Top 10 Video Games

Nintendo, 1997, N64, rated E (everyone)
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The best (in my opinion) on-rails shooter, because it really gives you a feeling of control, despite not actually giving you much control in most missions. Besides a few "arena"-style segments, the game plays mostly on a track, where you are always moving forward along it. You do, however, get to move around on screen, speed up, slow down, somersault, and yes, do a barrel roll. The levels are all very diverse, from various types of planets, to space, and you can even pilot a tank and a submarine. The best part is the branching level system; certain paths are more difficult. You can't just choose your path, though. You have to do something different in certain missions, to go on a different path. Sometimes, it could be saving one of your friends (or not saving them), but it's all up to you to figure out. These branches also make various tweaks to the story, and if you don't beat the game by playing the hardest path, you won't even get the real ending. The game also has a pretty good multiplayer, although with limited options, where you can even unlock the tank, and each of the characters on foot. I was actually better at multiplayer than the game itself.

StarFox Assault. It was overall pretty good, pretty similar, and looked really nice, but was missing something. The "on foot" missions didn't really help much, either.

LucasArts, 1996, N64, PC, rated T (13+)
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At first, Shadows of the Empire seems like a game based on a book, based on Star Wars, but it's so much more. It's but one part of a huge multimedia campaign (the first of it's kind), and I totally bought into it. I have the novel, the graphic novel, the game, the soundtrack (with some great music by Joel McNeely, and the first CD I ever owned), action figures, trading cards, and even these limited edition tin "cards" that feature the covers of each issue of the comic. Also, if you wanted the whole story, you needed to buy several parts, as there are scenes in the game that are only in the game, etc. but each part stands on it's own pretty well. The campaign was so big, they even called it "the movie without a movie." Here's the gist of the story: it takes place between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, and follows the heroes as they bring down Prince Xizor, leader of the evil Black Sun organization. Now for the game itself. You play as mercenary Dash Rendar, from the Battle of Hoth as seen in Empire Strikes Back, all the way through the Shadows of the Empire novel. The levels are nice and varied, both in terms of location and gameplay. There's a level where you fly a snowspeeder against AT-ATs, levels in space where you fly either freely or "on-rails," and a swoop bike chase (reminiscent of the speeder bike chase from Return of the Jedi). Most of the levels are on foot, however, but even then there's variety. Some levels make extensive use of a jetpack, and there's a level where you're constantly jumping between moving trains. Boss fights are dispersed throughout, and each level has a certain number of "challenge points" to collect (but are not required). The game also has two different endings, depending on the difficulty setting. The music comes from both Empire Strikes Back and the Shadows of the Empire soundtrack (there are more tracks on the CD than are featured in the game, in case you were wondering). Despite Empire Strikes Back being my favorite movie in the series, I've played the game so many times that the music from the movie makes me think of the game instead. The final note is about the "debug code," which allows you to get all weapons, invincibility, and other things. Why I'm even mentioning it is because of how difficult it was to perform. First you needed to input your name as _Wampa__Stompa (with exact capitalization and spacing), start a level, and pause. Not too challenging, right? Now for the hard part. Hold down all 4 C-buttons, L, R, Z, and left on the D-pad. At this point all of your fingers are occupied, so you need to get creative. While holding all of those down, move the analog stick halfway to the left until you hear a sound (in the game), then repeat again to the right, to the left, right, and finally left. Pretty crazy, huh?

Since I have another Star Wars game higher on the list, this is the next best in the series.

MicroProse/FASA Interactive, 1998, PC
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The first game where you controlled a group of mechs instead of piloting one. It's a real-time strategy game, yet you don't have a base, and can't build units. Instead, there are a few tactical elements. All planning is done before each mission, where you buy mechs and weapons, and recruit pilots. Once you're done, you can basically reconfigure them however you want. Pilots all have a rank, and certain skills. Keep in mind that a low ranked pilot can't pilot a high level mech, effectively or at all. Once the mission starts, you're stuck with what you have. During missions, you fight enemy mechs and complete objectives. You can also find containers full of weapons, and can even salvage enemy mechs, for use in later missions. At the end of a mission, you gain money, and your pilots improve their skills, provided they don't die or eject. If a pilot dies, that's it, but mechs can always be repaired if you have the money. If you want the best experience with this game, I recommend getting Mech Commander Gold. Not only does it come with the original game, but the never-separately-released expansion, which gives you a whole new campaign, and new mechs, weapons, and pilots. Gold also adds two new features (to both games): waypoints, which allow you to draw complex paths for your mechs to follow, and multiple difficulty settings. The game also comes with a map editor (only in the Gold version) where you can make your own levels.

