That Time When Everyone Was Making Sexy Beach Volleyball Games…

Since completing my lengthy ranking of all of the PSM swimsuit issues, I’ve been continuing to go back through a massive pile of gaming magazines for an even lengthier writing project (stay tuned to IC2S in the near future for that). Skimming through gaming history has been fascinating, but it has also made me aware of several eras of gaming history that passed me by. For example: we all know and remember Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball (in part because I won’t shut the fuck up about it), but did you know that there were four other sexy beach volleyball games that released in a one year period from 2002 to 2003? And as weird as that is, it’s not even the weirdest detail: this sport was apparently so important that each console had its own exclusive sexy volleyball title! Suffice to say, I had to check these games all out and compare them! So let’s enjoy the waning days of summer reading about all the balls that were getting slapped in the early 2000s…

Beach Spikers: Virtual Beach Volleyball

Console: Gamecube
Release Date: July 12, 2002 (originally released in Japanese arcades in July 2001)
Developer: Sega
Publisher: Sega

What is it?

One of Sega’s many Virtua-sports titles, Beach Spikers started off as a fairly big hit in Japanese arcades. It was ported to the Gamecube a year later, it kicked off this trend of sixth console generation beach volleyball games.

How does it play?

Beach Spikers plays how every good sports sim should, translating the feel and strategy of real-world volleyball to video game form, while being easy to play. You have a lot of control over where you send the ball and how you respond in any given situation. Positioning also matters a lot, because you have a very small ring in which you can return the ball: if you’re on the edges of this, then your return will liklely be weak or fly off wildly, often costing you a point. There’s a pretty high skill ceiling here, so I imagine that there’s some people who have put in the necessary practice and gotten downright godly at playing Beach Spikers.

How does it look?

Beach Spikers looks like a Dreamcast game… that’s not to say that it looks awful, but it has clearly been made very early in the sixth console generation, in that awkward time when developers were still coming to grips with the new technology. As a result, character models are fairly low-detail, swimsuits are clearly just a skin textures with little-to-no bump mapping, and animations are stiff and awkward. Sand does deform somewhat and stay that way through the match though, which is pretty cool! The lighting can also get downright gorgeous at times, which elevates the proceedings immensely.

How’s the soundtrack?

Breach Spikers has a generic, unlicensed rock soundtrack. It’s just straight-up background noise, that’s all.

Also worth noting, the menu has an announcer who enthusiastically calls out every menu item you select… it gets really annoying fast. Like, dude, I know it’s World Tour mode, that’s why I picked it!

How sexy is it?

Beach Spikers is going for authenticity, so sexiness hasn’t really been emphasized here to the degree that it would be in many of its successors. All the outfits practical and fairly realistic. There’s a sense of matter-of-factness to the game’s sex appeal: this is just beach volleyball, of course it’s sexy!

That said, there are seventy outfits and colour variants available to choose from, and a full half of these show off a fairly significant amount of cleavage. Despite being practical and realistic, all of these suits are still showing off a ton of skin. To put it in perspective, there are several swimsuits in DOAXBV which are more conservative than every single outfit in this game. In addition, none of the in-game characters are real people, which means that Sega made the conscious decision for this game to feature only women, and then make them all conventionally attractive. It’s pretty clear to me that there was a conscious effort to tastefully lean on sex appeal, while trying to stay authentic to the beach volleyball experience.

Who are the characters?

Beach Spikers doesn’t really have characters per se. There are sixteen countries with two players per team, for a total of thirty-two in-game characters. That said, they are basically just pre-made create-a-characters, which brings us to the real exciting bit: Beach Spikers‘ world tour mode allows you to create your own duo, and has a ton of face, hair, and outfit options to choose from! You may not get any sort of personality from these characters, but at least the create-a-character mode gives you a lot of attachment to your players!

Also: I find it hilarious that Team Canada’s two players are named Olvis and Quilico, what the fuck, haha.

What’s the verdict?

Beach Spikers is a lot of fun! It aims to be an authentic volleyball experience, and it absolutely nails the assignment. I can absolutely see how you could sink countless hours into this game. Becoming more skilled at it and then going through a world tour playthrough seems like it would be really fun!


Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball

Console: Xbox
Release Date: January 21, 2003
Developer: Team Ninja
Publisher: Tecmo

What is it?

Do I really need to explain this? Not only is Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball the only game on this list that anybody remembers, but I’ve covered it (and its myriad of sequels) several times in the past. Check out those links for your deep-dives.

Funnily enough, while the Dead or Alive franchise was often accused of being a Virtua Fighter rip-off, Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball would also be accused of being a clone of Beach Spikers: Virtua Beach Volleyball (for his part, Tomonobu Itagaki claims that the similarity was coincidental and that a volleyball mode was originally planned for Dead or Alive 2).

How does it play?

Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball stands out from its competition by being more of a vacation simulator, rather than a pure volleyball game. You spend as much time relaxing, shopping, gambling, and watching the girls frolic as you do actually playing volleyball. This gives the game a really soothing atmosphere which makes it a lot more compelling than its thin content would have you think.

That said, the volleyball itself is fun. It’s quite simple to get the hang of and controls very intuitively. One could argue that this gives it less depth than some of the other games on this list, but it’s enjoyable, and the other activities on offer help shake up any feeling of monotony. My one complaint about the volleyball in DOAXBV is that the camera often leaves your character off-screen, which can make it hard to position correctly (although this would be fixed in its sequels).

How does it look?

Like most of Team Ninja’s games, DOAXBV is gorgeous-looking. They’re clearly utilizing the same tech as Dead or Alive 3, with highly-detailed character models, impressive sand physics and lighting. Unfortunately, you spend too much of the game staring at menu screens, but when you are in the action, it’s a technical showcase.

How’s the soundtrack?

DOAXBV features a licensed soundtrack with lots of chill reggae and bubblegum pop from recognizable artists such as Bob Marley, Spice Girls, Baha Men, and Christina Aguilera. The soundtrack helps sell the chill vacation atmosphere of the game and emphasizes that Team Ninja aren’t treating this game as a joke.

How sexy is it?

This first game is tastefully restrained in its sexiness (mostly). Sure, it’s kind of laughable watching the girls aimlessly stand around looking sexy, but there’s a clear level of respect for the characters at the end of the day. There’s a voyeuristic quality to the game: you’re just getting a glimpse at these sexy ladies having fun and hanging out. They’re having fun for themselves, they’re not just trying to look sexy for you, which is honestly more arousing than if the game was going all-out.

Of course, you can dress the girls up in dozens of different bikinis, some of which get ridiculously revealing. Getting those swimsuits requires hours of grinding for currency and staring at menu screens, so if you want to maximize your experience you’re going to have to do your chores first.

Who are the characters?

Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball features all of the girls from the mainline Dead or Alive games up to that point, plus newcomer Lisa.

What’s the verdict?

While I’m still not a huge fan of Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball (or its sequels), I cannot deny that it’s fun and relaxing in small doses. The non-volleyball activities also help to keep things somewhat fresh, which definitely helps it to stand out among all the other sexy volleyball games that released at the time.

Also, side-note: I blamed this game for tarnishing Dead or Alive‘s reputation in my Love/Hate article, but I now think that things are a bit more nuanced than that. After all of my writing project research, it’s clear that Dead or Alive was kind of doomed from the start. From the moment Tecmo marketed the first game as “sexy Virtua Fighter“, the series was always associated with sex. Every mention of Dead or Alive had to have an obligatory reference to boobs, despite contemporaries like Soulcalibur having just as much fan service (if not more). It seemed like there was the potential for Dead or Alive 2 and 3 to transcend this reputation, with near-universal acclaim for their fighting systems showing that there was more to the series than just sex appeal.

Then Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball came out. On the one hand, this brought the series a massive amount of attention: the game came out in January 2003, and it was still in the public conscious more than a year later, with everyone still talking about how sexy the game was. However, this increased public conscious was a double-edged sword: it meant that more people just viewed the series as porn without actually playing the games, and it also meant that future Dead or Alive games had to lean harder into the sex appeal to satisfy the audience they had cultivated. That worked at the time, but with gaming culture becoming increasingly more diverse and mature, such overt sex appeal would rapidly limit its audience.


Outlaw Volleyball

Console: Xbox (ported to PS2 in Europe in 2004 and North America in 2005)
Release Date: July 8, 2003
Developer: Hypnotix
Publisher: Goddamn Simon & Schuster Interactive!?!! (Seriously!)

What is it?

Developer Hypnotix released Outlaw Golf in 2002, establishing a blueprint for sports games featuring wacky, over-the-top, low-life characters. Naturally, such a blueprint would apply easily to volleyball, whose reputation as a “sexy” sport would no-doubt draw an audience with the game’s lurid content and M-rating.

Hypnotix, for their part, would end up being acquired by EA in 2005 (shortly after the PS2 port of Outlaw Volleyball released). They would go on to be assimilated into the EA Sports development arm, where they’re still making sports titles to this day. I mean… that’s got to be a best-case-scenario when you’re acquired by EA, right? If nothing else, titles like Outlaw Volleyball helped the studio develop a sports game expertise that kept them relevant!

How does it play?

Outlaw Volleyball isn’t quite as authentic as Beach Spikers, but it is far closer to an EA Sports-style sim than you would expect. While there are some arcadey elements (such as a turbo meter you can use to get guaranteed points), the game is clearly going for the look and feel of televised volleyball, complete with an announcer, instant replay, and screen transitions with a network logo.

Of course, this is also an Outlaw game, so that means that there’s some extra violence thrown in for the hell of it. You can cross the net to fight a player on the other team, which plays out like a fighting game. This is a hilarious concept, but in execution, these fights play awfully, with extremely stiff and simplistic controls lacking any depth. Aside from the comedy of beating your opponent senseless, the only reward you get for it is that the loser suffers a major stamina penalty, although this does not have much of an effect on gameplay.

Also, it’s worth mentioning that a massive chunk of this game’s appeal (?) is its comedic writing, so you’re probably going to spend a lot of time early on listening to/watching the bevy of comedy skits that play out before the match and between serves. Many of them are groan-inducing, and they start repeating very quickly, but I did get a fair few laughs at how ridiculous and shameless this game gets… sometimes, these laughs were even with the game, rather than at it!

In terms of game modes, you’ve got standard exhibition, random match, training, and tour mode (basically, your single-player campaign). There is a four-player mode, and I can just imagine how fun it would be to get the boys together, crack some beer and illicit substances, and then have a laugh while playing this game.

How does it look?

Outlaw Volleyball looks and feels like a budget title. The character models are decent by sixth-generation-standards, but everything else is pretty poor. Sand doesn’t react to your movement at all, bystanders look like they were rendered on a SNES, background objects would have been too bad for even Pokemon Sword & Shield, etc. They got the absolute most important things right, but that’s about it.

How’s the soundtrack?

Outlaw Volleyball‘s licensed soundtrack is identifiably “early-2000s”: lots of rap, post-grunge, punk, and nu-metal. Despite this, there’s not a single song on here that anyone has ever heard of. It’s clearly a case where they didn’t have the budget to license any big hits, so instead they just settled on a bunch of facsimiles of popular sounds. The music here feels like something an executive would say “the cool kids were into”.

That said: goddamn Steve Carrell voices the game’s announcer!? This was 2003, so it would have been pre-fame Steve Carrell! That’s so cool!!

How sexy is it?

Outlaw Volleyball has eight female characters (it also has eight male characters, but the game is clearly not prioritizing their sex appeal). Each character has three different outfit options, all of which show off a significant amount of skin. Each outfit also has five different colour/pattern options, which gives the characters surprising amount of customization! These outfits can get so revealing that they rival DOAXVB for sheer exposure. Oh, and fret not: of course there are jiggle physics… they’re not great, but at least they’re here, because Hypnotix know what their audience wants.

That said, I don’t think “sexy” is the right word for Outlaw Volleyball. This game is downright trashy, and proud of it. The game has such a gaudy, raunchy, over-the-top attitude, that you can never be sure if they’re trying to be sexy, or if they’re trying to be funny. Like, when a nearly-naked character enters the court doing a lap dance routine, am I supposed to be aroused, or am I suppose to laugh at how ridiculous the whole situation is? Whatever the intent, the absurdity of the sex appeal got a fair few laughs out of me.

Also worth noting: this game came out while cheat codes were still a thing. Guess what the primo cheat code is in this game? If you guessed “big boob mode”, then congrats, you are on the same wavelength as Hypnotix. Enter a quick set of commands during a match and the characters’ boobs will balloon to ridiculous proportions. Funnily enough, they actually look extremely squished and are so big that I don’t think that the jiggle physics even work on them anymore, so I actually think that the game is “sexier” without this mode on. Then again, if you’re looking to maximize the comedy, then this is a must-have cheat (along with the standard big head mode).

Who are the characters?

Like I said earlier, Outlaw Volleyball has sixteen characters to choose from (eight male, eight female). They’re all a bunch of broad stereotypes, although this does mean that they have a fair bit of individuality. Highlights include:

  • Lizzy, an English punk. Just… imagine the most offensive English stereotypes, and you’ve got Lizzy. I nearly spit out my drink when I picked her on the character selection screen and she shouted out “Bloody nice choice… for a wanker!”
  • Shawnee is this game’s indigenous character… hoooooo boy, in a game defined by broad, raunchy humour and stereotypes, Shawnee has aged the worst by far. She references rain dances, runs around with tomahawks and a bow, has a fucking eagle that just hangs out with her… yikes.
  • Doe Joe is the Asian stereotype… He knows martial arts, obviously. He also has a thing for Elvis, for some reason?
  • Summer is literally just a stripper. That’s her entire personality. She starts the match doing a chair dance and her voice lines are all about her sex work. Suffice to say, she’s arguably the trashiest character in the entire roster.
  • Clem is your generic redneck. I legitimately laughed out loud when I saw that he hails from “Swampass, Tennessee”.
  • Natasha’s your USSR woman stereotype: short hair, super muscular, declaring her love for Mother Russia, firing off machine guns, and downing vodka in between serves.
  • Donna is literally just a New Yorker. Seriously, I don’t think they were going for anything more than that with this character.

What’s the verdict?

I’m not really sure who Outlaw Volleyball is for. Its volleyball gameplay is a bit more involved than DOAXBV (which would have been its direct competition at the time), but then that gets diluted by the arcadey elements and fighting system. The “outlaw” gimmick doesn’t even do it that much of a service either, since DOAXBV already had the sexy volleyball market cornered, so you can only really appeal to an even trashier audience niche. That said, I honestly found the game to be kind of enjoyable, in that rare “so bad it’s good” way that video games struggle to achieve. Unfortunately, it feels like it would get old very fast, and I don’t think that the volleyball gameplay is good enough to stand up on its own. Certainly not a classic, but I can see it being fun on occasion, especially with friends!


Outlaw Volleyball: Red Hot

Console: Xbox
Release Date: July 8, 2003
Developer: Hypnotix
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Interactive

What is it?

A baffling, stripped down mini-version of Outlaw Volleyball with some exclusive content. Bizarrely, this game was only available by renting from Blockbuster. Outlaw Volleyball released when DLC was in its infancy: with that in mind, it makes a bit more sense why they would see a deal with Blockbuster as a better financial opportunity. However, if it came out even a year later, this definitely would have been a $3 DLC pack: that is the level of exclusive content we’re talking here.

How does it play?

As you would probably expect, Red Hot plays identically to Outlaw Volleyball… it’s just significantly worse as a complete package. You’ve only got two game modes available: Exhibition and Free Play. At least the four-player mode is still here, so you could get some fun out of the game if you have some friends to share a laugh with. However, the game also makes the insane decision to lock all but one of the tutorial videos!? Did they just assume that no one was going to bother to learn how to play this game?

How does it look?

I’ll give Red Hot some credit: the hell court is actually pretty cool looking. Otherwise, this game is just reusing assets from Outlaw Volleyball, so it looks slightly-less mediocre than that game did.

How’s the soundtrack?

We’ve basically got the exact same soundtrack as the main game. The only major difference is that the stage intro is no longer voiced by Steve Carrell, but rather some other random guy… until the match starts, and then it’s back to Steve Carrell (who just says his lines from the main game). They clearly just couldn’t/didn’t want to pay Steve to come back to the studio for this.

How sexy is it?

Only four of the ladies from Outlaw Volleyball are playable in Red Hot… and, my God, they picked the absolute worst foursome for this game. They’re all dressed in devilish new outfits, but these aren’t particularly arousing or revealing. Worse, you can’t change their outfits and you get no customization options… lame!

Who are the characters?

Like I said, Outlaw Volleyball only has four playable characters. The character select screen shows the rest of the cast as locked, teasing that you might have some sort of reward for playing the game. As far as I can tell, Hypnotix just couldn’t be arsed to modify the character select screen, so they permanently locked them away from us.

As for the characters, we’ve got Chica, Donna, Harvest, and Natasha. Chica, Donna, and Harvest are all so boring, and easily my bottom three if I was ranking the female roster on sexiness. Natasha is about the only character I’m fine with, since she’s at least kind of funny and interesting. I’m just shocked that they didn’t want to use Summer, the literal stripper character, and put her in a slutty Halloween costume? Insane choice.

What’s the verdict?

Look, maybe I’m being a bit harsh on what is effectively a demo disc with some exclusive content… but Red Hot is not even good as a demo disc, because you had to pay for it. You could rent Red Hot… or, for the same price, you could rent the full Outlaw Volleyball game and get a significantly more complete experience. Or you could actually rent a game that’s good. When just renting the game for a couple bucks is a bad choice, you know that you failed to a catastrophic degree. There’s no scenario where choosing to play Red Hot over literally anything else makes any sense, making it one of the absolute most baffling games I’ve ever experienced.


Summer Heat Beach Volleyball

Console: PS2
Release Date: June 30, 2003
Developer: Acclaim
Publisher: Acclaim

What is it?

Of all of the games on this list, Summer Heat Beach Volleyball is the one that is most clearly a ripoff. Publisher Acclaim* clearly saw that Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball was an Xbox exclusive, so they rushed to release their own sexy volleyball game for the PS2 before anyone else could, hoping to make some desperately-needed bank. Unfortunately, the game sold poorly and its failure helped fuel Acclaim’s bankruptcy only a year later. Oops!

It doesn’t even end there though for Summer Heat Beach Volleyball: according to good ol’ Wikipedia, the rights to the IP were purchased by Throwback Entertainment in the bankruptcy proceedings. They announced that they were going to release a sequel on the seventh generation consoles and seemed legitimately excited about it, but no game ever materialized and no cancellation was ever announced… I just think it would be hilarious if there’s secretly a sequel to Summer Heat Beach Volleyball that’s been stuck in development hell since 2006.

*Acclaim were so notorious for the poor quality of their releases that people would refer to them as “Ack-Lame!” Obviously, this is a major reason why they ended up bankrupt.

How does it play?

Summer Heat Beach Volleyball feels very arcadey. The volleyball controls are quite simple, but there’s one main mechanic which the entire game is built around: aiming the ball on offense. When you are serving or spiking, you can hold down a button when the ball’s in the air and then aim where your shot will go with the left analog stick. This gives you a lot more direct control over the ball than any other game on this list, and in a very simple, intuitive, and skillful way! If nothing else, this helps the game feel pretty fun at times!

However, this emphasis on offense has its issues. The defensive game kind of sucks, especially because your AI companion is an idiot. They very rarely act when the ball is returned by the other team, so you end up being the entire defense in an effective 2v1. I legitimately think that this was an intentional design decision, because it means that you’ll be forced to use the ball aiming system all the time.

The other big issue with the game is that it floods the screen with massive arrows showing you the exact path that the ball is going to take at all times. You don’t really pay attention to the characters or the setting, it ends up being background noise in a “chase the arrow” simulator. Your optimal action is always to just go where it tells you to.

Oh, one other weird thing about this game is the “Beach House” mode. This essentially acts as an on-rails, in-game menu: you hold down either L2 or R2, which causes you to move back and forth through a beachside house and interact in first person view with some items (trophy case for records, TV for unlocked movies, etc). I do not know why they wasted development time on this largely-useless feature…?

How does it look?

Summer Heat Beach Volleyball looks dated, even by 2003 standards. Bystanders, which the camera lovingly pans by before every match, would have looked poor on the PS1 and they don’t even have any animation: they just stand there, motionless! Everything looks second-rate and it just reinforces the notion that this is a low-rent version of DOAXBV. The character models, one of the most important things in a “sexy” game like this, are uncanny. While the bodies are actually pretty good, the faces on every character look terrible. The game is seriously in need of a good, distinct art style (I really have to hand it to Team Ninja, the anime-like art style of DOA2/3/Xtreme 1&2 really holds up, and Summer Heat Beach Volleyball is a good reminder of how easily it could have failed).

At least the sand deforms slightly when you take a step, so it’s got that over Outlaw Volleyball.

How’s the soundtrack?

Surprisingly, Summer Heat Beach Volleyball actually has some recognizable names on the licensed soundtrack! Sum 41, Kylie Minogue, Pink: recognizable! But does it make any sense listening to “Fat Lip” while playing sexy beach volleyball? Not really…

How sexy is it?

Summer Heat Beach Volleyball is easily the second most overtly “sexy” volleyball game on this list (after DOAXBV, of course). As soon as you go to the character select screen, you are greeted by the jiggliest boob physics this side of DOA. Like, even the small-chested Asian character’s boobs jiggle like mad, it’s hilarious. They clearly put a disproportionate amount of effort into this physics system. Unfortunately, the aforementioned uncanny faces really do not do this game any favours in terms of sex appeal.

Each character has only two swimsuits, with five colour variations each, which doesn’t give you a whole lot of variety. That said, all of these suits are quite revealing and wouldn’t look out of place in DOAXBV (aside from looking significantly less-detailed).

However, what really wins this game some sexy points is its well-designed replay system. This allows you to rewatch the last set with very intuitive rewind/pause/fast forward controls and you get free control of the camera. This is fantastic for virtual photography, allowing you to get your chosen girl into the perfect pose for a well-framed shot!

Who are the characters?

Summer Heat Beach Volleyball does not have a create-a-character mode, instead having a set character roster… unfortunately, none of them really have any “character” to speak of. That said, this game has a wild character roster. We’ve got nine girls, six guys… and then there’s six joke characters. That’s right, the men are as important to the devs as the fucking joke characters. These joke characters are: a wooden mannequin, two Greek statues, a crash test dummy, and two glitch characters (one of whom looks suspiciously like Cortana). Between this and the Beach House mode, it’s clear that Acclaim did not have their development priorities straight. You couldn’t have allocated some resources towards making your character models look good? No…?

What’s the verdict?

Summer Heat Beach Volleyball just feels cheap. Everything about it is just the second-rate version of DOAXBV, which makes it seem like a disappointment in comparison. The offensive game is fairly fun, but the game is seriously lacking in any other depth to make this something I’d want to keep playing for any length of time.


So, why did we suddenly get five beach volleyball games in the course of one year? I can only really speculate, but I think that the monumental success of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater was a big influence. After its success, publishers were scrambling to create their own extreme sports titles, and soon the market was flooded with all manner of Tony Hawk clones. However, these developers started trying to differentiate themselves and branch out to other, untapped sports. I suspect that beach volleyball started gaining attention as a good sport to branch out to due to its easy association with sex appeal. Sex appeal in games had really started to ramp up towards the end of the PS1-era (especially after Tomb Raider and Dead or Alive really pioneered the concept), so it makes sense that all of these games would lean into that to a greater-or-lesser degree.

For the sheer hell of it, here’s how I’d rank the beach volleyball games I’ve played in terms of overall quality (relative to one another):


Y’know what? Let’s sneak a cheeky bonus entry in here as well…

BMX XXX

Console: Xbox, PS2, Gamecube
Release Date: November 15, 2002
Developer: Z-Axis
Publisher: Acclaim

What is it?

Once again, we have “Ack-Lame!” up to their usual shit. The concept is simple: “what if BMX, but with boobs?” For obvious reasons, BMX XXX is one of the most notorious and trashy games of its era.

Z-Axis were the developers behind the Dave Mirra’s Freestyle BMX games. These games were blatant Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater clones, but were fairly well-regarded nevertheless. However, the while developing the third entry in the franchise, Z-Axis and Acclaim decided to pivot in a more adult direction in a desperate attempt to make their game stand out in the sea of Tony Hawk clones. The resulting shitshow was glorious:

  • Dave Mirra went on to sue Acclaim for associating him with the game and tarnishing his reputation in the process. In addition, no celebrity BMX riders or licensed equipment chose to appear in the game due to the controversy.
  • The game was banned in Australia (not exactly a rare occurrence, but still notable).
  • It was also banned from sale at Wal-Mart and Toys “R” Us, the two biggest game distributors at the time, kneecapping the game’s attempt at standing out in the market.
  • Sony would force Z-Axis to remove all nudity before they would allow the game to release on PS2… which completely defeated the purpose of the game.
  • The game ended up selling terribly and was another big factor behind Acclaim’s bankruptcy a couple years later.

How does it play?

Trying to make precise movements in this game is really frustrating. You can turn in place freely, but if you actually want to move anywhere, you have to start pedalling in that direction. You can’t just walk the bike to a particular point, you have to go there with some acceleration. That means that you are going to overshoot your target frequently, even if you’re right beside them. This is especially annoying when you’re trying to line up a trick, accept a mission, or complete a challenge.

