So, here's my full list:

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=3724926

Platform breakdown:

Playstation - 1

PSP - 3

Playstation 2 - 8

Playstation 3 - 17

Xbox360 - 5

 GameCube - 1

Nintendo 64 - 3

Nintendo DS - 1

GameBoy (Color) - 2

GameBoy Advance - 1

Nintendo Wii - 3

PC - 5

I included MGSTTS as it's essentially a remake that added very little. As for the PS2, I think the VGChartz DB had it for PS2 as well, unless I'm seeing things.

No. 2 Half-Life 2 Episodes 1 & 2 (PC, also on X-box (HL2) and 360 & PS3 in The Orange Box)

Sequel to what is probably the most innovative FPS to ever grace the market, Half-Life 2 had a lot to live up to, but boy did it deliver. When released, the animations were some of the best ever seen, the graphics were superb even on a low spec PC, the physics implementation was revolutionary, the characters felt real, the battles were suitably epic in scale and it introduced the superb concept of the gravity based weapon.

Much like the original, HL2 retained the immersion by sticking to the first-person perspective. As the silent protagonist Gordon Freeman, you had the chance to let your imagination place your own persona into the image of Gordon Freeman. However, Valve took this concept and blew it out of the water with its dystopian setting and storytelling. Hidden extras in the world reveal tit-bits of info on the story and events leading up to HL2 and potential events in future games. You are always Gordon Freeman, so when if you miss them, Gordon misses them. Control of Gordon's movements is always with the player, so when Gordon's physical abilities are impaired the feeling of being powerless is amplified. This is done well near the end of HL2 but utilised expertly throughout Episode 2.

Another factor that I think is often overlooked is the acting and animations of the characters. In most games, the acting is terrible and the characters feel like they're just generic plot devices. In HL2, the characters actually engage in real life actions. The actions of Alyx are where this is most apparent. Yes she's with you (or Gordon) and talking to you through large segments with good animation, but also little details like when she's teleported to her fathers lab and she smiles and gives him a kiss on the cheek. Easily missed, but little details like this help to breathe life into the characters.

I haven't even mentioned the superb game design Valve implement where early on they allow you to explore an area to get the lay of the land before entering a gun fight. Or the immense battles vs soldiers and gunships on dystopian rooftops closely followed by mass battles with striders. Or the well paced vehicle sections where just as they start to get boring, you move onto something else. Or the little puzzle sections that give you breathing room. The sheer variety and depth in the game is epic in every sense of the word. No other pure FPS does what Half-Life 2 manages in a single package. 

Add to all this the fact that Valve are continually updating the Source engine and many little improvements are seemingly retrofitted into Half-Life 2 and Eps 1 & 2 (via Steam), and you get the greatest FPS package on the planet.

9.Tales of Vesperia(PS3)

Tales of Vesperia is an Awesome Role Playing Game Developed by Namco Tales Studio and Published by Namco Bandai Games. the  released in Japan September 2009.  the animated movies were done by Production I.G.

Vesperia takes place on the planet Terca Lumireis. The people of Terca Lumireis have come to rely on "blastia", an ancient civilization's technology with a wide array of capabilities, such as providing water, powering ships, or creating barriers around major cities and towns to protect them from monsters. The Imperial Knights and Guild members also use "bodhi blastia" to enhance their abilities in combat. The blastia, created by the elf-like Krityans, are fueled by a substance called "aer" that lends its power to the blastia's ability, but can be fatal to humans in large concentrations.

When the aque blastia core is stolen from Zaphias's lower quarter, denying water to the lower class that lives there, a young swordsman named Yuri Lowell attempts to chase down the thief, but is arrested and jailed in the castle. During his escape, he meets a young girl named Estelle who is searching for Yuri's close friend and rival Flynn Scifo. Along with Yuri's faithful dog Repede, the three leave the safety of Zaphias' barrier to chase after both Flynn and the thief. On their way they encounter Karol Capel, a young boy who joins them to catch up with his guild, the Hunting Blades, and Rita Mordio, an intelligent but anti-social blastia researcher who takes great interest in Estelle's healing magic. On their journey, Yuri learns about the state of the world and the philosophy of the guilds, who gave up their Imperial citizenship in order to live free from the rule of the Empire.

on there adventures they meat up with Raven, a high-ranking guild member, and Judith, a mysterious Krityan woman who is hunting and destroying blastia, and Patty Fleur She is a young pirate girl looking for the lost treasures of the legendary pirate Aifread. Another of her goals is to recover her memories.

