Yeah, I figured you'd get it. That's correct.

#37: Doom 2, you shoot John Romero's head in the Icon of Sin

#26: A Short Hike maybe?

I would've got it a lot sooner if only I'd noticed the hint when you first posted xD

#36

YoY: -6    My Rating: 9.1

One of the games people often mention when the games as art discussion rears its weary, repetitive head. Journey was something quite different from just about all other video games I had ever played when it first released back in 2012. In an industry often dominated by fast-paced and loud action games, Journey took a much more contemplative and quiet approach, not only telling its story mostly through images and the world itself, but also creating an online multiplayer where it was impossible to directly talk to the other people playing the game with you. It created a unique atmosphere that let the players take their time with the game, rarely pushing them forward to the next big set-piece as so many other games have a tendency to do.

That is not to say Journey is difficult or complicated. Your goal is explicitly clear from the start, and there's really only one way forward, but the point of the game was never to overcome difficult challenges or figure out puzzles. Rather, all you were asked was to experience the journey itself, and that's all that was ever needed. It's a wonderful, peaceful trip across deserts and snowfields, and while other games have since come that have tried to emulate the style of Journey, none have quite captured its serene atmosphere.

Yep, Doom II is correct. I tried to include the words Icon and Sin in the clue, although I'm thinking you didn't need that to know what game it was. The next clue would've been this spearhead's head is on a spear... of sorts.

36 is incorrect

Let's try to get the last one guessed:

36) Most characters from the original game return in this sequel, though you only meet a few of them before the post game
Hint 2: One of these characters, the one you interact with the most of the returning ones, is the "final boss", though he didn't have that role in the first one
Hint 3: He's a dragon tamer who looks very dramatic and wears a cape.
Hint 4: His name is Lance and he has a cousin named Clair

Guessed by Bofferbrauer2

This game blew my mind. When you start a new game in Star Wars Rebel Assault II: The Hidden Empire the first thing you see is a figure with a long dark cloak on a grey, slightly reflective steel deck turned away looking out at a field of stars. On the figure's head what looks like a heavy helmet. Pure black, but shining like a mirror. Then as the dark figure turns around you see the head is a dark mask with black pupil-less eyes under an arching rim. He makes a hissing heavy breathing noise, and his underling nervously clears his throat. The live-action scenes in this game are great, high quality and very much true to the franchise. I was sold on Star Wars right then and there, and the game had yet to even begin.

Guessed by Veknoid_Outcast

I missed out. When Metroid Fusion originally released on GameBoy Advance, I had kind of given up on gaming on consoles, both home and handheld. The GameCube had disappointed me after the amazing Nintendo 64, and on GameBoy Advance I really only had, though of great games, ports. Then, two decades later, Nintendo's 3DS handheld wasn't doing so hot and Nintendo decided to lower the price while giving those that already owned the system and bought it full price a slew of free games. Old games, but good games. So I figured I'd try a Metroid game. I had played the original and Super Metroid a handful of times way back when, not understanding a thing that was going on in either because I was too young, but I thought I'd finally try one for real and play it through to the end. Good choice.

Unguessed

I'm not really into multiplayer gaming, but every once in a while I would play something with a friend, because multiplayer gaming was all he did. Warcraft III to be exact, but he was extremely good at that game and I only ever played the story mode, so I wasn't. We settled on a couple games to play instead, of which Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds was the competitive one. I say "competitive", but it wasn't really between us, because I only ever wanted to play as allies against AI. Sure, we could set those to a hard difficulty at some point, but still, AI. The AI however, cheats. If you cheat to reveal the map, you'll see it doing multiple things at the same time and creating units and building buildings when there was no way it'd actually have the resources for it. So we found a solution to this; we both picked the same colour. Then, you'd both play the same base, which means you could do multiple things at the same time as well because for example I'd scout the map and manage resources and my friend would train units and wage war. Take that AI!

Guessed by Veknoid_Outcast

I talked about Pokémon Blue (#42) being a pretty big addiction in my life, but Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock wouldn't be far behind. If it is behind at all. At one point I played this, or any of its successors daily. Really, it is hard to decide on one of these games for this list. I could've entered another because the premise of all of them is the same. Obviously. But Guitar Hero III was my introduction to this series and to the genre as a whole and that will always be something special. Sadly, the genre would soon become oversaturated and the quality of the games fell and pretty much from one day to the next it was all gone. However, these games have greatly broadened my musical knowledge, or at least were the catalyst of that, and that is worth a whole lot. I even bought myself a real guitar at one point. I can't play it, but it's my prettiest wall ornament that's for sure.

