Top 160+ Favorite Games of all time! (Pt 8 Final)

19 Sonic and Knuckles 3

"Sonic and Knuckles 3" is not even the proper title for this game. This is Sonic the Hedgehog 3 with one of the first expansions in console gaming. It's at least the most popular expansion in the industry. This opened up all kinds of new gameplay options for the original Sega Genesis Sonic games. With the addition of a new character, you can reach new areas with his gliding skill in different ways. It also gave Sonic 3 a new layer of greatness, as Knuckles opened up all new content overall for the game. They finished the game itself and had no time to impliment Knuckles, so they just sold off that portion as a separate cartridge attachment. This was a genius move for the time, but it was a double edged sword when it came to the idea of paid DLC in gaming.

18 The House of the Dead 2

When it comes to the Dreamcast, this one hit number one after hours and hours of gameplay. There came a time when all of the secrets came unlocked and the urge to kill zombies increased to brand new levels. The graphics, the co-op play, the badguys and tons of features were improved and added to The House of the Dead. There are new bosses and returning bosses, but they did everything they needed to make it a unique gaming experience all around. The terrible voicing for the English version is parallel in greatness with the original Resident Evil and gave it that slice of cheese that made it so entertaining.

17 Metroid Prime

The Gamecube, in all of its greatness, reached its peak early on as far as I'm concerned.  You are put into the armor of Samus and throughout the game, you are given access to all of her weapons! This includes the ability to turn into a ball and plant bombs in three dimensions. The combat shines in first person, especially for a console game, and it does so with such an amazing style. The graphics really pushed the envelope for the GC and showed off its true capabilities from the very start. 3D adventuring and exploring while dodging deadly aliens has never felt so awesome before this title and that really is saying something. 

16 Metroid

It's hard to beat the original. The Metroid title for NES killed it with exploring and getting lost in levels while surviving pitfalls and listening to such an amazing and memorable soundtrack. Enhance Samus's armor, or even put in the code to give her no armor, which revealed that she was a woman in the first place. This blew our minds as kids, but it did nothing to take away from the experience. Samus is amazing and this game is where her journey began. Platforming in this game brings you to new heights in 8-bit gaming and it has earned its place in gaming history.

15 Katamari Forever

When you want a nice satisfying collect-a-thon game where you go from tiny as a softball to the size of an entire planet, this is your sauce. With a catchy music lineup and the simplest graphics, this game brings both the old and the new of Katamari to the forefront and gives you that sensation of being a tiny little giant that can roll up the entire cosmos. The king is annoying, but that only makes it better when you prove his negativity wrong and show him that you can score with the best of them. It's fun to collect all of the characters and get all of the collectibles for your shrine. Not to mention, it even has a two-player mode! If you have heard anything about this franchise and need a place to start, here you go!

14 X-men Arcade

This was a hard choice, but if I had my pick of the Konami Triforce beat'em ups, this one beats TMNT and the Simpsons. None of these games buckle under the pressure, and all of them are great in their own way. This one has the Colossus roar, though, and it is just all kinds of fun to use the X-men's many powers. Wolverine's slicing power is a close second favorite, but all of them are fun to play to some extent. The levels are memorable and Magneto's stupid dialogue has reached iconography. This is a satisfying experience and this game has gone through so many efforts to save it from obscurity, even when it was only on the arcade cabinet for the majority of its existence. It is just too valuable to lose.

13 Panzer Dragoon II

People will disagree with me up and down about this favorite in the Panzer Dragoon franchise, but the experience and the fun that this game gave me with my original Sega Saturn is something to behold. It is a wonderful experience that is only compounded as your dragoon continues to grow and evolve throughout the playthrough. The graphics are grungy and beautiful, with enviroments that show off the true 32 bit nostalgia. All three of the Saturn titles are great in their own way, but this is my piece of the pie for a very good reason.

12 Mario Kart 64

Mario Kart has stood the test of time for a reason, and this is where the franchise peaked in absolute greatness with the simplest elements. The graphics are fantastic without being overblown and the gameplay keeps itself without overburdening itself with flab. There are just too many characters to choose from at this point with Mario Kart 8, but 64 kept itself at a core roster. This bore some of the best levels and some of the most memorable tracks. This was such a huge improvement over the first game on the SNES, it basically eclypses it in every sense of the word. The Wii version and WiiU version were still awesome, don't get me wrong. This one is just what it needed to boost the franchise to greatness.

11 Quake

This is the final game that was made by the majority of the original crew at ID. After this title, John Romero was gone from the company. As much of a disappointment it was for the developers, it was a dream come true for gamers. Death Matching, rocket jumping and 3D gaming in general was brought to this peak from the very beginning thanks to the hard work of our Doom makers. Quake is gothic, and beautiful in its simplicity, even if there weren't a lot of vibrant colors. Even if the levels look very similar, they don't play the same by any means. This was not always a great thing, and sometimes you can really feel the limitations on the number of monsters, especially compared to Doom and Wolfenstein 3D. While the solo game is still great, it was the multiplayer Death Matching that made this title truly great. 

