Probably need a couple of more years to really be able to judge this decade, but leaning towards Civilization VI (at least with Gathering Storm), Breath of the Wild or Dragon's Dogma.
Game Of The Decade For You
Euro Truck Simulator 2. It's not the first of their games I played, I bought their earlier games on disc, but ETS2 was the biggest and most ambitious game they had made up until that point. They also nailed every aspect I enjoyed about these games: the "career" mode, the driving physics, the game world, the graphics. For me it is very much the most complete driving game experience in many ways.
From a game industry perspective, it's an important game because it also managed to reach a mainstream audience, and its success consequently triggered a sim-game explosion.
Test Drive Unlimited 2 is a follow-up. I thought the first game was awesome, but then this one came along and it was even bigger and better; more locations, more things to do, weather effects, and so on. For me this is the ultimate racing game: race around in awesome environments, collect lots of cars and bikes, buy bigger and cooler houses. I'm glad I still have my old consoles around so I play gems like this. There's nothing around today that has this scope and charm.
Other strong mentions: Anno 2070, Age of Wonders 3, Yakuza 6, Creeper World, Dungeons 3, Elite Dangerous, Hitman (2016), Jurassic World Evolution, Kerbal Space Program, Shadow Tactics Blades of the Shogun, Star Control Origins, Starpoint Gemini Warlords, X Rebirth, ... I could go on. ETS2 and TDU2 have been the most influential on me though.
I think when I said Dark Souls, I thiiiiink that's like my.. objective choice? So then I wonder what my personal pick would be.. What single game did I most enjoy this decade.. And I'm immediately stuck in the mud. I have no idea. I cannot pick favorites for anything. People get annoyed at me. "What's you're favorite food?" Uhhhh.. I don't know. And I don't even care about food. A game though.. pffft. How much time do you wanna spend discussing everything that came out and their pros and cons..?
How do I even qualify it. Time spent with? That'd probably be Final Fantasy 14 but I sort've just loathed it for the last couple years. Red Dead 2 because of how impressive the overall package is? Monster Hunter: World, because they did what Pokemon seemingly refuses to do: Moved it to properly powerful platforms and made a hell of a game out of it, finally bringing me (and many other people) into the fold. Project Cars 2, because racing games combine my two primary passions in life, and VR (the tech of the decade) came along and took the sim genre to a new level? Gran Turismo Sport because I don't like multiplayer stuff anymore but this was revolutionary for casual online competitive play. Giving me the amazing experience of racing with people who have now gone on to win international E-Sports events. But also I don't play it anymore. Resident Evil 7 because I don't like horror games and this was great and also seems to have turned Capcom around from the brink of death to churn out some best of the generation titles. The Witness? Factorio? Cities: Skylines? MGS:V? SpinTires? BattleTech?
I don't know. Putting a list of ten things together sounds fun but picking the top slot(s) doesn't lol
The Talos Principle.
Solid choice.
Rocket league!
It's probably now the game I've spent the most time in ever.
Monster Hunter World probably. It's hard to say. There are games that had higher highs like MGS V & Breath of the Wild but MHW has been consistently great since it launched and i'm still playing it.
Although this is a very good second.
@inevpatoria: To be fair, several Souls like games come out every year since 2015, while I struggle to find any game like Mass Effect 2 since Mass Effect 3. By "game like Mass Effect 2", I mean a cinematic visual novel with a science fiction setting and servicable cover based shooting.
So the question here is, "Why?"
I don't have a good answer. I think it's an interesting question, though. Part of it, just speaking to the industry as a whole, might be the result of rigid cover-based shooting falling out of vogue. That's not a Mass Effect problem, really, but it affected the series in a fundamental way. You can see the impact of that made manifest in Andromeda's faster, jetpack-ier combat.
There's some degree, too, to which Mass Effects 2 and 3 (as well as peers of its time, like Telltale's The Walking Dead) showed the limitations and subsequent pitfalls of a player-agency narrative. Mass Effect 2 works so well because the branching paths didn't lead to conclusion, but to the feeling of greater potential. When it was up to Mass Effect 3 to tie the bow, it collapsed under the responsibility. Mass Effect 3 and The Walking Dead ended disappointingly because the illusion of choice was laid too bare.
In the case of Mass Effect, its developers tried to mitigate that by ending with a big, bold, world-altering conclusion. But that only served to frustrate players more, because not only were their choices inconsequential—the worlds they spent their time inhabiting were left in unfulfilling disrepair.
My opinion is that the Mass Effect 3 blowback retroactively stunted our collective regard for Mass Effect 2. It's kind of like The Matrix. You sort of can't talk about it without eventually bringing up its frustrating sequels. And it also affected how developers went on to make (or, in this instance, not make) other games of this type.
