30. EA-FU. Because of EA this game wasn't as good as it could have been. Not a property of EA (EA screwed up someone elses game.....a racing game).
Incorrect Guesses: Mass Effect 3, NFL Games, Dragon Age 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

9. A game in the same racing series as #30, this game wasn't F***ed up by EA because the franchise was still growing. It's a racing game as well. The acronym for this game is a type of radio frequency (Same goes for #30).

8. First he was a Villain, but now in this epic platformer, he is the protagonist. A great co-op game, with lizards as villains, not floating drums like recent iterations.

7. One of the first epic handheld exclusives. This game really defined the Gameboy, and it showed that a successful handheld doesn't have to be just a simple puzzle game.....maybe mobile games will follow this path. I hope they do.

Zelda: Link's Awakening?

30. Forza Motorsport 3

So for 9 i'll try Forza Motorsport 2

8. Donkey Kong Country

7. Same as Scoobes, Zelda: Link's Awakening

Nr 7 is a new entry for me this year, Dark Souls!


The biggest star of the game for me is the intricate seamlessly connected three dimensional world. It's of a level that you don't normally see. No separation between overworld, dungeons and indoor/outdoor areas, it all fits and links together without ever taking you out of the fantasy world.
The difficulty in the game suits one important purpose, to make you go slow and pay attention to the environment so you'll end up with the whole world memorized by the end of the game. I can still easily traverse the whole game world in my mind after a year of playing the game. And those lovely shortcuts and alternate routes make sure travelling back and forth never gets boring.
Going lost in the depths for hours on the way to Blighttown was one of the scariest game experiences this gen. I jumped/fell of some structures in a mad run to escape with my life and ended up at a bonfire. I didn't know the way back or the way forward, it was dark and extremely deadly all around. My weapons and armor were slowly degrading. The only way forward was to slowly build a map of the area in my  mind, exploration at its finest. Never have I felt so relieved in a game when I finally reached the way down to relative safety in Blighttown.

How exactly did EA ruin Forza Motorsport 3? I'll give it to you though, you're one number off.

30. Forza Motorsport 4 - No Porsche - FU EA!!! (It came later as DLC)

9. Forza Motorsport 3 - Porsche, lots of them, also a substantially better game then FM4. You really get to drive your dream in this game, FM4 is too focused on modification, you almost never race a stock car in that game, and I think the purpose of these sims is to race your dream cars, stock.

8. YES I'm not 100% sure if I like DKC1 better then 2, but the bosses are more memorable, the snow level is epic, and I see myself coming back to this game more then DKC2.

7. Close, I'm looking for a Nintendo product which defined the Gameboy, and introduced an exclusively handheld franchise. Zelda is available on consoles and Links Awakening isn't that different from Zelda 1/ A Link to the Past.

Pokemon Red/Blue?

8 - Ocarina of Time?

6 - Donkey Kong Country.

5 - Metroid Prime.

#08 - SSX 3 (PS2)

As guessed by Player2.

SSX 3 was an impulse buy for me which probably turned out to be the best impulse buy of my life.

I really wasn't into sports games of any sorts before I bought this, but there's just something about this game that's just perfect for everyone.  Like I mentioned in my clue, it's kind of GTA of snowboarding as you're given the freedom to snowboard down the mountain at your leisure - taking part in events if you feel like or just exploring the slopes.  The events themselves are a great mixture and again there's a choice - if you want to progress doing only races, you can - if you prefer doing freestyle trick events to progress, you can do that too.

But it wasn't just the open-endedness that helped SSX 3 make this list.  The controls are so fluid, you really feel like you're in control of your character.  The track design is some of the best I've ever seen, with every course being littered with shortcuts, rails to grind, cliffs to fall off and all sorts.  EA Sports decided to include an in-game DJ spinning tracks all day long which oddly was one of the best decisions of the whole game - he would comment about the conditions on various areas of the mountain and recommend places where events were taking place, making it really seem like a living, breathing competition.  And the graphics, I find, still hold up perfectly to this day.  By going for a slightly larger-than-life look with a crazy colour pallette, it makes the game more than playable at any time.  SSX 3 remains probably the best snowboarding game ever made which I doubt will change, but it's so much more than that too.  If you haven't played it yet, you owe it to yourself to try this one out.

Clue for my #07 - Fastest racer on the PS3 and penultimate entry in a long-running series.