Retronuts

Strat’s Nuttiest Retro Games List

List of retro games I’ve played starting from the nuttiest (non-derogatory) to the shittiest:

1. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

Released 2001-11-12 · Played 2026-09-27 · PS2 · Konami

Metal Gear Solid 2 is just that good. Don’t think too much about Otacon’s family’s part in the narrative and we’ve got an absolute masterpiece on our hands with this one. Aged like a fine wine.

Read more (4 points)Show less
  • There are very few games made, even to this day, with narratives as ambitious as Metal Gear Solid 2’s. I can’t say that every part of its narrative sings, but the parts that do really do. Playing through it I was constantly flabbergasted knowing that this game was released more than 25 years ago. Kojima didn’t predict the future but he wrote a damn good sci-fi story with a lot to say about the world as it was then and it still is now.
  • The “intended” experience seems to be playing on Hard with the “Game Over if detected” option set (playing on Normal or below doesn’t allow you to set that option). The game completely falls apart when you’re detected, resetting to the nearest room transition (never very far away) rather suffering through repeated soft fail states feels better to me.
  • Whether you’re controlling Snake or Raiden, the analog sticks of the PS2 controller allow for much finer-grained control of the character as well as allowing for first-person aiming.
  • On one hand, the first two entries in the Metal Gear Solid series represent a maturation of video games as a medium with respect to all the parts that make video games what they are. These games feel like they are punching way above their weight. On the other hand, Kojima is a perverted man-baby who can’t write a woman to save his life so using the word “mature” to describe the Metal Gear Solid games feels wrong.

2. Super Mario 64

Released 1996-06-23 · Played 2026-07-14 · N64 · Nintendo EAD / Nintendo

Excising all nostalgia I have for SM64 from my brain to the extent that I can – it’s one of the best games of all time. Jumping around has never felt better.

Read more (2 points)Show less
  • The skill ceiling for the movement in SM64 is so high. Going fast feels so good.
  • To be fair, not all the SM64 levels are created equally, there are a few stinkers, like Hazy Maze Cave, but these are the exception rather than the rule.

3. Metal Gear Solid

Released 1998-10-21 · Played 2026-09-23 · PS1 · Konami

Despite Kojima being a little creep misogynist with mommy issues (always was and always will be I’m sure), Metal Gear Solid is fantastic. No notes (other than these hehe), a straight banger all the way through (ignoring all the creep shit, and there’s a lot of it)

Read more (2 points)Show less
  • I’d recommend using a walkthrough if you get stuck and you probably will if you’re going in blind.
  • Similarly to Cybernator, MGS1 feels like another big step up for games. MGS1 feels like what video games are / will become. The music works, the sound effects are great, the gameplay works (puzzle combat stealth whatever you want to call it), fantastic boss fights, the narrative is compelling and propels you through the game. Everything just clicks.

4. Super Puyo Puyo Tsuu (2P)

Released 1995-12-08 · Played 2026-07-16 · SNES · Compile

The best iteration of the classic 1v1 action-puzzler. Miss me with that Tetris shit bruh.

Read more (1 point)Show less
  • Puyo Puyo requires you to do much more than just pattern match and press buttons very fast (well you do have to do that as well of course).

5. Drakengard 3

Released 2014-05-20 · Played 2026-10-20 · PS3 · Access Games

Drakengard 3 is a 3rd person action game, more of a beat-em-up than a stylish action game, with a bold tone and explicitly sexual themes — this contrasts heavily with its completely sexless peers in the JRPG-adjacent space.

