#shadow the hedgehog (2005) and sonic all star racing (2012)

[fishyartist]

Many people don’t know that Maria robotnik is the sonic the hedgehog series’ first playable human woman. The second is former race car driver and godaddy spokeswoman Danica Patrick. There aren’t any others.

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #400

Special Commemorative Top 100 Videogames

400! Blimey! That’s a lot. Four hundred lists. Crikey. This feels like it deserves some kind of, I dunno, special edition. Sorry, Special Edition. But what to do? And how can I somehow tentatively tie it into the number four or even four hundred?

Reader, I can’t. I’ve just sacked it off basically.

But that’s not to say I haven’t tried very hard to make a really, really special list. So special in fact that I’m doing something I’ve only done once or sort-of twice before: a Top 100. Yes, that’s right; despite this being a Top Ten, today I’m squaring the circle and going the Full Ton.

So having done films before, this weekend I’m looking at one of the few other things I feel I can talk about with a degree of authority: videogames. I’ve been a gamer pretty much as long as I can remember. Whilst I was probably reading comics first – especially Transformers – I wasn’t really collecting them, or reading them widely, until I was in my twenties. Games, on the other hand, I got into pretty hard as a young boy and they’ve maintained my interest ever since.

On compiling a list like this, however, I run against the thing I always run against, which is my knowledgebase isn’t really that wide. I had an Amiga growing up, and then graduated to a PC when I was a teen. Before that I played on my cousins’ computers, which were Spectrums and Commodores. Apart from brief trips to friends’ houses, I barely touched games consoles; indeed, I indulged in a lot of pre-teen “console toy” sectarianism, thinking the likes of Sega and Nintendo were enemies to be defeated (whilst, at the same time, being slightly covetous of the hardware). The first console we ever had in our house was my brother’s Nintendo 64; the first one I ever owned was an original Xbox. To this date, I have only owned (or had in the house, at least) the following: Xbox; GameCube; Xbox 360; DS Lite; Wii; Xbox One. I’ve never had any Sony console, being swayed by Halo and Fable when I finally decided to take the plunge into console-land around 2001.

So all this – combined with a sort-of ingrained frustration and the commonplace mechanics of a lot of ��classic” console titles, especially stuff like Zelda and Metal Gear – means there will no doubt be big famous names not on this list. It’s not an apology. I’m not an expert or a journalist; I’m just some bloke wasting time on the internet. Added to this is the fact that, even when I was a kid with oodles of free time, there were only so many games my parents could afford – or, beyond that, only so many that I had time for. I remember longingly looking at screenshots in The One Amiga, PC Gamer, or Edge, wishing I could either find the money or time for the likes of Lure of the Temptress, Starcraft, Baldur’s Gate, LA Noire, Morrowind, and more. Most of these I’ve played, but not really very deeply (ditto the likes of Thief, System Shock, and most of the 3D Grand Theft Autos). And that’s before we even get onto the PlayStation games like Uncharted, Shadow of the Colossus, The Last of Us, and Spider-Man!

Anyway, what I’m saying is, this is a very personal list, and it feels incomplete even from my point of view. There’s stuff that I feel is missing, even from my own personal gaming biography. But it is what it is, and its fractured, fragmented nature is probably a good overview of my psyche, and as such it feels appropriate for a large anniversary like my 400th list.

A couple of other, technical points. In compiling a list this large, I’ve argued back-and-forth with myself over placements, but generally I’ve looked at a game, and the games around it, and asked whether it’s better or worse than its neighbours; as such, that’s where the game is stuck. Sometimes this means I’ll look at the list and think, oh, such-and-such looks too high or too low, but it feels right when nestled against its contemporaries. Also, sequels and franchises: I’ve tried to treat each game individually (both Half-Lifes are there, for instance) but with something like, say, Mass Effect, it felt a bit redundant to include the slightly-inferior parts 1 and 3 when they’re all quite similar but Mass Effect 2 is the best. So quite often one title ends up representing a franchise, unless I feel other instalments are terrific enough to stand on their own, or represent something quite different. But that’s not really a hard-and-fast rule anyway. Oh, and formats: generally speaking, they’re on the formats I discovered or most enjoyed the game on, which may throw up some non-standard entries (like SWOS, which even I think of as an Amiga game, but which I really got into years later on PC). Finally, my memory; there are some older games on here that maybe if I played a bit more recently would go up or down. But they feel important to me and my life as a gamer, so that’s where they’re staying. All that being said, I’m very comfortable with the Top Ten, which is appropriate.

