Today we continue to list like we have never listed before, lists being the lifeblood of bountiful internet traffic of course.
Moving on to games #90 to #81 and boy are there some big hitters here from my own personal history of video gaming. Whilst the previous entry may have had the odd eyebrow raising selection, I feel like it may start to happen with greater frequency now as we delve down ever closer towards the all-timers.
Enough vamping for time though, on to the games...
#90: The House of the Dead: Overkill (2009)
A guilty pleasure this one, an on-rails shooter that reimagined The House of the Dead as a grindhouse inspired horror action comedy experience. The tone is a bit more self-aware and knowing than the original games that preceded it and the dialogue is a lot more, what the word? Tarantino-esque I think some would say. Shlocky, let's say shlocky.
In any case I feel these were all changes for the better whilst keeping the general b-movie horror vibes intact from the earlier games. Whilst those games certainly have their fans I can't say anyone would say those games were all-time classics. Neither did they suffer from an over abundance of personality. Something that is definitely rectified with Overkill.
It wasn't a long game or a particularly sophisticated experience but the joys here are plentiful and sincere. The interplay between the odd couple main characters was a highlight and in all honesty I'm surprised this didn't end up relaunching the series with more of the same. A simple pleasure this game but memorable and entirely committed to the bit. As such I can appreciate it here and give it it's due.
#89: Super Fire Pro Wrestling X Premium (1996)
A departure here and the only instance where this will happen in this list. Whilst the original game here was a Japan only release, in this entry I am mainly referring to the emulated English language ROM hack released a few years later and generally available on most emulation sites in the early noughties.
I was pretty into the whole emulation scene at this point and fairly new to your emulators like Snes9x and ZSNES so this little ROM hack that could arrived at just the perfect time for me. It also happened to be my introduction to the Fire Pro Wrestling series, kicking off an association that has continued through many years and games since. Whilst I won't say this was the height of the series, it opened my eyes to new possibilities in pro wrestling as it was translated to video gaming.
I had already played a few wrestling games across several console generations by this time but beyond a scant few examples they couldn't be described as the most memorable or fun experiences. Generally they were mechanically simple, kinda sorta beat em ups but not as good as the foremost games in the actual beat em up genre.
Here was a game that looked simple graphically but required skill and timing. It didn't treat wrestling as a legitimate fight, it imbued the wrestling game with a sense of performance, of escalation as the moves get bigger and hit harder. You built the drama as the match progressed to the point where a successfully executed move could finish a match at any point.
Starting with light attacks to wear your opponent down before moving on to medium and eventually the major match ending moves. The sense of escalation was pleasing but it took patience and skill to pull off. There would be better Fire Pro Wrestling games to come with an honourable mention going to Fire Pro Wrestling World for being rather good to play and for also being more widely available and easier to acquire than some games in this series. In terms of games that made an impact on me however, this humble ROM hack is up there.
#88: The Simpsons: Hit & Run (2003)
Tie-in games were that strangest of things once upon a time. Strange that they were really plentiful but rarely any good. This is no less true of The Simpsons, the obviously huge TV show and IP that gave us many video games back in the 90's, none of which I can say were any fun at the time or have improved with the onset of nostalgia since. Zeitgeist popularity can cover a multitude of sins but they cannot make a bad game good. The Simpsons: Hit & Run on the other hand was an absolute blast to play.
A GTA clone set in the world of Springfield that maintained the look, feel and most importantly, the humour of the show. The game has enjoyed something of a popular revival online in recent times with many calling for the remaster treatment and I think they might be on to something there. It was a pretty comprehensive translation of the show with most of the prominent characters and locales making an appearence.
When Fortnite did their Simpsons themed mini-season back in late 2025, I found myself getting a strong hit of nostalgia myself for the earlier game and what it accomplished on a lesser budget than what Fortnite has available. All the years since and Hit & Run remains a beloved title sticking out above and beyond most of the other games that tried to go all GTA with limited success.
#87: Guacamelee! (2013)
Lucha libre wrestling is that most special of things. Bright, colourful and athletic, a spectacle imbued with tradition and cultural history. Colourful masks, high stakes and great drama, Guacamelee! has it all without actually being a wrestling game. A visually striking action puzzle platformer that sees you battle the forces of evil as a lone luchador on a quest to save his beloved. The sound, the presentation and the overall tone of dramatic cartoon comedy come together to make this a memorable experience very quickly. It's a game that is very aware of the absurdity of its premise but not so much that it actually undercuts it's own story and that's a balance I can appreciate.
