the "real" all time favorite video game 1

The Best Videogame of All Time
1. Goldeneye (N64)

Well, for starters thank you to those of you who posted comments about my April Fools' joke, Bayou Billy. If I was doing a top 400 or 500 games, that might make the list, but it was, in fact, a ruse. A clever piece of craftsmanship to make sure the number one game debuted on April 1st. Still, some of you did post that you enjoyed the game, and truth be told so did I. I knew that if I picked a complete piece of garbage it would be fully unbelievable. So I'm glad some of you actually enjoyed the fake review.

















But seriously, if you know me at all, then you had to know that the top game was going to be Goldeneye. As much as I love video games, and as many as hold fond memories in my heart, Goldeneye is the only game that I truly think defines a time period in my life. Someone from West Hall could say the Goldeneye year or Goldeneye era and I would immediately be flooded with a myriad of imagery. Goldeneye was played my freshmen year as well, but it was my sophomore year that really went all out with things Goldeneye.
As most boys tend to do, smack talk culminated in a small tournament at the end of my freshmen year. A notorious chap name Tim Hayes aka DJ Apokalyptika won the tournament in a great finale against reigning hall champ Justin Young. The method of victory was one of utter disgust to Goldeneye players everywhere. Playing in the Archives level, he hid behind a crate at the far end of the hall and picked people off as they ran past. Since we always played License to Kill, he racked up just enough to beat the best player in the hall. Then something of a changing of the guard happened. Tim moved back to Minnesota over the summer, and Justin moved out of the hall. As my gang was getting more and more into the game, I took it upon myself (big surprise) to carry on the tradition and make it even better. Starting in September, we hosted a hall wide tournament, The Tim Hayes Invitational, in the TV room on the huge ass big screen TV. To commemorate the event, I even went out and got a used three foot tall trophy which I modded and made into a West Hall "Bond Trophy." After winning the first tournament, the legend of the game grew.
As the tournaments became more frequent--I think we ended the year with 15 or so completed, complete with league stats, kills, finishes, etc.--more and more people began to play. We did ladder tournaments, tag team tournaments, and everything else under the sun. I remember at one time I was so good at the game I could routinely pwn people while holding the controller with one hand and talking on the phone. Our room (the super suite of West Hall) had one down room that was almost exclusively used for multiplayer N64 games, the most frequent of which was Goldeneye. If you lived in West Hall at any point of the day you could come to our room and walk in--the door was always open even during some nights--and sit down to join in a game. We pushed each other to be better at the game. And we got good. I mean really good. A funny thing happened toward the end of the tournaments. During the tag tournament, my roommate Dan Welling, who was by now the second best player, wanted to join me and become the super team--I refused. I claimed that we would be better off by giving the tournament some parity. Dan then recruited Joe Yang, who at the time was ranked third or fourth best overall. I refused several offers and eventually chose Scott Salisbury, an up and comer in the tournaments. Both teams made it to the finals and in a vicious finale my team lost. I was mortal. I had won some ten or so straight tournaments before the loss, and was regarded as the best player in the hall. That loss started something new--the reign of Dan Welling. We traded victories at the next couple tournaments and eventually it came time to do the last match of the year. I knew in my heart that I needed to win to claim the trophy (due to stipulations I was legally going to end up with the trophy anyway at the end of the semester) as a symbolic move. It came down to me and Dan again. I lost. While he danced around the room singing some obnoxious song I stared at the television screen unsure of what had happened. I regret now that I didn't go up and congratulate him with more enthusiasm than I did. It would be the last Goldeneye tournament ever hosted in West Hall, and the trophy now sits in my parents garage, a derelict badge of a time gone by. While the days are over and done with, they will never be replaced.
I can't finish this post without mentioning that I did also play the game with my high school friends during summers. While also fun, they never matched the intensity and prestige that the college matchups did. Still, it was always fun to bring the games out during our infamous wrestling Pay-Per-Views. Some of them, Brett in particular were quite good at the game as well, and would have made excellent additions if they could have been in one of the college tournaments. The game looks so hideous nowadays (graphically), that its truly hard to sit and play it anymore. At its peak though, it was the cutting edge of coolness.
Goldeneye's single player mode (yes it had one of those also) was quite good. As far as I can think of Goldeneye is the only movie adaptation where the game was infinitely more popular than the movie associated with it. And before anyone says Resident Evil or Silent Hill or the such, remember that those were video games first and movies second. The one player game went through the movie plot with some additional bonus stages thrown in based on some other Bond movies. Innovative and a good mix of stealth and Bond gadgetry, Goldeneye had a little bit of everything. Sadly, as great as the single player mode was, the multiplayer mode put four player action on the map to gamers. It was unheralded as a gamer to play with three other players in such an intense split screen setting.

