BoB's Top 100 Games

[Jessweeee♪]

My favorite thing in all of Mass Effect is Charge because with the high risk/high reward playstyle you get to Leeroy Jenkins everything. My favorite moment was when I did multiplayer for the first time, as a vanguard because that's what I was comfortable with, and the minute I connected to a lobby the first thing I hear is "OH smurf YOU!" Then I charge into a banshee and it killed me and the guy was like YOU DUMBASS YOU CHARGED INTO A BANSHEE. And then in Mass Effect 3 at the end you have that moment where you're mobbed by several Brutes and Banshees at once and you're just Nova-Charging from one place to another like a pinball machine trying to kill these things in melee range while avoiding their one hit kill attacks.

[Loony BoB]

You said we would put aside the ending, BoB, and I can understand that for the overview purpose. But I am curious. Had its ending been as satisfactory as the rest of the game, would the game's position on your list have changed?

Possibly, but not by a huge amount. If I could have a Krogan in my party from start to finish, it'd probably have had a bigger impact. An ending can have a large impact on how someone views a game. Still, two other games with endings that disappointed me (one more so, one less so than this game) are higher on the list, so it's not the be-all and end-all. I just don't feel ME3 had an amazing enough moment to lift it above the games I've put higher on the list, although I do wonder if that's because I kind of expected such moments to exist in the game because of the first two.

40. Flower
PS3, 2009

This game was so very simple. It was a gimmick game - a game that used the six-axis and showed off what it could do when used well. And it's the only game I can recall that used the six-axis well. It was weird watching myself put this so high up the list but no matter how I tried, I couldn't bring myself to drop it down because I just enjoyed it so much, felt it such a beautiful game and still love going back to it every now and then.

I hate watching other people play games, but this was one I, to my surprise, found myself watching Danielle play through to completion before I'd done so. It was that mesmerising that even as someone who wasn't the player, I could simply find myself sucked into watching those petals flow around on that wind forever and ever.

I loved the sunny levels the best, I must say - I wasn't a huge fan of the levels that moved into civilization by comparison. However, they were still worth playing and worth watching. I mean, even the credits were fun. I should really 100% this game sometime... I don't think I'm quite close to that yet. xD

[Pete for President]

Hurray for Flower! It may very well be the best flight game ever created, because it captures the feeling of flying freely like no other.

[Quindiana Jones]

I tried to play ME3 but found it unplayably awful.

I remember you giggling with glee at being an engineer and having a turret in the multiplayer demo. Don't even give me that!

Point given. The multiplayer was and is excellent fun.

[Scotty_ffgamer]

I've played through (and watched people play through) Flower so many times in the last couple of years. It's such a soothing game that my roommates and I would bust it out on particularly stressful days.

As a side note, the PS4 version supposedly controls even better than the PS3 version. I'm pretty sure it's free to download if you already own the PS3 version too.

[Hollycat]

I've played through (and watched people play through) Flower so many times in the last couple of years. It's such a soothing game that my roommates and I would bust it out on particularly stressful days.

As a side note, the PS4 version supposedly controls even better than the PS3 version. I'm pretty sure it's free to download if you already own the PS3 version too.

It is, and so is the Vita version. It controls a little better, but it's not too noticeable. However, the PS4 version looks amazing, except for the rock textures.

[Loony BoB]

39. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Conviction
PS3, 2010

Time for another one of those sort-of-AAA games that never really get much attention and nobody talks about when referring to top 100 games lists! Screw you buggers, this game was awesome. I found out about it when I was searching for good co-op games and heard that it had a really enjoyable, solid co-op campaign. Danielle and I love ourselves some good split-screen action, so I grabbed it. I think I got Resistance 3 at the same time, and we've barely played Resistance 3 enough for me to warrant an opinion on it. This game took up all our time.

The co-op just worked very well for us, it wasn't too tricky but not too easy either, we could certainly find ourselves dying a number of times but the general gameplay was good enough for us to really enjoy ourselves regardless of the difficulty. This is all we need for co-op: Great fun. This was definitely great fun.

