Now with correct numbering

11. Castlevania: Dawn of Souls. DS. 2006.

This one was a toughie... there were several DS games I wanted to put in this spot: Mario Kart for it's awesomeness. NSMB for it's old school gameplay... though the game did decieve me into believing that there was a mega goomba. Super Princess Peach for it's suprisingly addictive gameplay. Kirby: Canvas Curse for it's individuality and difficulty. Metroid Hunters because everyone says it's the best game on the ds etc.

Castlevania gets it though.

The original Castlevanias were straightforward platformers however that all changed with Symphony of the Night which made the game more like metroid (acquiring skills and such) and pretty much turned the franchise on it's head. There are three GBA games (all good) and three DS games Dawn of Souls being the first. While the second and third games are great, this one really gave me the feeling that I had missed a great series and as a result, got me interested in unlocking the secrets of the Castlevania universe.

This game was packed full of crap: bonus bosses, hidden levels and the ability to play through the game as a different character. What did it for me though was that every enemy you killed had a 1/100 chance of transferring it's individual power to you... making it so exciting to see new enemies.

Man I wish I could play it now... but my DS is out of battery.......
Awesome Character Profile: Julius Belmont

This character is just made of awesome. First appearing in the bonus mode of the previous game, Julius awakens in Dracula's Castle with no memory and knows himself only as 'J'. Over the course of the game it comes to light that Julius was the Belmont who finally and definitively killed Dracula in 1999.
Why is that cool?
Because that game hasn't been made yet.
These hints, that have been dropped in the extras of both Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow, are portents of a yet unannounced game which presumably will put the player in the boots of Julius. The newest console iteration is said to star Alucard once more so it seems Castlevania fans will have to wait to see if the final hours of Dracula are ever played out.

10. Resident Evil 4. Da Cube. 2005

It is cool that three of the Capcom 5 (one of which was cancelled... or at least postphoned to Wii) appear on this list.

I thought it was cool anyway.

Resident Evil 4 was the reinvention of the RE series. Turning a survial horror adventure series into a third person shooter. Pretty much this game copied the things that made Deus Ex and System Shock great (having to manage inventory of ammo, having to individually pick up every item not just run over it, environment interaction ect.) chucked in the main character from one of the other RE games and added alot of blood... which may seem easy but since those two games were such masterpieces it would have been a feat in it's own right.

I purchased this game at Parramatta EBgames (the upstairs one) along with Jak 3 and the final R-type. At the time Re4 was the first game that I had spent one hundred and ten dollars on and came in a deluxe pack along with a gamecube video disc that contained the making of and some trailers of other RE games.

Tell you the truth, at the time I really didn't want RE4 though reviews everywhere were saying that it was like getting a blowjob from a the prom queen you never got to do it with*.

I remember that day I got home unwrapped the packaging... and put on Jak 3.
Now that I think about it none of the Jak series are in my top 25... well I fucked that up didn't I. Anyway, later that night I put on Resident Evil for a few minutes, shrugged my shoulders thinking to myself 'It seems alright' then got back down to Jaking... and then later playing Jak 3.

As I recall I acquired RE4 in the period that existed between girlfriends. So I had no counterpart to enjoy it with. The ex at the time was a horror freak (as in she liked horror movies not that she was an escapee from a carnival of deformos.) so I'm sure if she had been around we would have had a great time playing through it together. Playing the Cube was the best fun the ex and I could have together... you know what I'm hinting at... yeah, it was better than our reverse razorwire fingerbang position.

Anyway she would have loved to be privy to the playing of the Resident Evil-ness. The next girl I dated on the other hand could not stand even the littlest of frights and said that when her dad played Wolf3d (wolfenstein for those who didn't have it.) she had nightmares as a kid.

WARNING: The image below may traumatize some viewers.








AHHHHHHHHHHHH....


Soooooo pixelated!!!!!!!!

Seriously, how is this scary? (it's not even running at full screen... buy a 386!.)
Though she was (and still is) Russian and these guys are German so maybe she was just having flashbacks from Operation Barbarossa.

