LK's Top 30 Games of All Time #15-11

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Added by LK on July 30, 2009

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15. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (PS2)

After experiencing terrific gaming-to-movie heights in terms of presentation by both Metal Gear Solid for the PlayStation, and Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty for the PlayStation 2, I knew that it could only get better from here. Guess what? It did, with Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. If you’re familiar with the Metal Gear games... You wont find yourself at home with MGS3, it completely changes the norm left behind by past Metal Gear Solid games. Instead of infiltrating narrow buildings with tons of guards left and right, MGS3 puts you right in the middle of a Russian forest with 1960’s technology to boot. And right off the first hop, it’ll feel different, but a lot more breathtaking than before.

The breathtaking part of Snake Eater is its setting. The forest you traverse in MGS3 is beautiful looking with trees everywhere, animals crawling about, and guards walking aimlessly around. It actually feels like your in a forest, grass grows in certain areas, swamps are full with alligators and leeches, while the chirps of birds go off in the background. It just looks stunning overall. But one of the major parts of Snake Eater was well, eating. For Snake to maintain his energy (not his health meter), Snake has to eat animals and insects he find across the forest. He will also have to heal his wound like a burn, or a broken leg, whenever he finds himself injured.

But getting through the forest isn’t as easy as it sounds. First of all, they are actually a lot of guards throughout the forest, so you’ll have to be quick to learn where they are. But unfortunately, it’s the 60’s, so there isn’t any radar technology to see where the guards are without actually looking, so this time you’ll have to be more realistic when trying to get through certain areas. But you’ll get some nifty camouflage that will hide you from your enemies’ site. There’s a number at the top right of the screen, and when it increases, the more hidden you are. Some are normal grass camouflage, while some are rock, some are dirt, and some are water. It really makes the game more strategic, and better overall.

But your probably wondering, does it have a good story, and what about the boss fights? Both of those can be answered with the word, “Epic.” The story takes you through the times of Big Boss, the father of Solid and Liquid Snake previously seen in the earlier Metal Gear Solid’s. You get to play through his struggles as he tries to stop his former mentor, The Boss, from her cynical plan. But what drives the story is the amazing, and sometime interactive, cut scenes. First of all, they’re awesome, never boring. Secondly, you can sometimes press the R1 button and see the cut scene in Snake’s perspective.

Fighting "The Pain"

The boss fights are still awesome, but are actually even better than past Metal Gear Solid games, and overall has the best bosses out of all 4 games. You’ll never get your generic boss, though Ocelot is kinda bland. You face the Cobra Unit throughout the game including a giant machine near the end, but none of them are more satisfying as The End, a master sniper that challenges you to a sniper duel in the middle of a giant forest. Its not only freaking awesome (there’s no music, just the sound of the forest), but it can actually take you a pretty long time to not only find The End, but to shoot him, and ultimately kill him.

What Metal Gear Solid 3 came down to was its conclusion. It has one of the best endings I have ever seen in a video game. Its unexpected, ingenious, and overall, just amazing. Mixing not only the story in with the fantastic gameplay, but the epic soundtrack (I never mentioned it, but it’s amazing), the incredible graphics, and all of the other little bits make Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake eater my 15th favorite game of all time.

14. Perfect Dark (N64)

GoldenEye 007 was the first FPS game for the Nintendo 64 that really pushed the Nintendo 64 as being the party system of the generation. After the success of said game, Rare went ahead and started making a very similar game, Perfect Dark, which is amazing in its own right, and it sometimes feels better playing it than 007 itself. It had similar controls, similar AI, and similar levels. Perfect Dark corrected everything that GoldenEye had wrong, and it turned out being my 14th favorite game of all time.

The first person genre on the Nintendo 64 was really made popular because 1. It has an analog stick for precision aiming, and 2. Four controller ports for awesome 4 player action. Perfect Dark really upgraded the multiplayer by adding better levels (though some are definitely worse), better weapons, and the option to add bots to the action as well. In GoldenEye is was fun to fight each other, but in Perfect Dark, being teamed up with a buddy and fighting against bots was a blast. The weapon selection also had a great variety with the selection of human weapons, and a selection of awesome alien guns as well.

