Listosaurus Rex

ThePhoenix.net, a news site, has selected the 20 Greatest Bosses in Video Games, which includes computer games along with all consoles.

Game bosses are a crucial part of video games. Often singlehandedly, they separate the good from the great and the great from the best ever. A great final boss and ending can lift an otherwise mediocre game to memorable status, while an anticlimactic final showdown can demote a good game to soon-to-be-forgotten.

This list is poorly designed, requiring you to click through twenty slow-loading, ad-bloated pages to view every entry. So here is the complete list in a much easier to view format.

1. Shodan - System Shock 2 (PC)
2. Sephiroth - Final Fantasy VII (PS)
3. Bowser - Mario games (various consoles)
4. Mother Brain - Super Metroid (SNES)
5. Mike Tyson - Punch Out! (NES)
6. (tie) Don Lechuck - Secret of Monkey Island (PC)
   Purple Tentacle - Day of the Tentacle (PC)
7. Abobo - Double Dragon (NES)
8. The Colossi - Shadow of the Colossus (PS2)
9. Red Falcon - Contra (NES)
10. Ganondorf - Zelda games (various consoles)
11. ‘Bark at the Moon’ - Guitar Hero (PS2)
12. Foxhound - Metal Gear Solid (PS)
13. The Cyberdemon - Doom (PC)
14. Vega - Street Fighter II (various consoles)
15. Hitler - Wolfenstein 3D (PC)
16. Metalman - Mega Man 2 (NES)
17. The Hydra - God of War (PS2)
18. Goro - Mortal Kombat (various consoles)
19. Shredder - TMNT games (NES and SNES)
20. Dr. Robotnik - Sonic games (Sega Genesis)

I have quite mixed feelings about this list. I’ve never played System Shock 2, but I’ve seen the ending on YouTube, and if anyone is going to beat Sephiroth for the top slot, Shodan is a good pick. She’s the HAL of video games, a reflection on the impossibility of perfection and the importance of warmth and soul in the world.

And yet, there will never be a greater boss, in my opinion, than Sephiroth. His connection to Cloud, main protagonist, is dark and chilling, he famously kills Aeris, the most lovable character in the game, halfway through the game, and finally faces Cloud and crew in an unforgettable, apocalyptic showdown at the end of the game.

Bowser is the boss archetype, and is a necessary inclusion. I like his spot at #3.

I also think Mother Brain at #4 is a great inclusion. Super Metroid featured such a minimalist plot, but the conclusion was nothing short of epic and tear-jerking, especially with the gutsy move of forcing the player to lose to Mother Brain.

Mike Tyson at #5 is also a great pick. He’s killer-hard to beat and there’s a sense of ultimate around him, making it a satisfying accomplishment to tackle him. It sort of makes me wish that Michael Jordan from the original NBA Street would have gotten a mention, because I felt the same way about him as a sweet final boss in a sports game.

After the Top 5, the list starts to lose steam. Though I haven’t played some of these games, I’ve also never heard a lot of the bosses mentioned among memorable bosses.

I’m glad to see Hitler from Wolfenstein 3D included, though. Let me tell you, after going through an entire game hunting down Nazis in giant dungeons and labyrinths, it was darn satisfying to face Hitler in a robot suit as the final encounter. He was no piece of cake, either.

One odd choice is Guitar Hero song ‘Bark at the Moon.’ I like the concept of having a Guitar Hero song as a “boss” of sorts, but I think Free Bird from GH2 would have been a better pick, and also not as high up.

I think this list is a bit too modern-weighted. I would have loved to see Odd-Eye or Zeon from personal favorite Shining Force II (Genesis), and certainly Kefka from Final Fantasy VI (aka III on SNES) is a notch above the likes of Goro, Metalman, and Vega. Isn’t Psycho Mantis a more notorious boss from Metal Gear Solid?

I also think there aren’t enough RPG bosses here. No genre has mastered the epic, sinister, and difficult (all three important traits for a boss) quite like the RPG.

