There's a game for everybody, especially on the PlayStation 2, and if you were looking to control a dinky little robot with an arsenal of weapons, Metal Arms: Glitch in the System might just make it to the top of your list.
With third-person shooting and the ability to take over and remote control other robots, like the rather old school Paradroid, Metal Arms seems to tick a fair few boxes on the list of stuff we want to see in an action game.
With the rise of mobile devices, we've probably all found a favourite little game that we got ourselves addicted to. It was just this week that I had to delete Jetpack Joyride from my phone because I was playing it too much. The game isn't gone, though. I've got the recent board game release: fewer adverts, more human interaction, much less addicting.
But Jetpack Joyride is still a good few years away from us here in 2003. The addiction this time around comes in the form of colourful, blocky animals desperate to buddy up into groups of three or more in Zoo Keeper, a match-three 'action puzzle' tile game.
You are the Zookeeper. The animals need rounding up. I'm sure you can figure the rest out.
Vib-Ribbon was odd but charming - so far as a pointy rabbit electronically shrieking in pain having walked into a spike trap could be charming.
Mojib-Ribbon, bringing rhythm-based weirdness to the PlayStation 2, is utterly impenetrable, yet is a must-play, according to this 1001 list. This'll be tricky then...
In the PES vs FIFA debate, I was firmly in the PES camp for the longest time, and if memory serves, it started with the release of Pro Evolution Soccer 3.
You might think that a football game with referee Pierluigi Collina's striking image (and signature) on the front cover would be a strange choice to attract football fans to your game, but Pro Evolution is, like Collina, for the thinking man. If you want a kickabout, play FIFA. If you're going to play football, Pro Evo is waiting for you.
At least that's what one would argue, back in the day. How does PES3 fare after all these years?
You know what Asteroids needs? Colour. And not in the sense of Blasteroids, but in the sense of 'let's embrace vector graphics and go all out'.
Geometry Wars may be a strange title, but it's not a strange game at all. In fact, you'll be able to pick it up in no time and challenge yourself to do better on each and every attempt, just like Asteroids all those decades ago.
I do believe it's time to shoot some rhomboids in space.
I've got high hopes for this one. High hopes and absolutely no idea what it is that I'll be playing. I've never heard of Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, further proof that I was far too focused on whatever I could play on the PlayStation 2, rather than anything else, including the almighty Game Boy Advance.
The brothers are back in another RPG, said to be one of the best, probably thanks to the pixel-art powers of the GBA. But what would I know? Almost literally nothing. Not for the first time, I'm heading into a game blind, but I am looking forward to it.
So what'll be this time? Bowser kidnapping Princess Peach?
No sponsorship, just convenient branding for The 551/1001 Milestone Awards, the first look at games in the second half of this monstrously large list of video games.
It's 2003, or thereabouts, and the PlayStation 2 continues to dominate my memories of the time. That's not to say it's the only source for great games, as the GameCube and even Xbox have got something to show off too, and we can't forget the absolute charge that the Game Boy Advance has been on of late.
As more and more familiar games come into view, ranking them in any significant way becomes that little bit harder. Where does a favourite PS2 title rank against the best games of history? Can anything compare to the classics? Will any game look better than The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past?
Let's plunge into the last fifty games to find out. Everything from Dungeon Siege to Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town could be in with a shout here, but most will have to be content with winning nothing.
The first bunch of titles are winners in one sense, but nobody really wants to be part of The Indifferent 5, games that are just there for those that want them, I suppose. They in, in no particular order:
Still, they're far better than our next winner. Nobody wants to be the answer to the question What Was That 1 Even Put On The List For? but someone has to be. Usually, it goes to a game I found so bad that I'm almost offended at its inclusion on the 1001 list. This time... well, actually, yeah, I'm offended at its inclusion on the 1001 list... But it's a doozy.
What Was Super Mario Sunshine Even Put On The List For?
That's twice in a row, Nintendo. I thought you were good at this gaming lark.
We need a replacement for that garbage, and it comes from an unexpected place this time around: The Internet.
When I was at school, trying to survive through GCSEs and A-Levels, a simple, captivating, frankly ridiculous sort of MMORPG caught our attention. It was so good that it could be played on school computers without having to install anything. So long as the Internet worked and the safe-word filter wasn't having a stupid day, you could be immersed in the weird world of the answer to the question You Forgot What?!
Kingdom of Loathing is a work of mad genius. Hand drawn stick figures take on nonsensical quests in an effort to earn Meat to spend on far too many customisation options. As the decades have gone by, the Kingdom has expanded with more storylines, more mechanics, more Meat, and more reasons to long for a return to a simpler, stupider age of gaming.
I really need to log back in sometime. West of Loathing does an admiral job of taking its place, but Kingdom is where it's at.
