henke on 19/11/2019 at 13:10
These lists are popping up on gaming sites all over, and I'd like to hear what TTLGers' fave games of the 2010's have been. Besides Dark Souls, I mean.
My top ten:
Dark Souls (2011)
I remember playing this and thinking "Why am I putting myself through this? Why am I putting myself through the frustrations of playing any game?" and also "Why would I ever play any other game besides this? No other game is as meaningful as Dark Souls." Still not sure I can really explain the dark spell this game put on me.
Tricky Truck (2010)
This was my gateway drug, not only to truck games, but to simulator games as a whole. It is what led me to discover several of my other favourite games of the decade: Spintires, Euro Truck Simulator 2, Elite Dangerous, The Little Crane That Could, Lunar Flight, etc. It's simple physics-based arcade gameplay, developed by one person, is the template for the kinds of games I want to make myself.
Spintires demo/Spintires/Mudrunner (2012/2014/2017)
Tricky Truck might've introduced me to truck games, but Spintires' lumbering Soviet era trucks got me hooked. Conquering its rough terrains, crafted from the most exquisite mud, water, and vegetation physics you've ever seen, was a challenge I did not know I craved before I played it.
FTL (2012)
Really made me feel like the captain of a spaceship. Its challenging permadeath system made each journey thrilling and terrifying.
Beat Saber (2018)
Do you wanna FEEL GOOD? Play some Beat Saber. I've played probably 100 hours of Beat Saber. It is VR's killer app, if you ask me.
Metal Gear Solid V (2015)
Just about the best stealth-action game ever made. Has amazingly deep systems and doesn't tell you how to use them, which leads to it being one of those rare games where you try something, thinking "this'll never work" and then it does and you're amazed at what videogames can be.
Frozen Synapse (2011)
Like most entries on this list, this game was something I didn't know I wanted until I played it. I'd heard good things, I gave it a shot, and now it's my most played game on Steam. It's important to try new things.
Desert Golfing (2014)
My second-most played game of the decade, after Dark Souls. This simple 2D golfing game is the holy grail of procedural generation. It is the game that shows if you have great core systems, you don't need anything else.
The Last Of Us (2013)
I thought this was a really good linear storybased action-adventure until about halfway through when I realized it might be one of the best linear storybased action-adventures ever, and then the ending happened and it was so much better than you'd reasonably expect from a videogame.
Deadly Premonition (2010)
A crappy masterpiece infused with so much creativity and personality. It's like the "Evil Dead 2" of videogames.
I realize it's mostly stuff from the first half of the decade. Perhaps because they've had more time to cement themselves as undisputable classics in my mind, they've edged out later entries like Firewatch, Prey, and Breath of the Wild, let alone anything from 2019.
OK NOW U
Sulphur on 19/11/2019 at 13:14
I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favourite list on the Enterprise.
demagogue on 19/11/2019 at 13:47
Ok, here's my top 10:
Victoria 2 (2010), Skyrim (2011), Dishonored (2012), Firewatch (2016), INSIDE (2016), Prey (2016), Hyperlight Drifter (2016), Avorion (2017), Subnautica (2018), & Kingdom Come Deliverance (2018).
And here are the runners up:
X3 Albion Prelude (2011), FTL (2012), Gravteam Tactics (2012), Pixel Dungeon (2012), GTA V (2013), IL-2 Stalingrad (2013), Caves of Qud (2015), Ori and the Blind Forest (2015), Opus Magnum (2017), Red Strings Club (2018), Return of the Obra Dinn (2018), Noita (2019).
Sulphur on 19/11/2019 at 14:02
In no particular order or meaningfulness, some games:
The Walking Dead S1: We'll remember that, Telltale. Now, rest.
Portal 2/Trine 2: Trine 2 was a great co-op experience, and also gorgeous af. However, I'm pretty sure I made a set of portals in Portal 2 that slung henke into a vat of acid while convincing him I'd come up with the solution to a puzzle, and for that alone it is the GAME OF THE DECADE*
Alien: Isolation/SOMA: ever wanted to know what it feels like to have a pneumatic jaw bash your sphenoid bone into your occipital lobe? Alien: Isolation helps you find out! Meanwhile, SOMA quietly infiltrates your consciousness and asks you some of the bleakest questions ever posed several metres beneath the ocean's surface.
Mass Effect 2/The Witcher 3: These are the best guns 'n conversation or swords 'n conversation games, which did you know is in fact a whole entire genre, including the 'or'!
