Greetings, fellow gamers.
I have decided to compile this Top 100 Video Games list for two reasons. The first is to highlight some of the most influential games on my career as a Game Designer, and the other is to (hopefully) point you fine folk to a bunch of excellent titles that they may have missed.
There will be plenty of games that everyone should recognise, but I also imagine there’ll be some that most of you have never even heard of. I spent my childhood writing and playing video games, and I am lucky to do both of my hobbies/passions in my professional life. Hopefully this list will inspire you to try out a game you’ve ignored or not seen before, and I encourage everyone who reads this to tell me why I’m wrong, what games I’ve missed and what your own favourites are!
Before the Top 100 kicks off, I wanted to introduce some Honourable Mentions. Many of these games have not aged very well, or have been improved upon in a huge way by later titles or by the same studio in another incarnation. Some just barely missed the cut and I felt should get a mention. These will be presented in A-Z order.
Adventure (Honourable mention)
This is the oldest game on the entire list and also the first video game I ever played. Adventure was on the Atari 2600 and saw the player control a square pixel on its quest to escape a maze. You collected keys to open locked gates while being chased by dragons. That was pretty much the whole game. At the age of 4, this game was absolutely amazing and terrifying. It was quite revolutionary in its day, and holds up surprisingly well as a retro classic today.
Baldur's Gate II (Honourable mention)
This game felt like it was way ahead of its time when released on the PC in the mid-90s. Based on Dungeons & Dragons, Baldur’s Gate II was fascinating for its combination of strategic movement, game pausing, turn-based combat and rich story. Characters felt real in a game, like they never had before, and BGII paved the way for many of the excellent RPGs you’ll see on the list to come. This one might feel a bit dated now and hasn’t quite aged as wonderfully as you’d expect, but is an all-time classic.
Counterstrike GO (Honourable mention)
There are a whole host of first-person shooters on the list itself, and the one that just missed out was this one from Valve. Counterstrike: Global Offensive is a very streamlined team-based shooter, where you work together to eliminate the other side. The level design is excellent, with many levels to lose your pursuers in and camp for sneaky kills. This one holds a special place in my heart as a go-to lunchtime LAN game with the crew in work and as a pure shooter, feels very satisfying to connect kills and earn wins.
Destiny 2 (Honourable mention)
This game. I actually haven’t played nearly enough of Destiny 2 to give a full breakdown of what it is about it that I love. As an MMO, I have found it extremely difficult to invest the time into this, even though my early experiences with it were very positive. The controls and feel of movement in Destiny 2 is amongst the most natural gameplay I’ve ever played and my limited experience with it has shown a glimpse of genius that I hope to one day discover. I love the world-building and the aesthetics of this game. An honourable mention for that reason, but a game that could easily crack the Top 100 if and when I find a way to play it more frequently.
Deus Ex (Honourable mention)
The original (and best) Deus Ex is best remembered as the game where you had to troubleshoot your way to victory, by whatever means you felt worked for you. Never before could you choose to be stealthy or guns-blazing crazy. Decisions you make in game affect what happens next. This game was so far ahead of its time in many regards. It hasn’t aged spectacularly, especially visually, but Deus Ex will always hold a place in my memory for its accomplishments.
Divinity Original Sin 2 (Honourable mention)
Larian’s wonderful tale of fantasy felt like a love story to Dungeons & Dragons and pirates to me. I adored the first Original Sin and this one amped things up an extra notch. The true appeal of this game is the combat system. I’m a sucker for turn-based combat and the clever points-allocation system layered on top of that reminded me of crunchy euro-style board games. This was accompanied by excellent writing and feels like a spiritual successor to the old Bioware RPGs. This one just barely missed the Top 100.
Elder Scrolls Legends (Honourable mention)
One of my most-played games of 2018 was on my phone! This game brought a dual-lane system to the tried-and-true collectible card game genre. As a huge card game fan, and recovered Magic addict, I’d wanted something with a bit more complexity in this genre for some time. Elder Scrolls Legends worked on many levels, with clever deck construction rules and a solid and intuitive combat system. I had to uninstall it when work got busy. For many months, every single commute in and out of the city was spent in this game. If you want something like Hearthstone but with a bit more crunch, this is the one to go for.
Eternal Darkness (Honourable mention)
The Nintendo Gamecube will feature a fair bit on the Top 100, but this game, probably one of the unsung heroes of that system, just missed the cut. Eternal Darkness played with your perception of safety and took meta tricks to a new level. I fondly remember a sequence where the game tells you that your memory card has been corrupted. It looked so real and legit that I got frustrated enough to stand up and reach for the power button on the console, only to have the game reveal that it was all part of the show… The gimmicks were what made this one fun and while the actual combat and gameplay has not aged very well, this is still one worth checking out for its atmosphere and sense of wicked humour.
