Rate the Game Wrap Up and Retrospective Special

**M-A-G** · 09-07-2022, 09:20 PM

So imagine my panic when I woke up Tuesday morning thinking I had missed out on Rate the Game. The mind can be programmed in very awful ways. I, of course, quickly remembered that we had wrapped this up last week. Then I panicked again when I realized I didn't do a proper ending with a final leaderboard. After all, Super Mario Bros. 2 certainly got lots of love, enough to get it a spot on our leaderboard. But what spot after all is said and done? I present to all of you out in the TPWW Universe, the final (?) fully updated leaderboard!!!

Now doesn't that feel good? It just makes things feel so...whole. Super Mario Bros. 2 earned enough praise and love to end up with a 4.5 overall average. That means it breaks a long streak we endured of not having a game break into that upper elite echelon of the top ten. It barely, just barely, squeezes in and claims that number 9 spot, kicking Red Dead Redemption out of the running.

Well, aside from tying up that particular loose end, I kind of hoped this thread coiuld be all about us giving our final perspectives on some of these games. Maybe you missed a week or weren't here from the get-go and wanted to share some thoughts and memories. What would your personal top ten from this selection of games look like? What are your thoughts on what ended up being our collective top ten?

And probably the biggest question is should Rate the Game continue sometime down the road and what games would you want to be part of it, if at all? I'm most certainly going to take a bit of a breather but I'm not hanging up the bowl just yet. I mean, I can still eat cereal out of it. I have a group of alternates that I had at the ready in case we needed them. I'll probably share those later. But the forum is open. What's your take on all of these questions? I'll kick it off with my own take on our top ten. Happy reading!

1. Super Mario World (4.81)

If there was any game on this list that I thought deserved to be number one, it's this one. Not my personal favorite but it meant so much to so many people and was incredibly instrumental to the launch of the Super Nintendo. I remember playing this sucker at any demo unit I could find at whatever department store we frequented. It looked incredible, played even better, and the music is a constant ear worm to this day. Plus its biggest feature is still a staple in the Mario franchise to this day, that being the lovable Yoshi. Like I said before, I don't go back to this one as much as 3 but it was the game that made me want a Super Nintendo. If you were a Nintendo kid back in the day it was as vital as breathing.

2. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (4.8)
For a while it looked like nothing was going to top Ocarina of Time after it had claimed the number one spot. Imagine my surprise when the game that ended up challenging it was this one. Vice City certainly improved on the formula that Grand Theft Auto 3 had given us but it's safe to say it's a wildly different kind of game than Ocarina of Time. The plot and setting certainly helped, and a rocking 80s soundtrack didn't hurt. This was one of those games that I had to play via my friend's Playstation 2 after college. It always seemed I was more interested in just wreaking havoc instead of actually playing the game. I had fun with it but the Open World Rule kind of prevents me from placing it on a high pedestal. Not necessarily a shoo-in for my top ten but, hey, that's not what this list is all about. You spoke and number two certainly isn't anything to sneeze at.

3. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (4.8)
Dirty secret time: I'm not a particularly big Legend of Zelda fan. I've never completed a single game in the franchise and I never touched this one despite it being one of the biggest and most beloved entries on the Nintendo 64. I mean, it looks interesting and you can tell a lot of care and trouble went into creating it. I absolutely remember the hype surrounding it and I still have issues of GamePro where it was a featured upcoming title. I just can't quite put my finger on what it is about this world that never really grabbed me. I'll simply just have to take everyone else's word for it as virtually everyone gave it enough to love to not only earn that nice 4.8 average but it was the game that broke the streak that Super Mario Bros. 3 had touted on the top of the leaderboard for so long.

4. Hitman: Codename 47 (4.75)
Another game with which I have little experience. I can only recall brief instances of my friend giving it a whirl but I was usually preoccupied with something else. I like stealth gameplay, as my love for the Thief franchise will attest, but I just never got bit by this particular bug. I don't have a whole lot to say about this title so I'll just have to trust your judgment again.

