Some lists are based on sales, or influence, or how long they occupied the public's attention. But this one is personal. These ten games may not have set the world on fire, but they all pushed the medium forward a little bit in interesting ways, and in a perfect world they'd be on top of the charts. These are my most under-rated gaming experiences of the last ten years.
10. Flower, Sun, and Rain - Take your pick, either the PS2 original (which is sadly still Japanese only) or the recent DS remake. Long story short: you assume the role of a detective on a tropical paradise that has to defuse a bomb, but you're stuck running around in circles because you repeat the same day over and over again, a la Groundhog Day. Look around and you'll find countless negative reviews, and while I'll admit that the game is hardly perfect, it actually achieves something that very few have managed to achieve, though many have tried, and that's create a cohesive world with characters that are very much real. There's a level of sophistication, especially in terms of character development, that stuff like GTA, with its crappy, wanna-be Scarface/Sopranos scripts, can only hope to reach.
9. Jet Set Radio - Even a decade later, the premature death of the Dreamcast is still depressing as it is perplexing. The system simply had it all: plenty of power under its hood, an extremely developer friendly environment, and most important and all, a merry band of game makers behind it that were out to conquer the world. JSR is perhaps the system's pinnacle achievement, with groundbreaking visuals, brilliant game design, the legitimately cool sense of style, and so many other elements that were way ahead of it's time. Which in the end was still not good enough to save it from being a victim of the console wars.
8. Steel Battalion - The basic premise is that you control a gigantic robot in battles against other gigantic robots. Who cares, right? Well here's the deal: the controller. It featured two control sticks and over 40 buttons. Talk about hardcore; there's an eject button that flashes when your mech is going down, and if you don't flip the switch before things blow up, you lose your save file!
7. Cave Story - On a related note, games have become far too complicated for their own good. Sometimes we want back to basics, and what could be better than a nice simple platformer? Especially one with a story that's actually compelling and contains a deceiving amount of depth. Though the best part is that just one dude created the whole thing, proving that rich gameplaying experiences did not require a small army of designers, artists, and programmers, which many felt was becoming the absolute rule. Bonus points for inspiring the current crop of indie game makers that are making some of the best stuff going today.
6. OutRun 2 - I should perhaps be less than forthcoming with my status as a card carrying Sega-phile, but I'm not. Granted, the connection to Sonic games coming down the pipeline as of late is indeed embarrassing, but it also means that I love the deep blue skies that their games are often synonymous with. Sorry, but I can't hang with the bleak-post apocalyptic landscapes that accompanies titles like Fallout; I want a clear, sunny sky, with the wind in my face, while taking a hairpin turn with crappy J-pop music blasting from the stereo, and my annoying American girlfriend by my side and complaining every single step of the trip. That's what OutRun is all about! More than any other game on this list, OutRun reminds us of the good old days, not just when video games were simpler, but more innocent.
5. DoDonPachi DaiOuJou - The most basic video games involved you controlling a ship of some sorts and blasting away aliens. While most of us have moved on, especially in America, they still make 'em in Japan. There's a genre called "bullet hells" because the game features enemy fire from top to bottom, which you the player must avoid via skillful dodging. It's like a dance, you see. Anyhow, one company makes them the best, and DaiOuJou is by far their crowning achievement.
4. No More Heroes - When games, or anything else for that matter, presents a lead character that's supposed to be identifiable, it often just comes off all wrong. Granted he or she can do cool things, but they're sometimes a douche for example. Not Travis Touchdown; not only is he into professional wrestling and anime featuring creepy little girls (whose figures he collects), but he mows people down with lighsabers while wearing cool looking shirts. The fact that he's a complete dolt when a hot chick is around makes him all too relatable. Bonus points for having the best video game soundtrack since Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, and that's no exaggeration.
3. Persona 4 - When it comes to video games, the Japanese excel at many things, like dungeon crawling and girlfriend simulators. Hence why Persona is pure brilliance: it combines both those things into one ultra tight package, plus sprinkles in elements of Scooby Doo. Who wouldn't want to live the life of a teenager in a sleepy little town and solving crimes with your high school buds? Go to class during the day, maybe have a part-time job in the evening, or simply blow your time and money at the mall, plus enter another dimension by walking though a TV set and kill monsters. Which is enhanced by the number of girls you bang in the real world! And as cheesy as it sounds, your Scooby gang will be the best friends that video games have yet to ever offer.
2. Pac-Man: Championship Edition - Everything old has been new for a while now, but this particular bit of retro gaming is without a doubt the leader of the pack, even more so than Cave Story or OutRun 2, by simply doing the impossible. And that's improving upon the original, which Namco had been trying to do in vein for over twenty five years. Which was achieved by simply asking the original creator to work his magic once again. It might seem like a nothing special update to the casual observer, but give it some time, and you'll see that the intensity of action that's provided will absolutely blow away anything you'll find in even the most hardcore of Halo deathmatches, guaranteed.
1. Rez - The ultimate fusion of sound, color, and everything else that makes video games what they are. It's impossible to accurate describe, hence why I just failed big-time. It might help to note that, if you asked the creator of any game circa the early 80s and asked them what they thought games would like in the future, they'd probably end up describing something akin to Rez. Though it's more than just a game but an experience; either you get Rez, or you don't, there's really no in-between.
