Yeah, I took like a 3 month hiatus from doing this list, but whatevs, Rome wasn't built in a day.

20. Resident Evil 4

Holy crap, that dude has a tree. Nah, like, seriously...a tree

Alright, I'll come clean.  was my first foray into the franchise, but it is still one of my favorite games ever.  This game is non-stop intensity from the very start.  The opening scene of this game is one of the most terrifying things I can remember.  You essentially have to fight for your life against what seems to be an endless onslaught of zombies.  You truly feel like you are outnumbered and overpowered.  You can try to board yourself up in various houses, but that only holds off the inevitable, as the zombies can prop ladders up to windows, bust down doors, and use other tactics to infiltrate their way inside your established fort.  Just when you think you have got a handle on things, the chainsaw zombie shows up.  You try to run inside the church chappel, but the zombie throw molotov cocktails up into the tower to worm you out.  Just when you are certain you are going to die, the clocktower rings and the Ganados retreat back into the church.  Cue the late title card.  If you can think of an opening more intense than this, please let me know, I have not found one so far.  Sure the game becomes significantly less scary once you get a grip on the controls and behaviors of the zombies, but for the first 10 minutes of gameplay, it is sheer intensity.

19. Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door

I love the Paper Mario series.  More so than or either of the Mario and Luigi games.  That's not to say I don't like either of them, but Paper Mario to me just has this appeal and charm about it that the other games cannot recreate.  The art style is so quirky and whimiscal, and the characters are all unique.  The great thing about The Thousand Year Door is how different all of the chapters feel from eachother.  There seems to be s small mini-story inside each of the 7 chapters that branches out into the overarching story.    The dialouge in the game is very cleverly written, from the juiced up over-enthuiastic "Rawk Hawk" to mario's own brother Luigi, who has a series of events that run paralell to his that are strikingly similar.  If I had to choose one chapter that I liked the best from this game, it has to be Chapter 3.  Something about the whole environment and actually being signed to be in the wrestling ring felt very immersive to me.  Also the whole undergrund conspiracy thing that was happening was interesting as well.  Seeing all the different combtants in the ring was always interesting.  There is just so much in this game, it is impossible not to recommend it.

18. Harvest Moon 64

The first Harvest Moon game I played is also my personal favorite.  By the time I was done playing this game, I knew my farm town better than my real town.  It is incredibly hard to descrbe what makes the Harvest Moon games appealing in words.  I guess it is mainly the feelings of accomplishment.  When you get your greenhouse built, you feel like you have accomplished something great.  When you buy the Blue Feather and propose to the girl of your choice (which should be Maria) you feel incredbily accomplished.  This game turns the daily grind of everyday farmlife into fun gameplay.  I think it helps that the sections of farm-managing are occasionally broken up by town events.  You can enter your horse in the horse races and win medals (same with your dog), you can compete against your rivals in a swimming race, or, if you're lucky, you can find the coin in the cake on New Years and become the homecoming king.

17. Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes

Forget the haters, : The Twin Snakes is superior to the original in almost every conceivable way.   The graphics are breath-taking for the gamecube , the voice acting was improved upon, the cutscenes were completely re-done, and the first-person mode makes everything less frustrating.  If anything that could lead to my ONLY complaint about this near-masterpiece.  The first-person mode makes the game too easy.  The original was meant to be played entirely from a top-down perspective.  With the first-person mode in Twin Snakes, you can now see enemies that are not directly in the cameras view, and promptly headshot them before any of them get a chance to get close to you.  The stair-climbing scene used to be a nightmare for me in MGS, but in Twin Snakes, it becomes a cinch.  The main reason you should play this game though, is not because of the gameplay, but because of the fantastic story.  This game sets up the story to my favorite franchise of all time.  I have no regrets at all in saying that I truly believe Hideo Kojima is a genius, and knows how to handle a property.  If you play the franchise from beginning to end, you will be completely breathtaken by the end.

16. Phoenix Wright- Trials and Tribulations

The Phoenix Wright series is my favorite franchise on a handheld ever.  They play less like games, and more like interactive novels.  Whoever the localization team is for the series, they do a great job every time.  I have to wonder how much the localization team wrote their own material for this game, as there are some pretty american references.  The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air themesong is recited by a clown, in with all adjectives replaced with the word "clowning" and almost all nouns replaced by the word "clown".  There is a obvious 300 reference that is hillarious when you stumble across it.  In-jokes aside, the crowning achievement of this game comes from the fact that it manages to tie together the stories from the first three Phoenix Wright games in such a climactic and satisfying way.  Almost all question are answered, and everything is somewhat resolved. Also, Godot is amazing.  He is the best prosecuter from any Phoenix Wright game, and I refuse to hear otherwise.  What other prosecuter has played such a huge part in the plot of the game?  The final twist in the plot took me so much by surprise that I actually had to close my DS and take a good 10 minutes to sit and reflect about everything that happened.  I do have to say, that playing Trials and Tribulations will not have the same effect on someone who has not played the previous two games.  There is no way to say this and not sound pretentious, but it really is true.



Well, children, we have reached the halfway point of this remarkable journey.  Hopefully within the next 5 years, this will be complete, and generations to come can benefit from the knowledge contained in the documentation that is my top 30 list.

and yes, this trend died out about 3 months ago when I stopped making this list, but I don't like to leave things unfinished.