The game has a fairly standard, Pro Skater-style mission structure, where you accept challenges from NPCs in each stage. These can get really annoying because, if you fail, you have to go back to the quest-giver and restart the quest (including any cutscene they may have, although you can skip them at least). Considering that all of these challenges are timed, you’re probably going to fail at least once, leading to a lot of tedium.

That said, BMX XXX is still working off of the solid skeleton of the Dave Mirra games (which, in themselves, were using the blueprint set by Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater). With that kind of iron-clad foundation, it shouldn’t be too surprising that the moment-to-moment gameplay is decent enough. Maximizing your scores and learning how to land tricks is enjoyable, but it’s not exactly an original formula either.

Also worth noting: the game’s sense of humour is about as juvenile as you’d expect. Dick and ball jokes are forced in everywhere, the first level has you ferrying hookers to a love hotel, there’s a pimp strutting around, one mission has you delivering monkeys in diapers, etc.

How does it look?

You’d think that you’d want to make your “BMX, but with nudity” game at least look good so you can show off that saucy content, but apparently not. Despite being a next-gen title, BMX XXX looks worse than some PS1 games. You can count the number of polygons these characters have on two hands (and still have fingers left over for your mom). This is particularly surprising, considering that Z-Axis’ previous BMX game looked significantly better. Apparently, the adult pivot caused Z-Axis to throw out a lot of work that had already been done on the game, but Acclaim didn’t give them any more time to complete it. Combine that with developers disagreeing with the new direction and a rapid realization that the game was going to fail spectacularly, it’s little wonder that a bare-minimum effort was put in.

How’s the soundtrack?

Shockingly, BMX XXX has a licensed soundtrack with multiple notable names on it. Like, I can understand why Saliva’s “Click, Click, Boom” and Motley Crue’s “Girls, Girls, Girls” appear in this game: those bands are trashy enough that I can see them signing on for a titty BMX game. But the moment you start the first mission and Green Day’s “Basket Case” is playing, I was floored. Did they know that they were being put into fucking BMX XXX??? For that matter, did KRS-One and De La Soul?

I will say though, N.E.R.D.’s “Lapdance” is the perfect kind of trashy atmosphere for this game!

How sexy is it?

Look, I was not kidding when I said that this game’s graphics wouldn’t look impressive on PS1, let alone next-gen consoles. The graphics are far too shitty to be even remotely arousing, which is a massive issue in a game whose entire premise revolves around titillation. Most people who make articles about this game don’t show how poor the nudity is in this game, but I’m here to deliver. I honestly don’t think it’s even good enough to warrant an NSFW warning, but I’ve elected to hide them behind the spoiler tag below:

Click here for the saddest video game titties of all-time!

If the sight of low-resolution nipples hasn’t gotten you hot and bothered, then BMX XXX also has unlockable FMVs. Acclaim scored a brand deal with real-life strip club, Scores, which was fairly popular at the time due to endorsements from some of their celebrity regulars. They agreed to have Acclaim film some of their girls performing dance routines which would be unlockable rewards in the game. Obviously, this is tacky as all hell, but it’s a hell of a lot more arousing than the attempt at polygonal nudity above. That said… I’m not ashamed to admit that Scores’ “Logan” is fucking hot (if she ever appeared in anything else, let me know in the comments).

That said, I really wish that the editing of these videos was better. Each video is about thirty seconds long, and no shot lasts more than a second, so they are very disorienting. This editing style allows them the videos to look flashy, but I barely get any time to appreciate the girls and their dance routines before they’re over. In addition, only three of the eighteen FMVs feature any actual nudity. Making matters worse, the PS2 version of the game has zero nudity, because Sony would not allow Acclaim to release the game unless it was completely excised. That’s right, not kid-friendly Nintendo, who released the game completely uncensored, fucking Sony.

As is usual for these kinds of games, you have to grind through a lot of shit to get any of this “sexy” content. The FMVs are locked behind completing challenges on each level, but there are cheats at least which can instantly unlock them all. The same cannot be said for the ability to make your biker topless, which is not available until you’ve gotten the highest score in two freestyle challenges. That’s a lot of effort for what amounts to lackluster softcore porn at best.

Like Outlaw Volleyball, BMX XXX isn’t really sexy, it’s just trashy. However, at least Outlaw Volleyball can claim to be a fantasy of trashiness: BMX XXX is just plain tasteless. It feels like an insult to the audience’s intelligence, especially considering how flaccid the game’s adult-oriented gimmick ends up being.

Who are the characters?

BMX XXX has an underwhelming character roster. There are a bunch of pre-made characters, but they’ve clearly been made in the in-game character creator (which is where the in-game nudity is, so that’s clearly the intended way to play). There is, however, an unlockable joke character called “Amish Boy”, who has unique assets that you can’t use in the character creator. That’s… something, I guess.

Also worth noting, this game’s entire point for existing is “BMX, but with boobs”, so it’s kind of funny that they even bothered incorporating male characters at all.

What’s the verdict?

BMX XXX is one of the most embarrassing video games ever made. I don’t know if I can put it any more succinctly than that.

If you liked this article…

I hate ads. You hate ads. In order to stop polluting my site with obtrusive and annoying ads, I’ve elected to turn them off on IC2S. That said, writing still takes time and effort. If you enjoyed what you read here today and want to give a token of appreciation, I’ve set up a tip jar. Feel free to donate if you feel compelled to and I hope you enjoyed the article! 🙂

Ranking the PSM Video Game Girls Swimsuit Issues

When I was a teen (back around 2005), I really got into video game magazines. EGM, Game Informer, Official PlayStation Magazine, Edge… I would sneak over to the corner store before church and get any issue I could find. In retrospect, I really should have subscribed to all of these, because I would have saved a ton of money in the process, but there was such a magical feeling in checking the magazine rack every week and seeing a new treasure on sale waiting to be poured over. This was before we got high speed internet at home (our dial-up connection was limited to only a couple hours per month), and before I could even buy video games in my home town. Suffice to say that these magazines were my Bible of video game culture.

One of my favourite gaming magazines from this time was PSM, the unofficial PlayStation magazine. As much as I enjoyed Game Informer and the Official PlayStation Magazine, those two publications were borderline advertisements that you paid money for: exaggerated/hyped previews, soft review scoring, every hyped game would get very high scores, and very little critical to say. PSM, on the other hand, was unofficial, so they just said whatever the hell they wanted to. This gave it a much edgier tone and significantly more personality to its reporting and articles, which made it much more appealing to me.

Part of PSM’s charm in the early days was that they would commission comic book artists to do the front cover illustrations for whatever game they were featuring that month. This was opposed to every other gaming magazine at the time, which would just use official advertising art approved by the game’s marketing team. As you can imagine, I find their two Dead or Alive covers to be so fucking cool. This practice would fade out over time, which I get: the comic book covers don’t really communicate that these are gaming magazines unless you recognize the cover character, and it would cost more money than using marketing materials. However, it definitely demonstrates the magazine’s gradual loss of personality as the years went on. By the time of the PS3’s launch, the magazine underwent a big, “serious” rebrand, which heralded their unfortunate shuttering a year and a half later.

Perhaps the most notorious distillation of PSM’s personality was their annual swimsuit issue. PSM would dedicate nearly a dozen pages showing off their comic book artist pals’ illustrations of various female video game characters in skimpy swimwear… yeah, the early 2000s were a wild time in gaming compared to today. Six swimsuit issues were published between July 2000 to September 2005 (which, I think, was right before I started reading PSM regularly). These sort of low-key offensive ploys to gain market attention are completely lost in today’s sanitized, corporate media landscape… that’s not to say that we should necessarily bring the 90s/2000s era of “edge” back, but there is a certain charm to it in retrospect.

The entire concept of a PSM swimsuit issue was fucking hilarious, so it made me want to track down each issue to see what sort of comedy I could mine out of them. So, here we are: I’m going to go through every swimsuit issue and then ranking each art piece from best to worst. Surprisingly, I seem to be the first person to actually try to do this, because I could not for the life of me find compiled information on which issues had a swimsuit special, what characters appeared in it, and how many years PSM ran it for. I had to find all this info myself while combing through the magazine’s back catalogue.

Speaking of which, credit goes to Retromags for archiving the magazine’s print run. Websites like that are a fucking godsend!

Jump to:

The Scoring System

Each art piece will be scored 0-10 on the following Certified Scientific™ criteria:

  • How HOT is the image (aka, the HOTNESS score)? These articles all promise me art of HOT video game girls in BIKINIS, so how well does the image deliver on that central premise?
  • Is the art off-putting (aka, the Liefeld score)? Comic book artists are notorious for having a terrible understanding of human anatomy, so I’m expecting to see some abominations as we go through this. To be clear, terrible anatomy will result in a low score, whereas an appealing image without any obvious deformities will earn a high score.
  • Does the character selection make sense (aka, the Character selection score)? There weren’t a whole lot of notable female video game characters in the early 2000s, and this will be worse for PSM since they were limited to PlayStation game characters only. Because of this, I’m genuinely curious to see how PSM are going to manage to fill out these issues on an annual basis, and whether they’re going to have to resort to some really weird selections in hindsight. High scores for the no-brainer picks and low scores for the most baffling character selections.
  • Does the character’s personality shine through (aka, the Personality score)? It’s easy to draw a sexy woman, but it’s another thing entirely to capture that character’s personality in the image. I really love when fan art is able to communicate who that character is, so I will be giving major bonus points to any images that can pull that off.
  • Is their swimwear design interesting (aka, the Swimwear design score)? These are swimsuit issues, after all! How does each piece of swimwear look? Is its design interesting? Does it tell us something about this character, or does it just take their in-game outfit and make it more revealing?
  • Intangibles. Any positives or negatives that don’t fall into the previous categories will get mentioned here and potentially provide some bonus points as merited.

PSM Issue 35 (July 2000)

This inaugural issue of the swimsuit special (featuring Regina from Dino Crisis!) promises HOT art of your favourite Game Girls! Can they deliver…?

(Seriously, can they? I’m literally writing this before I’ve even looked at the issue. This is the sort of stream-of-conscious shit I write when I’m high.)

Yeah, this is the over-exaggerated macho writing I was expecting, but at least it acknowledges that this is intended to be tongue-in-cheek… wait a minute, what’s that last part…?

…my God.

Turtlenecks.

Okay, this article is now gonna detour as I try to find some of these uncensored images. I have to know if PSM were just edging their audience, or if they were actually hosting hentai on their website at one point…

Holy shit, guys, so I actually found the page archived on the Wayback Machine! It has all the illustrations there in fairly high quality (for image files from the year 2000 anyway). As expected, they did not post hentai on their website: the “uncensored content” amounts to a bit more sideboob on three of the images. Open them up in another tab here and then check them out after you read this article (no spoilers!).

Anyway, let’s get onto this issue’s images…

HOTNESS:
5/10
PSM sure seemed to like this one, making it their cover image and the first image in the entire article. The style’s a bit too exaggerated for my taste, but there’s one glaring flaw that spoils this for me…
Liefeld:
4/10
My God, look at her left leg. It single-handedly ruins the image for me. On top of that, her legs are twice the length of her entire upper body. Damn, right out of the gate we’re getting the deformed anatomy: not a good look, PSM!
Character selection:
7/10
Regina from Dino Crisis is a really cool pick! While the series didn’t last particularly long, she’s still remembered today and fans have been begging Capcom to resurrect the series for ages. At the time of publication, she still would have been a fairly popular character, so this gets a solid grade from me.
Personality: 4/10It’s been a long time since I played Dino Crisis, but I recall Regina being a fairly no-nonsense character. This image just looks like “generic hot girl” to me.
Swimwear design:
3/10
This “bikini” is just Regina’s in-game costume, but they snipped away portions of it so they could show more skin. That’s a pretty boring way to design a character’s swimwear in my opinion. It looks more like a superhero costume than it does a swimsuit.
Intangibles: 0/10I really hate how the T-Rex is licking its lips and giving me the “come hither” look.
HOTNESS: 9/10HOLD THE FUCKING PHONE, DEAD OR ALIVE GIRLS SPOTTED!!! Yeah, that by itself was enough for me to get excited, but… I mean, just look at it! This is the level of quality that you’d want to get from a PSM swimsuit issue!
Liefeld:
7/10
I really had to look closely to nitpick this one. Kasumi’s shoulders are a bit weird, Leifang’s left leg might be a bit too long, and I have no idea what’s going on under Tina’s boobs, but I really had to pull out the magnifying glass to even notice. I’m fine with some exaggeration and stylization for this category, it’s when it comes at the detriment of the image that I start docking points.
Character selection: 10/10I see DOA girls, I immediately upvote. Also totally justified selection for the time, as Dead or Alive was fairly popular and known for its sex appeal. Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball wasn’t even a thing yet, so this particular image ended up becoming prophetic in retrospect.
Personality: 5/10Here is by far the biggest issue with the image: the mischievous looks from all three of the girls really don’t convey their personalities at all. That said, this can maybe be chalked up to there only being one Dead or Alive game released at that point, which had pretty limited story and character presentation.
Swimwear design:
8/10
In contrast to Regina’s entry, this is exactly what I’m looking for for this category. They’ve taken the colours associated with each of the girls’ main costumes and then reworked those into a unique swimsuit that feels appropriate for them.
Intangibles: 10/10I see DOA girls, I immediately upvote. You may feel that this is just my bias showing, but these categories are, as I have established previously, scientific, so therefore reality is biased in my favour. Sorry, I don’t make the rules, take it up with God.
HOTNESS: 6/10While I’m not sure I’d say that this is a particularly “hot” image, it’s certainly appealing to look at. I quite like it overall!
Liefeld:
5/10
This one is not too bad overall, but its score is cratered due to one blatant flaw: the girls’ waists are INSANELY thin, which looks very off-putting attached to their gigantic hips. If not for that, this could have been a perfect score, but it’s so obvious that it really hurts the image.
Character selection: 2/10Maybe I’m just ignorant, but I had no idea Ridge Racer even had characters, let alone ones who people would want to see in swimwear. Then again, the people who love these characters really love them. Apparently Reiko Nagase is so popular amongst fans that her replacement, Ai Fukami, only appeared in one game before going back to Reiko, because fans threw a complete tantrum over the change.
Personality: 5/10Granted, I know nothing about these characters, but they look like they’re having fun, so… 5/10?
Swimwear design:
7/10
Again, I know nothing about these characters, but I get the impression they usually just wear plainclothes, so their swimsuits here seem to be original designs. They’re cute outfits, I like them overall.
Intangibles: 5/10Having the racing girls be riding jet skis is a pretty clever idea and also adds a bit of variety to the images. That’s worth some points as far as I’m concerned.
HOTNESS: 8/10Ahh, the video game queen herself, Lara Croft was practically designed for this kind of article and looks as good as you would have hoped. The sun-drenched Egyptian skyline really sells this one. A solid enough contender, befitting The Queen.
Liefeld:
5/10
I’m a bit mixed on this image. Lara’s left boob has an odd shape to it, but my biggest issue is the skewed perspective, which makes Lara look exponentially thinner the further down her body you go. It’s distracting and makes me like this image a lot less than I would like to.
Character selection: 10/10There was no way that PSM could do a swimsuit issue in the year 2000 without Lara Croft.
Personality: 10/10They’ve really captured Lara’s personality in this image. The sass, confidence, and classiness are there. Sex appeal was baked into her character from the start, so this is an easy 10/10.
Swimwear design:
8/10
It doesn’t take a whole lot to get a decent score from me in this category. This is a very simple bikini, but it’s in Lara’s colour and feels like something I actually could see her choosing to wear.
Intangibles: 5/10I don’t know what is up with the guy with the eyepatch and gun (it appears that they’re pirates trying to board Lara’s yacht, but why does he look so weird?), but between him and Winston’s runny nose, there’s lots to look at here when you’ve gotten your eyeful of Lara.
HOTNESS: 2/10There is a lot going on with this image. On the one hand, we’ve got Jill Valentine, Claire Redfield, and Leon Kennedy representing Resident Evil! On the other hand, this image is clearly intended to be more comedic than hot. That’s fine, but it definitely costs this entry in the HOTNESS score.
Liefeld:
10/10
The first entry thus far where I’ve got no nitpicks or glaring flaws to point out – Leon, Claire, and Jill look like human beings, good job.
Character selection: 6/10While Jill and Claire were pretty much video game royalty by the year 2000, I’m not sure how much sense they make for a swimsuit issue. They’re meant to look like regular people. As a result, if you took out the zombie and the RPD logo, you probably wouldn’t even realize who these characters are supposed to be. I’ll still give a decent score since they kind of had to show up in an article about PlayStation women, but their indistinct designs lose them some points.
Personality: 8/10Leon being a sad sap, Claire being feisty, Jill being the professional voice of reason… yeah, I’d say they’re tapping into these characters’ personalities here.
Swimwear design:
3/10
The girls are just wearing more revealing versions of their official outfits… boring. It feels kind of necessary though, because without Jill’s tube top and Claire’s red shorts, there would be even less here to identify them.
Intangibles: 1/10It’s pretty funny that there’s a rotting zombie in the back, but the entire premise of the image is so weird for a swimsuit article: Claire smells the zombie and then assumes that the smell is because Leon farted. That’s… a decision, I’ll give them that.
HOTNESS:
6/10
This one is like a tale of two images. On the one hand, we’ve got a fairly generic, cutesy anime image of Rinoa, Quistis, Cloud, and Squall having fun at the beach. It’s not particularly “hot”… but then we have Tifa pasted into the foreground and, poor girl, she looks like she’s cold. If this image was just Tifa, this would be up there, but so much of the image is just plain dull and generic.
Liefeld:
7/10
So I’m not really noticing any egregious issues with this one, so that means that it’s time to nitpick. The perspective seems to be off once again, and the shadows make no sense at all, but overall this picture benefits from its simpler art style.
Character selection:
6/10
Tifa and Rinoa are timeless Final Fantasy characters, but Quistis…? I haven’t played Final Fantasy VIII, and don’t think I’ve ever even heard of her, is she that popular a character? I honestly thought that she was Aerith with her hair died blonde at first.
Personality:
2/10
I’m not really seeing anything of these characters’ personalities conveyed here, it’s just generic hot anime girl art.
Swimwear design:
4/10
Rinoa and Quistis’ outfits are kind of cute, but understated. Is Tifa even wearing swimwear? She’s basically in her official, in-game outfit.
Intangibles:
3/10
The Chocobos in the background are cute.
HOTNESS:
1/10
This image, featuring the Street Fighter girls, really falls flat when you remember the premise of the PSM swimsuit issue. Street Fighter has a lot of things that you’d expect them to hone in on (particularly Chun Li’s massive thighs and Cammy’s ass). We can’t even see Cammy’s ass at all! And Chun Li’s thighs: they’re pencil thin! On top of that, there are more Street Fighter guys than girls here! Yeah, the more I look at this image, the worse it gets.
Liefeld:
8/10
This one’s a good demonstration of the difference between an exaggerated art style and bad anatomy. There’s a lot of exaggeration here (particularly with Zangief and E. Honda), but I’m not seeing anything that looks like an outright mistake… other than Chun Li’s pencil thighs. Seriously, what the fuck were they thinking with that?
Character selection:
10/10
The girls (and guys!) of Street Fighter are iconic, so it’s a no-brainer that they’d get a spot in this issue.
Personality:
2/10
This image seems to be intended to be a more comedic take on these characters, but as a result it doesn’t really give us much to glean of their actual personalities.
Swimwear design:
2/10
This is a weird one, not because the swimsuits are necessarily bad, but because I can barely even see them. They can’t make much of an impression if you aren’t even going to show them.
Intangibles:
3/10
I’ve got to give some bonus points for including Blanka, Dhalsim, and Zangief in a swimsuit special.
HOTNESS:
6/10
This one’s clearly alluding to Baywatch and the fantasy of being rescued by a hot lifeguard. While that’s fairly hot in its own right, Meryl’s ass is doing some heavy lifting.
Liefeld:
7/10
About the only direct criticism I have of the art is that weird fold under Meryl’s boobs… but, honestly, it took me a while for my eyes to get there. Ahem.
Character selection:
7/10
This entry is literally just a grab-bag of PlayStation girls picked seemingly at random. At least we’ve got some pretty big names here: Meryl Silverburgh from Metal Gear Solid (who Snake literally remarked “had a great butt”), Aya Brea from Parasite Eve, Lian Xing from Syphon Filter (which was a huge franchise at the time), and Hana Tsu-Vachel from Fear Effect. I don’t really get why they grouped these particular girls together, but I ain’t going to complain.
Personality:
3/10
Once again, this is just generic “hot girl strikes sexy pose” art that says nothing about these characters or their personalities. Aya Brea as a hot lifeguard seems particularly weird. However… I have to give points for Meryl’s ass, not just because it’s distractingly rendered, but because it’s a pretty big plot point in Metal Gear Solid that Meryl has a great ass. That’s dedication to character right there!
Swimwear design:
5/10
I’m not really sure what they were going for with these swimsuits. On the one hand, they aren’t just “in-game costume, but more skin”. On the other hand, they don’t really seem to be particularly interesting or true to the character. I dunno, they’re fine, but I’m lukewarm on this swimwear.
Intangibles:
0/10
The big selling points of this one are the interesting character selection and Meryl’s ass… other than that, there’s not a whole lot I can say about this image.
HOTNESS:
8/10
This is about as risqué as a magazine for teen boys could get in the year 2000. The entire image is meant to be an over the top juvenile fantasy… which actually kind of hurts it for me somewhat. It’s trying too hard to turn you on with the excessively-cutesy art style.
Liefeld:
10/10
I can’t really complain about this illustration being “off”. There’s no navel, which makes it a bit less hot, but this is clearly a stylistic choice rather than a mistake. Valkyrie’s face and particularly her doe-eyes feel make it feel like they’re trying a bit too hard to arouse you… but that’s not really an issue with anatomy, so top scores it is.
Character selection:
3/10
Okay, so this is where we pull back the curtain on what makes this particular entry special: Valkyrie Wilde was the subject of an April Fools joke PSM had done that same year. What was that joke, you may ask? It was a fake preview for a video game where the entire premise is that you play as… a naked woman with guns. Yeah, so this is basically just PSM’s editorial team making up their super hot fantasy OC and plastering her wherever they could. I’ll give them some credit for keeping the bit going, but man, that’s just a masturbatory uroboros.
Personality:
10/10
Valkyrie Wilde is a hot naked girl with guns. This image is of a hot naked girl with guns. They encapsulated her entire personality here flawlessly.
Swimwear design:
0/10
She’s not even wearing swimwear! I was promised HOT video game girls in BIKINIS!
Intangibles:
0/10
I already gave her bonus points for being a callback to an April Fools joke, so I don’t think she deserves even more points for the exact same thing.

All-in-all, that was a fairly interesting first issue! Quite the grab-bag of styles, characters, and quality, covering most of the major game series known for their sex appeal at the time. I’m very curious to see if PSM would push the envelope even harder next time around.

