Didja miss Part 1? Well, here's the rest! This part's a little longer, since more modern games are more complicated and demand more complicated write-ups. I've also got my usual special "0" entry at the very end for favorite "bad" video game! So plug in the controller again cuz here we go!
26. Spider-Man (Playstation, August 2000)
Surf the web, surf the web!
Shut UP, Brock!
The progenitor of the modern Spider-Man game- some would even go so far as saying the bedrock of modern superhero video games in general. Certainly all Spider-Man games from this point on take their cues from this one, all the way up to the Insomniac Games series.
This game arrived at a time when my interest in superhero comics was starting to wane, and delivered a more satisfying Spider-Man experience than most of what I had read or seen for a couple years at that point. Sure, the graphics don’t quite hold up (the later Dreamcast release shines them up a bit) but for the time, they were spectacular, perhaps amazing.
The gameplay still holds up and kinda feels a bit ahead of its time even now. They basically perfected web-swinging traversal for Spider-Man in this game, and every game since has merely tweaked and fine-tuned it. Combat is fun and pretty much a breeze, aside from some wonky camera moments that are few and far between. Spider-Man feels as agile and powerful and versatile as he should be, and that’s mostly why this game is still held in such high regard.
The plot and voice-acting are a little suspect in places, but in retrospect I’m now willing to overlook some silly nonsense compared to what has come after this point in Spider-Man history. At the end of the day this is MY Spider-Man- an experienced young adult who has matured enough to be taken seriously by his peers, and happily married to Mary Jane.
Venom’s role in this game is pretty emblematic of his erratic portrayals in the 90s. He goes from Spidey’s deadliest foe who kidnaps Mary Jane in one level to Spidey’s comedy sidekick for the rest of the game once their “misunderstanding” has been hashed out. "Oh, that crazy Eddie Brock and his attempting to drown my wife, what wacky adventures will we have next??" Also, the Punisher joining Spidey, Daredevil, and Captain America in what seems to be a regular weekly game of Go Fish at the end will always be bizarrely funny.
The presentation of this game takes a lot of beats from the 90s Fox Kids cartoons too, with Rino Romano reprising his role as Spidey from the short-lived “Unlimited” show and Jennifer Hale pulling double duty as both Black Cat AND Mary Jane. Romano will never be my favorite Spidey voice, but he does a fine job and nails the quippage, which is honestly something Tobey Maguire will fail to do two years after this on the big screen. You’ve also got Stan Lee doing some narration and Efrem Zimbalist Jr. reprising his role as Doctor Octopus.
After you beat Doctor Octopus and Carnage in separate boss battles at the end of the game, they merge into MONSTER OCK and you’re forced to participate in one of the most stressful “chase missions” in video game history. I think everyone who has ever played this game still has lasting anxiety from being baffled by the dodgy camera whilst running away from Monster Ock and his terrifying snarls and shrieks.
27. Pokémon Silver (Game Boy Color, October 2000)
Strong Pokémon. Weak Pokémon. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled trainers should try to win with their favorites. 
Like many at the time, I too fell into “Pokémania” at the height of its popularity. I played the original Red and Blue versions of the game, watched the cartoon, and played the card game. Of course, I was gonna be hyped for a sequel to Red and Blue, but Silver and its companion Gold were notoriously delayed for nearly two years due to development problems.
By the time this game was released in Japan in 1999, I was so hungry for it that my friends and I found a Japanese emulation of it online and each played through it on our home computers! It was completely in Japanese and we had to use a text document to muddle through anything we couldn’t understand to proceed.
Still, I was completely blown away by the game and eagerly got the Silver version as soon as it was released in the US to play through “officially”. I preferred the exclusive Pokémon on the Silver version, which is why I chose it, but it and Gold are the same game. My friend had Gold anyway, so I could get any Pocket Monsters I was missing from him via the Game Boy cable link-up.
I’d consider Silver and Gold to generally be one of the best sequels to a video game, PERIOD. A big part of that was that after you completed the new main Johto region of the game, the old Kanto region from Red and Blue was unlocked and you could essentially travel back to the old game’s “campaign”. Sure, the Kanto region was a bit stripped-down from the original, but it still felt like almost the entire experience of the first game was still present in the sequel.
In Kanto, you could even encounter the protagonist of the first game, (essentially YOU in spirit) and fight them in the hardest match of the entire game. It was really cool and made the wait for Silver and Gold’s release seem worth it.
I haven’t even mentioned the plethora of new features that this sequel added that would continue to be staples of the franchise, like a real-time internal game clock with day and night cycles that changed Pokémon encounters in the wild or the ability to breed your monsters. All this alongside 100 new Pokémon, the new campaign, and just hours of assorted extra activity to pack into a Game Boy cartridge.
I worked my finalized Silver team into perfect fighting shape, but sadly rarely got to test them against anyone but the computer. A lot of my other friends lost interest in the game before I did and some years back, I plugged in the cartridge again, only to find that my data had been erased somehow. I put a lot of work into that team, and I still remember them exactly-
SCIZOR- My favorite Pokémon was Scyther, so of course I needed to have his evolved form on my squad. He’s not really optimized for the “meta”, but he was my favorite so he was there to lead off. I would continuously employ Double Team to max out his evasion, Swords Dance to up his Attack stat (his Attack was already so high, Swords Dance would only work twice!), and then just attack with him until Scizor fell.
Sometimes this strategy could take out the entire enemy team if they never managed to hit Scizor after Double Team was maxed! I equipped him with the Leftovers item, which recovered whatever health he lost while I was maxing out his stats. This of course, annoyed the SHIT out of people.
ARCANINE- Another personal favorite, and one who got a serious boost in capability from Red/Blue to this game with the split of the Special stat into Special Attack and Special Defense. I gave him the King’s Rock item, which upped the chance of making an opponent miss an attack by “flinching”. Since he had Bite and Body Slam in his arsenal, he had a really high chance of either making the enemy flinch or become paralyzed. This of course annoyed the SHIT out of people.
KINGDRA- Yet another favorite Pokémon, mostly because of an in-joke my friends and I had about its previous form Seadra. I also liked the fact that Kingdra only really had a weakness to Dragon-type attacks, since its dual Dragon/Water-type mostly canceled out the individual weaknesses of those types. I gave Kingdra the BrightPowder item, to lower the opponent’s accuracy.
RAIKOU- My favorite of the Legendaries from this game, Raikou had powerful electric attacks and could learn the Dark-type move Crunch, which was great against Psychic-types. I gave him the Scope Lens item to increase his likelihood of a critical hit.
TYRANITAR- One of the most widely-used and powerful Pokémon in the game. Tyranitar hit like a truck and while doubly-weak to Fighting-type moves, I rarely fought someone who used them so it usually worked out. I gave him the Quick Claw item since he was pretty slow and that would increase his chances of getting first attack.
LUGIA- Another of the most powerful Pokémon game with a wide assortment of moves. This Psychic/Flying type could also use Water attacks, but its most famous move was the Aeroblast, a Flying-type attack with a high chance of a critical hit. I gave Lugia the Sharp Beak item which boosts Flying-type attacks just to goose up Aeroblast’s threat even more.
Sigh, I was really proud of that team and put a lot of work into raising them all to level 100 properly. And now they’re gone forever. Ah well! Silver was the last Pokémon game I really dug into and I’m sure its remakes and follow-ups have their own charms, but I’ll always remember the addictive joy of playing this one for the first (and second) times.
28. Unreal Tournament (Dreamcast, March 2001)
You be dead 
Speaking of that cartoon, you’ve got Neal McDonough reprising his role of Bruce Banner here, as well as Michael Donovan as the voice of the Gray Hulk when you unlock him. There’s also Ron Perlman as Emil Blonsky/Abomination and this is the first time Fred Tatasciore voiced the Hulk- a role he maintains in most animated and video game projects up to this day. 
This game isn’t really kanon to the larger MK mythology, but rather tells a slightly-smudged version of the events of Mortal Kombat II. You and a friend can play as the titular Shaolin Monks Liu Kang or Kung Lao (and later replay as Sub-Zero and Scorpion after beating the game) and kung fu through hordes of grunts and various boss battles. What set this beat-em-up apart was the expansive catalog of moves and finishers you could upgrade and customize your character with.
While I had mostly switched entirely to console gaming at the turn of the century, I had many friends who still swore by PC gaming. I attended many LAN parties and brought my meager laptop, which could run… some games decently. Of all the PC shooters out at the time, Unreal was my favorite. I felt it had the most unique weapons and easy-to-pick-up gameplay, and ran at a speed I could compete with.
Once I acquired a Dreamcast, I scooped up a used copy of Unreal Tournament and had a ton of fun with it on my own. Even though I didn’t have online capability with Dreamcast, the Unreal series was known for its competitive and highly-customizable “bots”, so even playing against AI opponents was both a real challenge and satisfying to boot.
Unreal Tournament also had really memorable and well-balanced maps, and the usual number of gameplay modes to change up objectives and combat. This particular incarnation of Unreal might also have my favorite selection of weapons in a shooter ever, with stand-outs being the ricocheting buzzsaw-shooting Ripper, the toxic glob-spewing Bio Rifle, and the miniature nuke-shooting Redeemer.
All these weapons had secondary fire modes that expanded the options you had and made each gun feel like a multi-purpose tool. There was also the Translocator, a device that shot teleport pads out for your long-range traversal and you could even use to “tele-frag” opponents.
My favorite gun in Unreal Tournament, and maybe my favorite version of a shotgun-type weapon in any video game ever, was the Flak Cannon. Its animation just looked really cool as it reloaded and its secondary fire ejected the shotgun shell out as a shrapnel grenade that shredded enemies caught in the explosion. It was just super-satisfying to wield and I’d sometimes do all-Flak Cannon matches for fun.
This franchise has another, bigger claim to fame than the games themselves, and that is of course the Unreal Engine. This 3D computer graphics engine has since been adopted and utilized by many other video games and even TV shows and movies since its creation. Odds are you’ve played or seen something in the last couple decades that used the Unreal Engine and didn’t even know it.
While the Unreal Engine is surely the greatest legacy of the franchise, I’ll always fondly remember Tournament as one of my favorite first-person shooters of all time. However, my absolute favorite shooter franchise begins with my very next entry...
29. Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox, November 2001)
Halo. It’s finished.
No, I think we’re just getting started.
The game that made me buy the Xbox. I was perfectly happy with my original Playstation and used Dreamcast. My friend Danny (who sold me his Dreamcast) got the Xbox soon after its release and Halo with it. I hadn’t really paid too much attention to the hype surrounding the Xbox OR Halo at the time, but I was invited over Danny’s house days after he got them with the demand “you’ve GOT to see this game.”
I went and watched along with some other friends as he played Halo. I watched as he fought the alien Covenant on a seemingly-unlimited open world with widened eyes. He approached a jeep (the Warthog) lying around on the current level, which I first assumed was just a graphical prop, then was amazed when he got in and drove it around the landscape.