Read more (8 points)Show less
  • My buddy who recommended I play Drakengard 3 mentioned the following: in Drakengard 3, unlike most media coming from Japan, sex exists between the characters themselves rather than merely existing as a fantasy between the player/viewer and the characters. That’s cool!
  • Drakengard 3 has little to no lore — everything is on the screen. This is the polar opposite of a game like Elden Ring — I love this. Tell your story and fuck off with the rest of your dumb bullshit lore I don’t fucking care about.
    • The great popularizer of lore himself, our boy J. R. R. Tolkien, also hated lore. The Silmarillion spawned an entire culture of people fixated on lore above all else — yet, Tolkien was just trying to put food on the table for his kids. Why does everybody seem to like this shit? (my sincerest of apologies if you’re one of the many people who do, I’d argue that lore is extremely profitable for the people who sell it but is quite uninteresting or generative. eg. fuck it)
    • To paraphrase Aaron Rabinowitz from the Philosophers in Space podcast when speaking about Jacqueline Harpman’s novel I Who Have Never Known Men, Drakengard 3 presents the player with a lot of “detail, none of it forcing you to come to a particular conclusion” (except until the very end in the case of Drakengard 3).
    • You will likely leave the game with more questions than answers. That’s more interesting to me than learning that the Wizards of Pee Pee Poo Poo did X in Y for Z reasons, 123 years ago.
    • Mysteries are better representations of reality than puzzles are (see most of Gene Wolfe’s work for good examples of this).
      • Art doesn’t have to accurately reflect some part of our own reality but I generally prefer when it does because it allows the art to do more than just present me with an escapist fantasy to fall into.
  • Drakengard 3 is a funny game. The VO performances are fantastic across the board. The character and enemy barks are some of the best I’ve ever heard in my many years spent in the gaming mines.
    • The localization studio 8-4 does it again here — I will be seeking out more of the games they’ve worked on because of how impressed I am with their work on Drakengard 3.
  • Yoko Taro thinks of himself as an entertainer rather than as an artist — whatever bruh you’re entertaining such a specific niche of people with your creative work, that’s art.
    • Discussing what art is or isn’t is usually a waste of time but I do think that there is an artistic difference between the latest big budget Marvel movie and Drakengard 3 — it’s a worthwhile exercise to think about that difference.
  • Zero’s explicit psychopathy is a perfect reflection of your average video game player’s compulsion to kill everything and everyone as fast as possible in order to complete the game. I don’t think ludonarrative dissonance is worth thinking too much about but if there is such a thing there isn’t much of it in Drakengard 3.
  • The Drakengard 3 OST is great — but, stretched a little thin due to the length of the game. The few hours of grinding you need to do to see the last cutscene would have been easier to swallow if there was more variety in the OST.
  • Yoko Taro’s technique of “writing a story starting with the end” does him a disservice because this trick reminds me of, hack extraordinaire, M. Night Shyamalan’s work, which is absolute dog shit for the most part (Unbreakable is pretty damn good).
    • For example, the penultimate mission consists of a sepia-toned flashback where our protagonist Zero explains key narrative details that she has conveniently kept silent about until now (Gene Wolfe anyone?).
      • The nuance here is that Zero’s monologue isn’t revealing any big twists that the player doesn’t know about — she’s just adding a bit of clarity to what most players will have already understood in broad strokes. Why? Because loading screen “tips” that were shown to me at the start of my playthrough “spoiled” the crux of this new information.
      • I find this to be very funny — I can’t explain why Yoko Taro would do such a thing but it speaks to his auteur-ness. If you’re going to pull an M. Night Shyamalan ending in your game, why would you spoil the twist in the loading screens? Only God knows.
      • Also, I’ve never seen a loading screen in a video game explain what a sister is. Not a capital-S science fiction Sister — No, no, no, just a sister-sister, as-in the sibling I mean. Yoko Taro is wild for this.
    • The final gameplay mission is absolutely insane. I’ve never seen a game end with a sequence that is both so at odds with everything that came before as well as being one of, if not, the most hostile towards the player I’ve ever experienced.
      • Kojima wishes that he could put something like this in one of his games but unlike Yoko Taro, Kojima is a coward. Climbing a ladder in Metal Gear Solid 3 for 5 minutes is a complete joke compared to the ending of Drakengard 3 and that’s coming from someone who really enjoyed climbing that ladder.
  • Definitely an inspiration for 1000xResist. Hekki grace sister!

