Level One – Mario Kart 8

List Item: Play 100 of the greatest computer games
Progress: 79/100Title: Mario Kart 8
Developer: Nintendo EAD
Original Platform: Wii U
Year: 2014

In the update I made at the end of 2018 for Play That Game there were two new entries in the Top 100 that I have already played: Mario Kart 8 and Overwatch. Whilst I could have just crossed them off and added to the tally, these were both games that I love so much that I wanted to refresh my memory before officially crossing them off.

As of this update, Mario Kart 8 is the third of three Mario Kart entries within the Top 100 (Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart 64 being the other two) and, now this might be recency bias talking here, I think it’s the best of the three. Maybe even the best Mario Kart game ever, although I will always have a soft spot for all the hours I played on Mario Kart Wii in my teenage bedroom.

The big change in Mario Kart 8 is the introduction of anti-gravity racing, which opened up a whole new swathe of track possibilities. It just feels that with every iteration of this series Nintendo find ways to refine and improve on the systems. It makes you wonder what they’ll do for the eventual follow-up, but with Mario Kart 8‘s Switch edition only being released in mid-2017 I doubt we’ll be getting a follow-up for a very long time.

I’ll be getting around to writing up Overwatch in the near future, but that’s going to have to wait until after Christmas and even then it might be delayed if I get Super Smash Bros Ultimate as a present.

Level One: Playing the 100 Best Video Games

Now here is an item where being part of a long running gaming blog will give forth its fruit. I mean… look at this amazing treasure trove of games!

The search for a good list of the 100 best computer games lead me to many different sites. The fact that there is no TSPDT or Acclaimed Music for games is rather telling (and makes me wish I could come up with the code to start my own). Failing to find this I happened up this post made by the people of Gamesradar earlier this month and saw it as a sign.

One reason that this list appeals is that games are grouped by franchise which stops series such as Final Fantasy, The Legend of Zelda and Mario from over populating it. So I now have a list… how many have I played?

List Item: Play 100 of the greatest computer games
Progress: 52/100

Well, instead of giving a long ramble about every game on the list I have already played what I am going to do is list them (in order according to the Gamesradar list) and link them to Pong and Beyond (in the case of multiples I will link to the game I liked most).

#1 – Portal series
#3 – Metroid (2D series)
#4 – Shadow of the Colossus
#5 – The Legend of Zelda (3D Series)
#6 – Bioshock series
#7 – Mario (2D series)
#10 – World of Warcraft
#11 – Mass Effect series
#13 – Mario (3D series)
#16 – Half-Life series
#17 – Tomb Raider series
#18 – Team Fortress 2
#23 – Metal Gear Solid series
#24 – Street Fighter series
#28 – Grand Theft Auto series
#29 – Call of Duty series
#30 – Resident Evil series
#32 – Assassin’s Creed series
#34 – Super Smash Bros. series
#35 – Castlevania series
#36 – Rock Band series
#37 –  Braid
#38 – Halo series
#43 – Civilization series
#44 – Burnout series
#46 – The Witcher series
#47 – Final Fantasy (3D series)
#50 – Advance Wars series
#51 – Mario Kart series
#55 – Warcraft series
#59 – Star Wars: KOTOR series
#60 – Okami
#61 – Sonic the Hedgehog (2D series)
#62 – Gears of War series
#65 – Dead Space series
#68 – Planescape: Torment
#69 – Saints Row series
#71 – Star Fox 64
#72 – Fallout series
#79 – Grim Fandango
#80 – Far Cry series
#81 – Bayonetta
#82 – Bomberman series
#84 – Mario (RPGs)
#85 – Virtua Fighter series
#89 – Worms series
#90 – Left 4 Dead series
#92 – The Sims series
#93 – Tony Hawk Pro Skater series
#96 – Pac-Man series
#98 – Lumines series
#100 – Max Payne series

Also, since I do a blog on this, I think it’s safe to also add this (I also recently finished playing South Park: The Stick Of Truth.

 List Item: Complete a computer game
Progress: Completed