My Top 5 Games of 1992: #2 The Legend of the Mystical Ninja (SNES)

Developed: Konami
Published: Konami
Genre: isometric/side scrolling action platformer
Platform: SNES, Wii Virtual Console

The Legend of the Mystical Ninja, like most of the 1991/1992 games that I've talked about so far, is another of the earliest games I recall playing. I can't for the life of me remember how I got the game. My parents may have just bought if for me on the recommendation of a retail employee. Regardless of who is responsible for it coming to be in my possession, I'd like to thank that person wholeheartedly. If it wasn't for them, I may have never played this absolutely batshit insane game.

In The Legend of the Mystical Ninja, you take control of either Kid Ying or Dr. Yang, who I will refer to by their original and much less racist sounding names, Goemon and Ebisumaru, because as you may know from my Persona 4 article, I love typing out ridiculously long Japanese names just to confuse the reader a little more.

They battle through 9 ridiculously difficult levels full of crazy villagers, evil ninjas, carnival workers, ghosts, thieves, and all kinds of animals. Our heroes start out just trying to rid their village of ghosts, but soon find out that a princess has been kidnapped by ninjas. Being the bad dudes that they are, Goemon and Ebisumaru head out to rescue her.

My Top 5 Games of 1992: #3 Contra III: The Alien Wars

Developed: Konami
Published: Konami
Genre: side-scrolling run and gun
Platform: SNES (reviewed), Game Boy, Arcade, Game Boy Advance, Wii Virtual Console

Unlike many people around my age, Contra III was the first game in the Contra series that I played. It wasn't until probably years later that I finally played the earlier games, so this was my introduction to Contra and run and gun games in general. It's also probably the most balls out hard game of my childhood. I swear I only beat this game once as a kid, and it wasn't until I was playing the game for this article that I finally beat it on hard. With save states... To be fair, I was playing with an Xbox 360 controller. You try beating this game on hard with one of those.

Anyhow, in Contra III: The Alien Wars, you take control of one of two badasses who must quell an alien invasion on their own. You shoot your way through 6 stages of mayhem, 4 of which are side-scrollers and the other two being top down levels that utilize the SNES's mode 7 technology quite well.

My Top 5 Games of 1992: #4 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time (SNES)

Developed:Konami
Published:Konami
Genre: beat 'em up
Platform: SNES (reviewed), Arcade, Genesis (partially,) Xbox Live, PSN

As far as I remember, I was a fairly big fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise, but only to a certain extent. Sure, the show was great, the first movie was awesome, and the game in question today was absolutely amazing, but I just don't recall being as obsessed with the show and toys as many of my friends were. I dunno. I think I was more into Nicktoons back then.

I'm sure this statement may piss off some of you, but in my opinion, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time was the best thing the franchise ever produced, and it's still one of the best beat 'em ups ever. I had a decent amount of fun replaying all of the older games I've talked about on this blog, but while replaying Turtles in Time, I really had a blast. I can't overstate just how well this game still holds up.

My Top 5 Games of 1992: #5 Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (SNES)

Developed: Capcom
Published: Capcom
Genre: 2D Fighting
Platform: SNES (Reviewed), Arcade, Genesis, at least 15 other platforms

When it comes to genre defining games, few are as indisputable as Street Fighter II. Prior to its release, all the fighting game genre really had were clunky games like the first SF and Yie Ar Kung-Fu. Then SFII came along, gave every fighter a unique, well defined move set, and smoothed out the gameplay greatly. I can't really think of a better way to put that. Older fighting games just feel like their characters are locked to a grid or something.

Anyway, like many, many kids of the early 90s, Street Fighter II was the first fighting game I every played and was probably among the first few games I owned on the SNES. My friends and I sunk countless hours into it, trying to figure out every nuance and taking turns trying to beat the game on its hardest difficulty, only to be constantly thwarted by that cheating asshole, M. Bison. It goes without saying, but Street Fighter II had some of the most ridiculously fun multiplayer I've ever experienced. When you have a few friends all about the same skill level, the game is an absolute blast.

