Your actual top 10/20/25/50/100/200 games - have you ever?

@Muss wrote:

Still need to play Galaxy...

Mate. Mate.

I lost my virginity on Carnival Night but my favourite Carnival Night is still the year Mario Galaxy released.

Disco Elysium is March for PlayStation and Stadia along PC update. Summer for Switch and Xbox.

Thinking about it March is a decent month already with Balan, MonHan Rise that waiting till the summer for Xbox might make more sense as can give it more love.

Agree on the vibe thoughts as yesterday evening I was like didn't put Gone Home on my list, that it's easier really for me to go these X games I think are neat and that could be hundreds.

@Buskalilly wrote:

@Muss wrote:

Still need to play Galaxy...

Mate. Mate.

I lost my virginity on Carnival Night but my favourite Carnival Night is still the year Mario Galaxy released.

Mate. Mate.

I know. We might be getting it, via the Mario All-Stars package, for Christmas but that depends on whether my girlfriend's parents visit or not.

They've already bought it for her I think but they're gone from we're definitely coming down during the holidays to exchange gifts to we're not really sure about coming down.

Which is fair. Either way I'll play it at some point!

I'm so jealous you (might) have Super Mario Galaxy as a Christmas game. I deliberately waited on Odyssey a couple of years ago and it was magical

Oh yeah. That was a special game so if it lives up to that then that'd be good.

I played Odyseey whilst I had something between the flu and a cold and despite that its quality really shone through. Watching it vicariously when my girlfriend played it was good fun as well, so many things to appreciate about that game.

I'll be playing Disco when it comes to Switch in summer.

I was going to say that my top 25 hasn't changed at all since my giant post at the top of the last page, but that's not quite true. After my replay of Ghost Trick, I've realised that it's aged phenomenally well, stands up on replay, and the few flaws I recalled don't seem that flawed any more. It's certainly aged better than Twilight Princess and probably better than Metroid Prime. Ghost Trick is now my fourth favourite game ever.

@Kriken wrote:

11. Super Mario Galaxy 2
12. Super Mario Galaxy 1

Ah, I see you're a fellow of culture too...

@Kriken wrote:

20. Metroid Prime 2
21. Metroid Prime 1

...wait what? I'd be curious as to the reasoning behind this!

Anyone who puts Galaxy 2 above Galaxy hasn't played them in close succession and hasn't played either for a while.

Or there's something wrong with them.

Who cares

@Balladeer wrote:

@Kriken wrote:

20. Metroid Prime 2
21. Metroid Prime 1

...wait what?  I'd be curious as to the reasoning behind this!

Cooler setting, more challenging and interesting bosses. The two games are pretty close together for me. On another day I could put 1 above of 2. I mark down Prime 2 a bit for being a bit derivative of some scenarios in the first game, but overall I think the game is an improvement.

I think they're both miles ahead of Prime 3, anyway.

Hm, I'd disagree on bother points. Maybe it's just my faulty memory, but I recall 1 having more varied settings ('bog' and 'purple bog' don't count as two) and the better bosses (the most memorable for me in both are the monstrous plant thing with scythe arms and solar panels, vs. a fat shark). Not saying you're wrong, just that those aren't points I can reconcile with my faulty memories.

Obviously they're both better than 3 though. NPCs. Who the feck asked for NPCs?

@Buskalilly wrote:

Anyone who puts Galaxy 2 above Galaxy hasn't played them in close succession and hasn't played either for a while.

Well, yep. Who'd play them both in quick succession anyway? That sounds like the ideal way to overdose on and get sick of what's otherwise a winning formula.

Game opinions are only valid when you binge the whole series for comparison I guess. And disregard the ability to form long term memories of course.

As for Prime 3 and NPCs, I liked the bit at the start where you're wandering around the ship and can talk to people. It felt fresh. The portrayal of the Federation of those games, and the dialogue, is so dull though.

Eh, that's just Buska for you.  I'm 100% sure there was no genuine offence meant.  As for that dialogue...

I did mean lots of offence though, I hate you both deeply and personally.

Looking back in the thread, my last list update was in February 2018, so I reckon I'll wait a couple of months and do a three year update on my top 25. Looking at that old list, I can already envisage a totally different list this time round. Besides, waiting a couple of months will allow me to get deep into Hades as I reckon that might end up featuring at this rate...

@Buskalilly wrote:

Top notch. And very true, to boot.

@Balladeer wrote:

@Buskalilly wrote:

I did mean lots of offence though, I hate you both deeply and personally.

A fence colander?

Yeah that's fully a colander, not a sieve.