What was a pleasant surprise was that the solo campaign was also great fun. It's been so bloody long since I've played a Splinter Cell game and this made me want to buy all the others. I loved the simple things such as getting rewarded for making good use of my surroundings when interrogating the enemy (urinalface ftw) and the gadgets in this game are just all kinds of fun to mess about with. I think it was all rather easy, if I recall correctly. I could have probably gone for a higher difficulty and done it all again, but I'm not bothered. Just great fun using all the gizmos. And damn that guy has a cool voice.

I'm looking forward to the games from this point onwards as they are amongst the ones I had to consider much more seriously. The next game had actually been in the top 20 for a while as I made this list.

[Hollycat]

I'm glad you are updating this more regularly now.

[Aulayna]

I'm glad you are updating this more regularly now.

More opportunities to express your J-hipster disapproval?

Oh wait that's NeoCracker, sorry, keep getting you two mixed up xD

[Hollycat]

I'm glad you are updating this more regularly now.

More opportunities to express your J-hipster disapproval?

Oh wait that's NeoCracker, sorry, keep getting you two mixed up xD

I don't even know what a J-Hipster is.

[Bolivar]

Conviction was indeed a great game. The co-op missions were insanely fun and I like how long they were, giving you lots of opportunities to retry each individual section in a different manner. I wish Metal Gear would implement this kind of experience; Peace Walker's great, but I want to see what big production value AAA console experience Kojima could whip up.

I'm glad you are updating this more regularly now.

More opportunities to express your J-hipster disapproval?

Oh wait that's NeoCracker, sorry, keep getting you two mixed up xD

I don't even know what a J-Hipster is.

Obviously a gaming hipster with a penchant for Japanese games, which I would wear like a badge of honor, HC!!!

[NeoCracker]

I'm glad you are updating this more regularly now.

More opportunities to express your J-hipster disapproval?

Oh wait that's NeoCracker, sorry, keep getting you two mixed up xD

I'm far more bothered by you mixing me up with Hypo then being called a J-hipster.

[Ayen]

Thanks, BoB. I've been trying forever to remember the name of the game with the guy who has the green goggles on his head. It's been bugging me for a while.

[Loony BoB]

38. Excelsior Phase One: Lysandia
PC, 1993

A DOSBox game these days, Excelsior is all kinds of great. It has a lot of the things you would want out of a modern WRPG and for some reason even as I opened it up just to get a screenshot of a duck, I found myself playing the game for a good ten minutes before I remembered I'm supposed to be updating this thread! It's highly addictive in a "one more turn" kind of way, although in this game it's "one more kill" and "just a little more gold..." or perhaps "I just need to get to the next town, but ...oh, let's just explore randomly for a while."

All you see while exploring are the same old trees and mountains and grass and roads, the occasional marsh... but with no in-game map (and it's very tricky to uncover a complete map online given how rare the game is, although I did find one eventually), it's not very obvious just how large the world is nor is it clear whether you're quite heading in the right direction after you get a bit sidetracked going around a dense forest. I mean, it's like you're actually in a new world discovering everything rather than having it hand-fed to you. You can walk for a while and then at some point just sit back and go "Right, I'm definitely lost. I'm running low on food. This is not cool. I need to find a town while dodging enemies, and I need to do it very quickly." Survival is key in this game, particularly in the early stages before you really start hauling in the cash.

The story isn't too shabby, and the puzzle dungeons - while much easier now that I'm older and wiser to such things than I was when I first played this game - are still enough to leave you going back and saying "Right, what did I do wrong there...?" All in all this game has entertained me for about fifteen years now, despite how simple it initially appears. The numerous skills you can unlock and the character creation, it sort of feels like you're playing an Elder Scrolls game at times. In the end, though, it's the lack of the features that we are gifted in modern games that makes this a true gem, and a game that even after playing it for this long I can still get lost in, both immersion-wise and, er, rather literally!

[Skyblade]

Excelsior is a really fun game. The "Phase One" had me confused though. I never realized that there was a Phase Two. Have you played it? If so, how is it in comparison?

Also, since ToriJ's list is now up, I realize that things might get crowded. So I just want to go ahead and call dibs on the next Top Titles thread, once BoB is finished.