Fuck this thread, fuck the causes of this thread.

My Mario entry was due to the wide eyed wonder it gave me as kid, and if I was sat it in front of a snes and that for a day I'd still have a lot of fun.

In no order. Also trying to buck some of the 'usual' trends, and instead focus on the games that I truly loved the utter fuck out of, not the ones I am 'supposed' to love the utter fuck out of. So the entire Mario series can say goodbye here, as I have genuinely loved each of these games more than any entry in the fat Italian's oeuvre, apart from maybe Thousand Year Door.

1. Dark Souls - Xbox 360
Everyone knows how the majority of people feel about this. Unsurpassed depth, a brilliant combat system, countless options and beautifully interwoven environments. Plays like a demented puzzle box slowly unfolding to reveal more hideous enemies and deaths and never stops giving until its over, an probably for a quite a while after that.
Personal Highlight: Soloing Smough & Ornstein after about 20 attempts. Fuck the Co-op guys who got it done, I battled through offline and without any magic or pyro. Raw powa.

2. Bayonetta - Xbox 360
The most batshit original game that has come out of Japan for a long time. Kamiya invented the combo based action brawler with DMC and then surpassed all its successors with Bayonetta. Story grates like all holy fuck, but the level design, enemies, sublime combat system and the stupid OTT nature of everything, even down to the characters walk, makes any other game trying to be odd or off the walls look drab and pedestrian in comparisson.
Personal Highlight: Getting my first platinum medal for a chapter, realising I could dodge and punish anything and that mid combo switches were fucking incredible.

3. Age of Empires II - PC
Probably the best RTS game ever I'd wager, even better than Starcraft. No micromanaging bollocks, just lean production mechanics and a slighly expanded rock-paper-scissors combat system, peppered with unique traits and units to the large number of races available. I think it probably holds up perfectly today as well.
Personal Highlight: Countless multiplayer games with friends, unleashing 20 Trebuchets on a friend's city, surrounding castles with archers and champions and WINNING.

4. Rome Total War- PC
Rather more than an RTS. Taking Shogun and Medieval systems to their logical ends, no Total War game since has ever bettered the core gameplay experience that Rome offers. It was truly breathtaking in scale when first released as well, watching thousands of Roman troops charge down a flying barbarian horde will never get old.
Personal Highlight: Conquering the world as Rome. Veni, Vidi, Vici.

5. Metroid Prime - Gamecube
An unknown studio were handed the reigns of one of Nintendo's best loved and refined franchises, and were going to commit the scarelige of turning it 3D. Consequently they created one of the defining FPS experiences ever, on the little console that could. It looked better than anything out at the time and it captured the unique feeling of isolation that Metroid delivered, with amazing music, wonderful mechanics and incredible boss battles. All the little environmental touches and flourishes established this as the most atmospheric FPS for years to come.
Personal Highlight: Breaking Ridley and entering the Phazon crater for the first time. Spine tingling and grand in equal measures.

6. Resident Evil 4 - Gamecube
The ultimate blockbuster game in my eyes. Still streaked with Japanese idiosyncracies, but the most pulse pounding action game ever released, with brilliant variety on offer through the whole game. It goes on for nearly 20 hours but its so wonderfully realised, and has such a great variety of enemies and weapons that it never gets old.
Personal Highlight: The knife fight with Krauser and the subsequent boss battle, fuelled by Leon's vendetta. Either that or the nightmare in the hanging storage with the U-3. Fuck.

7. Super Smash Bros. Melee - Gamecube
Everyone has stuff like Street Fighter 2 on their lists, but for me, Smash Bros Melee is the all time king of beat 'em up fun. It perfectly scales from solo to 4 players, from party game to serious grudge match settler, with a brilliant cast of characters who can all hold their own. I never mastered things like wavedashing, but I spent most of my 300+ hours logged on that game playing Sheik, who wasn't even a full character, merely a special moveset available to Zelda, and genuinely felt like it was the closest i'd ever got to fully realising a characters strenghts and limits in a fighting game. It was also the greatest fun in 4 player, i've wasted hours on this.
Personal Highlight: Hours of 1v1v1v1 5 minute matches with my friends, on the Final Stage, Sheik vs Gannondorf vs Kirby vs Fox McCloud.

8. Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker - Gamecube
My favourite Zelda game, for deciding to do something completely different. Gone was the dark melodrama of OTT and in was the minimalistic cartoon art style of a genuine fairy tale. Sailing was an utter joy and the Z-targetting combat system was made complete with wonderful musical flourishes accompanying each blow. It also has the best bit of any Zelda game in it, the descent into frozen Hyrule, a link to the series past and richer thematically than anything in any other Zelda game before or after. It also makes me grin like a loon with how beautiful it is, possibly the best looking game ever.
Personal Highlight: Going to Hyrule, sailing the seas for treasure.

It is probably worth mentioning that the above four games all work so brilliantly because of the Gamecube's pad. Resi 5 feels positively bizarre with an Xbox pad, and the massive A button on the 'cube was a stroke of genius, especially when coupled with context sensitive stuff/

9. Pokemon Gold - Gameboy Colour
Pokemon is a brilliant little game, perfectly tailored for young and old alike. Blue and Red might be the worthy progenitors of the series, but Gold and Silver are the benchmark for me. They introduced 100 new and not entirely fuckawful critters and then upped the game with the Steel and Dark elements, providing just the right amount of depth to the combat and countering some stupid combos present in Red and Blue. Adding in the time system and the Legendary Dogs added a whole lot of depth, and allowing you to go back to Kanto to fight the gym leaders you'd conquered in the previous games was a wonderful experience.
Personal Highlight: Beating Kanto's elite 4 again.

