Classic 10 (Your Top 10)

Member Name: R_Easton

Product:	Your Top 10
Date:	10/10/01 (156 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: These are the ten (+ ten more) best games ever!

Disadvantages: I may or may not or am biased towards certain genres.

This was hard to decide, I eventually got it down to twenty, and then managed to decide on my top ten.

So here they are, the ten best games ever.

10. Dungeon Keeper (Electronic Arts (PC) 1997)
The classic fight against evil was twisted round in this game where you got to be the evil invader with an army of monsters and beasts. The game had 25 levels, where you spent most of your time building a dungeon, attracting evil creatures and killing the heroes of the realm. You, as the Dungeon Keeper, could also cast magic, specialist rooms (like training rooms for your creatures to practise fighting in), lay traps for heroes and slap your creatures! The aim of the game was to turn the entire realm to evil. On later levels not only did you have to defeat heroes, you also had to defeat other Keepers who were competing for the same thing as you.
Best Bit: Making your Horned Reaper berserk (by slapping him/not feeding him or doing anything else at all to this moody fella) and letting him loose in enemy territory.
Funniest Bit: Watching your Hellhound urinate on the graveyard to rot the corpses faster.


9. Lemmings (Psygnosis (PC) 1993)
I spent hours playing Lemmings all those years ago, what an exciting game! (things do change) This is really only here for nostalgia reasons; there are better games around.) Lemmings was one of the first games I ever played on the PC. It was a puzzle game where you had anything between 2 and 100 lemmings (depending on the level) and you had to navigate them to the level exit. Without your guidance, the lemmings would have just walked in a straight line until they reached holes, traps, crushing devices and anything else that could kill them. You saved them by giving them exact commands of what to do; Stand here and don’t let anyone pass, dig a tunnel, build some stairs, blow yourself up etc. You only had certain commands on each level and a set number that you could use.
Best Bit:
Getting 100% saves
Funniest Bit: Telling all your lemmings to blow themselves up at the same time.


8. Black & White (Electronic Arts (PC) 2001)
I was looking forward to this game for ½ of the 4 years that it took to make it. It was going to be the BEST GAME EVER!!! Unfortunately, the bugs and the shortness of the game mean it’s only the eighth best game ever. This was the game where you really were GOD. The most innovative bit, and the bit that got me interested in it in the first place, was the navigation system. This involved no keyboard and no on screen buttons. The game is purely controlled by the mouse.

The idea of the game was that you, as God, have to widen your ‘area of influence’ by making people believe in you. You can do this the Good/White way, the Bad/Black way or several greyish colours in between. The total freedom of how to achieve your objectives is up to you and the decisions you make affect the way your followers act. Another innovative feature of the game was the A.I. of your ‘Creature’. By ‘your creature’ I mean ‘your 100ft high slightly obese cow/monkey/tiger’. This was the creature that you trained up to do your bidding. The creature watches everything you do and, in time, will be able to do the same. You could train your creature to do anything you liked.
Best Bit: Almost crying with happiness when my creature learnt how to create clouds out of thin air and make them empty themselves over the fields.
Funniest Bit: Training your creature to throw followers into the sea.


7. Red Alert (Electronic Arts (PC) 1997)
This game, even though it’s in my top ten, I never bought, I don’t know why. I still played it though. I still played it a lot. Red alert was a semi-historical game. It’s based in the Second World War, but not as we remember it. The story is that sometime near the beginning of the war Einste
in(!?) invents a time machine and goes back in time and kills Adolf Hitler before he comes to power. This means, come 1939, the allies and the soviets don’t have a common enemy and are forced to fight each other(!?). It was an R.T.S game and the average level consisted of; find somewhere near an ore field to build a base, build a base, build several hundred infantry and go and completely destroy the enemy base (you could also use tanks/boats but that’s too complicated for simple minded me).
Best Bit: Completely outnumbering the enemy and destroying them with no trouble at all.
Funniest Bit: Completely outnumbering the enemy and destroying them with no trouble at all!


6. Doom 1+2 (Id software (PC) 1994-5
I couldn’t choose between these two, as they are very similar (Doom 2 has a Double-Barrelled shotgun and some extra enemies). Doom completely revolutionised the F.P.S world (just in case you don’t know, an F.P.S is a First Person perspective Shooter). It had great weapons and the A.I was great for it’s day. The great level design means you regularly walk round a corner and straight into an enemy.

The story was that you are elite marine working on the planet mars. One day you get a transmission from a miner on one of Mars’ moons (Phobos, I think, if you know better please say so in the comments section) saying they are under attack. You go up there with your squadron and are left outside the building to guard and wait for your companions return. After waiting over an hour, you start to worry that they aren’t coming back. You decide to go in there after them but unfortunately they have only left you a pistol and have taken all the other weapons with them. You go in and can here growling noises down the corridor. The door slams shut! There’s only one way out now…
Best Bit: getting the BFG and kicking some serious butt.
Funniest Bit: getting a berserk and killing
enemies bear-fisted.
Other Funniest Bit: getting an invisibility, shooting into a room full of enemies and watching as they kill each other trying to work out where the shots are coming from!


5. Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’ Revenge (Lucasarts (Praise them)(PC) 1994)
This was the peek of Lucasarts gaming (that’s pretty high) in my opinion and also one of (if not the) funniest game ever. You controlled Guybrush “I can hold my breath for ten minutes” Threepwood, a mighty pirate. Monkey Island, like all the classic Lucasarts games from that time, is a Puzzle/Adventure game. Ex: Get the screw from the bottom of the cupboard, give it to the ship builder, when he’s built a ship go to Nonkey island (This doesn’t actually feature in the game). The story is that after defeating the ghost pirate LeChuck in the first game Guybrush finds himself being responsible for the re-incarnation of LeChuck (of the zombie kind). After many hilarious adventures Guybrush finally finds himself in a tough battle with LeChuck and has to- no that’ll ruin the game for anyone who hasn’t played it. But it may be the best game ending ever. The brilliant puzzles means this game will last for many hours.
Best Bit: The Ending (I’ll say no more, if you’ve played the game you’ll know it though)
Funniest Bit: THE WHOLE GAME (sorry, but it’s so funny)


4. Gran Turismo (Polyphony Digital (PSX) 1997)
Gran Turismo “the ultimate driving simulator”, another game that has stolen much of my life. It was different to all other racing games (and still is if you don’t include it’s sequels). In it you start with 10,000 credits with which you can buy a not very good car. You then do license tests, which allow you to compete in championships. When (if) you win races you get money, which you can spend on buying better cars and/or tuning your old cars. When you’ve g
ot enough money you can buy your very own Mitsubishi GTO Twin turbo!! (It IS the best car in the game, when fully tuned has about 950 Hp) The game also has arcade mode, which is a lot easier to just play, as you don’t need to buy your cars. The game also has a two-player mode which can do arcade mode style, with the arcade cars, or you can play a memory card battle. In this you put your memory card in one slot, and your friend’s memory card in the other. You can then use the cars from your saved game. This is a good way of settling arguments about who’s cars are the best.
Best Bit: Completing every championship
Funniest Bit: Lapping the other cars in your GTO twinturbo

3. Sim City 2000 (Maxis (PC) 1995)
Down to the Top 3, and they’re all strategy games (whoops!). Sim City gave you $10,000, building rights and a large square of land. You could build anything anywhere (but no one would anywhere except the best place). You could build residential, commercial and industrial areas, airports, seaports and military bases, power plants, water pumps and arcologies. It’s the game that lets you be the City planner that you never wanted to be! Such a challenging game as well. How do you put the residential area near to the shops and simultaneously near and far from the factories? Solving this question took much of my time and of many others. Will Wright made many other Sim games but this was never beaten by any (well, maybe The Sims). This game was special, as it didn’t have a finishing point; you just kept going until your bank balance went of the screen. The only time you had game aims were when you were playing in scenario mode. These would usually be similar to “An earthquake has destroyed most of the city, rebuild it to populate 50,000 people”.
Funniest Bit: Letting all the disasters happen on your city all at once.
Best Bit: Having significantly good fire-fighting and police ser
vices to stop the all the disasters!


2. Rollercoaster Tycoon (Hasbro (PC) 1998)
I remember first hearing about RCT. It was in the first issue of PC gamer I ever bought. There was a preview of the game, and a three level demo. A coincidence for you, I bought the issue because it had ‘battle of the unofficial sequels’ for the game at number one. (That may give it away a bit.) Rollercoaster Tycoon was the third game in the ‘Tycoon’ series. In it you played, similarly to ‘Theme Park’ (Bullfrog), you played a entrepreneur with a loan (usually £10,000 to start with) with which you could build theme park rides, ‘kiddies rides’, rollercoasters, shops and everyone’s favourite attraction: Toilets! You set entrance fees, ride fees, shop prices and toilet fees. The biggest difference strategically in the game from Theme Park was the rollercoaster building. In Theme Park your rollercoasters excitement was judged just by the type. In RCT it was judged by the rollercoaster type and by the actual design. Making a rollercoaster high or fast made it exciting but making it too high or too fast made it scary and nauseating. This made rollercoaster design an art rather than just something quick to attract the crowds. Designing rollercoasters could become quite addictive. In fact, I’m going to have to leave now, as I need to finish the Vomitmeister Deluxe 2001™©®…

1. Civilisation II (Microprose (PC) 1996)
Here it is, ‘The Best Game Ever!’™. This game has stolen more of my life than any other. Civilisation is the most strategy filled game I have ever played. A game of it can last over 100 hundred hours, and you can always come back for more. The idea of Civilisation was to build an empire, starting with just one or two settler groups. These settlers could found your first city, and in this city you could build more units. These varied from more settl
ers to warrior units. These warrior units could be improved by another important aspect of the game, science. In the game you had to allocate your trade resources to three different things: science, gold and luxuries (happiness of your people). These of course had to add up to 100% so if you wanted more gold this would mean sacrificing science. Science allows you to research new technologies, which begin with ‘Iron Working’ and ‘The Wheel’ and go right into the future when you can fly to Alpha Centauri to win the game. Scientific research also allows you to build new units (from legions to tanks) and buildings. Buildings are another essential part of the game and can do many things from improve happiness and increase science to defend your city better. At the high end of buildings are the wonders of the world. These take a very long time to build and can only be built once in the world. They are well worth it though and can greatly improve the city that they are built in. This game is my favourite game ever and I still enjoy playing it even now, after the many hours I have spent on it.



Top Twenty
If you had asked me for my top twenty, these would be the other ten (but maybe not in this order)

Half-life – The only F.P.S where you were actually interested in the story.
Super Mario Kart – I spent many hours playing this two player on the S.N.E.S
The Sims – The Virtual Dollhouse you always wanted (sorry, I’ve said that before)
Worms Armageddon – Before this game, I never realised how fun blowing up worms was.
Tomb Raider – Revolutionary adventure game
Crash Bandicoot 3 – My favourite series of platformers, this was the best of the three.
Baldur’s Gate – A great free exploring RPG.
Final Fantasy VII – Probably the best RPG ever, but not as much freedom as Baldur's Gate.
Quake III – The ultimate in multi
-player F.P.S, not much single player though.
GTA – Another game where you got to be the bad guy, with driving and running from the cops!

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