Top 50 Videogames: 13 and 12
Just as I get rolling on the list again, I have to report that after today I'll be out of state (yes, the state I just moved to five days ago) for five days, as my brother-in-law is getting married in Texas, and my elder daughter is the Flower Girl. Is that capitalized? Meh.
13. Jak II (2003, PlayStation 2)
But Ashelin isn't merely a tough bitty, she's also smokin' hot. I almost used a shot of just her, but that seemed a bit wrong, as she's not a playable character...
Difficulty from 1 to 10: 9. Would be 7 or thereabouts except there's this one asinine mission to get from one end of a pier to another across rickety wooden walkways and on the way there are roughly eleventy quintillion Krimzon Guards. I shat myself with glee when I passed it. Impossibly, the second time I played through this one, I did it on the first try.
Played it with: It's one player, but Cathy was around, and her sister Cari gradually played through it every time she visited us from 2003-2004.
Did I complete it? Yep. 100% is probably nigh-upon-impossible, though. The sidequests, unlike on many games, are every bit as fun as the main storyline. They're as stupid as "get this orb that's sitting here from where you are in just eight seconds," but they're all so well-conceived that the whole thing is crazy-addictive.
Others in the series bumped because of this one: Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (that's the clumsy title of the first one), which is crazy awesome, but focuses too little on plot and has a much more lighthearted feel. Jak III is pretty decent, but a very large percentage of the missions are spent in vehicles compared to II, and vehicle missions get downright boring as hell for me in a hurry, unless I'm playing GTA where it's the focus of the game. If I'm playing an action platformer, give me action and platforming, bitch!
Here's something I haven't said in quite a while: I shorted this game. But in this case, I believe I shorted it a lot. I actually think this should be around #3 or #4, but I'll just see out the list in the way it was originally written. Normally I'd say "que sera sera" there, but I'm told I overuse that term in print, even though I only use it for quasi-comedic purposes.
Jak II is the absolute perfect difficulty level for someone who's been kicking video ass for two decades. Nothing is so hard that maybe the developers should've taken a look at it before shipping it out, but there are challenges to be had everywhere. And when one mission is particularly difficult, it's laid out in such a way that you know you can pass it...you just haven't yet.
This game would be just about perfect even if it didn't have a story, but it has a pretty great one. Jak, saved by Daxter (formerly his best human friend who was turned into a little rodent called an Ottsel) after two years of imprisonment and experimental testing with volatile chemicals, sets out to find who did this to him and why, in addition to attempting to save the crime and corruption-ridden Haven City. It's a fine mix of humor and very dark subject matter that's reminiscent of action movies like Die Hard, and the characters both friend and foe are equally engaging (I'd say this has two of the better-developed villains in all of videogamedom) and integral to the sprawling plot.
There are three Jak games, all good to great, but this is the clear class of them. I'm fairly sure there's a good reason everyone would like this title, besides maybe the true wusses who can't handle things like a little bit of gloom and the sacrifice of a major character or two to move the story forward.
12. PaRappa the Rapper (1997, PlayStation)
Difficulty from 1 to 10: Like most rhythm games, brutal at first, then very easy once you've played for a while and muscle memory kicks in. Let's say 6, since even if you're good, the last song is fairly tough.
Played it with: Everyone on the fourth floor of Crawford in my sophomore year. I mean everyone, man. Jeremy Mikolai and Anthony Crep more than anyone else, but absolutely everyone popped in, often the dudes I either didn't like or whose names I didn't even know.
Did I complete it? Over and over and over.
Other in the series bumped because of this one: UmJammer Lammy, which is not so much a sequel as a spinoff featuring two middling characters from this one. It's harder. But the songs are equally fun and weird. I never played the actual sequel, which I heard was okayish. I think I never played it because the first one was such an indelible part of one of my best periods in college and I just didn't want to go back again with all the same people there. I'm sentimental that way.
Probably most everyone remembers the commercials for this show: people from various walks of life just singing the songs from the game, then a couple seconds of actual game footage of that song. At the time a great many people didn't know what the game was about or what you could possibly be doing, because despite the enormity of the rhythm genre in Japan, it had never really been brought to the States (it was one of those things where people just knew it wouldn't translate and therefore never tried). It ended up being a gigantic hit because it's funny, easy to learn but tough to master, and seriously f*&^in' weird.
The game plays out as a half-hour cartoon that would probably be rated 13 and up or so (there are some pretty overt references to drugs in the reggae track I pictured), although an IGN check tells me the game is rated E for Everyone. Huh. Anyway, there's a funny, stupid story that takes place between songs, and it primarily deals with PaRappa trying to impress Sunny Funny, his wannabe girlfriend (he's a dog, she's a flower; classic tale) and PaRappa's dreams of playing a large stage. Along the way it's established that Sunny Funny likes PaRappa best when he's constipated because it makes him grimace angrily and she finds that manly. It's the perfect party game, and probably the perfect game for drug addicts, which I'd stopped being a year before this one hit shelves.
