All Time Favorite Video Games 75-71

Hello and welcome to the return of my journal! I have been working on many things lately, one of which is a list of my favorite 75 games of all time. I promise I will do normal "life update" posts as well. Promise! It was originally supposed to be a list of 50, but it was too hard to eliminate some of these great games. Since I'll talk more about the top fifty, you get to start with a daily installment of five per day with the lower numbers. Let me know if you played any of these games, love them, or hate them... Here we go!

75. Tetris (GB)
Sadly, this is the only handheld game to crack the top 75. I'm sure will anger many of you. Tetris was a phenomenon back in the day and still lives on today. The simple premise--rotate, place, drop--attracted many people. Only a handful turned out to be very good though. Sort of like Othello, a minute to learn; a lifetime to master.


74. The Avengers (ARC)
This game was a piece of beauty back in the day. Four player action? Check. Official Marvel licensing? Check. Ability to throw Captain America's shield? Check. The hilarious (not intended as such) storyline was a wonderful addition to bright colors and TONS of marvel baddies. I still remember Whirlwind's laughter at the heroes and the underwater menace we referred to as "Mech Taco." You could play as Vision, Captain America, Hawkeye, or Iron Man. We once poured so many quarters in this sucker at the local bowling alley that the owner opened up the cash register and gave us all of his quarters. We still lost against the Red Skull in the last battle. Sigh. Memories.


73. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game (NES)
My friends and I used to play this game ALL the time. Great two player action, good storyline (as far as TMNT often went), and some easy to master mechanics. The legions of baddies provided quite a challenge and the creators even made two new bad guys for the game, a pretty novel thing for a licensed video game property in those days. And damn that Shredder who split into multiple images. Great game. Ten man code anyone?

72. The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (N64)
How can a Zelda game be so low? You might be asking yourself this question. After continuing the great expansive environment and reality twisted that was started in The Ocarina of time, Majora's Mask went off the deep and and engaged Link in bizarre story involving that silly moon you see here. The game's biggest strength was also its biggest weakness: variety of masks. There were four or five that actually did something significant, the rest, I swear to God, were only there to frustrate you. Still, 72, and there is more Zelda on the way.

71. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (PS2)What couldn't you do in this game? You can drive anywhere, jump insane distances, smash almost anything you wanted, and to top it off, this game had one advantage over the others in the series--great 80's music. Drive-bys, hookers, blowing up cars, AND "Dance Hall Days" by Wang Chung? Solid Gold. The stations alone in this game are one of the reasons it is on a very short list of games that I can leave on in the background and NOT be annoyed by the music playing.

NEXT UP: A game with no minions, a old school PC game, a sim, an early RPG, and a refined flying game--complete with frog and hare...