Hello, fellow nerds. This is my Top 100 Video Games.
Previously, I listed some honourable mentions that just missed this list. If you haven’t checked that out, I’d suggest you start there. I give my reasons for compiling this list there, and hope to infuriate some of you by picking your favourite games for the almost-made-it pile. The Deus Ex mention has already sparked a few interesting messages…
There’s one stipulation regarding the list that I want to point out. Only one game from each series made the list. I didn’t want the whole list being comprised of the same games over and over again, so for example, only one Halo or Half-Life or Mario Kart etc. made it in. It makes for more variety and a better overall list. Whenever a series has a whole host of excellent title, I drop the names in there too where it feels right.
Also - there are some games from this last year or two that I have either not played or not played enough of yet to qualify, such as The Outer Wilds (the cool time-loop exploration game, not the Obsidian RPG) God of War, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Control and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. So they won’t be showing up here, sadly.
Another thing that should hopefully go without saying: I haven’t included any games that I myself have designed or worked on. Star Trek: Fleet Command and anything by Popcap is basically excluded as a result. Please go and play all of those :)
Enough rules. Let’s get to the best games...
100 - Overcooked
Overcooked is a party game for up to 4 players. Ideally you will want the full 4, and preferably with local play and lots of communication. The Nintendo Switch version is where I get most of my use out of this one. The premise is simple: you run a restaurant or kitchen, and you have orders to fulfill. Usually there is some absurd situation like that it’s on a tall ship traversing rough seas, or is on two trucks that are driving at different speeds. Things are chaotic, everything is moving, not least of all your characters, as you scramble to find the right ingredients, prepare them, cook them, mix them together, serve them, clean up and avoid the whole place going on fire at the same time.
Overcooked creates a flow state as you play, often providing a sense of telepathy between players as they do everything they can to cooperate and succeed before the timer reaches zero. Often players will naturally fall into roles, such as “plates guy” or “chopper” who ends up coordinating a section of the production line. As orders come in and get gradually more complex, it becomes a game of managing your character but also what you say to one another.
Often the best part of Overcooked is when something goes terribly wrong. Trying to juggle too many pots of soup at once, for example, might lead to a fire, a fire extinguisher mishap, or just absolute chaos. Sometimes you’ll laugh the most when that carefully prepared dish is placed straight into the garbage instead of onto the counter for the waiters to deliver. All of this is done through a control stick and two buttons, of which the context adjusts based on what you’re facing. This beautiful user experience decision is what took a potentially over-complicated game and simplified it to its base level and allows anyone (and I mean anyone) to participate in the gameplay.
Overcooked’s difficulty ramps up pretty high later on, but it’s never impossible. You may also find yourself shouting at your friends as much as you are shouting to them, but that’s all part of this little monster’s charms.
99 - Theme Park
This game is pretty old now, and you’d be forgiven for asking me why it took a spot on the list while newer games like Planet Coaster didn’t, and the answer is that Theme Park is actually still pretty fun to play, even now.
As the owner of the titular Theme Park, you get to create a land of joy and wonder for patrons to visit, or if you’re like most players, a horrific nightmare zone of endless walkways for people to get lost in, or a literal prison where people must get on the rollercoaster because the path to the exit no longer exists.
If you want to play Theme Park properly, there are things like food stalls, waste management, hiring staff and managing the bills to contend with, and that is a satisfying distraction for a while. Ultimately, Theme Park is pretty easy to manage and won’t challenge you if you’re a gamer who likes more complex strategy games. But if you’re creative, you can make something for yourself that is almost zen-like, but with the occasional vomit bucket clean up for your janitor staff to worry about later.
98 - Mini Metro
If you like puzzle games, this is one that you have to try. I originally found Mini Metro on PC, but have since downloaded the mobile version and I think the touch screen controls make it that bit better. It’s a total bargain on mobile, so pick it up for your commute or lunch break right now if you’ve not done that already.
The minimalist look to this fairly abstracted game makes it seem simple, but this game is amazingly deep for what it shows you at first glance. Your task is to draw coloured lines between different shapes. These shapes are train stations, and the lines are your tracks. Passengers will spawn at stations, matching the shape of other stations, which is where they want to go.
