My Top 20 Favourite Video Games of All Time REDUX
This is the updated, remastered, improved upon, and much more definitive version of my previous post:
https://xhamster.com/posts/695911
There have been some major changes, but there's also some repeats from my older post which you may have already read before. Also, after some very serious judging and debate with both myself and my past-self (suck it, Past Annie, Present Annie knows better than you! >:P haha), I've rearranged the order of the games in the list to better suit my feelings on the greatness of my favourite video games.
As always, if you don't like video games, or if you don't have any interest in knowing about my personal favourite video games, then what the hell are you even reading this for? lol :P
There's WAY too many video games out there for me to include every single one of my favourite video games that I love and enjoy playing in a list. So instead, I'll just be narrowing it down to the small number of 20.
If there's a video game that you like that isn't on here, then either a) it didn't make it into my top 20, or b) I haven't played it, or c) I just simply didn't like it :P lol
I will also (just to include more various different titles instead of repeating games) only be picking one game in a single franchise. So if you're wondering where the likes of GTA 5, or FIFA (insert number here) is, you now know why.
I know you're totally going to judge me on my picks and criticise them/me lol
But that's fair, I can take criticism, so please by all means let me know what you think of my picks in the comments at the bottom of the page :)
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#20: Tomb Raider II
I liked the first Tomb Raider, even though I totally sucked at it! Honestly, I couldn't even get past the first level lol
But I LOVED the sequel!
It's such a fun game, and even though it was still tit-achingly difficult to get through the missions, it never used to bother me at all, because I could just have the time of my life playing around in Lara's huge expansive mansion!
I spent so many hours of my young c***dhood life, just jumping and rolling and diving and climbing around the exterior grounds and interior rooms of the mansion, having a total ball exploring every nook and cranny of it. And having so much fun traversing through the maze, and swimming in the huge-ass indoor pool, and, of course, locking the butler in the big walk-in freezer >:)
If that had just been the game itself ("Lara Croft: Arsing around the Mansion! The Video Game" lol) it would still get an almost perfect 9/10 score from me, that's how much fun I had with it! :D
But, I also enjoyed doing the missions, even though, as stated before, I sucked ass at them :P
But I never once got upset or threw my controller or anything like that, because the game was just too much fun for me to get angry at the difficulty of it.
Simply put, it's a wonderful game, and Lara Croft will always have a special place in my heart :)
(and in my wet finger dreams- what? :P )
#19: Sonic the Hedgehog 2
I was tempted to put Sonic & Knuckles, Sonic Adventure (1 or 2), or even the awesomely underrated Sonic: Generations here, but I put way more gameplay hours of my life into this one.
It's one of the earliest games I ever played, and as a side-scrolling platformer, it still holds up today.
It's a short game, only takes just over an hour to complete, and yet completing it was never the end goal. It's all about the fun experience of going fast!
It's just one of those games where you pick the controller up and hold onto it tightly for dear life as you race super fast through the levels, collecting as many chaos emeralds as you can and gathering up so many rings as you go, and every couple levels, fight Dr. Robotnik in a really fun boss battle!
It's a classic video game, and the edition of Tails is a fantastic choice on the part of Sega (back when they weren't run by brain-dead imbeciles), as it allows for a friend to join in the fun with you :)
It may be an old game, and these days I really suck at it, with my younger 6 year old past self easily being able to kick my arse hard at it. But I still enjoy playing it regardless. Anytime I want some Sonic fun in my life, I just download this awesome game onto my Xbox One (only takes 10mins to download! lol), and I'll play through it for a solid hour of fun :)
#18: Crash Bandicoot
A lot of people have said that the 2nd and 3rd games in the original run of the Crash series are so much better than the 1st one, but I got to be honest, the very first Crash game is, and always will be, my most favourite of all!
I had played many platformers before, but to me, Crash Bandicoot perfected the genre. The controls were so tight and responsive, that you knew if you fucked up a landing, it was totally your own fault and not the game's fault. The level designs were also so fun to look at and be in, the graphics were amazing for the time, despite being a PS1 game, and the character of Crash himself is just so fun and full of personality, despite only being able to convey his personality through his body language, facial expressions and actions.
And dying in the game was never a bad thing either, because I loved seeing the many ways in which Crash would die in over-the-top fashion. Seriously, the death animations are some of the most fun, inventive, and just enjoyable pieces of cartoony animation ever put to a game, that it wouldn't look at all out of place on a classic Loony Tunes short!
People have said that the game is difficult, but I never found it to be that.
Sure, when I first ever played the game, I died quite a bit at the start, but after about an hour of playing it, I felt like I had mastered the platforming elements, and was able to just have a ton of fun going through the game, collecting all the boxes and crystals, and just having a sheer blast beating the game, over, and over, and over, and over again, each and every time.
I never once got bored of beating the game, and that right there, is a sign for the developers that they created a damn-near perfect video game :)
#17: FIFA: Road to World Cup 98
I am a total FIFA-head :P
I love the FIFA series of football games. And there's been lots of memorable versions of the games, from the (at the time) state-of-the-art 2004 version, to the totally fun 2001 version, and right up to the current year version of the series.
Real talk, FIFA 20 is a perfectly good football sim, one of the best of the modern era in fact, with the addition of Volta Football (with my own custom female avatar that truly represents me in the game) and my own custom female manager (again, allowing me to actually create and play as my own avatar in manager form!), it felt like the most immersive footie game ever made O_O so I really do not understand where all the hate and negative review scores for it came from?
But, I can only pick one entry in the FIFA series, and so I chose this one (sometimes simply just referred to as "FIFA 98").
I had this game on my N64, it was the first proper football sim I ever played (I did play Sensible Soccer on the Sega Megadrive, but that's more of an arcade-style football game than an actual sim)
As soon as Blur's "Song 2" kicked in at the menu, I knew I was in for a lot of fun playing this game!
There was a huge selection of football teams to choose from (172 international teams and 189 league teams) complete with real player names. The game-play itself was revolutionary at the time, and a huge amount of fun, and the satisfying sound of the players kicking the ball just made me feel so warm inside ^_^
And let's not forget, it was a total blast playing 5-a-side indoor football, with rules turned off so you can just hack into an opposition player with no regard for their safety at all or for the art of football, just like as if you were a Wimbledon F.C. player from the '90s lol :P
It's just a perfectly fun football game in every respect :)
#16: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
COD:MW is a great game, and deserves it's "classic" status, and I do love it a lot (in fact, it was my first ever experience of online multiplayer).
...Buuuuut, Modern Warfare 2 is so much better!
I know most of you are going to disagree with me on that, but, yeah, in my opinion, it takes everything great about the first Modern Warfare and greatly improves upon every aspect of it.
The single player campaign has a very decent story with memorable missions and huge set-pieces. But where MW2 shines is the online multiplayer. It's such a blast to play online, and the maps themselves are the best in the entire series. I really love every map, and each map plays out very differently from each other, making you adapt your gameplay tactics to better suit the environment you're in. Some maps call for run'n'gun tactics, whereas others call for a smart cautious and methodical approach, and a couple maps are just perfect for the very controversial camping technique :P
After just a week of playing online with it, I had learnt the maps off by heart, knowing all the best places to be in to rake up my K/D ratio, as well as learning how to get to the best vantage points, and access every secret area in a map.
