12.27
Now we continue with our regularly scheduled list entries…
#80
Metro 2033
Developer: 4A Games
Publisher: THQ
Genre: First-Person Shooter, Horror
Release Date: 2010
Platforms: Windows PC, Xbox 360
Pervasive atmosphere is one of the things that makes the truly amazing horror games stand out from those that are merely good. And while Metro 2033 may not exactly be “scary,” it has some of the densest, most oppressively dreary atmosphere present in any video game. It’s hard not to be impressed by the lengths 4A clearly went to to immerse players in the story and universe (based on a novel of the same title by Dmitry Glukhovsky). The mechanics of bullets doubling as currency and imperative gas mask usage tie directly into the plot and go a long way to elevate Metro over most other shooters. Certain segments are a bit unforgiving, yes, but the game never feels frustrating – instead, it’s often satisfying to play and always marvelous to behold. And while the journey itself is almost unflinchingly linear, it still comes across as a grand adventure; an adventure every gamer should partake in at least once. ~ Foggle
#79
Astro Boy: Omega Factor
Developer: Treasure, Hitmaker
Publisher: Sega
Genre: Shoot Em Up/Beat Em Up
Release Date: 2003 (Japan), 2004 (North America), 2005 (Europe)
Platform: Game Boy Advance
Become the powerful, yet very human-like android, Astro Boy, in a scifi adventure crafted by Treasure (Gunstar Heroes, Guardian Heroes, Ikaruga, Sin And Punishment, Radiant Silvergun) and Hitmaker (Crazy Taxi, Virtua Tennis, Virtua On). Omega Factor is a shoot em up, beat em up hybrid where the two genres get spliced together perfectly. Punch, kick, fire a finger laser, use the 3 special attacks that have Astro firing built-in machine guns, a literal arm cannon that shoots a large beam and use a multi-hit attack where Astro flys forward with his fist out all in one game. Freely explore sidescrolling stages where Astro can walk or fly up or across the air in quick bursts through areas and fight enemy robots (and sometimes humans), find secret parts of stages, solve mysteries that are important to the game’s plot and meet new NPCs. Speaking of meeting new characters, not only do you often get info that’s important to advancing in the game’s very interesting plot but simply meeting new people gives you a point to go towards leveling up one of Astro’s stats (Life, Punch, Laser, Shot, Jet, Senses). That’s right folks, this game even has RPG elements and it successfully makes you look forward to new conversations in a shoot em up/beat em up game of all things. There’s also flying sequences where Astro has to blast through a number of enemies and with a boss usually at the end of these sections. This change of pace keep things fresh in the game. Plus, speaking of bosses, the game has plenty of them and whether you are facing them on ground or in the air, they are very exciting to take on. Mix in a production value that is unbelievably good (and not just “good for GBA”) and incredible music from the composers Norio Hanzawa and Tsuyoshi Kaneko and you have one of the greatest handheld games of all time. ~ Gunswordfist
#78
Vagrant Story
Developer: Square-Soft
Publisher: Square-Soft
Genre: Role-Playing
Release Date: 2000
Platforms: Playstation, PSN
Back before Square and Enix collaborated and well, went to crap, you’d get such oddball games as Vagrant Story, an RPG that consists entirely of dungeon crawling that somehow doesn’t get old. You play as Ashley (a boy, I swear!), whom is a member of the Valendia Knights of the Peace and must follow into the lair of cult leader Sydney Losstarot. Sydney is a suspicious character and you must find him in this massive place, while facing his challenges along the way. It contains a real-time combat system and has the ability to switch from third to first person perspective, making for one heck of a unique, memorable Square experience. ~ Avaitor
#77
Psychonauts
Developer: Double Fine Productions
Publisher: Majesco Entertainment, THQ
Genre: Platformer
Release Date: 2005
Platforms: Xbox, Windows PC
Playstation 2
Tim Schafer is a god of sorts when it comes to narrative in gaming. He’s able to create memorable stories and add in GENIUS humor while still adding in wholly creative and fully-functioning gaming experiences, a best of both worlds formula that seems to be forgotten lately. Psychonauts is one of such games, using all of his best methods together in a sweet platformer. The man responsible for Monkey Island and Grim Fandango puts you in the role of Raz, a young Psychonaut in training that lands into the Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp to train his powers. We help Raz gain his powers, letting us play with fire and the psyches of our fellow campers, as well as use levitation. You’re still grounded more often than not, but the balance between Raz’s telekinetic powers and traditional platforming conventions work very well, with some very clever level designs and fun sidequests to complete.
