Stew’s Top 10 Video Games From The 20th Century

Mostly when I’m supposed to be doing work, but I’m NOT doing work, it’s because I am video gaming.

I do try to turn my gaming into “work” (or, at least, into content) by streaming the occasional game and then posting the stream over to the SWO Productions YouTube channel. But I’m a lot better at just playing games than I am at any kind of video work (as the minimalist appearances of my Twitch and YouTube will attest to).

The point is, I love games! And when I heard my buddies Paul and Wayne over at The Countdown podcast list their top ten video games of all time each, that seemed like such a vague and overfilled category to me. I could easily break games down into multiple categories; it would be so hard to just try listing the top ten ever! What an unenviable task.

So I decided to give it a try, but also to make it slightly less difficult on myself. The least I could do is break down the along century lines, right? What were my favorites from when I was a kid–pre-2001–and what have been my favorites since I was a grown, adult man?

So let’s take a look at part one, the kiddo days, and see what makes the list!

10. River City Ransom

To this day, River City Ransom remains a stupidly fun game to sit down with a friend and just power through. You and a pal each control one of two generic protagonists and march across the city, pummeling foe after foe with chains and brass knuckles. You occasionally stop at little shopping districts and pick up some to-go meals or maybe a book to refine your skills. And then you are back in another alley, fighting off more ne’er-do-wells in what is apparently the most gang-infested city on Earth.

It’s hard, but nowhere near the typical NES-level of basically impossible to beat. I know for a fact that friends and I have beaten it, though playing it as an adult made me remember just how difficult the game can be.

9. WWF Raw

Ah, the combination of video games and wrestling: what else could form an instant love connection in my heart? Well, maybe the amalgam of gaming and comics, but most of the comics-based video games of my youth were either way too hard or far too bad. But the wrestling games were fun!

Like River City Ransom, WWF Raw was a game to be played with friends. Forming a tag team or competing in the Royal Rumble was a lot more enjoyable when you had a buddy and you could look over to him and SWEAR that you weren’t going to hit him with a steel chair this time…

8. The Sims

The Sims! When the makers of Sim City realized we would rather play chaos on simulated human beings even more than we enjoyed doing it to a fictitious cityscape.

The Sims was a worldwide phenomenon when it was realized, and though I have not played it in probably decades at this point, I still actually have my CD for the first one. What’s underrated was how nightmarishly punishing the first Sims could be. Your Wants/Needs leaked like they were in a bucket with a hole at the bottom. Trying to keep a household of more than one person happy was a Sisyphusian task.

And yet, there was always the infinite money code and the ability to make your imaginary dream house that had a massive swimming pool in the middle of the kitchen. Throw avatars of your real-life friends (or enemies!) into the maelstrom and see how it all plays out. Or let your inner lunatic out and torture the unfeeling little beings. We had no idea how far the series would go (Sims 4 has, what, SEVERAL DOZEN expansion packs that let you play as a mermaid, a horse, a vampire and many more), but at the time, the possibilities felt endless.

7. Chrono Cross

Chrono Cross feels like cheating on this end of the list because I never actually played it until the mid-2000’s. But the list is about games that CAME OUT last century, not games I PLAYED then, so I feel I have to include it.

Chrono Cross was the sequel to Chrono Trigger, in that it had as little to do with Trigger as humanly possible while still being somewhat tangentially related. It had a clever color-based battling system, and a simply irresponsible number of characters that could join your militia (of which you could only use three at a time anyway). And everyone, depending on what part of the world they came from, had their own accents and affectations.

The game was HARD. Just knowing what to do or where to go next almost required a guide. But the roster was so deep, you could play it over and over and have entirely different experiences each time (and you almost had to… it was impossible to get every character on your team in any single play through). For that, it makes the list.

6. Street Fighter 2

Another game that was far more fun with others than it was to play solo, Street Fighter was my preferred entry in the Street Fighter 2 Vs Mortal Kombat war of the early 1990’s.

I actually used to play this a lot with my dad when I got to see him as a kid. He loved Chun-Li and swore her “Yata!” was her saying “You suck!” to a fallen nemesis.

