00. 100 Games - Epilogue

That's that.
100 videogames presented for your consideration, picked and arranged at random and written on the fly with no prior drafting.

I'm not the happiest person in the world, far from it, but I find much escapism and excitement in gaming and the worlds, characters and stories they introduce us to. I am an unashamed gamer and someone who would much rather play games than fight on Internet forums about them.

Videogames are a huge part of my life and have been since that very first game of Horace Goes Ski-ing. As long as I'm breathing, I will be playing games. Videogames have brought me happiness, tears, rage and elation, they have helped me to reflect and learn about myself and through gaming I have met many like-minded friends and associates.

Despite videogames current mainstream acceptance. Gamers are still frowned upon as being nihilistic loners with nothing better to do. It is likely that stigma will never go away, but any gamer worth his salt doesn't care.
Because we have PASSION for games, we CARE about the worlds and characters that hours upon hours of hard work goes into creating for our pleasure. We LOVE videogames because we LOVE to have fun, to be entertained and enthralled, whether in a one man challenge or friendly (and not so friendly) competition with friends or total strangers.

Videogames play on the very best of human emotion and Ill be fucking damned if I'm going to allow myself to feel any such guilt or embarrassment at the behest of a society that thinks it is entertainment to watch z-list celebrities going about their generic daily routines.

Videogames are an art form, they can produce vibrant images and sounds, incredible music and effects and beautifully written storylines and universes. Like all art, some of it is terrible, but for every hundred generic daubings, there's a Michaelangelo.
Games are changing now more than ever, they are becoming very corporate and buzz-word and many fine studios have sadly had to close their doors in the wake of identikit shooters and "designed in a week" shovelware.
The business has crashed before and it may do again, but like a phoenix it will rise from the ashes, the suits will have gone elsewhere to hunt for the almighty dollar and a new generation of studios will have the freedom to express the creativity, originality and interactivity you only get from our most beloved pastime.

The videogame is dead, long live the videogame.
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Thanks to everybody who tuned into this list, whether a follower from the beginning or a late joiner, it's irrelevant as I'm indebted to you all.
Thanks to those who added comments which are always great to read and to good buddy Swabbleflange, not only for his Syndicate entry but for much inspiration and good gaming times, you push me when apathy starts to kick in.

It has been an absolute pleasure to write a few passages about what these games are to your humble host. My only regrets were the many games that didn't make the cut that I would have loved to spin a yarn about.
You can read a professional review of any game anywhere, I wanted to to put a more personal spin on what each game means to me and, possibly, to you.
The next list starts in a few days, I hope I will see you all back here for it. My original plans went technologically awry and it appears that I'm gong to have to try something a bit bigger in scope. I hope this is merely the end of the beginning.

Until then, all the best and keep on pressing that "Start" button, because they can't keep implementing quicktime events forever...can they?

Johnny Beatdown.

"The only legitimate use of a computer is to play games" - Defender creator Eugene Jarvis