20. Tetris
Who’s to blame:
Jeff Day – #3
Matt Jonas – #7
If you’re visiting GameCola, then you already know why Tetris is so monumental. What, you came here expecting a website about a sports drink? Tetris is the legendary falling-block phenomenon from Russia with love, but nobody REALLY understands why it’s so popular and addictive. Perhaps the urge to better oneself, to beat one’s own score…or perhaps eliminating four lines at once and having them appear on your opponent’s screen, resulting in cursing and frustration. Or maybe it’s the fact that playing long-term Tetris increases brain efficiency! Yes, that must be it. And even though those long-line pieces are indeed a rarity and cause many a ruckus to players eagerly awaiting their appearance, Tetris remains a staple in most gamers’ libraries.
—Jeff Day
19. Thief 2: The Metal Age
Who’s to blame:
David Donovan – #1
Justin Luschinski – #8
While console gamers were busily watching Metal Gear Solid‘s riveting codec conversations, PC gamers were enjoying a stealth-action experience of their own. Considered the original “first-person sneaker”, Thief: The Dark Project introduced a number of innovative and influential gameplay concepts, most notably its light-based sneaking system and complex use of sound. Although not as revolutionary as the original game, Thief II: The Metal Age put an extra coat of polish on the skull-clubbing, shadow-skulking experience, thanks to a slight graphical updgrade, new weapons and equipment, and, er…robots. Yes, while the series’ gameplay is quite engaging in its own right, the package is topped off with one of the most immersive and stylish settings in videogame history: a sort of medieval-fantasy-victorian-steampunk-meso-american-art-deco conglomeration populated by corrupt noblemen, gangsters, zombies, belligerent nature gods, technology-worshipping industrialist zealots, humanoid crayfish, and the aforementioned robots. There’s still a lot of fun to be had with the game: even a decade after its release, the Thief fan community continues to produce new missions, including a complete expansion for Thief II.
—David Donovan
18. Mass Effect 2
Who’s to blame:
Justin Luschinski – #7
Zach Rich – #8
Michael Ridgaway – #18
Now, there are a lot of things that are awesome about this game, but the one aspect I think BioWare excelled at here is something they’re known for pioneering: moral choice. In most BioWare RPGs, you have the option of either saving the world or taking it over and making it your bitch, with no middle ground to choose from. In Mass Effect 2, however, you are always fighting for the survival of humanity—there’s no argument about that—but how you do so is up to you, whether you do it through peaceful diplomacy or through electric leads to someone’s nether regions. It also helped flesh out a great new science fiction setting, combined with streamlined RPG gameplay and amazing writing and characterization. It really should be the standard that all role-playing games follow.
—Justin Luschinski
17. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
Who’s to blame:
Christian Porter – #4
David Donovan – #12
Jeff Day – #17
It’s hard not to knock it out of the park when you’re making a game about a badass vampire-hunting vampire who, at various points in the game, defeats Dracula, a giant sentient ball of corpses, and Death himself. But Konami takes it a few steps further, offering up a giant castle for your open-ended exploring pleasure (two castles, actually), hundreds of items and weapons, shape-shifting, and plenty of hidden secrets.
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night may not win any awards for voice acting. Hell, it won’t even win any awards for originality, being a Metroid clone and all. But damn if it isn’t one of the finest games ever made even in spite of these relatively minor flaws.
—Christian Porter
16. Team Fortress 2
Who’s to blame:
Christian Porter – #2
Justin Luschinski – #5
Valve once again proves that even the simplest of concepts can be videogame masterpieces when enough polish and effort are put into the final product. In TF2, you play as one of nine classes, all of which are starkly different from one another, and each of which has notable strengths and weaknesses. What really makes the game so excellent is that, despite how different they are from each other, each class is perfectly balanced and each level meticulously designed to avoid giving any class an edge over any other. There is nowhere an engineer can build a turret that a spy can’t disable it, there’s nowhere a spy can hide that a pyro can’t set him alight, etc. This allows the game to play out like an FPS chess game where every piece is moved by a different person—you just have to hope you don’t get stuck on a team with four 11-year-olds who refuse to stop being snipers even when you stop needing them.
—Christian Porter
15. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Who’s to blame:
Paul Franzen – #4
Elizabeth Medina-Gray – #11
Michael Gray – #20
Michael Ridgaway – #23
Questioning witnesses! Presenting evidence! Arguing your case! Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney didn’t…it didn’t exactly sound like a fun game when it was first released in the U.S. in 2005, but it sure sounded different. Novel, perhaps. We bought this game for the novelty of playing out a profession that’s foreign to most of us, not really knowing that this surface-level novelty was only at the bottom of a long list of things to love about Phoenix Wright.