10 Doom Eternal

It's not surprising to see how many Doom titles are on this list. Doom Eternal came when it was needed the most and it delivered on its promises to give us an experience very close to Doom 4. The graphics are astounding with just the right amount of spice and detail. Killing the demons by blowing meat off of their bones with a shotgun is so satisfying, especially when you get to rip their heads and limbs off with your armored hands. This was all brought to a head with the return of the Icon of Sin, who was beautifully implimented! It's not perfect, but even with some of the more irritating parts of the game, it's a wondrous fight through Hell and Earth.

9 Doom

The advent of Knee Deep in the Dead was met with such a rousing success, it put video gaming on the map. With such an iconic title, everything after was just gravy on the taters. Thy Flesh Consumed didn't do such a great job of ending the Ultimate Doom collection, but everything within is still amazing to behold. Killing demons and creating a blood bath took what Wolfenstein 3D did and brought it to brand new heights with new capabilities in elevations and lighting graphics. Doom was a milestone in gaming, like ID would cause over and over throughout their early career. This title is still iconic, and people continue to make new levels for it to this very day as the Doom Mapping community is still running very strong. May they make until forever. Rip and Tear!

8 Spider-man

Spider-man 2 for the PS2 and Gamecube walked so that Spider-man for the PS4 could run. Coming out after Batman Arkham Asylum only made this game that much greater with its own take on such a great combat system. This game has the story, has a likeable Peter Parker, and even makes you want to 100% the whole thing for all of the spider suits. Swinging on the web feels crisp and nastural. Finding and fighting the Sinister Six feels like you're coming right out from the comics. The sequels may not be as great, but this game stands on its own merits of greatness. It's replayable, especially with New Games + and you're a webhead with some extra awesome points if you do!

7 Resident Evil 7

The loss of P.T. was terrible, but it did inspire Capcom to make this game first person and scary. The story and progression had some hiccups and the ending of the game isn't as great, but overall, this is a beautiful title. Playing this game gives you some real fear, especially when you're running from a maniac with a shovel! It's so satisfying to finally meet him in the subsequent boss battles, especially with a chainsaw fight! This game has some very memorable moments, even some that I wouldn't mind going back and playing over and over again. That's how you know you have a gem on your hands.

6 Doom (2016)

Somehow, the reboot to the franchise jumped its way up my favorites totem. It game when it was needed and it did everything it set out to do. The experience was new but also very nostalgic. The vast majority of the awesome guns were back and so many of the demon roster returned so you could put your fist through their faces! They thought that the multiplayer Quake 3 Arena type shooter and the map creating capabilities were going to be the selling point, but it was proven that the singleplayer won out tenfold! The Doom Slayer demon voice clips and the soundtrack all became iconic and this game made the power fantasy real and fun, also real fun.

5 Sonic the Hedgehog 2

This game came free with Sega Genesis 2nd Gen, and changed Sonic's fortunes forever. This game was leagues above the first title and made platforming legend comparable to the Super Mario Bros franchise! Sonic and Tails became household names and Sega truly had their mascot set in stone. Sonic 2 even threw a bone to the younger brothers in 2nd player, making sure they could help without getting in the way and local multiplayer exploded! The soundtrack, the gameplay and the level designs became iconic and this franchise was boosted to the point where Sonic games had a brand new standard to reach.

4 Virtual On

This game got 3D fighting right on so many levels. Getting great at this game is not exactly hard, but it does require a good deal of sharpening. It's just fun all around and offered a free wielding style that made you feel like you were a mech pilot trying to destroy the mech suit in front of you. This is compounded when you take on bigger machines and truly tests your mastery of the controls and maneuverability while using your unique set of weapons. You need to think fast and get accurate, so learn your machine and have a ball while doing it. This game is awesome on both Sega Saturn and Dreamcast.

3 Doom 2

This is another point where many will disagree. So many people consider these new levels a huge downgrade, but I can't see where they're coming from. There's just some great levels and some not so great levels. What you get, though, is brand new weapons and brand new demons with new level designs that not only did wonders for its own game, but made the level modding that much more fun. Doom 2 brought us the Super Shotgun and a barrage of other things like the Mancubi, Pain Elementals and the Archviles. This only built upon the foundations of an already great game and magnified the ways to play it. Doom 2 is keen as far as Planet Virtua is concerned.  