PSM Issue 47 (July 2001)

No spoilers on the cover this time, just Spider-man slinging webs and a promise of BIKINI GAME GIRLS inside. No more “uncensored” versions of the images that I can find from this point onwards. Alright, let’s see what they have in store for us…

HOTNESS:
6/10
There’s a really understated hotness to this image that I really enjoy! The girls here aren’t posing suggestively, and their swimwear is downright modest, but their enthusiasm, general attractiveness, and appealing art style make this an image I do like to look at!
Liefeld:
10/10
I don’t really have any complaints about this one. If I really want to nitpick, Elise (the blonde)’s feet don’t even look like they would be on her surfboard, but it doesn’t really hurt the image’s quality overall.
Character selection:
2/10
While SSX was a pretty big extreme sports franchise at the time, were its characters particularly notable? If the article didn’t specify that these characters were named Elise, Zoe, and Kaori, it would have been a nightmare for me to try to figure that out for myself.
Personality:
6/10
I’m running into the same problem I did with Ridge Racer where I have no idea if this is captures the characters’ personalities or not. I guess SSX is a snowboarding game, so that would naturally provide some overlap with surfing…?
Swimwear design:
6/10
Elise’s black and pink bikini top is cute, but otherwise these outfits aren’t particularly notable… that said, they do look like practical swimwear for extreme sports enthusiasts and they are also wholly original outfits. Even thought they aren’t particularly “hot” swimsuits, I’ve really got to reward that dedication to character… and all that to represent some random characters from SSX!
Intangibles:
5/10
Again, like Ridge Racer, bonus points for finding a way to incorporate SSX‘s gameplay into the image.
HOTNESS:
6/10
I think somebody at PSM has a fetish for Asian women… Even if that is the case, the large robes concealing some skin and the self-conscious expression do make this kind of hot.
Liefeld:
5/10
I didn’t really see any major issues with the anatomy here… until I noticed Samanosuke’s head. Either he has a massive head, or Kaede’s head is tiny… neither option is particularly good and kind of ruins the image for me. On further inspection, Yuki’s eyeline is also kind of weird, but that’s definitely more of a nitpick than the giant fucking head in the background.
Character selection:
3/10
A couple minor characters from Onimusha get a whole page in this year’s swimsuit special? Really? While Onimusha has never been a juggernaut franchise, this would have been around its peak in popularity, so I can kind of see why they would consider it. Still, what a weird selection in retrospect.
Personality:
3/10
Once again, I do not know these characters very well, but based on a couple long-form analyses of Onimusha I’ve watched over the years, I don’t think that this really captures the characterization of Yuki, Kaede, or Samanosuke. Someone correct me if I’m wrong.
Swimwear design:
3/10
While I do rather like the design of Yuki’s swimsuit, Kaede is literally just wearing her in-game costume. For a “sexy” swimsuit article, that’s pretty egregious, especially considering that Kaede is the more important character of the two to the narrative.
Intangibles:
0/10
The image would honestly be better if it was just Yuki, the inconsistent head sizes are an own-goal that could have easily been avoided.
HOTNESS:
6/10
Oh hey, it’s a mash-up between two of the images from last year: Lara Croft and the comedic Resident Evil illustration. Once again, this one is leaning heavy on the comedy, so while Lara and Claire’s outfits are certainly nice, sexiness isn’t really the intent here.
Liefeld:
6/10
Lara’s right hand is weirdly undefined, and her right leg looks REALLY long, but otherwise this isn’t too bad on the Liefield scale.
Character selection:
10/10
I’ve already covered these two characters, so I’ll keep this brief: yeah, they’re both PlayStation royalty. They’ve made Claire look a bit more distinctly “Claire Redfield”, so that’s also a positive.
Personality:
5/10
I had to think about this one a little bit, but does reacting with disgust at the sight of a zombie really fit Lara Croft or Claire Redfield? They’d both whip out a gun and deal with the problem I think.
Swimwear design:
8/10
Lara’s in her near-perfect bikini from last year, so she gets a passing grade for just doing what already worked. Claire’s a bit more interesting, since they actually went to some effort to give her a unique design. It uses her red and black colour motif, and I like how this one-piece suit turned out on her.
Intangibles:
0/10
As a call-back to last year’s images, I feel like this one’s a bit of a disappointment. Better than the previous Resident Evil one, but clearly inferior to the Tomb Raider image.
HOTNESS:
0/10
Man, this picture sucks, and that’s largely down to the terrible colours that make everything look like brown shit. I don’t think that the image is unsalvageable, but it needs to be completely re-coloured. Even then… it’s not a very “hot” image, now is it?
Liefeld:
8/10
As far as the Liefeld scale goes, this doesn’t look terrible… but there is some weird composition stuff here where Kaldea (the raven-haired one) has her knee poking out past Dominique (the blonde one)’s boob, which makes it look like she’s got a deformed elbow or a boob poking out. They should have differentiated the characters better or just cut that small detail out entirely.
Character selection:
0/10
So this issue, unhelpfully, does not tell you what games the characters are from, which really presents problems when PSM are commissioning drawings of characters from games like The fucking Bouncer. This was a Squaresoft JRP-beat-’em-up that released in the early PS2 lifestyle. The game had some hype behind it, but sold extremely poorly and was not received well. Sure, I’ve got the benefit of a quarter century of hindsight, but this is a baffling selection for the annual swimsuit issue.
Personality:
5/10
I haven’t played this game. Barely anybody has played this game, and many who did don’t even remember it. I had to look up some information to try to figure out if this in any way accurate. In every picture I saw of her, Echidna (the redhead) looked pissed-off, so… accurate, I guess? That said, Dominique was usually pretty happy, so… a middling score is probably right? I dunno, you’ve never played this game, so you will not be able to contradict my score.
Swimwear design:
3/10
Bleh, the swimwear here is dull. Again, the colours do not help matters at all.
Intangibles:
0/10
I’m kind of glad that this image is of The Bouncer, because if I got art like this for a series I actually cared about, I’d probably start awarding negative points.
HOTNESS:
3/10
Good God, they really fucked up Viola’s face. She’s supposed to have a pretty standard 80s anime-style adult woman look to her, but instead they’ve given her the face of a dude. Olga also does not look a thing like her Metal Gear Solid 2 counterpart and I would never guess that was supposed to be her. This image is kind of mediocre overall, but these issues really sour the image for me.
Liefeld:
5/10
Again… it’s Viola fucking this one up. Her shoulders to her neck are like a fucking stretched triangle, it just makes my issues with her face even more pronounced. If you can ignore her though, the rest of the image is pretty good.
Character selection:
5/10
Some interesting selections here for the random character grab-bag. Zone of the Enders‘ Viola makes sense: the series had a lot of hype, because it was produced by Hideo Kojima at the height of Metal Gear fever. That’s also why it makes sense that Metal Gear Solid 2‘s Olga Gurlukovich is here as well. Vikki Grimm from Army Men is a bit more of an odd pick, but when you think about it more it totally makes sense for her to show up in a swimsuit issue. She only exists in the Army Men games to add a bit of sex appeal! Konoko from Oni is the most interesting selection, not least of which being that Oni was a game developed by Bungie and published by Rockstar! A pretty obscure title here, but a really interesting inclusion!
Personality:
4/10
Where the fuck is Olga’s armpit hair, you cowards??? That’s legitimately a personality complaint, by the way, because… fuck me, I can’t believe I’m about to explain why Olga’s armpit hair tells us about her as a character… Anyway, it’s a weird, unexpected character detail that communicates that immediately communicates to the audience that she’s not just a sex doll like so many other female video game characters of the time. She’s a professional soldier who isn’t concerned with conventional beauty standards. Here, they’ve not-so-subtly danced around that and just made her “generic hot girl”.

As for the other girls, I’m not really familiar with them, but that said: Konoko’s serious expression appears to be accurate to her character, and Vikki Grimm has always been the Army Men eye candy so I guess that one works. But yeah, again, they completely fucked up Viola.
Swimwear design:
4/10
Vikki and Konoko’s swimsuits are pretty interesting, but Viola and Olga’s are much more dull… on a whole, I’d say this is a wash.
Intangibles:
0/10
I cannot really convey how badly Viola and Olga fucked over this otherwise-mediocre image’s score for me.
HOTNESS:
1/10
Oh great, the terrible colouring is back and… I mean, just look at it, this picture looks awful. Again, I’m sure this looks better as a sketch, because the piss they painted this with completely ruins the image.
Liefeld:
5/10
Hana’s proportions look like they might be off, but my main complaint is that the hands just look weird… Oh God, and Hana’s bikini disappearing behind her neck just reveals that she was born on Kamino, because that neck is LONG and SKINNY.
Character selection:
8/10
Fear Effect is one of those series that wasn’t super popular, but was still known for its sexiness, so Hana and Rain are actually pretty cool selections.
Personality:
1/10
The characters’ expressions here tell us nothing of their personalities. They look downright bored.
Swimwear design:
1/10
God, this whole image sucks.
Intangibles:
0/10
All I can think while looking at this image is that it looks like a B-grade high school art submission.
HOTNESS:
4/10
Once again, I’m not a fan of the colouring, but for once this is for stylistic reasons rather than looking like utter ass. I’m just not a fan of the harsh shadows and highlights, it makes the image look unpleasant (which isn’t what you want from an image aiming to look hot).
Liefeld:
5/10
Man, this particular image feels like something Rob Liefeld would draw. That said, this doesn’t look too bad, except that Sarah Bryant’s spine is broken and so is… whoever the purple-haired lady is. I legitimately do not know who that’s supposed to be. I checked the Virtua Fighter character roster and couldn’t find her, so I think that it’s just the artist’s OC.
Character selection:
5/10
Virtua Fighter has never really been the most popular fighter on consoles, but I think that its characters would have been just relevant enough to earn its place in this issue.
Personality:
6/10
So I don’t know a whole lot about Virtua Fighter, but the differing expressions and poses do give you some insight into the girls’ different personalities, so I think that deserves some points.
Swimwear design:
4/10
Pai’s pink bikini is very cute, but there’s not a whole lot we can glean from the others’. Dural’s black bikini is a tad uninteresting, and Sarah and Aoi’s are hidden enough that they don’t leave an impression on me.
Intangibles:
0/10
I legitimately don’t understand why the illustrator threw in a dancing alien and what I can only assume is somebody’s OC making a cameo.
HOTNESS:
1/10
I’m not even sure if this is meant to be a part of the swimsuit collection or not (there’s a full-page ad for a goddamn Gundam game separating it from everything else). Suffice to say, this is a comedy image, so unless you’re into blue beast men, there’s nothing arousing about it.
Liefeld:
9/10
Tidus’ arm musculature is a bit weird looking, but otherwise this is very solid artwork.
Character selection:
0/10
So this one actually gets a 0/10 from me for two reasons:
1) Yuna’s 17 years old… She’s not being sexualized in this image, but it sure is sus…
2) They got a Final Fantasy X swimsuit issue commission and didn’t even include Lulu in it! Travesty!
Personality:
7/10
Tidus is laughing.
Swimwear design:
3/10
Oh, is there swimwear in this picture? It’s so far away that I couldn’t see it.
Intangibles:
7/10
While this picture is just terrible for a series about HOT girls in BIKINIS, it is a pretty solid piece in its own right that’s full of personality, so I’ll throw it some bonus points.

Man… this was a really underwhelming issue. Were PSM intentionally trying to tone things down after going about as hard as they could get away with in the inaugural swimsuit issue? I’m not sure, but here’s hoping that the next year’s images improve matters…

PSM Issue 61 (August 2002)

Oof, it’s always interesting when you see a gaming magazine hyping up a game that’s going to go on to be a notorious disaster (in this case, Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness, generally considered the nadir of the franchise). Oh and what’s this?

You’re promising A LOT here, PSM, and I doubt you can follow-through on that…

HOTNESS:
10/10
PSM are actually bringing their A-game out of the gate this time. I think that most of us can agree that this is pretty damn hot.
Liefeld:
9/10
Lara’s head and body seem to have a slightly different skin tone, but that’s me nitpicking so much that it’s not even an anatomy issue, it’s a colouration one.
Character selection:
10/10
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it’s Lara Croft. You’d be asking where she was if she wasn’t in the annual swimsuit issue.
Personality:
7/10
While Lara’s personality doesn’t shine through quite as much as it did in her first iteration, the location and props really go a long way to selling the idea of Lara as an adventuresome noblewoman.
Swimwear design:
10/10
As much as I liked Lara’s bikini in the first swimsuit issue, I’m glad they tried something new this time around, and they absolutely knocked it out of the park. This gem-studded number just radiates the classy opulence of Lara Croft.
Intangibles:
10/10
I don’t really have much else to say about this one. If you are committed to making a video game girls swimsuit issue, then this is the level of quality that you are wanting all your commissions to meet (and probably costs a lot to commission, which would be why we don’t have many of this quality).
HOTNESS:
0/10
OH FOR FUCK SAKES! Not only is 17-year-old Yuna in this pic, but so is 15-year-old Rikku. I ain’t risking a visit from the Feds, so 0/10 HOTNESS, officer.
Liefeld:
5/10
I ain’t studying these minors’ anatomy enough to identify whether there’s an issue with them so… middling score?
Character selection:
1/10
Look, I’ll give one point here entirely down to them including Lulu this time, but… for fuck sakes, I can see them not realizing that Yuna is 17, but Rikku looks underage. What the fuck were they thinking?
Personality:
1/10
Based on my brief glance of the image, this just looks like generic hot girl pose stuff.
Swimwear design:
1/10
They’re all just wearing a more revealing version of their in-game costumes…
Intangibles:
10/10
Look, I’ve got to give this image some credit because, again, they actually included Lulu this time. Crop the rest of the image out and she could carry this entry on her own – she looks that good!
HOTNESS:
3/10
So the bodies and poses in this image are actually pretty hot, but fucking hell the faces are derpy, which ruins the entire image. It’s clearly a conscious, stylistic choice by illustrator Ryan Kinnaird, but I can’t stand how it looks.
Liefeld:
6/10
Ignoring the faces (since they’re not a mistake), Pellegri (the blonde)’s shoulders are hunched forward in a way that looks really awkward to maintain.
Character selection:
2/10
KOS-MOS, Shion, and Pellegri from Xenosaga are such a weird selection – it was a brand IP whose first game hadn’t even been localized yet, so most PSM readers would have no idea who these characters were. Between this, The Bouncer, Zone of the Enders, and Onimusha, I really get the sense that there was someone high-up at PSM obsessed with relatively obscure Japanese franchises and forcing them to appear in each year’s swimsuit commissions.
Personality:
4/10
I know nothing about Xenosaga, but as far as I can tell, this just looks like generic hot girl poses.
Swimwear design:
6/10
While I don’t know much about these characters, their swimwear at least lives up to the goal of looking alluring. Maybe not the smallest bikinis, but they’re a bit more revealing than what we’ve seen in the past from PSM.
Intangibles:
0/10
I can’t get over those faces.
HOTNESS:
4/10
While this image suffers from a lack of detail, I do really like how it captures the look of an underwater photograph. That at least makes this image really enjoyable to pour over.
Liefeld:
10/10
Any potential issues can be chalked up to the intentionally-skewed perspective of the “camera”. As a result, I have zero complaints to level.
Character selection:
3/10
Like the previous Onimusha swimsuit commission, it seems really weird to me that they would choose a character like Oyu for an entire entry in this year’s issue.
Personality:
0/10
Look… you can’t even tell this is supposed to be Oyu from Onimusha 2. She could be literally any dark-haired woman in fiction.
Swimwear design:
3/10
This outfit is… fine, I guess? Not particularly interesting or something that feels fitting on this character.
Intangibles:
5/10
I do think that this image deserves some extra points for the unique perspective it brings. This is a pretty mediocre image overall, but the pose and lighting really bring it to life.
HOTNESS:
10/10
So many of these swimsuit commissions have been safe, conventional, submissive, hot girl fantasies. Trish doesn’t deviate too hard from that, but there are hints of a “bad girl” here: the motorcycle, the black leather, the way she looks down on you… Yeah, this one is legitimately enticing.
Liefeld:
10/10
I’ve got no complaints. If anything, her anatomy is more realistic here than it is in some of her official arts.
Character selection:
10/10
Trish showing up in the 2002 swimsuit issue is a no-brainer: the game was massive, and she was such an iconic sex symbol that she appears in silhouette in the game’s logo.
Personality:
5/10
I actually do think that the outfit, motorcycle, pose, etc in this image do capture some of Trish’s personality. It’s too bad that they drew her in a generic anime art style though, it makes it nearly impossible to tell that it’s supposed to be her. You could tell me that this image could be literally any blonde, buxom video game girl and I’d probably believe you.
Swimwear design:
5/10
I’m mixed on this one. Black is obviously Trish’s colour, but the actual swimwear doesn’t work for me. However, the accessories she’s decked out in make her outfit so much more interesting than the actual bikini.
Intangibles:
3/10
I don’t really have a whole lot more to say about this particular picture: it’s really good, and I like that it’s hitting some different notes than most of the other illustrations in these articles. Most of that’s covered in the other categories though, so I can’t really justify many bonus points.
HOTNESS:
6/10
Oh hey, the main girls of Virtua Fighter are back, and this time they’ve brought some friends from Tekken. Sure, this is mostly just “generic hot girl” art, but having them posed on beach towels does give the image some interesting novelty.
Liefeld:
5/10
Most of my complaints here relate to Pai Chan. Her pose causes her torso to look compressed, her head is twisted in a way that makes her look like she has no neck, and she has no butt whatsoever. The others are mostly fine, although their lower-halves seem to be a bit too small compared to their upper halves.
Character selection:
4/10
Were the girls of Virtua Fighter ever popular enough to warrant back-to-back appearances in the PSM swimsuit issue? It’s nice to see them give some Tekken representation at least.
Personality:
0/10
This is just generic hot girl art. Making matters worse, Sarah looks absolutely nothing like she’s supposed to.
Swimwear design:
5/10
I quite like Christie and Julia’s unique and personalized outfits, but Sarah and Pai’s are just generic bikinis. This one’s a wash for me.
Intangibles:
4/10
I’ll give some bonus points for this image being the first two-page spread, so we get more room to pour over the finer details.
HOTNESS:
4/10
I know I keep saying this, but this image is just generic anime hot girl stuff, with a bit of comedy thrown in. It’s not terrible, not not particularly arousing. Apparently I’m just a snobby wanker.
Liefeld:
10/10
No real concerns, my only complaints are all stylistic rather than mistakes.
Character selection:
0/10
Fucking Maximo??? The game was fairly well received at the time and sold well enough to be a Greatest Hits title… but still, fucking Maximo??? I had no idea that there even were women in the damn game.
Personality:
0/10
This image is so generic that it legitimately looks like they pasted the girls’ heads onto stock “sexy” bodies.
Swimwear design:
2/10
I was going to give some points for Mamba Marie’s costume at least getting across that she’s a Conan-style fighter… but then I found out that she’s literally just wearing her in-game outfit (so is Sephonie, the generic brunette on the right side of the image). Sophia and Aurora Lee are both wearing more revealing versions of their in-game costumes, and I can’t even see Lenore’s outfit. All-in-all, very uninspired stuff.
Intangibles:
5/10
I’ll give some bonus points for the comedy of Maximo getting his armour knocked off and his underwear stolen.
HOTNESS:
3/10
This is another one of those cases where the original sketch was probably pretty good, but the end result is absolutely botched by the colouring. While there are parts that I like (Tracey, the brunette at the top, looks pretty cute), everything just feels a bit too indistinct.
Liefeld:
2/10
Oh my God, look at Leeann (the middle one)’s head: it’s so lopsided. Elise (the blonde) also has a couple issues. Her sexy pose makes it look like she’s gonna fall into the water at any moment, her bikini top strap goes over her left shoulder really awkwardly, and she has literally no neck.
Character selection:
0/10
Man, PSM were really scraping the bottom of the barrel for this issue. I’ve at least heard of every game thus far and could understand why someone would include them in this list, but Tracey from SledStorm? Leeann from Freestyle? I’ve literally never heard of these games. Elise from SSX Tricky makes a bit more sense, but she was also in last year’s issue! Are SSX‘s characters so good as to warrant back-to-back swimsuit special appearances???
Personality:
5/10
Sports girls like doing sports, I guess?
Swimwear design:
6/10
For what it’s worth, at least all the swimwear in this image are really cute!
Intangibles:
0/10
Everything about this commission feels kind of half-assed. I think even PSM were just trying to fill some page space with this one.

This issue came out swinging with Lara Croft, but every subsequent art piece (aside from Trish) was quite disappointing. I was promised the SMALLEST bikinis, but they failed to deliver! I don’t think I can ever trust again! I’m starting to think that the whole “HOT video game girls in BIKINIS” promise is just a joke to sell magazines to 13-year-old nerds…

PSM Issue 72 (June 2003)

…mother of God. I’ve been burned before, but it looks like PSM might be swinging for the fences with this swimsuit issue. I’m promised 11 pages of “our HOTTEST pictures EVER”, and if this cover is any indication, they might be able to pull that off (ahem).

HOTNESS:
4/10
Holy shit. Look, Dead or Alive has the reputation for being the titty fighter, but I’ve always considered Soulcalibur to be low-key the fighting game with the most egregious fan service (at least amongst the mainstream publishers). That’s right on display here (just like Ivy’s ass). Yeah, this is exactly the sort of piece that you’d want to see out of a video game girls swimsuit issue.

That said, Talim (the girl on the left) is also in this image and she’s only 15… Her inclusion here is very questionable… but she’s also presented the most tastefully? I dunno, you can draw a picture of a 15 year old in a swimsuit as long as you’re not fucking them with the camera, but this is so sus that I’m halving the points that I would have given otherwise.
Liefeld:
8/10
About my only complaint here is that the faces look like they were done separately from the bodies, and Ivy’s left shoulder looks a little off. Let’s be honest though, you’re staring at Ivy and Taki’s assets, there’s no way you’re even noticing that. Oh and Ivy’s bikini appears to be lopsided too for no discernable reason.
Character selection:
7/10
See my previous comment about Soulcalibur‘s fan service. Soulcalibur II was a 100% guaranteed inclusion in this year’s swimsuit special (and, for what it’s worth, Ivy and Taki’s outfits are actually less egregious than the stuff they wear in official art). Again though… gotta shave some points off for including Talim at all, because seriously: what the fuck, PSM? Seong Mi-na and Sophitia were right fucking there waiting to be used!
Personality:
2/10
Soulcalibur goes a long way to fleshing out its story and characters, to the point where they all have fairly distinctive personalities and goals… none of that comes across here, this is just a boyhood sexy harem fantasy. I guess I’ll give a couple points for Ivy being mostly-naked like she is in-game?
Swimwear design:
6/10
They’ve got each girls’ signature colours down pat, so that’s a plus. Talim’s swimwear is basically just a more revealing version of her in-game outfit, but the other three are more distinctive. Ivy’s in particular takes inspiration from her Soulcalibur II outfit without outright repeating it, so that earns some points for sure. There’s a spread on these ones, but I think that they’re pretty good overall.
Intangibles:
6/10
Crop out Talim and this is easily one of the best entries in the history of PSM’s swimsuit specials. A great crossroads of iconic characters and appropriately alluring, high-quality art, all set to a unique and exotic backdrop!
HOTNESS:
5/10
While this isn’t the most exciting image in the world, it sure is HOT video game girls in BIKINIS… so I guess that’s the bare minimum we can expect?
Liefeld:
5/10
Sun Shang Xiang (the one in orange) has a humpback it seems. Ayame, on the other hand, has something weird going on where her leg connects to her ass cheek… did they think that a realistic thigh would make her look too fat or some bullshit?
Character selection:
4/10
If you had to pick a Dynasty Warriors girl for a video game swimsuit issue in 2003, then Sun Shang Xiang is the obvious choice… but the fact that she’s here at all is still an odd choice. This would have been the height of Dynasty Warriors‘ popularity, but even then the series wasn’t really known for its sexy ladies. Ditto with Ayame, Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven had a mixed reception and was a pretty niche title.
Personality:
10/10
I haven’t played Tenchu, so I don’t know exactly what Ayame’s personality is like, but this image really gets across a fearsome and competitive personality, which the Tenchu Wiki describes for her. Sun Shang Xiang, on the other side, has always been more of a playful and cheerful character, so I’d say that the image captures their contrasting personalities well!
Swimwear design:
5/10
While these two swimsuits do match the characters’ signature colours, their designs are just not that interesting to me. Definitely a your-mileage-may-vary situation though.
Intangibles:
1/10
This might just be the most “average” image in the entire series.
HOTNESS:
4/10
Oh for fuck sakes, more art by Ryan Kinnaird… I’m sorry, I just do not find this art style appealing, especially with the way that he does their faces. In spite of that, Trish is still kind of hot through sheer force of sex appeal.
Liefeld:
10/10
I don’t notice any egregious anatomy issues, but I also don’t want to look at this goddamn picture any more than I have to.
Character selection:
6/10
So Trish was a no-brainer for the 2002 issue, but I’m kind of surprised to see her return in 2003 as well. I guess there was just a lot of lingering hype for Devil May Cry 2 at the time? If that’s the case, then Lucia also makes sense here.
Personality:
4/10
I… guess…? It resembles their personalities, but I can barely even tell that these characters are supposed to be Trish and Lucia at all.
Swimwear design:
4/10
Kinky, b-movie alien bikinis wasn’t something I was expecting to see in this article, but here we are. Two of the more overtly revealing bikinis in this entire series, but wasted on an image I don’t even want to look at.
Intangibles:
0/10
I’m sorry Ryan, you’re probably a chill dude, but I just do not like your art.
HOTNESS:
5/10
Lara’s back once again and, despite appearing here in a wet t-shirt, this image feels underwhelming. This time, it’s because they made the stylistic choice to not outline her arms, so they seem to disappear into her body. It makes her look like a fleshy blob abomination until you take a closer look. A few more black lines, and this would be significantly better.
Liefeld:
6/10
wait a minute, is that supposed to be fucking camel toe!??!!!?
Character selection:
10/10
Lara Croft was still a video game goddess in 2003, it would be weird if she didn’t appear for the third consecutive year.
Personality:
10/10
Yeah, that sure looks like Lara Croft. Even having her slaughtering wildlife is totally in-character, even if it’s a baffling thing to include in a swimsuit issue.
Swimwear design:
7/10
This looks like an outfit you might expect to see Lara Croft wear in-game during the Core Design era. The wet t-shirt is a nice touch too.
Intangibles:
0/10
This is a weird one, but definitely feels worse due to being a poor showing from the Queen.
HOTNESS:
4/10
This image is trying so fucking hard to be sexy and provocative. Unfortunately, reeking of desperation makes this image so much less appealing.
Liefeld:
3/10
Zoom in on Kitana (the brunette on the right)’s right boob. What the actual fuck is going on with it!? Her face appears to be lop-sided as well. Also, take a look at Frost (the blue-haired on the left)’s left leg: it’s fucking gigantic.
Character selection:
2/10
Look, let’s be honest with ourselves here: for all its popularity, Mortal Kombat isn’t really known for its sexy girls (and this is in spite of them having some ridiculously revealing outfits. Sonya Blade and Kitana would have been the franchise’s most notable sex symbols in 2003, but they are well below other female fighters in terms of popularity and attractiveness. Add on top of that that Mortal Kombat was at its nadier after Mythologies: Sub Zero, MK4, Special Forces, and Advance and it seems really weird that they’d get a two-page spread after all that. Granted, Mortal Kombat has enough general popularity that it makes sense that they’d get some representation, but still, there are far more deserving games in 2003 that could have gotten a look in.
Personality:
0/10
This is generic sexy girl poses and nothing else. If you made me guess which franchise these characters were from, I would not in a million years have guessed Mortal Kombat. This looks like a magical girl manga, not Mortal Kombat.
Swimwear design:
5/10
While I appreciate that there was clearly thought put into each of these outfits, none of them are particularly interesting at the end of the day.
Intangibles:
0/10
For a two-page spread, this one’s pretty underwhelming.
HOTNESS:
2/10
Oh my fucking God, AGAIN Ryan!?! Let me re-iterate: I am looking at these images one at a time. I didn’t know that I was going to be seeing so much Ryan Kinnaird art when I started writing this. Was the guy just cheaper to commission? Was he easy for PSM to work with? Why does he show up this often?
Liefeld:
10/10
I hate the faces, obviously, but at least I don’t see any notable issues with her anatomy.
Character selection:
5/10
After the first game bombed, Zone of the Enders was already a damn-near forgotten franchise at this point. Still, there was some lingering cult popularity back in 2003, so it’s not a terrible choice. Maybe PSM were trying to drum up some interest in the franchise?
Personality:
5/10
I know nothing about Ken so… a 5/10?
Swimwear design:
7/10
While the other two schlock sci-fi bikinis Ryan did this same issue were a bit too silly for my tastes, I actually like how he’s gone about designing Ken’s bikini. The red chrome evokes imagery of expensive sports cars, which actually makes the image more alluring. Too bad it’s wasted on a Ryan Kinnaird art, but it certainly bumps the score up at least.
Intangibles:
0/10
This image is improved ten-fold if you just crop it off at Ken’s chin.
HOTNESS:
10/10
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but my fighting game of choice before Dead or Alive was Soulcalibur. While Sophitia has always been my favourite, her sister, Cassandra, is exceptionally attractive too. For an art piece of HOT video game girls in BIKINIS, this is a fucking masterpiece.
Liefeld:
7/10
My only complaint is that Cassandra’s spine looks like it’s detached from her neck, but you have to be actively looking at something other than her ass to notice that.
Character selection:
10/10
While not the most obvious choice in the world, Cassandra is one of those characters where you see them in a swimsuit issue and go “man, what a great inclusion!” Giving her an entire page to herself is also fantastic, too many of these commissions end up feeling crowded.
Personality:
7/10
Cassandra is a committed, fierce, courageous, and confident character, which I feel is communicated here with this pose and expression. Then again, this could also be seen as “generic sexy pose” and it’s a happy accident that they’ve executed that in a way that seems like something you could see Cassandra doing. I think it’s worth points regardless.
Swimwear design:
10/10
It’s perfect, I don’t know what else to say.
Intangibles:
10/10
This is a great piece, full-stop, and deserves every point I throw at it.
HOTNESS:
5/10
Okay, is PSM just trolling me at this point? Not only is this another piece featuring Ryan Kinnaird, but it’s of the exact same Xenosaga girls we got last year?
Liefeld:
9/10
There’s a little weirdness going on here, but nothing particularly noteworthy.
Character selection:
0/10
No. Having Xenosaga in 2002 was already a questionable selection, but having them be in back-to-back swimsuit issues when Dead or Alive was one-and-done despite being at the height of its popularity is just fucking bullshit. Another Ridge Racer image would have made more sense than this.
Personality:
5/10
I have no idea, so 5/10.
Swimwear design:
4/10
More sci-fi bikinis… ehh, having them be held together with arcing energy just seems silly.
Intangibles:
0/10
Credit where it’s due, at least I can stand looking at this Xenosaga image. And Shion’s pose is pretty cute.
HOTNESS:
5/10
Oh hey, at least we can see the Street Fighter girls this time… too bad it’s on a pretty mediocre image.
Liefeld:
10/10
I’m not noticing any obvious anatomical issues.
Character selection:
9/10
I’ll be honest, I have never even heard of Sakura. However, that’s kind of irrelevant, because Street Fighter‘s Chun Li and Cammy are video game goddesses who could show up in every PSM swimsuit issue like Lara Croft and no one would question it.
Personality:
0/10
This is just generic sexy girl poses.
Swimwear design:
4/10
While the swimsuits do seem like something each character would wear, they’re not particularly interesting.
Intangibles:
0/10
The fact that I barely prefer this to the previous Street Fighter image (where you couldn’t even see the girls) is a damning praise.

