- If you missed #50-#46, click here! And for goodness sake, don’t click here! You’ll regret it! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hey, g1’s you’re favourite Swede is here today to bring you the second part of his super-special awesome Top 50 list. It feels great to have finally started a big project like this, even if I don’t get that much time to write on it. Thankfully, I’m getting a whole new, ultra-efficient computer from my school this Wednesday, so I’ll probably have even more time to write on my blog and trying to make everything perfect. Also, thanks for the awesome feedback in my last entry. I spend a lot of time writing and I didn’t get to bed before 4 in the morning. Thankfully, my first lesson on Mondays doesn’t start until 11:50 AM, so I had plenty of time sleeping, thank you very much. It’s just a shame that it wasn’t a Top Post, though… Ah, well, maybe this will do a bit better. =) #45 – Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards Developer: HAL Laboratory Released on: Super Nintendo Genre: Platformer I’m actually pretty ashamed to say this, but I did not discover HAL Laboratory’s lovable mascot Kirby until the N64 where I constantly played Super Smash Bros. with my friends. I have no idea why I didn’t check him out. Maybe it was because of peer pressure, where all my friends saw Kirby as a big pink marshmallow made by the hands of a guy who admire other guys a bit too much. However, when I finally got to play Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards, I vowed not to judge a game by the cuteness and instead try to look at it from a reviewer’s perspective. That’s not to say that games like Barbie’s Horse Adventures would appeal to me, but Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards certainly made me more open minded to games that didn’t allow you to equip a gun that shoot shurikens or lightning or obliterate creatures with your bare bodyweight. Why? Well, open up and shallow this load… of text of me explaining why. Perverts…! The story involves a planet called Ripple Star which is home to a bunch of fairies and a Crystal which happen to contain some awesome power. Since this crystal holds such tremendous power, it was bound to attract a villain or two. Enter Dark Matter and his puppet Zero Two, the two villains of the series. These two bastards want steal the Crystal from Ripple Star and they plan to use it for their own evil deeds. But as Dark Matter is closing in on Ripple Star, the queen of the fairies orders another fairy called Ribbon to take the crystal to another place. Being the good fairy that she is, she obeys and tries to escape with the crystal. However, Dark Matter notices this and knocks her unconscious and he breaks the crystal into 74 pieces as they scatter all across the solar system, while Ribbon herself falls unconscious to Pop Star. When she wakes up, she meets Kirby who holds two of the 74 crystals. And after Ribbon discovers that Kirby is a very friendly creature, they both decide to set out on a journey to retrieve all 72 pieces of the crystal before Dark Matter and Zero Two does. The story isn’t actually entirely necessary when it comes to a game like this, and you can clearly tell that it isn’t very much emphasis on the story whatsoever. The game developers at least tried to give you a good story to keep you motivated and it actually works. But other than the story, there isn’t any form of character development or any plot-twists. But who the hell cares, it’s a Kirby-game. As I said, the story isn’t entirely necessary because it gets easily overshadowed by the best part of the game. The game is a 2.5D platformer, which means that all the models are made in 3D, but you still run on a 2D plane. As with most Kirby games, the game developers added a unique twist to the game to make the games seem less repetitive. You can still swallow your enemies and utilize their element, such as fire, but now you can combine two powers which each other to create a whole new power-up. There are seven powers (Burn/Fire, Stone/Earth, Ice/Water, Needle, Bomb, Spark/Electricity, and Cutter) and a total of 35 different combinations, and it’s always fun to combine two things like… if you combine Burn and Sword you get a huge flaming sword which obliterates almost any enemy foolish enough to stand in your way. And when you’re busy experimenting with the different elements to see what dastardly weapon you can come up with next, the story gets easily overshadowed. Games about Kirby always have, as stated before, a unique twist to their games to make the games less repetitive. It’s a wonderful way of keeping a franchise fresh and it makes the game a whole lot more memorable than it already is. I think Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards hit the ball out of the park when it comes to being unique with this game, because I don’t think there is any game where you can transform into a refrigerator and throw food at your enemies. And you definitely won’t see any armoured space marine with a grouchy voice and with no human emotion throw cakes at the horde of aliens approaching them - at least not yet! It just goes to show that you don’t need to have a muscular and unlovable character to make a game likeable, and a colourful game hasn’t hurt anyone yet, has it? #44 – Grand Theft Auto 2 Developer: DMA Design Released on: PC, PSX, Dreamcast Genre: Sandbox Ah yes, Grand Theft Auto. I don’t think there is any franchise that has caused even more controversy, with the possible exception of Mortal Kombat. But I guess you can say that you’re asking for it when you name your game after a felony, because a lot of people gets “turned on” by