Top 40 Video games Part 5: Diamond Tier (8-1)

And here we have it folks, at long long last, the TOP 8 VIDEO GAMES OF ALL FREAKING TIME! At least according to me.....but I have fantastic taste :P For those of you whove been following along this whole time expect to see some "holes" get filled and expectations met, as Bioware finally gets on the list....and dominates it, and Nintendo's most famous franchise gets a mention.  And if you have read the 4 earlier parts, you might have a couple of ideas of what else is hear based on what I promised earlier would turn up . With that out of the way HERE WE GO

8) Lego Marvel Superheroes (2013) PC

I'll be entirely honest, the Lego franchise hasnt really benefited from voice acting, in fact I'd say a lot of the signature humor of the series is gone......which is why they started doing more original stories, as without direct source material they arnt basically flat versions of the source material. And no original lego game represents the heights they can get to than Lego Marvel Superheroes. Now I'll admit my bias as a huge marvel (as opposed to DC) fan outright, cause I know some people love the Lego Batman series, I generally feel the story here is more fun and more crazy to play though than the DC ones. And the cast is INSANE.  it Hits all the major movie characters, but also the super obscure ones as well (Union Jack, Nightmare, Rescue) ect.  Also some of the other previous games had a ton of filler characters in them....IE characters who were basically human and had no special powers (Indiana Jones being a major offender) and while this game has a handful like that, the vast majority of the 100 or so characters have some kind of power that can be used to solve the puzzles...so you truely can play with who you want, not be burdened by being useless and dont have to have the same characters on every replay to unlock all the puzzles (well except Mr fantastic cause hes the only character with his power set)

Also unlike later lego games, this game only has a single huge hub (with hidden levels in it), which is great cause its a ton of fun running around Manhattan and not as overwhelming as say having 4 hubs and a 6 hub planets like you see in lego batman (thats just a bit too much).  Also I believe this was the first lego game to feature "Big Figs" characters, size changing characters, and hidden senses. These combined with Flying (introduced in Lego Batman 2 in fairness) makes for more complicated and varied "puzzles" to progress though or need to solve to find gold bricks, than were present in earlier Lego games. Basically in my opinion, every game after this one did too much of what this game did well, the ones before seem a bit simple by comparison.  So while not as good humor and fun wise as the non talking games in my opinion, it may be the most balanced game legos put out as far as difficultly of puzzles, size of open world, and huge and unique cast

7) Knights of the Old Republic (2003) PC

And Bioware finally makes it on to the list....but while this is their first entry, it wont be the last.

So this is one of those games that is so universally accepted as good, that I dont need to defend why its on the list, as much as I'm going to need to defend why its so comparatively low on the list. For those who dont know this game is generally considered to have one of the best plot twists in the history of gaming. So for those who want to still be surprised, I will save my justification for the end of the review. The good of this game is really good, its got pretty simple to understand and use leveling system, a somewhat non linear progression (the first two and last mission are fixed the other 4 major missions/planets can be done in any order you like), and the characters are awesome, especially HK47 and Jolee Bindo. Plus its a star wars game that has nothing to do with the Skywalker family or anyone else youve ever heard of, so its gets all the up sides of being a star wars game, while being totally and completely new as well. Also for my money, of all the games where you can be a jedi, this is the best one.  But a couple of small problems exist with some glitches, including ones with pretty much all the female characters that can make quests unfinishable or break the game (all but one of which can be worked around with the help of a guide and doing specific things in a specific order or at a specific time), also the non Jedi characters dont really seem to be that useful in your party, your almost always better off with a party of Jedi. 

Now the big one....so if you dont want a spoiler on the games big twist, jump to the next review now:

The reason this game ranks this low is because they actually ruin the major plot twist a couple hours into the game. When you first meet the Jedi Council, 2 to 4 hours into the game they have a discussion in which they are deciding if they should train you as a Jedi. That conversation includes the following line by master Vrook Lamar (the old human guy):

"Are you sure that Revan is truly dead? What if we were to undertake this one and the dark lord should return?" Now on my first playtrhough I was sitting there and though "I dont see why my training would have any connection to Revan coming back.....unless you know, I'm Revan...which makes sense given the dream at the beginning of the game where you see him defeated."

And just like that, the major huge shocking plot twist of the game was ruined, and I had to spend the next 20-24 hours watching everyone drop these cryptic hints and pretend I didnt know who I actually was before everyone in the game finally caught up what I already knew. And not going to lie, that really hurt my experience with the game. If they hadnt given away the twist (or at least not made it as blatant)  there is a very good chance this game would be in the top 2 or 3, it really is that good, but the slog to get the games characters to the same point I as the player was in the plot really hurt it. 

6) Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag. (2013) PS4

This is probably the worst and weakest Assassin's creed story in the series. But wait...whats that you say? How can it be such a horrible story and still be in the top 6 best video games ever?

Oh well, see its a shitty Assassins Creed game.....but its the best damn pirate game you will ever EVER freaking play.  If you removed EVERYTHING about the Assassins Creed franchise from this game, youd still have a freaking awesome game, with a very interesting (by open world standards anyways) story line. Imagine if you will: you as Edward Kenway are ship wrecked on an Island in a battle, but instead of an Assassin the other occupant is the other ships captain, you kill him, and honestly the game can play out from there pretty much exactly as the first 2/3rds of it actually do, as you try to build your pirate empire and safe haven, only to attract the attention of the British East India company. Works just fine without ANY need for Assassins or Templar. To be honest, if anything the Assassin shit holds the game back. And part of that is a pacing problem...because the game is open world you can go and do a TON of things that make perfect sense as a pirate. In fact, if your like me, you may well have put 60 hours or so into the game, and done almost everything before you actually need to advance the storyline to the part where you become an Assassin, which no matter how you play is about 2/3rds if not more into the story (for the first 1/3rd its not even clear youre aware the Assassins exist). To be honest, had this been the first game in Ubisofts new series "Black Flag", and had not been connected to AC at all, but had otherwise been the exact same game, theres a good chance it would have broken into the top 3 slots.  Ship combat is solid (and Im unaware of any other game at the time that even attempted it), the regular combat and weapon selection is good, and while the stealth does suck, the enemies never reach the overwhelming numbers they do in other AC games, so you CAN "correct" for mistakes with a decent combat system. Also can I just say, squaring off against, disabling and capturing a fort to reveal the map is a HELL of a lot more fun that Ubi's usually "climb tall shit" method?

5) Fire Emblem Awakening (2012) 3DS

This game can be summed up in a single word....Feet. 

Specifically that they dont exist. Or well the characters HAVE feet in the games universe, they just arnt included on the character models. The character models in this game, despite being fully 3D, dont have feet, and everyone is walking around on ankles.  I mention this because its weird as hell, and you'd think it would be super distracting and take away from the game...and it does for the first few minutes and then, this game is so good you kind of no longer notice or care. In fact when I played the sequel years later I was more distracted by how unnatural it looks that those characters had feet than I ever was these characters didnt.

Now, this might seem like a really weird way to praise a game, but I think we can all agree that if you design a game where for no reason all the characters are shown as missing a couple of key body parts, and that doesnt totally wreck the immersion of the game, you have a fantastic game.

And that says even more when you consider the main theme of the game is time travel....which is usually the number one way to mess up a game. Now admittedly beyond that the story is pretty standard faire.....you have amnesia, join a fight for the survival of a kingdom and the world, some how natural talents that make you central to the fight and trusted by the main characters blah blah blah.  Now the time travel fits in because during the course of the game your characters build relationships with each other, up to and including marriage. And if two characters get married, they have a child together. A future version of this child then turns up in your present as an adult and can join your army, their stats, classes ect all being determined by the parents. Now while this is a bit gimmicky trust me when I say it actually works in the story. It turns the main villain and the  children come from the same future in which the villain already won and all of your characters are dead. SO basically your kids are back to do what you couldnt. Even if that means opposing you as one of kids turns out (at least to start) to be fighting against you to try to prevent you from doing the things that lead to your death.

Underneath all that, you have the fire emblem series strategic turn based combat....and with permanent death on, it can take forever to fight your way though the battles with no screw ups and no casualties. And thats the other side of the child gimmick....if a character dies, your not just losing them you are losing the stat/class potential of the child character, making them weaker....or if the mom dies before getting married the child character itself. Yikes.  Or you can be like me and keep permanent death off......but theres a down side there as well.....youll end up with way way way too many characters, and without massive grinding many of them will be too low level moving forward, which can lead you to lose missions later on and make them much harder.  So your in for a slog either way.

