The only game where you witness Gary Coleman lob a rotten cow head infected with Mad Cow at you and it is a poison grenade.

This game is a labor of love by the developers, and only from its cult following on Steam has it continued all these years. Each game in this series is a pop-culture time capsule (just look at this games DLC that came out 12 years post-release) and that's part of the charm. A much simpler GTA like game that can be played however you choose.

#32 of top 50

It's always really interesting to go back to the first entry of a game series in order to see where things started. I played Burnout in the early pandemic days of 2020, after a childhood and teenage years spent with 2, 3, Revenge, Dominator and Paradise in varying amounts. I was bored, looking for something to play, and I quickly came to a realisation.

Burnout 1 sucks.

It's the most generic and boring arcade racer you'll ever play, with the world's slipperiest controls and only contains Burnout's iconic crashes as a way of blindsiding the player and allowing the AI to get ahead to the point of breaking the rubber band that should prevent them from getting impossibly far ahead. Just play 2 onwards, Burnout 1 is essentially Burnout in name only, and it shows.

ico is so timeless and influential it became the industry standard for adventure games, and every single company copied it wrong.

ico makes it's narrative be so compelling by making every aspect of the game geared towards it. the combat is simple, the puzzles are simplistic, even the two characters in the journey don't even understand each other. sometimes less is more and ico understands this perfectly.

it's a simple game, with a simple story about companionship, executed flawlessly.

if someone asked me what makes videogames art, this is the first game i'd show.

The most adorable, charming, heartwarming and comfy little game I think I’ve played in some time.

It’s basically Breath of the Wild on a smaller scale and seen through the low-poly eyes of a child, with an absence of combat (unless you count smacking cardboard slimes) and a focus on character interaction and exploration. Though it took me less than six hours to reach 100%, every single minute spent getting there was one of joy, and Lil Critter (as I named them) is the cutest gosh dang video game reptile this side of Spyro. Cute enough to buy a plushie of them, which is basically my version of a stamp of approval.

Don’t miss this one, I am BEGGING you