Leftwich's Top 100 Games of All Time

[Leftwich]

I never played any mass effect game I guess I should pick it up

YOU GUESS?!

[Leftwich]

I never played any mass effect game I guess I should pick it up

For real dude, come into the game with an open mind. Don't think of it as a space game or an open exploration game. Experience as a drama. It'll all be worth it in the end.

[Maynard]

gotta have red dead redemption on there. its not a top 3, but then again this is a leftwich list

[red33]

superman returns

katamari damacy

ogre tactics

[SethMode]

Dude, it's fucking Tactics Ogre get it right! (and that shit is great).

And do you mean Superman 64? Because Superman Returns is bad, but not horrific. It's not Superman 64 bad.

[Leftwich]

3

Super Mario World



Platform: SNES

Wow, my first Super Nintendo game ever. It was packaged with the Super Nintendo so I think it unfairly gets the distinctive title of being one of the most popular games of all time. Do I think it deserves to be one of the most talked about and popular games of all time? Yes, otherwise I wouldn’t have it as my #3 game of all time. Anyone who has played a Super Nintendo before has more than likely played this game, so does it really need a long drawn out blurb? Yes, yes it does.



Ever since I first played this I thought it was actually a direct sequel to Super Mario 3. See things were radically different from Super Mario 1 to Super Mario 2, yeah I know the second one wasn’t really a Mario game. Same thing goes for Super Mario World to Yoshi’s Island. But Super Mario World feels almost identical to Super Mario 3. They both use the over-world map, they both feature power ups you don’t have to use right away and finally you don’t have to exit every level in a conventional way. Although those were the similarities, there were numerous things that made the game radically different. The introduction of Yoshi was the most noticeable but we must not forget some of the subtle yet gameplay changing changes. First and foremost, the game is huge in comparison to all Mario’s before it. The game featured seven different worlds such as Donut Plains, Vanilla Dome, Chocolate Plains and Valley of Bowser. The game also featured Star World and Bonus World which needed to be found via secret exits. Each stage in the game was color coded. Red mean there is a secret exit that will take you to a different part of the map while yellow have a definitive exit and no frills or things to look for. It took me a year or two to figure it out but as soon as I did I would go to every single red level to look for hidden exits. Switch palaces were also added to the game. They were invisible blocks before you hit the switch located somewhere in the game world. They contained Mushrooms, Feathers or Flowers dependent on their color. You can go the whole game without ever hitting a switch palace but unfortunately the game will be harder and you will miss out on a lot of secrets. Hell if you can find the right warp pipes you can finish the game in under an hour. But like I mentioned before Yoshi was the absolute biggest change to this game aside from the cape and feather of course but I need to mention Yoshi. Yoshi can swallow enemies and take a hit for Mario if you like. Also different colored shells for Koopa Troopas do different things. Red make Yoshi spit fire, green come back out as shells, yellow make Yoshi stomp the ground and finally the blue five Mario flight for a temporary moment. The flight was especially useful with reaching secret areas. In the star world there are colored Yoshis that no matter what shell they swallow they will do one action. The blue Yoshi will fly; yellow will stomp and so forth and so on. Unfortunately Yoshi can not enter castles or ghost houses so you are on your own. I never understood why he stayed back. Many of the mainstays of the franchise returned such as the 1up mushroom, coins, mushrooms and flowers. Most all of the power ups from Mario 3 were taken away but what power up we got new was simply amazing. The feather that gives Mario a cape was the finest addition to the game other than Yoshi of course. The flight worked so much better than Mario 3. The ability to catch wind and gain more altitude was a nice touch. Sometimes I’d cheat my ass off and just fly through the entire stage. After you first get to use the cape in the second world, you won’t go back to the fire flower. Yeah, it was that good. The enemies in the game were also mainstays of the franchise but we did get a lot of new ones. Chargin’ Chucks, Rex and Dino-Rhinos were some of the new enemies. Instead of rehashing old ones, Nintendo really came up with some quality characters to stand in your way. The underwater levels were finally fun and the enemy AI was easy to figure out but still frustrating when you make rookie mistakes. This game had solid gameplay from controls to just about everything else. A true rarity in gaming.



It’s hard to really to review a story for a game like this. I mean there isn’t much cinematics other than when you beat a castle. But the story goes as such, Mario and Princess Toadstool go on vacation to Dinosaur Land via hot air balloon. While Mario and Luigi are dicking around the island, Bowser and the Koopa kids kidnap Princess Toadstool and trap the Yoshis in eggs. So Mario sets off on a journey to rescue her and free the Yoshi. Like I said earlier, there are seven worlds to explore that are very diverse. Each area looks radically different and each has one of the Kooplings to battle at the end. After you successfully beat each Koopling you will get to watch Mario destroy the castle. Sometimes he blows it up or other times he stomps on it. Some are even comedic. I’ve told you guys close to 100 times that I’m a big story game but Mario doesn’t really have to have a story. You know you have to complete all levels before you can finally have your final standoff against Bowser. Bowser’s castle in this game is just as difficult as it is in all of the previous Mario games. I mean it’s not that complex of a story like most of the newer Mario games but it’s still a lot of damn fun to take down Bowser and his kids.



