Snake, strap a balloon to these gifts to build your perfect nation for soldiers.
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It appears the Metal Gear Solid movie is finally gaining some traction. Variety reports that Jurassic World screenwriter Derek Connolly has been tapped to pen the video game adaptation. Kong: Skull Island director […]
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A key tenet of geek culture is knowledge – we judge and are judged based on our encyclopedic knowledge of games, sci-fi, comics, anime, collectibles and more. But it’s impossible for one human […]
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We’ve already talked about how the weird internet is keeping The Simpsons funny even as the cartoon itself becomes increasingly, depressingly, lame. But lately one Simpsons joke has risen above the rest when it […]
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Back in the days of geek prehistory, a T-shirt was a signal to the world around you that you cared about your nerdy pursuits enough to fly them like a flag. Companies like […]
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Hideo Kojima may have stepped away from the Metal Gear franchise after the bigwigs at Konami messed with his artistic vision one too many times, but it still stands as one of the […]
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Metal Gear Solid on the original PlayStation is one of the best video games of all time. Blending finely honed stealth gameplay with moody cutting-edge cinematic storytelling with creator Hideo Kojima’s truly bonkers […]
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Normally I don’t think “Famous Actor X Wants To Play Famous Character Y” stories are that newsworthy because who wouldn’t want high-profile, high-paying work? But sometimes the pairing between actor and character is […]
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Disney’s CGI remake of The Lion King is upon us, and opinions are pretty split out there in the universe. Some of us are marveling at the latest advances in animation tech that make realistic animals able to act and emote like never before, while others are asking what was so wrong with the original that they needed to do it all over again with Beyonce and Seth Rogen. Either way, we decided to put a Toy Tuesday together around the best animal toys on the market so you can populate your own plastic zoo.
Kaiyodo’s Revoltech line is notorious for human figures that have tons of articulation and really cool features. But now they’re branching out into the rest of the animal kingdom. The Revogeo line picks fascinating creatures from all over the planet and creates sizable, sturdy models with numerous joints and points of movement. This here is Chiromantes Haematocheir, more commonly known as the red-clawed crab. Found in East Asia, it’s a popular sight on beaches. The figure has moveable legs, claws and even eyestalks for superlative poseability.
Snake’s canine companion from Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is a valued ally. After Snake follows the sound of barking on the battlefield to recruit and Fulton the pup, he grows to maturity at Mother Base and can soon be taken out on missions. When in the field, D-Dog can mark enemies on the map, locate prisoners and resources, and attack enemies in multiple ways. This glorious recreation from Square Enix’s Play Arts Kai brand is seriously poseable – D-Dog can sit, lie down, stand on all fours and more. A number of interchangeable parts let you have even more customization.
Given to Harry Potter on his 11th birthday by Hagrid, the snowy owl Hedwig was not only a mail delivery creature but also a close friend to young Harry, staying with him across numerous adventures before perishing bravely at the Battle of the Seven Potters. Our good friends at Funko, creators of plastic big-headed replicas of nearly every pop culture character of the last century, delivered a solid take on the avian supporting player. You know the drill by now: stands 3 and 3/4 inches tall, comes with a Pop Protector so you can stack him with all your other ones.
From Square Enix’s Bring Arts line of figures, this rendition of King Mickey Mouse as seen in Kingdom Hearts III is a must for any fan of over-the-top anime swordplay and the Disney cinematic universe. Sculpted with painstaking attention to detail, this figure stands just 6 inches tall but has a ton of features, including four interchangeable hands, a pair of heads with different facial expressions and his powerful Keyblade. The mouse’s clothing is even made of flexible material for more dramatic posing.
One of the many ways that DC Comics distinguished itself from their competition in the 1950s and 1960s was in their pathological devotion to the great apes. Editor Jack Schiff noted that books with gorillas on the cover sold better than ones that didn’t and soon the company had dozens of primate characters. One of the most long-lived is Flash villain Gorilla Grodd, a telepathic conqueror from a whole hidden civilization of super-apes. This sweet statue from Kotobikuya’s ArtFX line depicts the simian psychopath holding the skull of a human aloft. His helmet, pauldrons, and cape are all removable.
This Funko Reaction toy was a 2015 exclusive from the San Diego Comic Con, but you can still pick them up at a decent price. Depicting the climactic scene of 1975’s Jaws where shark hunter Quint runs afoul of the titular beast, it’s a gleefully grisly collectible that will liven up your toy shelf and scare any children who dare look at it. The body of the Great White measures about a foot long and the Quint figure is removable, meaning you can use devouring by the ocean’s superpredator as a threat to keep the rest of your figures in line.
Good Smile’s Nendoroid line is a flabbergastingly huge collection of characters from across Western and Eastern pop culture, numbering in the thousands. If you look long enough, you’ll find something you like. Isabelle is one of the more notable breakthrough characters from Nintendo’s ultra-relaxing small town simulator Animal Crossing, a friendly dog who works as the player’s assistant when she isn’t nipping off to the Smash Bros. battlefield to get some action in. This cute little figure stands six inches tall and comes with her iconic clipboard and pen as well as numerous other props.
