What's your top 5 video games and top 5 most disappointing games?
For me, top 5:
Swos 96/97
Red dead redemption (the first one)
Super Mario 3
Grow up
Shenmue 2
Biggest disappointments:
Cyberpunk 2077
Final fantasy 8
GTA 4
Headhunter (on Dreamcast)
Every FIFA (excluding wc98)
Most Disappointing:
5. Black & White (PC) - Hyped to death, came out, expected an innovative version of Populous, ended up being a weird Tamagotchi-esque god game with annoying controls. Plus it required a super PC to run at the time; anything less resulted in a mess.
4. Spore (PC) - I'm a huge Will Wright fan, so like many people I was hyped for Spore. The story with this is similar to Black & White - not bad, but stripped back and repetitive. Creature creator was great though.
3. Fantastic Dizzy (Sega Mega Drive) - After loving the Dizzy games on the Speccy, Dizzy on the MD was something I really looked forward to. It's one of those games that isn't terrible, but below par; it irritates me and I can only manage half an hour whenever I try to give it another shot.
2. Red Dead Redemption 2 (PC) - Not a bad game at all, but we're talking disappointing. Pretentious at the expense of the gameplay experience, weaker in nearly every way than the first game. A technical marvel; a gameplay minnow.
1. Final Fantasy XV (PC)- Terrible disappointment and showed just how far FF had fell. Crap characters, a plot with more holes in than a swiss cheese, all flash, no substance. Grim.
Best (my word this list changes constantly...):
5. Shadowrun (Sega Mega Drive) - With all the hype on Cyberpunk, I wasn't particularly bothered as it'd take something insane to replace my favourite game in this genre. Shadowrun, never released in the UK except on the Sega Channel, is incredible. Open world before the term open world existed, an incredible hacking/cyberspace element, mad customisation, absolutely oozing atmosphere, the perfect soundtrack (techno, futuristic, grungy - just great, makes perfect use of the Mega Drive SFX chip). It's gaining more love these days but I've been raving about it since the 90s - a must play, even now.
4. World of Warcraft (PC) - Not the abomination it is now; rather "vanilla" WoW and the first few expansions were breathtaking. A literal second world to indulge yourself in. The social interaction was unlike anything before or since. Those lucky enough to play it the first few years it was out know why it's on this list; anyone who only picked it up in the last few years would be baffled.
3. Rimworld (PC) - I've sunk more hours into this game than any other. Rimworld defies description in many ways - for most, graphically it's a put off and the idea of it (colony builder where you don't really directly control the colonists but 'organise' them) takes some getting used to, but when you're into it, you're into it for thousands of hours. It's the one game on this list I'd implore everyone to try - at the price tag, it's a steal, there's never a sale and there's no need for one.
2. Chrono Trigger (SNES) - I'm a JRPG fan, but when one is bad, it really turns me away. So I generally only like top-drawer offerings from the genre. This is one of them to say the least. It has charm in abundance, a stellar time-hopping storyline before it was cliché, memorable characters, tremendous art design, lovely soundtrack, an intuitive and thoroughly innovative combat system that was a hybrid of ATB and real time. It's regularly listed as one of the greatest games of all time, and for good reason. Pick up the DS version if you don't have access to an everdrive/SNES in the UK, it's just as good.
1. Final Fantasy VII (PS1) - I freely admit that graphically this has aged awfully. It has translation issues. The story arguably isn't quite as good as FF6. But FF7 remains to this day the only game I can look at as the sum of all its' parts and call an absolute masterpiece. The best soundtrack in gaming, bar none. Every single character is insanely memorable, protagonists and antagonists. The scale of the world for the time was astonishing, the sheer sense of journey and discovery; the first time you leave Midgar remains one of gaming's greatest moments. A twist that blew me away and reduced me to tears. Never before or since have I care so deeply about what happens in a piece of media, game or movie. A transcendent experience for me and it'd take something truly astonishing to ever dislodge it from my top spot.