2 Mega Man 2

With one of the most iconic soundtracks, levels and boss robot battles, Mega Man 2 is hailed as the greatest Mega Man game of all time. The weapons you get, like Metal Man's band saws and Wood Man's leaves, are just flat out fun to play throughout the game. Even when Mega Man X hit the market, this is still held up as the best in the franchise. The game can get frustrating in the Dr. Wiley levels and in the Quick Man stage, but that's all just par for the course in terms of an 8-bit game. Even Mega Man 11 couldn't reach this level of greatness, just think about that for a moment.

1 Dragon Warrior

The word "simplicity" has been used a lot on this list and that is this game's greatest strength. It is a simple story with an open world map that gives you quests in order to beat the Dragon Lord. Dragon Quest's humble beginning aged like a fine wine and made its way to the top of this list. Rescuing the princess, defeating the first green dragon and axe knight, all of it is chiseled in legend. You're put in the place of a true hero and you fight your way through slimes, metal men and all forms of magical beasts trying to kill you. Search out the fabled metal slime to get lot's of experience points and look for Erdrick's ultimate weapons to defeat the most powerful foes in the final dungeons beyond the rainbow bridge. Nostalgia goggles be damned, this game wins.

So, there you have it. It took me a solid year, but I'm glad I finally got all of these lists out for one big grand ranking of my favorites. As said in the first post, this is not a perfect list and there are some games who can interchange between rankings. It's still a very complete list, even if there are a few titles that deserve an honorable mention because either I didn't think of them for the master list or I've played them since the list was originally created. Here's a nice short list of those games.

Doom The Dark Ages

A solid addition to the Doom franchise, despite the lack of notable demons and the employment of a pale BFG replacement. The shield and the weapon roster is still solid for the gameplay and it is still a fun time all around. The story doesn't really spark any inspiration, but it frames the demon killing fine. It can wrestle Doom Eternal for one of the higher spots on this list, more because it doesn't have all of the unnecessary platforming and lore heavy items throughout the entire runtime. Many will disagree, as usual, but those are my thoughts.

Retro Rewind

Management games are just plain fun work. This one, however, hits home with a wondrous return of the VHS rental store that you can customize and decorate to your own tastes. This is just busy work with a good deal of interaction with customers and time management. It's very easy to gain up to level 20 and you can even work toward 100% achievements without a lot of effort. The movie titles are a lot of fun to see and it's a joy to get new releases that are obvious stand-ins for some very iconic movies. 

No Man's Sky

It's hard to earn back the trust of your customer base, but the game devs for this title battened down and did just that over years of development after its official release. The space exploration is relaxing and you can pump up the difficulty by fighting space pirates and drones. This is not a free pass to screw up your launch and patch it after the fact, but if you're going to do it, earn your communities respect by patching it for free and listening to what they're saying. Now, you can explore new galaxies and planets, naming them and building your own base on their surface. There's a lot to do and craft throughout the game and you could do worse than giving it a look now that it's fixed.

Helldivers 2

A game that is fun to play and fun to advance. The trolls and the unhelpful players in the game can dampen the experience, as can some of the difficulty of taking on an entire army by yourself. Still, when you get into the groove, you can be killing Terminators and Starship Trooper bugs while finishing your primary missions. Get it done, kill the opposition and extract yourselves back to your own giant ship. Make Democracy proud.

Plants vs Zombies

What started as a simple PC/Mac game ported to every other system and took the tower defense community by storm. While the franchise would kill itself with greedy microtransactions in later sequels, the first game remains a solid experience that you can poor hours into. It's just fun to experiment with plants and powerups to get the most effective build in your rows to take down the zombie opposition. It's fun to see all of the plant options you can build, as well as how they affect the many types of zombies. It's just mindless fun you can play wherever for super cheap. The franchise sadly never reached this level of greatness afterward, but it's still good to have such a great title.

So, yes, I went through just over 160 games I would consider my favorite. Why did I do this? That's a fairly good question. Who really knows? Maybe I'll post another list if there's another 10 or 20 titles that make it to the list some how. Either way, this was just a lot of fun to think about and finish in exactly a year. You'll probably never agree with the rankings and that's fine. These are games I grew up with or just took a shine to as they worked their way into my constant play list. Do yourself a favor and start a tier list, you may be surprised at what you think of. Be true to yourself and don't forget to drink water.

Dragon Quest 8 - Another Peak of Fantasy

 

Every roleplaying game had to start somewhere. If that somewhere is a sequel to the greatest JRPG there is, so be it. This takes place in the same world as the original Dragon Warrior, and it is deserving of that title. This is a very story rich game with a lot of ins and outs to the quests you go on, and sometimes that works in its favor, other times, it can be a bit of a puzzler. The greatest part about this is how they bring the creatures you fought before to life in full 3D animation. The Metal Slime even makes an appearance more than once! 

