The Gamer's Quarter

[Harveyjames]

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6231&Itemid=2

I know getting annoyed at these lists is easy and probably tiresome, but let's use this as an opportunity to slay a few sacred cows. First up, number two in their list is is Resident Evil 4. People need to get the fuck on over Resident Evil 4. Yeah, the opening few stages are great, but beyond that it doesn't deliver on any of the excitement it promises. As soon as that shopkeeper turns up, the clever, considered, utterly fresh and heart-poundingly exciting game you thought you were playing dies and you just stumble from setpiece to setpiece like Rambo. What is this, Duke Nukem Forever? By the end they may as well just call thegame Tom Clancy's Special Ed Oilrig (guest stars: Slipknot and The Legion of Doom) because that's what it basically is.

I would have thought the best games of all time are perfectly formed, with nothing out of place, like the best novels or pop songs or films. So let's get rid of half of the junk in that list:

Super Mario World: This shit is ill-concieved. 100 coins = 1up, so half of the little bits of gamplay 'business' involve coin collecting, but: you don't need to collect the coins. There are so many ways to get extra lives that the coins are effectively worthless. And incidentally there's so many coins around, you almost can't be bothered to pick them up. One more will come along. You didn't have to work to find that shit. You can save the game anyway, so there's really not much use for the 99 extra lives you'll have accumulated by level 5.

Ok so it was a learning process then- they were just learning that the exploring the world could be more important than the challenge, but gee, shit or get off the pot. It's a game that doesn't know what it wants to be. Discard. Super Mario Bros. 3 knew exactly what it came to do, however. Replace.


Super Metroid:

Let's not pretend the Metroid games ever achieved what they set out to do. It's incredibly rare that I feel a sense of wonder or discovery when I'm playing those games. Maybe when I first discovered those space koalas in Super Metroid? Mostly it's just, whee, another missile pack. A new weapon that lets me get to a new area. Key, lock, bing, bong, repeat. It's a very gamey game, that doesn't need to be. People who're really into Metroid just talk about it in terms of tiles and sequence breaking and all this crap: if that's all it boils down to I'm not interested. I want wonder and excitement and adventure and mystery (Seiklus made an ok go of this, but ruined it with the dumb collecting shit).

I want to be thrown into an alien world and have to wonder how all the pieces fit together. In Metroid Zero Mission there's are sections where you'll find Samus is crawling with lots of lttle parasites. You can shake them off, but besides that they seem to do nothing. Until! You discover by chance that they actually eat a certain type of plant, and you've seen that same plant elsewhere blocking certain passages in the underground labyrinth. You take them to the blocked passages, and you can guess the rest. It's brilliant. That's what Metroid games should be all the way through. Elegant, beautiful and alchemical solutions to problems. I want to ban game makers from putting fucking guns in their games for like 5 years so they just have to come up with clever shit like that.

I suppose I'm mostly frustrated with how underdeveloped the medium of games still is. And the thing that frustrates me the most about that is how most gamers seem to like things the way they are now- the staff of Edge magazine seem to, and they're not exactly GameFAQS pond scum, so this makes me feel like The Bony King of Nowhere, feel free to call me a jerk

[Cycle]

This list is pretty dubious.
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[ApM]

Harveyjames, I would just like to state for the record that even though I get lots of 1-Ups in Super Mario World, I also die enough to actually need to continue, at the same place, multiple times, until I finally just give up in frustration. I think this is probably because I am bad at jumping? Really I don't think I like Mario games very much.

[dessgeega]

hey we need a cover feature for this issue but all of our writers are tapped out okay how about a top 100 games list havn't done that in a while alright make sure there's a mario and a zelda in the top ten ocarina maybe and uh put yoshi's island in there somewhere sure thing chief i'll have it on your desk by two

so yeah, we here all know better than to suppose that all videogames can be graded and ordered on the same arbitrary scale, but slaying sacred cows is usually worth doing (unless you are a sacred cow with a zest for life).

geometry wars is basically unplayable. the firing stick is too stodgy to aim where you want to be shooting in tight situations, and after five minutes the screen becomes indecipherable because the development team kept piling on layers and layers of visual effects to compensate for the fact that it's a vector game on a console designed for high-definition tvs. people seem to praise it because it's a throwback to arcade game design but ignore the fact that it's impossible to play beyond a few minutes.
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[Cycle]

[wourme]

I think it's interesting that they chose R-Type Final over R-Type or R-Type Delta. I love all three, but Final takes third place in the series for me. Same with the Mario games in the top ten, I guess. I think 1 and 3 are easily the best in that series. World was fun but its appeal didn't last for me, and I didn't like 64 much at all, innovative as it may have been.