One of the most unlikely success stories in recent Marvel history is the prominence of Rocket Raccoon, a bizarre mid-70s creation of prolific writer Bill Mantlo in 1976. Named as a reference to a Beatles song, the character languished in obscurity until he was chosen as a member of the new Guardians of the Galaxy, and the rest is history. We’re building a pretty beefy collection of sofubi, the soft Japanese vinyl figures primarily made by Medicom, and this take on Rocket in his original 70s uniform is getting added to the shelf posthaste.
Get it at Amazon.com
The gigantic spider who makes her nest in the Mountains of Shadow outside of Cirith Ungol poses one of the greatest threats to Frodo and Sam’s quest to dispose of the One Ring in Lord of the Rings — they’re tricked into her lair by the malevolent Gollum as he hopes she’ll eat the hobbits alive and crap out the jewelry for him to scavenge. This figure is seriously cool — each of the legs has multiple joints so you can pose the venomous mother arachnid in a wide variety of intimidating stances.
For some as yet unknown reason, the capybara – the world’s largest living rodent species – became a big deal in Japan pretty recently. The creatures are cute as hell, which probably helped their case, but they don’t live anywhere near the country (being native to South America and all). If you want one of your own, this Nanoblock building kit will let you assemble it if you have the patience and manual dexterity to deal with the ultra-tiny blocks.
One of the most fascinating animals in the world, tardigrades — also known as “water bears” — are miniscule eight-legged animals that measure no more than a millimeter and a half in length but have captured our imagination for their incredible resiliency. They can survive radiation, dehydration, and even the vacuum of outer space. If you want to snuggle up with one of your own, this jumbo-sized replica measures almost ten inches in length and will keep you warm at night.
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Between John Wick 3, Toy Story 4, and Always Be My Maybe, it’s been a phenomenal summer for remembering just how freaking cool Keanu Reeves is. And next year we’ll get to experience that coolness not just in a movie but also in a AAA video game when Reeves co-stars in Cyberpunk 2020 launching in April. We’re still recovering over his breathtaking surprise appearance at E3.
However, between now and then we’re going to be in a bit of an unfortunate Keanu lull. Luckily, modder JinMar has made just the thing to pass the time: adding a playable Keanu Reeves to the PC version of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain.
Take a look!
With its bizarre abstract unfinished angry sad fever dream story and stunning amounts of freeing creativity for a huge, long, open-world stealth-action game Metal Gear Solid V rules. It was my favorite game of 2015 and I’ve been looking for an excuse to play it again ever since. I was hoping for a Switch port, but this Keanu mod might also do.
The impressively detailed Keanu character model features his current long hair and scraggly beard look. Dress him up in a tuxedo, military garb, or even his Cyberpunk character Johnny Silverhand complete with sunglasses and silver robot hand. However, this doesn’t change the original Kiefer Sutherland voice. But Snake doesn’t talk that much in this game anyway.
Along with just being a fun mash-up, putting Keanu in this game makes a certain amount of poetic sense. As an aging but ultra-competent assassin escaping the amoral forces that made him, John Wick and Snake already have a bunch of the same energy. The John Wick movies are just riffing on Reeves’s real-world aging star power. Plus the lore of Metal Gear is about as dense nonsensical as John Wick’s. And bosses betray John Wick about as violently and as often as Konami betrayed Kojima.
So check out this free mod to play Metal Gear Keanu for yourself. For more fun PC mods check out Shrek meets Sekiro in Shrekiro and finally make Mr. X wear a thong in the Resident Evil 2 remake.
The PS1 era is enjoying a nostalgia resurgence, with one of the most anticipated games of the near future being Final Fantasy VII Remake and Sony surprising us this week with a new take on cult classic platformer MediEvil. We’re not sure what’s behind this trend, the smash success of the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro remasters surely played a part, but as old farts who can clearly remember buying Sony’s first crack at a console back in the 1990s it feels good. If you never had a chance to explore the vast and somewhat bizarre library the OG PlayStation had to offer, here are our picks for eleven other games that we’d like to see brought back for another chance.
The runaway success of Final Fantasy VII gave Square unprecedented freedom – and cash – and they used it in super interesting ways on the PlayStation. 1997’s Bushido Blade was their take on the one-on-one fighting genre, but it dispensed with tropes like life bars and time limits to create a tense, compelling experience where a single strike could mean death. In Bushido Blade, players freely roamed 3-D arenas and could target individual body parts, chain together attacks, and even violate the code of the samurai by throwing dirt in a foe’s eyes or striking while their back was turned.
Originally released as part of the Japanese Metal Gear Solid: Integral package and then as a stand-alone disc in Europe and the States, VR Missions took the training elements of Hideo Kojima’s massive next-generation hit and transformed them into bite-sized chunks of stealth action goodness. The game shipped with a staggering 300 different stages that tested Solid Snake’s infiltration abilities to the max against a variety of foes, including giant-sized guards and more. Imagine if Konami cashed in on Mario Maker mania with a modern-day upgrade that let you design your own VR missions for other FoxHound recruits to test themselves against? It’s like printing money.
