Winnie-the-Pooh, by A. A. Milne

Winnie-the-Pooh is one of the greatest works of literature ever written. Some say that it overshadowed the rest of A. A. Milne’s work, but if this is what he’s most remembered for, then there’s no problem as far as I can see. I like it, I really do.

This body of work is a collection of short stories about the lives and happenings of a group of children’s toy animals in a forest. There’s Winnie-the-Pooh himself, a stuffed bear with a love of honey that borders on the addictive, Christopher Robin his owner/master/demi-god, Piglet who is only a Very Small Animal, Rabbit who likes to order everyone around, Owl who sits and pontificates, Kanga who fusses over Roo, and Roo who only exists to worry Kanga. Later on there’s Tigger, who Bounces. And there’s Eeyore. We’ll come to him later. Of course, what we call Winnie-the-Pooh is actually two short books, published one after the other, Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, but they’re both so short that they can be safely compiled into one volume that can be read in the space of a weekend. The version I’ve got here is titled The World of Pooh. Call it what you will, you must find it and read it, if you haven’t done so already. Don’t be put off by the fact it’s a children’s book – children are more intelligent than people suspect, and it looks to me that A. A. Milne seemed to know this.

Pooh himself is often cited as a Bear of Very Little Brain, who spends most of his finite mental abilities making up little hums and rhymes, or else trying to coax honey out of his friends on the pretext of visiting them. It is this straightforward approach to life however that occasionally allows him to solve the day-to-day problems that crop up in the forest, such as when he turns an empty honey-pot into a crude floatation device  so that he could escape a flood, or to just follow his instincts when he ends up lost in the mist. His kindly, easy-going nature has even gone as far as to be used as an illustration for the principles of Taoism, as seen in the popular little book The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff – I can in fact recommend this book too, as a supplement to Winnie-the-Pooh. I can’t claim to know much of Taoism outside of what appears in either book, but by illustrating its basic tenets with references from Winnie-the-Pooh, this Hoff chap makes it sound rather enlightened. At the end of the day, if everyone were a little more like Pooh and less like Rabbit, or Eeyore, then the world would be a better place. This is why Winnie-the-Pooh has the scent of brilliance.

While I like the idea of comparing Pooh to a western Taoist philosopher, I think there’s something more to it than that. The beauty and comedy of this book comes down solely to its writing, of the confusion that takes place between the characters in their dialogue. So much of it comes directly from their child-like misunderstanding of what the other character is saying, and is then followed up by the reveal that the first character doesn’t really know either, and is caught out. Take this instance in the first chapter:

‘Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, about last Friday, Winnie-the-pooh lived in a forest all by himself under the name of Sanders.

“What does ‘under the name’ mean?” asked Christopher Robin.

“It means he had the name over the door in gold letters and lived under it.”’*

Or this:

‘And the door opened and Owl looked out.

“Hallo, Pooh,” he said. “How’s things?”

“Terrible and sad,” said Pooh, “because Eeyore, who is a friend of mine, has lost his tail. And he’s Moping about it. So could you very kindly tell me how to find it for him?”

“Well,” said Owl, “the customary procedure in such cases is as follows.”

“What does Crustimoney Proseedcake mean?” said Pooh. “For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me.”

“It means the Thing to Do.”

“As long as it means that, I don’t mind,” said Pooh humbly.’**

In fact, Owl is usually at the root of this sort of comedy, for he tends to use overly complicated means to express himself, which of course only means that the others can barely understand him. This is best illustrated during the episode when it rained lots:

‘It was on this morning that Owl came flying over the water to say “How do you do?” to his friend Christopher Robin.

“I say, Owl,” said Christopher Robin, “isn’t this fun? I’m on an island!”

“The atmospheric conditions have been very unfavourable lately,” said Owl.

“The what?”

“It has been raining,” explained Owl.

“Yes,” said Christopher Robin. “It has.”

“The flood-level has reached an unprecedented height.”

“The who?”

“There’s a lot of water about,” explained Owl.

“Yes,” said Christopher Robin, “there is.”

“However, the prospects are rapidly becoming more favourable. At any moment –“

“Have you seen Pooh?”***

So yes. The thing is, that this sort of comedy ought to appeal to children especially, because adult-speak must seem terribly needlessly complicated to them. Why did Owl have to always try to say things in such a convoluted way, using such big words when he could convey the same meaning with fewer, simpler words? Why do I have to do the same thing in these book reviews? Could it be that I’m just trying to make myself feel more intelligent? In this way it could almost be seen as a satire of language, showing just how silly advanced English seems when it’s comprehended by children. It is not that they can’t understand the ideas being presented, just that the long words offer an unnecessary barrier. Being someone with a vocabulary that is probably a little too large, I found this book endearingly hilarious for these very reasons.

Now then... the issue of Eeyore. This misery-guts of a donkey has, thanks largely to the Disney adaptations of the character, gained something of a cult-following as somebody who’s soppy yet endearing.

THIS IS NOT THE CASE! EEYORE IS AN ABSOLUTE ASS!

He’s a miserable stick-in-the-mud, rude, manipulative and unpleasant, and he delights in complaining bitterly, whilst in the next breath by claiming to rise above it as a matter of course, because he’s too good to complain. ‘Mustn’t grumble’ is the keyword here. The thing is that he clearly enjoys being miserable as it gives him something to complain about, and makes himself feel better by acting superior to everybody else, liberally insulting them for not giving him his due attention and respect. In many ways Eeyore is the best character of the lot just because he’s such a sharp contrast to everybody else, so self-absorbed, so unpleasant, and how he tries to drag everybody else down with his bitterness. I don’t know how the cult-of-Eeyore could justify their love of him, but in the book he is essentially the opposite of Pooh, which in effect makes him the antagonist of the series. Only his reverence of Christopher Robin could possibly redeem him, and the way that in the final chapter he behaved like a bit less of an ass than usual. Still an ass mind, but not as much of one.

So there you have it – Winnie-the-Pooh is an intelligent little introduction to the English language, one that demonstrates just how silly and entertaining it really is. The characters are lovable, except for Eeyore who’s not, and the interactions and trials of their friendship is genuinely heart-warming. Whether you see it as an illustration of Taosim, a satire of language , or just a fond little childhood retreat, Winnie-the-Pooh is an excellent read and will improve your life just by reading it.