Tales of Vesperia uses an improved and evolved version of Tales of the Abyss's battle system, called the "Evolved Flex-Range Linear Motion Battle System" (EFR-LMBS) and is commonly considered one of the best and most efficient battle systems in the Tales series

An added aspect to the game's world is the Encounter Linking system. If multiple groups of roaming enemies are in close proximity when a battle starts, the ensuing battle will contain all the enemies. Also returning from previous Tales games are surprise encounters. Like in Tales of the Abyss, a surprise encounter rearranges the active party when taken into battle. Tales of Vesperia also makes use of Secret Missions, special tasks or challenges that can be completed during boss fights for certain rewards.

Returning from Tales of Symphonia and Tales of the Abyss is the Over Limit. As in Tales of the Abyss, it is marked by a visible gauge, but it comes in the form of a single bar that can be used by up to four party members at once, or used by a single character up to four levels to give more powerful effects. Burst Artes, another new feature, are powerful attacks performed while in Over Limit mode and after using an arcane arte or a spell change. Depending on the Over Limit level, its duration increases, allowing players to add in more combos. As with previous Tales games, characters are able to pull off powerful Mystic Artes. Characters can also perform Fatal Strikes, attacksafter a certain gauge is depleted. These attacks can also be chained for a higher score.

The Visuals are beautiful the music of Tales of Vesperia is awesome the  theme song is  Kane o Narashite("Ring a Bell) by popular Japanese songwriter Bonnie Pink is relly aweome. 

The PlayStation 3 version of the game features full voice acting which is almost double the size of the script in the original 360 version. The game also features various new characters such as Flynn as a fully customizable, permanent playable character as well as Patty Fleur, a young girl with blond hair, who is an entirely new playable character. The game also features several unplayable characters from Tales of Vesperia: The First Strike which the game ties-in with. In addition, Repede, Flynn and Patty are selectable as on-screen avatars with new mini-games such as a racing mini-game for Repede, new subplots, skits and main game quests as well as side quests. The game also has new songs added to the game's soundtrack together with remodeled towns and new towns and dungeons. The game also includes new bosses such as the Sword Dancer from previous Tales games, Don Whitehorse and Clint/Tison/Nan, players are also able to replay boss fights at Nam Cobanda Isle which is a play on words with the companies name

In addition there are also new gameplay elements such as higher Overlimit Levels up to 8, more Mystic Artes including a dual Mystic Arte with Yuri and Flynn, new Artes, skills and equipments for characters. A new key item has also been added called the "Artes Ball" which allows an additional 8 Artes Shorcuts to be assigned to the previous 8 slots combined with the L1 button, which allows for a maximum of 16 Artes. The game also features a wide variety of new character costumes which include cameo costumes based on characters from previous Tales games, as well as costumes based on characters from other series, such as Xenosaga and Sgt. Frog.   Also included is a scene-skip feature, a Team Arena in the Coliseum which also has new battles and modes together with Pre-Order Bonuses which are Tales of the Abyss character costumes. The game also features connectivity with the Tales spin-off, Tales of VS. for the PlayStation Portable.

Tales of Vesperia intro

1. Deus Ex (PC, also on PS2)

So, finally we reach number 1. This is quite simply the greatest game ever created! So many different play-styles, so many different decision trees, and a fantastic story to boot. If you like FPS or you like RPGs (even better if you like both), this game has to be played. The tech may be old, but the story and the gameplay are timeless.

Set in a cyber punk world (set in the not too distant future) where a wide array of hidden political groups, terrorist factions, freedom fighters and advanced computer AI are all vying for for their ideological future. You play JC Denton, a new nano-augmented agent for anti-terrorist organisation UNATCO. The first level shoves you in the deep end and immediately sets the tone for the rest of the game. You enter the docks to find terrorists have attacked the base to steal the months supply of a vaccine for a global plague. You're tasked with finding the terrorist leader (alive). Immediately, you're brother (a fellow agent) gives you the option of which weapon you want to carry: crossbow, sniper rifle or RPG.

You then have multiple options; Do you use stealth and sneak around? Do you go to the other side of the island and meet with the contact for the key to the front door? Do you pick the lock? Do you find a back way in? Do you hack the security systems and disable the cameras? Do you make for the ammo caches first? Do you go in guns blazing or silently take them down? Do you kill your enemies or just stun them? Do you avoid them alltogether? Do you bother with the secondary objective and save the captured agent or leave him? If you do rescue him do you give him a gun? When you reach your final objective do you follow orders or outright kill him?

All those decisions are on the first level and can have an immediate effect on the way other characters interact with you. In the future, the choices you make have serious repercussions on the characters around you including whether they live or die. The repercussions aren't always clear-cut either. Whether your pilot Jock lives at the end of the game is based solely on your curiosity rather than a clear positive/negative decision tree seen in most RPGs. All these decision trees and the detail in the world (you can drink and eat food, read newspapers, hack computers to read e-mails, get drunk/high etc.) make this game deeply immersive.

