System: Xbox 360, PS3, PC
Developer: Infinity Ward
Release date: November 10, 2009
Controversy aside, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is simply one of the best first-person shooters of the twenty-first century. The development team at Infinity Ward worked its magic once again with this sequel to the smash hit of 2007, Call of Duty 4. The game excels at all three main components of video gaming: single-player, cooperative play, and multiplayer. In fact, one could argue that Modern Warfare 2 represents the very best package of those three components ever in a video game. The single-player is short and somewhat convoluted, but it's thrilling and tons of fun to play; the new cooperative mode offers 23 bite-sized missions for two players at once; and multiplayer is even deeper and more rewarding than in the previous game.
System: Mac
Developer: LucasFilm Games
Release date: October, 1990
Point-and-click adventure games have become an endangered species in 2012, but once upon a time they dominated home computers. One of the most successful was The Secret of Monkey Island, a brilliant and hilarious send-up of stories like Treasure Island. It all revolves around would-be pirate Guybrush who, in his eagerness to become a swashbuckler, finds himself in the middle of a plot involving ghost pirates, health-conscious cannibals, and rubber chickens. It's a purposefully silly, over-the-top story with plenty of sight gags, parodies, and one-liners. In fact, the writing in Monkey Island, along with its brilliant "pirate reggae" music, is the main attraction. It's one of the funniest games ever made.
System: N64
Developer: Camelot, Nintendo
Release date: August 28, 2000
Mario’s tennis career began on the short-lived Virtual Boy, but the first truly great Mario tennis game was the N64 classic Mario Tennis. Featuring over a dozen playable Nintendo mascots, including Waluigi (in his first video game appearance), Mario Tennis is a blast to play in single-player mode and insanely fun in multiplayer mode; up to four players can play in singles and doubles matches. Game modes include standards like Exhibition and Tournament and novelties like Ring Shot, Bowser Stage, and Piranha Challenge. In Bowser stage, players can gather items by striking item boxes with a tennis ball and then use the collected items against their opponent. Mario Tennis was followed five years later by Mario Power Tennis on the Nintendo Gamecube.
System: Nintendo DS
Developer: Nintendo EAD
Release date: December 7, 2009
Invariably, Spirit Tracks will be compared to its older DS brother, Phantom Hourglass. Both are great games, but the edge goes to Spirit Tracks, one of the best handheld titles in the long history of Zelda. Set roughly a century after the conclusion of Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks returns the franchise to terra firma. As with all Zelda titles, the dungeon design, graphics, and music are all masterful in Spirit Tracks; what sets it apart is the role of Zelda. In this game, she is very much an equal partner to Link. And it's this partnership that makes Spirit Tracks such a special game, in terms of story and gameplay. Never before has her personality shone so brightly.
System: Nintendo DS
Developer: Nintendo
Release date: March 20, 2006
Although some worthy successors to the original Game Boy classic Tetris have appeared on home consoles, Tetris has and always will belong on handheld systems. One of the best handheld Tetris titles is Tetris DS, an amazing package of puzzle games and not merely a reiteration of the classic puzzle game. Tetris DS features six game modes, Standard, Mission, Push, Touch, Catch and Puzzle, all of which have a classic Nintendo theme. Not all modes are created equal, however; Touch mode, which allows players to move blocks with the DS stylus, is not nearly as engaging as Push mode, which frantically pits the player against a rival player or the CPU. Standard, Mission and Push mode each have multiplayer modes which can be played online (with as many as ten players).
System: Dreamcast
Developer: id Software, Raster Productions (Dreamcast)
Release date: October 22, 2000
Very few ports made this list, but Quake III is unlike most ports. Originally released for the PC, Quake III made its way to the Dreamcast one year later complete with excellent sound effects, ambient background noise, graphics, and high frame rates. It is considered by many to be one of the very best PC-to-console ports of all time, mostly because of its smooth framerates and online play. As in the original Quake III, the action in the Dreamcast version revolves around multiplayer. There is a single-player mode of sorts, but it's just a series of winner-take-all shoot-outs with computer controlled bots. The action is intense, frantic, and incredibly addictive.
System: Playstation
Developer: Konami
Release date: October 2, 1997
Every now and then a long-standing franchise will reinvent itself, and the gaming world gets hugely important titles like Grand Theft Auto III, Resident Evil 4, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. For the Castlevania franchise, that reinvention was Symphony of the Night, a 1997 game that breathed new life into the series and influenced a generation of Castlevania games. SOTN established a new gameplay style for the Castlevania franchise that in many ways resembled Super Metroid, which led critics to coin the terms “Castleroid” and “Metroidvania.” Instead of the linear levels that largely defined the series before 1997, SOTN drops players into a huge castle, sections of which are inaccessible at first. As players explore monster-filled rooms, uncover secret passageways, and discover hidden relics, more and more of the castle becomes available. The best part of SOTN, however, is its music. It has, arguably, the best video game soundtrack of all time. Each track is unique, gorgeous, catchy, and flawlessly orchestrated.
System: Gamecube
Developer: Nintendo EAD
Release date: December 14, 2001
Originally an N64 title in Japan, Animal Crossing was remade for the Nintendo Gamecube and eventually translated for English-speaking audiences. Nintendo calls Animal Crossing a "communication game," but "social simulation" would do just as well. In the game, players control a young boy or girl who moves into a town populated entirely by anthropomorphic animals. There are very few preset objectives and challenges; rather players are encouraged to play the game as freely as they wish. Buy a house, go fishing, visit neighbors, hop a train to a nearby town, do whatever. The game is played in real time, and is linked to the Gamecube's internal clock. This means that the game will continue playing itself, so to speak, even when the player has turned off the system and gone to bed. Animal Crossing is slow-paced and open-ended, and thus not for everyone. But those who give it a try will find one of the very best Gamecube games, and an unforgettable experience.
System: Microsoft Xbox
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Release date: November 17, 2002
As a series, Splinter Cell pales only in comparison to the stealth franchise par excellence Metal Gear; otherwise it’s as good as it gets in terms of stealth action. In the first Splinter Cell, players take on the role of Sam Fisher, a retired black ops specialist who reenters life with the NSA when two CIA agents go missing in Georgia. Although Fisher is well-armed, he is strongly discouraged from discharging his firearms; stealth and camouflage are the name of the game in Splinter Cell. Particularly important are areas that are bathed in light or shrouded in darkness. Players have access to a “light meter” which informs them to what degree Fisher is visible to the enemy. Splinter Cell features a training tutorial that helps players familiarize themselves with Fisher’s stealth moves.
System: NES
Developer: Nintendo
Release date: 1985 [exact date unknown]
It’s difficult to believe that the financial juggernaut that is the video game industry was once in such dire straits that many business analysts doubted the long-term viability of North American video games, but it's absolutely true; in 1983 the Atari “crash” bankrupted several video game companies and almost destroyed the young industry. The game most responsible for resurrecting the video game industry was 1985’s Super Mario Bros. which, along with the NES, boosted game sales in North America and shifted the balance of power from America to Japan. Super Mario Bros. is the story of the titular character and his quest to rescue Princess Toadstool from Bowser. It established Mario and Nintendo as household names and has since spawned multiple sequels, spin-offs, and dozens of imitators.
A great selection here. Real flashback here for me :) happy times - either the wife , kids or myself have enjoyed all of the above over the last 15 years....
ReplyDelete