3. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 – PS2

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 is one of the best examples of a developer using new and more powerful hardware to better every aspect of a game experience. Playing this installment in the now long-running series makes the first two look like beta versions for this, what I consider the first true entry in the series. That’s no knock against THPS and THPS2, but playing them now it becomes painfully evident how far ahead of their time the developers at Neversoft were thinking, and how the PS2 was a godsend to this type of game. Tony Hawk 3 is the apex of one of the most important series of all time. It delivers more hours of gameplay than even the longest of RPGs, excels equally in both single and multiplayer modes, and defined a new genre of sports games from its release through the present day.

I play a lot of video games, and as anyone who makes such a claim, I find the learning curve on most games to be rather low. When I play an RPG, first-person shooter, platformer, racing game, etc, I generally know what I’m getting into, beyond the few eccentricities every game has. With this game, I was quite awful at it upon first encounter; indeed, it took numerous hours of playing to slowly learn the rapid button pressing in tandem with brain power it takes to become skilled at the game. While this type of experience may seem maddening or frustrating to some, I found it to be refreshingly rewarding. Manipulating your skater in the game can grow to be very complex, true, when you begin to string multiple tricks together and explore each level, but mastery of this system is so fun that one finds themselves able to skate around for long periods making their own fun. There are goals within the game driving progression through a number of levels that bring creative and eventually dastardly challenges to be sure, but the real magic of the game comes with the discovery that simply moving around – ie, every moment of the game – is as fun as the best moments in other games.

This writeup started with the mention of how this third entry in the Tony Hawk series is the first true realization of the concept. Tony Hawk and 2 suffer from their older hardware – the levels were far smaller and the framerates were extremely choppy. The fact that these games were excellent in their time despite these technical issues goes to show how excellent a concept the Tony Hawk series overall is. But the games also lacked a fundamental design flaw. Gameplay is, more or less, driven by performing tricks. Tricks linked together lead to exponentially more points, and more satisfying combos. In the first two games, performing a trick on a half pipe instantly ended a combo (in fact, in the first game simply landing on the ground ended a combo, but the addition of the Manual in THPS2 fixed that). Tony Hawk 3 corrected this oversight by adding the Revert, the addition of which effectively created the potential for a combo of infinite length. Previously near-impossible combo scores of 1,000,000 points instantly became the low end of the impressive-score spectrum. Achievment in the game was limited now only to the imagination and skill of the player.

Sadly, in recent years this series has become somewhat a victim of its own success. Now in its ninth entry, the past few installments have began to tack on juvenile storylines, goofy and gimmicky gameplay mechanics, and uninteresting skating environments, causing players to have to wade through a lot of crap to find the fun core of the series buried far below this window dressing. In some ways after a game this good, it’s a damned either way situation – by staying the same people grow bored, by trying to change people complain it’s not how they remember the good old days. Present issues aside, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 remains one of the best video games ever made, better than any other entry in the series.

4. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas – PS2/XBOX

This list in general has shown fondness for originality, favoring new franchises rather than sequels, games that, in some way, breathed new life into a medium filled with copycats and follow-up games that often are little more than prettier versions of their predecessors. The first GTA game for the PS2, Grand Theft Auto III, may be the third in a series, but it’s really the first of its kind. Not only for the complete overhaul in production values, but also in terms of mainstream awareness, GTAIII is really the first in the series, with GTAs one and two almost, in retrospect, looking like prototypes. This article, however, is not about GTAIII, nor even its sequel, GTA: Vice City. I have instead selected San Andreas for this list, because it is in so many ways head and shoulders better than the games that came before it. It represents, among many other things, the way a sequel should be done – not just better graphics and more levels, but an expansion and elaboration of the core concept of the franchise that people have already fallen in love with.

The reason the Grand Theft Auto series merited consideration for this list, and indeed why it ended up so high on the list, is because it is far better than the sum of its parts. It is not only the fact that players are able to do such a variety of things, it is that the gameplay for each aspect is handled surprisingly well. For example, driving may not be as crisp and precise as in a pure driving game, your Burnouts and PGRs and Gran Turismos and what have you, but in a game that also has boats, on-foot controls, various types of combat, tons of mini-games and puzzles, a stellar story and voice acting, aircraft, and the ability to really do and go wherever you want, it’s shocking that the automobiles control as well as they do. This is why games that try to invoke the “sandbox” principle that really drives this game, the freedom given to players in an open-world setting, fail where GTA succeeds – no other game in the same vein fires on all cylinders in the same way games in this series does. In this way, the game is a technical masterpiece and a true textbook example for any game designer in how to keep players engaged.

