My Favorite Video Games

I recently discovered the God of War series of games that came out on the PS2, PSP, and PS3. It's very rare that I love a video game this much, so I decided to keep a running list of my favorite video games. It's a short list. I'm very picky when it comes to video games. There may be other games that I've liked but these are games I like so much that I replay them on a regular basis.

Galaga (Arcade)
Rastan (Arcade)
The Legend of Zelda (NES)
The Legend of Zelda 2 (NES)

Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (NES)
Rygar (NES)
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES)
Metroid (NES)
Super Metroid (SNES)
Metroid: Zero Mission (GBA)
Metroid Fusion (GBA)
AM2R (Another Metroid 2 Remake)
Star Wars Jedi Outcast (PC)
Star Wars Jedi Academy (PC)
God of War 1 (PS2>PS3)

God of War 2 (PS2>PS3)

God of War 3 (PS2>PS3)
God of War: Chains of Olympus (PSP>PS3)
God of War: Ghost of Sparta (PSP>PS3)

That's it. I expect I'll be adding GoW 2 and 3 to this list in a few months. I don't think I'll get into the reboot coming soon to PS4. I really love the ancient Greece mythological setting of GoW and the way they've presented. These games would make GREAT movies. They really capture the feel of old sword and sandal movies like Clash of the Titans while still adding some modern polish, more so than the rebooted Clash of the Titans and Conan movies. In fact, a bald-shaven Jason Momoa would make a fantastic Kratos.

UPDATE: Came here to add Simon's Quest to the list and added GoW 2 and 3 also. Ah, Simon's Quest. I had forgotten about this game. I had it or rented it or borrowed it at one point in the NES hey-days. I had long forgotten this. I now remember thinking that I would really like it if I just knew what I was supposed to do. I don't think I had a manual for it. It recently crossed my radar and thanks to the wonders of the internet, I now had "a manual". I just finished it for the first time and started playing it again. Love it!

Introducing the d6X System!

What is the d6X system? Simple. It's the d20 system played with only d6s and a few minor adjustments.

Label the faces of a d6 as: 0,2,6,8,12,14.

We'll call this special d6 the dX. If you roll the dX with a regular d6, you get results between 1 and 20. We'll call this a d6X roll. It's not completely linear but pretty darn close. All possible results have the same chance of occurring except for 1, 2, 19, and 20. Those numbers will occur half as many times as the other numbers.

Result/Probability

1 2.78

2 2.78

3 5.56

4 5.56

5 5.56

6 5.56

7 5.56

8 5.56

9 5.56

10 5.56

11 5.56

12 5.56

13 5.56

14 5.56

15 5.56

16 5.56

17 5.56

18 5.56

19 2.78

20 2.78

To simulate a d10, use the same dice as described above. When you get your result, ignore the ten's digit. You'll get a value between 0 and 9. This will be even closer to linear than the d20 results.

To simulate a d4, roll a d6 until you get a result less than 5 or use the same d20 method described above. A result of 1 to 5 = 1. 6 to 10 = 2. 11 to 15 = 3. 16 to 20 = 4. This has a little more curve to it than the previous method.

Of course, you can use the d10 method to roll on %d tables or the d20 method for d20 tables. If you want to make a table with more than 20 things on it but less than 100, you can make a d66 table. Roll d6 twice. The result of the first roll is the ten's digit. The result of the second roll is the one's digit. This will give you a table of 36 equally probable possibilities.

To simulate a d8, use the d10 method above. Re-roll results higher than 8.

To simulate a d12, roll d6X. if the value of the dX roll is 6 or less, add 6 to the d6 value. This is completely linear!