[Disclaimer: I’m not really sure what to do with one of these, as I’ve never used one before to my knowledge, but I must apologise about the whole Eeyore issue. Yes, I do quite like Eeyore, he’s an excellent character and the whole of Pooh is enriched by his presence. I suppose my issue with him, besides everything bad I said about him before, is that I see a lot of myself in Eeyore when I read this And I Don’t Like What I’m Seeing! You know, when I was a youngster, back way over a decade ago now, one of my teachers once made the observation, in front of an entire classroom of other children, that I was the most like Eeyore. It traumatised me, this did, as Eeyore is a right ass, and to be told this did not aid in my emotional upbringing in any way. In many ways though, I more identify with Piglet nowadays, with his timidity and his endless worrying, but I’ll take this any day over the bog-dwelling gloomy donkey who Never Stops Complaining.] 

References ('cos I'm a professional, like that)

* Milne, A.A. The World of Pooh. Methuen Children’s Books: London. (1958). pp.16-17

** Milne. P.56

*** Milne. P.136

Dracula, by Bram Stoker

There are many books that have left me with a sense of achievement after I finished reading through them. Some have made me feel sad at their conclusion, for there is no more to read, and the characters and plots that I had been resolutely following exist no more at the closing of the book. Sometimes, if there is a sequel, I will happily move straight on to that in order to gain further satisfaction from the reading experience. Yet some books I reach the end of make me utter the words ‘Thank God that that’s over’. It is generally not an indication of a good book if I end like this.

Dracula was one of these last books.

I feel sad to have to conclude this progenitor of the modern Vampire as a not especially good work, because there was an awful lot about it that I liked. 

The story is about the mysterious Count Dracula, who you will certainly have heard of, even if you’ve never seen any of the hundreds of movies about him (or any other Vampire-related spawn, which to the detriment of humanity culminated in the Twilight series. Well, it’s wrong to blame Einstein for the atomic bomb...)  Count Dracula is a centuries’ old undead bloodsucking aristocrat residing in the wilds of Transylvania in eastern-Europe, who has decided to move to London. The protagonists of the novel are all people whose lives are affected by this decision, and eventually they muddle through for long enough to work out what’s going on, and work out that they need to kill Dracula. There’s Jonathon Harker, who travels to Castle Dracula at the beginning of the novel, his fiancée and later wife Mina, Mina’s friend Lucy Westenra, Dr Seward who runs a mental institute, Renfield a patient in said institute, Dr Seward’s two friends the American Quincey Morris, and Arthur Holmwood a wealthy heir, and finally Professor Van Helsing, Seward’s Dutch mentor, who seems to be the only person who knows what’s going on with the Vampire situation. Lucy Westenra, who is disgustingly sweet, proves to be prime material for Dracula’s need for blood, and after a long-long time of being secretly drunk-dry the local Vampire, eventually dies, becomes a Vampire herself, and thus provides the stepping-stone to the rest of the story.

Unfortunately, the critical flaw with Dracula always comes back to the way in which it is told. The story is presented entirely through the assembled writings of several characters, largely in the form of diaries and journals, and to a lesser extent from letters, telegrams, and newspaper reports. A character writes about the events that occur, in diary entries just after the events have happened. In effect, the reader is invited to experience the story by reading through a record, to witness the events through the memories of the characters, and to understand their thoughts, reactions and emotions at different points along the narrative. This is a novel idea, and one that could, in theory, work quite well. Unfortunately what you end up reading for the next four-hundred pages is someone waffling on in an endlessly dreary tone, as they just tell you in the most boring way what happened. It’s boring, is what it is. Really really boring. And slow. To say the story moves along at a snail’s pace would do injustice to snails. It’s just wet, Victorian waffle, describing how shocked and horrified they feel upon having their safe little upper middle-class Christian worlds shaken by the machinations of this Count Dracula fellow.

The story-telling aside, the effort that Bram Stoker makes in order to ground the tale in reality does have some positive flip sides. Yes, the story is slow, and very little happens at any particular time, but this does provide time for a great deal of introspection for the characters. Lucy Westenra’s illness, caused by her night-time visitations from Dracula, is painfully drawn out as Dr Seward and Van Helsing try desperately to keep her alive. They perform numerous blood-transfusions to keep her tanked up against Dracula’s visits, and every time something goes awry in order to make her eventual death a certainty. It’s agonising to witness, but this is one respect in which the novel succeeds. That it takes so long for her to die only makes it all the more tragic when she eventually does so, and is an excellent display of how horrible a creature the real Count Dracula actually is.

Ahhhh.... Count Dracula. The rest of the characters may be boring and largely interchangeable, but their antagonist is one of the all-time great villains. No wonder so many cheesy knock-offs have been attempted by Hollywood and Hammer Films, as he is the Devil in the guise of a man. He is a mysterious and dreadfully powerful individual, a mighty hero from the middle ages who has existed in a state of undeath into the modern world, a man with the strength of several men, who can change his shape to any creature he desires, or even into mist, can sneak into the most secure rooms and houses without being noticed, who can control the very weather itself in order to further his aims. And while his powers are affected by the time of day, exposure to sunlight is not actually that harmful to him. A lot tougher than Buffy ever had it, I can tell you. This is what our band of everyday Victorians have to face, and all they’ve got are a few crucifixes, a regular supply of garlick, and all the money that several very wealthy people have at their disposal. Well, not everything is against them. Dracula is this malign, omnipresent villain, but that he’s always lurking in the background adds a wonderful layer to the story, and makes him a formidable adversary.

My main criticism of this book is that it starts off good, but gradually runs out of steam as it progresses. The first four chapters are undoubtedly the best, where Jonathon Harker goes to Transylvania to visit Dracula in his castle. The Count at first appears like quite a nice chap, if a little unnerving a chap, and the two of them spend a great deal of time eating dinner and talking. It gradually dawns on Harker that the Count is the only person he ever sees around the castle, and that certain things about him don’t seem quite right: that he never actually eats anything, that he has weird nocturnal life-style, that he has no reflection, that he never allows Harker to leave the castle...