5. Mass Effect (4.75)
One of the few games that I hadn't played at the time of when we covered it that I went on to play later. I picked up the collection sometime after and was incredibly impressed with the universe they built. It's incredibly ambitious and the conversation system is really engrossing. I love hearing from these characters and wondering how my attitude will affect things down the line, if at all. I'm not sure I like it over other shooters I've played but I'm not done with it yet so we'll leave that judgment for another time.

6. GoldenEye 007 (4.72)
Not to be that guy but if you were a 90s kid and didn't play this fucker with 3 other people while gobbling down pizza and CapriSun, I wonder what's wrong with you.

7. Super Mario Bros. 3 (4.7)
Oh, hell yeah! You want to explain to some young punk how much Nintendo ruled the fucking world back in the day, you pop this fucker in. This bad boy claimed the top spot when it was covered and held on for dear life all the way until the end of the original run of Rate the Game. It was almost scary how nothing seemed to be able to stop it. But why not? This game is the quintessential NES title. The power-ups, the music, the format, the graphics, the gameplay. It's almost everything you'd want in an NES game. It's also hard to talk about this game without mentioning the movie "The Wiz", where it was featured at the climax. And while that film is as far from cinematic gold as you can get, it's a snapshot of the times. I may not have had the greatest relationship with my sisters but when it came to Mario and Nintendo, it all seemed to just melt away. I think that is the real contribution a game like this made to everyone who played it back in the day. It's certainly my favorite Mario game on the NES and I welcome it on my top ten any day.

8. Silent Hill 2 (4.66)
I understand how this wasn't as popular among us as some of these other titles. The survival horror genre is already niche as it is and Resident Evil always seemed to have the bigger parades. I think there were already 5 Resident Evil titles out before this game was released. Nevertheless, on a personal level, it ranks so high it's not even funny. I place it on a shortlist that I would submit as evidence that the video game medium is as viable an art form as painting or composing. If it can move you or bring out a strong emotional response, I would absolutely classify it as a work of art. It's not my favorite Silent Hill game, and in fact, I almost have a love-hate relationship with it. On the one hand, I think it's one of the best games ever made but at the same time, it's where a lot of misconceptions about the franchise started and continued when the series got taken out of the hands of Team Silent. As much as it would be nice if the original games got a lot of love nowadays, I kind of prefer it if the series just remained dormant as it has been instead of running the risk of it continuing to be mishandled by people who don't know what it's about. My earliest memories of this game involve me seeing it being advertised on TV with a voiceover of a woman talking about how she was promised that she'd be taken back to Silent Hill someday. Knowing what I did about the first game, I was confused. Like, why would someone who went through the first game want to go back? Of course, all my questions were answered when my friend brought the game home and popped that fucker in the Playstation 2. To say we were blown away is an understatement. I feel bad about it taking up a spot on our top ten but it's absolutely a mainstay on mine.

9. Super Mario Bros. 2 (4.5)
I think I said all I needed to say about this one last week. Again, there was just something about Nintendo that let my sisters and I just be siblings. On the property that my dad managed there were two girls around the ages of my sisters. They were the one who had a lot of NES games and were kind enough to lend them to us. They even had the Power Pad! Of course, we tackled this game, too. It was the talk of the lunch table in school. Everyone had their own ideas as to why the game was so different from the original and what relation Wart had to Bowser, if any. Just being able to play as characters other than Mario and Luigi was a big deal. Playing as Princess Toadstool was an even bigger deal. Yes, there was a time when she was just Princess Toadstool to us. And she wasn't a blonde. Just some weird shade of brown.

10. Portal (4.5)
A different kind of puzzle game to say the least but one most welcome. I think the only thing really working against it, in my opinion, is its short length. Naturally the sequel took care of that issue and expanded on the rest of the concept. The humor, the setting, the mechanics, and the fact that it was part of one of the best deals in gaming were huge pluses. I'll always remember my friend beating this fucker before I got the chance while I was at work. I repaid him by beating Portal 2 before he did, though. And he was the one who bought it. For a time, this game was the talk of the town, as everyone was quoting it and "Still Alive" was one of the most beloved songs in gaming. It set the stage that the sequel absolutely just lit up and stole for itself. But that's another story for another day....

So how about the rest of you?