The mini-articles that accompany each boss are interesting, but not all that great. Overall, I was a bit disappointed by this list because the execution does not live up to the excellent concept for the list. Though it has pretty decent picks, its design and writing are a bit lacking.

Modern cinema was born in 1927, rock and roll in the early 1950’s, video games in the late 1970’s. Each of these artistic mediums are presented in scopes that can easily be perceived. scrutinized, and contained. Thus, they are topics which it’s pretty easy to construct a list around. It’s reasonable for a film critic to have seen most major pieces of film, for rock aficiando to understand the importance of both Chuck Berry and The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and for modern gaming magazine editors to know that Geometry Wars is just a souped version of Robotron 2084.

Other artistic mediums do not have this condition. Even art museum curators with doctorates in art history can only have a small grasp at the significance of each member of the wide spectrum of visual art over the past dozen-plus millennia. Likewise, literature professors at Oxford can only guess the importance of something like the Ramayana compared to something like Huckleberry Finn or something by Faulkner. It’s not any insult to those experts when I make those statements, but rather a statement about the broad, multi-era history of the mediums. You can’t fully grasp the immediate power of art unless you are around in the era it is produced, it’s just not possible.

All of that being said, there are a few novels and books that are widely praised as some of the Best Ever. Anna Karenina, Lolita, In Search of Lost Time, etc. These are the books that middle school English teachers effuse about with a hint of romance in their voice, the books that deans of prestigious liberal arts display on their fireplace mantle, and famous authors cite as their inspirations for getting into the literature business.

If literature scholars are allowed to have favorites like those, which they are, why can’t they have second-favorites? Third-favorites? How about, all the way down to tenth-favorites? And just like that, a top ten list is constructed, as vulgar and suppressive to the vast scope of literature as that seems.

J. Peder Zane has talked to 125 famous authors, convinced them to construct Top Ten favorite pieces of literature lists, and combined the lists into one ultimate, authoritative ranking of the Top Ten greatest pieces of literature, according to writers worldwide. He released his findings in a book that can be bought on Amazon.

Without further ado, here are the ten greatest books of all time. I feel ridiculous just saying that.

1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
2. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
4. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
7. The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
9. The Stories of Anton Chekhov by Anton Chekhov
10. Middlemarch by George Eliot

Nothing Earth-shattering or blasphemous there. In fact, I think it’s about as safe a top ten as you could have. How many have you read? I am totally embarrassed by my number, so I won’t tell you what it is. But here’s a hint: you can count it on three fingers.

Props to Leo Tolstoy for nabbing two of the top three slots on this uber-selective list.

For more commentary on this list and this book, check out this great article from Time magazine. Columnist Lev Grossman shares my hesitation in listifying literature (”There’s something unseemly and promiscuous about all those letters and numbers jumbled together”) and provides some interesting insight.

Maybe some boring, rainy day, I’ll buy this book from Borders just so I can remind myself how little classic literature I’ve actually read. In the mean time, I’ll stick with my Dave Barry booger jokes, thank you very much.

Anyone who visits digg.com or reddit.com nowadays is bound to have seen some of Cracked.com’s feature articles, which are very often in list form. A lot of what’s on Cracked is among the funniest stuff I’ve seen on the ‘net, and this feature is no exception; it’s one of my favorites from the site.

The article provides exactly what the title promises, with plenty of humorous commentary along the way. Without spoiling anything, I think I was laughing out loud the entire time while reading what the site had written about #1 on this list. Top notch all around.

So if you think you might find remarks making fun of the music of Color Me Badd and Vanilla Ice entertaining, I wholeheartedly recommend you check this out.

This list got a lot of attention a few years ago when it came out as a TV special, and even won the Peabody Award. It’s still worth a good look.