Harker and Dracula continue their dinner-time conversations, while Dracula knows that Harker knows that he’s a prisoner, but the two of them pretend that everything’s normal. This is a very British sort of horror. ‘Yes, I know you’re keeping me here against my will, and I know that you know that I know, but I’m not going to panic in front of you, Dracula. That just would not do...’

This section is really quite excellent, but it could  not be kept up. We then pick up with the rest of the characters back in England, and after a bit of doddering along in which Dracula’s dramatic entry into the county is reported, the sad case of Lucy Westenra occurs. While it takes time to build up, this is another of the high points of the novel, but sadly it soon peters off again, and we are left with the rest of the book to slog through, in which the characters have a group cry at least four times before the end (while I’m certainly not against male characters showing their softer sides, especially when they have a real reason for sorrow, by the third occasion when more than one of them breaks into tears at the same time I was beginning to get a bit fed-up by it, and on the fourth occasion it’s a case of ‘Really? Again?’)

Dracula, a good story, has several interesting points, but is definitely let down by the dullness of the writing. The Count Dracula character is one of the most important literary creations of the modern world, possibly because he and his vampiric descendents have been stolen and abused so many times since then, but here at least is one of the originals. I didn’t bother to explore the sexual metaphors the character involves, because they’re quite obvious in here (mysterious foreign gentleman, preying on young ladies and taking their blood at night), which to the Victorians was probably the most horrifying thing they could conceive. No wonder it became so popular a concept. Likewise with the character himself, the metaphor has been overused and corrupted (‘I’m looking at you, Twilight’). Perhaps one of the main issues with this book is that the suffocating Victorian values of Stoker’s day have now almost entirely been cleansed from our society, and so it’s now quite alien for us to see his characters to speak and behave in the way that they do.

For my last word on the matter, Dracula is one of those books that’s good to read at least once. It’s refreshing to see where the whole vampire-mythos originally took root, if only to marvel at their long and sorry decay over the following century. Just don’t expect it to be amazing, though.

The Video Games List

 So then, here it is - a relatively complete list of every video game I have ever played. I know that normally this blog is dedicated to books, but here is summarized another medium I am quite fond of. As I am relatively reluctant to play new games, this list is pretty comprehensive of my experience and will not be added to any time soon.

  They have been ranked from Last at the top to First at the bottom, so as you go down the list, the more the game is valued in my particular estimates. There are a couple of sentences about what I think of each game, just to try and explain my position of said things within the list. You have here a little cross-section of gaming history, there for everyone to enjoy.

