The Hutch's Top 25 Games of All Time
by The Hutch

Oh God, I'm only on number 20? Jesus Christ...

Here's another one that may seem to have come out of nowhere. And to be honest, I didn't actually like this game at first. But then it started to grow on me. It's unfair that this game is classified as a GTA-clone simply because it was the only non-GTA sandbox game at the time. There are very little, if any similarities between the two games. I won't go into detail on how it's different from GTA though, because that'd be playing into their hands. And I won't let them win.

You play as Nick Kang, suspended half-Chinese loose canon officer with an itching kicking ass. You quickly grow to love him, as he has some of the best lines of any character in any game ever.

"Oh shit, it's dimsum time!"

"Mmm... Sweet, sweet health."

"The ladies call me quick Nick for a reason! Uh, not THAT reason..."

"Ahaha, made it in the NICK of time! Oh God that was lame..."

And others. Nick Kang is just such a great character.

Anyway, the story is that after being suspended you are admitted into the EOD for some reason, and are now an elite detective with jurisdiction over all of LA. The way the game plays out is great. There are different kinds of missions: Free-roaming, where you just have somewhere to go and can take as long as you want, solving street crimes or just farting around the beautiful fucking city. Timed-Roaming, you have somewhere to be and a limited time to get there, so haul ass. Infiltration, sneak your way through a building without being noticed, silently taking down guards that are in your path. Destruction, shoot or beat the shit out of anything and anyone who stands in your path.

Your actions have more consequence than other games as well. The means you take in suspects affects your good cop/bad cop ranking. Using a neutralizing shot instead of a head shot will afford you good cop points, however using your gun on an unarmed suspect is a big no-no. After each chapter, you are given the option to upgrade your car, gun, or kung-fu skills in an extra-mission mode.

The way the storyline plays out is also neato. You don't actually have to beat each level. If you lose some levels, they merely take you in separate directions or leads, or just give you a different cut scene. And every couple of chapters if you fail the last mission, you get taken on a completely different lead, but you fail to solve the entire case.

Overall True Crime: Streets of LA is a great game, one you can pick up with a purpose or just to roam around pulling people out of their cars to frisk them four or five times before shooting them in the foot.


Do I even need to explain this one?


The first God of War was bad. Just bad. It was insanely difficult, unfair, and felt unfinished. It had some nice ideas and concepts, but just failed out of control. God of War II took what the first was and turned it into what it was meant to be. Everything in this game is just so great.

Just as with GoW, GoW II mish-mashes Greek mythology together. Kratos, as the new God of War, has become more power hungry than Ares ever was, and is struck down by the Gods. Seeking revenge upon Zeus, who stripped him of his Godlihoodness, Kratos crawls up from Hades and seeks out the Sisters of Fate. Along the way you meet a whole lot of naked people, including people you really wish weren't so.

The best thing about God of War II is how brutal it is. It is really fucking brutal. I mean, if you thought the first one was brutal, you'll be in for a surprise. It is a wave of unyielding brutality. An average battle in the game consists of pulling a dog towards you, ripping it in half, throwing away the carcass with such force you hit a solider and cause him to explode while you launch a eurayle into the air grapple her and throw her to the ground so hard she bounces back up and you grab her again by the tits, rip them off, shove them up the cyclops' ass, tear out his eye and choke the minotaur with it while banging two buxom blondes and breaking solid marble pillars with your forehead.

Brutal.

The storyline is ok, but with this game you really don't want any distractions. You just want to rip people in half. Luckily, there's nothing really important in the storyline other than storyline, so just skip it and go stab some bitches in the face.

God of War II just got so much right. The game is medium lengthed, doesn't get repetitive for one second, and is the perfect combination of style and brutality. Also, you can use either memory card slot to save or load your game. WHY DO I HAVE TWO MEMORY CARD SLOTS IF MOST GAMES WON'T LET ME USE THEM?! HUH?!


Without a doubt, the best licensed video game to come out at the time. This game got everything right. Levels that remind you of the game, the animation actually looks like what it's trying to portray, characters from the movie (Of course, you really only need to have dinosaurs for this to take place), easy controls that make sense. The list goes on.

What I liked best about Jurassic Park was that I could choose which character I wanted to play as, Dr. Grant or the Velociraptor. Not only that, but the game actually varies quite a bit depending on who you play as. As Grant, your main enemy in the game is dinosaurs. You go around shooting fucking dinosaurs. You're given an arsenal of weapons from light and heavy tranquilizers to a 3-charge stun-gun to a rocket launcher. Ammo is everywhere, and it's not stop action.

