#3: Super Mario Bros. 3
Super Mario Bros. 3 holds a special place in my heart, because it was the game that I wound up playing the most in my youth. Released in North America in 1990, it was the video game that solidified the platforming genre, and it still holds up very well to this day.A spiritual successor to the original Super Mario Bros., this game was expanded with the ability to run backwards within a level, various power-ups that enabled Mario to fly and swim, and the addition of a branching overworld, all of which made the game feel far less linear than it used to.
Super Mario Bros. 3 was no longer just a great platformer, but also a great puzzle game, full of secrets and exploration. I enjoyed the heck out of this game growing up, and I have replayed it many times since.
Why not the original Super Mario Bros.?
The original Super Mario Bros. was the game that revolutionized side scrolling platformers, so why is this one not in my top three?
I feel that Super Mario Bros. 3 is a better game in practically every way. It's certainly a better looking game, and there's a lot more to explore. However, I think that the biggest credit to Super Mario Bros. 3 goes towards how well Mario himself controlled. In the original Super Mario Bros., Mario felt a little too heavy and slow for the amount of platforming precision that the game required. By contrast, in Super Mario Bros. 3, controlling Mario felt like he was the agile ninja that he deserved to be.
Why not Super Mario World?
I admit, this one was a close call. Mostly it comes down to the fact that I didn't grow up with an SNES, but there are few other things that I still prefer in SMB3. The Cape Mario power-up in Super Mario World seems a bit lackluster, compared to SMB3's Raccoon, Frog, Hammer Bros., and Tanooki power-ups. Most interesting, however, is the music. While I love the variations of the Super Mario World theme in different levels, there's only one theme in the entire game. Super Mario Bros. 3, on the other hand, has a much greater variety of music.
Another reason SMB3 stood out is because it was the best game on the NES. Super Mario World felt like a great iteration on SMB3, but it didn't feel revolutionary, and there were certainly more impressive games that later came to the SNES.
#2: Limbo
This one came at a time when I lost most of my interest towards playing video games. The year was 2010. The mobile games market was exploding. Games were churned out by the hundreds for mobile devices, and they were all equally unimpressive. The people who ran Nintendo thought that randomly wiggling a remote control in a sports game qualifies as fun.
Though I barely played any video games during this time, I was introduced to Let's Plays – YouTube videos of other people playing video games, while creating a (usually humorous) commentary. That is how I discovered Limbo, through Josh Jepson's channel. I was so immediately impressed with the game, that I had to stop watching the Let's Play and actually play the game.
The artistic design of Limbo is unlike anything that existed at the time. It was still a 2-D side scroller, but entirely black-and-white, with dramatic lighting effects, a projector vignette, and a little bit of film grain. Sound was used sparingly and effectively. The beginning of the game was almost silent, aside from a soft, scratchy noise, reminiscent of an old record, and the footsteps of the game's nameless protagonist. Environmental sounds were used specifically to alert the player of an important event, which often happened off-screen, and prompted the player to react or investigate. Musical cues, in the form of single-tone ambient harmonies, were used to indicate a change of pace or a grim revelation in the unspoken story. Oh yes, nearly all of the revelations were grim. This was a dark game. But it was also, very definitively, art.
Honestly, if Limbo had no gameplay whatsoever, I would still enjoy playing... err... watching it. Just seeing and hearing it will make you feel like you're in a tree house during a thunderstorm. Luckily though, it was also paired with some great light platforming, and clever and challenging environmental puzzles. And it did a remarkable job of keeping the puzzles fresh. As soon as you learned to solve one kind of puzzle, it was never repeated again.
I have replayed this game a ton, and I like to show it off to my friends who haven't heard of it, because it is such a beautiful masterpiece.
Why not Inside?
Inside was the spiritual sequel, and likely the story prequel, to Limbo. It was still pretty grim, but visually very different from Limbo – rendered in a 3-D engine and in color, though still using mostly off-shades of gray. Nevertheless, it was certainly original and beautiful in its own way.
