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

This is another game that pains me to score so low on my Top 25, but there's just nowhere else to put it. Polly said more about this than I can, and is probably better at being funny than I am. Go read her article on it.


I already wrote an article on this, but because it was crap I suggest you do not read it. Just trust me on this one. Great game though. Yep. Lots of fun. My number 14 favourite game of all time, as it stands.


Now, I never actually owned a Gamecube. In fact, the only access I had to one was Kaz's place, which I usually always took over to play this game. It's a shame it's not mainstream, which is a surprise because it came out early in the Gamecube's career, and you'd expect that more people would have heard of it.

Eternal Darkness is survival horror game set in many different times throughout history. You play as Alex Roivas, granddaughter of Edward Roivas, who was called to identify the grisly corpse of her grandfather. Through expert detective work and genius deduction, she accidentally stumbles across a secret study. In that study is an old book, known as the Tome of Eternal Darkness.

First, I'd like to mention that ANY old book that can be classified as a tome is instantly badass. Fuck yeah, tome!

Anyway, the story is that this tome holds the power of the Corpse God, Mantorok. Which god it is, you actually choose near the beginning of the game.

Young Roman warrior Pious Augustus is the first to stumble across the tome, and being the asshole that he is, unleashes unspeakable terror upon the world. He eternally become the guardian of the Corpse God, and also his face melts off. Just like Indiana Jones!

There are many clever things that are enjoyable about this game. First off, you'll notice that there are three meters to the left. One is red, you'd expect this to be your health, one is blue, your magic (or magick, rather) and one is green - your sanity meter. Your sanity meter works like this: Every time you see a zombie or other monster in the game, you lose a bit of sanity. You can reclaim most of that sanity by killing them, but you'll never fully regain it. As your sanity meter dwindles, you'll slowly be able to feel the effects of it. First, the walls will bleed, or the level will be at an angle, or the camera may switch places on you. But that's just a start. Some really weird shit then starts happening, like your head will fall off, and you'll be able to pick it up like an item, at which point it will play a recording of Hamlet's famous "To be or not to be" speech. This even happens with the playable characters before Shakespeare's time, but I digress. Other things not just limited to the game screen, such as a mute button at the top of the screen, or the rumoured and elusive PS 2 restart screen, create a great atmosphere of total insanity.

And every time a major hallucination happens, your character will be thrust back to the beginning of the room, screaming desperately "THIS ISN'T HAPPENING!" Awesome.

Everything in this game is crafted to make you shit your pants at interstate highway speeds. It is one of the most genuinely scary experiences I've ever had, video game or otherwise.

The story is on a level I have never seen with any other game. You play as twelve vastly different characters, each who stumble across the tome, and fail in their attempts to stop Mantorok. The four Gods, Chattur'gua, Xel'lotath, Ulyaoth, and Mantorok each have their own servants which attack you in the game, appearing as different coloured enemies of the same type. Not only that, but you have different magick attacks that wield the power of the different Gods. Each God is at war with each other, and each attack will defeat the other, like Rock-Paper-Scissors. Except you're crazy and die if you lose. However, Mantorok is dominant over the others, and always wins. Think of him as dynamite. Fuckers always pulled it out when you least expected it...

The graphics are actually surprisingly good, even though it was originally planned to be an N64 title, and appeared very early in the Gamecube's life. The sound and music are unparalleled in scare-the-fuck-out-of-you-tiveness, and everything just blends together really well to create one of the best experiences you'll ever have with a game.

7 out of 4.51323234234234...

OH GOD! THIS... ISN'T... HAPPENING!!!!!


Scarface: The World is Yours. Where do I start? The game is incredibly vast; there are four subsections of Miami - Little Havana, Downtown, North Beach, and South Beach - and several islands in the Caribbean, all of which are extensive and fully explorable. The plot is basically a what-if tangent, exploring the possibilities of Tony Montana's escape from death at the end of the movie.

Now, that isn't necessarily a fair premise. Just because Tony Montana was shot at point blank range with a dual-barrelled shotgun and fell 30 feet face down into a shallow fountain does NOT mean he was dead. Tony Montana take all your fucking bullets.

Anyway, the game starts off in the office of Tony Montana's mansion, a pile of coke on his desk and Gina's bullet riddled body strewn across the floor. Tony Montana blasts the door, not before delivering his famous "say hello to my little friend" line, and the gameplay starts.

The game is an open-world crime simulator. Although people have called it a GTA-clone, it is in the same sense that FPS games in the early 90's were "Doom-clones". In my opinion the game looks much better than GTA. Models look more realistic, buildings are much more proportionate to your model, and gun models have much more detail put into them. Although the cars in Grand Theft Auto do look better, in my opinion, that's pretty much a given.

