The video game bucket list: Great achievements in gaming

I completed Super Mario Bros. back in the mid Eighties. Granted it was with a Game Genie and an infinite clock, but I did it, and I was proud for that entire Summer. When I went back to school in the Fall, I came prepared to brag to my classmates, or at least to join their semi-exclusive and nerdy club. Then I got blindsided by a giant, 8-ton mushroom.

“Did you find the Minus World?”

Did I find what?

I have my “desert island” games. I’ve been told which games I need to play before I die. There is even a Hall of Fame telling me what the greatest games of all time are. I’ve played many of the games on these lists, completed them, and walked away happy and fulfilled.

But the magic of video games isn’t just to complete one and walk away, it’s to do more than that: to experience the nuances that we dedicated gamers hang on to. The Minus World is one of those. Completing Battletoads and defeating Trema could be considered others. These great gaming achievements even leak out into the real world, where we build our first “ultimate gaming PC” or host a 24-hour gaming marathon for charity.

These are all on the Bucket List of video games. Without question there are more, and we’d love to find out what those are.

So, help us! Help us put together a list of things we NEED to do in video game culture to enjoy some of the things outside the main quests. We’ll document these, and try our hand at them ourselves. We’ll let you share your stories, and highlight some of our favorites. Maybe we can even get some prizes out there, too.

So, what’s on the video game bucket list? What should every gamer do at least once? We’ll update this post as often as we can, and scour Twitter for your comments (use #vgbucket as the hashtag).

I’ll start (in no specific order):

1. Find the Minus World in Super Mario Bros.
2. Get to level 50 in World of Warcraft
3. Host a 24-hour gaming marathon for charity
4. Defeat Omega Weapon in Final Fantasy VII
5. Find all the
6. Complete the endless set list in Rock Band (via BobBarker)
7. Attend E3
8. Unlock Hunk in Resident Evil 2 (via Mike Wehner)
9. Play Goldeneye 64 on one TV with 3 other friends (via Mike Wehner)
10. Collect all 150 original Pokemon (via Will P)
11. Get 1000 achievement points on at least one Xbox 360 game (via Will P)
12. Accomplish all of the endings in Chrono Trigger (via Russ W)
13. Complete the Mass Effect trilogy as both a Paragon and Renegade, Male & Female Shepard (via Ben S)
14. Blow on an NES cartridge to get it to work (via Greig)
15. ???