• Top 100 Video Games

  

  Written by Zeromage 226 Comments
  Last Updated:: February 1, 2009

  60. Bubble Bobble (NES)

  Let’s recap. You are a dinosaur trapped in a box. You hop on bubbles. You blow bubbles. There are enemies inside the box. You can only defeat your enemies by blowing a bubble at them, trapping them in it, and popping said bubble by jumping on it. What happens when all of the enemies are gone? You fall into another similar box filled with enemies. Worst…Game…Ever. F it, it took me an hour to figure this out, I’ll play another level. Forty levels later, with the second controller in your friends hand, your two little dinosaurs are frantically hopping around the screen on bubbles, powering up on turbo bubble icons, and only pausing the game to get more mountain dew and stop laughing. For a while you think that there is no end to the game, the level’s pile up like some sick joke. You’re sure any level now you’ll drop back into level one and never play the game again. Then you drop into a two tiered level with a giant enemy that takes up most of the screen. No more laughing, lives are vanishing, player two has left the game, in a moment of bubble blowing fury colors flash in an epileptic nightmare, as you realize what has happened four fists raise into the air. High on excitement and Mountain Dew, you run into the yard to burn off the energy. One of the Best…Games…Ever.

  59. Warcraft 3
  
  Blizzard really stepped up the story telling in this epic game, and for Blizzard that’s saying a lot. They also introduced new races, new units, and super units called heroes. These guys were great. If you leveled them up fast enough you could take out a whole army with just one of them. The cut scenes were also incredible. As with every Blizzard game this one was also incredibly addicting. Not only did you want to beat the level to advance the story, but at the end of every campaign you got to watch one of the cut scenes I just mentioned. This was one of the first real time strategy games that also had a truly enthralling story line, with well developed characters, plots, subplots, back stabbing, triumph, and failure. It also paved the way one of their more epic video games of all time, World of Warcraft. You could see that Blizzard was testing ideas and playing with concepts that would prove to be some of the more interesting parts of their future games.

  58. Metal Gear Solid (PS1)

  Metal Gear on the NES was undoubtedly one of the greatest video games of all time, and as such, it was almost a given that it would inspire sequels. The third installment in the Metal Gear series, Metal Gear Solid for the Playstation 1, is a worthy successor to that legendary game. As most gamers know, this is the game that started the storyline versus gameplay debate on numerous video game forums. The storyline for Metal Gear Solid plays such a large factor within the game that, at times, it dominates the experience. The game is only about six hours long, but you can beat it in three hours or less if you were to skip every cut scene. But, what a great storyline Metal Gear Solid has. While it starts out simple enough, it soon gets very complicated and is filled with so many unforgettable moments, plot twists, and characters (all wonderfully voiced) that you’ll soon get lost in it. This storyline will stick with you for a while as it twists and turns to it’s epic ending. As great as the storyline is in this game, it wouldn’t mean much without good gameplay. While the game’s short length and lack of difficulty earned it criticism from some reviewers, the game is still engrossing as you try to sneak past your enemies without being seen. This is a game that you have to beat with stealth, not firepower. However, the boss battles are all exciting and represent some of the best in any Playstation game. Each boss fight is unique and each has different ways of beating it. And the battle between Snake and Metal Gear Rex is fittingly exciting and epic.

  57. Double Dribble

  Double Dribble is a long lost classic in the NES sports game market. This game seems odd at first with an appearable crowd entering into a coliseum. The crowd looks more like a virus on an X-Ray machine but we’ll forget about that for now. The teams one could play with were accompanied by strange mascots like a surf board and a frog for the LA and Boston teams respectively. The basketball play itself was classic. The cinematic dunks were to die for back in the day. There was never a basketball game where so many dunks could be missed. This was all for the better though because the sound of the missed dunk was one of the more funnier sounds in all of sports gaming. The difficulty level of Double Dribble was perfect. Three-point shots were neither to hard nor to easy to make. Steals were also engineered perfectly in this game. For those who have never played this game, do yourself a favor and be memorized by all the simple fun.

