:genki: THE 501 GAMES OF ALL TIMES :genki:

Some bad website had a top 500 games of all time list recently. It was very bad, as lists tend to be, and all the text…not too hot, y’know? But it was all written by one guy. Guy probably got paid like $40 to write 40,000 words about shit like Stubbs the Zombie and Dragon Ages and Broforce. No wonder it sucked! I can’t imagine getting paid so little for such hellish work!

But I can imagine doing such a thing for free. So I’m going to do it here, on selectbutton.net, and you better give me a blood potion for every post regardless of how bad this turns out.

I’ve earned it. Thank you.

500. Dragon’s Curse

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We’re kicking this off with my hottest take: Master Higgins is better than Takahashi Meijin, who’s better than all the leads in all those PC Engine ports, who’s better than Wonder Boy.

Wonder Boy is young and blond and pretty. He had no shame to hide. Master Higgins was an obese man in a grass skirt. He was the face of bravery.

The PC Engine was better than the Super Nintendo or the Genesis. You are going to see a lot of PC Engine on this list. Also a lot of Xbox for some reason. Was the Xbox the PC Engine of the early 00’s? I don’t think so, but you can sound off in the comments, because what’s the point of a list if it doesn’t lead to violent debate.

Dragon’s Curse is better than Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap because it’s on strong style PC Engine and not the puny weakling Sega Master System. Go ahead, compare and contrast.

Dragon’s Curse is about a good looking cutie turning into all kinds of monsters. It’s the story of my life. It is better than the Adventure of Link, or any of Falcom’s 2D sidescrolling action-RPGs. That’s because you can be a mouse, or a dragon, or a lion, or a bird, and because I was able to beat it without cheating too much.

The recent remake is very good, though the PCE version looks better. I recommend you play everything on a PC Engine. It’s the cutest, best console, and I would marry a HuCard if I could. That HuCard wouldn’t be Dragon’s Curse (it would be Devil’s Crush) but maybe Dragon’s Curse would be maid of honor? Ring bearer? Flower girl? It’d be in there somewhere.

499. WAVE RACE 64

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I read a lotta game magazines when I was younger and for like 2 years in the mid-90’s they were all about water. “This game had the most realistic water of all times!” you’d see in like three EGM X cross reviews every month, and I was very impressionable so I probably rented every single one of those water games. Wave Race was the only good one. @meauxdal is very good at Wave Race 64 so you should like and subscribe to that mother’s gamer stream.

498. SUPER HEXAGON

I skipped ahead and wrote this before Wave Race. Did an image search for “super hexagon butt”. Meant to look up the fat dude’s butt from Wave Race. Got this instead. Thought it was interesting though. Super Hexagon was a real deal danger game and I don’t think you should play it because it might wreck your life. Save that $2 and buy some Spanx instead.

497. PAC-LAND

The Pac-Land theme is based upon the Hanna-Barbera Pac-Man TV show theme. Which is interesting, kinda. I also may be wrong on that. Maybe that music is from some fuckin’ shitty old Pac-Man game, I dunno. Why would I play Ms. Pac-Man when I could be playing Pac-Man CE or Libble Rabble.

I 1CC’d Pac-Land at Galloping Ghost a few months ago. As a youngster I could never figure out how to get past that bit with the springboard and the lake. Turns out you just gotta like mash jump or some shit. This is way easier to figure out if you play it on an arcade cabinet, because it does not have a stick. It is all buttons.

You do not want to play Pac-Land on a Famicom. That version maps jump to B! That is the greatest crime you can make in game design. Play it on a PC Engine, or a real arcade cabinet.

Please don’t emulate. I purchased every game on this list and that means you should too. Support the arts.

496. ICO

This game came out like a week after 9/11. I’m 49 years old so I remember that pre-9/11 world, and I remember where I was on 9/11: down at the Off Track Betting, playing the ponies. Didn’t have much luck on 9/11, or the weeks following, so when I plopped $50 USD + tax on ICO I was really gambling and guess what: it was a fucking bust. You spend half that game beating up farts with a stick. It blows and has always blown. Go play Another World, it’s way better.

The couches are cute though.

495. GEMSTONE III

Gemstone III was (is?) a MUD. That means it was a text-based online RPG. I’ve always been very cool and not a nerd and when I was younger I used to record really shitty punk bands even though I hated punk music. I tricked one punk/secret nerd into playing Gemstone and he got so addicted to it he flunked outta school and it totally wrecked his life. I dunno where he is now but boy, I hope he got his shit together and isn’t online at 2AM on doing something dumb like writing up a list of 501 games for $0USD.

