All these games had rediculous longevity for me as single player experiences. I still play many to this day.
Tetris
The quintessential puzzle game. Was in it's purest forms on Personal Computers, the NES and Nintendo Gameboy. The more this game is tampered with, the more it sucks. As it is, it's just one of those things you can play for hours if you're up to the challenge.
Bubble Bobble & Rainbow Island
I may perhaps be looking at these games through rose tinted spectacles but I remember having a tremendously good time with them. In the first game you trapped enemies in bubbles and popped them to kill them. Collecting things along your way you ascend through the levels - which were limited to screen at a time. In Rainbow Island you traded bubbles for rainbows for a smooth upward scrolling action game. They weren't particularly complex, and I can't remember if they presented a hardcore challenge or anything like that - but I do remember they were fun. At least to me.
Bust a Move (nearly any incarnation will do) / Puzzle Bobble
A spawn of these games is Bust a Move / Puzzle Bobble. The two dragons (bub and bob) from the Bubble Bobble games find their way into the character roster of these games. Only this game involves no platforming or rainbows. It's
just about popping bubbles. It's a puzzle game. And an addictive one at that.
Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros USA, Super Mario Bros 3
The NES trilogy should be every gamer's rite of passage in my opinion. While certainly not being the first game where you run and jump about, they certainly represent the archetype for the modern platform game. Always running at a super slick framerate, the platforming level design always presented a cerebral enough challenge to keep you occupied. The powerups vary in each game - and Mario USA (Mario 2 in Europe), being a Mario-themed conversion of Doki Doki Panic, is the biggest departure in that respect. Instead of an abundance of powerups, each character has different special abilities. For some it is an acquired taste, to others it is just as awesome as its brethren. Super Mario Bros 3 is the game I consider to be the point at which Mario had found his place. It's where everything comes together and they perfect the formula. The art direction, the locales of the mushroom kingdom, the power ups, the levels - it's all FLAWLESS.
Super Mario World
I remember getting this game with my SNES and completing it within a day. I skipped my way across the star world in order to do it. I still had the bulk of 96 levels to explore before I would
fully complete the game. After that, and after the crazy special stages named after 1990's buzzwords, there was a whole makeover of the game to play through again. The power up additions were spot on and made the most of the systems' sprite rotational and scaling abilities - Mario could now run up walls, fly about, inflate, stomp, spin and jump his way to glory in the slickest way yet. They really took everything I loved about Mario 3 and stayed true to it, albeit giving it a slightly different look.
Terranigma
This RPG is freaking awesome. Sadly I didn't play this until after I sold my SNES. Make of that statement what conclusions you will. It's a game that really deserved my money
Chrono Trigger
This is a game that I always preferred to the SNES Final Fantasy adventures. I don't know if I'll be chastised for that or not. Basically what I loved about it was no one thing. The art direction again, was great. The characters and story were both perfectly lovable. But the gameplay too was sweet. While, not the longest of RPGs, it was quite dynamic. You could warp about wherever you wanted and within certain limits, do as little or as much as you liked before facing the final boss in a way. Whenever I see islands in the sky, I always think of this game. That's you, Baten Kaitos!
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
For me, this is still the
best Zelda game. Obviously it has been technologically surpassed now by sequels and even games in other franchises. But in design and in terms of genius, I really don't think it really has an equal. It was a beautiful game that from the off engaged you. There are no tutorials or referencing controller buttons, and no cinematics like it's progeny. Nor did it throw you in the middle of nowhere and make you find your own bearings like it's forbears. There is just simple dialog from, of all things, a Princess asking for someone, anyone to help. Your uncle has already heeded these calls and gone to help, but that someone is not him -- it is you. You get out of bed and soon find your mortally wounded Uncle and embark on what is one of the most satisfying Zelda adventures you can find today. This is where the magic meter got it's current form, where items like the hookshot and fearie/bee-catching devices come into their own. Not to mention awesome items which have never been reprised - like the magical medallions, invisibility cape, and the Canes of Somaria and Bryna. It's the introduction of the first Zelda gameplay dychotomy of Light and Dark, which Ocarina of Time went on to ape with 7 years past and future. It's the game where you really get to know Hyrule, and learn about the bloodline of the Hyrulian Knights, the Golden Land of Triforce and the sages who sealed the dark lord away. It's got a beastiery typical of the best Zelda games, and dungeons to match. A whopping 12 of them if you count Hyrule Castle. Best of all is the overworld. Rather than being a 3d hub from which you go from village to dungeon or dungeon to dungeon - like the 3d games - virtually every screen has some significance. Some have dual significance when you consider the light and dark worlds and puzzles that ensue therein. It really is a masterclass in the adventure game...
