Top 200 Video Games

Sometimes you aren’t in the mood for a fighting game with intricate combos and sophisticated balance. Sometimes you want to play a frantic party game with just enough strategy to keep things interesting. You want a game where four players can bash the excrement out of each other for hours on end. And you feel that package would be even better if it was plastered in Nintendo fan service.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl is currently the best encapsulation of all the above, which is why Smash Bros. is so addicting. There have been a few imitators, but none have been able to duplicate Smash’s addicting combination of manic action and hidden depth. And while high-level smashers may prefer Melee, Brawl gets the edge by being a little more inviting and having seemingly limitless nostalgia for the entirety of Nintendo’s history.

There's something incredibly fulfilling about clicking on a monster until it dies, stripping the loot from its corpse, and repeating the act for, oh, let's say the next three years. It's this physical, addictive, primal act that makes Diablo 2 hold up so well, and kept us doing Mephisto runs until the wee hours of the night (6 a.m. is still considered night, right?).

While Blizzard gussied this concept up with shiny visuals for Diablo 3, it still didn't hold a candle to the brilliance of Diablo 2. We'll never forget clearing the Den of Evil's monsters or upgrading gems in the Horadric Cube. The feeling of watching a golden item tumble from the corpse of an enemy was incredible, and though we'll never get back the countless hours we spent hunting down Stone of Jordan rings or attempting to hit level 99, we don't want them. It was time spent well, and time we'd gladly do it again.