At the time, you didn’t really interact with stuff like that in first-person shooters on consoles- not to that extent at least. While the first Halo’s “open world” environment seems simplistic by today’s standards, back in 2001 it was a revelation and a quantum leap forward in what you could experience in a game of this type. By the end of that day, I knew I had to get an Xbox and I knew I had to have my own copy of Halo.
For the next few years, Halo was THE game to play among my closest friends and basically nearly social group I interacted with. I was invited to a LAN party set up in someone’s garage, where they had four TVs and four Xboxes for 16-player Halo. People eventually found unofficial ways to play the console version of Halo over an internet connection (anyone remember XBConnect?) to allow 16-player matches ALL THE TIME. I remember my friends and I sneaking in online Halo matches in-between college classes before even Xbox Live was a thing.
There was just something about the perfectly-paced, not TOO complicated, but also technically-satisfying first-person combat that was completely addictive. Once I had my own copy, I played through the campaign multiple times on my own and my friends and I would co-op on the highest “Legendary” difficulty routinely. I felt like Halo was a perfect fusion of all previous shooters I had played, from Doom to GoldenEye to Unreal and still greater than the sum of those parts.
I also got heavily invested in the lore of Halo, which was easy to do with the compelling story campaign and memorable characters with important roles to play in the events transpiring. Cortana, Captain Keyes, Sergeant Johnson, and 343 Guilty Spark moved the narrative along just as much as the player character, the Master Chief. Ironically enough, while he was meant to be as much of a flat, blank canvas of a main character as possible to more easily serve as the gamer’s avatar, this only made fans want to know more about him.
I eagerly snatched up the Halo tie-in book “The Fall of Reach” for Master Chief’s origin story and a further fleshing out of this fictional world. This book was so well-received by fans that much of it remains inviolate Halo canon to this day and my original, worn copy still rests on my bookcase!
In retrospect, I can see the game’s flaws and how the latter half of the campaign is basically just the first half in reverse in terms of locations you traverse. However, you barely even care about that with how immersive the world and overall atmosphere of the game is. I should mention the game’s score by Martin O’Donnell, which aids in effortlessly shepherding the player from feelings of exhilaration to triumph to tragedy to horror. Speaking of horror, the mid-game twist and reveal of The Flood is one of the best turns in a video game’s narrative and tone ever.
The player has spent levels fighting the Covenant and learning their attack patterns when suddenly you have to shift to a terror-driven, desperate combat style as literal SPACE ZOMBIES and off-brand Facehuggers start rushing you en masse. I still sometimes look for reaction videos on YouTube of new people playing this game blind and encountering The Flood for the first time, just to vicariously relive that rising anxiety and panic.
Like Street Fighter and Metal Gear, Halo is one of my favorite gaming franchises PERIOD, and one I most eagerly await for news of the next game in the series. I remember waiting in line at 11:00 PM on a school night for the midnight launch of Halo 2 along with hundreds of other fans, and while that particular game isn’t on my list, this isn’t the last time Halo will show up here.
30. Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga (Game Boy Advance, November 2003)
I have fury!
I bought a Game Boy Advance a couple years after its initial release after my old Game Boy Color crapped out, mostly to continue playing my regular Game Boy games. Superstar Saga was the first “official” Advance game I got though, and I’m not even sure why I decided to buy it. I’m not a big video game RPG guy usually, but I guess the exception to that are “portable” RPGs like this game and Pokémon. I’m glad I did get this game though, because it’s a blast. There’s an emphasis on Mario and Luigi’s teamwork, with numerous team-up actions in your repertoire for both combat and puzzle-solving.
The combat is engaging and actually needs you to time your button presses for attacks to get maximum effectiveness, which feels more rewarding when you get the rhythm of the Bros. team-up moves just right.
A big part of why I love this game is its sense of humor, although I feel bad that a lot of humor comes from dumping on Luigi. I’ve always had a soft spot for Luigi- he’s my favorite Mario Brother! However, I can’t deny the hilarious running joke in this game where no one can remember his name (“It’s Mario! And uh… the other guy!”)
The Bros. are forced to team-up with their arch-nemesis Bowser against new villain Cackletta after she steals Princess Peach’s voice. There’s a lot of twists and turns and betrayals and alliances in this surprisingly-involved story and you get sucked in pretty easily.
By far the best part of the game though, is Cackletta’s number two Fawful, who consistently arrives on the scene with his catchphrase “I HAVE FURY!” Fawful’s got a rather distinct way of delivering dialogue and had me in stitches every time he spoke. He’s goddamn hilarious and my favorite villain in the Mario universe. I kinda want to replay the game again even now, just to experience Fawful again.
31. The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction (Xbox, August 2005)
There's a thin line between good and bad. I walk that line every single day. When I stray from it... people die.
Ah, “Hulk Simulator 2005”. Or maybe “Grand Theft Hulko”. In whatever case, this is still basically the best Incredible Hulk game that’s ever been made. My friends and I rented it shortly after it came out and quickly discovered how fun it could be to play the Hulk in a giant open world with no restrictions on what you could and couldn’t smash.
You can level buildings, punt human civilians like footballs, and wear cars as boxing gloves or buses as pants. It’s a Hulk sandbox and the game developers went to town making sure this game lived up to its name. The Hulk has tons of unlockable moves and maneuvers to perform as you undertake story missions or just feel like starting a fight with local law enforcement. Of course, once the military shows up and Thunderbolt Ross breaks out the Hulkbusters, you can really get bullied.
For real, this game gets downright difficult (especially in later missions) and it can become especially frustrating when you’re being constantly bombarded by firepower from giant robots and helicopters. If they were trying to capture the feeling of this scene from the opening credits of the 90s Hulk cartoon, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
Speaking of that cartoon, you’ve got Neal McDonough reprising his role of Bruce Banner here, as well as Michael Donovan as the voice of the Gray Hulk when you unlock him. There’s also Ron Perlman as Emil Blonsky/Abomination and this is the first time Fred Tatasciore voiced the Hulk- a role he maintains in most animated and video game projects up to this day.
This talented cast brings the game’s story to life, which is written by comic writer Paul Jenkins. I’m pretty hot and cold with his body of work but he does a fine job here. He faithfully captures the tragedy and desperation of Bruce Banner’s life, as well as the horrors lurking in his fractured psyche. Fighting the Devil Hulk persona festering in Bruce’s mind is a memorable experience to be sure. All the combat in this game is very varied and exciting, even if it becomes overwhelming at times.
It’s really a shame there was never a true sequel to Ultimate Destruction, because it still is the best Hulk game. Even with its flaws, the amount of freedom you have to smash stuff without restraint is unparalleled. Like I alluded to at the start of this entry, this is really “Grand Theft Auto”, but for the Hulk. If they do ever make another dedicated Hulk game, Ultimate Destruction should absolutely be the blueprint for it. Or the “greenprint”, maybe?
32. Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks (Xbox, September 2005)
Are you okay?
The first time Mortal Kombat shows up on this list and it isn’t even for a fighting game?? Don’t worry, that’s coming, but Shaolin Monks still embodies the truest spirit of Mortal Kombat as a franchise. While Street Fighter is my favorite fighting game franchise, I hardly ignored Mortal Kombat. I love the classic games and even have a special fondness for the cheesiness of MK 4.
This wasn’t even the first attempt by the developers to expand Mortal Kombat beyond fighting games, with the exceedingly-difficult MK Mythologies: Sub-Zero and the legendarily-awful MK: Special Forces games preceding this one. Third time was clearly the charm and Shaolin Monks is a memorable ko-op beat-em-up that me and my friends had a lot of fun with back in the day.
This game isn’t really kanon to the larger MK mythology, but rather tells a slightly-smudged version of the events of Mortal Kombat II. You and a friend can play as the titular Shaolin Monks Liu Kang or Kung Lao (and later replay as Sub-Zero and Scorpion after beating the game) and kung fu through hordes of grunts and various boss battles. What set this beat-em-up apart was the expansive catalog of moves and finishers you could upgrade and customize your character with.
Being that this was Mortal Kombat, Liu Kang and Kung Lao could even perform Fatalities or other types of “-alities” on their foes once certain conditions were met in battle. It made you feel like you were playing the fighting game inside the framework of a beat-em-up and made for a rewarding play-through.
Despite the graphic violence and serious stakes, Mortal Kombat’s always had an irreverent and absurd sense of humor to it and this game has that in spades. Some of its most memorable moments are funny ones or just ridiculously cheesy kreative choices that I can’t imagine were on accident.
Why does Kabal kind of sound like Elvis Presley? Why does Scorpion do the Terminator 2 “thumbs-up” when he’s sinking in lava after you defeat him? Why does Liu Kang soundly defeat Jade, then decide to artfully jam a pair of sais in her eyes and later claim to Kitana he was fighting in self-defense and she “left him no choice”?
The answer to all these questions is “because it’s goddamn hilarious, that’s why.” The absolute funniest moment in the game is the following scene. It kind of enkapsulates Mortal Kombat as a franchise in general.
33. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (Xbox 360, October 2006)
The day my father Odin banished me from Asgard, I was bitten by a vampire and had radioactive waste dumped into my eyes. To make matters worse, my mutant ability to control weather activated just as I was hit by a blast of gamma radiation.
If you want the Marvel comic universe distilled into a single game, you really can’t do better than Ultimate Alliance. Much as X-Men: Children of the Atom spawned Marvel Super Heroes as a sequel, Ultimate Alliance was spawned from the X-Men: Legends games. I did love both those X-Men: Legends games and Ultimate Alliance is a further refinement of that dungeon-crawler/beat-em-up/ RPG-mix of gameplay.
You form a team of four Marvel heroes and basically take a tour through the entire Marvel universe as you face Doctor Doom’s new Masters of Evil and combat his plans to steal the Allfather Odin’s power. Of course, every hero in the expansive roster is highly-upgradable and customizable, and it’s very fun to play with a friend (or up to three friends) and “claim” certain heroes as your own to use. Ultimate Alliance’s customizing and upgrading options are a bit simplified from X-Men: Legends 2, but there’s still a lot of options and room for growth for each character.
This game released two years before the advent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it’s still kind of timeless in how it presents the Marvel Universe as a whole. I’m sure this was the introduction for many gamers to many B and C-list characters in Marvel. Hell, I had been reading comics for almost my entire life at the point this released and I had somehow never heard of Kurse before this game!
There is a tiny bit of time-stamping in terms of what was “in vogue” at the time, as Captain America and Thor start out with their Ultimate Marvel costumes as defaults. However, each character eventually gets four costume options and you can easily find something you find fetching. The roster of characters in the game (both playable and non-) is truly impressive and personal favorites of mine like Hawkeye, Cyclops, and Moon Knight were all made available.
