Top 10 Games We’ve Never Played

Our Top 10 list for episode two of the podcast was all about games we’ve never played. That’s right, after attempting to set up credibility in the first episode, we’re destroying it right away in episode two. For the list we tried to pick games that had some sort of relevance or mass-market appeal. It would be easy to pick random Atari 2600 games from 1984 that none of the three of us had played, but would that really make for an interesting conversation?

10: Maniac Mansion

Jeff had a chance to play this game back in its prime, but that’s about it. While Mike and Andrew were familiar with it (and certainly had at least one system that could play a version of it), we simply never checked it out. Its wacky humor certainly fit in with what we were probably interesting in playing, but it just wasn’t meant to be.

09: Final Fantasy VI

Jeff has already proven himself as the group’s VI/III cheerleader, up against the might of latecomers Mike and Andrew with VII. While we acknowledged the game’s release and seemingly-awesomeness (those Moogle ads were all over EGM back in the day), we simply never checked it out. Mike even picked up the PS1 Final Fantasy Anthology with the intention of playing it (and even playing maybe half an hour of it, but remembering nothing). Having finally played through IV/II years later via the GBA re-release, Mike has had VI sitting there in his drawer of GBA games waiting for the right moment. If he could only take Pokemon out of Slot 2…

08: Chrono Trigger

Thankfully, Jeff has played through the entire game front to back, so there is a slight bit of credibility dangling from our show. On the other hand, Mike has absolutely no reason what-so-ever for never having played what appears to be one of the best 16-bit RPGs ever made. Having been a fan of DragonBall (and thus Akira Toriyama) for a little bit and easily recognizing the connection, how was there no drive to at least rent the game…?! Perhaps it was the jump to the PlayStation coming up, or perhaps it was because FF7 hadn’t yet come along to really clinch the desire to play RPGs (though that’s not entirely true, having played tons of Shining Force II via the Sega Channel). Regardless, Mike and Andrew are incredibly psyched to pick up the DS rerelease for the 2008 holiday season. These types of RPGs lend themselves incredibly to the handheld platform, and anything you can do to make it easier for us to play these types of games for where we are in our adult lives, the better the chance that we’ll actually do so.

07: Halo (series)

Mike and Andrew held a (mostly unfounded) general disdain for the Microsoft brand entering the gaming marketplace, and this seems to be the largest factor contributing to their simply never playing the first two games in the Halo series. The general unfamiliarity with more-current first-person shooters was another huge factor (Mike half-enjoying Goldeneye on Nintendo 64, and Andrew not caring about any of them at all). Jeff has a little bit of experience with the series, but exclusively in the multiplayer mode (which is, quite honestly, what the series is really known for). Now that Mike and Andrew have gotten over themselves, there’s absolutely a chance that they will visit the series at some point in the future. With the original Halo disc sitting on the gigantic pile of unplayed gems from the previous generation next to Mike’s TV, it may even happen in the next ten years. Time to see what this Master Chief guy is all about.

06: Dragon Quest (series)

Another example of a series that Mike has no excuse for playing. Especially once the 32-bit systems hit, Mike began to notice those Dragon Warrior games weren’t actually the more D&D-style the NES covers would have you believe, but were actually traditional J-RPGs with heavy Toriyama involvement. However, it was another case of no real reason preventing him from playing, and simply never doing so. He picked up VIII on clearance at a closing Suncoast, and still hasn’t popped the darn thing in (despite playing a little bit of the demo that came with a domestic Shonen Jump one month and enjoying it). As for Andrew and Jeff, there doesn’t seem to be a huge amount of interest in playing the game, but we are all certainly curious to at least check it out and see what Japan gets their panties all in a bunch about everytime a new numbered game hits shelves.

05: Devil May Cry (series)

Andrew’s preference for action games would almost guarantee checking out this series at some point, but alas, it never happened. Mike was too busy playing other games, and simply passed it over for no real reason other than that he just happened to pass them over. Now that we have had the chance to check out some of Kamiya’s most recent work, it makes sense to go back and see what this series was all about. The bishounen style may be a little bit of a turn-off (especially for Jeff, who sees it as nothing more than wandering through hallways), but we’ll get to it eventually. The PS2 three-pack is sitting there next to Mike’s TV, so we don’t really have any excuse not to hit them up at some point.

04: God of War (series)

Seemingly closing out the PS2 generation of huge games (and now with a recent PSP release and a PS3 sequel on the way), this is another serie that seems right up Andrew’s alley, and probably up Mike’s alley. Never got around to it, though. Andrew was doing a bit of traveling at the time, and Mike really has no excuse other than being busy with other games and other hobbies. Mike has the first game (picked up for $15 at Target) sitting on his pile of last-generation goodies, so hopefully we’ll get around to it. It’s even more amusing that Mike’s never played the game, having been forced to use its FMV as a source in a music video.

03: Super Metroid

Andrew has a slight excuse, having gone with the Genesis for a while before eventually grabbing his SNES. Mike and Jeff, however, are simply embarassed for never having played what is seemingly/arguably one of the best games ever made, regardless of genre, age, or console. Mike briefly played the original Metroid here and there on friends’ systems, but never really got into the game, which probably contributed to never playing the 16-bit upgrade to the series. Now that Mike has it sitting on his Wii via Virtual Console staring back at him, there is (again) no excuse not to eventually hit it up for gaming awesomeness.

02: Metal Gear Solid (series)

Mike and Andrew have no problem admitting they don’t like playing overly-difficult games. Metal Gear games look hard. They look incredibly interesting in their convolutedness… but not enough to get us to play them. It’s enough for us to know some of the music and the few main characters. None of us are really into the stealth genre as a whole, and while Kojima’s irreverant style is halfway interesting to us, we have no real defense except that we just don’t have much interest in checking it out.

01: Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

Right from the first episode of our show, it’s no secret that we don’t really “get” the whole GTA thing. We’ve played a little bit of the original two games, a good bit of Vice City… didn’t really do it for us. Andrew, especially, was enthralled with the open world of Shenmue, so it would seem like that familiarity would transfer over to the GTA series, but it just doesn’t work. We’re not fans of the graphics, we’re not fans of the stories, we’re not fans of the gameplay… so why bother playing San Andreas at all? For that matter, same goes for IV. The series may evolve over time, but it’s still the same kind of game that we just have no interest in and will probably never be impressed with. Not too big of a deal, since it’s certainly not hurting sales of the game(s)…