Also, I'm once again reminded of how much I would have liked to help promote Okami, if only I hadn't gradually come to despise the game as I went along, due to the writing.

[GSL]

As long as we're slaying sacred cows, Ocarina of Time is just not that fucking good. Italicised for emphasis. I remember the first time I played the game at its release, and I just couldn't quite get why everyone was so excited. Years later when I got a N64 of my own, I sat down with the game fully expecting to be as blown away as every "Top XX Games of All Ever" list I've ever read said I should. Again, I was completely nonplussed. Aside from Link's incessant noises which drive me up the wall, I can't quite put my finger on one particular irritating factor. It's just that the game itself is startlingly bland. It's solid, sure, and did a lot to change the nature of 3D platformers at the time, but a decent engine doesn't mean the game itself is fun. The game just doesn't make me want to play through the end. I don't care about saving Zelda because I can't get over how dorky the new Ganon looks. After spending an hour in the fire dungeon backtracking and trying to find a key I overlooked so I can open up a door to a new area so I can engage the clever machinery to make the area I saw at the start of the dungeon accessable... it's just too much fucking work with no worthwhile payoff. I'll be charitable and call it a decent game, but it shouldn't be at the top of any list.

I do agree with Harveyjames re: the Metroid series. Metroid, Super Metroid, and Metroid II accomplished nothing more than leaving me hopelessly lost and irritated. I much prefer the way Metroids Fusion, Zero Mission, and Prime handled the exploration: they gave you a destination on the map and made you find your own way. The secret areas felt so much more rewarding because you knew they were secret because they weren't on the map; the first three games you had no idea if you were in a room you were supposed to be in because you were so damn lost. The argument that the first titles in the series were all about the lonely exploration always just seemed really hollow and disingenuous to me. Metroid Prime, now that I can see--those are some damn beautiful and strange environments to get lost in. But finding joy in wending my way through identical tilesets that might only change color or music? Bullshit.

There are just some freaking weird entries in that list, too. I mean, for example I love Puyo Puyo Fever, but I'm not sure I'd ever place it at number 48.

[elvis.shrugged]

My favorite part of Resident Evil 4 is the Island. So shoot me. Any time I find myself screaming "FUCK YES!" at the screen in excitement is a good time. Not to mention the fact that the game upped the self-referencing at that point, which I enjoyed. The only issue of RE4's final act is that it's just too easy.

I re-evaluated Ocarina of Time for myself a couple years ago and discovered that yeah, it's not that good. At all. I've owned Twilight Princess for months and haven't touched it. I'll never understand why Ocarina is so praised; it's boring. It holds my hand. Link shrieks at me. It's lame. Super Mario 64, one of my personal favorites, managed to do more to push 3D gaming and holds up a hell of a lot better, to boot. Not to mention that it's actually a lot of fun.

I find the original Metroid unplayable. Those who brought up Zero Mission's structure (the parasites, etc.)--you're onto something. Metroid shouldn't be about sequence-breaking: fuck that shit. I've never understood why people have turned the series into a bunch of time-attacks and game-breaking techniques. Metroid should be about accidental discoveries, about the player using their utilities to their advantage. Unfortunately, the games have only given us glimpses of this direction. (Sidenote: I still love Super Metroid anyway).

[table_and_chair]

about Ocarina: It was very good at the time. When i walked up to the church, and it vaguely looked like something from Final Fantasy 7, in my impressionable youth I remember thinking "this is nintendo's response to FFVII" and it was such a better game. So, things like that. Context.
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BUT I HATE COMICS

[Harveyjames]

[dessgeega]

while we're slaying sacred cows, the mode-7 stages of axelay have awful hit detection and look hideous despite being super graphics-wanky.
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[jjsimpso]

Oblivion's spot on this list belongs to Morrowind.