The game also has an impressive, if unconventional in retrospect, voice cast and an immersive story. You can earn different endings based on if certain objectives are met in missions; some are good and some are bad. At one point the game asks you to choose between saving Jean Grey or Nightcrawler from Mephisto, and whoever you don’t choose has their soul damned by Mephisto forever!
The endings reflect this, as saving Nightcrawler will cause Jean Grey to become the Dark Phoenix and eventually return for vengeance. However, saving Jean will cause Mystique to kill Charles Xavier in revenge for Nightcrawler’s loss! Sometimes you just can’t win, but if you mostly just help anyone who asks for assistance, you usually get the “better” ending.
This aspect of the game did lend itself to replays, just to see what eventually occurs thanks to your choices in the game. Ultimate Alliance did spawn two sequels, which are both fun in their own ways but this first one is still what I consider the peak of this series. This game is still playable on some modern consoles and it’s still a great time, especially with friends. Whenever I hear this game mentioned at all, I still instantly hear the character select music in my head, as heard above.
34. Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii, March 2008)
Show me ya moves!
35. Ultra Street Fighter IV (Xbox 360, July 2008 (OG IV release)/April 2014 (Ultra)
Fists will fly at this location!
I had Mario Kart 64 and GoldenEye on this list, but the other in the trifecta of multiplayer N64 games that I adored was Super Smash Bros. I wanted to represent that series on this list and ultimately, Brawl is probably my favorite of the ones I’ve played.
See, I’ve never owned a “proper” Nintendo console, just Game Boys, so I’ve never gotten the proper one-on-one time with any Smash Bros. game that I would have wanted. I played tons of the original, the second one “Melee”, and Brawl at other people’s homes. However, since I never owned those games and couldn’t practice on my own, I never got technically “Good” at them.
Thankfully Smash Bros. is pretty easy to pick up and play and doing my usual strategy of spamming powerful moves usually worked out at gatherings of friends. I’d pick Pikachu or Captain Falcon and either jump around the stage calling thunderbolts down at random or wait for the right moment to FAL-CONE PAUNCH!!! That’s not to say Smash isn’t a complicated fighter because it very much is at higher competitive levels, but for me… it was a casual, fun game best enjoyed with friends.
Brawl added a bunch of new playable characters and was the first in the series to include characters from other game companies outside of Nintendo. I remember it being a big deal for me and in general when they announced Solid Snake would be playable, as I was obviously a big fan of Metal Gear. Adding Sonic the Hedgehog to the roster was also the stuff of a childhood wish fulfilled at that point, finally being able to pit the mascots of Nintendo and Sega against one another in an official game.
Brawl also added “Final Smash” super moves to the game, allowing every character the chance to clear the screen with a flashy overpowered attack or enhanced mode. The items were always a big part of Smash gameplay too and Brawl added “Assist Trophies”, summoning other non-playable support characters to help you when activated. It was not uncommon for my friends and I to do matches where the only items spawned were Assist Trophies and Poké Balls, just for the on-screen chaos it created.
Like I said, I’ve played other Smash games before and after this one, but I think I spent the most time with Brawl. I’m definitely nothing but a Smash Bros. casual, but I can’t deny how much fun I had with these games and the pure fanboy joy that they carry with them. I never even got to play through the story mode of Brawl, but the “Final Destination” boss music for arcade mode is probably one of my favorite final boss battle tracks of all time. Listen to how epic fighting a pair of giant floating hands can be!
35. Ultra Street Fighter IV (Xbox 360, July 2008 (OG IV release)/April 2014 (Ultra)
Fists will fly at this location!
We go from the fighting game I’m least technically-savvy with to the one I’m probably the MOST proficient in. I’m cheating a little chronologically here; I’m placing this entry at the release of the original Street Fighter IV, but I’m going to ultimately choose the furthest-updated version of the game that released in 2014 as my pick here. Street Fighter IV is probably my favorite fighting game of all time, so I had to include its entire lifespan in this entry.
The main numbered Street Fighter series of games are kinda comparable to the original Star Trek movies in terms of vibes. Street Fighter I is the rough, awkward first outing, Street Fighter II is its more popular and timeless upgrade, Street Fighter III is the rather technical and niche one, and Street Fighter IV is the return-to-form and highly-accessible crowd-pleaser. You can keep going comparing Star Trek V and VI to Street Fighter V and VI with some success, but we need to stop here because I’m at where I wanna be.
Street Fighter and fighting games in general were in kind of a slump by the mid-to-early ‘oughts. Street Fighter IV is highly credited with reviving the genre in both the public eye and competitive professional play. I was super-excited for it and purchased every version of the game, from OG to Super to Super: Arcade Edition to finally Ultra Street Fighter IV. I feel comfortable treating them all as extensions of the same game, as they’ve all got the same basic vibe to them.
Each update added new gameplay mechanics, modes and of course more characters, with the final roster numbering 44 playables. This is my favorite roster in a Street Fighter game (as mentioned before, second favorite was Alpha 3) and it’s only really missing one of my previous favorite characters (Alex, from III). Even though the new characters added during IV’s era were all mostly duds (except maybe Juri) and the final boss Seth is inferior to M. Bison and Gill, I can still call this my favorite roster of characters.
I don’t know that I’m good enough for pro tournament play, but like I said, this is definitely the fighting game I’m best at. I never would have expected T. Hawk to become my main in this game, but he is my highest-ranked character. I’m also pretty proficient with Ryu, Sagat, Oni, Zangief, Hugo, Dudley, E. Honda, Blanka, Rose, Cody, M. Bison, Dee Jay, and Dan.
Street Fighter IV’s got a pretty easy learning curve in general in comparison with its surrounding games III and V, and you can pick up most characters fairly easily after only a few matches. However, it certainly rewards hard work and discipline, and watching the pros go at it in this game is always enjoyable to me.
I’ve made a couple highlight reels of favorite plays I’ve personally pulled off-
However, my favorite thing I’ve ever done in a match is this-
You can Raging Demon me once, Akuma, but NOT TWICE.
36. Batman: Arkham Asylum (Xbox 360, August 2009)
Come on boys! He's just one man! One man dressed like a lunatic and armed to the teeth. HAHAHA, go get him!
There have been decent Batman games before this one, but… who am I kidding? The Arkham series are THE Batman games and this first one pretty much hit it out of the park on the first try. I honestly wasn’t sure at first based on previous Batman game experience and didn’t get this game on its initial release. However, after watching my roommate play his copy and the great reviews it was getting, I had to give it a shot. Much like the 2000 Spider-Man game and Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, this is “the Batman simulator” and it does its job pretty perfectly.
Sure, there are a few hitches in this first outing, like the hidden threat/clue/item-finding Detective Mode being overpowered. You can pretty much play the entire game with it switched on with no real drawbacks other than missing Arkham’s detailed graphical textures. Maybe that final boss battle with “Monster Joker” is a bit… much, at that.
37. Left 4 Dead 2 (Xbox 360, November 2009) 
However, any negatives are pretty much canceled out with how fun and flowing the gameplay is. I literally mean “flowing” when it comes to fighting enemies, as the “free-flow” combat that many modern games of this type now use was basically pioneered by this game. Batman effortlessly switching targets and taking on multiple foes at once in a ballet of single blows, combos, and finishers makes being outnumbered a delight instead of a chore.
The smooth game progression is also helped along by a compelling narrative written by Paul Dini and voice-performed by Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill among others. Almost every effort is made to fold every major incarnation of Batman up to that point into a distilled product that even casual fans can recognize and enjoy.
I never even got a chance to play the sequel Arkham City (even though it’s widely-regarded as an improvement over this already great game) and while I did play the third installment, Arkham Knight does have its issues. However, even if Asylum was just a one-off, it’d probably still be considered the best Batman game ever.
I think the most memorable bits of this game for me (and probably many others) are the Scarecrow nightmare sequences. The developers came up with a truly creative way to have a boss battle with the Scarecrow and I imagine the positive response to them was what made them decide to make Scarecrow the main baddie of the third game. No matter how the third game turned out, I’ll always appreciate the elevation of Scarecrow here, as he’s always been my favorite Batman villain.
37. Left 4 Dead 2 (Xbox 360, November 2009)
Coach, that is about the stupidest idea I've ever agreed with. Let’s do it!
I’m not much a fan of survival horror or being scared while playing a video game in general, but I guess the exception to that is doing it alongside friends. For many a game night with friends, Left 4 Dead 2 (and its predecessor before that) was the co-op of choice. This series really makes sure coordination is key as wandering off solo will get you mobbed or dragged away by the hordes of “Infected” that are thrown at you.
This of course leads to hilarity and frustration when the other three members of the squad have to wade in and extricate the lone wolf, which sometimes then leads to the death of the entire team. It was a fun time to be sure though, especially when we were only meters away from a safe room and we had to go back to save a straggler who was mobbed by the “sticky” zombie analogues in the game that impeded your progress.
Left 4 Dead 2’s a great game to play with friends but I’d probably never play it on my own. I’m too much of a wuss when it comes to survival horror in any form! However, this series in general is probably my favorite way to experience the genre and it does promote a sense of social interaction and cooperation. The panic you feel when you’re being overwhelmed or dragged away is often mirrored by your friends and fellow players as they rush to save you.
38. Halo: Reach (Xbox 360, September 2010) 
You belong to Reach. Your body, your armor- all burned and turned to glass. Everything… except your courage. That, you gave to us. And with it, we can rebuild.
Reach’s campaign makes sure you properly experience every inch of struggle, sacrifice, and sorrow that permeates throughout its entire length. You really feel like you are in the last days of a dying planet after completion of each new level. The moving sense of melancholy throughout the game is helped along by its somber musical score and some great voice-acting.
If you’re familiar with the lore when you start this game, you know that Reach eventually falls to the Covenant. However, the campaign does a good job of giving you little victories along the way that make it seem like you might somehow change fate.
The multiplayer is of course, great as always and features the standard Halo stuff by this point. There’s the usual competitive stuff, with the newly-added “Invasion” base capture mode being a highlight for me in this installment. There’s Firefight, allowing you and friends to take on waves of increasingly-difficult enemies while stockpiling weapons.
39. Mortal Kombat (Xbox 360, April 2011) 
The Left 4 Dead series and particularly this sequel also has memorable characters and a wry sense of humor to it. There’s very little story or plot except getting to various safe and evacuation points, but the character interactions in-between are always amusing. The regular Infected are usually nothing more than a nuisance except in significant numbers, but the “Special” Infected they mix in are a different story. Each one can serious harm or completely disable you, like the tongue-strangling “Smoker”, the mauling “Hunter”, and the acid-spitting uh… “Spitter”.
There’s also the “Tank”, a Hulk-like Infected that your entire team needs to concentrate firepower on to effectively combat or die from its devastating blows. And of course, the most dreaded… the “Witch”, an eerily-crying female Infected that you hear before you see. If she is roused from her passive state, she’ll enter a frenzy that can take out most players in a single hit.