So, you are [Insert Hero Name Here], and you are on a quest to help King Trode regain his throne after being transformed into a strange creature. Along the way, you start to meet your party members, even having one of them at the beginning. Your starting partner is Yangus, a thief who owes the main protagonist a life debt and the two of them have become friends and battle buddies. Jessica and Angelo are your next party members, though there is a start difference to both of these characters. That's one of the great things about DQ 8, is that the characters are very different and well written to have different motivations and goals. Jessica is definitely the more interesting of the NPC's, because she really starts to play a large role later in the story. Angelo is just your normal flirty boy but it is cool that he is a knight's templar. He's known as a screw-up to the rest of the Templar, namely is brother. 

The next strength in this title is the villain, Dhoulmagus, who you just can't help but love to hate. He is absolutely dreadful and very menacing throughout the story. He is the one who changed the king into a toad-like thing. Along the journey, you start to see just how evil he is. He goes to extreme lengths to obtain power an it just feels right that you want to stop him from doing just that. It's funny to note that he employs the same baddies as the Dragon Lord from the first game. The game is rather long, which just enriches the experience, and it always keeps you wanting to obtain your goal. 

The greatest thing about this game, though, is the artstyle. Yes, it is obvious that this is a very Pro-Dragon Ball site, and that will never change. Even after our sensei has passed on, we can still marvel in his treasures. Akira Toriyama's art in this is brought to such a wonderful view. From the very start, they wanted to emulate his artstyle and this is the game where it is clear that he was the right man for the position of Art Director. Even if they look similar, it just makes you want to watch DBZ all over again, so go ahead. You can play the game and watch some Z, there's no shame in it! 

If you hadn't guessed already, this game is awesome. It is considered the best in the series by many and it is clear as to why. Mr. Toriyama keeps showing off how watchable his art is, and the game mechanics are all here from the franchise we know and love. The magic is simple, the level progression is linear and the weapon system keeps making you want to kill more monsters to buy the higher ranking stuff. They had a proper story to go with the game, like they always do, but it is not at all as simple as DQ1. There are great characters to carry it along and you genuinely want them to achieve their ultimate ambition. Pick this title up if you ever see it on the shelf. You will be glad you got another crack at that Metal Slime. Also known as the Virtua Slime.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie - And then... It Babombed!

There is no simple way of telling this, but this movie is the most horrific example of "And then..." storytelling I have seen in a very long time. There is no two ways about this, they took the idea of "Galaxy" wayyyyyy too far. If you wanted one of the most shallow ways to get through a plot, your disastrously constructed warp star has come in! Yes, I know that's a Kirby reference, but it makes far more sense than this movie! This is not a joke. It was hard to believe why so many people were having such a horrible reaction to this film, but it was very important not to spoil anything in the movie before watching it. It made no difference. The script had already gotten turned into a Yoshi egg. 

It was like they didn't know what they wanted to do with the plot, or where they wanted to set the story at all, which is understandable for a Mario Galaxy movie to see as a problem. Their solution? Make up whatever you can about the story, regardless of whether it made sense, then shove in as many references to the video games as they possibly can within an almost two hour runtime. It pains the mind to think that they probably cut out a lot more scenes of this ADHD garbage. The characters are thrown into situations one after the other. 

First, Rosalina starts talking to her star "children", of which there are many, curiously, AND THEN they start to beg her to read the Mario story when she already started with the Peach story AND THEN skip to the Donkey Kong scene AND THEN she decides to wait until tomorrow because there are planet quaking stomps heard AND THEN the giant robot attacks!!! Did you see what happened there? The addle-brained storytelling starts with the opening dialogue. The children's voices are all so mind-numbingly cute, as is Yoshi's, and it is hard to pay attention to them because they start the nagging. Take this for how the entire storyline goes. 

Yoshi is immediately found on their first mission, which takes place in the Mexican level of Mario Odyssey. The references in this movie are good. That's probably because Nintendo helped to make it. You really would have thought that at least one of them could write a competent story, much their video games, but I digress. With no trouble or real squabble, they pull Yoshi out of the pipe and he is IMMEDIATELY their best friend ever. Toad even points this out, and no, it does not make it better. If they caught him when he hatched, which would have ruined a decent gag but been more effective, this could have been resolved. No, though, they needed their joke of him having a slightly entertaining journey. Make the argument that he hatched at the end of the first movie all you want, but they have retconned more for the less. 

It does not end there, folks, oh no. You see, they have now officially introduced Bowser Jr. to the cast. While his character is handled with some grace, we obviously don't spend a whole lot of time introducing him. Nope! We need to show that Rosalina can handle herself in battle. The spectacle is where this movie shines, obviously, and the fight scenes are very entertaining. The character models are obviously spot on and the references of Big Bertha and the Giant Level from Mario 3 are all solid entries in this movie's MILES and MILES of Yoshi eggs scattered throughout. 