Back to Resident Evil:

The game was actiony when I put it on which was a definite positive in my book. You could keep yourself safe temporarily from the infected masses by finding houses and barring the doors, pushing bookshelves in front of windows and other crap like that. It really felt like you were in the game not just in some random room (When in reality I was just in some room and not in the game. Think about it.). Supplies were limited though you still had enough bullets to blow most infected, or los plagas as they are called, new orificies (I blew your mum's orifice... alot of blood came out.). RE4 was also one of the first/ the first, couldn't be bothered checking, to have complete location damage. Shoot a guy in the leg and he tumbles. In the hand he drops his weapon. In the groin he gets angry.

The bosses were quite clever and the storyline kept you interested. But the reason you were playing was so you could modify your guns, earning money to make them that bit more powerful. Once again borrowing from the almight System Shock (gee, I wonder if that will be on the list.) variations of pistols were the main weapons of choice in this game. The game focused on small scale killing not army reducing one man war, so your chacter mainly just had access to different small arms and was not able to duel wield chainguns:
as you could in Brute Force... which was shit. DAMN YOU IGN you lied to me... straight to my face.


The later part of the game had you escorting the president's daughter. When I heard that this was a key element to the game it nearly turned me off completely. Usually escort missions in any game are terrible, hard and terrible... again. However this was so well programmed that Ashley (the P's daughter) didn't feel like a burden but rather like a real person who was tagging along (and as one of the characters says 'she comes equipped with ballistics too.' talking about her boobies. Why is the word 'boobies' so much funnier than any other name for da titties?).


Ashley would help you solve puzzles and, according to a well informed and twisted friend of mine, if you tried to look up her skirt she would call you a pervert.


For an action game the game was fucking long. Clocking in at about 40 hours on my first play through, RE was suprisingly enjoyable all the way, and varied as hell. Ever since then if I play a action game that goes for about eight hours or so I really feel disappointed as, after this release, the developer 'we spent most of our time developing the engine' excuse can't be used anymore.


Another thing that made RE4 stick was the bonus features. On completing the game you would unlock a host of new shiny things. New character costumes... Ok, those were lame but you also got a extension to the original game where you played through part of the game through another character's perspective which redesigned old areas and had you face a new boss. Also on completion of the game you would unlock a game called 'mercenaries' which could have been released on it's own. The game allowed you to select from six playable characters (most of which had to be unlocked.) and had you fighting for survival in areas of the game that had been completely redesigned. The only way to rack up any kind of real points was to get kill combos, difficult since ammo is limited, within set amounts of time. Doing so unlocked other characters (most of which played totally different to the others) and some unique weapons for the game.


The final weapon that could be unlocked was the hand cannon which required the user to finish all Mercenaries levels with a rank of 5 stars which pretty much is the equivalent of completing the original Quake on Nightmare difficulty.

I was the envy of all my imaginary friends when I achieved this.

In a reference to Killer7, Leon (main character) would hold the gun so that it rested on his shoulder... in another reference to Killer7 there was a gun called Killer7. yup.
So good was this game that when the PS2 version of this game came out I had to go and buy it for the additional mode (on top of the others) that allowed you to play through the game from a different perspective once again. Unfortunately I have to unlock everything again and couldn't be fucked.
Possibly the coolest thing about this game was that it gave people hope and made other developers reinvent their series (onimusha, Final Fantasy.) and showed us that classics can still be made today.
In an interesting side note for a while you could buy RE4 with a bonus controller that was in the shape of a bloodied chainsaw which was the only weapon in the game that would kill you instantly.

Resident Evil 4 rightfully takes it's place as number seven on my top 25 games and serves as the best game the Gamecube had to offer and the second best game of last generation.

*For the record no site actually said that.

Awesome Character Profile:

Ramon Salazar



Wow, when you type in 'Salazar' in google a hella lot of pictures of naked women come up.
Anyway Ramon Salazar is neither nekkid or a woman, which is probably a good thing. A stunted Napoleon type dude Salazar is a member of a noble house who has become twisted into serving the wishes of his master Saddler.
Salazar uses his wealth to create all manner of traps to impede Leon and Ashley from escaping back to America.
It would have been easy to put Leon or Luis in here but they are too commerical. Salazar serves his purpose of being the annoying minion without ever being so annoying that you don't take him seriously (like in Code Veronica) and so you feel relief when you put the final bullet in his head rather than embarrasment for yourself and the makers of the game.
Salazar baby, you a'right.

