What We Played #300 – Our Favourite Games

I have learnt this week that if you want to create utter havoc within a workplace, just ask everybody to narrow something down to their absolute favourites. Obviously in this case it was games, and I thought that as we’d reached the three hundredth edition of What We Played that I’d ask the team what their favourite game was insteadof what they’d been playing. I thought this was relatively simple, just a throwaway little bit of fun to close out the week, but no.

Thus commenced much handwringing, and many cries of “I couldn’t possibly”, “that’s ridiculous”, and “go away”. Then began the bargaining. “Can we have top fives?”, “Sure” I said, “if that’s going to make it easier”. This was then followed by the submission of a top nine, a top five, a top six, a top one, a top three and the sanctioning of a top zero for Tuffcub for being mean to Kris.

All in all I’ve learnt a valuable lesson today, besides that virtually no one here can count, and that that’s trying to get a group of games writers to a) pick their favourite game and b) follow any defined set of rules, is virtually impossible. Still, despite the hardships and mental torture they’ve suffered, I have in fact found out some of the best games they’ve ever played. But I’m going to go first.

My gut reaction to being asked what my favourite game is always comes back with the same answer; Guardian Heroes on the Sega Saturn. A side-scrolling beat em’ up from Treasure with great graphics, awesome music, branching paths, and an undead skeleton with a big sword that follows you around, makes sure that it remains my all time favourite. Probably. I could have stuck Advance Wars, Fire Emblem Awakening, Sega Rally, Fable, Valkyria Chronicles, Xenoblade Chronicles, Virtua Fighter 4, Soul Calibur or the whole Monster Hunter series in there and been fairly happy too.

Coming in with a top nine was Tuffcub, and it goes something like this: 1. Bubble Bobble, 2. All the Killzones, 3. R-Type, 4. Speedball 2, 5. Jeff Crammonds Stunt Car Racer, 6. Horizon Zero Dawn, 7. SWI,  8. Elite, and at 9. The Last of Us. He then also tried to commandeer Flashback from Peter to make a top ten, but he’s not allowed to share for being mean. A silver star for effort.

Back when I’d just asked for one game Dave was happy to oblige, opting for the classic Super Metroid. He said “There’s just something about how well crafted and revolutionary it was for the Super Nintendo era that resonates with me. I’ve played plenty of ‘better looking’ games in the genre since, but this still stands the test of time. It’s the only game that ever made me regret owning a Sega Mega Drive as a child, as I’d have loved to have played it on original hardware.” See? That’s lovely, and he managed to narrow it down to one single game. Then, when the goalposts were steadily moved down the pitch he was still on point, and followed it up with: 2. Streets of Rage 2, 3. Pokémon Heart Gold/Soul Silver, 4. Persona 5 and for 5. Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Gold star to Dave.

Kris was also able to play by the rules, and his top game ever is Sonic The Hedgehog, but perhaps surprisingly it’s on the Master System. He was fair about it too, saying, “Yeah I know it’s not as good as the 16-bit version, but I still love it. Jungle Zone is super hard though. The 8-bit Sonic 2 is really good too, has a great mine cart bit in the first level.” Things fell apart a bit though when I asked him for a top five, but eventually he was able to pony up with: 2. Sonic 3 (or Sonic & Knuckles?), 3. Halo: Reach, 4. Total Annihilation and… er… 5. Dino Crisis maybe? 6. MGS? 7. Super Meat Boy? One and a quarter silver stars to Kris.

Jake loves Pokémon, but he was able to vaguely narrow it down to one particular generation. “My favourite games of all time are Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal and I loved this set of games so much that I remade Crystal when I was 14 for the Gameboy Advance to experience it with newer graphics. These Pokémon games feature two regions, the first being Johto and the second being Kanto from Red, Blue and Yellow. The game actually has double the space of a standard Gameboy Color game due to a compression method discovered and used by Satoru Iwata.”

He continues, “The game itself is set three years after the events of RBY and with 251 Pokémon and 16 badges to attain, it felt like an eternity before I completely finished the game. I particularly enjoyed beating the familiar gym leaders, but I loved battling the real champion of the game, which just so happens to be the protagonist from the Red, Blue and Yellow. It was the first and one of the only times Pokémon has felt like true sequel and a fully-fledged journey like the anime implied.”

Jake also managed a straight top five too, following up Crystal (see he was able to choose one in the end) with: 2. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, 3. A Link to the Past, 4. Breath of the Wild, and at 5. Jak II: Renegade. Full marks for Jake.

