My Top 10 Most Influential Games Of All Time. #1: “Super Mario World.”

So here we are, finally my number one most inspirational game. Its been challenging trying to disseminate so many crucial titles in my life into a compiled list that accurately reflects my own experiences. When I devised the preliminary list over a year ago the selected games I’d compiled were shifting almost daily. Some would move higher, others fell off the list entirely. One game however remained unflinching, vigilant atop a totem of diverging quality and adjusted influence. It was clear even then that “Super Mario World” would top my listing, its venerated effect on me never in doubt no matter how cluttered the rest of the directory was. But the reasons for its exalted position rests not only on the game’s legacy but also because of the stipulated principles for which this entire top ten list was conceived on: influence.

All of the games in my Top 10 have had a profound, influential effect on my life in some manner. They have provided many dutiful hours of irreverence, fun and necessary reprieve from the galling irritation of real life and the confounded people who operate in it. Super Mario World was different however. It didn’t simply distract me from the wearisome strife of school but nurtured my growing affinity for the captivating allure of gaming. Super Mario World enhanced the creative aptitude we all possessed at such a tender age. The boundaries of practicality didn’t apply to us. Reality, responsibility, maturity; these were the afflictions of grown ups. The Mushroom kingdom was my home, little green dinosaurs were my companions and the only threats that accosted me were those instigated by Bowser and his fanatical offspring. When I was here battling stages of disreputable goombas and cunning spectres with a penchant for “peek a boo”, I felt a comfort that few games illicit. Yet the one thing I’m reminded of most when I recall playing this game is my mother and fathers unceremonious split.

I’ve already detailed this traumatic event with emphatic detail in a separate article, so I’ll spare you the entire sob story. But it was one of those life altering moments that despite almost 25 years worth of intervening experiences I can still remember the entire day with vivid clarity. In fact that very day my mother openly encouraged me to play this game to distract me from the suppressed verbal altercations going on between my parents. It might seem odd to associate such an emotionally traumatic period of my life with a game, but it offered so much comfort and stability at a time when life was erratic and confusing. It was an almost cataclysmic event in my life that galvanised my relationship with my mother and frankly destroyed the bond between my father and I. Super Mario World was the comforting antithesis of my parents impending separation. A shield to protect and neuter the pain of witnessing the demise of my family. Playing that game truly was like a cathartic consultation with a psychiatrist, helping me adapt to the inevitable changes in my life. Not through any overt psychological aid, but a pathological solace that remedies that kind of heartbreak by simply entertaining.

I’ve probably made this sound far more dramatic than it really is, accentuating the tragedy of divorce as if it crippled me emotionally for the rest of my life. But it was such a significant part of my childhood that I don’t think I would have dealt with quite as well if not for Super Mario World. This is more than just a cherished piece of nostalgia that evokes memories of care free childish youth and misspent endeavours, but evocative therapy that made me feel better at a time when I couldn’t have felt worse. That is the power of computer games, the purity of their willing ignorance to the real world. And precisely why Super Mario World is and will forever be my #1.

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What are your most inspirational games? Let me know in the comments below. Cheers.

My Top 10 Most Influential Games: #2, “Pokemon Silver”.

No game listed in my “Top 10 Most Influential” evokes quite the sentimentality that Pokemon Silver does. This wasn’t just a game I played, enjoyed and replayed frequently despite frequent attempts from my peers to distract me. Embracing the introverted solitude of my bedroom and avoiding all unnecessary human contact that a game of such eminence permitted. I remember the day I bought it, where I purchased it, where I played it, what the weather was like that day (slightly drizzly if you’re interested) and how far into the game I got on day of purchase. In fact I’ve previously written effusively in another article about it. So having already articulated my affection for this seminal piece of art that so deftly exhibits how I feel about this game, and because I’m exceptionally lazy, here is that account. Enjoy.