There’s a good chance at least 30 entries on this list will be stories about me introducing someone to gamesoft and their lives completely unraveling as a result.

494. PHANTASY STAR ONLINE

In another life I started a cult, stole millions of dollars, made a bunch of babies, and died in a blaze of glory in a standoff with the ATF. In this current life I used my charismas to convince 2 girls to buy post-discontinuation Dreamcasts so they could play PSO with me.

Those were the best two months of my life.

I never cheated at PSO. I never had a dual lightsaber, or an Opa-Opa mag. I played 100% legit, and I think that should be submitted as evidence if I ever end up on trial, cuz if that doesn’t prove I’m on the up and up nothing will.

493. STAR FOX 64

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This game was cool cuz it had Slippy and came with the Rumble Pak. I used to play N64 games with my li’l nephews and for awhile after Star Fox 64 came out I was real alarmed cuz it was like “BOY THESE KIDS KEEP LETTING OUT SOME REAL RUDE TOOTS! What are they feeding the kids in today’s cafeterias!” But it turned out they weren’t farting real loud. They were just puny weaklings and all those foul noises were cuz their toothpick arms kept dipping to the ground, causing the Rumble Paks to vibrate against the floor, making sounds like an old man having bad gas in public.

492. RAINBOW ISLANDS: THE STORY OF BUBBLE BOBBLE 2

I think Rainbow Islands is some real bullshit cuz why you gonna follow up Bubble Bobble with a game where Bub 'n Bob are humans? Why would you wanna go from being a dinosaur to some fat kid with a bowl cut? That’s a total downgrade. That’s something only an adult would think is a good idea. Bub goes from eating fruits and monsters to collecting riches. He becomes garbage. This is wrong.

I once dated a girl whose favorite game was Rainbow Islands. She had a Super Grafx, and she would not give it to me, even though I wanted and deserved one so badly. So it’s clear that this game is a negative influence and probably doesn’t belong on any list. Smash evil. Smash capitalism.

491. BUBSY 2

I refuse to write about Bubsy. Half this list was stolen from the “list 5 games that give a feel for who you are” thread and boy, I wish I’d read this shit in advance cuz I woulda cut all the Bubsys from it. I love whoever added it, cuz you’re a Select Butt, but I hate Bubsy. I paid real US dollars for Bubsy as a kid. I’m still mad about this and will be until the day I die.

490. ILLBLEED

I played this on gamer stream recently and I cried reading the abusive, baseball loving father’s notes to his dead son. So this should probably be top 10 but I’m currently in a mood where I’m not crying – that’s why I’m writing a list of the 501 Games of All Times, to distract myself from my emotions – so Illbleed gets bottom 101. That’s where cry games belong.

489. OBSIDIAN

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I have no clue what this is but it kinda looks like What If David Cage Had Talent And The “Reboot” Staff Working With Him so why not make this #489 Game of All Times?

488. THIEF DEADLY SHADOWS

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The only thing I’ve ever stolen in my life was a giant Shaving Time Ken placard from Toys R Us. I did this to impress the girlfriend who owned a SuperGrafx. She still would not give me that SuperGrafx, despite the fact that I proved myself a 120% bad boy by stealing from a toy store just for her. This is why you should never be kind to anyone ever, especially when it involves breaking the law.

487. VOYEUR 2

This is a sequel to the smash hit CD-I game VOYEUR: I LIKE TO WATCH. It involves you watching people fornicating. I’ve never played it but I did browse its Moby Games screenshot gallery, which had a screenshot of Brief Nudity AKA Some Buff Dude’s Butt. Made me wonder “Is that a good butt? Is that what drives cuties crazy?” I can’t evaluate such things honestly but I know this: my butt wouldn’t make a top 500 butts list. I hope I can compensate for that somehow.

486. SWORD OF VERMILLION

I was gonna talk a bunch of shit about this game but according to Wikipedia it was designed by Yu Suzuki so maybe 23 year old me had better taste than I thought. Maybe this was a really good game.

485. VIRTUAL HYDLIDE

Look I never played Virtual Hydlide but in the first Hydlide you can get killed by sentient rocks so I bet that shit is way cooler in Virtual.

484. BLINX 2: MASTERS OF SPACE AND TIME

The best games review I ever read was an xbox.com fan review for Blinx 1. It was written in the esteemed “GamePro style”. Broke down all the important stats. Gameplay? 4.5 out of 5. Graphics? 4.0. Sound? 4.0 Being A Cat? 5.5 out of 5. Fun factor? I don’t remember, cuz who gives a shit. Not as important as being a fuckin’ cat.

