Pat's Top 25 30 Games of All Time
by Pitchfork

Stamina...running low. Must...keep...going...

Think of it like a gothic cross between Metal Gear Solid, Back to the Future, and The Lost Boys. Legacy of Kain's got the most epic storyline and coolest characters of pretty much any American video game franchise, but unfortunately, only Soul Reaver can boast having quality gameplay and story in equal portions. Blood Omen has a cool story and plays like Link to the Past meets Jack the Ripper, but if I remember correctly, 45% of the game consisted of loading times. Soul Reaver 2 is the best installment in terms of its storyline, but its gameplay is a watered-down version of Soul Reaver's. Blood Omen 2 -- well, let's not talk about Blood Omen 2. Defiance came out pretty well, but it suffered on several fronts: it was rushed and underbudgeted, the verbosity and plot complexity were toned down at the behest of corporate suits, and it was obvious that the writers were struggling to work around all the shit that happened in Blood Omen 2. (Imagine if somebody else made a Metal Gear Solid game and Kojima was forced to accept it as canonical.) So sadly, Soul Reaver is the only game in the LoK series in which everything really falls into place.

The only other thing I have to say is that Legacy of Kain's voice work and dialogue have yet to be surpassed by another video game. Check it. (And oh what the hell -- here's the "sequel" to that scene from SR2.)



I was all set to write a veritable dissertation on this game, but then I realized some kind anonymous Internet cartoonist already summed up everything I was going to say with a picture:
Also, I have no idea who was on the localization staff for the PSP port of Final Fantasy Tactics, but they all need to be fired right away. It's like they scanned the Norton Shakespeare Anthology, made a big list of all the fancy words they found, and then just crammed them into the script wherever they could. It actually manages to be even more ridiculous than the original PSX script.



At this point I think enough praise has been lavished upon Mega Man 2 over the years that anything I could possibly write about it would just be repeating something somebody else has already said a hundred times before. The only way I could properly express my appreciation for this game would be to form a four-man a capella group and record a 90-minute vocal medley of the entire soundtrack.














Yes -- I know I chose the first Doom game last time. But even though I played it first, probably put more time into it overall, and was what made the FPS genre take off, virtually nobody would rather play the first Doom over the sequel. Well...I guess it's more a "tweak" than an actual sequel -- sort of like the difference between Street Fighter II and Super Street Fighter II -- but the extra enemies and super shotgun make a world of difference.

Of all the FPS games I've played in my life, I was probably ever the best at Doom. This is also probably why I kinda suck at every FPS to come out after Doom. Nowadays, you're not supposed to just go running in, guns blazing, because that gets you killed. Immediately. Just like it probably would in real life. Now you're supposed to play it smart, rather than just going ballistic. That's all well and good, and it makes for a deeper game...but what made Doom such a blast was that the best strategy was almost always just going desperado. "Okay. Two Mancubi, two Arachnotrons, ten zombies, four imps, six demons, and a Hell Knight, all with their backs turned. I only have 25% health, no armor, two rockets, fifty bullets, and thirty-five shotgun shells.

"...Those guys are FUCKED."



If I had to recommend one JRPG for somebody who doesn't really play video games, it would be Chrono Trigger. It's the Helvetica font of JRPGs -- there's just no faulting it. LOOK, IT'S LATE AND NOT ALL MY METAPHORS CAN BE GOLDEN, OKAY?!

Fuck you. NEXT GAME!