Also, Resident Evil 4 is worthy of a Top 3 ranking for including The Mercenaries.

[dhex]

since we're in the sacred cows thread:

i was not that impressed by shadow of the colossus. the presentation was great. the graphics were beautiful. the animation sublime. but the puzzle aspects of the game, while laddering up (is that even a term?) from each encounter started to feel kinda generic after a while. perhaps i am a little too fogeyish to appreciate the "lonely game" aspects, however.

i do applaud any reach towards ambiguity with regards to games, however. it makes up for a lot. (maybe not enough to finish playing, but at least to applaud their efforts. and hell i bought the thing at nearly full retail so bravo, etc.)

[Shapermc]

So, am I crazy for thinking that 90% of these actually belong on this list even if it’s way out of order? I mean, yeah, it does point out how poor the state of the medium really is, and there are some over rated and over/under ranked items, but nothings perfect. It’s a fair share better than most lists of it’s sort.

Also, I’ve always tossed around the idea of doing a “Great Games” series much like how Ebert does his “Great Movies.” The understanding of the Great Movies books/essays is that the films shouldn’t be ranked, but they’re all just a step above others and are all top teir films.

[Harveyjames]

[not a zombie]

I know every top whatever list is subjective and blahblahblah, but it's dissapointing to see that Card Fighter's Clash was absent from the list, given that the list at least looked like it delved deeper into the trough of cult games.

[Shapermc]

I'm kind of just happy that Silent Hill 2 and Killer 7 are on the list because they are easily the best games of the "last" gen. I mean, they may not play the best, but they sure try their hardest at saying something rather than just "kill everything." Anyways, Half-Life 2 was near the perfect spot on that list.

EDIT: Am I crazy, or is that screen shot for Puzzle Bobble not a Puzzle Bobble screen?
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[dessgeega]

matt, stop being a list apologist! you're going to end up like kiken, posting top XX lists on your livejournal and complaining about how the staff of nintendo power could have possibly overlooked r-type delta
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[Shapermc]

Dess, did you see my edit?
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[dessgeega]

yeah, i don't know what that is. it's definitely not the original puzzle bobble, and it's not any version that i know of either (being devoid of cute taito characters and monsters in bubbles).
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[Shapermc]

Ok, I actually read all the little blurbs for the games. I’m guessing most people didn’t. Perhaps even the editor.

HAHAHAHA! Ok, this is a next-gen issue: Ridge Racers 2: they have a screen cap for RR2, not the PSP game. On top of that... ok, this is the one "pick the best example of the series" pick that baffles me the most.

Also: "Guitar Hero: Created a new genre by combining a rock-out controller and simple gameplay." I'm kind of glad I can blame next-gen for shitty run downs on these. I mean... not to be a prick, but Guitar Freaks was at least 5 years old by this point in time, and on top of that it's not a new genre either way.

I don’t even know what this means: “Virtua Fighter 5: Bang up-to-date arcade fighter from Sega.”

Let’s find the irony: “Metal Gear Solid 2: Hideo Kojima’s highly regarded adventure in which Snake sneaks up and whacks terrorists.”
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[dmauro]

Excellent OP.

Is Tetris too sacred of a cow to defame? When they put Tetris in the top 10, is it representative of all falling-block puzzle games? Does anyone really like the game that much? Are there not several similar games that are much better?

Also, I don't know if these guys have been away from gaming for too long, but Goldeneye 007 sucks now. It has aged terribly. Yeah we all loved it years ago, but take it off the list or give it a courtesy slot closer to 100.

[dessgeega]

well, that's part of the problem. there's no context behind this list. are the games being praised for their contributions to game design? are they all being ranked on the same objective scale? is there even a single scale on which all of these games can be measured?
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[jdoe]

It's odd, but I'm most confused by Vice City's placement instead of GTA3 or San Andreas. It attempted some sort of narrative and refined many of 3's features, but San Andreas went even further in those aspects.

Would it be unreasonable to suggest that the next issue be composed of some sort of reformed version of these top # lists? I know these articles are fairly useless, but it would be interesting to take 3 or 4 writers and have them each form a hierarchy based on their opinions and proper context. Or maybe in the form of a roundtable?

