There are three things I love above all else in this world (not including people, of course): history, politics, and video games. But while history is something you can only learn about (and occasionally make yourself) and politics is something you observe and cursorily participate in from time to time, gaming is something you live and breathe. You actively participate in the hobby. As such, it’s something that’s been a daily part of my life for over 25 years.

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25. Spec Ops: The Line

Year: 2012 | Platform: PS3 | Dev: Yager | Pub: 2K

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24. Ninja Gaiden

Year: 1989 | Platform: NES | Dev: Tecmo | Pub: Tecmo

23. Civilization V

Year: 2010 | Platform: PC | Dev: Firaxis | Pub: 2K

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22. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

Year: 2001 | Platform: PS2 | Dev: Konami | Pub: Konami

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21. Vanquish

Year: 2010 | Platform: PS3 | Dev: Platinum | Pub: SEGA

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When I started making this list, I had over 100 games written down on a piece of paper. Getting it down to 50 games was excruciating. By the time I got under 50 games, it took me minutes upon minutes to just eliminate one game from the list. Removing games was difficult. I could actually feel it in my gut each time I crossed one out.The fact is, this list would probably be slightly different depending on the day you asked me to make it, but I think it fairly and evenly represents the games that I think stand above the rest. While I would have loved to include the likes of Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, Shatter, Final Fantasy IV, Fallout 3, Uncharted 3, and on and on and on, the fact is, not every game could make it. That's how Top 25 lists work, it turns out.Anyway, here’s the final result. Let me know what you think. And please note that the platforms listed represent the platform I played each respective game on first. The date represents each game's western release date, which corresponds almost completely with the year in which I first experienced the game.I didn’t expect anything at all when I grabbed a copy of Spec Ops: The Line and began playing it. In fact, it has one of the worst names for a game I’ve ever heard. Why is this game called Spec Ops and not just The Line? But I digress. What I found underneath its bro-shooter façade was perhaps one of the best stories I’ve ever experienced in a game, all built around an entirely awesome third-person cover-based shooter. Spec Ops is underrated, and it will never see a sequel (nor should it), but it’s a must-play for the story alone.: My love for Spec Ops only grew after I beat it and began to learn more about the mentality of the guy who wrote it. It hides a ton of totally brilliant little secrets within its narrative that indicate what’s going on in a much deeper way. And that’s all I’ll say so as not to spoil anything. But needless to say, it all made the game that much cooler.The NES was so full of amazing side-scrolling action games that it’s hard to boil them all down, especially when you have to make a list like this. Ninja Gaiden is amongst the cream of the crop, though, and it has to be included. Indeed, the entire Ninja Gaiden trilogy on NES is worthy of immense praise, but I think it’s the first one that stuck with me the most. What an extraordinary game, one that really, really tries your patience, but one that makes it so very rewarding when you finally get past a tough spot.: My brother and I would often play games with each other, and he was awfully patient with me considering he’s 11 years my elder. He would often amuse my childlike want to run around and pretend like I was a character in the games we were playing. As a result, he bought me a fake katana that I would run around the woods with, swinging it around just like Ryu would. Little kid Colin was a bit crazy at times.The long and the short of it is this: Civilization V is probably the single biggest time-waster I ever fell prey to in my entire adult life. I’m not much of a PC gamer, and I have no experience with other Civilization games. But someone here at work told me Civ V would be right up my alley, and boy-oh-boy was he right. I lost literally months of my life to this friggin’ game, and still occasionally get sucked back in. I couldn’t even begin to tell you how many hours I spent on my couch with the mouse on the couch’s arm, civving it up.: I ran Civ V on my laptop, which is frankly barely capable of running it. But I made do. What I couldn’t deal with, however, was the laptop’s mouse pad, which drove me absolutely insane. I ended up buying a cheap-as-hell wireless mouse just so I could set it next to me while playing. It is, to this day, my go-to Civ V mouse, and I don’t think I’ve ever used it for anything else.I kind of-sort of agonized over which Metal Gear Solid game I would include on this list. Would it be the original? Or would it be its PS2-era sequel? Well, I ended up settling on the sequel, even though both games are really, really close in my book. While I loved the original’s cast of enemies more overall, the fact is, Metal Gear Solid 2 told a multifaceted, multi-angled story that is among gaming’s most memorable. And then there’s Fatman, the single best Metal Gear Solid enemy to date. God bless Hideo Kojima.: I pre-ordered Metal Gear Solid 2 and my buddy and I went to Smithhaven Mall on Long Island to pick it up the day it was released. He brought his girlfriend along, and we sat down to have some dinner at a local diner after we grabbed the game. When we got the check, his girlfriend started to pay for herself, and I guilted him into paying for her. He was really, really mad at me, but hey, I did the right thing.Sweet, sweet Vanquish. What a game. I love how over-the-top it is, how blazingly-fast and entirely ridiculous it comes off. I don’t remember who suggested this to me, but they’re a genius: Vanquish could have and should have just been a G.I. Joe game. You know, like based on the old-school cartoons and toys. Those characters and the struggle between the Joes and Cobra would have fit absolutely perfectly – like a glove – into what Vanquish ended up becoming. It’s just too bad Platinum never knew.: Vanquish made me nostalgic for G.I. Joes, as you could possibly imagine. And as a kid who collected literally a couple hundred of them, it reignited something in me that made me want to go back and watch the old cartoons I grew up on. Needless to say, they aren’t nearly as good as I remembered them being, and they don’t hold up very well. C’est la vie… G.I. Joe is still awesome. And so, too, is Vanquish.