Going through this story felt like a fever-dream. Characters have no idea what they are doing because they are just reacting to the most random assortment of events. This is not just small little tiny shrug your shoulder sort of event, either. Everything needs to go wrong and then immediately become fixed as soon as the plot needs to move on. Trying to recall every single major plot point in this movie would be like trying to pick up every single thumb-tack you dropped with boxing gloves. It's that tedious! While it was nice to hear Jack Black again, it did not help this film at all. Yes, I am a fan of Tenacious D, but Bowser was wasted potential, especially with how he becomes big again! Villains come and go in droves and it is all just too much for the brain to process without needing to look away.

This review could go scene by scene destroying this movie's inner being, but that would be a ridiculous waste of human life. If you're in the mood to quick-run Mario's vast array of levels in a speedrun they apparently copied into this film, do not let this deter you. If you're just in it for the jokes and the gaming catalogue of quick Nintendo brand nostalgia, there is no judgement here. Honestly, this could be a decent introduction to very small children that may find out they love Mario. That's fine, but when the first movie was a mild success and more focused film all around, you could say that expectations were set a little high for whatever they thought they were doing here. Whatever it was, they didn't accomplish it. Someone needs to tell them that not every scene needs to be a knock-down dragout fight, nor does every character need to have the attention span of a Cheep Cheep. Virtua Chain Chomp! 

Resident Evil Afterlife - Downward Zombie Spiral

So, after the decent entertainment of the third movie, the story gets dumber and more nonsensical. This is when the movies really started to go belly up. This is when it became clear that Anderson didn't know where he was going with the film series. All of the potential from the earlier movies is brought to a brick wall where they set things up only to cut them off before the payoff. Where the third movie brought about a clone army, this fourth entry kills them at the very beginning. 

Yes, through semi-decent CGI to bring multiple Alices to the screen, we see all of them die off immediately as they try to invade Umbrella Corp. Wesker takes out all of them and then takes away Alice's powers, of which are still poorly defined. Okay, so now she can't use telekinesis or super enhanced agility and accuracy. Throughout the entire film, she is still basically invincible. You'd almost suspect the decision to take away her powers was brought about after the scenes where she uses them were already partially shot. 

So, the real problem with this movie, aside from that jarring batch of scenes that basically retconned the earlier films, is that it is a shelter and place movie. Alice pulls off a terribly impossible landing on top of a building. So, instead of going off to find a new community in Alaska, it turns out that it was all some random ship off the coast of a zombie apocalyptic city. Zombies are all around this one building where Alice now finds herself with a whole bunch of refugees that will become entirely superfluous in the long run. 

This movie is probably one of the worst examples of horror movie tropes. There's a pervert, a sweet motherly lady who makes sandwiches, a mechanic, the one no one trusts and on and on and on. Every single one of them, aside from Claire Redfield, will be gone and seldom ever mentioned again. They even bring in Chris Redfield, and he's played by the guy from Prison Break. Wentworth Miller literally thought they were kidding when they told him he would be a prisoner who knows a way out of the building. Apparently, they thought the reference by itself was worth putting us through some of the most cookie cutter plot devices as a result. 

Even the coolest part of the entire movie is a bit of a downer, as we finally see a cool zombie known as the Executioner. This RE5 zombie makes a small appearance in the movie, and the doublebarreled shotgun Alice uses quarters as buckshot. As unrealistic as this is, it is still somewhat entertaining. I hope you enjoy this scene if you ever watch it, because it's as good as it gets. Beyond this, it's the obvious betrayals, zombie kill jump scares and slowly coming to the realization that MAYBE they should actually listen to the guy who says he knows he has a way out. It is mind-numbing. 

Throughout the whole thing, the seemingly unpowered Alice just kicks more ass and solves every problem until she needs to be dumb for the movie to last longer. All of this leads up to getting to the ship off the coast of the city. There's some idiot refugee that betrays the others and steals the plane so he can fly... to the ship and immediately serve Albert Wesker out of nowhere. That's right, Wesker is on the ship and now he wants to literally eat Alice. He says that he is infected with T-Virus powers... like Alice... just go with it--and he needs to take in her essence to regain control because... that's how science works... maybe? 

Either way, they fight the video game boss like an actual video game boss and Alice is the only one who exists in Resident Evil Retribution. Nothing is connected and even though Wesker seems like he died at the end of this movie, he didn't. No, his actual death is beyond lame and probably would have been more prominent here. Either way, even with the semi-decent effects and the awesome appearance of the Executioner, this movie is nothing and means nothing. It is a nonsensical segway into another movie and blatantly wastes its time in an uninspired zombie city building lockdown movie. Dawn of the Dead did it much better and this is just a mess. If you're still watching the movies by this point, you should know what lies ahead is so much worse. Virtua Nosedive.

