#27: Yoshi's Island?

Yes, it's Yoshi's Island.

#26 - The Sims 2 (Kudos to Player2 for guessing this)

The Sims 1 was a revelation for me.  Will Wright's dream of a digital dollhouse had become a fantastic reality and I lost countless months of my life telling these people what to do with their time; building their houses and living their lives...

... until I couldn't anymore.  For some reason my stupid PC at the time couldn't run any of the games beyond "Livin' it up", the first expansion, so I grew a little weary of it with time.

Enter the Sims 2.  Suddenly, everything about the first game which made it great had been preserved and everything that wasn't so great had been shaken up.  And it worked on my PC!

Sims aged!  They could go out to the shops!  They could drink elixirs to keep themselves younger!  I could modify every detail in their faces!  And with the expansions came loads of new possibilities for living a virtual life.

I genuinely believe that The Sims is one of the most influential game series of all time, and The Sims 2 is the moment where Maxis truly realised the potential which existed in the franchise which had been rather stunted by the original game.  It's still a title I regularly go back to to this day just so I can mess around in those little people's lives.

#25 - Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Kudos to Player2 for guessing this)

Super Mario Galaxy was a revelation for me.  This series of precision platformers suddenly blasted off into outer space and had all kinds of weird and wacky Ratchet-esque gravity mechanics added, while keeping the brilliant jump 'n' run gameplay and traditional Mario aesthetic.  Add in some collectathon exploring like I loved from the 5th gen, and you have yourself a classic.

In many ways, SMG2 is much better than the original.  But, in other ways it's a lot worse too.  It did feel a little like an expansion pack rather than a new game; and I didn't take to Lubba and his ship the same way I took to Rosalina and her story.

However, level design was a bit step up from the original; Yoshi was a nice new addition and as much as it felt like a cash grab, I was actually happy to have my cash grabbed by it.  I loved everything about the original SMG, so I happily paid to have more of that.  I hope this isn't the last we've seen of the 'galaxy' sub-series because I would happily pay even more again to have a crack at exploring some new levels with Mario at the helm.

#24 - Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (Kudos to Truckosaurus for guessing this)

Put quite simply, Double Dash!! is the go-to game at parties for myself and my friends.  I can't think of a single occassion where we've tired of playing this game, as every single time there will be a new outcome or combination we can play as that literally provides weeks worth of fun.

While later entries did one thing or another differently that I could never really take to, DD's double kart mechanic combined with some classically awesome tracks and plenty of game modes meant it was a good time no matter what we did.  I never quite understood why Nintendo didn't revisit this mechanic with later games.

Perfect fun and the best kart racer I've ever played.  P.S. Snaking ftw.

Yep you got it.

Clue for 23: Trust me don't pick any of those up, keep the spread shot.

22: Most RPG fans favorite of the series and easily one of the best PS1 games.

21: One of the best FPS ever and the one that had commander mode.

#23 - Left 4 Dead 2 (Kudos to BasilZero for guessing this)

L4D2 was honestly a massive, massive shock for me.  I got gifted it by a friend on steam and genuinely didn't know what to expect.  About a month later after spending copious amounts of time with it, it got easily promoted to be among my favourite games of all time.

What makes L4D2 so great is just that I want to keep going back to it.  The content is the same.  The maps don't change; but what does change is the zombies that will come at you and the people/AI's that you play with.  No two runs are ever the same.  I wanted to keep running through Hard Rain's atmospheric level; I wanted to keep filling up the tank of a car with fuel because I never knew when that tank would appear and rape us into oblivion.  

Throw in plenty of other modes to keep you occupied and some community made content that's pretty damn impressive, and L4D2 is a game everyone should check out.  I can't wait to hear about L4D3, even though I know Valve have a reputation to uphold about three-quels.

Clue for my #22 - recent reboot of a series which was received pretty well by critics but slated by fans from straying much too far from its roots by focusing on survival against the odds rather than the traditional core mechanics.

23.  One of the Contras.  Either the first or Super C?  Contra 3 all weapons are pretty good, homing is just as good or better then spread except against some bosses.  Crash missiles are ridiculously powerful.

22.  Final Fantasy 7?

Tomb Raider. Amazing game, its sequel will be incredible.