13. Jak II (2003, PlayStation 2)
But Ashelin isn't merely a tough bitty, she's also smokin' hot. I almost used a shot of just her, but that seemed a bit wrong, as she's not a playable character...
Difficulty from 1 to 10: 9. Would be 7 or thereabouts except there's this one asinine mission to get from one end of a pier to another across rickety wooden walkways and on the way there are roughly eleventy quintillion Krimzon Guards. I shat myself with glee when I passed it. Impossibly, the second time I played through this one, I did it on the first try.
Played it with: It's one player, but Cathy was around, and her sister Cari gradually played through it every time she visited us from 2003-2004.
Did I complete it? Yep. 100% is probably nigh-upon-impossible, though. The sidequests, unlike on many games, are every bit as fun as the main storyline. They're as stupid as "get this orb that's sitting here from where you are in just eight seconds," but they're all so well-conceived that the whole thing is crazy-addictive.
Others in the series bumped because of this one: Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (that's the clumsy title of the first one), which is crazy awesome, but focuses too little on plot and has a much more lighthearted feel. Jak III is pretty decent, but a very large percentage of the missions are spent in vehicles compared to II, and vehicle missions get downright boring as hell for me in a hurry, unless I'm playing GTA where it's the focus of the game. If I'm playing an action platformer, give me action and platforming, bitch!
Here's something I haven't said in quite a while: I shorted this game. But in this case, I believe I shorted it a lot. I actually think this should be around #3 or #4, but I'll just see out the list in the way it was originally written. Normally I'd say "que sera sera" there, but I'm told I overuse that term in print, even though I only use it for quasi-comedic purposes.
Jak II is the absolute perfect difficulty level for someone who's been kicking video ass for two decades. Nothing is so hard that maybe the developers should've taken a look at it before shipping it out, but there are challenges to be had everywhere. And when one mission is particularly difficult, it's laid out in such a way that you know you can pass it...you just haven't yet.
This game would be just about perfect even if it didn't have a story, but it has a pretty great one. Jak, saved by Daxter (formerly his best human friend who was turned into a little rodent called an Ottsel) after two years of imprisonment and experimental testing with volatile chemicals, sets out to find who did this to him and why, in addition to attempting to save the crime and corruption-ridden Haven City. It's a fine mix of humor and very dark subject matter that's reminiscent of action movies like Die Hard, and the characters both friend and foe are equally engaging (I'd say this has two of the better-developed villains in all of videogamedom) and integral to the sprawling plot.
There are three Jak games, all good to great, but this is the clear class of them. I'm fairly sure there's a good reason everyone would like this title, besides maybe the true wusses who can't handle things like a little bit of gloom and the sacrifice of a major character or two to move the story forward.
12. PaRappa the Rapper (1997, PlayStation)
Difficulty from 1 to 10: Like most rhythm games, brutal at first, then very easy once you've played for a while and muscle memory kicks in. Let's say 6, since even if you're good, the last song is fairly tough.
Played it with: Everyone on the fourth floor of Crawford in my sophomore year. I mean everyone, man. Jeremy Mikolai and Anthony Crep more than anyone else, but absolutely everyone popped in, often the dudes I either didn't like or whose names I didn't even know.
Did I complete it? Over and over and over.
Other in the series bumped because of this one: UmJammer Lammy, which is not so much a sequel as a spinoff featuring two middling characters from this one. It's harder. But the songs are equally fun and weird. I never played the actual sequel, which I heard was okayish. I think I never played it because the first one was such an indelible part of one of my best periods in college and I just didn't want to go back again with all the same people there. I'm sentimental that way.
Probably most everyone remembers the commercials for this show: people from various walks of life just singing the songs from the game, then a couple seconds of actual game footage of that song. At the time a great many people didn't know what the game was about or what you could possibly be doing, because despite the enormity of the rhythm genre in Japan, it had never really been brought to the States (it was one of those things where people just knew it wouldn't translate and therefore never tried). It ended up being a gigantic hit because it's funny, easy to learn but tough to master, and seriously f*&^in' weird.
The game plays out as a half-hour cartoon that would probably be rated 13 and up or so (there are some pretty overt references to drugs in the reggae track I pictured), although an IGN check tells me the game is rated E for Everyone. Huh. Anyway, there's a funny, stupid story that takes place between songs, and it primarily deals with PaRappa trying to impress Sunny Funny, his wannabe girlfriend (he's a dog, she's a flower; classic tale) and PaRappa's dreams of playing a large stage. Along the way it's established that Sunny Funny likes PaRappa best when he's constipated because it makes him grimace angrily and she finds that manly. It's the perfect party game, and probably the perfect game for drug addicts, which I'd stopped being a year before this one hit shelves.