Recently a few friends of mine have posted their top 20 or top 25 favorite games of all time on their blogs.  Not to be outdone, I have compiled this list of my top twenty-six games of all time.  :)

26. Metroid:  Should I have included this?  I never truly played the game as it was meant to be played.  I just entered the “Justin Bailey” code and explored to see how far I could get.  This was how I would frequently spend several hours in the afternoon when I got home from school.  But this game was more or less my introduction to video games so I think it must be included.
25. New Super Mario Bros.:  I ranked this game kind of low because it is very recent and may not stand the test of time, but the game was fantastic.  It was a little on the easy side—I mean, I managed to get everything in the game without using any FAQs.  But it was great, and I liked that they resisted the urge to include elements like flying from SMB3 and SMW—you actually want to get fire flowers again!  What I’d really love to see next is New Super Mario Bros. 2, such that NSMB2:SMB2::NSMB:SMB.
24. Half Life 2:  Another one that might be higher if it weren’t for the fact that I am just now playing through it, but it has every indication of being a favorite.  With PC games I don’t mind waiting until they are cheaper and patched.  I consider any PC game straight out of the box to be more like a public beta than a final release.  But I’m a console gamer at heart.
23. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles In Time:  This may seem a little out of place, but it was a really fun beat-em-up game.  Not sure how well it would stand up now though.
22. Mario Kart: Double Dash:  This game was lots of fun as long as you played it the right way—two people to a kart.  I can imagine that I wouldn’t have liked this game so much if I hadn’t played through it with Garrison.  It suffered from the same problem as every other Mario Kart though: once you unlock every track you don’t really want to play anymore.
21. Goldeneye 007:  A classic.  Caverns and Frigate were my favorite levels.  I got all the cheat codes.  That was not an easy task—to get the last one I played the same stage (Facility on 00 Agent) over and over for like four hours straight!
20. Unreal Tournament:  The only FPS that I spent significant time on in multiplayer.  Morpheus r0x0r3d.
19. Donkey Kong Country:  The game that pushed the limits of 16-bit gaming to new levels.  I remember being on the phone with Peter as we tried to figure out where the last two secrets were, in order to get the coveted 101% rating.
18. Metal Gear Solid 2:  The only game for a Sony system that will make it on this list, this game was really cool.  I haven’t played MGS3 yet, maybe some day...
17. Super Mario Bros. 3:  What list would be complete without this game?  This was the upper limit of what an 8-bit system could do.  I have to confess that I never beat the game without Game Genie until I played the Super Mario All-Stars version much later.
16. Banjo-Kazooie:  3D platformers never managed to take hold like they did in 2D, but I liked them a lot, and this one was lots of fun.  I don’t really have a problem with collecting five thousand tokens in every level.
15. Animal Crossing:  I would be remiss as a list-maker if I didn’t include this game, even if it calls my sexual orientation into question.  Non-simultaneous multiplayer!  A game that you never really beat, you just sort of get tired of playing it!  Interesting sidenote: my in-laws love this game and have two avatars each.
14. Final Doom:  For those unaware, Final Doom was the Doom 2 engine, playing two complete, 32-level games (TNT: Evilution [sic] and The Plutonia Experiment).  I also loaded the “Ultimate Doom” levels (the original game plus a few new levels).  Anyway, I remember playing this when I was in high school.  Anytime I hear a song from Live’s “Secret Samadhi” album I think of this game, because I listened to it while playing for a while.  I also had a lot of fun creating a few Doom levels, and playing multiplayer with Garrison and Peter.  Of course, this was back in the day when you had to have no less than four phone lines to do a 1-on-1 death match: one for each computer and one for each person so that you could decide when your modem should call their modem.  Fun times.
13. Mega Man X:  I liked the X games much more than the main series, although I do have fond memories of holding “left” on controller 2 with my foot while playing Mega Man 3.  I remember X2 and X3 being pretty good too, but I never owned them, so only X1 is represented here.
12. Roller Coaster Tycoon:  Countless hours freshmen year of college were spent designing wicked roller coasters.  So much fun.  I’ve recently gotten Roller Coaster Tycoon 3, which is the same thing but 3D and you can ride the rides.  Only difference is I have less free time now.
11. Super Mario 64:  The first thing I did was climb a tree.  The second thing I did was jump in the moat.  So much freedom!  It was amazing!  I’d really like to see a remake of this game with modern graphics (kind of like Super Mario All Stars did with the original SMB games).
10. Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy’s Kong Quest:  The best of the DKC games.  Graphics were actually improved from the first game, and gameplay was expanded, and the difficulty went up a little bit to more or less exactly where I would like it to be.
9. Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem:  This game was amazing, with an unusually good storyline.  I went back through it two summers ago and still enjoyed the story.
8. Prince Of Persia: Sands Of Time:  An amazing game, with innovative controls that allow you to easily do things that look incredibly cool.  Unfortunately the sequel sucked.  Anyone know if the third one was any good?  I never bothered to give it a try..
7. The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time:  Link made a transition into 3D flawlessly.  I can’t wait to play Twilight Princess this year.
6. Metroid Prime:  Another great transition to 3D (despite what Ryan says).  This game really felt more like a first-person Zelda game than a first person shooter.  All the exploration from Super Metroid was still there.  I didn’t like the sequel quite as much because it felt much more FPS-y, even though it was a decent game.
5. Super Mario RPG:  This is the only RPG I’ve ever really played unless you count the “sequels” Paper Mario and Paper Mario 2.  Owning only Nintendo systems has made it difficult to play them..  I really enjoyed watching Garrison play Skies of Arcadia though.
4. Super Metroid:  I remember the day I got this game I played for like six hours straight without a Player’s Guide or anything, made it all the way to that big room in Maridia where you use the Grapple Beam to get across the top of the room to the door going up, and there’s a platform under the door and you can use the grapple beam to spin all the way around it.  I eventually beat this game with 100% in less than three hours to get the best ending.
3. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island:  My favorite Mario game.  The graphics were a nice break from what everyone was used to, and the levels were really fun.  Too bad the “Yoshi’s Story” pseudo-sequels weren’t very good.  But now they’re actually making a true sequel for the DS!
2. The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker:  A lot of people shied away from this game because of the cartoon graphics, which is really a shame.  This is definitely my favorite Zelda game.  I loved the exploration and the vastness of the world (even if it was all water).

Drum roll please!

1. Super Smash Bros. Melee:  The best game to have in a dorm, hands down.  Junior year of college was awesome because of this game alone.  Garrison and I even organized tournaments.  I put the tournament posters back up on my site today, in case you’ve never seen them.  I wonder.. will we still be playing this game thirty years from now?  The gameplay is perfect and I think the graphics will hold up (unlike.. say.. Smash for the N64).  I am concerned that Super Smash Bros. Brawl will be unable to live up to this game.  I guess time will tell.

Some honorable mentions go out to the following great games, left out to give the list more variety: The Legend Of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, The Legend Of Zelda: A Link To The Past, Metroid Fusion, Metroid: Zero Mission, Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong’s Double Trouble.

It is now year 20X5 of the history of the cosmos, and something terrible has happened.