Pretty sure in 200x you couldn’t get such a high Being A Cat score without the Power Of X.

I was gonna say “There’s this weird Randian self produced SFX movie called the Master of Space and Time that’s kinda worth watching” but I just googled that shit and I was confusing it with a Rudy Rucker novel. That Rucker novel was fun. You can go figure out what the name of that movie is if you like. It’s kinda like “Drop Dead Fred by Ditko”. I’m basing that mainly on my memory of the lead wearing lots of green and having reddish hair and bitching about raw milk being illegal.

483. NIGHTS: INTO DREAMS…

When I was younger I believed NiGHTS was the true best game of 1996 but it’s 2017 and I confess: I have no fucking clue how to play NiGHTS. Mario 64 is better. But at the time I was very troubled and sad and playing NiGHTS brought me some comfort. It helped me believe in a better future. And that future is here now! A future where I can say “Yeah, I dunno, maybe that game wasn’t as good as Mario.”

482. SHINING FORCE 2

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I have a few moments in my life where I was like “Wow, that was the best day ever!” and then something really awful happened, and I felt like I was in a poorly scripted TV show.

One of those times involved Shining Force and an answering machine filled with lots of real unpleasant messages! I won’t go on about that here, cuz it was the 90’s. I’m sure everyone’s answering machine was filled with death threats and rude comments about pizza back then. But kids who owned Shining Force? Not so common. Which is proof that I’m so much cooler than you ever thought.

Shining Force was better than Fire Emblem cuz Camelot went on to make a bunch of great golf games. Intelligent Systems went on to make bad mobage (maybe? who’s making that FEH shit). I bet we have a golf game in the top 20 on this list. Virtual golf is so soothing and good. I never want to play a violent game again in my life.

481. VALIS

I still don’t know what sex is but if I ever figure it out it’s because I either got hit by a pink laser beam or all that shit I learned from playing Valis when I was younger finally kicked in.

That might sound crazy but that probably means you haven’t watched enough anime. Anime is real lewd even when it doesn’t feature penetration and whoaaaaa WHAT’S HAPPENING ROME NEVER FELL AND MY SON HAS A INGUINAL HERNIA I BETTER LOG OFF AND FIX THAT SHIT BE BACK LATER.

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man what is this shit SUPER HEXAGON and ICO are GREAT GAMES put that shit HIGHER or you are BANNED

WAVE RACE 64 also rules fuck all things

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ICO sucks ass. This list is canon. Please stay tuned for more proof that everything you believed is wrong.

#1 way to prove your case: just spew out a buncha half-remembered bullshit about how someone said something rude about you in the 90s.

Or the 10s. There’s a lot of both coming up and this list is canon.

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THIEF is also better than FOUR HUNDRED AND EIGHTY EIGHT I mean look it might be a little bit overrated but really only a little, like a tiny bit it’s pretty fucking good ok

This list has Shining Force 2, therefore it is already better than every other Top Something Something list.

I remember in primary school having to play softball, or tee-ball or whatever and being on the fielding side with my other Shining Force 2 loving friend. We were so bored that we started imagining a turn based version of the sport, and acting out the battle animations of characters from the game as though they were like, catching the ball animations, or swinging the bat animations. Then we got in trouble because we were still doing that while the ball was flying our way.

The bit about Camelot making golf games sort of dredged that memory out of the abyss

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thief 3 is probably not overrated

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Hai hobo can i write 400-380? I will not cross reference with your list.

oh shit carry on then mr/s hobo

no rudie the thing to do is wait for him to finish his list then BAM spring your perfect 502 games list on the public in a single perfect stroke of one-uppersonship devastating bachelor stan for all his natural lifespan!!

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Regular Rainbow Islands sessions keep me out of the clink, but you raise valid points.

And I did always get the impression that I’d understand Valis more when I got older. I still don’t.

@HOBO, I think the weird short film you were talking about is the DIY stop motion convention classic The Wizard of Speed and Time.

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you got too old! i’m pretty sure you have to be exactly 14 to get valis

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This isnt 501 greatest games of all time, this is 501 games

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There’s deep truth here.

989 games of all time

I’m following so I can see when nedge figures out this isn’t an actual rankings list.

What a powerful and excellent ranking list I see here before me!

I don’t think so bud, you got numbers they better come correct

maybe first you should learn to tell thief and thief 3 apart pal