All Your Base Are Belong To Us: Adam Goetz

I can still remember the day that my parents brought home the NES Action Set from a charity casino night. It was 1988 and to us video games only lived in arcades (we had yet to see an Atari in the wild), so seeing this giant box in our living room was almost too much for us.  And it changed my life forever. It was the combination of storytelling, action, competition, and technology that quickly made games the centre of entertainment in our lives. Soon, I learned the Konami Code and acquired both the Power Glove and the LaserScope as a birthday and Christmas gift (I still love getting at least one game a year under the xmas tree).  And I was insanely jealous of anyone that had a subscription to Nintendo Power. The jealously has faded over the years, but my love for gaming hasn't, and so I bring you my 5 favourite games (I stretched this in some cases to include franchises) of all time and 5 games that I can't wait to get my hands on.

My 5 Faves

Mega Man (All Of Them)

There was some endearing quality about this game that I still can't put my finger on, even today. The original series was simply one of the best side-scroller franchises ever made and for me, it was the first game that had any kind of respectable storyline. The X series was a great addition, even if the final bosses were almost maddeningly impossible (for me anyway), and I really enjoyed the Legends games. And I can't even tell you how happy I was when they made Mega Man 9 as a 100% faithful homage to the classic 2-D games, even the 'box' art was pure gold.

NHL ('93-onward)

NHLPA Hockey '93 was the first game in the NHL franchise that I ever owned. They hadn't even purchased the full rights from the NHL, which may be why they were allowed to make it so bloody. The blood was gone in '94 but they continued to improve almost every aspect of the gameplay and physics year after year. Although for some reason there was a "cheap" goal in almost every game. My friends and I  would perform a draft (even before they had fantasy drafts in the actual games) the day that the game came out and painstakingly trade players around to make our own teams. Then, at least once a week we would buy a case of beer and play a round robin of games with all of the teams. We even kept player and team stats ON PAPER to keep track of who had the bankroll to cash the trash-talkin' checks they were dishing out. I still look forward to September every year, just for this game.

Generals

I am a HUGE fan of RTS games and out of the games that I've played (Starcraft was a close second for me in this genre) this one was by far the most addictive, despite some less-than-perfect gameplay. The WMD attacks from across the map was the coolest addition to the genre, but this was also the first game that I had played with completely unique "races" that (after a number of patches) ended up being relatively equal. This was another game that my friends and I would play intense multiplayer games on. And again, we were slightly before our time in that we called each other on a 4 way conference call to have a ghetto "game chat." I could still pick up this game today and play a solid 8 hour session of online games.

Final Fantasy VII

I wish that I had more time in my adult life to play a true RPG all the way through with minimal time in between gaming sessions, but the reality is that I will probably never complete a 70 hour game in 2-3 weeks again. This game was amazing on so many levels. The infamous death of Aeris (one of the main characters and love interest) was, and still is, one of the best video game plot twists of all time. And it definitely helped that they were one of the first to do it. The summons were another memorable aspect of this game for me. There was nothing better than laying a digital beat-down with a giant mythical creature that had a (sometimes lengthy) crazy animation.

Metal Gear Solid

Aside from the ridiculous infiltration tool (aka an upside down box), this game was amazing in so many ways. I truly appreciate a good storyline in a game and this one had it in spades. The game immediately grabbed you with the cinematic opening and provided you with probably the first (in my mind) movie-quality game script. Liquid Snake, Revolver Ocelot, Sniper Wolf, Psycho Mantis, Vulcan Raven, Decoy Octopus, and Big Boss were just such cool and unique villains, which took the story to a whole new level for me. Now, it's one thing to have a great storyline and characters, but it's another to have all of that AND revolutionary gameplay. The silent/infiltration style was something that hadn't really been done well on a console and it was such a welcomed change from the shoot 'em up games. And the battle with Psycho Mantis just absolutely blew me away. The character could "read your mind," so he would read your memory card and comment on your saved games. He could also read your moves (apparently through your controller), so if you moved your controller to the 2nd port he wasn't able to anticipate your moves. So cool.

My "I can't wait for these effin games" List

Metal Gear Solid 5: Rising

I think that it's pretty obvious why I would be excited about a MGS title coming to the Xbox 360 (my favourite console of all time). This one can't come soon enough.

Red Dead Redemption (Official Website)

I love the western genre (although there are very few western films that I actually like), there's just something about the guns and the setting that I can't get enough of. I played through the entire Red Dead Revolver game and loved every minute of it. It was just designed so well and it carried the western theme through (tastefully) to every component. Even the menus on the game were perfect. This game is going to be even better with an absolutely MASSIVE world built on the GTA IV engine. And I'm really looking forward to the multiplayer, since Red Dead Revolver came out in 2004 for the PS2 with no online capability.

Shank (Official Website)

This was my favourite indie game from PAX this year. It's got an extremely cool comic book look (sidenote: do you remember Comix Zone?), intense action and intuitive controls. I was able to play through the demo and the transitions/animations really made it feel like you were kicking some ass. I have a feeling that this one could have the same level of popularity as Trials HD on the XBLA.

Final Fantasy XIII (Official Website)

This game looks absolutely beautiful and SquareENIX rarely goes wrong. Nuff said.

Mass Effect 2 (Official Website)

I also played through this demo at PAX and it looks like it is going to have a lot more action this time around. The controls felt even more intuitive and the added heavy weapons were extremely satisfying. The coolest part to me is that your saved game (and storyline) from the first Mass Effect game will carry over to this game and eventually to the third installment. Bioware has a knack for telling stories, so I can only imagine what they have in store for one of the first continuous variable-storyline trilogies. In my mind, this is by far the most ambitious game series. ever.

2010 is going to be a great year for gaming.

Comments

[erik]

Great choices! My only beef with Mega-Man on the NES were the times when there'd be so much on the screen, that I'd be killed by bullets that I couldn't see due to the glitching..heh.

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