My 200 Favorites Games: 150-100

First part here

149) Crackdown. Realtime Worlds, 2007.

A fun, bouncy open world game is over-ridden a bit by the UNENDING SEARCH FOR ORBS. MUST FIND MORE ORBS.

148) Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Infinity Ward, 2007.

Both the pinnacle of butt-rock modern military shooters and the reason for their proliferation.

147) Mario Kart 64. Nintendo, 1996.

You've played this. You know what it is. It's still pretty good 20 years on.

146) Left 4 Dead. Turtle Rock Studios, 2008.

Almost more of a proof of concept than a real game, but it's a hell of a concept.

145) Gears of War 3. Epic Games, 2011.

The most vibrant Gears game by far just needed to not come out in 2011.

144) Tomb Raider. Crystal Dynamics, 2013.

I mean, it's basically Uncharted, but that's okay because Uncharted was basically Tomb Raider first.

143) Luigi's Mansion. Nintendo, 2001.

A delightfull unique, short little game that proves Nintendo has never been afraid of being creepy.

142) Mario Kart 8. Nintendo, 2014.

The first "next-gen" game of this generation I played. Still looks great. Still plays pretty well, too.

141) Resident Evil. Capcom, 1996.

There's a reason this is one of the most remade games of all time. There's a perfection in minimalism that this game understood more than any others in the series.

140) Destiny. Bungie, 2014.

What an immense disappointment. What a great concept.

139) Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader. Factor5, 2001.

Even now, 15 years later, this still might be the best looking GameCube title. Hard to imagine a better version of this game existing.

138) Star Wars Battlefront. Pandemic Studios, 2004.

Being a footsoldier is a terrible gig, even in Star Wars. An ingenious idea for a game. Fun as hell, too.

137) Resident Evil 2. Capcom, 1998.

It's a better and more likable game than the original, but I understand why it hasn't gotten remastered. It's a very 1998 game.

136) Mirror's Edge. EA DICE, 2008.

Sometimes one of the most exhilirating games I can remember playing. Sometimes one of the most infuriating. Truly feels unique like few EA games ever do.

135) Left 4 Dead 2. Valve, 2009.

The pinnacle of this peculiar little genre Valve and Turtle Rock created. A diversion for Valve, perhaps, but a good one.

134) Final Fantasy X-2. SquareEnix, 2003.

In hindsight, this is sort of the end of "classic Final Fantasy," but it's hard to blame this game itself for it. There's some real challenge hidden here, among the dress up games and pop songs.

133) Team Fortress 2. Valve, 2007.

It's strange to think the paterfamilias of online shooters is such a strange, idiosyncratic game. Strange and wonderful.

132) Star Wars Dark Forces. LucasArts, 1995.

In its own way, Dark Forces is just as important to the FPS genre as the original DOOM. It brought complexity and verticality to level design. It's also the first good Star Wars action game. 

131) Fable. Lionhead Studios, 2004.

It's not the industry-destroying behemoth Peter Molyneux envisioned, but it's so damned charming and good that I hardly hold that against it.

130) Max Payne 3. Rockstar Games, 2012.

It's almost like Rockstar made a good shooter and then decided to graft someone pretending to be Max Payne into the lead role. A fine game but a poor ending to an interesting franchise.

129) Star Wars Battlefront 2. Pandemic Studios, 2005.

There's a lot of great new stuff in this game, and I think it's a better game than the original, but it feels a little lacking in some respects.

128) Super Smash Brothers. Nintendo, 1999.

This really was one of the craziest concepts for a game I've ever seen. It worked, though.

127) WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos. Blizzard, 2002.

You may not know this, but there was a time when Warcraft was a strategy game, and a damned good one at that.

126) Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. Kojima Productions, 2010.

Only Hideo Kojima would make a game of this depth and complexity for a handheld and then basically use it as a demo for something bigger and better.

125) Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne. Remedy Entertainment, 2003.

Remedy tried to big budget for the sequel to their breakout hit, and while results were mixed, the things in the margin are so insane and weird that it's worth remembering.

124) Borderlands 2. Gearbox Software, 2012.

What a remarkably insane game. What a great, great loot system.

123) Final Fantasy XII. SquareEnix, 2006.