Since the expansion was never released on it's own, I'll put MechCommander 2 here. I don't remember the game too well, not that it wasn't fun. It was made by a different company years after the original, and was in full 3D. Most of the features are the same, but the equip system was changed (and not necessarily for the better).

Cyan Worlds/Sunsoft, 2000, PC, Mac, rated E (everyone)
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The original Myst was really the first of it's kind. It was the first game to incorporate Full Motion Video, and also one of the earliest CD-ROM games. It was also the best-selling CD-ROM game until The Sims was released almost a decade later. The game is full of mind-bending puzzles, and the world is presented as hundreds of pre-rendered still images, because computers at the time couldn't handle full 3D graphics. The story, while having minimal effect on the gameplay, is very interesting, and adds a lot to the atmosphere. There are 2 brothers each trapped inside a book, and you can only free one of them (although there is a third ending). The brothers are members of a family who can create worlds (called "Ages") inside of books by writing whatever they want, and can then visit them. You'll be visiting several of these Ages as you go through the game. While small on story, the game is big on atmosphere. The atmosphere is mostly one of isolation. It's just you and the strange island of Myst. Now for the "real" entry on the list: realMyst. Many years (and sequels) later, Myst was remade the way it was meant to be. The puzzles and videos were the same, but graphics were completely redone in full 3D, meaning you can move and look around wherever you want. It also featured full animations and an extra Age you can visit after the end. I recommend this game to anyone, so if you get the chance, play it! Just remember to keep a pencil and paper handy.

I haven't played any of the sequels (of which there are 5-ish), but I really want to.

Squaresoft, 1995, SNES, Playstation, rated E (everyone)(SNES), rated T (13+)(Playstation)
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One of a handful of games that many people consider to be the best ever, and rightfully so. It was made by an RPG Dream Team, consisting of key members responsible for both the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series', including the creators of both series, with character designs by Akira Toriyama (creator of Dragonball, character designer of Dragon Quest series), and music co-written by Nobuo Uematsu (composer of every main series Final Fantasy). It was one of the first games to have multiple endings and the first to have a New Game+ option, allowing you to carry over all of your stuff from your previous playthrough (including the level of your characters) and start again at the beginning (which makes getting all 13 endings much easier). It's also the only game I know where you have the option to fight the final boss at the beginning. This game is all about time travel, and actually has a fairly complex plot. You travel through a total of 5 different time periods as you find out how to stop the world from being destroyed, meeting new people along the way to help you on your journey. The combat system uses the speed gauge common to the Final Fantasy series from 4 on, and emphasizes combo attacks between player characters, of which 3 can fight at a time. There are also many sidequests to do, and doing certain ones and not others is the main way to get the different endings. The plot also has a few twists. The main villain turns out to not be the main villain, and not at all who you think he is, and you can even recruit him at one point (or beat him in a 1-on-1 duel). Also, the big shock: *Spoiler Alert* (highlight to read) The main character actually dies at one point, but it's okay because you can do a sidequest to bring him back to life. *End Spoilers* The music is one of my favorite game soundtracks.

The only other game in the series is Chrono Cross, which I have sadly never gotten the chance to play.

Atari/Midway, 1998, arcade, N64, Playstation, Dreamcast, rated T (13+)
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After it's humble beginnings on the NES with Gauntlet 1 and 2, the series was brought into the 3rd dimension in arcades with Gauntlet Legends, the quintessential hack-and-slash dungeon crawler. But I'm not talking about the arcade version; I'm talking about the Nintendo 64 version. Both versions play pretty much the same. You select one of four characters, each with strengths and weaknesses that become less and less of an issue as you level up, and fight through hordes of enemies across 5-6 multi-staged levels, each ending with a boss. The arcade version had a level select screen where, once you selected a level, you would go through each stage until you died or completed the level. The N64 version gave us Sumner's Tower, a small room that led to other rooms through themed gates to each level, where you could play each individual stage instead of the entire level at once. In the arcade version, your health steadily depleted as you played, unless you put in more money, making it really only fun if you had a lot of friends or a lot of quarters. The N64 version had no such limitation. Also, the Sand and Forest levels in the arcade version were replaced by the Ice and Town levels on the N64, and while not an improvement so much as a difference, is still worth mentioning. The game technically only had 5 different types of enemies (ankle biters, small, medium, large, and golems), but each is redesigned depending on what level you're in, and the environments, while typical of the genre, are very well realized. The game itself is just plain fun. It's also the only game I know that you can not only play one-handed, but can play without pushing any buttons, since your character auto-attacks upon running into an enemy. I've even played with two characters simultaneously. Lastly, music. The music was either composed or arranged by Barry Leitch (http://www.barryleitch.com/) (some pieces are based on the ones from the arcade version, composed by John Paul). The pieces in the game are all very distinct and memorable. I liked the music so much, I even made a couple CD's of it (through a very roundabout process, I might add). The quality of the music, and the popularity of the game make me wonder why there are next to no MIDI files on the internet (zero for the N64 version, which is actually fairly different), where people have made them for far more obscure games. Hmm...

