Video of the Week: Nerd³'s Greatest Games Of All Time... 10 – 1 (by OfficialNerdCubed)

If you haven’t watched from the beginning at game 100, I recommend you do because I will be spoiling many places on this list, especially number 1. I have been a fan of NerdCubed for a fair few years now, and during that time he’s given us some information on what are his top five games of all time is. That list included, (not necessarily in the right order) Just Cause 2 (although that did quickly get overtaken by the release of Just Cause 3 purely because you have the wingsuit), Shadow of the Colossus, and Portal. I was surprised to learn that Just Cause 2 has achieved 81 on the list, and Just Cause 3 achieved 40, and even more surprised when the game he frequently claimed was the best game ever came second. Shadow of the Colossus wasn’t the best game of all time, which made my brain skim through every other game that he didn’t mention just to try and figure out what could possibly be number 1. There was a huge question mark on my face when I heard the Bully soundtrack.

NerdCubed has this semi-running joke where he announces something bad to be at the top before switching over to the actual winning entry, and I absolutely believed he was going to do that when he announced Bully to be his number one game of all time. However, throughout the list, despite confusing me and probably so many of his other viewers, he does justify his reason why each game is where it is brilliantly. In about a minute or two, he explains why exactly why that game falls there.

Before he started the list, he did say he had spent many, many hours deducing 350 games, whittling them down to the magic number and sorting them out into a nice order via his own system, which he explains in the first video, and I do agree with that system. In the first video, he does make an excellent point about your greatest game of all time constantly changing to the one you’ve recently played, or your favourite game that pops into your head when asked that question, but if you really do sit down and think about it, as we have seen the proof of, your opinion may change, and to a surprising one at that.

I’m not that much of a gamer. I do enjoy playing games, but I’m probably one of the fussiest person I know when it comes to choosing a game that I will sit down and play for hours. I enjoy my story, I enjoy my sandbox, I enjoy my racing, and I occasionally enjoy my strategy, and because I have three different categories, and I don’t have that many played games under my belt, I found myself having three different games that are at number 1. The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction for sandbox, The Last of Us for story, and Dirt 2 for racing. However, having three games sitting at number one is not acceptable, and so I did sit down and have an extensive thought about which one should be number 1, 2, and 3.

Dirt 2 is sitting comfortably at number 3. The developers of that never got how a car operates better than they did with Dirt 2. Dirt 3 was spectacular, but there was something about it that felt a little off and I had to think about it to put my finger on and point it out. Dirt 3 was essentially the same as Dirt 2, but with better graphics, and better damage, and that’s it. Dirt 2 was the first to really give us the true feelings of driving a car. When you crashed, you felt it; when you were hurtling down a narrow road through dense forest, you had to keep your wits about you and concentrate hard, because the car was operating like it would in the real world. Dirt 3 didn’t add much more to the overall feel of that Dirt 2 gave me, and that’s why Dirt 2 is my greatest racing game, but ultimately my third greatest game of all time.

The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction is at number 2. That means the Last of Us is, probably unsurprisingly to some, sitting at number 1. Why is the Incredible Hulk not though? It’s a superb game. Going back a good few years, my PS2 had recently broke, and I thought that I wouldn’t be getting another one, so I made what I thought was a good decision and sold my PS2 games. During that long interlude, I was recommended and played Minecraft, and I thought that this was just the best sandbox game ever, because the possibilities are literally endless, the world is pretty much infinite, and you can have hours of fun with yourself, or with other players all around the world. I played Minecraft for hours, and hours, and hours, but when I stopped playing it, I didn’t go back for a good long while, because it takes a while to do anything.

A couple of years down the line, when I found out what a terrible decision I had made selling my games, and how easy it was to get my hands on another PS2, I brought back a couple of my old favourites. Burnout 3: Takedown, Spider-Man 2, and The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. I played them in that order and the nostalgia was high. Spider-Man 2 is an incredibly well made game and has beaten all the Spider-Man games that have come out as of writing this list purely because they don’t have actual web physics such as we see in Spider-Man 2. The action is smooth, the story is gripping, the challenges are paced brilliantly. The possibilities were finite, but that didn’t matter when everything about that game immediately puts that back onto my top spot… until I replayed The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction.

There are less things to do in that game compared to the previous 2 I’ve talked about. The world isn’t as big as either 2, and the story isn’t as long as Spider-Man 2. However, what has cemented its place in the number 2 spot was the fact that you could do literally anything you wanted within the game’s world. You were the hulk: Smash cars, smash buses and use them as shields, defeat robots, and even bigger robots, and even bigger robots, jump immense distances, the fast-paced action, the almost god-like powers you have over the world was unlike any other sandbox game I’ve played over the many years I’ve been playing sandbox games. But what really cemented its place was how you can replay the entire story from the beginning, but keep everything you’ve brought and unlocked during your first run. When you’re playing that first mission, and pulling off moves you only just unlocked during the final one, that’s when the Hulk actually felt like he was the ultimate destruction machine he is. Endless fun. I’ve never once gotten bored playing the game – time has always gotten away from me whilst playing it. I could go on for hours why it’s just awesome, but I’ve got one more game to talk about.

The Last of Us. When I sat down and played this game, I didn’t stop until I had completed it. I couldn’t put it down, and no that wasn’t because I was addicted to it… well, technically I was if you count being hooked emotionally, crying every other scene, your heart beating fast as you’re sneaking past the infected. I will never forget that ending. That powerful, heart-wrenching ending. I’ve talked about this game many times before and said that it was perfect. During the quiet moments, you can go exploring the world, see the little Easter eggs the developers have dropped in, finding bits of information that once altogether creates this sub story that’s just as gripping. Seeing the characters develop as the story continues, connecting with them like no other game I’ve ever played before. It’s a perfect game. Again, I could talk for hours explaining why this game’s my greatest game of all time, and if you put all the times I’ve talked about it together, you will find that I probably have talked hours, and you may even be bored of hearing me say how great the game is, but that just proves that I just cannot recommend it enough. It needs to be played by everyone, and if everyone has played it, they need to play it again because I guarantee you haven’t found everything that’s in that game, and if you have, then I need to catch up.

Conclusion: Dirt 2, the perfect racing game. The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, the perfect sandbox game. The Last of Us, the perfect game. You need to go along way before you can beat them.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)