RedRooster

The countdown continues, although there's no chance I'll write something that'll top @FLips 19 = The Secret of Monkey Island Very few game intros give me the same sense of nostalgia as the Amiga version of The Secret of Monkey Island. I get goosebumps, I remember being a child sitting in front of my Amiga 600, struggling to figure out how to find the sword master, and what to do with that damn rubber chicken. I remember actually laughing at a game for the first time - although I'm pretty certain most of the jokes will have gone over my head at the time. The Secret of Monkey Island is one of the few games I play pretty much once a year. The characters, soundtrack locations and narrative all meld together to create a game world that feels lived in; a game world that sucks you in and makes you wish that you were there. Guybrush Threepwood remains one of the greatest video game characters ever - and Monkey Island remains timeless. At the risk of bringing personal biases into this countdown, I'm absolutely delighted it made the top 25. 19 = The Last of Us Part II How do you talk about The Last of Us Part 2 without veering into spoilers? I'm going to do just that, so don't worry, but it adds a layer of challenge in explaining why this is one of the best video game stories ever told. So rather than focus on the plot, I'll focus on the representation. You have two female leads, in an industry where male characters dominate. One of them is gay, and it's never sexualised or sensationalised - another milestone in AAA videogames. In addition to that, you have another main character who is trans; someone whose journey and the discrimination they face is explored in a sensitive and sensible way - in a story thread that feels even more important than it did on release, given the hatred and venom spewed in the direction of the trans community. The game balances all of this without it ever feeling like any of the above is the story - the story itself is about hatred, how it can consume you. It's told masterfully. 19 = Pro Evolution Soccer 4 The only football sim to make the countdown - and for a long while, Pro Evolution Soccer was the football sim. FIFA had the licenses, but Pro Evolution Soccer had the gameplay. You weren't going to a friend's house to play FIFA anymore, you were going there to play Pro Evolution Soccer; and lots of it at that. Thank fuck online play didn't exist back then otherwise I don't think I'd ever have got the grades to go to university. The commentary is still a bit stilted and there's a weird situation where some players have real names for their clubs, but fake names at international level - but all of that just serves to make the game more memorable. At the time, it felt like Konami had perfected the football sim; and given how well this game holds up, perhaps they did. 18. Fallout: New Vegas "War, war never changes." I spoke about world-building earlier on in this countdown; but it's rare that a game manages to establish the grimness of its world in the first four words of its intro. It's grimy, it's in ruins and it's still reeling from a war that happened centuries ago - but it's also packed with memorable characters, moments of warmth and a quirky sense of humour that leaves you wondering if the end of the world was really that bad, after all. There's so much to discover in this game - maybe it's a diary written on a computer, revealing the final moments of someone after the bombs dropped. Maybe it's a group of slavers transporting human cargo across the desert; or maybe it's the New Vegas strip itself; packed with life - and corruption. 16 = Goldeneye Perhaps surprisingly - this is the only FPS game that has made the list; unless you count New Vegas - which I don't. In the 90s, this was the multiplayer game. For me, it was the multiplayer game that I died a lot in. I had no idea that friend groups made agreements not to go Oddjob. My pals certainly did not. We all thought my friend David was shit-hot at Goldeneye, and we were all terrible. We'd get systematically murdered, one by one as he snuck around the corridors. We also faced the not insignificant issue of it being his N64, so he always got to pick his character first. Still, it was - and remains - a lot of fun; with local multiplayer adding a level of enjoyment that online games struggle to recapture. 16 = Grand Theft Auto 3 Is this the first true open world game? Whatever the case, I won't have been the only person who spent hours driving recklessly around Liberty City; listening to the radio and ignoring the rules of the road, while completely forgetting what I was supposed to be doing in the main story. Although the template for GTA has evolved, it hasn't really changed - Rockstar discovered a money-making formula, that many have tried to replicate; but no one has managed to surpass. There's a reason GTA VI is one of the most anticipated games in video game history, and the foundations for its near-mythical status began here. 15. Tetris There's something magical about Tetris - it's a simple idea that somehow manages to remain fresh whichever decade you look at. The Gameboy version was arguably the ultimate handheld game in the 90s; and almost certainly the one with the most cross-generational appeal. Fast-forward to the 2000s, and you had Tetris releasing on mobile phones - making time-wasting all the more convenient. Then there was Tetris DS, adding a fresh coat of paint to a timeless formula. Now, in 2024, you have the hyper-addictive Tetris 99 and the visually stunning Tetris Effect; creating brand new ways to experience the game without ever changing the core formula. There are games on this list which are dated, and there are games on this list which will date - I'm not sure that Tetris can date. More to follow...

