20 BEST VIDEO GAMES OF ALL TIME

20 BEST VIDEO GAMES OF ALL TIME

1. Joust	2. Mappy
Joust is a game where knights ride on top of gigantic birds and kill each other in gladiatorial combat. Everybody is equipped with a lance, which sticks out a few pixels from their head. The goal is to collide with other jousters, ensuring that your lance is above theirs, which will then kill them. Bouncing on their heads, of course, will work just as well. It's a different formula from many arcade games from the era like Pac-Man, which typically put the player in weakened state. In Joust, most everyone is on the same playing level. That’s the theory theory, anyway. The key to Joust is learning how to keep your bird under control. There is only a single button – "flap" – which will propel your bird every so slightly into the air. With a few more presses, you take your steed higher into the sky, allowing you to stay airborne. In addition to fighting against gravity, you're also dealing with inertia. Build up enough speed and you'll find yourself careening across the arena, wrapping around the screen as you disappear off one side and reappear on the other. It’s a surefire way to make yourself dizzy until you skid to a stop.	Namco is one of the great golden age arcade developers, largely known for Pac-Man, Dig Dug, and Galaxian. However, their secret best title is Mappy, a cute cat and mouse platformer with vague influences from some of their more popular titles. The goal, as the titular policemouse, is to collect a series of items strewn about the level while avoiding a miniature army of thieving cats. The stage is divided into several floors, and the only methods of traversal are trampolines strewn about. As with many classic games of the era, Mappy cannot directly attack his opponents, but there are a few tricks he can use against them – particularly, the many doors spread around. Only Mappy can open and close doors, so he can use them strategically to divert enemies or knock them off their feet, if they're close enough. Additionally, Mappy is invincible while bouncing on trampolines. Just on these terms, Mappy is a fun game, but there are numerous layers to the scoring strategy.
3. Bubble Bobble	4. Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions
When it was released in 1986, Bubble Bobble was hardly at the edge of technology. Platform games with single-screen levels had been introduced with Donkey Kong five years earlier, and were already on their way out. Yet Bubble Bobble was so brilliant, it powered a small renaissance for the genre, and was followed by many clones and sequels. It’s a prime example of how you can turn a simple and straightforward concept into a mega hit and instant classic with cute, recognizable characters (some taken over from Taito's earlier game Chack'n Pop), and countless small, but clever modifications on a limited rule set.	The Geometry Wars series had an inauspicious start as a minigame buried within Project Gotham Racing 2 for the Xbox. An homage to classic twin-stick shooters like Robotron 2084, and perfectly adapted for a dual analog controller, you controlled a little weaponized claw as you blew up lots of other geometric shapes, created in the vector style of games like Tempest. It was fleshed out considerably and released separately at the launch of the Xbox 360, where, even as a cheapie download title, it was the best game on the platform for months, inspiring legions of new twin-stick shooter clones.
5. PacMan Championship Edition DX+	6. TxK
Despite being one of the most popular games of all time, Namco has long struggled to make sequels to Pac-Man. Outside of the American-developed Ms. Pac-Man, the results have been unfulfilling, gimmicky spin-offs (Pac-Man Jr., Pac and Pal), games that completely changed genres (like the oddball graphic adventure Pac-Man 2), or 3D platformers (Pac-Man World). Pac-Man Championship Edition, released in 2007, is one of the few games that’s not only a suitable iteration of the original, but also the rare modern reinvention that actually bests it. This was later followed up by DX and DX+ editions, adding even more content.	David Theurer's 1981 arcade game, Tempest, was one of the first real 3D shooters. Creating what's now known as the "tube shooter" subgenre, you control a little claw-shaped ship as it travels along the outside of a web, shooting at enemies that spawn from the other end. It's one of the bestgames of the golden era of arcade gaming, in part due to the sharp, colorful, vector graphics. However, due to both the display and the rotating knob controller, Tempest never quite got a decent home port. That is, until Jeff Minter created an update for the Jaguar, Tempest 2000.