Continued.

16. Jeanne D'arc. PSP 2007

Within the space of a month we got Disgaea, Final Fantasy Tactics and Jeanne D'arc. Three brilliant strategy role playing games.
In the 16-bit era there were about three SRPGs period, across all consoles. In 2007 we got three on one console over the course of a month. I thought of it as a mighty blast from a horn indicating it was the beginning of great things to come but instead it was a bellow of Gabriel's trumpet signalling the end of all things PSP.
With magnificent anime cutscenes, a brilliant twist on an age old story, colourful rich graphics and a simple yet deep combat system, Jeanne D'arc stands me as the best original (that is, non port) game on the system and with the Metal Gears, Syphon Filters and afore mentioned SRPGS, that is saying a lot.
The closest any game has come to a revisioning of Shining Force, Jeanne D'arc has a story and world that sucks you in and won't let go until long after the ending credits roll.

Awesome Character Profile:

Rufus/ Jeanne

While the game is based on the 'true' life of Joan of Arc, it is set in an alternate world where demons, monsters and animaloids exist.
Jeanne and her posse eventually come across a dogman who talks like scooby-doo, I always put him on the sidelines as, quite frankly, I was embarrassed for the designers that they decided to put him in the game but still I admire their gumption.

Jeanne is given, by God, the power to transform into a type of Super Saiyan, similar to Sonic 2. Using this power she drives the evil King of England to his knees.
I wish more stories would be rewritten like this. Imagine how much more interesting it would have been if Napoleon could charge up and fly around Europe shooting beams out of his eyes. Or if Reagan could unleash a power blast that left a five mile crater in its wake... I'd know a lot more about history if that were the case.
Stupid laws of reality.

15. Tales Of Eternia. PSP. 2006.. or 2002.

This game is a port of a PS1 game but it's still one of the best games on the PSP. Really this game represents my love of the entire Tales series but this one gets the trophy.

Why?

Is it because of the epic story and lovable characters?

No.

Is it because of the fantastic battle system and hours of side quests?

No.

Is it because you can dress the female characters up in skimpy bunny suits?

.....well maybe that helped a bit but...

It's because of a fucking annoyingly fucking addictive fucking card fucking game that is fucking part of the fucking game farkin'.

That card game was heroin laced with caffeine... I put an extra twenty hours in the game just playing it. I remember I had to turn off the sound though because every time the computer won it would say 'Hwel! Meredy wins' which sounds less annoying than it actually is.

I remember this game was listed to come out on a particular day and I somehow got a bunch of guys to come along to Dick Smith Powerhouse, we all waddled up and there it was in all it's glory. However on going online that night I discovered that it hadn't been released anywhere else in Australia and some RPG geeks (read: Daniel, all of them, the name is a synonym for RPG geek... just like Geoff is one for poofter and Mrs Jackson is for the title 'abode of much cock'... that is an in joke btw, just insert the name of one of your friend's mums instead for similar effect) so I felt extra special to have the only copy, apart from all the people who had bought it on the PlayStation years ago.

On that note the PSP has a couple of PSX RPG ports (whoa easy with the abbreviations) and for some reason they look better on the PSP then they do on the actual PSX. I guess it's because everything is smaller but still. PSX games seem to have a graininess about them which looks fucked up.

Choice.

Awesome Character Profile:

MAX!

There was a character in the game that was always referred to as 'MAX!' so you would get exclamation-heavy lines like:

'We should ask MAX! what he wants to do for dinner.'

Cracked me up...

I need to get laid.

14. Independence War. PC. 1999.

Ah, This is another title from the golden year 1999. Independence war, which you are unlikely to find anywhere ever again ever, was a space simulator that used Newtonian physics, had a 39 minute intro and was expansive as my anus was after I 'fell' on the toilet plunger. Seriously the game was well good shit. An ex picked it up off my desk the one day and I felt ashamed that I had it...

