But Far Cry 3 feels like the real start of the series with its fresh attitudes to exploration, emergent gameplay, a flamboyant villain, lethal weapons, the thrill of capturing encampments and sparking glorious, glorious fire. Yes, the story is corny, pushing an ignorant colonial mindset, and the sex scenes were never going to age well, but the balance of bedlam and beauty in this lush toybox is difficult to find anywhere else. Good enough on its own to justify the purchase of a PlayStation Vita, Persona 4: Golden is the story of a city kid shunted out into the sticks while their parents work a year abroad.
Stuck in the small town of Inaba, things soon take a supernatural turn thanks to a string of gruesome murders and the prophetic appearance of the mysterious Midnight Channel. Split into the mundane and the magical, during the day you lead a normal teenage life full of friends, school work, and Saturday jobs. The relationships you forge with family and friends are what make Persona 4: Golden special; a heartwarmingly personal adventure with a top soundtrack.
Never before have I felt so sorry for a troll - I usually just block them on Twitter. It also laid the groundwork for some of the complex branching quests of the third game, with The Witcher 2 essentially splitting in half at a key plot point depending on who you side with.
CD Projekt has always known how to punch above its weight. It looked like Hitman was in trouble after Absolution. Sapienza is up there with the best missions from across the series, taking Agent 47 on holiday in a fitted shirt. Even trilogies. But this was the culmination of your choices over two previous games, where many characters now either live or have died based on your actions. It makes the stakes feel real, like everything you did in the first two games was always leading up to this point.
How do you improve on a perfect game like Portal? Expand on everything players of the original loved, turn Glados into a potato, and add in one of the best co-op campaigns of all time, of course. In co-op, these puzzles expand with two sets of portal guns. You and a friend must work together, propelling yourselves, each other, and objects to the end of each test chamber, lining up portals as things fly through the air.
One of my favourite co-op memories ever is finishing this with a friend, even though it took us longer than it should have because I kept sending them falling through an infinite loop. Fighting games, even, had been in a steep decline. The editions of SF4 released in this decade are all incredible.
It is excellent. Sometimes you just need to kill every motherlover in the room. A violent dance. Where people die. Did I feel bad? But it got closer than most triple-A games manage to making you feel implicit in your virtual violence. The results are tremendous. You can even play it in online co-op in Dark Souls 2 is a wild, explorative expansion of what Souls is - sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.
Dark Souls 3, meanwhile, is a careful distillation of what has come before , building an experience that is satisfying for long-time fans but also altogether more accessible. Accessible might seem like a dirty word when it comes to this, a series that has primarily traded on its bone-crushing difficulty, but Dark Souls 3 is still difficult in all the right places and ways.
Time can be a brutal mistress, but The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is probably going to be one of those games that ages like a fine wine. It is already excellent - a defining game of a generation, of a genre, certainly of a platform and company - but its influence is likely going to be felt for many years to come, just as with Ocarina of Time in the nineties and noughties.
It is also something all of its own, however - something new, exciting and adventurous - and in that design there is a spark that sets the mind ablaze with the possibilities within its systems and huge, always-interesting world.
This is a game that comes along rarely - one that will still be talked about in decades. Two games for the price of one, across two generations of consoles. GTA 5 is a wild Hollywood adventure, ripe with violence, sex, drugs, booze, madness, and ever-escalating danger. It makes you the star fifty years of American pop culture, pushing you with bloody hands into the lives of three playable rogues. Cock the hammer and get involved. GTA Online has grown into multiple worlds. If you want it to be, it's the crime sim, the business empire, the car collection, the photography landscape, the lavish and rich life where gold-dipped super yacht owners rub shoulders with stinkin' motorcycle scumbags.
With Rockstar subsuming so many of its old games and modes into GTA Online , it has become a true virtual world, a game as a service before that was even a thing, a place that lives and parties 24 hours a day. It's a phenomenon. The safest way to play is to slowly advance your troops while making sure they cover space in overwatch, in case any aliens are revealed beyond the fog of war during your advancement.
If you play one strategy game on this list, make it this one. The success of Shadowkeep proves that Bungie can hold its own without Activision and the five-year plan is sure to be full of surprises. Yes, the act of firing a gun needs to be satisfying - and it is here - but the FPS, at its core, is about movement.
Nathan, Elena, and Sully are perfect protagonists, and the interpersonal drama between them is just the icing on the cake. During this trip, he finds himself in the middle of a supernatural catastrophe created by his own mind. This is basically a Stephen King game.
What truly makes this game special, though, is its status a true horror adventure that is certainly incredibly scary in parts but is more about experiencing a journey through a world that celebrates the genre as well as it utilizes its best aspects.
He ultimately found what he was looking for in his own family, a powerful farewell for the series that speaks to the storytelling prowess of the mighty Naughty Dog. Few games released this decade inspired quite the passion that Undertale ignited. Undertale calls back to RPGs like Earthbound with its quirky characters, active combat mechanics, and humorous writing. But what makes the game a classic is its tight bullet-hell gameplay, which can be punishing but is always fair to the player.