7. Super Mario Bros. 3	8. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island
In the context of NES platformers, Super MarioBros. 3 decimates its competition. Even compared to other games in the series, it's a gigantic step upward from the frustrating Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2, and the diversionary (through still excellent) American sequel. Compared to the original game, the screen scrolls in all directions, allowing for more open and less confining stages, including tense levels where the screen automatically scrolls. The map allows alternative routes to the end of each world, with challenging castles at the mid-way points, and airship stages that culminate in fights against one of Bowser's seven children. Put simply, it’s far more expansive than almost any other similar game on the 8-bit platform.	In North America, Yoshi's Island is known as "Super Mario World 2", presenting it as a sequel to the legendary SNES launch game. While perhaps thought necessary from a marketing standpoint, it does an injustice to how unique this title is, as it iterates Mario tropes (and characters) in incredibly creative ways. In truth, Yoshi's Island is a prequel. The hero, of course, is Yoshi (defined as a whole species of differently colored, but otherwise identical dinosaurs), tasked with escorting a diaper-clad Baby Mario away from danger. Yoshi is better prepared for direct conflict than the Mario Bros., able to eat almost any enemy and produce an egg, which can then be thrown as a weapon.
9. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze	10. Sonic CD
When it was released in 1994 for the SNES, Donkey Kong Country wowed gaming audiences with its impressive CG graphics and fantastic soundtrack. Still, there was some resentment against it – it was simpler than Nintendo's own Super Mario Bros. games, and was criticized as a case of style over substance. Fast forward 20 years to 2014, and the tides have drastically turned. Nintendo’s prolific New Super Mario Bros. series is fun, but safe and uninspired; meanwhile, the Donkey Kong Country series, out of the hands of original developers Rare and placed in the care of Retro Studios, has created better crafted games. Donkey Kong Country Returns for the Wii was very, very good, yet it suffered in a few areas – the forced waggle controls were lame, the music was forgettable, and the levels lacked creativity. Every issue was fixed in its Wii U sequel, Tropical Freeze.	The third game released in the classic Sega series, Sonic CD, has always been an oddball, especially when you consider the system it spawned from. Even among Sonic fans, it can be a rather divisive game, given how different it is from those that followed. It's that sort of weirdness that makes it so memorable, though, even among a set of such great games, and there's no doubt that it's one of the shining gems of the Sega CD. From a gameplay perspective, Sonic CD almost feels like a more polished version of the first game. Sonic has his spin dash attack as introduced in Sonic the Hedgehog 2, but it's not quite as quick to use as in the later entries. The general pace is somewhat slower as well, with more emphasis on platforming and exploration than your average Sonicgame.
11. Klonoa: The Door to Phantomile	12. Super Meat Boy
While first and foremost respected as an arcadecentric developer, Namco has made several fascinating games for consoles. Their most impressive non-coin-op game may be Klonoa, a slightly late attempt to get in on the Sonic-esque mascot platformer craze. Nonetheless, it turned out to be a gorgeous adventure, putting 95% of all Sonic ripoffs to shame. For starters, it barely even feels like a Sonicgame, with an art direction all its own. Playing in a 2.5D perspective, the graphics still hold up remarkably well today – something that can't be said for a lot of PS1 games. With creative character designs and vibrantly colored landscapes, it's certainly more than just jagged polygons everywhere. Everything about the aesthetics, from its cute fodder enemies to the whimsical sound design, gives off an adorable charm (though things do turn remarkably more dark later on). The main gameplay gimmick here is the "Wind Bullet", a short-range projectile that balloons an enemy a la Dig Dug, and allows Klonoa to either throw the opponent or bounce off of them for a double-jump.	Super Meat Boy is the reason why, for better or worse, the "masocore" genre of gruelingly difficult games is so popular nowadays. It turned out to be a massive success story for Team Meat, and was worthy enough to be chronicled in Indie Game: The Movie. The setup here is that Meat Boy's partner, Bandage Girl, is kidnapped by the vile Dr. Fetus. This leads to more than 100 levels of pure platforming goodness, where all you need to do to survive is run, jump, and wall jump. It starts out fair at first. Before long, though, the tricks and enemies grow especially vile, like living missiles which split into six, or murderous Meat Boy clones. There's a gargantuan amount of content up front, as each normal level also has a tougher dark side variant unlocked if you beat the normal one under the par time. There are also warp zones leading off into hidden levels, where you can unlock characters from other indie games, each of which play akin to the games they're from while still adhering to this game's physics.
