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1. Super Mario Brothers 3 (NES)
2. Mario Kart 8 (Wii U)
3. Red Dead Redemption 2 (PS4)
4. Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader (Gamecube)
5. Super Smash Bros. Melee (Gamecube)
6. Mortal Kombat 2 (SNES)
7. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (Gamecube)
8. Wave Race 64 (N64)
9. Perfect Dark (N64)
10. Metroid Fusion (GBA)
Tragzabinga
1. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES)
2. Mario Kart (Wii)
3. Half-Life 2 (PC)
4. Twisted Metal 2 (PS1)
5. NHL 95 (Sega Genesis)
6. The Oregon Trail (graphical version, 1985, Apple II)
7. Metroid: Zero Mission (GBA)
8. Missile Command (Arcade)
9. Rocket League (PS4)
10. Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Father (PC)
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1. Super Mario Brothers 3 (Nintendo Entertainment System)
What can be said that everybody doesn’t already know about the greatness that is SMB3 (NES)? Nothing. Still holds up today as maybe the best, most enjoyable game of all time. This is the best no. 1 pick and everyone who voted before me was a fool not to choose it.
2. Mario Kart 8 (Wii U)
I only played the Switch version. I never owned a Wii U. Because of the rules, the Wii U version it is. This is hands down the best Mario Kart game. If you’ve ever loved Mario Kart, you should love this pick. Another steal.
3. Red Dead Redemption 2 (PS4)
Everyone thought I was a fool to choose this. Trag is coming around. “Nominating a game that no one has played yet is fairly innovative too.” Huh. Yeah, it was innovative. And smart. This will, according to my calculations, I said, BEFORE the rave reviews poured in, be revered as one of, if not THE best game of all time. Just look up a review and kick yourself for not choosing this game before me. 3rd round steal. Validated.
4. Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader (Gamecube)
Star Wars games make for exhilarating experiences, when made well. This, in my humble opinion, is the best Star Wars game of all time. It improved upon everything Rogue Squadron I did well, which makes it better. 4th round steal.
5. Super Smash Bros. Mele (GameCube)
I actually have only played this at friends’ houses. You like Smash Bros. games? Well, according to the general internet consensus, this is the best one.
6. Mortal Kombat 2 (SNES)
The best MK game. Legendary.
7. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (GameCube)
I wasn’t the biggest fan of this. It was OK to me, at the time. But, it’s a Zelda game and it was the next best available Zelda game in this draft. Not a bad pick, I’d say.
8. Wave Rave 64 (Nintendo 64)
My most nostalgic pick, a game my friends and I used to play together as kids, making up our own rules to a tag game in multiplayer mode, laughing our little asses off, hard. And, as nostalgic as I am for this, I picked it up recently and it still holds up, unlike Tecmo Bowl. There's something about the movements of the characters that was awkward, yet made perfect sense, and you could master it with enough practice, and it was hilarious. We had more fun with this game than we did with Goldeneye 64 and Perfect Dark, which is saying a lot. It’s saying it’s better.
9. Perfect Dark (N64)
It blew my mind as a kid. It was Goldeneye, but better. The framerate drops were part of the fun.
10. Metroid Fusion (GBA)
I had to pick a portable game and this is the best available one I could think of. I never played it but I watched YouTube documentaries on history of Metroid and in-depth analyses of all the games and this one looks pretty damn cool. Vote for me.
Tragzabinga
1. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES)
I wanted a marquee Zelda title on my team, and I wanted a marquee SNES title before they were all taken, so this was a no-brainer. I actually played the entire game sometime around 2005, and was shocked at how completely engrossing it still was. And not in a nostalgic way. It's a phenomenal game that improves on the original Zelda in every possible way.
2. Mario Kart (Wii)
When I was working at a restaurant in MA from 2005-2007, a couple of the guys I worked with lived across the street from the establishment and had this on their home Wii system. We would often go over to their place after a busy Sunday night (closed on Monday), drink fancy French wine, get blazed, and play Mario Kart into the whee hours. What really stuck with me about this game was how easy it was for non-gamers to pick up and enjoy; many of the other people who would join us at these post-shift wind-down sessions were not regular gamers, but the entire vibe felt like such a fun time. It's rare that a competitive game can so effectively be the focal point of a gathering, but this title delivered on multiple occasions.