Dragon Ball Sparking Zero (PS5) - The Final Battle Again!

 If there was ever an immortal concept in anime, it is Dragon Ball. Even when this series went on hiatus, a small band of fans called Team Fourstar brought about Dragon Ball Z Abridged. No matter what part of history it is, Dragon Ball has existed since it started and then Dragon Ball Super came about and things got... complicated. Either way you look at it, Dragon Ball has had a long history and the story has been told to exhausting extents. Even before this game, other games have completely followed the story in one way or another. Dragon Ball FighterZ came up with a cool story of its own, which was refreshing, especially with such a good game included with it. Then there was Xenoverse and I played that since the very beginning. I'm pretty sure I still have my Goku statue from Xenoverse 2. The story was different, but ultimately the same. What was great about that was you got to play your own character customized to your liking. They fought along with the main characters of the series and gained their own abilities. 

Here is a bit more return to form, even though you're playing through the same story, it does have other perks. The combat is a little simple, but not at all boring. It's fast paced and can gain real traction when you're fighting while fully powered up. In the episode mode, you play as multiple characters. Each one of them have fights that were the largest in the series. With Vegeta, you fought enemies like Kuwi, Zarbon, Freeza, but then move onto his large battles in the Android Saga, #19, #18, Imperfect Cell and even Perfect Cell. Each one of them is familiar and well known as his largest battles in the Z Saga. Part of me hates that there isn't more Dragon Ball from the beginning, it is very nice to play some of the older characters. Then there are the newer characters, like Goku Black. He is available very early in the game and this just seems like a waste of a space that could be given to better Dragon Ball characters. His story is boring and a horrific retread of the Future Trunks Saga, which is one of the best ones in Dragon Ball as a whole. I'm sorry, but no, I'm not going to rush to play Dragon Ball Super parts of this game. 

The characters, however, are amazingly vivid and vast throughout the series that you can play as. It is very easy to grind the story for a little bit, collect experience and unlock characters without paying a dime. It's a fake currency that you gain through gameplay. After just a few hours, you can make some very choice purchases for multiple characters, including extra skins! I didn't even check if there was a way to pay real money for this, because it has been rendered wholly useless with this very generous system. Within just the first three hours of gameplay, I was able to purchase most of the characters that I wanted to play. You can customize your own version of the character through skins and extra abilities purchased for Zenni at the shop. So, you can get your favorite character, buff them up, and fight in team battles against real people or computers. 

There is a good deal of stuff to keep you busy for a long time, while also being very beneficial for other modes of the game, constantly adding content. It is refreshing to see such a system and actually did keep me entertained for the whole game. I haven't beaten every storyline quite yet and I've been at it for around 25 hours. Most of that is because it is just a lot of fun to play custom battles and form your own playstyle. It's a game that really makes you want to play it while having the graphics to back it all up. My favorite color is red, and my custom Goku can be Super Saiyan God mode, who has the saiyan red hair. Vegeta is the same way, which is also very exciting to see, because he had skipped it through the first run of Dragon Ball Super. 

From main badguys from the series to main badguys of the movie, this game has you covered, even with the extra ally characters like Tapion or Pikehan. Being able to play as a giant yellow Janemba form is also quite a strange part. Hildegarn is a blast to fight against. Being able to take down giant forms as if they were normal enemies with a lot of reach and power moves is a very satisfying experience. They seem a little easy sometimes, but then there can come a difficulty spike when an enemy constantly performs super moves. So, the impulse is to do the same against them, constantly doing Gogeta's final move he used to kill Janemba or even Vegeta's Final Flash. 

The power up system is simple, thankfully. Sometimes, like in Bodokai 3, you need to press down two buttons and for some reason, that was a bit more cumbersome. You get normal power ups and then ultimate forms take on a secondary power up that unlocks your most powerful move. The ultimate moves are a lot of fun to trip over, especially when it actually works. Goku even unleashes the Spirit Bomb on Freeza randomly in the middle of the fight to finish it off. That was strange, but still quite nostalgic that they actually decided to stick to canon before he turned super saiyan for the first time.

If you're a Dragon Ball fan, this is your game and it is beautiful. Having so many options of play and unlockables is a gratifying experience and it really looks like the put in the leg work both graphically and mechanically. The way that it sticks to the original series and then goes off deeper into the fandom is a lot of fun to relive, especially when it's with your favorite characters. Gohan seems like quite the underused character later on through the series when he grows up, but it is really cool to play with his Super Saiyaman skin! Just seeing him and Videl is another landmark of a highpoint in an otherwise disappointing saga in Dragon Ball. Sorry, I just can't bring myself to like the Buu Saga. Virtua Saiyan Bomb!