Before I start, let me make it clear exactly what version of the game I'm talking about here. Street Fighter II: The World Warrior was the first version of the game released on the SNES. It was the only version that I owned and the one I played the most, by far. I'll talk a bit about its many re-releases too, but lets focus on just the original home release for now. I also realize that the arcade version came out in 1991, but I only played that a handful of times; much less than the home port.

My Game of the Year 2011: Dead Space 2 (360)

Developed: Visceral Games
Published: Electronic Arts
Genre: 3rd-person action-horror
Platform: 360 (reviewed), PS3, PC

If you've read my older articles, you'll probably know that I'm a pretty big fan of the first Dead Space. I always longed for a worthy follow-up to Resident Evil 4 and the folks at Visceral Games apparently shared the sentiment. Dead Space took what was great about RE4 and refined it so well that it made Resident Evil 5 feel a bit disappointing by comparison.

When a sequel was announced, I quickly pre-ordered it; the first time I did that since 2004 when I pre-ordered Metal Gear Solid 3. My expectations for Dead Space 2 were about as high as they could be, so did it live up to them? Yep. As I said in my Top 15 Games of 2011 article, my biggest complaint about this game is that the cutscenes aren't skipable. Other than that, it's near perfect.

Dead Space 2 continues the story of space engineer Isaac Clarke, who was thrown into an insane asylum located in a giant space station built into the remnants of Titan, Saturn's largest moon. He's awakened suddenly one day and finds himself in the middle of another outbreak of necromorphs, humans who have been mutated into undead killing machines by the enigmatic "marker." Also, he's stuck in a straitjacket.
Oh boy.

As always: SPOILER ALERT

My Top 5 Games of 2011: #2 Batman: Arkham City (360)

Developed: Rocksteady Studios
Published: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Genre: 3rd-person stealth-action, beat 'em up
Platform: 360 (reviewed), PS3, PC

Like Portal, I thought that Batman: Arkham Asylum was a game that was impossible to improve upon. For the first time since Sunsoft's NES Batman game, I felt like I was really playing as Batman. Of course, Arkham Asylum was quite the upgrade from Sunsoft's game by including just about every element of what makes Batman so awesome. If featured well done stealth segments, a simple but challenging combat system where you could fight room fulls of enemies at once, and gadgets. Lots and lots of gadgets.

Then Arkham City came out and made Asylum look like an early beta. Arkham City takes all the elements of Arkham Asylum and increases the playable area to cover an entire section of Gotham City. There were more gadgets, more ablities, and best of all, more villains.

In Batman: Arkham City, a section of Gotham City is evacuated of civilians, walled off, and every criminal and super villain is rounded up and thrown in. Bruce Wayne is also somehow arrested and finds himself tied to a chair with Hugo Strange staring him in the face. Strange tells him that he knows he is Batman and leaves him in the dark room. This is where the gameplay starts.

My Top 5 Games of 2011: #3 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (360)

Developed: Bethesda Game Studios
Published: Bethesda Softworks
Genre: Action RPG
Platform: 360 (reviewed), PS3, PC

I've been a pretty big fan of the Elder Scrolls series for a few years now. I remember seeing a review of Morrowind on Cartoon Network's Toonami block back in 2002 and I knew I had to play it for myself. I picked it up soon after that and I was hooked. Everything was just so in depth. Everything you did improved your character slightly which made it feel a bit more like I was playing in a living world where "practice makes perfect" really meant something. Its sequel, Oblivion, changed things up quite a bit; Combat was more action focused, skills were easier to raise, and the world was more traditional fantasy than the world of giant mushrooms and slit striders in Morrowind.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim streamlines things even further by removing traditional character classes from the game entirely and allowing you to play the way you want to. Rather than choosing which skills you plan on using for the rest of the game, Skyrim lets you use whatever skills you want and still be able to advance your character just as in previous games.

