#20: Super Mario Kart
1992
The great thing about Super Mario Kart was, you could take away the Mario and the karts, and the game would still be super. Putting weapons and items into a racing game was like adding karaoke to bars: fucking brilliant. With eight different racers, eight different items and twenty different tracks, Mario Kart was easy to learn, hard to master, and extremely addictive. To this day, it's my favorite in the series. For pro racing fans, the one-player mode is the ultimate racing challenge. I didn't beat Special Cup on 150cc until I was twenty-two. I still have nightmares about the original Star Road, a paper-thin course with no rails, ninety-degree turns and seriously pissed-off Thwomps. That's what I think all the subsequent sequels lacked: an addictive challenge. But honestly, the multi-player mode is where it's at. You can play two-player grand prix (which makes it easier to earn trophies) or simply fight each other with items in Battle Mode. My favorite item in the game was always the feather, which gave you a super-high jump. You could use the feather to jump walls or pits (shortcut!) or even go airborne to dodge an incoming red shell! For some retarded reason, the feather was never seen again in any of the many sequels! That's another reason the original Mario Kart is still my fav.
#19: Earthworm Jim 2
1995/96
Oh, EJ. The mere mention of this game gives me the giggles. I can just see the Shiny Entertainment game designers cracking up in their hot-boxed board rooms as they pitched wacky level ideas for this crazy game. Earthworm Jim 1 & 2 on are among the wackiest, funniest, most unconventional games you will ever play. The first game didn’t quite make this list, unfortunately, but EJ2 sure did. The dualogy is about a regular earthworm who gets caught up in an intergalactic adventure when a superpower suit falls to earth and lands right on top of him, turning him into the most unlikely superhero of all time. The zany characters, bizarre levels and absurdist humor put these game in a league all their own. “Groovy!” “Way cool!” “Tender…” These are examples of what EJ says when you pick up items and weapons, including a homing cannon which is appropriately shaped like a house. Most of the levels are standard platformers (and I use the word "standard" very loosely), while other levels are completely bonkers. One level has you rescuing puppies getting thrown out of a second-story window by bouncing them to safety with a giant marshmallow. Another level has you navigating what appears to be the inside of a vagina to the morbid first movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. Another level casts you as the contestant on a game show with questions like “What color is Jim’s red gun?” to which the correct answer is “green.” Along the way you’ll encounter unforgettable characters like Peter Puppy, a precious pink pooch… until you piss him off… Snot, your boogery sidekick, Psy-Crow, the villain, Princess What’s-Her-Name?, the damsel in distress, and cows. Lots and lots of cows. I still don’t understand the designers’ strange obsession with them, but it’s that kind of quirky, offbeat humor that makes this game so brilliant, and a must-play for stoners.
#18: Kirby's Dream Course
1994/95
Imagine playing miniature golf, only each hole is filled with fun things like jumps, warps and power-ups. Also, the balls are Kirbies, which you get to smack the shit out of. Kirby's Dream Course is a dreamy combination of a sports game and a strategy game. I immediately fell in love with the one-player mode of this game, and the 2-player is even better. Both modes have you putting on a 3D board, but you'll quickly notice that there isn't a hole. You have to kill all the enemies first, at which point the last enemy standing turns into the hole. There are all sorts of tricks you can pull: jump shots, curve shots, and even obtain classic Kirby power-ups like Ice, which gives you slippery momentum and freezes water; Stone, which stops you instantly and drops you straight downward; and UFO, which lets you fly wherever you want for eight seconds – including right into the hole. On one-player mode, you must complete holes in the fewest strokes possible, which is very puzzle-esque. The 2-player mode has some unique twists. For instance, you compete for the MOST points. You're not penalized for how many strokes you take. Instead, you compete to see who can kill the most enemies (one point each) and who can land in the hole first (two points). But you can also reclaim your opponents' kills by retouching the stars your enemies leave behind. You can even bump into your opponent to steal their powers and knock them off-course, literally. This is easily one of the best head-to-head games ever made, not to mention one of the most original.