Okay, yeah, that issue was definitely a big step up from the last couple years, even with the Ryan Kinnaird overload. Let’s see if PSM can keep the quality up in the final two swimsuit specials…

PSM Issue 86 (July 2004)

Oh… PSM were really playing down this year’s swimsuit special, eh? A small, undescriptive headline, and muted promises of “fun in the sun” rather than “HOT video game women in BIKINIS!” Were PSM’s editors starting to grow embarrassed with the tradition, or are they just trying to set expectations to a more reasonable level? Let’s find out…

HOTNESS:
7/10
Honestly, after all the trolling Ryan Kinnaird has done to me thus far, I was not expecting to see him put out a piece that’s actually pretty good. Amazing what you can do when you actually put some effort into the face!
Liefeld:
7/10
Chun Li’s left eyebrow is very skewed and lop-sided. She’s also got no belly-button, but that’s clearly a stylistic choice. Nothing too severe I’d say.
Character selection:
10/10
It’s Chun Li, we’ve gone over this: girl’s up there with Lara Croft amongst video game girl royalty.
Personality:
0/10
This is just generic sexy girl posing.
Swimwear design:
7/10
This is actually a pretty interesting one for me. I love the design of the swimsuit: it really fits the visual language you’d expect from Chun Li. However, she usually is associated with blue, not red, but I like how this has turned out regardless. Pretty damn solid, I’d say. (Note: there actually is a blue version of this image that I’ve seen floating around, but I like that they chose to go with red; it’s definitely the bolder choice!)
Intangibles:
6/10
I think Ryan deserves some “BRAVO!” bonus points after all the shit I’ve given him up to this point.
HOTNESS:
6/10
I’ve never played a Jak & Daxter game, so I’m not really familiar with these characters. That said, this is image is suggestive in all the right ways, which makes it hotter than the images that are trying way too hard to be appealing.
Liefeld:
5/10
Ashelin’s face is shaped like a goddamn comma. Keira’s better, but good God that thigh gap. Her hips are wider than her shoulders too!
Character selection:
6/10
I mean… sure, I guess? Jak & Daxter was one of the biggest PS2-exclusive franchises in 2004, so I guess it makes sense that some characters from it would show up here? That said, it also was never really known for sex appeal, so still kind of weird at the end of the day.
Personality:
5/10
I know nothing about these characters… so 5/10.
Swimwear design:
6/10
Keira’s swimsuit is pretty cute, and the button-up shirt she’s wearing makes it even cuter.
Intangibles:
0/10
I famously hate elves (don’t tell me they’re humans, Jak Wiki, they’re fucking elves).
HOTNESS:
4/10
Oh Ryan, just when I was starting to warm up to you, you reminded me why I disliked your art style in the first place. This is actually extra insulting to me, because Bloodrayne is a franchise all about sex appeal, so it feels like it’s getting squandered with this image.
Liefeld:
5/10
Oh my fucking God, what is wrong with her right foot??? I’m trying to imagine the contortion she would have to subject herself to to wear that boot.
Character selection:
9/10
Majesco were on a hard marketing push in 2004 to make Bloodrayne 2 a success. The first game was a disaster, but Rayne’s eye-catching design had won her some fans, so having her appear here in the 2004 swimsuit issue is a very obvious decision.
Personality:
8/10
Rayne is not a very complicated character: she’s an sexy vampire killer for edgy boys, and I’d say that this image gets that across quite well.
Swimwear design:
5/10
This is just Rayne’s in-game outfit, but more revealing. That said… still a pretty hot outfit, not gonna lie.
Intangibles:
0/10
Fun fact, only three months later, Rayne would bare her boobs in the pages of Playboy, rendering this mediocre art of a HOT video game girl in a BIKINI completely redundant for titillation.
HOTNESS:
5/10
This sure is an image of HOT video game girls in BIKINIS frolicking at the beach.
Liefeld:
10/10
I’m not seeing any obvious issues with the anatomy this time.
Character selection:
5/10
Okay, so Chun Li and Cammy are video game royalty, but are the girls of Street Fighter so iconic that they deserved four whole pages to themselves in the 2004 PSM swimsuit issue…? Sure, Soulcalibur had three pages last year, but those were all of different girls, and the release of Soulcalibur II was arguably the peak of the franchise’s popularity. Meanwhile, this image has Chun Li again… I think even Lara Croft would be pushing it to appear twice in one swimsuit issue.
Personality:
3/10
I actually thought that this was a Final Fantasy image at first glance… I guess Chun Li and Ibuki are identifiable, but Cammy is unrecognizable for such an iconic character.
Swimwear design:
3/10
Ehh, that is some pretty generic swimwear.
Intangibles:
0/10
Another one of those “perfectly acceptable” swimsuit issue commissions, but nothing more than that.
HOTNESS:
1/10
Holy fucking shit, do I really need to explain why I hate this one? This Slenderman-esque take on Nina Williams is exaggerated to the point of looking idiotic.
Liefeld:
0/10
This legitimately looks like what you’d expect to see from a 13 year old boy’s create-a-character wank-material: maxed out the boob and hip sliders and as little clothing as possible.
Character selection:
8/10
If you are going to put a Tekken girl in your swimsuit special, then Nina is the obvious choice. It especially makes sense here since her solo spin-off game, the notorious Death By Degrees, was due out the next year. As a result, there would have actually been some hype around her in particular in 2004.
Personality:
8/10
While there’s basically nothing to identify that this is THE Nina Williams, the image at least gets across her cold and ruthless personality.
Swimwear design:
2/10
That’s about the most generic bikini I’ve ever seen.
Intangibles:
0/10
This is easily one of my least favourite commissions in this entire series.
HOTNESS:
3/10
Oh hey, it’s another Adam Warren/Ryan Kinnaird collaboration (we’ve even got another sci-fi bikini!). GOD they are trying so hard to make Nova look sexy, to the image’s detriment.
Liefeld:
7/10
My main complaint here is Nova’s arm placement in the top-left picture. Try posing the way that Nova is posed there. Her left arm must be scrunched really awkwardly (maybe even painfully) behind her to make that kind of pose.
Character selection:
6/10
There’s an interesting story behind this one. The magazine does not tell you who the hell Nova is or what game she comes from, so I was wracking my brain trying to figure it out. After doing some digging, I eventually realized that this is the main character from StarCraft: Ghost, the notorious StarCraft console shooter spin-off that went into prolonged development hell before finally being cancelled. So, on the one hand, I can see why she’d be included here, since hype would have been through the roof for this game. On the other hand, it’s a pretty poor choice in retrospect.
Personality:
0/10
Something tells me that Nova was not going to spend StarCraft: Ghost making “fuck me now” faces.
Swimwear design:
2/10
I don’t get this obsession with sci-fi bikinis, much less one that’s “tacti-cool”.
Intangibles:
1/10
They were trying so hard to make Nova look attractive, so the fact that she ghosted us all makes this funny in retrospect.
HOTNESS:
5/10
I said it before and I’ll say it again: someone at PSM clearly had a thing for Asian women. As far as these HOT images of video game girls in BIKINIS go, this is fairly middle of the road.
Liefeld:
6/10
What the hell is going on with Ayame’s left arm and shoulder!?
Character selection:
3/10
Ayame from Tenchu was in last year’s special, and the series was already on its decline in popularity by 2004, so this is a very questionable choice (that I can only quantify with my previous thoughts about an editor forcing their favourites into every issue). As for Kurenai from Red Ninja and Hibana from Nightshade, I’ve never even heard of these games. A Red Ninja selection actually makes some sense to appear here though: the entire gimmick of that game was that you played a kunoichi who could get a “seduction kill” on enemies. This was done by flirting with them suggestively to lure them in for an instant execution. That’s fucking bonkers; too bad the game was a janky mess by most accounts.
Personality:
3/10
I’m not gleaning much personality from this picture, it just looks like generic sexy poses.
Swimwear design:
3/10
So the swimwear here is pretty uninteresting to me, with one exception: why the hell does every girl have a rope-tied bikini bottom…? Is that just a stereotypical kunoichi thing? Is it some typical Asian-women fetish thing? They had the exact same type of bikini bottom of Ayame last year, so it clearly means something. Seriously, someone explain this to me, because it’s starting to concern me!
Intangibles:
5/10
I’ll give some bonus points for having this be set in a sauna, it gives the image some thematic flair. The peeking ninjas are also kind of funny.

Wait… that’s it? Yeah, there are only seven images in this year’s swimsuit issue (the previous three issues had nine, eight, eight, and nine, respectively). Granted, this is because there are more two-page spreads and all the others are full-page images, but still… this was a really underwhelming issue. When a Ryan Kinnaird commission is your highlight for the year, you know that the bar for quality got lowered. The character choices were pretty poor (Lara didn’t even show up this year!), there were no show-stopper images… was PSM’s heart not in it anymore? Or was their budget getting stretched thin…?

I’ve got a bad feeling about the final issue of the swimsuit special…

PSM Issue 101 (September 2005)

How the times change in only a few years. This was by far the hardest swimsuit issue to find, because not only was it released after the summer was over, but they don’t even advertise it on the cover. It seems pretty clear by this point that somebody in charge was either ashamed of the whole affair, or they were doing it entirely out of obligation by 2005. They claim in the editor’s blurb that “this is our best ever” swimsuit issue. I’m sitting here writing this having not seen any of these images yet: I don’t believe them. I’m fully expecting to end this series on a dull note. Let’s see if my instincts are on-point…

HOTNESS:
8/10
As we have come to expect, the near-anual Lara Croft image is pretty damn hot (the gun holster tan-line is pretty damn funny too)!
Liefeld:
7/10
Lara’s body is borderline contorted and her right boob is notably larger than her left one, but those are pretty nit-picky complaints.
Character selection:
10/10
It’s Lara Croft: if anything it’s weird that she didn’t appear in the 2004 swimsuit special. It seems that year off was due to Angel of Darkness bombing, but that hasn’t stopped PSM from including much more questionable characters in these pages…
Personality:
6/10
While this is a pretty funny image, it doesn’t really capture Lara Croft’s confident and sassy personality, does it?
Swimwear design:
8/10
The simple but perfect Lara bikini is back. Complaining that they aren’t even trying to top perfection seems petty.
Intangibles:
8/10
Man, people were really sour on Lara Croft after Angel of Darkness, eh? Glad to see her back again for the finale.
HOTNESS:
3/10
Oh look… it’s our old friend… I actually don’t mind the Ada half of this image: his art has improved and it’s the most outright, over-the-top sexualized any Ryan Kinnaird image has gotten to this point. However, the Leon/Ashley half just kills it, because… I mean, just look at them. Leon looks like a fucking human-coloured crocodile and Ashley looks like she stepped out of a pulp serial novel.
Liefeld:
0/10
This is textbook Rob Liefeld stuff.
Character selection:
6/10
Resident Evil 4 would have already been a year old when this came out, but I guess that the release of the PS2 port would be reason enough to earn it a spot (especially considering how massive this game was on release).
Personality:
3/10
Ashley is scared throughout Resident Evil 4, has to rely on Leon to protect her, AND tries to fuck Leon… in spite of that, I think this image is terrible at communicating what Ashley is like. Here she looks like his vapid, seductive sex doll, but that’s not the case at all. Ada, as a femme fatale, should be pretty easy to do right, but even she comes across as generic. Really poor showing here.
Swimwear design:
4/10
Okay, I’ll admit that the “4” on Ada’s bikini is kind of a cool touch… that’s about the only thing I find notable here though.
Intangibles:
0/10
Leon’s abs have more layers than an ogre.
HOTNESS:
8/10
While I usually do not find Adam Warren’s cutesy art style to be particularly alluring, he’s giving 110% here to accomplish it anyway. This is definitely one of the most suggestive swimsuit images in the entire run of PSM, but the cutesy art style keeps it from feeling tacky or excessive.
Liefeld:
10/10
The art style is so minimalist that I don’t think Adam could screw up Rayne’s anatomy if he tried.
Character selection:
5/10
Rayne was fresh off of two poorly received video games, that embarrassing Playboy article, and the upcoming film was coming out when Uwe Boll was already known for making terrible movies, so it was clearly going to bomb as well. By this point it was obviously Rayne was never going to be the next big female video game star, so it does feel a little odd that they’d commission art of her two years in a row.
Personality:
7/10
While this does look like something that Majesco themselves would release to advertise Bloodrayne, I do feel like it’s notably missing her sarcastic and aggressive attitude. Still, it captures enough of Rayne’s characterization that I can’t be that harsh on it.
Swimwear design:
6/10
This swimwear looks very fitting for a character like Rayne.
Intangibles:
10/10
Major bonus points for making this work with the limited colour palette!
HOTNESS:
7/10
Oh hey Ryan. You did a pretty good job this time, this is almost on-par with your Chun Li piece!
Liefeld:
7/10
Her upper-right thigh looks a bit strange…
Character selection:
5/10
Oh my God they did it again! Apparently they were already concerned that StarCraft: Ghost might get canceled, but they were putting this commission out there to will it into existence.
Personality:
5/10
The game never came out, how am I supposed to know Nova’s personality in StarCraft: Ghost?
Swimwear design:
7/10
Congrats Ryan, you got to make a sci-fi bikini that looks interesting.
Intangibles:
5/10
The dramatic irony of PSM stating that “we were worried for a bit, but it looks like StarCraft: Ghost is guaranteed to come out now!”
HOTNESS:
0/10
From what I can find, Rin from Tenchu is 14 years old (and looks it). What the actual fuck PSM? This opens up a whole can of worms for how you assess this image: is Rin being sexualized here? Maybe, but I don’t think it matters anyway: this image is part of a sexy swimsuit collection, there’s a baseline assumption that you’re supposed to oogle every character in a swimsuit. Like, if they just put a random photo of a little girl in the middle of a Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, that would be really fucking weird.
Liefeld:
10/10
I do not notice any anatomical issues (other than one of the characters’ bodies being four-plus years undeveloped).
Character selection:
0/10
No. Just fucking no. Two years of Tenchu was insane enough. How they hell do we have Ayame three consecutive years!? She was clearly one of the bosses’ favourite characters (definitely the guy who has the Asian fetish), because it’s absolutely insane to imagine this being a popularity selection. Plus… y’know, including a minor, but I would have given this a 0/10 for Ayame alone at this point.
Personality:
5/10
I don’t know these characters… you know the drill.
Swimwear design:
2/10
THE FUCKING ROPE BIKINI-BOTTOMS ARE BACK, WHAT IS THIS GODDAMN OBSESSION!??!!
Intangibles:
5/10
Everything else aside, the Kitsune-head bikini top is legitimately funny.
HOTNESS:
10/10
So this particular image is interesting, because it’s meant to be appealing primarily to the women readers of PSM… and I think they succeeded! Making this even more impressive is that this image is still appealing for the men, because we have Lady looking smoking hot!
Liefeld:
10/10
I’m not noticing any glaring issues, which is extremely impressive for an image like this with a big muscly man front and center. Bravo, Jo Chen!
Character selection:
10/10
If you have to pick a male video game character that the women readers of PSM would find attractive, you couldn’t do much better than Dante. The fact that the extremely appealing Lady is here too is just an incredible bonus.
Personality:
10/10
You know you could see Dante doing this exact scene in-game and it would be perfectly natural.
Swimwear design:
6/10
This is the one area where this image falters, and that’s because I can barely see what anyone is wearing! Nothing looks bad… but I’d like to have a better look at both to give their swimwear full points.
Intangibles:
10/10
No notes, this is easily one of the best images in the entire series and I’m glad to see the swimsuit special going down swinging for the fences.
HOTNESS:
3/10
Oh my God: these are official images created by EA. They used their Marvel license for Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects to commission sexy swimsuit images of Storm and Elektra. That means one of two things:
1) They had multiple back-and-forths with Marvel to get these images approved by them, or
2) They just went ahead and did it and could have gotten into hot water with Marvel if they found out.
The funniest part about all this though? The images kind of suck.
Liefeld:
3/10
It should come as no surprise that the actual comic book superheroes end up having some of the worst anatomy in the entire series. From the waist-up, Elektra is just a contortionist’s nightmare. At least Storm looks good though.
Character selection:
2/10
I do not understand the decision-making that went into selecting Storm and Elektra for this swimsuit issue. Elektra was really unpopular due to the fresh memories of the Daredevil and Elektra movies bombing. Storm was reasonably popular I guess, but I can’t help but feel that Marvel wasn’t willing to let EA use their more popular characters for this swimsuit ad.
Post-script: turns out that the reason they picked Elektra and Storm is because they were the only established female characters in Marvel Nemesis. There were multiple original characters in that game which were designed for sex appeal, which makes me wonder why they didn’t include one or more of their original characters here to specifically advertise the game?
Personality:
4/10
Storm looks like a valley girl, which couldn’t be further from her character. As for Elektra… I guess that looks like a pose she’d do?
Swimwear design:
0/10
Storm isn’t even wearing a swimsuit! And I think that Elektra is literally just wearing one of her costumes from the comics.
Intangibles:
5/10
The fact that these are official images of licensed characters provided by EA is just so goddamn funny.
HOTNESS:
4/10
Oh my God they did it again. EA wants you to think that the girls of SSX are hot, but these in-engine PS2 renders aren’t particularly impressive.
Liefeld:
10/10
I guess the benefit of using renders is that you avoid most of the anatomy pitfalls that drawing everything from scratch brings with it.
Character selection:
1/10
It’s so funny that these are officially-created renders provided by EA themselves. It just reeks of desperation to drum up interest for SSX on Tour, which was launching the month after this issue released. After three games, it was clear that nobody cared about the characters in SSX, especially after a two year gap between releases. On top of that, this is the third time SSX characters were appearing in the swimsuit special. Might I remind you that Dead or Alive and Soulcalibur both only appeared once (and this is despite Soulcalibur III‘s hyped release later in 2005).
Personality:
5/10
Something, something, don’t know this character…
Swimwear design:
3/10
Kaori’s outfit looks more like sleepwear than swimwear… Elise’s outfit is just mediocre.
Intangibles:
4/10
Again, it’s so funny and reeking of desperation that EA would provide these images themselves to PSM for their swimsuit special. What a wild marketing move. This is something that legitimately would not be done today by a major publisher.

Credit where it’s due, this was a great final issue for the PSM swimsuit special. You had some of the best art in the entire series, some weird swings, and hilarious editorial choices. Certainly better than what I was expecting!

Final Rankings

What a wild journey that was. It was legitimately interesting to see how the PSM swimsuit special evolved from issue-to-issue: starting out as a legitimate attempt to get attention through sex appeal, and then slowly feeling more and more like an obligation. That said, I imagine that the budget for the special was higher in the first issue, and then got tighter and tighter with each subsequent one. I also think this is probably why Ryan Kinnaird was all over these issues: he was probably able to do commissions fast and inexpensively, hence why he was soon doing two or three images per year. That said, when PSM wanted a particular image to make a splash, you can tell that they put the money into it, hence how we got the stunning images of Cassandra, Dante & Lady, and Lara Croft sharing space with art of notably worse quality.

Then there’s the next thing I want to address: I expect that a common response to these swimsuit articles would be “boy, they couldn’t do this today!” I honestly think that that is patently false. Could, say, IGN or Eurogamer suddenly decide to release an annual swimsuit special? Yeah, I think that they could do so with little controversy surrounding the decision. As long as they treated it with a bit more tact than PSM did, and had a bit more balance between the girls and guys, I think that there would be minimal criticism. That said, would they do this? No, probably not, but that’s not so much due to “wokeness”. Unlike the 90s and early 2000s, game’s journalism is now directed at a general audience rather than teenage boys (a shift in audience that we can track through PSM’s own gradual loss of personality over the years).

Wanna know how I know that you could make a video game swimsuit issue today without it being a problem? Well, I was looking into Ryan Kinnaird’s career after I finished the last issue and it turns out that the guy has been contributing to UDON magazine, which releases its own video game girl swimsuit specials to this day. They’re actually pretty damn good! All that said, as much as I’ve complained about Ryan Kinnaird through this article, the guy’s art style has improved significantly since these articles were published, so I want to give him some kudos: nothing against you, I just did not like most of your swimsuit illustrations in PSM! Congrats on finding a way to make a career for the last quarter century drawing HOT video game girls in BIKINIS!

