Trying to pick out my top five video games of all time is not an easy task. So I'm not going to do that. Instead, i am going to go over my top five favorite video game moments/ memories/ characters/ songs. It's a very abstract list.
Number 5: All of the music from The first three Mega-Man games
Check out the super sweet cover art from Mega-Man I, drawn by someone who had never, ever, actually played the game.
The Mega-Man series of video games holds a very special place in my heart, especially the first three. They were some of the most challenging games that i played as a young man. For those of you who may have never played any of these games, Mega-Man was a robot who fought bad robots. At the end of every level, you had to beat a boss robot who had special weapons and more powerful attacks. Once you defeated a boss, you were then able to use their specific weapon later in the game. The only way to beat these bosses easily was to use the correct weapon on them. So what made the game a challenge was the trial and error needed to find out each bosses weakness so that you could go to the final stage. Believe me, trying to find out a bosses weakness without the Internet is an unrelenting nightmare.
My favorite intro.
What made these games so fun was the amazing soundtrack that looped in the background as you made your way through the different stages. Each stage had a different theme, and they were all catchy as hell. They got your blood going. The songs were written using the NES' limited sound capabilities, but they were still very well composed. And they had to be. The songs created a loop that would play in the background while you ran a level, and as i said before, there was quite a bit of trial and error involved, so you ended up listening to the songs many times over. I never got tired of them. To this day, i still listen to the original 8-bit soundtrack in my free time.
One of my favorite level themes, Airman, from Mega-Man 2
Number 4: Halo Multiplayer LAN parties
A LAN party (LAN stands for Local Area Network a.k.a. a bunch of computers hooked up together) is when a bunch of people get together with a bunch of linked computers or video game consoles and all play the same game together. Unlike playing multiplayer online with players from anywhere in the world, LAN parties allowed you the opportunity to enjoy your friends immediate company. What made this such a fun time was the competitive spirit it generated and the good sportsmanship of your close friends. Just kidding. What made this fun was shooting your friend in the face from across the map, and then yelling "SUCK IT!" at the top of your lungs even though he is sitting right next to you. What made it fun was throwing a sticky grenade at your roommate and having it stick directly on his face, watching him explode, and then repeatedly crouching over his lifeless body (This was done to symbolize superiority. Some people say that it represented defecating on your opponent. We always just called it "tea bagging").
Really insanely lucky grenade throw. This would have inspired much yelling.
Some of my fondest memories of college happened at what we liked to call "Halo Night". We would all get together and drink beers and shoot at each other and call each other names. All in good fun of course. My favorite moment of all time involved a guy nicknamed Mars. Mars was not the greatest player, but he sure tried hard. I'm not going to get into the specifics of how the game works, but i will sum it up: Accidentally kill your team mate= -1 point. Accidentally kill yourself= -1 point. Kill an enemy= +1 point. The match began with Mars shooting a team mate in the head, throwing a grenade at the ground that may or may not have killed another team member, followed by him immediately jumping over the edge of the bridge he was walking on and falling to his death. All within 2 seconds of game time. As my friend P-Cock would say: "Ready, Go! You're losing." This caused mass hysteria at the time, bringing the game to a halt as we all laughed uncontrollably. I actually had to stop typing for a minute because i was chuckling to myself about it.
Not mentioned, but still included in this entry: Golden Eye split screen multiplayer, Mario Party, Old school Tetris and Dr Mario tournaments, and last but not least, Marvel Ultimate Avengers (MOOOOOOOON NIIIIIIIIIGHT!)
Praise be to Khonshu!
Number 3: Scoring my first 100% FC on Guitar Hero
The first time i ran into Guitar Hero, it changed my life. I'm sure that most of you know what Guitar Hero is, but for those that don't: Guitar Hero is a rhythm based video game that uses a small plastic guitar as it's controller. It has five buttons on the neck that represent notes, and a strum bar that represents strumming the strings. To play a note, you hold down one of the buttons, and strum the strum bar. Sounds easy? It is not.
Bark at the moon from Guitar Hero 1.
The general mechanics are very similar to playing a real guitar and fairly easy to learn, but getting a high score or beating an intricate song are a little tougher. Their are many things you can do to improve your score, but the most important of them all is to keep your multiplyer at it's highest level by playing perfectly. If you were to play all of the notes in a song, but over strum once, and you break your combo, reducing your score. If you were to play every note in a song and not break your combo, you would receive 100% on the song and it would be called an FC, or full combo.
The first song that i played perfect was Stellar by Incubus. I was the first one of all my friends to do so on any song, and i was immensely proud of myself. I took a picture of the screen to prove that i had done it, and for future bragging rights. I had caught the bug. I started trying to raise my score on every song in the game. After a couple months, i was hands down the best guitar hero player out of all my friends. I started competing at amateur levels, and found that i was way better than most of those people too. And i didn't stop there. Soon games were offering drum peripherals to play drum parts. After a bit of practice, i found that i was really good at that too. I began the immediate domination of all of my friends high scores across multiple games and platforms, and started putting up top 200 in the nation scores on Scorehero.com, a high score posting site. I was very proud of my abilities. And then this happened.