19 = The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (With thanks to @FLips for writing - I feel privileged to have been the first person to read this) It's something I often refer to in my reviews, but certain games and consoles symbolise periods throughout my life and whether good or bad I can pinpoint them down to places, times and feelings. For example the NES brings back memories of my Uncle driving us home and speeding down the back lanes, only for my Grandad to absolutely chew him out for putting his only family at risk while I sat and tried to collect hats on Bart vs The Space Mutants in my bedroom. Megadrive makes me think of playing Sonic 2 on my birthday with my best mate and walking to McDonalds with him, my Mam and my Brother with Sky Chase Zone on pause for when we got back, or asking my Granny and Grandad if I could call one of the hotlines in the back of a cheat book to get past a bit on Fantastic Dizzy and being told a very solid "no", even when I offered to pay what would have been an extortionate bill with my pocket money. For SNES it's borrowing and playing Donkey Kong Country 2 on a rainy day and hearing Stickerbrush Symphony for the first time, pausing the game and just sitting in silence for what feels, in hindsight, like it could have been hours. I got my Gamecube in Christmas of 2003 after reading a big feature on Mario Kart Double Dash in GamesMaster Magazine and falling in love. I was lucky enough that it came with a limited edition disc that featured all the console Zelda games up to that point, and a demo for The Wind Waker. Despite getting Final Fantasy X and Smackdown Here Comes The Pain, it was my Zelda disc which got major play time that Christmas. It featured three segments from the final game, one in the fire temple on Dragon Roost Island, a stealth section on Forsaken Fortress and another on Windfall Island for a casual bit of exploration and chatting with NPCs. I played this demo to death over and over until I got the full game, and then I played that to death. I adore everything about Wind Waker. The graphics are timeless, the music is a joy and the gameplay is so beautifully varied that it's hard to set up sails and put the controller down. It's just a wonderful package full of charm and character. It's a vast sprawling adventure with every square on the map having an island or place to visit so you'd jump in your boat and sail there while that stunning Great Sea theme played and the seagulls flew behind you. Maybe you'd find a dungeon to unlock a key new item, or a gauntlet of enemies with a heart container at the end. There are minigames and challenges and memorable characters scattered across the whole game. I'd never really played a game like it up to that point. I was a big fan of platformers like Spyro and Mega Man but big adventure games were never really something I dove into much, if at all. I was blown away by the size of the whole thing, even in the demos and the potential bigger world it presented to me. There are games I'd loved but none of them were to this scale or where every new encounter or area made me think wow this is perfect. Some of it may be rose tinted, for sure, but I think for fans of the series everyone's first Zelda game is something special. The same way a whole generation of kids grew up with the original on the NES, or Ocarina of Time on the N64. Even though I played this at home initially, it's the memory of sitting on the edge of the bed at my Grandad's that stuck with me, the same way it did for most of my games and consoles growing up. I really cherished that place. When he died in 2007 those memories for me just kind of stop. I've obviously had consoles since then but the memories don't mean as much to me and neither do the games. The Gamecube was the final console I played at his house, after starting with the NES and playing nearly everything between. George Foreman's KO Boxing and Parasol Stars sitting on the floor in his room with the curtains drawn, or knockoff 120-1 Game Boy cartridges full of random Japanese games like Shin Chan as I sat and basked in the sun on the top of the landing. Another good one is staying up playing Final Fantasy IX on the PS1 until the early hours of the morning and then waking up early to watch SMTV Live. Entire timespans I can narrow down to games and moments in a house where I have nothing but good memories. I never truly processed his illness then, or even now really. When staying in a hospital bed at home with oxygen was no longer viable and he was sent to hospital, teenage me was tasked with looking after his house. I spent this time naturally having friends over and we would sit and play Zelda, Smash Bros Melee, and Mario Kart Double Dash in the front room. If I was out playing nearby I'd check in for a while and make sure it was ready for him coming back. Even on bonfire night when my family all got together at his house, as we did every year, this time to burn all of his remaining furniture, I remember still having optimism he was just in a bad way and would be coming home soon. Obviously he never did. There's a moment in The Wind Waker where Link finds himself in Hyrule, flooded to the bottom of the ocean, monochrome and suspended in time at a point before Ganon could find and destroy it. You pull the master sword from it's pedestal and as you make your way back to the exit, the colour floods back into the world around you, bringing everything back to life as the iconic Hyrule Castle theme begins to play. It's a beautiful moment and arguably my favourite in the game even back when I originally played it. With time though it's came to represent the link between the game and my memory of it. It's a preservation of a place that I wanted to keep safe forever but realistically couldn't. Then, for a very long time everything was monochrome and at a standstill. While it took a while I did finally pull that sword from the pedestal too. A big part of that was meeting my wife and playing the Zelda games with her. I couldn't wait to show her Wind Waker and this year I've been playing it again and it still fills me with joy. I mentioned in my nomination how the Dragon Roost Island themes in Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom had me welling up, and it's the same when I go back to play the original and hear it. There I am, back in 2004 playing on the edge of my Grandad's bed, and here I am now in 2024 sat with my wife as we sail the great seas together, the colour back and life moving forward.

