Last night, in the wee hours of the morning, I completed Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney on the DS.  I really didn’t think I’d get into it as much as I did.  It completely dominated my free time over Christmas and New Year.  I’m even listening to the Gyakuten Saiban orchestral soundtrack as I type this!  As I cried out my final ‘OBJECTION!’ and the credits rolled, I realised that the game had earned a spot in my all time top ten.  I also realised that Edgeworth is a hottie.

But it got me thinking - what the hell would the rest of my top ten be?  And what defines a great game?  Are my FAVOURITE games necessarily the games that I think are the greatest, or just the ones with the most charm?  Some of the games I considered ticked all the usual boxes of greatness - Final Fantasy VII with its great gameplay and great storyline, for example.  But then what about the other games I love?  Titles like Bishi Bashi Special and Metropolismania - wacky, weird games that don’t follow any of the usual rules?  And do I have to 100% complete a game to know if I truly loved it?  What about games with good online modes - if I didn’t touch the offline, did that mean the game couldn’t be included?  For example, I loved Rainbow Six: Lockdown on multiplayer, but I barely scratched the surface on single player.  And what about games I played in my childhood?  Could I really trust my opinion on a game I hadn’t played in 10 years (sorry Target Renegade on the Amstrad CPC)?  But if that were true then surely I couldn’t include recent games like Phoenix Wright - how would I know a game was truly great unless I’d left it to mature for a few years?

My next realisation was that I couldn’t possibly put my final top ten in order.  How could I compare Psycho Fox on the Master System with Road Rash on the Mega Drive?  The games were just too different. 

My first draft listed twenty-three games I thought deserved a place in the top ten.  Narrowing it down to eleven was painful.  And I came *THIS* close to flipping a coin to decide which game had to go.  I am truly fortunate to have played so many great titles in my gaming lifetime.

So, after MUCH deliberation and reminiscence, here are my final ten, listed in the order they were released.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (1992, Sega, Megadrive, Platform)
Streets of Rage II (1992, Sega, Megadrive, Side scrolling beat ‘em up)
Secret of Mana (1993, Square, SNES, RPG)
Shining Force (1993, Sega, Megadrive, Tactical RPG)
Grandia (1999, Ubisoft, Playstation 1, RPG)
Vagrant Story (2000, Square, Playstation 1, RPG)
Silent Hill 2 (2001, Konami, Playstation 2, Survival horror)
Dragon Quest: Journey of the Cursed King (2005, Square, Playstation 2, RPG)
Splinter Cell: Double Agent (2006, Ubisoft, Xbox 360, Action Adventure)
Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney (2006, Capcom, DS, Adventure)

So what did I learn from this? I’m still an RPG girl at heart, with five out of the ten in that genre. Zero titles from the Xbox or Amstrad CPC were deemed good enough for me, and Sony dominated my purse-strings.

It took me hours to reach my conclusion.  What are your top ten games?  Think carefully, and think long.  It’s tougher than you might imagine.