More and more stations (and with them passengers) will appear, and some tracks will require tunnels or multiple carriages to make the demands on your network feasible to meet. Like all good puzzlers before it, Mini-Metro earns its stripes by starting you off lightly, almost to the point of luring you into a false sense of security, before speeding up and multiplying at a rate that challenges you that bit more with each passing minute.
The game comes with multiple cities to tackle, all of which are a slight variation on the previous one, but you will likely find one that is your favourite and stick with it, score attack style, edging your best efforts over and over again.
97 - Skies of Arcadia
This Dreamcast JRPG follows the adventures of Vyse, a pirate of the skies on a flying galleon. The story is set in a bunch of flying continents among the clouds as the Blue Rogues deal with a catastrophe in the making.
The most exciting aspect of Skies of Arcadia was its combat system, while was based on characters controlling the ships as they fly through the sky. You can move in relation to enemy ships, fire cannons and other weapons and do special moves, all planned ahead of each round with a kind of grid of actions you can choose from. The tactical elements of combat in the game could get pretty advanced and battles ranged from very short to pretty involved.
The bright and cheerful nature of the game’s visuals and dialogue was a breath of fresh air when the game was released in 2000. It stood out amongst a growing trend of games that were grey and brown as their primary colour pallette. Today, looking back on Skies of Arcadia, it holds up extremely well, largely due to the intricacies of the gameplay that haven’t really been duplicated since. I suspect that in the entire Top 100 list, this is one of the entries that many of you will never have heard of. That’s likely due to its life on the Dreamcast (and later Gamecube) rather than more popular systems of the time, and that’s a shame. This game is a hidden gem that I hope the gamers amongst you will try out one day.
96 - Ico
Ico was the first game from Sony with Fumito Ueda as the lead designer and would go on to create a bit of a legacy of its own with the spiritual follow ups (of which we’ll revisit one in particular much later in this list.) The game is sort-of a 3D platformer, but with the added layer of having to safely traverse the levels while also assisting Yorda, a character who is massively underprepared for even the most basic of physical activity.
Ico himself is pretty dexterous and can jump around and get from place to place with ease. Having to manipulate the surroundings to make access easier for Yorda, while simultaneously avoiding the creepy shadow monsters that are trying to capture her, is where the tension comes in. Very few puzzles are overly complex, giving Ico a very relaxed feeling for most of the journey.
My favourite thing about Ico is the visual aesthetics. The game world itself is beautifully designed by a fantastic team of artists, and accompanied by wonderful soundscapes and music along the way. It’s a great experience and one that can by played in a slightly remastered form on PS3 to give added fidelity to the whole game.
95 - Earthworm Jim
You won’t find that many games from the 16-Bit era in this Top 100 list, but one that couldn’t be left out is the hilarious Earthworm Jim. The humour in this game is what gives it its spot here. The ridiculous main character and his sidekick, Peter Puppy, are only the icing on the cake of bizarre characters and situations stuffed onto these cartridges.
Psy-crow, Queen Slug-for-a-Butt and Bob The Killer Goldfishspring immediately to mind as memorable characters. There’s also a level where Jim is transformed into a salamander and must complete a TV gameshow to progress to the next level…
The game is a pretty straightforward 2D platformer, with decent shooting and swinging mechanisms, and definitely owes its place here based on nostalgia and humour more so than anything else. I also highly recommend the 90s kids animated series if you can find it. It’s completely ridiculous. If you’re feeling silly, find this one on an emulator and give it a play.
94 - Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts
I think I might be the only person in the world who actually loves this game. I was never really a fan of the original Banjo platform games, but this Xbox 360 sequel is so different and fiendishly clever that it was hard not to get excited about it. It does have a bit of a corny sense of humour, but if you look past that to the gameplay, you’ll find a great game underneath.
This is a puzzle/racing game, which itself feels like an oxymoron. Each race or event you need to complete must be done with a specially customised vehicle of your own design, and that is where the genius element of this game comes from. You unlock pieces of vehicles as you play, piece by piece, and slowly gather an arsenal of chassis pieces, wheels, propellers, weapons and all other kinds of gadgets that allows you to MacGyver together the crazy car / boat / plane / frankenstein-vehicle of your dreams.