Also:

[Harveyjames]

[helicopterp]

[Swimmy]

Sacred cow to slay: Yoshi's Island. At least their description of it as a "platformer par excellence." Yoshi's Island is a highly enjoyable game, but it's far too floaty and imprecise to qualify as a good platformer. There's something else to it, but the platforming? Ugh.

And yeah, Ocarina of time isn't too hot. It's really empty and barren and too large for its boots. Majora's Mask is a much better game, through and through.

Anyway. Genre-specific lists never do any better, for the same reason as we've mentioned: the rankers mix up any number of variables and just try to pick their favorites. But that doesn't tell us anything, and the crappy little descriptions by the pictures of each games don't tell us anything either. They think that because it's such a long list, nobody wants to read through an essay about each game, but that's the only thing that could make it remotely interesting.

Also The Godfather isn't the best movie of all time and GameFAQs tournaments are horrible. Blah dee blah.
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"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin

[Harveyjames]

[Cycle]

[dmauro]

[dhex]

actually i'm really confused why people like golden eye, but it might be 'cause of the whole console thing. you didn't have any other choices for anything interesting and fps games were for people who bought sports games.

you know, undesirables.
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[Harveyjames]

I came to Goldeneye long after I'd played Solder of Fortune and SiN and Half-Life and Kingpin or whatever the cutting edge of PC FPS's were at the time. Goldeneye really offered a lot of thrills those games didn't. I think the smartness of the level design, and in particular the whole 'no saving' thing were what set it apart.

[dhex]

eh, we differ.

(sin and soldier of fortune were terrible, btw.)
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[dmauro]

I had never played a multi-player FPS before Goldeneye and the singleplayer was worthwhile as Harveyjames pointed out. And even if I had played multi-player FPSs, I don't think I would have enjoyed them as much because it would have been over the internet rather than in the same living room. This was the first video game that I ever played with several people at a time actually. Before this it was me and my brother co-oping in Contra, and suddenly we were able to play every man for himself with my cousins at family gatherings. I mean, the game was undeniable at the time.

[Shapermc]

I'm kind of curious as to why Perfect Dark is on the same list with Golden Eye. My guess is that they are there for pretty similar reasons.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[dmauro]

Perfect dark introduced neat gadgets like the sentry gun and the missiles that you could control, which surely counts for something, but like Godeneye, it is unplayable to anyone who has gotten used to 30fps+ and a decent screen resolution.

[Shapermc]

I completely forgot about those controllable rockets. Those were neat, but completely useless.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

[Harveyjames]

[Ethoscapade]

[Cycle]

I liked SiN. It's the closest we've gotten to Duke Nukem Forever! Soldier of Fortune was a piece of crap though. Loved the violence, but it got old. Also the plot goes batshit insane towards the end. As with most videogames... I never played much Kingpin, but I would like to. I remember how controversial it was when it first came out! First game to make liberal use of the word "fuck", I believe.

dhex, goldeneye is awesome you know i love you but shut up ok. I'll post my list later. I've been thinking of turning it into an article, but I gotta finish the marathon one first.

Also, the best thing about those rockets in UT was a mod that let you ride on top of them, Dr Stranglove style, complete with WOOO-HA-HHOOO!!
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[helicopterp]

[Cycle]

The VC games get tweaks to make them run smoother right? I think they do. In that case, it would be totally motherloving badbutt if Goldeneye was put on, with a smooth framerate and what have you. Too bad that won't happen.

I could give or take Perfect Dark, it was good dumb fun, but a little too dumb.
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[dhex]

[Cycle]

what the hell ROTT gets tired after the first couple levels when you realise it's just a pool of ideas without a good game to back it up, unlike duke which is badass and a half. get the fuck out.

i watched a movie called shortbus and it had lots of sex and gay people and this one guy ejaculating in his own mouth which was actually in the opening scene, it was very shocking and i ordered the videostore to ban the film immediately.
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[Ethoscapade]

[Intentionally Wrong]

[helicopterp]

[Harveyjames]

[parkbench]

[Scratchmonkey]

GTA 3D has gone horribly downhill since GTA3.

Don't mind me, I'm contractually obliged to say that in every thread that mentioned GTA mainly because I found Vice City boring (read: flat) and San Andreas limp and unfocused.

March on, ye soldiers of videogames!