09-07-2022, 09:20 PM	#1
M-A-G Higher. Further. Faster. Posts: 20,865	Rate the Game Wrap Up and Retrospective Special So imagine my panic when I woke up Tuesday morning thinking I had missed out on Rate the Game. The mind can be programmed in very awful ways. I, of course, quickly remembered that we had wrapped this up last week. Then I panicked again when I realized I didn't do a proper ending with a final leaderboard. After all, Super Mario Bros. 2 certainly got lots of love, enough to get it a spot on our leaderboard. But what spot after all is said and done? I present to all of you out in the TPWW Universe, the final (?) fully updated leaderboard!!! Now doesn't that feel good? It just makes things feel so...whole. Super Mario Bros. 2 earned enough praise and love to end up with a 4.5 overall average. That means it breaks a long streak we endured of not having a game break into that upper elite echelon of the top ten. It barely, just barely, squeezes in and claims that number 9 spot, kicking Red Dead Redemption out of the running. Well, aside from tying up that particular loose end, I kind of hoped this thread coiuld be all about us giving our final perspectives on some of these games. Maybe you missed a week or weren't here from the get-go and wanted to share some thoughts and memories. What would your personal top ten from this selection of games look like? What are your thoughts on what ended up being our collective top ten? And probably the biggest question is should Rate the Game continue sometime down the road and what games would you want to be part of it, if at all? I'm most certainly going to take a bit of a breather but I'm not hanging up the bowl just yet. I mean, I can still eat cereal out of it. I have a group of alternates that I had at the ready in case we needed them. I'll probably share those later. But the forum is open. What's your take on all of these questions? I'll kick it off with my own take on our top ten. Happy reading! 1. Super Mario World (4.81) If there was any game on this list that I thought deserved to be number one, it's this one. Not my personal favorite but it meant so much to so many people and was incredibly instrumental to the launch of the Super Nintendo. I remember playing this sucker at any demo unit I could find at whatever department store we frequented. It looked incredible, played even better, and the music is a constant ear worm to this day. Plus its biggest feature is still a staple in the Mario franchise to this day, that being the lovable Yoshi. Like I said before, I don't go back to this one as much as 3 but it was the game that made me want a Super Nintendo. If you were a Nintendo kid back in the day it was as vital as breathing. 2. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (4.8) For a while it looked like nothing was going to top Ocarina of Time after it had claimed the number one spot. Imagine my surprise when the game that ended up challenging it was this one. Vice City certainly improved on the formula that Grand Theft Auto 3 had given us but it's safe to say it's a wildly different kind of game than Ocarina of Time. The plot and setting certainly helped, and a rocking 80s soundtrack didn't hurt. This was one of those games that I had to play via my friend's Playstation 2 after college. It always seemed I was more interested in just wreaking havoc instead of actually playing the game. I had fun with it but the Open World Rule kind of prevents me from placing it on a high pedestal. Not necessarily a shoo-in for my top ten but, hey, that's not what this list is all about. You spoke and number two certainly isn't anything to sneeze at. 3. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (4.8) Dirty secret time: I'm not a particularly big Legend of Zelda fan. I've never completed a single game in the franchise and I never touched this one despite it being one of the biggest and most beloved entries on the Nintendo 64. I mean, it looks interesting and you can tell a lot of care and trouble went into creating it. I absolutely remember the hype surrounding it and I still have issues of GamePro where it was a featured upcoming title. I just can't quite put my finger on what it is about this world that never really grabbed me. I'll simply just have to take everyone else's word for it as virtually everyone gave it enough to love to not only earn that nice 4.8 average but it was the game that broke the streak that Super Mario Bros. 3 had touted on the top of the leaderboard for so long. 4. Hitman: Codename 47 (4.75) Another game with which I have little experience. I can only recall brief instances of my friend giving it a whirl but I was usually preoccupied with something else. I like stealth gameplay, as my love for the Thief franchise will attest, but I just never got bit by this particular bug. I don't have a whole lot to say about this title so I'll just have to trust your judgment again. 