So if the whole series is so great, we’ve come back to the original point in this article: why San Andreas rather than the first or second game in the series? When a sequel improves on quite literally every aspect of its predecessors, nearly rendering games that came before it obsolete; it only makes sense to give the nod to such a game. San Andreas is roughly five times as large, in terms of the geographic size of the map, than either GTAIII or Vice City. Instead of paying homage to a city (New York, Miami), the game mimics the entire state of California, with THREE full cities, and plenty of rural land and small towns littered throughout the map. Combat, always one of the weaker parts of the series, is simplified and strengthened, allowing for better control and the ability to execute more complex shootouts. The ability to fly aircraft and ride a jetpack were added, and the number of automobiles and motorcycles vastly increased. The graphics and draw distance saw significant improvements. Story and voice acting, always a high point of the series, again reach a new apex. Jaw-dropping would be the adjective best used to describe the sheer amount of content in this game, reflecting the clear love the people working on this game had for the work they were doing.

It’s easy to make a sequel to a game, and its even easier when working with a franchise that’s already popular. It takes true talent, patience, and respect for your audience to build a sequel that pushes the hardware the game runs on to its limits, and completely blow expectations out of the water. There are people who adore these games, and those who revile them for a number of reasons, but there is simply no denying the high level of thought and craft that went into making GTA: San Andreas. It continues to stand as an example of what games can and should be, rather than what most are.

5. God of War - PS2

If you told me a few years back that one of the best action games of all time would come from the dude who created Twisted Metal, I would have thought that was about as likely as Sony flubbing the launch of their next console. Luckily no one asked me, so not only did I avoid potential egg on my face, I got to play one of the most thoroughly engaging games of all time. God of War came seemingly out of nowhere in the Spring of 2005, making a huge splash and changing what people thought about the current state of video games. Taking graphics on the PS2 beyond what was thought capable, delivering a control scheme so intuitive players wondered how they were ever able to play third person action before, God of War is easily one of the high points of the entire life of the Playstation 2.

The game puts players in the shoes of Kratos, a fictional Spartan hero with a vendetta against Ares, the Greek God of War. Armed with a sword and blade/whip/chain things attached to your hands (ps – these are awesome), Kratos sets off to kill a bunch of dudes and solve a bunch of puzzles, all to get a chance to battle Ares mano a God. The simple but well presented story of a warrior in Ancient Sparta provides a wonderful backdrop for action, as an assortment of human and mythological creatures alike are ready to be felled by your blades. Gameplay is fast and well balanced, generally alternating between intense battle sequences and challenging, but fulfilling puzzle sequences. The game is a solid length, running about 12-15 hours, and never moves too fast or too slow. Combine this with a stellar soundtrack and easily the best graphics to grace the PS2, and you’ve got one of the most complete gameplay worlds and experiences ever created.

A running theme through many of the games on this list has been the importance of controls, as I have given major points to games on this list with controls that are effective and intuitive. Maybe more than any other game on this list, God of War just feels right. Action games can often get complicated in the execution of combos and difficult jumps/maneuvers, but in this instance the controls never get in the way of the game. If a puzzle or battle is challenging, it is by design, not because you’re trying to work around a half-assed control setup. This is particularly evident during the games’ stellar boss battles, though while infrequent, rank among the most memorable of all time.

God of War earns a spot so high on this list because it truly is more than the sum of its parts. Third person 3d action games are a dime a dozen, so when one rises so far above the tide it deserves special attention. This game is about as close to perfect as games ever get.

Special Mention: Halo/Halo 2 - XBOX

I am not a Halo fan. Nothing against the series to be sure, but I find it to be no more or less than a very competent and derivative first-person shooter. That said, as someone interested in video game history attempting to chronicle the greatest games of the previous generation, I feel that I would be remiss not to take the time to mention and give due respect to this phenomenally popular series of games, and discuss its significance to gaming as a whole.

Halo should be recognized and applauded for so successfully doing everything it does. That is, the game itself really has no weaknesses. It looks and sounds great, plays extremely solidly, develops a compelling world in which to play in, and works well both as a single-person adventure and a multi-player combat experience. I was impressed when I first played the game at how well the game transitions from interior spaces to massive outdoor areas. But Halo does not tread any new ground. PC gamers were and are still playing far more fleshed out FPS games. The multiplayer experience isn’t much different from Goldeneye back on the N64. So while Halo is certainly superior to the vast majority of games by virtue of not having any significant flaws, how did it come to be such a wildly popular game?