The votes are in and counted, and I've narrowed our list down to a top 25 - after that there's a bit more parity in the votes, so ranking them would be a bit challenging. A total of 192 different games were nominated - showing how many brilliant videogames exist, and how diverse our tastes are on this forum. I'll be posting the countdown in chunks, and a few guest writers (other members of the UKFF) have contributed posts about their favourite games - so a huge thanks to them for taking part. Before we begin the countdown, some stats... 192 games nominated 6 of these were wrestling games (and one of these wrestling games made the top 25...) 26 of these were football/football management games...nine of which were nominated by @gmoney 22 different games were awarded 10 points by posters - including three different Zelda games (Ocarina of Time, Wind Waker and A Link Between Worlds) Smackdown: Shut Your Mouth - the only wrestling game to earn 10 points On the other side of things...16 games finished with one point after everything was tallied up - those games were: Assassin’s Creed Odyssey Assassin’s Creed Origins Championship Manager Italia Command & Conquer: Red Alert Cool Boarders 2 Golden Axe Limbo Megaman X Mercenaries Overcooked Pikmin 4 Pro Evolution Soccer 98 Rollercoaster Tycoon Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes Super Mario Odyssey Unreal Tournament 2004 But now though, on with the countdown, starting with... 24 = Spyro the Dragon It's a top 25 that starts off at 24, as we have two games with an equal number of points, the first of which is Spyro the Dragon - the only PS1 platform game to make the countdown. Spyro is a collectathon platformer that absolutely oozes charm, with a fantastic soundtrack (just listen to that intro theme), graphics which still look pretty gorgeous and a storyline which feels very nineties in a way that makes you love the game even more. Revisiting the game for this list, I thought it had aged well; although I think the best version of it is in the Spyro: Reignited Trilogy (currently just £12 on Steam, if you're interested), which sorts out some of the control quirks. 24. The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion For me, this was on the of the first games of the PS3/360 era that really made it feel like the new generation had arrived. After the intro, you could do whatever you wanted. Being able to ignore the main quest and explore the open world to my heart's content, utterly blew my mind. Not only that, but I could be evil. I could be a saint, an anti-hero or the devil himself. While the game probably shows its age a bit now, it's still tremendous fun to play with great characters, and excellent mods to enhance the game and your overall experience. With rumblings of a remake on the horizon, it may be that the game pushes itself back into the public consciousness sooner rather than later. 23. WWE Smackdown! Here Comes the Pain The only wrestling game to make the top 25, so therefore the greatest wrestling game of all time according to the UKFF? One for a future topic perhaps. Either way, the Smackdown games were the gateway drug to wrestling for so many of us, and this one is an absolute blast. They say you never forget how to ride a bike, and I'm pretty sure the same is true for the Smackdown video games - I can't imagine I'm the only one who remembers the control system as if I last played the game this morning. The entrances, gathering friends to play through the Royal Rumble - switching controller on elimination, growing Gamefaqs for the best CAWs - there's so much nostalgia wrapped up in this game for so many of us. Very few wrestling games have been able to capture the fun of the sport in the way the Smackdown games did. It's a four-way tie next, taking us all the way to 19th - and our first guest writer, the brilliant @FLips - I want his writing to speak for itself for reasons that will become clear, so I'm going to post it separately, before continuing with the countdown...stay tuned...

The best thing Tony Khan could do at this point, when comparing AEW and WWE would be to say they’re doing a lot of good things right now, but so are AEW. He could say that there’s a reason wrestling is popular right now, and it’s the competition between both companies, which means both are bringing their A-game. Just say something positive, to begin to diffuse at least some of the tiresome tribalism that exists. Same goes for Triple H, for that matter. If the opportunity arises in a presser to bash AEW, don’t. And it might well arise, given that it’s likely someone will ask him about this daft comment.

