My 20 Favourite Video Games Of All Time - #20 - #16

I’ve played a lot of video games in my life. Some of them good, some of them bad. The bad ones just get forgotten and discarded but the good ones, well, they stay with you long after you shut the power off. Either a compelling story or a deep, immersive world or just fantastic gameplay can make a game stand out above the rest. They can find a place in your heart and your memories of them will give you joy for years.These 20 games are the ones which stuck with me the most, that continue to delight me and inspire me even after years.

#20: Lylat Wars - N64, 1997

I remember when I got my Super Nintendo when I was 4 years old. I had three games for it, one of which was Starwing, a game in which you played as a fox (creatively named Fox) flying a spaceship, shooting bad guys. It was so much fun and I’d play it for hours. Years later, I found my cousins’ N64 and a game called Lylat Wars. Curious, I put it on and found it to be remarkably similar to Starwing. There was Fox and his team, the spaceships, the immediate enjoyment of the satisfying gameplay. It was Starfox again, only this time it was so much better.

Not only did I fly an Arwing, I drove a Landmaster tank and captained the Blue Marine sub. Fox and his team spoke instead of just making silly noises and then there were the bastards of Star Wolf, a rival team of ace pilots who would show up to try and kill you in epic dogfights.

How well you did on a mission would influence how you progressed through the game so it was always different as you made your way across the Lylat System to stick it to the evil Andross.

Having Fox’s dad (the curiously named James) show up at the end added a lot of depth and pathos to an already exceptional game. The whole thing practically demanded you play it again and again and you would gladly oblige.

Slippy Toad can go fuck himself with his own ineptitude though.

#19: Metal Gear Solid - PlayStation, 1998

I hate Metal Gear Solid. As a series, I have purest hatred for it. The second game started off so promisingly but then descended into incomprehensible bullshit before my tired, weeping eyes. I turned to the earlier game, Metal Gear Solid, for solace.

Solid Snake is a badass and make no mistake about it. He takes on tanks, expert snipers, torture, a human muscle machine, a psychic pervert and a giant freaking walking nuclear tank with a laser dick. Oh, and a cyborg ninja!

When you play a game as such a man everything you do feels satisfying. Helped by the quality gameplay and a genuinely deep and interesting story, Metal Gear Solid stood out as one of the better games in a year that saw the release of some of the greatest of all time.

It was the first truly cinematic gaming experience I ever had, with just as much time spent watching the game as playing it. I was engrossed in the story and when the time came to resist torture to save the life of a dear friend, I stepped up to the challenge when I could have just easily submitted. Forging that kind of emotional connection is something only the best games do and it’s why you remember them years down the line.

Seeing nerds piss themselves is also good fun for any occasion too.

#18: Goldeneye 007 - N64, 1997

Two years after the best film ever made was released they gave us the tie-in game. They took their time making it though and it showed. Goldeneye was the first First-Person Shooter worth giving a shit about and changed the genre. It was the first game to have a sniper rifle with a zoom scope, the first to have objective driven missions and the first to change those objectives based on difficulty.

The game was so much fun to play with friends as well though and the multiplayer was the true beauty of the game. It was just so much fucking fun to run around like a crazy lunatic and fire bullets at everything that moved. Nowadays it’s all ‘strategy’ and ‘tactics’. Back then anything went.

The game just kept throwing enemies at you and weapons to kill them with and was a rush of gunfights and bullet spraying. Needless to say, the game could be quite difficult at times. But there was so much satisfaction in overcoming the challenges set before you that playing the game was its own reward.

Initially, the N64 controller didn’t seem like it would suit the game at all but after a short while you could master it and be pulling off headshots, or more commonly dickshots, with great aplomb. The death animations on the enemies made killing them all the more entertaining.

It was no surprise then, that years later, the team who developed Goldeneye would make the astounding TimeSplitters series, but try as they might, they could never top this masterpiece. It stands tall as one of the greatest FPS ever in an industry where every other game is a goddamned FPS. But if it wasn’t for Goldeneye, maybe they wouldn’t have become so popular.

#17: Donkey Kong Country - SNES, 1994

2D platformers are something of a lost art in today’s world but there was a time when they reigned supreme. It was a simple time; a better time.

We thought we had it good with Mario and Sonic and the countless other platform heroes who nobody cared what their names were. Then Donkey Kong came along and stuck two fingers up to everything else and showed them how it was done.

At the time, no game looked better. DKC was the absolute highest level in graphical excellence. Monkeys didn’t look that good in the damn zoo. And none of them could rock a red tie quite like DK.

But it wasn’t just the visuals that pleased the senses. The game’s soundtrack is a masterwork of aural pleasing beats and tunes. I’m listening to Funky’s Fugue right now, one of the stand out tracks from the soundtrack. Other tunes like Forest Frenzy, Aquatic Ambience and Gang-Plank Galleon captured the tone of the levels they played on perfectly and make for great listening on their own, which is a true mark of excellence for a game soundtrack I think.

The gameplay was tight and controlled. It flowed so well that even simple manoeuvres made you feel like you had the dexterity of a heavy metal drummer. It was a real challenge too. The game’s later stages were really quite difficult but repeated attempts would earn success.

The fact that it was never frustrating despite the repeated deaths is another point in the game’s favour. Playing with a friend, passing the controller after every death or every completed level, was a real delight and is still one of gaming’s greatest pleasures.

I guess they just don’t make them like they used to... Oh wait, they totally do. Donkey Kong Country Returns!

#16: The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past - SNES, 1992

This was the first game I ever played. This is the one I blame for all the years spent with video games.  When I die a sad, lonely man I will point my finger at this game and wearily rasp “You...”

So what could possibly be the best thing for a 4 year old who lived in a block of flats and had no friends? My answer was a huge virtual world of magic and mystery to explore; a world in which I was a hero, destined to save the princess, drive darkness from the land and be remembered for all time. I would have dreams about this game. I would think about it all day long. It was my life when I was very, very young.

The game still excites me to this day and it’s not because of nostalgia. It really is one of the most finely crafted games in existence. It took what its predecessors had created and perfected it. Rampaging through the land of Hyrule, I had no rules, no restraints. I was my own king and I did what I pleased.

Alright, so maybe the game was a little more restrained than that but it sure didn’t feel like that to me. And it never will. I bought the game no less than three times (on the SNES, GBA and Wii Virtual Console) and each time I discovered more, learned more, loved it more and more. 

A Link To The Past will always have a special place in my heart because it essentially guided my life down the path it took, for better or worse. Take a time machine to August 1994 and take this game away from me before I can play it and you will return to find me a totally different person.

That's it for the first part of the list. Only 3 more to go. Next time it'll (obviously) be #15 - #11.

Thanks for reading!