While I'll always prefer their classic turn-based style, this is a pretty excellent battle system surrounded by a workmanlike game.

122) Starfox 64. Nintendo, 1997.

Do a barrel roll (presss Z or R twice!)

121) Unreal Tournament. Epic Games, 1999.

To this day, still might have the best level design of any multiplayer shooter I've ever seen. Looks and sounds pretty good, too.

120) Beyond Good & Evil. Ubisoft, 2003.

A thrillingly unique and vibrant platformer that seems to have been lost to time and shifting design choices.

119) Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. Monolith Productions, 2014.

The Nemesis system remains one of the most truly emergent and varied game mechanics of all time. The game around it is a little dull, even for a huge Tolkien nerd like me, but it's fine.

118) Super Smash Brothers: Brawl. Nintendo, 2008.

The black sheep of the Smash Bros family sees a fun story mode wedged into a wonkier, sloppier fighting game than usual.

117) Half-Life Blue Shift. Gearbox Software, 2001.

A great second expansion that almost nobody played sees a heightened focus on puzzling and platforming that ran counter to shooter trends at the time.

116) StarCraft II. Blizzard, 2010.

A disjointed sequel sees three distinct releases over five years and a fundamental shift in the way Blizzard handles their killer IPs. Remember when Jim Raynor was cool?

115) Dragon Age II. BioWare, 2011.

Terrible level design and a more...focused scope hide what is an extremely smooth combat system and a very well-written game. It's not a great BioWare game, but it's pretty good for anyone else.

114) Batman: Arkham Origins. WB Games Montreal, 2013.

Publishers demanded another Arkham game to stem the tide between City and Knight, so a secondary team created what basically amounts to an expansion pack for the former. There are worse things.

113) Final Fantasy VIII. Square, 1999.

Smack dab in the middle of the golden age of Final Fantasy is this bizarre, moody, disjointed title that is personifies all the worst things about the series. And yet, I still have a lot of affection for it. It's a good game.

112) Quantum Break. Remedy Entertainment, 2016.

They're called Remedy Entertainment because they don't just make games. Except that they do. But also they don't. What a strange company.

111) World of WarCraft. Blizzard, 2004.

The best MMORPG of all time, bar none. I'll probably never play it again, but I don't regret the few months I did. It set the standards for the next decade of game design.

110) Firewatch. Campo Santo, 2016.

One of the better looking and more notable indie games of the last few years is about more than most people might tell you.

109) Roller Coaster Tycoon. Chris Sawyer Productions, 1999.

I've played this game more than I would ever admit, and I'll still never really feel like I'm done with it.

108) Metal Gear Solid Ground Zeroes. Kojima Productions, 2014.

Basically gaming's most expensive and gigantic demo sees the almighty Fox Engine roar to life and tease us with what's to come.

107) Wolfenstein: the New Order. MachineGames, 2014.

A story of surprising pathos and skillful world building sees a revival for one of the granddaddies of the FPS genre.

106) Diablo III. Blizzard, 2012.

I waited a dozen years for this. It was pretty good, but some small bit of the previous game's charm was lost in the waiting.

105) Duke Nukem 3D. 3D Realms, 1996.

A game that could only ever exist in 1996 has seen some greatly inventive level design overshadowed by its embarrassing relic of a main character.

104) The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Bethesda Softworks, 2002.

The biggest game I had ever seen from the moment I saw it until the moment I saw the next one. Some wildly creative art design doesn't always mesh with the sometimes very dull game it surrounds.

103) Gears of War. Epic Games, 2006.

Microsoft's savior probably ended up doing more harm than good to third person games in general (cover systems should die), but it's worth the time, even in 2016.

102) Star Wars: The Old Republic. BioWare, 2011.

A story-based MMO is a great concept. This era of Star Wars is a great concept. It didn't result in a great game, but I've gotten a lot of mileage out of it.

101) Limbo. Playdead, 2010.

An ineffably gorgeous little platformer that gets under your skin and sticks with you. One of the most important indie games of all time.

100) Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. Naughty Dog, 2007.

This is a game that both holds up well and not at all. It looks great, even by 2016 standards, but the gunplay leaves a lot of room for improvement. It's a game that's great on the surface and almost unplayable farther than that.

Next part here