Top 40 Most Memorable Games #35

Lima's Top 40 Most Memorable Games!
this week, RATCHET & CLANK FUTURE: TOOLS OF DESTRUCTION

I've been told I'm more funny when I'm angry. Sadly, I just can't find anything to rant about this week. Tools of Destruction was a solid game. My roommate (TheNightgaunt) rented it and it had been a while since I'd had the time/interest to get into a game. The previous Ratchet and Clank titles had been decent if not highly remarkable. I've always had a soft spot for platform games and at the time I'd experienced enough bargain bin action/adventure to make me crave something with a joke or two. (A LITTLE sense of humor, I don't ask for much! Even the new Devil May Cry had dick jokes!) Two months later, I had finished the game twice and finally let my poor roommate exchange it for another game.

Playing Tools of Destruction was like stepping out into summer rain. How long had it been since I played a game that was FUN. You know fun, that thing you forget about when you're fighting slimes over and over again for the XP or randomly named currency? I forgot the beauty of mindlessly wailing on things with a pleasant variety of weapons. And yes, that's what Grand Theft Auto is, but there was always a bit of guilt there for me. Call me sensitive (I still beat the money out of hookers like anyone else) but there was always that edge of sarcasm (and frustrating chase missions) to remind me that my character and the city he lived in were mean and corrupt. Cynicism can be a great source of humor, but it's really just the shinier side of a depressed coin. Besides, I can't beat the chase scenes

Ratchet an Clank are saving worlds from a tiny dictator whose head is too small for his hat. There's no guilt in beating up monsterous patsies or robot pirates. (They hit me first!) And If you you don't want to kill them, you can make them dance. Or turn them into penguins. or turn them into DANCING PENGUINS!!!

I could go on and on about the great gameplay and replay value, Pirate costume, beautifully titled skill points (Saucy Wrench = Destroy all 4 campfire Cauldrons with the wrench.), and blatant ripping off the Pirates of the Caribbean's theme song....But I think I made my point with the dancing penguins. dancing penguins! How AWESOME is that?

This game kicks ass.

Top 40 Most Memorable Games #36

Again! Again!

Lima's Top 40 Most Memorable Games!
this week, AREA 51!
Would you believe that this is the only light-gun game that I've ever played? My dad bought Area 51 for the playstation one thinking it'd have zombies in it (a bit of a family obsession) and got two playstation guns so we could play co-operatively.Not to be confused with the playstation 2 Area 51, this game is a straight copy of the arcade game. Hence,10-15 minutes of gameplay from start to finish, three lines of dialog ("we need evac! we need evac!") AWFUL GRAPHICS, and the ability to shoot shoot good guys at the cost of a health point per kill. Needless to say, my family fought over the privilege.

I love this game like you love and old stuffed animal. the kind that has aged so that all the fur has worn off and the eyes are scratched and vacant in an undead sort of way. Your mother consistently tried to trick you into letting her throw it out and now that you're 20, it lives in the closet, covered in dust. sad, lonely, and possibly plotting your doom.

But when you notice it every once in a while, digging through the closet for a missing shoe, there's that old warmth that brings back the locations of each hidden hand grenade, and the whack-a-mole pleasure of shooting aliens in pipes. Ah, sweet childhood.

Top 40 Most Memorable Games #37

Most late post ever! It's official, I'm doing the lame thing and combining this week and last week's post. Game 36 will follow. Between Halloween and midterms (you can guess which one took up more time) and blah blah blah...

Lima's Top 40 Most Memorable Games!
this week, SUPER MONKEY BALL : BANANA BLITZ

Ah, monkeys in bubbles. Good times. I'm gonna be honest here and let everyone know that as of yet, I've only played Super Monkey Ball for the Wii once. After an anniversary dinner with Rich. The game was my idea of a romantic present. He loved it.

I lost maybe 9 out of every 10 mini games and the bulk of them varied from retardedly difficult to Simon Says. I had a lot of trouble getting the fishing net/catapult/explosive banana to move where I wanted it to; my controller's batteries might have been running low. Luckily in this case, annoyance made the heart grow fonder. Again and again We threw horse shoes, missing to the whimpers of disheartened primates. Rock Paper Scissors proved to be hideously complicated, but fun.

All in all, the game was an energetic end to a marvelous evening. Long term, I have no doubt it would drive me up the wall. But with a belly full of peking duck, and the giddiness of day and company it came with, we could have been playing Madden and I'd still remember it for years.

Top 40 Most Memorable Games #37

I know, I suck.

Lima's Top 40 Most Memorable Games!
this week, YOSHI TOUCH & GO!

Yoshi Touch & Go is a game for the Nintendo DS, a system I don't own. In other words, at some point Rich was watching The Sport and this game was nearby. It's pretty basic. Yoshi is constantly moving across the screen carrying baby Mario or baby Luigi (I guess the adult versions would have been too heavy) and your job is use the stylus to draw bridges and kill enemies by way of bubble. Also, if you want Yoshi to help out with his...egg laying *shudder* you can feed him the occasional piece of fruit. If you do all of this successfully, Yoshi changes color and you you do it again. Faster.

This game is AWESOME.

Honestly, I have no idea why I loved this game so much, but I did. It's essentially an arcade game. No plot, no progression. Just the same premise, steadily increasing until you die and start over.