I wish I could see another game ever taking the top spot from Goldeneye, but I don't know that it is possible. Odds are as long as I remember my time in college I will always rank this as the pinnacle of gaming. Nothing can match the times I had playing this game. With all due respect to Bayou Billy, Pierce Bronson, and all of you who say that Playstation, Sega, Microsoft, or PC's have the best games, you are mistaken. Nintendo has always had the best games and I hope they continue to have the best games. Goldeneye was one of those exclusives that put the Nintendo systems at the top of the heap. License to Kill. Pistols. Basement. Ten minutes. No one is allowed to be Odd Job. Start.

UP NEXT: Who knows? I have been working on this project for so long, that I haven't really thought about what's next. I know I'm planning something special for the kickoff of baseball season, but that be just a Facebook project. Thanks for reading. As always comments are appreciated!

all time favorite video game 1

1. The Adventures of Bayou Billy (NES)
I'm prepared to take the flack for this one, but odds are most of you young whippersnappers have never played this gem from Konami. Metal Gear nothing, Bayou Billy had it all. I never owned the game, but my friend Jean-Michel (a French Canadian--no I'm not making this up) did and we both loved it. Half the appeal of this game stemmed from the fact that it was probably copyright infringement. An Australian type bloke loses his girl and has to punch, whip, and fight his way to the lair of an evil crime boss. That's right! 90% Paul Hogan's Crocodile Dundee, 10% Indiana Jones. Beat that!
As a young kid, it was often hard to come to the terms with the emotional response this screen gave you. Such an elaborate way to begin a game, and yet so simple. It was clear that you would be "saving the princess" and that clearly the baddies didn't think you were in control. The dude doesn't even show his eyes! And it looks like she's stoned out of her mind! I don't know that they ever really explained why they took this girl, but it didn't really matter. In doing so you wanted to brand out some kick ass justice--Aussie style. Did I mention the hero looked like Crocodile Dundee?
What made this game so great through? Why of all the games I could have picked did this one trump the Zeldas, the Marios and the Metroids of the world? Variety. See this level here? This was the main type of level that the game held. Side scrolling beat 'em up that made Double Dragon look tame by comparison. See in this picture here Bayou Billy getting his ass handed to him by a boss that looks remarkably like a German Driver *cough* Indiana Jones *cough*. Usually there were two to three enemies on the screen at once and moving around through the swamps of the Bayou provided a fairly tough challenge. Anyone who says that this game was easy is a liar.
But not all the game was side scrolling, oh no. A boring game like Super Mario Bros. might stop there, but this is Bayou Billy we're talking about--the cock of the walk, baby! You see, there were also kick ass driving stages at a time when games didn't feature two vastly different types of play. Sure the graphics for the driving stages weren't great, but the gameplay was. Think of Road Rash with cars instead of motorcycles and you're on the right track. Now add in the violence of a high school reunion and you're where you need to be in terms of pure emotional response. You not only had to reach an assigned checkpoint in a certain amount of time, but you also had to pass or blow up the other vehicles on the road. While they could have been bad guys, its just as likely some of them were nice families out for a Sunday drive who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time..
BUT WAIT! That's not all. With the Adventures of Bayou Billy, you also got light gun stages as well. Playing almost exactly like the NES gem Gotcha! these stages, full of strategy and adrenaline make Halo as extreme as a My Little Pony convention. It wasn't just you and another guy, it was you against a legion of jerks who were standing between you and your woman. They would hide behind trees, duck, jump out of the way, and just when you thought it was all over...you had to fight the helicopter. The helicopter was crazy hard when I was a kid, swerving from one side of the screen to the other, double machine guns blazing down on you. If a game like Metroid Prime is famous for first person shooter and the morph ball stages (two game types), just try to imagine how cool Bayou Billy was as a kid (with three game types).
Though I mentioned it before, this game was ridiculously hard. I believe the only time we actually beat it was with the help of the Game Genie codes. The last stage took place inside the mastermind's mansion. As hard as the game was, it was all worth it for this screen here. How refreshing is it to see a game hero realize his own faults and strive to become a better person in the future. You see Billy, in his recently gained knowledge, knows that the bad guys aren't really to blame for his lady disappearing...he is. If he had been a better man, this would have never happened. The cinematics of this game might have been produced by Peter Jackson, though I can't confirm that. Just a rumor I heard somewhere. Did I mention the hero looks exactly like Paul Hogan in Crocodile Dundee?

So there you have it! The number one video game of all time! If you don't agree with me I dare you to sit through Crocodile Dundee. Or better yet, Crocodile Dundee...2. I think you'll soon see why a game with copyright infringement attention to detail is possibly the most wonderful game ever made. Combine that with three types of stages, more intensity than you can get in a Resident Evil game, more fun than a Mario Kart game, and more obscurity than the Zelda CD-i games and you have a recipe for success. Adventure of Bayou Billy, you provided me with hours of excitement as a kid and I haven't forgotten about you. Rest in peace.