The GameCola Top 50 Videogames Ever Made In The Whole Of Human History (As Far As We’re Concerned): Part One

Behold! Gamecola's Top 50 Videogames EVER: Part One!

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37. Mega Man 2

Who’s to blame:
David Donovan – #9
Matt Jonas – #20
Michael Ridgaway – #22

Mega Man 2It’s hard to say precisely why Mega Man 2 stands out amongst the Mega Men. It probably has something to do with the memorable set of Robot Masters, superb level design, and catchy soundtrack. Of course, I just described every Mega Man game, so perhaps Mega Man 2 falls into the magic sweetspot: more polished than the original Mega Man, yet free from the feature creep of later entries (i.e. the perpetual WAWAWAWAWAWAWAWA sound of your Mega Buster charging). Or perhaps it’s something more subtle, the caring touch of a team who voluntarily worked on the game between other projects. OK, I’m really struggling here, so let’s just go with the badass title screen, the brokenly overpowered Metal Blades, and the part where Dr. Wily turns into an alien.

—David Donovan


36. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Who’s to blame:
Mark Freedman – #12
Jeff Day – #18
Michael Ridgaway – #21

Legend Of Zelda The A Link To The PastLink is his name. Link is also someone else’s name…in the past. This game is the link. Do you get it? Much like Mario 3, Zelda 3 went back to the original style of the series, but went much, much further. This is the game where the series really took off. A noteworthy story, alternate worlds, and great items. This was also the longest Zelda game, at least in terms of the main plot.

—Mark Freedman


35. GoldenEye 007

Who’s to blame:
Mark Freedman – #7
Michael Ridgaway – #17

goldeneye007_n64_02It’s your first time in The Facility. You’re crawling through the air ducts, and you spot the Russian sentry standing in the stall, and you nail him. One of the few games that is actually a worthwhile movie adaptation, GoldenEye was the first big four-player multiplayer game. TVs weren’t that large back then, so the four-way split-screen may have been tough to get used to—but man, what an experience. There’s something unique about it, since you got to see where the other three guys were in the map. Also, single player was a blast with the difficulty levels and unlockable cheats.

—Mark Freedman


34. BioShock

Who’s to blame:
Michael Ridgaway – #7
Zach Rich – #18
Christian Porter – #23

bioshockBioShock, in addition to a few other games, raised the bar for all modern first-person shooters. Taking place in Rapture, a submarine art-deco city ruled by ultra-capitalism and science gone awry, the atmosphere established by BioShock‘s setting, graphics, and music creates an unparalleled experience. The game embodies nostalgia for a bygone age contrasted with the harsh realities of unchecked power, and at times is as much a treatise on philosophy and ethics as it is a game. All of this plays into a twist that is one of the best in all modern games, if not all modern story-telling.

The FPS mechanics are solid, and players are given a wide variety of weapons, skills, and enhancements through which they can customize their character. My only complaint about the game is that it leaves you wanting more of Rapture (a criticism also warranted by its sequel), and I really wish there were just a couple more levels. Still, there are worse problems to have than being too engaging and addictive, and for this reason BioShock is one of the greatest games ever made.

—Michael Ridgaway


33. Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon

Who’s to blame:
Jeff Day – #7
Matt Jonas – #11

mystical_ninja_starring_goemon2I simply can’t say that I’ve ever experienced a game—well, an entire series—that meets the level of quirk of the Ganbare Goemon bunch. Most of them are so damn weird that they never made it out of Japan. But a few have, and this one is pretty damn awesome. A 3D platformer with some often-difficult FPS trials stirred in for flavour, you can play as up to four different characters with various powers, and switch between them at will. The game is littered with fun dungeons, one of the finest soundtracks I’ve ever experienced coming from the Nintendo 64’s limited sound system, and an erratic sense of humour that only the few, the proud, the otaku can enjoy. It’s too bad this was overlooked by so many.

—Jeff Day


32. Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Who’s to blame:
Zach Rich – #10
Michael Ridgaway – #15
Mark Freedman – #23

smash bros brawlI played the ever-loving daylights out of SSB Melee. That tiny disc spun around in my GameCube so much the damn thing split in half. So while I can’t sit around and be one of those “purists” who sit on their high thrones and bitch about the lack of wavedashing in Brawl, I can tell you that this is one of the best games I’ve ever played. Not only because of its status as a love letter to everything being a Nintendo fan is all about, but because the gameplay is simple and pure fun, and when you toss out the bigoted “purists” and their HXC nonsense, you’ve got a game that has kept me amused for many hours on end, and will continue to do so until SSB Bloodbath comes down the pipeline.

—Zach Rich


31. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Who’s to blame:
Nathaniel Hoover – #9
Justin Luschinski – #17
Paul Franzen – #23
Elizabeth Medina-Gray – #24

starwars_knightsoftheoldrepublic_2KotOR, as the hipsters refer to it, is a Star Wars game of the highest quality and one of the finest RPGs money or illegal downloading can buy. Set thousands of years before the prequels that ruined your childhood, Knights of the Old Republic takes a straightforward “defeat the big bad boss man” quest and transforms it into a massive interactive story that will take you through mutant-infested sewers, treacherous swoop races, ancient Sith catacombs, treetop Wookiee homes, sprawling deserts, and your very own (used) spaceship. With gorgeous visuals, dynamic music, superb voice acting, memorable characters both major and minor, varied and challenging battles, impressive character customizability, an open-ended storyline, and one of the most whiplash-inducing plot twists in videogame history, Knights of the Old Republic truly has enough great features to turn this paragraph into a really ugly, bloated monstrosity of English.

—Nathaniel Hoover


Moving on to number thir—wait…are you falling asleep? What do you mean you can’t sit through us reminiscing about fifty of our favorite games all in one sitting?

Fine, while you go take a nap, we’ll take a break. When you get back, you can tell us how terribly wrong we are so far in the comments. After that, you can check out Part 2.

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About the Contributor


From 2007 to 2013

4 Comments

  1. I would like to point out that Knights of the Old Republic has a much better story than George Lucas could have ever hoped of writing, and if you haven’t played it yet, you are not allowed on the internet until you do so.

  2. Any time I hear anyone complain about Feature Creep in the Mega Man series, the first thing I think of is Cranky Kong complaining about how, back in his day, all players had were a joystick and one button, and they LIKED it. We’ve got complex games like Smash Bros. Brawl on the list, and people are whining about having the OPTION to hold down a button to charge up a shot?

    I’m just railing on you because Mega Man 10 was Feature Creeped to the max, yet it didn’t have the two features–sliding and charging–that would have made the game more fun.

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