I don't like dying. And I don't like arcade games. I have no idea why someone would play Pac Man more than twice. But I lost sleep over this game. Had to burn it out of my system like a fever by borrowing Rich's DS and playing at every spare moment for a week until the itch subsided. Some one on the Touch & Go Team either knows voodoo or sold their soul because I have no other explanation for this game's near narcotic addictiveness. Between the voodoo and the pederas-tastic title, this game gives me the creeps.

Top 40 Most Memorable Games #38

Gah, late again! *flogs self* Best not waste anymore time...

Lima's Top 40 Most Memorable Games!
this week, PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME
Prince of Persia for Playstation 2 wasn't half-bad. I bought it used as a bonding experience with a gamergirl friend (with whom I've played at least half the games on this list). Lots of climbing, jumping and mirror arranging. Playing around with time was fun even if it's not an entirely new concept. But what stood out the most for me was the Prince's female cohort, Farrah.
Female characters in games are a bit of a fixation for me (aforementioned friend's influence) and there simply aren't a lot of good ones out there. I liked Farrah. She was armed, she never got kidnapped, and would occasionally strike out on her own simply because she thought the Prince was going the wrong way. Sure she falls in love with the Prince but he spends most of the game without wearing a shirt. These things happen.

But alas, This would not be a proper post if I simply liked Prince of Persia. What place does a "pretty good' game have here? None. Therefore, I will reveal the hidden quirk. Farrah is HOPELESS in battle. There is a particular segment that those who have played the game will undoubtedly remember where you must battle a swarm of monsters on a bridge...with Farrah and her trusty bow right beside you. If she dies, It's Game Over. And trust me, she'll die. Again and Again and Again. This helpless bint will stay in one place (instead of backing away from the melee like a smart archer should) and will only shoot enemies a fair distance away from her (not that she does any visible damage). The monsters have no such qualm, and will often ignore you to take out the hot one in a few swipes. I struggled (and watched my friend struggle) through this bit at least 50 times. And I grew to hate spunky little Farrah. Hate her not because of her ineptitude, but because of all the banter and pleasant qualities that made me love her beforehand.

It is this love, and it's bitter decent into hatred that brings Prince of Persia: Sands of Time to the prized 38th spot on Lima's Top 40 Most Memorable Games.

Fuck you Farrah.

Top 40 Most Memorable Games #39

-Hey, aren't you supposed to post on Thursdays? Lima's timeliness is almost as bad as her taste in games!
-...Yes. And this week will be no exception.

Lima's Top 40 Most Memorable Games!
this week, ONIMUSHA: WARLORDS


The first Onimusha. The sequels had better graphics, but I never played them after the first game for PS2. If I didn't know any better, I'd be shocked that this game made it onto my list. It was the opposite of memorable. Onimusha is one of my favorite examples of a cookie cutter game.

I have a little soft spot for Capcom, mostly because of the Resident Evil series which has made notable appearances in my life since childhood. (More will be said about this in later posts). But Capcom for all its history and camp has never been known for its originality. Onimusha is essentially Devil May Cry (also a Capcom series) in samurai armor.Both games are a series of battles with enemies that warp into the room and can be destroyed by hitting X repeatedly, intermingled with puzzles along the lines of Destroy enough enemies to make the magic barrier in front of the door go away! or The statue is missing a gem! Kill things until one of them drops the gem! The fighting styles are nearly identical.

Maybe the memorable part was the helpless/useless Princess Yuki that you have to save from the demons that have kidnapped her. That's original, right? Or what about Kaede? An attempt at a female character that can kick ass except she DOESN"T. Could that be unique? Or perhaps it's the main character Quiet Inner Turmoil that is never explained in the storyline (because it's an excuse the write less dialog) I'm not even going to link this one, there are just too many examples.

No, This game sticks in my memory for one reason and one reason only. If you collect enough fluorites (a.k.a the shiny things I couldn't find a picture of) you get to play the game in a panda suit. Yeah. That's it.



Heh.

Top 40 Most Memorable Games #40!

(Some may have noticed this in the comments on yesterday's post, but Rich has asked me to post it like a normal contributer and stop being all secretive (not to mention that it will be a lot easier to read without the thin comment margins.)
Well, here goes nothing...

Lima's Top 40 Most Memorable Games! (Yes, 40 so that it ends conveniently at the same week as Table Salt's Top 52 Games.)

Now let's be clear, this list is completely personal, very biased, and occasionally refers to games that I never even finished. The point is that I remember them, and will always remember them- possibly because they were outrageously awful. For better or worse, here's No. 40.

FABLE


Yeah, Fable. Overrated and old news. Not that I knew any of this when the game provoked me to purchase a used Xbox despite my hatred for microsoft gaming systems.It must have been the game's evil siren song. You can make your character good or evil. You decide where the story will go! maybe that's because there was no story to begin with. None the less, it is still the only game for the system that I ever played to completion. That in itself is enough to make that game stick in my mind.

Stealing was fun. Fishing was boring. Slaughtering towns so I could buy out the houses and then collect rent on them from the next generation of villagers was worth the price of the game ($30 used). It was not worth the price of the xbox. And the fighting mechanics sucked. Damn you Fable! Damn you to Bill Gates' Special kind of Hell. But notice You only made it to the bottom of my list.

See you next week,
The Girlfriend