The games is ridiculously immersive to the point of embarrassment for me. I actually mistook the beeping of a stopwatch (in real life) for the sound the explosives make when they're about to go off and dived into the opposite room. Luckily, no-one saw, but yeah...

I haven't even talked about the story yet. The storyline is one of the best in video games history. A deep and involving plot that combines political intrigue, conspiracy and advanced science into one amazing package. What's so extraordinary is that it manages to retain an excellent storyline whilst still giving the player such huge freedom and choice. Only a select few games have ever acheived this, and I can't think of one that had as much choice as that offered in Deus Ex.

Add to all this the variety of weapons that included a measly batton/knife, grenades (EMP, gas, explosive), assault rifles, shotguns, RPGs, sniper rifles and massive energy weapons, and the variety of nano augmentations (Enhancements) that included invisibility to either bots or organics, healing, super speed and jumping, spy bots, balistic protection and visual enhancements, and you get an amazing package.

So the game was perfect in single player, many will complain the multiplayer wasn't that good. I entered the multiplayer with this in mind but have to say, I found it thoroughly enjoyable. The sheer variety of weapons and nano-augmentations kept it fresh and different and was actually a lot of fun.

Bascially, this game is increddible, and if you haven't played it, you owe it to yourself to give this a go. Oh and it also predicts the future as it predicted 9/11 a year before it happened! Play this game for a view into our future... woooooo!

Finally done! My Top 50 can be found here:

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=3738019

(Just to warn people, the top 5 have mini-essays... guess I love them too much, lol)

Thanks for setting this up Smeags. This was a lot of fun.

Happy New Year everyone!

This was fun. Hope we do this again next year.

Happy New Year everybody!

Some stats:

Platforms:

PC - 2

NES - 5

Genesis/Mega Drive - 3

SNES - 8

PS - 3

N64 - 4

DC - 1

PS2 - 6

Gamecube - 5

DS - 1

X360 - 3

PS3 - 3

Wii - 5

Downloadable - 1

Genres:

Action-Adventure - 15

Platformer - 14

RPG - 7

Fighter - 3

FPS - 2

RTS - 1

Action/City-building Simulation Game - 1

Sandbox - 3

Hack n' Slash - 3

Survival-Horror - 1

Nationality:

Japanese - 34

Western - 16

No thanks necessary guys, it was you guys who made this 29/30 page beast what it is. It was fun for sure, I'd love to do it again next year. Still, I think I'll do some stat stacking in the next few days just to see what fun info I can get outta our lists.

Anywho... I better get writing on my number one game... although some (most) of you guys probably already know what it is.

1. Sonic & Knuckles (Gen)

So It's finally come down to this... my favorite game of all time. Ya know, I could spend paragraph after paragraph explaining to you, my dear reader, of why I love this game so much. But I'll just give you this link and go on from there.

Many will combine Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles as one game, and that's alright. I don't. I never saw them as one game when I first played them and I really don't need them to be one game now. The sheer brilliance of Sonic & Knuckles is all on its own, and the experience of this game surpasses all others. I really see this cartridge as the perfect example of a video game. It's not just all about perfection either, since this game have provided me moments of many emotions, among them joy, loss, and hope.

I say that this is the perfect video game experience because every facet of the game, including story, is within the gameplay. There's no words, no cut-scenes... just you as either Sonic or Knuckles, running through the goregous and wondefully designed levels, and everything else just flows. You can tell that for each act you complete, you're getting closer to a destination... even if you really don't know where that destination will take you. All you know, as you go through loops, climb pass bottomless pits, and avoid boulders... is that you're accomplishing something very important in this world you're in.

And when you get to the Hidden Palace Zone, you realize that you're on this adventure that's much bigger than anything else you've accomplished before, and that you're almost done. You can see the ending in sight... but at the last moment, all hope is lost. The treasure that you sought has been stolen, and the one doomsday device that you've been fighting to stop since Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is now active once again. Everything you've worked for is lost. It's a rather strange moment in the game, to feel such defeat in the moment of victory. But even then, you know this adventure isn't over... it can't be. And it isn't.

One of the greatest moments I've spent in gaming is playing through Sky Sanctuary Zone. This piece of gaming is the best representations of renewed hope I've ever played (played, not seen... which is why this game means so much to me). Despite the loss, determination and a new friend lead me onwards. What's so brilliant about this level is that it's vertical and not horizontal like every Sonic level before it. It's such a beautiful and well structured level too. Everything just feels right in this moment of gaming, and it's pretty darn great. Not even a mechanized version of yourself can hamper this renewed hope, this feeling of purpose as you climb higher and higher into the sky.

So yeah, this game is great (and I didn't even mention the fantastic final boss... but that's in the link). It's my favorite gaming experience of all time and has stayed that way for 16 years. Sonic & Knuckles is the greatest game of all time in my eyes, and deservedly so. What a spectacular game.