Ah hell- why not.
Who would have thought that taking the ridiculous concept of car combat, giving it a gritty story of redemption and revenge, a Mechwarrior powered damage and weapon system and just about the coolest game soundtrack ever would result in just about the most groovy game you could imagine? This was the full package- a sprawling singleplayer campaign (split into 'scenes'), various one-off missions to test your mettle, and an instant action arena mode against any combination of heavily armed cars, busses and trucks you could imagine, all on giant sprawling maps of the U.S. Southwest. Twenty one years later, and it is still the king of car combat perfection. Twisted Metal doesn't even come close.
9: Operation Flashpoint: Game of the Year Edition
There may be prettier war sims, with higher stakes, shinier equipment, and more fist-bumps, but this pioneer of open world warfare from 2001 is still the closest I ever want to get to
real war. The first game in what would become the ARMA series, OpFlash took everything you knew about war games and threw it out the window. You could be cut down in a single burst of fire. Enemies could -and would- engage you from distances of 300m or more. Tanks were machines of nigh unstoppable death for soldiers caught in the open.
It also let you lose. A lot. War games generally had you follow a linear string of victories until the game ends. In OpFlash- there were missions you would not win. Missions you
could not win no matter how much the game dared you to try. The utter indifference the game shows to the death of the individual soldier resonates deeply. And when I found, in one mission, the enemy had shifted the front line so rapidly I was now miles behind enemy territory, alone, struggling to get to an extraction point before enemy patrols and helicopters spotted my terrified lump of squishy flesh to obliterate with fire and steel... I felt a fear no game had given me before. That's when I was hooked. Flashpoint has a quiet earnestness to it, a certain soul that ARMA has never understood. It was a clunky and somewhat jagged looking miracle- a blend of 'show don't tell' conflict wrapped up in a huge world sprawling with bases, vehicles, buddies and satchel charges. No other game has you so alert while crawling under bushes at night, ready to plant your charge near the patrolling tank you're praying to everything you believe in doesn't spot you in the darkness...
8: Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven
This game has, in my opinion, the best story ever told in an interactive medium. Ever. Fully fleshed out characters making difficult decisions based on their environment and having to live with the consequences. No other game on this list so comprehensively transports you to another time and place as this masterpiece. The cars are sluggish and have terrible top speeds, but I didn't care. I savoured every minute of the experience, and try to play through this game about once every year- retracing the steps of Tommy Angelo- the cabbie that fell from grace into the life of a 'made man'. It's also notable for actually giving you all kinds of optional missions to do in freeroam. Hard to believe this came out in the same year as Vice City.
Perhaps an odd choice for me considering I didn't grow up with it. I only played it for the first time about 5 years ago. But- since I was around when UT'99 came out and in general I couldn't care less about graphics, I was able to dive straight into the story and
incredible level design. Everyone always praises the seamlessness of Half Life's design, but I think Deus Ex really perfected it, with a finely balanced set of rewards for exploration without ever treating you like an idiot. This was the only game I've ever played where I found myself playing all through the night on a level... that I had already completed.
That's how good this game is at sucking you into the story.
The first PC game I ever bought, TIE Fighter set the bar for space combat so high that some would say it
still hasn't been surpassed. Whirling through a giant space furball with lasers flying everywhere and giant cruisers and destroyers drifting past your cockpit viewport entirely upside down as they maneuvered around the battle got my blood pumping so much, that I'd often switch it off only to find my entire hand had cramped up from clutching the joystick so tightly. It's exploration of the Empire's point of view as a Galaxy wide peace keeping force is made so believable in its realisation, it could be argued that their depiction in this game is even more fleshed out than even the Star Wars movies allowed. A good story wrapped up in an outstanding handling flight simulation- TIE Fighter isn't just one of the best Star Wars games of all time- It's one of best games of all time- period.
It seems so bizarre the way all people seem to talk about with the latest Battlefields is the balancing: Buff this, OP that... how can DICE still be struggling with all that when they basically knocked it out of the park with the first Battlefield? You think behemoths are impressive? Try giving both sides a full fleet to use, with fully pilotable destroyers, submarines, battleships, aircraft carriers and planes themselves. You think flying in a 2 vs 2 dogfight is intense? try 32 aircraft duking it out at once over the skies of Coral Sea or Britain. In a time before ironsights and weapon customisation, DLC or player progression or all that other utterly useless padding, Bf 1942 just
worked. It was well balanced, had wonderful variety in weapons, vehicles, terrain and armies, and is a joy to play. Not to mention mods could completely transform the game, providing the genesis for the Battlefront series, BF: Vietnam, and BF2 with Desert Combat. If Battlefield ever returns to the pitched land/sea/air warfare of WW2, it can't come fast enough.