The Last of Us: here is the answer to the question 'what if we portrayed Nathan Drake as the person you play him as', and um, wow. We're assholes, all of us. The more you know!
Detention: who knew the people who could actually follow up Silent Hill would be from Taiwan, and they'd do it with a 2D game sporting a collage aesthetic that looks like puppets jerking against crumpled memories and gouache
Nioh: best combat gameplay of the motherhuffing everfluffing decade, bar none. Fight me. *Also if you don't want to fight me you're missing the point.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS/games that I almost cared about:
Dishonored/Prey/Deus Ex: HR/MD: frankly these should be included in the games of the decade, HR at the very least for bringing the imsim back along with Dishonored. But I keep flip-flopping on whether to put these up there, so treat 'em like Schrödinger's skullgun or something.
Red Dead Redemption: I had a PS3. So I bought this. This was, as it turns out, a mistake. Rerelease this fucking thing on the PC, R*.
Journey: I had a PS3. So I bought this. This was, as it turns out, also a mistake. Operating at the intersection of semiotics and religious/cultural messaging without much of a point (it's the Journey, not the destination, geddit!?), but pretty. So pretty!
Hyperlight Lover Drifter: best game I kickpunched, sorry, kickstarted
Hotline Miami: best tunez
Transistor: bester tunez
Nier: Automata: bestest tunez, also fabulous game that's obtuse about a straightforward story, but I can forgive it because I'm a hypocrite, also because it isn't Journey :cool:
Dark Souls: okay, I lied, I couldn't almost care about Dark Souls, I just... don't care. I can appreciate it, but I don't have to like its leaden pace and its plodding punishment. Also it's responsible for ALL THE GODFORSAKEN CLONES WE'RE STILL OVERRUN WITH. Screw off, Dark Souls. With love. <3
*j/k it's really Okami HD
PigLick on 19/11/2019 at 14:05
holy crap thats a really hard ask, so many games between that period.
Pyrian on 19/11/2019 at 14:26
Deus Ex: Human Revolution
FTL
Into the Breach
Mark of the Ninja
Invisible Inc.
Fallout: New Vegas
Legend of Grimrock 2
Shadowrun: Dragonfall
The Talos Principle
Bioshock 2
Renault on 19/11/2019 at 15:48
Tall order here. This is what I came up with though, first glance (not ranked):
Skyrim (2011)
Breath of the Wild (2017)
Don't Starve (2013) - Most time I've put in a game, probably ever besides Thief.
Hyperlight Drifter (2016) - Something about this game, I keep going back to it.
Dying Light (2015) - Best zombie game ever, plus great platforming, cool day/night cycle.
Hollow Knight (2017) - Metroid for this generation.
Dishonored(s) (2012/2016) - Going to count these all as 1.
Witcher 3 (2015) - Completing my holy trilogy of large open world RPGs.
Last of Us (2013)
Dark Souls 2 (2014) - You never forget your first Dark Souls.
Honorable Mention Section (aka The Next 10):
Styx Master of Shadows (2014)
Talos Principle (2014)
Alien Isolation (2014)
DXHR (2011)
Soma (2015)
Super Mario Odyssey (2017)
Prey (2017)
Infra (2017)
Hitman (2016)
Golf Story (2017)
Malf on 19/11/2019 at 16:25
Ack, I'm with PigLick on this, but here's a couple to get me started:
Witcher 3
Yes, the combat and gear systems are not great, but holy crap, there's just so much good in this game, and it really moved the goal posts for subsequently released RPGs. It's also got two cracking expansions. After finishing this, I really struggled to find something else that would hold my attention as much.
New Hitman (Hitman 2016 / Hitman 2)
The Hitman formula finally delivered with the full promise of the series, taking the baton from Blood Money and improving on it in every aspect. I just can't stop playing this, and it's a perfect palette cleanser when I'm tiring of other things. It can be played in short bursts, or for hours long sessions, and it's always fresh.
The Elusive Targets released in a steady drip-feed always serve to prompt me to revisit the game regularly, and I always, always discover something new or something I'd previously completely missed.
MGS V (both Ground Zeroes and The Phantom Pain
Yeah, I'm with henke here, and this is definitely one of my favourite games of the past decade, if not ever. Even though it doesn't finish properly.
I include Ground Zeroes, as TPP, while utterly glorious, can end up becoming too easy once you've got access to all the toys. Ground Zeroes on the other hand offers an almost perfect slice of TPP's gameplay, but with enough restrictions that it always remains challenging. There's a surprising amount of content in that deceptively small island location.