#36

(-5)

A big one that got me back into gaming after a break, bought a 3DS for this one. I know this is actually commonly a least favorite for Pokemon fans but hey nostalgia prevails and I've yet to play most of the really acclaimed Pokemon games (hoping to fix that in the upcoming year). But nonetheless there's a lot I love about this game. The world is especially great, I especially love the big open Paris like city that's sorta the game's main hub. Also this has one of my favorite new Pokemon collections even if it's smaller with a great set of 3 starters and awesome legendaries among a few others. But tbh my biggest compliment of this game relative to other Pokemon games is actually its brevity. I love that this game doesn't overstay its welcome and can be beaten in like under 20 hours. So many other games in this franchise I'm just totally exhausted by the end (unfortunately especially Legends Arceus which I rly wanted to like enough to put here), but this one was such a blast for me beginning to end. Very much could just be nostalgia tho idk, planning to replay next year so we'll see where it moves!

Been a little, sorry. I know you've been anticipating this entry in my personal top 10 with bated breath though, so here goes.

Other entries in this series:

10. Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams
9. Perfect Tides
8. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
7. Chop Suey
6. Knights and Bikes
4. Gone Home
3. Butterfly Soup
2. The Last of Us Part I
1. The Last of Us Part II

5. SUPER METROID

There's a defining exchange in Greta Gerwig's 2017 film Lady Bird that goes like this:

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SISTER SARAH JOAN: You clearly love Sacramento.
CHRISTINE 'LADY BIRD' MCPHEARSON: I do?
SISTER SARAH: You write about Sacramento so affectionately and with such care.
LADY BIRD: I was just describing it.
SISTER SARAH: Well it comes across as love.
LADY BIRD: Sure, I guess I pay attention.
SISTER SARAH: Don't you think maybe they are the same thing? Love and attention?

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To me, besides some kind of thematic relevance to my own life, the crucial test of a game's merit lies in whether the developers wanted to play their own product, and the answer to that question I find can typically be ascertained in the extent to which care went into the details. In the open world games that increasingly dominate the modern AAA landscape, this is what separates the rare Skyrims, the Breath of the Wilds, and the Elden Rings from the much more common Far Crys, Assassin's Creeds, Cyberpunk 2077's, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarots, and Sonic Frontiers'. It's typically pretty easy to tell when people weren't really feeling what they were making. Half-hearted, profit-driven titles will be rife with mostly forgettable missions highlighted on a map and nothing of note in-between. Nondescript backgrounds, for example. No wildlife in a "wild" space. Waterfalls that could've easily been made just as convincingly two or three console generations ago despite the vast budgets the company could afford. Music you forget the second its over because it's just noise. Characters so unnaturally wooden that they seem to converse with you without breathing or necessarily even lip-syncing their painfully patronizing script anywhere near accurately. Or perhaps the game is released all but broken because meeting a release deadline was more important. There's a good chance you'll have to sign an in-game contract before being allowed to play it even after purchase. And I won't even get started here on in-game transactions. Etc. We know the signs. We've all seen them before. Titles that are made in an open world format only because that's what you want, right? Easily 90% of today's open world games don't benefit from being structured that way and would function more efficiently if they were just made in straightforward, linear, stage-by-stage progression instead. To that end, the open world game structure is something I'm inclined to compliment sparsely these days. In my mind, the genre must earn its right to go on existing at this point.

Maybe I'm commenting too much on the state of blockbuster adventure gaming today. My point was that the proof of passion can be found in the details. Is this a world that seems to literally just exist for the player to plunder it dry and make everyone else's decisions for them or does it instead feel like the game's world is alive; like it would go on existing if you weren't in it?

What makes Super Metroid so special is the degree to which the game's world itself seems like a living entity. Early on in your journey, it scans you and thereafter hordes of hostile creatures suddenly appear everywhere, in all kinds of rooms and corridors and elsewhere. It's fucking creepy! (No one said a game's world needed to be inviting to feel alive!) Everything exists in service of cultivating a menacing ambience in different shades and varieties appropriate to different settings, from the lighting techniques in play to the highly detailed backgrounds that often seem to move even in metallic settings that in other games would've been quite visually bland and one-note. The hauntingly subdued music and the smoothness with which it transitions from setting to setting exhibit a special level of care that I really don't feel has been rivaled by many other games at all, ever. It's frankly amazing to feel legitimately scared of a 2D environment, even after you've long since familiarized yourself with its contents!

