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Top Videogame Boss Fights Rated
Thanks to GameSpot for their list of their 10 favorite videogame boss fights ever. The article claims: "The bosses here qualify as memorable by excelling in a number of categories; difficulty, personality, and innovative fight mechanics all come into play", and goes on to name bosses such as Dark Falz from Phantasy Star ("...so terrifying, they couldn't even spell his name right"), Psycho Mantis from Metal Gear Solid ("more about figuring out the gimmicks behind his trickery than being skillful with your weaponry"), and Ganon from Zelda: The Ocarina Of Time ("the most dramatic and epic [boss battle] in Zelda history.")
...Mother Brain?! For its time, Metroid's end battle was pretty innovative, IMHO... i.e., "disconnecting" her life support, the time bomb (I bet every player, upon seeing that message the first time, gasped a collective, "Oh shit!"), etc. Not to mention the fact that, oddly enough, the Mother Brain didn't even attack you; which could've been a bad idea, but I believe it was properly & cleverly executed by Gunpei Yokoi and the rest of the M1 team. And Super Metroid totally upped the ante with their new implementation of Mother Brain, as well.
No, no, you're getting them comfused. Gamespy is a bunch of assholes who hate the Gamecube, spout stupid opinions about things, and monopolize file downloads. Gamespot is a reasonably cool site that bothers to have insightful commentary and well-written news occasionally.
Gamespy hates Mortal Kombat, Gamespot doesn't.
Philip Sandifer's academic website