British development studio Psygnosis had a hit on the PS1 with the WipeOut franchise, but some of their lesser-known titles were equally great. Colony Wars, the first installment of which was released in 1997, was the pre-eminent space combat simulator of its era. As a pilot for the League of Free Worlds, you engaged in 3D dogfights in deep space, using a panoply of unique weapons to take down enemy crafts. A unique branching narrative system meant that you could fail individual missions and be brought down different storyline paths, giving it and its sequels (which could certainly be bundled together into one title) tons of replayability.
Japanese developers Artdink are well known for the absurd themes they bring to their games, and they enjoyed a brief resurgence on the PlayStation with some quirky entries. One of the best-known is 1998’s No One Can Stop Mr. Domino, a puzzle game unlike anything we’ve ever played. You control an anthropomorphic domino as he traipses through a stage, leaving a trail of dominoes behind him. The goal is to create an unbroken path that hits as many special “trick tiles” as possible before your stamina runs out. It’s remarkably tough, as hordes of obstacles block your way and trigger zany effects on your poor domino pal.
As we’ve seen, video game consoles have grown beyond simple game platforms to host all kinds of software. The PSX shipped with a built-in media player that would create polygonal visualizations based on music it played, but developers experimented with other interesting non-game concepts. Fluid, developed by Opus and released only in Japan and Europe, was part Ecco the Dolphin and part Ableton Live. In Cruise mode, you guided your dolphin avatar around the ocean picking up beats and loops, which you could then assemble in the Groove Editor to create audio environments to swim through, adjusting volume and tempo based on your behavior. Super cool, very weird, and deserves another chance at life.
One of the oddest first-wave PSX games, Jumping Flash was a platformer like nothing we’d ever seen before. As the pilot of a robotic rabbit – a “Rabbot” if you will – you vault around Crater Planet collecting jet pods to defeat the malevolent Baron Aloha. Unlike other platformers of its generation, Jumping Flash played out in strict first-person, requiring you to use your shadow to line up your triple jumps and end up on safe ground. Widely regarded as the first true 3D platformer, it inspired a pair of sequels but would shine with some visual updates and new content on the PS4.
One of the things that made the original PlayStation such a hot piece of hardware for the hardcore was the massive number of Japanese RPGs available on it. Coming from the 16 bit era when only a fraction were localized for American audiences, PSX owners had nearly more games than they could handle. Genki’s unusual Jade Cocoon can be seen as a precursor to monster catching hits like Pokemon, as protagonist Levant travels through dense forests to capture bug-like Minions that fight for him and can be bred and fused into even more powerful forms.
One of the most notoriously weird video games ever released, Osamu Sato’s LSD: Dream Emulator still feels unique and distinctive twenty years after it hit stores. Based on dream journals recorded by game designer Hiroko Nishikawa, each session drops you into a surreal world of exploration. Sessions last about ten minutes, and players are limited in their ability to interact with the different environments. After you finish a “dream,” it’s plotted on an emotional graph along axes of “Upper”, “Downer”, “Static” and “Dynamic.” It’s nearly impossible to find on the resale market and a modern version would be a dream come true.
Another Artdink joint, this one takes a common premise of video games – piloting a giant murder robot – and makes it truly unusual. The Overkill Engines of Carnage Heart can’t be controlled directly by the player. Instead, you create programs using a visual flowchart editor that determine how they behave in different situations, then let them loose on the battlefield to see how good your programming skills are. This system was so complex that the game shipped with a 30 minute video tutorial! It was a very left-field concept for the late 1990s, but gamers today have more tolerance for indirect controls and a modern-looking remake with some quality of life improvements could be very cool.
Developers Polygon Magic have a wild portfolio that includes racing games, 3D brawlers, and football simulators. But the weirdest thing they ever had a hand in was 1999’s Incredible Crisis, which follows the four hapless members of a Japanese family as they try to get birthday presents for their grandmother. Each storyline plays out in a sequence of absurd mini-games that have you snowboarding, dancing, giving erotic massages, and being abducted by aliens, linked together with ridiculous cutscenes. An awesome soundtrack by the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra ties the whole thing together.
One of the most polarizing titles in PlayStation history, 1997’s Tail Of The Sun was a bold experiment in emergent storytelling that was decades ahead of its time. In the game, players control a caveman who wakes up in their village. From there, it’s entirely up to you – the game delivers no directions or tutorials at all. You quickly find that you need to eat and sleep, and you can forage for cookies (with appearances licensed from a Japanese bakery) and hunt animals to do so. The unstated goal of Tail Of The Sun is to kill enough woolly mammoths that you can build a tower of their tusks that reaches all the way to the sun. Spoiler: easier said than done. Modern survival games owe a huge debt to this oddity.
I’ve been looking forward to Death Stranding. I even got the collector’s edition for the baby-lamp. And I played a good amount of it over the weekend. I haven’t gotten very far, but already I can recognize that this is the result of a unique artistic vision. And, after both playing some Death Stranding and playing through Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, I realize just how much I appreciate games made by an auteur whose unique approach to the medium can only be described as genius.