5. Mass Effect (4.75) One of the few games that I hadn't played at the time of when we covered it that I went on to play later. I picked up the collection sometime after and was incredibly impressed with the universe they built. It's incredibly ambitious and the conversation system is really engrossing. I love hearing from these characters and wondering how my attitude will affect things down the line, if at all. I'm not sure I like it over other shooters I've played but I'm not done with it yet so we'll leave that judgment for another time. 6. GoldenEye 007 (4.72) Not to be that guy but if you were a 90s kid and didn't play this fucker with 3 other people while gobbling down pizza and CapriSun, I wonder what's wrong with you. 7. Super Mario Bros. 3 (4.7) Oh, hell yeah! You want to explain to some young punk how much Nintendo ruled the fucking world back in the day, you pop this fucker in. This bad boy claimed the top spot when it was covered and held on for dear life all the way until the end of the original run of Rate the Game. It was almost scary how nothing seemed to be able to stop it. But why not? This game is the quintessential NES title. The power-ups, the music, the format, the graphics, the gameplay. It's almost everything you'd want in an NES game. It's also hard to talk about this game without mentioning the movie "The Wiz", where it was featured at the climax. And while that film is as far from cinematic gold as you can get, it's a snapshot of the times. I may not have had the greatest relationship with my sisters but when it came to Mario and Nintendo, it all seemed to just melt away. I think that is the real contribution a game like this made to everyone who played it back in the day. It's certainly my favorite Mario game on the NES and I welcome it on my top ten any day. 8. Silent Hill 2 (4.66) I understand how this wasn't as popular among us as some of these other titles. The survival horror genre is already niche as it is and Resident Evil always seemed to have the bigger parades. I think there were already 5 Resident Evil titles out before this game was released. Nevertheless, on a personal level, it ranks so high it's not even funny. I place it on a shortlist that I would submit as evidence that the video game medium is as viable an art form as painting or composing. If it can move you or bring out a strong emotional response, I would absolutely classify it as a work of art. It's not my favorite Silent Hill game, and in fact, I almost have a love-hate relationship with it. On the one hand, I think it's one of the best games ever made but at the same time, it's where a lot of misconceptions about the franchise started and continued when the series got taken out of the hands of Team Silent. As much as it would be nice if the original games got a lot of love nowadays, I kind of prefer it if the series just remained dormant as it has been instead of running the risk of it continuing to be mishandled by people who don't know what it's about. My earliest memories of this game involve me seeing it being advertised on TV with a voiceover of a woman talking about how she was promised that she'd be taken back to Silent Hill someday. Knowing what I did about the first game, I was confused. Like, why would someone who went through the first game want to go back? Of course, all my questions were answered when my friend brought the game home and popped that fucker in the Playstation 2. To say we were blown away is an understatement. I feel bad about it taking up a spot on our top ten but it's absolutely a mainstay on mine. 9. Super Mario Bros. 2 (4.5) I think I said all I needed to say about this one last week. Again, there was just something about Nintendo that let my sisters and I just be siblings. On the property that my dad managed there were two girls around the ages of my sisters. They were the one who had a lot of NES games and were kind enough to lend them to us. They even had the Power Pad! Of course, we tackled this game, too. It was the talk of the lunch table in school. Everyone had their own ideas as to why the game was so different from the original and what relation Wart had to Bowser, if any. Just being able to play as characters other than Mario and Luigi was a big deal. Playing as Princess Toadstool was an even bigger deal. Yes, there was a time when she was just Princess Toadstool to us. And she wasn't a blonde. Just some weird shade of brown. 10. Portal (4.5) A different kind of puzzle game to say the least but one most welcome. I think the only thing really working against it, in my opinion, is its short length. Naturally the sequel took care of that issue and expanded on the rest of the concept. The humor, the setting, the mechanics, and the fact that it was part of one of the best deals in gaming were huge pluses. I'll always remember my friend beating this fucker before I got the chance while I was at work. I repaid him by beating Portal 2 before he did, though. And he was the one who bought it. For a time, this game was the talk of the town, as everyone was quoting it and "Still Alive" was one of the most beloved songs in gaming. It set the stage that the sequel absolutely just lit up and stole for itself. But that's another story for another day.... So how about the rest of you? No matter what may happen to me, just remember Lzzy Hale gave me the bedroom eyes... ...again. Last edited by M-A-G; 09-07-2022 at 10:18 PM.