It was a risk for StudioMDHR to develop such an artistically out-there title, but the gaming community thankfully embraced Cuphead wholeheartedly. Luckily, it still had most of human history to ape from, including the golden age of pirates, who stalked the Caribbean for treasure in the s.
This game lets you truly live your pirate fantasies: dig for buried treasure, pillage enemy fortresses, command your men in hectic ship battles, and drink rum. Oh, and you can do some parkour-heavy assassin stuff, too. Nothing will ever top the original Dead Space , a masterpiece of both horror atmosphere and storytelling, but this sequel is a very close second.
This one also features one of the most gruesome playable sequences ever put in a video game. We love to see it. Black Ops is not only the best Call of Duty game of the decade but perhaps the best in the entire series of first-person shooters. A slightly trippy, paranoia-filled campaign takes the Call of Duty story into new avenues where even reality is called into question. Who really killed JFK? We lost hours playing these in college! Time will tell what the legacy of the 3DS will be, but you get the feeling that the device will always be partially defined by the relative failures of its core technological gimmick.
This sequel moves the action from the Capital Wasteland to Boston, where the shadow of the mysterious, technologically-advanced Institute looms over the rest of postapocalyptic society.
You play as a Vault Dweller who is initially searching for their son but is soon thrust into a much bigger conspiracy involving artificial intelligence and much more. About as well as BioWare did in But this final fight against the merciless Reapers is bigger than any one character, and Mass Effect 3 feels appropriately epic, with big, explosive action sequences and galaxy-altering life or death decisions perhaps to a fault.
Taken on its own, without all of the story baggage, Mass Effect 3 is a great action RPG that will thrill you and break your heart in turn. Few games in the past decade have had the cultural impact that Minecraft had.
It transcended generations, spawned an endless line of toys, clothing, and merchandise, and became the best-selling video game EVER. Minecraft remains a prominent franchise, with new ways to experience the world coming soon. As hard as it may be to remember now, there were also some who felt that Overwatch could never live up to the expectations set by fellow team-based shooter, Team Fortress 2. The game is a series of discoveries that starts with something as simple as realizing that pickaxes break rocks or that clams can be sold for gold.
Every step in this world opens up a series of new possibilities that allow you to organically discover thousands of options at whatever pace you feel playing.
It would have been so easy for Bloodborne to be another Dark Souls game. From a business standpoint, we doubt that Sony would have balked at the idea of a PS4 exclusive Dark Souls game. Instead, FromSoftware used Bloodborne as proof that the Souls genre is more about a series of larger concepts than it is a collection of strict mechanics. Unlike other forms of entertainment, video games are evolving in wild, wondrous ways all the time, and Journey represents a true paradigm shift. Not competitive, but empathetic.
Not rigid, but nebulous. With only hints of a story tying this murderous rampage through a demon-infested Mars together, this reboot is really all about the fast-paced gameplay, gruesome monsters, fiery atmosphere, and tight level design. There are no conceits or pretensions here. Run into a room, kill all the demons inside of it, destroy the portal to Hell, and repeat.
It would have been easy for Rockstar to deliver just another Red Dead Redemption game and bask in the accolades. While some people mostly jokingly referred to Red Dead Redemption as GTA with horses, that basic formula still resulted in an undeniably enjoyable experience that doubled as the best western game ever released up to that point. Red Dead Redemption II is more than that. It challenges preconceived notions of video game pacing and open-world storytelling.
While there are times when its attempts to do so lead to unnecessary frustrations, Red Dead Redemption II ultimately succeeds in sucking you into a fully-realized world populated with meaningful characters and substantial adventures. Despite its divisive design, BioShock Infinite remains a game that is worth remembering, debating, and, ultimately, playing. It also happens to feature arguably the best uses of licensed music in video game history. Picking up a controller and playing Rocket League for the first time is an unforgettable experience.
This game, which fuses soccer with fast, high-flying cars that are prone to exploding, just feels so good to play. The controls are as responsive as can be, and the rules are so simple that players are freed up to focus on having fun rather than futzing around with how the hell the game works. Watching great players go head-to-head never gets old, and watching highlight reels is even better.
Rocket League is the purest gaming experience of the decade. You could argue that the initial appeal of the Super Smash Bros. As that novelty faded over the years, though, Super Smash Bros. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate represents the best of both worlds. This game proves that the Smash Bros. Dark Souls is the most influential game of the decade.
In the midst of an era where highly-scripted corridor shooters ruled the day and fulfilled that fabled promise of allowing people to experience video games that felt just like the movies, Dark Souls offered a more obscure story, environments that truly encouraged you to explore them, and a level of difficulty that would soon become infamous.