Now, don't get me wrong. Other games have done the player-agency thing extremely well. Even recently, it seems! But, as you say, none have the same swashbuckling disposition that Mass Effect did.
There's a whole separate one-to-two-thousand words I could write about why Dark Souls flourished in this time. A lot of it you can intone from what others have written in this thread already. But I think the fact that there were "more" Souls-like games than Mass Effect-like games only proves From Software's influence. But it isn't the reason why Dark Souls is more influential.
You can check those old threads. I was on the Mass Effect side of the debate at the end of the last generation. But it's pretty obvious now what game really stood the test of time.
@junkerman: I’d personally go Witcher 3 over God of War, but it’s a SOLID fucking choice...and my personal runner-up. I’m sort of amazed this is the first time it’s come up in this thread.
Shit, God of War is a great game...
Red Dead Redemption, for me. No game compelled my in quite the same way, and being the gaming tourist I am, the fact I finished it says a lot about how damned good the game is.
I've loved westerns for a long time and this was the game that finally nailed the western genre in a way that other games hadn't. I felt like I was in a Sergio Leone picture, and that's what I've wanted from a western game (and RDR2 went even further on the Leone by assuming a similar glacial pace, and I loved every second).
It wasn't the most revolutionary game of the '10s, but it was my favourite and a goddamn classic for the ages.
My personal favorite is Fallout: New Vegas, far and away. It's Obsidian's best game, the best Bethesda-style game ever made, and just an all-around all-timer from tip to toe. I've replayed it from start to finish more than any other game and will undoubtedly replay it many more times in the future.
Honorable mentions: Red Dead Redemption, which has the greatest ending in the history of the medium as far as I'm concerned, and Crusader Kings II, which is a brilliant, ungainly, one-of-a-kind mess that I sometimes in moments of madness think is the greatest game ever made.
If I get to cheat and use HITMAN 2 because it includes HITMAN 2016, then that. If not, HITMAN 2016. Either way, they made some glorious sandboxes with insane depth/replayability and hilarious dialogue/voice work/tone. It can be enjoyed as both a true stealth game and an absurd chaos control action game. It rewards creativity so much and has plenty of built-in linear good times as well. There have been continuous updates with more content than most can even keep up with. It is the best, and it never gets old. Game of the generation, the decade, and all-time for me.
The Witcher 3
Probably my favourite game of all time at this point. Played it again last month held up.
This is maybe the hardest question to answer. Trying to think about the past decade, I can recall what I thought was the best game of each year. So, maybe I will use that to figure it out. I will say, I have only played about 10 hours of Witcher 3. I think it is fantastic, but it is SO BIG it intimidates me to keep playing, because of my limited time. Same thing with MGS5.
2019: Resident Evil 2
2018: God of War
2017: Horizon: Zero Dawn
2016: TitanFall 2
2015: Life is Strange
2014: This War of Mine
2013: The Last of Us
2012: XCOM: Enemy Unknown (I HATED strategy games, but this hit one of my favorite aesthetics in basically 1950's/60's vision of sci-fi so I had to try it and LOVED it)
2011: Skyrim (wasn't until a couple years later that I learned how good Dark Souls was)
2010: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
So, if I narrow it to those 10 (11 if you throw in Dark Souls) games, I guess I would pick XCOM, because it got me to like a genre I hated.
My academic answer would be Witcher 3. It raised the bar in so many aspects, but I'll highlight the writing of Geralt. In most games there will be moments where you'll have to choose between conversation options that don't really align with what you would say. In Witcher 3 I was time and time again amazed by how often I was given the option to say exactly what I wanted. Considering how many things go into that (world building, storytelling, emotional investment, tone, etc.) that's such an amazing achievement.
However, I can't get around Spelunky. Unless I'm away from home I still play the daily challenge every day, and I have done for pretty much the entire decade. To me it's stopped being a stressful game and has become a very relaxing thing I do to wind down when I get back from work. It's just a part of my daily routine now, and it has been for so long I can't really see it ever getting old.
If I had to choose one , it would be Mass Effect 2. MS2 isn't just a great game with a great narrative in a great science fiction universe.
Honorable mentions
- Dragon's Dogma
- Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag
- Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception
- God of War
* NOTE: The biggest issue Mass Effect has which all game suffer from is a lack of belief in it own creation. The writers of the individuals narrative never saw the collective universe as something "bigger" than the games, they blew their wad in just three game but having the universe end literally three times in a row. They went big three times instead of telling smaller more personal stories. Mass Effect should be a setting for hundreds of stories and thousands of heroes, much like Star Trek. If they ever start over again that's what they should do, explicitly tell the writers they are NOT ALLOWED to writeuniverse endingstories. Mass Effect should be open so that dozens of novels, comic books, movie and games can be made within that setting - to do anything less is to squander the universe they made.