doing something forbidden (believe it or not, I’m referring to our precious Game OverThinker) like stealing apples from the neighbours tree. The controversy has especially bloomed during the most recent titles, where realism started to become one of the franchises major selling points. The fact that you can go on rampage in everyday New York seems like a genius idea if you want to unwind from a stressful day at work or school. But there was in fact a time in GTA-history when Rockstar North was called DMA Design and when video games where new enough to not have realism as a big part of the game, a time known as the 1990’s. And in 1999, we were exposed to the first direct sequel in the series: Grand Theft Auto 2. A big part of GTA nowadays is its story, and the impact of your playing habits on the world around you. Well, in Grand Theft Auto 2, the story of the game is completely absent. The game even has the balls to name the city to “Anywhere, USA”, implying that the game could might as well take place in your local hometown (if you’re American of course, I have a little problem imagining myself living in an American city where big groups of Elvis look-alikes wander the streets with no destination and where maniacs spray your ass full of lead). However, the game isn’t all about rampaging and the game actually offers you three factions that you can do missions for and they are as follows: The Yakuza, The Rednecks and the Russians. Their friendship with you is shown by the meter in the right top corner, and they will become hostile if the meter is low enough. If the meter is high enough, however, the gang in question will protect you from cops and other gangs shooting at you. But if you’re playing GTA 2, chances are that you’re not playing it to complete missions to complete the game. No, you’re obviously playing the game because of the wacky world you’re set out to destroy! The game really emphasises you killing everyone around you with having tons and tons of weapons cheats, several challenges spread out the world map encouraging you to fry every person you see with a gun that spreads lightning and they’ve even hidden tanks in the city for you to hijack. Of course, there is some emphasis on killing in the newer games as well, but nothing in the franchise makes me your gleeful than the announcer yells “ELVIS HAS LEFT THE BUILDING” after you’ve torched a group of Elvis Presley-look-alikes with your flamethrower. It’s not hard to see why Rockstar North wants to go with a more realistic feeling with the newer games. The illusion of you dismembering good, American citizens with the blades of a flying chopper in New York City is something that really fills anyone with a sense of dark humour with a laugh, because doing something that would probably give you death penalty in a game with is a great way to relieve stress if you can take out your anger of virtual representations of the people around you. And with the newer games just seem to make it as realistic as possible, Grand Theft Auto 2 seems to lift up the fun in killing someone virtually and make the whole killing aspect of the game a whole lot funnier and it makes you come back for more. But I wouldn’t want to call this the best GTA game in the franchise, you’ll just have to stay tuned for that. #43 – Fable: The Lost Chapters Developer: Lionhead Studios, Big Blue Box Released on: PC Genre: RPG One of the worst things that can happen when you’re a child is your parents breaking up and divorcing. When I was about 11 years old, this happened to me and I had to start moving between my mom and dad’s house like a piece of luggage. My parents divorcing made me pretty upset for a long time and I needed something to unwind. Thankfully, my new brother had an Xbox with several games including Fable. While I thought that the game was great, I felt that the game was still extremely short and I thought that it needed something more. But in 2004, a PC port was released for the game Fable: The Lost Chapters and it was going to add a thrilling conclusion or something that you would otherwise call an expansion. So did this game have the extension that I searched for, or was it just filler material? Fable: The Lost Chapters is essentially the original Fable until the part where you get to choose between if you choose to kill your sister or throw Jack of Blades sword into a vortex. But for those of you who do not know the backstory behind Fable, let me fill you in. You play as a nameless, mute boy who lives with his father and sister in the quiet town of Oakvale in the prosperous nation of Albion. No mother is present because she is out of town, as usual so she ironically leaves the father to do all the housework. But on the day of your sister’s birthday, Oakvale gets invaded by a group of bandits. After you manage to hide from the raid, you find your fathers corpse in Oakvale and your sister is nowhere to be found. There are still bandits in Oakvale and one of them manages to see you. As he rushes towards you to kill you, he himself gets killed by a mysterious man who can shoot lightning out of his hands. The man introduces him as Maze, and he offers you a place to live in exchange that you train for him and become his apprentice. You reluctantly accept, mainly because Oakvale is in flames and you start training to become the avenger of your family. The story is actually pretty damn good and it does a pretty good job drawing you in. I wouldn’t say that any of the characters are very well developed, but the story isn’t too predictable and it’s actually pretty fun to make impact on the story by utilizing the game’s major selling point: One of the biggest things about this game is that