Most importantly, Dark Souls proved that many of the concepts that once defined great gaming had been dormant for too long. Rather than simply revive them, it repackaged ideas like pattern-based challenges and engaging boss fights in a way that took advantage of some of the more underrated design innovations of the era.
Following up a video game marvel like Mass Effec t , which allowed players to explore ancient galactic civilizations and uncharted planets like they were the captain of the USS Enterprise, was no easy task but Mass Effect 2 managed to deliver on its promise and then some. Tighter third-person shooter controls, more focused storytelling, inspired level design, and a colorful cast of characters that not only emphasized the paragons but also the renegades helped this sequel majorly improve on its predecessor.
The game also begins with one of the best opening act twists ever. There is no such thing as a wasted narrative moment in this title, and every quest is worth experiencing.
The Witcher 3 proves to be one of the most interesting uses of the open-world format in terms of advancing our ideas of storytelling in a video game. Vast open-world levels saw the new Delta Squad search for long-buried secrets in Arctic conditions and explore the blood-red sands of Vasgar.
The first game from Metal Gear Solid godhead Hideo Kojima after his much-publicised severing of ties with Konami in was a curious beast. But what vision! What innovation! Behold the videogame event of the year! More characters feature than ever before. There are more tracks.
The game is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the biggest selling title on Switch, with almost 20 million copies sold worldwide. Were it not for the spectre of P. Alien Isolation is trying to scare you, yes.
It was, more often than not, leagues better than the TV show. A team of just three people worked on this beloved Metroidvania-esque title, a game which is, in fact, probably the most universally adored indie game of the 21 st century. Sure, the art style is fantastic. The difficulty mechanics are pitched just right. The characters you meet are interesting and they matter. In fact, the answer might be really simple. A game like Hollow Knight is what happens when you let people who know how to make good games make games.
More of that, please. Minecraft , the biggest selling videogame of all time, is a phenomenon. The sandbox construction tool is a game with true universal appeal. It unites parents and children. Stoners and wastrels. Geeks and casuals. All you needed to pick it up and eek something out of it is imagination.
No longer are we happy to just play games — now we want to shape the world with them. In the case of GTAV , the story — this time taking in three central characters, depressed gangster Michael De Santa, aspiring bad boy Franklin Clinton and our favourite certifiable maniac Trevor Phillips — is a pretty good one. We were reminded of the late Stanley Kubrick. Of aborted Soviet space programmes.
Gameplay-wise the game is an RPG Third-Person Shooter , with the player able to make multiple decisions regarding the story, meaning of course that there are multiple endings. There is immense lore to discover by even talking to NPCs and we strongly recommend doing just that, because Mass Effect offers a great story of romance, bromance, betrayals, and survival.
Nothing more to say really. We consider the original Mass Effect trilogy a masterpiece in storytelling and every gamer needs to have a taste! Remember when Konami used to make masterpieces? Silent Hill 2 was released way back in and it was the first Silent Hill game to be released in the sixth generation of consoles. The game follows the story of James Sunderland , who supposedly received a letter from his wife, Mary.
Thing is, his wife passed 3 years prior due to illness. During his search, James encounters other people as well, all with troubled past and with a reason to be in such a town.
It is known to everyone that has spent time with the franchise, that the town of Silent Hill serves as a kind of purgatory to the people who visit it. The town changes for each character. Each one of them is there to serve a purpose. What that is, you probably should find it yourself. This is a spoiler-free article after all! Still probably our favorite Silent Hill to date, even so, many years after its release, SH2 remains one of the best psychological horror games.
That makes the whole time you spend in the town truly a horrifying one. Of course, its soundtrack, composed by legendary composer Akira Yamaoka. In my restless dreams, I see that town… Silent Hill. All cool so far with that Silent Hill 2 feeling, but this is where the game gets interesting! The story is divided into 6 episodes plus 2 more as DLC.
People have been dying for a sequel ever since they played this hell-of-a-game. And who can blame them? You witness twist after twist as you are guaranteed to stay at the edge of your seat during your whole playthrough.
I was fortunate enough to own the whole BioShock series when I started playing the first one, so I watched the whole story unfold without being interrupted. The intrigue was high enough from the beginning of the game and the first glance of Rapture , the under-water city where the game takes place. A city built without political, social or moral constraints.
Told in an amazing narrative. The counterpart in BioShock Infinite was Columbia city. A city in the clouds rather than the bottom of the ocean. A story that will make every single player think about the existence and possibilities of every decision we make. Overall the story of the BioShock series is breathtaking and gives a lot of food for thought.
A franchise that has spanned more than 30 years, since its launch in To this day they remain some of the most recognized and critically acclaimed video games.
What makes an espionage tale so special though? Witness how the world is run in the shadows and where it all began. How warfare hides a whole economy. A tale of loyalty, betrayal, and sacrifice. All told in the narrative only a master could deliver: Hideo Kojima. If you think this is another spy game or has a storyline equal to Call of Duty you are completely wrong.
The story spans many decades and will instantly captivate you.
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