Normally, I would put a plot summary here, but the Elder Scrolls series is one where you do whatever you want and includes a number of plot lines that you can explore at your leisure. The overall story that drives Skyrim however, is that the long extinct dragons are somehow coming back and it's up to you as a dovahkiin, or dragonborn, to stop their rampage. Along the way, you'll find yourself in the middle of an armed uprising of the native Nords against their Imperial occupiers.

My Top 5 Games of 2011: #4 Portal 2 (PC)

Developed: Valve
Published: Valve
Genre: First-Person Puzzle Game
Platform: 360, PS3, PC (reviewed), Mac

Like I said in a previous article, Portal was a game that I thought was impossible to make a sequel to. Valve decided to accept that challenge and proceeded to blow my freakin' mind. Portal 2 surpasses its predecessor in just about every way, including in story, the one area I didn't think was possible to improve upon. That's not to say that the first Portal is a bad game by any measure. I just want to make it clear how impressed I was with its sequel.

Portal 2 follows the continuing misfortune of Chell, who managed to escape her confinement in Aperture Laboratories, as well as destroy the malevolent artificial intelligence controlling the facility, GLaDOS, but was unfortunately recaptured soon after the conclusion of the first game and put into suspended animation for an undetermined amount of time. Beware: SPOILERS for both Portal games ahead.

My Top 5 Games of 2011: #5 Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine (360)

Developed: Relic Entertainment
Published: THQ
Genre: Third-Person Action
Platform: 360 (reviewed), PS3, PC

In my honorable mentions of 2011 article, I had a list at the end of games that I had yet to play but am interested in and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine was among them. Soon after I posted that, I saw it for $20 new on Glyde so I picked it up. After beating it a number of times, I just knew it had to be in my top 5 of 2011, so my list has changed a bit since my previous articles about games from 2011.

My knowledge of the Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40k universes is pretty limited. I've never played the tabletop games or read any of the books, but I have played two previous video games based on 40k: Space Hulk, back when I was still a kid, and more recently, Fire Warrior, which I didn't really enjoy that much. My point is, this article is coming from the point of view of someone who is an outsider to the Warhammer 40k universe, so I apologize in advance for any inaccuracies in this article. Just wanted to get that out of the way before the article proper.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine follows the exploits of Ultramarine Captain Titus and his squad mates, Sidonus and Leandros as they fight to take back an industrial planet from an army of invading Orks.

My Game of the Year 2001: Silent Hill 2 (PS2)

Developed: Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo
Published: Konami
Genre: Survival Horror
Platform: PS2 (reviewed), Xbox, PC, 360, PS3

I said at the end of my Persona 4 article that my favorite game of all time was released in 2001. Well, I thought about it a lot since then and I changed my mind. I do that a lot. Silent Hill 2 is my SECOND favorite game of all time. I'll do my top ten list one of these days.

Silent Hill 2 tells the story of James Sunderland. He receives a letter from his wife, Mary, telling him to meet her in the small resort town of Silent Hill, in their "special place." There's a small problem with that. Mary has been dead for three years. Regardless of that fact, he goes to Silent Hill to search for her and finds things that he could have never imagined. As always, this article will spoil the entire game so be warned.

My Top 5 games of 2001: #2 Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (PS2)

Developed: Konami Computer Entertainment Japan
Published: Konami
Genre: Stealth Action
Platform: PS2 (reviewed), Xbox, PC, 360, PS3

As you may already be aware, I'm a pretty big Metal Gear fan. Of course at the time that this one came out, the only game in the series that I had played was Metal Gear Solid. I didn't even know that Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2 existed back then, in fact. Regardless, Metal Gear Solid was my absolute favorite game at the time so I was pumped as hell for the sequel. Every trailer that came out was just mind blowing. Just like with Max Payne and Final Fantasy X, I couldn't believe how good the game looked. Of course I thought the same thing about Donkey Kong Country and Chrono Trigger but you get my point.