We had a lovely visit from Blair this week, and as it was an anniversary edition of WWP I asked him to join in and have a good old knees up. Instead he told me his favourite games, beginning with a brace of Zeldas. He said, “About a month ago I’d have been able to answer this question no problem: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. But then Breath of the Wild came along and it changed everything. While the highs of the story don’t quite match Ocarina, the freeform gameplay and sense of adventure is unrivalled in anything I’ve ever played.”

“It managed to capture that same sense of wonder as Ocarina – something I’d attribute to me being a child when I first played the N64 classic – so managing to evoke that sense of wonder from me, as an adult, is nothing short of incredible. I’ll have to wait till the dust settles to say for sure, but after barely playing any games substantially for the past year, it’s somehow brought back my love of gaming, just as OoT kicked off my love of gaming almost 20 years ago.”

Sadly though, Blair then lost count of how a top five worked, giving us a top three by adding in Portal 2 to the equation. So after a strong start, it’s just one silver star to Blair, and a biscuit for paying us an unexpected visit.

Jim just couldn’t do it. Too many games, too many of them beloved, so he opted instead to give us the latest addition to them which is PaRappa The Rapper, having just played it through again while looking at the remaster. He loved the bright cheerfulness of it – probably the complete antidote to everything else that’s come out lately! A star to Jim for being resourceful.

Steve took a decent bash at this week’s task – I make it five choices in his rambling – and he gave us some reasoning too, “Most played game would be FFVII but may have revisited it a few too many times. Gonna break the rules slightly and double up with Super Mario World and A Link to the Past. Got them for Christmas with the absurdly priced Street Fighter 2 and the latter didn’t get a look in for a while. […] Honourable mention to Super Mario Kart (has to include my brother as an opponent), and Heimdall on Amiga (training levels being the best game demo ever – and possibly the most misleading).” Gold star and a tick.

It was Aran’s turn to fall foul of the revised rules, and he started with just two “I’m going with Witcher 3 as my favourite game of all time. It’s the culmination of the best features of past games put into an incredible experience. Story telling is great, the characters are fantastic, and the world felt alive. I’m awarding second place to GTA: Vice City.” Then he came back with Streets of Rage, Uncharted 2, and Road Rash but then asked, “What about Skyrim & KOTOR?”. This, for fans of numbers, is a top seven, so it has to be a silver star for Aran, but a bonus half a star for putting KOTOR in there, because I’m being contrary.

I ruined Miguel’s day by asking this question. I think he was just about to go to sleep (living in the US of A as he does), but instead he had to start thinking about my inane question. “It’s hard for me to pick a favorite game of all time, but I feel like if I had to pick, it’d be Halo 3. I grew up on that game, playing it for hours and hours every day after class. I made friends through that game, and made existing friendships even stronger through it. I must have played the final campaign mission dozens of times on every difficulty and never gotten sick of it. There was some magic, some perfect sauce in that multiplayer and all the options and mindless fun it offered, that in our current world of exp and loot boxes and ranked seasons, just hasnt been repeated for me in the same way since.” However, after complaining he managed to come up with one in five minutes, and then got off to beddy-byes so it wasn’t all bad. Those other four are: 2.Metal Gear Solid 3, 3. Animal Crossing New Leaf, 4. Virtues Last Reward, and at 5. Nier Automata. One gold star though, despite the complaining.

Peter also joined us for a WWP anniversary chinwag, but in his time away he’s acquired some ‘maverick’ tendencies, opting for a top six without any qualms. They were: 1. Flashback, 2. Elite, 3. Mass Effect 2, 4. GTA III Vice City, 5. Sensible World of Soccer, and 6. Football Manager (or champ man) from any year. Still, I’d best give him a gold star, a tick, and a biscuit, because he’s a lovely fellow and we like to hear from him occasionally.

Last and definitely least was Tef. He refused to play by the rules, repeatedly giving ridiculous lists of five before reverting to the original rules and picking a single game. Some of his nonsense included:

The best five games are Hide and Seek, I Spy, Rummy, Cluedo and Zelda II.

My top five video games are Myth, Myth 2, then GTA IV on PS3, GTA IV on X360 and GTA IV on PC.

Top five Nintendo games are Ocarina of Time on N64, Wii VC, Wii U VC, 3DS and Mario Party 8.

When he did finally settle on one game, that was Myth: The Fallen Lords (or Myth II: Soulblighter, because even when he’s behaving, he’s misbehaving). He explained “It’s a classic Bungie real time tactical game in a fantasy world with a heavy dose of inspiration from a series of books called The Black Company. One of the first fully 3D RTS games, had actual physics in it, etc. etc. It’s a good ’un and inspired me to dive into those books, which I really enjoyed reading as well.”

Now it’s over to you to share with us your own favourite video games of all time. Don’t forget to also tell us what you’ve been up to this week!