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The Greatest Games of All Time as Determined by a Narrow Group of Sponsors Attempting to Macro-Target the Common Market Okay. Think back to about November '05. It was Xbox 360 mania if you recall, and major news outlets (no, I'm not talking about game news outlets like IGN or 1UP, I'm talking about the real shit, the ones supported almost entirely by pharmaceuticals) were waffling about gaming as an industry. I believe I heard one talking head say something along the lines of "there's great money to be had as long as somebody out there wants it" giving me the impression I was watching one of those infomercials they show at 4 AM about how becoming a real estate emperor is easier than learning the state capitols. Of course, it also helped the guy saying this was wearing a shirt that said "ADVERTISERS: BUY ME!!" The gaming climate of that time was filled with enough artificial testosterone to make the Maddox opus "Alphabet of Manliness" seem more like "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants", appealing to a demographic large and impressionable enough that it couldn't NOT isolated and targeted. I decided to poke fun at the whole thing and wrote up a feature that could make their dreams come true as best as possible. How do you supposedly get the attention of this, or pretty much any demographic? Tell them something's the best ever. So this list becomes one of those Top 10s you see sometimes. Because this is a very advertiser-friendly list, only games still making considerable money for their companies' execs will be considered. This means anything before Halo is disqualified. They need to be games the testostero crowd won't be embarrassed to have, so only those with the best graphics will do as well as be either sports titles or M rated. Finally, they need to be at least reasonably good, at least to some of those in the legitimate game press. Mike Litorus even knows better than to be seen holding Gun or Perfect Dark Zero, dipped gratuitously in blood as they are. So here it is. The list seems a tad dated because I had quickly written up a script right when I had the idea, banked it away because I lacked the equipment to get it done. When I did finally get the equipment, I had forgotten about the feature and didn't rediscover it until October 2006. By this time, the list was already quite dated, but I stubbornly pressed on with finishing this project. The characters of the show are Game Journalist (Arkfullofsorrow vets might know this guy) who knows way too much about video games, and three other guys (a jock type, a trendier type, and a generic type) who know absolutely nothing about them. Without further ado, begin the countdown at 10 with the top video... (Highlight underneath each video to see the titles discussed in case you wish to specially see/bypass the content of any video without being spoiled)
Not perfect by any stretch, but I say I did alright with what I had. It didn't go exactly the way I planned, and, in fact, a whole helluva lot went wrong. I had to cut some so of the finest lines (in fact, I forgot to say them) and didn't have as good of a set for it as I had originally thought. And the next time some condescending tech geek talks about how easy it is to record crap to a DVD player with a sophisticated recorder, punch them. There's also the fact I wanted this New Year's Celebration of sorts to be completed by New Year's 2007. I would say in the groin to keep them from reproducing, but come on now. A great deal did go right, though, and I am pretty satisfied with they way it turned out. |