The idea of alien guns come from Perfect Dark’s campaign where you play as a secret agent named Joanna Dark as she infiltrates different areas throughout the game taking on enemy humans at first, but then getting to aliens further along in the game. The campaign was pretty lengthy at the time, and again the length was increased by being able to play on 3 different difficulty levels. There was even voice acting, cutscenes, and other cool effects not even seen in today’s games, which is a shame.

4-Player games were awesome

One thing that wowed my about Perfect Dark right off the bat was the amazing presentation. The menus were freaking awesome for the time, and though GoldenEye’s was pretty cool, Perfect Dark’s was pretty freaking sweet. The graphics were also top-notch and some of the best on the Nintendo 64. The character models acted like real humans, the animation was great, and the environments were good, though sometimes bare. The production values were through the roof, and probably the game on the Nintendo 64 that had the most time and effort spent on it.

What made Perfect Dark so special was the presentation and the awesome multiplayer. It’s not a knock against the campaign, don’t get me wrong, the the multiplayer and the presentation really nailed the game for me. The game had unbelievable graphics, voice acting as well as awesome sound, and amazing gameplay to boot. Playing with buddies against bots is still fun to this very day, and Rare and Nintendo went a real mile putting this masterpiece together, and that’s why it’s my 14th favorite game ever made.

13. Shadow of the Colossus (PS2)

In 2005, I was a crazy child. I remember seeing Shadow of the Colossus sitting on store shelves, seeing commercials for it, seeing people buying it, and every time thinking, “What is that game?”, but like an idiot, I never found out until 2008. I finally broke the chain and went over to my local EB Games and bought two PS2 games I missed over the years, God of War, and my 13th favorite game of all time, Shadow of the Colossus. But Shadow of the Colossus did concern me at first, 16 bosses? No other enemies? That’s the whole game? And though I was skeptical when I went in, I came out fucking astonished.

Shadow of the Colossus is a game with 16 boss encounters, and that’s it. Bam, done. That made a lot of people worried that the game was going to be, well, not good. Though the game is pretty short, the 16 boss fights through the game are exhilarating and will amaze you every time you fight one. But you play as a kid named Wander, and he brings his fallen love Mono who has tragically been taken from life, to a forbidden land that is said to be never trespassed onto. Wander brings Mono to a shrine in the middle of the land in order to revive her, but the god of the land will only revive her if Wander finds and murders all 16 Colossi scattered throughout the land, so you set off to do just that.

Most Colossi are mountainous in height, and usually take a great deal of time to scale them and find their weak spot. The Colossi arrange from human shaped monsters, and animalistic creatures, to sea serpents. They are mostly gigantic, but all are fun as hell to defeat. The Colossi have fur in areas of their body, and what you must do if find the spot to climb, climb to their weak spot, and stab it with you sword to finish them off. Sometime you have to climb on their beard, sometimes you have to jump on them from another structure, while some have to killed in a completely unique way. All 16, and I mean all 16 Colossi are fun to beat, even though some might take longer than expected.

The Colossi are massive

One of the best features about Shadow of the Colossus is its overworld, which is absolutely massive. The land is filled with mountains, shrines, forests, deserts, and fortresses. Finding some Colossi can take a pretty long time, and some of them are in a giant lake, or in a giant structure. Luckily the game has a horse to ride on, Agro, that can run very fast, so traversing the land isn’t as time consuming as say the Wind Waker. The land is also very atmospheric hearing the wind blow by, and the massive wastelands that surround you that are crawling with 16 massive monsters that you have to slain.

The visuals and the audio in Shadow of the Colossus were really astonishing for a 3 year old PlayStation 2 game. The graphics were smooth, the draw distance was spectacular, the Colossi looked incredible, and the only part that wasn’t 100% was the frame-rate, which skipped in heavy situations (just think of what this game could’ve been like in HD). The soundtrack was absolutely phenomenal, moody and creepy tunes played while you tried to get on top of the Colossi, then an epic tune would play while you’re slaying it. It really just tied the whole incredible package into one amazing, incredible, fantastic, mind blowing experience.