#17: Super Mario World
1990/91
This SNES launch title also launched the greatest era in videogame history. It announced to the world that the SNES was indeed superior to the NES -- and it was also lightyears ahead of the Sega Genesis's launch title, Sonic the Hedgehog. SMW was the right game at the right time, showcasing just what the SNES was capable of: it was a massive game full of equally massive levels, with beautiful graphics, smooth controls and a stellar soundtrack. The entire game is full of unforgettable images and music. It's classic 2D Mario with awesome upgrades. Mario can now spin jump and throw items/shells up. The fireflower now turns roasted enemies into coins, while the feather now turns you into a caped superhero (which makes far more sense than a flying raccoon). There aren't many new powers, but this entry did mark the debut of the Yoshies. Part Velociraptor, part frog, the Yoshies come in a variety of colors, and each have their own unique abilities. If you finish a level while still riding Yoshi, you can keep it throughout other levels, although it will wuss out on scary levels like castles or ghost houses. Many levels could be beaten multiple ways, if you could find both the key and the keyhole. Then there's the infamous Top Secret Area, which is simply room full of power-ups you can stock up on (and doesn't even count as a turn when you're switching off levels on 2-player). There’s also a Special Area area full of super-difficult levels, and if you can beat them all, the colors on the world map get all funky, while many enemies take on new appearances. Since I got this game for my eighth birthday, my sister and I have continued an annual tradition of playing through it. We still find it just as enjoyable as ever, although since we've mastered it so thoroughly, we actually have to give each other creative handicaps to keep it challenging. We'll force each other to pull a "Starman," which means beating the level without getting hit, or "Pacifist," which means beating the level without killing any enemies, or, my favorite, "No turning back," which means taping the 'right' button down, so you have to constantly be moving forward and time your jumps perfectly. Most of the time we go far all 96 levels -- such an odd level total. Couldn't they have made just four more? But sometimes we'll try to find the quickest, most direct path to Bowser's Castle (only twelve levels). But no matter how easy this game gets, it will never get old.
#16: Donkey Kong Country
1994
Kool karakters, killer graphiks and a krazy skore are just some of the reasons this game was such a klassik. When crocodiles called the Kremlings steal the banana supply from the Kongs, the apes have to reclaim it. The first thing you'll notice about this game is that the graphics are stunning -- perhaps the best on the console. All the character models were made in 3D before they were rendered into a 2D format. Simply moving and jumping around with the Kongs is a joy to watch. The super-expensive, pre-rendered effects are remarkably fluid, and look kind of like a combination between CGI and stop-motion. The levels themselves are equally impressive, often featuring beautiful background and foreground layers that make the environments feel much larger than they are. You can play the game on 1P, 2P Contest or 2P team. 2P team is where it's at. Player 1 is Donkey Kong; P2 is Diddy, and no matter what mode your'e on, you can switch between Donkey and Diddy on the fly. DK’s a beast, so he can use a ground pound attack as well as kill larger enemies with his jump that Diddy can’t, but Diddy’s faster and can jump higher and further. Surprisingly, this was the only DKC game in which you could actually play as DK, which makes it feel all the more special. Throughout the adventure, you'll meet other members of the Kong krew: the sexy Kandy saves your progress, surfer-dude Funky Kong can fly you anywhere on the island, and old man Cranky gives you helpful hints (and comic relief). If I were a videogame character, I'd be Cranky. I loved how he was always bitching about how younger gamers don't appreciate videogame history. But it isn't all Planet of the Apes. You'll meet other friendly animals who will give you a ride. Rambi the rhino can break through walls with his horn, Enguarde the swordfish is like Rambi but underwater, Espresso the ostrich can flutter and Winky the frog can jump super high. True to the original Donkey Kong arcade game, DKC is also full of barrels, only this time, you get to throw them. You'll need to carefully carry barrels around levels to break into many of the secret bonus rooms. You can tell if you've found the bonus rooms in a level when an exclamation mark appears after the level name on the world map, and it's a great challenge trying to find them all. The game's jungle-jazz soundtrack is reminiscient of The Jungle Book, but even better. DKC is one of the best-looking and sounding games on the console.
#15: Tetris Attack
1996
Since Dr. Mario, there have been endless variations on the whole “match the colors” theme – Wario's Woods, Zoop, Puzzle Bobble, Snood, Yoshi, Yoshi's Cookie, Kirby's Star Stacker, Bejeweled, etc. Frankly, I don't care much for any of these so-called “puzzle games,” which actually test your reflexes more than your problem-solving abilities. However, hidden deep within the pile of Dr. Mario wanabes was a game called Tetris Attack, yet another tired variation on the same theme, BUT hidden deep within the game's many different modes is a mini-game called Puzzle Mode, which is truly one of the greatest puzzle games of all time, up there with Lolo and The Lost Vikings. In Puzzle Mode, you're given a series of brain-teasers in which you must horizontally rearrange blocks to align them with three or more of the same color. There are sixty puzzles. Each of them give you a designated number of moves to (usually 2-3), and deciphering them is the most fun I've ever had with my clothes on. I guarantee these puzzles will keep you entertained and stumped for hours on end. This game will actually make you smarter! Despite Tetris Attack's disappointing main dish, the overlooked Puzzle Mode is so brilliant that it more than compensates. It's like a pizza joint that actually serves the best french fries in town. It's too bad nobody knows about it. For a taste, check out this Flash remake. It's not as good as the original, but you can play it online if you're not old/cool enough to own a SNES.