It's just a fantastic online FPS, and it's a real shame that the COD series became absolute rubbish, but alas, this entry in the series is by far the perfect peak for the entire franchise :)
#15: Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude
To date, this is my first and only game in the Leisure Suit Larry series I've ever played... And I love it so much! lol
The graphics are fun and good for the most part, yet the game itself is pretty basic. There's nothing really innovative about it, but it does have a really fun premise to it - play as a horny loser of a college student virgin whose main and only goal in life is to get laid! lol
While the humour in it might be pretty crass, rude, crude and downright immature on the surface, if you scratch a little deeper you will actually find, on occasion, some very clever subtle witty thought-provoking jokes that really deserve a good laugh. Not to mention just how interesting and funny the whole world that's built in the game is. It seems like every square inch of the game's open world has a humorous gag in it for you to snort at.
Now, while you're supposed to try to make Larry say all the right things when chatting up girls in the hopes of getting into their panties, it is WAY more fun to fail and say all the wrong things! lol
(It really hits close to home, considering I've had so much experience in having creepy guys coming up to me and just failing so hard, saying all the wrong creepy things to me to try to get into my knickers lol)
Honestly, some of the lines you can make Larry say to the girl that he's trying to impress, really triggers a full-on belly-laugh from me lol I think my most favourite bit of dialogue in the whole game is when Larry's trying to impress a girl, and he gets super pissed off that his rival, Russel (who happens to be a bit mentally slow, by the way), has eaten his favourite coconut doughnut, and he starts aggressively berating the guy, which culminates in Larry just flat-out accusing Russel of stealing his toothbrush and taking/passing around a photo of it shoved up his ass hahaha xD
I just couldn't get through that scene without having to pause the game so I can roll around on the floor laughing lol
It's a comedy game, and comedy is subjective so most of you reading this probably won't like the humour the same way that I do, but yeah, by god do I enjoy the adult humour in it! There's plenty of fun, witty and comedic video games out there, but for me, Magna Cum Laude is the one that always makes me laugh the most :D
There's sex, full-on nudity, lots of (very naughty!) collectables, and tons of jokes. What more do you want? :P
#14: Super Mario 64
What else can be said about Mario? He's an iconic video game character, and will be around forever.
Sure, you can have wonderful graphics and new gameplay elements in the likes of "Super Mario Galaxy" and "Super Mario Odyssey", but nothing can ever beat the legendary fun found in Super Mario 64!
It's the very first thing I think of when I see or hear the name, Mario.
The wonderful fun environment of Princess Peach's castle, all the delightfully varied levels, and a short dumpy 3D model of Mario, with his signature "A-whoop!" "Yup!" jumping noises :P
An awesomely fun game, with fantastic tight controls, and a ton of fun levels and innovations in 3D platforming that are still relied on in the industry today. And it still holds up well, even after all these decades of technological progress.
#13: Spider-Man 2
Oh my god, Spider-Man has had so many awesome video games! From Spider-Man (2000) on the PS1 (my first ever Spider-Man game), it's sequel, Enter Electro was a big improvement. Ultimate Spider-Man, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, Spider-Man: The Movie... Hell, even The Amazing Spider-Man video game was a very decent Spidey game, despite being based on one of the worst Spider-Man movies of all time (The Amazing Spider-Man 2 game sucks complete ass, though!).
But all of them pale in comparison to the incredible Spider-Man 2!
...Although the Spider-Man 3 game comes pretty damn close to matching the bar set by Spider-Man 2 ;)
Specifically, the PS2 version, which perfectly captured the joy of web-slinging through the fully-rendered streets of New York. The swinging mechanic was perfectly spot-on, and the fighting controls were tight and fun. The game makes you totally feel like you are Spider-Man, swinging from rooftop to rooftop, and swooping down to stop a mugging or to rescue someone from a fire. Even grabbing a lost balloon for a little c***d feels like fun!
It's not just an amazing video game tie-in for a movie, it's just an amazing video game overall!
(side-note: if I ever actually played "Marvel's Spider-Man", I'd probably replace this Spider-Man entry with that. But I'm not spending over £150 on a PS4 just to play through the damn game! lol so until the price of a pre-owned PS4 drops way down, "Spider-Man 2" shall remain my most favourite Spider-Man game.)
#12: LEGO DC Super Villains
If you've never played a LEGO video game before, it can look from the outside as just a crappy, simple children's game.
...But it so isn't!
They are some of the best yet simple fun games out there!
I've honestly sunk about an entire year's worth of my life into 100%-ing the games in the series. It's so much fun collecting everything in the game, playing all the missions, unlocking loads of characters from all different media genres, and even some pop-culture icons, and laughing at all the fun silly humour of it all in the process.
I did pick LEGO Marvel Superheroes for this list before, but that game pales in comparison to the brilliant LEGO DC Super Villains!
As a girl whose more DC than she is Marvel, the sheer bloody amount of love given to the DC Universe by Traveller's Tales, with tons of references and mindfulness to the icons and environments at their disposal, is truly a beautiful lovely thing to bear witness to O_O
Plus, the character roster of all the different DC Comics characters you can play as, each with their very own unique super powers and abilities, is the best in the whole LEGO Batman and LEGO DC series to date.
And the hub world is a huge sprawling, living, breathing open-world map of Gotham City (complete with Wayne Manor and the Batcave), Metropolis, and Smallville. With those cities each having their own unique identity, quite a number of in-universe famous buildings from the comics you can enter and run amok in, and lots of fun activities and collectables to collect/do whilst you're running around freely as the DC character of your choosing :D
It is, in my mind, THE definite LEGO video game experience, and people of ALL ages will get a huge kick out of playing it, either alone or with a friend for some good solid couch co-op :)
#11: Bully
It's GTA, but set in a New England boarding school. Do I need to say anymore? :P
It really captures the social nightmare that is surviving high school, where everyone is in a different clique, the teachers are all assholes, and no one in authority gives a shit about a bunch of 15 year olds being total dickheads to other 15 year olds. It captures school life perfectly! lol
But of course, where it shines, is the fun gameplay.
It's everything you can do in a GTA game, but given a schoolastic makeover.
You can't shoot or kill anyone, but you can throw stinkbombs and eggs at them. You can't drive a car, but you can drive a go-kart/moped/bicycle/skateboard. You can't sleep with prostitutes, but you can kiss girls, and even boys too! (Talk about progressive!)
The main character of Jimmy Hopkins, is so much fun to play as, he's like the only "normal" kid in the school, which really says a lot about the other students lol and even though you can make him bully the other kids if you want to play as a dickhead, that's not the actual point of the game.
The point of the game is to stand-up for the bullied kids, to be a hero to the weak and the vulnerable against a world that constantly shits on them, and you can take it to those nasty dickheads that do pick on the smaller/weaker students to give them a taste of their own medicine. He's a bad-ass and you feel like a bad-ass playing as him.
It's a terrific game, and I highly recommend it to anyone who's never played it before :)
...I just really wish Rockstar could have made a sequel, but every day it seems less and less likely that that'll ever happen ='( ...Still, a girl can always dream for a miracle, can't she?