For a game that came out in 1991, Super Mario World looks pretty god damn good. When I first played this I was taken back. I was so used to the simple 8 bit graphics of the NES that when I doubled that on the SNES I didn’t know what to think. Mario never looked better and the stages were so vibrant and full of color, it was really a great upgrade compared to the drab we got previously. What I would include in the jump in graphics is how much we had on one screen at once. That might sound really dumb at first but when you enter a Boo house and see all the boos flying around you realize how cool that really is. The best part about all of that is the fact that there is absolutely no slow down while playing. Everyone from Mario to Bowser and even the Goombas got a nice face lift but fortunately they all kept to their classic image. I dunno what it was about looking at this game but it just felt like no matter where you were in the game it looked inviting and pleasing to the eye. Now no Mario game would be complete without an excellent soundtrack. Super Mario World greatly improved upon the excellent sound in Mario 3. The classic Mario theme returned plus numerous new ones that are just as catchy. There’s probably only one other game on the Super Nintendo that I would say sounded better but you either know what it is or you’ll find out.



Super Mario World is one of the few games I play once a year just to remember old times. It’s saying something when I still play a game over 20 years old. This game pretty much started a new Era of gaming. It’s a staple of my gaming library and a game I’ll never forget as long as I’m still gaming. Watch the video below.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXvHHwOYTFg"]Super Mario World - SNES Gameplay - YouTube[/ame]

[SethMode]

Good call man. This game blew my mind as a kid. It was the reason I got a SNES, and I played it well into the systems lifecycle. I am glad it came out when it did too, because if you never bought a guide (which I didn't) you found some of its crazy secrets either by accident or via word of mouth. The internet would have ruined that. I still remember when I found my first key and was completely clueless as to what the fuck to do with it.

Nostalgia is a beautiful thing, and can effect the way that we remember some games, but SMW exceeds that because I STILL boot that shit up from time to time and it is pretty much perfect across the board.

[Bomberooski]

Absolutely loved this game

[Woy]

SMW is a top 5 game for me too, so good choice Gabe. I still play that shit sometimes on my SNES emulator.

[Champ]

Dude this list is garbage. Im going to quit the site because of this list.

[Woy]

viva pinata

Rented this game out of boredom with some friends a while back and had a blast playing it, lol.

[Leftwich]

2

Super Mario 3



Platform: NES

Yes you read that right, two Mario games back to back as 3 and 2. Super Mario 3 is my absolute favorite NES game of all time and was the last Mario adventure released in the United States. It was at the end of the NES life cycle and I can honestly say that they went out with a bang. Super Mario 3 is universally praised by critics and gamers alike and I am no different.



Super Mario 3 is a real sequel to the original Super Mario Bros. Super Mario 2 is not a real sequel in my opinion because it doesn’t follow the story like the first one does and many more after it. The reason this game was so successful, at least in my opinion, is that the gameplay is very similar to the first one while introducing new powers ups, different level types, huge worlds and much, much more. Fust off Super Mario 3 is a 2-D platform game. You assume control of Mario or Luigi and the goal is to make it through each level, clear each world and ultimately take down Bowser. The game can be very long if you don’t use the warp whistles and some of the levels in this game are classic. From the start of the game in 1-1 you realize this game has very classic Mario elements with it but also adding new paint and gameplay to make it a fresh and fun experience. The main new addition to Super Mario 3 is the leaf. A leaf? Yes a leaf. The leaf gives you the power to grow a raccoon tail and fly after gaining enough speed. You can’t fly forever unless you use a P Wing but you can temporarily fly by spamming the jump button. Eventually you will drift down and glide the rest of the way. Adding the power of flight opened up huge doors of new gameplay for Mario fans. The levels always seemed much larger when I was a kid but they’re still fun and each world has like 8 levels to play through plus the mini castle and the big castle. If you are really dedicated you can go through the whole game in one sitting but it will take you a few hours and maybe longer to find the secret mushroom houses and treasure chests. Each world featured a theme to it, first world is just normal Mario style and a mixture of many different types of levels. The second world is a desert themed one while the my personal favorite was the 4th world which was Giant Land. I was a huge fan of stomping oversized goombas. Don’t get me wrong, this is not an easy game. You will die quite a few times especially in the 8th world which seems like unrelenting punishment. But you’ll find things along the way to help you such as mushroom houses which feature chests with power ups and Spade Panels which contain card games and matching games where you can receive extra lives upon successful completion. There were also new powerups available like Frog Mario, powered up jumping and better swimming, Hammer Mario, Mario could throw hammers and Tanooki Mario, who could fly and act as a statue to have enemies pass him by. Not only did those new powers become available but classic ones like Stars and Fire Flowers were back. Many classic enemies returned as well including Goombas, KoopaTroopas, Piranha Plants and The Hammer Brothers but new ones would be introduced as well. Boss Bass, a big fish that could swallow Mario, The Angry Sun, only in a few levels but an asshole and the chain chomp just to name a few. The numerous new enemies made the game a lot more difficult to get through but fun at the same time. Another great thing added to the game were the flying castle levels. The screen scrolled giving the player a sense of urgency while making Mario avoid traps as well. At the end of a flying castle level you had to face one of the Kooplings. They all played differently and looked better than the single character models from the first Mario game. If you were unsuccessful in beating them the first time you would go back to the map and the ship would fly somewhere else and you had to do it all over again; very frustrating when you make mistakes. I can honestly say that Super Mario 3 is my favorite platforming experience in any game ever. Nintendo really put forth a lot of effort into making this the be all end all of Mario games and it shows.



