Topic: Top Ten games of the past decade

[Cobra951]

Remember I was replying to Scott, whose comment was about the almost false-advertising nature of the CGI and CGI-based commercials.  I also don't feel that the mechanics are anywhere near identical between VII and XII, so it's not just a graphics whore thing.  I feel the world is at my disposal in XII, and even knowing that dice are still being rolled in the background, the combat feels very much real-time and immediate.  (Approaches, retreats, and positioning all involve real timing.)  There is no separate combat world from the roaming world either.  This is a huge improvement on immediacy, don't you think?

[Quemaqua]

Of course, but it has nothing to do with the dice being rolled, the concepts of most spells, the nature of many abilities, the nature of the status effects, or even the concept of gauges filling up before a character can actually take a turn (FFXII isn't quite as "real time" as it feels).  I mean, that's exactly my point.  There is added depth and certainly a crap ton of improvements to how things move and feel, but FFXII's core gameplay doesn't really revolve around positioning and such.  That's a new element that can certainly be used to one's advantage, but a lot of what FFXII really does is simply put a better mask over the same mechanics as previous FF games, which is part of the reason it's so good.  It's got the mechanical, statistical strength of those games, but a much greater sense of flow, less rigidity in the minute-to-minute gameplay and movement.

[PyroMenace]

Yea, Que is right. Though JRPGs require a taste to really get into them, turn based combat has been around since the NES days and has continued to be slightly changed, refined, and polished. FF6 and 7 were pretty much as good as it's ever have gotten for it's time and even some would argue it still is. I would never call those gameplay mechanics subpar. And FFXII is really just another rendition of this refinement.

[scottws]

I never played FFXII, but the timing system almost sounds like what is in Grandia II.  Only JRPG I ever liked.

[Quemaqua]

That was a good one, scott, and I think really underrated.  I actually got to review the PC version of Grandia II for AOG back in the day, and at that point I was still very anti-JRPG.  But I liked that one a lot.  But FFXII isn't really like that.  It's sort of hard to explain.

[Xessive]

I felt combat in FFXII was a little closer to NWN or KotOR actually. It is definitely a different mask over the original FF style though, as Que said.

Grandia II was awesome; I know I've got the PC version somewhere around here. Actually it encouraged me to pick up the original Grandia on the PSX too. Speaking of JRPGs, I really miss Skies of Arcadia, that was another great one.

[scottws]

Grandia II was awesome; I know I've got the PC version somewhere around here. Actually it encouraged me to pick up the original Grandia on the PSX too. Speaking of JRPGs, I really miss Skies of Arcadia, that was another great one.

Oh man, Skies of Arcadia.  I remember G2 and SoA came out about the same time.  I got them both for Dreamcast.  Most people regarded SoA as the better of the two, but I played them back-to-back, with G2 first.

I really liked G2 and SoA is so different from it.  I really enjoyed the battle concept that G2 had and SoA had a more traditional ducks-in-a-row type of system.  Due to that, I didn't like SoA at first and didn't get very far.  Eventually about a year later I picked it back up again and was able to get more into it without the G2 experience fresh in my mind.  I was actually really into it but for whatever reason the game would lock up on a specific turn against some boss every time.  I called Sega about it but they said the games only have a 90 day warranty.  I actually ended up ordering it for the GCN at some really low price once, but it was on backorder and I guess never got restocked.  My order eventually got canceled.

I feel like I missed out, but at the same time I know that I would never make it through the game today.

[gpw11]

I kind of have a love-hate relationship with JRPGs.  On one hand i hate the concept and find them boring as shit....on the other i play a lot of them because i like the potential of the strategic battle system and the progressive (maybe the wrong word) story development.

[W7RE]

Damn. I could make a list and spend weeks revising it, constantly remembering games I should have included. I'm going on a trip  for the next couple days, maybe this will give me something to do (since I get motion sickness when I play games or read in the car. I really hate that.)

[W7RE]

I managed to give this almost no thought whatsoever, so here's what I can come up with off the top of my head, mostly based on amount of time spent with the game. In no particular order:

Diablo 2 - The first one started the whole thing, but the second one streamlined it. The neverending feeling of wanting gear upgrades kept me going, and probably helped prepare me for MMOs. (not saying this is an MMO, but the gear search is what keeps me playing those too)

World of Warcraft - I've played it so much I hate it, but keep coming back to it. I don't like the direction it's taken, but damnit no other MMO comes close to the polish and just plain smooth "feel" of the game.

Day of Defeat - I guess it was a balance of accessability and realism that got my attention in DoD. It was iron sights and aimed for authentic WW2 environments and weaponry/sounds, but it felt way more accessable than more hardcore realism games that turned me away, like early Tom Clancy games with pre-level planning. I used to play DoD for hours every night, and even made custom textures for most of the guns, plus a full custum map pack that covered even the maps hanging from the buildings.

Shadow of the Colossus - Climbing up on top of the giants was fucking amazing, and the scale of them was impressive. Then instead of wading through thousands of useless enemies and level design puzzles, you travel to the next on in a carefree manner and take in the scenery. The contrast of the fights and the travel varied the game up enough to keep in from being monotonous, and you got a nice relaxing rest between challenges.