4: Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction
As much as I'd like to give this spot to The Saboteur for its excellent gun combat, great stealth and humour, Mercenaries takes the honour as its wiser, more serious older brother. It's still not very serious, but it's depiction of a modern warzone is captivating. Different nations seek to carve up the territory, journalists try to get to hotspots to get good footage, and nobody wants to be seen publicly stepping on too many toes. Enter you, the mercenary that can do everyone's dirty work for them, and get paid handsomely for the trouble. Probably my favourite sandbox, Mercenaries just
oozes atmosphere, in no small part thanks to the outstanding soundtrack by Michael Giacchino- mixing bold korean drums with tense strings and haunting chorale during the quieter moments. It's an all-out action game and no mistake, but underneath is the impression that this is a world torn apart, with everyone trying to just do the best they can with the resulting situation. Also, it's refreshingly hard at times. Mercs expects you to learn the tools of your trade and
will test you, to the very limit. But when you're perched ontop of a mountain range, using your binoculars to scope out the base you'll soon be attacking... it's just pure magic, especially for players that can think outside the box in their approach to objectives.
Somewhere between the hardcore hair pulling simulations like IL-2 Sturmovik and the super arcade laziness of Rogue Squadron, there exists a sweet spot where you're given the full range of controls over your vehicle, but aren't punished if your revision on stall speeds and weight-to-thrust ratios isn't on point. In this sweet spot proudly sits Crimson Skies- the finest arcade flight combat game ever made. And no, not the Xbox sequel, I'm talking the PC original here. There are no other flight combat games with this much charm, sass, derring-do and reckless abandon as you, Nathan Zachary, lead your merry band of sky pirates through a story that progresses from light hearted treasure hunting to deeper double dealings and corporate conspiracies. You'll cross paths with a range of memorable characters both friend and foe, and marvel at the inventive alternate-world designs as they swoop and zoom between colossal zeppelins that open their gunports to trade broadsides just as the Spanish Galleons of old used to. Once again, a full range of instant action challenges await you, and each mission ends with newspaper clippings of the action you'd just lived through. Between that and the swashbuckling action music that gives way to a swinging 30's jazz when you complete your objectives, Crimson Skies is a taughtly paced, expertly designed and utterly charming aerial romp. Just play it.
2: Driver: You Are the Wheelman
Speaking of that sweet spot between realism and pure arcade handling- what Crimson Skies did for aircraft, Driver did for cars. There's been precious few times where I've played a game that felt like it was made just for me, but Driver is special like that. The car handling
perfectly evokes the overpowered, fishtailing car chases of 70's crime movies, and when the cops start chasing you and the music changes, you
know it's about to get messy. It's still the most fun I've ever had in a game version of a hollywood car chase. What really elevates the game to legendary status however, is the Film Director mode. Every time you hit the streets, all your actions are recorded and can be played back. Not just like a replay, but you can pause the action, place your cameras, switch between the point of view of different cars in the chase, and have the whole chase play out like your very own car chase movie. For every hour I spent actually playing the game, I probably spent another 5 in the director mode. We need more games that can do this.
I love shooters. I love realistic tactical puzzle solvers like Operation Flashpoint. I like fast paced twitch shooting blastfests like Unreal Tournament and Quake 3. I like shooters you play with your friends like PUBG, and ones you play by yourself, like Far Cry. 1st person, 3rd person, PC or console, I can find plenty to like in a whole range of shooters.
But if I had to pick just
one? It would be Goldeneye.
It's a toughie. I mean, Perfect Dark improves on it in nearly every way, with multiplayer bots giving PD a near infinite amount of arena replayability. But there's one place Perfect Dark didn't top Goldeneye. Didn't come close. The singleplayer.
On paper, there are many things about Goldeneye that shouldn't have worked. Levels were designed before objectives, so there are rooms and hallways with no use for the mission. If an alarm is triggered, some levels will spawn infinite waves of guards to track you down- Forever. Sensitive mission equipment often sits close to things that blow up, and
everything in the game can blow up. There's no crosshair while you're moving. The small team of 7 (!) people that made Goldeneye were mostly first timers making it up as they went along, and as a result there are a lot of things in Goldeneye you don't see anywhere else.
But that's what keeps me coming back. Take the mission where you start unarmed in a prison cell. If you're crafty you can find some throwing knives, for silent takedowns. But the guards patrol on a completely randomised timeline. You may think the coast is clear because someone passed, only to find as you duck across the hallway that another is only 6 paces behind the first. It's these 'oh crap' moments that force you to improvise that continue to surprise and delight more than 20 years after the game released. We all have our favourite shooter, and usually for very specific reasons. I don't think I'll ever see a shooter made again with the same creative mindset Goldeneye was forged under, so for the time being, GoldenEye remains my favourite game of all time.