But its an enjoyable slog, as the game-play is really good, and the characters are some of the most fleshed out and have the most personality of any characters I've seen in any 3DS games....which is especially surprising as most of the personality is hidden in the optional support conversations so that entire element can be by passed. Also if your looking for a game with strong female characters, this is probably it, as not only is the strongest character stat/skill/attack wise in the game female, in my opinion the female characters overall are more fun and memorable than the men. (though there are some exceptions)

4) Mario Galaxy (2007) Wii

It took a while but gaming's most famous character finally makes the list...and how appropriate is it that Mario closes out Nintendo's appearances on this list. So people say Mario 64 was revolutionary...but if i'm honest I never played it (until the DS remake). So maybe the revolutionary aspect of this game is a bit played up for me....but holy god is this game AMAZING, and its entirely due to the gravity gimmick. Basically this is a 3D platformer set in space....so many of the platforms are various kinds of planets, moons, ect, and they all have their own individual gravity.  So you might say jump up from a platform to the bottom of the platform above you, only to have the gravity of the second platform flip you over so your upside down on the bottom before jumping to the next platform where you get flipped again.  Between that and the ability to literally run a circle around most of the plantiods, it seems like the most "open" platformer ever and something the challege is as much figuring out where to go as it is how to get there.  Also all the main "galaxys" look fantastic, most of the worlds have multiple missions for 3-5 stars, and even though the missions share part of the same map they all find a way to feel unique. Honestly, the games sequel feels like a more linear unused concept level pack, as this game outshines it in every way.  And with the exception of spring Mario (who can fuck off and die) the power ups in this game are all really fun,  especially, as weird as it seems the bee mushroom. 

In short if youve never played this game, you need to. In fact this would be the only game on this list I would suggest buying a system just to play (though to be fair, thats because most of the rest of this game can either be played on multiple systems or PC or both, so you likely already have something that can play them) 

3) Lego Star Wars Complete Saga(2007) Wii

Remember how I said since they started talking the lego games kinda lost their humor? this is the game I had in mind...or technically two games, since originally they released Lego Star Wars covering the prequels and then Lego Star Wars II for the originals, but by the time I got around to it, they had a single disk covering both games.

Anyways, what these games set out to do was pretty impressive, not only are you playing through the levels of the movies, but all the cut-scenes have to tell you whats going on without words, and the solutions they find are hilarious. For example Darth Vader has to pull out a picture of himself and a pregnant padme and then point at him, then him in the picture, padmes belly and then Luke.  In addition to all the cut scenes the game benifits from a simple and logical play-style that can be lost in some later games. All characters kinda fit a "class" (jedi, blaster, high jumper, bounty hunter) and its usually pretty obvious what class they are in, and therefore what their powers are and what puzzles they can solve. Which is especially nice when compared to later games when say you might have a character who can use ropes, change sizes, have super senses,  fly and blow up silver lego, but you dont know about it cause you cant tell by looking at them.

Also, as should be clear by now, Star Wars is one of my favorite settings, this being the last of 4 games on the list (tied with Pokemon and Marvel for the most of any franchise) and I admit that might be a big help. It also kinda helps that for a while (until lego batman 2 I believe) only the star wars games had any kind of jedi force power mechanic (now telekinesis) which helped them stand out a lot. Also at least as a set they have a whole set of hidden bounty hunter bonus levels...which are essentially a big game of hide and seek. Also you have all the bonuses that can be unlocked with the gold bricks....including Lego City still my favorite bonus level to this day.   

Finally and most importantly in my opinion, thanks to being able to buy new characters in the cantina hub, its actually possible to get a character of every class before beating the game....allowing you to replay missions to 100% completion whenever you like, as opposed to the modern titles in which you are basically forced to finish the main story before going back to complete levels, so the game can feel like less of "drag:.

However what truely gets this game this high is this: I like the lego games, Indiana Jones and Pirates of the Caribbean were considered for this list, and as I keep mentioning them, its likely not a surprise that I've played the 3 Lego batman games, as well as the other 2 star wars lego games, and of course the previously ranked Marvel Game, and the avengers sort of sequel. Of all those games however, this is the only lego game I've actually wanted to go back and 100% more than once (done it 4 times so far) cause its that good.  

2) Mass Effect Trilogy (2005,2006,2007) PC

Ok, yes I'm cheating a bit because this is 3 games in one. And honestly on their own none of these games would rank this high on this list.....in fact ME2 and ME3 might not even make the list. But at the end of the day, it is one long continuous story, and [most] decisions you make carry over and impact the later games.

In fact, thats one of the reasons I felt like I had no choice but to put all 3 games on here. Ok so in my opinion from a character based perspective, Mass Effect 3 is actually the best game of the 3, as its driven and defined almost entirely by character arcs and motivations. For example some of the major moments in ME3 include Mordins Death. Thanes death, Wrex and Eve. Tali possibly killing herself. ect ect. The problem is.....if you start a fresh game of ME3, you wont see any of these, as all of these characters are considered dead at the start of the story.