you get to choose if you want to be good or evil, depending on your actions in the game. To be evil you have to do evil things like punching citizens and slaughtering innkeepers. A great way of enhancing your evil look is to dress in black armour, wield a huge ass sword and be completely bald with a long moustache, all while looking like a total nimrod as possible by decorating your face with intimidating tattoos. Every man, woman or child in Albion will fear you as you step into a bar with while leaving a red, hellish trail behind you and with your red evil eyes and your large horns. On the other hand, if you decide to be a good guy, people will cheer on you for just walking into a town without even doing anything. As a good guy you have to resist killing entire villages just for giggles and convince yourself that stealing from the oblivious shopkeepers of Albion is bad thing. It’s definitely an easier task being an evil bastard because there’s almost no penalty with slaughtering an entire village and every guard from Oakvale to Knothole Glade (if you haven’t played Fable, the reference I made would fall flat on its ass). Sure, you get a hefty fine for using turning your local bar into an inferno, but just wait about 10 minutes and the inhabitants of the town you slaughtered have forgotten who you even are. While being good or evil probably is one of the best ideas ever for a role-playing game, the game has to still be linear. Just because you’re good or evil doesn’t really change the final boss or the ending itself (other than being given a final choice at the end). The game itself doesn’t seem to see itself than anything other than a non-linear game, because the there lies a whole open world before your feet and several squishy villagers to kill. But the biggest flaw in this game is that the open world isn’t really appealing. Besides the main quest, the game offers you a whole lot of other things you can do instead to make the game worth your money like marrying any NPC you wan’t (except for the guards and the kids, of course - guards have no soul!) regardless of gender. But when you have married your favourite generic NPC of your local town, nothing seems to happen more than that you can’t fool around with other NPC’s when your wife/husband sees you. Sure, you can smack your wife around like crazy or you can bone her until your penis drops off but there is no motivation of doing so. Not even the side quests offered by the headquarters are very rewarding either. But alas, Fable is definitely worth a spot on this list for being one of the most original RPG’s I’ve ever played. Sure, it’s a bit broken in terms of economy and side quests but a game allowing you to have 5 wives per town all while going from humping them to killing the entire village they’re living in is definitely not a game aspect that should be ignored. I think the game’s sheer originality is what makes this game land on the #43 spot. It’s extremely original, but if Lionhead had worked on working out the issues and making the side quests a bit more rewarding would definitely made this game a winner in my book. #42 – Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap Developer: Flagship, Capcom Released on: Game Boy Advance Genre: Adventure Of course a Zelda game would make this list, it’s just a matter of what game and where on the list. Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, the second (not counting the A Link to the Past-port) Zelda game for the Game Boy Advance, the first one being Four Swords Adventure. Many people speculate that this game is the first game in the debated Zelda timeline, most notably GameTrailers who showed the world their theory of the timeline in their 6 part retrospective. I usually stick to the GT’s version of the timeline because I think it’s more accurate (even though I do wish they could update their theory a bit when we hear more about the two new Zelda games coming out). But is the first game in the Zelda timeline worthy of being on this list? Let’s find out! The game starts when Princess Zelda comes to get take you to the Picori festival. The Picori, or “Minish” as they like to call themselves appear every 100 year to celebrate when they saved the Hylians from imminent destruction, thanks to one faithful Minish who wieled a weapon known as the Picori sword. And in memory of that day, a tournament of swordsmanship is held every 100 year and the winner gets to touch the Picori Sword. However, when both Zelda and Link (or whatever you want to call him, he’s always named “Tom” when I play the games) arrive to Hyrule’s castle town, the winner has already been chosen. A mysterious Wind Mage called Vaati has won the tournament with ease and has been awarded the honours of touching the Picori sword. But as Vaati approaches the sword, he instead decides to break it to steal the power that the Picori Sword has called the “Light Force”. When Zelda tries to stop him, Vaati turns Zelda into stone and knocks you unconscious. To Vaati’s demise, however, he does not find the Light Force and he sets out to find it. And now, the only one who can return Hyrule back to normal is you! The gameplay is actually pretty reminiscent of the older Zelda Games for the Game Boy, like Link’s Awakening. The first thing you might notice when playing this game is that you can not walk diagonal, like in A Link to the Past, but only up, down, left or right (pretty reminiscent, huh?). You can also wear two items at the same time, which means that you can use both A and B button for items, which means that you don’t have to have your sword and shield equipped all the time. Even though you can get past most hazards with only one item