Top 50 Videogames: 7 and 6
7. Kingdom Hearts II (2006, PlayStation 2)
Difficulty from 1 to 10: 7. There's an optional boss (Sephiroth) who's more like 9 or 10, but I beat him too, bitches.
Played it with: Cathy.
Did I complete it? Yeah, I'm pretty sure I got every single thing on this one.
Other awesomes in the series: The original Kingdom Hearts. Choosing one of these two was remarkably hard, because they definitely have their pros and cons. I still don't know if I picked the one I like better.
For anyone who doesn't know what these games are--I imagine that's no one--there's this kid Sora who teams up with Donald Duck and Goofy (and, later, King Mickey Mouse) and fights through the worlds of specific Disney movies to save his friends Riku and Kairi. The game contains over 100 characters from the Disney canon, as well as another 20 or so from the Final Fantasy series. I like both of those things, so it seemed worth a try, even if I was initially worried about the execution.
It's awesome. Many of the voice actors came on board, the storylines are true to the movies as well as being surprising at times, and seeing the Final Fantasy characters from various games interact, while impossible according to the FF series, is still wicked satisfying.
The idea was so gutsy because of the wide gap in subject matter; while love tends to conquer all in both series, the Disney movies are bright and kind and gentle (there are dark moments, but they're rarely for long) while the Final Fantasy games are sometimes soul-suckingly cruel and depressing. I guess I don't know quite how the two were married with such results that didn't just piss everybody off, but that's what great gameplay will afford you.
6. Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (1987, Nintendo)
It was really hard to make that screen happen.
Difficulty from 1 to 10: 9, when you first play it. It's weird, though...if you play enough and muscle memory takes over, it becomes second nature.
Played it with: Don Pelto, Leif Bierly, Jon Mullaly, Ben Mullaly, Nick Wells, Nate Nicholson, Aaron Neussmeier, everyone else I knew. I have video of Leif, Nate, Aaron and I playing that in 1994 for some reason (for the few people who get this, it's after the end of one of the Look movies). Aaron mentioned how weird it was that we were playing a game that was seven years old...but I'd still play it now, and it's old enough to drink.
The single greatest sports game in history is this one, and it's based on a sport I don't even like (and, for that matter, a sports figure that I absolutely loathe). The game is officially just "Punch-Out!! Starring Mr. Dream" now, since the Tyson license lapsed long ago, but the game's popularity never did.
I haven't played this game in quite some time now, but I could still play it quite competitively and even probably get the order of the opponents either correct or close. I still sometimes say I'm going to the garage to get a "Soda Popinski." If I see a boxing match on TV at a bar with friends, I'll invariably say, "Come on, Mac! Dodge his punch, then counter-punch!"
While a series like Fight Night is praised for its bone-crunching realism, this is the ultimate boxing game because of the ridiculous cartoony nature of the opponents and the astoundingly brilliant gameplay. Every enemy has a weak spot that actually makes them easy to defeat (embarrassingly so, in the cases of King Hippo and the first Don Flamenco) once the secret is found, but if you don't find it, you're pretty well screwed in some cases.
In a videogame world where characters like Sephiroth, Dark Link, Kintaro, Dr. Wily, Virgil and The End are all spoken of as the toughest bosses in the world, it's this real-life boss--Mike Tyson--who might stand the tallest.
Difficulty from 1 to 10: 7. There's an optional boss (Sephiroth) who's more like 9 or 10, but I beat him too, bitches.
Played it with: Cathy.
Did I complete it? Yeah, I'm pretty sure I got every single thing on this one.
Other awesomes in the series: The original Kingdom Hearts. Choosing one of these two was remarkably hard, because they definitely have their pros and cons. I still don't know if I picked the one I like better.
For anyone who doesn't know what these games are--I imagine that's no one--there's this kid Sora who teams up with Donald Duck and Goofy (and, later, King Mickey Mouse) and fights through the worlds of specific Disney movies to save his friends Riku and Kairi. The game contains over 100 characters from the Disney canon, as well as another 20 or so from the Final Fantasy series. I like both of those things, so it seemed worth a try, even if I was initially worried about the execution.
It's awesome. Many of the voice actors came on board, the storylines are true to the movies as well as being surprising at times, and seeing the Final Fantasy characters from various games interact, while impossible according to the FF series, is still wicked satisfying.
The idea was so gutsy because of the wide gap in subject matter; while love tends to conquer all in both series, the Disney movies are bright and kind and gentle (there are dark moments, but they're rarely for long) while the Final Fantasy games are sometimes soul-suckingly cruel and depressing. I guess I don't know quite how the two were married with such results that didn't just piss everybody off, but that's what great gameplay will afford you.
6. Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (1987, Nintendo)
It was really hard to make that screen happen.
Difficulty from 1 to 10: 9, when you first play it. It's weird, though...if you play enough and muscle memory takes over, it becomes second nature.
Played it with: Don Pelto, Leif Bierly, Jon Mullaly, Ben Mullaly, Nick Wells, Nate Nicholson, Aaron Neussmeier, everyone else I knew. I have video of Leif, Nate, Aaron and I playing that in 1994 for some reason (for the few people who get this, it's after the end of one of the Look movies). Aaron mentioned how weird it was that we were playing a game that was seven years old...but I'd still play it now, and it's old enough to drink.
The single greatest sports game in history is this one, and it's based on a sport I don't even like (and, for that matter, a sports figure that I absolutely loathe). The game is officially just "Punch-Out!! Starring Mr. Dream" now, since the Tyson license lapsed long ago, but the game's popularity never did.
I haven't played this game in quite some time now, but I could still play it quite competitively and even probably get the order of the opponents either correct or close. I still sometimes say I'm going to the garage to get a "Soda Popinski." If I see a boxing match on TV at a bar with friends, I'll invariably say, "Come on, Mac! Dodge his punch, then counter-punch!"
While a series like Fight Night is praised for its bone-crunching realism, this is the ultimate boxing game because of the ridiculous cartoony nature of the opponents and the astoundingly brilliant gameplay. Every enemy has a weak spot that actually makes them easy to defeat (embarrassingly so, in the cases of King Hippo and the first Don Flamenco) once the secret is found, but if you don't find it, you're pretty well screwed in some cases.
In a videogame world where characters like Sephiroth, Dark Link, Kintaro, Dr. Wily, Virgil and The End are all spoken of as the toughest bosses in the world, it's this real-life boss--Mike Tyson--who might stand the tallest.