#10: The Sims 3: Pets
I love The Sims. It's just something about being a goddess, having complete control over the lives of others, dictating who lives and who dies, who gets a happy life, and who gets shit-canned, that really appeals to me >:P lol
I was tempted to put The Sims 4, but 4 (despite being a more visually beautiful game) is a huge step backwards for the series, with tons of features that are found in 3 not being found in 4, and the extremely abusive and manipulative DLC practises by the shitheads at EA, selling content packs at extortionate prices for content that should have been included free in the main game, is just so shitty and slimy, and very typical of EA.
Anyway, I picked The Sims 3: Pets as my best Sims game, because it's the most fun one out of the entire series. The level of creativity and customisation in it can give me countless hours of fun as I design a family, construct a beautiful house with a wonderful gorgeous outside area, and a bunch of cute cats/dogs :)
There's a ton of fun that can be had in it, and to be honest, I actually get more fun from helping/guiding a Sim in fulfilling his or her life dreams, and help them to create a legacy, generation after generation, rather than destroy them :)
...I save ruining someone's life for the dickheads in the game who burgle houses or inconvenience my Sims goals >:)
And honestly, if people believe that God (of the Bible/Koran/Torah fame) exists, then He (of course God's a guy, I mean, come on :P lol) is definitely a guy who's just playing The Sims with the universe lol
That's a much better explanation for why so much bad shit happens in the world to good people, rather than the "God works in mysterious ways", or worse, "It's all part of God's plan" trite that religious people pull out of their ass to explain it away as to why their God is such an deranged asshole lol
#9: Pokemon Red
Pokemon Yellow may be the most complete version of the classic 1st generation of Pokemon games (Red, Blue, Green), and FireRed/LeafGreen may be the most graphically perfect version of those games. But nothing beats the experience and nostalgia I have for Pokemon Red.
If you've never played/enjoyed any of the Pokemon games in the series before, you won't understand what I'm talking about, but I still have my Gameboy Colour, and I still pick it up and just lose myself for hours in my copy of Pokemon Red. The 1st generation of Pokemon (all 151 of them) are, as far as I'm concerned, the only Pokemon that matter!
I can name all 151 of them, describing their types, their abilities, their weaknesses. I can happily and easily tell you exactly what makes each and every one of them great, and if you disagree with me I will say to you, "Fair enough, that's your opinion which you are entitled to... But your opinion is wrong, and here's why:" and I will then go on to explain in full detail exactly why you are wrong >:P
I can even put up a good argument for why Magikarp is great :P
Pokemon Red just can't be beat for sheer nostalgic c***dhood fun :)
#8: The Warriors
I'll be honest, before the game came out in 2005, I had never heard of the film, The Warriors, of which this game is a perfect adaption of. I played the demo, and I really loved it! So, I bought the game, and I loved it even more!
It's an amazing beat'em-up style game, with incredible tight controls, and amazing graphics which still stand up well today despite being on the PS2/Original Xbox generation of consoles.
Never before as gang warfare been so much fun to take part in! lol
When you got a full gang with you, and you're diving fist-first into the fray as you take on another army of a gang in brutal, bloody fashion, or you're just terrorising the neighbourhood with your gang, it's all just super immense fun!
The story is both original and unique from the film, until towards the end when it starts playing out the film story. It's a total blast to play by yourself, but if you get a friend to join you, the fun is doubled! It's very rare for a game to be both amazing fun as either a single player or a 2-player couch co-op game.
And as for the film, after I fell in love with the game, I checked out the film, and just wow O_O
It's a really awesome film which I highly recommend you see, and Rockstar are clear fans of the film, because they gave the game the love and respect it deserved.
If ever you want to know what a perfect video game adaption of a movie is, look no further than The Warriors :)
#7: Scarface: The World is Yours
When this first came out, a lot of people stupidly branded this game as a "cheap knock-off of GTA: Vice City".
To them, I say, you're talking out of your arse!
First off, there's only 2 similarities between this and Vice City; it's an open-world 3D sandbox crime-simulator, and it's set in Miami (the city that Vice City parodies).
But that's where the similarities end.
This game is way better than Vice City!
I know, I know, it sounds like blasphemy saying that, but it's true.
I'm in no way knocking Vice City when I say that, because Vice City is like the 3rd (maybe 4th?) best GTA game of all time, and (at the time of its release, anyway) a wonderful game to boot... Although Vice City has aged about as well as a bottle of opened milk inside of a busy Turkish bathhouse... >_>
But this game is thousands of times better than Vice City!
The graphics, for starters, are 100x better (despite being made on the same game consoles (at the time, PS2 and Original Xbox), but more importantly the game mechanics are a lot more involved and intricate. The world map is hugely bigger, and yet somehow is able to feel so much more intimate and detailed, and it just feels more alive. You can go up and chat to any random NPC you see walking the street. You can go dancing in the iconic Scarface nightclub, The Babylon. You can go up to drug-dealers to sell them cocaine, or you can shoot and rob them and then sell their own product to another dealer. You can engage in gang warfare. You can buy loads of different and varied businesses, and actually step inside the business to talk to the manager in charge of it, and then supply him/her with cocaine lol
And the soundtrack alone is even more amazing than Vice City!
...Granted, a lot of the songs are very anachronistic for the time period it's set in, and yet it doesn't feel too out of place, because the large library of songs chosen for the game fit the whole violent wild coked-out theme of the game's world down to a T.
But the most fun of all, is just simply playing as the amazing total bad-ass character of Tony Montana (from the 2nd best movie ever made!), and build up your own cocaine empire in 1980s Miami, slowly but surely running a multi-billion dollar industry, and just having an absolute blast in the process!
#6: WWF No Mercy
You're probably surprised to see a wrestling game in my list (especially so high-up in my list).
Well, time for backstory :P lol
December, 2000, I had an N64, and my cousin came round with a new cartridge in his hand. A Christmas present of his that he was so proud to own.
Now although I was aware of pro-wrestling (seemed like it just burst into the mainstream during the late 90's), I had only ever really seen bits and pieces of it on TV at the time. Anyway, my cousin turned up with this new game in his hand, wanting to show it off to me.
I was a little hesitant about it at first, I mean, a pro-wrestling game, really? OK, sure, whatever...
So I let him put the cartridge in, all the while he was telling me just how amazing it is, and I was like, "Sure, OK...(!)"
...Oh my word, I have never had so much fun on my N64 before! =D
Honestly, if you've never played this game before, you're missing a great big hole in your video game library!
It's just the most fun ever to run around the ring, hitting and fighting someone, and doing moves on them. The gameplay is just the most fun kind of addictive gameplay you could wish to play from a fighting game. It's very simple to learn the controls, but after playing a few matches, you really start to understand the subtle intricacies of the things you can do in it, and soon you're performing fun and thrilling complicated feats of majestic motions and actions!
One of my most favourite things to do in the game was play a two-on-one handicap match where I (playing as my favourite wrestler at the time, Jeff Hardy) and my cousin (playing as his brother, Matt), versus some other wrestler, while my sister (playing as Matt's girlfriend, Lita, in a special-guest referee role lol). All 3 of us would beat down on this one unlucky person, taking it in turns to do awesome looking moves on them, as well as double-team moves.
