My top 15 favorite video games of all time. Part 1: 15-6

A turn of events that took place over the course of this weekend lead me to consider what my favorite video games of all time are, and since I am at a lack of topics to write about that I don't want to save for another day of the week (considering my posting schedule) I decided to write about my favorite video games of all time here. I have been a long time video gamer, since the days when the original Playstation and the Nintendo 64 were the big consoles on the block, and thus I have a lot of good memories relating to games. The best, though, are the ones detailed below. These are the games I played and replayed, learned all the secrets of, sometimes completed, and just thoroughly enjoyed. Think of this as a spiritual sequel to my lists of my top 25 favorite songs and my top 5 favorite movies. To answer the inevitable question, WoW is very high on this list, but it is not number one.

15. Super Mario Sunshine
This is an interesting entry. You see, I was pretty young when I first played Super Mario 64, which many consider to be one of the best games of all time, so my memories of that game aren't as vivid as my memories of Super Mario Sunshine. That said, my memories that I do have of Super Mario 64 aren't as fond as my memories of Super Mario Sunshine, so I don't feel guilty putting it on the list instead. Super Mario Sunshine was one of the first games I ever played on the GameCube, and it is still one of the games I remember best. The atmosphere alone made it a great game, for the game took place on a tropical island paradise. The environments, the characters, the music, they were all designed to support the feeling that the game took place in tropical get-away. It worked so well that even after I had beaten the game, I enjoyed just exploring the environments, seeing what I hadn't seen before, finding the little secrets of the game, because playing this game actually felt like going away on a vacation. The gameplay was also very fun, with the FLUDD (Mario's water-squirting accessory) adding a new dimension to the game's already fun Super Mario 64-based control mechanics. It was just a joy to play, simply put.

14. Super Smash Bros Melee
Suffice it to say that I have a lot of good memories associated with playing this game with friends. My character of choice was Sheik, and I got quite good at her. In addition to playing the regular melee mode, I also enjoyed a game some of my friends and I would play on Venom, where we would restrict ourselves to one side of the stage and fight each other only by throwing Pokéballs on the other person's side, which were set to spawn often. Before Rock Band came around, this was the party game among my friends, and the one that motivated me to buy my three additional GameCube controllers. Considering that the fun to be had in this game was mostly based on the interpersonal interactions it created, it's hard to pin down what made it such a great game, but it was certainly one of my favorites. Don't get me wrong, I like Brawl too, but Melee will always hold a special place in my heart.

13. The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker
Like Super Mario Sunshine, Wind Waker is a game that is often overshadowed by an installment in the series that came before it: Ocarina of Time, considered by many to be the best game ever. That it may be, and while I did enjoy playing it, it was another one of those games that I was pretty young when I first played, so it didn't stick in my mind as much as Wind Waker, which I played later. But I digress; Wind Waker was a great game because of its art design and it's scope. I know the cartoony art design was a polarizing facet of the game, but I thought it brought a lightness to game's overall tone that prevented it from getting too serious. It's scope was also huge in that the game took place on the open ocean, with the major actions taking place on the islands in the ocean. There was a lot to be found between these islands, and the art and music made traversing the ocean a joy, rather than a pain. It was also the first Zelda game to feature a sword fight with Ganondorf (the series' main villain) as its final boss. How can you go wrong with that?

12. Animal Crossing
A rather unique game, Animal Crossing had no obvious completion requirements, and was a game where you largely had to make your own fun. Of course, the game gave you multitudes of ways to do that, from fishing to decorating your house to changing the landscaping of the town. It was nice change of pace from games where there was pressure to do something specific; in Animal Crossing, you did what you wanted to do. The fact that the town changed with the year also gave the game a nice flair to it. Like Super Mario Sunshine, this was a game where you felt like you had been transported to another world, a more relaxing world where you wouldn't mind spending a few hours.

