Top 5 Games of All Time

The Autumn of Our Discontent

In his latest blog, GibTehStix reported on the Decline of Gameriot, attributing the recent disinterest of the readership to a lack of content and the slackening of the writers. It's difficult to find something worth writing about, my little philistines, and I myself have never managed to do it; I cloak my lack of content with grand words and over-the-top prose. Perhaps the haughty arrogance is the assertion of my intellect, a pure subconscious desire to soothe my ego and repair my trampeled self-esteem. More likely, it's a smoke screen to veil the fact that I'm writing about video games, and a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game in particular: the contrast of the content and the medium offers delightful irony.

I have to agree with Gib (The Stix) in his complaints. The well springs have run dry. I used to love coming to Gameriot, whether I had posted a recent entry or not, and just browse the Feed or the latest blogs. It was rampant with topics that piqued my interest - even the bloated, over-hyped blogs that never had real content to begin with were worth a gander. Those halcyon days have gone down in the dust, unfortunately. The constant topics lately have been the tournament, nerd-raging, overpowered classes, PvP balance, the latest WoW content patch... does anyone else feel that? That deja vu? The fact is that topics will never really grow out of thin air, they all follow formulas and they center around what's important to the readership at any given time. Right now, the most important topics are repetitive and boring. I'm hoping that will change within the next couple weeks.

A lot of my favorite bloggers have fallen into a dull rhythm, hitting the old GR with the same beats like a terrible jungle drum, no doubt a taut dwarfskin stretched over some Zulian pottery. Ming has never really been too interesting unless you play a Rogue, and even then it was a stretch; his constant digressions about chakras and "Estel" leave a bad taste in my mouth. Roma Victor and Vir don't post often at all these days, and when they do it's usually a self-indulgent tirade that means very little to their readers. Jasi, who at one time got my vote as the most informative blogger on Gameriot, has fallen into a slump of lowbrow content.

I don't blame the individual bloggers. The atmosphere is just stagnant right now. We're all waiting for Wrath of the Lich King, and Season 5. People who don't play WoW are probably either beating their head against Warhammer Online in terrible frustration, or they've left their basements and are cavorting with real-life women. I wouldn't recommend either of those activities: the former is a futile venture, and the latter is highly unsanitary.

This website is supposed to be about video games, right? People are complaining about the fact that posting blogs with political or economic themes are frowned upon; that's how it should be. If you really want to be a political analyst and write about the election, there's plenty of those blog communities to join. You can start your own, I'll sell you the domain at www.zulfarrakobama.com. This isn't really the place to discuss anything besides games, as the ensuing discussions will most likely fill you with an insatiable rage.

Games it is, then: The Marnacleez-Approved Top 5 Games of All Time.

Honorable Mentions: Warcraft III - The Frozen Throne, Defense of the Ancients, Counterstrike, Super Smash Bros., Frogger, Team Fortress 2, Portal and the Mortal Kombat franchise (specifically Genesis era).

5. Pac-Man - The first console game I ever played. I ate up mad ghosts and pellets and all kinds of ****. I assume the undeniable desire to pursue pretzels and devour phantoms had a lasting effect on my young, developing mind, and might be the reason why I'm now a gigantic fat monster.

4. Call of Duty 1/United Offensive - I was just in love with this game, despite not being very good. If you were to compile a list of every WW2-themed shooter that's ever been published, you would be disgusted with the raw amount, and the Call of Duty franchise always blew the rest out of the water. Team death match in Carentan, please?

3. Age of Empires II: Age of Kings - My favorite RTS by a long shot. It changed a lot in the genre and it's still the best game in the Age of Empires franchise. You could play technical against online opponents and counter their every unit with deft strategy, or you could just mass knights and break your sprawling horde against the walls of the enemy city. There was just so many options. In single player skirmishes, you could build a sprawling empire and systematically conquer the competition through canny siegecraft and political wrangling. The fun factor is still there, even today, and that **** came out like 50 years ago.

2. World of Warcraft - Yeah, I had to do it. Sorry. I know how much we all love complaining about Blizzard and the intricacies of the game in general, but you've got to give credit where credit is due. Its predecessors - namely Everquest, Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot - were all successful in their own way; some were innovative. World of Warcraft took some of the best bits from all of them and superimposed these nuggets of greatness on their own revolutionary design, and the comfortable style of the Warcraft franchise. I could go on for hours *****ing about the game, but there's a reason I've been playing it since release; maybe it's the friends I've made, the competitive community, or an attatchment to certain characters, but something definitely works.

1. Goldeneye - Do I really even have to explain?

Marnacleez out.