The problem is, that genius is Yoko Taro.
Don’t get me wrong, I respect Hideo Kojima’s work, I recognize how brilliant and unique he is, and there’s no question about how much work he puts into his games. But wow, when it comes to developers who want to embrace video games as an art form and push the medium to tell a story that resonates with fundamental concepts of humanity, Yoko Taro eats his lunch with a moon-faced smile.
Art can come in many different forms and cover many different concepts, but I believe video games are at their best when they explore humanity. The ideas of what it’s like to be human, how we can have so many perspectives, how we can feel suffering and joy and connection with each other, and how we can find purpose in our existence, those are what interactive media can really excel at past non-interactive media like films.
I appreciate weird for weird’s sake, and both Kojima and Taro have that in spades. The problem is that Kojima’s storytelling has almost always been a vacuously high-minded prodding at broad concepts, while Taro really digs into what it is to be a person in a world. To explain how Kojima is Goofus to Taro’s Gallant in artistic expression, I’m going to have to spoil the Metal Gear, Drakengard, and Nier series a bit, so heads up.
Obligatory spoiler warning line for Metal Gear, Drakengard, Nier, and Nier: Automata.
The Metal Gear Solid series ostensibly explores the nature of being a soldier, and how humans interact through war. The entire series is about misguided hero-worship of idealistic, imperfect, and ultimately socially stranded figures. The Boss, Big Boss, Venom Snake, and Solid Snake are all legends after or during their time, and they all find themselves betrayed and cast out by the people they believed in. And, especially for the first three, they ultimately end up betraying the people who believe in them in some way, their very legacies end up betraying their ideals. The entire series is about soldiers getting chewed up and spat out by the systems they serve, and that’s a brilliant concept to explore.
The problem is how Kojima ultimately muddles that exploration into an overbuilt, convoluted mess that rings hollow past its broad premise. He repeats himself structurally, but he doesn’t pull that repetition together thematically.
Look at Quiet in The Phantom Pain. She’s a heavily sexualized sniper who Kojima warned would make us feel ashamed of our words and deeds once we found out the reason she dresses the way she does. And that reason is that she was given a mutant plant treatment that makes her breathe through her skin. That’s… that’s great, but it doesn’t really make her sexualization any more contextualized in the narrative or tie in with the themes of the game.
Compare that to Yoko Taro with the first Nier, where you are joined by Kaine, an aggressive woman who’s tainted by the Shades that are threatening the world. She dresses extremely suggestively, in what amounts to a tiny nightie with bandages all over her left side. Kaine is one of the best characters in Nier, and possibly in the entire seventh generation of video games.
Kaine is not conventionally female. She was born with hermaphrodism, which led to her being outcast by her village and raised by her foul-mouthed, grandmother, who treated her as the woman she presented herself as, and she adopted her mannerisms from her. When her grandmother was killed by a shade, she accepted being partly taken over by another shade who promised to help her get revenge, which left her right arm and leg covered in the black scrawl that indicates infection. So she wears sexy lingerie while covering up half of her body. Her character is defined by levels of duality, in hiding any male aspect and expressing solely as female, and in hiding any demonic aspect and expressing solely as human. And Nier, like Kaine’s grandmother, accepts her for who she is. And that’s how you get a sexy-looking character with layers of significance in her appearance.
Now look at the Beauty and the Beast Unit in MGS4. More sexualized women who are cybernetically enhanced monsters, whose very names call back to the bosses of MGS and MGS3. “Crying Wolf” as a combination of The Sorrow and Sniper Wolf is a brilliant name, but besides the amalgamation happening they don’t actually contribute much to the game. Which is a huge shame, because they easily could have with a few narrative tweaks.
The B&B Unit consists of women who went through the horrors of war. They’re heavily traumatized and then turned into cybernetic supersoldiers. When you beat them, you’re told some of their background, of the very horrors they went through. The problem is, none of that comes through in their presentation or how you fight them. They’re just lore dumps after the fact that lack any emotional or contextual resonance beyond, “War is bad.”
In both of these cases, Kojima claims some high-mindedness that simply doesn’t come through in the work. He wanted Quiet to be sexy, so he made some excuse for it. He took the idea of hot robot women for bosses, then built trauma around their backstories as an afterthought. Whatever thematic payoff could have been had from these characters is lost in the disingenuity.
Contrast that with the female androids of YoRHa in Nier: Automata. They appear to be attractive anime women dressed in gothic lolita fashions with absurd high heels. You can even blow 2B’s clothes off with a self-destruct move and leave her in a thong-backed leotard. And why are they like that?
Because Yoko Taro likes girls. It might not have any thematic significance to the game’s questions about what humanity actually means and how one can contribute with or without a purpose, but at least it’s honest. And with the sexiness out of the way, the rest of the game can keep rolling on with much more directly connected theming, like contrasting the sexy anime girls (who are built like Barbie dolls with the same anatomical accuracy) against alien-built robots trying to emulate humanity and failing repeatedly.The prurience is acknowledged and moved on from, instead of building a falsely deep backstory to justify things without making them tie in with the narrative or theming.