FIFA (Honourable mention)
The never-ending annual installments of FIFA have grown tiresome for me more than once, and I still don’t understand why people would buy this game every single year, but something clicked with this series for me in the FIFA 10 edition, and again a few years later after a long hiatus of playing them. They seemed to just get the flow of play and made passing the ball feel fun. Football was something I loved as a child and have reconnected with in recent years, and while I am objectively awful at FIFA, it’s still an enjoyable couch-gaming time to be had. Not many sports series have captured my attention, but I’ve had fun with FIFA over the years.
Goldeneye 007 (Honourable mention)
This one has not aged well at all. If I didn’t go back and try it out on an N64 emulator a few years back, the memory of this one alone might have forced it into the top 50. First-person shooters were almost exclusively a PC thing when Goldeneye showed up on the Nintendo 64, and it blew the doors open on a genre that was very restricted before. The Bond theme was there in a loose enough way, with levels based on the events of the movie mainly in setting only. What made Goldeneye so special at the time was the split-screen multiplayer. Games like Timesplitters and Halo spawned from the ideas crafted by Rare in this one. Goldeneye deserves its place in history, but to be honest, it doesn’t really hold up now in the age we’re in, spoiled for choice by many pristine shooters.
Hearthstone (Honourable mention)
Like Elder Scrolls Legends above, this one stole my attention for quite a while. I love CCGs and Hearthstone came along at a time when there weren’t many digital options. The intuitive control scheme and simplified gameplay worked for me. I was playing physical card games that were vastly more complex, so Hearthstone was a welcome distraction. Gaining an extra mana each round was a design decision that I loved from Blizzard, as it nullified the fear of having null economy to advance your play, which was something that grated on me from the days of playing Magic. Hearthstone was simpler and more restrictive as a result too, and eventually I lost interest in keeping up with it, but it had its day and was addictive for quite some time.
Journey (Honourable mention)
This is one of the most original and unusual games I’ve played in many years. Journey is an abstract platforming adventure where the wordless narrative arc paints a tale that will leave you surprisingly emotional when it comes to its climax (unless you’re a heartless monster!) A clever online-play surprise made this one a hit when it released and while I think that aspect of the game is underplayed and a bit gimmicky, the realisation that you are actually helping a real-life player and not playing a single-player experience was a fun trick that the developers played. Journey controlled fluidly and was short enough to leave a fantastic impression without overstaying its welcome. Still very much a game worth playing today.
Max Payne (Honourable mention)
Rockstar’s “other” game series is the crime noir third-person shooter, Max Payne. When the original launched, it brought bullet-time into games, which was an exciting gameplay mechanism. Slowing time right down to near-zero to line up a perfect shot is very satisfying, especially when you’re completely surrounded, seemingly with no chance of survival. The game’s dark story was heavy going at times, particularly in the dream sequences, where Max must traverse a path of blood on a black void, often with the sound of crying babies and tortured messages of his past… I haven’t played this one and its sequel since launch, but I imagine that they’ve held up reasonably well and would be worth a try today.
Metal Gear Solid (Honourable mention)
The original Metal Gear Solid is the only one I ever managed to play through to the finish. The preposterous story lines of the sequels turned me off, with MGS4 being as close as I got to getting through another one. The original though, with its take on stealth mixed with arcade action gameplay, first person sniping, and (at the time) top shelf voice acting, was a delight. The Foxhound crew, particularly Psycho Mantis, made boss fights fun for the first time in a long time. My favourite moment of this game was firing a Nikita missile for the first time and realising that I needed to guide it through the level. This one is still worth playing as a nostalgia trip.
Mortal Kombat 2 (Honourable mention)
When you’re a kid in the early 90s, video games were popular based on two things. One was how much time you could get out of playing one, because you probably weren’t getting another one until Christmas. The other was by how much blood was in them. Mortal Kombat 2 was the game that did a lot for both categories. A huge leap in quality over the original, MK2’s characters were varied enough and the combat paced in a way that kept it frantic, that it was a true competitor to the mighty Street Fighter 2 at the time. Fatalities were exciting, as gruesome as anything in movies could imagine (more so in some cases) and MK was a cultural phenomenon for a while. This genre is not my thing any more, hence why it’s not in the Top 100.
Project Cars (Honourable mention)
I’m a big racing games fan. I find the recent trend of racing games being for people to sink 100s of hours into them… exhausting! While I really enjoyed what I played of Project Cars, it was just too much of a monster to complete. There are rival titles in the Top 100 that I recommend over it too, but I feel that I would be remiss not to recommend this game. The handling of the cars, the brakes, even the go-kart mode, all of this works incredibly well. It feels like real racing, which will either excite you, or bore you to tears. If you like motorsport, give this one a try.
Quake (Honourable mention)
One of the first games to get a soundtrack by a major musical act (Nine Inch Nails) was Quake, the spiritual successor to Doom by ID. This was all about the single-player experience for me, with cool environments and scary (at the time) monsters. Another game in the series will appear in the Top 100, but one that is very different. Quake was exciting because of how it reinvented itself through its level design. With so many more advanced first-person shooters around today, it’s hard to recommend Quake now to someone who hasn’t played it, unless you’re a huge Doom fan, then give it a shot.