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening
... and Link's awakening took that kind of brilliance onto portables for the first time. Oracle of Ages and Seasons expanded upon this, but I chose this game, because this was the first instance that kept me so engaged. This is the first game before Ocarina where I remember a musical instrument theme starting to come in. The Island of Koholint is the setting for this game, and like Termina, it is every bit as fascinating - albeit never a perfect replacement - for Hyrule itself. What's great about this game for me is not only the excellent dungeons and inclusion of strange underground platforming that seems to merge this universe with the Mario one... but it's the story. Like Majora's Mask, it's not a happy story. The denoument of your quest does not really benefit everyone. It's a bittersweet game really. A nice change of pace...
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
... which, lo and behold - this game was too! As soon as you started this game it spoke of the Hero of Legend: referring to the Hero of Time from Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. You are just a boy in this game, living on a remote island, living a primitive island life. Your existence is turned upside down when your sister is kidnapped and you are unleashed upon the high seas to find her. At first, it's quite different from the usual Zelda tale. It's more like a chase. You are running from one location to the next with a goal. First that goal is to save your sister. Events unfurl that reveal there is another objective to tackle, and in order to be ready to face a new foe, you must go on a quest for three pearls in order to gain the recognition of the Gods. Before you know it, you uncover the fate of a long-since forgotten land, gaze upon the resting place of the weapon of evil's bane and avenge those slain to take away its power. It's only after this, near the end of the game, that you finally learn the truth about the past, one of your comrades and the voice that has been guiding you on your quest. It's only after this that you are proclaimed Hero of Wind; only after this, that you face a lord of darkness - only to find his motives... quite human. And complete your quest for yet another bittersweet, but this time hopeful, ending.
Intelligent Qube
Ahem. My Zelda love out of the way. I remember first playing a demo of this that came with a magazine. It was around the time the PlayStation Yaroze thing really started to kick into effect. It was a simple puzzle game wherein you played a man standing on a giant row of blocks. As blocks rolled towards you, blocks behind you fell away. The blocks rolling towards you did not form complete walls, and you could create holes in any that did come with certain moves on the floorspace provided. It was in these gaps that you basically had to avoid doom and complete levels. It was awesome, and is now extremely hard to get hold of. Cheap I mean.
Metal Gear Solid
I remember blasting through this game in about 5 hours on its' easiest difficulty and then playing it in the same day - straight away - again, on a harder mode. This is one of the few PlayStation titles that effectively captured the convergence of video games and movie-like entertainment, together in one package. It evolved so much beyond its' predecessors that it made the whole stealth idea seem completely new and fresh. But it also came with a story and cast of characters so brilliant that you knew for certain you'd want to be seeing them again. Codec sequences and animations in this game border on the rediculous towards the end of the game, but never quite make that leap into tedium that I personally feel the sequels tend to... even though I like those too. It strikes a good balance. At the end you feel like you've both played a great game, and watched a great action movie. Don't listen to haters, just as much fun on Gamecube. Might even be more fun to many people.
Resident Evil
I have to say - I prefer the Gamecube incarnation much more - but even on PlayStation this was a fun and exciting experience. Not only could you laugh at the guy playing Barry Burton in the opening movie, it had hilariously bad voice acting all round and reeked much more of cheese for one thing.. but for another, it was much the same game that's on the Gamecube today barre graphics. Again taking movie conventions and placing them into games, this began the survival horror genre. You had to think about ammunition, you wonder whats going to follow the next door animation. You start to get intruiged by the emerging Umbrella conspiracy. In spite of its' bad acting, what unfurls is actually a great story. And there are some neat puzzles too - if a little bit unrealistically laborious to exist in real life
The Gamecube version amps things up a notch. Inclusion of realistic, dark environments, Zombies that stay where you kill them and come back to life if you don't burn them, transforming into Crimson Head, acid spitting, running monsters... along with all the items, weapons, hunters and more from the first game. It's just great! Jill and Chris' games are different enough to warrant playing both and offer varying difficulty levels.
Quake
Fucking awesome at the time. It's just a no holds barred, indiscrimate maiming of evil freaks. It basically brought the Doom mentality into 3d... only this game spawned much more than that. Communities, deathmatches, mods, TCs. It's the first time a first person shooter really grabbed me by the balls and demanded my attention for months on end. When things like the GL patch came out, and I started buying three cards, it gave em a bit of a squeeze and demanded yet more time. Quake II tried to give it some kinda story, which pissed me off to be honest. Quake III arena managed to recapture some of what I loved. The NIN soundtrack was cool, I used to listen to U2- Pop a lot while playing this too.
Unreal Tournament
I always liked UT more than Quake III arena though. I was gobsmacked by the train map, and the one on the lunar surface. I loved how I could play decently intelligent bots, or go online to have fun. I loved hearing the thing bellow "HEADSHOT". The weapon/item set was cool. Other than that, it was quite simple.
Half Life - Team Fortress Classic was awesome too!