With all that said, lets get to the final rankings based on the sum total of their scores. In the case of a tie, I’ve ranked images based on personal preference:

RankCharacter(s)SeriesIssueArtistTotal Score
1Lady, DanteDevil May CrySept 2005Jo Chen56
2Lara CroftTomb RaiderAug 2002Greg Horn56
3Cassandra AlexandraSoulcaliburJune 2003Greg Horn54
4Kasumi, Leifang, Tina ArmstrongDead or AliveJuly 2000Sam Liu49
5Lara CroftTomb RaiderSept 2005Frank Cho47
6RayneBloodrayneSept 2005Adam Warren46
7Lara CroftTomb RaiderJuly 2000Adam Hughes46
8TrishDevil May CryAug 2002Kevin Lau43
9Lara CroftTomb RaiderJune 2003Adam Hughes38
10Chun LiStreet FighterJuly 2004Ryan Kinnaird37
11NovaStarCraftSept 2005Ryan Kinnaird36
12Elisa, Zoe, KaoriSSXJuly 2001Andy Park35
13Talim, Ivy Valentine, Xianghua, TakiSoulcaliburJune 2003Greg Horn34
14Lara Croft, Claire RedfieldTomb Raider & Resident EvilJune 2003Randy Green32
15Valkyrie WildePSM April FoolsJuly 2000Adam Warren31
16RayneBloodrayneJuly 2004Ryan Kinnaird31
17Ai Fukami, Reiko NagaseRidge RacerJuly 2000Tommy Yune30
18Jill Valentine, Claire Redfield, Leon KennedyResident EvilJuly 2000Andy Park, Jon Sibal30
19Sun Shang Xiang, AyameDynasty Warriors & TenchuJune 2003Jo Chen30
20KenZone of the EndersJune 2003Ryan Kinnaird29
21Lian Xing, Aya Brea, Meryl Silverburgh, Hana Tsu-VachelVariousJuly 2000Joyce Chin, Arthur Adams28
22Tifa, Quistis, Rinoa, Cloud, SquallFinal FantasyJuly 2000Naska28
23Sakura, Chun Li, CammyStreet FighterJune 2003Rick Mays28
24Ashelin, KeiraJak & DaxterJuly 2004Kevin Lau28
25Trish, LuciaDevil May CryJune 2003Ryan Kinnaird28
26Yuna, Tidus, KimariFinal FantasyJuly 2001Roger Cruz27
27Elise, KaoriSSXSept 2005EA Studios27
28Yuki, Kaede, SamanosukeOnimushaJuly 2001Ken Lashley26
29Chun Li, Sakura, CammyStreet FighterJuly 2000Ale Garza26
30Ibuki, Sakura, Elena, Chun Li, CammyStreet FighterJuly 2004Arnold Tsang26
31Ayame, Kurenai, HibanaVariousJuly 2004Rick Mays25
32OyuOnimushaAug 2002Keron Grant25
33Sarah Bryant, Pai Chan, Christie, JuliaVirtua Fighter & TekkenAug 2002Rick Mays24
34Sarah Bryant, Pai Chan, Aoi, DuralVirtua FighterJuly 2001Mike S. Miller24
35KOS-MOS, ShionXenosagaJune 2003Adam Warren23
36ReginaDino CrisisJuly 2000Arthur Adams23
37Rin, AyameTenchuSept 2005Adam Warren22
38Viola, Vikki Grimm, Olga Gurlukovich, KonokoVariousJuly 2001Tone Rodriguez21
39Mamba Marie, Sephonie, Lenore, Aurora Lee, SophiaMaximoAug 2002Adam Warren21
40KOS-MOS, Shion, PellegriXenosagaAug 2002Ryan Kinnaird21
41NovaStarCraftJuly 2004Adam Warren19
42Nina WilliamsTekkenJuly 2004Jason Pearson19
43Rikku, Yuna, LuluFinal FantasyAug 2002Terry Dodson18
44Storm, ElektraMarvel comicsSept 2005EA Studios17
45Tracey, Leeann, EliseEA Sports BIG franchisesAug 2002Joe Chiodo16
46Dominique, Kaldea, Echidna, SionThe BouncerJuly 2001RV Valdez16
47Ada Wong, Leon Kennedy, Ashley GrahamResident EvilSept 2005Ryan Kinnaird16
48Hana Tsu-Vachel, RainFear EffectJuly 2001Matt Broome16
49Frost, Sonya Blade, Nitara, Kitana, Lei MeiMortal KombatJune 2003Kevin Lau14

And here’s how I would rank the images based entirely on personal, subjective appeal:

If you liked this article…

I hate ads. You hate ads. In order to stop polluting my site with obtrusive and annoying ads, I’ve elected to turn them off on IC2S. That said, writing still takes time and effort. If you enjoyed what you read here today and want to give a token of appreciation, I’ve set up a tip jar. Feel free to donate if you feel compelled to and I hope you enjoyed the article! 🙂

My Worst 25 Games of All-Time

So, since I went through my top 100 games of all-time, I thought it might be interesting to flip the script and see what my least-favourite games ever were! Important note: I’m only covering twenty-five games on this list. Put simply, it’s a lot harder to get through bad video games as opposed to other forms of media: you either know the sorts of games you’re into, or you are so put-off by a game that you drop it immediately before you can make any impressions. As a result, I don’t have a lot of games played that are truly awful (even the first few entries on the list aren’t all that bad). And, again, these are all very subjective opinions and are based on the games I personally have played. Got it? Let’s get into it.

25. The Simpsons: Road Rage (2001, PS2)

The Simpsons do not have a good track record with video games. There are a few gems, but Road Rage is not one of them. It’s literally Crazy Taxi, but with a Simpsons skin over it. As you might expect, the entire premise is extremely thin: pickup passengers, drive them to their destination as fast as possible, get money based on how quickly you get there. The one thing that makes Road Rage sort of worth it is the quippy writing, which should give you a few laughs. However, there’s not a whole lot to do here and you’re going to hear the same lines over and over again, so it’s an experience that is going to grow dull pretty fast.

24. The Incredibles (2004, PS2)

If you grew up in the PS1 and PS2 era, you probably went through a “licensed games” phase where you were too young to realize that these games sucked. I used to play through anything back then, having not developed any standards of what proper game design was like yet. The Incredibles is the first game where I can remember myself getting close to the end, getting killed over and over by the bullshit controls and balancing, and just deciding “I’m done, this game isn’t worth it.” It’s a very simple, but poorly balanced beat ’em up. Not a game I truly hate, but one that I can’t say I ever actually enjoyed myself playing.

23. Dead Space 3 (2013, PS3)

Okay, maybe I’m being a bit harsh here, but I really do hate Dead Space 3. It killed off one of my favourite franchises, and shit all over its story and gameplay on the way out. If you think I’m just being harsh, then feel free to ignore this entry and put Turning Point: Fall of Liberty on the list… I really couldn’t justify it myself though. Turning Point left me feeling indifferent. Dead Space 3 fills me with disappointment and anger which invalidate any of its positives. As I said in my Love/Hate analysis of the game, it’s a fundamentally compromised experience, one that is worse than its predecessors in every way, and not even good compared to Uncharted and Gears of War, which it’s trying so hard to be like. Perhaps it’s for the best that Dead Space died here, I’d hate to see what would have happened if they paraded its corpse out for a fourth entry.

Oh, by the way: the remake pisses me off too. EA shuts down Visceral and then gets a new studio involved and parades Visceral’s work out when there’s greater profit potential? Fuck you, EA.

22. Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (2006, PS2)

This one makes it onto the list for a very specific reason. Back when Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter came out, the gaming magazines were singing its praises, calling it the best shooter on the market and a must-play. As a fan of the genre, with that kind of endorsement, I knew I had to check it out. I bought a copy for my PS2, fired it up… and I was bored shitless. The gunplay was so mediocre, the squad controls were a lot less in-depth than I had been led to believe, and there was no cover system… What were the game journalists thinking…? It’s like they were playing a completely different game.

Well… turns out that they were. At the time of the Xbox 360 and PS3’s release, Ubisoft had a fucking scummy policy where they would release completely different versions of games on last gen consoles. The differences between the current gen versions (which got all the coverage and accolades) and the last-gen versions were barely communicated, so I (and many others) got duped with low-effort junk after being told it was gold. The fact that the next-gen version was so good makes it sting even more, I am so annoyed that I got hyped up for this experience and then bought the “wrong” game.

21. Friday the 13th: The Game (2017, PS4)

I actually Kickstarted this game back in the day and, while I didn’t have particularly high hopes, I figured it would at least be interesting. Little did I know that Friday the 13th: The Game would play out pretty similarly to the movies themselves: pretty bad in its own right, but made all the worse due to legal battles over the rights. Friday the 13th was one of the earliest asymmetrical multiplayer horror games: one player plays as Jason against a group of survivors, who need to complete objectives and survive in order to win. While the core of the experience was kind of fun (whether that be sneaking around to find a way to escape the campground, or hacking up teens with a machete), the game was buggy beyond belief. It felt awful to play: the controls were janky, the graphics and animations were very poor (it would have looked dated even on last gen consoles), and the netcode was pretty bad. It was unique enough an experience that I did forgive a lot of this for a while, but I was never under any illusions about how badly made the game was.

That was all bad enough on its own, but what really sank Friday the 13th was that the franchise became embroiled in a rights legal battle, halting any further development of the game for years. There were more game modes, characters, and cosmetics planned, but they never got the chance to implement them, and the game basically withered away on the vine. As we have seen with Dead By Daylight, there was definitely a market for this kind of game, but it’s sad to see that Friday the 13th didn’t really get a fair shake to carve out a proper place for itself.

20. Resident Evil 6 (2017, PS4)

Resident Evil 6 is an exhausting game. There’s just too much stuffed into this bloated mess of a game. In trying to appeal to everyone, it leaves nobody satisfied. There’s so much here that much of it isn’t given enough attention, leaving half-baked mechanics and level designs. Of the four campaigns, the only one that I kind of liked was Jake & Sherry’s. However, I’ve heard just as many players say that Chris or Leon’s campaign were the only one they liked, so you can see how polarizing this campaign structure is. The four campaign structure also screws over the plot (which is easily the dumbest and most over-the-top in franchise history). Then spread this out over a twenty hour playthrough, and you can see why Resident Evil 6 just generates exhaustion even thinking about it.

19. Twisted Metal 4 (2017, PS4)

I loved Twisted Metal as a kid. We had a PS1 demo disc with Twisted Metal 2 on it and my brothers and I would play split screen matches against each other in that demo, it was awesome. Unfortunately, after Twisted Metal 2, the original developers moved onto other projects and the franchise was handed over to 989 Studios. Twisted Metal 3 and 4 are both pretty notorious for how badly they screwed up the franchise’s tone. For my part, I think 4 is worse (hence why it made the list): Twisted Metal 3 feels like the previous games, just… significantly dumber. Twisted Metal 4, on the other hand, turns the franchise into a cartoonish joke. Sweet Tooth pulls off a coup and takes control of the contest, which could be a really cool concept. Unfortunately, they’ve also interpreted Sweet Tooth by putting more emphasis on the clown part, so all of his scenes have him juggling in a circus while surrounded by goofy clowns… it’s something, alright. That’s not even taking into account the actual game itself. The cars look like toys and control like ass. The only cool things are that you can create a custom car (with, like, a grand total of nine options to pick from) and Calypso enters the contest with a goddamn nuclear rocket truck (which is dumb because it makes him by far the coolest driver in the game, why the hell would you play anyone else?).

18. Star Wars: Episode I – Jedi Power Battles (2000, PS1)

You really had to be there for Star Wars: Episode I. Lucasfilm were milking the shit out of it, licensing Star Wars all over the place. The film had 5 video game tie-ins just in that first year (which isn’t even counting all the handheld ports those games got). One of these was Jedi Power Battles. My brothers and I enjoyed it as kids, largely because it was the most “violent” game we were allowed to play at the time. I enjoyed the hack ‘n slash combat for the time, and the blaster deflection parry was really cool, but even back then we had one major complaint… See, Jedi Power Battles isn’t just a hack ‘n slash like it is advertised to be. Oh no, the game is also secretly a 3D platformer… and the absolute worst 3D platformer ever made, I may add. You spend an inordinate amount of time in this game jumping over bottomless pits to land on platforms. With this game’s slippery controls and isometric camera, it’s legitimately difficult to make some of these jumps. Making matters worse are that the game has some extremely precise jumps, to the point where there are jumps in the first goddamn level that you will not make unless you start jump after you’re already off of the platform. It’s fucking ridiculous, but it reaches a zenith during the Coruscant level. You spend 99% of this level jumping on platforms… oh, and it also happens to be the longest level of the entire game. You have a limited number of lives in this game: on more than one occasion, we had to restart the entire level, because we kept falling into bottomless pits over and over again.

By the way, this wasn’t just me being a scrub as a kid. I recently fired up Jedi Power Battles on my Retroid Pocket 4 Pro and, as soon as I got to the platforming sections, I just kept dying. It was flabbergasting how much they were asking of you and how badly it controlled. It’s too bad, the game is pretty fun when it’s actually being a hack ‘n slash, but the platforming is such an inordinate problem that it sinks the entire experience.

17. Cabela’s Big Game Hunter 6 (2002, PC)

Cabela’s Big Game Hunter 6 is clearly a budget title. That is fine. You get a relatively large open world in which to go hunt animals (large enough that there’s an ATV you can drive), and there’s a pretty impressive number of real-life gear in the game that you can use. The problem is that the game is clearly trying to be a hunting simulation, and expects you to treat it like one: slowly, quietly sneaking up on your target to land the perfect shot.

Unfortunately, the illusion shatters as soon as you get bored. “Fuck these deer, I’ve got things to do,” you say and then you just start sprinting headlong at them. The game’s animal AI is too dumb to react appropriately to a screaming monkey with a gun blasting at them, and so they stand there dumbfounded as you close the distance with them in the blink of an eye. Then, when they do run, you’re supposed to track the blood and figure out where they went. Instead, you just sprint after them, continually blasting the poor deer in the ass with your Cabela’s-branded gun. I legitimately wish that they had put some mechanics in to prevent this from happening. A hunting sim could be pretty interesting as a unique, niche experience. However, if you have to force yourself not to play like a moron to actually get that unique experience, it kind of ruins the whole thing.

16. BloodRayne (2002, PS2)

I had always been kind of interested in BloodRayne. I was nothing if not an edgelord when this game came out and I thought that her character design was cool. Given my love for shit movies, I had also seen two of the Uwe Boll adaptations (honestly… BloodRayne 2 ain’t bad). I recently decided to try out the games to see how good they were…

This game left me infuriated. The graphics are terrible (at least, they are in the PS2 version that I played). The art design makes the whole game unpleasant to look at. The voice acting is bad. The level design sucks more than our half-vampire heroine does, especially when the game turns into a finnicky platformer. The melee combat is just the worst though. In order to make a melee attack, you have to press L1 to attack. This would be awkward enough, but there’s absolutely no tracking or enemy lock-on and the attack animations lack impact, so you might as well by attacking with a wet noodle for all the damage it’s doing to the enemy. Add this all up, and melee combat feels like you’re flailing around in thin air all over the place. This gets so much worse later in the game when enemies that are immune to your ranged weapons are everywhere, forcing you to engage with this shitty melee system.

It’s wild how far a great character design can get you. This game was shit, but it still got multiple sequels, films, and a Playboy spread, all because the main character looks fucking cool. Actually playing the game though? I forced myself to get through, but the bright spots were few and far between.

15. Shrek 2 (2004, PS2)

My youngest brother was really into Shrek as a kid. Naturally, he was given the Shrek 2 game as a gift, and it was up to my brothers and I to join him for some co-op, isometric beat ’em up… fun? Yeah… surprise, surprise, Shrek 2‘s one of those shitty licensed video games. The beat ’em up gameplay is extremely simple and tired. For a game with a fixed, third person camera, you’d think that they’d be able to keep all the players and enemies on-screen, but somehow this game struggles to even do that consistently. There’s also just too much slow, dull platforming, often tied to specific characters’ abilities (meaning that everyone else just sits around and waits until the other player does their chores).

14. Resident Evil Survivor (2000, PS1)

I hated Resident Evil Survivor when I first played it. Having played much worse Resident Evil games since (spoiler alert), my opinion has softened on it somewhat, mainly due to its ambitious branching pathways and its hilarious voice acting. However, that’s not to say that I’ve forgiven it. Survivor is still a shockingly bad game: terrible graphics, terrible gunplay, idiotic puzzles, and the lack of saves is fundamentally moronic, not to mention that it’s only like two hours long. Survivor is not this underrated, misunderstood hidden gem. It sucks. It has some cool ideas, but it fails to do them any justice. It just sucks.

13. Super Noah’s Ark 3D (1994, SNES)

Yes, this is a real game. It’s literally running on the Doom engine. It also was unlicensed, meaning that video game retailers were not allowed to stock it. It’s also just laughable on its face: you’re playing as Noah, firing sleep-inducing food at animals (mostly goats; suspiciously, there are way more than two goats on this boat). You then do the “classic” Doom thing of hunting around a maze for keys… it sucks. Like, the joke was funny, but actually having to play it for any length of time is just not worth it.

Also, while writing this entry, I found out that Super Noah’s Ark 3D spawned from a failed attempt to make a Hellraiser game!?! It’s a wild story, you legitimately need to check it out.

12. Dead or Alive Paradise (2010, PSP)

I recently covered my problems with Dead or Alive Paradise here on IC2S, but put simply: it’s the most inessential Dead or Alive game of all-time. The DOA Xtreme gameplay is severely lacking in things to do. The hardware is ill-suited to provide the sex appeal this kind of game is supposed to deliver. Worst of all though, the gameplay changes have turned this already content-thin game into a grindy slog that is just not worth the effort it asks of you. If you have to play a DOA Xtreme game, then make it literally any other one.

11. I Am Alive (2012, PS3)

This game was one of my biggest video game disappointments. I remember back when I Am Alive was first being teased, it sounded really unique: a stealth-survival game where you play a normal guy trying to make his way through a destroyed city after some sort of disaster. Having the environment be the primary antagonist rather than combat encounters was really intriguing and I waited eagerly for more info on it… Well, I was waiting a long time, because it took about four years for this game to re-emerge with a release date. I heard from the reviews that it wasn’t very good, but I had waited so long for this game that I had to try it out anyway.

Just by playing I Am Alive, you can feel the developmental struggles it faced. Everything looks and feels janky. The game was also very buggy, straight-up crashing on me on multiple occasions on PS3. It got to the point where I just had to admit it: the reviewers were right, after all the struggles that went on during development, the devs weren’t able to make the game they had wanted to. It’s too bad, I still think that the concept of I Am Alive is great, which makes what we got sting all the more.

10. Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City (2012, PS3)

If playing your new Resident Evil game makes me start saying nice things about Resident Evil 6, then you know that you fucked up. Slant Six Games made multiple SOCOM games, so why is the shooting in this game so bad? Guns either do piddly damage, or they do a normal amount of damage, but run out of ammo extremely fast. Gunplay is also frustratingly inaccurate, and predictably dull. Most frustratingly, enemies are absolute bullet sponges, taking a ridiculous amount of ammo to take down. It takes me three whole clips from the strongest assault rifle to down one hunter, does that not seem excessive? Don’t even get me started on Tyrants or Nemesis, who ran through max ammo at least three times for my weapon before he went down. It is just so badly designed that it is not fun to play in the slightest.

9. The Lord of the Rings: Conquest (2009, PS3)

Oh man, every time I think about my biggest gaming disappointments, I go back to this game. As you saw on my top one hundred games of all-time list, I loved the original Star Wars: Battlefront games. At the time, the only thing I loved more than Star Wars was The Lord of the Rings, so naturally I thought that The Lord of the Rings: Battlefront would be an awesome idea. Lo and behold, a couple years later they announced that this idea was actually going to happen, and that the original developers of Battlefront, Pandemic Studios, were going to be the ones to make it. This was incredible news, as Pandemic were renowned for making good games, so there was pretty much no way this could get screwed up. At this point in time, I was usually reading reviews before buying new games, but this game was such a slam-dunk that I ignored the nagging doubts and paid sixty dollars up-front for it.

So… turns out that I overlooked a key difference between Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings in video games: Star Wars: Battlefront is pretty easy to pull off as a large-scale shooter. Conquest, on the other hand, is mostly melee-based, with archers and mages there to provide some ranged attacks, while being annoying as fuck. Melee combat was not implemented well, making the entire core gameplay a slog. The game was also far buggier and unpolished than Battlefront, making it feel very last-gen. Not even the alternate history campaign, where you play as Sauron clubbing hobbits to death, was interesting enough to warrant a look. This game absolutely broke my faith in the games industry, and I am extremely judicious about buying games after doing some research about them now.

8. Godzilla (1990, GB)

If you buy a Godzilla video game, you have some pretty basic expectations for what that is going to entail: either something like Rampage where you smash a city, or a fighting game where you beat the shit out of other kaiju, like Primal Rage. What you do not expect is a cartoony puzzle game where you climb vines, push a bunch of rocks around a maze so that you can smash all of them against another solid object, while occasionally swatting away other cartoony kaiju that wander too close. Oh, and if you take too long, King Ghidorah shows up and will instantly kill you. This is a baffling game on so many levels, I am not sure what the hell they were thinking. Surely the Godzilla license was just slapped onto some random video game to make it sell more? This was such a weird game, it was one of the first games I had for our Gameboy (which my brothers and I traded some other kid at school for), and I distinctly remember playing it and getting to a point where I had to question what I was doing with my life.

7. Bible Adventures (1991, NES)

Oh look, another Wisdom Tree game! Growing up in an evangelical household which was pretty strict about the sorts of games were were allowed to play, I actually had a copy of this game back in the day. The game plays a lot like Super Mario Bros. 2, acting as a 2D side-scroller where you pickup objects and avoid enemies. The game consists of three parts, the first of which is Noah’s Ark, which tasks you with grabbing animals and bringing them back to the ark. This game is full of frustration due to the shit controls and how easy it is to get damaged, causing all the animals to get scattered and run off, forcing you to chase them back down. It’s mired in frustration, and that’s the best game in the collection. Baby Moses tasks you with babysitting the titular Moses, with controls which are just as bad and gameplay just as frustrating as in Noah’s Ark. While you will accidentally cause Moses to get killed over and over, you can choose to chuck him in the river if you want to, inadvertently making it one of the few games where you can straight-up murder a baby (Grant Theft Auto would never). Then there’s David and Goliath, which just fucking sucks.

6. Revolution X (1994, Arcade)

Revolution X has to be the cringiest game ever made. It’s an arcade light gun shooter, and in that regard it’s pretty bog-standard. What makes the game so bad though is that it takes place in a world where the New World Order has taken over and hate youth culture, so they ban music, movies, and games. The only way to fight back is through the power or rock ‘n roll! And, to make things even more cynical, it features the likenesses and music of Aerosmith. Yeah, this game is basically wearing the corpse of revolution in order to advertise for a rock band which sold-out decades earlier. While the game itself plays… fine, I guess, the entire premise is so lame that it ruins anything it might have been going for. The sort of game you only play for a joke or if there’s literally nothing else available.

5. Dead or Alive Xtreme: Venus Vacation (2017, PC)

Writing the Love/Hate entry for this game literally made me angry. This game represents everything that I hate about the modern gaming industry (games designed to be addictive and predatory rather than fun), but it is so much worse due to how this game has supplanted the mainline Dead or Alive fighting games in Tecmo-Koei’s eyes. Worst of all? The predatory shit works. I hate the game and I have not picked it up since I finished the article, but goddamn if I do not see it in my Steam library and get that compulsion: “Oh, I am missing out on using some of my limited energy points for the day, it will only take a few minutes to use them all…” And, for what? To unlock some more worthless swimsuits in hopes of getting a low drop-rate swimsuit that doesn’t even look good? Nah, fuck this shitty fucking game.

4. The Simpsons Wrestling (2001, PS1)

The Simpsons Wrestling was a game I rented for a laugh back in the day. I was aware of its reputation, but I was a dumb kid and didn’t think it would be that bad. Hoo boy, was I wrong. For one thing, the game is wildly unbalanced, making the main Simpsons family get outshone in their own game by fucking Bumblebee Man of all characters. On top of that, Ned Flanders is apparently considered to be one of the most broken fighting game characters of all-time (although at least in his case I can understand it, stupid, sexy Flanders…). The controls feel like ass; you’re flailing around for the entire fight. The graphics and camera are awful, even by PS1 standards (the fact that this released late in the PS1 lifecycle makes this even more egregious, but it would have no better in 1995). The only nice thing I can say is that at least I didn’t buy the damn game myself, which is more than I can say for most of the games on this list.

3. NPPL Championship Paintball 2009 (2009, PS3)

Around the time I played this game, my brothers and I were really into paintball. We would take part in large-scale mil-sim events with hundreds of people on each side blasting away at each other. One of my brothers was also on a speedball team, so I was also fairly familiar with the more competitive side of the sport. NPPL Championship Paintball 2009 is based around the competitive speedball side of things, but it ultimately just seems kind of pointless. Paintball is cool, because it lets you simulate video game-like combat scenarios in real life (without having to worry about serious injury, death, or police response). However, when you turn this back around and translate paintball into a video game, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense, especially when the translation is incredibly janky, cheap, and broken. Much like Cabela’s Big Game Hunter 6, the enemy AI is only programmed to deal with you playing the “right” way: if you just charge straight down the middle and shoot everyone you come across, you’ll end every match consistently in less than ten seconds, breaking the entire experience. I promise you, if you tried this in real-life paintball, you would be downed immediately, but here the enemy AI is so bad that they do not know how to deal with it. At that point, just play a competitive shooter, you’ll have a way better time.

2. Resident Evil Survivor 2 – CODE: Veronica (2001, PS2)

Resident Evil Survivor 2 left me shocked at how bad it was. I wasn’t expecting much after slogging through its predecessor, but Survivor 2 makes that game look like a masterpiece. It’s the cheapest, laziest game imaginable, made up of 99.9% reused assets. I mentioned this in my Love/Hate entry, but I really need to reiterate that this is a shooter whose maps and assets are literally ripped right from a survival-horror game. They’re completely different genres, so these maps make no sense for a run ‘n gun experience, and the graphics look really bad, because they weren’t supposed to be seen up close. Hell, even the “new” stuff in this game is just assets ripped from the Dreamcast ports of Resident Evil 2 and 3 (and you can tell, because they look worse than the CODE: Veronica assets). Add in that somehow this game is even shorter than its predecessor, and this isn’t even a dumpster fire: it’s just a travesty.