100	Resident Evil 6 (2013)	Capcom/ Capcom	Just to be clear, the higher in the list a game gets, the worse I think of it. I just can’t persuade myself to care about this one. It’s an incoherent mess in the guise of a survival horror. When one of the characters turned into a T-Rex, that was all I needed to know that the series, and perhaps modern video games in general, weren’t worth salvaging.
99.	Jurassic Park: Trespasser (1998)	Dreamworks Interactive/ Electronic Arts	I wanted to like this game. I wanted to like being trapped on a dinosaur-infested island, and I wanted to like the immersion of having to direct your virtual arms to reach out to actually pick things up, instead of just walking over ammo and health like before. Instead it was dull and clunky, and is ultimately a bad memory.
98.	Duke Nukem Forever (2011)	Gearbox Software/ 2k Games	DNF I dislike simply because it’s just a first-person shooter which has taken over half my life to be launched. I gave it a cursory viewing, just to see what it was like, but got bored after about an hour. A game that bores you after fifteen years of failing to be developed just isn’t worth the time. To be fair, it’s not actually the same game they started making back in the ‘90s, and they would have been better off simply giving it a different name, casually brushing the stupid development history under the carpet. But no, they proudly called it DNF, practically revelling in a decade and a half of failure.
97.	Titanic: Adventure Out of Time (1996)	Cyberflix/ Europress	So, you get to have a virtual tour of the Titanic. A little point-and-click exploration game, and if you were interested in the Titanic, then it might be worth playing. I was never interested in the Titanic, sadly.
96.	Super Smash Bros. Brawl (2008)	Various / Nintendo	I’m not a Nintendo fan boy, sadly. Maybe it’s because I’ve only ever played this game alongside people who are greatly more experienced at it than I, which severely hampers the novice’s enjoyment of what should be a simple bit of fun, but I could never really get the hang of it.
95.	Borderlands (2009)	Gearbox Software/ 2k Games	A bad game. Just shoot your way through every psychopath you come across, with no sense of achievement. Each one seems to have much more health than you (or else your gun is just so much worse than theirs). The least satisfying of all shooters.
94.	Borderlands 2 (2012)	Gearbox Software/ 2k Games	Exactly the same as the first one, but I’ve stuck with this one slightly longer somehow. It still bores me half to death, and it still the most unsatisfying of all shooters, actively slowing you down and making you wander around in order to pad out its play-time. Believe me, I love RPGs, but is not a good example; this is not how you're supposed to make one.
93.	Action Man: Raid on Island X (1999)	Intelligent Games/ Hasbro Interactive	This being a game designed for retarded children, it was impossible to fail it. Believe me; I tried many times. Aside from being completely non-challenging, it came with an awful narrator, who in all seriousness would tell you about the ‘bomb-proof indestructible doors’ on Dr X’s base, and would literally give you three cheers when you completed the game. No video game has ever been more patronising.
92.	Pilgrim: Faith as a Weapon (1997)	Arxel Tribe / Wanadoo / Infrogames Entertainment	An adventure game set in medieval France. It’s based on a Paulo Coelho novel, or something, and despite having primitive character animations and poor voice-acting, the game was strangely compelling. However, since completing it many years ago I have never been tempted to replay.
91.	Any car racing game ever...	[Various]	My brother is a big fan of these, but I could never share in his enthusiasm. All these racing games are basically the same, and I would know considering I’ve sampled more than my fair share over the years. Gran Turismo 2, 3, 4, and 5, Forza Motorsport 1, 2, and 3, Need for Speed 2 and 3, Project Gotham Racing 4, Toca Race Driver 3, and probably a few others that have slipped my mind at the moment. Sure, they have different cars and tracks, varying levels of realism in handling, some have damage, some have weather, some you can customise your vehicles, etc. etc.  They all involve driving around a circuit much too fast, and I was never that good at it, and have since lost interest in any of them.
90.	Far Cry 2 (2008)	Ubisoft Montreal/ Ubisoft	At first it looks like it could be interesting, but very quickly gets boring and starts repeating itself.
89.	Operation Flashpoint/ ARMA (2001)	Bohemia Interactive Studio/ Codemasters	The most effective war simulation I’ve ever played; being shot once will cause death, just like it does in real-life, and you can never work out who shot you. The vehicles were good, if a bit crappy to drive, and I only ever feel safe in this game when driving a Cold-War era tank. The history of the subsequent series of these games is about as easy to understand as feudal-dynastic politics in medieval Germany. In conclusion, nobody wants a realistic war simulator, because real war is awful.
88.	Paperboy (1984), and 2 (1991)	Atari Games and Tengen/ Mindscape	Definitely the oldest game on the list, Paperboy was just a fun little diversion. I say fun; what I mean is terrifying and impossible. The sequel wasn’t that much better.
87.	Resistance: Fall of Man (2006)	Insomniac Games/ Sony Computer Entertainment	This is what finally showed me how boring FPS games actually were. Yet another alien/mutant/demon race is out conquering Earth, and it’s your job to shoot your way through them. They tried to cram a story and a couple of characters into it, but aside from taking place in the picturesque towns of Grimsby and Manchester, there’s absolutely nothing of worthy note.
86.	Micro Machines V3 (1997)	Codemasters/ Midway	This was weird. Top-down view racing game, where you have to drive miniature vehicles around household tables and school desks. Mostly I remember the menu, in which each option involved driving down a different road. And there was Cherry’s driving school, where a patronising English driving instructor would set you ridiculously hard tests to complete.
85.	Dynasty Warriors 4 (2003)	Omega Force/ Koei	I didn’t particularly enjoy this. It made the battlefield slaughter of hundreds of people quite tedious and dull, and it replayed the same stupid cinematic every time you defeated an enemy hero – which was often enough that the makers should have considered not having that in the game.
84.	Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (2008)	LucasArts/ LucasArts	The Jedi Knight series did it better. This was just a quick-time-event heavy rehash, with a worse story that aimed to further tie the original Star Wars trilogy to the Godforsaken prequels. It ends with a fight against both Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine. How silly.
83.	Wii Fit (2008)	Nintendo EAD Group No. 5/ Nintendo	Apparently some people use these things for exercise. We all know what the real use for this device is: to cause humiliation. Seriously, try some of these balancing games with a couple of friends whilst drunk. That’s all it’s good for, and it’s actually quite fun sometimes.
82.	Wolfenstein 3D (1992)	ID Software/ Apogee Software	One of the very first 3D FPS games, it was adequate entertainment for my impressionable young brain, and having Adolf Hitler as the final boss was an almost worthwhile finish.
81.	Golden Axe (1989), 2 (1991) and 3 (1993)	Sega/ Sega	Generic fantasy side-scrolling sword-and-sorcery hack-and-slash and a million other descriptions couldn’t really justify just how bloody hard it was to complete these things. Oh well, just have to keep jumping and swinging at enemies, and mug those imps whenever you see them.