Goldeneye - This game is so hard to go back and play because of what modern FPS have done with controls, but damnit it was amazing back in the day. I went through so many controllers because of this game, and it wasn't even from throwing/abusing them. I just played the game that much. I don't remember it really doing much new, it just did it really well. I'd say the only major downfall the game had was the one single player escort mission. Of course, when you log 100x more hours on the multiplayer than the campaign, I guess it's not a big deal.



There's probably tons more games I could be adding. I don't even know what systems/games were out 10 years ago. I know the DC came out on 9/9/99, so we're talking about some PS1/N64 games, but that doesn't help with the PC side of things.

[scottws]

I realize this thread is almost two years old, but I guess I'll post up.  There is no way I can come up with a top ten, so I did my top five.  The following fiver games really gripped me, and had my jaw dropping the whole time.

1. Goldeneye - I imagine this game will remain the only FPS game I liked on consoles forever.  The game just oozed class and attention to detail.  It's visual quality was unmatched at its release.  It's old-school level-based design allowed for tons of replayability in the single player game.  For a reason I have never nailed down, this is one of the only games I have ever actually tried to complete on the hardest difficulty level, an endeavor that ultimately was successful.  I also spent quite a bit of time trying to earn all the cheats.  I never was able to get the invincibility one, and some others.

It also was a phenomenal multiplayer game and one at which I excelled.  Some of the levels were bad for multiplayer gameplay, but others like Complex, Stacks, and Temple ensured that you would run into each other often.  The different weapon sets made for different "feels" in multiplayer.  I commonly played with pistols (one hit kill mode), SMGs, grenade launchers, and proximity mines.  They all were great fun.  I was so much better than my peers at this game that they always wanted to play me 3 vs 1, something they didn't realize gave me the advantage (it's a lot easier to find any other person than one specific person).

2. Deus Ex - I've only ever beaten this game once, but I've tried to play through it more times than any other game.  This game was unparalleled at its release.  No other game seemed to have such an engrossing story or allow you the choice to play it different ways with all of those ways being potentially successful methods to reach the end.  To date there have been a few pretenders to the throne, but nothing has come close to topping what Deus Ex has done.

3. Starcraft – Everyone loves this game for its slick multiplayer.  The races are vastly different from one another yet they are all equally powerful (well, I could make an exception for the Protoss... espeically in Brood War they have an edge).

But I loved the game for its single player campaigns.  It wasn't so much the levels or even really the gameplay, both of which were quite good; I loved the game because the original story was so phenomenal.  I think Tassadar's sacrifice to defeat the Overmind was easily the most powerful story moment in gaming that I'd ever experienced.

4. Half-Life 2 - Que always says this game feels to disjointed, that each level has a different gimmick.  He's definitely got valid points in that regard.  People say the game has no story.  I completely agree.  But despite these flaws, or maybe even in an odd way because of them, I absolutely love this game.  I was heavy into gaming at the time, spending hours every day playing Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, but this game broke me out of that trance for three solid days.  I faked sickness for three days so I could play this game.  I played it for hours and hours each day until I beat it.  I just couldn't stop.  I think part of it was the level design, how the levels always seemed to end in the middle of travel to the next part rather than completing the goal of that level.  In any case, disjointed or not, I couldn't get enough of this game.

5. Wolfenstien: Enemy Territory - This game sucked up a couple years of my life and was paritally responsible in one failed relationship and a lost job.  I lived and breathed this game every day for two years straight.  There were only ever six maps released, but those six maps were incredible.  I loved the class and objective based gameplay, how each class plays an important role in any team's success.

It helped that I lived with two guys that loved this game as much as I did.  We would all play on a public server together and just dominate as a nice little three man team, since teamwork was all but impossible to find on a public server.

I like a lot of other games, but they are all on a tier that is separate from the aforementioned five games.

• Silent Hill 2
• Ico
• Shadow of the Colossus
• Okami
• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
• Freespace 2
• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
• Metroid Prime
• Shenmue
• Soul Calibur
• Star Wars Rouge Squadron II: Rogue Leader

If there was no release year limit, X-COM: Enemy Unknown/UFO Defense would easily have been on this list.  Probably a few of the Space Quest games as well.

[Quemaqua]

It should be noted that I don't contest the quality of Half-life 2 despite my bitching.  It was a good game, I just thought it could have been a lot better, and often felt the reasons that people claimed to like it were ridiculous (like saying it has a great story, etc.).  I was certainly compelled to play through the majority of it, and it was good fun for the most part, except when the gimmicks got old.  Not that you were calling me out or anything, but I jut thought I'd note that I don't actually consider it weird for it to end up in a list of your top games despite some of the conversations we've had about it.

[MysterD]

It should be noted that I don't contest the quality of Half-life 2 despite my bitching.  It was a good game, I just thought it could have been a lot better, and often felt the reasons that people claimed to like it were ridiculous (like saying it has a great story, etc.).  I was certainly compelled to play through the majority of it, and it was good fun for the most part, except when the gimmicks got old.  Not that you were calling me out or anything, but I jut thought I'd note that I don't actually consider it weird for it to end up in a list of your top games despite some of the conversations we've had about it.

I think the worst thing about the HL games is they don't tie-up loose ends in their story. They still haven't closed-up some plot-holes from the first HL, for crying out loud -- nevermind the plot-holes in any of the HL2 games and HL2 episodes.

That's really all I can complain about for HL series.