NOW PLAYING: G.O.A.T.

It’s beginning to look a lot like that time of year again: retailers start preparing for the November and December shopping orgy. Video game companies know this, so they make sure to release all their high-profile titles in the months leading up to Christmas/Chanukkah/Kwanzaa/Wookie Life Day.
This year’s no exception. It’s just now the start of November, and we’ve already seen GTA: San Andreas, Tony Hawk\'s Underground 2, and WWE SmackDown! Vs. Raw. But we say fuck all that! We\'ll get into one of the holiday releases next month. Right now, Bork and I are gonna drop some knowledge on you and give you our picks for greatest game of all time.
Player One: Staff Member #716
Choosing my all-time fave wasn\'t easy, but here\'s what I came up with in the end: Contra: Hard Corps for the Sega Genesis.
Contra is easily one of the-- if not the-- greatest franchises in the history of video games, assuming that you ignore the two embarrassments released for PSone. And Hard Corps is the best of the series, bringing the most bells and whistles to the table while still being indicative of what made Contra so great in the first place. It has simultaneous two-player cooperative play (something that the vast majority of modern games lack), enough level diversity to keep things interesting, and plenty of weird-ass alien enemies that could\'ve been designed by H.R. Giger if he\'d been a bit more playful. It also has the Spread Gun, something that even Contra: Shattered Soldier for the PS2 was missing.
Yep, Hard Corps is that rare game that gets everything just right, keeping elements of the older games that worked while adding just the right amount of new stuff. For example:
1. Instead of just the \"blue guy\" and the \"red guy\", you can play as one of four characters, each with their own distinct selection of weapons. Sure, you still get those weapons from shooting down those weird flying capsules (What the hell are those things anyway?), but a \"Weapon D\" power-up gives Ray Poward homing missiles, for example, whereas it would give Fang a charge-up energy blast. Not only that, but you can carry four weapons at a time, as opposed to older installments where picking up a new weapon meant losing your current one.
2. At the end of certain levels, you choose which path to take. I mean, no matter which decisions you make, you know you\'re going to have to kill everything that moves (yourself excluded), but the right choices could mean the difference between racing speeder bikes on the freeway or riding on the wing of a plane. Not having to play the same set of levels for each new gaming session helps keep things fresh.
3. Hard Corps is side-scrolling only. Super C alternated side-scrolling levels with overhead view, Ikari Warriors-knockoff gameplay that wasn\'t half as cool as the platform-jumping levels. What\'s worse, Contra III: The Alien Wars had super-disorienting, rotating overhead stages intermixed with the side-scrolling portions. Come to think of it, even the first Contra had those forward-scrolling hallway sections that were just included as a novelty. The real meat to all these games was the side-scrolling levels, with enemies coming at you from the left, right, above, and below. Hard Corps keeps things pure to what made the original Contra, Contra.
Seriously, if you have fond memories of any of the Contra games, Hard Corps takes what you loved and perfects it. The only thing it\'s missing is the Konami code (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start) to give you 30 lives. I still try it every now and then, just to be sure.
Da Player Zwei: Das Bork
If you are someone who knows me, my answer to the greatest game of all time should be obvious: the MechWarrior 2 series for PC. That game and I had so many excellent good times together that I got it pregnant!
This game permeated every activity in my life. No joke. I played this shit in high school, and every time I walked to my next class, I would walk like a Mech and make robot noises. Chicks dug it.
Besides professing my dorkiness, why did this game become so close to my heart? Well, I do have a plethora of reasons for you, but I will keep it simple so as not to bore you.
First off, the replay value on this title is almost never-ending. I have a good time every time. Between the \"Missions\" and \"Instant Action\" modes, the action is never the same and always exciting. In MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries, I once took on three Mechs with one leg, crawling on the ground... and vanquished them!!!
All Mechs are customizable, giving so many possibilities to wreak mayhem. And if you become an expert, you will have memorized every Mech\'s capabilities and weapons output, allowing you to devise ways to take out the enemy with killer efficiency. You can also play in a variety of allegiances: Mercenary For Hire, Select Clan Affiliation, or an Inner Sphere House. There is war everywhere, and the giant Mechs are your main weapons of destruction. I have never played an action game with more strategy involved than this one!
The game\'s story also has a way of capturing you. The MechWarrior/BattleTech universe is highly involved and beautifully crafted. Sorry, Star Wars geeks, but MechWarrior beats your universe any day. (I once explained the whole story to a friend, and after that, he abandoned Star Wars for it. Now he has a tattoo of the Jade Falcon clan symbol on his back!)
This game did groundbreaking things and gave me a ton of stories. Just look at all the ones I\'ve told you. I think it\'s safe to say that MechWarrior 2 is the greatest game of all time!