Tuesday, October 14, 2008

My Top Ten Favorite Video Games - Part Two

Cruisin the Miami-like Vice City for thrills, and chills without ever leaving your home.
.
Going in to round two of my favorite video games for more fun, madness and mayhem. Time to plug and play!

5. Mortal Kombat (Super Nintendo game) 1990s


Finish Him! Shocking when it came out, Mortal Kombat was the most violent game going when it showed up in arcades during the early 90's. And when it moved to home video games, they didn't really tone it down much. While I wasn't particularly good at this game, I got a kick out of Ice guy shooting an ice patch to make people slip around so I tended to pick him the most. I think his name was Sub Zero, he was really weak, but the most fun. The character I had the most success with was Scorpion, I could teleport back and forth to rain fists on my adversary until they figured it out and uppercutted me into a Toasty. Raiden and Kano were other phases I went through, Mortal Kombat was the start for what I consider "hyperviolence" (completely stole that term from A Clockwork Orange). There were a lot of sequels and motion picture films that followed that left me bored, but the original is good stuff.

4. Doom 3 (Windows PC) 1990s


The one game I played obsessively on a PC, hammering arrow buttons and space bars until the keyboard stops responding quickly. Doom 3 is the ultimate first person shooter for me, ya just run around with a huge armament of weapons and kill everything that doesn't kill you first. Red energy ball throwing demons, bull like creatures, fleshy walls and radioactive muck threaten you constantly. This was the most intense game I had played fully (I tried Resident Evil, just wasn't for me) but loads of fun. I played Doom one and two afterwards and had a blast. Running around scrounging for Gatling gun ammo to shoot a bunch of aliens up made my day. There was an odd bit to this game that became the most memorable to me over time. When the brown naked demon looking things appeared, if you shot it with a shotgun the creature would fly backward and land on its back and slide on the ground. When it stopped sliding, you could see a big butthole between it's legs. That's Doomin'!

3. Super Sprint (Atari Arcade) 1980s


My first semester of college was spent hanging out, playing pool and racing on this video game at the bowling alley. Super Sprint was freewheeling in its pursuit of high speed thrills with little cars darting over winding tracks. Obstacles like oil slicks could send you flying into a wall where you would crash and burn. Jumps added a Dukes-of-Hazzard element while risky short cuts could make or break your standings at the finish line. My favorite element of the gameplay was these hairpin turns where you could build up a bunch of speed and then spin the wheel like it's the lottery. That little car would skid around almost sideways through the turn, probably would never happen in real life but it was great on screen. Best of all, it was a game that three people could play with the losers pumping quarters and the winner continuing on for free. I tended to take turns really hard and skid into other cars so not everyone was happy to play with me, but they would get me back and ram me into a wall so it was all fair in the end. Lots of nice memories of that first year of college.

2. No Mercy (N64 Game) 1990s


Doo doo doo do - uh! Doo doo doo do...do Do do Do do Do. The little music that plays while you create a wrestler is yet another video game tune stuck in my head forever. All those hours spent making the perfect Chris Kanyon (Who better?) just so I could reenact a midcard match from Sunday Night Heat. What was I thinking? Well, I was having a good time.

No Mercy was the reason we bought a Nintendo 64. And it was totally worth it. Made during the WWF (not WWE) Attitude era, the game featured all my favorites: Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, Triple HHH, The Dudley Boyz, Team Extreme, Mankind...the list goes on. And the playability of the game was unbelievable, simple controls allowed a full range of moves and matches. You could do a ladder match, hardcore match or tag match. Almost all the WWF/WWE video games that followed modeled themselves after No Mercy. And you could finally feel the thrill of delivering a Stone Cold Stunner at the last second to win the match. The only thing missing was Jim Ross yelling "The Rattlesnake! Stone Cold!! Stone Cold!!!"

1. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (Playstation 2 game) 2000s


It's number one so it's obvious I think this is the greatest game ever. The first three weeks I played the game I was just in awe of it. I've never seen a game create as fully realized a self contained world as GTA. And 80's retro to boot. A game where mission objectives are optional, you could take on tasks to move your criminal career forward or just walk around town to steal and hit people at random. Great times stemmed from jumping a motorcycle over a bridge, running over drug dealers or upsetting the police to the point both ground officers and choppers rain a hail of bullets all over you. You could swipe the equivalent of a MR2 and cruise through shopping malls and golf courses as The Fixx's "One Thing Leads To Another" blares on the radio. I must have spent half a year playing this game basking in its neon lit nights and sun splashed days. A guy at work told me some people knew the streets of GTA better than their place of residence. That was me all over.

So many great games, so little time. There were a lot of games that came close to making the list but these were the ten with the biggest effect on my life. Or is it affect. I could never get that down.

7 comments:

Jeannie said...

Now you know that I got all Doomed out! I used to play that game until my fingers burned with pain.

You are super good at Super Sprint- kicked my rear every time we'd play together. I bet you skipped a lot of class to play this game.

Arsenette said...

Awwww Mr. Mike got all boy on me :p

Didn't like the games (well Doom was okay).. I am quite the chicken so I don't do horror and I can't stand needless violence so Grand Theft Auto I do not like.. I did see Sprint but never played it.. and I never really played wrestling games.

Mr. Mike said...

You were always better than me at most games including Doom, honey bunny. I think Super Sprint was the only game I played better, but that was because I had years of practice. And for the record I went to class at that time, I just didn't study.

Hi Arsenette! Jeannie has an aversion to those horror and violence too so I understand how you feel. :)

Jeannie said...

"Jeannie has an aversion to those horror and violence..."

Now I do, but I was kicking those imps butts back in the day.

"You were always better than me at most games including Doom, honey bunny."

True......hehehe......love you. :D

pamwax said...

Doom one of my favorites. But what about Wolfenstein and Heretic and Unreal.

Do you see a pattern here. I am a killer at heart. Of course I always played in god mode otherwise I would die in 3 minutes. Not a very good shot.

Mr. Mike said...

I think Doom 3 had a hidden level of Wolfenstein in it, that was fun. I played Doom on N64 also but I never got past that point, mainly because gaming software outpaced our computers. I've never played Quake but heard it was good.

I'm not a very good shot either, on games that keep track of hit ratios I usually hit like 40%. I just like the sound of random bullets flying...in a game, there's too much of it in my actual neighborhood. And God mode rules! Otherwise you have to save every 3 minutes or you lose all your progress.

pamwax said...

Quake I forgot about that one. I had Doom 3 sitting around for several months before I got a computer I could play it on.

My kill ratio is probably 10% but then I am a girl and I shoot and throw like a girl.

I didn't fine the Wolfenstein level...Now I will have to play it again. Something to do on the long drive to Dallas.