Now that we've addressed that glaring error, we can get stuck into more meat, as it happens. The meat of The Top 10. Lots of contenders this time, some trying to sneak onto the list unexpectedly, others clearly cementing their place without any arguments. But what ranks where?
10: Wario World, Treasure
A complete surprise when I saw it, it deserves an honorary spot on The Top 10, even if just to show Nintendo who the better character is.
9:Call of Duty, Infinity Ward
I played it from beginning to end in what felt like no time at all, but it still managed to give a better overall feeling than the competition from Medal of Honor.
8:Soul Calibur II, Project Soul
I will always wish I was better but will never put in the effort to improve. That is the Fighting game genre for my, though, whether it's Soul Calibur or not.
7:Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, IO Interactive
That demo introduced me to a kind of game that I had never seen on consoles before and has stuck with me ever since. The series might be a rollercoaster in terms of review scores, but it is this game that really got players on board and interested.
6:TimeSplitters 2, Free Radical Design
My recent attempt at it didn't go very well, but the many hours I put in during my teenage gaming years sure did.
5:Eternal Darkness, Silicon Knights
I've barely peered into the dimly lit corridors of this one, but it shows so much promise and looks pretty good too. Surely with today's hardware, the fourth-wall-breaking scares could be so much more terrifying?
3:Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire, Game Freak
I'm currently trying to find a decent fighting type 'mon, if memory serves, so that I can beat my father and earn his respect. Or do I already have his respect and just need to show him my progress? I forget.
2:Ratchet & Clank, Insomniac Games
Funny, futuristic, and better than Jak and Daxter. Owes its existence to Jak and Daxter, so we can't forget them, but we can outplay them.
So what makes the top spot this time around? There can be only one choice, surely. Instantly hitting the top of the list and staying there. The number 1 game of this batch has to be Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. It took a formula that shook the world and polished it up, dropped it into the colourful, sun-soaked setting of an alternate-reality Miami, and allowed gamers to lose themselves in it for hours on end.
But does it make it onto the list we actually care about, The Topper Than That 10? Well, yeah, spoilers, of course it does. But where? What has shifted? What have we lost? What's not good enough to stand with the greats any more?
10:Super Mario Kart, Nintendo EAD
It's going to need a blue shell to stay on this list much longer. Will we finally say goodbye to this SNES classic next time around?
9:Tekken 3, Namco
Last time, I mentioned that I played Tekken 7, after being reminded that I owned it. I've since uninstalled Tekken 7 because I wasn't really interested in playing it anymore, but that's no slight on the third game of the series at all. They're both solid entries.
7:Advance Wars, Intelligent Systems
It's slipping down the list... The more I play it, the more it turns into a puzzle, rather than a war. That's not a problem, per se, but seeing it in that way has changed my views juuuust a lil.
6:Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire, Game Freak
I would hope it would get replaced by an even more addicting Pokémon title, but I wouldn't be too upset if it never was. It's what I remember about playing the older games, displayed in the fancy graphics of the newer ones.
5:Ratchet & Clank, Insomniac Games
The lone Lombax and his butler boy robot were a joy back in the day, and nostalgia does tend to skew these results for some titles...
4:Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Rockstar North
Oooh, it's good, but whenever I think about it, I do remember all the times where it is a little off. To be fair, I've been playing a fair bit of GTA IV recently and might be comparing the two. Vice City shows its age, but it is still a game worthy of the high spots of this list.
2:Front Mission 3, Square
I didn't think I'd have a Square title so high on the list but clearly forgot that Front Mission 3 was done by the greats too.
1:Metal Gear Solid, Konami Computer Entertainment Japan
Squint in just the right way and you'll see Snake smirking. He knows he's still top dog.
So, no change at the top. It's going to take a ridiculous effort to budge these titles, I think. But, we've still got some 450 titles to go, and somewhere in there might be something even better. I can't think what it might be, off the top of my head, but the chance is there at least.
The first game to try will be Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. Sounds like a bit of mouthful. I don't actually know anything about it. What is it? Oh no... It's on the Game Boy Advance... I'm doomed.
At some point in the distant future, we'll see where it ranks in the next Milestone Awards. In the meantime, get some gaming in already, will you?
Gamifying tasks in the workplace can take your mind off the toil, but that wasn't really the aim of the Harvest Moon series. In a land of concrete and mountains, a lot of Japanese kids didn't have the opportunity of experiencing the wonders of the outdoors, with farm life being particularly interesting. Apparently.
In Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town, players can manage their own farm, ploughing the fields and planting crops, feeding and milking cows, and ultimately turning hard work into cash. It's said to be the height of the series, introducing new mechanics and even getting a Nintendo Switch remake recently.
But is it yet another Game Boy Advance game worth spending hours and hours in?