Before the Pokemon’s series rapidly expanding ascendance had become an exhaustive manipulation of popularity and subsequent commercialised degradation, it was solely reliant on content of it games. It still surprises me just how many people aren’t aware that it was the games rather muffled arrival on the Gameboy that it inspired the relentless abuse of its name, rather than the excessive trading card aberrations or the seizure inducing animations. But at that age we were all heavily involved with it. Playgrounds had become communities that yielded to the deep analytical discussions concerning the rarity of certain Pokemon cards. You and your friends were hooked, whether you liked it or not. Everyday you’d bring a selection of your most prestigious acquisitions, bound by a double looped elastic band to formally boast about your shiny Charizard, much to the jealous scrutiny of your classmates. There was always that suspicious looking kid too that you never saw in class, who took up residents in that one part of the playground that seemed just a little too seedy, offering shiny cards like some delinquent drug dealer. “Got any shiny Dragonite’s mate? Come on man, just one more hit….. Point!”. I still have all of my accumulated cards, packets and those peculiar pebbles that I have no clue as to their use stored in my loft, awaiting the day that they can be sold for millions to the most discerning of collector’s.

But like all fads it slowly edged its way out of public consciousness through months of global saturation that no amount of savage marketing or celebrity endorsement could ever revitalise. Yet the games continued to flourish despite the economic brevity of its other branded products. Why? Because it was much more than just a fading trend. The trading cards were fun but limited whereas the games offered enhanced game-play, exploration in handheld form and the exultation of battling the Pokemon you had caught.

Despite the Gameboy’s advanced age – having been 6 or 7 years old by the time Pokemon Red and Blue was released, this lethargic device felt revolutionary because of Pokemon. I’d never played a game that exhibited the kind of mutually beneficial convenience that the Gameboy partnered with Pokemon had. It felt so right. To integrate a fully exploitative world into a device I’d almost forgotten I had, with black and white presentation that could be taken with was incredible. These games demonstrated the integrity that was never replicated by Pokemon’s other endeavours, nor the enduring appeal that has seen the series maintain a consistent stranglehold over the mobile gaming system for over 20 years.

My best friend and I had dedicated months to the accumulation of the original 151 Pokemon in Red, Blue and Yellow. Unfortunately I never quite reached that prestigious number, falling short by a mere 8 Pokemon. Though my best friend did and expressed great relish in my failing. I was however the more accomplished combatant having bested him in 6 of our 9 encounters. We bonded over our delusions of being the single greatest Pokemon trainers in the world, simply because we had bested all the automated trainers in the game. We considered ourselves tactical geniuses because we utilised the rudimentary system of type advantage, which was and always has been the basic principle of the games. Having completed Red, Blue and the slightly superior Yellow between us our appetite for more banquet filled Pokemon titles could not be sated. And it was Silver and Gold that promised to be the main course in this tortured metaphor.

For months we’d been researching every conceivable detail we could from magazines. We’d dissect previews, analyse every image (which had now advanced to a colour screen!) and speculate to the novelty of the proposed night and day cycle that was to be the games intrinsic new feature. I had saved every penny I could, bolstered by birthday money I’d hoarded in preparation for Gold and Silvers release a month later. Between us we had decided which version to buy; he chose Gold while I was more than happy with Silver. It was a brisk Saturday morning when I headed into town. We had met at a designated spot and endeavoured to buy our copies together to commemorate this momentous occasion with mutual solidarity. This was a game we knew would change our lives, because we were 13 and at that tender age a new flavoured bubble gum would’ve been life altering. We went to the till tentatively clutching our respective games, paid and left swiftly back to my mates house. I remember just sitting in his room just staring at the shimmering box art, glimmering like some kind of ornate jewel. Eventually we both moved to open them, remove the shiny cartridges from their corrugated sleeves and play them. One of the things I remember most is my mate showing me that “Karl” was one of the default names you could choose for your character! I remember thinking that it was in recognition of me and my greatness. It was fate. Karl was even spelt correctly which is extraordinary considering there were family members who couldn’t do that! And the game itself was nothing short of perfection. Pokemon Silver is still one of the few games that exceeded my high expectations. On that day alone I had already amassed 30 or so Pokemon in my Pokedex and defeated the first 3 gym leaders.