Some of the funnest/funniest moments of my playing this game were trying to sneak past the crying Witch without her noticing. Someone would inevitably set her off by shooting too close to her, and then the rest of the team would scramble in a panic to try and deal with the situation.
Left 4 Dead 2’s a great game to play with friends but I’d probably never play it on my own. I’m too much of a wuss when it comes to survival horror in any form! However, this series in general is probably my favorite way to experience the genre and it does promote a sense of social interaction and cooperation. The panic you feel when you’re being overwhelmed or dragged away is often mirrored by your friends and fellow players as they rush to save you.
The game’s wry sense of humor also helps make this a fun experience and this is probably the best “Zombie Movie Simulator” I’ve ever played. Also, there’s so much varied recorded dialogue between the characters in this game, someone was able to effectively remake “Steamed Hams” with it!
38. Halo: Reach (Xbox 360, September 2010)
You belong to Reach. Your body, your armor- all burned and turned to glass. Everything… except your courage. That, you gave to us. And with it, we can rebuild.
Here it is, my favorite installment of the Halo franchise. Reach is a prequel to the first Halo game and original development studio Bungie’s final Halo game. As its name suggests, the campaign and story are centered on the fall of planet Reach- the instigating event that kicks off the saga of the first three games. As a prequel, it has what I like to term the “weight of inevitability” resting on its narrative, as all prequels do. Things have to end up a certain way, but truly good prequel material can make that work to the story’s advantage and Reach certainly does that.
Reach’s campaign makes sure you properly experience every inch of struggle, sacrifice, and sorrow that permeates throughout its entire length. You really feel like you are in the last days of a dying planet after completion of each new level. The moving sense of melancholy throughout the game is helped along by its somber musical score and some great voice-acting.
You are Noble Six, the newest member of Noble Team, a group of Spartan super-soldiers tasked with defending Reach after the alien Covenant invade it. Noble Six is literally you as the player avatar’s gender and armor can be customized to your liking. Your character has minimal dialogue, but serves as a catalyst to get to know the other members of Noble Team, making it all the more devastating when they each meet their inevitable ends.
If you’re familiar with the lore when you start this game, you know that Reach eventually falls to the Covenant. However, the campaign does a good job of giving you little victories along the way that make it seem like you might somehow change fate.
By the end, you know you were deluding yourself, and the final level “Lone Wolf” is both simultaneously depressing and yet somehow uplifting. Left behind on burning Reach, you have to survive as long as possible against endless waves of enemies until you finally fall. It’s one of my favorite final levels of a video game ever and if you’re playing co-op with friends, you can make it a survival mode to see who can last the longest.
The multiplayer is of course, great as always and features the standard Halo stuff by this point. There’s the usual competitive stuff, with the newly-added “Invasion” base capture mode being a highlight for me in this installment. There’s Firefight, allowing you and friends to take on waves of increasingly-difficult enemies while stockpiling weapons.
There’s also the Forge mode, newly added in Halo 3, allowing players to make their own customized maps and gametypes. People got really creative with Forge and some of my fondest online multiplayer memories are playing wacky Forge-created games like Grifball and Halo “Nascar” using the Warthog jeeps.
Reach was a fine send-off for Bungie’s work on the Halo franchise and I don’t feel like any subsequent games have ever “reached” (ha!) that peak again. I’m fond of Halo 4, but 5 and Infinite ultimately left me feeling disappointed. I wouldn’t mind a remake or remaster of Reach in the future, that’s for sure. It just had a style and vibe that’s never been recaptured by the franchise.
39. Mortal Kombat (Xbox 360, April 2011)
You have killed us all.
Mortal Kombat “9” to be exact, although that’s just a helpful designation made by the fans. This game was a ground-up reboot of the franchise although it seemed to take some hints from the ‘09 JJ Abrams Star Trek movie in that regard. After the last entry in the series, 2006’s “Mortal Kombat: Armageddon”, ironically failed to set the world on fire (I never even played it, at that), the main series rested up for a time. There was the Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe game in the interim, and while that was a fun distraction, it wasn’t a “true” Mortal Kombat sequel. 
Much like Street Fighter IV, the roster of kharacters was optimized for maximum fan appreciation, with virtually all favorites present and akkounted for (okay, I’ll stop with the “kays” now.) Perhaps inspired by the crossover with DC Comics, characters from other franchises were also made available to play, like Kratos from the God of War series and Freddy Krueger! This was something Mortal Kombat would become known for in future installments, with guest characters from other franchises becoming available as downloadable content. 
And I find it kind of funny
It is hard to not look at Gears as a baby brother to Halo, especially since they were both originally franchises exclusive to the Xboxes. I enjoyed playing the first three Gears games, but I never felt a need to get any further into the lore of Gears, unlike Halo. That said, Gears isn’t totally uncompelling, and main character Marcus Fenix is a refreshing antithesis of the Master Chief. I mean, c’mon… it’s friggin’ John DiMaggio doing a much more gravelly version of his Bender voice and swearing his head off. What’s not to love?
Unlike Halo, Gears is a third-person shooter with a heavy emphasis on taking cover and shooting over and around it. It made for a “stop and go” type of gameplay that was a wholly different rhythm to master than Halo. There was a larger emphasis on squad tactics and moving in groups. You could revive downed allies or execute downed enemies, adding to the more strategic style of combat. Once I got the hang of it, I had a lot of fun playing all three Gears games with friends and it did supplant Halo as our go-to for good chunks of time.
Memorable weapons like the Torque Bow, the Ink Grenade and the satellite-lasering Hammer of Dawn offered creative options to rout the enemy. Of course, the signature weapon of Gears was the standard Lancer assault rifle and it’s fairly iconic. I mean, it was a gun… with a chainsaw attached to it. EVERYONE who thinks of Gears of War in general will immediately think of chainsawing enemies to death in close-quarters combat. 
I especially enjoyed playing the Horde mode with friends, pitting you and your squad against waves of increasingly difficult Locust enemies. Gears 3 specifically also added “Beast Mode”, allowing you to play as various types of the Locust Horde and take down human squads. 
When this game launched, I honestly ignored it, as I was already pretty dedicated to Street Fighter IV as my fighting game of choice. However, after hearing a lot of positive word of mouth and reading about what the story mode of this game entailed, I was intrigued and picked up a used kopy about a year after its release. When all is said and done, I can kall this my favorite Mortal Kombat game and weirdly enough, it was because of the exploration and celebration of the franchise’s lore that this game promised.
I was quickly drawn in to the story mode, which as I mentioned, was a reboot in the same way ‘09 Star Trek was a reboot. The past kontinuity was respected and heavily referenced, but thanks to time travel shenanigans, a new path forward was forged. Before being killed by Shao Kahn at the end of Armageddon, Raiden sends an enigmatic message to his past self from the era of the first Mortal Kombat game. This message is meant to help the past’s Raiden prevent the ultimate triumph of evil and he kontinuously receives psychic glimpses of how the “original” timeline transpired.
Assuming he has to change events to avert the bad outcome, Raiden actively works to make sure his kurrent timeline unfolds differently from the one seen in his visions. The player is taken through a speed-run of the events of the first three Mortal Kombat games, but with elements changed based on Raiden’s interventions. This eventually has a terrible knock-on effect of making things even WORSE than they were before!
Nearly all of Earth’s defenders are killed during the ongoing konflict, including former Mortal Kombat champion and “Chosen One” Liu Kang, who dies kursing Raiden’s name. The more Raiden attempts to korrect the timeline, the more broken he makes the world, which makes for a depressing but kompelling narrative to follow.
I didn’t really play this game online kompetitively or anything, but it’s a pretty great fighter with a modernized and updated system of kombat that still feels familiar. The new addition of “X-ray moves”, heavy blows that showed which of your opponent’s bones you were breaking, was more of the over-the-top violence that the franchise was known for.
Much like Street Fighter IV, the roster of kharacters was optimized for maximum fan appreciation, with virtually all favorites present and akkounted for (okay, I’ll stop with the “kays” now.) Perhaps inspired by the crossover with DC Comics, characters from other franchises were also made available to play, like Kratos from the God of War series and Freddy Krueger! This was something Mortal Kombat would become known for in future installments, with guest characters from other franchises becoming available as downloadable content.
Again, it’s weird to say I play Mortal Kombat “for the story”, but in this game’s case, that’s absolutely true and I don’t think they’ve topped this game’s narrative yet. Hell, the last Mortal Kombat game (titled “1” but number “12” counting the others) was ANOTHER reboot of the timeline. The knock-on effect of scrambling previous continuity up so much in THIS game finally reached a critical mass point and forced them to flip the table AGAIN for the latest game! However, the fans keep coming back, even as the franchise’s kontinuity kontinues to bekome more krazy, kooky, and konfusing (Sorry.)
40. Gears of War 3 (Xbox 360, September 2011)
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
Ah, Gears of War… the Halo alternative for people who like chainsaw guns better than energy swords. The first Gears game came out towards the end of Halo 2’s lifespan and just before Halo 3, so it was optimally poised to entice gamers who wanted something new, but familiar.
Maybe I’m being unfair, because the Gears series does offer pretty different gameplay mechanics than Halo does. At the same time… Gears and Halo do share a lot of similar setups and a general sci-fi war franchise vibe. The Locust are basically the Covenant, except they’re mole people instead of aliens.
It is hard to not look at Gears as a baby brother to Halo, especially since they were both originally franchises exclusive to the Xboxes. I enjoyed playing the first three Gears games, but I never felt a need to get any further into the lore of Gears, unlike Halo. That said, Gears isn’t totally uncompelling, and main character Marcus Fenix is a refreshing antithesis of the Master Chief. I mean, c’mon… it’s friggin’ John DiMaggio doing a much more gravelly version of his Bender voice and swearing his head off. What’s not to love?
Unlike Halo, Gears is a third-person shooter with a heavy emphasis on taking cover and shooting over and around it. It made for a “stop and go” type of gameplay that was a wholly different rhythm to master than Halo. There was a larger emphasis on squad tactics and moving in groups. You could revive downed allies or execute downed enemies, adding to the more strategic style of combat. Once I got the hang of it, I had a lot of fun playing all three Gears games with friends and it did supplant Halo as our go-to for good chunks of time.
Memorable weapons like the Torque Bow, the Ink Grenade and the satellite-lasering Hammer of Dawn offered creative options to rout the enemy. Of course, the signature weapon of Gears was the standard Lancer assault rifle and it’s fairly iconic. I mean, it was a gun… with a chainsaw attached to it. EVERYONE who thinks of Gears of War in general will immediately think of chainsawing enemies to death in close-quarters combat.
I especially enjoyed playing the Horde mode with friends, pitting you and your squad against waves of increasingly difficult Locust enemies. Gears 3 specifically also added “Beast Mode”, allowing you to play as various types of the Locust Horde and take down human squads.
