 I've long put off doing a video like this because why would anyone care what my favorite games are? But I realized, as I've got over 60 reviews now, it might be pragmatic to provide context to where I'm coming from. I try my best to be objective in each review, but I can see why it could be useful to give an audience an idea of what stuff I really do like as a kind of frame of reference. So anyway, here's my 17 favorite games. Why 17? Because I like uneven numbers. Quick disclaimer, I stopped following console gaming in real time, sometime in the late 90s. So I barely played any attention to the 5th or 6th generation consoles like PlayStation, Sega Saturn, the first Xbox or any of that stuff. That's because honestly, I was either playing PC games or I was still discovering new Super Nintendo games. Alright, let's go. I'm not gonna go into a lot of detail, just gonna give an anecdote or two why I like each game. Number 17. Blakestone. Aliens of Gold. Yeah, as you can see, being objective about quality is going right out the window with this list. This is very clearly a Wolfenstein clone, but I've always really liked it because of all the hidden areas you could find. I would spend hours looking for hidden rooms, and the game was almost always kind enough to reward me. It was also the first PC game I ever played back in the early 90s. Not sure it's that good today, but I don't care. Number 16. Adventure for Atari 2600. I never had an NES as a kid, but we did have an Atari 2600 up until we got a Super Nintendo in 1991. Adventure was my favorite game then because I'd never seen anything else like it. I'd never even imagined anything like it before. It made a huge impression on me, especially seeing the dragon that could chase you between screens. That always scared the shit out of me. Number 15. Paperboy for NES. While I didn't have an NES, I went to my friend's house down the road who had this game, and I can't think of a game that's made me laugh harder over the years. We used to joke that this guy right here was trying to pull his pants up. I just love the sheer absurdity of it all. A tornado? The Grim Reaper? Okay, sure. Plus, I loved fucking up the Red Houses. Wait, you're not a subscriber? Here, have five or six newspapers anyway. Through your windows. Again, objectively Paperboy is clunky and limited, but I still love playing it and it still makes me laugh to this day. Number 14. Limbo. The instant I saw this game, I knew I had to play it and I knew I'd love it. There's nothing like shutting off the lights and playing this game. The ambience and the aura that this game has is so frickin' cool. I love it. And the gameplay is right up my alley. Simple platforming and simple puzzles that get more complex the more you play. Especially the last one. It's so satisfying when you finally get the timing right. I really hope there's a sequel to this game someday. Number 13. SimCity 2000 for PC. Like Paperboy, this is another game that was entertaining to play because it made me laugh so much, especially this guy who's constantly angry no matter what you do. The newspaper articles are also really silly. While it was a lot of fun to legitimately build a city and reach max population, it was just as fun to enter the money code and build a bunch of houses and surround them with nothing but airports. Number 12. Ken Griffey Jr. presents Major League Baseball. I did a review of this one a long while back. This game is a perfect blend of a goofy cartoonish art style with solid baseball physics. It's brimming with style and personality. I swear I've played through like four or five full seasons now and I still play it all the time to this day. Number 11. Half-Life 2 for PC. Kind of like Limbo, this game is one I love to revisit just to soak in the atmosphere. It's like rewatching a classic movie. I'll never forget the first time I went to Ravenholm. Jesus Christ. I can't believe this game is ten years old. It blows my mind and it just makes me want to play it again. Number 10. Unreal Tournament 3. This is my favorite multiplayer first person shooter because I really like the maps, especially the sandstorm and suspension bridge maps in the vehicle capture the flag mode. I also really like the onslaught mode where you have to take over nodes that lead a path to the enemy base. The vehicles are a lot of fun and I like the variety of weapons. And now my favorite single player first person shooter, number nine, Doom 2. This is one of those games I can't just play for a few minutes. Once I start I'm playing for hours and hours. The creativity and imagination that were put into not just into the monsters, but how the monsters died is really cool in a classic horror movie kind of way. There's a certain satisfaction that comes from playing Doom 2 that I don't get anywhere else. Number eight. Mario Golf Advance Tour for Game Boy Advance. I love golf games and this is my favorite ever. I really like the RPG styled elements that the developers Camelot put into the genre. This game is inventive, really fun and has very loyal golf physics that are surprisingly consistent. Plus of course I love that this game is portable so I can get in a quick nine anywhere I go. Number seven, Katamari Damashii for PS2. This game, both visually and conceptually, seems like it was taken out of a Japanese kids cartoon. I absolutely love weird shit like this. It's something I never would have imagined myself in a million years but yet it's so easy to play and it's so addicting and the soundtrack is one of my all time favorites as well. Number six, Contra 3 for Super Nintendo. When I got my Super Nintendo as a Christmas gift in 1991 the first game I rented was Contra 3 and to this day it's still really hard to find the words to describe how I felt when I played that first level. It's a mixture of intensity, slack-jawed bewilderment and total and utter fear. Exploding buildings, tanks, waves of fire, giant turtles? I felt like anything was possible and the game just gets better and better and better the further you get. And to this day it's such a fantastic pick up and play style game. Number five, Star Fox. This game probably represents my biggest contrast between subjective enjoyment and objective quality. The framerate and pop-up issues of this game make it pretty outdated and Star Fox 64 and its 3DS re-release are clearly better Star Fox games. But the artistic style, the music, the simplicity in the gameplay and the fact that it's such a simple pick up and play game for me that makes this game imminently playable until the end of time. Number four, Mega Man X2. I said this in my original review but I'll restate it here. I always liked X2 better than X because of two things. The mid-air dash and the double charged arm cannon. I also think it's a bit more challenging than its predecessor. But yeah, Mega Man has always held a gigantic part of my gaming heart and that's mostly because of number three, Mega Man 3. This is one of the first NES games I ever played and I remember having such an appreciation for it because it was so straightforward and satisfying. Run to the right, shoot stuff, dodge stuff, jump around, beat the boss and then take his weapon. It was all just so gratifying. I'll readily admit this isn't the best Mega Man on the NES. That would be Mega Man 2 but this one will always have a special place in my heart. Number two, Age of Mythology for PC. The re-release was disappointing because it's so damn choppy and buggy but the original release and the Titan's expansion pack are so much freakin' fun. Both the multiplayer aspect and even the single-player campaign. It's a real-time strategy game that's fast paced with a ton of variety. I just never get sick of playing this, even against the computer. In my favorite game of all time, no surprise, it's Chrono Trigger. What makes me love this game so much is how it tells its story so effortlessly. When I first rented this game, I played non-stop for something like 5 and a half hours and it felt like only 30 minutes had passed. The story sucks you in and it doesn't let you go. You'll get chills, you'll laugh, your heart will be pounding and it's just the freakin' best. Alright, we made it this far. I want to thank you for watching and I hope you have a great rest of your day.