When AEW was contemplating a roster split, they trademarked the term ‘transfer portal’ (website: Fightful) which suggests to me a transfer window style approach, Khan taking inspiration from football, much as he did for aspects of the Continental Classic. I think that’s a good idea, and WWE should take that approach. You could extend it over weeks, as the GMs look to sign the hottest stars from NXT, and negotiate to sign talent from one another. And there would at least be logic to it. And talking of logic - another daft one from the draft is Sheamus. When he got injured, he was a Smackdown wrestler. They had him return the week before the draft on Raw, then drafted him to Raw. Why not have him either return to Smackdown, and play up Raw poaching him, or just wait until today for his return? I don’t understand their thinking at all.

I don’t think it’s small at all, I’m totally with you on that. Breakker wasn’t on Smackdown long enough to get himself involved in a storyline - it’s a really bizarre way to book him. And while I understand the message they were trying to send by drafting Hayes so early, they partly undid that by having him lose to Cody on night one. It was a night of strange decisions. And if NXT wrestlers are eligible, why would you draft Kiana James over a higher achiever? Zero logic.

Firstly, I wasn’t referring to you when it comes to defamation, which is why I quoted you separately. There’s a comment which directly accuses an individual of something, which I’ve purposely not quoted so I don’t repeat the allegation, which is also something to be avoided, in a legal sense. EDIT: Although I would be careful about inferring anything, even against someone named in a lawsuit. It’s just not worth risking. As far as Twitter goes, it’s noise from a tribal minority and should be ignored. But even if you want to address it, there’s not much point doing it here, where we’re all in agreement that sex trafficking is horrific. But that doesn’t justify Tony Khan’s comments - in fact, the context makes it worse. He’s used serious, grave allegations to take a flippant dig at WWE. It’s crass, and stupid.

I’m going to point out the obvious again here. Before you allege anything online, maybe ask yourself the question of whether you could prove it, should someone opt to take legal action against you. Because that’s how defamation laws work in the UK - the onus is on you to prove the allegation is true, not on the individual to prove that it’s false. And in the case of one person mentioned here, they’ve not even been mentioned in lawsuits, so good luck with that. And yes, it might be unlikely that legal action is taken against you - but I’d point to the online recklessness surrounding Baby Reindeer - this certainly can happen. You’re speaking as if people aren’t sickened about the Vince McMahon allegations - of course they are. It’s possible to be utterly sickened by the McMahon allegations, and hold your head in your hands over something Tony Khan has said. And the upset isn’t ’more about’ Khan than Vince, you can treat each separately. It’s an addition to, and yes, obviously people are more disgusted by Vince than a stupid comment. I’d also suggest looking at the context of his flippant comment, and consider why people might be upset or frustrated.

Well, that was totally pointless. Why hold a draft, if your ultimate objective is to keep the rosters largely the same? Even if Raw provides more surprises, why make it a two night draft, and why do it in this format? Have each show make trades or something instead, so that every roster switch is fresh. Booking Hayes to immediately lose to Cody in under 10-minutes after being a first round pick was also an odd decision.

I’m not familiar with how defamation laws work in the States compared to here (outside of there being a greater allowance for freedom of speech), but is his idiotic comment potentially defamatory? Either way, he’s once again proven himself to be the personification of an internet troll, without being smart enough to moderate himself when the anonymity of the internet is gone.

I’m not sure they would be. It’s in Scotland, very few people here have reason to have any sort of opinion on him.

I’ll echo most of what @FLips says, but I’d add that - when it comes to a starting point - definitely don’t discount VI or IX. VI has aged incredibly well, and IX is just good fun. VII is my favourite game of all time, though I almost hesitate to say that because I don’t want to build unreasonable expectations. I, II and III have all aged poorly. They’re Nes games and feel very much like that. IV is decent, and I have a soft spot for V - but VI is when it really becomes something special. Brilliant story, an incredible soundtrack and loads of secrets to discover.

I’m absolutely amazed he hasn’t been picked up elsewhere. Brilliant news for TNA, but I’d have put money on him getting poached. I hope he managed to nab a substantial pay increase.