Whenever my friends and I selected it, I couldn’t help but say “BEAST MODE” while doing an impression of Garry Chalk or David Kaye. Beast Mode was a lot of fun and something that Gears had over Halo at the time, allowing you to be the “monsters” that were hunting hapless humans for a change. It’s the main reason I selected Gears of War 3 for this list, at that.
I haven’t played any Gears game since 3, but I’m sure all the follow-ups are good fun too. I mentioned in the previous entry that I ironically played Mortal Kombat 9 “for the story” but the gameplay of the Gears franchise was always its draw for me. Roadie-running to cover, popping out to squeeze a few shots off, then charging a foe to clash chainsaw rifles… you probably can’t get that specific experience anywhere else in a video game. And now, after writing this entry, I’m gonna be singing Gary Jules’ cover of “Mad World” to myself for a week. Great.
41. Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker (Playstation 3, November 2011)
I won't make the same choice as her. My future's going to be different...
If the first Metal Gear Solid was my favorite game featuring Solid Snake, this is my favorite Metal Gear game featuring his father, Naked Snake/Big Boss. “Peacewalker” was originally released on the Playstation Portable in 2010, but I didn’t play it until it was included in the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection released on Playstation 3 about a year later. My fellow Fanhole Brian recommended it to me and I’m glad he did because otherwise I probably would have ignored it.
I know Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is highly-regarded among gamers and fans, but it just never clicked with me. I didn’t really like the jungle setting or the survival aspect of it, even though I recognize what a great game it is. Also, like I said in the Metal Gear Solid entry on this list, this franchise’s gameplay has never been a huge selling point for me. I was always more interested in the lore of the series and getting to the next cutscene. Thankfully, Peacewalker provides both a great narrative and innovations to gameplay that really stood out to me.
First off, the actual missions and boss battles in Peacewalker are shorter, more straightforward affairs than usual Metal Gear games, no doubt because of its original home on the PSP. The new thing added to the formula in this installment is the management of your home Mother Base and recruitment of soldiers to build a private army.
I’ve never been a huge fan of micro-management of resources in games either, but Peacewalker makes it fun and accessible. You’ve got to properly deploy assets, assign personnel to tasks based on each individual’s personal stats, and keep the money flow coming in to be a successful mercenary army. 
I had a ton of fun with Peacewalker and it is my second-favorite Metal Gear Solid game. I may even purchase it again, since as of this writing, it is soon getting ANOTHER re-release on Playstation 5 in the Metal Gear Master Collection series. Peacewalker just felt the right mixture of familiar and new to me and I’m glad I gave it a chance. Also, it’s got one of the best names of any video game antagonist ever- HOT COLDMAN. 
My regard for this game only made its sequel, Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, that much more disappointing. Released in 2017, “Infinite” felt held hostage by the MCU, restricting its Marvel roster almost entirely to characters that had appeared in movies and omitting X-Men and Fantastic Four characters entirely thanks to studio politics. 
I had tons of fun kidnapping enemy soldiers off the battlefield in missions via the Fulton Recovery system. It hilariously yanks captured or unconscious combatants off the screen with a self-inflating balloon that carries them up to a waiting aircraft. They then usually spend time in Mother Base’s brig until they agree to join your army. You can even locate and kidnap game creator Hideo Kojima himself in a mission at one point in a hilarious bit showcasing this game’s self-aware sense of humor.
This recruitment and resource management addition to Metal Gear Solid’s gameplay was so well-received it was made a big part of Metal Gear Solid V as well, although I feel it got a little too complicated for me in that game. I never even finished Metal Gear Solid V because I felt overwhelmed by the management options there, but Peacewalker got it just right.
I think Peacewalker is a superior “prequel” overall compared with MGS V in many other respects too, including the story. Peacewalker feels more like a dramatic “off-ramp” for Big Boss, which is fairly ironic if you know anything about MGS V’s story.
Peacewalker’s story deals with Naked Snake coming to grips with the legacy of his mentor, The Boss, after having been forced to kill her in MGS 3. After dealing with people trying to corrupt or misinterpret her ideals for their own ends, Snake finally embraces his new title of “Big Boss” by the end of the game’s story and it feels totally earned.
There are tons of great dramatic scenes and tragic set-ups in regard to Snake’s personal journey throughout the game and they’re all rendered beautifully thanks to comic book-style cutscenes by Ashley Wood and Yoji Shinkawa. If you think being forced to put down The Boss in MGS 3 was difficult, wait until you have to euthanize her horse in this game!
I had a ton of fun with Peacewalker and it is my second-favorite Metal Gear Solid game. I may even purchase it again, since as of this writing, it is soon getting ANOTHER re-release on Playstation 5 in the Metal Gear Master Collection series. Peacewalker just felt the right mixture of familiar and new to me and I’m glad I gave it a chance. Also, it’s got one of the best names of any video game antagonist ever- HOT COLDMAN.
42. Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (Playstation 3, November 2011)
I defeated a raccoon! SCIENCE!
Well, here’s my rep for Capcom’s “VS” series of fighters, the best version of the best Marvel vs. Capcom game. “Vanilla” Marvel vs. Capcom 3 came out only 9 months before this one and I had been playing that whole time. Ultimate is really just an expansion pack rather than a whole new game and was priced a bit cheaper, so I was happy to pay for it again. I do love me all of Capcom’s previous versus games in the 2D era, but I think 3 achieves the best balance of characters with much more refined combat.
I mean, everyone loved Marvel vs. Capcom 2, but its Marvel roster was heavily weighted towards X-Men characters, which was expected for the tail end of the 90s. MVC2 didn’t have a playable Thor, but it had friggin’ MARROW for crying out loud! MVC3 and Ultimate in particular redistributes the roster better across the entire Marvel universe, which conversely, would be expected for a time when the MCU was in its ascendancy.
UMVC3 maintains the three-character tag combat made famous by MVC2, with a player needing to form a team that compliments each other to be most effective. The inactive characters on your team can be summoned for assist moves, which are essential for building robust combos and breaking your opponent’s momentum.
It makes for incredibly chaotic gameplay, especially at higher professional levels. Hell, I had to basically stop playing the game competitively at a certain point when the options became “devote ALL my gaming time to mastering this” or “quit playing online against people who are much, much better than you.”
I still had a lot of fun playing online though, and while I’m not as good at this game as I am at Street Fighter IV, I can hold my own on a middle-card level. My usual team usually consisted of Taskmaster, Dormammu, and Mike Haggar. I’d sub in Hawkeye, Chris Redfield, and Hulk in for someone at times but those were the guys I could consistently win with. It was never gonna be an optimized team that could win in tournaments, but I made them work!
The game’s roster, as mentioned, was a great one and featured many Marvel characters that would become much more well-known to casual fans through the MCU as the 2010s continued on. The Capcom side of things was also fairly comprehensive, although classic Mega Man’s absence was sorely felt. The win quotes and in-game interactions between characters were on-point and sometimes pretty hilarious and in-jokey, like Spider-Man thinking Firebrand from Ghosts’n’Goblins looked like “the guy who ruined my marriage”.
Each of every character’s basic and special moves seem to be sourced from somewhere else, be it comic book or previous video game. My absolute favorite of the cinematic level 3 Hyper Combos has got to be Hawkeye’s, referencing one of the most famous Avengers comic covers of all time and his team-up with Ant-Man.
The voice acting was also A-tier, which virtually everyone getting the actor who had most recently performed the character in other projects. This extended to getting Richard Grieco to return as Ghost Rider, who hadn’t voiced the character since the Incredible Hulk cartoon back in 1996! The music is also perfect, with many remixes of character themes from previous Capcom games present, including new versions of my favorite tracks from Marvel Super Heroes.
Even lacking a proper “story” mode, the final boss battle against Galactus feels epic and long overdue for this series. “Ultimate” even added a “Galactus Mode”, allowing you to PLAY as the world devourer! The overall narrative presentation of the game and respect for characters is probably a big part of why I regard it so highly.
My regard for this game only made its sequel, Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, that much more disappointing. Released in 2017, “Infinite” felt held hostage by the MCU, restricting its Marvel roster almost entirely to characters that had appeared in movies and omitting X-Men and Fantastic Four characters entirely thanks to studio politics.
I still enjoyed "Infinite" to some extent, as the skeleton of UMVC3 was still just present enough to make it a decent game. The heart and soul of the series felt drained or compromised however, and fans to this day still hope for a proper “Marvel vs. Capcom 4” to be developed. If MVC4 ever does become a reality, let’s hope it features the protagonist of the next entry in this list...
43. Asura’s Wrath (Playstation 3, February 2012)
I pray to no one, nor will I be prayed to! But, above all else, I will never forgive you for MAKING MY DAUGHTER CRY!
The last Capcom game on this list, and one of their more obscure releases. I praised Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 for its presentation, but the gameplay is what most people remember from that game. THIS game however, while possessing fun gameplay, is almost ALL about presentation and narrative. Many people describe Asura’s Wrath as “playing an anime” and that’s a pretty accurate description.
The gameplay sections include third-person combat, rail-shooting segments, and quick-time events, but all of it is a vehicle for story and mythology. As video games have evolved, I’ve always been appreciative of their ever-increasing capacity to create narrative spectacles that no other medium can manage and Asura’s Wrath excels in this.
You play as the titular Asura, a member of a pantheon of Buddhist/Hindu-inspired demigods who is betrayed and cast out by his fellows. After framing him for murder, killing his wife, and kidnapping his priestess daughter to use as an amplifier for the mystical “Mantra” energy, the other demigods seemingly kill Asura himself. He is resurrected by a mysterious being with an agenda of its own and set loose on those who turned on him.
Much of the game is visiting the also-titular Wrath on Asura’s former comrades as he embarks on a crusade of revenge against them. Upon learning they still have his daughter, Asura’s anger reaches greater and greater heights as he kills his way through the other demigods and the demonic Gohma creatures that inhabit their planet Gaea to rescue her. The story is far more complicated than I’ve just summed-up, but the mythology of this world is so dense, I would only do it a disservice to try and detail it further.
If you watched any of that fight, know that planet-sized Wyzen is the FIRST major boss battle in the game! That should give you an idea of the geometric increase in scale and scope of further conflicts in this game and yet the personal stakes for Asura himself are eventually nothing more than rescuing his daughter. 
Of course, there was some controversy with this game, with the final chapters of its story being “held hostage” as download content. While the base game has a “tidy” ending of sorts, the “true ending” was eventually made available for purchase and actually ties off the loose plot threads remaining. Additional download content includes bonus story chapters where Asura crosses over with the Street Fighter universe and fights Ryu and Akuma!
It’s kind of hard to get this entire game in one package, but maybe someday they’ll re-release it as a complete version, although I wouldn’t hold my breath with that. Asura’s Wrath was more of a cult hit than a true success, but just about everyone who has ever played it has acknowledged its sheer epicness. 
