My Gaming Life

Although gaming has been forced to take a back seat of late, what will all the other non-gaming thin like University and exams and such-like going around, I still very much consider the games I grew up with to be a big part of my identity. Not only that, but I think most people have a top-10 games that says a lot about them. Without further ado, my all-time top-10 games ever (not necessarily in order of objective quality, but rather subjective nostalgia and so on):

10. The Lion King (PC) – I know what you’re thinking. “What the hell??” probably sums it up fairly well. Thing is though, this game was one of the first I ever played, way back in the early nineties (I know it’s not way back for everyone, but for me that’s dawn of time type distance back). I may have been only four when I first played it, but I can tell you that even on easy this game was anything but; playing on easy you got 9 lives to last the entire game, including some fiendishly difficult platform jumping bits. Having played it (although I never finished it) allows me to rightfully claim to have been on the scene back when gameplay difficulty levels were hard, very hard and impossible. My biggest nostalgia trip of the list, don’t worry about it getting worse from here...

9. Goldeneye (N64) – Did I finish it? Absolutely not. Did I even play the single player? Once or twice, maybe. In fact, I never even owned an N64, let alone this particular game, but that didn’t stop me from loving it. The first multi-player FPS I ever played, and man was it fun. I would say that I made friends with people who had it just because they had it, but they might read this. And besides, it isn’t true.

8. Dune II (PC) – Fatally flawed by modern standards, Dune II nonetheless makes my list not only because it was the first proper modern RTS, but because it was possibly the first game I ever really fell in love with. Sure you could only select one unit at a time, and this made proper strategising difficult. And sure, there are any number of foibles which would render it absolutely unplayable nowadays. But it still makes the list, because even though I’ll probaby never again play it again I still tell people how great it is at the drop of a hat. Like right now. In fact, I’d almost go so far as to say that this whole blog post was just an escuse to bring up Dune II again...

7. Wolfenstein 3D (PC) – The original, and still just about playable after all these years. What else can you say about Wolf3D? Well, if you haven’t played the ghost level you’re missing out on one of the finest pieces of video-gaming in all of ever. Ever. And the sequel was very playable too (a sequel for which they released a free multiplayer component, which was nice of them. You didn’t even have to buy the original). Doom may be more remembered, but Wolf3D has a special place in my heart that Doom will never take.

6. Rise of Nations – Despite being a better game than AOE2, RON is pipped to 6^th for very sentimental and utterly silly reasons. The biggest problems it suffers from are that those last four library reasearches just make things silly during big multiplayer games, and that its campaign map pales in comparison to the total war series. Still a top-notch game though, and very much still one of the best strategy games around 5 years on.

5. Age of Empires 2 – The first one was very good, the third one not so much, but in AOE2 Ensemble Studios crafted a masterpiece. Technically inferior the RON, AOE2 was only knocked from its pedestal of LAN game of choice in this house because Vista PCs and XP PCs won’t play nice when it comes to AOE2. A crying shame, if you ask me.

4. Rome: Total War – Just about the finest strategy game ever conceived. If there was a multiplayer campaign it’d be up around #1. The strategy map in itself sould have been released and done quite well, but the tactically brilliant battles just... I can’t even describe it, to be honest. In fact, you dig out a copy of Rome and play it right now, I’m off to eat a dictionary. Maybe then I’ll be able to write a decent review of Empire: Total War, which is just a few short months away.

3.Call of Duty – Utterly gripping, beautifully atmospheric, brilliantly authentic. The gameplay is varied, the weapons are satisfying, the AI relatively believable. I could say more, but there’s non need – this is the perfect straight-forward shooter.

2. Deus-Ex – just pipped to the post, Deus-Ex is a work of genius. If the combat was a little smoother and the stealth a little more like Splinter-Cell, the you’d have the perfect game. Except even if Deus-Ex had done this, its memory would still be sullied by Deus-Ex 2, which was a fine game except good-god-almighty, how did they let it ship carrying the Deus-Ex brand? They could have shipped it as a straight-forward shooter by just changing a few character names and they would have avoided all the public hate. But no, they didn’t, and now Deus-Ex 3 is coming and we don’t know what to think. The original can still stnad proud though, but then that goes without saying, doesn’t it?

1. Half-Life 2 (including episodes) – Storyline. Characters. Gameplay. Weapons. Enemies. Set-pieces. Level-design. Graphics. Vehicle bits. Non-vehicle bits. Everything. That is all. Oh, and the fact that it was the only one of the big 3 of 2004 that exceeded expectations. Much more than just a shooter, this was absolutely epic. Oh, and for once there were worthwhile expansions made.

So there you have it, my top 10 (although I’m already getting a little worried about some of the ones I left out). See you all on Wednesday!