DOOM is a truly excellent video game. Hopefully you didn’t need to click on this article to reach that conclusion, but I think it still warrants being said despite the decades of flowery accolades flung its way. Few games have matched the frenetic pace of its gunplay and slippery locomotion, the modability of the DOOM engine has pushed its systems well beyond their implementation in the base game, and combined with DOOM II, it might just have the most iconic bestiary of FPS enemies ever assembled. You don’t need me to tell you this, but for a shooter released during the Clinton administration, I think “visionary” is selling the package a little short.

Perhaps my biggest shock that came during this re-evaluation of one of the most infamous games of all time was the revelation that E.T. was secretly one of the progenitors of the rogue genre, Beneath Apple Manor and, uh, Rogue both predated E.T. by a few years each, but for many, this was surely their exposure to the genre - I know it was for me, anyway.

Probably the greatest NES game ever made, but this shouldn’t be a surprise. Super Mario Bros. 3 represents Nintendo at the peak of their creativity and technical prowess, with no competition in sight but still blowing the fuck out of everyone around them regardless. A peak so tall that not even Nintendo themselves have been able to make the climb since, at least for this sub-category of Mario games.

It’s not exactly a hot take, but I’m starting to think Resident Evil 4 might be the Abbey Road of video games. It’s not just a title that course-corrected anyone who thought about flexing their creative muscles in its wake, but one that arrived fully formed after years of refinement and experimentation, effectively acting as a thunderous mic drop for their creators and the years of work that preceded it. In fact, this game has been so universally and thoroughly praised, that the idea of picking it apart critically feels like a waste of time.

”I’m in love. I’m floating, I’m happy… Ahh, the world is so beautiful.”