You know that makes it good.

Seriously, this game had a lot of little quirks that made it feel all the more real, certain ships had shields but due to the polarity of the engines the shields wouldn't cover then, the strategy then was to always target a ships engines as it would be the only vulnerable part.

You were also able to use every console that would have been on the bridge of your ship, if you wanted to transfer power from your weapons to engines you would start off configuring everything at the weapons station and then switch to the engineering console to channel the power through your sub decks.

The developers had even gone to the trouble of mapping out the circuitry of your vessel so if your right side was hit and that happened to hit a circuit that was transferring energy to your weapons, the would go offline and you'd have to reroute the energy through an alternate pathway.

Totally Geek, Totally Awesome.

This is also one of the few games where I played the demo and just knew I had to go buy the game. The more you know.

Awesome Character Profile:

None

Unfortunately the game was character lite and no one is really fit to get a mention, that's why I put two characters in number 15. See, that was part of the plan all along.

13.Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. PS2.

It was a tough choice between 3 and 4, really I don't think I could live without either.

I first (and...really only) picked this up at Penrith EB Games before they moved next to JB Hi-fi.

The guy over the counter was a twat (who has since moved to Blacktown... and is still twatesque.). I remember I bought it in a bundle of six games including the great Beyond Good & Evil, the good Mercenaries and the bad Capcom Fighting Jam. The counter dude was impressed and said something like 'Whoa! I bet you're going to go home and just lock the door to your room for a couple of weeks.'

To which I responded 'No, actually I'm going to go home and introduce a fat cock to your wife's ass.'

I didn't really say that.

Anyway, so impressed was the dude at my extreme awesome/lameness that he chucked in a free guide to Beyond Good & Evil that currently lies in my bedroom fully shrink wrapped.

I spoke for a while, shooting the shit with the dude and then headed home. I slammed on Capcom Fighting Jam and discovered it was shit. Metal Gear Solid however was THE shit. it was the only game I've played that truly gave the impression that you could do whatever you wanted... you couldn't but it was pretty damn close.

Shoot the enemy, sneak past the enemy, throw a beehive at the enemy to scare the bejesus out of them. The game had a great story and played like I do with your sister... really well and with a vague aroma of sealife.

*ahem*

Set years before the Metal Gear Solid games following the missions of Solid Snake's father before his rise to power and fall from grace, MGS3 takes the player through Soviet Jungles to see firsthand the fateful events that created the world of the first two games.

Not to spoil anything but the last two hours of the game may be the most action packed and exciting moments in the history of gaming.

Metal Gear Solid is also known for trying to be really realistic, featuring a lot of 'Zelda pig in water' devices... as in brilliant spectacles that you probably will never notice when playing through the game. For instance there is a battle with a nemesis who is made of electricity, if you use one of the early guns from the game (highly unlikely) and you are hit with electricity, not only do you go into shock but the electricity sets off all the bullets in the chamber/clip, exploding your gun and making bullets fly everywhere.

That's just awesome.

The game is full with hidden Easter eggs like this that just take a fantastic experience and make it all the more enjoyable.
Really there were moments in the game where I thought that I had probably stumbled across a secret animation that was so obscure that only I would ever see it. Of course I underestimated both how many people would actually be playing the game and the power of the internet but for a brief moment I felt special all the same.

Awesome Character Expose

Everyone/The Boss

Each Metal Gear game (with the possible exception of 2) has a cast of characters that are not only memorable but usually go down as pinnacles of character design. Metal Gear Solid 3 is one of the most solid (pun not intended) entries in regards to this... and everything else for that matter.

One of the most brilliant designs in the medium, The Boss was not as flashy as some of the other Metal Gear characters but she was certainly the most interesting. The mentor of Naked Snake (father of Solid Snake), The Boss is introduced as she defects from the USA to the Soviets. While she betrays her country there is always the sense that she is serving a higher purpose.
While at the time her actions seemed of fairly little consequence, it soon becomes obvious that different interpretations of the ideals of this one woman shaped fifty years of warfare to come.
An adversary and a friend, The Boss is as powerful a character and the one true Patriot.