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Games, games, games

In these times of war, international tension, deadly disease, and apocalyptic tension, it seems appropriate for me to spend a few moments discussing my favorite video games. Jointly inspired by a recent post by Ron and a book loaned to me by Ed on the topic of children and fantasy/game violence, I thought it'd be an interesting exercise to think through my 20-odd years of gaming and endeavor to make a list of my favorites.

Following Ron's model, I'll list my favorites in rough order of preference (although without breaking them down into categories), followed by the platform on which I originally played them. It was quite difficult to rank some of these:

  1. Planescape: Torment (PC)
  2. Wasteland (C64)
  3. Zork (C64)
  4. Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (Apple ][C)
  5. Starcraft (PC)
  6. Battletech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception (C64)
  7. Final Fantasy (NES)
  8. The Legend of Zelda (NES)
  9. Doom 2 (PC)
  10. Ninja Gaiden 2: The Dark Sword of Chaos (NES)
  11. Castlevania 3: Dracula's Curse (NES)
  12. System Shock 2
  13. Beyond Zork (Mac)
  14. Fallout (PC)
  15. Half-life (PC)
  16. Airborne Ranger (C64)
  17. Ultima VI: The False Prophet (Amiga)
  18. Ninja Gaiden (NES)
  19. Hexen (PC)
  20. The Secret of Monkey Island (PC)
  21. Battle of Britain (Amiga)
  22. Wing Commander (Amiga)
  23. Quake (PC)
  24. Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest (NES)
  25. Shadow of the Beast (Amiga)
  26. Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast (PC)
  27. Unreal Tournament 2003 (PC)
  28. Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries (PC)
  29. Lode Runner (C64)
  30. Dragon Warrior (NES)

Reactions? Did you play any of these games and like/dislike them? What have I left out?

Posted by Andy on May 9, 2003 12:29 PM |

Comments

Ah Zork! The one text-only game that I really enjoyed.. Was pleased to see Airbourne Ranger, Zelda, and Jedi Knigh 2 up there. I suspect Metroid Prime will break into the top 15 when you get into it. There is a surprising (? perhaps not that suprising) lack of later generation console games on that list. Do you think that's because you liked PC games better, or just didn't own/play the console games (SNES/Genesis/N64/Playstation/GC/etc..)

Posted by: Ron | May 9, 2003 3:14 PM

No Tecmo Super Bowl? Face it, nothing can compete with those graphics. It was so realistic, I think it was actually an early prototype of the Matrix (the life-sim, not the movie). In fact, I think we should pre-emptively block the sun at the Tecmo development studios. (Sorry, I'm in a Matrix mood these days.)

Posted by: MM | May 9, 2003 5:53 PM

Ron: glad to hear there's another Zork fan out there. That game occupied way to much of my junior high life, along with Infocom's other interactive fiction games. As for the lack of games from the second-generation consoles, that is due to the fact that I never owned any of them--I stuck with the NES (and my Amiga) long after others had moved on to more advanced consoles like the Sega Genesis and SNES. I'm sure there are some quality games on those platforms, but I never played them.

Mark: ah yes, Tecmo Super Bowl was on the list, but I had to shorten it down to 30 games, last I give the impression (not entirely inaccurate) that all I've done with my life is play video games. Tecmo Super Bowl ruled and is high up on the list of great NES games. The other game I regretfully cut from the list was Bard's Tale II: Destiny Knight (actually, all three Bard's Tale games were great), a truly phenomenal RPG I played on my Amiga back in the late 80s or early 90s.

Making dumb lists is quite fun, as it turns out...

Posted by: jrau | May 10, 2003 2:04 PM

I've checked over your list quite a few times, but I still can't find Bump and Jump (C64), Ghostbusters (C64), Transformers (C64), Lode Runner (C64), Zorro (C64) or Ikari Warriors (A-B-B-A).

I'm checking the list again. There must be some kind of mistake...

Posted by: billg | May 13, 2003 12:07 PM

Oops. I guess I didn't check the list as many times as I thought. Lode Runner did make the list. I words have trouble with.

Posted by: billg | May 13, 2003 12:10 PM

Nice to see another Zork fan. You can download them here (http://www.csd.uwo.ca/Infocom/zork1.html), just for old times sake.

Posted by: Bwomp | May 16, 2003 8:44 PM

Welcome Bwomp, and good to see another Zork fan indeed. Thanks for the link. Several years ago, I lucked out and got myself a copy of an Infocom compilation CD that had most (but not all) of their interactive fiction games on it... I had a good time playing through all the games I hadn't had a chance to play when I was younger, like the Enchanter trilogy.

I wish they were doing more with the Zork franchise these days... ah well. It seems like an awful lot of gamers have fond memories of Zork... you'd think they'd try a bit harder to leverage all that nostalgia...

Posted by: jrau | May 17, 2003 9:58 AM

Have never posted here but I got into this site after searching for various opinions on Donnie Darko (great movie). Anyway, here is my list of my favourite 15 video games of all time:

1:Final Fantasy II (SNES)
2:Contra (NES)
3:Starcraft (PC)
4:Counterstrike (PC)
5:Police Quest (PC)
6:Chrono Trigger (SNES)
7:Halo (Xbox)
8:Tenchu (PS)
9:Blades of Steel (NES)
10:Final Fantasy (NES)
11:Legend of Zelda:Link to the Past(SNES)
12:Golden Axe (SEGA)
13:Warcraft II (PC)
14:Resident Evil (PS)
15:Dead to Rights (Xbox)

Man that was kinda tough, the ranking is kinda off probably but there it is. Never had an old PC so I had to play games like Police Quest and Space Quest, and other old time PC games at a friends house. So my lack of them on the list is based on not playing alot of them.

Posted by: mike | June 1, 2003 9:54 AM

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