There’s more than meets the eye to the camp and the supporting cast, which will develop as you go along. Thankfully it does so in great strides of humor. Raz is voiced by Richard Horvitz, and honestly, the game’s macabre sense of self-aware humor wouldn’t be too out of place in Invader Zim or Billy & Mandy. Sadly, despite all that it had going for it, Schafer’s games have a history of long delays and poor sales, and Psychonauts was no exception, pouring out disappointing numbers after a development cycle that started as far back as the beginning of its generation. A delayed and inferior PS2 release didn’t help things either. It’s having a great afterlife as a part of the Linux Humble Indie Bundle V however, actually besting its original run’s sales after only a few hours of release. Hopefully now more people will experience this great game and check out the rest of Tim Schafer’s work. ~ Avaitor
#76
Killer7
Developer: Grasshopper Manufacture
Publisher: Capcom
Genre: Action-Adventure, Rail Shooter
Release Date: 2005
Platforms: GameCube, PlayStation 2
Surrealism in video games hit a new high when Capcom released Killer7. Is it horror? Probably. Is it comedy? Arguably. Is it weird as all hell? Absolutely. Assuming you can follow the plot (or, at least, attempt to), this game is a real gem. You’ve got your suave but strange protagonist(s?), crazy supporting characters who blather on about god knows what, an odd art style that manages to feel simultaneously sterile and dirty, and invisible beasts from a cubist’s nightmares to do battle with. The gameplay is great, too. Utilizing the seven (eight, really) different characters and their unique abilities to solve puzzles ensures that Killer7 never becomes mundane, the bosses are crazy, and nearly every encounter with the terrifying Heaven Smile is intense. There really is no other game like this one. ~ Foggle
#75
Sonic The Hedgehog CD
Developer: Sonic Team
Publisher: Sega
Genre: Platformer
Release Date: 1993
Platforms: Sega CD, PC
After co-creating the original groundbreaking Sonic The Hedgehog game with Yuji Naka and Hirokazu Yasuhara, Naoto Oshima was tasked with coming up with his own sequel while the aforementioned pair worked on their own follow-up. What he did was come up with one of the most unique and groundbreaking games of the 16-bit era. In Sonic CD, which builds on the more obtuse elements of the original Sonic game, Sonic is tasked with saving Little Planet, a small planet that appears only but once a year from being corrupted by the evil Dr. Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik. To do so he must travel through time in order to erase the mad doctor’s influence from the floating planet and save the day once again. Sonic CD is completely unlike any other platformer in that every single level in the game has four distinct alternate layouts, and Sonic himself has multiple ways to save the future making the game very wide in scope in how you wish to tackle it. This was a very ambitious game, and very different from not only every Sonic game, but pretty much every game ever made. Despite all that, the game is fantastic, with two separate and distinct soundtracks, a faithful remake released in 2011 for almost every platform, and a secure spot in video game history for being so experimental yet classic at the same time. ~ Spark Of Spirit
#74
Contra III: The Alien Wars
Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Genre: Run N’ Gun, Shooter, Action
Release Date: 1992
Platforms: Super Nintendo Entertainment System [SNES]
Nintendo Wii
This game was quite the revelation in 1992. No one yet realized that action games could achieve the level of set-pieces that one could see in the movies could transition into games until this came out. But not only did it replicate the thrill of a high octane action movie, it retained everything people enjoyed from the original Contra games (Contra, Super C,and Operation C) making it a real step forward for video games at the time and even now when movie-style games are coming out of the woodwork, a lot of that praise is owed to this game which set the standard of action games past and present, and is still one of the very best action games there is now still. So grab yourself a spread gun (or two- now you can swap weapons!), get a buddy, and finish off the alien menace before they finish us off! The real Contra experience never disappoints, and this entry shows why. ~ Spark Of Spirit
#73
SSX Tricky
Developer: EA Canada
Publisher: EA Sports BIG
Genre: Sports, Racing
Release Date: 2001
Platforms: PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, XBOX
SSX Tricky is a snow-boarding game with 2 main objectives between the various game modes that you can choose to play. The first and more obvious one is to race your opponents and attempt to reach the end of the course first. The second is to achieve as high of a score as possible while you attempt to clear the course, with performing tricks and combos also being brilliantly tied into the racing component of the game as racking up points through tricks also allows you to boost your speed. Of course, there is also a mode which allows you to just focus on scoring and attempt to pass a certain threshold score specific to each course to win a bronze, silver, or gold medal for each of them. In addition to its Tony Hawk influenced trick system, the game takes a cue from Road Rash in allowing you to physically assault your opponents and in this case attempt to knock them off their boards. If you manage to avoid being knocked off your own board and manage to build up your “tricky” meter enough through maintaining your speed and performing more complex tricks, you will eventually get your character to use their unique UBER trick which gives them a huge boost in score whenever successfully pulled off as well as a dramatic boost in speed giving them an advantage over their opponents. Its a very simple system at its core yet it leads to such addicting and fun gameplay, whether played by yourself against computer controlled opponents or competitively against your friends.