The MGS series is, as I said, ostensibly about soldiers and purpose and betrayal. The problem is the games become so self-referential and curve inward on themselves until they become ridiculous knots that don’t seem to actually say anything for all the talking they contain.
Can anyone tell me what the message of a given MGS game is, or the message of the whole series? What does it say about soldiers? What does it ask about soldiers? Trust? Patriotism? For everything that’s spoken and explored in these games, does it reach any depth?
Nier: Automata, meanwhile, does so much more thematically with so much less. Once you get past the Platinum combat and the sexy robot women, you face an unrelentingly horrific image of inevitability in the face of purpose, tempered with hope for humanity in what we do for each other. And this is all thousands of years after humanity is completely dead.
YoRHa was created to fight alien robots in the name of humans on the moon. The problem is, humans died out long before that because of the events of Nier. Instead, a race of androids struggling to find purpose created that very purpose in the face of an alien robot invasion, and then maintained that purpose through self-sabotage and secrecy. Give your people a reason to live by having them fight for people they don’t know are dead, all because they don’t consider themselves to be people to begin with. Just automation feeding into itself. And on the other side, among those alien robots whose masters are also long dead, are constant failed attempts at emulating humanity.
Everyone’s purpose is supposedly to fight each other, but that isn’t their reason for existing, and that becomes clear as soon as you meet Pascal. He’s a robot who leads a village of pacifists, and who trades with android settlements. He’s the first indication that preconceptions aren’t entirely correct, but the dynamic isn’t as simple as the incongruity hints. All through this, 2B and 9S (the player characters) question their preconceptions while still robotically following orders, growing closer even as their programming ultimately dooms them to be apart, killed by the system that exists to keep their race going.
When the truth is revealed to 9S, he accepts it. But when 2B dies, even with his knowledge that 2B would inevitably have to kill him, 9S goes into a rage and tries to destroy the entire system. His inhumanity was shattered by his burgeoning humanity, but it still ultimately broke him as a person. Meanwhile, A2, an older YoRHa model on a crusade to simply kill robots, tries to follow another path of peace thanks to Pascal, whose own traumatic fate is left up to the player. Finally, in the end, the player must choose whether or not to destroy the entire system and let the android race, like the human race before it, simply die out.
Then, after you explore those choices, the drone pods who have been at 2B and 9S’ side the entire game and facing their own subtle awakening of consciousness, directly offer the player another, more personal option. With the system still in place, do you recover and restore 2B and 9S, knowing that they may be fated to die again in the same horrible way, simply because there’s a glimmer of hope that, because of the unpredictability of consciousness and realizing one’s humanity, it might not happen?
There’s a reason I tear up whenever I hear “Weight of the World,” the end credits theme of Nier: Automata.
No, the game doesn’t answer many questions about what it is to be human. But it asks better questions and explores them in far more poignant ways than the Metal Gear Solid series ever did about what it is to be a soldier.
Oh, and the first Nier has similar brilliance in the game’s revelation of Replicants and Gestalts, and the second playthrough where you can hear and understand the very shades you slaughtered through the first playthrough. But that’s its own essay.
I like Hideo Kojima’s games. I recognize that he has an artistic vision. But he just isn’t nearly as good at actually exploring themes and bringing together concepts in a coherent (while still very strange) narrative as Yoko Taro.
Maybe Death Stranding will surprise me, but a few hours in and it feels like Kojima is exploring the ideas of human connection and isolation with the same disconnected, aimless, wildly expensive frippery as he did militarization in The Phantom Pain.
This week marks the 25th anniversary of the original PlayStation’s North American launch. Since that time, the PlayStation brand has grown to become the most dominant in all of gaming. It is responsible for proliferating disc-based games, putting DVD and Blu-Ray players in millions of homes, and of course, having some of the finest gaming experiences out there. The gaming world as we know it exists because of PlayStation, and for that, we should be thankful.
To celebrate 25 years of PlayStation, we’ve put together a list of the top 25 games released for its systems.
Platform: PlayStation
Release date: September 3, 1998
It’s almost difficult to put into words just how monumental the first Metal Gear Solid was. It set the template for future stealth games and did so with cinematic flair. From epic boss battles, philosophical debates, and crazy Easter eggs, Metal Gear Solid has it all. While not as graphically impressive as its sequels, it remains a masterpiece.
Platform: PlayStation
Release date: January 31, 1997
What can you say about Final Fantasy VII that others haven’t said before? For many, this is the first JRPG they ever played. It contains all of the Final Fantasy hallmarks — namely an epic story, memorable characters, and a large world to explore. Final Fantasy VII is the epitome of a classic.
Platform: PlayStation
Release date: March 22, 1996
The survival horror genre as we know it today wouldn’t exist without the first Resident Evil. Despite its corny voice acting, this was the most terrifying game of its time. Those still haunted by the scene of zombie dogs crashing through the window can attest to this. While one can make a good argument that Resident Evil 2 is the better game, they cannot deny the indelible impact left by the original.