To me the game defied belief. How could such an expansive world, with such embellished themes and dramatic battling system not only be conceived but facilitated by such a compact device? The essence of the game was really in its simplicity. You’re a kid from a small town that catches stray creatures in tiny prison balls and forces them to fight against other incarcerated beasts. It sounds cruel and I’m sure animal welfare organisations have their work cut out for them in Kanto and Johto, but it was fun. Besides Pokemon don’t die, they just faint. Basically your goal was to become the very best, like no one ever was. You just travel from town to town battling your way through the gyms, receiving the respective badges until it was time to face the Elite Four – which oddly required you to defeat five resilient trainers but whose counting, while also engaging with other compelling tangents along the way. Whether it was defeating a resurgent Team Rocket, displacing anthropomorphic trees that obstruct your route, staying in on Friday nights with the express purpose of catching an illusive Lapras, quelling the aberrant behaviour of a shiny Gyrados, taking rides on the S.S Aqua on a sedate Sunday Afternoon, winning bug contests, visiting the day specific children for unique rewards, spending cash gambling at the casino (which is particularly age appropriate), visit the daycare centre to breed yet another Eevee with Ditto or defeating the grossly overpowered character you portrayed in Red, Blue and Yellow.

Gold and Silver were bigger bolder and more expressive with the kind of identity it was trying to create. It made my friend and I feel like we were on an adventure for ourselves, in a self-contained world that didn’t force us to compete against online players or fight some omnipotent being that threatens to destroy the earth. We weren’t heroes ordained with some great purpose to preserve the world from total annihilation, but kids who had dreams of winning a contest and eventually achieving those dreams. I’ve played various iterations in the series since; Ruby & Sapphire. Diamond & Pearl. Black & White. X & Y. Ant & Dec (I may have made the last one up?!). Yet most felt like diminishing returns that merely expanded on the number of Pokemon rather than core of the game. For me nothing before or since has ever captured my imagination to the extent that this did, generating almost euphoric anticipation as well as delivering on the promises it made. By today’s standards it may seem sub par, but on that day in 2001 (when it was finally released in the UK) I was part of that world. And that’s why Pokemon Silver is and continues to be the most influential game I’ve ever experienced.

My Top 10 Most Influential Games. #3: “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City”.

The Grand Theft Auto series has had an expansive wealth of aberrant iterations, some more distinctive than others. With narratives both satirical and breathlessly irreverent GTA has endured despite constantly being undermined as a series for “casual” and perennially censured as the cause for teenage suicide. Controversy embroiled it, defines it, imbuing it with a sense of vigour that allows it to flourish in spite of the continued sneers, directed by tabloid dirt rags and periodicals that simply look to incite fear rather than understand a game that relishes in the madness of violence and criminality. Above all GTA is daft entertainment, with its absurdity only matched by its gratuity. Nowhere is that lunacy more perceptible than in the series most commercially volatile editions: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

I didn’t just adore this game, I lived it. I received it as a Christmas present along with the PS2 that my mother generously saved for, and I subsequently devoted the entire festive period to its completion. The addiction became so prominent that I actually began enacting the scenes as they happened on-screen. Impersonating Tommy Vercetti with such acuity that he’s gestural nuances and speech patterns were mimicked more than was healthy for me. Completing the game was always intoxicating, not because the exhilarating conclusion was satisfying accomplishment (though it was), it’s because I could delete that save file and begin the whole sordid story again! Culturally Vice City was crucial for social kinship in school.

One of the few ways to be socially acceptable or “cool” in school was either not being me or my erudite chums or playing Vice City. If you owned the game and could converse with others familiar with it, then for a few blissful weeks at least, you were courteously accepted by those that didn’t waste the first half of the day talking about and reenacting last nights episode of the Simpsons. The main topic of conversation in school was either Vice City or how one specific student earned a facial scar over the summer holidays (turns out that he fell out of a tree and wasn’t in fact savaged by his Uncle like most of us suspected). The best discussions were always reserved for the supposed controversy surrounding the game, the sensationalized stories by tabloids that detailed the passive influence Vice City would have on inciting violence on children’s vulnerable little minds, which I always found hilariously ignorant and misguided. If there’s anything that concerned parents should have been vigilant of its having their children’s minds corrupted by 80s power ballads.

A 15-year-old me should not know all the lyrics to Toto’s “Africa”! I shouldn’t hear the drums echo in the night, nor for that matter “Die in your arms tonight”, regardless of what you say! Even with several years abstinence from Vice City’s diverse and hilarious radio stations, the soundtrack still resonates with conflicting persuasion. For me it featured the best music that perfectly accompanied an era excess and overindulgence that permeated through the 80’s.

