Best Game Ever

For some games reviews are meaningless. The right combination of charms and nostalgia can make the shittiest games look brilliant in retrospect. This column exists to honor games that we adore, whether they deserve it or not. Some will undoubtedly be great games but many will also be mediocre. Lists of best games usually focus on universal qualities of titles, but this column will focus on subjectivity and nostalgia. In other words, this is the videolamer list of best games ever that may in fact suck.

Best Game Ever – Master of Magic

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Back when Microprose was still making games, they came out with a bunch of ideas for similarly themed titles spanning multiple universes. Although Master of Orion, Civilization, and X-Com were all well and good (that is to say, well, very good), my favorite was always Master of Magic. Master of Magic took the best parts of Civilization and being a wizard and put them together.

You play a wizard starting with control of one city, and your goal is simply the annihilation of all other wizards. You pick a difficulty, pick which spell types and special enhancements you want, and go. A randomly generated map is created, and you get to start playing.

Red Creek. What a depressing name for a hamlet.

The elements of Civilization come into play with city management. →  Ring of Read

Best Game Ever – Pinball Quest

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Genre blending is a splendid little thing. Diddy Kong Racing, one of Rare’s greatest Nintendo 64 games, is a wonderful mix of racing and adventure. Mario & Luigi Super Star Saga is a clever RPG with platforming elements thrown in. Games that stick adamantly to a certain form run the risk of getting stale, and introducing elements from other genres is a great way to keep things fresh.

I don’t get it.

Video game pinball is no stranger to this phenomenon. I remember the high hopes I had for Odama when I first heard about it sometime a few years ago. A pinball-based tactical wargame? That sort of thing just sells itself. Mario Pinball Land, similarly, had you explore typically Mario-esque worlds with a peculiar ball-shaped Mario. Interesting concepts, and rarely seen, too. →  I regret learning to read.

Best Game Ever – Master of Orion 2: The Battle at Antares

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Master of Orion 2: The Battle at Antares was probably the defining game in the 4X genre (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate); it set the standard for a decade of games. Featuring a robust tech tree, intricate ship design, active ship combat, a big, goodie filled universe, and intense colony management, MOO2 had it all. Despite being well over a decade old, the game still has a level of depth that has been unmatched by its successors. Additionally, even though Microprose is long out of business (gobbled up by whomever), the game’s support has been taken over by fans (Lord Brazen, for those interested), who have kept the game playable on KALI and have steadily eradicated the last remaining bugs in the game. As exciting as it is to have a game so old with such a following, it also depresses me that the industry has yet to produce a worthy sequel. →  The gamers have only interpreted the games, in various ways. The point, however, is to change them.

Best Game Ever – Cave Story

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When I was considerably younger, I had no disposable income but way too much free time. So I did what any sensible young gamer would do: I looked for free games on the internet. Back then, pickings were pretty slim, and the only downloadable games worth playing were severely limited shareware. Most of those, if they were any good at all, were not worth the registration price.

A dozen or so years later a truly great freeware game had finally come out. The game was Cave Story, and it had been painstakingly designed by one individual (who goes by Pixel) and later translated by Aeon Genesis. It comes across as a game that might have come out for the NES in its prime; simplistic graphics and basic music may lead you to believe this. →  [send private information]

Best Game Ever – Warcraft III: Defense of the Ancients

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It’s hard to classify this review. On the one hand, Defense of the Ancients (DOTA) is a custom map for Warcraft 3 that has been around for four years. WC3 itself has been around for almost five years. This might qualify it as “best game ever” status (and it indeed received this status). The flip side is, DOTA is still actively maintained, has a huge community, and has a number of sponsored leagues, including at various Blizzard events. More bizarrely demonstrating the cult status of DOTA is the work of Swedish DJ Basshunter. Accordingly, given the active maintenance and evolution of the game, it’s hard to give it the necessary dinosaur status a Best Game ever has.