13. Shinobi (Arcade)	14. Strider (Arcade)
Sega's 1987 side-scroller Shinobi is remarkable for the way it plays with the conventions of both player and enemy vulnerabilities. In most games of the time, simply touching an enemy meant death, or at least taking damage. Not so for ninja hero Joe Musashi, who is merely knocked back when running into a foe, and is only killed by a weapon or physical strike. It allows for a much more gung-ho playing style that promotes forward momentum. This is important for more than one reason. While Joe has an unlimited supply of shuriken to take out enemies from a distance, many foes have shields, which prevent them from taking damage. However, if you're close enough to an enemy, you'll automatically execute a melee attack, which will either immediately kill or at least stun them, enabling an opening for a follow-up blow.	Capcom's Strider is a masterwork of character and game design. The hero, Strider Hiryu, is a ninja badass that flies straight into enemy territory with a hand glider. His sword, the Cypher, is so fast that its blade is like one continuous blur of light, slicing most mooks right in half. He can also somersault, and even climb on walls and ceilings. He even has robotic tigers and birds as sidekicks. The enemies, too, are well defined. The evil Grandmaster Meio is introduced as a cackling madman, with his twisted fingernails encircling the Earth. During the cutscenes, the villains each speak in their native language – Meio and the bounty hunter Solo speak English, the trio of Asian acrobats speak Chinese, and the Soviet premier (obviously patterned after Mikhail Gorbachev) speaks Russian, while Hiryu speaks Japanese.
15. Ninja Gaiden	16. Bionic Commando Rearmed
Ninja Gaiden is the more highly caffeinated cousin of Castlevania. It borrows its basic formula, like the sub-weapon system and the status bar, but while Konami's vampire slaying series is slow and deliberate, Tecmo's ninja slicing game traverses at a near-breathless pace. You move fast, and the enemies move faster still, but the controls are essentially perfect. Scaling walls is executed by rapidly jumping back and forth between two columns, using rad, spinning flips that defined why every kid in the 80s thought that ninjas were just the coolest thing in existence. It also demands the need for split second reflexes, lest you miss a midair slash and be knocked into a pit for the 30th time by some infernal bird. The need to push forward is highlighted by the enemy respawn points, which can trigger infinitely if you're standing at the wrong point on the screen. The music is also intense – the percussion is some of the crunchiest on the NES, with pounding drum loops and strong melodies that perfectly suit the game's speed.	Most action platform games involve running around, attacking, and jumping. Capcom's daring Bionic Commando did away with that last bit by removing the jump button, forcing the player to rappel around the landscape with a retractable arm. Its original incarnation was an innovative, yet clumsy arcadegame, but the mechanics were refined and assembled into a much better package with the NES version, which is a totally different game. The inability to jump initially proves puzzling for overcoming the most simple obstacles. It takes a bit of time to unlearn the techniques of other 2D platformers and instead think indirectly, but soon the snap-swing-go mechanics of the arm become second nature, and then almost every other game feels worse for not having it. It requires some split second reflexes, but flinging yourself from point to point – like a futuristic Tarzan, feet never hitting the ground – is some of the most fun you can have in a platformer. One of the greatest levels is a straight shot upwards, using all of the skills you've learned at this point to scale a massive tower.
