Top 100 Games
My personal favourite (not necessarily best) top 100 games of all time. Reviewed every few months.
Last update 29-August-2015
My personal favourite (not necessarily best) top 100 games of all time. Reviewed every few months.
Last update 29-August-2015
Still probably the game I enjoy playing the most. Fails not to put a smile on my face every time. Rare outpaced Nintendo with the Bear and Bird and filled their world with British humour and pathos.
The funniest, warmest and most brilliantly written game of the past 30 years. It even has a controversial ending.
Chris Sawyer's masterpiece took the best bits of Sim City (transportation) and built a game around competition and planning. I just love it.
An astonishing game in every way. Bleak, dark and foreboding Rapture just oozes atmosphere. The story, characters and rich narrative bring video games to a whole new level of digital entertainment.
The best racing game of all time, bar none. Perfect balance, beautiful city locations, and the series' best tracks.
A marriage of a brilliant story, clever puzzles and a whacky assortment of characters. Simply wonderful.
Truly memorable vistas and genuinely emotional experiences in this great homage to classic Sam Peckepah and Sergio Leone westerns. The best open world game.
Quite simply the best open-world racer, and a genre defining game.
My most played game of 2014. So mud variety and depth in the 80+ characters, in terms of they play. Beautiful to look at, huge fun to play & re-play, with as much charm and polish as the best from Nintendo. Quite brilliant.
Once it gets its claws into you, there is no way to escape. Electronic Lego!
Pips Ocarina of Time with its dramatic shift into dark foreboding and dread. The time-lapse puzzles are often works of genius.
Wonderfully written and produced with a much more adult theme than many of its ilk. My favourite JRPG experience but a controversial choice for some.
The Bear and Bird back for maybe their last putting in this clever 'techno-lego' style build-em-up and play it. Cracking fun, especially racing your contraptions online.
Improves on the original in every way, and includes a mature, witty and well crafted script - a rarity for video games. Only the end-game level design lets it down.
Wonderfully dark and black humoured games [Fallout 3 and NV]; New Vegas just pip's it in terms of story and characters.
Morrowind fans be damned. I'd take the visual splendour and freedom of Oblivion's realm every time. A modern classic.
Stealth done right: inventive tools, flexible gameplay and a fully realised world. Shame the story and mute main character let it down.
Mass Effect 2 tips the scales in thanks to the combination of characters, action and fantastic DLC. Mass Effect 1 had the best story and soundtrack of the trilogy, and arguably the most ambition, whilst Mass Effect 3 the best narrative and emotion.
Controversial choice maybe, but I feel the streamlined gameplay and wonderful animation and graphics edge out the mighty Civ IV as the best in series.
Perfects the dungeon crawler by making it a fun co-op experience with a decent tale that you can replay time and time again.
My favourite fighting game bar none. This blew me away on the Dreamcast and the various game modes keep me playing for weeks and months
An often forgotten Cinamatique game from pre-Flashback Delphine. The science fiction story and design of this point and click adventure are still unsurpassed.
Split/Second is a breathtaking alternative to the Burnout series. Stunning audio and visuals combined with seat of the pants action.
The benchmark for point and click adventures, and genuinely funny. It was better by a perfect sequel.
Edges out Head over Heals as the best Isometric 8-bit adventure game for me. Wonderful theme, time-lapse based puzzles and that iconic theme tune.
The highlight of the plastic instrument revolution. Rock Band may have the upper hand technically but this blended the charm and gameplay perfectly with the best set lists.
The best Mario outing for my money. Revolutionary on release, but the Bird and Bear took it to the next level.
Rockstar's finest two games don't involve motor theft. Bully is smarter and more consistent with its story telling and characters.
Finally completed this game in Wii U HD form. A significant improvement on the original - the tweaks fix a lot of the pacing and labour issues. Beautiful to look at and nearly perfect to play. Comes close to beating the N64 duo.
A unique and highly original game. Stunningly beautiful and mechanically innovate for the FPS genre; incredible free-running gameplay with that memorable soundtrack.
One of the best of the GTA series, as GTA travels to the world of Scarface and Miami Vice corruption and excess
May appear slightly dated compared to the modern take on the console first-person-shooter, but for me its still just as good. Perfect controls, competitive multiplayer and expert level-design.
Another classic from the Rare stable, and often overlooked. A brilliant blend of mechs, puzzles and tension.
