70. Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal (2004)

Up Your Arsenal put the Ratchet and Clank series on its modern trajectory — being more focused on action and fun weapons than on platforming or puzzle solving. To me, the largest gameplay improvement included in Up Your Arsenal was the strafe ability, which, when combined with locking on, made running and jumping around while shooting an absolute blast. Also, Dr. Nefarious is the best Ratchet and Clank villain and turning Captain Qwark into a bumbling, cowardly hero was a masterstroke character move.

69. Chrono Trigger (1995)

Unlike Xenosaga or Dark Cloud 2, Chrono Trigger is far from underrated, as it’s widely considered one of the best JRPGs ever made. I can’t argue with that. I’m not usually a proponent of time travel in fiction, but it works for Chrono Trigger. Being able to recruit different party members from different eras of history is one of the many highlights. I wasn’t as big a fan of the sequel, Chrono Cross, but it’s still a good game in its own right.

68. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 (2004)

I’m a huge Star Wars nerd, so it’s almost disappointing that there aren’t even more Star Wars games on this list. But Knights of the Old Republic 2 is fan-freaking-tastic — though I do prefer the original. You can just tell that the sequel was rushed out the door a bit. I do have to give props to Darth Nihilus, who is one of the more badass looking characters in either game.

67. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002)

The best Grand Theft Auto game by my standards, Vice City takes place in one of my favorite series locations — a fictionalized version of Miami. Tommy Vercetti isn’t as identifiable a protagonist as Niko, but he’s well performed by Ray Liotta. I also like how the different gangs are used to make the city feel more alive, and the sheer variety of things to do was genre-defining at the time of release.

66. SimCity 2000 (1993)

Whereas the original game put city management sims on the map, SimCity 2000 took them to a whole other level. The futuristic aspects are what spoke to me most as a kid, and I still appreciate the more subtle changes like moving to an isometric view. In a mere four years, SimCity went from being a spreadsheet-like simulator to actually looking and feeling like a real video game.

65. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons (2013)

As we get farther along in the list, you’ll start seeing games that offer more emotional experiences. Those are the ones that really stand out in my memory. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons does such a cool thing in combining its simple narrative with its mechanics, and the moment near the end of the game where those two things come to a head will stay with me forever.

64. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (1997)

If this was a list of the most important video games of all time, Symphony of the Night would be a lock for top 10. But, for a simple list of what I think are the 100 best games ever made, it lands solidly in the middle of the list. That isn’t a slight against the game, as it really helped put non-linear level design on the map (pun intended). I just don’t love the Castlevania series as much as some.

63. Resident Evil 4 (2005)

Apologies to my brother — who lists Resident Evil 4 as his favorite game of all time — but I just can’t get down with the tank controls. That isn’t meant to completely dismiss RE4, since this game does make the most of those archaic controls. Plus, Leon is a cool character, some of the bosses are fun and quite challenging, there is scary and wacky atmosphere in equal measure, and the game includes maybe the best vendor of all time. Heh, heh… Thank ya.

62. Tetris (1988)

Again, if this was a list of the most important video games ever made, Tetris would be quite a bit higher. But as it stands, I can only really speak to the fun I had back in the day playing through on the original Game Boy. Heck, Tetris has been available on so many systems that I even put a fair amount of time into it on my TI-83 calculator instead of doing my algebra homework.

61. Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (2011)

While the first Uncharted game hasn’t necessarily aged gracefully, all four other Uncharted games hit high marks on this list. They’re all just that good, but the overall quality also makes it kind of hard to champion just one game to be even closer to the top. Still, Uncharted 3 puts a nice bow on the series (or so we thought), and it has the tightest shooting of the first three games. The late-game teleporting enemies are my least favorite of the bunch, though.

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