They’re all Space Invaders clones in the final analysis.
I’m disappointed, I was expecting you to go Wizardry instead.
Where is Glass Masquerade?
… who are you? What did you do to Kosc?!
:)
Its an enjoyable series, but not GOTD worthy.
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
- Red Dead Redemption 2
- Bloodborne
- XCOM 2
- Fallout: New Vegas
- League of Legends
- Undertale
- Divinity: Original Sin 2
- Rance X
- Pike and Shot:Campaigns
those Bourne movies really left their stamp in the industry…
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Europa Universalis IV. On the Chess board of Paradox games, Europa Universalis is the King. Which I guess makes Crusader Kings the Queen? and Victoria the Bishop? Or the Rook? ehhh, I’m getting out of this tortured analogy while I still can.
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Total War: Warhammer 2. This is the Platonic ideal of what I imagined Warhammer Fantasy Battles would be as I spent long evenings at the local Warhammer store sending my Bretonnian cavalry against lines of rats. Plus the battles are just metal and I love taking screenshots.
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Diablo 3. This game was released 3 times for me - when it first came out, when they brought in the Necromancer and when it hit the Switch. Each time it sucked me in completely.
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Command Ops 2. One of the things I love doing with this game is making little AARs with lots of arrows pointing everywhere. Perfect WW2 game for doing that.
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RimWorld. This is one of the games I would boot up just to have the soundtrack playing.
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Pillars of Eternity. This is a game that felt like it took me the entire decade to play. From following the kickstarter campaign, to following production updates to release to my multiple failures to try get into the game until it finally clicked for me. My constant companion for lo these many years, I can give no higher praise than it is a 60 hour RPG I actually finished.
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Minecraft. It’s funny how the mind works - one thing I discovered when playing this was the part of my brain that dealt with 3 dimensional space in the game was a completely different to the part of my brain that listened to people speaking. For a few years back in the early 2010s, I loved nothing more than to fire up a Qt3 game or movie podcast and listen to that while tootling around making ugly houses in Minecraft.
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Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. This is one of my top games because I loved the whole Uncharted saga and it would make my top anything list.
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Gary Grigsby’s War in the East Bruce’s game diary ( Excuse me, which train goes to Voroshilovgrad?) got me hooked into this game. Not quite as good as Command Ops 2 for drawing little arrows everywhere - but still excellent.
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Dark Souls. To be honest I liked Demon’s Souls more but it was just outside the window. I’m playing through this again on the Switch and like Diablo 3, that has given the game a whole new lease on life for me like I’m playing again for the first time.
I wasn’t sure I even PLAYED ten games, but turns out, I very much did, and had to whittle down the honorable mention list, lest I just try to list every game I played. Tried to have some representatives from various genres, as well – just generally what has spoken to me.
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The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Very possibly my favorite game of all time. The Elder Scrolls series just really does it for me, and while Skyrim isn’t perfect – and in some ways, ranks behind Morrowind – the engine improvements and “living world” feel just set it head and shoulders above anything else I’ve ever played.
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7 Days to Die
I actually have more hours in this according to Steam than even Skyrim. Fantastic zombie apocalypse survival/crafting game. It’s been in Alpha forever, very much early access, but it’s super playable and I’ll be damned if I don’t love the hell out of it.
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Red Dead Redemption
RDR 2 is absolutely a better game in every way, but it didn’t have the same impact on me as the first one did, simply because the first one did it…well, first. I BECAME John Marsden, and while the similarities to the GTA series are undeniable, the setting grabbed me way more than I expected.
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Fallout 4
I still haven’t finished it. The settlements concept didn’t work for everyone, but I dug it. The story clicked, and the gameplay was fantastic. I really enjoyed 3 and New Vegas as well, but this one has had me coming back the most.
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Patrician IV
I don’t know if anyone else plays this game, and I don’t care. It was EARLY in the decade, but I’ve spent A LOT of time with it. Something about the gameplay is sort of zen for me, and it has a lovely simplicity that I really enjoy. Buy low, sell high, invest in the towns, buy new ships, create your own businesses…but for some reason, it just never gets old.
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Stardew Valley
It’s amazing and brilliant and now it’s on my phone. Keeps me coming back for more, and has that “one more turn” thing going for it that just makes it hard to put down.
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Sid Meier’s Civilization VI
I see a lot of people putting Civ V on here, and somehow I never gave it enough time to really get to know it, but I’m playing 6 pretty frequently right now and really enjoying a lot of the new mechanics – and it certainly helps that some of my best friends have just recently gotten into the multiplayer side of it. I can’t comment on whether or not it’s better than 5, but I’ve spent more time with 6.
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Grand Theft Auto V
The characters and story really grabbed me here. Vice City might be my favorite GTA game so far, but 5 certainly did a lot of things well, and probably told the best story so far.
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Dragon Age 2
While I never fell in love with Dragon Age the way I did the old BG era games, they certainly have a very special role-playing experience that hearkens back to BG and NWN. I really enjoyed 2, in particular, and it may be my favorite in the series overall.
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Mass Effect 2
Hard NOT to put this one on the list, when I actually finished it! Great story, great characters, and a nice balance of action and RPG.
HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Fable 3 - ALMOST made the list, I’ve played through twice, but something just isn’t QUITE there.