Platform: PlayStation
Release date: September 9, 1996
You can’t talk about the early days of PlayStation without bringing up Crash Bandicoot. The crazed-looking character was the PlayStation’s de facto mascot throughout the generation. For all intents and purposes, Crash Bandicoot is a side scroller played from a top-down angle. While it functions similarly to other games in the genre, the 3D perspective made it feel fresh. To this day, many hold Crash Bandicoot in high regard.
Platform: PlayStation
Release date: March 20, 1997
You know the “vania” in “Metroidvania”? That comes from none other than Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Instead of being a straight-up hack-n-slasher like its predecessors, Symphony of the Night borrows Metroid‘s large, interconnected map. Like Metroid, players cannot access certain areas before acquiring specific items. Every Metroidvania title under the sun owes much to Symphony of the Night. It is still the gold standard of the genre.
Platform: PlayStation 2
Release date: November 17, 2004
Like Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is one of the seminal entries in the series. In fact, many consider it the best. MGS3 opens up the stealth gameplay by placing players in a large jungle. They can use the environment to hide and set traps for enemies. Players can even eat wildlife to sustain themselves. Because of its gameplay, MGS3’s James Bond-inspired story, and excellent boss battles, MGS3 continues to resonate with players years later.
Platform: PlayStation 2
Release date: October 26, 2004
While Grand Theft Auto III and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City laid the groundwork, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is where things went to the proverbial next level. Its sprawling open-world (containing analogs for cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Las Vegas) allows players to cause whatever sort of mayhem they want. No GTA game since has given players such freedom, nor have they had a storyline as completely bonkers. There’s a reason San Andreas has seen so many ports. It’s just a fun ride.
Platform: PlayStation 2
Release date: March 22, 2005
The first God of War introduces Kratos and the brutal mythological Greek world he inhabits. Though the following entries would reduce Kratos to a mad berserker, the first God of War masterfully gives Kratos’ legendary anger context. With huge bosses, stellar hack-n-slash gameplay, and stunning graphics, God of War grabs players by the jugular and never lets them go. It is the ultimate in escapist fantasy.
Platform: PlayStation 2
Release date: October 18, 2005
Shadow of the Colossus was a unique game for its time and continues to hold that distinction today. Instead of fighting hordes of enemies, the primary goal is to take down 16 colossi. As one wanders through the desolate land, they begin to question if they are not, in fact, the real monster. Thanks to its minimalist narrative, soundtrack, and open-world, Shadow of the Colossus is as close to “art” as you can get.
Platform: PlayStation 2
Release date: January 11, 2005
Though first released exclusively on GameCube, Resident Evil 4 found its true home on the PlayStation 2. It is the first “modern” action game thanks to its over-the-shoulder camera angle and high degree of weapon customization. Like many games on this list, Resident Evil 4 continues getting ported to different systems. That’s because its gameplay and story still hold up. Even today, it is difficult to imagine any future Resident Evil game topping it.
Platform: PlayStation Portable
Release date: December 12, 2004
Handheld systems always need at least one definitive puzzler and Lumines fits that bill for the PlayStation Portable. It takes elements from titles like Tetris and Columns and combines them with mechanics from rhythm titles. The result is a highly addictive title that’s perfect to play on the road. Though there have been many sequels, the original Lumines stands as the best of the lot.
Platform: PlayStation Portable
Release date: April 29, 2010
It’s a shame how even many longtime fans missed out on Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. A direct sequel to Metal Gear Solid 3, Peace Walker takes elements from Monster Hunter and combines them with Metal Gear Solid’s stealth mechanics. While it has a solid (pun intended) story, the main draw of this title is linking up with others to complete missions and grind for loot. This is the absolute portable Metal Gear Solid experience.
Platform: PlayStation 3
Release date: July 29, 2014
The Last of Us caught many PlayStation 3 owners off guard when it originally came out. Instead of being a fun adventure like Uncharted, it is a gut-wrenching tale of survival. From its harrowing beginning to its somber end, The Last of Us refuses to give players a moment’s respite. To a lot of folks, this is the best PlayStation game period.
Platform: PlayStation 3
Release date: October 13, 2009
The first Uncharted was a fun romp inspired by Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones. The sequel takes everything great about the first and amps things up considerably. What makes Uncharted 2 so mind-blowing is its unrelenting pace and lavish set pieces. It is a Hollywood blockbuster in video game form. We saw many games ape Uncharted 2’s formula, including the revamped Tomb Raider. Even subsequent Uncharted games could not attain the heights reached by the second installment. It was and is the premiere action-adventure game of recent times.
Platform: PlayStation 3
Release date: March 16, 2010
God of War 3 ends the original series in the grandest fashion possible. Sporting superior graphics and refined gameplay, it was the definitive God of War experience before 2018’s reboot came and set a new precedent. God of War 3 earns all the praise heaped upon it.
