Friday, July 15, 2011

Top 9 games to watch

I repeat: top 10 lists are overrated.  Top 9 lists are how I roll.  And, to throw another number into the mix, my husband and I just celebrated 7 years of marriage.  Happy Anniversary, baby.  Here are the top 9 games (in no particular order) I have watched over those (and a few more) years:

1. The Resident Evil Series - Neither my husband nor I can remember exactly which installments of this game series I have watched.  All I know is that these games give me just enough tingle.  They are psych-yourself-out scary.  This may be where my video game voyeurism began, in a dark dorm room, with about 12 other students, laughing at the gamer who just peed himself.  

2. World of Goo - simple, but awesome.  You manipulate goo for pete's sake!  I was pregnant for the first time when this came out.  It was about all my brain could handle.  It was soothing in its "mesmerization." 

3. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas - I know this game should offend me, but it does not.  Sometimes I even felt bad for Carl.  His life (and his woman) was no picnic.   

4. Puzzle Quest - watching this game was almost romantic.  I would curl up on the couch behind my husband while he played.  We would listen to The National over the game's goofy soundtrack and unwind.  I would help him find groups of four gems.  I would state that he was "victorious!" when he defeated the enemy. 

5. Rainbow Six Vegas 2 - As I mentioned before, this was a first person shooter I could get behind.  It had class.  I watched the co-op mode of this game almost every night for awhile.  I even learned the cheap places you could stand to take out a dozen guys as they came down the ladder.   

6. Burnout - Mostly I just liked watching the part where you strategically launch your vehicle in the air so that it would crash into as many tankers as possible, blowing up as many other cars as possible in order to gracefully slide through the icon that would blow you up yet again so you could get "times 4" points.  Yeehaa!

7. Shadow of the Colossus - Epic.  Even though the hand grip timer gave me anxiety attacks similar to middle school gym class, I always loved watching this game.  I enjoyed the hunt for the glowing weak spots atop the huge hairy beasts.  Stab on.  

8. The "mount her" fighting game - I can't recall the name of this game and I am too lazy to find out.  During fights, the narrator constantly chants "counter," but it sounds like "mount her" and it cracks me up every time.  Fighting games are fun to watch in general.  The outfits and character names alone make it worthwhile.

9. Super Mario Bros. - A few football seasons ago, my Baltimore Ravens lost a playoff game to Indy.  Everyone who gathered for our viewing party almost left completely distraught.  Thankfully, two friends busted out the Wii to play the original version of Super Mario Bros. to close out the night.  We all rooted them on, shrieking at the near deaths (those enemies are ruthless in their strolling along).  When they beat the entire game by the skin of their teeth we all felt somehow justified.  And satisfied.

I hope you enjoyed my list.  Now tell me...what do YOU like to watch...

3 comments:

  1. I think my tops to watch are definitely varied from my top to play, but there's no denying that many are thanks to playing them with Z.

    (no order)
    1. Limbo - Tim Burton's gloom meets Alfred Hitchcock's suspence before spiking with Tarantino-like violence. Creepy and somehow beautiful. Loved watching it... much, much creepier than actually playing it.

    2. Super Mario Galaxy - This was the first Wii game I every watched anyone play and it pretty much blew my mind when I watched Mario walking in and around mini plants, defying gravity with the utmost perplexity. Super fun and inventive, too. I remember just chuckling over and over at the cleverness of it all.

    3. Portal 2 - I watched Z play the first one, but the sequel vamped up the creativity to unspeakable levels... PLUS the narration was hilarious! As much as it made me want to play it, I was perplexed just watching Z explore the world.

    4. Shadow of the Colossus - This might be the best game ever to watch simply because size and scale is so epic throughout the game. There were times I would forget I was even playing when just gasping at the magnitude of the task ahead. See also: feeling like I was actually falling through the air when jumping on the back of the winged colosssus in the water ruins.

    5. Mass Effect - I don't know how they make games this beautiful and real-looking, but they certainly don't pull it off on the Wii.

    ReplyDelete
  2. If Blythe was interested she'll end up trying to play most games. Here's 3 games she did not try herself and only liked to watch.

    1) Bioshock - Cause the underwater utopia was a rich environment was creepy and cool.

    2) Mortal Kombat(2011) - Street Fighter is my fighting game of choice but Blythe would squeal with glee every time I would bust out another gory fatality.

    3) Portal - She loved GLaDOS's insults and now loves Jonathan Coulton songs.

    As for me, I like to watch ALL video games.... except for sports, cause sports suck.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I liked watching Lara Croft, Tomb Raider...lots of puzzles. And the perspective did not make me want to toss my cookies.

    I can't get into the gory stuff...don't like guns.

    ReplyDelete