ESPN picked the fifty greatest athletes of the 20th century. Here is their top ten:

1. Michael Jordan
2. Babe Ruth
3. Muhammad Ali
4. Jim Brown
5. Wayne Gretzky
6. Jesse Owens
7. Jim Thorpe
8. Willie Mays
9. Jack Nicklaus
10. Babe Didrikson

There will always be people you could make arguments for ranked higher than they are, like Lawrence Taylor at #40, and Barry Sanders and Cal Ripken, Jr. being excluded completely, but it’s hard to take issue with that top ten. It’s easy to make cases for any of MJ, Babe Ruth, Gretzky, Ali, or Owens as being number one on that list. Jim Brown, though an apparent demigod on the field, didn’t play long enough in my opinion to be as high as he is, but I can see the reasoning of putting him where he is.

The list is a spectacular, sentimental set of feature articles of these great athletes, and is absolutely worth a read for any sports fan who has never scanned the list before.

It’s entirely uplifting and inspiring to read about so much greatness, particularly from the people at the top of the list: the Bambino redefining American sports, Ali sticking up for what he believed in, Gretzky acting with great character while dominating a sport in a way no man has except maybe Ruth, Jesse Owens struggling through American racism but being awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously, and Jordan being a champion in every sense of the word.

I’m glad to see that the writers didn’t weight the recent athletes too much heavier than ones from years past. It’s a great, refreshing mix.

One thing I wonder is who now might have a shot at being the list at the end of the 21st century. Certainly Tiger Woods. Lance Armstrong would have been a lock if it weren’t for the steroids issue, and likewise Barry Bonds would have a very good shot if it weren’t for all the scandal. Maybe Peyton Manning or Tom Brady if they keep it up? We’ll just have to wait 90+ years to see.

Ultimately, the list is an enlightening look at what makes an athlete great, complete with lots of great, well-informed writing and some brilliant perspective. Take a look if you’ve never seen the list before.

I’m not sure exactly when they released it, but here is VH1’s list of the greatest songs from the 1990s. It was originally a TV special, which I did not watch, so I do not have the full context, but they did release the list itself.

Drumroll, please. The top ten:

1. Nirvana - “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
2. U2 - “One”
3. Backstreet Boys - “I Want It That Way”
4. Whitney Houston - “I Will Always Love You”
5. Madonna - “Vogue”
6. Sir Mix-A-Lot - “Baby Got Back”
7. Britney Spears - “…Baby One More Time”
8. TLC - “Waterfalls”
9. R.E.M. - “Losing My Religion”
10. Sinéad O’Connor “Nothing Compares 2 U”

I definitely follow VH1’s reasoning… for two songs. Nirvana and U2: safe picks, great songs. Much has been written about how “Teen Spirit” shook up the entire music industry with its sound, lyrics, video, and attitude. And U2’s “One” is the most bittersweet song I’ve heard.

But, Backstreet Boys at number three. While that song encompasses everything that was good about the boy bands (catchy melodies, great vocals) while leaving out most of what was wrong with them, putting them at #3 is a big stretch.

The rest of the top ten is a little bit sketchy, too. I understand people accept Madonna as a very important figure in the industry, but I don’t really like “Vogue.” “Baby Got Back” is an acceptable guilty pleasure, in my opinion, but holds more camp value than anything else. Why not a Dre, Tupac, Nas, Jay-Z, or Eminem cut at that spot instead?

“…Baby One More Time” was, in all honesty, a good song. Good. Not great. Seriously, can any song which was on an album alongside a song called “E-Mail My Heart” be eligible for any sort of top ten?

Scanning the rest of the list, you definitely see some great songs, but also questionable picks. Spice Girls ahead of Oasis? Color Me Badd ahead of The Fugees? Christina Aguilera ahead of Weezer? I don’t know, man.

Overall, it’s a very interesting list with some great picks but also some duds. It seems like VH1 was using a combination of campiness and overall quality in making the picks. As the inclusion of MC Hammer proves.

One more time, the link.