SSX Tricky also boasts a very catchy soundtrack, with each track perfectly complementing the mood and theme of each specific course that you ride through. The courses themselves are a thing of beauty, and are expertly crafted, though in this regard most of them are admittedly pulled straight from the first title with some minor tweaks and alterations to improve their flow. Whatever the case, though, whether you are playing for fun in Freeride mode or attempting to achieve every gold medal in World Circuit mode, this game is an absolute blast to play, and its the best of its kind as doing so. The SSX series is great in general, but this title stands out among its predecessor and sequels as the prime point of the series, with the original SSX lacking the improvement and refinements of this sequel, SSX 3 being heavier on content but lighter on a lot of the elements that made the first 2 games so over-the-top and fun to play, SSX: World Tour being unique but not having the same level of addicting replay value as Tricky, and with the Wii-exclusive SSX: Blur having an ambitious motion-control scheme but also carrying a lot of flaws that come with it. To this day, many consider SSX Tricky to be one of the best overall sports games ever released as well as the best snow-boarding game ever made, and us here at AR consider it to be one of the 100 best video games that we have ever played. ~ Ensatsu-ken
#72
Phantasy Star IV: The End Of The Millennium
Developer: Sega
Publisher: Sega
Genre: Turn-based JRPG
Release Date: 1993
Platforms: Sega Genesis, Nintendo Wii
In Sega’s critically acclaimed RPG, you play as a Hunter named Chaz alongside his fellow Hunter and mentor, Alys. Like many JRPGs, the story starts small and then becomes something very big. For this particular scifi/fantasy game, that is a massive understatement. Chaz and Alys take on a seemingly normal Hunter mission that goes on to lead to an adventure that has the players traversing the planet and later on, with the aid of a spaceship, fast traveling to parts of other worlds and a few other important locations in outer space. During this journey, a few people, including some from the game’s fictional races, join your party. To tie this all together, Phantasy Star IV features great dialogue and interesting comic book style cutscenes. Compared to 3D or other 2D RPGs, Phantasy Star IV’s characters have more personality than most of those game’s casts, which helps you actual care when someone dies in this game’s story.
Use scifi and magic attacks. Weapons that range from staffs to high powered futuristic guns. Combine characters’ moves together to launch a special attack. Do all of this and more during battles. You also get a decent amount of gigantic hi-tech vehicles that are not only essential for traveling into certain different territories, they can be used to combat normal monsters outside and selecting these vehicles is as easy as using an item. The types of monster and/or enemy robot filled locations you pass through include snowy areas, deserts and science fiction based facilities. Phantasy Star IV has plenty of variety and in addition to all of the aforementioned, the game also has lots of boss battles and completely optional Hunter side quests. Genesis’ greatest RPG (and one of the greatest RPGs period) should not be ignored and if you haven’t already played it yet and are even remotely interested in this genre, please try this game. ~ Gunswordfist
#71
Mario Kart Double Dash!!
Developer: Nintendo EAD
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Racing
Release Date: 2003
Platforms: Nintendo Gamecube
Mario Kart is probably the most famous racing game series in the world right now, but it seems like the world might have missed out on possibly the best entry due to it simply being on Nintendo’s lowest selling console. Mario Kart Double Dash!! improves on Super Mario Kart’s basic idea by not only adding two man driving karts which add a lot of strategy to the mix, but also having possibly the best set of courses in the entire series where not one is a miss. You can’t go wrong with co-op karting with a friend, but the multiplayer options in this game are just phenomenal making it probably the best Mario Kart game from a racing standpoint. Despite that, however, the battle mode has no AI bots and the courses (outside of one or two) are pretty lousy, and the infamous Blue Shell makes its proper debut in this game infuriating players for years after. Despite the niggling issues, Mario Kart rarely gets better than Double Dash!! ~ Spark Of Spirit