The Search for Video Game Perfection

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about video games. I recently bought an Xbox 360, but I have yet to buy a game for it for a couple of different reasons. Mostly because I am afraid that if I do, I will spend the rest of the calendar year doing little more than playing video games rather than things I should be doing. And also, because there are about three or four really solid options and I just can’t seem to pull the trigger on any one of them. In case you’re wondering at all, those options are, in no particular order, the following: Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, Tiger Woods 08, and NCAA Football 08.

Upon weighing the pros and cons of the aforementioned games, I delved deep into thought about the best video games of all time. I started to reminisce about the Nintendo days and things like playing Mike Tyson’s Punchout for two straight hours only to get to Tyson and get beat like I stole something, effectively forcing me to do what any respectable 10 year old does … whip the controller with everything I’ve got against the wall, and go play outside. God damn Tyson pissed me off. I would beat Glass Joe in 45 seconds and lay a pounding on Bald Bull, but I could never, ever beat that son of a bitch Mike Tyson. I digress.

This whole idea of a list of the greatest video games of all time isn’t a new idea. Every dork, geek, spaz, and dweeb has their own list. Well today, this dork is breaking down his top ten video games of all time, just for you. So, without further ado, let’s get started.

10. Mortal Kombat 3 – Super Nintendo
Was there a better fighting game? This was the height of the MK dynasty in my opinion. This was all the best new characters, and all the classic originals in new levels with harder bosses. But what really makes this game ground-breaking in my opinion is the fact that it was the first to offer gamers multiple finishing moves for each character. Two fatalities, an animality, a babality, a friendship … what more can one person ask for?!?! For being on Super Nintendo, the graphics and sound were killer, and it really sorted out the whole difficulty debacle that was seen in the first two MK games in which the ‘easy’ setting was easier than Lindsay Lohan after two drinks and the ‘medium’ setting was painfully difficult. Don’t even ask about the ‘hard’ setting. But in MK3, all was good. It was a revolutionary game for me.

9. Tecmo Super Bowl – Nintendo
Wow. Did anyone else just get chills reading that? Lord knows I did. The arguments about this game standing the test of time rage on today as much as ever with the popularity of the Madden games on various platforms, but this one folks, this one was the original. Where I come from, you were one of two kinds of Tecmo players: You were either your favorite team and represented them with mad pride OR you were THAT guy who was the 49ers every time and beat people down with Montana to Rice over and over. In any case, that game was well known for being one of the first games with a battery backup to keep your stats even after you turned the game off. Despite this fact, it’s also well known that for those of us out there who padded our stats, the computer stopped keeping track after they got to a certain extent. Nevertheless, this game is legendary.

8. Grand Theft Auto 3 – Playstation 2
If you had both a Playstation 2 and a penis at any time during 2002, you had this game. This game sold more copies than I even want to bother checking Google for, despite the harsh ratings it got from the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, or ESRB as I like to call them (we have a good vibe). With the release of this game came the birth of a new generation; a generation that thought it was okay to pick up a hooker in a stolen car, have sex with her for sustinance, kick her out of the car, and A) run her over with said car, or B) get out and beat her mercilessly with any number of weapons in order to get back the hard earned money you just spent on that va-jay-jay. Although it was the third in the series, the first two fell well short of GTA3 for countless reasons. So whether you did the missions or just drove around killing people, you spent hours with this game.

7. Metroid – Nintendo/GameBoy
This game is near and dear to my heart, mostly because it was the first game other than Super Mario Bros. that I played as a child. That being said, I loved the game so much it is the sole reason I purchased a GameBoy. I am hard-pressed to think of a time in which I was happier than the time I spent playing Metroid on a two-inch green screen. Several sequels followed and the Metroid brand was actually very popular all the way from Nintendo to Gamecube and now onto the ever-popular Wii. Let’s face it, we still love that game even though after we beat the final boss and the main character took off his helmet, and the rugged, tough, ass-kicking man we were idolizing the entire game turned out to be a girl – that was okay with us. Yes, gender equality is born. Amen.

6. Halo 2 – Xbox
Do you know anyone who had Microsoft stock before Halo 2 came out? If you do, ask them if I can borrow a billion dollars. This game single-handedly changed the first person shooter and revolutionized the online gaming industry. Xbox Live went through the roof because of this game. People were logging in at rates that forced Microsoft to completely revamp their systems to allow for the excess traffic. I mean come on, where else could you lay the smack down on some 11 year old chump and then tell him that Santa wasn’t real all in one sitting? I think I remember reading something staggering about how Microsoft sold more Xboxes after Halo 2 was released than Sony sold Playstation 2’s to that date. From what I hear, Halo 3 is even more amazing and in time I will own it, but for now, since I (much like my pal Donnie) have no frame of reference, Halo 2 gets the nod.