Platform: PlayStation 3
Release date: October 6, 2009
Dark Souls has ascended into meme status but it all started with PlayStation 3’s Demon’s Souls. Like its now-infamous offshoots, Demon’s Souls takes place in a horrifying medieval world beset by horrific monsters. It was and is one of the most challenging games out there. While that scares some away, it is the reason the game has since passed into legendary status. It would be wise for Sony to re-release/remaster Demon’s Souls so folks can see where it all started.
Platform: PlayStation 3
Release date: March 13, 2012
Easily the most low-key entry on this list, Thatgamecompany’s Journey is one of the quintessential PS3 titles. Instead of flooring gamers with high-end graphics and non-stop action, Journey is a laid back, contemplative affair that encourages gamers to ponder their own mortality. Or they can just play it and enjoy the rich yet simplistic art style. Every gamer takes something different away from Journey, which is part of its magic.
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Release date: September 10, 2013
Along with Persona 4 Golden, Killzone Mercenary is widely considered one of the must-own PlayStation Vita games. Unlike Call of Duty Black Ops: Declassified and Resistance: Burning Skies, Killzone Mercenary successfully replicates the console FPS experience on a handheld. It even looks like a console title thanks to its superb graphics. If there was ever a PS Vita game that needs a console port, this is the one.
Platform: PlayStation Vita
Release date: November 20th, 2013
Many see Persona 4 Golden as the definitive PS Vita game. And with good reason. It features deep JRPG gameplay, a killer soundtrack, unforgettable characters, and a suspenseful murder mystery tale. Being a grind-heavy experience, it is perfect for a portable system. Like Killzone: Mercenary, Persona 4 Golden needs a console port.
Platform: PlayStation VR
Release date: October 2, 2018
The PlayStation VR has a lot of great titles but the one most often cited as the best is Astro Bot Rescue Mission. While a platformer at its core, the VR environments literally give it a fresh perspective. It also helps that the actual game is a joy to play because of its whimsical world and intuitive, easy-to-understand controls. Astro Bot Rescue Mission is a VR title that deftly demonstrates the platform’s viability.
Platform: PlayStation 4
Release date: April 20, 2018
Instead of sticking with the tried and true formula, Santa Monica Studio took the God of War series in a new and decidedly more mature direction with 2018’s eponymous title. Eschewing the familiar Ancient Greek myths, God of War is set in the world of Norse mythology. Like previous games, it features larger-than-life set pieces and bosses. It also has some of the best combat mechanics out there. To many, it’s a modern-day classic.
Platform: PlayStation 4
Release date: September 7, 2018
Missing puddles didn’t stop Spider-Man from being one of 2018’s best titles. What makes this so spectacular is that it is a wholly original Spider-Man story that feels true to the source material. Players get to experience the life of both Peter Parker and his web-slinging alter ego. Though not accurate, the game’s depiction of New York is authentic, while its combat and traversal mechanics make one feel like Spider-Man. The game continues to sell for a reason. It’s amazing.
Platform: PlayStation 4
Release date: April 04, 2017
Persona 5 is without a doubt one of the most stylish JRPGs released in recent memory. Like other entries in the series, the game focuses on a group of high schoolers who must use their supernatural powers to solve a murder mystery. This is also one of those titles that makes you want to visit Japan thanks to its faithful representation of Tokyo. Persona 5 demonstrates that traditional turn-based JRPGs still have a place in the modern gaming world.
Platform: PlayStation 4
Release date: March 24, 2015
Though Bloodborne shares many similarities to the Souls games — namely challenging combat, nightmarish bosses, and a dark, twisted game world — it is a very different experience. Bloodborne rewards players who throw caution to the wind and attack aggressively. In many ways, it is the 3D Castlevania we’ve always wanted (sorry, Lords of Shadow). Its circular, interlocked level design is a testament to this. There’s a reason folks continue playing Bloodborne. It’s that good.
Platform: PlayStation 4
Release date: November 8, 2019
The newest game on this list is also the most contentious. Death Stranding is a “slow burn” and takes a while to get going. When it does, it delivers an insane ride that only Hideo Kojima could provide. Behind the delivery-focused gameplay is a story centered around the need to connect and reconnect with others stranded in an increasingly isolated world. The theme is pertinent to the modern age and permeates the entirety of the game. We’ll have to see how history treats Death Stranding, but for now, it’s one of the must-play games on PS4.
Leigh Whannell’s Invisible Man movie is getting some pretty strong critical raves, which is a relief for both us and Paramount after the terrible start to their now-cancelled “Dark Universe” provided by The Mummy. It’s just a super solid, scary, horror flick with great performances and a twist that is both shocking and narratively rewarding. Invisibility has been a popular sci-fi concept since H.G. Wells first floated the idea way back in 1897, and we decided to revisit the trope with some of our favorite characters that you just can’t set your eyes on.
As originally invented by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Susan Storm’s power set was… a little sexist. As opposed to her male cohorts in the Fantastic Four, being able to fade into nothingness wasn’t that dazzling a power compared to, say, being able to fly and catch things on fire or pick up a dump truck. But it didn’t take long for the Invisible Girl to grow into and expand her abilities, extending her invisibility to other objects and people. Eventually, she’d drop the “girl” and become a woman, as well as one of Marvel’s most complex and compelling female characters.
