Friday, August 24, 2007

RLLMUK's top 100: 20 - 11

20Shenmue (Dreamcast)
19Advance Wars (Game Boy Advance)
18Street Fighter 2 (All Variants) (Arcade)
17Tetris (Game Boy)
16Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (PlayStation 2)
15Metal Gear Solid (PlayStation)
14Half-Life 2 (PC/PlayStation 2/Xbox 360)
13Rez (Dreamcast)
12Final Fantasy VII (PlayStation)
11Deus Ex (PC)

Comments on the games I've played:

Shenmue (Dreamcast)

Generally, when games don't have a sense of urgency, I find it difficult to motivate myself to play them.  The Grand Theft Auto games are a good example of this - there is no time limit, no overarching need to get to the end quickly.  While Shenmue doesn't have a strict time limit, there is so much to do and so much to see that I never found myself unwilling to load it up from the time I first saw the black car and that incident, to the time I got on the boat and sailed away.  An amazing experience, which I suspect has aged terribly - but I don't think I'll ever go and check.

Advance Wars (Game Boy Advance)

I think I prefer the first DS game, but only just.  Advance Wars is an amazing achievement of simplicity and depth rolled together.  The strengths and weaknesses of every unit are clearly designed to mean there's no one unbeatable strategy, although it sometimes feels that there is when playing against Kieron.  The only downside to the game is the effectiveness of a mech flood - creating hundreds of mech units and marching slowly across the map.

Street Fighter 2: Special Championship Edition (Mega Drive)

I've played a number of versions of SF2, but this was the one I played the most, along with the 6-button controller.  It remains my favourite, partially because of the controller (I've never been able to pull off dragon punches as effectively with anything else) and partially because of the purity of the game.  No super meters, no charging specials, no EX-TJ-PO balancing with finishing moves.  I loved this game - even though I wasn't that good when playing against real life opponents.

Tetris DX (Game Boy Color)

I got this on launch day, ahead of a coach journey from Bristol to London - I turned up to WH Smith as they opened and had them dig it out of the store room for me.  The journey seemed to take about five minutes.

Metal Gear Solid (PlayStation)

I've never got very far in this, despite trying a few times.  I have a copy of the GameCube remake; maybe I'll try that some time.

Half-Life 2 (PC)

I played a bit of this, but not much because Portal was a much more interesting game in the Orange Box.  I do fancy playing some more, but it may need to wait until I replay Half-Life.

Rez (Dreamcast)

I think this would work really well with Wii controllers - it's a game where I felt the controls were the only thing that frustrated me in the whole experience.  A lovely game though, even with the complete change of direction in the fifth level.

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