And then, once thoroughly beaten up, we would go outside the ring, I'd set up a great big tall ladder, while my cousin laid out the wrestler onto the announcer's table at ringside, where I would then climb up to the very top rung of the ladder, and dive down head-first onto our opponent, sending us both crashing through the table!
And my sister would then count really quickly while my cousin picked my broken body up off the floor and we'd hop back into the ring, and win the match by count out while hugging and celebrating our sweet victory together! :D
...I cannot even begin to accurately tell you just how much fun that was to do! lol
All 3 of us would just be laughing and cheering and having the best fun ever together playing that match out over and over again.
*sigh* Such fun halcyon days...
#5: Hitman 2 (2018)
The Hitman series is just fantastic. Even the "bad" games in the mainline series (*cough* Absolution *cough*) are still very fun, engaging games to play.
For me, Hitman: Blood Money used to be hands-down, the best entry in the series. However, after the excellent return to form of Hitman (2016) which felt like a shiny all new updated sequel to Blood Money, the developers IO Interactive took their golden egg formula and improved upon it all greatly, with tighter controls, better lighting/graphics, a sleeker looking HUD, and smoother framerate for Hitman 2 (2018).
Each and every huge sprawling open-world level has hundreds of ways in it for you to take out your target(s). Assassinations can be really complex and intricate "puzzles" for you to work out in order to get the perfect "silent assassin" rating, or they can be as simple as just running up to your target, shooting them in the head and then running away to one of the exit points as all the guards open fire on you lol yet however you choose to take down your target(s), it's always extremely satisfying and fun to do it.
There's also tons of challenges to complete in each level, which unlock better weapons/tools of the trade, or better starting locations, and special areas for you to smuggle weapons/tools into. There's also tons of outfits and disguises to unlock and/or find in each open-world.
Plus, "Contracts" mode is such a brilliant way of extending the experience, allowing you to create your very own hit-jobs, in which you play in one of the many levels, and you can mark up to 5 targets using all the NPCs in the world, and you can choose how you kill them, in what disguise, and add on some other challenges too. And once you complete your "contract", you can save and publish it, allowing other players in the world to play your contract and try to get the best score on the leaderboard.
And, if you already owned and played Hitman (2016), you're given the option to download and play all that content from the 2016 game again inside Hitman 2's faster/sleeker engine. You're essentially given two amazing games for the price of one!
#4: Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
Assassin's Creed II was the best game in the AC series... Until Black Flag came along!
Honestly, Black Flag makes ACII look like hot stale garbage in comparison :P
I know I'm going to get a lot of flack for saying that, but it's true!
Not only did Ubisoft return to fine form after the boring shite that was Assassin's Creed III, they knocked it out of the park!
Black Flag is one of the absolute best free-roaming, open-world, action/adventure games of all time. They captured the whole 18th century golden age of piracy in video-game form experience to sheer perfection. Even years after completing the game to 100%, I'll still load the disc up every other day, jump aboard The Jackdaw (my fully decked-out pirate ship), and just sail the gloriously rendered ocean, listening to my men serenading me with delightful sea shanties, before getting myself into an exciting heart-thumping naval battle with either the British Navy, Spanish Armada, or other ne'er-do-well sea-scallions.
It's the best game ever for letting me just live out all of my pirate fantasies...
Yarrr! >:D
#3: Batman: Arkham City
Considering Batman is my most favourite superhero of all time, it was an absolute joy that they finally gave him a video game that completely does him justice in the form of Batman: Arkham Asylum.
So when the sequel, Arkham City, came out a couple years later, they not only improved upon the original game, but made it (in my opinion) 1000x better! With a bigger open-world, more gadgets, different playable characters (Catwoman, Robin, Nightwing), great puzzles, a fantastic (and shocking!) story, a jam-packed roster of great villains and boss fights, and all the delicious Easter eggs fans of Batman could ever wish to discover!
It's what a sequel should be - bigger and better. And it is, in my view, not only the perfect Batman video game, but a pretty damn perfect video game all round :)
#2: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
I was a bit torn between choosing either this or GTA 5 as the best game in the GTA series. GTA 5 has the much better graphics and game engine, with realistic controls and physics. It's a much prettier game all round compared to how badly-aged GTA:SA looks.
But... When it comes right down to it. GTA: San Andreas is just so much more fun to play!
Don't get me wrong, GTA 5 is a very, very fun game itself, with lots to do in it. But just everything in San Andreas is more memorable and more entertaining. I can remember every single mission in San Andreas, I can remember every line of the fun dialogues, the crazy shenanigans, the balls-to-the-wall fun of the missions, the awesome story with a nasty villain played perfectly by Samuel L. Jackson, who throughout the whole game I look forward to giving him his comeuppance.
And CJ is, in my view, the greatest all-round video game protagonist ever created. He's funny, he's charming, he's down-to-earth despite all the crazy stuff he goes through. He's also a realistically flawed person, yet that makes him all the more human to me. It's just a fantastic joy to play as him. When I'm playing it, I never wish to be playing as anyone else other than CJ.
No matter how many times I play through the game from start to end. No matter how many times I complete the same missions over and over again. No matter how many times I go through the process of 100%-ing the game. I ALWAYS have the time of my life doing it.
What a bloody awesome masterpiece of a game it is!
#1: Red Dead Redemption II
It's GTA set in the Wild West at the end of the 19th century. Do I need to say anymore? :P
Red Dead Redemption (the first one), was an absolute masterpiece of a game. How the hell do you even improve upon a masterpiece? Sure, you can update the graphics, make everything look more pristine and perfect, and run it all on a much stronger, faster engine. But that game had a stunning story, unique interesting characters, and memorable exciting missions.
So how did Red Dead Redemption II do in trying to match that level?
How did it do in trying to reach that same bar set by the previous title?
Well, with this attempt, they didn't match up to that bar at all.
...THEY RAISED THE BAR EVEN HIGHER!!
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Red Dead II, makes Red Dead Redemption look like horse shit in comparison! o_o lol
It's a damn masterpiece that makes other masterpieces look like shit sprawled on the wall of a toilet stall. They took everything amazing about the first game, and not only improved upon it all with a shiny new coat of pristine perfection, they also added to it all intelligently and wisely. The story and characters are even more memorable, the twists and turns of the story are all the more impactful, and intriguing, and fascinating.
The huge, open, sprawling world of the game is one of (if not) the most alive, beautiful, wonderful open-worlds in all of free-roaming open-world video games ever made, with tons of secrets and Easter eggs to be found and explored, and lots of fun and interesting activities to do. Every NPC you come across in the game feels like a real living breathing person, with their own lives to live and their own personality, independent of other NPCs or you, the main character.
Every time I play the game, it feels like I'm discovering something new about it, and it feels like I've really been transported to the 1890's, just as America's wild west was beginning to be tamed.
Arthur Morgan's whole journey with Dutch's gang, is such a bittersweet tale. He's one of the very best protagonists - not just in a videogame, but across all media - ever created. By the end of his story, if you're not either weeping your eyes out and smiling from ear to ear, or not feeling your heart lifting inside of your chest with pride as you feel like the angels themselves are lifting you up high into the air, then you're simply not human.