17. Gimmick!	18. Castlevania Dracula X: Rondo of Blood
At first, Sunsoft's Gimmick! looks a lot like a Kirby game. The hero, Yumetarou, a wide-eyed green blob with stumpy legs, attacks by throwing glowing stars. The enemies are all toys that have come to life, and most of the levels are colorful. This is deceiving though, because Gimmick! is hard. Very hard. It's also one of the most incredibly well put together action game of the era, though. Like Sunsoft's earlier Batman: Return of the Joker, Gimmick! was designed to compete with the early generation of Genesis and SNES titles. In the end, it ends up surpassing most of them. There are only seven not-entirely-long stages, but each screen has an incredible amount of care put into it, often with superfluous but charming details. Somewhere in the second stage, there is a motionless enemy which, if you pick up the second controller, you can briefly command. If you manage to beat this stage quickly enough, you can find the level boss taking a snooze, allowing you to push him off a ledge and immediately win the level. There's a prevailing sense that some of the enemies aren't really "bad guys" per say, they just want to play with you, like the cat creatures in the third stage that bounce around then retreat after a few steps.	Konami's long-running vampire slaying series features the struggles of the Belmont family, in their quest to destroy the evil Count Dracula and his legion of movie monster-inspired villains. It's a franchise characterized by fantastic music and a high level of challenge, built upon a foundation of strong design. Castlevania: Dracula X for the PC Engine ranks as the best of the classic era of the series, before it switched gears into a more openended, RPG direction with Symphony of the Night. Initially an exotic import, teased mercilessly in magazines of the 90s, it's become more widely available thanks to a PSP remake and a Virtual Console release. The PC Engine is known for its colorful palette, and despite the dark overtones that come with gothic monster slaying, Dracula X has a bright and peppy look that makes it distinct from other Castlevania titles. The character designs are straight out of an early 90s anime OVA, with dramatic voice acting to accompany it. The music is also fantastic, with remixes of classic songs and several excellent new ones, all with an upbeat, poppy feel.
19. Demon’s Crest	20. Mega Man X
Capcom was on a roll in 1994, becoming renowned for the striking animation and bright visuals in games like Mega Man X, Darkstalkers, and Street Fighter Alpha. It's actually understandable, then, why a game like Demon's Crest would slip under the radar. It's a big departure for Capcom, with a very dour tone and a darker look than anything else the developer had put out (Resident Evil would not appear for another two years). An SNES successor to Capcom's Gargoyle's Quest games, Demon's Crest eschews most of the previous installments' role playing elements in exchange for something structurally closer to Mega Man X. Players guide Capcom's popular red gargoyle, Firebrand, through different areas, earning new weapons to use against the game's many bosses and enemies. While his animation isn't quite as smooth as that found in other Capcom games of the time, most of his abilities involve him taking on a completely different form, each with its own unique sprite. Demon's Crest's aesthetics fully deliver on the visual details, too. Backgrounds have little animation and minimal parallax, but they’re very colorful and, more importantly, each of the game's six areas sport completely different graphics.	There's much debate as to which is the best MegaMan game out of the franchise’s many subseries, but almost everyone who's played the first Mega Man X would agree that it’s one of, if not THE best. Set many years after the original games in a dire future, where mass-produced "replicate androids" (Reploids) fight against each other, X and his partner Zero attempt to take down Maverick leader Sigma. Despite the darker setting, its level structure is still classic Mega Man, where you pick your stage order between the eight Maverick leaders. Instead of just being "Something Man," the bosses are all modeled after animals with interesting designs, with names like Chill Penguin, Spark Mandrill, and Armored Armadillo. It’s a testament to the artistry that it can make innocent looking creatures seem intimidating. Even the normal enemies exhibit personality, like lumberjack-bots who chuckle if they hit you, and living robot torsos on an assembly line. As the very first Mega Mangame not on an 8-bit system, Mega Man X takes full advantage of the SNES's graphical capabilities, with smooth animation and gorgeous backgrounds.