Regardless of what you call it, DOTA has been amusing gamers, including myself, for a very long time. →  An article approaches.
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Best Game Ever – Golvellius: Valley of Doom versus The Legend of Zelda

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The Legend of Zelda is one of the most influential games ever made and every gamer should make sure they play it. Golvellius is a Zelda clone made by Compile originally for the MSX that no one needs to bother with. It is also one of my favorite games. If a kid today played both one after another, it’s tough to say which he’d prefer. Without the context of Zelda being the pioneering adventure game, and without the nostalgia of playing Golvellius after school, all that’s left is the games themselves.

Golvellius was translated by people who actually spoke English.

And so I will now ignore how important Zelda is, ignore that it was designed by one of the greatest game designers in history, ignore that it was on the most popular system of its time, and most importantly, ignore that it came first. →  All this can be yours, if the read is right.

Best Game Ever – The history of puzzle games leading up to Baku Baku

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Some day in the far off future, Tetris will be played with six screens. One screen will feature the gameplay while the other five will show images of unrelated games being automatically played. All five other games will be superior to Tetris.

Once upon a time there was an evil Communist engineer named Alexey Pajitnov. Don’t bother asking Alexey if he is an evil Communist because, like all evil Communists, he signed a blood oath with Stalin (and possibly Hitler) to hide his menacing ways should Soviet Russia ever fall. Anyway, Alexey was a genius and in 1985 he bestowed upon the world a video game he liked to call Destroy American Freedoms. This was later renamed Tetris.

The premise of Tetris was to line up American freedoms in order to destroy them. →  You had me at read more.

Best Game Ever – Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne

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Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne is my favorite game of all time. With the many hours of enjoyment I have gained from this title, I owe it to you all to spread the good word.
Let me tell you why:

First of all, this intriguing subtitle brings to mind many important questions for the common gamer. Among these questions are:

1. What throne?
2. Why is it frozen?

But frozen seats of royalty aside, the storyline in an RTS is superfluous. What makes WCII: TFT great is the well-implemented and innovative hero system, the tight control over units that makes über micro possible, and the well-balanced, well-designed variety of races.

Warcraft is a popular game, with fan-created artwork, a lively multiplayer community, board games, hugely successful MMO adaptation, and mangas.

If my memory serves me, this book tells the tragic tale of the forbidden romance of Draakthazaar, the proud frost dragon from the north and the free-spirited young maiden, Ara, shunned by her people for daring to love the monster they so feared, yet she tamed with her tender touch. →  Devil Summoner: Readou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Article

Best Game Ever – Jumping Flash!

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The year was 1995 and my Plan Get an SNES hadn’t come to fruition. Too young to learn from my mistakes, I diverted recourses from that plan towards my new plan: Plan Get a PlayStation Plan. This consisted of saving my allowance, selling rare Genesis games (I’d later buy again for twice the price), and begging my parents for money.

Explaining why a longtime Sega supporter decided he wanted a PS and not a Saturn would take another article, but can easily be summarized — Sega had destroyed my faith in them by releasing and not supporting two add ons for the Genesis. The Saturn, in my eyes, was doomed to fail. And fail it did, at least in the US. Years later I’d feel slightly guilty for abandoning Sega in their time of need but in late ’95 I was ecstatic because Plan Get a PlayStation worked. →  Postgaea 2: Cursed Memories

Best Game Ever – Planescape: Torment

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For as long as there have been computer role playing games there has been the paradox of character. How can a game give you control of someone who has feelings, memories, personality traits and a history that you don’t share without you undoing these qualities? How can a strong narrative allow for the main character to be completely amorphous?

If I wanted to read I’d go to school.

Traditionally, the East has dodged this problem by simply forcing us to control a character whom we have no actual control over. We can steer him left and right, but all of his decisions, dialog, thoughts and feelings are his own. Our job is to control the character in battle and make sure they get to the next cut scene alive. This method allows for a potent narrative and excellent characterization but, for obvious reasons, very little actual role playing. →  Phoenix Write: Just Posts for All