what the medium of video games can accomplish. And it’s definitely not for kids.

13. Katamari Damacy – PS2

Three years after the release of this game, it’s still difficult to believe it ever landed on North American shores. For something so delightfully Japanese in every aspect of its presentation, the fact that a publisher decided the game could be successful in the English-speaking world, and was right, is truly astonishing. However the decision was made, I’m just glad to have the opportunity to play it, because Katamari Damacy is not only one of (if not the most) unique and innovative games of the past generation, it’s also out and out one of the best.

Katamari Damacy is a puzzle game, where players must push around a giant sticky ball. When the ball is rolled over an item, it adheres to the ball, becoming a part of it. As more items stick to the ball, the size of your ball increases and items of greater size are able to be picked up. Each stage generally has a time limit, where you must increase your ball to a certain size before time is up. All of the movement is controlled using the two analog sticks, with a very intuitive tank-like control scheme. The trick is to pick up the largest items possible as soon as your ball can accommodate them, while keeping your ball as spherical as possible to ensure easy control and navigation.

If the game seems simple, that’s because it is. Play is addictive, challenging, a damn lot of fun, and works well through several replays. But Katamari shows that while gameplay is without question of the utmost importance, a stellar presentation can raise a good game to Classic status. Here is an example where I don’t believe that words can to justice to everything that is Katamari Damacy, but I will do my best. The cutscenes before each level are like something out of a bad (or good?) trip – bright rainbow colors, nonsensical dancing animals, mystical characters – yes. Music in this game is more than just filler, but an interregnal part of the experience. It sounds just as good and weird as it looks, and I dare you not to play the game a few times without hunting down the soundtrack to put on your iPod. I wrote before that the sticky ball picks up “items.” What I failed to do was define the term – dominoes, boats, clouds, cars, humans, cats, plants, literally hundreds of real-world (mostly) things of all shapes, sizes, and cultures.

There is no experience quite like Katamari Damacy. Even the sequel, We Love Katamari, was a great game in its own right but failed to capture the magic of putting in the original entry in the series for the first time. A delightful sort of game that we’re lucky to get even once a generation.

14. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - PS2/GCN/XBOX

Like Soul Calibur II, the fact that this was a multi-platformer and was also stellar really impressed me. Prince of Persia was an old computer game, later ported to systems like the SNES, that was psychotically hard and all in all, pretty terrible. The fact that a game 15 years after the release of the original, bearing the same moniker, could not only be a great game, but bring a new spin to the tired genre of platform games, easily earns this title a spot on the list.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is a platform game that focuses on puzzle solving elements. Players can freeze time for short bursts, and while that simple mechanism may seem gimmicky, it remains fresh the entire game, and is used to great effect on any number of complex puzzles throughout the adventure. Controls are very fluid, which is impressive considering the complex wall running and jumping required to complete the game. In most games, the maneuvers players are asked to perform would be nearly impossible and tremendously frustrating, with the standard in controls and cameras in 3D environments not being very high. PoP rises well above the norm in this respect. There’s combat in the game too, which is generally forgettable but unobtrusive. It can’t be said enough: this game has clever, unique, and genuinely engaging puzzle solving rarely found anywhere west of Hyrule.

This game should be a lesson to developers – this is how you take advantage of a licenced product. Just the announcement of the game got heads turning, based on the nostalgia factor of the name. Ubisoft stepped up to the plate, creating a game with wide appeal, blending familiarity and unique challenges nicely. Complaints surrounded the game’s initial release, with some disappointed in the games below-average difficulty level. It’s not that I disagree – this game isn’t very tough – but it’s not supposed to be hard. Not punishingly hard, anyways. Some of the puzzles are genuine brain-teasers, and while you won’t have much trouble with enemies in the game, it’s impossible not to become highly engaged in the richness of play The Sands of Time delivers.

15. Soul Calibur II – PS2/GCN/XBOX

First (or rather, last) on the list is a game that made a huge splash on all three platforms. The sequel to the phenomenal Dreamcast fighter Soul Calbur, is a landmark video game in many ways. Fighting games are an interesting beast – they fall into a niche genre, but the fanbase is ravenous and extremely loyal. The best games of the bunch are highly stylized and specialized, carving a unique place in a genre where, on the surface, all the games look pretty much the same. Soul Calibur II succeeded in being both equal parts technical masterpiece and button-mashing fun fest, accessible to anyone who wanted to play with enough meat to entice even the most hardcore fighters. The most phenomenal part of this game, and the reason it found a place on this list, however, is the fact that it came to all three consoles.

Multi-platform games are more the norm than ever, as companies learn that the more systems your game is available for, the more copies you’re going to sell, and the more money you’re going to make. That said, it remains extremely rare for a fighting game to go multi-platform, a genre that rewards dedication to a specific game. Each version was basically identical, with the Xbox version having the best graphics, and the Gamecube version running the smoothest (in my opinion, the ‘cube controller also fit the game the best, but you all playing with a joystick couldn’t care less about that). The most significant difference was the addition of a unique character to each specific version. Playstation 2 owners got to play as Heihachi, from “that other Namco fighting series”, Tekken. Xbox owners could play as 90’s comic book character Spawn, while the Gamecube version fulfilled many a Nintendo fan’s dream, letting them fight as Link, from the Legend of Zelda series of games.

It is rare for a multi-platform game to be of such phenomenal quality, and it is equally as rare for a fighting game to be as inviting and as satisfying as Soul Calibur II. It’s sequel, Soul Calibur III, was a Playstation 2 exclusive, and was also very well received. For me, it was hard not to be disappointed that the multi-platform approach was abandoned, the genre retreating back to the platform where it felt most comfortable.

The Fifteen Greatest Games of the Last Console Generation

Spring 2007 – Gamers all across the world are putting controllers and cables in the closet, trading in their coaxial cables for an HDMI cord, and bravely moving into a new generation of video game consoles. What once was Playstation 2, Gamecube, and Xbox has become Playstation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360. The last games of the old guard have finally come out, and it’s time to declare an end to dual shock 2s and wavebirds.

It was a significant era of gaming – the first to successfully support three home consoles, the first to successfully implement online gaming, and the first to really break into the mainstream. Video games became cool, well, as long as you were a male between the ages of 5 and 30 anyways, but nevertheless, video games are more popular than ever before.

I thought it would be good time to reflect on the last generation of consoles, the games that made a splash, the games that defined the generation, and the games that will live on long after their peers have died. In that spirit I present the Fifteen Greatest Games of the Last Console Generation, chosen by me, using no criteria other than my own mind and my own gut. It’s a balance of popularity, fun, significance, and games that just stuck out to me for whatever reason. The games will be posted with comments on this blog, in reverse order, with “special mentions” in-between games 11 and 10, and games 6 and 5. This effort will go on as long as it takes me to get to game #1, and I promise to do my best not to drop the ball in the middle.

That all said, without further adieu, I bring you the best 15 of the last. Comments are strongly encouraged.