One could compare Asura’s Wrath to the God of War series of games, but with heavy anime stylings. God of War probably has more expansive and diverse combat and gameplay, but Asura’s Wrath might have those games beat on sheer spectacle and outrageous presentation. Take this boss battle against one of the old comrades that betrayed Asura; the demigod Wyzen, who eventually grows to PLANET size in an attempt to crush our protagonist. Asura eventually overpowers him through sheer determination and rage.
If you watched any of that fight, know that planet-sized Wyzen is the FIRST major boss battle in the game! That should give you an idea of the geometric increase in scale and scope of further conflicts in this game and yet the personal stakes for Asura himself are eventually nothing more than rescuing his daughter.
Despite the mythic backdrop and cosmic consequences, Asura’s Wrath still finds time to make its main characters compelling and even relatable. Everyone from Asura’s rival and brother-in-law Yasha to his arch-nemesis Deus have memorable moments, although my favorite character’s got to be Asura’s old mentor Augus. Don’t try to drop a giant demonic elephant on him.
Of course, there was some controversy with this game, with the final chapters of its story being “held hostage” as download content. While the base game has a “tidy” ending of sorts, the “true ending” was eventually made available for purchase and actually ties off the loose plot threads remaining. Additional download content includes bonus story chapters where Asura crosses over with the Street Fighter universe and fights Ryu and Akuma!
It’s kind of hard to get this entire game in one package, but maybe someday they’ll re-release it as a complete version, although I wouldn’t hold my breath with that. Asura’s Wrath was more of a cult hit than a true success, but just about everyone who has ever played it has acknowledged its sheer epicness.
Like I hinted at in the previous entry, it’d be nice if Asura showed up in a future installment of Marvel vs. Capcom. His Wrath definitely left its mark on me, and as the next entry will also show- I’m always up for games that prioritize storytelling.
44. The Walking Dead: A Telltale Games Series (Xbox 360, April 2012)
Clementine will remember that.
Hey, two games in a row about a father figure fighting to save his little girl. Also two games in a row where storytelling is a high priority, although the Telltale Walking Dead games lean even more towards story over play than Asura’s Wrath did. I used to enjoy “point-and-click” adventures on my old family PC in the 90s and this is pretty much an extension of that.
I also enjoyed “Choose Your Own Adventure” books as a kid and this also checks that box. This game is basically a fusion of two of my previous entries on this list; Asura’s Wrath and Left 4 Dead 2, although again; the needle is swung much farther in the direction of “story” than gameplay than either of those. 
Your city lies in dust, my friend
Being able to transform to an alternate mode and open up a new way of traversal and combat at any time is fun as hell and really the bare minimum you should expect from a Transformers video game. However, there’s just so much character-specific stuff crammed in here that shows that the developers really had a built-in love and respect for the franchise.
Even though you don’t directly play as the city-sized Metroplex, you can feel the awe-inspiring scale of his presence in the level where he escorts Optimus Prime towards a goal. It’s so satisfying and cathartic to see Metroplex obliterate enemies that were a serious hassle for you just prior to his awakening. 
Fall of Cybertron and its predecessor War for Cybertron follow the Gears of War style of gameplay, being third-person shooters. It just subs in transforming to truck, car, tank, or space dinosaur modes for roadie-running and diving for cover. “Fall” does suffer a tiny bit compared to “War”, as the three-player co-op from the first game was removed, but that allows for a much more immersive one-player experience in campaign mode. 
Even with Hideo Kojima only tangentially-involved with this game, the story is filled with the usual Metal Gear tropes and monologues about the nature of war, politics, economy, and technology. Many themes (and memes) in this game have proven as disturbingly prescient of real life as those brought up in MGS2’s story, appropriately enough. What’s also appropriate is a game that explores the concept of memes themselves generating a metric brickton of them since its release.
I could keep talking forever about all the other unforgettable characters in this game- Bladewolf, Monsoon, Sundowner, Senator Armstrong, hell...even reuniting with Sunny from MGS4 is a great moment. However, this entry is starting to run a little long and before I have to engage Blade Mode and cut it up, I’ll tear the fuel cell out of it. 
Admittedly it’s mostly a somewhat clunky excuse to explain why so many dead characters are around in the plot and why everyone can fight on equal terms despite vast canonical power gaps. Still, it features a nice focus on the cast and rare insight into their motivations and their relationships with each other. Depending on your team, you’ll trigger many short cutscenes of them gabbing with each other before a fight, with often interesting or even hilarious results. 
While there were video games that used this formula before this, the Telltale Walking Dead games really codified it for more modern audiences. Your gameplay consists of navigating dialogue options, making decisions to push the story forward, and the occasional quick-time event or aiming an attack. The gameplay is really just a vehicle for the narrative and thankfully the writing is strong enough for that to be enough.
Set in the comic book Walking Dead continuity, our main character is Lee Everett, a man on his way to prison on the day the zombie outbreak occurred. He escapes and comes upon Clementine, a little girl left alone in the chaos, and decides to look after her as the world falls apart. This first “season” of the game takes place over five installments as you navigate the dangerous and treacherous world of...Macon, Georgia. You have to protect and educate Clementine while not only dealing with zombies, but survivors pushed to the brink in desperate circumstances.
My fellow Fanhole Derek liked to say that this game only gives you the illusion of choice most times, rather than actual choices. That’s a fair assessment but I think it’s more nuanced than that. While many choices you make don’t affect the overreaching plot TOO much, they certainly affect the relationships you have with nearly every character you encounter. You definitely have a great deal of power to craft the perception of Lee by the people surrounding him.
As your player character, you can make Lee as heroic or morally-dubious as you’d like. You can do “lawful good” play-throughs or you can do “Scumbag Lee” ones. On subsequent replays after my first one, I’d try to go for potentially funnier choices and was often not disappointed.
No matter how you play, the emotional bond with Clementine remains the heart of the game and you gotta be pretty cold not to want to do right by that little girl. While this entry is largely for the first season of the series, I played every subsequent season and you play as Clem in two of the three following main ones. Clem takes lessons Lee taught her in this first installment and grows up into a capable teenager by the final season. It’s nice to think your choices as Lee helped mold her into the little badass she becomes.
I’m not the biggest fan of The Walking Dead as a franchise in general, but Telltale’s series of games are probably my favorite iteration of it. They blend the gritty and bleak atmosphere of the comics with the personal drama of the TV series, wrapped up in a moody package that is perfect for a dose of survival horror.
Based on the strength of The Walking Dead, I purchased several of Telltale’s forays into other franchises using the same formula, including Fables, Game of Thrones, and Batman. Those were all good plays as well, but The Walking Dead is what really put Telltale Games on my radar. No matter what happened to that company (look it up), I’ll always hold these games in high esteem.
45. Transformers: Fall of Cybertron (Playstation 3, August 2012)
Your city lies in dust, my friend
If you know anything about me, you know I’m a huge Transformers fan and this is the best Transformers game that was ever made- so far at least! There have been other good Transformers games, sure, but the record is probably not weighted towards “great” when you consider all of them. I’ve talked about this game before in different Transformers-related lists, and I’ll just repeat everything I said there. Just about anything you could ever hope to want to do in a Transformers game, you can do in this game with very few exceptions.
Being able to transform to an alternate mode and open up a new way of traversal and combat at any time is fun as hell and really the bare minimum you should expect from a Transformers video game. However, there’s just so much character-specific stuff crammed in here that shows that the developers really had a built-in love and respect for the franchise.
You can play as Megatron, Grimlock, or Bruticus and feel their appropriate power levels as you dominate lesser foes. Or you can use the style and finesse of characters like Jazz, Cliffjumper, or Starscream to sneak around and stealth-kill stronger enemies. There’s even a point in the final level where you control Soundwave and can actually eject his cassette minions Rumble and Laserbeak to fight alongside you!
Even though you don’t directly play as the city-sized Metroplex, you can feel the awe-inspiring scale of his presence in the level where he escorts Optimus Prime towards a goal. It’s so satisfying and cathartic to see Metroplex obliterate enemies that were a serious hassle for you just prior to his awakening.
The presentation of this game’s campaign mode is just off-the-charts cool, with so many memorable moments and scenarios. It’s helped along by an amazing war-torn atmosphere and vibe that is perfectly reflected in the trailer seen at the head of this entry and the cover of “Cities in Dust” by Everlove that plays during it.
The score for this game in general is great, as the voice-acting. To this day, Troy Baker’s Jazz, Nolan North’s Cliffjumper, and Fred Tatasciore’s Megatron remain some of my favorite performances of those characters. I actually even prefer Tatasciore’s Megatron to original voice actor Frank Welker’s modern take on the character! He plays just as well off Peter Cullen’s Optimus Prime as Welker did back in the day.
Fall of Cybertron and its predecessor War for Cybertron follow the Gears of War style of gameplay, being third-person shooters. It just subs in transforming to truck, car, tank, or space dinosaur modes for roadie-running and diving for cover. “Fall” does suffer a tiny bit compared to “War”, as the three-player co-op from the first game was removed, but that allows for a much more immersive one-player experience in campaign mode.
You can still team-up with friends in the Firefight/Horde-adjacent Escalation mode, taking on waves of computer enemies with increasing difficulty. There’s also the standard competitive modes with some fun customization options for your Transformer. I had a lot of fun playing all of these modes with friends and just online with randos.
It is too bad that the nominal third game in this series, Rise of the Dark Spark, utterly failed to live up to this one. As this game ends with the Ark spacecraft on its way to the Transformers’ inevitable future battleground of Earth, many fans had hoped that a sequel would be set there and be even more epic.
Sadly, “Dark Spark” was a B-team project that was scraped together with already-present assets and offered no real new innovation to the formula. Transformers games have moved on since then, and it seems unlikely we’ll ever get a true sequel to Fall of Cybertron. I’d settle for another remaster and re-release at least, though!
46. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (Playstation 3, February 2013)
The memes!
The third Metal Gear game on this list, but all three of them are pretty different from each other! This one, moreso than any other, features a style of gameplay that is almost completely counter to the usual Metal Gear formula. You play as Raiden, divisive main character of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. However, he’s come a LONG way from that game, where he was the rookie that served as a sort of meta way of elevating previous main character Solid Snake to legendary status.
After his conversion to a superhuman cyborg thanks to events preceding Metal Gear Solid 4, Raiden’s positive rep among fans greatly increased, with many even wishing he was playable in that game. “Rising” finally puts you in control of Raiden again as he navigates a world four years removed from the main “saga” of Metal Gear Solid. Cybernetic and AI technology have expanded without limit in the aftermath of MGS4 and Raiden now must fight a private war that even Solid Snake himself would be wholly-unequipped to handle.
Rising is a fast-paced hack-and-slash action game at its core, although stealth does factor in for a few missions. Its main gameplay draw is the use of Raiden’s sword, which offers expansive options for slicing enemies into confetti. Raiden mostly fights other cyborgs and mecha in this game, so there’s no real restraint on the blade-related violence you can visit on your foes.