  56. Xenogears

  Xenogears was a hallmark for the RPG medium. This Playstation classic had so many great elements to it that it needed to be included in this list. The storyline to Xenogears is absolutely magnificent. We are given performative parables and existential themes throughout the game that make playing this game like reading some classic text of Greek or Roman literature. The deep subtleties in the storyline made Xenogears one of the most replayable RPG’s of all time. One could even say that Xenogears was the “Ulysses” of the RPG medium. The massive amount of cut scenes go a long way to show how important it was for the creators of this game to establish a great storyline with questions that wouldn’t be answered until later in the game. The battle style of Xenogears is much like the Final Fantasy series with an “active time battle” system and attacks that ranged from weak to moderate to strong. There was also those special “Deathblow” moves you learned throughout the game that were most effective in their elemental setting. The hear of the game though is in the storyline. It’s one that will be revisited for some time to come.

  55. Super Mario 2 (NES)

  The amount of unnecessary controversy surrounding Super Mario Brothers 2 is unprecedented. If you hear someone complaining about a Super Mario Brothers game it’s probably Mario 2, because its not like Mario 1 or 3, which are supposed to be the “authentic” Marios. Looking back, and playing through Super Mario All Stars though, Mario 2 comes as a treat of a completely different game playing style and colourful imagery. You could choose between Mario, Luigi, princess, and Toad, giving you more options than Mario 1 and 3 (although Toad proves to be worthless). Each had their own special abilities. With the Princess, you could float across major parts of levels, which was a fun new addition to the Mario saga. Birdo was always a fair challenge as an end boss and not something to be vexed at like some people said. The variety of level-styles was also welcome as in some levels you were digging through a pyramid, and others, going into underground labyrinth’s to find keys to use elsewhere in the level. The problem that a gamer may have with Super Mario 2 has more to do with the fact that it was a blatant rip of “Doki Doki Panic” for the Super Famicon (Japanese NES), but this in no way effects the playability and general enjoyment of the game. Gamers always need something to complain about, but for those who don’t think about the rip and just play the game, they are in for a welcome surprise. The creators of this game had good taste in what to ape.

  54. Mega Man 3 (NES)

  Mega Man 3, while not quite as revered as its predecessor, still gave gamers the same excitement they had from Mega Man 2. With new nefarious bosses and an even more elaborate story line, Mega Man 3 fit comfortably next to Mega Man 2 in your cartridge storage device. The perennial excellence of Mega Man music was exemplified best by the Snake Man and Needle Man stages. We must not forget the subtle but monumental additions to Mega Man himself; the slide, and Rush! (Only a video game creator could combine a canine and a jet). While the new additions were well-received, the enjoyment of the game came mostly from the same type of playability of it’s brother, proving the old maxim, “if it aint broke, don’t fix it”, or shall we say “If a game buys it’s makers multiple boats in the Bahamas, make it again.”

  53. Knights of Old Republic 2

  Unlike most of people that I’ve talked to about Knights of the Republic 2, I just didn’t like it as much as the first one. The game mechanics are virtually identical to the original, which really is fine. There were a few minor tweaks of course. The workbench could be used to create items, not just upgrade them, and there was a new “lab station” that could make medical items and explosives. Both of these stations were much more common than the workbench was in the original. You could switch between several “forms” which give bonuses to some attributes and penalties to others. Pazaak has been improved with the addition of some new cards, plus the first play alternates between the contestants. Other than that, there’s not much in KOTOR 2 that was really new. That’s not to say that KOTOR 2 isn’t a great game, because it is, which is why it makes our list. But there’s just not that much of a difference from the first game in the series. Its lack of innovation is what keeps it at number six on our list, but as the old saying goes, if ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

  52. Civilization 2 (PC)

  Civilization 2 was massive! In the spirit of strategy games before it, Civilization two marked a huge jump in the possibilities for strategic war games. There were more technologies in Civilization two than Civilization one, along with more time periods to survive through, even up to a space age if you were an ardent Machiavellian of a prince. In this game, you could get advice from a council of elders in real-time film clips of the discussion. Like Civilization one, the goal of the game was to conquer all the civilizations. But in this sequel, you could also finish the game by building a spaceship to reach a distant solar system. Like strategic war games before it, you could trade technologies, pillage smaller civilizations, run universal trading routes to all other civilizations in the world and create your own hegemonic dynasty of Thrusymachian might. Overstep your boundaries though as a prince, and you will suffer the fate of anarchy with everyone talking at the same time and the council of elders shutting its windows on you from getting their advice any longer. This game was very addicting. What can be more fun that dominating the world with the movement of a finger and a click on the mouse? Political theorists have been notorious for advising their students to play this game. That alone gets this game in the top 100.

