I have decided to make a list of my favorite 20 games of all time. This will be a 4 part posting, with one coming out each day, so stay tuned for volume 2 coming out tomorrow. Every post will hold 5 games that i find being the best through the test of time and i would also like to mention that as everyone should understand, what games you like is highly personal and of course some of you will disagree with the list, which is fine, all i ask is being civilized about it in the comments. And also, these games are not sorted after a order in which number 20 is worse than number 1, there is no such ranking, this list only compiles 20 of the best games of all time with each and every one of them being awesome in their own special way.
Metroid Prime
February 2000, a happy Shigery Miyamoto visits the newly founded Retro Studios Texas-quarters and gets to see a prototype for an upcoming, not yet named first person action game. He loves what he sees and at the same time begins to spew brilliant ideas of how the technology can be used to build a new Metroid-game. The rest is, as we say, history. Retro joined efforts with Nintendo's biggest inhouse-studio EAD to in 23 months create one of the gaming giants best titles ever and the adventure that would even top the genius Super Metroid. I love Prime just because it takes everything that made Super Metroid so damn good and makes it look even better in 3 dimensions.
Diablo II
Diablo was very well-received when it was released in 1996. The premise was simple; choose between a range of characters and classes and kill every foe you see, learn new spells and pick up valuable loot along the way. With Diablo II the concept was refined even further to become a true future classic. The variation in environments was bigger, there were more choices in classes and multiplayer had gotten a much bigger focus. The game was bigger and deeper, but still as accessible and irresistible as the first one had been. The loot-system where enemies would randomly leave weapons, time-constrained abilities, gold or health made every new battle exciting. The rewards were constant and felt rewarding in a way that very few games succeed with. Diablo II had an great atmosphere, was unforgiving in it's gameplay and highly addictive. I think this is the best game in it's genre, even all these many years after it was released.
Red Dead Redemption
That the spaghetti-western hype died in the 70's was not something that troubled Rockstar one bit, they decided to revitalize the genre and when we finally got to meet the silent, brave and gritty cowboy John Marson - everybody understood that they had succeeded in their task with pride. In front of us we had the biggest adventure Rockstar had conceived that in many ways had more in common with classical RPG games than Grand Theft Auto, and around every corner we find animals to hunt, bandits to catch, damsels in distresses to assist and crazy personalities to get to know. It's hard, if not impossible, to mention everything i loved with Red Dead Redemption. Perhaps it was the long rides in the empty landscape of Armadillo, or to lurk into the local tavern and catch some of the wonderful soundtrack and atmosphere. And when not chilling in the tavern or hunting animals we would meet individuals like the disgusting, but kind, corpse-collector Seth Briars, we get to storm a Mexican fortress and we get to herd cows during horrible storms. The truth is that Red Dead Redemption has an abundance of memorable sequences, and in the end this is an masterpiece few titles can compete with.
Bioshock
Bioshock was one very special and unique game. Not just because the story was amazingly well written, the game mechanics were brilliant or because of it's jaw-dropping graphics. No, what made Bioshock to one of the really special titles was that every part fitted, like small pieces of an jigsaw puzzle, just perfect. There were no moments that felt like they were "to much", everything we experienced was tightly knitted together and actually mattered in the game world. Then one can of course not forget Rapture, one of the best designed game-worlds of all time, even to this date. An enchanting underwater city in art deco-environment consisting of a myriad of broken halls and genetically mutated freaks, and it's all of these details that made our stay in Rapture an unforgettable one. I remembered the cold atmosphere. I remember all the scary Big Daddys. And i remember the chocking twist in the story. I certainly remember Bioshock as one of the greatest titles of all time.
Super Mario 64
Many where worried, would the game be able to handle the expectations from the absolute fantastical predecessor to enter a complete polygon-filled dimension? Every doubt would be blown completely away the second we got control over the world most famous plumber and got to run around in princesses Peach's castle, with controls tighter than anything. With it's precise control and mind-blowing level-design one can easy see why Super Mario 64 became the frame for how a 3D adventure-platformer should look like. The feeling when we got to put our first square polygon-feet's into the Bob-Omb Battlefield was nothing short of amazing, and the music that would play into our ears would just burst of gaming joy. Everyone quickly realized that this was a classic forever to be embedded firmly into our hearts.
Stay tuned for volume 2,3 and 4 coming in the next days. Are there any games that you think MUST be added to the 20 games of all times list? Comment below your favorite game of all time guys!