Taking the world of Mexican wrestling as its starting point, the game becomes a rather comically literal battle between good and evil with a Metroidvania flavour that encourtages you to backtrack to previously inaccessible areas once you have collected the appropriate upgrade. The entire experience is light and breezy and the odd difficulty spike boss fight notwithstanding I remember having a blast with this on my PlayStation Vita back in the day and that's coming from someone who doesn't usually gravitate towards the Metroidvania genre. Honourable mention to the sequel that was great fun too as I may have mentioned in a previous end of year roundup.
#86: Blade Runner (1997)
This is not a list of my all-time favourite films but if I were writing such a list there's a good chance Blade Runner would be at the top of it. Love that film for a great many reasons, it's tone, atmosphere and world are impeccably crafted, its soundtrack is superb, it's ending monologue is poignant and beautiful. But what of the game? Not the 1985 ZX Spectrum release that arrived shortly after the film itself. Rather here I'm referring to the Westwood Studios effort that arrived a decade plus later. A point and click adventure game that makes no small effort to replicate the mood, feeling and aesthetics of the 1982 film.
It's an ambitious effort made by people with a lot of love for the source material. Throughout the experience you feel there has been no shortage of effort here in creating an actual detective game. You guide your character around dystopian Los Angeles searching for rogue replicants in a story concurrent to but seperate from the film. Frank Klepacki of Command & Conquer soundtrack fame gives a solid effort providing cover versions of the original Vangelis soundtrack. There's even multiple branching endings and the requisite doubt about your own very nature as your detective can also be a replicant depending on how the plot unfolds.
So why is it so high up in the ranking? I mean its a good game, these are all good games you're reading about here, least as far as yours truly is concerned. It's a great tie-in from a time when such things were rare but it could also require you to hunt for pixels in search of clues which could be frustrating. Whilst the pre-rendered backgrounds are pretty nice, the character models are pretty rough around the edges and whilst some gameplay segments excel themselves, others feel a little more by the numbers. There is also that attempt to capture the film's ambiguity about it's main character which doesn't quite work here as well or at least it felt a little forced to me.
In the end its an ambitious title that probably deserves more recognition than it gets now. Alas its a far from flawless game at the same time. Shame about the attempted remaster that came out a few years back which got recapped by yours truly shortly thereafter. It was a rare dip in quality from Nightdive Studios who could presumably do only so much when the source code was lost many years ago.
#85: Paradise Killer (2020)
One of the more recent games you will find in this list and a game I may have talked about at length not that long ago. A first person mystery based on an interdimensional island populated by gods who come together at the end of every age to see it out before the arrival of the new one. Only thing is, someone ended up dead at the most recent gathering of these colourful.and eccentric characters. A dreamy unreal setting populated by absurd and offbeat characters. It feels like a mid 90's televised fashion special crossed with a vaguely Lynchian murder drama. All of it packaged and presented as a game that could have been an obscure PS2 game from back in the day.
The curious blend of elements won me over at the time and looking back at it now I do applaud just how well it all comes together. What could seem random or disjointed actually flowed well and I became invested in the otherworldy drama unfolding around your character, a formerly exiled god by the memorable name of Lady Love Dies.
In some ways you could say the game is a victory for presentation over substance but I don't know if that's quite right. The vapourwave ambience and trippy colours do much to bring you into this world but once your arrive in it there's a lot of off-kilter charm and appeal to this world and it's characters. I think the game is more than the sum total of its parts and that all those parts were well chosen indeed, so it gets the nod here.
#84: Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars (2007)
Well ain't that just the way? You wait ages for one Command & Conquer reference on this blog and then suddenly two come along at once! Boy do I have some thoughts and feelings about the Command & Conquer franchise. A series that captured my teenage years in a way few others ever could. Top down real time strategy exemplified and whilst the going was good, the good was great. I'm getting ahead of myself here though for Tiberium Wars was perhaps the last hurrah before Electronic Arts completely mishandled the series and sent it off to mobile obscurity.
