The Top Ten Games You Missed Because You're Not As Cool As Me

So I grabbed Eat Lead today, and am currently going through it. I'll probably add it to this list when I'm done with it, but for now, here's a list. These games are ones that either fell through the cracks, or ones that did okay but bear emphasizing based on their sheer importance. Without further ado, The Top Ten Games You Missed Because You're Not As Cool As Me.

10. Burnout Paradise
A few years ago, downloadable content was a non-existent phrase. To console gamers, it was a theoretical "maybe" of the far flung future, and to PC gamers it was an every day reality called "mods" that had existed for a decade or more. Over the last few years, downloadable content has burst onto the scene, and with it comes many the sticky, grubby hands of capitalism. The industry's already produced many sordid, almost comedic examples of how to do DLC wrong; thankfully, there's one company out there who knows how to do it right.

Criterion Game's Burnout Paradise is not only the finest racing game this console generation, but a shining example for all other publishers that actually give a fuck about their customers on how to do DLC right. Since the game came out, there's been many updates, both free and paid, that have evolved the game to a higher level and won them many fans, and they show no signs of slowing down. Burnout Paradise is only $19.99 at a retailer near you, so you have no excuse not to own this game. Did I mention one of the updates lets you drive the General Lee, K.I.T.T., the DeLorean and Ecto-1? Yeah, there you go.

9. Braid
Braid is a unique gem. A game that does what few indie, downloadable games are able to do: transcend its roots to stand on its own amongst the big boy titles. The game, more than any other I've seen, is a work of art in every sense of the word. The story is painfully pretentious, but gives the game a feeling unique to the medium. The art is unparalleled. The puzzles in the game are second to none in terms of sheer mind-fuckage and creativity. It's superior on every level. There are some of my friends who don't like the game because the main character looks stupid or the story's too pretentious, but they have dumb faces that are dumb.

8. Gotcha Force
Back in the mid days of the Gamecube when Nintendo still sort of cared about trying to pretend they weren't a massive failure, Capcom was their biggest supporter. One year, they touted the Five, a list of games that were exclusive to the system and blockbusters. This list included the sublime Viewtiful Joe, the forgettable P.N. 03, and the canceled Red Revolver. What it DIDN'T include was Gotcha Force, a game that was also exclusive to the Cube and better than all the other games combined. Capcom didn't advertise it whatsoever, didn't put out very many copies, and it got poor reviews from people who routinely suck the dick of the far inferior Pokemon franchise. The result? To this day it remains the best game no one's played on the system.

So what's it about? You control Gotcha Borgs, little toy-sized robots that fight each other. The battles take place in various arenas (backyard, gutter, playground, etc.) and whoever you fight and defeat during that particular skirmish, you have a chance to either win outright or win a piece of them. You assemble your fighting force from the robots you've won. Each robot has a cost, and each fight you win adds ten points to your spending limit, so you can either have a team of a bunch of small robots, or a team composed of one badass robot. Those robots are then sent out, one at a time, to deal with the waves of enemies in any given battle.

Here's the fun part: There are over 300 playable characters, each one with a unique playstyle. All of them are easy to pick up and use, hard to master. They run the gamut of everything possible: There are dragons, knights, cowboys, witches, nurses, transformers, sentai-style robots that combine, insects, battleships, UFO's, superheroes, jeeps, tanks, you name it. The thing that sets it apart from the pokemon franchise is that while your units can level up and get more HP based on how many battles they win, it's by no means stat based. You're controlling all the fast paced action. If you're good enough with your scrawny little basic Ninja, you can make him worth much more than his measly 150 points would suggest.

I've already typed too much on it, so let me say this: If you can manage to find a copy, it's the best fun you can have with your Cube.

7. Crackdown
A few years ago before Halo 3 came out, word got out that there was going to be a multiplayer beta. The only way to get into the multiplayer beta was via the menu of an otherwise little touted game called Crackdown, to this day one of the only truly exclusive titles to the Xbox360. Crackdown itself ended up being tons more fun than anything Halo could ever do.