Shenmue (Honourable mention)
Ah, Shenmue. This is probably the game I was most hyped for in any stage of my life. The very long hype train that preceded it as a Dreamcast blockbuster title was so intense that when the game arrived it was impossible to live up to it. Visually incredible for its day, Shenmue tried a lot of game mechanisms that are shunned in modern design. QTE sequences, real-time appointments (you had to wait a whole in-game day to talk to someone if you missed them first time) and very intricate object examining controls… Shenmue tried it all. The story was captivating in the year 1999, and one that is still awaiting its conclusion even after the recently released Shenmue III appeared. Shenmue has its problems, but was a game I played through from start to finish in a matter of days and enjoyed. It was even one of my favourites for some time. Going back to play it recently shattered some of those illusions. It hasn’t aged well. It still deserves a mention here.
Silent Hill (Honourable mention)
I was always more of a Resident Evil guy than a Silent Hill guy, but I appreciated the creepy atmosphere of these games. There was something deeply unsettling about the whole premise of the town of Silent Hill. I think the first two games in particular are most memorable, and I know people who revere them as their favourite games of all time. If you like to scare yourself, you can’t do much better than Silent Hill.
Slay The Spire (Honourable mention)
This clever little card game takes the deck-building card game genre (like Dominion, Clank! etc.) and creates a campaign out of it. You update your abilities and skills as you progress and try to refine your deck as you survive the climb through the spire. I didn’t expect this one to be as good as it is. It’s a beautiful design that marries board gaming to video games in an elegant way. Check it out!
Slime Rancher (Honourable mention)
Slime Rancher is a lot of fun. You start off with a gun that is basically a huge vacuum cleaner that works both ways. With it you gather up slime creatures of different colours and coral them together into pens on your farm. The more of them you get, the better your farm becomes, allowing you to upgrade parts of it, unlocking more slime types and creating combinations that will grant you access to new areas in the game world. Nothing is signposted, exactly, and everything you figure out, while scripted to a degree, makes you feel clever. If you enjoy things like Minecraft and want a delightful distraction, Slime Rancher is a winner.
Super Mario Maker 2 (Honourable mention)
This game is probably one of the most ingenious game design tools you will ever find. Playing around with the array of combinations at your disposal will delight anybody with even the most vague interest in gaming. Creating levels is as fun as laying them, and hunting down the most popular fan-made courses can lead you to some of the most exciting levels you’ll play in any game. I’ve omitted this one from the Top 100 purely because a different Mario game needed to take its place there, but this is a truly special game.
The Banner Saga (Honourable mention)
Another turn-based strategy game! The Banner Saga is a beautifully illustrated trilogy of games that tell a story of a journey. Branching narratives and complex characters are front and centre, but it is the grid-map tactical combat that holds the attention of the player here. I wanted to call this one out, mainly from a world-building angle. There are plenty of similar titles in the Top 100, so check back for which ones I think are even stronger.
ToeJam & Earl (Honourable mention)
The nostalgia factor is strong with this one. As two aliens who have crash-landed on Earth, you must navigate this pseudo-layered planet to gather up all the pieces to make your journey home. The humour is pretty much what made this one a hit, with weird takes on society from the wacky alien perspective of the game’s heroes. Weirdly oversized hamsters in a hamster balls? Sure. Most of this game’s gameplay is trying not to fall down the cracks in the floor to the level below, while searching around for hidden items. The sequels were very different and not worth your time, but the first one is a bit of fun, even to this day, if extremely early-90s from top to bottom.
Typing of the Dead (Honourable mention)
One of Sega’s enduring franchises is The House of the Dead, a light-gun game where you shoot zombies on the screen with a gun controller in your hand. It has been an arcade mainstay for a long, long time. The best game in the series, however, is this one! You must type the words over the heads of zombies as they approach, with each correct word resulting in a headshot that kills them. The concept sounds stupid, but trust me on this one. After you start getting a bit of pace behind you, this game ramps up in difficulty and you will find yourself in a flow state unlike any other, to ensure that you survive the endless assault of zombies with dictionaries for weakpoints. A timeless classic!
Unreal Tournament (Honourable mention)
Quite a few first-person shooters made the Top 100 and there wasn’t room for them all. Unreal Tournament is actually more special to me as a tool than a game. The Unreal Tournament 2003 editor and Unreal Engine 2.5 sparked some of my first game prototypes and custom level designs. The game itself was fun, with some amazing levels like the jump-pad levels, and low gravity sections, but this one holds a special place in my heart for enabling creativity and being one of the first places I began to understand how games work.
Valkyria Chronicles (Honourable mention)
Valkyria Chronicles has a unique combat system that relies both on tactic turn-based planning, but also accuracy and dexterity. On its surface, it looks like a typical JRPG, but is closer to XCOM than anything else. Driving tanks, planning ambushes, flanking enemy troops and all the maneuvers you can make in this game give it a depth of challenge. Don’t let its cutesy look throw you off. This is a hardcore strategy game.
Next time, we’ll take a look at the first games in the Top 100. Will your favourite game be in there?
Check out Numbers 100-91 here!