Batman or Spider-man? - Saturday Morning Beatings! (Pt. 3)

Very few characters have ever had so many iterations of animated TV shows. Both of them had their own live action and animated series back from Batman's start in the 1930 serials to super hip 60's and 70's shows for both of them with horrific special effects. To Batman's credit, his flew on for entire seasons while Spider-man's poorly received series not even going past 13 episodes. Adam West's TV series went on to be respected as the shark-spraying piece of cheese that it is, but it was hardly the peak of the Caped Crusader's most popular outing. Both of these superheroes have an entire plethora of TV history, but their true renaissance wouldn't come until their Saturday morning animated series in the 90's. 

Batman The Animated Series

Bruce Timm and Paul Dini are the two men credited with making this show the great entity that it was. After Tim Burton's 1989 movie took the fanbase by storm, they wanted to follow it up with a shadowy, more young adult oriented animated series that was also safe(ish) for kids. Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill brought about a Batman and Joker that would live on for generations as two of the greatest versions of each character. Each episode was so amazingly crafted with developing stories for both the Batman rogue's gallery and the batfamily, even going so far as to create its own ever-spanning characters like Harley Quinn. Joker's jester-like partner and underling came about with this series in the episode "Joker's Favor". 

Even Mr. Freeze, a character that was never taken seriously before this cartoon, was expanded in his lore and treated as one of Batman's most dangerous opponents. With a wife in a coma with which he is finding a cure, he needs to resort to crime in order to gain the funding. This version of Freeze would become the real version that everyone turned to for reference. Killer Croc, The Mad Hatter, Clay Face, Catwoman, all of them were so done with astonishing quality in both writing and character progression throughout. 

The scripts were written with intelligence and even the worst episode, "I've got Batman in my Basement!", is still good enough to hold its own against scrutiny. Villains were given understanding motivations and some of them are genuinely heartfelt in their dispositions. Sometimes, they don't want to be this way and just succumb to mental illnesses. Most of them are just greedy, though, and with Batman's no-kill rule, it's not as if he's over punishing them. H.A.R.D.A.C. Batman was just confused as to who was the real Batman and actually thought he was the Dark Knight himself. He was a robot clone that was just trying to be Batman. These stories really can go to some dark places and make you think.

The animation and artwork became iconic for Bruce Timm's style and all the way to the Superman crossover and art change, they were very aesthetically pleasing. Once the art change happened, though, Joker, Scarecrow, Bane, Mad Hatter and some others took a bit of a nosedive in character design. It wasn't a dealbreaker and it didn't outright destroy the show, but it didn't do it any favors. The last season is seen as a bit of a weak point but the show was still great. Even when it added the Robins and Batwoman, this series never faltered in its quality. The series in its entirety is still seen as a milestone for the character and comic series of Batman.

Spider-man The Animate Series

Once Spider-man threw his hat into the ring, it took a lot of fans by surprise. You would think it would just copy off of Batman's homework, but it took the series in a whole other direction. The idea for a series was, in fact, directly connected to Batman's, but beyond that, it exists in its own style of art and storytelling. It is far more into progressive storytelling, where the Dark Knight was more episodic. This was a good and bad thing for both series for two different reasons. Sometimes, Spider-man just carried on its stories for a little too long. Sometimes, though, Spider-man pulled off a real banger of a season. 

The early episodes are far superior to the later, though. By season 3, the stories began running on for far too long and this came to a head in season 4 where it ends on a cliffhanger that would never be resolved. It went from episodic and 2 to 3 parters to just going on and on and on with the same story that just ends up getting old. To try and spice it up, they even bring in the X-men 92 characters, but it didn't have exactly the hyped effect that they were hoping for. 

When Spider-man started with fighting Vulture, Scorpion, Rhino and Doc Ock, many agree that the series was at its peak. When Venom and Kingpin had plots, they tended to last longer but kept up the quality writing. There were some fantastic stories being told with pacing that was willing to take its time and build up to the bigger battles. This was when the series was hitting them out of the park! Peter Parker struggled with his home life and his hero life while trying to get with Mary Jane and this had its ups and downs while only really getting annoying by the last season. Then there was the more complicated relationship Spidey had with Black Cat. With villains like the Green Goblin or Lizard being people he looked up to professionally, it held real weight because these were characters we've been introduced to before they went to the baddies. 

There were limitations, though. This was a time when bullet guns were seen as bad, so they switched to lasers. They also wanted to keep a hard Y7 rating for the younger audiences and Fox was on a no violence kick, so there could be no on-screen punches. So, you get more jump cuts away from hits and a whole lot of web shooting to debilitate villains. Spider-man had to use his brain and out smart a lot of his opponents and a lot of kids never even noticed the nonviolence. It didn't really suffer as a result. It was more the graphical aspect and the framerates that hurt the series. Sometimes the slow-motion would just make the screen bug out and the animation would get jumpy and it was weird, even for the younger audience. 