When I made the decision to stick with Ratchet over Jak, I knew that I was making the right choice. For me. I was more into the Ratchet universe, and once hooked, no amount of 'yeah, but, look what this Jak game offers!' could get me to turn my head. I was only ever vaguely aware of what the competition was doing, I never knew the details.
But I knew Jak II was different. I knew it was darker and moodier and took a few cues from Grand Theft Auto III, of all things. To me, that didn't sound great. Whether it was still humorous or not was almost irrelevant, because I wasn't attracted to the idea of Jak turning all emo on everyone. And besides, back then, I never played Jak and Daxter outside of its demo. I didn't know how good that game was until much, much later.
Now, it's time to dive into the sequel, which hopefully doesn't spoil too much of the first game...
We're not going to be described as either, are we?
When I started this challenge for myself, I went through the whole 1001 list multiple times, checking out which games I had, where I had them, which titles I would need to look out for, which would be easier to emulate instead, which ones could only be emulated... the possibilities for playing more than a thousand games are quite considerable.
Wishlists were filled, and charity shops would interrupt anything else going on in the area, just in case a bargain could be snapped up for later down the list. I was on top of things, and given the number of times I'd gone through the list, there was eventually a reasonably good chance of me knowing whether a game I saw somewhere was on the list or not before I even checked. Sometimes you just know, you know?
And then I blogged about Viewtiful Joe and had a look at what was next. Hidden & Dangerous 2. What the hell is Hidden & Dangerous 2? PC, squad-based, third-person, Second World War... why haven't I got this? It's been on Steam for years. It's been in all the sales. Why has it escaped my sights for five years?
I can't answer that at all. It just happens, I guess. The SAS sneak up on you out of nowhere, before dispersing into the silence once more. Or will this game make some noise?
Beat 'em ups come in all shapes and sizes, but generally speaking, they'll have you move from one side of the screen to the other, smacking anything the steps in your way. Back in the day, you were probably fighting on the streets, but as video games have aged and grown, so has the beat 'em up evolved into this and that, broadening its horizons, offering players varied experiences.
There are perhaps none so stylish as Viewtiful Joe, whose action hero star is so cinematic that the very notion of being on camera and showing off for the fans seems to be at the heart of the game.
Fifteen years ago, I couldn't tell you what kind of game it was at all. I only knew of this game as being cartoony. Looks like it's time for quiet on the set. Camera's ready?
I was caught off guard by the last Wario title, and the fat maniac is back again in WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$!, a Game Boy Advance title like no other.
Some games give you time to practice the controls. Some games tell you the rules of their world. WarioWare gives you five seconds and a one-word clue to figure out what to do before you fail.
Racing games come in all kinds of flavours, and I tend to categorise them in my head as 'Games I've played', 'Games I've heard of' and 'Games with such silly titles they couldn't possibly be worth my time, could they?'
That's all I think about when I see Midtown Madness 3 written down in front of me. "What a silly name. And there are now three of them? Do you guys just churn them out or something?"
There was no chance of me coming across the first two PC titles, and by the time this third one game out exclusively on the Xbox, it was still so far off my radar that I don't know what the game is about to this day. Is it even a racing game?
I'm not a fan of Astro Boy. I think that's an important point to make at the start of post about Astro Boy: Omega Factor, a beat 'em up for the Game Boy Advance starring, obviously, Astro Boy.
It's mostly his look. A robot kid with far more weaponry hidden in his limbs than any robot should have, kid or not. It's unsettling and unappealing.
But maybe I can see past that with a well-developed video game on what appears to be the console of the moment. It's a beat 'em up. I can beat things up. Let's beat things up!
Physics-based games of skill and patience can make for both great and frustrating times, but the introduction of video games has allowed creators to bend and tweak the rules of physics to their will. If you want something to run on walls, you can. If you want to give a character the ability to jump and then jump again in mid-air, you can. If you want to take pinball to the next level, physics be damned, you can.
Enter Flipnic, a pinball game that appears to be described as a game that isn't about pinball at all. How does that work?
The 1001 entry for Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles mentions a couple of things of note. Firstly it says that the Final Fantasy brand can get attached to some strange titles, but that these spin-off games aren't always to be glossed over. Later on, it says that the best way to play this game is with a party of three people, you and some friends, all with Game Boys attached to a single GameCube.
I don't have that kind of set up. I don't have those kinds of friends. I don't even know what this game is or why it needs extra people to make it worthwhile. This will be as blind a playthrough as you can get, but based on the lengthy introduction video, I can at least say that Crystal Chronicles has something to do with caravanning.
Maybe it's Final Fantasy meets The Oregon Trail...
When someone says 'Freedom Fighters', someone else replies 'Where's my sequel, IO Interactive?'