6. Kuru Kuru Kururin

Released 2001-03-21 · Played 2026-08-23 · GBA · Eighting / Nintendo

Trying to make your way through hallways holding a long fluorescent tube light while you’re constantly spinning around has never been this fun and it never will be again. A video game ass video game. Cute as a button. Catchy music that won’t drive you insane as you try to improve your best times.

7. Windjammers (2P)

Released 1994-04-17 · Played 2026-06-20 · ARC · Data East

The Endless Breeze romhack combined with libretro’s fantastic rollback netcode makes Windjammers one of the best 1v1 experiences around.

8. Lunar Pool / Lunar Ball (1-2P)

Released 1985-12-05 · Played 2026-07-16 · NES · Compile / Pony Canyon / FCI

A super simple NES billiards game with a focus on oddly-shaped tables. Almost a perfect game. So, nobody tried to one up Lunar Pool throughout the history of gaming.

Read more (1 point)Show less

9. Super Mario Bros. 3

Released 1988-10-23 · Played 2026-08-29 · NES · Nintendo R&D4 / Nintendo

Playing SMW and SMB3 back to back I can definitely say that SMB3 is the better game overall (at least playing it on the SNES through Super Mario All-Stars).

Read more (4 points)Show less
  • Playing the NES version of SMB3 a few weeks ago prior to beating SMW felt pretty terrible but I’m not sure if it was my emulator or the game.
  • The only thing that SMW seems to have over SMB3 is a super high skill ceiling due to all the glitches, weird interactions between game mechanics. The high skill ceiling allows for people to make absolutely nuts romhacks, stuff like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1jwZekUBjo which are really fun to watch.
  • But comparing the base games with each other, SMB3 blows SMW out of the water. Level design, music, SFX. We could argue about the core movement mechanics, I’d probably take SMW’s physics/gamefeel over SMB3’s but the levels in SMB3 are so much more interesting, thematically cohesive and fun to play – they more than make up for the movement being a little less to my taste.
  • One thing to note is that SMB3 is super hard and the bosses are toxic, but I prefer this over SMW’s piss-easy difficulty and pushover bosses.

10. Balloon Fight (1-2P)

Released 1985-01-22 · Played 2026-10-06 · NES · Nintendo R&D1 / HAL Laboratory / Nintendo

Simple as heck design: d-pad and one button to fly. Elegant, but feels really good. The difficulty is fair but hard making runs pretty quick.

Read more (1 point)Show less
  • Tense gameplay with little room for error. Rewards slow/patient play but requires you to play fast enough to avoid the balls of electricity produced by the clouds.

11. I.Q.: Intelligent Qube / Kurushi

Released 1997-09-30 · Played 2026-09-16 · PS1 · SCEI / Sony Computer Entertainment

Fantastic action-puzzle gameplay that forces you to think fast and — the sound of the blocks “rolling” down at you combined with the orchestral score is something else.

Read more (1 point)Show less
  • Few, if any, games followed in the footsteps of I.Q.: Intelligent Qube and that’s a damn shame.

12. Sin and Punishment / Tsumi to Batsu: Hoshi no Keishōsha

Released 2000-11-21 · Played 2026-06-29 · N64 · Treasure Nintendo R&D 1 / Nintendo

Easy 6/5 game. It’s hard to believe that this game actually ran on N64 hardware. Visually impressive but gameplay was great too.