  51. Zelda 2 (NES)

  Zelda 2 often gets a bad wrap as being a miss in the Zelda series. This is a dumb claim. Zelda 2 absolutely holds its own in the Zelda series. It’s much more sophisticated than Zelda 1 and has its own charm as being slightly morbid, which people who die by Zelda 1 wouldn’t like. Nonetheless, Zelda 2 is a game of epic themes and even more epic battles than Zelda 1. The people you talk to throughout the towns all sound mysterious. Sometimes they don’t even answer you. Sometimes they even turn into bats. Also in the towns, you come across the town magician who would give you a variety of spells ranging from a classic fireball to a much-satisfying down thrust technique that allowed you to kill enemies on the way down from a jump, puncturing your enemy into oblivion. Zelda 2 had more RPGesque themes than Zelda 1 like Experience levels and dialogues Link would have with elders and river men hidden in woods. All the castles had their own stylistic dispositions with some representing simple attack enemies (1st castle) and other representing more sophisticated enemies with magic and trajectory power (5th and 6th castles). The last castle with Gannon in it proved to be quite difficult, but what ending level is not difficult in any video game. You were led to the surprise of the final boss in Zelda 2 which was a shadow of yourself, signifying that you and Gannon were actually quite similar (fill in the star wars references ad nausea). Zelda 2 was certainly more “adult” than Zelda 1 and therefore not liked by those who wanted to see Link as a more childish idea, but grow up a bit, and you will understand the value of morbidity in video games, you will understand the suspension it instills in you can be quite pleasurable.

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226 Comments

1. #1 Bladerunner says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 4:09 pm

   Terrible list imo.I realise this list is your opinion, and i respect that. Im just pointing out that my opinion differs from yours vastly

   1) Its a whore-fest of old games, lots of true modern classics were ignored. No half life 1,2, gta, resident evil, call of duty, fallout, civilization? Seriously???!!

   2) Toe jam and earl? give me a break….

   3) Not a single fricking N64 game? Majoras mask?! Mario 64?! Goldeneye?! Perfect dark?! OCARINA OF TIME?!!!!!! sheesh

   3) Just ONE ps2 game in the entire list? no shadow of the colossus? no okami? no gran turismo? no god of war? OMG

   4) Correct me if im wrong, but i dont think i saw a single racing game in there… wtf?

   I do agree with most of the top 20 though. Chrono trigger, Castlevania:SOTN, Zelda LTTP…. epic games
2. #2 Dopeycunt says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 9:36 pm

   Seems like the author does not have a whole lot of experience playing catalogs of games on different systems, and probably stuck to Nintendo systems when he was a kid. Only the big-name (obvious) Sega titles are here, and a distinct lack of PSX, XBox, and PC games.
3. #3 Wolf says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 10:12 am

   …dodgeball beat DigDug?
   already bad things happening and im only on page 1
4. #4 Wolf says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 10:20 am

   Ducktales made the top 20?…
5. #5 dude says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 12:19 am

   while this list may not be well rounded (at all), it makes for a pretty good reference on which old roms I should be investing my time in.
6. #6 pd says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 9:45 pm

   so your saying nhl 94 and a dodgeball game are better then say castlevania iv and contra 3 bullshit and there two games off the top of my head.
7. #7 Justin says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 3:45 am

   I didn’t know N64 was such a crappy system.LOL.What an ass list and an ass website. Terrible what you are putting into these viewer’s heads.
8. #8 Justin says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 3:50 am

   Oh and I also forgot to LOL @ having Madden 2004 on there without NFL 2k5.Props for putting Star Craft on there though,best game ever made.
9. #9 Azelfknight says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 8:44 pm

   Zelda 2 is the worst Zelda ever…just saying.

   This list is okay, but with way to many old ripoffs of each other in the platforming department. A link to the past is one of my favorite games and glad others recognize it too, but so many good game aren’t on this list that it makes me shake my head. Here are games that deserve more credit, in no order, Halo, Ocarina of Time, Fallout 3, WOW, Mario Kart 64, and more…
10. #10 pelham123 says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 11:05 pm

    It’s nice to see a more personal top 100 list for a change, an enjoyable read. Cheers!
11. #11 Fedricco Rabaya says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 2:31 pm

    Hey people can someone tell me the Mario game when the story is about a dream of Mario? There are 4 characters to choose from: MArio, Luigi, Princess and the Mushroom kid.
12. #12 Salo says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 2:48 pm

    Super Mario 2.
13. #13 nick says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 6:56 pm

    good list, but you guys really need to play golden sun.