Good memories. Even better if you had the editions that let you play as M. Bison and his crew! As a Wolverine fan, I thought Vega was rad as heck with those claws.

5. NHL 94

While NHL 94 seems like another game I’d say was best to play with others, it was actually a game I spent hours on alone. I had the PC version you see, so playing with friends was not the easy task that it was for kids with the console iterations and multiple controllers.

But it had a lot going for it, like editing players, so I could keep the rosters fresh and updated for years after the game was no longer in-season. So I could go through, basically do my own little fantasy drafts, make all-time teams, or just replay the classic season that saw the Rangers win their first Cup in, like, 50 years over and over.

There was a ton of versatility in the PC game that is essentially standard stuff for any sports game now, but when this came out, it blew my mind.

4. Doom 2

Long, loooong before I knew what “modding” in games was, I was doing it myself in a little first person shooter called Doom 2.

With a skill set I wish I’d kept up, I would go into the game’s audio files and replace the sounds of monsters howling or guns firing with clips I pulled offline from cartoons and wrestling.

(and this was the early-to-mid-90’s, so downloading a clip of Macho Man saying “OH YEAH!” would take virtually an eternity in modern download times)

What I ended up getting was a game that was a 100% more fun when the bad guys were quoting jokes from my favorite episodes of The Tick at me as I gunned them down, or when my shotgun let out Ric Flair’s signature “Woo!” when being fired.

Nowadays, as you can tell from the links above to my Twitch and YouTube, I’m basically a Luddite with technology. But for a brief moment in time, I was able to “mod” Doom 2, and it was great.

3. Super Mario World

Definitely my favorite Mario Game of all time, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System was worth getting if for no other reason than that it came with this gem.

I loved exploring this realm and playing through the most fun levels over and over. I enjoyed trying to find all of the hidden levels, and replaying the game after finishing Star Road and seeing all of the changes it made to the monster you faced.

Great reputability, fun graphics, and marvelous depth. I loved it.

2. Pokémon Red

I’m not sure where to start here, as there was a span of about 15 to 20 years of my life where I basically played one version of Pokemon or another non-stop, and it all started with Pokemon Red.

I was “too old” for Pokemon when it came out. I started playing it when I was about 18 or 19 years old and it was catching fire in America. But I didn’t care. As a game, Pokemon is incredible, and it always has been. The fun, but easy-to-grasp RPG elements? The wildly imaginative creatures? The replay value that blew away even what I said above about Chrono Cross? Cross gave you twenty or thirty potential allies, sure. Pokemon Red gave you, like, a HUNDRED. And about fifty more if you traded with Blue!

I played Pokemon over and over and over. And when Pokemon Gold came out, I moved onto that. Then Sapphire. Then LeafGreen, Diamond AND Pearl, Black and White. Pokemon Stadium and Stadium 2. Pokemon Crystal. It just never ended.

And this isn’t the last we’ll hear of Pokemon before these lists are through. It couldn’t possibly be. The only question is what game I choose for the current millennium.

1. Final Fantasy VII

Final Fantasy VII, as stereotypical as it is, was revelatory to me. I had played tons of video games by the time Cloud and his friends entered my life. But I never CARED about them.

With FF7, I learned that video games could spin a tale as gripping as a comic or book or movie or show. I remember rushing over to my friend’s house every day for weeks as a few of us sat around the original Playstation and pushed our way through this gripping and emotional story. I remember how much we all legitimately HATED Cloud when he gave away the Black Materia. We were BETRAYED! And then he earned our love back, in spite of ourselves.

Despite playing for hours on end, we savored the game. And when we were done, I bought my own copy. And I bought copies as presents for my cousins and other friends, gushing while telling them what they were in store for. I’ve talked previously about moments when reading comics where I realized the art form was more than I knew it was. And Final Fantasy VII was the first such transformative experience for me in the world of gaming.

*******

Well. Now I am forlorn about the days of my childhood. I wish I could go back and see my friends and family I don’t have in my life anymore and play these game all over again.

But instead, I choose to look forward, as I have ten more games to talk about soon here!

In the meantime, let me know: what are YOUR favorite games from the previous century? How did they shape you? Let me know in the comments!

Until next time… take care!