As for cars, however, there is what the scientific community would refer to as a gigafuckload of them. You can buy cars from a catalogue you get at the beginning of the game, which have more armour and also a weapons locker in the trunk where you can swap weapons or refill your ammo. But until you buy a driver, you'll find that any old car will be sufficient. The driving engine (OLO) is very realistic. The way cars handle, accelerate, brake, and boomsplode really feels like actual driving. Only with a controller. And you can run fuckheads over. With their own car.

I'm really having trouble not referring to Tony Montana by his full name. He DEMANDS respect!

I'm going to try and break this game down as much as I can. The best place to start is with the storyline. As I said, it's a what-if story, continuing after the events of the Montana Mansion shootout. Tony Montana, swearing revenge, swears revenge on Sosa and anyone associated with him. Which apparently means Gaspar Gomez, Nacho Contreras and basically anyone in the movie whose name was mentioned; the camera panned over them briefly; held a boom mike or saw the movie in theatres. The three main rivals each hold a gang in one of the subsections, Gomez holding both North and South beach, Nacho owning the gangs in Downtown, and the Diaz Brother's gang populating Little Havana. In order to regain your Mansion you must first pay off Vice to give you access back to it. Then you can start re-building your empire. By doing odd jobs for suppliers, buying fronts to own Miami again, and repeatedly saying "fuck" you finally open up your supply lines. After that, it's straight for Sosa.

The game just oozes originality. The best thing about the game is balls. No joke, balls.

Fucking balls.

Basically, you get balls for doing things: for taunting people, for holding conversations, for fancy driving, for skilled shooting (including shooting people in the balls), for snorting coke and not being nominated for an academy award.

Balls.

Anyway, what the balls do is fill up your rage meter, which allows you to go into blind rage mode. While in blind rage mode, you're invulnerable and have infinite ammo and also gain back health for every enemy you kill. It quickly becomes your quickest means for gaining back health, and saves your ass quite frequently.

Balls.

And on holding conversations with people, there is a button called the taunt button. If you're shooting someone you yell at them, or you can hold "normal" conversations with people. If there's no one around, Tony Montana just talks to himself. Seriously. My very first time playing the game, I just stood in the middle of the street pressing the taunt button.

"Fuck him" "Fuck her" "Fuck this" "Fucking balls" "What the fuck" "Fucking fuck" "EAT SHIT!"

Brilliant.

Overall, a tragically overlooked game, and one you should go appreciate right fucking now.


You read that right, PS 2. Originally this game, along with two other games on my list, were part of the Capcom Five: The Gamecube's saving grace. Well, the three games in my top 25 all got ported to the PS 2, one got discontinued, and the other suck total balls.

Whoops, sorry Nintendo!

Viewtiful Joe is a cell-shaded, action movie superhero game. Now, generally, superhero games suck balls, with few exceptions (Batman for the NES) but this one actually turned out pretty good. In fact, the box even says it's easily the best superhero game ever made. You can't argue with the game when it says it's the best game ever!

The game plays out like a side scrolling platformer. As I've already established, I got a special place in my heart for platformers. If you're a fan as well, then will this game ever deliver.

You play as Joe, movie fanatic who has an incredibly hot girlfriend that you have no fucking clue how he scored. He's probably got a dick the size of a python. But I digress.

At the movies, Joe's girlfriend is sucked into the movie by a shadowy figure, and he is then snatched up himself. Led by his hero, Captain Blue, and using the power of the V-Watch, Joe fights evil to save Silvia.

The V-Watch holds many different movie, or "V-Powers". You can use Slow motion, Mach Speed, and Zoom in all to your advantage to defeat the seemingly endless onslaught of enemies. In fact, some enemies require you use specific V-Powers, as well as all the puzzles in the game. The V-Powers are truly innovative, and add such a layer of depth to the game. Also, you have limited use of your V-Powers, which can be expanded each episode by collecting v-films.

The story's not anything special, but it's not by any means bad. The voice acting is corny, but it's meant to be that way. The game is just flat out beautiful, and you'll find yourself often just stopping to admire the scenery. But don't stop for too long, because you get rankings at the end of each scene based on time, damage taken, and style. The music is often a mix of synthesizers, heavy guitar riffs, and sound effects like horns, and is overall enjoyable.

A great game with few flaws, aside from its incredible difficulty. Which isn't to say that it's not fun, not at all, but it can be a bit frustrating at times. Fortunately, you get two lives, and can buy more with collected V-Points, so it's never too daunting. Definitely worth your money.