TL;DR: it’s my list, it’s very subjective, it’s based partly on memory or nostalgia, it’s emotional, it’s things that I loved and that meant something to me and that still mean something to me, and that’s all there is to it.

So here we go: Top Ten numero 400. Except it’s a Top 100. Make of that what you will.

The Secret of Monkey Island (Amiga, 1991)

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge (Amiga, 1992)

Half-Life 2 (PC, 2003)

Deus Ex (PC, 2000)

Civilization VI (PC, 2017)

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (Xbox, 2003)

Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox, 2001)

Lemmings 2: The Tribes (Amiga, 1993)

Crackdown (Xbox 360, 2007)

Fable II (Xbox 360, 2007)

LEGO Marvel Super Heroes (Xbox One, 2013)

Command and Conquer: Red Alert (PC, 1995)

Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II (PC, 1997)

Half-Life (PC, 1998)

Sam & Max Hit the Road (PC, 1995)

Medieval II: Total War (PC, 2003)

Portal (PC, 2003)

Perfect Dark (N64, 2000)

Sensible World of Soccer 95/96 (PC, 1995)

Duke Nukem 3D (PC, 1995)

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Switch, 2018)

Mass Effect 2 (Xbox 360, 2008)

Wii Sports (Wii, 2005)

Super Mario Galaxy (Wii, 2007)

Flashback (Amiga, 1993)

Batman: Arkham City (Xbox 360, 2011)

Animal Crossing (GameCube, 2004)

Halo 3 (Xbox 360, 2007)

Forza Horizon 2 (Xbox One, 2014)

BioShock (Xbox 360, 2007)

Drop 7 (iPhone, 2010)

Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 (PC, 2000)

Quake III Arena (PC, 2000)

GoldenEye 007 (N64, 1997)

Doom (PC, 1993)

Plants vs. Zombies (iPhone, 2011)

Age of Empires II (PC, 2001)

LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham (Xbox One, 2015)

James Pond II: RoboCod (Amiga, 1992)

Syndicate (Amiga, 1992)

Blade Runner (PC, 1997)

Grim Fandango (PC, 1998)

Peggle 2 (Xbox One, 2013)

Superhot (Xbox One, 2017)

Quake (PC, 1997)

Gears of War (Xbox 360, 2005)

Viva Pinata (Xbox 360, 2008)

Unreal Tournament (PC, 1999)

Cannon Fodder (Amiga, 1993)

Banjo Kazooie (N64, 1998)

Quake II (PC, 1998)

Another World (Amiga, 1992)

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (MegaDrive, 1993)

Grand Theft Auto (PC, 1997)

Doom (Xbox One, 2016)

Braid (Xbox 360, 2007)

Limbo (Xbox One, 2014)

Worms World Party (PC, 2001)

The Sims (PC, 2000)

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GameCube, 2003)

Pikmin (GameCube, 2002)

Super Skidmarks (Amiga, 1993)

Minecraft (Xbox 360, 2012)

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (PC, 1992)

Project Gotham Racing (Xbox, 2001)

Tomb Raider (PC, 1996)

Carcassonne (Xbox 360, 2008)

Black & White (PC, 2001)

Frontier: Elite 2 (Amiga, 1993)

Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne (PC, 2003)

Alien Breed: Tower Assault (Amiga, 1994)

Two Point Hospital (PC, 2018)

Thimbleweed Park (PC, 2017)

Red Dead Redemption (Xbox 360, 2010)

Sim City 2000 (PC, 1993)

Super Mario 64 (N64, 1997)

The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time (N64, 1998)

Midtown Madness 2 (PC, 2000)

Civilization Revolution (Xbox 360, 2008)

Jaguar XJ220 (Amiga, 1992)

Simon the Sorcerer (Amiga, 1993)

Chuck Rock II: Son of Chuck (Amiga, 1993)

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (PC, 2000)

Tomb Raider (Xbox One, 2013)

Pokemon FireRed & LeafGreen (GBA, 2004)

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (Xbox One, 2018)

LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga (Xbox 360, 2007)

Back to Skool (Spectrum, 1985)

Transport Tycoon Deluxe (PC, 1994)

Zool (Amiga, 1992)

Super Smash Bros. Melee (GameCube, 2001)

Jetpack Joyride (PC, 2013)

Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding (Xbox, 2001)

Spellbound Dizzy (Amiga, 1991)

Putty (Amiga, 1992)

Ghostbusters (Spectrum, 1984)

Void Bastards (Xbox One, 2019)

Transformers (PS2, 2004)

Seymour Goes to Hollywood (Amiga, 1992)

Microsoft Ultimate Word Games (PC, 2017)

There you go. I already disagree with myself.