The brilliance of Kojima isn’t his meticulous attention to detail and pacing, but rather his ability to weave narrative. No other franchise would be praised for so many cut scenes but this is lauded in Metal Gear Solid 4. The first game that stood up and said ‘this is why you need to buy a PS3’.
9. God Of War (ps2)
The problem with playing a game like God of war is that you can never quite go back to other action games and be satisfied. This game set the bar (which incidentally is also one of the reasons why I still rate it higher than its sequel. Ambitious, with a rousing score – God of War remains to this day, as Sony’s most powerful IP.
8. Bioshock (xbox 360)
Morality in gaming is something that has always fascinated me (my day job is lecturing media ethics) and Bioshock (and more recently Call of Duty Modern warfare 2) deal with this in a way that makes you sit up and say, this isn’t a kids play thing anymore. Is it ok to sacrifice someone for personal gain? My top ten is filled with games that have ‘wow’ moments in them. Moments that make me smile and remind me why i love this hobby. With Bioshock it came in the second minute – when I resurfaced and witnessed the flames engulfing the aeroplane in High Definition.
7. Call of Duty Modern warfare 2 (xbox 360)
I know some people might be sceptical about this choice, especially since its so high up in my list, but I absolutely love this game. It took everything that was good in Modern Warfare and flung all types of awesomeness at it. Yeah, the single player is short, but I’d rather have six hours of intense action than an additional two hours of just running from A to B in the same locations. To make up for the length theres Special Ops mode which is difficult without being frustrating (most of the time at least) And I haven’t even touched on the multiplayer. Heres a little injoke – when we play my friends call me rapunzel because i sit in the tower with my long hair and sniper rifle
6. Ratchet and Clank 3 (ps2)
At any one time I juggle five or so games. At the moment its mostly Assassins Creed, Band Hero, CSI and GTA Lost and Damned. Because i’m always getting new titles I don’t have the time to finish most games. I finished this one three times! I absolutely adore this series and one of the hardest cuts I had to make was to leave out sunset riders and ratchet and Clank 2 from this list.
5. Metal gear Solid 3 (ps2)
Remember the whole moment in gaming thing that I seem to be going on about. In Metal Gear Solid 3 its when youre climbing up a tunnel and as you start nearing the top, the theme music kicks in (snake eater) Awesomeness personified! And in the end credits when Ocelot revealed he was Adam. Woah moment number 2.
4. Grand Theft Auto 4 (xbox 360)
I’m not a huge GTA fan. Yes, Vice City has one of my top five gaming moments in it (the first time you jump on a bike and Billie Jean starts up) and San Andreas was more ambitious than 99 percent of all games and had Samuel L Jackson, but GTA just isn’t my thing. Or at least it wasn’t until I started GTA 4 . Without a doubt the greatest game of this generation, GTA 4 fixes all the problems I had with the previous ones (lousy graphics, poor racing mechanics and horrible aiming) I would sit for hours and just watch television, listen to right wing radio stations, go John Allen Muhammed on civilians or just try to figure out what I couldn’t do. And there wasn’t much.
3. Super Mario 64 (N64)
My folks went on a pilgrimage just over a decade ago, and I remember my dad calling me one morning and asking me whether I still wanted that Nintendo console that he couldn’t seem to find in most stores or whether he should just get me a playstation instead. And I told him to keep looking (spoilt brat) A week later he called me again and said he found a store selling it but that the same store was offering him a playstation with thirty games for the same price of the Nintendo with five games. Its hard to explain quality over quantity over a long distance call, especially when the only thing my dad knew about video games was that it cut down his tv hours. They ended up getting me the Nintendo 64, and I was introduced to Mario 64. (I did end up getting a ps1 as well but I hardly used it) OK, so whats the point of this story? I don’t really know – all I do know is that Super Mario 64 is awesome.
2. Super Mario Brothers (Family Computer/Nes)
The granddaddy of all video games. I can pretty much guarantee that anyone who is reading this list can hum the Mario theme, thats the power and influence of this game. Not many of us know of the Great Video Game Crash of 1983, and if it hadn’t been for Nintendos super Mario Brothers, Videogames as we know it today would have not existed at all. Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Mario is largely considered to be the greatest Video Game creator in the world. I remember a few years ago when I bought my PSP. The first thing I did was run a Nes emulator on it so I could play Mario Brothers the entire day. You cant think videogames, without thinking Mario
1. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Nintendo 64)
Another Miyamoto classic, Legend of Zelda can be summed up in one word, magical. Its disappointing really, that Nintendo never introduced the N64 into South Africa and alot of people weren’t exposed to Metroid or Zelda or any other of the Big N’s strong IP’s. When I was compiling this list, I made alot of changes and some games moved up and some moved down... but Zelda was always number one.
MJ
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