And even after 100%-ing the whole game (which was one of the most challenging and stressful, and yet richly rewarding and monumental tasks I've ever fulfilled in a video game), I still find myself constantly playing it all of the time, as there's always something new to do. I just cannot ever get enough of it. And that's why, for me, it's the most perfect and greatest video game ever created.
https://xhamster.com/posts/695911
There have been some major changes, but there's also some repeats from my older post which you may have already read before. Also, after some very serious judging and debate with both myself and my past-self (suck it, Past Annie, Present Annie knows better than you! >:P haha), I've rearranged the order of the games in the list to better suit my feelings on the greatness of my favourite video games.
As always, if you don't like video games, or if you don't have any interest in knowing about my personal favourite video games, then what the hell are you even reading this for? lol :P
There's WAY too many video games out there for me to include every single one of my favourite video games that I love and enjoy playing in a list. So instead, I'll just be narrowing it down to the small number of 20.
If there's a video game that you like that isn't on here, then either a) it didn't make it into my top 20, or b) I haven't played it, or c) I just simply didn't like it :P lol
I will also (just to include more various different titles instead of repeating games) only be picking one game in a single franchise. So if you're wondering where the likes of GTA 5, or FIFA (insert number here) is, you now know why.
I know you're totally going to judge me on my picks and criticise them/me lol
But that's fair, I can take criticism, so please by all means let me know what you think of my picks in the comments at the bottom of the page :)
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#20: Tomb Raider II
I liked the first Tomb Raider, even though I totally sucked at it! Honestly, I couldn't even get past the first level lol
But I LOVED the sequel!
It's such a fun game, and even though it was still tit-achingly difficult to get through the missions, it never used to bother me at all, because I could just have the time of my life playing around in Lara's huge expansive mansion!
I spent so many hours of my young c***dhood life, just jumping and rolling and diving and climbing around the exterior grounds and interior rooms of the mansion, having a total ball exploring every nook and cranny of it. And having so much fun traversing through the maze, and swimming in the huge-ass indoor pool, and, of course, locking the butler in the big walk-in freezer >:)
If that had just been the game itself ("Lara Croft: Arsing around the Mansion! The Video Game" lol) it would still get an almost perfect 9/10 score from me, that's how much fun I had with it! :D
But, I also enjoyed doing the missions, even though, as stated before, I sucked ass at them :P
But I never once got upset or threw my controller or anything like that, because the game was just too much fun for me to get angry at the difficulty of it.
Simply put, it's a wonderful game, and Lara Croft will always have a special place in my heart :)
(and in my wet finger dreams- what? :P )
#19: Sonic the Hedgehog 2
I was tempted to put Sonic & Knuckles, Sonic Adventure (1 or 2), or even the awesomely underrated Sonic: Generations here, but I put way more gameplay hours of my life into this one.
It's one of the earliest games I ever played, and as a side-scrolling platformer, it still holds up today.
It's a short game, only takes just over an hour to complete, and yet completing it was never the end goal. It's all about the fun experience of going fast!
It's just one of those games where you pick the controller up and hold onto it tightly for dear life as you race super fast through the levels, collecting as many chaos emeralds as you can and gathering up so many rings as you go, and every couple levels, fight Dr. Robotnik in a really fun boss battle!
It's a classic video game, and the edition of Tails is a fantastic choice on the part of Sega (back when they weren't run by brain-dead imbeciles), as it allows for a friend to join in the fun with you :)
It may be an old game, and these days I really suck at it, with my younger 6 year old past self easily being able to kick my arse hard at it. But I still enjoy playing it regardless. Anytime I want some Sonic fun in my life, I just download this awesome game onto my Xbox One (only takes 10mins to download! lol), and I'll play through it for a solid hour of fun :)
#18: Crash Bandicoot
A lot of people have said that the 2nd and 3rd games in the original run of the Crash series are so much better than the 1st one, but I got to be honest, the very first Crash game is, and always will be, my most favourite of all!
I had played many platformers before, but to me, Crash Bandicoot perfected the genre. The controls were so tight and responsive, that you knew if you fucked up a landing, it was totally your own fault and not the game's fault. The level designs were also so fun to look at and be in, the graphics were amazing for the time, despite being a PS1 game, and the character of Crash himself is just so fun and full of personality, despite only being able to convey his personality through his body language, facial expressions and actions.
And dying in the game was never a bad thing either, because I loved seeing the many ways in which Crash would die in over-the-top fashion. Seriously, the death animations are some of the most fun, inventive, and just enjoyable pieces of cartoony animation ever put to a game, that it wouldn't look at all out of place on a classic Loony Tunes short!
People have said that the game is difficult, but I never found it to be that.
Sure, when I first ever played the game, I died quite a bit at the start, but after about an hour of playing it, I felt like I had mastered the platforming elements, and was able to just have a ton of fun going through the game, collecting all the boxes and crystals, and just having a sheer blast beating the game, over, and over, and over, and over again, each and every time.
I never once got bored of beating the game, and that right there, is a sign for the developers that they created a damn-near perfect video game :)
#17: FIFA: Road to World Cup 98
I am a total FIFA-head :P
I love the FIFA series of football games. And there's been lots of memorable versions of the games, from the (at the time) state-of-the-art 2004 version, to the totally fun 2001 version, and right up to the current year version of the series.
Real talk, FIFA 20 is a perfectly good football sim, one of the best of the modern era in fact, with the addition of Volta Football (with my own custom female avatar that truly represents me in the game) and my own custom female manager (again, allowing me to actually create and play as my own avatar in manager form!), it felt like the most immersive footie game ever made O_O so I really do not understand where all the hate and negative review scores for it came from?
But, I can only pick one entry in the FIFA series, and so I chose this one (sometimes simply just referred to as "FIFA 98").
I had this game on my N64, it was the first proper football sim I ever played (I did play Sensible Soccer on the Sega Megadrive, but that's more of an arcade-style football game than an actual sim)
As soon as Blur's "Song 2" kicked in at the menu, I knew I was in for a lot of fun playing this game!
There was a huge selection of football teams to choose from (172 international teams and 189 league teams) complete with real player names. The game-play itself was revolutionary at the time, and a huge amount of fun, and the satisfying sound of the players kicking the ball just made me feel so warm inside ^_^
And let's not forget, it was a total blast playing 5-a-side indoor football, with rules turned off so you can just hack into an opposition player with no regard for their safety at all or for the art of football, just like as if you were a Wimbledon F.C. player from the '90s lol :P
It's just a perfectly fun football game in every respect :)
#16: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
COD:MW is a great game, and deserves it's "classic" status, and I do love it a lot (in fact, it was my first ever experience of online multiplayer).
...Buuuuut, Modern Warfare 2 is so much better!
I know most of you are going to disagree with me on that, but, yeah, in my opinion, it takes everything great about the first Modern Warfare and greatly improves upon every aspect of it.