available, it’s still refreshing. Otherwise, the game runs with the same formula as the other games. If you haven’t checked out any Zelda game yet (why haven’t you!?), it’s essentially an adventure game with dungeons filled with brainteasers and… oh, who am I kidding, I’m not going to insult you by explaining how a Zelda game works? That’s just silly. I can’t really think of anything more to say about this game. I mean… it’s The Legend of Zelda, you always know what to expect when about these games – an epic adventure game filled with dungeons that will even frustrate you or fill you with glee when you realize that you can breeze through the dungeons without checking a walkthrough. Sure, the game is pretty easy compared to, say, Ocarina of Time, but comparing those two games pretty unfair. Since this game was released way back in 2005, it got pretty much overshadowed by the Nintendo DS which was released the same year and little did we know that Phantom Hourglass was on the horizon. And I would probably have put Phantom Hourglass on #42 instead of Minish Cap if I ever got to play the damn game (I still don’t own a DS). But to conclude this entry, I think I have to say that of the few Zelda games I’ve played, this ranks as one of the worse games out there. Don’t get me wrong, I like this game a lot, I just don’t think it’s as good as the other Zelda games out there. #41 – Power Stone 2 Developer: Capcom Released on: Sega Dreamcast, Arcade Genre: Fighter When Super Smash Bros. was released way back in 1998, 3D fighters instantly became popular. Breaking free from the standard formula of pitting two buff fighters against each other and have them fight for their lives was a daring concept, but it turned out to be a great success, so much so that the Super Smash Bros.-franchise probably is one of Nintendo’s most popular franchises. But for those of you who had access to an arcade hall, or owned a Sega Dreamcast, you were probably exposed to game called Power Stone. Power Stone was a 3D fighter as well, but it never really got the attention and praise that Super Smash Bros. got. Power Stone didn’t allow support for 4 characters and it was a pretty cheap fighter if you managed to gather all three Power Stones, which would turn you into something that could kill your opponent in an instant. However, a sequel for the game was released in 2000 and people who bought the first Power Stone had high expectations. Could this be a new rival for Super Smash Bros., or was it just one game in the mix of random 3D fighters? As Power Stone 2 is a direct port from the arcade to the Dreamcast, it’s completely absent of a story. Instead, you have the classic arcade mode which allows you and a friend to embark on fights across the world. While fighting, you can pick up a handful of different weapons that’ll help you dominate on the field, like swords, pipes, guns and shields (which is the only legit way you can guard yourself). Also, the Power Stones from the previous game make a glorious return. If you collect three Power Stones, you turn into something inhuman that could kill your opponent in an instant – BUT, they are a lot weaker in this game which means that you can’t kill anyone with the Power Stones if you acquire them all early in the match. One thing that also improved over the first game is there can be a total of 4 players on the field, which makes the game even crazier than it already is. Sure, it can be tough getting close to your enemies sometimes, but with the use of the right weapons at the right time, that flaw should easily be forgiven. Like Super Smash Bros., Power Stone 2 makes a brilliant job trying to step away from the standard fighting game formula that we’ve grown to love. Even though I’d still prefer Street Fighter over Power Stone, it still makes the game extremely enjoyable. I can’t think of any fighter today that plays the same way Power Stone 2 does, with its excessive amount of different weapons (including the Power Stones) and unique fighting style, Power Stone 2 still remains one of the most lovable and memorable fighting games today, thanks to its sheer originality. Like I mentioned in my review of this game, the greatness of this game still raises one more question. For those of you who’ve watched my review of this game would probably know what question I’m referring to, or maybe you’ve drawn that conclusion yourself. Where the hell is Power Stone 3? I’m amazed that no word about the Power Stone series has been heard yet. With Capcom recently revamping their own franchises such as Bionic Commando, Street Fighter and even Mega Man, why not give Power Stone, a franchise that’s just begging for a sequel, a chance? I guess if the game wasn’t given enough praise a sequel might not be worth making, but with the advancement of technology today it makes you wonder – how would Power Stone 3 be bad for Capcom? Like if you threw online mode into Power Stone, as well as the option as playing as more characters on different stages. Different gaming modes would be nice to see as well, like a Capture the Flag mode or something. I don’t really know, I don’t think I’m the right person to talk about that kind of stuff. But if Capcom is ready to revive some of their older franchises, why not revive Power Stone? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Man, I’m so tired that I can’t even give you a proper conclusion to this list. This took so long to write that I’m on the verge of sleeping on my desk (it’s ******* 3:30 AM here in Sweden). Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope that the length of this blog didn’t prevent you from reading it. Leave a comment, and have a good night! - Tremendous Tom