Part of it are the qualities discussed before, but another significant part is luck. With the previous generation, video games became more popular than ever before. The audience was growing, thanks to an increase in titles designed for older audiences, as well as an increase in the power of consoles on the market. For a lot of people, the XBOX may have been their first console, or at least their first since they were children. Without exposure to Goldeneye, Tribes, Counterstrike, or Quake, Halo was revolutionary, delivering an experience they had never before so fully experienced. Launching alongside the release of the XBOX, Halo was a logical purchase for longtime gamers as well who were early adopters of Microsoft’s new console. So, in a bit of fortuitous luck, Halo ended up in a lot of people’s homes, and the multiplayer experience it offered bonded this generation of gamers, and became a sort of gold-standard for the console multiplayer experience, appealing on all sorts of levels.

Halo’s influence is also that of a sort of gateway game. Fans of the series looking for more of the same quality experience may open their horizons to other games on the market. A negative consequence as such has been a flurry of mediocre shooters on all platforms, but Halo keeps people interested in games, and gets them to the video game store. Halo deserves credit for being an accessible game that succeeds on all levels, and continues to breathe life into the medium I (and I am assuming, you) so dearly adore. It’s the blockbuster film that funds the movie studios and lets them take risks on smaller indie flicks, if I may be allowed to make such an analogy.

So I salute you, Halo and Bungie and Microsoft for doing good for the video game community. But no, I still don’t want to preorder Halo 3. Thanks for asking, though.

6. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker – GCN

What a shame it is that this entry into the long-running and extremely popular Zelda franchise will almost certainly be remembered primarily for the controversy surrounding its development. Nintendo made a stylistic decision for this 2003 release, abandoning the “realistic” look developed for the series on the Nintendo 64 in favor of a new, “cel-shaded” approach. The result was a more abstract and dynamic graphical setting that awed critics. An extremely vocal portion of the gaming community labeled the look as “kiddy” and “cartoony,” longing for the “mature” Link they had grown accustomed to in the Ocarina of Time. Clearly I am a fan of the look, though I do not believe the tastes of those who were and are not fans of cel-shading are without validity. Now, Nintendo is working to please as many people as they can, returning to a “realistic” approach with 2006’s “Twilight Princess”, while sticking with the cel-shading for Zelda’s first appearance on the Nintendo DS.

So here I am, over a paragraph into this summary, guilty of perpetuating what made me so upset about the release of this game in the first place: the dialogue was about the look of the game, and not about the game itself. The game itself, since we’ve finally reached this point, is absolutely stellar. The Zelda franchise is perhaps without equal when it comes to a series that is so consistently excellent with each and every outing. Wind Waker adheres strongly to the well established series formula, with some notable diversions.

Instead of a large land mass navigable by foot and horse, the world of the game is a massive ocean, populated by islands of all sizes. Travel is done by boat, opening up a wealth of new puzzle and quest options, while consequently adding a degree of tedium to the game. Such a large land mass makes exploration difficult, and a lot of the players’ time is spent simply sailing into the blue. With a larger world comes more freedom to explore, however, and this game is packed with more secret rooms, quests, and little nooks to explore than any other Zelda game. Wind Waker has fewer dungeons than fans of the series may be used to, but I found these dungeons to be both larger and more difficult than other entries of the series; a real treat for longtime veterans of the franchise.

Like any good adventure game, the fun of Wind Waker is in the players own discovery, so I feel I would be remiss to speak much more of the game here. The reason it made it to the list, and quite highly, is twofold. One, to remind all that this game is more than its cartoony surface. And two, to emphasize the unique quality of this series as a whole. Without major changes to a well established formula, this was still the sixth best game I played during all of the previous generation. If that doesn’t get your triforce glowing, I don’t know what will.

7. Burnout 3: Takedown – XBOX, PS2

If there’s a better racing game out there than Burnout 3, I’ve never played it. Certainly there are people out there who sing the praises of your Gran Turismos and Forza Motorsports and what have you, but simulation racers, as technically impressive and engaging they may be, are just not my style. A good racing game should be all about speed, and no game before ever delivered the sense of speed that Burnout 3 did. After two solid but flawed outings in the, Criterion’s Burnout 3: Takedown was such a complete package for fans of arcade racers, the game upon its debut was an instant classic.