A lot of people care about this third-person shooter, set in an alternate history U.S. that has been invaded by the Soviets, full of squad-based firefights, guerilla-war style tactical approaches to crucial objectives throughout the city, and a literal underground resistance movement taking back the streets for the citizens.
If it's not the gameplay that fans love, and it's not the setting, then it'll have to be the music, sung by a Hungarian choir for that foreign feel. Something - maybe everything - about Freedom Fighters appeals to an entire generation of gamers that grew up with the PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube and PC, and I certainly count myself in that number. This game is excellent. At least that's what I remember it to be...
Has it aged well? Is it still worth demanding a sequel? Should it be left untouched, as a brilliant highlight of the past?
I am looking forward to firing it up again and finding out.
I write this with quite possibly the worst cold I've had this year. I groan when I talk, my nose is stuffed, I'm wearing a neck warmer indoors. It's October, sure. Winter is fast approaching. The days are growing darker, life is gloomier, and I'm feeling it - and it's not fun.
What I need is a game to surprise me, and get me so engrossed in what it has to offer that I forget about the real world for a little while. I need a damn good time to cheer me up before I head in for an early night, and roast on the electric blanket.
Can Nintendo's grumpiest of characters, Wario, offer that to me in his first outing, Wario World? Can a platformer beat 'em up grab my attention and turn my day around? I sure hope so...
Word games are everywhere these days. Quick little puzzles that you can knock out in a few minutes, often involving trying to score higher than your friends. You've seen them, you've probably played them, you can probably work out how Bookworm plays because of them.
One part game, one part learning tool, how can we improve our brain with this one?
While I can't see the point in playing games like Amplitude, I can see the point in playing games like Donkey Konga, the rhythm game where you slap a giant plastic bongo in time with the music. Like Samba de Amigo and it's plastic maracas, doing something vaguely similar to the characters on screen seems to add some sense of achievement to what is, essentially, an utterly pointless task.
That could open up a can of worms. Let's rephrase: Playing some plastic bongos makes you feel like you're sitting there on the beach, with Donkey Kong and pals, jamming to the beat of the music for no other reason than to have some fun.
Sure, there are high scores to go after, but that's not the point, is it? The point is to have a good time. Will we have a good time?
Ugh, this again? What's so good about it that I've got to do it twice? Once you've seen one rhythm shooter thing, you've seen them all, right? What could Amplitude possibly add to the formula that Frequency laid down previously?
I keep saying that the Game Boy Advance is chucking out so many great titles that I really have to wonder just what an idiot I was when I had one. I used my GBA SP to play Ecks vs. Sever, for goodness sake - that's how out of touch with the handheld's library I was. So it's thanks to this 1001 list that I'm introduced to all the games I should have been playing, with Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow taking the reigns next.
Taking lots of cues from the success of Symphony of the Night, Aria of Sorrow builds upon the PlayStation hit and still manages to squash the action into a Game Boy cartridge. Dracula's Castle serves as our backdrop once more, as we Metroidvania our way through it in search of the big bad guy himself, no doubt.
Will this turn into yet another GBA title that I can't put down?
So long as there are players, there will be CoD -- Albert Einstein. Probably.
When I embarked upon this quest to play all these games, I knew there would be some key titles of video gaming history that I would get to experience for the very first time. I was always going to tackle the list in order, but I could still get a head start on some of the exciting ones, right?
Near the top of that interesting list was the original Call of Duty. It was hard to ignore. I like my first-person shooters, but by the time I got around to liking the genre, it was for the likes of Killzone and Battlefield, and not the juggernaut that was Call of Duty. I don't know why - they're competent games from what I have played - but I was drawn to the underdogs instead, and so I don't know too much about CoD.
I know it started with the Second World War, and I know it was competing against Medal of Honor. What I didn't realise was just how intertwined those two series' are, with the developers of CoD all having worked previously on MoH: Allied Assault.
It wasn't long ago when we were saving the world as a photojournalist in Beyond Good & Evil. I wasn't a massive fan of the camera mechanics, thinking it slowed down and interrupted the gameplay a little, though I suppose a lot of that was optional, to some extent.
Here, though, our camera really is our weapon of choice. An otherworldly contraption capable of snapping pictures of things people can't even see. A device that can trap the souls and spirits of all the inhabitants of the afterlife. This is Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly.
Sometimes we let things slip. An item on the to-do list isn't seen as necessary right now, and so you put it off and let it go by, perhaps for many months. When it comes time to needing that thing you never got around to, and it's not there... it's not fun, is it? It's not useful, and it's your own fault.
My life recently got in the way of playing Disgaea: Hour of Darkness, which is funny because the slipping of time is a key plot point that gets this tactical RPG going.