I was trying to find something that had a guy with some fencing under his arm and 'I TAKE A FENCE AT THAT', but the Internet let me down.

Off-topic: that Mudasar meme always makes me laugh like an absolute drain.

Been a year since I last did this, and there's a couple of games that have found their way in.

1. Outrun 2 (Arcade)
2. Resident Evil 4 (Wii)
3. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii)
4. Streets of Rage 2 (Mega Drive) Streets of Rage 4
5. Crazy Taxi (Dreamcast)
6. Donkey Kong '94 (GameBoy)
7. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64)
8. Last Window: The Secret of Cape West (DS)
9. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Wii)
10. Pikmin 2 (GameCube)
11. Super Monkey Ball (GameCube)
12. Bayonetta (X360)
13. Advance Wars (GameBoy Advance)
14. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Switch)
15. Ninja Gaiden (Xbox)
16. Metal Slug 3 (Arcade)
17. Life is Strange (various)
18. Soul Calibur (Dreamcast)
19. Rayman Origins (Wii)
20. Super Mario Galaxy (Wii)
21. Virtua Tennis 3 (X360)
22. Tony Hawks Pro Skater 2 (Dreamcast)
23. Burnout 3: Takedown (Xbox) Burnout: Revenge (Xbox 360)
24. Super Mario 64 (N64)
25. Shenmue (Dreamcast)

On the periphery:
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (Xbox)
Wii Sports Resort (Wii)
Mario Golf Toadstool Tour (GameCube)
F-Zero X (N64)
Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition (Switch) Yakuza 0

Streets of Rage 4 just feels like the ultimate SoR experience so I've overwritten 2 with 4. Having beat Burnout Revenge again last year on 360 I reckon that's the best Burnout game (does what 3 does but adds more bells and whistles, and it's in HD). I adored Yakuza 0 and it's definitely in with a shout, but need to work my way through the rest of the series before I comfortably put a Yakuza title in the Top 25. Xenoblade is a game I ultimately enjoyed yet always give up on so I've bumped it off the 25-30 region.

I did think of putting Inside on here but it's more a game I really, really admire, rather than a game I can see myself returning to and having a great time with.

I do like your Top 25, looks like it's got something for everyone and shows a taste in all things.

It's a really varied interesting list to be sure. I was going to say it's lacking in the wordier games, but between Last Window and Life Is Strange it really isn't!

Does a game need to be returnable-to (apologies to the English language) for it to be in that top 25 for you GJones?

Mas wrote:

I do like your Top 25, looks like it's got something for everyone and shows a taste in all things

Cheers

Balla wrote:

Does a game need to be returnable-to (apologies to the English language) for it to be in that top 25 for you GJones?

I think so. When I think of my top films or albums, they are ones I can return to 10, 20, 50 years later and they are still excellent experiences. Some of my favourite films are from the 1950s (ie. All About Eve, Sunset Boulevard, Streetcar Named Desire) and the acting performances transcend the dated tech or tropes of the time. A classic carries through the ages and I think a videogame, which is more reliant on technology than anything else, needs that perfect gameplay mechanic to withstand the test of time. I reckon some of my nostalgic choices will eventually fall by the wayside and drop out. Shenmue and the two N64 titles are ones that have a hefty slice of nostalgia and good memories, but there'll be an objectively better game that gets played in the next few years, that will inevitably knock them out.

I know a Top 25 is subjective itself, but I've tried to combine a Favourite and Best criteria, along with a focus on replayability. Goldeneye 007 is one of my favourite games, but I don't really care about impact or influence in 2021. Is it still a blast to play? For me, not really. Just like old ISS and PES games I adored at the time. Early 360 games like Condemned and Project Gotham Racing 3 - brilliant at the time but playing them now it's clear they aren't all timers.

I'm interested if others view the Top 25 or whatever list differently.

Yep I'm using similar criteria to you, a mixture of favourite and best (with the latter obviously being impossible to measure strictly) - only without the replayability criterion. Almost the opposite, in fact: I try to imagine, if Balladeer had played all the other games on the list except this one, and played the game now, how good would he think it was/how much would he like it? I rarely replay games, so I think that makes more sense for me.

For example, BotW, my number 1, is so immense, and was so magical on its first playthrough, that I don't think I would love it the same way on a replay; yet any system that doesn't have that at number 1 is the wrong system for me.

That's interesting, as I guess if you rarely replay games then the list would skew heavily towards first impressions. Are there any titles you've given a second chance to and they then found their way onto your list? Ironically, Breath of the Wild may be that for me, as I bounced off of it when I played it in 2017 but would like to give it another chance.

I'm probably overthinking this whole process...