3. Half-Life 2 (PC)
Totally a strategic pick. I played through most of the original Half-Life, but never finished it; and then I watched a buddy play this one occasionally. It's funny that Sierra, the greatest game developer of my childhood, would become known for their 2D Adventure games (King's Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, etc), but that they will perhaps be most remembered for this title. It took the adventure/puzzle mechanics of their older games and melded it with a modern first-person mechanic. I can greatly appreciate it despite not really being very familiar with it.
4. Twisted Metal 2 (PS1)
I was waffling on this pick, and ultimately chose to pick a title that consumed many hours of my life. I played this game like a fiend in high school, and it was one of the few games where I was able to dominate against my buddies.
5. NHL 95 (Sega Genesis)
The greatest sports title of all time? I think so. Eminently playable with great AI, slick controls, awesome sprite graphics, easy menus and no load times. Exhibition games were just as fun as season games. My buddy and I spent two months in the mountains of Idaho in 2007, taking care of my cousin's land and otherwise having our own Into the Wild experience: No cable/satellite, no TV reception, no phone service or internet, no radio. We brought a bunch of DVDs, books, and I scored an old Sega system with a ton of games on Ebay. We played this like it was 1995 all over again, with a ferocity and fun, breezy competitiveness that later sports games tended to bury in clunky AI or overly complicated controls.
6. The Oregon Trail (graphical version, 1985, Apple II)
So in 1st-3rd grade, I was the resident computer nerd in my school. I was actually writing MS-DOS code by the age of 10, and when our school got three Apple II computers to be shared, I was often sent to other classrooms to help the teachers get the machines running. Most often it was so that kids could play The Oregon Trail. Much like Mario Kart, I have a soft spot for games that pull in non-gamers. I loved that it was like a history lesson, but that it was also fun. The added bonus of including your friends' names as your traveling companions made for lots of grade-school laughter. Everyone knew this game, and no one was invincible to the harsh realities of the digital frontier experience it offered.
7. Metroid: Zero Mission (GBA)
Another strategic pick, on a system I've never even played before. I needed a portable game, and wanted something that looked awesome. This update on the original Metroid (to clarify, it IS a different game, with modified maps and items) looks great on youtube, and I'd fancy a go at a play-through sometime.
8. Missile Command (Arcade)
My dad had an Atari 2600 as a kid. Lots of title I could have chosen from this era -- Pitfall, Asteroids, Arkanoid, Zaxxon, and I almost went with Tempest (arcade). But ultimately Missile Command was the first game that kept pulling me back in, that would excite and enrage me with its simple complexities.
9. Rocket League (PS4)
A simple concept executed perfectly: Indoor soccer with race cars. Some of the best controls I've ever seen in a game, and the expansion are mostly useless (the hockey puck version, the version with all the crazy powerups). But the core game is a thing of beauty, something small, simple, and endlessly exhilarating. Perfect game for when I need to kill five minutes while my wife finishes getting ready to head out.
10. Gabriel Knight, Sins of the Father (PC) (tentative pick, this may change)
The premier Sierra adventure title. I was obsessed with Sierra Online as a kid, played every title I could get my hands on. I even wrote a fan letter to the company, and the CEO wrote me back telling me he hoped I could come work for them some day. But I missed Gabriel Knight during its initial release: It was one of the first titles to require a VGA monitor, and I was stuck with the EGA tech of my Tandy computer. I'd salivate over the box art for this one, imagining that it could somehow improve on the complex and satisfying murder mystery experience of The Colonel's Bequest, a criminally under-appreciated adventure game in its own right. I finally downloaded the game a couple years ago and played it on my Mac, and holy cow -- it still held my attention right up to the very end. Complex puzzles, genuinely spooky atmosphere, even some really good music despite the limitations of its era. The era of PC adventure games don't get enough credit for the impact they had on today's gaming culture: Half-Life, Resident Evil, Red Dead Redemption -- none of that stuff would exist without the PC adventure catalog. Gabriel Knight is an exemplary title from a different era of gaming that required some real intellectual calisthenics (or a "hint book") to complete, and that delivered a narrative story that was deeply satisfying even years later.