5. Super Mario Bros. – Super Nintendo
Of the games on this list, this is probably one of the more widely accepted of my nominations. Who can argue with this one? Seriously. Those crafty Japanese bastards had us searching for multiple ways to beat some of those levels in order to unlock the yellow, green, red, and blue exclamation points throughout the game. With a little experience and some creative gaming, I was able to find a way to beat the game in about a half an hour using the shortcuts through Star World straight to Bowser’s castle. This game also gave us our first look at Yoshii. I mean, really, is there a better character in the Mario games than Yoshii? A dinosaur you can ride on that eats more than Star Jones at a buffet … ’nuff said.

4. The Legend of Zelda – Nintendo
While most people would opt for a later version of Zelda, I prefer the original on this one as well. It is another game I grew up doing work on. Link was my homeboy til the end, and I can’t think of a single person better with a sword or bow and arrow. My only beef with this game is that I was never able to finish it, not because of talent, but due to a technical glitch. Allow myself to explain … myself. If you remember, the final boss was The Prince of Darkness. He was one of Ganon’s minions and his catch was that not only was he a tough cookie to crack, but he disappeared and reappeared mid-battle, making it very difficult to keep tabs on him. His only poison was the silver arrow which needed to be delivered right to the kisser. Well, here’s where my beef comes in. In my game, there was some kind of glitch, and that son of a bitch never once showed up when I got to the cave to fight him. I would sit there, literally for hours just waiting for him to show up and HE NEVER DID. I once left the game running over night, hoping and praying that I would awake to find that the Prince had shown himself and Link was dead. To this day, I have vowed revenge against Ganon for not letting me get closure on that game. I have pledged to myself to one day buy a Nintendo and beat that game once and for all.

3. Super Mario Bros. 3 – Nintendo
This game was and is just simply amazing. Between the introduction of the feather, enabling Mario (or Luigi for that matter) to fly, and the raccoon suit that allowed him to turn to stone, this game was pure genius. The characters, the enemies, the battleships in the sky, Desert World, Big World, Ice World, Water World, Dark World … this game had it all. And just like every version before it, Bowser takes it like a bitch and we always get the Princess back. There is another aspect of this game worth mentioning. A few years ago, my roommate at the time showed me a video of a person playing SMB3 for about 11 minutes. Why is this worth mentioning? Because in that 11 minutes and change, this person started and finished the game. Now there is a lot of speculation out there that he cheated using technology I don’t even want to pretend to understand, but for those of you with some time to kill, here is a link to a YouTube version of that video of the game being beaten like a red-headed step child in 11 minutes.

2. Super Mario Kart – Super Nintendo
This game makes me feel all warm and tingly inside, no joke. This might be the game that I am better at than any other game I’ve ever played in my life. I got it when I was about 11 and within a couple of weeks, neither of my parents and none of my friends would even play me because I was seriously that damn good. This game is the epitome of a great racing game. You had different racers to choose from, each with their own unique characteristics, various difficulty settings, tons of tracks and of course … battle mode. Back in 2004 and 2005 I spent a year living with a bunch of high school pals in a 7 bedroom apartment. We got into a Mario Kart phase about midway through our stay there and if I had a nickel for every game we played in battle mode, I would be writing this from Barbados. We started playing a best-of-three series and that grew into best-of-five and seven and 11 and by the time we were really good at the damn game, we were playing to see who could win 50 games first or 100 games first. It was the essence of ridiculousness, but maybe one of the most fun things we ever did. I held my own in battle mode most of the time, but I really was an ace on the race track. Those guys I lived with will attest to it. Give me Koopa and watch me do work. I was the master of the power slide and I was a force to be reckoned with. And no, no matter what you say, I will never think that this game is second best to the version for Nintendo64. So, that brings us to the number one game of all time as according to me. Drumroll please ….

1. GoldenEye 007 – Nintendo64
My current roommate summed it up best last week when he saw me playing this game and described it as “timeless.” It really and truly is. Find someone who likes video games. You all have at least one friend who likes video games. Ask him/her if they have ever played this game. I will give you one dollhair for every person who says no. This game is a giant, a behemoth, a classic. No Bond game ever lived up to this one with respect to single-player mode and versus mode. I could write a dissertation on this game and love every minute of it. The fact of the matter is, no first person shooter game did more for the video game industry than this, and that includes Halo. Funny thing about this game is, everyone has their favorites: favorite character for versus mode (and don’t pretend it was one of the scientists either), favorite level (mine is the Facility level), favorite gun (the AR-33 was always good to me), and more. No matter how advanced video games get, I will never stop playing this game. It is the sole reason I still have a Nintendo 64. No matter what is going on in my life, I always find time to stop what I am doing to grab a crate of remote mines and blow stuff up.

So there we have it folks. Let the debate begin. Please note, I was never a big fan of RPG (role playing games) like Final Fantasy and such, so this would be the reason all such games have been omitted from this list. Also note, Sega sucked and no amount of argument will convince me otherwise, so bring that elsewhere. Feel free to put in your two cents. If I forgot something, I’m sorry. Actually, scratch that … if I forgot something, it wasn’t good enough for me to think of during this sit-down and therefore has no place on my list. Now I don’t know about you, but I am headed out to my living room to do work on Trevelyan and his lackies in some good old fashioned 007 action.

One love,

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