Much like the Batman Arkham games, there’s a free-flowing sense of combat where being surrounded by enemies can sometimes be more of an advantage for the player. At certain key moments in a fight, you can engage “Zandatsu” or Blade Mode, slowing time down and allowing Raiden to artfully carve an adversary at will and tear out their internals to replenish his own health. It’s… kinda satisfying and stylish as all hell.
Even with Hideo Kojima only tangentially-involved with this game, the story is filled with the usual Metal Gear tropes and monologues about the nature of war, politics, economy, and technology. Many themes (and memes) in this game have proven as disturbingly prescient of real life as those brought up in MGS2’s story, appropriately enough. What’s also appropriate is a game that explores the concept of memes themselves generating a metric brickton of them since its release.
Rising’s over-the-top and hyper-expressive characters, dialogue, voice-acting and music easily carve out a divot in the brains of anyone who plays this game. Even if you’ve never played this game, odds are you’ve encountered a meme generated by it on the ‘net in the years since its release. How is this game so memetic, you ask?
NANOMACHINES, SON.
Seriously, that might be this game’s greatest strength; its narrative presentation. The smooth and flowing gameplay is greased along by memorable characters, set pieces, a compelling plot and above all… MUSIC. Every major boss fight has its own heavy metal song written by composer Jamie Christopherson, each with specific lyrics keyed to your opponent. It makes everything feel appropriately epic and I’ve gotta repeat a trick I used in my entry for Asura’s Wrath here. Just watch this particular snippet of a boss fight Raiden has with a mass-produced Metal Gear RAY unit-
Epic, right? That’s the FIRST boss battle in the game! Whenever you hear a new heavy metal tune start up, you know you’re about to get into another awesome boss battle and they never fail to make you feel like a complete badass while playing them.
I think my absolute favorite boss battle in the game is when Raiden meets his rival Jetstream Sam in a sword duel on the side of a desert highway. Sam is just one of the memorable characters in this game, and this isn’t even the last fight, but the setting, music and overall atmosphere of it are perfect.
I could keep talking forever about all the other unforgettable characters in this game- Bladewolf, Monsoon, Sundowner, Senator Armstrong, hell...even reuniting with Sunny from MGS4 is a great moment. However, this entry is starting to run a little long and before I have to engage Blade Mode and cut it up, I’ll tear the fuel cell out of it.
Rising: Revengeance was a criminally slept-on game for years and I’m just happy that over ten years after its release, it’s finally been recognized for the masterpiece it is by a larger audience and a worthy bearer of the Metal Gear name.
47. Injustice: Gods Among Us (Playstation 3, April 2013)
Crime took my family too, Clark.
But you weren’t the gun! 
DC Comics has had a rougher road when it comes to video games than Marvel has had. They’ve had a rougher road in other areas too, but by the time Injustice came out it was particularly true for video games. By 2013, Marvel had tons of great video games featuring all their most popular heroes and DC had… uh… well, a handful of great Batman games and some mid-level older stuff with other heroes. Plus, they also held the title for having their name on one of the worst video games of all time- Superman 64.
Injustice really felt to me like the first truly great DC video game that wasn’t solely a Batman title. I mean, Batman is heavily involved in Injustice, but so is just about everyone else. I think this game does an admirable job of encapsulating the whole DC comic universe in a tidy package, even if the game’s hook is kind of subversive and derivative of things like the Bruce Timm Justice League cartoon. Much like Ultimate Alliance for Marvel, you can have a comic book casual play Injustice and they probably won’t be too lost in terms of story or lore.
Injustice is built around the premise of an alternate reality where Superman is tricked by the Joker into accidentally killing his wife Lois Lane and their unborn child. In response, Superman kills the Joker and begins enforcing his will on the Earth, convinced that he can no longer hold back or stick to his idealism and morals in the face of the tragedy he suffered.
The “Corrupted Superman” trope is pretty common nowadays, with pastiches like Omni-Man and Homelander having entered the wider public media consciousness. Even back in 2013 it was hardly anything new, but it obviously struck a chord with many people and Injustice the game is probably a flashpoint (no pun intended) for this type of thing.
Personally, I think this game handles the trope fairly well, even if I’ve never been convinced Superman’s morals would slide so far so fast or that so many Justice Leaguers would follow him down this darker path. However, there is a difference between this game and everything that followed it that used the same basic setup of a corrupted demigod terrorizing the planet.
At the end of this game, the REAL (our) Superman crosses dimensions to put everything right. He ultimately defeats the Injustice Superman and the REAL Justice League restores some semblance of hope to the Injustice dimension. I think that’s an important counterbalance that was forgotten when they made a sequel to this game or just doesn’t exist in other similar fictional set-ups like The Boys. Maybe it’s me, but I get real tired of all the “bleak” all the time, right?
Well, I’m spending a lot of time now talking about the philosophy behind the game, but what about the game itself? The gameplay is the main reason Injustice: Gods Among Us makes this list; this is a really solid fighter! The playable roster is stacked with just about every popular DC Comics character and their individual gameplay all feels unique to them and easy to master. Netherrealm Studios, who also developed the previously-mentioned-on-this-list Mortal Kombat 9, traded over-the-top gore and gruesome Fatalities for over-the-top action and spectacular super moves.
The interactive stages deserve special mention, with their cinematic transitions to new areas if you hit your opponent just right in certain spots. They’re just damned cool and feature some awesome cameos and Easter eggs from the DC universe.
Being a great fighting game that also had an immersive story mode was something Injustice definitely had over some of my other favorite fighters at the time and another thing carried over from Mortal Kombat 9. The narrative presentation of this game was top-notch all around, with many of the voice cast being culled from the most popular animated adaptations of DC Comics characters. While I may not be a fan of the “Injustice” concept in general, this first game definitely did it best.
48. Dragon Ball FighterZ (Playstation 4, January 2018)
Dramatic Finish!
Bit of a time jump here into the next console generation, but I’m near the end of the list anyhow. We’ve got another fighter based on another favorite fictional franchise of mine. Unlike DC Comics, Dragon Ball’s had tons of good video games and even many decent fighters before this. However, I always played them because I was a big fan of Dragon Ball, not necessarily because they looked like good video games.
Dragon Ball probably has a relatively small amount of S or even A-tier video games when you consider the massive output they’ve had in that realm. FighterZ is absolutely in the upper echelon, if not THE best video game carrying the Dragon Ball name.
Developer Arc System Works basically overlaid the formula made famous by the Marvel vs. Capcom games onto Dragon Ball- 2D three-on-three combat that emphasizes team synergy. If you’ve been reading this list thus far, you know I’m a huge fan of Capcom’s fighters and thus this felt like a Dragon Ball game specifically made for my tastes. Fights are as fast-paced and chaotic as in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3- perhaps even moreso.
You can switch characters in the middle of combos to extend them, cancel or combine super moves into each other, and basically create a never-ending stream of attacks that keep your opponent pinned down. At the highest levels of professional play, a single touch can mean defeat for one of your characters and that makes even watching this game played in tournaments a tense experience. Probably why I washed out of playing online ranked matches eventually; everyone just got too good!
I’m more of a casual when it comes to competitive play with this game, but another large part of why this game makes my list is its presentation. This game is a love letter to Dragon Ball, with a massive roster of characters possessing expansive movesets sourced straight from the original manga and anime. Not just the moves, with their dialogue, win poses, and specific character interactions are 100% faithful to the franchise, making for an authentic Dragon Ball experience.
You can even collect Dragon Balls and summon Shenron for a wish in the middle of a match if certain conditions are met! Recreating famous scenes from the manga/anime during a match is always a blast, especially when it happens without you planning it to. The following GIF is from a match I played on the VERY FIRST DAY I started playing the game!
FighterZ does have a story mode with three different selectable paths/POV characters (Goku, Freeza, and Android 18) and while it’s nothing TOO deep, it still seems more complex than one would be used to from Dragon Ball. The basic common thread is Goku and company being forced to team-up with Freeza, Cell, and many resurrected adversaries from the past to combat a new threat.
Admittedly it’s mostly a somewhat clunky excuse to explain why so many dead characters are around in the plot and why everyone can fight on equal terms despite vast canonical power gaps. Still, it features a nice focus on the cast and rare insight into their motivations and their relationships with each other. Depending on your team, you’ll trigger many short cutscenes of them gabbing with each other before a fight, with often interesting or even hilarious results.
This game may not be as much of a “simulator” of Dragon Ball combat as say, the multitude of 3D fighters the franchise has received, but it’s still an amazing representation of it as a whole. The fact that it’s a fantastic game on its own without the Dragon Ball name is perhaps what separates it from the pack. In fact, there’s only one other fighting game based on an anime franchise that I like better than this one… and it is the next entry.
49. Mobile Suit Gundam Extreme Vs. Maxi Boost ON (Playstation 4, July 2020)
Domon, Heero, Setsuna…everyone who helped me...thank you all!
This game series admittedly has a high learning curve, but once you’ve got the hang of it, the combat is well-paced and can be very strategic at times. You and your partner could choose to focus on an opponent’s high cost unit and just eliminate it twice. Or you could split off and just 1v1 and hope both of you can manage on your own. Obviously people who can talk to each other have an advantage, but most experienced players can find a rhythm with a shuffle partner. 
One may think this game would take a lot of influence from the MCU and movies, and the looming specter of that is felt, but most characters surprisingly skew much closer to their traditional comic book portrayals. The game’s plot and lore actually take an awful lot from the comics, and specifically more recent stuff that was well-received or at least infamous. The King in Black storyline and the Krakoa era of the X-Men are heavily-referenced, to name a couple major things that pop up. The year 2099 is a backdrop for the overarching plot of two timelines’ versions of Doctor Doom going to war with each other. 
Ultra Street Fighter IV is probably my favorite fighting game overall, but Maxi Boost ON is definitely a close second and possibly the one I’ve put the most time into. Hell, the first few games using this style of gameplay were even developed by Capcom!
I’ve only played the Gundam “Vs.” series since the first Extreme Vs. for PS3, but I locked in after that, getting its follow-up “Full Boost” and this- its most recent home incarnation. Well, technically there’s also Gundam Versus, but most people ignore that one in favor of this since Maxi Boost ON is the closest to the arcade experience you can get at home.
I’ve been a big fan of the Gundam franchise since Wing hit US airwaves back in 2000, but much like Dragon Ball… the selection of video games for it has always been an extremely (no pun intended) mixed bag. The Gundam Vs. games for earlier consoles seemed cool, but the combat looked extremely clunky and slow-paced to me. The original Extreme Vs. finally upped the pace of fights for me to compare it favorably to the Virtual On series, which I previously spoke of on this list. Being the Gundam fan I was, I was determined to learn the game mechanics of this series and I did and now I’m hopelessly addicted to it.
The basic setup for combat in these games is two versus two, with you and a partner teaming-up to take down the enemy team. You can switch lock-on between your two opponents and finding a good synergy with your partner is a must as you cover each other’s backs. The massive and varied roster of mobile suits to select from all have very different capabilities in a match, and as you share a “cost bar” with your teammate, you must also balance your unit’s cost to stand a better chance. It is a battle of attrition as much as skill in the end.