That is IamChris4Life a.k.a. Chris Chike's 100% FC run of Through the Fire And Flames from Guitar Hero 3. It is insanely hard, and it last for 8 minutes. He was one of the first people to beat the song outright, and the first person to 100% the song. In one 8 minute video, IamChris4Life destroyed everyone elses scores and became the first true guitar hero, at least in my little corner of the Internet. I decided that no matter how good i got, i would never be this good. My ego deflated a little bit, but i still can beat just about any takers on both guitar and drums. So if you are feeling lucky, you can challenge me whenever you like. Come at me, bro.
Number 2: Link, from the Legend of Zelda Series
Link has been, and always will be, one of my favorite characters from video games. He is the hero in the Legend Of Zelda games, and one of the most famous video game characters of all time. I have always enjoyed the Legend Of Zelda games, and because of that, i have grown attached to Link as a character. Every Zelda game includes action, strategy, and puzzle solving elements, with a little bit of humor and horror thrown in for good measure (Anyone who says there is no horror in Zelda games, go replay the bottom of the well level from Ocarina of Time. Yeah, that's what i thought)
He always is using new weapons or items to achieve his goals or solve puzzles. It was awesome to play a game where you had to fight off creatures with a sword, and then alternately, solve a gigantic puzzle to open a door to a boss. Link also had very little dialogue, making it very easy to be drawn into the character. I even liked the terribly written, impossibly silly Legend of Zelda cartoon featured on the Super Mario Brothers Super show. Link went from never speaking to saying "Excuuuuuuuuuse me, princess" every chance he got. I still liked it.
Number 1, with a bullet: The Plot twist in Bioshock.
Okay, i will preface this entry with a great big SPOILERS ALERT. I will give away many plot points of the game Bioshock, which are most definitely SPOILERS if you have not played the game. Seriously, SPOILERS. If you have not played the game, but are planning on it, you may want to skip this next bit. One last time, SPOILERS
Okay, the story of Bioshock is a little hard to explain, but i will do my best. Set in1960, you begin the game in a fiery plane crash in the middle of the ocean. Your only chance of survival is swimming to a small island with a lighthouse on it. Upon entering the lighthouse, you find that it is the entrance to a sprawling underground city called Rapture. Your character soon finds that this once beautiful underwater city has fallen into disrepair, and most of it's inhabitants have gone crazy, or have just plain mutated. Your character is contacted via radio by a man named Atlas, and he guides you to safety. Atlas pleads with you to help him rescue his family from the man who created the underwater city. You start following Atlas' orders in a desperate attempt to save his family and get out alive. Finally, after fighting through levels and levels of mutants, you reach Andrew Ryan, the man who has kidnapped Atlas' family. And then, you get a knowledge bomb dropped on you.
A summary of the story of Bioshock in 5 minutes.
You find out that Atlas has been controlling you the whole time. He always says the phrase "Would ya kindly..." followed by some instruction like pick up that wrench, or open that door. This phrase turns out to be a subliminal message that makes you blindly follow commands. You are a sleeper agent who shares the same DNA with Andrew Ryan allowing you to breach Rapture's Security. Your only reason for existing is to find and kill Andrew Ryan, and Atlas (who turns of to be a gangster named Fontaine) is behind it all.
Holy shit.
I luckily played through this game without having any of the story spoiled for me. The game itself is absolutely amazing. The gameplay is fun, and the graphics and audio make the world of Rapture come to life. But the real star of this game is the plot. I was blown away by the plot twist. Games frequently contain plot twists, but this one is the mother of them all. Seriously, you are standing in the middle of an underwater metropolis, fighting for your life and trying to save a mans family, and all of a sudden you find out that your life is a lie, you are the illegitimate offspring of the man who is accused of kidnapping the family, you are being subconsciously controlled, and your only reason for existing is to kill Andrew Ryan. You find all of this out in about 3 minutes. Holy Cow. I couldn't recommend this game enough after i beat it. I know that recommending you play a game that i have just spoiled the story for seems silly, but even if you know the story, the game is still great.
This is in the number one spot for one reason and one reason only: this was the first time that i was actually in awe of a video game. This game is scary, exciting, smart and cleverly written. The first time i played through it, i can vividly remember having a holy shit moment when the plot twist was revealed. Every part of the game leading up to the big reveal was designed to make the plot twist that much more of a shock. Such a well made game.
Okay, another reason this is in the number one spot, is because i felt like writing about it. I'm capricious, bitch. What can I say?
til next time,
-J.
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