City of Refuge

                      Hey, guys. Video games have been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember. Today, I sat there for a while I put together a list of my favorite games. Some of these are newer, but most of them are older. However, they are all pure awesome sauce. So, without further adieu, I give you The Best Video Games of the Past 20 Years!.

10)  Rampage

                   Playing this as a 7 year old, I thought Rampage was the shit! I could be Godzilla, King Kong, or a giant ass wolf and my whole goal was to destroy cities. Fucking awesome. At 7, I had no idea that I was playing the bad guy in the game, I thought people liked getting eaten by a giant wolf.
9)  007 Nightfire

                    Sure, Nightfire wasn't great, but it had an awesome multi player mode. Nightfire, unlike most first person shooters of its time, had one thing I loved. By this time, my brother had realised that I was better at video games than he was, so he stopped playing them with me. Nightfire was the only game that I could play against bots (computer generated players) in a death match mode. Bots were probably the only reason I had this game.
8)  Super Mario 64

                   When I was younger, I spent the night at my grandmother's house every Friday night. When she would go to bed after watching Galaxy Quest, Harry Potter, Frequency, Little Vampires, a Tom Selleck movie, or whatever movie she was obsessed with at the time, I would go back to her art studio and play the shit out of some Mario 64. The camera may have been horrible, but that was just how the N64 rolled. Sure, people get pissed when they have to wall jump in the early snow and the dickhead camera guy decides to flip the camera in mid jump, causing you to fall to your death, but that doesn't stop anyone from going for all the stars. It's a completion itch that needs to be scratched.
7)  Star Fox 64

                       Star Fox was fucking awesome. Not only did you fly a space fighter, but you killed giant robots and giant alien things. If that's not enough, you fought alongside a badass named Falco ( Not Keanu Reeves in The Replacements). There were secret shortcuts to levels that would change the path you take in the galaxy map to the ending boss, and I think I speak for everyone when I say I would take any path that let me skip the lava level. That shit was horrible!
6)  Halo 3

                       I only have one bad thing to say about Halo 3. Bungie uses horrible ass manufacturers. I would probably still be playing halo 3 if my disk lasted more than a few months of playing it. For some reason, every halo game I've ever owned has had the same problem. After a few months, the disks warps to the point that the single player campaign is unplayable. Every time I try to start a mission, the "disk unreadable" error pops up and I have to restart my xbox. Bungie puts out great games, but I have to give the a big " Fuck You " for the poor disk quality.
5)  Alan Wake

                          Alan Wake scared the crap out of me. I've played plenty of survival horror games, but this one was probably the best. It has an amazing story, and pretty sweet combat (but as a writer, you probably want to avoid fights). I loved this game so much that I almost bought the sequel that was released on the xbox live arcade, until I found out that the stripped the story from the game and made it all about the combat. Fuck that. You shouldn't mess with greatness.
4)  Mass Effect 2

                   There are probably going to be a shit ton of people getting butt hurt over thins one, but I couldn't care less. I'll say it. I liked Mass Effect 2 more than the first one! It had better characters, better story, and better mechanics. Sure, Carth Onasi's voice was in this for only 2 scenes, but it was still better. Hell, Martin Sheen was in it and did what he does best. He played the crazy super rich guy that pays you to be evil as fuck. It felt like a modern Knights of the Old Republic.
3)  The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

                   Dude, I don't even want to think about how many hours I put into this game. Each character I made had at least 100 hours put into them, and I made like over 10 people. This game was my salvation in middle school. Having no friends and dealing with the loss of my grandmother, I sunk my life into this game. Thinking back, I'm pretty sure I was the target demographic.
2)  Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

                    It was so hard to not put this game at number one. this game is hands down, the best rpg in the history of video games. This game had all the great elements: love, Star Wars, redemption, choice of good or evil, HK-47, and fucking light sabers! If you disagree with this being the best rpg ever, you probably need a swift kick to the vagina to set your thoughts strait. Play this game, you won't regret it. It soooo holds up!
1)  Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage

                      Spyro! Any product of the 90's will agree with me, Spyro is the shit. Spyro 2 introduced orb collecting, Hunter the cheetah, that dickhead Moneybags, and that hot Fawn wanted to bang Spyro. ( After google-ing "Spyro fawn" my childhood is a little more ruined. Damn you rule 32... damn you strait to Hell!) If you are 20- something and never played Spyro, you should be ashamed. Spyro was a defining point of the 90's and still holds up. Hell, I bought a PS3 just so I could play the original trilogy again. I do recommend, however, that you only play the first three. After those three, the series goes down the crap shoot. They even tried to reboot it, but I can't bring myself to even read up on that. The thought of all that orb collecting and dragon egg finding never happening saddens me.





                        Ok, while writing about Alan Wake, I realised I messed this list up horribly. Talking about how they destroyed the game in the sequel by removing all elements of story and pandering to the combat oriented gamers ( douches, if you will) made me realise I forgot the second best rpg ever, Dragon Age: Origins. Dragon Age: Origins was an amazing game that played just like Knights of the Old Republic and filled the void left by Kotor 3 being cancelled years ago. Being such a great game, I can't begin to fathom why they changed the game so much in the sequel. They took a great game and made it downright horrible. They trashed the character development ( my favorite part of Bioware games) and ruined the story. They even removed any real character customization. In Origins, you could choose your race, sex, background, skill set, appearance, and voice. In Dragon Age 2, you could only choose the skill set and sex. And you couldn't really make the story yours. It's like the game assumed all characters were bisexual and formed the story around it. It pissed me off and made me regret pre-ordering it after playing Origins. I really lost a lot of respect for Bioware when Dragon Age 2 showed up at my door. Oh, and did I mention that Claudia Black voices a companion in Origins? Yea, that's whats up.

 

                        There we have it, guys. The best games of the past 20 years. I hope you all enjoyed it, and I would love some feedback ( Unless you are arguing against Kotor. If that's the case, you can go fuck yourself.). I'm really close to getting the YouTube channel up and running, so keep and eye out for that. I think I should have a few videos up my the end of next week. I have some days off coming up, so I'll get some of those posted, even if I can't get Mike in them, that way we can at least get started. And now for the fun part, spell checking this whole post! There are always so many spelling errors. I even write entire sentences backwards sometimes. It's pretty bad.

Facts I Hate # 4: There will never be a Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 3. They rushed the second one along so much that it lacked in a few areas and was poorly received by critics, resulting in the third being cancelled.