But despite its hostile surface-level trappings, Super Metroid's Zebes is a world that demands to be explored. Nearly every room, hallway, and outside area hides useful secrets, including some environmental secrets that were mind-expanding in 1994, like the Chozo statue that picks you up and walks you through a bed of spikes into a hidden area beneath when you curl up in its hands and a tunnel in Maridia you have to blow up in order to access a whole new area of the game! This to say nothing of everything that's enabled by the new abilities introduced in this game beyond power bombs, like wall jumping, speed boosting, and shine-sparking. And so you feel compelled ever further into the planet's depths.

Earlier Metroid entries just didn't have the serious feel that Super Metroid does, opening right from the get-go on a scene of dead scientists, just as the word "NINTENDO" you'd not associate with such a scene, appears, followed by a very story-driven prologue that feels quite motivating not just for the 16-bit era, but by any standard, complete with a camera that tilts diagonally as you try to climb platforms to escape in time, obstructing your view (...which, were this game made today, the "form must follow function" crowd would likely contend constitutes bad game design because it inhibits the efficacy of your play ). Your mission, whatever it is, feels urgent. And then nothing! You're just thrown onto Zebes with no guidance whatsoever, expected to figure everything out on your own. Clearly a game for gamers! Beyond a brief recap of events preceding the prologue, there's not even any dialogue in the whole game. The lack of formal guidance works well thanks to a deliberately minimalistic narrative that focuses on heart pricks just as subtle, and also just as powerful, as the soundtrack. And yes I'm referencing the events of that famed final fight in particular that convey a message I've learned time and again in life: that sometimes the best of friendships can come from the most unexpected places. It's mainly the special value of this message to me that separates the position of Super Metroid on my list from that of Metroid Prime. It's amazing what can sometimes be accomplished without dialogue or direction! Perhaps one day I'll learn to lean less on lengthy exposition in my own messaging.

Speaking of direction, Super Metroid, furthermore, invented one of the most brilliant approaches to progression ever conceived of in the history of this medium. The original invented, for the world of 2D platforming games, the adventure style of progression that involves a world built to be searched out for tools that unlock more of the world (as opposed to traditional stage-by-stage progression lacking a unified world structure). This third entry in the franchise though adds another layer of exploratory incentive to that formula by designing its world in such a careful way that beginners will find a definite path through that works very well, while more experienced players will notice, on later playthroughs, that they have more traversal options than they first realized; options that were likely previously unknown to them that enable them to "break" the game and proceed through its areas and bosses completely out of the predestined sequence. And one is incentivized to do so through a (...certain...) system of rewards that's intended to encourage fast, efficient playthroughs with different endings. In short, the game was actually designed for what we today call speed runs looooooooooooong before that was any much of a thing!

Innumerable games have sought to recapture Super Metroid's alchemy, but I don't know that it can even be done. Invariably I find that attempts to change up its core design approach or expand on its atmosphere-driven approach to storytelling with increased exposition invariably land on varying degrees of speeding up the pace of game play, the intensity and frequency of firefights, and, well, just coming off as, for lack of a better way of putting it, more conventional and less mature, all for the worse, at least to some degree. That's my opinion anyway.

I'm also partial to Samus's physically fit appearance in this game, which comes across with or without an armored suit on.

Although I really could go on for ages about everything I love about this game (like how mind-blowing it was to briefly fight a "Kraid" the size of the original model from the first game, figure I was done and that that was lame, only to enter the next room and find another Kraid monster bigger than the screen waiting on the other side...!! ) and how much fun was had playing this with a friend or two over, this post would then expand forever if I did so. What's needed to be said has been. The galaxy is at peace.

Revelations really showed what the 3DS is capable of. Graphically and in the gameplay area. This game bound me to the 3DS for many many hours. For me it best combines old strengths of the Resident Evil franchise with modernized controls and capabilities. Revelations can build a scary athmosphere as the early games could which some of the newer titles drown in masses of enemies. But at the same time the modernized controls give much more options and feel a lot better.

The game is presented in a chapter structure, which the developers felt was better fitted to a handheld. The many rereleases of the game on home consoles show that this structure is not in the least limited to handhelds. The setting on the luxurious cruisers which are empty and corrupted create that creepy atmosphere the first game had with the villa. Even as you see no enemy, but hear strange sounds, have the motions and sounds of the ship, see unsettling spots of biological contamination… this all builds to the feeling, so that the emergence of actual enemies can often feel freeing, as we finally face the threat we felt all the time.

And I am normally not too much into multiplayer, but that Raid-mode was excellent. This game was so great, that Capcom made a HD-conversion and rereleased it everywhere. The sequel Revelations 2 missed the 3DS sadly, but that was made up when both games came to the Switch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgSF2aY9MtM