Very Nice List Mitch!

There's about 5-6 of these sitting on my backlog that this is an excellent kick in the pants to try to get playing (especially Aquaria and TWEwY)

As someone who has no idea of what the game is about, what is the appeal of Elite Beat Agents? Just curious if this is an oversight I should be looking to correct.

The rest of the list is really impeccable and almost impossible to argue (other than maybe quibble on rank, but that's personal taste)

I find it interesting that your 1 and 2 , were also the top two choices for the community polls on the site last year. You are a man of the people it seems. :)

@slag: Thanks Slag! I was pretty amused when the community polls were going on, and Dark Souls and Mass Effect 2 were the top two. I was already thinking at that point that those were my two favorites as well (I had a hard time picking between them actually), so I definitely seem to be in sync with Giant Bomb on that topic :)

That said, a few of the games on here are almost certainly more particular/personal tastes, and Elite Beat Agents is one of them. I got incredibly hooked on that game, and have no reservations about saying it's my favorite rhythm game I've played to date. I think it's a combination of things, but primarily, I really like rhythm games, and EBA is the first one I played that felt that smooth and responsive. Auxiliary controllers, like plastic guitars or dance pads, always feel clunky and uncomfortable to me, and traditional buttons almost feel too limiting for rhythm games. The touch controls of EBA were simple, effective, and also managed to allow for some genuine finesse (as opposed to feeling like a glorified QTE). Touch and motion controls were a huge theme during the past generation, and in a way I think EBA might have made the single best argument for why those controls are worth considering.

The game was also pretty damn challenging- what it lacked in sheer quantity of songs, it made up for by making those songs extremely challenging and rewarding, and I replayed them over and over until I got perfect scores on each and every song on the highest difficulty- probably one of my most noteworthy gaming feats ever :) Not everybody would get into that, but it really hooked me, and the feel of the touch controls made it a blast. Finally, I really like the game's quirky style and sense of humor. The scenarios and songs it presents are pretty hilarious at times, and the game never deviates from trying to be a ridiculously fun rhythm game above all else. It's not trying to forcefully simulate an action like playing a guitar, or pay tribute to certain music, or get bogged down in clunky, complicated systems. Its fun and challenge are derived entirely from the rhythm itself, and I think that makes it one of the purest and most genuine examples of the genre out there.

Anyway, there's my take on Elite Beat Agents :) If you like rhythm games and have a DS and/or 3DS, I think it's worth a shot, though I also recognize it definitely won't be to everyone's tastes. One Alex Navarro gave it a pretty glowing review on GameSpot back in the day as well, if you want to check that out!