Yep, that's right. There were a few different radio stations, that played different music members of the development team recorded.

No idea why this hasn't been re-released, along with the London expansion and GTA2. Surely it'd make them a decent wedge? The 'looking down' comment was to do with the perspective the games are viewed from.

Lol I didn't even connected those dots ('looking down'), but I recognised the music and controversy thing. I have to admit I had to look up whether or not the game is available to purchase, but it seems not, which yes is pretty strange.

I see what you did there!

29. Monster Hunter: World

My first Monster Hunter game, and I put almost 600 hours into it. Absolutely addicting gameplay loop, and still allows you to mix things up after countless hours by giving you so many unique weapons to learn and master. This game also had absolutely spectacular post-launch support. If they can make co-op a little bit more seamless in the future, and maybe work a more compelling story to go along with all the awesome gameplay, Capcom could have a game that might land in my top 10 all time.

28. Crysis 2

This one's a bit tricky. Crysis 2 in and of itself isn't all that remarkable. A good fun action game, but probably the entry in the franchise that's generally the least favorably looked upon. So, why is it here on my list? Because I made several lifelong friends on the multiplayer for this game, including my best friend. I'll always remember it fondly.

27. Darksiders 2

The only thing I don't like about this game, is that it twice screwed me out of getting the last achievement, for finding all the game's collectibles. I did this on two full playthroughs, no small bit of work, and it didn't pop either time. Fortunately, the sting of that disappointment was greatly eased by the fact that Darksiders 2 is absolutely fantastic in pretty much every way you'd want, so playing through it all again ain't so bad. The art style, the gameplay, the story, the level design...this game is the total package. Sadly, no other game in the series has come even close to being this good.

26. Super Smash Bros. 3

One of my first ever console games. Bought a SNES and 7 games off my neighbor at the time for like 60 bucks. SSB3 was instantly my favorite game, and I'll probably always consider it the best Mario game. I was only allowed to play for like 2 hours a day, and I pretty much always burned them all up on this. No regrets.

25. Deus Ex: Human Revolution

I'm a sucker for choice driven RPGs, and I absolutely adore the whole cyberpunk, transhumanist settings and themes. I was really hoping that Cyberpunk 2077 would be as choice driven as Deus Ex, but alas, this was not the case. Deus Ex is still king of this sub-genre. It also creates more meaningfully different playstyles, and while it doesn't let you explore as large, or spectacularly grand a world, it does allow you to interact with that world in infinitely more meaningful ways. Mankind Divided is actually even better in many ways, but sadly feels like it's only half the game that Eidos wanted to make. Hopefully they get the funding to create the masterpiece I know they're capable of making at some point.

#26

YoY: -3     My Rating: 9.2/10

Very few video game series have climbed up in my estimation as quickly as The Legend of Heroes did. I first played a game in it in 2015, and two years later it was behind only Final Fantasy and Dark Souls when it came to my favourite video game franchises, a spot it still holds today. Now, the problem with that is that this is now the third time I'm writing about this series this year, and it's not even close to being the last time either. Trying to figure out new and different ways to say "I really like this one" is getting a bit difficult, as quite often the reasons why one of these games is great, are the exact same for why another one of them is, so bear with me I guess as I bring up this series four more times in the coming weeks.

I guess the one thing I can say about Trails of Cold Steel, is that it was basically the game that cemented the series' place in my mind as something truly great. I had previously played the first two Trails in the Sky games and loved them, but this was the game that showed the franchise could keep the quality high beyond the confines of that one sub-series. It could introduce new characters and settings and make me care about them just as much as the ones I already knew, a trend that has continued ever since with each new installment.

Another hint.

#25

-Remake part 1 of 3 (Final Fantasy VII Remake)

#24

-The culmination of a story spanning seven other games across three different nations and dozens of characters (The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV)

#23

-Or you could just wait a week to progress

-That's a very tall ladder (Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater)

#22

-A kingdom of insects

-You are a failed vessel that managed to escape the Abyss (Hollow Knight)

#21

-With civil war in full bloom, you must first find all your friends from the previous game before you can do something about the conflict

-Picks up roughly a month after the end of the first game

-In addition to standard combat, you get to fight with a mech

Guessed by @coolbeans

Yeah, it does say +13 there. It's not wrong, that's actually what happened. That is to say, last year's list was wrong for putting this game so low. The thing is, I always replayed the other 3D Zeldas many times, but never felt compelled to replay Majora's Mask (only did it once for the remake). So while I formed a very consolidated opinion on the other games in the series, this one was always the weird one that I played way back when. And I'm sometimes consumed by my recency bias.