@monkeyking1969: Jesus it feels like 20 years ago that ME2 came out, how was it only 9 years?
I probably have to change my GOTD to that just based off of how many times I played it and how obsessed I was with it.
Breath of the Wild for me. No other game has engendered such a curiosity in its world for me. The art style and soundtrack made cresting a hill just to see what lay beyond it a rewarding task.
I get why TLOU is high up for a lot of people, but having just finished it for the first time this year, I would say it's good but not the masterpiece it's lauded as. Maybe I just watch too many movies and read too many books, but I found the plot and story of the game pretty well worn territory in content and execution. The characters are far and away the best part for me and the best thing Naught Dog does writing wise. But I found a lot of its video game aspects fighting against it's narrative ambitions and it made for a weaker experience. Still, I have high hopes that TLOU 2 can reach beyond the 8/10 the first game is deserving of ; )
A tie between Witcher 3 and Yakuza 0.
I expected to like W3 so that was not a surprise. For Y0 it was Mary Kish playing it on a UPF when it came out. I thought, "huh, this seems cool", so I bought it and adored it. I have since played both Kiwamis and own 6 and Judgment.
Yakuza 0 should be on my honorable mentions too. Other games are more pivotal or important to gaming; but, NONE are what I could call an 'unexpected delight' like Yakuza 0.
@w00master said:
Minecraft. IMHO, there's no doubt on this. I get folks saying Dark Souls, Mass Effect, etc, but nothing has had the reach, influence even outside of gaming that Minecraft has had.
I would consider it if it wasn't a 2009 game for me. I can still remember reading an issue of PC Gamer magazine (I can't even remember being subscribed to it though lol) on the toilet. I've tried looking this up to find it, but I remember there being this tiny little text blurb box at the bottom of some page towards the back of the magazine with one tiny screenshot saying like.. hey, maybe check out this weird, small, sandbox project. I don't remember what it said exactly but I paid the $10 or 15 that it was way back in that early alpha. "You'll get access to all future revisions" lol It had no survival mode.
It's wild to think of playing it back then. I think I still have folder backups that have the first things/areas I built. The Tekkit mod later breathed new life into the game for me. I have a (now embarrassing) Youtube video from 7 years ago of one of those projects that somehow has 21,000 views on it, faaaaar more than anything else I've ever put up, even a couple other Minecraft videos.
@blazele: This is a really good one for a couple of reasons. But my favorite is how this decade, the decade of patches and DLC content and microtransactions, also served as the springboard for redemption.
When the Master Chief Collection was announced, it was announced to enormous expectations. When it launched, it launched to widespread disappointment and immeasurable frustration.
But 343 continued slogging forward. They took the feedback, all of it, good and bad and fair and noxious, right on the chin. And they kept going, kept working.
The Master Chief Collection is an out-and-out achievement. Not just for its ambition but for the sheer magnitude of its recovery. We are lucky that it's even playable, considering its myriad issues. But it's more than playable. It's a triumph.
And that's a pretty cool story.
Too many to name just one, I think a lot of the good ones have been named here.
Just a few I'd like to add:
Deus ex Human Revolution for modernizing one of my favorite games of all time without comprising too much.
Dishonored 1 and 2 for being great, creative stealth games.
Disco Elysium for being the most bizarre and entertainingly written game I've played.
Danganropa+ sequels and 999 + sequels for being wacky af.
Too many to name just one, I think a lot of the good ones have been named here.
Just a few I'd like to add:
Deus ex Human Revolution for modernizing one of my favorite games of all time without comprising too much.
Dishonored 1 and 2 for being great, creative stealth games.
Disco Elysium for being the most bizarre and entertainingly written game I've played.
Danganropa+ sequels and 999 + sequels for being wacky af.
Saints Row The Third
It's still the only game I've ever 100%. Got every single achievement, even for all the DLCs and still to this day will throw it back on and just mess around in. I think Ryan said this and I agree. It's the smartest dumb game ever. I got more pure joy out of that game then any other game ever probably.
Other games I need to mention that would be my 2 - 5 on my list. Dark Souls, Mass Effect 2, Darkest Dungeon, Persona 4 Golden (if we count that).
Finally sat down to make my list. I was surprised when I finished it.
Disclaimer: This is my personal list. Dark Souls, Last of Us etc are great games, but they are not my favorites.
Game of the decad - Walking Dead season 1
Runners up: Mass Effect 2 and Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
Game of the Decade was the first game of the decade. January 26, 2010.
https://www.giantbomb.com/profile/marino/lists/top-25-1-games-of-the-2010s/367442/
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