So in order to get the most out of ME3, you have to play ME2 and ME1. And it works the other way around as well....as unsatisfying as people found the ending of ME3, if you want to see how the story of ME1 ends you have to play though ME3.  So because the fact is each game in the series (or at least the DLC in the case of ME2, which on its own is kinda worthless) is necessary for getting maximum enjoyment out of the others, in a way not needed for other game series on this list it seemed only fair to list these as a unit. 

 Admittedly in none of the games is the game play fantastic, especially since it kinda changes genres with every game, ME1 being a straight up RPG, ME2 being more a semi open world Action/Shooter RPG, and ME3 being more a straight up linear Action/Shooter. But the games arnt really about the gameplay....which is solid across the board, just not fantastic.

Instead the game is supposed to be about choices, about how every choice you make has a consequence that carries out across the trilogy. Something you did in the first game might mean you cant do something in the second which means you wont be able to prevent something in the 3rd....at least in theory. In execution most of the choices dont have nearly that far reach consequences, as almost all of them result in nothing but minor dialogue changes (the fight between Tail/Legion in ME2, and Virmire in ME1 being the two most notable exceptions). Still it makes for a fantastic replay value as no run thorough of the game will be exactly the same.  Of course I would be remiss if I didnt point out "choice" or more accurately the illusion of choice, is also responsible for the series biggest weakness...Mass Effect 3's ending. Now upfront I never played ME 3 until the extended cut came out, which fixed a lot of the issues as far as pacing and leaving storyline threads dropped, but the biggest issue still remains...people think the ending all suck because their isnt really a "good ending"....bad results happen no matter what, and its debatable if any ending really results in you "beating" the bad guys.

But if you reflect on the endings of the first two games, and the arrival DLC, it becomes clear, there was no good ending there either.....in all cases you had to make one of a number of choices where bad things would happen. Every choice you make at the end of the games is choosing the lesser of evils in an attempt to put off making a harder choice later.  So in that sense, the ending of ME3 fits the game perfectly. And to be fair, so do many of the other smaller choices. There are very few if any black and white choices in Mass Effect, they are all shades of grey, no matter if you play paragon or renegade you will make morally questionable choices(why did you save who you did on virmire? why did you allow a species to die or not die on Rannoch and Tuchanka, why did you endanger the galaxy or commit genocide with the Rachni)....and you will be dealing with the less than ideal fallout for the rest of your run.

I mention all this, because I believe, thats the real lesson of mass effect. You are NOT the perfect hero. You are NOT the savior of the galaxy. The rest of the universe will see you that way, but in truth you are a flawed man/woman who makes flawed choices. You have to decide what you think the greater good is....but you have to accept the bad that is going to come with that choice.

most video games, even ones that deal with moral choice present endings that are either all good or all evil. You either wound up the perfect hero or the embodiment of evil. or in the very rare case, you fail, and you get the ending where your character, due to their moral flaws is crushed and the world crashes down around them.

However, the ME series is the only one I can think of where the endings...all of them across the trilogy are shades of grey, you may have saved people, but you couldnt save everyone and you couldnt give everyone a happy ending. In real life you never get the "all white" or "all black" ending to your decisions....and its nice to see that played out for once in a video game.....even if I think many of the people who played it, missed that point. 

1) Baldurs Gate 2 (2000) PC

If there was one thing I could do over in my life, it would be go back to 2000, when I was first becoming a gamer, as opposed to a casual and tell my younger self not to play this game. This might seem a bit counter-intuitive given that this game is now topping my best games ever list, let me explain: I didnt buy my N64 (my first home console) until after this game came out, so at the time I first played it I really wasnt much of a gamer. (note only 5 games on this list are for PC and predate this game, and even of those, I hadnt played one of them (Civ II) when I got this game). What I'm getting at is that this was probably the second (after TIE fighter) real adult game I'd ever played.

And you may remember back in the beginning of part 1, I say I'm a fan of RPG's, yet if I'm being honest most of the RPG's on this list I've only started playing the the last 3 years or so (no matter when they were released). In fact, it took 8 years (when I bought Neverwinter Nights 2) for me to even find another RPG I liked.

And the reason for all of that is simple....nothing else measures up. I effectively came into the gaming world, and the cRPG, playing what a whole lot of other ranking lists would call one of the best RPG's of all freaking time. So after this game, everything else seems inferior. And this is a legitimate problem...I've played things like Pillars of Eternity or Divinity Original Sin, both of which are supposed to be spiritual successors to this game, and they arnt bad, but I cant get into them, because they arnt as good as this.  And thats why I would tell myself not to play this game, because the simple fact is, it was so good it ruined some of the enjoyment I would have gotten out of other RPG games because they arnt this.

