It's been a while since I wrote one of these. With another Call of Duty on everyone's radar and various holidays all over the world celebrating the brave sacrifices of those who fought for our values and freedoms in armed conflicts generation after generation, I thought it appropriate that as a former soldier and a gamer, I offer my own salute to those brave men and women past and present.

So this List 'em is all about games based on world wars and multi-country conflicts from the last 150 years or so. As usual, feel free to list as many or as few as you wish. With a genre certainly showing it's age after so many games being released in a short span of years there are certainly plenty to choose from!



In no particular order:

• Medal of Honor - PS1: Not only is this one of my favorite shooters and war games, it's also high on my list of favorite PS1 games. I've played every "MoH" title and have tried ports on just about every platform, but this one that started it all has a special charm unlike it's successors. The attention to detail, the narrated black and white WWII footage between missions and it's incredible audio make this a fantastic game. It's also one of the first console FPS titles that really showed what a dual analog approach to shooters could offer with exceptional smooth control that remains virtually unchanged nearly a decade later. To top that off, great AI, graphics and gameplay made this one helluva package, even if the multiplayer portion was lame and insignificant.

• Secret Weapons Over Normandy - Xbox/PS2/PC: This is a fun WWII flight game that sits somewhere between arcade and sim that has a good deal of realism. A very complete game in terms of the experience and the audio is superb! Nothing beats the spit and sputter of a realistically sounding Merlin engine in a Supermarine Spitfire while hearing Messerschmitt Bf 109's coming at you from all directions in Dolby 5.1! This game recreates many famous air battles of the war and offers over 20 aircraft to choose from, all of which were painstakingly recreated as realistically as possible. If you question the quality of this series, know that is was developed by the same team responsible for the X-Wing/Tie Fighter series!

• Super Battletank / Battletank 2 - SNES/Genesis/Game Gear/GBA: These two are identical and nearly interchangeable but awesome games nonetheless. They present tank combat in the Persian Gulf War from a first person perspective inside the cockpit of an M1 Abrams tank. Gameplay consists of mission based objectives where you have a large map and have to navigate different parts of it destroying targets both land and air based. For a 16-bit game (SNES/Genesis) it's very detailed and very sim-like in it's presentation. Anyone remember the collectable card craze during the early 90's? There were Gulf War sets that really went hand in hand with these games as they really brought the war to the attention of children like never before. I still have a lot of fun with these games on all the various systems they were released for. The game was also recently ported and renamed for the GBA under the name "Operation Armored Liberty" and retains the fun of the original.

• Silent Service - NES: This is one of my all-time favorite NES games. I have many fond memories of playing this game well into the early hours of morning while we tried to keep quiet because we were supposed to be sleeping! It's a submarine simulator that also appeared on pretty much every home computer system of the 80's / early 90's. You hunt convoys, patrol enemy waters and basically try to sunk anything you see. The level of realism was unmatched for it's time. I couldn't count how many times I cursed because of a dud torpedo on a guaranteed kill shot, or because I was chased underwater by depth charges and enemy destroyer fire. This is an addictive fun simulator that while requires a lot of patience, is very rewarding especially for an 8-bit game.

• Medal of Honor: Allied Assault - PC: The last in my top 5 was a bit harder to pick. When the trend for war FPS games exploded a few years ago, so many flooded the market it quickly overwhelmed and saturated the genre. So many franchises like MoH, Call of Duty, Battlefield, Brothers in Arms etc. etc. and most have defining features that make them all good in their own right. The reason I choose this one was the impact it had on me when I first played it. Remember the first time you played the Omaha Beach landing? How incredible and visceral it was? Very gritty and surreal for a video game. Also the audio was fantastic, always a finer point for game reviews for me personally. Those of you who haven't had the pleasure, compare it to the beach landing during the movie "Saving Private Ryan". The console port MoH: Frontline comes close, but it still doesn't compare to the PC version. After raising the bar so high, the series never quite seemed to reach that pinnacle of quality again. A shame that, maybe Call of Duty: World at War will bring the "wow" back to WWII titles once again.

So that's my list folks, sans tasteless background music. Now it's your turn! But before I do, let me list a few more titles that I hold in high esteem, either for their realism or gameplay value:

Sniper Elite, Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty 3, Medal of Honor Underground, Silent Hunter III, Triple Action (Tank Battle), Desert Strike: Return to the Gulf.

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It's hard to believe that I've been doing this feature for well over a year now. July 18th 2007 was the date I published the first entry in this feature (Vol.1 Racing Games). Even harder to believe that I've managed to stretch out the most popular or expected genres this long without using them all up. So I thought this time around I'd spoil myself and write a List 'em for my top 5 favorite platforming games of all time.

Now I admit that I had some difficulty in choosing my top 5. Not only because there are so many good platformers out there, but also because sometimes the line blurs on what does and doesn't make a platforming type of game. Rastan is a sword swinging platformer/action adventure of a sort, Contra could be argued as a platformer along with being a side scrolling shooter. So I narrowed it down to games of dexterity with minimal graphic violence and a small amount of puzzle solving or exploration. Of course interpretation is in the eye of the beholder, so feel free to list whatever you feel you think a platformer is and as always, as many or as few as you wish.



