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!