80.	Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project (2002)	Sunstorm Interactive/ Ubisoft	Duke Nukem first started off in side-scrawling run-and-jump; did you know that? He only got famous after pioneering with one of the first 3D FPS games. Well, whilst unemployed for the next fifteen years, he decided to whore himself out to a couple vaguely interesting summer jobs, including this attempt to get back to his side-scrawling roots. It was all right.
79.	Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (2007)	Neversoft/ Activision	It’s depressing how simple this game is – just hit the right buttons on a crummy plastic guitar-shaped controller in the right order in accompaniment to some well-known rock song. Simple, but not easy. It really punishes you for getting it wrong, for a missed button spoils bits of the music. Thus you have to get it right. It’s one of those things that you need alcohol in order to properly enjoy.
78.	TOCA Race Driver 2 (2004)	Codemasters/ Codemasters	This is just another racing game, one that has damage and stuff. But this one is better than any of the others because it has something that all others lack; a plot! Inter-race cut-scenes that contain some of the most interesting and engaging characters that I have ever seen in a game (particularly Rick, your Scottish team captain, who is insanely likable). Honestly, this is worth playing for the cut-scenes alone, making it my choice racing game.
77.	The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall (1996)	Bethesda Softworks	I decided to play this game because I had become almost romantically attached to its sequels, Morrowind and Oblivion. Alas for me, just about everything I loved about the later games was absent in this predecessor – it was clunky, repetitive, lacking any real help or direction to the player. Perhaps if I had played it back in the ‘90s, and had been mature enough to appreciate it back then, I might have been more favourable to it. As such I’m prepared to let this one rest in peace.
76.	Unreal Tournament (1999)	Epic Games and Digital Extremes/ GT Interactive	Deathmatch FPS. That’s literally all it is. Good though, and the low gravity in some of the maps adds an almost interesting angle to the whole thing.
75.	Star Trek: Armada II (2001)	Mad Doc Software/ Activision	A real-time strategy where you command fleets of ships from the good era of the Star Trek series (namely, from Next Gen to Nemesis). Unfortunately it’s all so much of a faff to control your fleets that it ends up being a right mess of a game. Beautiful, but deeply flawed and not especially worth pursuing.
74.	Grand Theft Auto (1997), and GTA 2 (1999)	DMA Design/ Rockstar Games	Officially all-right. I liked stealing cars off the street and running down pedestrians, then running off during the inevitable police chase and then being killed, then resurrected to start the whole caper all over again. I never saw the point in doing anything else in these first two games. There was a plot, was there? News to me. And GTA London was always a laugh.
73.	Worms (1995)	Team 17/ Ocean Software	This was a born classic – a turn-based 2D game of cartoon worms inflicting cartoon violence on one another. It’s simple, and never stops being fun. Best enjoyed with other human players.
72.	Halo: Combat Evolved (2001)	Bungie/ Microsoft Game Studios	As far as first-person shooters go, Halo dominates the notion of ‘exceptionally average’. They just involve walking along and shooting anything that moves, like every other game of its ilk; and I’ve never seen the reason why so many die-hard fans are prone to orgasm whenever they see that trademarked helmet. The game is all right, and rather forgettable when all is said and done.
71.	Halo 2 (2004)	Bungie/ Microsoft Game Studios	Much of the same as the first one, though they were still trying to add a story to it. Was there a sub-plot involving one of the aliens?
70.	Halo 3 (2007)	Bungie/ Microsoft Game Studios	I remember the first Halo was only half a game, and that you had to play through it twice; about half-way through, you end up fighting your way through the same levels in reverse. This one I can’t remember any more clearly, but I vaguely remember this one being less tedious than the previous two.
69.	Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (2003)	Raven Software/ LucasArts and Activision	The follow up to Jedi Knight II, in the series whose naming sequence is, at best, a little random. This should have been as good as its predecessor, if not better, but it just fell into the realms of silly, cheesy sequels. Still, the game-play’s much the same.
68.	Gears of War (2006), 2 (2008), and 3 (2011)	Epic Games/ Microsoft Studios	It came out of the bottle just begging to become a franchise, and sadly it did. All this game consists of is ducking behind cover, shooting anything that moves and enacting extreme violence. Nevertheless, for some reason I like it better than its older brother Halo. There is literally no difference between the three games of the series.
67.	Ace Combat 2 (1997)	Namco/ Namco	This is a jet-fighter flying game, and mostly involved zooming round and shooting huge quantities of missiles at things on the ground. What really stands out about this game is the variety of missions, and the brilliant music.
66.	Vigilante 8 (1998)	Luxoflux/ Activision	There are few things cooler than attaching weapons to your car. This was car combat at its best, and it was insane.
65.	Theme Hospital (1997)	Bullfrog Productions/ Electronic Arts	Yes, it’s quite good.
64.	Star Wars X-Wing Alliance (1999)	Totally Games/ LucasArts	This was one of the better Star Wars dogfight games. It had a vaguely interesting story, where being one of the unimportant X-Wing pilots on the front line actually felt like it meant a damn. And there’s not a Jedi in sight.
63.	Tekken: [Any Tekken game ranging from 1 to 6, because they’re essentially the same game] (1994-2009)	Namco/ Namco	Decide on your favourite fighting game like you decide on your favourite lager: pick a brand at random and then stick to it till the day you die, because they’re all basically the same boring, fizzy onion water. Tekken is just that; a game where you control one of two strangely dressed individuals as they kick each-other in the head. I’ve stuck with this series simply because it was the first one I was exposed to.
62.	Resident Evil 5 (2009)	Capcom/ Capcom	Oh dear. Oh well, despite it being a sad drop for the RE series, I nevertheless found this one oddly enjoyable, if a little cringe-worthy in places. It's still a fairly decent, co-op shooting game, filled with cartoon villains and atrotcious dialogue.
61.	Grand Theft Auto 3 (2001)	Rockstar North/ Rockstar Games	This was good at first. A truly immersive city-based car-stealing game with an obvious Godfather knock off storyline and the same sort of ridiculous police chases as in the original GTA. The missions got tedious after a while, so I never completed it.
60.	Mount & Blade (2008), and all its various expansions	TaleWorlds Entertainment/ Paradox Interactive	An interesting game that tries to simulate medieval combat. There seem to be several different expansions to play which make it incrementally less boring or tedious, but my main criticism of this game is that there’s literally no indication of what you’re meant to do. It’s just an open world to do with as you will, and I’m just not sure what to do with it.
59.	Alone in the Dark (1992)	Infogrames and Krisalis/ Infrogames	This is how survival horror games should be! Just an ordinary person trapped in a Lovecraftian nightmare, with nothing but caution and wit to keep you out of trouble. The controls are incredibly clunky, and the 3D graphics are prehistoric, but to have an entire mansion to explore at your own risk is a unique and wonderful experience.
58.	Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II (1997)	LucasArts/ LucasArts	Now this was an excellent game for its day. The ability to march around and hack StormtroopersTM to death with your LightsaberTM, and one of the original moral-choice alternate-ending shenanigans, back when it was still interesting and well-executed. The thing is though, the Dark-Jedi powers were always more useful in a combat game, and me ending up as Emperor of the Galaxy happened just by pure chance. It doesn’t make me a bad person, does it?