Read more (4 points)Show less
  • Sin and Punishment is the first retro game I’ve played so far that I couldn’t brute force my way through with rewind/save states and a guide. It’s got some boss fights with some pretty subtle tactics to beat them ( Limited Range Heatbomb : you can’t use lock on here because it doesn’t do enough damage to kill it before you get instakilled by Saki’s nuke attack ). Youtube is helpful though https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTclPNrbR80
  • The VO was in English but I feel like I would have understood about as much of the story if it was in Japanese instead.
  • The game’s pacing is fast and doesn’t waste your time with long cutscenes. The “START -> SKIP” text overlaid on the screen during cutscenes is a vibe and not something I’ve seen since on a console game.
  • The game felt very arcadey in more ways than one, especially with respect to the difficulty. I’d say that it was mostly fair but it’s a tough game.

13. Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies / Ace Combat: Distant Thunder

Released 2001-11-01 · Played 2026-07-09 · PS2 · Namco

I’m skeptical of the anti-war game where you fly billion dollar jets and drop bombs on people but hey these games feel good and the narratives tend to be interesting and weird if not exactly mind blowing in their originality.

14. Shadow of the Colossus / Wander to Kyozou

Released 2005-10-18 · Played 2025-03-05 · PS2 · Team Ico / Sony Computer Entertainment

Climbing big titans and taking them down feels amazing — the scale was unparalleled at the time and still holds up to this day…

Read more (2 points)Show less
  • Fumito Ueda is the GOAT. He might be the least problematic Japanese auteur.
  • I took me a few tries to get through this one to completion but sticking with it was well worth the effort.

15. Resident Evil / Bio Hazard

Released 1996-03-30 · Played 2026-09-13 · PS1 · Capcom

Resident Evil feels like a classic point and click adventure game where you control a constantly threatened character in the world, instead of a disembodied cursor, making for a more tense and memorable experience as a result.

Read more (2 points)Show less
  • I played the 2001 GameCube remake in the late 00s and through that experience I discovered how much I enjoyed the gameplay loop of classic Resident Evil games. Playing through the PSX original revealed to me how faithful the remake was to the original but also the extent to which the few minor changes it has, improved upon the original without erasing what made it special in the first place.
  • Navigating through the cramped spaces over and over again in Resident Evil games is still very enjoyable to me. Whether I’m breaking new ground or making my way back through previously visited areas, Resident Evil encourages you to navigate spaces efficiently. I think that’s fun. Metroidvanias rarely have the same impact on me for some reason. Maybe it’s the tank controls?

16. Bionic Commando

Released 1988-12 · Played 2026-07-09 · NES · Capcom

Most “in my wheelhouse” game I’ve played so far on the NES. The hook shot feels really good. An easy to learn but hard to master movement system is like an arrow to my heart. Instantly-smitten.

Read more (5 points)Show less
  • For a game called Hitler’s Resurrection, Hitler doesn’t show up on screen for very long.
  • I do think that this might be the first game that we play that’s explicitly political (I’m not sure Link’s never mentioned Christianity counts as being explicit).
  • Weissman is a neo-nazi who has resurrected Hitler in both mind and body but he’s immediately overpowered by Hitler’s/fascism’s actual evil-ness. There’s also the American / World Police element at play here as well that could be dissected too.
  • It’s a NES game so we get the rough sketch of a story rather than a full one but what’s there is interesting I think.
  • Difficulty-wise, it gets pretty hard at the end. I’m excited for the game industry to leave that behind. I love hard games but I like easy to learn but hard to master games that aren’t needlessly punishing much more.

17. Resident Evil 2: Dual Shock Ver. / Biohazard 2: Dual Shock Ver.

Released 1998-01-21 · Played 2026-09-09 · PS1 · Capcom / Capcom, Virgin Interactive Entertainment

Resident Evil 2 holds up. I like it.

Read more (1 point)Show less
  • It’s a bit of a shame that the Leon/Claire playthroughs are really similar to one another. After playing one and a bit of the next, I didn’t feel like continuing.

18. Super Mario World / Super Mario World: Super Mario Bros. 4

Released 1991-08-23 · Played 2026-08-13 · SNES · Nintendo EAD / Nintendo

Not as good as Super Mario Bros 3 but I playing this like crazy on my GBA as a kid definitely changed my brain.

19. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse

Released 1989-12-22 · Played 2026-06-23 · NES · Konami

If you enjoyed Castlevania and you want more, Castlevania 3 is a more faithful sequel to Castlevania than Castlevania 2 is.

Read more (1 point)Show less
  • I’d recommend the Japanese version of Castlevania III over the US version because it has better music, better background colors and better sprites than the US version.

20. Cybernator / Juusou Kihei Valken

Released 1993-04 · Played 2026-08-27 · SNES · NCS Corp / Masaya(JP) / Konami(NA) / Palcom Software(PAL)

Unlike with Metal Storm, the movement in Cybernator makes you feel like you’re moving around in a heavy mech. It feels like a proto-Armored Core. There can’t have been many previous games to have done this before (and even less that looked this good).

Read more (3 points)Show less
  • Despite the goofy name, we’ve definitely crossed a threshold graphically but also game structure-wise. If this came out today, we’d say that it’s old school and hard AF but it wouldn’t feel too out of place.
  • OK so fair enough, Nintendo probably wanted to remove one of the last shots/portraits in the game but it’s a shame they removed all of them in the English version. They really add a lot of flavor and much needed humanity to this very mechanical/robotic environment.
    • The Japanese game with the English-patch has a few typos but they’re worth it to keep the portraits in the game.
  • Once again, we’ve got a game that is way too hard but at least you have infinite continues (you might have to hold up, L+R and press Start on the start screen to get them though). You would have to be a real sicko to beat this game legit in current year.
    • eg. take the amount of health you think a boss should reasonably have in a hard AF old school SNES game and then multiply that by about 3 to 5 (10 for the final boss?) and that’s the health they actually have.

21. Castlevania

Released 1987-04-30 · Played 2026-06-25 · NES · Konami

Playing Castlevania right after playing Ghosts ’n Ghouls I can really imagine the Konami devs being like “hold my beer, watch this” and actually making a good game out of the core idea of GnG. Simple but solid gameplay.

Read more (1 point)Show less
  • After playing Castlevania, I sampled a few other games in the series:
    • I beat Castlevania III and it’s awesome.
    • Castlevania II is a disaster but it also laid the groundwork for what Castlevania became later on (open ended-ish non linear gameplay, backtracking, RPG systems, key items to unlock areas becoming more Metroid-ish giving us Metroidvanias as we know and love/hate today) starting with Castlevania Symphony of the Night.
    • Castlevania Symphony of the Night makes much more sense to me after having played Castlevania and Castlevania III, I “get” it now. (Editor’s note: Strat really hates backtracking and so he will never beat Castlevania SotN).

22. Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence

Released 2004-11-17 · Played 2025-03-01 · PS2 · Konami

Not my favorite Metal Gear Solid game but I’m glad I played it. I like how Kojima’s weird mommy issues are mediated throughout the game. Overall, MGS3 is really weird. MGS as a series is really weird but MGS3’s version of that particular brand of weird feels a little more cohesive to me.

Read more (1 point)Show less
  • I like how the game bounces between representing Naked Snake’s horniness (curiosity?) for EVA’s body but also, simultaneously, his asexual and/or (it’s complicated) homosexual preferences.

23. Jeanne d'Arc

Released 2007-08-21 · Played 2026-09-16 · PSP · Level-5 / SCEI / SCEA

Jeanne d’Arc is a great tactical RPG that I’d recommend to anyone wanting to get into the genre. It’s not too fiddly gameplay-wise but it’s got enough complexity to be interesting. Coming up with broken builds is really fun!