It cannot be stressed enough that this game FEELS fast. It isn’t simply that a high number is displayed in the onscreen speedometer, the environment and the car behave exactly as you would expect traveling at ridiculous speeds of over 200mph. The fun and tension of going so fast is arguably the best part of the entire game. Along with driving fast, Burnout 3 is all about taking risks. You have a boost meter that builds when you drive recklessly – driving too close to other cars, driving on the wrong side of the road, running opponents off the road – and, particularly late in the game, it’s essential not only to drive skillfully, but drive recklessly so you’re able to move at the high speeds necessary to beat your opponents. If you like slowing down for turns and other caveats of “realistic” racers, this probably isn’t the game for you.

Along with standard races, Burnout 3 has a variety of gameplay modes. Two of the more interesting modes are “Road Rage,” which challenges players to “take down”, or cause to crash, as many other cars on the road as possible, and “Crash” mode, where you must strategically destroy your car in such a way that as much damage as caused as possible. Completing a Crash mission requires that a specific dollar amount of carnage is caused. GTA, eat your heart out.

Burnout 3 has a huge amount of content, that plays as equally well in short spurts as it does in multi-hour marathon sessions. With the huge amounts a tracks, challenges, and objectives, it’s one of those games where it is nearly impossible to achieve 100% completion. The game excels so highly on every level that I would not hesitate to recommend it to any fan of video games, regardless of their feelings on the racing genre.

8. Pikmin 2 – GCN

Does anyone in the video game industry have a better track record than Shigeru Miyamoto? From Donkey Kong to Nintendogs and everything inbetween he’s had a hand in, it’s difficult to imagine Nintendo even existing today without the contribution of his astounding imagination. Not content with simply churning out new iterations of his beloved Mario and Zelda franchises, with the Gamecube Miyamoto launched one of the most innovative new series of the generation – Pikmin. A combination puzzle and real-time strategy games, Pikmin is without imitators and one of the most original games to ever come along. As good as the first game in the series was, Pikmin 2 outmatched its predecessor in just about every way. More than a sequel, Pikmin 2 feels like the first fully fleshed out realization of Miyamoto’s grand ideas.

The title of the series refers to a species of creatures who you control in the world of the game. In the roll of a spaceman, Olimar (and it isn’t a coincidence that his name is a near anagram of another Miyamoto creation), players must give orders to fleets of these Pikmin in order to recover random items strewn about the world. With direct control of Olimar, you are able to give RTS like commands to your “army” of Pikmin, directing them to attack, go around hazards, splitting them into teams to solve a particular puzzle, etc. Pikmin can be used to recover items that make additional Pikmin, which is handy when you’re playing in a world also populated by creatures who love nothing more than to feast on your little friends. It’s a pretty simple concept that works shockingly well, thanks to the fact that the oddly-shaped Gamecube controller almost seemed designed with this game in mind.

What makes this game special is how deep the actual gameplay is. Each mission requires a lot of thought and strategy, constantly keeping players actively engaged. Pikmin can be of five distinct types, with various strengths and weaknesses (Yellow Pikmin are weak but can be propelled much higher than other Pikmin, for example), and a very strict 15 minute time limit per outing makes effective use of time as important a factor as keeping your Pikmin alive. Perhaps most impressive is that the game is deep and complex in a very organic way – complexity isn’t gained simply by having use of a large number of units to pick from, for example. Consequently the game remains accessible to a large audience without ever feeling dumbed down.

Pikmin was a stellar game, but it’s short length and small scope almost make it seem like a tech demo when compared to the huge game that is Pikmin 2. Pikmin 2 added new kinds of Pikmin, more than doubled the amount of playable areas, added two new playable characters, all of which added significantly to the game without abandoning the core concept. Pikmin is probably the most unique game to come to the Gamecube, and Pikmin 2 is easily one of the best games to grace the system.

9. Final Fantasy XII – PS2

The Final Fantasy series is known for a lot of things – a rabid fanbase, a consistent level of quality, memorable worlds, beautiful graphics – but a word not often associated with the series is “innovation.” Final Fantasy XII is the first game in the series in a long time that does anything to challenge that notion. By distilling the long-running series’ essence into its best elements, and dramatically improving and streamlining some of the more tedious elements of the genre, Final Fantasy XII came out at the tail end of the PS2’s lifetime and breathed new life into a tired genre.