57.	Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War (2004)	Relic Entertainment/ THQ	Now you too can enter the horrible world of Warhammer 40K without the need for overly complicated rules, bank-breaking expense and the artistic skill and patience necessary to play the classic table-top war game. As far as strategy goes, this doesn’t really exercise that; just how many tanks you can produce in order to roll over the enemy base, and remember to keep replacing tanks as you lose them.
56.	The Movies (2005)	Lionhead Studios/ Activision	A game in which you manage a movie studio lot. I never liked the actual game very much, preferring instead the movie-making tools that came as a side thought. It was relatively restrictive as to what you could do, but I managed to make a couple of strange and interesting short films while I was there.
55.	Sonic 3D: Flickies’ Island (1996)	Sonic Team and Traveller’s Tales/ Sega and Xplosiv	I can appreciate why they made this. The Third Dimension was looming on the horizon, and they needed to know if Sonic could survive in the brave new world. This game proved it couldn’t be done, not without Sonic losing his soul, but nevertheless it still resulted in an interesting game, and one that I learned to enjoy.
54.	Crash Bandicoot (1996)	Naughty Dog/ Sony	The forgotten Mario/Sonic of the first Playstation. This game was quite fun, had a sense of quirkiness, and was actually designed for the new 3D plane unlike Sonic. Nevertheless, for some reason I was never endeared enough to the series to want to play any of the successors.
53.	Star Wars: Battlefront (2004)	Pandemic Studios/ LucasArts	It was all-right. Largely disposable, though. And rather unengaging, as shooting games go. Here’s a big pile of stupid enemies – wade through them, it seems to say.
52.	Star Wars: Battlefront 2 (2005)	Pandemic Studios/ LucasArts	The sequel could have been better than the first. It kept everything that was in the first, added a few extra things like space dogfights and the ability to summon heroes, but it was all still a little messy. The space dogfights were not as good as in X-Wing Alliance, and this makes me sad.
51.	Primal (2003)	SCE Studio Cambridge/ Sony	An interesting little fantasy-adventure game, with compelling level and game-play designs. With voice-overs by Callisto from Xena, and G’Kar from Babylon 5, the characters and story were unexpectedly good for a video game.
50.	Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002)	Rockstar North/ Rockstar Games	This was what GTA 3 needed; an injection of humour, actual characters and the ability to buy up your own mob empire in the city. It was a definite improvement on the previous one, but for some reason I never came back for San Andreas or GTA 4. Strange that.
49.	Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel (2001)	Micro Forté/ 14 Degrees East	A side-game in the Fallout post-nuclear apocalypse RPG series. While there were some things I liked about this game, namely the brutal real-time combat that you can direct your squad through, and the attempt to make a RTS-RPG hybrid, ultimately it proved to be the weak attempt to expand the series.
48.	Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior (2003)	Kuju Entertainment/ THQ	An all-right FPS set in the nihilistic Warhammer 40K universe, this game was greatly enhanced by voice-overs from Tom Baker, Brian Blessed, Sean Pertwee, Peter Serafinowicz, and Burt Kwouk. I still consider this the best voice cast of any video game - it's just a shame that it couldn't have been a better game.
47.	Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 (2008)	Ubisoft Montreal/ Ubisoft	I don’t know why Tom Clancy’s name should be so important in games marketing, but sadly it is. This is a pretty good modern shooter, except for the occasional times that they try to inject a story into the thing. The rest of the time you're just running around, gunning down terrorists like a good little democracy-lover.
46.	Dino Crisis 2 (2000)	Capcom/ Capcom	This was quite good. Guns and dinosaurs! Shoot the dinosaurs, or get eaten. The locations were good – an abandoned city and research facility left overrun by dinosaurs for a few years.
45.	Age of Empires (1997)	Ensemble Studios/ Microsoft Games	The first instalment of the questionably historical RTS series, I found the imprecision with which you could direct your troops to be a hindrance to enjoyment even before I got used to the new improved interface in its highly-acclaimed sequel.
44.	Stronghold: Crusader (2002)	Firefly Studios/ Take 2 Interactive	The castle-building game. This was a follow-up to the much more enjoyable original Stronghold game, dumping you into the Crusades. While there were many things I liked about this game, the stupidly difficult pitting of your flawed human intelligence against the cold, perfect and ruthless AI who could build castles faster than you made this game ultimately not worth my time.
43.	RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 (2004)	Frontier Developments/ Atari, Inc.	I like any capitalism game with a sandbox mode, and this suited me down to the ground. I once built a roller-coaster inside a massive gothic castle, and it was glorious. I have to say, I believe it is the greatest achievement of my life, and for that I am proud to make this game number 43 on my list.
42.	Stronghold Legends (2006)	Firefly Studios/ 2k Games	The follow up to Stronghold 2, this supplements you with things they couldn’t include in its immediate predecessor, like dragons, giants and werewolves. Besides some extremely difficult moments in the single-player campaign I quite enjoyed this one, though the main series is still a better castle-building game overall.
41.	Left 4 Dead 2 (2009)	Valve/ Valve Corporation	Zombies. In the scarily high numbers they’re meant to come in. While I enjoy being able to hack and shoot my way through the zombie apocalypse, and to do it with some human helpers to boot, the novelty has long since worn off, and this is still one of the only games that has ever made me feel genuinely nauseous.
40.	Sonic the Hedgehog (1991)	Sonic Team/ Sega	In his heyday Sonic was good, the music good, the levels good, the fights with Dr Robotnik, they too were good. Sonic games after the Mega Drive? Not so good. We have better things now, and if we need Sonic again, he’ll be where he’s meant to be; on the console he was created for. The only parts I didn’t like were the underwater sections. Those scared the shit out of me. Oh yes, and the Special Stages. Luckily those weren’t obligatory to complete the game.
39.	Sonic 2 (1992)	Sonic Team/ Sega	Minor improvements on the previous Sonic, whist keeping everything that made it fun. Anyone with a soul must love Tails the two-tailed fox. Sadly the Special Stages were even nastier than before, but with fewer underwater bits I can’t be too cross.
38.	Resident Evil 4 (2005)	Capcom/ Capcom	This was a good ‘un. They completely rebuilt the game-play of the RE series, but it actually succeeded! And it still tried to be a horror game, unlike its offspring. Unfortunately it was also one of the first games to make use of quick-time events, and they were horrible; HORRIBLE! Forever more I will think back on that knife-fight with Krauser with a sense of hatred.
37.	Fallout (1997)	Black Isle Studios/ Interplay Entertainment	I first played Fallout 3, and it was so good I went and bought the two previous instalments. While Fallout 3 is a first-person affair, I was surprised to see the earlier games in a ‘look-down’ view affair more often seen in strategy games. It was all right though; the post-nuclear war setting was as engaging as ever, and I was kept entertained to the end.