The voice work and the overall execution of the series had its very high points, but also had a few flops. A lot of people will point to the Black Spider-man calling after Shocker, and yeah that's when it was most noticeable. While Kingpin's voice became iconic for the character, there's more stock villain voices for a lot of the rogues. After a while, they started making up villains and pulling some of the more not great versions of well known characters. Blade was done pretty well, but Morbius wasn't. Instead of being a blood-sucking vampire, he absorbed plasma through weird growths on his palms. If they weren't going to go full on with him, then they shouldn't have brought him up in the first place. The did the same with Punisher. Obviously, he wasn't going to go on his normal blood baths like in the more adult themed comics, but the laser blasters just took something away from the more tough-guy persona. 

So, obviously, Batman wins this one by a longshot. Spider-man was not a bad series, it just didn't age as well and took a much deeper dive in the later seasons. It had its place in the vast amount of superhero cartoons, but Batman was seen as the prime example to follow. Many could make the case that Spectacular Spider-man was a better choice to face this challenge, but it was made in a different era, whether it was better than the 1994 series or not. The two of them did well in their own right, but this is definitely 5 points to the Caped Crusader himself! Give them a try and next time we'll examine some of the lesser animated series tries. So, be warned that we may be viewing Beware the Batman. That's right, a warning. You're Bat Warned. 

Wolfenstein: The New Order - Chaingunning to the Moon

Sometimes, rebooting and reimagining a game can mean its death. Well, this series jump started Wolfenstein's popularity after a bit of a lukewarm reception of the 2009 version. This was a brand new installment with a grand bit of worldbuilding. This takes place in an alternate future where the Third Reich win the war. BJ Blazkowicz starts us off in World War 2 where the Axis's technology is far more sophistocated than this timeline. As they launch an attack, the allies are all killed except for BJ. 

Our hero gets put into a hospital, and is basically forgotten about because the Nazis believe him to be dead. However, since they won the war, their stranglehold on Germany only grows more and more ironclad. Blazkowicz wakes up from his catatonia to find the world in a neo-fascist state where the Nazi Regime reigns supreme, and soon they come to the hospital and begin killing patients. Anya, the girl who was taking care of him and with whom he becomes interested in, also gets taken by the Third Reich before he comes out of his coma, ready to shoot and kill. Using a dinner knife, he kills one guard, takes his gun and from there, it's time to take the fight to them. 

Basically, it gets to the same place as the original, but then spins it to where you're not just in Castle Wolfenstein. You're going all across a new aged Germany if it was still under Hitler's rule. You find and rescue Anya and you find and join the rebellion against the Third Reich. Throughout the game, you go on missions that gain more and more intelligence about their plans and this eventually leads you to the moon. One of this game's biggest draws was that you are literally killing Nazis on the moon. What sells this idea is that they actually sell it story-wise. You feel the stranglehold the Nazis have because you interact with them and see their cruely play out in front of you. You meet one woman on a train surrounded by guards and you genuinely think they found you out. What it actually was was them screwing with your head and making fun of you. They can play the most horrific practical jokes and just laugh about it and you naturally want to take them down. 

When I say futuristic, I mean giant machine attack dogs, futuristic tanks and mech suits! They even have drones and the combat becomes chaotic when you're having to take down all of these elements along with the normal human guards. You can dual wield machineguns and feel like a real badass in all new ways as you take down the evil Axis!

The graphics are so huge that this game had to be released on multiple discs for the Xbox 360. With PS3, it simply had a lot of load screens. That doesn't take much from the gameplay aside from some textures and frames. The great thing is that you can see where all of that storage space went when you look at the game itself. It's not without its glitches, but it still came out a finished game that is so fun to play because you feel as powerful as the Wolfenstein man himself in Wolf 3D of old. It's science fiction, dystopian fiction rather than the more fantasy/scifi/horror of 2009 and RTCW.  

It is also much more realistic with such detailed graphics and that is felt when you have a Nazi torture session. To find and rescue the rebellion fighters, you need to hurt an SS officer and threaten him with a chainsaw! This man is ready to take down the entire regime himself and that all begins with a new team to do it. BJ builds up this entire resistance himself and together they fight against the entire world order on every front. You want to succeed because you believe in the cause and it means you kill Nazis on a large scale. The story is engaging because you want to finish the mission and kill a lot of guys with big guns. The story has its highs and lows, the biggest low being the open ending that invites a sequel. The problem is that the sequel wasn't quite as good. The series itself took a lot of highs and lows: From the Old Blood to the terribly unoriginally titled Youngblood, the franchise didn't end up going out on a high note. No, it went out thanks to poor writing and ill-conceived story continuations that made no sense. Still, that's a story for another time. The New Order is awesome, it is totally worth your death---time! Totally worth your time.