I’m going to cut right to the chase – FFXII has the best combat of any role playing game I have ever played. The designers of the game finally realized that, even in the best RPGs, the vast majority of battles are redundant and easily won, usually just by repeated tapping of the “X” button. The new Gambit system, which allows players to program each characters behavior using a simple interface, means that most combat progresses automatically and extremely rapidly. It’s not the first time such a system has appeared, but it’s the first time where the system actually worked, without characters constantly running out of mana or making extremely illogical choices. For more complex battles, a simple push of a button pauses gameplay and allows players to issue specific commands when more sophisticated strategies (aka boss battles) are required. Combat is fast, it’s clean, and for maybe the first time ever, it’s actually a lot of fun.

Ability development is handled through a new system, the License system. Players spend AP gained in battle on abilities, and each ability purchased unlocks the option to purchase different, more powerful abilities. It’s a simple system that provides a very high level of customization. For example, it’s easy to give your heavy hitters a few healing spells, in the event your healer falls in battle. There are a huge number of them, making it near impossible for a character to cover even half the board by game’s end. The licenses are inexpensive though, meaning characters will aquire new ones rapidly, which provides a great sense of progression and achievement while playing.

Aside from these wonderful improvements to the battle and level progression systems, this is very much a Final Fantasy game at heart. You play an unlikely band of heroes who have to save the world, the game looks wonderful, the voice acting and script are top notch, and there’s a slew of side missions to complete both during and after completion of the game. When I purchased this game as a fan of the series, I expected more of the same. What I got was more of the same, but made using far better ingredients. If you’ve found Final Fantasy games to be tiring and tedious before but always wanted to tackle one, this just may be what you’ve been looking for.

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.

Chefography

Food Network provides me with a shameful amount of mindless entertainment. The level of discretion used when deciding whether or not to watch whatever program comes on is extremely minimal. In fact, when a crappy program comes on and dismay is expressed, no effort is made to get away from the program. Such is the power of delicious food on the television. Eating while watching is basically as perfect as life gets.

So with the network on its second "season" I guess of its "Chefography" shows, little is going to get me more excited this week. It's basically the old "Behind the Music" show except instead of a band's history, it is one of the numerous food network chefs/personalities that gets the one-hour bio treatment. It's so great - from learning about Bobby Flay's tough beginnings on the upper east-side of Manhattan, to marveling at how tremendously ugly all of Rachael Ray's friends are.

All this week at 10pm people. Tell your tivo you can't live without it.

Wilco Rocks

Been on a really gigantic Wilco kick the last week or so, and I'm not really sure why. I've considered myself a fan for years now, but for the first time they've been all I wanted to listen to. Not hard to explain from a technical standpoint - stellar lyrics, thoughtful music - but why it's clicking with me so strongly just now is difficult to articulate. I'll update if I find further insight.



Additionally, this passion has let me on a not unrelated large CD-purchasing frenzy. Along with the previously blogged about Lily Allen, I recently purchased Arcade Fire's new album, the title of which escapes me, as well as the Talking Heads' album "Naked", which has the excellent song, Nothing But Flowers. That song is great on its own but I would be lying if I said I didn't buy it because I first heard the song in Clerks II. No denying that Kevin Smith, despite his bizarre infatuation with his unattractive wife, remains incredibly appealing.



More on this randomness later.

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Lily Allen is Awesome

As Carrie has already astutely pointed out, my purchase of Lily Allen's debut album Alright, Still... is one that I could look back upon in as little as 6 months and feel a great deal of embarrassment towards. But as of today, I couldn't give a shit. This album is so crazy awesome and fun to listen to. I've owned it for 24 hours and have listened to it from start to finish 4 times already. The lyrics are funny and clever, the music is this wonderful blend of pop, ska, and hip-hop, forming into this wonderful sound that is as much unique as it is cliché and familiar. The best part about it is that it just sounds honest. As dumb as this sounds, the way she sings these songs you get the genuine feeling that this is the music she wants to make. It's well produced, but not over-produced like the shit that wins grammys and sits at the top of the charts. So until this album joins Blink 182 and The Barenaked Ladies in my personal "what the fuck was I thinking when I bought this" category, I am going to continue to rock out to this british chick SO HARD.

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Long Time no Post

It's been forever and a day since I posted to this blog, though I'm not entirely sure why. Time issues are certainly a part, though another is that I can't figure out exactly what do do with a space like this. I know I enjoy writing and I felt that a blog would be a good excuse to get into the habit of just putting stuff down, but I think it's pretty evident at that point that such an idea isn't going to work. My plan - short blogs, spur of the moment, crap I'm thinking of. That's the theory anyways - short posts, off the cuff, easy to read. ENJOY!

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