There is obviously some history here but this game in and of itself was pretty good. Command & Conquer with updated presentation, with the dark sci-fi trappings and earnest cut-scene mission briefings all intact. Whilst EA had a slightly better reputation than some companies at the time, I don't think gamers were really expecting them to produce something this good long after the closure of Westwood Studios and yet there it was, a game that seamlessly followed on from Tiberian Sun and contained all the established qualities of a C&C game.
The story was fun with rising stakes in a creeping doomsday scenario. The gameplay was smooth, responsive and well balanced. I even had a blast with multiplayer despite never actually winning a match that I can remember. It's bizarre that the same EA that produced this game would then go on to produce Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight three years later and for all intents and purposes, kill off the franchise for good.
Rumours pop up every once in a while for a revival but I think original players have long since given up hope on this one. Still, the last hurrah gets its spot here because for a brief moment there, Command & Conquer was back baby!
#83: Resistance: Fall of Man (2006)
From the file titled 'Franchises that Sony has forgotten about much to my displeasure' comes this little gem of a game from the launch era of the PS3. An alternative history of the mid-20th century that sees aliens take over the world after landing somewhere in Russia some decades prior. Now I say dark and dystopian like I say those words all the time and actually I do... but this was an impressively bleak setting for the standards of the time not to mention the plethora of first person shooters we had at this point.
A far cry from 'realistic' military shooters like COD. Insomniac Games created something pretty special here not just in this game but in the two sequels as well and its a shame that its now just one of the many properties left idle now in the Sony back catalogue. The general feel and setting of it is very WW2 but the sci-fi plot gives you some neat twists on established weapons. The gun that shot tracking bullets that could go around corners is the memorable highlight for me.
It comes back down to that bleak atmosphere though, overwhelming odds as insectivorous beings transform humans into horrors. A look and feel that channels the darkest days of war when all hope is lost. A sense that even when things are going your way it's only a matter of time until they turn back.
Thinking back on this game it was a bold choice for a launch title that fell somewhere between Call of Duty and Halo but felt very much like it's own distinct experience. It certainly differentiated itself from the competition by some margin. Anyway Sony, do the right thing and bring it back why don't you?
#82:Tony Hawk's Underground (2003)
Ah Tony Hawk, it's hard to convey what it was like when the original Tony Hawk's Pro-Skater came out back in 1999. It captured a certain something, bottled it up and packaged it in a format that was easily accessible and highly playable. To this day I could not describe myself in any way as an authority on the subject of pro-skating but these games did a lot to bring you into that world.
This was no less the case with Tony Hawk's Underground. I was in university when this one came out and as much as I enjoyed the previous games, this is the one that always comes to mind first when I think of this series. It was the story mainly, a rags to riches tale of fame, friendship and betrayal.
My memory may be lying to me as it has been a while but I don't think this had been done in any of the other games up until this point. It was an involving story that tried to capture something of the world in which it was based. It also had a banging soundtrack that would in no small way influence the content on my mp3 player for years to come.
The gameplay itself had been refined to perfection by this point and the entire thing just worked so well. Given the original games got the well deserved remaster treatment in modern times, I hold out hope I'll get to revisit this one at some point.
#81: What Remains of Edith Finch (2017)
A change of pace here as we see out this part of my top hundred with a genre that didn't really figure into my gaming habits back in the day. Largely because I don't think it existed back then to the best of my recollection, someone is naturally going to remind me of an obscure exception to the rule there.
Anyhow, What Remains of Edith Finch is a curious game. A first person exploration through an empty house you are returning to after a long time away and a re-telling of the many misfortunes that beset the family that once lived there. An open ended mystery of sorts as the family believed they were living in the shadow of a curse but were they really?
A thoughtful, poignant and strangely moving experience that slowly brings you into the lives of its many unseen characters. I was struck by the deft hand of the storyteller here all the way from the ambivalent opening to the final twist at the end. It wasn't a complex or a substantial experience, it lasted as long as it needed to and was all the better for it's brevity. More than anything else it was a well crafted journey with an ending that lingered with me long after completion. Often games don't end as strong as they start but this was a worthy story from beginning to end and as such it deserves a spot here.
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Well I think we can all agree that out of all the lists you might see on the internet today, this was certainly one of them. A countdown that will live on in the annals of the all-time great countdowns for sure.
Join me next time as we move on to entries #80 to #71. You will laugh! You will cry! You will probably cry some more! Adiós!
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