36.	Fallout 2 (1998)	Black Isle Studios/ Interplay Entertainment	Much the same as the previous Fallout, but slightly better because there’s no time-limit like the first one. As ever, the setting was brilliant, and by this point I was used to the turn-based combat routines. A similar experience in both of them, they’re worth playing together, if at all.
35.	Streets of Rage 2 (1993)	Sega, and Ancient, et al. / Sega	The nice 2D Mega Drive ‘punch-your-way-through-a-wall-of-vicious-thugs’ game. I liked this one; better than the first, and it didn’t make too hard an attempt at a story like SoR 3.
34.	Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles (1994)	Sonic Team/ Sega	This was undoubtedly the best of the Sonic games. An epic storyline (yes, a real story!) that sprawled across two complete games, the music was the finest ever heard in the medium, and even the Special Stages were better. There was also a Save feature, which changes it from being merely a good game, to a great one. Oh yes, and there’s nothing cooler than game cartridges in which one slots on top of another.
33.	Imperial Glory (2005)	Pyro Studios/ Eidos Interactive	Best three quid I ever spent. Possibly a knock-off of the Total War series, but a fun game which lets you conquer huge chunks of Europe in whatever shape you see fit. I have re-enacted the Unification of Italy more times than I want to admit.
32.	Resident Evil 2 (1998)	Capcom/ Capcom	We just can’t get away from zombies nowadays. Back in the day, this was a good attempt to put you in the midst of the full B-movie zombie apocalypse experience. I liked it; interesting environments to explore, puzzles to solve, and a tactical emphasis on ammo preservation and avoiding combat.
31.	Half-Life (1998)	Valve/ Sierra Entertainment	In 1998, the ability to crowbar your way through crates and furniture was a great selling-point for a game. Despite being the longest game I’ve ever played, I still enjoyed it for the most part. And of course, the Black Mesa underground laboratory setting was a classic even back in the day.
30.	Duke Nukem 3D (1996)	3D Realms/ GT Interactive	Being one of the first real games about walking around and shooting things. The levels were fun, and the expansion packs they continued to release for years afterwards always gives this game a golden glow in my memory – notably the Caribbean expansion, which replaced all the weapons with water-squirters, and Caribbean-resorts to shoot your way through.
29.	Lego Rock Raiders (1999)	Data Design Interactive/ Lego Media	A shameless marketing gimmick, one that happens to be a really good and original game. Mining has never been as fun as it was here. Sadly, the whole thing is definitely hampered by the terrible AI of your workers, and half the battle is in making sure your men aren’t slacking off or doing something incredibly stupid, like standing by dynamite that they’ve just planted whilst it goes off, or off eating lunch when you’ve got two minutes left to finish drilling for those all-important resources.
28.	Portal 2 (2011)	Valve/ Valve Corporation	Portal was quite good. This was also quite good. I liked being followed around by Stephen Merchant, and I liked a few of the new approaches to puzzle-solving. I liked it. I didn’t love it though. I merely liked it.
27.	Return to Castle Wolfenstein (2001)	Gray Matter Interactive and id Software/ Activision	Unambiguous WW2 FPS. You are a square-jawed American hero, thrown in amongst a crowd of Nazis like a cat amongst the pigeons. Very good, I liked this game and I even liked the cheesy story that went with it.
26.	The Lego film rip-off games (2005-2012)	Traveller’s Tales/ LucasArts, Warner Bros. Interactive, et al	These are fun. I’ve played Lego Indiana Jones, Lego Lord of the Rings, Lego Star Wars, and Lego Batman. They come in that precise order of brilliance. Seeing Lego figures beating each other up is the best reason for playing these, but they’re oddly fun for other reasons as well. It’s basically just mindless destruction and collecting treasures that are useless but nevertheless cool.
25.	Age of Empires III (2005)	Ensemble Studios/ Microsoft Games	Although not the game that should have followed up to Age of Empires II, the soft third instalment to the series did hold its charms for me – namely, in the bangs of muskets and cannons as you smash down the enemy settlements. It just never gets old. However, introducing RPG elements to an RTS, namely by having a custom city that levels up as you play, is a feature that should not be in AoE.
24.	Assassin’s Creed: Revelations (2011)	Ubisoft Montreal/ Ubisoft	This is the only one of the Assassin’s Creed games I’ve played, and I very much enjoyed it. Running over the rooftops of 16th century Constantinople was a good way to see the city, but the controls did tend to make my fingers hurt. It wasn't really designed for the PC player in mind. The story and characters were a little incomprehensible to someone who’s only arrived at the series four games in, but I can see that they’ve made an effort, and I appreciate it.  But I have no reason to play any of the sequels.
23.	Mario Kart Wii (2008)	Nintendo EAD Group No. 1/ Nintendo	No game I have ever played has made me swear quite as much as this one. Seriously, the air itself turns blue. It’s the most violent, treacherous, unforgiving game around, and it matters not that it contains cute little animals and cartoon characters.
22.	Silent Hill (1999)	Konami/ Konami	Of all games purporting to be ‘horrors’, this is one of the few that actually holds up. The atmosphere is genuinely disturbing, and for that it warrants sincere and nervous applause.
21.	Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force (2000)	Raven Software/ Activision	Back in the day I was a fan of Star Trek: Voyager, and this game was amazing. A pretty decent FPS, but with large parts of Voyager faithfully recreated, and damn-near the entire cast doing their own voice-overs for the dialogue. Amazing. Also it was a really good game.
20.	Age of Mythology (2002)	Ensemble Studios/ Microsoft Games	A weird side-diversion for the Age of Empires series, this puts the would-be commander in charge of minotaurs and cyclopses while also giving them very limited godly powers. I found this fascinating, especially the overtly contrived single-player campaign, which led from the walls of Troy, to the rebuilding of the Egytian god Osiris, into the snowy lands of the Vikings, and ending with the destruction of Atlantis.
19.	Half-Life 2 (2004)	Valve/ Valve Corporation	You’ve still got your crowbar, but this time you have to batter your way through an Orwellian future. What’s not to love about this? Except for the fact that they refused to finish the story, that’s what! Damn you Valve!
18.	Saints Row: the Third (2011)	Volition/ THQ	A clone of Grand Theft Auto, but instead they tried to see just how weird they make it by simply ignoring reality. Hover-bikes? Sure. A silver-skinned, green-haired freak of a player character? Go right ahead. City-destroying airship? Why not? I found this more refreshing than I’ve ever found GTA.
17.	Saints Row 2 (2008)	Volition/ THQ	After trying Saints Row the Third I was directed to its predecessor, and found something more in line with GTA but much better than either that or SR the Third. The setting was somehow more interesting, the radio music better, and the story and characters are more engaging than anything I’ve seen in a video game.
16.	Transport Tycoon Deluxe (1995)	Chris Sawyer/ MicroProse	The most unashamed Capitalism simulator ever devised, this puts you in charge of a transport company vying for dominance of the market. It is a slow game in which you merely have to survive longer than your competitors in order to win, but it is rewarding if you have the time. Plus, the online community have been expanding and improving the game for donkeys years, making it one of the most versatile games ever released.
