The Qt3 Top 10 Games of the Decade Voting Thread

Games
437

  1. Life is Strange - (2015) This was a game that was made for me; how others took it is perhaps another story. Set in the year 2013 but really in the 1990s, this worldweary game took the time-reversing much beloved minigame of Remember Me and made a whole game out of it. Maybe this is the best of the episodic games released mid-decade. Maybe it’s just a trashy teen angst game. Maybe it’s a game about relationships and dialog that doesn’t require combat or quick time events. Maybe it’s the most emotionally difficult game about regret and loss that’s been made. Unintentionally retro that is now itself retro, a game that seemed to me to have appeal to female gamers and promise a future for video gaming that has yet to come to pass. Also, such a great acoustic soundtrack. Available not only for PC and Mac but all consoles and even an iOS version that’s constantly hyped by Apple in lists of games about diversity and female protagonists. Before the Storm is the excellent prequel released by another company that, while in many ways is actually a better game, has a less edifying ending and is more deliberately contemporary and less accidentally 90s. <<Notable mentions: Life is Strange 2, Life is Strange: Before the Storm, Edith Finch, Gone Home, Firewatch, Tales from the Borderlands>>

  2. Skyrim - (2011) I spent the better part of a year or two playing it. I tried to return to it recently but found I just don’t have it in me anymore (see above). Again, most people know about it already, but I especially loved the haunting ambient score. At the time, on a PS3 and a Panny Plasma, watching the stars pass by while an aurora came into view were the moments I loved Skyrim the most. <<Notable mentions: The Witcher 2, The Witcher 3, Deus Ex, Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey>>

  3. Uncharted 3 - (2011) Uncharted defined a whole generation of console gaming. Sure, plenty of issues, sort of dated, too much combat, but it was such a fantastic combination of setting, narrative (which, at the time, was head and shoulders above most other games), voice acting, and cinematic bravado. Uncharted 3 was basically chapter 2 and not really a different game. It kicked off a whole generation (imo) of action-narrative games like the reboot Tomb Raiders, Horizon Zero Dawn, ect. In a sense, this is a vote for Uncharted 2 and 3 at the same time; i’m sneaking in Uncharted 2 here, as it was released in the fall of 2009. <<Notable mentions: Remember Me, The Last of Us, Horizon Zero Dawn, Tomb Raider (reboot)>>

  4. Total War: Attila - (2015) It’s easy to make a strategy game where the player starts with a loss and has to somehow find a way to win; it’s hard to start the player winning and have the game’s system still push him to losing. From the walls of Constantinople to the temples of Rome, Attila is an accomplishment of campaign design, with the most difficult and interesting single player campaign of any Total War before or since, in a setting and with systems that does not only conjecture but conflidently sets into motion a whole host of issues, problems and drawback. Rome didn’t fall because of the Huns, the game says; It fell because the Huns… and the Goths, and the Persians, and the Celts, and corruption, and climate change, and religious disunity, and cultural stagnation, and military innovation, and incompetent leadership, and migration, and immigration, and … <<Notable mentions: Rome 2, Shogun 2, Warhammer 1 and 2, Act of Aggression>>

  5. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - (2012) I’m not a shooter guy - i’ve only played Call of Duty 1; you know the one where you land on Normandy Beach and have to go through Sniperworld later in the game. Bad Company 2 had a Dirty Dozen vibe and small unit tactics in mind; in practice it was the definitive small arms tactical shooter of the decade, in my mind. Battlefield 3 was just too large, too messy. Bad Company 2 was perfect. And unlike future iterations it felt so much more… dynamic. From destructible buildings to straightfoward and sensible classes, everyone seems to think BC2 was a little known highpoint of the series. <<Notable mentions: Battlefield 3, Ghost Recond: Wildlands, Space Marine (2011)>>

  6. Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery - (2011) In many ways the defining indie game of the decade for me, announcing that “millennial gamers” had arrived. Sure there’s pixel art, indie score, guy in a smoking chair, musical interludes and evil Platonic solids, but what it was for me was an experience, and it seemed to announce and herald a whole decade of indie games about experiences rather than mere gameplay. It made me feel like the first time you’re caught in a rainstorm driving a car after setting out for college from your childhood home. <<Notable mentions: Dungeon of the Endless, Bastion, Invisible Inc., Stardew Valley, ect ect., the indie list is endless…>>

  7. Europa Universalis IV - (2013) 2013 was a banner year for video gaming. Total War Rome II, Grand Theft Auto V, NCAA Football 2014 - the last of the series - The Last of Us, Limbo, Monaco, Papers Please, Gone Home, and the Playstation 4 and the Xbox One. All of those games were great - but EU IV was the game that, imo, really pushed Paradox to the next level of OCD catass never-ending expansion gaming, the game where you can play literally anyone and everyone in the world. In 2016 they went public - that tells you all you need to know about EU IV. Also, again, great soundtrack (notice a theme?). <<Notable mentions: Crusader Kings 2, Stellaris, Surviving Mars, Cities: Skylines, Endless Space 2, Endless Legend>>

  8. World of Tanks: Blitz - (2013-2016) In the world of Free to Play and Pay to Win, there really isn’t a better game than the World of Tanks series. And there isn’t for my money a better experience than World of Tanks: Blitz. Featuring effortless cross-play between iOS, Mac, and Windows, and requiring virtually no graphical power, the silly game of pick a tank and play is nearly the best in class. <<Notable mentions: Clash of Clans, League of Legends, DOTA 2, Hearthstone>>

  9. Alien Isolation (2014) The musical and narrative notes that Creative Assembly hits so well is in full view here. Easily the best movie tie in game i’ve ever played, it’s good enough to effectively be the 3rd film in the Alien trilogy. After 2, the rest can get shot into space. with this as an alternative. Filled with retro future tech and the classic haunting score, the only weakpoint are impatient, out of character players that just run around a video game thinking it’s just a video game; for those, this game might wear thin after the 20th alien death. But for me, hiding for 10 minutes at a time, sneaking and sneaking, watching alien legs walk past from beneath a desk or through a locker… what a heart thumping game! <<Notable mentions: Remember Me, Vampyr, Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls>>

  10. Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition (late 2019) Really the culmination of a nearly a decade of development, Definitive Edition caps off the resurrection of a beloved game that began in 2013. After the bloodbath of MOBAs wiping the RTS genre nearly out of existence, and Starcraft 2 landing with less of an impact as was hoped, Microsoft took up almost on a whim the desires of fans to rerelease Age of Empires II. Basically a semi-official fan patch turned into an official release, Age of Empires 2 was reborn as the “HD” (2013) edition, the tireless work of Hidden Path entertainment, and new civs, new campaigns, and new expansions were released over the years. Microsoft combined them all, updated the graphics, and released even more content as the Definitive Edition. For $20 it’s the best deal in RTS gaming. And it proves that Age of Empires 2, not Starcraft or Warcraft 3, really is the best RTS game of all time. Remember this game is more than 20 years old, and no other RTS game comes close. << Notable mentions: your favorite remastered game >>