This August, Lungfishopolis will celebrate its 2 year anniversary. Leading up to that day, I’d like to update my list of all-time favorites. Back at the end of 2007, before Lungfishopolis was born, I created a list of my favorite 51 games of all time. Now, more than two years later, I figured it was nigh time to take a hard look at that list and update it. While a lot of the games that were on the list then are still on the list now, many have moved around. Understandably, many have moved down to make room for the newer games that have appeared since that list was first created. Interestingly, others that were on the list before have moved up, which I think speaks to the longevity of those games.

It should go without saying that this is a list comprised entirely of my own opinions. I’m not saying that these are the best games of all time – I’m just saying that they’re my personal favorites. It doesn’t include games that I haven’t played, and there are many of those. I’ve never played through Ocarina of Time, I’ve never played GoldenEye, and I’ve never played a Splinter Cell game. I have a boxed copy of Clive Barker’s Undying that I have yet to play. Ditto Grim Fandango. I’ll get to these oldies someday. But for the time being, let’s dive into my favorites.

The bottom of the list is full of oldies, largely because they’re games that used to be amazing, and they’ve since been pushed further and further down the list. So for today, get ready for flashbacks to the eighties and nineties.

50-Puzzle Quest (Infinity Interactive, Nintendo DS, 2007)

The first of the puzzle genre mashups to make it onto my radar, Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords drew me in with the promise of fighting the battles in an RPG by playing a bejeweled-like puzzle, and kept my interest with the variants on the main “battle” game wherein you’d craft items, capture enemies, and train mounts by solving puzzles. Like Scribblenauts, I suspect that this game was noteworthy primarily for its novelty. Still, it was fun working my warrior “Assface” up to fiftieth level and defeating the game’s big Lich boss.

49-Dance Dance Revolution USA (Konami, Sony Playstation, 2000)

Back in the day, I belonged to a group of friends who was fairly fanatic about DDR. The majority of us never played in arcades, but many of us had playstations, and DDR parties were common. I first encountered DDR at a dance camp in New Hampshire in September 2000. A year later, I could ace Smoke on the Water on maniac difficulty. Go me. I still have my DDR pads and my original Playstation. I plan to some day break them out and see if I’ve still got it.

48-Maniac Mansion (Lucasfilm Games, Commodore 64, 1987)

A few years back, I discovered a fan remake of Maniac Mansion called Maniac Mansion Deluxe which I could download and play on a modern PC. I did so, and was delighted to find that I still remembered how to get through all the game’s puzzles. I finished it in two evenings. But back when I first played it on my Commodore, before the era of The Internet, it took many months. During those months, I’d confer with other kids on the playground, exchanging strategies and learning what worked to get past Purple Tentacle and Dr. Fred. It was a different era, and to me Maniac Mansion is the best of the SCUMM games. More than twenty years later, the game still has an undeniable charm.

47-Jade Empire (BioWare, Microsoft Xbox, 2005)

While Jade Empire is by no means the best game BioWare has produced, I personally prefer it to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect. I liked the fact that it’s an action RPG and that there was a fantastic story twist. Mass Effect was an action RPG, but it was a shooter to Jade Empire’s melee action. And KotOR had a great story twist, but the combat bored me. I also really liked Jade Empire’s single minigame – I only wish the game had offered 3-4 minigames rather than just the one. I suppose I’ll have to look to games like No More Heroes 2 for that kind of minigame variety.

46-Double Dragon II (Technos, Nintendo Entertainment System, 1990)
In the nineties, I was a big fan of the Double Dragon series, although I played only on the NES. I loved Double Dragon 2 and liked Double Dragon 3 very much as well. It was a sidescrolling beat-em-up that allowed for timing-based special moves like the super uppercut and the ultra-difficult super knee. When you got an enemy into a headlock, you had a choice of four different moves you could perform, and you could mix and match, ending with throwing the enemy either left or right. This enabled you to throw enemies off of cliffs, and I’d go through entire levels trying to send every enemy over one ledge or another. The variety of fighting options in this game were well before its time.

That’s the five on the list for this week. Stop back next week for games 45-41.