1. Umbrella Corps (2015, PS4)

Umbrella Corps is the worst game I’ve ever played, in part because it should know better. This game came out at the end of Capcom’s half-decade of bed-shitting, with one final shart as they tried, once again, to make Resident Evil into Call of Duty. The game has aspirations of being a highly-competitive, esports shooter, but it just plays like ass. The UI is cluttered to hell, with all sorts of messages and redundant notifications telling you that you can move into cover or do a melee attack, which make it hard to actually see what’s happening on-screen. Of course, this part of the game was dead within a week or two of release, and at this point, Umbrella Corps as it has existed for most of its awful life is an over-glorified series of spec ops missions chores. These missions are tedious, dull, and infuriating – easy to cheese, but if you do, they take forever to complete, so you risk losing just to not have to play this game anymore. I bought this game on sale for six dollars, and I still feel like I got ripped off. I don’t understand how a major publisher releases a game like Umbrella Corps in 2015. We had long figured out shooters by this point, which just makes it so much more egregious than anything else on this list.

If you liked this article…

I hate ads. You hate ads. In order to stop polluting my site with obtrusive and annoying ads, I’ve elected to turn them off on IC2S. That said, writing still takes time and effort. If you enjoyed what you read here today and want to give a token of appreciation, I’ve set up a tip jar. Feel free to donate if you feel compelled to and I hope you enjoyed the article! 🙂

My Top 100 Games of All-Time (25-1)

25. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003, PC)

Knights of the Old Republic has some of the best writing in all of Star Wars. Back when Disney bought Star Wars and everyone was still excited about the possibilities of new movies, I had a pretty simple request: adapt Knights of the Old Republic to film. You could adapt this game’s script with little changes required and it would be a hit (assuming they didn’t screw up in the execution). The twists would be able to land too, because most mainstream Star Wars fans haven’t played it, so it would still have impact. Oh, and most importantly, adapting KOTOR would not ruin the ending of Return of the Jedi and piss off the fanbase.

KOTOR is just the ultimate union of Star Wars fantasy and Bioware RPG gameplay. Customizing your character and slowly developing their Force powers and lightsaber over the course of the game is awesome. The real-time with pause combat is simple, but flashy in-motion. Seeing what the Star Wars universe was like long before the original trilogy is fascinating. The way that your affinity towards the Dark and Light sides of the Force affects your character, your companions, and the way the story plays out. If you love Star Wars, then you owe it to yourself to give KOTOR a try.

24. Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus (2002, PS2)

Another one of those games that was bought for me as a gift and that I wasn’t too interested in until I started playing, Sly Cooper is a fantastic blend of 3D platforming and stealth gameplay. In order to emphasize stealth, Sly (and most enemies you face) will die in one hit. This might sound rough, but the game is balanced around it and it feels very fair – if you are being sneaky, then you should have the upper-hand in every encounter. In fact, I actually prefer this system over Sly‘s sequels, which give everyone health bars… presumably because it is more “expected”? I guess it makes combat have a bit more depth? Whatever the case, combat isn’t really the focus of these games and I much prefer the snappier system in place here.

Like many 3D platformers of the day, Sly Cooper features collect-a-thon elements, but they aren’t just here to give you something arbitrary to do. Levels are littered with coins to steal, which will net you lucky charms (which allow you to take up to two hits before dying) or extra lives. You also collect bottles containing pages of the titular Thievius Raccoonus, which will eventually unlock really useful new moves and abilities that you can use, such as slowing time or creating a decoy to distract enemies.

So the core gameplay of Sly Cooper is rock solid, but the game’s presentation, characters, and story really elevate it. The game has a cartoonish, 50s noir style which is complemented by its cel-shaded graphics which have aged very well. The characters aren’t revelatory, but they’re fun: Sly’s your charming rogue, Bentley’s the high-strung brains of the operation, Murray’s the dumb-but-eternally-loyal and eager getaway driver, and Carmelita is the cop who will stop at nothing to put Sly behind bars… but is her obsession purely professional…? The whole thing is wrapped around a plot which is just perfect for video games: Sly comes from a line of master thieves who have recorded the techniques they have developed in the Thievius Raccoonus, but the book is stolen and his family murdered by a group of rival thieves called the Fiendish Five. Sly and his friends then need to reclaim his family’s knowledge and get revenge on the Fiendish Five. It’s a fairly simple setup, but compelling. Sly Cooper is just an extremely well thought-out video game: everything has been carefully considered and maximized to make Sly Cooper the best it can be.

23. Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves (2005, PS2)

Sly 3 doesn’t evolve the formula of the franchise very much: gameplay-wise, it’s more of what was established in Sly 2 (basically: Bentley and Murray are new playable characters, the one-hit-kill system is gone, stealth is de-emphasized, and guards can be pickpocketed for easy cash for upgrades). What really makes Sly 3 stand out is its exemplary writing, which builds upon all the developments made over the course of the trilogy. In this game, Sly is putting together a team to pull off a heist against Dr. M, who has taken over the island housing the Cooper family vault. Dr. M has been attempting to break inside to steal the generations of hoarded treasure held within. It seems like a pretty simple setup, but there are some major revelations and developments which twist the way we view our characters and the Cooper family in surprising ways. We also get several returning characters from the previous two games, some of which have undergone major developments. Most notable of these is Panda King, one of the Fiendish Five who killed Sly’s parents. The gang finds themselves having to recruit Panda King in order to successfully pull off the heist, but the tension between Sly and him is so taut that feels like it could snap at any moment. It is great writing, daring to take the difficult route, and the game is so much more rewarding for it. Dr. M is also a surprisingly complex villain, who I’d argue is the best antagonist in the franchise. Building up the gang and then executing this final heist makes for one of the most enjoyable game stories in its own right, but when you combine that with the things this game is doing as a trilogy-ender, it is a monumental achievement.

22. Ninja Gaiden (2004, XB)

Ninja Gaiden is notorious for its difficulty, demanding precision and quick reflexes to survive on higher difficulties. The game’s hero, Ryu Hayabusa, is a demon-slaying ninja badass and one of the coolest game heroes around. The story is functional by video game standards: Ryu needs to get back the Dark Dragon Blade, which was stolen from the Hayabusa ninja clan by the Vigoor Empire, all while battling ninjas, Fiends, and the Black Spider Clan. That’s right… there’s actually a game in my top one hundred which is here purely because of the gameplay. Ninja Gaiden‘s harsh challenge is tough, but fair, demanding that you learn its systems if you want to succeed. When you do overcome a fight that has been challenging you, the feeling of satisfaction is palpable, and the the fight is all the more manageable for it. Something I like about this game in particular which makes it stand out from its sequels is the hub-based world. For most of the game, you explore the streets of Tairon, battling enemies as you gain access to new areas and uncover some cleverly-disguised secrets that only a true ninja could perceive. I know that it’s been said before about this game, but it really does bear saying: Ninja Gaiden makes you feel like a true ninja badass and is well worth experiencing if you can stomach the challenge.

21. Bioshock (2007, PS3)

Whenever I recount my time with Bioshock, I always go back to the very first thing that happened to me in the game. You have an extremely brief opening cutscene where your plane crashes into the ocean and your character rises to the surface of the water to see flames from the wreckage. I sat there a good twenty seconds or more, expecting some object to come into frame from off-screen. Then it hit me: No… these are the in-game graphics!? The reflection of the fire on the water looked so good that I literally thought it was a CGI cutscene. The game was that immersive at its very first second. Then you travel down into the undersea city of Rapture and your mind is in absolute awe of what you are seeing. An art deco, undersea, libertarian dystopia is such a unique setting. And then the horror elements creep in, as you see what has become of the city and its denizens. By that point, you are just fully invested in Bioshock‘s atmosphere: this is just the coolest world design in videogames. It also, quite famously, has some of the best writing in any game of the time, being philosophical while also keeping it entertaining. It also has one of the best twists in gaming, a mind-blowing revelation that makes you re-evaluate your sense of self. And then there’s the plasmid powers you collect and upgrade during your journey which shake up the gunplay in unique ways.

Oh, and who could ever forget the first time they saw a Big Daddy? How about the sheer terror the first time you had to kill one? This game is fantastic, full-stop.

20. Metal Gear Solid (1998, PS1)

Since release, Metal Gear Solid has rightly been praised for pushing the boundaries of cinematics and storytelling in videogames. It’s a staggering achievement for a PS1 game, boundlessly creative and quirky in equal measures. There’s so many legendary moments in this game, that I’m not even sure it makes sense for me to recount them: you either know about them already, or you need to experience them for yourself. So, instead, I’m gonna use this space to describe my introduction to Metal Gear Solid

This was a game that I had heard about while growing up. I was really into gaming magazines around 2001. One of the first gaming magazines I bought was the Metal Gear Solid 2 cover story for The Official US Playstation Magazine, which really hammered home to me that these games were must-plays (I can still remember their guide on how to fake being sick to get a whole extra-long weekend off to play it). They all sang the praises of the Metal Gear franchise, and they said that Metal Gear Solid was the best one. That said, I wasn’t able to play them at the time: I was eleven when MGS2 came out, I was not allowed to play any M-rated video games, and I didn’t have any money to get them myself.

Around 2005 or 2006, I had fallen in love with the stealth action genre after playing all of the Splinter Cell released to that point. I was itching for some more top-tier stealth games, so obviously Metal Gear Solid was at the front of my mind. I managed to get a ROM of Metal Gear Solid, which I played on an emulator on my PC. I’ll tell ya, over the course of the next few evenings, my mind was blown. I loved the over-the-top action and characters. I loved the equally philosophical and farcical narrative. The presentation was incredible. I loved the insane, fourth-wall breaking gameplay moments. The boss fights were incredibly unique. It was just such a good experience that I started checking out the other games in the franchise as well, and soon Metal Gear Solid was even more important to me than Splinter Cell itself.

19. Shadow of the Colossus (2005, PS2)

Another one of those “early, undeniable examples of games as art” games, Shadow of the Colossus is unrivalled in its atmosphere. The colossi are these majestic, sombre beasts who you have been tasked to slay in order to resurrect an mysterious woman. The resulting journey is nearly wordless, which just absolutely sucks you into this game’s world. Each colossi is not fought in the traditional sense: they are all have a fairly simple puzzle based around their movements which, once solved, will allow you to climb onto their body and stab a weak point until the beast dies. Each colossi is unique and memorable, and the minimalist story really packs an emotional wallop. It’s just such an impactful and artfully-crafted videogame, you just can’t help but be in awe of the talent on display here.

18. Nioh (2017, PS4)

Once again, Team Ninja have an entry that I love entirely for the gameplay. Nioh has the best combat system of any game I have played, bar none. It plays largely the same as any other Souls-like: a stamina bar, challenging difficulty, if you die you lose your souls, etc. The main differences are that Nioh has a loot-based item drop system and that the game is linear and mission-based, rather than having you seamlessly navigating an open world. However, Nioh introduces two mechanics that shake up the Souls formula in some genius ways:

  1. Weapon Stances – Each weapon you get has three stances for your attacks: high for a slow, powerful attack, mid for a standard attack, and low for a quick, weak attack. Right away, this wildly expands the options you have at your disposal for any given combat encounter, but certain enemies are also immune or vulnerable to specific stances.
  2. Ki-Pulse – Nioh has a sort of “active reload” system to instantly replenish your stamina bar if you time a button press correctly. You will quickly get to grips with this maneuver when you play, it makes for a really cool system where you encourage aggressive combat maneuvers in order to maximize your damage dealt.

The game also retains Team Ninja’s pedigree for difficulty. In that quality, Nioh definitely stands out compared to its peers, with a level of precision required that rivals Ninja Gaiden. And I just love the guardian spirits, a charming gang of adorable, magic spirit creatures that give you special powers if you become friends with them. Nioh is just a great game to play, constantly pushing your limit and forcing you to get better.

17. Halo 2 (2004, XB)

Halo holds a special place in my heart. Some of my fondest gaming memories are playing Halo and Halo 2 at a couple youth group LAN parties as a young teenager. I loved the first few Halo books. The writing and world-building was (and still is) top notch. Despite this, I didn’t have an Xbox or a decent PC growing up. So, when the LAN parties stopped happening, I never really got a chance to play them again. I did, briefly, have an Xbox 360 and I attempted to play through Combat Evolved a couple times, but found that I didn’t like the game’s design. As a result, I never made it to trying Halo 2.

Fast-forward to a earlier this year. The Master Chief Collection was on sale for cheap on Steam, and I finally have a PC capable of playing it. Fuckin’ sold, that was an awesome deal. Once again, I found myself growing tired of Combat Evolved‘s design, but I forced myself through. Even then, it took me a couple months to get through to the end.

But then I started Halo 2. MY GOD, the sheer leap forward in every single way is spectacular. The story presentation and writing are legitimately film-like. The level design is much clearer and more distinct. Gameplay is improved in every regard. Dual-wielding guns is such a power trip. Even the small changes to the shields system make you feel more like a badass than before. I would turn off Combat Evolved after one or two levels, but for Halo 2 I blitzed through three levels back-to-back without breaking a sweat, and the only reason I didn’t go any further was because I badly needed to sleep. I got through Halo 2 in about a week, and loved it the whole way through.

16. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007, PS3)

The release of Call of Duty 4 was a bomb-shell in the gaming industry. This one game effectively killed the World War II shooter, which had been a gaming staple for a decade. Suddenly, every shooter had to be a modern military game. Its set-piece moments were jaw-dropping and influenced countless imitators. Halo had been the top dog shooter up until that point, but then this game dropped and arena shooters were decimated. Given that we were still early in the Iraq War at the time, the game had an extra layer of relevance. At the time, this game felt kind of dangerous and daring for how much it invoked real-world politics. This also, of course, started the annual Call of Duty release schedule that we are all sick to death of now.

And, in spite of all that, Call of Duty 4 is still as incredible as ever. This game looked unbelievable back in 2007. The campaign was shockingly strong for a straight-forward shooter game, with memorable characters, cool set-pieces and some gut-wrenching moments. It’s the sort of game that demonstrates the effectiveness of a good, curated, linear campaign: the iconic “All Ghillied Up” is almost entirely scripted, but goddamn if it does not get your pulse pounding. You may be done with Call of Duty now, but anyone who was there for Call of Duty 4 knows that that game was (and still is) a singular experience.

15. Ape Escape (1999, PS1)

Of all the games that were bought for us as a gift that I didn’t have much interest in until I played it, Ape Escape is the best of them. My brothers and I got a PlayStation for Christmas in 2000 and Ape Escape was one of the games we got with it. We didn’t have a whole lot of interest at the time though: what, we’re trying to catch some monkeys? Eh, sounds boring. But then, being bored one day, I decided to try it out, and quickly got sucked in. Now, Ape Escape is my most-replayed game of all-time. I must have played through it at least seven times since I first bought it. Hell, one of the first things I did when I got my Retroid Pocket 4 Pro was to load Ape Escape onto it and then play through the whole thing again, which ultimately led to me writing the Ape Escape Love/Hate series.

The core 3D platforming gameplay of Ape Escape is solid, but what really makes it stand out is the innovative use of the (at the time) brand-new dual analog controller. The left stick controls movement and the right stick controls whatever gadget you currently have equipped, giving you a level of control and precision unseen in console games up to that point. The gadgets themselves are also really neat, with the stun baton to whack monkeys and enemies, the sling shooter to snipe distant targets, the sky flyer to launch yourself high into the air or extend a jump, and the RC car to access small spaces (and harass monkeys), just to name a few of them.

Also… chasing the monkeys is just a hell of a lot of fun. They have three levels of alertness, so approaching them strategically is incentivized, and each ape has its own level of aggression and speed, making each encounter feel fresh. The time-travelling structure is also inspired, shaking up the environments and gameplay after every three levels so that it never gets stale. I love this game so much and I can guarantee that there will be even more replays of it in the future.

14. Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988, NES)

Super Mario Bros. 3 is one of those sequels that blows its predecessors out of the water. Super Mario Bros. was a monumental game for its day, but Super Mario Bros. 3 surpasses it in every single metric. Its graphics are some of the best on the NES, and it’s wild to see how much they have improved in only three years (or two years if you consider that the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2 originally released in 1986 and had basically the same graphical fidelity as the first game). There are way more levels and you navigate through them using an overworld map. There are even more clever secrets than before. The power-ups are more varied and are super cool: leaves and tanooki tails to fly, the frog suit to swim easier, and the hammer suit to hurl hammers at enemies. The combination of ambitious innovation and flawless execution make Super Mario Bros. 3 a timeless classic and one of the few NES games that is just as enjoyable today as it was back then.

13. Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End (2016, PS4)

So, as you can see from my placement of Uncharted 2 on this list, I really loved that game. However, it’s follow-up, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, was pretty disappointing to me: sure, the set-piece moments were better than ever, and there were some fun new characters, but the story felt like it was an after-thought, which made it by far my least favourite game of the trilogy. I figured that Uncharted 2 would remain the best of the franchise and that would be the end of it, but then a fourth game was announced for PS4. I was optimistic, but I really did not expect to love Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End as much as I did. The writing is the best in the franchise, bar-none, giving us a satisfying and mature end for these characters we’ve grown to love so much over the course of the series. The set-pieces are grander than ever, which is aided immensely by the improved technology since the previous game. The game also takes a cue from the Tomb Raider reboot, introducing some hub areas where you can explore and pick your next mission to complete. The game is also just gorgeous, putting its predecessors to shame in this regard (and those games were no slouches in the graphical department either). For the most part, Uncharted 4 is more of the same, but executed at the absolute best this franchise has ever seen.

12. The Last of Us (2013, PS3)

The Last of Us is one of those games that is so good that it transcended the gaming industry and is just part of the wider culture. This sombre, contemplative, depressing, and tragic story of a man and a girl travelling across a post-apocalyptic wasteland is easily one of the best-told narratives in the medium. Its ending is legendary, one of the most iconic in modern pop culture, and one which has been heavily-debated since it released (for my part, Joel did not do the right thing, and the Left Behind DLC is meant to make this unmistakably clear to the audience).

On top of this, I think that the gameplay is also very underrated. As opposed to Uncharted‘s bombastic action, the gunplay of The Last of Us is slower, more visceral and dangerous. You’ll often spend significant chunks of gameplay using stealth, avoiding alerting enemies as much as possible until you have to engage them. The cordyceps zombies also present a significantly different threat to the human survivors you come across, giving the game a survival horror tone. The way that you scavenge for supplies to craft make-shift weapons and items was also quite innovative for the time, and would be replicated for years after release by other games. This system encourages careful exploration and is done in such a way that you never have enough supplies to do everything you may want to. The Last of Us is Naughty Dog at their peak, flexing their development muscles to create an unforgettable experience.

11. Dead Space 2 (2011, PS3)

Your mom may hate Dead Space 2, but I love it. The game comes out of the gate swinging, featuring one of the most horrific and pulse-pounding opening sequences of any video game. The original game was already great, but Dead Space 2 ups the ante by bringing in more Uncharted-style bombastic action set-pieces. Contributing to this is that Isaac Clarke is no longer a silent protagonist, which allows him to have a lot more personality. This also enables the game’s more personal story, which sees him grappling with crippling PTSD and mental illness due to the events of the first game. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about all this though is that the game does all this without compromising the survival horror tone – this game is every bit as scary as its predecessor, while also being an action thrill-ride at the same time. The franchise’s core gameplay is every bit as compelling as before, but is now more refined and has more variety of weapons and enemies to keep combat fresh and endlessly replayable. Of all the new additions, my favourite is the Stalker enemies. While most necromorphs will attack the moment they spot you, Stalkers mess with your head like a pack of wolves. They’ll surround you, peek at you to see if you’re distracted, fall back if you get too close, and then scream like a banshee as they charge in for the kill. The first time I fought these guys, I was absolutely terrified, it was such a special experience. The Tormentor is also one of the coolest and most intense boss fights I’ve ever experienced, despite basically being an interactive cutscene.

10. Pokémon HeartGold (2009, DS)

I played countless hours of Pokémon Gold and Silver back in the day, making them one of my favourite games in the franchise. I think that the fourth generation of Pokémon games were the peak of the franchise’s gameplay. Combine these two interests together and we have Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver, remakes of the gen two games utilizing the engine and mechanics of the fourth generation games. These games are the ultimate Pokémon adventure, full-stop. The difficulty is legitimately challenging, even for series veterans. The Johto region feels lived-in and steeped in history. The post-game in Kanto is expanded further as well, making this meaty second chapter even more impressive. Your favourite Pokémon follows you around on the overworld. It’s just the best rendition of the classic Pokémon formula, I don’t know how else I can describe it.

9. God of War (2018, PS4)

I’ve dabbled in the God of War games, but I haven’t gotten a chance yet to play through them all. However, I decided to try out the 2018 God of War and was surprised by just how good it was. While I do think that the story of the Greek God of War games is underrated and a lot more interesting than people give it credit for, God of War‘s 2018 entry is unrivalled in its writing. Maybe it’s just the timing of the game for me: I got this right after the birth of my son, so the tale of Kratos and his son, Atreus, on a journey to spread the ashes of Atreus’ mother really resonated with me. Seeing a more matured Kratos lends him so much more depth and sympathy – you can see how he’s trying to direct Atreus to not make the same mistakes he made. And then there’s the primary antagonist, Baldur: he looks like a drunken weenie the first time you see him, but he quickly demonstrates that he is incredibly dangerous, unhinged, and a legitimate threat to Kratos.

The game is also just gorgeous. The environments are breath-taking and I love all the colourful particle effects which just make the game look magical as you go on your Norse journey. The way that the game plays out like one long, seamless take keeps you immersed in this world.

The game also just plays well. I wasn’t sure if I’d like an over-the-shoulder melee system, but it actually plays about as well as the more traditional action game camera in the previous God of War games. It plays like a nice middle-ground between a Souls-like and a more traditional character action game. Kratos’ axe is also just the coolest melee weapon ever, allowing you to throw it and then have it fly back into your hand with the press of a button (hitting any enemy it crosses paths with on the way there for bonus damage). Combat is bloody, visceral, and satisfying. I particularly like the optional Valkyrie bosses hidden around the game world, which really test your skills and are a stiff challenge.

I loved my time with God of War. I rarely bother to platinum games, but I knew pretty early in that I was going to see it through for God of War. I loved this game so much that I had to see everything it had available, including all the optional challenge areas.

8. Dark Souls (2011, PS3)

Another example of “gameplay isn’t everything”. I think that Nioh is superior to Dark Souls in terms of its combat. However, I think that Dark Souls is, without question, the better game overall due to its less-obvious qualities. Of these, the best is the looping, open-world structure. Each area is designed like a linear level, funneling you through encounters until you reach a boss or the next area. However, many of these areas will connect to other areas, giving a sense of interconnectedness and geography to the world. There are several moments where you will reach a gate or an elevator, use it, and then be shocked to see that you’re now in an area you’ve already explored. The sense of verticality is also very unique, as the world is designed as a bunch of regions stacked on top of each other: at the bottom are the ancient, forgotten dregs of this world, while the top is the isolated, gilded realms of the gods themselves. That’s right, FromSoft have mastered world design so well that it’s even thematic. The game’s story presentation is also very unique, choosing to communicate it through the environment and item descriptions rather than an overt narrative. This intentionally leaves much of the story up to interpretation.

Of course, then there’s the combat system, which still influencing the industry to this day. It is relatively slow and deliberate, forcing you to carefully consider every action you make while balancing your stamina bar and limited healing resources. The enemy designs are inspired. Creatures like the Gaping Dragon, Pinwheel, and The Four Kings are such unique concepts, but so evocative and mysterious in their design. The difficulty is tough but fair. Pretty much anyone is capable of overcoming its challenges with a little perseverance and, if that fails, level-grinding.

Dark Souls is a game which just feels like a myth brought to life. Exploring and battling through its forlorn world is haunting, like you’re trespassing in a place you were never meant to be. Its difficulty may have been long surpassed by its successors, but it is still a good challenge and as satisfying as ever to overcome.

7. Bloodborne (2015, PS4)

Bloodborne was my first Souls-like experience. Like Dead or Alive, this game came across my radar after completing the Ninja Gaiden games. I was looking for another game with challenging hack ‘n slash combat, and Bloodborne came highly recommended. With that in mind… I was not primed for the kind of experience that Bloodborne was offering. The combat was fast, but not as fast as Ninja Gaiden, and there was no way to block, so I kept getting destroyed by basic enemies. The gameplay wasn’t really “clicking” with me, but I decided to persevere. However, piece-by-piece, it started to click in place in my mind. The importance of shortcuts, parry and dodge timing, careful analysis of the area, and stamina management really started to settle in. Around two-thirds of the way in, I “got” it, but I still wasn’t blown away. However, this all changed in one moment: I bought the DLC, played through to Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower… and I was stuck. She absolutely destroyed me multiple times. I tried to summon a co-op helper, but no one was answering my bell. I distinctly remember sitting there, waiting for minutes for someone to respond, when I decided: “Fine, I guess I’m just gonna knuckle-down then and do this myself.”

I died, over and over again. I must have done so over twenty times, but I was slowly learning more and more of Lady Maria’s moveset, getting her health down lower and lower as I went. When I finally managed to overcome her, it was like a deadly ballet between the two of us, and I felt a satisfaction that I had never felt in the game up to that point. I was changed, and I resolved to try to beat every Souls-like boss thereafter without summoning, if I could reasonably do so. It was the true start of my love affair with these games.

Like Blasphemous, Bloodborne is a game which ticks all my boxes. Souls-combat, but faster and more aggressive? Gothic and eldritch horror aesthetic? Blood? Fanatics? Goddamn fuckin’ werewolves!? Bloodborne is what you get when you take a solid gameplay foundation and then commit to a particular vision and aesthetic, elevating the game well beyond the sum of its parts.