Dark Legacy. It took all the levels from the arcade and N64 versions, added 1-2 more, added more characters, kept the level intro cutscenes from the arcade version, and made Sumner's Tower about 10 times bigger. So why was Legends on the list instead? Charm? Atmosphere? Nostalgia? Who knows.

Blizzard, 1998, PC, Mac, rated T (13+)
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Possibly the best RTS ever (although I've heard great things about StarfCraft II). This took everything from the genre and made it better, It included 3 completely unique yet entirely balanced races to choose from, each with their own units, play style, and campaign. Apparently there were still some balance issues on release, but they were quickly patched. The campaigns were all great too, with a more involved story than most movies. I still haven't beaten the game yet, but I'm working on it. Blizzard are masters of their craft. Their stories and characters are usually very deep and real, they always think of ways to improve a game's overall experience, and their cutscenes rival those made by Square-Enix. And let's not forget their trademark humor. StarCraft is no exception. While the campaign was fun, two other aspects really made it stand out: multiplayer, and the Campaign Editor. I never really played multiplayer much, except on occasion against the computer. I remember one time I was playing Brood War (the expansion) against 7 computer players (just for fun), and accidentally set all of them against me. Before I could barely get things going, this giant wave of what seemed like hundreds of marines and medics entered my base. Let's just say that it didn't end well. People are still playing StarCraft online today. In Korea, where StarCraft is their national pastime, they even have a few TV stations dedicated to showing nothing but StarCraft matches, and the players are seen as celebrities. Then there's the Campaign Editor, which lets you make and share your own levels, complete with custom briefing, objectives, and triggered events, within a very simple drag-and-drop interface.

Um... Brood War? But that's only because I haven't played StarCraft II yet.

LucasArts, 1997, PC, rated T (13+)

Second in the Dark Forces series, first in the Jedi Knight series, and the best Star Wars game I've ever played. The original Jedi experience. This was the first game to really give you the feel of wielding a lightsaber (although that has been greatly improved and expanded in recent games), and you don't even get the lightsaber 'til after level 3. It was also one of the earliest games to give you a choice between good and evil, which actually changed the ending, and they used (live action) Full Motion Video cutscenes to great effect throughout. This was one of, if not the first games I bought for our PC (although we did have a few games on our old IBM, on 5" floppies), and I fondly remember going to the store to buy it with my allowance, with the cool box that had the shiny metallic lightsaber blades on it. Luckily, my best friend had also bought it, and we played multiplayer many times (with 56k modems), but I rarely ever won. Man, those last two sentences made me feel old. But anyway, this was a fun game. The levels were interesting, with secrets to be found. The boss fights were... annoying, but still fun. The most fun, though, was playing with cheat codes, from getting the lightsaber early to being able to fly anywhere you want (and yes, I've beaten the game without cheat codes). The game disc itself (the game actually had 2) even had an interesting feature. You could stick it in a CD player and listen to all the music from the game (which originally was from the movies). You just had to skip to track 2 first. Good times.

Since Shadows of the Empire is already on the list, technically that counts, but because Jedi Knight is also part of it's own series, I'll say Jedi Outcast, which greatly improved lightsaber fighting and Force powers (as well as graphics). Nostalgia wins again, I guess. Jedi Knight did have a better story and better cutscenes, though.