Read more (3 points)Show less
  • The narrative doesn’t waste your time at all, it’s straightforward but it has moments of actual emotional impact which is rare in these games.
  • The 2D anime cutscenes bring the whole game together. The English with French accents VO is very fun. Grounding the story in history/myth rather than just pure anime bullshit untethered to reality works for me.
    • Henry VI being a little demonic fucker sending demons to attack France is gold.
    • Jeanne D’Arc hearing voices from “God” but maybe not really is also fun.
  • One con would be the Mii looking 3D characters. They’re pretty ugly.

24. Onimusha: Warlords / Onimusha

Released 2001-01-25 · Played 2026-09-04 · PS2 · Capcom

Resident Evil (game) + Samurai (kind of historical Japanese guy). Campier than even the campiest Capcom games I’ve played previously.

Read more (1 point)Show less
  • Other than the water puzzle section, it was a lot of fun.

25. Super Mario Bros.

Released 1985-09-13 · Played 2026-06-21 · NES · Nintendo R&D4 / Nintendo

It’s a classic for a reason. A little basic but clearly a foundational text for video games moving forward.

26. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

Released 2002-10-29 · Played 2026-07-07 · PS2 · Rockstar North / Rockstar Games, Capcom

It’s like Grand Theft Auto III but what if the main character wasn’t a complete zero and the missions were actually fun.

27. Resident Evil Code: Veronica X / Biohazard Code: Veronica Kanzenban

Released 2001-03-22 · Played 2025-03-12 · PS2 · Capcom

A return to the more puzzle-oriented gameplay of Resident Evil 1 and 2 rather the action-heavy gameplay of Resident Evil 3. I like this!

Read more (2 points)Show less
  • The performances of Code Veronica’s Canadian voice actors are fantastic. The number of “eh"s and “soooorry"s you’ll be hearing playing through this game is surprising to say the least. If the inclusion of all these Canadianisms was intentional, it is bold and makes the, poorly directed and shot, cinematics in this game some of the most enjoyable in the Resident Evil series.
  • As of 2026, we’ve learned that Capcom is remaking Code Veronica. Capcom’s remake track record is impeccable and I’m excited for this one. I don’t think this is the direction they’ll take the game but I would really love a return to the classic style, optional tank controls would be awesome.

28. Lemmings

Released 1992-03 · Played 2026-08-20 · SNES · SunsoftChat Noir / Sunsoft

Lemmings is one of the few games we’ve played so far that isn’t another take on the little guy jumping around genre.

Read more (4 points)Show less
  • Hats off to the Legend of Zelda which is the only other game we’ve played that is a game for the NES that isn’t a game about a little guy jumping around.
  • Lemmings is pretty unique in that sense although it’s got some warts. The core premise is sound but, in practice, levels being shared between the difficulties is odd. With these shared levels the only difference being the number of types of skills you have access to is weird because if you have a really good solution for a level you’re being asked to replicate it more than once.
  • Lemmings 2 takes the premise of Lemmings, polishes it and makes it bigger and better:
    • No repeated levels.
    • No difficulty levels.
    • Levels are designed much tighter and more explicitly puzzle-like.
    • Non-linear design allows for you to go to another level “set” (each themed around a different tribe of Lemmings with their own set of skills) if you can’t beat the one you’re on.
    • Many more skills (from the 10 in Lemmings to something like 48 in Lemmings 2). You have access to a subset in each level.
  • It wasn’t as popular as Lemmings apparently but I’m not sure why. It’s a much better game.

29. Donkey Kong Country / Super Donkey Kong

Released 1994-11-21 · Played 2026-09-03 · SNES · Rare / Nintendo

Great visuals. Fantastic OST. Hard as balls though.

Read more (3 points)Show less
  • The Donkey Kong Country OST is fantastic, blows everything else we’ve heard on the NES/SNES so far completely out of the water. It’s going straight onto my media server.
  • The visuals are really great. It makes the game so unique looking compared to everything else we’ve seen so far.
  • It’s hard as balls. I lost a lot of progress repeatedly and it’s starting to wear me down like that usually does. If I would have known how hard it was I would have cheated from the start. I’m not sure I’ll be finishing this one (Editor’s note: he didn’t. Predictable).