Metal Gear Solid 2 is the continuation of the story of Solid Snake. In the first Metal Gear Solid, he stopped a terrorist uprising in a remote Alaska nuclear disposal facility, but between that game and this one (which takes place only 2 years later), he and his best buddy Otacon have gone rogue to combat the sudden boom of Metal Gear (the series titular giant robots) designs that hit the black market. They have dedicated their lives since then to eradicating the threat that Metal Gear poses on the world in hopes that people will one day live free of the fear of such destructive weapons.

My Top 5 Games of 2001: #3 Final Fantasy X (PS2)

Developed: Squaresoft
Published: Square Electronic Arts
Genre: JRPG
Platform: PS2


If anyone has been paying attention to this blog, and I know that nobody is but regardless, you've probably been wondering why I haven't been posting as much lately. First: I've been playing a lot of games that I bought over the holiday season, and second: this God damn article. As I said at the end of my top 15 games of 2011 article, I had just about finished this article when I made a mistake and hit the undo button.

The entire article decided to disappear and nothing I did would bring it back. It didn't help that blogger auto saves constantly, which is normally a great feature, but not if it's gonna erase an entire article. This was going to be a full plot summary but I just don't have the motivation for that, especially since I don't like the plot in this game nearly as much as ones that I fully summarized in the past.

Anyway, Final Fantasy X was one of three games (the other 2 being the next 2 games in this top 5) that had me at a level of hype for the PS2 that has yet to be equaled for another platform. I guess the fact that I was like 12 at the time helped but regardless, I really wanted to play this game. Final Fantasy X is the story of a sports star who gets sent to the future and is caught up in the battle against a huge, world destroying beast. It was the first game in the FF series to feature voice acting and has maybe my favorite battle system in any RPG, though its leveling system may be a bit complex.

My Top 5 Games of 2001: #4 Max Payne (PC)

Developed: Remedy
Published: Gathering, 3D Realms
Genre: Third-Person Shooter
Platform: PC (reviewed), Mac, PS2, Xbox, Xbox Live

Max Payne has the distinction of being one of the only games that I upgraded my computer to play. That should give you a bit of an indication of how excited I was coming into this game. I remember pouring over every preview for it that I could find. I was just blown away by how great it looked. Of course by today's standards it looks like shit but back then it was the best looking game that I had played up to that point. Max Payne follows the events of a single night in which the titular character, a police detective turned DEA agent, starts out undercover in a mafia family but ends up chasing after the person who kills his partner early into the game and eventually finds a conspiracy that leads to the top of a giant corporation. There's spoilers ahead so be warned.

My Top 5 Games of 2001: #5 Advance Wars (GBA)

Developed: Intelligent Systems
Published: Nintendo
Genre: Turn Based Strategy
Platform: GBA

Advance Wars was probably the first game I played on the Game Boy Advance and I've probably logged more hours into it than any other game on the platform. It tells the tale of a small country known as Orange Star and its struggle against its oppressive neighbor, Blue Moon. It's a fairly lighthearted tale for a game about war that has a fun, colorful cast and simple but challenging gameplay that will have you hooked until the end.

My Game of the Year 2008: Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 (PS2)

Developed: Atlus
Published: Atlus
Genre: JRPG
Platform: PS2

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 is a game that I love so much that I beat it again with the best ending just for this article. I clocked in at about 90 hours. Yes. I love this game that much. So if you've been wondering why this has taken me so long, there's your reason. Persona 4 is a JRPG about a murder mystery that a group of Japanese high school kids solve in their free time by going into an alternate reality that exists inside TVs where they fight monsters called shadows with monsters of their own called Personas. I like weird games. Really though it's actually one of my favorite game stories ever with perhaps my favorite cast of characters from any work of fiction. This is gonna be another loooong post that spoils the entire game so read on at your own risk. Just the notes that I took down while playing ended up at over 26,000 words long, so yeah. Get ready.

