Video Game Reviews – The Top 100 Reviews

Top 100 N64 Review: #47 – Duke Nukem: Zero Hour (1999)

Toxic Masculinity Was Never So Much Fun.

You get to play as Johnny Bravo while objectify woman and aliens.

Duke Nukem Zero Hour Title Screen LesLites’ Ranking: #47/100
My Rating:

Duke Nukem is an anachronistic, hyper-masculine protagonist released from the imagination of pre-teen boys. He’s charmingly foul-mouthed, can perform any feat due to machismo, and ladies find him irresistible. Who else could the FBI rely on to travel through time and save Earth from an alien invasion?

The game is a blast since it realizes its front man is ridiculous. Instead of apologizing for Duke, they decide to turn the dial up to 100. Sexual innuendos are abound and there are plenty of laugh-out-loud quips. The enemies are varied with distinct gun types that lead to a fair amount of strategy. While the shooting is old school, at least the mapping to the N64 controller is serviceable.

Let’s go save some babes, shall we?

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Top 100 SNES Review: #73 – Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1993)

Best Movie, Worst Video Game.

This is the weakest of the SNES Trilogy.

Sydlexia’s Ranking: #73/100
My Rating:

Woah. This was a rough one for me.

I want to know how I was able to achieve so much more at 9 than 31. The snow covered hills of Hoth and cloudy city of Bespin were impenetrable. What made it worse was how tedious it all was. Instead of reliving the best moments of the movie, you get to explore…caves. Then, you are rewarded with…more caves.

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Top 100 SNES Review: #14 – Contra III: The Alien Wars (1992)

Friends Forever.

Nothing cements life-long relationships like repeated death in the face of an alien invasion.
Contra III The Alien Wars Title Screen
Sydlexia’s Ranking: #14/100
My Rating:

Over the past year, I’ve played Contra III multiple times with different people. It’s inclusion on the SNES Classic has made it easy to get into a two-player bug tussle for the fate of humanity. The game is best with multi-player; I can’t imagine it being as fun if you decide to go at it alone.

That’s because this game can be brutal. What would otherwise be a frustrating solo endeavor leading to a probable temper-tantrum becomes a shared experienced: you are both in this ridiculous plight together, and with some judicious tactics and occasional reckless abandon, you can make this happen…

…as long as you get past stage three.

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Top 100 N64 Review: # 16 – Donkey Kong 64 (1999)

A Junk Drawer of a Game.

Collecting Bananas, Golden Bananas, Medals, Coins, Boss Keys, Melons, Oranges, Headphones, Crystals, Blueprints, Crowns, Ammo, Barrels…JUST MAKE IT STOP!

Donke Kong N64 Title Screen LesLites’ Ranking: #16/100
My Rating:

I have a great memory.

For instance, I remember being at Circuit City (a now defunct electronics store) looking at the cover of Final Fantasy X. I just got a PS2 for Christmas, and with some holiday cash, I was bringing home one of the best RPGs of all time. I remember heading down stairs to the basement, putting the fan on high, and thinking — Final Fantasy isn’t going to be around forever — I need to enjoy tis (heavy thoughts for an 8th grader). I got to Besaid Island and immediately hit pause. I sat there and let that song soak into my bones, a memory I can recall to this day.

I can’t recall ANYTHING about DK64 even though I owned and beat it. I do recall a conversation I had with a cousin. She lamented not having the game and was excited at the proposition that one day she, too, would play DK64. Well let me tell you something cousin: I clearly suffered post-traumatic amnesia due to this game. This game’s awful.

DK64 boasts gigantic worlds but with nothing in them — EXCEPT THINGS TO COLLECT. A dimension of abandoned polygons, items spill out over the landscape like the junk drawer in your kitchen. To make matters worse, items are color-coded to match one of the five kongs you control. Not only do you have bananas, you have red bananas, purple bananas, yellow bananas, blue bananas, and green bananas. Not only do you have coins, you have red coins, purple coins, yellow coins….

This permutation continues, creating a situation where you constantly switch between the Kongs through backtracking barren worlds to collect the appropriately colored item. DK64 is not so much about puzzles but errands. The most important skill to succeed is not your intellect or problem solving but your memory to recall the location of discrete bands of color-coded objects.

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Top 100 SNES Review: #9 – Earthbound (1995)

Everything is a Struggle.

I’ve never seen a game so intentionally trip itself up.

Earthbound SNES Title Screen.png Sydlexia’s Ranking: #21/100
My Rating:

We’ve all seen the meme where the person puts a stick in their own bicycle spoke which causes an accident as the person lays on the ground feigning for attention as if the universe is out to get them.

Welcome to Earthbound.

In the world of 1995 gaming, game developers had caught on to a few things:

New characters added later in the game shouldn’t be introduced at level 1 to be mercilessly killed by bears.
No one ever gives five star ratings to games that make you backtrack out of dungeons.
Human psychology proves humans have an affinity for things that are fun.

Everything from inventory, battles, saving, and money (ESPECIALLY MONEY) is made more difficulty than necessary. Shame on whoever made this game: it would be forgivable in the late 80s but inexcusable for something that came out a year before the N64. It’s reason for being so popular? A group of rabid fans that appeared years after its release.

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Top 100 Xbox 360 Review: #21 – Deus Ex: Human Revolution (2011)

The Rare Feeling of Something New But Phenomenal.

In a world of so many remakes and spinoffs, it’s a blessing to experience something wholly new.

apps.37801.63750441729289425.02fa3cec-7bcd-4630-b5fe-dfebefcf45e7.jpeg Game FAQs Ranking: #21/100
My Rating:

A quick look at the top movies of 2018 showed multiple retreads of Marvel comic storylines, a Mission: Impossible relaunch, a sequel to The Incredibles. and remake of A Star is Born.

Where the hell is anything new? Part of the problem is how we consume media. Big companies cannot sustain a bomb, so those who are able to take risks are the indie communities in each sector. But, big media is who has reach, so the only things we share on a societal level are the better safe than sorry projects.

After laying dormant since 2003, Edios/Square Enix decided to give the Deus Ex franchise another go. It must have been risky; unlike Final Fantasy, there was no big fan base to fall back on. It worked emphatically.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution has no tropes for the player because there is nothing for them to reference. What you find is an immersive world and addictive game play with its own set of rules and interactions. Finally, a chance to go completely into the unknown!

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Top 100 N64 Review: #69 – Mission: Impossible (1998)

R-R-R-Ridiculous.

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to try and believe it.
Mission Impossible N64 Title Screen
LesLites’ Ranking: #69/100
My Rating:

The only thing impossible about this game is trying to understand it. If I had to chose what better represented reality, I would go with Lord of the Rings over Mission: Impossible. This world, filled with hideous polygons and multi-layered distance fog, cannot be of our own. It still has a couple good missions, though.

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