Graphically Super Mario 3 is somewhere in between Super Mario Bros and Super Mario Bros 2. This is not a negative statement in any way, shape or form. I think Super Mario Bros 2 had the best Mario graphics on the NES but Super Mario 3 really showed the diversity in character, enemy and level design better. From the opening scene when you first turn on the game to the first level you play you notice that the graphics look pretty good even for an NES game. Backgrounds are very diverse as well as the foreground. Enemies look a lot better as well as Mario. Something that I think was a great improvement over Super Mario Bros is the “?” boxes are no longer static and the question marks now marquee. A little thing but it kept the world looking alive. That’s the biggest thing about the graphics in this game, everything is moving. In each level and world, even the map, look like there is something going on all time which really invites you in and lets you have fun while enjoying what you’re looking at. The game runs very smoothly and just like in every Mario game there is no slowdown even when having Mario plus a few enemies on the screen at once. Just like every single Mario game I’ve talked about, this one is no different, has an excellent soundtrack. The map in each world has a unique theme playing in the background and every stage has something different to listen to. The water levels keep the classic theme from Mario but updating, same goes for underground, outside and every other level. The scrolling levels have a quick theme that really affects your speed of playing. Although Mario doesn’t say anything in the game, the sound effects are still there. The sound of a coin ringing after you obtain it to the sound of a foot stomping on a koopa shell sound great and classic. Super Mario Bros 3 had limited sound capabilities on the NES but the work they did with what they had comes out perfectly and I don’t have a single complaint about the sound and never will. Sure the port for the Gameboy Advance adding Mario’s voice but I’d still prefer the classic NES version over it any day.



Like I said in the Super Mario World write up, it’s hard for me to really write about the story when there aren’t many cutscenes to speak of but I’ll give it a try. After Bowser was ousted from the Mushroom Kingdom he makes his return. He brings his 7 Koopa children to help him this time by sending them all over the Mushroom Kingdom. The Koopa children are as follows, Larry, Roy, Lemmy, Wendy, Iggy and finally Morton. You have to battle through them in that order before you can ever take on Bowser. Bowser sends them out to capture the Kings of each world. The Koopa children use their magic wands to transform the kings into various animals and to get closer to your goal you have to pass their tests and transform them back to their original form. As the story goes when you embark on your journey Bowser steals Princess Toadstool yet again. You would think she’d learn the first time but without that we wouldn’t have a game then would we? Like I said previously you will face the brothers in various worlds of varying obstacles and enemies until you can finally reach Bowser in Dark Land. Dark Land is split into two parts, one his mobile unit that is basically a bunch of flying castles and then you actually have to go into a Dark Land of levels containing many elements from the 7 Worlds you’ve previously been to. In my opinion you get a much more satisfying experience with the story in Super Mario Bros 3 than any Mario before or after. I really enjoyed the diversity and the actual accomplishment of making it through the whole game, saving kings along the way and finally taking down Bowser. The final fight with Bowser can be easy if you know what you’re doing or brutally hard if you don’t. Overall a very satisfying Mario experience no matter what your age.



Super Mario Bros 3 will always be one of my favorite games and one of my earliest gaming experiences. When I was very young I had a lot of trouble with this game but as I got older and better at it I was finally able to conquer it. The nostalgia of this game is what really puts it at number two for me and if it weren’t for how much more fun I had with my number one game then this would be hands down it but as you will soon find out I did like a game a lot more than this. I can probably guess that a lot of you have this game as your favorite of all time, probably some of you older gamers. Take a trip back to 1990 and watch the video.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82TL-Acm4ts"]Super Mario Bros. 3 - NES Gameplay - YouTube[/ame]

[FirstTimer]

Still my favorite Mario of all time.

[Raidersabc123]

Is super smash bros on the list I might of missed it scanning through ..

[Leftwich]

Is super smash bros on the list I might of missed it scanning through ..

No, never got into it.