Crackdown is an open-world game much like GTA. That's where the similarities stop. You play an Agent, a genetically engineered supercop who has superpowers, namely the ability to leap high in the air, the ability to take four billion bullets to the face and not die, the ability to throw cars like they were made of marzipan, and a super secret agency that provides you with morphing supercars. Your job? Take a rifle, take a rocket launcher, take your sweet-ass morphing car and shoot the fuck out of any dude who sort of looks like a gang member. Not only is the game a blast and action packed, but it's revolutionary in several key aspects.

While you level up most of your abilities by killing people with them, you level up your agility by hopping over the city rooftops and collecting orbs. The more orbs you collect, the higher you jump, and the higher you jump, the more orbs you can reach. It's more addicting and useful than any other "collect this shit spread all over the city" mechanic I've ever seen.

Each gang lieutenant you take out affects the final boss of that area. For example, take out his personal trainer, and all his guards have their health reduced. Take out his recruiter, and there are less guards. Assassin's Creed was basically a dumbed down version of Crackdown: Instead of killing subordinates you did stupid little minigame missions, and instead of affecting the final showdown of an area, all you got was info. While there were flags and other things to collect cleverly spread out throughout the cities and countryside, they didn't do jack shit.

Last but not least, Crackdown has the most unique open world city I've ever seen. It's not New York or Faux New York. It's its own city with its own neighborhoods, architecture, and culture. The game is dirt cheap right now, so buy it if you don't own it.

6. Freedom Force
Long before Bioshock was even a twinkle in Ken Levine's eye, he happened to make the best superhero game ever made using characters he made up himself. That game was Freedom Force, a game belonging to a genre that has yet to be duplicated as far as I know, although the X-men Legends series and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance come close in an arcadey sort of way. Freedom Force is Levine's love letter to the silver age of comics, what most of you would refer to as early 60's comics. The art style, storyline, characters and dialog are all absolutely spot on perfect, in addition to being totally revolutionary. Freedom Force has the best character creation system I've ever seen, albeit one that requires you either download or make a 3d model and skin yourself. After you do that, you can edit a character's stats, attributes, body material, voice, and every aspect of his powers, from damage type (of which there are hundreds), to effects, to type of power (ranged, melee, etc), and more. It, and its sequel Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich are truly groundbreaking games that have no equal.

5. Blood
Everyone's played Duke Nukem 3D. If you HAVEN'T, you're not really a gamer (looking at YOU, Chambers). Duke Nukem was revolutionary in its day, because not only was it a groundbreaking FPS with an unprecedented level of interactivity, but because it was truly funny. Most of it was juvenile retard-humor, but an FPS with a sense of humor was unheard of back in those days. Well, Blood was that game but transposed into a horror setting and better in every way.

Blood ran on the same engine as DN3D, and featured a story about a jilted cult member rising from the dead to take vengeance on a dark god that spurned him. The thing that sets Blood apart is that there are secrets roughly every two steps you take. Some of them are just little walls that come down to reveal health or weapons, but most of them feature great jokes. One that sticks out in my mind is wandering through a hedge maze in the snow, an astute player will find a frozen body holding an axe, and the player character will say "Heeeeere's Johnny!" (in reference to the Shining). Zombie heads can be kicked if they fall off the zombie's body. Disembodied hands come after you, squealing "I'll swallow your soul". Weapons include the standard shotgun and machine gun, but also feature crowd pleasers like "lighter and hairspray", "flare gun" and "voodoo doll". If I remember correctly, it was also one of the first games that made use of the secondary mouse button for alternate fire purposes as well. To this day, it's the finest FPS experience ever crafted, and has yet to be touched, although Serious Sam came close.

4. Shadow Warrior
Everything I said about Blood? Ditto on Shadow Warrior. A sister game to Blood, Shadow Warrior also ran on the DN3D engine, and transposed that type of game to an asian kung-fu motif. Shadow Warrior also had tons of secrets and in jokes, as well as a couple of innovations of its own: Shadow Warrior is the first FPS to feature Dual Wielding, and is one of the earliest appearances of anime influence in a western game (during many of the secrets, the player will stumble upon a naked anime chick covering herself, either bathing or going to the bathroom, and she'll open fire on the player after he utters some ridiculous sexist pickup line).