Shadow of the Colossus is one of the favorite game ever, even though I played it 3 years too late. After playing games in HD, the game looked very dated at first, but after I got passed the dated visuals, the game I played was an absolute blast to play, from beginning to end. The Colossi were an absolute epic battle to defeat, the overworld was massive and atmospheric, and the whole game was just fantastic. I would definitely suggest this game to anyone that likes the action adventure genre, though the game isn’t for everyone. But, it’s definitely my cup of tea, and it’s my 13th favorite game of all time.

12. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (GCN)

Charm is one of the very greatest qualities a video game can have. People may think that the charm of a game is over rated, but charm in games like Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door however, makes the game what it is. What it is, is a fantastic Role Playing Game that is a true successor to the ingenious Paper Mario on the Nintendo 64, and is just as fun through and through. I was waiting for this game for a very long time, and it definitely lived up to my expectations, but maybe even a little more.

A lot of gamers think that the Paper Mario series is too soft, too easy, and too charming. They’re the gamers that grind out 100 hours of each of their precious Final Fantasy games and never really gave the franchise a good run through. If you have ever played a Paper Mario past the first 3 chapters, you’ll know what I’m talking about, but if you’re the kind of person that discarded it near the beginning, you missed out on what I think is one of the greatest Gamecube games, and my 12th favorite game.

The concept is actually pretty clever, you play as Mario, but instead of polygons, characters are paper sprites that walk, turn, and do everything like a piece of paper. Aside from the charming visuals comes the incredibly fun and addicting gameplay that is part platformer, part RPG. You walk around the environments as Mario with one of his partners like a platformer jumping up on pipes, talking to other character around towns, and actually feels pretty good overall. Mario can get attacked by enemies, and when this happens, a separate battle take place on stage being watch by audiences that can arrange from few, to many. It’s a turn based RPG, so after Mario and his partner attack, then your opponents have a turn back.

If you thought the first game’s story was clever and funny, then you’re all set for the Thousand Year Door. It has another good story, hilarious characters and funny moments, and it also has a good set of chapters to boot. The first chapter may seem similar to the first on the first game, but the rest seem pretty different that it actually feels like a totally new and original game. The 3rd chapter in the Thousand Year Door, for example, is the best chapter in the history of Paper Mario. You, Mario, are taken to a floating island in the sky called Glitzville, where you fight to earn up the ranks, kind of like boxing. It has the gritty atmosphere like boxers went through back in the day with the commissioner being smart with money, but is a douche.

Mario talking to a Koopa

What evolved from the first Paper Mario to the second, The Thousand Year Door, was the crowd mechanic. What the crowd does effects how much star power you gain for your special attacks you gain by beating each chapter (like the first Paper Mario). But unlike the first game, the more stylish your moves are, the more crowd cheers you get, resulting in more star power. The crowd can also sometimes hold items like a mushroom that will heal you, or a pebble that will hurt you. If Mario hits a jackpot, the crowd will fill the seats, and give you more star power as turn pass by.

But the other major factor of the jump from the Nintendo 64 to the Gamecube was the polish of the game. The Thousand Year Door is just a beautiful game, it looks as sharp as a knife, and it sounds nice on the ears with a very memorable soundtrack at every possible situation. The animations of the sprites are seamless, the ugly blocky looking edges of the sprites are gone, and the cool 2D to 3D effects are here and better than ever. Paper Mario 2 really has some incredible polish through and through, and is easily one of the nicest looking and sounding games on the Gamecube.

Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door is one of the most charming game I have ever played, and the upgraded visuals, and clever mechanics really end up making it a true sequel to the first Paper Mario. The game was polished quite nicely, the story is engaging enough to keep you going, and the gameplay is as addictive as ever. Like I said before, some people just don’t like the Paper Mario series because of its softness (though some parts of Paper Mario 2 are tough), but The Thousand Year Door is easily one of the top tier games on the Gamecube, and is my 12th favorite game of all time.