10. Final Fantasy X - PS2
I'm not sure it's the best FF game, but it is the one I have fondest memories of. The transition to audio was made, and for the most part it was fairly good. Tidus, Yuna and Auron had a touching tale in the middle of all the world ending chaos that happened, and the main quest was as grand as ever. The combat system enabled more tactics than the ATB systems used prior, and the ability to switch in team mates at a whim made for a much more rounded combat system. Adding Blitzball and a huge wealth of easily accessible endgame content in really made X for me though, I think my save ran into the 200 hour territory before I officially hung up the pad, and even then there were still reams of content I'd not had the balls to tackle. The art design and soundwork remains peerless to this day, and certainly shaped FFs that came after it.
Personal Highlight: Becoming the best Blitzball team in Spira, facing off against Sin before journeying through his surrealist inspired guts.

Honourable mentions should really go to Timesplitters 2, Rollercoaster Tycoon, Team Fortress 2, Soul Reaver: Legacy of Kain, Vanquish, MAG, Battlefield Bad Company 2, Halo 3, Borderlands, Silent Hill 2, Okami, Viewtiful Joe, DMC3, MGS & MGS 3, Left 4 Dead, Link's Awakening, Mechwarrior 3, Mechcommander, Empire Earth, Soul Calibur 2, Shadow of the Colossus, and Sonic 2, 3 & Knuckles But I think that is my solid top 10.

Edit: I realise this is lavish and pointless as everyone will just ignore it and continue to post a list of 10 games but FUCK THE NOISE, I had a wee little nostalgia trip whilst writing it.

Only one of these that is really in order is the number one. All the rest could really be anywhere.

1) LoZ:ALttP
2) Ico
3) Final Fantasy IX
4) World of Warcraft
5) Final Fantasy X
6) Time Crisis
7) LoZ:WW
8 ) Oddworld: Abe's Oddyssey
9) Metal Gear Solid 3
10) Metal Gear Solid

see i missed ico, cant do it

Tempy, you need to stick some pictures and stuff in too.

Brooks wrote:

Fuck this thread, fuck the causes of this thread.

Grump Brooks being grumps so others don't have to be. Love it.

Bollockoff wrote:

Brooks wrote:

Fuck this thread, fuck the causes of this thread.

Grump Brooks being grumps so others don't have to be. Love it.

Brooks is the hero this thread deserves.

djchump wrote:

Bollockoff wrote:

Brooks wrote:

Fuck this thread, fuck the causes of this thread.

Grump Brooks being grumps so others don't have to be. Love it.

Brooks is the hero this thread deserves.

Must not complete DKR quote. People could at least do some REASONING, I always prefer that to just 10 titles I like I unno why just lol

wow, all the love for windwaker - i'm going to start playing it after master quest.

Wind Waker will be making an appearance in my list too, MK

I have to say, I could probably replace Wind Waker with Awakening for sheer NOSTALGIA, but Wind Waker was the perfect antidote to the stuff happening on the PS2 and the Xbox at the same time. A ridiculous splash of wholesome colour in a world that was increasingly falling to drab brown and gunmetal.

I missed Katamari off my list. What kind of monster am I?

Tempy wrote:

Skade wrote:

1. Warning Forever (PC)

Wonderful oddball choice there! Warning Forever was brilliant, even though I was terribly shite at it.

Discovered it at the history of videogames exhibition at the science musuem ~7 years ago, played it for about an hour there, then went home and downloaded it straight away, has remained on hardrives ever since.

Couldn't really write comments on all 10, it would of certainly led to me never completing the list.

Tempy wrote:

djchump wrote:

Bollockoff wrote:

Brooks wrote:

Fuck this thread, fuck the causes of this thread.

Grump Brooks being grumps so others don't have to be. Love it.

Brooks is the hero this thread deserves.

Must not complete DKR quote. People could at least do some REASONING, I always prefer that to just 10 titles I like I unno why just lol

Well fuck you then I was going to post annoyingly hi-res images of the game's box art to take up most of a page but seeing as that isn't good enough for some people i'll go away and get REASONING.

I can play anything almost regardless of age as long as the platform isn't being squeezed - hence several older entries. I can't play any game more than a couple of hours at a stretch except perhaps for these in the company of others.

In no order..

1. Warlords (atari 2600)- paddle controllers, 4 players. Excellent homebrew effort called Medieval Mayhem is better than the Atari Original.
2. Worms Armageddon (PC) - nice mix of tactics and humour.
3. Asteroids (arcade) - non linear shmup. Love the thrust mechanic and the "tidy up " feel to the gameplay.
4. Tetris (currently Party Deluxe on Wii) Puyo Puyo is probably a better game but tetris is far more approachable.
5. Super Mario World (SNES) - still plays great. Loads of secrets and the trademark sense of inertia and enemy placement
6. F-Zero X (N64) - big pack of 30 cars gives a real rush - nothing like it. Gamecube version is just too hard.
7. Oshaberi Parodius (Saturn) - lovely series of shmups with humour and Japanese weirdness. 3rd in series has mad commentary and loads of extras.
8. Mario Galaxy (Wii) - best game ever - official. Has ousted Mario64.
9. Super Mario Kart (SNES original or GC double dash - can't decide)Great track design and powerups. Brilliant multi-player and TT modes too. Just loads of fun.
10. Tempest 2000 (Jaguar, Saturn) - I loved the original but not sure it has aged as well - can't really go back to it after playing this. Tempest X3 on PS1 is excellent too.