The story. The drama. The humor. The puzzles. The music. The characters. Especially the characters. Phoenix Wright is an adventure game in which you play as a rookie lawyer defending his clients by figuring out who actually dunnit in their murder cases, and more than any other single element in the game, the characters themselves drive Phoenix Wright forward and motivate you to keep playing, to see how their lives continue to play out. The lawyering bit was the main hook, but it’s only just dressing—heck, the gameplay itself is practically just dressing. This game is good because of the way so many strong elements come together, but this game is great because of its amazing characters.
—Paul Franzen
14. Secret of Mana
Who’s to blame:
Paul Franzen – #2
David Donovan – #4
On the surface, Secret of Mana appears to be a colorful and pleasant little action-RPG, notable for its creative character design and stunning soundtrack. However, the game has one particularly unique feature that has secured its place in the memories of gamers: multiplayer co-op. Sure, the combat mechanics are perhaps a bit off, seeing as you’ll spend the entire game repeatedly stabbing enemies before they can get up, but as is the case in real life, pummeling helpless prone enemies is so much more fun when done with a couple of buddies. For some reason, Square Enix has never been able to duplicate the simple-yet-engaging formula of Secret of Mana: with the exception of the Japan-only Seiken Densetsu 3, later Mana games have downplayed or completely discarded cooperative gameplay; and while the Crystal Chronicles series could be considered a spiritual successor, its multiplayer is mired in portable connectivity, special cables, arguments over who has to carry the bucket, and the nagging desire to hook up your SNES so you can play Secret of Mana instead.
—David Donovan
13. Super Mario World
Who’s to blame:
Mark Freedman – #8
Christian Porter – #10
Paul Franzen – #14
![Super Mario World (U) [!]_00000](https://gamecola.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Super-Mario-World-U-_00000.bmp)
The Mario brothers enter the Dinosaur World to stop Bowser. This was a big game for me. It was the start of the 16-bit era (unless you were one of the five people who had a Sega Genesis). There was a lot to do in this game, and it all cried “MARIO!”. Great graphics, sound, power-ups…some great platforming action. There are a lot of bad platformers out there that don’t cut it. Even the great Donkey Kong Country, with its great graphics, doesn’t have the fun that this game has.
—Mark Freedman
12. Super Mario Bros. 2
Who’s to blame:
Paul Franzen – #5
David Donovan – #11
Michael Gray – #14
Super Mario Bros. 2 is my favorite NES Mario game for several reasons. One, the graphics are loads better than in Super Mario Bros.; the backgrounds and character designs are not only visually pleasing but work together to help create the distinct family-fun image that Mario has since held for multiple decades. Two, the music is catchier than in the first game. Three, the level designs are rather creative, and are certainly more complex than the simple “run to the right until you reach the flag” formula. Four, the inclusion of multiple boss battles is a definite plus. Five, the slot machine minigame is awesome. Six, and finally, the ability to play as multiple characters, each with their own unique abilities, is a genius move that is still bearing fruit to this day.
Also, you can play as Toad. Toad! How cool is that? Almost as cool as being able to play as Princess Toadstool.
—Michael Gray
11. The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
Who’s to blame:
Michael Gray – #2
Matt Jonas – #2
The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask is the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, in which Link has more time-traveling adventures (these ones are more akin to Groundhog Day than Back to the Future), can play as many different characters thanks to masks, and has to prevent the moon from crashing into the Earth. What makes this game truly great is its amazing depth; you can spend dozens of hours doing all sorts of fun things just for the sake of having fun, instead of being forced to do things linearly. It’s like they took the open-endedness of Harvest Moon, tied it up with the Zelda dungeon-crawling mechanic, threw in a heaping helping of character plots, then weaved them all together with Awesome Thread to form a near-seamless, unique experience that still holds up as a good game today.
—Michael Gray
That’s the end of Part Two of our Top 50 Videogames of All Time list. If we haven’t mentioned one of your favorites yet, then head over to the conclusion to see if it made our top 10, or if we have summarily dismissed it like yesterday’s rubbish.
Oh man, I somehow left Secret of Mana off my list. Should have been in my top 5. The only RPG my brother would play because it wasn’t turn based. And how about that Flammie Drum? Most RPGs give you a stupid air ship that you have to park outside Lucca’s house.
Dammit Mark, we could’ve gotten SoM even higher on the list!
And seriously—how bad does that game need to be ported to/remade for XBLA/PSN, with online co-op? It’s on the Virtual Console, but you can’t go online with that.
Totally forgot about Katamari Damacy. No wait, I remember – I didn’t vote for it because it never came out over here.
Wait, were we supposed to rank the games from best to worst? I just put down the first twenty-five games I could think of. Whoops.
Hmmm, me too.
@Michael – Yeah, I think we should have an article for “The first 50 games I can think of”
@Mark – You may joke, but the idea sounds all the more better every time I run it through my head.
@Michael, Matt: Man, that’s kinda depressing.
Would be a pretty cool spoof list.