Top 10 Favorite Video Games of All-Time Countdown: 9th Place

Welcome back to the Top 10 Favorite Video Games of All-Tim Countdown.

With this countdown, Jon Johnston and I will count down our top 10 favorite video games of all time. The background of the countdown can be found in the 10th place link, but as you can probably tell, Jon and I grew up playing different video games as I grew up in the greatest era of all time and Jon grew up in a different one.

If you want to catch up on the countdown, then here you go:
10th place.

Now for our 9th place games!

Nate’s 9th Place - Assassin’s Creed

Would you like to learn a little bit about history? Well maybe grab a couple of history books. Would you like to feel like you are the same character in various different times throughout human history then Assassin’s Creed may be for you.

Photo credit should read JOE KLAMAR/AFP/GettyImages

In the picture above, the character is a present day person who can live through the memories of his ancestors using a device call the animus. In the first installation of this series you are planted into one of the crusades in the Holy Land.

What I loved about this series is the ability to sneak in and out of hiding while playing the role of the Assassin. They do a wonderful job of having different situations pop up here and there for you to sneak away undetected after taking the life of a bad guy.

Or being able to climb tall cathedrals or mosques or whatever and swan dive “into the asphalt” as a certain band would say. Well, not into the asphalt, but usually into a pile of hay as if you still wouldn’t break every bone if your body and die instantly.

This was the first of its kind in my experience and additional games that followed the original were just as fun.

I do have so say that I am biased and that my favorite so far was Assassin’s Creed III, which is set during the Revolutionary War. You get to meet George Washington, Ben Franklin among others and fight in some of the largest battles during the war.

It was pretty sweet.

I still need to get to some of the others. Which ones am I missing?

Jon’s 9th Place - Defender

Does an arcade game count as a video game? I say yes, because back in 1981, when this game was released, we really had little in the way of game consoles.

I don’t remember the layout of the lower level of the student union at Nebraska in the early 80s, but there was a row of video games, eh, arcade games along two of the walls. One of those games was Defender. I sank way TOO MANY quarters into this damned game.

I’m guessing most people would have picked Pac Man or Donkey Kong in this slot. I sucked at both games; I had the reaction time of a drunk sloth even when I was in my early 20s.

I had no interest in PacMan. The idea I’d be running around eating ghosts... meh. Jumping over barrels? Who the hell cares?

A short dumpy guy jumping over barrels thrown by a gorilla? Whatever.

Shooting evil aliens and saving people from a fate worse than death? I’m in!

Defender looks simple enough, right?

Defender worked like every other video game of that period. Beat this level and the next one includes more. More aliens shooting more missiles, bullets, what have you, until there’s no way you’re going to live to make it to the next round.

What I learned was - if you didn’t get to shoot whatever evil was coming at you, I wasn’t interested.

You know damned well I played a fair amount of Missile Command. Zaxxon was another. Then there was Battlezone. Look at the level of sophistication! The graphics!

This Battlezone video represents every game ever played; the way you maneuvered, and how, no matter what you did, the game would tire of you and kill you by sending one of those homing missiles at you. You’d either shoot too early or the damned thing would come from the side without you having time to turn and kill it.

The people who made these games knew exactly what they were doing; taking your money for a few minutes of entertainment. They knew you’d watch another guy get 15 minutes out of a single quarter and think, “That doesn’t look so hard. I can do that.”

What you didn’t know is that guy already spent $60,000 worth of quarters and had barely slept or eaten that week.

Defender was my favorite game of this era.

I’m moving my way up the years...

And As Always...

Join us in the comment section and countdown your favorite top 10 games with us. I’ve enjoyed it so far. Hopefully, we get more from my era?! :)