The most devious role in Team Fortress 2 gains the ability to fade from view with the aid of a special wristwatch. The French national always dresses for success in a nice suit and form-fitting face mask, but it’s the timepiece that brings the whole outfit together. With a turn of the dial, the Spy becomes invisible for a short period of time, allowing him to infiltrate enemy lines. Once there, he uses his disguise skills to pose as a member of the other team for even more chaos. The alternate watches the Spy can equip tinker with his invisibility in interesting ways – one lets him stay cloaked forever as long as he doesn’t move, while another drops a decoy of his dead body.
When a mysterious thunderstorm passes over south London, people caught in it find their lives changed by gaining bizarre and sometimes unwanted powers in the British TV show Misifits. Simon is one of five delinquents who make up the series’ first cast, and gains the power to fade from sight. He’s already a bit of an introvert, so being able to completely vanish from view just lets him nurture his worst personality traits until a time-traveling version of himself from the future shows up to demonstrate how much of a badass he could actually be. The show sort of got messy as it went on, but the first three seasons are aces and Simon is super dope.
The second Ultimate Spider-Man had to differentiate himself from the original, and the first power he manifested after his spider bite certainly helped. After Miles Morales gained his abilities in Into The Spider-Verse, he started to fade from view whenever he felt bummed out or afraid. This is very loosely based on some real spiders, who have patterns that serve as camouflage or cover themselves with debris to hide themselves. We’re pretty glad that no actual spiders can just straight up turn invisible, though. That would be awful.
Invisibility is a popular power for villains, who carry out their vile deeds cloaked from view. Short-lived Bleach villain Guenael Lee, also known as the Vanishing Point, has one of the more devious invisibility powers on this list. He can not only vanish from view, but also vanish from your consciousness – so if you’re fighting him, he can disappear and you won’t even remember he was there. He uses this trait for some pretty sadistic purposes, tormenting his foes as they’re cut to pieces by an opponent that they don’t even remember existing.
Camouflage is essential when you’re hunting the most dangerous game, and the alien Predator from the 1987 film of the same name exploits the hell out of it. This critter brings an arsenal of nasty weapons to the Central American jungle as it hunts “Dutch” Schaefer and his mercenary posse, but the most valuable tool he has is a little device that enables him to actively camouflage himself, bending light around his form to grant him near-invisibility. There’s a telltale visual effect, but when you’re fighting for your life who has time to pay that much attention?
In the world of My Hero Academia, people are gifted with “Quirks” that grant them a variety of abilities. For high school student Toru Hagakure, her quirk has made her life a total pain in the ass. Since the moment she was born, Toru has been completely invisible to the naked eye. Unfortunately for her career as a hero, she can’t extend that invisibility to her clothes, so she has to strip nude in order to really use her powers effectively. She’s also a little shy about it, despite the fact that nobody can see anything.
We’ve long argued that professional wrestling deserves a spot in every geek’s life, and the existence – or lack thereof – of Invisible Stan bears that out. At an event called Joey Janela’s Spring Break, audiences were treated to one of the most surreal spectacles of all time, as the see-through hero Invisible Man faced off with his equally unseeable nemesis Invisible Stan. The only visible person in the ring was referee Bryce Remsburg, who managed to keep the contest above board until Stan was thrown through a table. It was a master class in suspension of disbelief.
Solid Snake spends so much time in the Metal Gear series hiding from foes, often using nothing more than a humble cardboard box to do so. It must have come as quite the insult for him to meet his former ally Gray Fox, saved from death and rebuilt as a cyborg ninja, in Metal Gear Solid and find that he could just… turn invisible. Employing light-bending optical camouflage, Gray Fox infiltrated Shadow Moses and battled Snake before helping him in the final battle against his clone, Liquid Snake. Of course, because Kojima there’s tons of backstory too but let’s just say that being an invisible ninja is the only thing cooler than being a regular ninja.
Many of the characters in the epic manga Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure are accompanied by Stands, supernatural companions that grant them unique powers. When protagonist Joesph Joestar finds a baby by the side of the road, she just happens to have a Stand of her own. As is the case with much of the series, it has a pop music-derived name, Achtung Baby, and the ability to render Shizuka completely invisible to the naked eye when she gets upset. If her mood becomes even worse, that effect can extend in a sphere around her, with objects and even people vanishing until she calms down.
When ambitious street thug Parker Robbins stumbles into a demon summoning ritual while he’s trying to rob a warehouse, he gets ridiculously lucky and makes off with the eldritch creature’s cloak and boots. The boots let him levitate, but the cloak is the real get – it allows him to become completely invisible and undetectable for as long as he can hold his breath. Sure, that’s a bit of a drawback, but he’s a smart guy and manages to leverage these small gifts into some pretty big scores. The Hood got a few power boosts over the years in the Marvel universe, but we still stan those early, scrappy days.