The single player campaign has a very decent story with memorable missions and huge set-pieces. But where MW2 shines is the online multiplayer. It's such a blast to play online, and the maps themselves are the best in the entire series. I really love every map, and each map plays out very differently from each other, making you adapt your gameplay tactics to better suit the environment you're in. Some maps call for run'n'gun tactics, whereas others call for a smart cautious and methodical approach, and a couple maps are just perfect for the very controversial camping technique :P
After just a week of playing online with it, I had learnt the maps off by heart, knowing all the best places to be in to rake up my K/D ratio, as well as learning how to get to the best vantage points, and access every secret area in a map.
It's just a fantastic online FPS, and it's a real shame that the COD series became absolute rubbish, but alas, this entry in the series is by far the perfect peak for the entire franchise :)
#15: Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude
To date, this is my first and only game in the Leisure Suit Larry series I've ever played... And I love it so much! lol
The graphics are fun and good for the most part, yet the game itself is pretty basic. There's nothing really innovative about it, but it does have a really fun premise to it - play as a horny loser of a college student virgin whose main and only goal in life is to get laid! lol
While the humour in it might be pretty crass, rude, crude and downright immature on the surface, if you scratch a little deeper you will actually find, on occasion, some very clever subtle witty thought-provoking jokes that really deserve a good laugh. Not to mention just how interesting and funny the whole world that's built in the game is. It seems like every square inch of the game's open world has a humorous gag in it for you to snort at.
Now, while you're supposed to try to make Larry say all the right things when chatting up girls in the hopes of getting into their panties, it is WAY more fun to fail and say all the wrong things! lol
(It really hits close to home, considering I've had so much experience in having creepy guys coming up to me and just failing so hard, saying all the wrong creepy things to me to try to get into my knickers lol)
Honestly, some of the lines you can make Larry say to the girl that he's trying to impress, really triggers a full-on belly-laugh from me lol I think my most favourite bit of dialogue in the whole game is when Larry's trying to impress a girl, and he gets super pissed off that his rival, Russel (who happens to be a bit mentally slow, by the way), has eaten his favourite coconut doughnut, and he starts aggressively berating the guy, which culminates in Larry just flat-out accusing Russel of stealing his toothbrush and taking/passing around a photo of it shoved up his ass hahaha xD
I just couldn't get through that scene without having to pause the game so I can roll around on the floor laughing lol
It's a comedy game, and comedy is subjective so most of you reading this probably won't like the humour the same way that I do, but yeah, by god do I enjoy the adult humour in it! There's plenty of fun, witty and comedic video games out there, but for me, Magna Cum Laude is the one that always makes me laugh the most :D
There's sex, full-on nudity, lots of (very naughty!) collectables, and tons of jokes. What more do you want? :P
#14: Super Mario 64
What else can be said about Mario? He's an iconic video game character, and will be around forever.
Sure, you can have wonderful graphics and new gameplay elements in the likes of "Super Mario Galaxy" and "Super Mario Odyssey", but nothing can ever beat the legendary fun found in Super Mario 64!
It's the very first thing I think of when I see or hear the name, Mario.
The wonderful fun environment of Princess Peach's castle, all the delightfully varied levels, and a short dumpy 3D model of Mario, with his signature "A-whoop!" "Yup!" jumping noises :P
An awesomely fun game, with fantastic tight controls, and a ton of fun levels and innovations in 3D platforming that are still relied on in the industry today. And it still holds up well, even after all these decades of technological progress.
#13: Spider-Man 2
Oh my god, Spider-Man has had so many awesome video games! From Spider-Man (2000) on the PS1 (my first ever Spider-Man game), it's sequel, Enter Electro was a big improvement. Ultimate Spider-Man, Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, Spider-Man: The Movie... Hell, even The Amazing Spider-Man video game was a very decent Spidey game, despite being based on one of the worst Spider-Man movies of all time (The Amazing Spider-Man 2 game sucks complete ass, though!).
But all of them pale in comparison to the incredible Spider-Man 2!
...Although the Spider-Man 3 game comes pretty damn close to matching the bar set by Spider-Man 2 ;)
Specifically, the PS2 version, which perfectly captured the joy of web-slinging through the fully-rendered streets of New York. The swinging mechanic was perfectly spot-on, and the fighting controls were tight and fun. The game makes you totally feel like you are Spider-Man, swinging from rooftop to rooftop, and swooping down to stop a mugging or to rescue someone from a fire. Even grabbing a lost balloon for a little c***d feels like fun!
It's not just an amazing video game tie-in for a movie, it's just an amazing video game overall!
(side-note: if I ever actually played "Marvel's Spider-Man", I'd probably replace this Spider-Man entry with that. But I'm not spending over £150 on a PS4 just to play through the damn game! lol so until the price of a pre-owned PS4 drops way down, "Spider-Man 2" shall remain my most favourite Spider-Man game.)
#12: LEGO DC Super Villains
If you've never played a LEGO video game before, it can look from the outside as just a crappy, simple ch
...But it so isn't!
They are some of the best yet simple fun games out there!
I've honestly sunk about an entire year's worth of my life into 100%-ing the games in the series. It's so much fun collecting everything in the game, playing all the missions, unlocking loads of characters from all different media genres, and even some pop-culture icons, and laughing at all the fun silly humour of it all in the process.
I did pick LEGO Marvel Superheroes for this list before, but that game pales in comparison to the brilliant LEGO DC Super Villains!
As a girl whose more DC than she is Marvel, the sheer bloody amount of love given to the DC Universe by Traveller's Tales, with tons of references and mindfulness to the icons and environments at their disposal, is truly a beautiful lovely thing to bear witness to O_O
Plus, the character roster of all the different DC Comics characters you can play as, each with their very own unique super powers and abilities, is the best in the whole LEGO Batman and LEGO DC series to date.
And the hub world is a huge sprawling, living, breathing open-world map of Gotham City (complete with Wayne Manor and the Batcave), Metropolis, and Smallville. With those cities each having their own unique identity, quite a number of in-universe famous buildings from the comics you can enter and run amok in, and lots of fun activities and collectables to collect/do whilst you're running around freely as the DC character of your choosing :D
It is, in my mind, THE definite LEGO video game experience, and people of ALL ages will get a huge kick out of playing it, either alone or with a friend for some good solid couch co-op :)
#11: Bully
It's GTA, but set in a New England boarding school. Do I need to say anymore? :P
It really captures the social nightmare that is surviving high school, where everyone is in a different clique, the teachers are all assholes, and no one in authority gives a shit about a bunch of 15 year olds being total dickheads to other 15 year olds. It captures school life perfectly! lol
But of course, where it shines, is the fun gameplay.
It's everything you can do in a GTA game, but given a schoolastic makeover.
You can't shoot or kill anyone, but you can throw stinkbombs and eggs at them. You can't drive a car, but you can drive a go-kart/moped/bicycle/skateboard. You can't sleep with prostitutes, but you can kiss girls, and even boys too! (Talk about progressive!)
The main character of Jimmy Hopkins, is so much fun to play as, he's like the only "normal" k
The point of the game is to stand-up for the bullied k
It's a terrific game, and I highly recommend it to anyone who's never played it before :)
...I just really wish Rockstar could have made a sequel, but every day it seems less and less likely that that'll ever happen ='( ...Still, a girl can always dream for a miracle, can't she?