It may just be bluster, but Sadiq Khan has tweeted the following: To which Triple H replied... I mean...could it actually be happening? I couldn't justify paying the prices being charged to attend Clash at the Castle in Glasgow, but I'd willingly break the bank to attend Wrestlemania in London...

I hope they don't use this as an opportunity to give Ric Flair a new on-screen role.

I've not seen it, unfortunately. The thing with AEW is that the wrestling is so good that having a good match doesn't in itself make you stand out; there has to be that extra something. Ospreay has it. Moxley has it. Swerve has it. MJF has it. There are countless others too - I'm yet to see it in Okada, but that's not to say that I won't. Given the number of Championship celebrations WWE held after Wrestlemania, I can understand why Tony Khan might have wanted to avoid something along those lines; but I'd hope on reflection, he'd accept that what he chose to do instead was a mistake.

I have to admit, I'm just not feeling it with Okada yet. He's not bad, don't get me wrong, but he's not living up to the mystique built around him. I've not seen any of his work in Japan, so I can only go by what I've seen in AEW (and, erm, TNA I suppose) It's still early days, but he's failed to stand out so far.

Even when he's not on screen, AEW is very Tony Khan heavy; I imagine he's referred to on screen more than any of the wrestlers. There's something very Michael Scott or David Brent-like about his awkwardness when he does appear on screen; not that I think they should tap into that. Rather, it might be worth using this as a way of introducing a new 'President' type figure to make big announcements - Sting, perhaps? To be clear, I don't mean a GM-type figure - just someone who appears when you know things are getting serious. We'll see where this goes, I guess. There's a best case scenario of this leading to months of interesting television, and there's a worst case scenario of this becoming a storyline entirely based around him getting his revenge; or living out a childhood fantasy of actually booking himself in a match. Having Will Ospreay chase the International Title seems - at face value - like a bit of a waste, although I'm totally in favour of this if Ospreay starts winning and consolidating men's singles titles, before eventually going after the big one. I also still hate the formula of long singles matches with obvious outcomes. I imagine that's plays more than a minor part in AEW struggling to attract an audience - even when they run interesting angles, there's a heavy portion of each show dedicated to the wrestling equivalent of a friendly match. I accept that some people enjoy it, and while it's probably fine in moderation, I think enough people find the predictability of this approach dull for it to be wise for Khan to reassess this approach.

This is utterly mad. I was in the queue with about 6,000 people ahead of me - but after seeing this, I've left. Thanks for sharing, and saving my time. There's not a chance I'm paying £610 for these. Hopefully I (and others on here) have more luck if/when individual tickets go on sale.

I've never really bought the idea of Priest as a World Champion, even before he won the belt. That said, I think the only way his run has a chance of working would be to have a strong first challenger, as opposed to someone no one buys as a realistic threat. Jey can work as a challenger, I think, but only if the champion is strong. If Drew hadn't lost the belt, I don't see any harm in Drew/Jey as a title feud. Honestly, I think they missed a trick by not somehow transitioning the Money in the Bank briefcase to Dominic Mysterio, and having him become World Champion. Dominic vs. LA Knight in a feud for the fake world title could be a lot of fun, as far as crowd reactions are concerned. Dominic vs. Orton too, I'd like to see that. There's something very bland about Priest.

I completely understand why they’d release Grimes given his status on the card, but the fact he amounted to so little on the main roster baffles me. He was great fun in NXT, and his character should have been very easy to understand when he was called up; yet they never really established who he was. He’s surely a lock to return to TNA, where he was a really valuable part of their roster.

That's not going to happen - he's said recently (article from Wrestlezone) that unless something happens, he's never going to hang up his boots.

There's a period where I wasn't watching WWE so I may be wrong, but I think they're including tag title reigns in this stat.

She's fantastic, and I don't understand why they continually have her lose. She plays the character brilliantly, and there would absolutely be money in a pushed version of that character either as challenging a strong babyface champion, or as champion. 100% this, if you look at the participants in that match, there's pretty much no one else you could justify putting the belt on. Hopefully this will force them to build up the rest of the female roster a bit better than they have.

I totally agree - I've heard Wade Keller have a negative skewing opinion on Storm as champion; and while generally those things don't matter, we already know that Tony Khan pays attention to what the wrestling media says; though to what degree is debatable. I don't subscribe to the idea of her being a comedy world champion at all. She's a deranged world champion, who can be funny - and she's managed to turn what could be a character that could have worn thin in short order into something sustainable. She's my favourite act in AEW right now, and I would go as far as to say she's one of the best champions they've ever had in any division.