Top Ten Favorite Video Games of All-Time Countdown: 2nd 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.
9th place.
8th place.
7th place.
6th place.
5th place.
4th place.
3rd place.

Now for our 2nd place games!

Nate’s 2nd Place Game - Final Fantasy VII

I think many knew that there was a decent chance Final Fantasy VII was going to show up.

This was the first game that I got obsessed about. I used to wake up EARLY on a school day to go downstairs and play Final Fantasy VII.

It probably wasn’t good for my brain development but there was just something about this game that was different from any of the others I tried playing. Especially since this was the first type of game, and the last, that had the RPG fighting style.

The main character, Cloud, has a sword that is almost twice the size of his entire body. It is kind of silly, but he still looked awesome.

Regarding the story, in the beginning the game lets you name the characters. So what did I do? I named Cloud - “Nate.” The rest of them I named after my friends. It totally took on new meaning when certain characters would have good or bad things happen to them.

What I’ve realized through this countdown is that I need to start playing some newer games. Jon is like 60 years older than me and he’s throwing in games like Witcher 3. I currently am playing Battlefront with my son on the co-op mode which is really fun. He loves playing Spider-Man though I have to limit his time playing that game as well.

Jon’s 2nd Place Game - Red Dead Redemption 2

Red Dead Redemption 2 is the most perfect video game ever made.

The only negative I can find about this game is its online play against other players. I played it a couple times. I gave up when a guy one-shotted me across a field while I was running with a .22 rifle. WTF. I suck at these things because I grew up hunting and I cannot separate what a gun can do in real life from what it’s supposed to do in a video game. I also have the reaction time of a drunk 90-year old sloth.

So screw the online side.

The rest?

The story is incredible. The characters have clear arcs, just like you’ve find in a good novel, with the exception that the novel doesn’t require you to do unsavory things like beat a tuberculous-infected man to near death. So much of the content created now has to deal with box-checking; did we include diverse characters, did we portray them properly, and most damning of all, is anyone going to be offended?

Red Dead Redemption 2 worries about none of those things. The result is fantastic. You could not make this into a movie because the end result would be a watered-down piece of shit.

Arthur Morgan must deal with his mortality, and because of that what he’s going to do to make up for being a cold-blooded killer and destroying so many lives. We watch Dutch become obsessed and paranoid about the “one last heist”. A decent number of characters join in the story line, and we get to see how many of their lives play out as well.

The game play - WOW. The variety of the open world; from the humidity of St. Denis to the frozen tundra of Ambarino, you get whatever you want. It is a long game, and if you get tired of the story line, you can go hunting and fishing, which added to the game instead of being a burden.

Red Dead 2 has its critics, such as this from Polygon complaining about game design. It’s a shit ton of words about how the game controls don’t work like they should, how realism is a burden. My thought was - it took a lot of effort to be this picky, but I guess that’s what happens when you live this stuff?

Again, it’s largely about the story for me. Can I become Arthur Morgan? Yes, I can, and feel squeamish about doing it a fair amount. When the pandemic started and there weren’t enough masks to go around, I started wearing a red bandana when I went to the grocery store. I’d tell people it was “Arthur Morgan” look-alike day. Many of them got the joke. Those that didn’t stayed the hell away from me, which was a goal. I walked around saying Arthur things he said to his horse, like, “Sho” and “You’re all right, girl”.

Honor plays an important part in the game. Which ending will you get? Will you play it through more than once to see what happens when you choose a different track?

This game was released in 2018. It’s really been four years since then?

Again, Red Dead Redemption 2 is the most perfect video game ever made.

Prove me wrong.