#10: The Sims 3: Pets
I love The Sims. It's just something about being a goddess, having complete control over the lives of others, dictating who lives and who dies, who gets a happy life, and who gets shit-canned, that really appeals to me >:P lol
I was tempted to put The Sims 4, but 4 (despite being a more visually beautiful game) is a huge step backwards for the series, with tons of features that are found in 3 not being found in 4, and the extremely abusive and manipulative DLC practises by the shitheads at EA, selling content packs at extortionate prices for content that should have been included free in the main game, is just so shitty and slimy, and very typical of EA.
Anyway, I picked The Sims 3: Pets as my best Sims game, because it's the most fun one out of the entire series. The level of creativity and customisation in it can give me countless hours of fun as I design a family, construct a beautiful house with a wonderful gorgeous outside area, and a bunch of cute cats/dogs :)
There's a ton of fun that can be had in it, and to be honest, I actually get more fun from helping/guiding a Sim in fulfilling his or her life dreams, and help them to create a legacy, generation after generation, rather than destroy them :)
...I save ruining someone's life for the dickheads in the game who burgle houses or inconvenience my Sims goals >:)
And honestly, if people believe that God (of the Bible/Koran/Torah fame) exists, then He (of course God's a guy, I mean, come on :P lol) is definitely a guy who's just playing The Sims with the universe lol
That's a much better explanation for why so much bad shit happens in the world to good people, rather than the "God works in mysterious ways", or worse, "It's all part of God's plan" trite that religious people pull out of their ass to explain it away as to why their God is such an deranged asshole lol
#9: Pokemon Red
Pokemon Yellow may be the most complete version of the classic 1st generation of Pokemon games (Red, Blue, Green), and FireRed/LeafGreen may be the most graphically perfect version of those games. But nothing beats the experience and nostalgia I have for Pokemon Red.
If you've never played/enjoyed any of the Pokemon games in the series before, you won't understand what I'm talking about, but I still have my Gameboy Colour, and I still pick it up and just lose myself for hours in my copy of Pokemon Red. The 1st generation of Pokemon (all 151 of them) are, as far as I'm concerned, the only Pokemon that matter!
I can name all 151 of them, describing their types, their abilities, their weaknesses. I can happily and easily tell you exactly what makes each and every one of them great, and if you disagree with me I will say to you, "Fair enough, that's your opinion which you are entitled to... But your opinion is wrong, and here's why:" and I will then go on to explain in full detail exactly why you are wrong >:P
I can even put up a good argument for why Magikarp is great :P
Pokemon Red just can't be beat for sheer nostalgic c***dhood fun :)
#8: The Warriors
I'll be honest, before the game came out in 2005, I had never heard of the film, The Warriors, of which this game is a perfect adaption of. I played the demo, and I really loved it! So, I bought the game, and I loved it even more!
It's an amazing beat'em-up style game, with incredible tight controls, and amazing graphics which still stand up well today despite being on the PS2/Original Xbox generation of consoles.
Never before as gang warfare been so much fun to take part in! lol
When you got a full gang with you, and you're diving fist-first into the fray as you take on another army of a gang in brutal, bloody fashion, or you're just terrorising the neighbourhood with your gang, it's all just super immense fun!
The story is both original and unique from the film, until towards the end when it starts playing out the film story. It's a total blast to play by yourself, but if you get a friend to join you, the fun is doubled! It's very rare for a game to be both amazing fun as either a single player or a 2-player couch co-op game.
And as for the film, after I fell in love with the game, I checked out the film, and just wow O_O
It's a really awesome film which I highly recommend you see, and Rockstar are clear fans of the film, because they gave the game the love and respect it deserved.
If ever you want to know what a perfect video game adaption of a movie is, look no further than The Warriors :)
#7: Scarface: The World is Yours
When this first came out, a lot of people stupidly branded this game as a "cheap knock-off of GTA: Vice City".
To them, I say, you're talking out of your arse!
First off, there's only 2 similarities between this and Vice City; it's an open-world 3D sandbox crime-simulator, and it's set in Miami (the city that Vice City parodies).
But that's where the similarities end.
This game is way better than Vice City!
I know, I know, it sounds like blasphemy saying that, but it's true.
I'm in no way knocking Vice City when I say that, because Vice City is like the 3rd (maybe 4th?) best GTA game of all time, and (at the time of its release, anyway) a wonderful game to boot... Although Vice City has aged about as well as a bottle of opened milk inside of a busy Turkish bathhouse... >_>
But this game is thousands of times better than Vice City!
The graphics, for starters, are 100x better (despite being made on the same game consoles (at the time, PS2 and Original Xbox), but more importantly the game mechanics are a lot more involved and intricate. The world map is hugely bigger, and yet somehow is able to feel so much more intimate and detailed, and it just feels more alive. You can go up and chat to any random NPC you see walking the street. You can go dancing in the iconic Scarface nightclub, The Babylon. You can go up to d
And the soundtrack alone is even more amazing than Vice City!
...Granted, a lot of the songs are very anachronistic for the time period it's set in, and yet it doesn't feel too out of place, because the large library of songs chosen for the game fit the whole violent wild coked-out theme of the game's world down to a T.
But the most fun of all, is just simply playing as the amazing total bad-ass character of Tony Montana (from the 2nd best movie ever made!), and build up your own cocaine empire in 1980s Miami, slowly but surely running a multi-billion dollar industry, and just having an absolute blast in the process!
#6: WWF No Mercy
You're probably surprised to see a wrestling game in my list (especially so high-up in my list).
Well, time for backstory :P lol
December, 2000, I had an N64, and my cousin came round with a new cartridge in his hand. A Christmas present of his that he was so proud to own.
Now although I was aware of pro-wrestling (seemed like it just burst into the mainstream during the late 90's), I had only ever really seen bits and pieces of it on TV at the time. Anyway, my cousin turned up with this new game in his hand, wanting to show it off to me.
I was a little hesitant about it at first, I mean, a pro-wrestling game, really? OK, sure, whatever...
So I let him put the cartridge in, all the while he was telling me just how amazing it is, and I was like, "Sure, OK...(!)"
...Oh my word, I have never had so much fun on my N64 before! =D
Honestly, if you've never played this game before, you're missing a great big hole in your video game library!
It's just the most fun ever to run around the ring, hitting and fighting someone, and doing moves on them. The gameplay is just the most fun kind of addictive gameplay you could wish to play from a fighting game. It's very simple to learn the controls, but after playing a few matches, you really start to understand the subtle intricacies of the things you can do in it, and soon you're performing fun and thrilling complicated feats of majestic motions and actions!
One of my most favourite things to do in the game was play a two-on-one handicap match where I (playing as my favourite wrestler at the time, Jeff Hardy) and my cousin (playing as his brother, Matt), versus some other wrestler, while my sister (playing as Matt's girlfriend, Lita, in a special-guest referee role lol). All 3 of us would beat down on this one unlucky person, taking it in turns to do awesome looking moves on them, as well as double-team moves.
And then, once thoroughly beaten up, we would go outside the ring, I'd set up a great big tall ladder, while my cousin laid out the wrestler onto the announcer's table at ringside, where I would then climb up to the very top rung of the ladder, and dive down head-first onto our opponent, sending us both crashing through the table!