What this also meant, is that when I watched first playthroughs of all the 3D Zeldas this year, this one was the most exciting, because my memory of it wasn't nearly as fresh. And even if I stand by this game not being much my style, it is an absolutely amazing game. The fact that it was made in close to 1 year is just mind-boggling, because outside of the reused assets, it doesn't show any signs of being rushed - if anything it's quite the opposite, with an insane attention to detail not often seen even in games with long development cycles.

Even if I played it twice before, this year was when Majora's Mask totally blew me away. I obviously remembered it tackling all these heavy themes, how people deal with grief and imminent destruction and all that stuff, but what I didn't remember was just how well it handled these. It's not just saying these things for the sake of it, it makes you really feel it, the way the characters react to all the events that are happening in Termina feels believable and real, which is funny because most of the faces you see already existed in Ocarina of Time, but this is the game where you remember them. And through living the same cycle endlessly, of being with these people as they descend into either madness, desperation, or hopelessness, over and over again, you begin to care about them, and it makes you want to bring the cycle to an end, to save Termina for all the people who live in it. In a series of games that are all about saving the world, none of them made you care as much as Majora's Mask does. It may never be my favorite Zelda game, but it's genuinely hard to argue against it being the best. I just hope I don't have to keep reminding myself of that.

Top 50 >>

From time to time you encounter a game which gives you a fresh joyful experience that stays with you. For me A Short Hike works that way.

The game is interesting in many ways. It has it's own unique artstyle, it is a freely navigatable open world but a small one, it offers a wide variety of very well feeling movement options and it has a simple objective: get to the peak, because up there you have reception. Along the way you meet a lot of characters, learn about them but also about your character (you get into the game without even knowing the name of your character, but some characters call you Claire).

Your objective for the game is set early on, and you learn to climb early and learn you need feathers, more for higher ascends. Also an early sign informs you how many feathers you need to reach the peak. So you look for feathers (of which are much more than you need for the climb, but you can try to find them anyways).

The game felt never like checking points from a list, I did more what I wanted while keeping the overall goal in mind. I am sure others will find another way up there and maybe even meet different characters where I haven't looked. At the beginning it annoyed me not to have a map or not to be able to freely move the camera. But this gave quickly in as I relaxed and let go of things I did in other games and just enjoyed the ride. The game isn't difficult, it isn't even long (the name is telling), so you don't need extra information or helpers to achieve your goals, you can just keep them in your mind.

In the end, when you reach the peak your character just sit's there for a while, soaking in the view and the northern lights (as can you), then you get the call and learn what this is about. Then you can sit there a little longer and then fly all the way down watching the locales you saw on the way.

This game is short, but in my opinion more than worth it's price, as it leaves you with good feelings. And isn't that what games should do?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usBVx4J4CUM&ab_channel=Nintendo

I should get more hints going:

#25: Guessed by Machina: UFO: Enemey Unknown (aka XCOM: UFO Defense)

#24: Guessed by UnderwaterFunktown: Zelda: Breath of the Wild

#23: Fight for the island of Metavira.

#22: Befriend the companies pilot Faridah Malik.

#21: Guessed by UnderwaterFunktown: Return to Zork
Return to "You got eaten by a grue".

#20: Father and daughter have an epic fight using the same weapon.

_{ranking in the guessing game, list so far}

Even more hints!

#30 - Gandalf's line from Fellowship of the Ring, "We hear drums, drums in the deep", could easily apply to one of the bosses from this action-adventure game.

#29 - A recent compilation included this game but not its sequel for some reason, rankling fans.

#28 - A print ad for this game seemed to suggest the end of cartridge-based games forever.

#27 - Even thought the studio that made this game was purchased by Microsoft in 2019, the game's sequel appeared on both PlayStation and Xbox in 2021.

#26 - Fans of this game would probably belong to the church of ladder-day snakes.