The Discussion Thread -Day #33- The 15th Annual Greatest Games Event

[UnderwaterFunktown]

Alright time to catch up in record time, two games went unguessed which were Ty the Tasmanian Tiger at #45 and Pokemon Crystal at #36. As you'll notice I've commited the deadly sin of having a few "tied" spots on my list this time, but I've tried to make it clear which is the main game for each spot and only submitted those to mZuzek for the grand tally, so really those extra games are more like echo fighters rather than official entries on my list.

So without further ado here are the top 15 games of my childhood:

#50 Age of Mythology   Age of Mythology is here mainly for two reasons: 1) it was the first RTS game I owned myself 2) it was the first game where I messed around with the Editor, something I got extremely into in Warcraft III and which kind of got me into game development. I got to revisit Mythology this year in the form of Retold and though it was different from how I remembered it was still fun to try it once more.	#49 The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess   I’m cheating a little with this one because while I played several Zelda games as a kid, I don’t think I beat any of them until much later. Still, even though I probably made it less than halfway, Twilight Princess was still a really cool game to me as a kid. Knowing the game now I imagine it would have been truly special to me if I had completed it back then.	#48 Lego Star Wars/Lego Racers   Lego itself and Lego games were a big part of my childhood like I mentioned in my first post and whether it’s Star Wars or Racers or another title they’re all quite nostalgic to me. Lego Star Wars was probably the one I played most and also played in co-op with my brother getting 100 % completion, and since I was generally a big Star Wars fan as a kid, I figured it made sense to give this one the spot.
#47 Portal   I got the Orange Box when I was pretty young and Team Fortress 2 and Portal where the games I played first. Probably spent more time on TF2 since it’s multiplayer, but me and my friends were all pretty fond of Portal as well and its promise of cake. A fondness that has stuck to this day.	#46 Sonic Heroes   This game might have its issues in retrospect but as a kid it was just a blast of a platformer with a really cool concept of switching between characters with different abilities. Each team also their own variations to the stages and story and I actually persevered enough to make it through the game with each of them.	#45 Ty the Tasmanian Tiger   “G’day mate!” “You ripper!” This was another early 2000s platformer I ended up with and was perhaps even more into than Sonic. Taz is simply awesome and so is the idea of dual-wielding boomerangs with special powers. I’ve played a bit of it recently in relation to this list and I gotta say its aussie charm is as strong as ever.
#44 Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness   The sequel to the game that made me get a GameCube in the first place. I don’t think I ever beat Colosseum, but I did beat this one and at the time this was the best a Pokémon game had ever looked. I might not remember the details of the story, but I know this game had a great atmosphere to it and felt like a real, if different, Pokémon journey.	#43 Dragonball Z: Legendary Super Warriors   Even though I wasn’t a massive DBZ fan, this turn-based card game fighter somehow became one of my absolute favourites to play on Game Boy and later GBA. I think the difficulty and DBZ flashyness was just the right combo to make it a really addictive game to try and work my way through and that I sure did. To this day the main theme is also just as iconic DBZ to me as the anime opening.	#42 Mario Party 4   I feel Mario Party was spoiled for me because I started out with the best one. I’m sure others might feel the same about a different entry, but to me this will always be the complete package that I had tons of fun playing in multiplayer modes with my brother and with the actually quite ambitious story mode. I assembled all the furniture with most of the characters (to the one person that knows what that means).
#41 Donkey Kong Jungle Beat   Playing a platformer with a pair of bongos is unconventional to say the least, perhaps too much so for any self-respecting adult to give this game a chance, but luckily, I was neither of those things when the game released and had an absolute blast with it. It’s unique, fun, and surprisingly polished and epic for a game controlled with a pair of drums.	#40 Taz: Wanted   This 62 metacritic licenced title is damn close to my favourite GameCube game even today. It might not have that Nintendo polish like DK, but the levels and music of this game is the mortar from which my childhood was build. I played the game again last year and I could fondly recognize every nook and cranny and had lots of fun with it once more.	#39 Super Mario Galaxy  Now holdup what’s an actual masterpiece doing here? Galaxy was revered when it came out and from the start it felt like a special game. I mean, it let you jump around in space on tiny planets, how cool was that as a kid?! It’s one of the few games I have at least as much appreciation for now as back then and like a few others would be sitting a good 20 spots higher under normal circumstances.
#40 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2/Trilogy   I know what you’re thinking but no I wasn’t quite one of the infamous 8-year-olds in voice chat but I didn't adhere to the ESRB rating. My interest in CoD was probably mainly from age 12-14 same as my friends and they were some of the first games we played together online, probably for hundreds of hours. It’s mostly on the merit of those multiplayer memories that MW2 earns this spot, though the entire trilogy also had pretty solid campaigns.	#37 Super Smash Bros. Brawl   Brawl is the first time I can remember being really excited for a game, watching trailers online, even checking the game’s website which was pretty fun, and while the competitive scene might have been disappointed when the game finally came out, the exact opposite was true for me. I put hundreds of hours into this game with my brother and was blown away by Subspace Emissary. Even 16 years later I still hold this game in higher regard than Ultimate in some ways; sue me.	#36 Pokémon Crystal/Ruby   Whether it’s Crystal or Ruby these two are the de facto games of my childhood. I was frankly pretty obsessed with Pokémon, the cards, the figures, the anime and of course these games, and while that obsessing has passed even with today’s eyes these were frankly some of the best games for their time. I had a massive guide for Ruby and played it the most, but Crystal was my first and felt more epic. I think my kid self would have ranked them side by side so that’s what I’m doing.