This is how you to a first person game with a story. Unlike Quake II which kind of gave up at the intro movie, it kept it up. It immersed you with great NPC AI (for the time), an awesome story and breadth of control. It had a great sci fi B-movie feel to it. That kind of movie where shit really hits the fan and you basically watch everything be fixed as best as can be. Only you don't get it fixed. There's this dude straight out of X-files walking around, and you end up in a crazy alien world shooting at some giant baby alien thing's brain. Awesome!
Team Fortress Classic captured the whole online FPS multiplayer thing for me before UT did. It even did it better. The various classes: like Spy, Engineer, Scout etc were what made it have so much depth and longevity. It was just awesome. And only the tip of the iceberg. There was a massive community doing even more popular mods like Counterstrike. Half Life as a franchise, probably has games which have the longest legs in terms of how much you get out of them.
Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight
The man who got the Death Star plans, that many Bothans died to save. The second game saw Timothy Zahn's Dark Forces character, Kyle Katarn, become a Jedi. In this game you actually tilt to the dark or light side of the force and get attributed force powers accordingly. This game, like others I have mentioned, has been superceded by sequels and other games - but it truly was a milestone and great gaming experience. The acting in the real time cinemas was well done, even if the bluescreen was not, and the branching story line was excellent. The online mode has just become the icing on the cake. The sequels have all been amazing fun too. Jedi Knight Outcast, and Jedi Academy.
X Wing Vs Tie Fighter
Nothing used to be able to beat the Xwing/Tie Fighter games and a good joystick with all the proper controls. Especially when these things went online. Even then you could play them offline and have a blast.
Rogue Squadron games, as a single player experience, are probably superior for most gamers - and as a series has such great potential when they go online as well. But all of these star wars flight sims... I can't get enough seriously!
Maniac Mansion & Day of the Tentacle
Sam & Max Hit the Road
These were all done at the height of Lucasarts' greatness. Point and click games the likes of which I hope find a new home on Nintendo DS. There's just so much to think about, watch and do in these games. They're light hearted, well-scripted fun, that is much missed.
Super Mario 64
The reason millions of people bought a Nintendo 64. It made the impressive Tomb Raider look clunky. Games that tried to ape it failed miserably. It was a game that was slick, and expansive with no loading times and taking the mushroom kingdom into 3d with such complete competence - how could any gamer worth their salt not at least appreciate why people like it? It had the Mushroom Kingdom quality to it that Mario Sunshine lacks and everyone hopes will return... but whether it is a good enough kind of game to replace the 2d games forever, is uncertain. I'm not so sure.
Goldeneye 007
Best multiplayer game on Nintendo 64. Not just the bond liscence, but the liscence to one of the BEST Bond films.
Conker's Bad Fur Day
When this game is released this generation on Xbox, I will finally get to try the multiplayer out with people. The single player game is both very good and very funny. Nods to all sorts of film and videogame franchises including Clockwork Orange and The Matrix, and with a crudeness that belies it's cute looks - it's a unique and entertaining addition to the small but great N64 catalogue.
Final Fantasy VII - I also enjoyed IV, V, VI, VIII, and IX. But VII got played A LOT.
The reason I like the Final Fantasy VII game above many of the others is simply the way it handles the story. It lulls you into Midgar, like Midgar is a world in and of itself. The whole place is a lower class shanty town, overtowered by the evil Shinra corporation. You play so much through and forget the possibility that there might be anything outside of this world, and the friends and enemies you have made so far. But then the expanse of your typical Final Fantasy game kicks in and you traverse this huge world going to more exotic locales, meeting new friends, developing relationships and learning more about something called the Jenova experiment and it's progeny, and one time colleague and hero, Sephiroth. It introduces the difficult concept of Gaia and the incumbent Mako energy and lifeforce therein to a western video game audience without getting too crazy to put you off. The materia system is not as convoluted as magic systems in other Final Fantasy games and overall it's just really well done. The Golden Saucer was a lot of fun too. There was just a lot to do and like in this game. It's that simple.
Super Monkey Ball
The single player experience in Super Monkey Ball is a hard one. And one that demands a high standard of playing from you. You learn to become precise and really get to know the mechanics of the game if you want to become good enough to get extra levels. Otherwise you stick strictly to the minigames. Either way, it's bliss.
Metroid Prime
Retro has carved out one of the most cohesive and immersive adventures for me since A Link to the Past. It's a linear game of sorts, you can't do certain things in any other order, but the word "linear" belies the truth about this game. You go everywhere all of the time. You explore every nook and cranny. You inadvertantly take in every lush detail from behind that visor. More than this, you have fun doing it. If you want the story, you have to find it yourself in Chozo Lore or by reading Space Pirate logs. Notable moments are when you read about Zebes at the beginning of the game, read about actual Metroids for the first time, or when you read that ALL of the Space Pirates have become aware of your presence on Tallon IV and are now on high alert. You end up gunning, swinging, rolling and bombing your way through some of the best level design you'll1 ever see, to fight some of the best boss fights you'll ever fight. They pulled off a great adventure game in a first person view, and made sure it was still a Metroid game.
ot