The thing I remember most fondly however was immersing myself the depraved city, occupied by unscrupulous Lawyer’s, Mafia betrayals, suicidal pedestrians and power-hungry charlatans that attempted to impede Tommy Vercetti’s rise to prominence. The journey was so compelling and exceedingly challenging too. Very few of the recent GTA games have prompted the same rage induced spittle that drenched my PS2 controller the way Vice City did. Anything vehicular based or that required a first person perspective were often the most galling parts to bridle, but also satisfying when you heard that musical interlude that indicated the end of a mission, as well as a generous cash reward for your troubles.

GTA Vice City’s most endearing distinction, the one that makes it such an enduring phenomenon is that despite it being years since I last played it, I could still navigate my way around Vice City better than my home town. I knew the best routes to evade the incessant police presence that would pursue me for mild misdemeanours like destruction of property, speeding or soliciting the services of a hooker and repeatedly running over said lady to reclaim my ill-gotten money. It’s that kind of geographical mapping that I believe has made me better at navigation in real life. So I think its fair to say that a game where themes of violence, drugs and torture are abundant affrays and civilians are treated with the same callous ignorance as global warming has actually benefitted me. Perhaps even made me a better person. Maybe. Whatever influence its had on me it throughly deserves its place as one of my all time favourite games. And that’s why GTA: Vice City is my #3 most influential games of all time.

My Top 10 Most Influential Games. #4: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.

“He opened eyes. How long had he been out? The train carriage he was sat in was empty, eerily quiet. He tries to move but flinched in agony, gripping his side to the source of the pain. As he slowly moves his hand away the claret that stains his palm reveals a puncture sustained from an unknown object. A knife? Shrapnel? A bullet? With the wind piercing through the shattered windows, the cold bracing, Nate’s eyes begin to adjust to his surroundings. The wound causing significant discomfort as he struggles to regain his faculties from his hallucinatory stupor. Suddenly a crate comes tumbling through the carriage puncturing the steel doors at the rear, revealing the snow-covered rocks below. The train is vertical?! Drakes chair suddenly begins to shake, bolts loosening it falls through the gaping hole in the back. Nate clings on to the chair in front but slips, tumbling down. The metal grating slows his descent and is somehow able to cling to the frigid bars.

Drake clamours onto the underside of the carriage, heaving himself up as it sways precariously, edging closer to the ashen depths below. With a final excruciating heave Drake gains purchase onto the connecting carriage, hoisting himself up just as it begins to tilt, gravity endeavouring to punish its precarious situation. With the carriage sliding, Drake sprints desperately towards the safety of the cliff, making one final leap, clutching the blunted rock with a last gasp reprieve, struggling back up to the relative security of land. Exhaustion consumes him and laying on the glacial parapet he slips into unconsciousness, fully aware of his fortuitous escape.”

Has there ever been a better, more dramatic opening to a game? That’s rhetorical, of course there hasn’t! “Uncharted 2: Among Thieves” exemplifies everything I admire about modern gaming: the consummate union of graphics, Gameplay and story. As a kid I wanted to pursue a career as an archaeologist, not because of some habitual fascination with excavating material artefacts from a bygone civilisation. But because I wanted to be Indiana Jones. To me Nathan Drakes calamitous escapades are a modern-day equivalent to the films I grew up watching, as well as an homage to Henry Jones Jr’s fedora wearing swashbuckler. I was so smitten with the idea of navigating exotic locations in search of rare antiquities, alluring women and of course punching Nazis in face that I was devastated when I learned the duties listed above weren’t actually prerequisites for archaeology. But Uncharted assuaged this desire by revelling the irreverence of a one man bullet sponge that averts death regardless of the absurd circumstances.

Drake is the linchpin of the series, an exuberant progeny of long-time stalwart Sully who has been involved in more I’ll fated vehicular accidents than a crash dummy. He’s charming cavalier approach to archaeology and his penchant for strolling into more confrontations than Conor McGregor somehow feels more accidental rather than just a convenient Gameplay design. It’s as if Drake procured enough bad luck from breaking a window over a black cat under ladder on Friday the 13th. Nowhere is this bad luck personified more than in Among Thieves as Nate labour’s from one disaster to another. Whether it’s battling a militia in a jungle in Borneo, navigating a war ravaged Nepalese city, surviving encounters with a Tank, an apache helicopter or train derailment, Drake always finds a way of making his life more difficult. Including fighting enhanced humanoid guardians of Shangri-La, attired in Yeti disguises. Yet the story that marshals all of these illogical affairs together is just as reviting.