In no particular order:

• Bonk's Revenge (TG16) - Now you may remember how last month, I regaled you with a small glimpse into my personal gaming past from nearly 20 years ago with my recollection of the TurboGrafx-16's short and turbulent tenure in retail. How RadioShack had thrown their support behind the system and actively advertised it with custom kiosks in their retail locations. Well among the games that were demoed, Bonk's Revenge was a prominent one.
  
  As with most TG16 games, it was colourful, had great sound and looked like a helluva lot of fun. Unfortunately it got shoved aside in the midst of Super Mario World, those still playing SMB3 from the year before, and those anticipating Sonic 2 that they knew was coming soon. Great time for platformers no?
  
  It's hard to describe what the TG16 was like in it's heyday. Like that cousin you didn't know very well but always had fun with when they visited? A secret stash of games that you couldn't talk about in school because hardly anyone even knew what a Turbografx was? In any case, it was under-appreciated in it's own time and Bonk's Revenge is an example of classic gaming that didn't need fat plumbers or blast processing to kick ass.

• Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES/FC) - Ok here's the scoop. SMB1 although it pioneered the dynasty of 2D platforming as we know it, was a damn ugly, boring game. SMB2 was good in it's own way but still to this day suffers from "red headed stepchild syndrome" (apologies to red headed stepchildren, I own SMB2). So there it is, feel free to throw rotting cyber-veggies at me and digital eggs, but that's my opinion. I'd rather be honest and hated for it than cater to the masses and tell you want you want to hear like so many publications out there looking for a pat on the back.
  
  SMB3 on the other hand, was one of the games that made me a dual console lover decades before the idea of it (Wii60, PSWii etc) was made popular. The NES didn't offer the home arcade experience like the Sega Master did, nor did it offer complexity like home computers such as the Atari ST, C64 etc etc did. But it did have Mario 3. It didn't need crazy fans wearing coloured shirts organized to show Mario's face in orbit, it didn't need Fred Savage pimping out dubious peripherals in hammy 80's movies. It also didn't need Captain Lou Albano and may have even benefitted more without it. Mario 3 is a kick-ass game that brought colour, music, gameplay and imagination all into one package. But you don't need me to tell you that do you? So I'll move onto the next in my list....

• Super Mario World (SNES/SFC) - I'm of the opinion that this is the greatest Mario game made, even better than SMB3 I praised above in the last paragraph. More variety in gameplay, more imagination, more variation in sounds and music...well just more of everything in greater quantity and quality! Oh and the save feature was a real joy as well, no more leaving the NES paused while you ate your vegetables, or pretending to sleep until you could sneak back to the TV for another shot at it. Well you could still do those things, but it wasn't necessary.
  
  This game alone made me forgive Nintendo for making me own such a fugly purple and grey device. If the Genesis was a sleek black 2-door coupe, the SNES was a rental van with a bad company paint job. Even if you dislike the game from a matter of personal taste, you still have to respect it's significance and what a polished high quality product it was. A product that continues, like it's predecessor, to influence game developers and industry professionals to this day.

• Vexx (GCN/PS2/Xbox) - This one probably isn't on too many lists and that's a shame. One of the original Acclaim company's last really good games before they went under.
  
  Part beat-em up, part puzzle platformer, part pure platformer, Vexx takes a little of everything and actually mixes it together rather well. One minute your guiding a huge soccer ball into a net for one puzzle, the next your hopping platforms in mid-air trying to reach a goal, the next, timing your progress up a mountain towards another goal while traps and enemies are attacking you. There are so many gameplay elements that I could do an article on this game alone. Cheap to find and available for all three last gen systems, it also holds the distinction of being backwards compatible for all three current ones as well including the X360. Rumor has it a sequel is in the works as a new publisher bought the license when Acclaim went under, that could be a good thing or bad, only time will tell.

• Crash Bandicoot Warped (PS1) - Last but certainly not least, is my favorite PS1 platformer and favorite Crash Bandicoot game. Third time's the charm as they say. Warped has everything you'd want in a platformer with humor and light hearted enjoyment to spare. A colourful game that really shows off the system's abilities and it's possible appeal to those thinking Nintendo had the monopoly on platformers in the late 90's.
  
  I have a lot of fond memories playing this game with friends and family and we still have a session from time to time where as always we discover it hasn't lost it's charm. As far as PS1 games are concerned, many haven't aged well but this one is a glaring exception. You can buy a PS3 as your first ever system and still be able to enjoy this game as we did 10 years ago.

So that's my top 5, now it's your turn. But before I do, let me mention a couple runners up that should be noted as being very close to top 5 material. Sonic 2, Wario World, Super Mario Bros. 2.

For more List 'ems and other great features written by members of RF Generation, please navigate to the " Features " menu at the top of this page and browse the community forums under the " Blogs " menu.

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