This game series admittedly has a high learning curve, but once you’ve got the hang of it, the combat is well-paced and can be very strategic at times. You and your partner could choose to focus on an opponent’s high cost unit and just eliminate it twice. Or you could split off and just 1v1 and hope both of you can manage on your own. Obviously people who can talk to each other have an advantage, but most experienced players can find a rhythm with a shuffle partner.
Here’s a match I did in the beta for Maxi Boost ON that demonstrates the combat and how it can turn around in an instant. Also, it amuses the heck out of me, as you might be able to tell-
The game features full voice acting from the Japanese cast, with English subtitles for most pre- and post-fight dialogue. Due to the “cross-universe” nature of the game, it’s really fun to hear characters from different timelines react to or interact with each other and there are tons of in-jokes, especially between characters who share the same voice actor.
You can also assign “navigators” consisting of supporting characters that comment on your fights. They’re mostly cute girls but if you want Bright Noa or Gihren Zabi complimenting your skills, that is totally an option as you can see in the above clip.
The playable roster of the game is expansive and includes nearly 200 units from across the franchise. If you’re a Gundam fan, you’re going to find at least ONE of your favorite mobile suits in here. I’ve been consistently playing Maxi Boost ON since its release and can effectively use over 80% of the selectable mobile suits in the game by this point. My absolute favorites/mains are probably the Kshatriya, the Crossbone Gundam X-2, and the Full Armor ZZ Gundam, but there are dozens of others I can win pretty consistently with.
Mastering or elevating your skill with a mobile suit you haven’t used a lot is satisfying as well and can lead to some rewarding victories. Even the lowest-tier suits have their advantages and winning with something like Doan’s Zaku can make for quite the memorable gaming moment, as you can see here with another match of mine-
Six years on, I am so obsessed with playing this game that I literally have collected all the favorite matches I’ve ever played on that very YouTube channel and continue to do so to this day. When I’m really bored I can just pull up a random collection of matches and bask in old glories- it’s probably not healthy.
Sadly, it doesn’t seem like current developer Namco Bandai will release a new home version for consoles anytime soon. The current arcade version of Extreme Vs.- “Extreme Vs. 2 Infinite Boost”, is actually one of, if not THE most profitable arcade game in Japan as of this writing. Apparently the company is worried that a new home version will cut into arcade profits, which gives you an idea of just how popular the series is in its home country.
In whatever case, Maxi Boost ON’s PS4 servers are still relatively active right now, although less so in the West. However, I can always count on a dedicated group of fans playing at night and on weekends whenever I want a match. I hope one day this series will get popular enough in the West for another Extreme-ly long-winded sequel title to be released on home consoles.
50. Marvel Rivals (Playstation 5, December 2024)
Better stop that vehicle!
Three anime-ass things in a row to close this list out? I’m such a weeb. However, this is an anime-ass thing crossbred with another franchise I love- Marvel Comics. I can’t believe this game has been out for over a year now as of this writing, but I’m still playing it consistently so it qualifies for this list!
Marvel Rivals is a free-to-play hero shooter where you form teams of Marvel heroes and go head-to-head in various gametypes typical of shooters. I’ll admit I only took interest in it because of the Marvel connection, as I’ve played very little Team Fortress and never played Overwatch- a game that this one heavily utilizes the formula of.
It’s straight-up competition with a player selecting their hero from a pretty expansive roster and fulfilling a specific role on a squad of six heroes as they battle an opposing team. You’ve got three classes here- Vanguard, Duelist, and Strategist.
Vanguards are the “tanks”, absorbing damage for their teammates and pushing forward. Duelists are the attackers and the most varied class, possessing numerous strategies to eliminate single foes or corral groups. Finally, Strategists are the healers and buffers, restoring health or granting combat advantages to their teammates. There’s fun to be had with each class and you can change characters mid-match based on the composition of your team and its needs.
The gameplay is fun and engaging and easy to pick up after a short time. Every character feels unique, gameplay-wise and to their own comic book or movie “rep”, as it were. Moon Knight is at his best striking from the shadows or high points while Captain America leads from the front, shielding and boosting his team’s morale and abilities. Iron Fist gets up in an opponent’s face with barrages of punches while Hawkeye fires from a distance to pick off enemies with precision arrows. The developers did a fantastic job of making sure just about every character feels faithful to the core of what makes them cool and specific.
One may think this game would take a lot of influence from the MCU and movies, and the looming specter of that is felt, but most characters surprisingly skew much closer to their traditional comic book portrayals. The game’s plot and lore actually take an awful lot from the comics, and specifically more recent stuff that was well-received or at least infamous. The King in Black storyline and the Krakoa era of the X-Men are heavily-referenced, to name a couple major things that pop up. The year 2099 is a backdrop for the overarching plot of two timelines’ versions of Doctor Doom going to war with each other.
Aside from perhaps the Iron Fist in this game being Lin Lie instead of Danny Rand, most of the lore popping up here seems pretty evergreen and timeless to the Marvel universe as a whole. Although more recently-created characters like Luna Snow and Jeff the Land Shark have probably broken through into the larger public zeitgeist thanks to their starring roles in this game.
I’ve played nearly the entire roster at least once, but my favorite guys to use in this game are Moon Knight, Namor, Hawkeye, Invisible Woman, Captain America, Iron Man, and Squirrel Girl. “Convoy” is my favorite game type, where you and your team escort a moving vehicle to its destination while the opposing team tries to stop you. I hate escort missions in games as a rule, but it’s pretty fun as hell in this one.
How fun any match is usually depends on how well your team is constructed and how often they support one another. Here’s a highlight clip of a match where I eliminated the entire enemy team with Moon Knight despite dying and being resurrected by Rocket Raccoon in the middle of the melee-
Rivals is great fun if you’re looking for pure competition and teamwork and nothing really deeper in terms of progression. I mean, it’s free-to-play, so you can’t expect some sprawling story mode, even though there is plenty of plot and lore in the game thanks to unlockable text stories that flesh out the world. The interaction between characters is another treat, as every character has specific dialogue with every other character- much of it filled with Marvel history references and in-jokes.
The anime-inspired art style also works incredibly well and makes the game look beautiful in motion. Seriously, I’ve scarcely ever seen more lovingly-animated dust clouds in one stage’s victory animation-
As I said before, Marvel Rivals has been active for over a year as of this writing and it shows no signs of slowing down at the moment. I’m always eager to see what new characters they’ll add to the roster and what innovations to the core gameplay they can make in the future. It just goes to show that I’ll try new things in games if you just mix in other elements I like.
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ANYHOW! That was my list of my top 50 favorite video games! I spent a lot of time refining it and I’m pretty happy with my final picks. However, if you’ve ever read one of my lists before, you know I always do one more special “0” entry to finish it off. Usually I’d do something like my LEAST favorite video game ever, but instead I’m gonna dedicate the “0” entry to my favorite game that I KNOW is bad, but enjoy anyway!
0. Transformers: Beast Wars Transmetals (Playstation, July 2000)
My plan is to lure the Maximals to our stronghold, the Dark Side. Then, we beat them mercilessly! We crush! We smash! They'll be forced to retreat! And we follow them all the way to their base. Hahahahahahaha, yessss, hahahahahahaha! Get it? 
So yeah, I unabashedly love this game while still recognizing its flaws. It’s got a pretty cool soundtrack too, with an appropriately-metal main theme that you can hear in the opening movie that I posted at the head of this entry. David Kaye’s Megatron saying the developer’s name (“GenAzea, yesssss”) at the outset is also a memorable and hilarious touch.
Obviously I’m a massive Transformers fan, and while “Fall of Cybertron” is my favorite Transformers game, I’ll take an interest in ANY game with the franchise name attached.
Beast Wars had a previous game for the Playstation- a third-person shooter that was well… demonstrably NOT GOOD. A more serious crime was that it was NOT FUN either and exceedingly difficult to play. The most serious crime of all was that it wasn’t really even a good representation of the world of Beast Wars or its characters. “Transmetals” for the Playstation is… technically not a very good game either, but it manages to mostly sidestep those other pitfalls.
Transmetals is an arena fighting game starring most of the cast of Beast Wars, although only eight characters are initially playable, with some re-skinned secret characters eventually made available. The combat consists mostly of the two players wandering around the 3D stages shooting relatively unimpressive basic shots at each other or engaging in melee combat. Special moves feel a bit more robust and can be downright cheap when spammed.
Every character can transform between robot, beast, and a third “transport” mode for faster movement. Each mode (save the transport mode which is exclusively for movement) has its own set of techniques, including a unique super move for both robot and beast mode.
The stages have some built-in hazards and objects to be thrown, but otherwise it’s pretty basic combat that can feel both clumsy and repetitive at times. What makes it stand out for me, though, is that the developers clearly referenced the show and made an effort to make each character’s special techniques and super moves feel exclusive to the character using them.
I mean, there’s made-up bullshit in here where characters do stuff they never did in the cartoon, like Megatron breathing fire in his tyrannosaur mode. However, that’s counterbalanced when you come to something like his robot mode super move, where he leaps to the top of the stage, yells “All power to primary weapon”, and does his “KILL OPTIMUS PRIME” blast from the Season 2 finale!
Speaking of yelling, another thing that makes this game legit in my eyes is that it features about 80% of the show cast reprising their voice roles. There are a few noticeable absences whose characters need to be voiced by a substitute (Rhinox, Blackarachnia, and Quickstrike), but everyone else sounds bang-on. The script of the meager “story” mode is pretty dire, but pros like Garry Chalk and David Kaye make that shit work as best they can.
My favorite bit has to be Megatron explaining the “brilliant” plan that justifies the game’s “plot”. As quoted above, both the Maximals and Predacons’ plans are-
1. Lure the opposing team to their base.
2. Beat them up.
3. Let them retreat.
4. Follow them back to their own base.
5. Beat them up some more.
6. Profit?
It’s so dumb, and the N64 version of this game (which is basically an entirely-different game with the same premise) at least has individualized endings for each character that are surprisingly lore-heavy and reference larger Transformers history beyond Beast Wars. Still, I can’t help but love the Playstation version’s cutscenes for how cheesy and bad they are. Especially this over-dramatic Rattrap reaction shot-
So yeah, I unabashedly love this game while still recognizing its flaws. It’s got a pretty cool soundtrack too, with an appropriately-metal main theme that you can hear in the opening movie that I posted at the head of this entry. David Kaye’s Megatron saying the developer’s name (“GenAzea, yesssss”) at the outset is also a memorable and hilarious touch.
Transformers might not have the best track record when it comes to video games, but I do appreciate the effort made here with Transmetals. It is fun and it is faithful to the source material and that’s why it’s my favorite “bad” game.
Thanks for reading!
-Mike
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