#14: Super Mario All-Stars
1993
I'm bending the rules to include this game here, but for good reason. Hell, just look at how highly it ranked! At first glance, it may seem like a meer money-hungry collection of NES rereleases. But upon closer inspection, it’s actually much more. For starters, All-Stars included the formerly Japan-exclusive Mario 2, aptly named the “Lost Levels” here. One can see why it didn't reach our shores before, as it's notoriously difficult. But for those of us who've mastered the original Super Mario Bros., the real Mario 2 was a welcome challenge. Rounding out the rest of the collection are the three classic NES Mario games we all (should) know and love: Super Mario Bros. 1, “2” and 3. But these aren't just ports; these are remakes. And unlike George Lucas's ludicrous changes to the original Star Wars trilogy, the changes Nintendo made to their masterpieces were not detrimental, they're actually (dare I say it?) improvements. Fear not, purists, the gameplay remains untampered with. The changes are mainly aesthetic. Most noticeably, all four games were given 16-bit makeovers, which normally, I would be against. But the visual upgrade neither distracts nor detracts from the gameplay. The artists simply added more detail and color to the existing artwork, and I have to admit, it looks good. Eight to sixteen-bit isn't that big of a difference, though, at least in the art department. The soundtrack, on the other hand, benefited greatly from a 16-bit remix. The SNES had far more layers and a greater variety of “instruments" to choose from. Just check out the underground theme from Mario 1, which now features a rockin' drumbeat and a metallic echo effect. But by far the greatest improvements Nintendo made to these games, and the main reason All-Stars made this list, was in the addition of save features. Back in the day, you had to complete these games in one sitting, and turning the power off on your NES meant losing all your progress. It sucked, especially when playing through the entire Mario 3 without warp whistles. All-Stars fixes this problem by letting you save four files -- per game. I love being able to stop and resume at any point. It's not often – practically unheard of – that an artist's retcons help their art instead of hurting it. This makes Mario All-Stars an anomaly, and it's actually my preferred way of playing the old 8-bit Marios.
#13: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
1991/92
Third in the series, my second-favorite, and the first great Zelda game, Link to the Past was all about a thief named Ganondorf who finds the legendary lost Triforce, a magical artifact that can grant you any wish. Ganondorf wishes to rule a world of his own, which creates a parallel universe called the Dark World. It's up to a young Lightworlder named Link and a princess named Zelda to find a way into the Dark World and defeat Ganondorf before he and his goons return to lay waste to the Light World. This was the definitive Zelda game. I love how you get the freedom to explore the land of Hyrule, yet your boundaries are always limited until you beat the next dungeon and acquire the new weapon needed to access the next area. It's all very well structured, unlike, say, the original Zelda, in which you could stumble into the third dungeon first, or all these modern open-world games that emphasize quantity of things to do over quality. Many of the classic Zelda weapons are back, like the bow, bombs and boomerang... but many of the now-classic weapons were also introduced in this game, like the hookshot, ocarina, mirror shield, “power gloves” and the fire and ice projectiles. Damn, how does Link carry all that shit? This game also featured some bitchin' items never to be seen again, including the Magic Cape, which turns you ethereal, which is like invincibility plus the ability to pass through solid objects. Once you get the Magic Mirror, you can warp between the Light and Dark Worlds practically wherever you want, except for indoors, which was a brilliant mechanic, and far more convenient than having to return to a single spot every time you need to switch worlds, like in Ocarina of Time or Four Seasons. The game's dungeons are far more complex than ever before, often featuring a super-tricky part toward the end that's guaranteed to stump you for a few minutes, especially that damned Forest Temple or the infamous Ice Temple puzzle. The boss fights are epic. My favorite was the three-headed turtle-dragon of Turtle Rock. Some of the bosses were even recycled in future Zeldas -- that gooey mess of eyeballs reappeared in Majora's Mask, which, by the way, felt very uncomfortable in 3D. Some things just work better in the good ol' fashioned, fixed, top-down perspective. Koji Kondo's soundtrack is spectacular, and introduced many of the classic Zelda tunes. There are so many little things about this game I'll never forget, like that "unreachable room" on the dungeon map of Ganon's Tower, or that strangely modern house silhouetted in the background behind the pyramid that looked just like my house did when I was a kid, which I used to think was amazingly coincidental, especially since its only lighted window correspended with my bedroom. These are just some of the many examples of how much this game means to me personally.