Like much of the Uncharted series, Among Thieves embellishes historical events to enhance its fictitious narrative. This time Drakes search concerns Venetian explorer Marco Polo’s lost fleet that supposedly journeyed to the fabled city of Shambhala, and disappeared on its return. The expedition to resolve this disappearance unfurls with ever more elaborate set pieces, with some of the most convoluted tombs, contraptions and temples this side of a game of mousetrap. With narrative transitions that seamlessly merged the story with Gameplay, to a point that I’d often be pressing buttons during cut scenes. It’s Uncharted’s deranged inflation of fact and exaggerated adventure that under the guidance of a less gifted developer would seem too fantastical to be compelling, beyond the banality of guns, explosions and effortless killing. But its the characters that keep such a verbose conceit grounded, to a point that you start to believe such emphatic events could happen. Uncharted isn’t just about Drake and his absurd parkour skills, far from it.

Nathan Drake wouldn’t have achieved “greatness from small beginnings” if not for the studious tutelage of paternal father figure Victor “Sully” Sullivan, a man of singular ruggedness that oozes the classic depiction of masculinity. Equipped with intimidating lip furniture that would make Magnum PI (ask your grandparents) feel emasculated. Dispensing sage advice and guidance to his adopted son with a raspy cadence that would make God blush!. His frank, often acerbic retorts are always a welcome distraction from the wearisome hostility Drake often stumbles into, with a style I hope to emulate when I get older. You better believe I’ll be rocking that Porn tache!

Chloe Frazier, an ex “friend” of Drakes beguiles and confuses in equal measure, functioning as the perfect antithesis to Drakes principled scruples in achieving one’s goals. Her selfish nature and greedy intent routinely conflict with Drakes, but also exposes the comparable facets of self-interest that Nate is capable of. Uncharted 2 also features the series most startlingly obvious adversary in the form of Lazarovic. With a Bond-esq scar, bald head and nondescript foreign accent, Lazarovic was never subtle. Harry Flynn was an emphatically more enjoyable foil for Nate to contend with, providing far less maniacal tedium and more dynamic annoyance. But the most resonating character of all was Elena Fisher, especially her kinship with Drake.

Elena is force in her own right: tenacious, assertive, intelligent. Capable of deflecting Drakes pithy, infantile acumen with her own witty swagger. Elena isn’t a femme fatale, an infatuation for Nate to swoon over or anything as derivative as that, she was a person. An individual of singular intent that builds a mutual report with Nate that naturally develops into an intimate relationship that feels organic. I’ve already reflected on how important Elena and Nate’s relationship is to the series in great detail so I won’t digress too much. But without this bond, Uncharted as a series would feel as hollow as a Call Of Duty game. Their romance though suitably predictable, is what really propels the narrative, that by extension influences the cinematic gameplay. Without this bond Uncharted 2 would be just another flashy, hubristic distraction that entertains, rather than endures.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is the game that got me back into gaming along with its predecessor “Drakes fortune, at a time when gaming was beckon far less interesting to me. It also demonstrated that a game could tell a story that was just as compelling and fun as the gameplay itself. It arguably my favourite of the series, though certainly the most inspirational. Which is why “Uncharted 2: Among Thieves” is my #4.

My Top 10 Most Influential Games: #5 “Resident Evil 2”.

So here we are at my number 5, a game that I recall with more clarity than many on this list. Primarily because of just how harrowing this game was for me growing up. Choosing Resident Evil 2 over so many of its prestigious and indeed less revered kindred was a fairly routine decision for me. With the exception of a few misguided entries, the majority of the series has elicited some of the most anxious, bowel shuddering moments of my gaming adolescents. The festering hounds shattering the mansions windows with poop inducing precision. The regenerator’s of Resident Evil 4 that ambled through tight corridors with muffled, gnarled breathing and unsettling palsied twitching. The Nemesis breaking through walls and the conformities of the games infrastructure with literal ferocity, by taking away the safety of entering another room to thwart an enemies pursuit. Not to mention boulder boxing in a volcano, leaches, absurd live action intros, an alphabet worth of viruses and Jill filled sandwiches. But nothing quite resonates with the same enduring terror that this habitually outlandish entry does!