Shouldn't work, but it just does. Lots of ideas and great musical mash-ups.
Turn off the lights and soak up the oppressive, dark and terrifying atmosphere. Survival horror done right. Dead Space 2 was "Aliens" to the original's "Alien", but DS2 ups the tension, strategy and action, delivering a subtly different but equally entertaining experience.
Aside from a poorly constructed first act, and rather unlikable characters, this is the best GTA game simply for the depth and wonder of its Californian parody world.
Flawless version of ANNO for the Wii with innovative controls and stunning audio and graphics.
Reinvention and revelations. Perfection.
My favourite game of 2013. Not without its flaws, but it shows how RTS should be - without all the keyboard shortcuts and clicking.
Capcom outshone Nintendo in this amazing;y inventive puzzle game.
Forget Sim City 2013, this is the one to get and play still.
The best Mario game since Mario 64.
Not quite up there with the original for atmosphere and storytelling, but in [DLC] Minerva's Den it has the series best single moment.
So good it has knocked MK64 from my top 100. Perfection that combines the best racing of the series with speed and beauty. Stunning.
Where it not for the utterly shit PS3 version it would have probably made the top 20. Huge scale and depth.
The genre changing game that launch a 1000 1st Person Shooters on the Xbox. Halo is far superior to its awkward, ponderous and overrated sequels.
N64 classic, and I don't think it has been bettered.
An amazing experience from start to finish. I was lucky enough to 'share' the entire experience with one 'partner'.
Sequel to Transport Tycoon; it is mechanically superior but maybe a bit too fiddly.
The game that launched the HD generation. Visually stunning, action packed and entertaining both solo, co-op and online.
Rare's second entry is a flawless mash-up of creativity and strategy. Looks and sounds beautiful too. Buy the soundtrack!
Bettered by its PGR sequels, but in many ways the Dreamcast original has more charm.
Inconsistent in places, and with some balancing issues for the ranged characters, it's still a cracking yarn and deep RPG. Awakenings [DLC] possibly better than its sibling.
Replaces T4
Replaces Horizon 1 in the top 100.
The pinnacle of space combat games, and all the better for being able to destroy those whining rebels. My divorce from all things StarWars doesn't extend to this masterpiece.
Defined the God game genre and remains a wonderfully simple and rewarding strategy game. Many hours spent playing VS a friend with a null-modem cable.
The closest GTA has come to a proper adult story with humour and wit. Sadly badly let down by some irritating gameplay choices and an inconsistent and incoherent final act.
Beautiful art direction, interesting characters, a cracking script, and superb performance capture by Andy Serkis, are combined a reasonably satisfying brawler.
Sequel/expansion of sorts to the excellent 2012 X-Com Enemy Unknown. Takes story from the previous game and remixes it with a new sub-plot, enemies and units. It successfully improves and darkens the predecessor whilst remaining true to the series roots. Bravo!
Unicorns; Balls; fun.
The 8-bit classic isometric puzzle adventure game. This is a genre that has all but vanished but once this was the pinnacle of its genre.
Dark, brooding, and claustrophobic - how a Batman game should be.
Wonderful 2D side scrolling shooter on the Spectrum and others.
So much fun: the best version of Bomberman and one of the best XBLA games.
Better tables than the superb Pinball Dreams
If this was a list of the most influential or important games of all time, Tetris would be no. 1.
Geoff Crammond's masterpiece; and they are still trying to make a better game today.
The definitive version of Wipeout
Subversive and satisfying casual game that makes fun of casual games.
Inventive puzzle game, where invention is the key. Love it. Sadly overlooked and poorly reviewed for some reason.
Back when First Person Shooters were not all this same. This stood out: tactical and intense.
Or Nebulous for Hewson Software fans: stunning on the ZX Spectrum and fiendishly difficult.
Geoff Crammond's highly original 3D track racing game.
The best Playstation exclusive racer: mud, chaos and balanced racing routes to victory.
In truth, this is probably my favourite edition of Rock Band. Certainly the best out-of-the-box track list....and Ghostbusters.
The ZX Spectrum version was one of the first micro-computer games to have speech. Cracking score and 2D arcade gameplay too.
The best match 3 puzzler, and likely to remain so now this sub-genre has been taken over by free-to-play grind-fests.
Captain Sensible's choice of war gaming.