#50: Spy Hunter (1987)
Platform: NES
Developer/Publisher: Sunsoft
In a Nutshell: A badass spy goes for a harmless Sunday afternoon drive.

Brian M. says: Back in the day, I don't think it took too much to sell Spy Hunter to the general gaming public, members of which were often under the age of 10. Think about it: You take control of a fast-as-hell armored vehicle on a highway filled with enemy motorists and innocent New Jersey drivers, whom you're constantly ducking, dodging, and running off the road with various weapons and gadgets. Instant win. And the "Peter Gunn" theme playing in the background just made the whole thing feel that much more badass.

And seeing as how good this game is (it's kicking off our top 50 list, after all), I should also note how terrible the PS2-era remake was, and how sad the lack of a proper modern-day version of Spy Hunter makes me. Given how retro remake-crazy developers are getting these days -- between TMNT: Turtles in Time Re-shelled, R-Type Dimensions, Pac-Man: Championship Edition, and Contra: Rebirth, I'm starting to lose count -- it's crazy how no one's taken advantage of WiiWare to create some sort of awesome Rush-meets-Twisted-Metal Spy Hunter redux. Where's the love?



#49: Wizards & Warriors (1987)
Platform: NES
Developer/Publisher: Rare/Acclaim
In a Nutshell: An armor-clad knight rescues every damsel-in-distress in the world, ruining the promising careers of countless wannabe heroes.

Will says: Oh, Wizards & Warriors -- you broke my spirit so many times, yet I kept coming back for more. I remember striving to finish this game without dying (the word on the street was that the score maxed out at 999,999 if you did so), a feat that I'm sorry to say I never accomplished. The game wasn't impossible, but it certainly felt like it at times. Thank goodness for unlimited continues, which allowed players to see their way through to the end of the game, even if that meant another score reset every few minutes.

What attracted me to Wizards & Warriors was its combination of challenging, side-scrolling gameplay with a fairly deep role-playing system. Your approach to combat changed quite a bit once you got ranged weapons and powerful magic staffs, while the various items that allowed for levitation and invisibility offered more ways to evade fighting altogether. My favorite part of the games The box art -- which featured a Conan-esque warrior archetype battling back the forces of evil with his flaming sword. In 1987, it didn't get much cooler than that.