Top 100 Games
My personal favourite (not necessarily best) top 100 games of all time. Reviewed every few months.
Last update 29-August-2015
List items
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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.
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The funniest, warmest and most brilliantly written game of the past 30 years. It even has a controversial ending.
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Chris Sawyer's masterpiece took the best bits of Sim City (transportation) and built a game around competition and planning. I just love it.
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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.
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The best racing game of all time, bar none. Perfect balance, beautiful city locations, and the series' best tracks.
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A marriage of a brilliant story, clever puzzles and a whacky assortment of characters. Simply wonderful.
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Truly memorable vistas and genuinely emotional experiences in this great homage to classic Sam Peckepah and Sergio Leone westerns. The best open world game.
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Quite simply the best open-world racer, and a genre defining game.
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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.
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Once it gets its claws into you, there is no way to escape. Electronic Lego!
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Pips Ocarina of Time with its dramatic shift into dark foreboding and dread. The time-lapse puzzles are often works of genius.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Wonderfully dark and black humoured games [Fallout 3 and NV]; New Vegas just pip's it in terms of story and characters.
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Morrowind fans be damned. I'd take the visual splendour and freedom of Oblivion's realm every time. A modern classic.
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Stealth done right: inventive tools, flexible gameplay and a fully realised world. Shame the story and mute main character let it down.
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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.
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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.
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Perfects the dungeon crawler by making it a fun co-op experience with a decent tale that you can replay time and time again.
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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
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An often forgotten Cinamatique game from pre-Flashback Delphine. The science fiction story and design of this point and click adventure are still unsurpassed.
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Split/Second is a breathtaking alternative to the Burnout series. Stunning audio and visuals combined with seat of the pants action.
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The benchmark for point and click adventures, and genuinely funny. It was better by a perfect sequel.
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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.
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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.
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The best Mario outing for my money. Revolutionary on release, but the Bird and Bear took it to the next level.
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Rockstar's finest two games don't involve motor theft. Bully is smarter and more consistent with its story telling and characters.
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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.
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A unique and highly original game. Stunningly beautiful and mechanically innovate for the FPS genre; incredible free-running gameplay with that memorable soundtrack.
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One of the best of the GTA series, as GTA travels to the world of Scarface and Miami Vice corruption and excess
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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.
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Another classic from the Rare stable, and often overlooked. A brilliant blend of mechs, puzzles and tension.
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Shouldn't work, but it just does. Lots of ideas and great musical mash-ups.
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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.
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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.
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Flawless version of ANNO for the Wii with innovative controls and stunning audio and graphics.
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Reinvention and revelations. Perfection.
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My favourite game of 2013. Not without its flaws, but it shows how RTS should be - without all the keyboard shortcuts and clicking.
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Capcom outshone Nintendo in this amazing;y inventive puzzle game.
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Forget Sim City 2013, this is the one to get and play still.
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The best Mario game since Mario 64.
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Not quite up there with the original for atmosphere and storytelling, but in [DLC] Minerva's Den it has the series best single moment.
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So good it has knocked MK64 from my top 100. Perfection that combines the best racing of the series with speed and beauty. Stunning.
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Where it not for the utterly shit PS3 version it would have probably made the top 20. Huge scale and depth.
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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.
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N64 classic, and I don't think it has been bettered.
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An amazing experience from start to finish. I was lucky enough to 'share' the entire experience with one 'partner'.
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Sequel to Transport Tycoon; it is mechanically superior but maybe a bit too fiddly.
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The game that launched the HD generation. Visually stunning, action packed and entertaining both solo, co-op and online.
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Rare's second entry is a flawless mash-up of creativity and strategy. Looks and sounds beautiful too. Buy the soundtrack!
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Bettered by its PGR sequels, but in many ways the Dreamcast original has more charm.
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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.
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Replaces T4
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Replaces Horizon 1 in the top 100.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Beautiful art direction, interesting characters, a cracking script, and superb performance capture by Andy Serkis, are combined a reasonably satisfying brawler.
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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!
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Unicorns; Balls; fun.
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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.
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Dark, brooding, and claustrophobic - how a Batman game should be.
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Wonderful 2D side scrolling shooter on the Spectrum and others.
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So much fun: the best version of Bomberman and one of the best XBLA games.
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Better tables than the superb Pinball Dreams
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If this was a list of the most influential or important games of all time, Tetris would be no. 1.
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Geoff Crammond's masterpiece; and they are still trying to make a better game today.
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The definitive version of Wipeout
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Subversive and satisfying casual game that makes fun of casual games.
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Inventive puzzle game, where invention is the key. Love it. Sadly overlooked and poorly reviewed for some reason.
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Back when First Person Shooters were not all this same. This stood out: tactical and intense.
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Or Nebulous for Hewson Software fans: stunning on the ZX Spectrum and fiendishly difficult.
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Geoff Crammond's highly original 3D track racing game.
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The best Playstation exclusive racer: mud, chaos and balanced racing routes to victory.
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In truth, this is probably my favourite edition of Rock Band. Certainly the best out-of-the-box track list....and Ghostbusters.
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The ZX Spectrum version was one of the first micro-computer games to have speech. Cracking score and 2D arcade gameplay too.
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The best match 3 puzzler, and likely to remain so now this sub-genre has been taken over by free-to-play grind-fests.
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Captain Sensible's choice of war gaming.
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