Namco Tales Studio, 2003, Gamecube, Playstation 2, rated T (13+)

The best RPG on the Gamecube, and even voted Best RPG in the year it was released. This is quite possibly the game I've spent the most time on, probably because of how long it is. It took me 80 hours to beat the first time (over the course of 8 days). I'm on my third playthrough, and I still haven't completed all of the side quests. This game takes place in two separate yet connected worlds (Sylvarant and Tethe'alla) which you sometimes have to travel between. These worlds are full of interesting people, good and bad, for you to interact with on your journey, and there is a pretty intricate plot, made even more so with each sidequest you complete. Don't even get me started on the plot twists, not the least of which is finding out that you still have 2/3 of the game left after you think you've beaten it (while that sounds like a bad thing, the last 2/3 is actually where the game gets interesting). I've never seen anything with so many plot twists before. At the very least this game is never boring, unless you need to grind a lot to level up, but even then I'd say the pace is pretty good in that respect. It also has a pretty unique combat system, which this series is known for, which is more action oriented but still has a menu for certain things. You can also give orders to your normally computer-controlled teammates, and if you're really lazy, you can have the computer control you. Another interesting feature is the "grade" system. You get grade after each battle. The better you do, the more you get. Grade is used after you beat the game, to buy things for your next playthrough, whether it's carrying over items and data from your last game or helping you to level up faster. I did my second playthrough with 2X experience, and my third with 10X experience, but figured "Why settle for just beating the game for a third time?" I've heard that there's a level cap of 250, and my characters are all well over 200 now. I just have this incredible urge to one-shot the final boss, for some reason. Because that would be awesome.

Tales of Phantasia, the predecessor-yet-also-sequel to Symphonia.

Nintendo, 1998, N64, rated E (everyone)
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Ocarina of Time, a game that many consider to be the best ever made. The game was built squarely on the foundation of A Link to the Past (although I never realized how much until I played A Link to the Past), and added much to the series on it's own, including expanded history and mythology, deeper storyline, several different races of people, and of course being the first in the series to use 3D graphics. When it was released in 1998, it was groundbreaking in terms of story, art, and gameplay. While Super Mario 64 helped open the door to 3D, Ocarina of Time helped perfect it. For an entire generation of gamers, this was their first Zelda game. I grew up with the NES, however. I played the original Zelda a bit when I was 4, and used to think I had beaten it, until I played it again much much later and realized how very wrong I was. Honestly, though, the only thing I remember from that first time is entering a cave or something. So, Ocarina was basically my first Zelda game. In 1998 I borrowed Ocarina from a friend. For some reason, I wasn't able to play it for a few days, so I had to settle for watching my sister's boyfriend at the time play it. From that point on, I was hooked. When I finally got to play, I played it to the end, but not without stopping a few times. Did I get stuck on a challenging puzzle or difficult boss? Oh, no. The infamous Water Temple, perhaps? Well, sort of. The first hold-up was an eye switch I forgot to shoot, and the second was a hookshot target that I missed (in the Water Temple) because I didn't look up. Go figure. If the game had done nothing else right, the one thing it would still have is variety: variety in weapons/items, variety in puzzles, variety in enemies, bosses with more than one attack pattern, and there's always something to do. If you get tired of the main quest, you can go fishing, go to the shooting gallery, race horses, hunt for Gold Skulltulas, and much more! And then there's the music. Despite the lack of the series' now iconic theme tune, the game has some of the best music in the series. Each area has it's own unique soundtrack, as do most of the major characters (a technique called leitmotif). Some of my favorites include Kokiri Forest, and Gerudo Valley. The internet made this the first game in the series to have a large community. Several websites sprang up, like Zelda Universe and Zelda Dungeon. I used to hang out on Nintendo's official Zelda forum for awhile until they got rid of all of the game forums, even making several funny photo-manipulations to post in a thread there. One thing the whole community brought with it were rumors, mostly about how to obtain the Triforce. In a few previous games you had to collect pieces of the Triforce, and there was even a beta video for Ocarina of Link getting it. These rumors could get pretty crazy (I've got a Word document full of them). Here are some of the best ones: dropping a bomb under Ganon's Castle, blowing up all the Gossip Stones, finding the "purple cow that ate the Triforce" in the King's chambers (using a Gameshark), or doing a series of odd tasks before using the Lens of Truth in front of Link's house to find Dark Link who teaches you some secret song. There was even one about aliens, which sounded stupid until Majora's Mask came out. There were also rumors about hidden dungeons (Temple of Light), and things that were actually supposed to be in the game but were removed before release (Unicorn Fountain). And my gosh, there were fake screenshots everywhere! Then there's also the "split timeline" theory, but I won't get into detail about it here. Whether you like it or not, you can't deny the impact that this game has had on the industry. Finally, in case I haven't written enough already, I found an article with an extremely in-depth (and extremely long) analysis of every aspect of this game, which can be found Here (I recommend playing the game first, though).

Right now, Twilight Princess, but after playing through Majora's Mask again now that I'm a little older, I've come to appreciate that game a lot more, so either one. I still have yet to play Skyward Sword.

Mario Kart 64
Super Smash Bros. Melee
Skies of Arcadia Legends