User:Nick R/Videogames

Favourite videogames
Games which had a big impact on me when I first played them, most of which I still love and play fairly regularly. Beyond the first few, they're in no real order.


 * GoldenEye:The Best Game Ever. Read my review of it here.


 * Perfect Dark: Far more options than GoldenEye, but an inferior framerate and single-player mode, and for that reason it's not quite as good. Second best ain't bad, though!


 * Sonic Jam/Sonic Mega Collection: Four of the fastest and greatest platform games of all time. Brilliant fun to time attack, or just replay enjoying the brilliant music and glorious aesthetics... before the series went some way off the rails (while remaining more on the rails than ever in gameplay terms, haha). (I have to mention the at times quite superb Sonic the Comic here too.)


 * Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater: I missed the PS1, so when I got a PS2 MGS1 was among the first games I got. It was mostly very good, but I was extremely disappointed by the amount of backtracking, and the fact that due to being played on a PS2 it froze on the end credits. I thought Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance was better, mostly thanks to the sandbox-gameplay-ness of messing around holding up guards, but it did have its problems. But the third one! Sneaking through an entire area of guards, interrogating every single one of them, without being spotted or killing any of them, is tremendously satisfying. The boss battles are wonderful, particularly the wonderfully atmospheric, fairly amusing (and if I admit it, quite scary) encounter with The Sorrow. And that ending! Thankfully free of the momentum-killing revelatory codec conversation that spoilt MGS2's climax, it's just one tremendously exciting climax after another - which ends in a way that only a videogame could. I love it.


 * Amplitude - Isn't it amazing how music games can make you love tunes you'd never even think of listening to otherwise?


 * NiGHTS Into Dreams


 * Half-Life: "Sir, I hear something!" *Vent gets riddled with bullets*


 * Half-Life: Opposing Force


 * Soul Calibur: The first 3D beat 'em up I played that convinced me that they could be just as good as Street Fighter 2 was in 2D. These days I prefer Soul Calibur 2, despite its miniscule art gallery and lack of Hwang, thanks to its abundance of gameplay modes, but Soul Calibur was the one that had the impact.


 * Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2:Before the series got too "edgy" (read: gimmicky) for its own good.


 * Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3:Well, this one's alright too...


 * Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time


 * Super Mario 64


 * Sega Rally


 * Burnout 2: Point of Impact


 * F-Zero X


 * The Story of Thor (aka Beyond Oasis)


 * TimeSplitters: Future Perfect


 * Rez


 * The Specialists


 * Earthworm Jim and its first sequel.:The Mega Drive version of EWJ2 is superior to the Sega Saturn version thanks to better timing of the gags, and funnier end credits.


 * The Secret of Monkey Island


 * Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge


 * Broken Sword


 * Burning Rangers


 * Marvel versus Capcom 2


 * Sonic Adventure 2


 * StarFlight


 * Grim Fandango


 * Eternal Champions


 * Metropolis Street Racer


 * Ferrari F355 Challenge

Unfortunately, I've never played Halo (well, not extensively) or Halo 2 (unthinkable, isn't it?), Half-Life 2, Sam & Max Hit the Road, F-Zero GX, Frequency, Guitar Hero, Street Fighter III: Third Strike, Starship Titanic, Project Gotham Racing 1, 2 or 3, Super Mario World, Yoshi's Island, Vectorman or Rocket Knight Adventures. But I'm sure that if I did, at least some of them would easily make the above list.