38. .hack//Infection (28)

This is one of those cases where an anime blended into a game actually works because the anime was about a video game.  The computer terminal you access the game within a game from also provides forums and emails from other players, creating a wonderful and novel sense of atmosphere for the game.  The at times cryptic story and the ways in which you obtain more information as you travel keep you on edge throughout the course of the game.  The game does a wonderful job of giving you the MMO feel without the cost or the annoying part of their userbase.  As always with .hack, the music is wonderful as well.  The gameplay is your standard action RPG fare and there are plenty of quirky features spread throughout the game to add to the fun.  The bosses also make the drain mechanic more interesting which lends some depth to the combat.

Hint for 37: This game blatantly breaks the entirety of Knox's Decalogue.

The character relationship map was madness. I put in SO MUCH TIME maxing out everything, and the need to experience the conversations is what drove me to over-level past the final boss (since some of the high ranking convos are in that one city that eventually gets taken over by level 90-some monsters, such that you couldn't possibly be ready for the conversations before the city is "lost"). I remember the way to grind it, on the far shore of the Eryth sea, a monster who puts your people to sleep if they physical-attack it, since reviving from sleep earns more hearts than any other activity, and you can repeat it ad nauseum, and that guy is hard to kill if you're trying, so you won't off him by accident. "Fun" times...

Hint for #36:
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but mad dancing.

Not a very difficult hint, but it's still clever, right?

Ah yes. One of countless great RPGs that drove me to do ridiculously tedious things for disproportionate rewards. And made me like it anyway, because I'm downright bonkers.

Virtua Tennis, very good !

#38

'Virtua Tennis'

for the SEGA Dreamcast released in 2000.

The only sports-game good enough to be on my list, 'Virtua Tennis' is more than just that. Besides just playing regular tennis matches, the game included a full scale career mode. Here there were training sessions to be completed and your gear could be upgraded by purchasing items in stores. Gear could also be unlocked by doing good in those training excersizes. Essentially, training were just mini-games with a tennis-twist. The overall goal in this mode though was to climb the rankings by winning tennis matches.

For it's time, 'Virtua Tennis' was unbelievable. The physics of the game as well as the graphics were top notch and unsurpassed by anything else on consoles. Except maybe one other Dreamcast game, that's later on the list. If you had a Dreamcast and games like this, Sony's PlayStation 2 wasn't very interesting, even if you've had the best of fun with their original PlayStation. It didn't seem to be an upgrade over what we already had. I could blame this game for the fact that I never even touched or seen a PS2 in real life.

The game would rank in the upper regions of most played multiplayer-games. In the Dreamcast's heyday, we used to play this game multiplayer all the time. In fact, I even had whole tournaments among friends and family, spending entire days competing. It's quite rare for me to have a game that does that. Usually, I couldn't care less about the multiplayer aspects of any game, but sometimes, something comes along to remind me that player together can be fun.

#37 Hint

This detective gets involved in a plot revolving around a certain mythical box.

#44

Retro City Rampage (Vita, PS3, PC/2012) Guessed by AlphaCielago

I rented Retro City Rampage through PS+ only because it was there, really. I knew nothing about it. Definitely didn't expect anything great from it. Now I know better. Retro City Rampage is an outstanding game, designed and executed masterfully. It's mostly a parody of Grand Theft Auto, but designer Brian Provinciano (who designed the game pretty much by himself) pokes plenty of fun at pop culture and the video game industry. It's a smart, satirical, very funny game. And it plays great too. This is a true open world game, with all the nooks, crannies, and side missions players have come to expect from the genre.

OK, gotta catch up...again.

Hint for #43

This game and its spiritual predecessor were included in an HD collection in 2011.