30.
Wayne Gretzky's Ice Hockey
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Many people wrote off the game on first looks because it didn't have cool graphics like blades of steel (the poorest excuse of a hockey game that ever was). The strength of Wayne Gretzky is that the players act like real players. You can dump the puck, setup in a powerplay, pass around the neutral zone, and do pretty much whatever you want. There hasn't really been a game like it and I'm not sure if it could be pulled off by anything that isn't a top down view. One of the more fun things to do was play the older teams from the early 70's, something that I haven't seen from any game since. (The opening was short but dramatic with Gretzky coming down the ice and shooting the puck into the monitor breaking it. On the Amiga it looked so real that the first time I saw it I remember jumping back a bit)
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29.
Monkey Island 3
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By far the funniest game that I've ever played. Normally I hate it when games go on with long speeches by characters, but I can't get enough of this. The puzzles also make sense and you can essentially figure them out without any external help. Some say that the fourth one in the series was the best but I couldn't disagree more. The 3D is okay but can't compare with the animation quality of this installment.
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28.
It Came From The Desert
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Cinemaware had a great idea to use the Amiga's graphics and sound to create games that were like small movies. It Came From the Desert really feels like you're in an old 50's movie, and I really mean 'in'. Events happen regardless if you're there to witness them or not. If you sleep through them then you might hear about what happened if you ask the right people, but otherwise you'll be left in the dark. The dark is also the best play to play this game, with the sound turned up and no one else around. The giant ants that come out get you aren't that scary, but the music and the weird people are enough to freak you out.
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27.
Resident Evil Code:Veronica
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The first game that showed me that 3D could be handled in a way to make a role playing game even better. The game does an amazing job of putting you right in the action and you feel like you've become your character and fear every turn. Not nightmare-inducing scary like Silent Hill, but it's really going for more of a playable story.
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26.
Shenmue II
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Right off the bat I'll admit that this game has the major problem of being very slow to load off the disk, and it does it often. I'm putting it here because it has achieved the dream of making a game that is just like real life. When you land in Hong Kong at the beginning you don't have much money, so you need to get some to live. You don't get it by finding it in boxes or on dead bodies, but by actually doing work, work that can take hours to do just to get paid. It has huge expansive areas of streets and buildings with people walking all around going to specific places, and if you stop to talk to them they all have different things to say. The pigeons will fly out of the way if you run through, but if you walk they'll simply try to move. But you still have a story to guide you through, nothing so strong that you can't wander off it, but enough to make sure that you don't just stay stuck tending your gambling machine every day. At the very least, this game shows that the Dreamcast can compete with the PS2 which makes you wonder about one of them.
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25.
Pong
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I'm not just putting up Pong because it's the grandaddy of all games, but because it's fun to play. In reality there isn't much difference between this and arkanoid and tennis and all the other ball back-and-forth games. Another one that shows that simple can still be fun.
(note: we actually had a system that only played pong on our TV when i was very young, but I can't remember what it was called so I'll put up arcade).
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24.
Mario Kart
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Perhaps the most fun race game to play with others. Although I prefer the GBA version the first SNES one is more fun to play with other people because of the larger screen and the ability to see yourself in the other's window. Nintendo has this ability to take the same characters and same ideas and import them into a completely different format with fabulous results. I still like being Donkey Kong and smashing people into the lava on corners.
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23.
Tetris
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Everyone's favorite puzzle game. Although I had played this first on a computer it was the handheld that brought it to life. I suppose that it's because you don't have to have much time to have a quick game, and not much screen space is needed. Then again, it might just be because of the catchiest music in the world! I often wonder if the guy who created it actually ended up with any of the profits.
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22.
Jumpman
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What was so cool about this game was how there didn't seem to be any rules. Sure you have to stay on the platforms and you can only jump so far, but if you jumped in the air and could just manage to touch another piece of the platform or latter (or rope) before you fell you would survive. The character seemed to move very freely through the environment making it a good combination of action and strategy. This was the one game that I used to want to have a C64 machine for and couldn't wait to play it when I got to my cousin's house.
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21.
Poy Poy
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Simply put, the greatest party game ever. Sure there are games that are longer and more thought out, but for simple "lets play a game" with 4+ people it can't be beat. First of all the idea is just fantastic, put a bunch of cute characters into an area and let them throw rocks and bombs at each other. Add in special moves and different abilities and you have a setting for lots of yelling and screaming. My personal favorite moment is when I can line everyone up to get hit by the mirror shot, only beat by doing the same thing on the wind level and having the shot move around to hit the others as many times as possible.
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