It also had a deeper story than Limbo. An unspoken story still, there were just enough visuals to tie it to Limbo and generate a great number of theories about what it all means. So why do I still prefer Limbo?
Inside was a longer game than Limbo, but it felt much shorter, because a lot of time was spent simply moving from point A to point B. I completed Inside in its entirety (aside from the secret ending) in one sitting, while Limbo occasionally fried my brain and prompted me to put the game down and call it a night.
#1: Portal
Portal's origins are as fascinating as the game itself. Created by a team of college students from DigiPen Institute of Technology as a reinvention of their own game prototype, Narbacular Drop, it was published by Valve in 2007 as part of a multi-game package called The Orange Box. Portal wasn't a selling point of The Orange Box, by any means. It was virtually unknown at the time, and the main draw of The Orange Box was Half-Life 2 – a very highly regarded game and a technological marvel of that time, and its highly anticipated sequel, Half-Life 2: Episode One. Nevertheless, the quality of games that Valve was releasing at the time was very good, and gamers were hot on Valve's heels to try out every game they churned out.
The premise of the game is pretty simple. You play as female protagonist named Chell, in a first-person 3-D world. You control two ends of a portal, which can be placed on any white surface. The portal is only active if both ends are placed. Any physical object entering one end of the portal will immediately exit out the other end, preserving its momentum. That's really it. Why does this make for a good game?
It turns out that the amount of puzzles that can be created with this fairly simple mechanic are staggering! What's even more interesting is that while this is a perfectly logical physical mechanism, it's not one that exists in our actual, real world, making all the puzzles in the game inherently challenging. So, while the rest of the game's mechanics are pretty simple – find an object, place it somewhere, activate a switch – the way those simple tasks are accomplished can be quite tricky. "Now you're thinking with portals" was the game's very apt tagline.
Portal's puzzles are tons of fun, but what really drives the game forward is the dialogue between Chell and the disembodied voice of the game's lovable antagonist, GLaDOS. Just kidding, Chell doesn't actually speak, so we'll call it commentary, rather than dialogue. As Chell, you are placed in a series of test chambers and tasked with finding the exit to the next chamber, all while GLaDOS hilariously discourages you from playing the game, gives you bad advice, and often shows signs of complete indifference towards Chell's well-being.
Unfortunately for Chell, it eventually turns out that her time at Aperture Science was meant to come to an abrupt and gruesome end in the last test chamber. It is at this moment that you stop receiving any kind of instructions whatsoever, and have to figure out how to escape your doom. Succeeding in this task will catch GLaDOS off-guard, and more hilarity will ensue throughout the rest of the game, as GLaDOS grows increasingly worried that you are now trying to find and kill her.
On your way to victory, you won't encounter a single human, but you will encounter some chatty turrets, seemingly insentient objects that may or may not feel excruciating pain, notes from previous test subjects who weren't quite so lucky, and GLaDOS's many conflicting personalities – all while solving more of those delicious, momentum-based puzzles. And then GLaDOS will sing you a song. And you will probably cry and laugh at the same time, for reasons you don't entirely understand.
Why not Portal 2?
Portal 2 was a fantastic game. The visuals were sharper, the gameplay was greatly expanded and the puzzles more complex. The game was much longer, great new characters were introduced, and old characters were developed even further. Plus, we got to see the heydays of Aperture Science and learn about Cave Johnson, its questionably motivated creator.
The story was great, plot twists were numerous, and the ending was great – they even threw in a whole extra song at the end! However, nothing will ever beat the first time you hear GLaDOS's maniacal, yet somewhat endearing commentary. Nothing will ever beat the first time you hear sentry turrets talk about their feelings. Nothing will ever beat falling in love with the Companion Cube. And nothing will ever beat the first time GLaDOS sings you a song about how you didn't really win the game. Portal 2 turned out to be a great sequel to Portal, but it was simply impossible to match the pure joy created by the original game's element of surprise. Portal still takes the cake... and eats it, too.
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