23. The Nomad Soul (Eidos/Quantic Dream)
SL: When I first played The Nomad Soul I remember being mostly baffled by the oddness of it - its a game which features a cameo from a bright blue David Bowie and interactive dildo shops. What really stuck with me though was just how detailed the game was for its time. I was perhaps too young to appreciate it fully at the time, but the world of Omikron, with its Blade Runner style atmosphere and unique gameplay, left a notable impression on me. Released in the US as Omikron: The Nomad Soul, this overlooked gem marked the directorial debut of David Cage - the pretentious French video game auteur who has since helmed the equally self-regarding titles
Fahrenheit and
Heavy Rain. It was a pretty blocky, blurry, fog-tastic excuse for a game even for the time, but the concept was as sprawling and ambitious as anything Cage has done since. A puzzler, first person shooter, one-on-one fighter and Shenmue-style adventure game all rolled into one, it begins by breaking the fourth wall and addressing the player directly, before sucking "you" into the world as the titular Nomad Soul - a wondering spiritual presence that can inhabit the bodies of several characters throughout the game. As with future Cage games, your action influence the path events take - only more so here than in the disappointingly linear Heavy Rain. Abysmal presentation and counter-intuitive controls make this a hard sell for those looking to fill holes in their collection in retrospect. Yet there is so much going on here that those prepared to put in the time will be rewarded. What's more, Nomad Soul rocks a David Bowie soundtrack to go with the aforementioned cameo from the spangly rock legend.
22. Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (Capcom)
Never in history has a console boasted as impressive a line-up of great one-on-one fighters as the Dreamcast - and I challenge anyone to say otherwise. Half a dozen
King of Fighters games,
Garou: Mark of the Wolves, the exclusive
Street Fighter 3,
Fighting Vipers 2 and the original
Marvel vs. Capcom don't even make this list - which boasts no less than five fighters already. Marvel vs. Capcom 2, re-released on current gen consoles as a download title last year, makes the cut mostly because I can't resist the sight of Ryu and Resident Evil's Jill Valentine teaming up to battle Spiderman and The Incredible Hulk. Slightly distracting 3D backdrops don't quite mesh with the characters - more detailed 2D sprites - but it's an elegant and accessible fighter that doesn't require professional arcade player reflexes to get the best out of it. I have some quite vocal friends who claim the opposite, but personally I've always found the "storylines" in fighting games (usually told via text between bouts and preposterous, badly animated ending graphics) to be perfunctory filler written by coders to add some superficial weight to the on-screen mayhem. I usually end up browsing through the roster of fighting games thinking nothing more than "should I play attractive lady or muscular man?" Yet with a range of well-known characters taken from years of Marvel comics and beloved Capcom franchises, it's impossible not to have some sort of visceral gut response to at least half of the cast here.