As the raptor, you're against an army of park security officers trying to bring you in. Good luck when you just pounce their ass from halfway across the screen. Fuckers.

The graphics were amazing at the time. The sound unparalleled and it was unusually dark and brutal for such an early game. I'm sure if they were allowed, there would have been significantly more gore in the game.

I usually preferred playing as the Raptor, although he has fewer levels than Grant. That pissed me off, because it was like, half the levels that were cut out. And a few of them were shorter as well. The passwords were also obscenely long and ridiculous. That didn't matter though because I had no problem starting the game from the beginning each time.

Not only one of the better licensed title games, but one of the best things to come out of the Genesis. Side-scrolling shoot-em up, beat-em up, eat-em up good!


In my opinion, the second most influential First Person Shooter in the history of the genre, the first being Wolfenstein 3D, which created the genre. Yes, I consider Duke Nukem 3D MORE influential than Doom; which isn't to say that Doom isn't one of the greatest games of all time, let alone the most memorable early FPS. Besides, I'm not here to argue this point.

Duke Nukem 3D will always hold a special place in my heart, and it pains me to see it score so low on my list. But, I can't really replace it with any other games that scored higher, so I'll just have to suck it up.

The first two games weren't even all that good. I mean, they weren't bad by any means, and they were definitely original, but they weren't great. One of those games that comes out even, where the company made back what they lost, maybe a bit less. But then comes along the third instalment and just blows the fuck out of everyone with a Devastator, while Duke screams "Blow it out your ass!"

Duke Nukem 3D is most notable for the fact that it brought mouse aiming to the table. Yes, DN3D DID come before Quake, and Quake didn't have mouse aiming set as default anyway, so don't send me any fucking emails about my facts. Duke Nukem came out SIX MONTHS before Quake.

The gameplay is incredibly fast. Unlike most FPS games today, it is not necessary to kill every enemy in the level. In fact, that's probably a bad strategy. Where that crossover was made I don't know, but it made for a much more tense experience where you're constantly on your toes sprinting for your life. Puzzles are simple, and usually equate to press-the-button-to-open-the-door or find-the-mother-fucking-key. Different items also aid you in your quest, such as scuba gear, a jetpack, and steroids. You heard me right, steroids. They let you run faster. And that's overlooked by family groups who disapprove of this game entirely.

It also feels more 3D than Doom did, even though it's still classified as 2.5D. Slopes, doors than open rather than "slide", the fact that you can jump all contribute to this. Not only that, but it's also the first FPS game where you actually reload a gun. Granted, it's just your pistol which holds a 387 round clip and you can't do it voluntarily, it's still pretty fucking kick ass. And what's more? MELEE! That's right, you can actually melee attack WHILE your gun is out. Not only that, but you can do so while shooting because you don't use your gun, but rather attack by kicking your opponents. Doing so will yield the message "Mighty Foot Engaged". Oh God this game kicks ass.

There is an incredible amount of sex in this game. Which probably wasn't too healthy for me at the time, as it came to my possession only a couple years after it came out. I was about nine or ten at the time, and I still haven't been able to tone down this erection. I've just learned to live with it. Sometimes I dress it up!

The story is non-consequential. Yeah, it's there, but who the fuck cares when you're ripping through dog aliens and pig cops with a mother fucking chaingun CANNON.

The weapons are definitely creative. Yeah, there's the pistol and the shotgun, but after that it just gets weird. The aforementioned chaingun cannon, the shrinkray, the RPG, and my personal favourite, the Devastator: A two-handed fully automatic mini-missile launcher. The level of creativity is unmarked by FPS games today.

The game also just doesn't take itself seriously. The sex in the game is mostly blue humour, and Duke spits out more one-liners than the butt baby of Clint Eastwood and Bruce Campbell. The developers make constant jabs and references to movies, other FPS games, and popular songs at the time, which got them in a fair bit of trouble, most notably with id (The "That's one doomed space marine!" incident). Best of all, you can heal yourself by using a toilet ("Ah... Much better!")

There's so much more I can say about this game, such as the clever level design, but I could honestly go on about this game for about six or seven pages. I may do a full lengthed article for Polly one day, but don't count on it.