Levels often involve chasing someone, collecting items, beating the clock or escorting allies and the threats become so varied and creative that you’ll find yourself making all kinds of crazy contraptions to get through otherwise impossible situations. I have a fond memory of creating a car that was basically a giant cage on wheels that I could drive over allies as they walked along, protecting them from all incoming attacks. Another great one was the realisation that if you put a propeller on the roof of something it acted a bit like a helicopter, opening up all kinds of possibilities.
The fact that this game never really took off is a shame and I hope that its availability on Xbox One right now will encourage some of you to give it a try.
93 - Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
I think I played this game nonstop for about 3 months when it first came out. I was never particularly interested in skateboarding itself as a kid, but this game was huge in the 90s and it was impossible not to have played it if you had a PS1.
THPS2 was all about combo chaining. Getting high scores. Maximising every inch of the skatepark to improve on your previous best. That classic arcade feel to the game meant that there wasn’t a huge amount of depth there. Other than finding hidden items in each level, or discover small hidden areas with a new ramp, the only thing to do was play again for more points or to try to do the craziest stunt possible. Grinding rails was risky, and riding on only two wheels between rails and ramps was key to chaining your scores with multipliers.
Something about launching your character down a huge ramp and flying into the air on the other side was captivating each and every time you did it. There really was nothing like this game at the time. Reviews were also stellar for THPS2. I think it’s still one of the highest scoring video games ever on aggregate sites like Metacritic, and with good reason. I haven’t played any of the games since, but I have fond memories of this, to the point of digging it out every other Christmas to take a kickflip down memory lane.
92 - Towerfall Ascension
Towerfall Ascension is a local multiplayer deathmatch game. There are other modes, but they’re of no interest to me. The only way to experience this one is to get 4 friends in front of a big screen with a controller in hand and go for the kill.
Towerfall looks like a retro game, but was released in 2013 by MattMakesGames, who later went on to make Celeste (spoilers: you won’t find Celeste on this list.) The beauty of Towerfall is in its simplicity. You have a bow and arrow, as do your opponents, and you must shoot everyone else to win. Last person standing. Repeat.
The level design is tight and provides opportunity for trick shots and taking cover, with wrapping exits/entrances adding layers to the possibilities. Upgraded arrow types and power ups mix the gameplay a little, but the pure reflex action gameplay is an adrenaline hit every time even when you’re just firing the standard projectiles. One of the best local-play games out there.
91 - The Walking Dead
Telltale Games released The Walking Dead at the absolute perfect time. The comic books were among the best-selling in the world, the TV series was just starting out and it had been years and years since there was a truly excellent point-and-click adventure game released anywhere. This game was fresh on the scene with a cool theme, based on a hit IP and playable of just about every format around.
The Walking Dead’s plot was basically the entire game. Gameplay was walking about waiting for events to happen, such as a zombie breaking through a door and chasing you, and dealing with it. On the surface, it’s a very simple game and owes a lot to the old LucasArts games of the 80s and 90s. Where Telltale innovated was in the narrative itself, the choices they forced you to make and how they made so many of those choices feel like they mattered like a life and death situation. In reality, a lot of the choices only impacted the story in a minor way, but the experience of going along that journey was captivating and every step felt like a leap into the unknown.
Of course, Telltale made such a hit with this game that they went on to clone it dozens of times over with other stories, and not once did they match the impact of The Walking Dead. The moment that stands out most to me involves choosing to use a breezeblock. Anyone who played the game will know what I’m referring to. It’s a grim setting and it had a great ending. It was something that was not afraid to make you agonise over a decision, and then proudly displayed your main choices at the end of each chapter, comparing them to the rest of the game audience who played through before you.
If you haven’t played this, or any other Telltale games, it’s absolutely worth picking it up, even on your phone these days, and playing through for the narrative experience.
That’s the first 10 games down. Come back next time for some more amazing titles. We’ll collect some bananas, plant bombs, and call on some squad cars.
Until then, see ya later.