XCOM: Enemy Unknown - Love it so much…a lot more with the original the sequel, even though the sequel is probably better.
Mafia II - Someone upthread said Mafia II, but it didn’t grab me as well as 2 did. It was just too short. May need to revisit 3, though.
Stellaris - Really hit well, but I haven’t spent enough time with it. Too many other great times around the same time.
Graveyard Keeper - Sort of a Stardew Valley clone, but has a lot of personality and wonderfully morbid sense of humor. Not the staying power of SV though.
The Guild 3 - I LOOOVE The Guild 2. 3 isn’t there yet, but they’re still working on it and it has potential.
Grand Ages: Medieval - Need to find more time with this, because it’s a really unique experience, there’s just SO MUCH to do. (Much the same as Stellaris.)
Outer Worlds - It’s not clicking for everyone, and too new to give it Game of the Decade honors, but I’m loving this a whole lot right now. I like the tone so much.
Minecraft - I haven’t spent a WHOLE lot of time with it, but I can’t deny the impact it’s had.
FTL - A wonderful and unique game that I would be remiss not to mention.
Factorio - See above, nearly word for word.
The Walking Dead - Others mentioned it and reminded me how much I enjoyed that experience. Great story, tough decisions. Don’t think I ever finished season 2…
(I should add that I’ve only ever made it through about 6 or 7 hours of The Witcher 3. It’s undoubtedly great, but I don’t have enough time yet for it to make my list. Still need to finish that one.)
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Witcher 3 (2015) - Obvs.
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Lego Marvel Super Heroes (2013) - Looking at my most played stats on Steam, a lot of them are the various Lego games, which are only ever played in co-op with my daughters. So these are automatically the best games, but Marvel Super Heroes is a particular triumph - it opens up to a huge open world New York, where hours can be lost exploring and finding its secrets. Oh, and charming as all get out.
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EXAPUNKS (2018) - To my shame, one of the few Zachtronics games I’ve completed. (They have so much content! And my brain insists on optimizing each puzzle as far as I can - the end of level histograms are an ingenious agony.) To an external observer, it won’t look like I’m playing this for 90% of the time it’s open - I’m just staring at the screen, motionless, while the rules play out in my head, trying to work out what I’ve invariably missed. And when I did complete the limited edition, it’s the only game so far that gave me a physical present to celebrate the fact.
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NieR: Automata (2017) - I found the plot frankly incomprehensible, but what a joy to play. It doesn’t think twice about switching genres on you, from an open RPG to a 2D platformer to an abstract shoot-em-up to… Also, impeccably stylish.
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Disco Elysium (2019) - Recency bias? Maybe, but I don’t think so. Such a bold, original take on what writing in videogames can be.
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The Witness (2016) - A masterclass of inductive reasoning, you’re not told a single rule for solving these puzzles: it’s a game about experimenting, and challenging your assumptions. The environment you explore, and the way the puzzles interact with it - it’s all so thoughtfully and cleverly done.
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The Walking Dead: Season 1 (2012) - I have a strong memory of watching the final credits for this, just devastated. Clementine - and I - will remember that.
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Super Mario Galaxy 2 (2010) - All Mario platformers are basically slightly differing degrees of perfection. This could also have been Odyssey, or 3D World on the WiiU, but Galaxy 2 got it for its constant inventiveness.
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Mario Kart 8 (2014, 2017) - Pure and joyful, guaranteed giddiness in multiplayer.
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Gone Home (2013) - I can still remember the night I played through this, with a glass or two of wine. (More games should be like this - tell a story the length of a film, and stop!) The emotional journey it takes you through is rarely this well done - and never have I been so glad that I was wrong predicting/fearing the ending of a game.
Honourable mentions: Pinball FX2/3, Celeste, Portal 2
I had no idea this came out in 2010. I thought it came out a couple years before this. Well hell, now I have to change my damn list. Aarrgghh.
I thought about it. But I feel like everything good about Super Mario Galaxy 2 was in the first game, and the first game had better design. I didn’t like the addition of Yoshi much, and the levels that led to. It was still a stellar game though, I agree. But if we ever have a retro-Game of the Decade award for the 2000s, then the original Super Mario Galaxy really deserves a spot in the top 10.
I always preferred the second over the first because it had more actual platforming. But both are spectacular.
@Scotch_Lufkin I notice, there’s no actual deadline for entries in the OP. (Or maybe I missed it?) Maybe we can get periodic updates of the standings instead of having a deadline?
Although it took a bit of fiddling to get my 7-10 positions sorted, the top three positions were no-brainers to me.
- Kerbal Space Program
- Europa Universalis IV
- XCOM 2
- RimWorld
- Stardew Valley
- Space Engineers
- Minecraft
- Factorio
- Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age
- BattleTech
I think what surprised me most about my choices is that most of my ‘favorite’ games of the last decade are single player! If the last 10 years defined a single change in my gaming style, it’s been a gradual shift to multiplayer titles that I can share with friends (see: Factorio and Space Engineers). Despite this, I clearly still prefer my SP roots!
Aha! I figured maybe I missed it in that wall o’ text. Thanks!
I’m more aghast at Antihero just being an honourable mention @lordkosc! ;-) I mean, I’m still wrestling with my list so no promises from me! :-D
:)
Its a great game, no question about it, but others were chosen above it.
Please bold the titles in your list. (Not the numbers though, just the titles)