And my sister would then count really quickly while my cousin picked my broken body up off the floor and we'd hop back into the ring, and win the match by count out while hugging and celebrating our sweet victory together! :D
...I cannot even begin to accurately tell you just how much fun that was to do! lol
All 3 of us would just be laughing and cheering and having the best fun ever together playing that match out over and over again.
*sigh* Such fun halcyon days...
#5: Hitman 2 (2018)
The Hitman series is just fantastic. Even the "bad" games in the mainline series (*cough* Absolution *cough*) are still very fun, engaging games to play.
For me, Hitman: Blood Money used to be hands-down, the best entry in the series. However, after the excellent return to form of Hitman (2016) which felt like a shiny all new updated sequel to Blood Money, the developers IO Interactive took their golden egg formula and improved upon it all greatly, with tighter controls, better lighting/graphics, a sleeker looking HUD, and smoother framerate for Hitman 2 (2018).
Each and every huge sprawling open-world level has hundreds of ways in it for you to take out your target(s). Assassinations can be really complex and intricate "puzzles" for you to work out in order to get the perfect "silent assassin" rating, or they can be as simple as just running up to your target, shooting them in the head and then running away to one of the exit points as all the guards open fire on you lol yet however you choose to take down your target(s), it's always extremely satisfying and fun to do it.
There's also tons of challenges to complete in each level, which unlock better weapons/tools of the trade, or better starting locations, and special areas for you to smuggle weapons/tools into. There's also tons of outfits and disguises to unlock and/or find in each open-world.
Plus, "Contracts" mode is such a brilliant way of extending the experience, allowing you to create your very own hit-jobs, in which you play in one of the many levels, and you can mark up to 5 targets using all the NPCs in the world, and you can choose how you kill them, in what disguise, and add on some other challenges too. And once you complete your "contract", you can save and publish it, allowing other players in the world to play your contract and try to get the best score on the leaderboard.
And, if you already owned and played Hitman (2016), you're given the option to download and play all that content from the 2016 game again inside Hitman 2's faster/sleeker engine. You're essentially given two amazing games for the price of one!
#4: Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
Assassin's Creed II was the best game in the AC series... Until Black Flag came along!
Honestly, Black Flag makes ACII look like hot stale garbage in comparison :P
I know I'm going to get a lot of flack for saying that, but it's true!
Not only did Ubisoft return to fine form after the boring shite that was Assassin's Creed III, they knocked it out of the park!
Black Flag is one of the absolute best free-roaming, open-world, action/adventure games of all time. They captured the whole 18th century golden age of piracy in video-game form experience to sheer perfection. Even years after completing the game to 100%, I'll still load the disc up every other day, jump aboard The Jackdaw (my fully decked-out pirate ship), and just sail the gloriously rendered ocean, listening to my men serenading me with delightful sea shanties, before getting myself into an exciting heart-thumping naval battle with either the British Navy, Spanish Armada, or other ne'er-do-well sea-scallions.
It's the best game ever for letting me just live out all of my pirate fantasies...
Yarrr! >:D
#3: Batman: Arkham City
Considering Batman is my most favourite superhero of all time, it was an absolute joy that they finally gave him a video game that completely does him justice in the form of Batman: Arkham Asylum.
So when the sequel, Arkham City, came out a couple years later, they not only improved upon the original game, but made it (in my opinion) 1000x better! With a bigger open-world, more gadgets, different playable characters (Catwoman, Robin, Nightwing), great puzzles, a fantastic (and shocking!) story, a jam-packed roster of great villains and boss fights, and all the delicious Easter eggs fans of Batman could ever wish to discover!
It's what a sequel should be - bigger and better. And it is, in my view, not only the perfect Batman video game, but a pretty damn perfect video game all round :)
#2: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
I was a bit torn between choosing either this or GTA 5 as the best game in the GTA series. GTA 5 has the much better graphics and game engine, with realistic controls and physics. It's a much prettier game all round compared to how badly-aged GTA:SA looks.
But... When it comes right down to it. GTA: San Andreas is just so much more fun to play!
Don't get me wrong, GTA 5 is a very, very fun game itself, with lots to do in it. But just everything in San Andreas is more memorable and more entertaining. I can remember every single mission in San Andreas, I can remember every line of the fun dialogues, the crazy shenanigans, the balls-to-the-wall fun of the missions, the awesome story with a nasty villain played perfectly by Samuel L. Jackson, who throughout the whole game I look forward to giving him his comeuppance.
And CJ is, in my view, the greatest all-round video game protagonist ever created. He's funny, he's charming, he's down-to-earth despite all the crazy stuff he goes through. He's also a realistically flawed person, yet that makes him all the more human to me. It's just a fantastic joy to play as him. When I'm playing it, I never wish to be playing as anyone else other than CJ.
No matter how many times I play through the game from start to end. No matter how many times I complete the same missions over and over again. No matter how many times I go through the process of 100%-ing the game. I ALWAYS have the time of my life doing it.
What a bloody awesome masterpiece of a game it is!
#1: Red Dead Redemption II
It's GTA set in the Wild West at the end of the 19th century. Do I need to say anymore? :P
Red Dead Redemption (the first one), was an absolute masterpiece of a game. How the hell do you even improve upon a masterpiece? Sure, you can update the graphics, make everything look more pristine and perfect, and run it all on a much stronger, faster engine. But that game had a stunning story, unique interesting characters, and memorable exciting missions.
So how did Red Dead Redemption II do in trying to match that level?
How did it do in trying to reach that same bar set by the previous title?
Well, with this attempt, they didn't match up to that bar at all.
...THEY RAISED THE BAR EVEN HIGHER!!
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Red Dead II, makes Red Dead Redemption look like horse shit in comparison! o_o lol
It's a damn masterpiece that makes other masterpieces look like shit sprawled on the wall of a toilet stall. They took everything amazing about the first game, and not only improved upon it all with a shiny new coat of pristine perfection, they also added to it all intelligently and wisely. The story and characters are even more memorable, the twists and turns of the story are all the more impactful, and intriguing, and fascinating.
The huge, open, sprawling world of the game is one of (if not) the most alive, beautiful, wonderful open-worlds in all of free-roaming open-world video games ever made, with tons of secrets and Easter eggs to be found and explored, and lots of fun and interesting activities to do. Every NPC you come across in the game feels like a real living breathing person, with their own lives to live and their own personality, independent of other NPCs or you, the main character.
Every time I play the game, it feels like I'm discovering something new about it, and it feels like I've really been transported to the 1890's, just as America's wild west was beginning to be tamed.
Arthur Morgan's whole journey with Dutch's gang, is such a bittersweet tale. He's one of the very best protagonists - not just in a videogame, but across all media - ever created. By the end of his story, if you're not either weeping your eyes out and smiling from ear to ear, or not feeling your heart lifting inside of your chest with pride as you feel like the angels themselves are lifting you up high into the air, then you're simply not human.
And even after 100%-ing the whole game (which was one of the most challenging and stressful, and yet richly rewarding and monumental tasks I've ever fulfilled in a video game), I still find myself constantly playing it all of the time, as there's always something new to do. I just cannot ever get enough of it. And that's why, for me, it's the most perfect and greatest video game ever created.
5 years ago