11. Tales of Symphonia
This was an interesting game: an action-RPG with a story that could get convoluted at times, but certainly kept me invested in the game. But what made the game great was its gameplay, which combined RPG and action-game aspects beautifully to create something that was just plain fun. The fact that the random encounters were also somewhat avoidable, depending on your skill at avoiding them (it was something you became practiced with) was also an appreciated aspect of the game. Like Wind Waker, this game was especially massive in its scope, and you didn't truly appreciate that until you got the means to fly through the overworld. Once that option was open to you, you realized just how big of a world there was out there to explore, and there were plenty of reasons to explore it, too, from bonus bosses to bonus storylines that told you more about your characters. Definitely not a game for everyone, but I certainly enjoyed it.

10. Metroid: Zero Misson
A remake of the classic NES title Metroid, brought up to date with improved controls, items that had become mainstays of the series, and an expanded world to fit it all into. This game was everything I loved about the game Metroid Fusion and more, with more precise controls, a better sense of progression, and a faster pace. There was also a lot of potential for sequence breaking in this game, and I sequence broke the hell out of it, skipping items and bosses for fun, but usually using the sequence breaking to get items early, making challenging parts of the game easy. I must have played through this game dozens of times, and I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out I played through it almost a hundred times. It's just a great game, and probably the hand-held game I enjoyed the most.

9. Pokémon Gold Version
Who doesn't have fond memories of their first Pokémon game? Pokémon Gold Version was one of my first games, as well as the game that taught me the mainstays of the RPG genre: random encounters, leveling up, elemental weaknesses, those damn slippery floor puzzles where you could only move in the four cardinal directions, you kept moving until you hit something, and you had to find the exact path through (did anyone really enjoy that?). My dedication to this game was such that I had a level 89 Meganium (the final evolution of the starter pokemon I picked), who took down Red, the game's final boss, on his own. It's hard to pin down exactly what I liked about this game, because I played it so long ago, but I know I enjoyed it.

8. Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence
All of the Metal Gear Solid games hold a special place in my heart (except the fourth, but only because I haven't played it yet), for the three Metal Gear Solid games are the only video games that have ever made me cry. The third was no exception, and though I won't spoil what plot twist made me cry, suffice it to say it was a good one, and thinking about it still brings a tear to my eye. It was also a very fun game, with the camouflage mechanic complimenting the stealth mechanics the series is known for very well. However, it is not the original Metal Gear Solid 3 I place on this list, but the remake. Why? Because the remake took the series' typical horrible camera and replaced it with a significantly better one, one you could actually control and move to make exploring your surroundings easier, making the whole experience much more fun.

7. Metroid Prime
The Metroid franchise's jump into 3D was a risky move that could have gone wrong in many ways, but Retro studios did a fantastic job with this game. The combat is fun, the world is beautiful and expansive, and the little tidbits of lore provided by the scan visor really make the whole experience very immersive. What's nice about the way the plot is revealed through the scan visor is that it means that you never experience more of the plot than you want to. If you just want the action without any backstory, you can have that by just not scanning anything. If you want every little detail of the world around, then just scan everything and you'll get that. The game also boasts impressive graphics, even by today's standards, and a higher frame-rate than most games I have played, which is a pet pleasure of mine.

6. Sypro the Dragon (the original trilogy)
Spyro 2 was my first video game, and this series was my first video game obsession. I completed all three of these games way back when and enjoyed every minute of them. Granted, I may be wearing rose-tinted glasses due to my age at the time, but I really just loved these games. The platforming was superb, the obsessive pursuit of every last gem in every level kept me coming back until I had finished the game, and the characters were downright entertaining (to my young mind, at least). It's a game that will probably always be locked in the vaults of nostalgia for me, but hey, maybe that's a good thing.

Due to time constraints and to avoid this post becoming too long, I'm going to stop it here and save entries 5-1 for next week. So stay tuned for My top 15 favorite video games of all time, Part 2: Revenge of the Rhythm Games next week.