30. Grand Theft Auto III

Released 2001-10-22 · Played 2026-07-02 · PS2 · DMA Design / Rockstar Games, Take-Two Interactive, Capcom

It’s like Grand Theft Auto Vice City but what if the main character was a complete zero and the missions were pain and suffering.

31. The Legend of Zelda

Released 1987-08-22 · Played 2026-07-02 · NES · Nintendo R&D4 / Nintendo

Read more (3 points)Show less
  • I’ve seen everything in The Legend of Zelda 100 million times before but that’s because of how influential it is. One of the most interesting parts of the game for me were the moments of light lateral thinking required for progressing through the game. Modern games have largely moved away from any kind of friction whatsoever so it’s nice to see a game that would have required the player to bash their head against the wall a few times to beat the game (or call Nintendo’s help line or read Nintendo Power magazines). If things were different, we might have lived in a world where more friction of this kind rather than less became the norm in games and we’d all be playing La Mulana-likes rather than Vampire Survivor-likes.
  • Link is literally wielding a shield with a massive cross on it throughout the entire game. Nintendo pretty quickly move away from Link being a warrior of Christ but it’s kind of wild that he started out as one.
  • My buddy had the following to say about the Zelda series as a whole: “the core design principle of the game running out of steam halfway through and turning into a painful slog”
    • I’ve always felt this way about Zelda games but never put two and two together about this being a core issue with all of them. Beating the later ones is an absolute ordeal but at least LoZ is short.

32. Metal Storm

Released 1991-02 · Played 2026-08-06 · NES · Tamtex / Irem

This was another short, cock and balls torture game for the NES with the best looking intro pixel art we’ve seen so far. It deserves its cult classic standing. And, flipping gravity up and down was a fun mechanic to build a whole game around.

33. 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand

Released 2009-02-24 · Played 2026-10-11 · PS3 · Swordfish Studios

Displeased (rightfully so) with not being paid for a concert, 50 Cent rampages through the “middle east”, chasing after a diamond-encrusted skull to make up for his losses.

Read more (6 points)Show less
  • Absolutely vile post-9/11 game (derogatory) with surprisingly good gamefeel and a bonkers premise hampered by an unprecedented level of bad politics and racism to a degree I’ve never seen in a game before.
    • On one hand, this is peak post-9/11 war-in-the-middle-east gaming. On the other hand, this is peak post-9/11 war-in-the-middle-east gaming.
    • My jaw dropped to the floor when 50 Cent’s buddy Loyd Banks said the following in reference to the “local thugs” speaking various Eastern European languages with demonic sound filters applied on them who we’ve been killing this whole time: “I’ve seen cockroaches die faster.”
    • Another key line of dialogue is 50 Cent responding to Kamal (one of many interchangeable people 50 Cent can’t trust): “Just give me the fucking skull Kamal and I’ll leave you to play in this piece of shit sandbox you call a city.”
  • By the end of my playthrough, the game’s horrific images and racist barks were making me feel sick to my stomach.
  • Killing people gives you incendiary ammo for your pistol which you can use to burn your enemies to a crisp. Fair warning, the horrific way in which they stumble around while their skin turns to ash might make it hard for you to appreciate your custom playlist of 50 Cent gangsta rap songs playing in the background.
    • I would bet that someone on the Yager Development dev team played this game and then immediately started brainstorming ideas for Spec Ops: The Line.
  • The game’s emphasis on arcadey/score-chasing gameplay sharply contrasts with the more “realistic”, gritty and grounded gameplay of its peers.
  • Clearly an Army of Two ripoff. A “well-executed” one at least with respect to the core gameplay loop, ignoring how vile it and everything surrounding it is.
  • Using the in-game music player to decide which 50 Cent tracks will play over the gameplay is interesting.
    • Removing all the songs from the playlist leads to an instrumental backing track playing instead. These often more melancholic tracks lend a different tone to the moment to moment gameplay (refer to the blasé immolations you can perform in-game as well as the racist barks mentioned above).
    • Louis, as you may know, loves muting a game’s music and playing gangsta rap over it instead. I never understood this prior to playing 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand. I can’t say that I will be doing this myself but I think I get it now.