In fact, 17 years on from its release date, the only game in its genre that appears to come close to unseating this game is the Witcher III...which I have yet to play (i will eventually). So as far as Im concerned the king is pretty safely ensconced on his throne.

But all that said, what makes this game so great? The character's mostly. Bioware has a reputation for fantastic characters.....this is the game that reputation was built on. In this game you have 16 unique and deep characters, all of whom have multiple interactions with every other one. Its possible to have two of your party enter into a romance together.....its also possible to try to romance one of those two yourself, and create a love triangle that results in a fight between you and the spurned lover. You can have a chaotic evil dwarf trying to win the heart of a lawful good halfling want to be paladin. One of your characters might even change genders depending on your decisions to help them or not. And lastly, one party member will betray you. Also not all characters can be in the same group together.....or they will literally kill each other, and the loser cant be revived, they are lost to you forever.  And none of this even gets to Minsc and his miniature giant space hamster Boo. GO FOR THE EYES BOO! GO FOR THE EYES!!!!!!!

Not to mention the games structure is pretty unique as well. The first chapter is entirely linear. The second chapter on the other hand is totally open world. You need to raise money, and every class in the game is directed towards a different quest to get said money. During that quest you will meet at least one additional possible party member. At the end of that quest you will have the money needed to proceed in the game, and a stronghold you can use to get class locked side quests.

But, nothing is forcing you to proceed in the game, and in fact you can do every single classes quest. You wont be able to get the strongholds or the class locked quests that come with them, but you will get all the loot and high powered items, meet all the party members, and get all the XP that comes with it.  

So you can move as quickly or as slowly as you like into chapter 3....at which point you have a choice, there is both an evil and a good version the story in this chapter, and you can side with either. Then chapter 4 and 5 are again linear, as is 6, though it has the option to do anything you didnt do in chapter 2, then the game finishes with a linear chapter 7. Basically what you have as a result is a game that is linear enough to have all the strength of story line and character development that linear games can bring, and open world enough to give you deep sidequests that take longer to complete all of than the game itself. And has some built in replayablity, not just with different characters, but with smaller side quests and an entire chapter that plays out differently depending on the first decision, which consequences that carry over from that into the next couple chapters as well.   Basically its the best of all worlds. And thats why its the top of this list.....its got all the strengths and none of the weaknesses of the different styles of game play.

That said, two major possible issues. The game is based on 2nd addition AD&D rules.....which are a complete and total bitch to understand as it relates to things like Armor Class (defense rating) and damage. So expect to devote some time (20-30 minutes) to actually learning those concepts to make sense of the game.  Also like many bioware games, you CAN play evil if you want....but the game rewards you better if your good in many cases. In fact if you attempt genocidal evil (as opposed to being an amoral dick) the game will basically spawn in enough enemies to crush you, and even if you survive, you wont be able to set foot in much of the games world without another massive attack.

Despite those comparatively minor downsides, BG II is in my mind the game to which all other RPG's at a minimum (and possibly all action/adventure/RPG lite) games should be compared too. This is the standard bearer for great games.


Ok folks so with our list completed, its time for some fun stats:

The game console that had the most appearances here was the PC with 12 games...and 7 more if we include games availabe for PC that I played on a different Platform. Wii,  XBOX360 and PS4 had a total of 7, including cross platform games The Gamecube had 4, N64 and 3DS had 3, and the DS Gameboy Color and Advance all had 1


The company with the most games would be Nintendo, with 12 as every game mentioned for a nintento system but 2 marvel Gamecube games and the lego games are exclusives, LucasArt is behind them with 6(monkey island + the 4 star wars games)  followed by Bioware with 5 (counting mass effect separately, to KOTOR and BGII)

The Pokemon, Star Wars and Marvel Universes are my favorite to play it, with 4 games each.

Finally, the one stat that surprised me, after RPG and action/adventure games which I knew coming in were my favorites....platforming was the genre that showed up here the most, with 5 games, Epic Micky, Donkey Kong 64, Super Paper Mario, Mario Galaxy, and Kirbys Epic Yarn.....(Tomb raider and the Uncharted games might count as well, but I see those as more action/adventure or even puzzle games than platforming), which is weird cause if youd asked me, Id have said I wasnt a fan of platformers.