3. Elite Beat Agents
The DS has largely squandered the good name it worked so hard to get in its early days. The platform, who used to be a hotbed of true creativity and innovation, is now largely a dumping ground for truly terrible embarrassing shit. One of the last great games to come out of Nintendo, Elite Beat Agents is the best music game you'll ever play. The premise goes that when you're in trouble, when you're at the end of your rope and feel like you can't go on, the EBA will show up in some radical vehicle to help pump you up and inspire you to achieve your goal through the power of rockin' songs and awesome dance moves. Weird? You bet. Fucking awesome? You also bet. Gameplay consists of you tapping dots, dragging your stylus on a track, and spinning discs in time to the beat of a song. Each song is broken up into three sections and before, after, and during each song there's cutscenes that set up your current mission. Your progress is shown on the upper screen: Do well, and the person you're cheering on does well in whatever they're doing. Do poorly, and they fail.

Missions include shrinking down to cheer on a white blood cell (shown here as a sexy nurse) to fight off viruses, traveling back in time to make Leonardo DaVinci fall in love with Mona Lisa, cheering on a treasure hunter trying to strike it big, and empowering a mother to do whatever it takes to make tomorrow a sunny day so she can take her son on a picnic. It also has the saddest and raddest moments in any videogame ever: A little girl's father has died, but he promised to be there for her for Christmas, so the EBA bring the father's ghost back to her through the sheer power of being fucking awesome, and then the EBA unite the world in rocking out to repel an alien armada. The ending consists of everyone on earth rocking so hard under the guidance of the EBA that the earth shoots out a beam of pure rock energy that destroys the alien mothership.

No, I'm not joking.

Everyone in the videogame industry can go home, that is officially the most awesome thing that will ever happen in a videogame. The fact that Nintendo never greenlit an EBA 2 despite its Japanese counterpart Ouendan 2 burning up the sales charts is the most damning piece of evidence for Nintendo being a lame company that cares little for innovation.

2. Knights of the Old Republic II
I debated whether to put this on the list: A ton of people have played KOTOR I, but I think a lot of people avoided the sequel because it got lackluster reviews and wasn't done by the same team. A mistake, as while the game is ridiculously buggy, clearly unfinished and lacking any sort of real ending, what IS there is probably the best written game on the planet. Each character in KOTOR II has hidden facets to their personality that don't come out unless you talk to them and really dig. Truly fascinating philosophical questions like "what exactly is good and evil?" permeate every moment in the game. Every action you make effects your teammates, and they react accordingly. HK-47 and G0-T0 are some of the most entertaining characters I've ever seen in a game, and Kreia is the best written female character I've ever seen in a game. The game's not for everyone: It was rushed, so there are bugs galore, the combat is piss easy even on the hardest difficulty, and as was stated before, there is no real ending to the game, but everyone at least needs to play through it at least once, but probably more than that, as it's impossible to see everything in even two playthroughs. There is a fan made patch in the works that will restore large, important chunks of content, but it's been in development for four years, so odds are it will never come out. Assuming it does however, it will (almost) complete one of the best games of all time.

1. Chrono Trigger
I almost put Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard here because I think it's literally going to sell five copies, but I've already talked about it. It's good stuff, go buy it. No, instead I'm going to talk about a game that most people reading this haven't played but should.

Let's face it: The Japanese can't write for shit. Any time they try and tackle anything more complicated than basic high school drama, you get pretty sounding, metaphor-laden writing that doesn't mean anything and talks about how the stars are our friends and friendship is like an ocean of happiness in the sky and bullshit like that. This is why most JRPG's fail and Chrono Trigger stands tall among the rest: It keeps it simple. No one talks about how birds are like dreams of the heart that soar: they talk very straightforward and normally, like actual people.

The cast is also one of the greatest in game history: Where else in one game can you have a robot from the future, a knight who's also a frog, a cavewoman, and a scientific genius on the same team? The game also revolutionized turn based combat by eliminating random battles and having them take place instantly with no battle transitions. It's also immune to the tragic effects of homo-fication that so many other JRPG's suffer from, as it features character designs by Akira Toriyama, he of Dragonball fame. To top it all off, the story is epic like none other, chronicling the entire history of a world, from its infancy to tragic death through the power of time travel.

All these factors combine to form a game that blows every other Final Fantasy game out of the water, and it still stands as the best thing Square has ever made. Everyone who loves JRPG's should play this game to see what they could be if people would stop buying games that feature gay ladyboys.