11. Super Mario 64 (N64)

While games like Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World defined their respected consoles, Super Mario 64 defined the Nintendo 64 as a real 3D console with beautiful visuals, and great new ways to play. Super Mario 64 kept the old-school style of platforming with familiar characters and enemies, and familiar environments reborn in three dimensions. Super Mario 64 definitely paved the way for 3D Platformers for years to come like Super Mario Bros. did on the NES. Everything about Super Mario 64 was brilliantly done from the tight and responsive controls, to the awesome level design, to the memorable soundtrack, everything was top of the line.

Super Mario 64 was definitely structured a lot differently than the previous Mario games though, but structured in a more non-linear type of way, which ended up being quite intuitive at the time, and still to this very day. Mario 64 had levels which you get to by jumping into a painting hanging on a wall in Princess Peach’s Castle. Each level had 7 stars to choose to try and recover, all having a certain way of getting them. Some would have you defeat a boss, while some had you scale a mountain, and some had you break the leash of a Chain Chomp, while also getting a star for collecting 100 coins scattered throughout each stage.

The awesome non-linear part about the game instead of beating a level to get to the next, all you had to do was collect a certain amount of Stars to access new levels, and you would need a certain amount of Stars to fight Bowser which would unlock new areas in the Castle like the basement, or the backyard. You could get 2 stars in one level, then go on to another and collect a bunch more. Super Mario 64 had 120 Stars to collect in total, and though you only needed 80 to fight Bowser one last time, it was still fun to come back and try to collect the rest.

The greatest part of the game was the level designs, which all seemed like a transformation of past Mario stages done in 3D, and designed specifically for collecting stars. You’d go to regulars like a Mushroom Kingdom full with green grass, Goombas and Koopas, while also going to new areas like the Wet Dry World. Some levels were completely insane like the Tick Tock Clock that had you enter at different times for the insides of the Clock to be faster, or slower, depending on which time you entered at. It was a giant landmark in terms of level designs in a video game, and it still shines as one of my favorite to date (I especially like Tick Tock Clock).

The controls were perfect. Mario controlled brilliantly, with no weird throw-ins or anything, the controls were tight and responsive. It was especially mesmerizing using the analog stick to control Mario for the first time in three dimensions. It worked extremely well, and though the camera sometimes didn’t work out as well as it could have, the four C-Buttons definitely took care of any hassle. The Z trigger on the underside of the controller really worked well as the duck buttons for doing high jumps and long jumps in quick motions. Mario also had an attack with the B button for punching, but he could mostly jump on top of enemies to dispose of them anyways.

Mario in... 3D!?

Visually Super Mario 64 was a great feat in 1996 while games were still being released for the SEGA Genesis. The 3D models of Mario, Peach, Bowser, and enemies like Goombas, Koopas, and Chain Chomps were surprisingly great looking, and really impressive overall. The level design while being fun, also looked incredible to boot with beautiful colours filling the screen and cool effects like swimmable water and nice fire effects. The same thing can be said for the fantastic soundtrack that is definitely the best seen in a Super Mario game yet. Every level has a nice tune, while some have some clever ones that you never knew could exist. The sound effects are just like they’re supposed to be, only better then you’d first think, and overall the audio is great.

Super Mario 64 was the epitome of 3D games in 1996, and was one of the greatest Super Mario games to ever hit the video game market. The game had brilliant implementation of the Nintendo 64’s controller while also having brilliant level designs and beautiful visuals to boot. Super Mario 64 paved the way for how the next batch of platformers had to play, and really showed that Nintendo could still evolve the market without completely destroying it. Super Mario 64 can be picked up on Nintendo Wii’s virtual console, so I suggest giving it a pick-up if you don’t already own this masterpiece.

Related to: Super Mario 64, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Shadow of the Colossus, Perfect Dark, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

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