35. Resident Evil 5 / Bio Hazard 5

Released 2009-03-05 · Played 2026-09-24 · PC · Capcom

Resident Evil 5 is absolutely rizzless RE4. Definitely the worst Resident Evil Game I’ve played. I’ve yet to play RE6 so I’m looking forward to that — I’ve been told that it’s really good by a trusted source.

Read more (4 points)Show less
  • RE5 is absolutely rizzless RE4 with:
    • Mid co-op.
    • Crazy balls to the wall racism.
    • No direction to speak of.
    • Horrible and buggy boss fights (especially noticeable after playing Metal Gear Solid).
    • Boring AF characters (spoilers for the first 5min of RE Village:I don’t care about Chris Redfield unless he’s killing my wife and stealing my newborn within the first 3min of starting the game).
    • Uninspired level design.
    • A bargain bin orchestral score.
  • RE5 is the Call of Dutyfication of Resident Evil and I can’t stand by it.
  • Please for the love of all that holy, do not remake Resident Evil 5 Mr. Capcom nobody reasonable wants that.
  • Hats off to Louis Contant for playing this game in coop with me. He seemed to be having a good time.

36. Gargoyle's Quest

Released 1990-07 · Played 2026-07-30 · GB · Capcom / Capcom / Nintendo

I wasn’t able to get through much of it in my 2 hours of no cheating play but I can see the vision. It’s definitely a more reasonable game than Ghosts n’ Goblins was difficulty-wise but it was still too hard for me. I think if I was more used to CBT (cock and ball torture) games I’d have been more into it.

Read more (2 points)Show less
  • I love a good challenge but I’m so much more into “easy to learn yet hard to master” games like SM64 than this much more punishing and backtracking heavy kind of game.
  • I enjoyed the goofy dialogue. The engrish with a weird/playful tone was fun to read.

37. Faxanadu

Released 1989-07 · Played 2026-07-16 · NES · Hudson Soft / Hudson Soft / Nintendo

The first “important” game we’ve played because the action-roleplaying gameplay in Faxanadu becomes so imbued into what modern games are/were for a very long time that it’s interesting to see a very early attempt at that kind of game.

Read more (3 points)Show less
  • Unlike Castlevania 2, it’s actually much more reasonable in terms of the hints that it gives you to figure out how to progress. Famously though, I hate backtracking and I hate grinding and so this was tough for me. If the gameplay held up a bit more and I was having more fun maybe I wouldn’t have needed to whip out the walkthrough.
  • I think Faxanadu is historically interesting and the series influenced a lot that came later but I can’t say it holds up.
  • Bionic Commando feels like a game at the opposite end of the spectrum – It doesn’t seem to have had any impact whatsoever on the games that came after but it’s still awesome to play to this day.

38. Prince of Persia

Released 1992-11 · Played 2026-08-20 · SNES · Arsys Software / Masaya(JP) / Konami(NA/PAL)

The animations must have been mind-blowing at the time but actually playing this game is hell. Can’t recommend.

39. Ghosts 'n Goblins

Released 1986-11 · Played 2026-06-19 · NES · Micronics / Capcom

This game is fucking deranged, I love it (editor’s note: I don’t love this anymore). Is this the first rage game?

Read more (3 points)Show less
  • From this walkthrough https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Ghosts_%27n_Goblins/Stage_5#NES: For whatever reason, Satan is invulnerable to the Axe in the NES version.
  • If you’re cheating it’s a very short game.
  • It is super hard. I can’t stress this enough. This is definitely the hardest game I’ve ever played.