6. Civilization VI (2016, PC)

While I think I’d say that Civilization IV was the most fun I had with a single Civilization game, if I had to pick one of these games to play today, it’s Civ VI, without question. Starting with Civ V, Firaxis shook up the series’ formula in some pretty fundamental ways, moving from a grid to a hex-based map, and making cities far more specialized and customizable. While I wasn’t a big fan of Civ V, Civ VI plays like a more refined version of that game, but with several more features added. Shaping your nation and conquering the world through diplomacy, culture, religion, or good ol’ fashioned war is a lot of fun, and no two games will ever play out the same. There are also an overwhelming number of civilizations available to play, providing even more variety and incentives to play the game how you want. I also like how the game doesn’t really force you into picking one particular victory route early – it’s completely viable to wait until the modern era to really commit to a victory condition (unlike, say, Civilization: Beyond Earth, where you’re pretty much knee-capping yourself if you diversify your nation’s interests). The “just one more turn” gameplay is just as addictive as ever as you set goals for yourself and see them come to fruition over the course of the next few turns and there are lots of options to customize the game to your liking (including options for some pretty wild, alternative game modes).

5. Tetris (1989, NES)

Tetris is the definition of “simple, but addictive”. Drop shapes made up of four blocks, try to make lines with them to clear them out before they reach the top, you get more points if you clear more lines at once, and the game gets faster the more lines you clear. Good luck, and try to get the highest score possible.

There are lots of different versions of Tetris out there: they’re all great, and I really like the quality of life improvements that have been developed over the years, but the NES version was the one that first got me into the game. Whenever I start replaying Tetris, I can see the blocks falling in my mind where ever I go. I used to keep track of my scores in NES Tetris… I wanted to show off a bit, but I can’t find the text document anymore… As I recall, I used to be able to get to around level twenty-five when it starts getting too fast to react, and I’d get as many four-line-clears as possible up to that point.

4. Resident Evil 4 (2005, GC)

Resident Evil 4 is an incredible game. The ambition, innovation, and attention to detail on display is staggering. Resident Evil games had grown really stale at the time, so it came out at the perfect moment. What makes this more remarkable is that the game basically plays like a classic Resident Evil game, only with full 3D and manual aiming, but its changes make it feel like a wholly new thing. Its over-the-shoulder camera revolutionized third person videogames and resulted in numerous imitators for years thereafter. It established Leon Kennedy as an absolute badass. There are just so many things you can say about this game’s legacy, that you really can’t understate how important it was.

For my part, I owned a copy of Resident Evil 4 on PS2 back around 2008, but I hadn’t really gotten past the opening village battle. It wasn’t until 2021 when I started the Resident Evil Love/Hate series that I finally decided to commit to trying it out. While it took about an hour to get used to the controls, once I acclimated, I was stunned at just how refined this game was. The whole experience is so lovingly crafted and varied that it never gets boring, and the campy tone doesn’t diminish from the horror elements. Then there’s all the little, optional systems you can engage in: treasure-hunting to get extra currency, the gun range where you can win prizes for good shooting, and you can do tricks during the jet ski section. Hell, what other game makes inventory management fun!? There’s a reason why this game is still being re-released and remade twenty years later, it’s an essential pillar of the gaming landscape and a monument to fantastic design.

3. Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023, PC)

Back during the early-to-mid 2010s, video games liked to tell us that “your choices matter”. However, after scores of Telltale and Quantic Dream games, the Mass Effect trilogy, Fallout, etc, gamers came to realize the truth of the matter: making consequences matter in games is hard. If you give the player the ability to make a choice which could change the game world, it’s simply too much work to make that choice actually matter in the grand scheme of things. At most, you may create a short, branching path, but it will just lead back to the main path again. Have to choose to let one of two characters die? You can be sure that the one you saved with have basically no bearing on the plot, or they’ll do the exact same things the other character would have done anyway. Hell, Fallout will let you kill just about anyone, but if a character is actually important, you can shoot them as much as you want, but they’ll just fall unconscious and forget anything happened the next time you see them. Once you realize this, it really destroys the illusion and can make certain choices completely worthless when you encounter them. I remember distinctly feeling this in The Walking Dead: Season 2 when you had to choose which characters would live and die… effectively rending that character useless for the rest of the journey, since they could be dead in another player’s playthrough and it would be too much effort that half your player base will never see to give them a major role thereafter.

Baldur’s Gate 3 throws this conventional wisdom out the window. While the game’s narrative does move forward on a fairly linear track, the amount of influence you have over events is astounding. While it doesn’t offer nearly as much freedom as a proper, tabletop DND game, it comes unreasonably close to achieving that. Like, for the earliest example of this unprecedented amount of freedom: you come across a druid grove where tiefling refugees are staying. The relationship between the grove and the tieflings is extremely strained, but the tieflings can’t leave because the road to Baldur’s Gate is too dangerous due to raids by the Cult of the Absolute. As a result, they’re on the verge of committing violence to stay in the safely of the grove. Initially, you can pick a side to support, or you can choose to try to find a compromise. Or, later on, you come across the Cult of the Absolute, who are trying to kill both factions, and you can choose to side with them. The expectation is that you will find a peaceful solution, but if you want to side with the cult and massacre everyone, that is completely viable. In fact, an entire character and their unique storyline is locked behind this option. Hell, you can choose to kill everyone on all sides and the game will just continue to go along, locking off content as characters abandon your party and questlines become unachievable. Characters will even acknowledge all the unexpected little choices you make. And, if this isn’t ridiculous enough, the game is fully voice acted, meaning that the amount of work that has gone into planning for every eventuality players could make is mind-boggling. Most players will never see much of this content. Hell, there’s an entire world of animals and corpses you can talk to, but you will only ever see it if you cast “speak with animals” or “speak with dead”, respectively (and you really should, these interactions are amazing). Hell, when you do reach Baldur’s Gate, much of the populace are interactable, with dialog trees and fully voiced performances. Many of these characters are there for nothing more than flavour, and all it does is make the world more believable and lived-in. That is the scale of the work put into Baldur’s Gate 3, and the more you think about it, the more it defies comprehension.

That’s all well and good, but the game is also just really fun. Due to the level of freedom, you get to approach its turn-based combat system in whatever ways you see fit. You really come to love the characters here, customizing their abilities to suit your needs, and forming relationships with them as you advance their side-quests. Baldur’s Gate 3 is an unreasonably good game, the sort of experience that you simply cannot expect anyone else to one-up. It will be the sort of game that we point to even a decade from now as an unrivalled pinnacle of the industry and one that you can go back to over and over again and find new secrets each time.

2. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (2005, PS2)

As I said in the Metal Gear Solid entry, I became interested in those games because of my love for Splinter Cell. When I was in my early teens, I bought Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow at a street fair, and it began my love affair with stealth games. I loved it and made sure to pickup a copy of the original game shortly thereafter. With those two completed, we came to the newest game at the time: Chaos Theory. I had loved the previous two games, so I was super excited to get it… but, I couldn’t. See, Chaos Theory was the first Splinter Cell game to be rated M. My parents had a “no M-rated games” policy for us kids. I was only sixteen, I couldn’t wait another year to be old enough to play them! No, I was going to have to put my own roguish skills to the test…

So, one day when we were at Wal-Mart, I headed to the electronics section to look at the games. There was Chaos Theory, locked behind the game cabinet. I asked the clerk to get it out of the cabinet and ring it up. I figured he was going to ask me to verify my age, which would dash my plans, but he didn’t bother. I snuck it home and kept the game hidden so that my parents would never know that I had bought an M-rated game. My brothers and I were very good kids, so intentionally disobeying them like this was exciting and dangerous. It’s kind of silly, but it felt like I was the one sneaking about and pulling off secret missions without getting caught.

Chaos Theory plays much like its predecessors, but with some tweaks. These include a new noise meter, an EMP device for your sidearm, improved graphics and animations, smarter enemies, and a choice of lethal and non-lethal melee attacks. The missions are also really well-designed. Most famous of these is the bank heist near the start of the game, which is just a flawless example of thrilling game design. The level mixes infiltration, exploration, combat, and puzzle-solving in such a glorious blend. The voice cast are on top form here, especially Michael Ironside as Sam Fisher. His performance in this game makes Sam Fisher downright terrifying at times. Chaos Theory was the absolute peak of Splinter Cell, before Ubisoft felt that the series needed to be shaken up. As a result, we’ve never really gotten another game quite like it, making it a game that is still worth playing to this day.

1. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (2004, PS2)

Snake Eater is perfect.

I love the writing. The political philosophizing stands side-by-side with big, dumb action sequences, and juvenile humour. The journey that Naked Snake goes on in this game is genuinely moving.

I love the characters. Naked Snake is the best Metal Gear character, bar none. The Boss is just incredible, and her motherly relationship with Snake adds so much emotional weight to the plot. EVA is a great Bond girl; enticing, but one who you never really think you can trust. Ocelot is a lot of fun when he shows up, I love that they gave him a more immature personality to match his age. Volgin is such a fun villain to hate; joyously evil and sadistic.

I love the boss battles. The obvious highlight is The End. The first time I came across him, I knew his reputation. I got shot by him almost immediately without even seeing him and decided right there to chicken out on the fight. I knew about the clock-skip trick, where you can win the battle automatically by moving your system clock forward a week, which causes The End to die of old age. I did it, but I didn’t feel good about it. Some time later when I replayed the game in the Subsistence re-release, I decided to knuckle-down and do the fight for real this time. I can distinctly remember running around lost for the first part of the fight, trying to figure out where The End was hiding. However, I soon began to realize all the ways you could pin-point his location, and soon it was a game of hunter vs hunter. I think it took me an hour and a half, but I gunned him down and felt the rush of satisfaction for overcoming such a creative and unique challenge.

I love the setting. A jungle in Russia is a pretty wild setting, but it’s so evocative. The jungle is the realm of predators, so being able to hunt enemies here makes you feel so cool. The setting also takes Metal Gear from the hallways and corridors they had been in up to that point. Levels are open, with lots of room to maneuver and pick your approach. You have to hide in plain sight, which is so much more badass than hiding in a locker.

I love all the ways you can mess with guards. For example, you can blow up their food supplies to make them hungry and vulnerable to eating poisoned food that you’ve left around. You can also blow up their ammunition stores so they can’t shoot you if you’re spotted. You can also throw a pissed-off, poisonous animal at them to get it to bite them to death.

I love the new survival elements. Having to hunt for food to sustain yourself really hammers home the idea that you’re an operative deep in enemy territory. I love how the camouflage meter facilitates the more open level designs without sacrificing the stealth gameplay.

I love the ending. Snake Eater has my favourite ending of any piece of media. The first time I played this game, I was blown away by the final boss fight and cutscene. It re-contextualized the game’s events and really made me question what I had done to get to this point. It’s beautifully acted and emotional. It’s the cherry on top of a perfect sundae.

If you liked this article…

I hate ads. You hate ads. In order to stop polluting my site with obtrusive and annoying ads, I’ve elected to turn them off on IC2S. That said, writing still takes time and effort. If you enjoyed what you read here today and want to give a token of appreciation, I’ve set up a tip jar. Feel free to donate if you feel compelled to and I hope you enjoyed the article! 🙂

My Top 100 Games of All-Time (50-26)

50. Demolition Racer (1999, PS1)

A childhood classic, Demolition Racer is what it sounds like: combine demolition derby destruction with a high-octane racing game. The results are, predictably, catastrophic, with cars slamming into each other at high speeds, vehicles sent flying everywhere, catching fire, and exploding. This isn’t just nostalgia talking either, I’ve gone back and replayed this game multiple times in the past few years and it is always a blast.

49. Gravity Rush 2 (2017, PS4)

Gravity Rush 2, and its predecessor, are joyous games. Their plots are uplifting, full of positivity in the face of danger. Their characters are charming and unique. Most importantly though, the central mechanic reminds you of the simple joy of play. Too many games have movement and traversal as a lengthy chore that you have to manage in order to get from point A to point B, and you spend more time bored and annoyed getting to your destination than you actually do enjoying yourself (looking at you Witcher 3…). Gravity Rush flips the script on this: being able to shift gravity at will to fall towards your chosen destination is as breath-taking at minute one as it is at hour fifteen. It matters less that combat is a bit finnicky when the moment-to-moment gameplay is this fun and the writing is this charming. Gravity Rush 2 is pure joy and the industry needs more games like this in it.

48. Twisted Metal: Black (2001, PS2)

While Twisted Metal 2 is probably the best-playing Twisted Metal game, I’ve reiterated over and over here that gameplay isn’t everything, and Twisted Metal: Black is one of the best examples of this. The game is bloody difficult, perhaps too much so at times and the game can feel downright unfair. However, where Black really stands out is in its presentation and story. Black is easily one of the darkest video games ever released. Its cast are a bunch of psychopaths let loose from an insane asylum, all doing battle with each other and tearing across the city of Midtown in order to be granted a wish of their choice. You’ve got such colourful figures as No-Face (a professional boxer who lost a fight, causing a doctor who had bet on him to remove his eyes and tongue and then stitch them shut), Mr. Grimm (a Vietnam vet and former POW who is wracked with PTSD and a craving for human flesh), Preacher (a delusional pastor who downed a goddamn baby because he thought it was possessed), Warthog (a serial killer whose wish is to remove the part of the brain that makes him feel remorse when he kills), and of course Sweet Tooth (an unrepentant, murder-obsessed serial killer who wears a clown mask). Each character has a very dark and disturbing story that plays out over the course of the game, and the game’s world is suitably gloomy and depressing. It’s so over-the-top grimdark that it’s cartoonish, but then loops right back around to being properly dark stuff due to how hard it commits to the whole thing.

47. Resident Evil 2 (2019, PS4)

Resident Evil 2 remake was a lightning rod moment for the gaming industry, kicking off the remake craze we find ourselves knee-deep in. The game is just a bloody good, tense thrill-ride. Zombies have not been this threatening in decades, taking tons of ammunition to put down for good, which incentivizes you to conserve your resources and avoid them where ever possible. The design of the RPD is also still one of the most memorable environments in gaming and it’s just as compelling here in full 3D as it was on PS1. While it does stumble a bit towards the latter-half and the story isn’t all that interesting, Resident Evil 2 is one of those games that you cannot stop thinking about once you pick it up.

46. The Movies (2005, PC)

Peter Molyneux is notorious for over-hyping his games, but the one time he actually struck pure gold has to be The Movies. As a business management sim, it’s pretty cool: you manage a movie studio, building sets, hiring star directors and actors (and keeping them happy), managing crew, and developing technology from the silent era up to the modern day. All this is decent enough for a game in its own right, but what catapults The Movies to the stratosphere is the in-game machinima tools that give you a lot of freedom to create your very own movies. I’m talking dozens and dozens of scenes (each with variants and customization options), systems to allow the characters to lip synch with any recorded audio, special effects, and a basic video editor. It’s a mind-blowing amount of freedom, to the point where I made a feature-length spy movie back in high school using The Movies.

45. Blasphemous (2019, Switch)

Sometimes a video game comes out which is just made for me. Blasphemous scratches so many of my itches: Metroidvania, Souls-inspirations, religious fanaticism, dark fantasy, blood, penitence… I picked it up in a sale a few years ago and I was glued to my Switch for a week straight, obsessed with journeying through this nightmarish civilization to prove my devotion to the faith. It isn’t doing much different than your average Metroidvania game, but it hits so many of my interests that I can’t help but adore it.

44. RollerCoaster Tycoon (1999, PC)

Like many other 90s kids, I got this game for free in a box of cereal. The game itself is the pinnacle of management sims, with a simple premise: build the amusement park of your dreams. Build attractions, setup decorations to make things more aesthetically pleasing, landscape to your liking, optimize your pathways, and design your very own rollercoasters (which, inevitably, will be too intense for the guests)! Each guest also has their own name, amount of money they’ll spend, and likes and dislikes which can help you tailor the park to maximize returns.

Of course, that’s all good if you’re playing the game as designed. You can easily turn RollerCoaster Tycoon into a psychopath simulation as well. Make vomit-inducing rides and then charge your guests to use the bathroom. Are guests mad that you charge them $5 to go for a piss? Grab ’em and throw them on punishment island, where they’ll angrily run in circles until you send the island into the ocean and drown everyone. Or, the classic option: build an unsafe rollercoaster and watch it crash and explode, killing everyone on board. You don’t have to be a dick in RollerCoaster Tycoon, but it’s a lot of fun that the game gives you the freedom to do so.

43. The Walking Dead (2012, PS3)

Telltale had been making narrative, episodic games since the mid-2000s, but they never really had any major hits, and their biggest swings (looking at you Jurassic Park) were considered fairly poor and did not make a splash. So, for a while, Quantic Dream’s games were the gold standard for narrative games, with Indigo Prophecy and Heavy Rain being quite notable titles of their eras. However, even back then, the writing of those games was heavily criticized, but I (and many others) excused it, because we couldn’t really get these kinds of cinematic, narrative-based experiences elsewhere.

Then Telltale’s The Walking Dead came out, and Quantic Dream were obsolete overnight. The Walking Dead established a formula of narrative, choice-based games that Telltale would milk dry over the next few years, but The Walking Dead stands tall amongst them just due to the strength of the writing here. The tale of Lee and Clementine is unforgettable: an escaped convict stumbles across a little girl whose babysitter has been killed during a zombie apocalypse and takes her under his wing. The illusion of choice is very much a thing here, but it doesn’t really matter that much when the journey itself is so good. What makes it so good are not the big choices anyway, it’s the little ones – do you go all-out to protect Clementine, or do you try to preserve her innocence as best you can? No other video game has managed to make me cry like this one, and I imagine if I were to replay it now, after becoming a father, it would leave me absolutely devastated.

42. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War (2004, PC)

I’ve been a Warhammer 40k fan for most of my life, and I can say with confidence that the original Dawn of War is still unsurpassed as far as 40k games go. An old-school RTS which innovated by putting the focus directly on getting you into combat, Dawn of War lets you engage in visceral, bloody, large-scale war with friends or AI opponents. Several factions were added in expansions, meaning that it is absolutely packed with content to try out. The game is still fully playable online to this day as well, and I’ve had the pleasure of getting together with friends recently to try to hold the line against high-level CPU teams hell-bent on annihilating us. It results in glorious carnage as your units rain gunfire and artillery down and chainswords rip through flesh. The modding community is also great, bringing in an entirely new, playable faction and removing the game’s unit cap for ultimate apocalypse mode.

41. Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires (2004, PS2)

I am not exaggerating when I say that I love Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires. I have poured countless hours into this game as I gleefully hack and slash my way through ancient China to reunite the land under my banner. Empires specifically is great, because it adds a level of grand strategy to Dynasty Warriors‘ usual formula, as each battle captures territory, makes new items available, allows you to recruit and capture officers, and gets you one step closer to conquering the nation. This change takes the rather repetitive combat of Dynasty Warriors and gives each battle a level of importance and resonance that it may otherwise lack, since each action you do is building towards a grander goal. The nature of the world map also means that no two campaigns will play out the same: you’re always going to have different enemy factions, different officers fighting with you, different territories to attack and defend at any given time, etc. I actually replayed the game on my Retroid Pocket 4 Pro a few months ago, and it was like cuddling in a warm, familiar blanket again. Later games may have expanded the political gameplay, but this version of Empires will always have a special place in my heart.

40. Resident Evil 3 (2020, PS4)

My go-to answer for “most over-hated game of all-time”, I legitimately enjoy Resident Evil 3 remake more than Resident Evil 2 remake. This, once again, comes down to the non-gameplay aspects: the story in Resident Evil 3 is easily the best in the entire franchise. Jill is a fucking badass, Carlos is cool, Nikolai is a great secondary antagonist, and Nemesis is a terrifying, relentless monster. Resident Evil 3 plays like a PS3-era, cinematic action game in the vein of Dead Space 2, the sort of experience we rarely get these days when every game has to be open world and dozens of hours in length or it’s not worth gamers’ time. The runtime is fine for this sort of experience: the six-to-eight hours you spend are maximized for fun and spectacle, and I got significantly more enjoyment out of this than I did out of the bloated, two hundred hours spent toiling away in Fallout 4 (and I call bullshit on anyone who claims to have beat it in three hours unless they were specifically running through it as fast as possible). Plus it’s on sale all the time now, so price isn’t even a problem. Sure, it cuts some content from the original, but the original still exists: play ’em both, I say.

39. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege (2015, PS4)

While the game has expanded in some wild directions since release, the core gameplay of Rainbow Six: Siege is one of the best multiplayer shooters I’ve ever experienced. I got in early, a few weeks after launch when the game was in a very rough state, and I was hooked due to how intense it was. As a defender, having to fortify your position while you can hear attackers breaching to get to you makes your heart beat fast and your palms sweat in anticipation of what’s to come. As an attacker, you have to watch every step you take as you try to get in as safely as possible. Each encounter is life-or-death, with instant kills coming frequently. The operators’ unique weapons and equipment fundamentally affect how this plays out and creates a mix-and-match system that makes every game unique. While I don’t really play competitive shooters much anymore and, as a result, I’ve effectively retired from Siege for good, my time with the game was easily some of the best experiences I’ve ever had in an online game.

38. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015, PS4)

With the glut of open world games we’ve gotten in the past decade, my opinions on The Phantom Pain have softened somewhat. Traversal quickly becomes a pain in the ass, as starting any mission will require you to get past multiple guard checkpoints, you always feel obligated to look for new soldiers to recruit for your base, and the side ops get extremely repetitive. That said, The Phantom Pain still stands out thanks to its fundamental gameplay systems. Stealth remains incredibly fun, all the wild and wacky gadgets at your disposal give you so many ways to mess with guards, and the guards actually learn and start to counter your tricks, forcing you to change things up regularly. In spite of its problems, it’s still a great sandbox experience and a solid send-off to the greatest saga in gaming.

37. Mass Effect 2 (2011, PS3)

While Mass Effect 3‘s ending soured the entire franchise, Mass Effect 2 at least remains one of the best action RPGs on consoles thanks to its fairly self-contained story. You’re basically tasked with putting together a team of specialists to go on a suicide mission. The first twenty or so hours are just you recruiting your team, getting to know them, preparing your ship and equipment, and (most importantly) growing emotional connections to your entire crew. We then get one of the best finales in gaming as your team plunges into the gauntlet and your decisions over the course of the game come to fruition. Depending on what you’ve done, one or more of your crew can die executing the mission, which is about as emotionally impactful as you would expect.

36. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (1999, PS1)

Shock! Horror! I liked both versions of Resident Evil 3! While I certainly have some issues with it compared to its predecessor, Nemesis is such a unique and ambitious game for its time period. Its scope is significantly wider than any previous Resident Evil game, allowing you to freely traverse an entire section of Raccoon City. The titular Nemesis is also downright scary here, barely operating within the limits of what you can reasonably deal with in Resident Evil‘s tank control scheme. The freedom and sense of risk/reward that this gives you is great – you can avoid fights with him if you want to, but if you choose to tough it out, you’ll be handsomely rewarded for your efforts. I remember when this game was considered the dark horse of the franchise, so seeing it get all the love after all this time is great to see.

35. Dead or Alive 2 (1999, PS2)

A couple months ago, I would have said that I liked Dead or Alive as a franchise, but I wouldn’t have had any of the games in my top fifty. Dead or Alive 2 changed that for me. The game is a massive improvement on its predecessor, adding in new characters, fun new mechanics, stage hazards and multi-level stages which wildly change how a battle looks and feels. The game is also simply packed to the brim with content, to a degree that we just do not get out of games anymore. It’s a simple enough game that anyone can pick it up, but deep enough that there’s a lot to learn and come to grips with if you really want to dedicate yourself to learning. Like I said in my recent Love/Hate series, I’m so glad that I decided to check the older games in this franchise out, because they were a real joy to get to experience.

34. Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number (2015, PS Vita)

Hotline Miami 2 is largely more of the same from its predecessor, but when that game had one of the most addictive and replayable gameplay loops of any game, that’s nothing to sniff at. Hotline Miami 2 is hypnotic: an acid trip of colour, blood, ultraviolence, synthwave, and pure focus. You will die over, and over, and over again as you try to perfect your killing spree and get through each area unscathed. This results in a ballet of bullets as you mow down enemy gangsters with dual SMGs, throw your empty gun to stun a guy, then slash their jugular open with a blade you picked up, then throw that blade into another guy’s head, grab another weapon to keep going, etc. All this coming as you die, hone your approach, die again, and so on until you have it down perfectly.

33. This War of Mine (2014, PC)

This War of Mine threads the extremely delicate line between entertainment and art with a serious message and, in my opinion, the results are poignant. Meant to act as a commentary on international conflicts and of the military shooters of the day, you play as a small group of survivors caught in an active warzone trying to survive to see peace return once more. You have to balance your survivors’ sleep, hunger, and morale, and developing your safehouse to be able to produce heating, supplies, and to be able to defend against looters. Then, at night time, it’s safe enough to sneak out and try to scavenge for supplies… but be careful, because you’re not the only one trying to survive…

Then there’s the heavy choices. Supplies are going to start drying up real quickly. Do you risk confronting other scavengers who may be hostile? Do you enter an area with ongoing exchanges of gunfire to risk getting to supplies that haven’t been picked over yet? Do you try to break into a gang’s well-stocked safehouse to steal their supplies? Or do you break into a defenseless old couple’s home and steal their supplies to keep yourself alive? If neighbours ask for help, will you give up some of your rations and medicine to help them? And, if you have children in your safehouse, how do you keep them safe and innocent in the face of all this? This War of Mine leaves these choices up to you, and only makes them harder as disease and winter set in, making you really test the limits of your morals. It’s a one-of-a-kind survival experience, and I implore you to check it out.

32. Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies (2001, PS2)

Shattered Skies is a special game for me. My grandfather on my mother’s side was a pilot instructor. One of my earliest memories was flying with my grandfather in his two seater airplane and looking down at the world below us. Probably due to this connection, my aunt bought me a copy of Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies as a gift. I wasn’t particularly interested at the time, but eventually decided to give it a try, and quickly became mesmerized.

On the gameplay front, Shattered Skies is an arcadey military air combat game where you’ll be dogfighting, shooting and bombing ground targets, and sometimes flying dangerously low to avoid radar and airburst artillery. The gameplay is actually way more varied than you’d expect for this kind of game and makes for a game that never gets old. You also get access to dozens of airplanes, each with their own strengths, weaknesses, and customization options, which let you tailor them to each mission you find yourself in.

What really makes Shattered Skies so good though is its shockingly mature story – and I don’t mean that in the “rated M for mature” sense, I mean that this is some legitimately great stuff. The story is told from three perspectives: 1) the big picture, war room briefing perspective, which tells you about the progress of the war between ISAF and Erusea; 2) the in-game story of Mobius 1, who you control and turn into a legendary fighter ace over the course of the game; 3) the story of a grown man recounting his experience as a boy growing up in occupied San Salvacion. This third story is where the real emotional punch of Shattered Skies comes in, as we see his family killed as collateral damage in the war after the Erusean Yellow Squadron shoots down a plane, which crashes into their house. Despite hating the occupiers, he grows to have a strained relationship with some of the fighter aces in Yellow Squadron who are based in the city. While Yellow Squadron clearly have empathy for the boy and want to be seen as more than just occupiers, you get the sense that they are legitimately saddened when he has to stand up to them in order to protect a friend in the resistance. This more personal perspective of your enemies makes it a bittersweet moment when we have to face Yellow Squadron in battle as Mobius 1 and shoot them down one-by-one. It’s a shockingly clever and tragic way to lend emotional stakes to what would otherwise be standard air combat gameplay. This whole story makes Shattered Skies so much more than the sum of its parts, and is easily one of the best-written stories in video games.

31. Resident Evil 2 (1998, PS1)

I knew that Resident Evil 2 was celebrated back in the day, but I didn’t really realize just how good it was until I finally played it earlier this year. Given its placement here on the list, I also clearly liked it quite a bit more than its more polished and popular remake. I just love the way that Resident Evil 2 feels and plays: nearly everything good about the remake is intact here, and in some ways (such as the story and branching playthroughs) it’s even better. It’s incredibly impressive for a PS1 game and by far the most fun entry in the “classic” era of Resident Evil.

30. Resident Evil (2002, GC)

While Resident Evil 2 is the best of the classic era, the remake of the original Resident Evil is arguably the best distillation of the Resident Evil formula we’ve ever gotten, largely thanks to the changes and improvements it brought after six years of iteration. The original Resident Evil was a very rough and unrefined game: full of cool ideas, but lacking in the execution. REmake realizes that potential and then some, with graphics that still look fantastic today that help bring the oppressive atmosphere of the Spencer Mansion to life. The remake also makes several changes to the original game which keep things surprising to veterans and improve the overall layout of the mansion in the process. The Crimson Heads are the most notorious example of this, providing a nasty surprise to new players who are too liberal with their firearms usage, and adding a whole other layer of strategy as you have to figure out which bodies to burn before they reanimate as even more dangerous enemies.

29. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (2010, PS3)

If you’re unfamiliar with the series, it may seem kind of weird to rank a Battlefield game so highly, because a Battlefield game is just another Battlefield, right? Bad Company 2 was special. Like Battlefield 3, this game was really designed for rush, and charging in with your teammates to take the MCOM stations was as intense as it was fun. Bad Company 2 also featured a level of destruction that no Battlefield game since has dared attempt to replicate: nearly every building can be blown apart or leveled entirely. While some argue that this makes the map kind of boring once all the buildings are gone, I call those people cowards: flushing defenders out of Arica Harbour with a series of tank shell strikes was a literal blast. The game also had some fantastic maps which, when they’ve shown up in subsequent Battlefield titles, have given me a rush of nostalgia that I’ve rarely felt for anything else. It’s a shame that the game was shut down for good last year, but the memories live on forever.

28. Dead Space (2008, PS3)

Dead Space is the best franchise to arise from the glut of Resident Evil 4 clones, and it’s not even close. A mixture of Event Horizon, The Thing, and Alien, this first game brings terror to the corridors of the Ishimura as you try to stay alive against hordes of necromorphs and find out what happened to your girlfriend, who was stationed on the ship. The core gameplay gimmick is inspired for a horror game of this nature: simply shooting a necromorph is insufficient to kill it, you need to blast their limbs off to immobilize them. Combined with limited resource survival gameplay, stasis blasts to slow enemies, kinesis to throw objects at your foes, and a good ol’ fashioned curb stomp when all else fails, the core gameplay of Dead Space is rock solid.

27. Fire Emblem: Awakening (2012, 3DS)

Fire Emblem: Awakening came out at a difficult time for the long-running franchise. Sales for the last couple entries had been underwhelming, so Intelligent Systems had one last chance to right the ship before the series went on ice for good. With this in mind, the developers threw the kitchen sink at Awakening, trying to make the biggest, best Fire Emblem of all-time, if only to give it a proper swan song. Luckily, their efforts paid off and Awakening gave the franchise a second life. While it largely plays like any other Fire Emblem game (turn-based tactics gameplay, RPG elements, perma-death, etc), Awakening‘s big new feature was an expansion of the relationship system to allow two of your soldiers to have children, who will inherit traits from both of them. This allows for some really fun and unique combinations, which work just as much for roleplayers as they do for min-maxers. While some fans have bemoaned this addition, claiming it turned Fire Emblem into a waifu simulator, I think that that opinion is fucking dumb. Awakening is a great game and, in my opinion, the most fun Fire Emblem I’ve played thus far.

26. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (2009, PS3)

I really enjoyed the original Uncharted when it came out, a lot more than most people who played it in fact. I loved the characters, the gameplay, and the story, so I was excited to see how Naughty Dog would up their game for the follow-up. What I was not expecting was for Uncharted 2 to absolutely blow everyone’s expectations out of the water and be widely considered the game of the year for 2009.

Uncharted 2 plays like its predecessor, but with some key refinements. The game is overall just bigger: more grand spectacle, bigger set-piece moments, more characters, more complex story. As much as I liked Nathan Drake and Elena Fisher in the first game, they really come into their own here, and I love that Naughty Dog didn’t take the easy route of having their pulp hero have a new love interest in every game.

And that’s it for part two. If you’re reading this the day it came out, then the final part will be up tomorrow!

If you liked this article…

I hate ads. You hate ads. In order to stop polluting my site with obtrusive and annoying ads, I’ve elected to turn them off on IC2S. That said, writing still takes time and effort. If you enjoyed what you read here today and want to give a token of appreciation, I’ve set up a tip jar. Feel free to donate if you feel compelled to and I hope you enjoyed the article! 🙂

My Top 100 Games of All-Time (100-51)

Lately, I’ve been seeing people on social media posting Topsters lists of their favourite video games, which has gotten me thinking about the topic. It got to the point where I put together my own quick-and-dirty list on Bluesky, but that didn’t really leave me all that satisfied. You see, for about twenty years now I’ve been using IMDb to track and rate every movie I’ve seen in that time. It’s actually been pretty useful for me, and I can easily look back and get a rough idea of what movies I’ve seen and what my thoughts were on them. This put me on a journey to try to do the same for every video game I’ve ever owned and/or played, which led me to a site called Backloggd. Having spent a couple weeks recounting every game I can remember playing, I’ve now got a big list of nearly four hundred games I’ve played (four hundred!? GOOD GOD). That’s a big enough library that I can legitimately put together a top one hundred games of all time list… so why not do just that?

A few notes before we start: first, I’m not going to include compilations here (so no Master Chief Collection, Tetris & Dr. Mario, Super Mario All-Stars, Metal Gear Solid HD Collection, etc). The upper-echelons of the list would probably be dominated by compilations, and that just doesn’t feel fair to the legacies of the individual games. Secondly, I’m not going to make this “one game per franchise” like I would if this were, say, a top twenty-five. If your franchise is good enough to get multiple entries, then you’ll get that representation (although a sequel that basically invalidates its predecessor’s existence will likely push prior entries off the list entirely). Thirdly, this is wildly subjective and, by its nature, only based on the games that I’ve actually played. As a result, I guarantee you that I have not played some all-time classic that you love. Please tell me how much you hate me for not including it down in the comments below.

Got it? Let’s get onto the list then…

100. Echochrome (2008, PSP)

A fun, quirky, minimalist little puzzle game on PSP where you have to rotate a 3D maze in order to change perspectives and allow a mannequin to reach the exit. Can be a bit finnicky with its controls, but it’s such a unique and striking premise that I can’t help but love it.

99. Theme Hospital (1997, PC)

This business simulation game was a blast back in the day, but what really made it stand out from the crowd was the various wacky ailments your hospital would have to treat.

98. Peter Jackon’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie (2005, PS2)

In the annals of licensed video games, King Kong was easily one of the best. 90% of the time it’s a tense, immersive first person shooter where you struggle to survive against the monsters of Skull Island. For a glorious 10% of the time, you turn the tables and become Kong, beating the ever-living crap out of every monster that had been harassing you up to that point. The game was also just legitimately revolutionary, pushing the boundaries of immersion, with no HUD to speak of and direct involvement from Peter Jackson himself.

97. Guacamelee! (2013, PS Vita)

A joyous, lucha libre-themed Metroidvania. I remember trying a demo of the game when I was on a vacation in Atlanta and immediately deciding that I was going to buy this game when I got back.

96. Pokémon Diamond (2006, DS)

The fourth generation of Pokemon is probably my favourite of them all (and I say this as someone who stopped at gen two and came back for gen six, so this isn’t nostalgia speaking). The physical/special split was revolutionary for the gameplay and the difficulty was legitimately challenging. Granted, Diamond makes the list largely because I have not gotten around to playing Pokemon Platinum yet. When that happens, I expect Diamond to drop off and Platinum to move higher up, as it’s generally considered vastly superior to the other two Sinnoh games.

95. Vigilante 8: Second Offense (1999, PS1)

Car combat is one of those genres which are dominated by one big franchise (Twisted Metal), and the rest are a bunch of forgettable rip-offs. Vigilante 8: Second Offense is the closest anyone ever came to stealing the crown, with its significantly better graphics and interesting innovations. Who cares about any of that though: on the Arizona stage, you can cause a meteor to strike the arena, which will send any nearby cars flying and then a giant ant comes out which attacks everyone on sight. Entire evenings were spent in our household on this one level as we blasted each other and this giant, fuck-off ant over and over again.

94. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003, PS2)

Another Peter Jackson licensed game makes my top one hundred! The Return of the King game is a fairly simple hack ‘n slash by modern standards, but it sure is fun and miles better than it had any right being.

93. Assassin’s Creed 2 (2009, PS3)

At the time of its release, Assassin’s Creed 2 was a revolutionary experience, perfecting the half-baked formula of its predecessor, and featuring an interesting narrative with a protagonist who was surprisingly endearing. At the time, I would have easily put Assassin’s Creed 2 much higher on this list. However, only one game later, I was halfway through Brotherhood, when I suddenly found myself completely done with this series’ structure of “travel halfway across the city to your mission, then travel halfway across the city to complete the objective”. I still think Assassin’s Creed 2 is good enough to warrant a spot in the list, but oh how the mighty have fallen.

92. Freedom Fighters (2003, PS2)

Freedom Fighters is a legitimately revolutionary game for its time. It starts out as a pretty terrible third person shooter due to its wildly inaccurate weapons. However, it soon evolves into something special, as you start being able to command an ever-growing number of squadmates, until you’re eventually commanding a dozen guys into massive battles against tanks and helicopters as you attempt to liberate an occupied USA.

91. The Sims 3 (2009, PC)

I wasted way too many hours in university playing The Sims 3 that I should have been spending on homework and socializing. Oh well, it’s not like I wasn’t enjoying myself.

90. Rise of the Tomb Raider (2015, PS4)

I reviewed the first Tomb Raider reboot game back when it came out and, as much as I enjoyed it, it clearly was a bit rough around the edges. Rise of the Tomb Raider largely smoothed off the rough edges and made for a much more refined and enjoyable experience overall.

89. Bioshock Infinite (2013, PS3)

Another one of those games that probably would have ranked a lot higher at one point, Bioshock Infinite still impresses due to its amazingly-realized world and mind-bending story. Hell, the game spends a lot of time just being a walking simulator and, honestly, that’s when it’s at its best. The shooting gameplay’s pretty rough, which does lower its overall quality somewhat, but Booker and Elizabeth’s adventure remains as unforgettable as ever.

88. James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing (2004, PS2)

Everyone’s got a favourite James Bond video game, but for my money, Everything or Nothing is the GOAT. An early third-person cover shooter, this game was hard as nails back in the day. Its plot was pretty over-the-top, but considering it was coming out after Die Another Day, I guess that was just par for the course for Pierce Brosnan’s Bond. Honestly, the craziest thing about it was probably that Shannon Elizabeth was a Bond girl, but then again, so was Denise Richards during the Brosnan era, so what do I know?

87. Future Cop: LAPD (1998, PS1)

Future Cop‘s single-player gameplay is fun enough – blast away violent criminals, gangs, and cultists from the comfort of your transforming mech. However, what really pushes it over the top is its multiplayer mode, Precinct Assault, which is basically a proto-MOBA: get points for killing enemies and capturing neutral territory, use these points to buy bases, defensive units, and offensive units, which will attempt to enter your opponent’s home base. First side to get an offensive unit inside the enemy’s home base wins. It makes for an endlessly addicting, back-and-forth struggle to come out on top.

86. EarthBound (1994, SNES)

This cult classic is largely memorable for its quirky humour and writing, which does away with the JRPG conventions of the time, instead featuring a bunch of psychic children fighting gangs of weirdos in the 1990s.

85. Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings (1999, PC)

Man, you had to be there back in 1999, chopping down trees, mining stone and iron, and then marching out your massive armies to go obliterate your opponents’ base while the horns of war sound.

84. Total War: Warhammer III (2022, PC)

…and then we have the ultimate evolution of the epic RTS, Total War: Warhammer III. Total War has been producing jaw-dropping battles for decades, but the Warhammer games unshackled that formula from the limits of history and into glorious dark fantasy. Warhammer III gets the placement here by default since it allows you to bring in all previous factions and DLCs into one enormous world map to conquer. It’s a staggering amount of content on offer and makes for an overwhelmingly massive sandbox to play in.

83. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (2018, Switch)

And speaking of overwhelmingly massive, Smash Ultimate is probably never going to be surpassed in the fighting genre in terms of sheer roster size and content on offer. The core gameplay is as simple and fun as ever, making for a great pick-up and play experience with your friends and enemies.

82. XCOM 2 (2016, PC)

Confession: I kind of hated XCOM 2 on launch. I had loved XCOM: Enemy Unknown, but the guerilla ops of vanilla XCOM 2 just didn’t jive with me and the RNG felt way off. However, after War of the Chosen released, I decided to give it another look, and it sank its hooks into me deep, to the point where I can’t really see myself going back to the original game anymore. The modding scene is also pretty incredible, allowing you to deck out your soldiers as Space Marines, Solid Snake, and even Helena Douglas and Hitomi from Dead or Alive.

81. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001, PS2)

I have my issues with Metal Gear Solid 2, but in the eight years since I wrote about it, the game has only managed to become even more relevant. Even if it’s not a game I’d particularly want to go back and play at a moment’s notice, I find myself thinking about it all the time, which is a level of longevity you really can’t say about a lot of media two decades from release.

80. Bully (2006, PS2)

Billed as “Grand Theft Auto in a school” at a time when anti-bullying campaigns and the Grant Theft Auto moral panic were at their height, Bully is nowhere near as controversial as it may sound. In fact, you’re the one bringing down the bullies (although you can wedgie the nerds if you want to be a dick).

79. Death Road to Canada (2016, Switch)

A hilarious and addictive zombie survival roguelike, Death Road to Canada is the definition of a “just one more run” game.

78. Journey (2012, PS3)

One of the early, undeniable examples of “games as art”, Journey is a short, thoughtful, gorgeous experience.

77. Super Mario Bros. (1985, NES)

The quintessential 2D platformer, Super Mario Bros. is still a great game even today. Hell, its plethora of secrets are so well-ingrained in the collective conscious, that it’s easy to forget how truly mind-blowing all the hidden blocks and warp pipes really are for a forty year old game.

76. Dead or Alive 3 (2001, XB)

Oh hai, Ayane! Dead or Alive 3 is a gorgeous, spectacular, and downright fun fighting game, which really stands out due to its awesome stage designs.

75. Minecraft (2011, PC)

You don’t need me to explain what Minecraft is, right? I actually only started playing it this year as a bonding activity with my son. As cool as it is to see our world get built piece-by-piece, it’s even more exciting getting to see him learn and get to grips with how to play games in the process.

74. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009, PS3)

Very few games reach the level of blockbuster hype that Modern Warfare 2 achieved, and it lived up to that hype and then some. The campaign is explosive and exciting. The notorious “No Russian” mission is still referenced today, fifteen years later. The multiplayer was also a massive evolution, bringing in dual-wielding and even faster gameplay than its predecessor.

73. Star Wars: Rogue Squadron (1998, N64)

Whenever we’d visit my cousins, the first thing we’d do is fire up their N64 and play a few levels of Rogue Squadron. Flying around in various Star Wars vehicles and dogfighting Tie Fighters is a joy, and it’s still just as fun today.

72. Lollipop Chainsaw (2012, PS3)

A perfect example of how gameplay isn’t everything, Lollipop Chainsaw demonstrates the power of leaning into style. The combat is kind of janky and overly-simplistic, and the enemies are downright rude, but when you’re bopping to pop hits while chopping zombies to bits and the entire screen is turning rainbow, it’s hard to not have a great time.

71. Among Us (2018, PC)

It can be easy to forget due to all the memes and merch which have flooded the public conscious, but at its core, Among Us is a fun social deduction game. Seeing how your friends react under pressure is fascinating, and trying to off them as an imposter gets you sweating like no other game can when your friends are trying to figure out who did it.

70. Life Is Strange (2015, PS4)

At a time when the market was saturated with Telltale narrative games, Life Is Strange stood out with its unique time travel powers and bold writing choices.

69. Pokémon Black Version 2 (2012, DS)

I maintain that the fifth generation of Pokémon was a fairly messy one, but they got the balance between fresh experiences and wild ambition far better for Black 2 and White 2. It largely continues the gameplay improvements from gen four, but adds a ridiculous amount of content, while providing a completely remixed map from Black and White and brand new story.

68. Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (1990, MSX2)

I will never stop banging the drum that Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake is an underrated masterpiece. Many of the things Metal Gear Solid was hailed for were present here in their infancy eight years earlier.

67. Star Wars: Battlefront II (2005, PS2)

Star Wars: Battlefront II was a wild game, especially considering it came out only a year after its predecessor. It adds more maps. It has a progression system to upgrade your weapons. It makes heroes playable, and adds significantly more. It completely overhauls the flight system from the previous game, adding full-on space battles where you can dogfight, blow up critical ship systems, or board the enemy ship and cripple it from the inside. It was just a massive game with a scope and scale beyond many modern games that I sank countless hours into back in the day.

66. Pokémon Crystal (2001, GBC)

Back when I was a kid, gen two was the pinnacle of Pokémon, a massive improvement upon its predecessors and a shockingly expansive game for a tiny little Game Boy cartridge. Of the gen two games, Crystal was easily the definitive version, hence its placement on the list.

65. Left 4 Dead 2 (2009, PC)

Left 4 Dead 2 was controversial prior to launch, due to releasing only a year after its predecessor. However, as soon as it arrived, all complaints were washed away in a sea of undead. Left 4 Dead 2 is a fun co-op action experience, made all the better due to its AI director who makes every playthrough unique and tense.

64. Halo 3 (2007, XB360)

Halo 3 is a damn good time, with the best gunplay of the original trilogy. If not for some personal gripes about the story, I’d probably rank this significantly higher.

63. Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade (2002, GBA)

The last Fire Emblem game to not get an international release, The Binding Blade has some fan translations which are easily accessible and which help make the game playable for English-speakers. Its sequel would be fairly dumbed-down for the western audience who weren’t used to the series’ gameplay, but for those itching for a larger, more challenging experience, The Binding Blade is just what you asked for.

62. Civilization IV (2005, PC)

The last Civilization to retain the series’ “classic” structure, Civilization IV is possibly my favourite single entry in the franchise. However, its successors have taken the overall experience so far that I am not sure if I could ever actually go back to this game. This made it a bit hard to rank for me as a result, but I think that its more classic Civ gameplay gives it a somewhat unique place and its legacy deserves some recognition.

61. Battlefield 3 (2011, PS3)

While there’s a palpable sense that Battlefield 3 was taking a bit too much influence from Call of Duty, this game was an incredible experience back in the day. This was also the last time that DICE prioritized my favourite game mode, rush, and some of the rush maps here were incredible.

60. Dead Space: Extraction (2009, Wii)

Extraction is leagues better than it has any right to be. A rail shooter spin-off for the Wii of all things, Extraction tells an entertaining and surprisingly well-paced story about the fall of Aegis VII and the Ishimura.

59. Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey (2019, PS4)

Whenever I bring up memorable video games, I always go back to Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey. To some degree, this game is kind of crappy… there’s basically no explanation of its mechanics, extremely repetitive gameplay, and very simple combat. You will struggle to make it more than a few hundred meters from your home without your ape having a panic attack (oh hey, just like real life!). You will be killed by predators out of nowhere and you will miss multiple jumps and fall to your death. These deaths are permanent, mean one less ape in your colony, which is already teetering on the edge of extinction.

However, you will eventually begin to get to grips with the mechanics. You’ll learn how to move around so as to avoid danger. You’ll learn how to make tools to make things easier for yourself and to fight back against the predators. You’ll start trekking out further and further from your home. You’ll learn to communicate with your troupe and start forming armed, roving gangs for safety. Soon, this massive jungle you’ve been exploring won’t seem so massive.

What really cemented the game for me was when I decided to climb the father tree, the largest tree in the jungle. I was carefully making my way up this massive trunk, climbing into the clouds, giving myself literal vertigo due to the sheer height. I reached the top and the entire world stretched out before me. There were so many more places left to explore, and I’d barely scratched the surface of it all…

…oh, and then I had to figure out how to climb back down. Truly an unforgettable game, far more than the sum of its parts, even if it takes a lot of patience to find the gold within.

58. Battlefield 4 (2013, PS4)

While the first six months were unacceptably bad, Battlefield 4 is now arguably the best Battlefield game on the market. Packed with tons of weapons and maps to engage in large-scale war on, I poured hundreds of hours into this game at the peak of my obsession with online shooters.

57. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (1991, SNES)

Turtles in Time is a great beat ’em up, but it’s one of those games that cements its legacy with one simple mechanic: you can grab enemy Foot soldiers and throw them at the camera. This would be cool enough as-is, but the cherry on top is that this is how you have to damage multiple bosses. Fuck yeah.

56. Fallout 3 (2008, PS3)

Fallout 3 came out at the perfect time, back when the open world game was still special, and when the Fallout universe hadn’t been explored in a decade. It made for a really evocative and unique experience that can’t really be recaptured now that everyone knows what Fallout looks and sounds like.

55. Twisted Metal 2 (1996, PS1)

In terms of pure gameplay, Twisted Metal 2 may just be the pinnacle of the series, with some iconic maps, lots of fun characters to play, and entertaining weapons to blast your friends to smithereens.

54. Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017, PS4)

I really love RE7. I love how it mixes the long-forgotten, classic Resident Evil gameplay with modern horror conventions to create a truly fresh, terrifying experience. This is easily the scariest Resident Evil has ever been.

53. Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow (2004, PS2)

Pandora Tomorrow was my first Splinter Cell game and it immediately cemented my love for this franchise and stealth games in general. Shooting out lights, hiding in shadows, using gadgets, and generally just fucking around with your enemies is as fun as ever.

52. Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell (2002, PS2)

Oh hey, remember how I said we’d get multiple games from the same franchises on this list? Well, I had a really hard time picking between Splinter Cell and Pandora Tomorrow, but I had to give the original game the slight edge, due to preferring its story campaign just a tad more (sadly, I never got to play the multiplayer in Pandora Tomorrow, so I can’t comment on that).

51. Hitman 2 (2018, PS4)

IO Interactive’s modern Hitman trilogy is a stunning accomplishment. Create a vibrant, expansive, multi-level open sandbox, throw at least two targets into it, then set you loose to figure out how to kill them in a manner that suits you best. The sheer level of freedom is jaw-dropping and the ways that the world will react to your actions is remarkable to see. I’ve only played the first two of these games, but Hitman 2 gets the edge for me due to its more creative scenarios.

And that’s it for part one. If you’re reading this the day it came out, then part two will be up tomorrow!

If you liked this article…

I hate ads. You hate ads. In order to stop polluting my site with obtrusive and annoying ads, I’ve elected to turn them off on IC2S. That said, writing still takes time and effort. If you enjoyed what you read here today and want to give a token of appreciation, I’ve set up a tip jar. Feel free to donate if you feel compelled to and I hope you enjoyed the article! 🙂