#12: Goof Troop
1993
Goof Troop is like Zelda but with better puzzles, and it's 2-player! Man, when Capcom got the Disney license, they didn't fuck around. They could turn the weakest Disney-fare into the most surprisingly wonderful games, and Goof Troop was their masterpiece. Based off the characters from the mediocre animated television show of the same name, the game features Goofy and his son Max attempting to rescue their friends, PJ and Petey, from a gang of pirates. The game is equal parts action and puzzles. Half the time you'll be defending yourself from enemies, and teamwork during battle is crucial. Like DK and Diddy in DKC, Goofy is stronger, while Max is faster. Neither have any attacks. To kill enemies, you have to find objects like barrels to pick up and throw at them. You also have to ability to catch thrown items, from both enemies and your partner. Like Contra, this game was meant to be played on 2-player. For example, you'll often want Max to fetch distant objects and pass them to Goofy to hurl at enemies, since the Goof can take them out in one throw. You'll also pick up items along the way, like a hookshot to stun enemies, or a bell to lure them into trap. When you're not battling enemies, you'll be solving puzzles. And man, these puzzles are fantastic. They all follow the same basic concept: they all require you to move blocks onto switches, but there's a catch: once a block is kicked, in continues to slide in that direction until it hits something else. Solving these puzzles together with a friend is twice as fun. In fact, I think this is the single greatest two-player co-op game of all time.
#11: Shadowrun
1993
In this slick, noirish, cyberpunk urban-fantasy, you're Jake Armitage, a shadowrunner – one who still dares to walk the streets of a quasi-post-apocalyptic Seattle. The game opens with an assassination attempt on your life. Four gangsters gun Jake down in the middle of an intersection in broad daylight. Afterward, a fox approaches your corpse, morphs into woman, casts a spell on you, and flees. You then wake up in the morgue with amnesia. Your goal: to discover who tried to kill you and why... then get 'em back. There has never been another game like Shadowrun, before or since. Think Grand Theft Auto as a fantasy RPG – and without the cops. It's total anarchy! Venturing outside in this game means entering a warzone of gang territory and sniper fire. The game's warped, twisted version of Seattle is populated with humans as well as fantasy races like elves, vampires and animorphers. Every single area in the city matches the dark, foreboding theme; you'll explore ghettos, alleys, abandoned buildings, towering skyscrapers, sewers, tunnels, cemeteries and a junkyard. You'll acquire a bitchin' arsenal of both firearms and magic on your quest. You'll need to frantically search a new part of town for a street doctor to deactivate a time bomb inside your head. You'll get help from a dog god named H'oochin-ikwa. Shadowrun has several unique gimmicks to it, most notably the keywords system. The game boasts a terrific story, which is actually based off a novel called Never Deal with a Dragon, and solving the murder mystery of who killed you means asking a lot of questions.
Ask about... keywords.
Whenever you speak to another character, you can either “listen” to what they have to say, which often teaches you new keywords, or you can “ask about...” any of the keywords you've collected so far. Some gamers are bound to find the game too difficult due to the fact that it often gives you little direction. You will get stuck in this game, with no idea what to do next to progress the story. You always get a clue, but you have to figure out the rest for yourself. Like, you'll reach a locked door but won't have a key, so you'll have to find another item to force entry with. Or, you'll have a new keyword like The Matrix but you won't know who to ask about it. As a result, you often have to backtrack and ask everyone about a keyword until you find the one who can help you. This is no children's game. It's difficulty and mature themes give it a very adult edge.
Ask about... The Matrix.
Whenever you find a computer in Shadowrun, you (or any other decker in your party) can hack into The Matrix to steal money from bank accounts or download vital information. It's a cool mini-game that involves exploring a maze of invisible firewalls not unlike a Minesweeper board, only you can detect how many walls are nearby you at any time, and even destroy them if your computer skills are high enough, an attribute which you can increase with your karma points. But beware: cyberdeath results in real death. Sound familiar? By the way, this was six years before the Wachowski brothers' film, The Matrix, came out.
Ask about... karma.
Instead of earning experience from killing enemies like in a standard RPG, you're awarded karma points, which you can use to upgrade any of your attributes as you choose. There's Firearm, which increases your aim, Strength, which allows you to carry heavier artillery, Charisma, which allows you to recruit more mercenaries into your party at a time, and more.
Ask about... mercenaries.
Hanging around bars and nightclubs are fellow shadowrunners, and you can hire up to three of them to join you at once. Words cannot describe how thrilling it is to storm enemy turf with an uzi-toting dwarf, an elven decker and and a foxy, animorphing mage. They do all the fighting automatically, but you can also order them to reposition themselves with the cursor during gunfights.
Ask about... the cursor.
Much like a computer game, in order to examine things, interact with people or use weapons/items/spells, you actually have to bring up a cursor, move it across the screen and highlight whatever you want to interact with. I've read many complaints of this mechanic, but it never bothered me. The cursor moves fast, it's easy to use, and it makes combat realistic – in a gunfight, it would actually take a moment to steady your aim on an enemy.
I could go on and on about this game, but I wouldn't dare give any more away. Suffice to say, this is the most criminally overlooked game on the SNES.
Up next: the top ten!