Resident Evil 2 was originally a compromised purchase. Having traded my faulty copy of Crash Bandicoot 2 for Resident Evil 2 from a dubious market proprietor I really had no idea what I had let myself in for. Praise must be paid to the blissful ignorance of my mother though, who if she had any inkling concerning the games sadistic extravagance probably would have forbade me from playing it, not that I would have listened.

Up to this point in my gaming tenure I had mostly been acquainted with more child friendly platformer’s that was much more congenial to my preadolescent sensibilities. So a game of such distinct morbidity, that riled you with its ambient trepidation was so exhaustively disconcerting. My first foray into the decrepit Raccoon City wasn’t particularly successful either, as I wrestled with the controls attempting to manoeuver myself away from the advancing hordes of zombies that had emerged from the incendiary wreckage behind, only to moonwalk directly into their grasp. Wounded I staggered forward trying to negotiate my way past the abandoned cars smouldering beside me as I progressed, only to be embraced by another Zombie just off-screen. The infamous “You Are Dead!” text illuminated the blank screen and I immediately switched it off. I don’t like losing, least of all after a couple of minutes against the games first antagonist. This to me was the equivalent of losing to a goomba in Super Mario!

After considerable time had passed, my juvenile ego renewed by the games absence I persevered, slowly progressing through the ravaged streets, watching in horror as a delightfully gruff gun store owner became a happy meal for the shuffling masses and proceeded to shriek, scream and squeal my way to the cities most elaborately designed police station. This merry little jaunt through the barren streets and musky alleys allowed me to familiarise myself with the revolutionary ability to run, an ability that up to that point I didn’t realise Claire and Leon possessed?! As well as instilling the inherent obsession with conserving ammo to a pathological level, that meant every bullet I squandered just made me more anxious.

Because of the explicit fear this game provoked I could only play it in gradual, interspersed sessions. Every time I stumbled upon a save room I would exhale with exasperated fatigue, requiring a good couple of minutes to compose myself, organise my inventory, combine herbs and use yet another ink ribbon to save my meandering progress before mustering the courage to continue. The only time I’d ever play for more than half an hour is if my step brother was there. And even then we’d hurl the controller at each other as if it were a bomb ready to detonate, signifying that it was their turn to endure the company of giant poisonous tarantulas and feral alligators.

This was also back at a time when a guide or walk-through was reserved for a friend from school who’d completed the game. A friend who was so well versed in the ways of this survival horror that I’d consult with him on an almost daily basis. The stream of convoluted locks, statues, keys with specific insignia’s that had to be found to progress was baffling. Couple that with the constant threat of cannibalism and you got yourself a game that frustrates and terrifies in equal measure.

Despite its absurdity, the clunky movement and graphics that were somewhat dated even when I played it back in early 2000’s, this is still the most memorable entry in the series. I’ll never forget those sudden encounters with the zombies, the faint shuffling and bellowing moans echoing down the corridors. Coming face to face with the sharp-tongued monstrosities that were the lickers, snarling and oozing cascades of saliva as they clung to the ceilings with their serrated claws. William Birkin’s grotesque transformations, Ada Wong’s duplicitous incursion into the Umbrella facility, being hunted by a 7ft Tyrant that would just appear without warning and the dying cop who I had convinced myself was Will Smith, who always had this peculiar inflection every time he said “Umbrella”. And it’s difficult to work out whether it was intentionally sinister, poorly voiced or a composite of both, but I never forgot that scene, nor panicked as much when his slumped, lifeless body lurched up to devour my pixellated face!

Resident Evil 2 gave me more nightmares than I care to remember. Provided some of the most exquisite, genuinely poop you pants moments I’ve ever had. No game since has ever roused the same sustained chills that Resident Evil 2 dished out, nor have my gaming experiences or indeed gaming choices been the same since then. And that’s why Resident Evil 2 is my #5.