15.	Stronghold 2 (2005)	Firefly Studios/ 2K Games	The castle-building game, but with 3D this time! It’s nice to manage your own little settlement, and to fortify it however you please. Defending your castle is always fun, in a nerve-wracking kind of way, but the real challenge is in assaulting enemy castles – strategy, but taken to an extreme that makes it more like a puzzle than anything offered in other RTS’.
14.	Portal (2007)	Valve/ Valve Corporation	A short, sweet little game involving puzzles. The added story and characters were entirely superfluous, but they only ever enhanced an already good game. It’s just fun, is what it is. Fun.
13.	Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings (1999)	Ensemble Studios/ Microsoft Games	If you want an RTS, then there is no finer example. I think of this as the Cream of Cornish vanilla ice cream of the RTS, a flavour that one never expects to be exciting, but when done right it’s the very best of its kind.
12.	Stronghold (2001)	Firefly Studios/ Take 2 Interactive	The first of these great castle-building games. I especially like the music, but the real high-point is the single-player campaign – just you, trying to put the country together one castle at a time. Opposing you are four stock villains, whose conversations provide a basic but nonetheless compelling personality to the game, and gradually taking their territories from them is its own reward.
11.	3D Movie Maker (1995)	Microsoft Kids/ Microsoft	Not really a game as such, more a tool that enables you to make crude animated short movies. Limited to about forty distinct characters, a handful of sets and a few oddly specific props (a parachute, a treasure chest, a flying saucer... that sort of thing), the only real limitation I found in it was my imagination (how clichéd). It provided me many years of entertainment long after it had been forgotten by everyone else, and today I am just a relic left to attest that it once existed, and that it was a good thing.
10.	Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast (2002)	Raven Software/ LucasArts, Activision et al	The best Star Wars game I’ve played, with excellent game-play and a well-integrated story. You build up your abilities over the ForceTM gradually, until you’re jumping higher than anyone else and tossing your LightSaberTM at every StormtrooperTM with gusto.
9.	The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006)	Bethesda Game Studios/ Bethesda Softworks and 2K Games	Oblivion proved to be largely a disappointment for me. Notable flaws are the voice-overs, the badly implemented levelling system, and the notable lack of content when compared to its predecessor. As such, it has been left to age without the substance of Morrowind to keep it afloat. I even struggle for a reason to have it so high in my list, other than that it had a couple of revolutionary features that have since been perfected, and it sold extremely well, all of which enabled more ambitious future Bethesda projects to succeed. And for 2006, it really looked gorgeous. Seriously, to gaze down into the valley with the Imperial City far in the distance is a delicious treat.
8.	Thief II: The Metal Age (2000)	Looking Glass Studios/ Eidos Interactive	The Thief games are great. I regularly reshuffle them into order of preference, but this is how it currently lines up. The second instalment had all the good things about the original, but some of the levels were frustratingly difficult to find my way around.
7.	Thief: Deadly Shadows (2004)	Ion Storm, Inc./ Eidos Interactive	The third and final instalment of the series, at least until they reboot and ruin the good name, this one was mostly an effort to tie up the loose plot threads left over from the first two. I liked the way you could freely explore the city between levels (even if it happened to be a bit on the small side), and at one stage you have to break into an abandoned orphanage, which is one of the creepiest places I’ve seen in a video game.
6.	Thief: The Dark Project (1998)	Looking Glass Studios/ Eidos Interactive	The Thief games are brilliant. There’s just something lovely about wandering through a fantasy-steampunk city and then breaking into the guarded mansions of the arsehole gentry. As no one knows where you are, you can go anywhere you please, take anything you desire. There’s something voyeuristic about it, and you never need feel guilty.
5.	Fallout 3 (2008)	Bethesda Game Studios/ Bethesda Softworks	Bethesda fully redeemed themselves with this, an RPG set in Washington DC a couple of centuries after a nuclear war. Creeping your way through a ruined city, with nothing but a gun and a few grenades to keep the mutants at bay, is a nihilistic yet enjoyable experience.
4.	Fallout: New Vegas (2010)	Obsidian Entertainment/ Bethesda Softworks	This is the other side of the Fallout series, less nihilistic about the whole nuclear war thing and bigger on the player being able to make a difference to the world. There’s less emphasis on the sheer survival, and more emphasis on the rebuilding of civilisation. This is how RPGs ought to be, a role-playing game in which you actually play a role.
3.	Hidden & Dangerous 2 (2003)	Illusion Softworks/ Gathering and Take 2 Interactive	This is by far the best Second World War game I’ve ever played. You control a squad of SAS commandos sent on missions behind enemy lines all over the world. Maybe it’s just the proudly understated British slant to everything that I like, but the game is actually really good, where stealth and tactics are necessary to survive, rather than the gung-ho ‘shoot everything in sight’ ethos of Halo et al.
2.	The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011)	Bethesda Game Studios/ Bethesda Softworks	This is the game I had been waiting for since Morrowind, and it was better than I had dared hope for. Everything is perfect, and I almost weep with joy at how well it turned out. Dragons soaring in the distance, combat that never gets old, plots that are actually interesting, any amount of junk to collect, and space for you to put it as well. Bethesda thought to themselves, ‘what made Morrowind good, and what made Oblivion not so good?’ They answered it with Skyrim. The only reason it does not appear as number 1 on this list is that Skyrim, no matter how truly brilliant it is, cannot overcome the raw and all-consuming power of nostalgia. If it had to lose, it could only lose to its glorious ancestor.
1.	The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (2002)	Bethesda Game Studios/ Bethesda Softworks	A computer based role-playing game set in an original fantasy landscape, with a world so detailed that I continue to play it to this very day. I have wondered for many years why I like it so much, despite the nostalgia, and my main reckonings are that it is basically an interactive encyclopaedia on another world, where you can see the places and the people referred to by the countless lines of text you have to read your way through during the course of the game. The main story consists  mostly of learning about the circumstances of the land and how it came to be that way, and the game-play is almost a diversion from this, yet one that still somehow manages to be fun. Then there’s the collecting aspect to the game: there’re so many unique items, books and artefacts in the game-world that I genuinely can’t resist collecting them, and in many of my Morrowind games I unintentionally end up creating massive piles of junk that just clutter up whichever building I happen to be using as a storehouse at that time. And there’s also the user-created content as well; The Elder Scrolls Construction Set allows anyone to modify any aspect of the game they so choose, which has yielded masses of amateur ‘plug-ins’ that are still being made as I write this, a great deal of which is as good as the Bethesda original game [and some of which manages to be even better]. This way, the game can be expanded on in any way conceivable, with freely obtainable content that, even in 2013, continue to make a decade-old game fresh and interesting.