My Top 5 Games of 2008: #2 Dead Space (360)

Developed: EA Redwood Shores
Published: Electronic Arts
Genre: Third Person Action Horror
Platform: 360(reviewed), PS3, PC

I was a huge fan of Resident Evil 4 and after playing it for immeasurable hours, I craved a similar experience. A couple of years after RE4's release, EA announced Dead Space, an action horror game with a very similar gameplay style to RE4. I was excited but skeptical at first because at the time EA was mostly known for it's many licensed game series, so I didn't know what to expect from an original title from them. Despite my concerns, Dead Space was released to near universal acclaim and I soon picked it up. I was instantly hooked, completing the game over and over. It became the first 360 game that I got every achievement in, a distinction only 3 other games have so far. I even made up my own challenges, like beating the game with only the ripper, my least favorite weapon in the game, completing the game without dying and other crazy shit that I don't usually bother with.

My Top 5 Games of 2008: #3 Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii)

Developed: Nintendo, Sora, Game Arts, HAL Laboratory, Monolith Soft, Paon
Published: Nintendo
Genre: Party Fighting Game
Platform: Wii

I still remember my excitement when the first Super Smash Bros was announced for the Nintendo 64. A party style fighting game featuring my favorite Nintendo characters? Gimme! Gimmegimmegimme! Ahem...As you may know from my previous articles, I'm a pretty big Nintendo fan, so the concept of Mario vs Link just blew my young mind. It's sequel, Super Smash Bros Melee was what sold me on the GameCube. I knew I had to have the console just for that one game, even if no other good games came out; I just had to play Smash Bros. The game in question today, Super Smash Bros Brawl, had the same effect, and was the biggest motivating factor in me buying a Wii. That's the kind of power SSB has on me. Announce a new game in the series on a platform I don't have and I'll buy it. Just for 1 game.

My Top 5 Games of 2008: #4 Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (PS3)

Developed: Kojima Productions
Published: Konami
Genre: Stealth/Third Person Action
Platform: PS3

Let me start this article by saying that I am a Metal Gear fanatic. I've played just about every game in the series and 2 of them are in my top 10 games of all time(I'll get to that some day). Although this isn't one of them it is still an amazing game and a fantastic end to the saga of series protagonist Solid Snake. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots chronicles his fight against Revolver Ocelot, a man possessed by Snake's dead brother Liquid. It boasts some of the best graphics in any game to date and a globe spanning plot with some incredible action set pieces. There are a few things that I don't like about it, though, but I'll get into that in the bulk of the article. This is gonna be another long snark fest like my Final Fantasy IV article and will contain spoilers for the whole Metal Gear series so be warned.

My Top 5 Games of 2008: #5 No More Heroes (Wii)

Developed: Grasshopper Manufacture
Published: Ubisoft
Genre: Third Person Action
Platform: Wii(reviewed), PS3

I was a huge fan of Grasshopper Manufacture's Killer7 so I came into No More Heroes expecting an absolutely amazing experience. While it didn't quite live up to my sky high expectations, it still wowed me in a lot of ways. It's a much more lighthearted, comedic game than the utterly abstract Killer7 so it disappointed me a bit in that department, but if you go into it without any expectations you'll find a hilarious take on modern brawlers.

My Game of the Year 1991: Super Mario World (SNES)

Developed: Nintendo EAD
Published: Nintendo
Genre: Platformer
Platform: SNES(reviewed), GBA, Wii Virtual Console

Super Mario World. The first game I ever played. This was one of the games of the year that I knew right off the bat(yes, I already have the full list.) As I said in my first post on this blog, I played this game steadily for years, even with many other games available to me. Even after beating it numerous times, and discovering its many secrets, it never got boring to me. For me, it has a lasting fun factor and charm that has been rarely matched to this day and it's a game that I still go back to occasionally.