Demon's Souls
I'm gonna go full-on hipster and claim I was in to Dark Souls before it was Dark Souls :p
I'm sure that if I played them back-to-back now, I would have to admit the Dark Souls is the better game. But Demon's Souls was my first experience with the formula, so much so that when Dark Souls came out, I was already beginning to experience Souls-burnout. I bought the American import, then the UK version when that was released, and I played them both to death, getting to New Game+ 5 or 6 both times.
I mean technically, the US version was released in 2009, so I shouldn't include it in this list, but the UK one was published in 2010, so nyah.
No boss in any game will be as memorable as Old Monk, and I remember thinking that this was the most inventive implementation of online multiplayer I'd experienced in years. And the world Tendency alignment system, while hard to get your head around, was so rewarding to manipulate over the course of multiple run-throughs.
But as noted, I burned out on the formula, and none of the Souls-likes have managed to capture my imagination as much as that first game.
Tower of Latria forever!
Dragon's Dogma
I went through a half-year period where my main gaming PC died, so most of my gaming was done on PS3, and that's when I picked this up for "free" on PlayStation Plus.
It ended up becoming one of my favourite games, with its weird mash-up of Monster Hunter / Dark Souls / Open World RPG gameplay and even weirder story.
Much like Demon's Souls, I played through this multiple times, trying to experience everything I could. I even killed Death.
I'm a bit gutted there's never been a proper sequel.
The PS3 had some cracking games in its catalogue, and this and the previously mentioned Demon's Souls were my favourites.
Doom 2016
While I can't stand Bethesda / Zenimax, I have to grudgingly admit that they've brought a much needed focus to id Software's releases. And boy, Doom 2016 is one big release. A violent orgasm of bullets, blood and bile, with one of the most innovative soundtracks I've ever experienced in gaming. Doom 2016's music was as revolutionary for me as the first time hearing context sensitive music in Total Annihilation.
Yes, the game's a bit too formulaic, and yes, even while openly poking fun at games that interrupt gameplay to blurt out exposition at you and take away your control, it commits the very same sin, especially early on.
But it's so gloriously fast and physical, and a transcendent aural assault.
I've been personally boycotting Bethesda games since I finished Dishonoured 2 (not because of that game, but for their business practices), but Doom Eternal may make me cave.
Dishonored
I mean technically, the second game's much more impressive. But the first game was where I fell in love, and I just found its story more focussed (if simplistic), with the moral choices being far more interesting. Again, this is another game I played through multiple times and never tired of, although I could never quite bring myself to go full-on murder-happy. The DLCs were also superb, and getting to play as Michael Madsen's Daud was just awesome.
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
This is the real, modern successor to stuff like Baldur's Gate and Fallout. I only bought it once they added turn-based combat, and even then I was unsure I'd made the right decision, as I found the first game a depressing slog.
But Deadfire by contrast is light, breezy and urgent in its delivery, while offering a surprisingly excellent alternative to the D&D ruleset. It doesn't shy away from serious topics, but rarely falls in to the same trap as the first game, which had a tendency to deliver page after page of dry fantasy bollocks, wrapped up in made-up words with little explanation as to their relevance.
It's a complete story with very little fat on its bones and a satisfactory ending, heavily influenced by your decisions.
Also, you can turn an ornery, disembodied head into a be-tentacled elder god, just because.
Possibly one of may favourite bits in any CRPG ever, and mostly because of the character's confused reaction. I've really got in to playing Chaotic/Neutral style characters recently, and Deadfire caters to that style in spades.
I'm sure I'm missing something big from this list, so may update it later.
At the same time, there are also games I've spent a huge amount of time playing this past decade, but don't feel comfortable adding as "Favourites", just maddeningly compelling loops of loot like Destiny 2, Diablo 3 and Guild Wars 2.
I really enjoy them while I'm playing them, but I'm fully aware that they're catering almost exclusively to my lizard-brained addiction to the next drop / level / achievement.
henke on 19/11/2019 at 16:35
I'm seeing a lot of titles I
almost put on my list. Invisible Inc, Prey, The Witcher 3.
Quote Posted by Sulphur
I'm pretty sure I made a set of portals in Portal 2 that slung henke into a vat of acid while convincing him I'd come up with the solution to a puzzle
Good times. :)
Quote Posted by Sulphur
okay, I lied, I couldn't almost care about Dark Souls, I just... don't care. I can appreciate it, but I don't have to like its leaden pace and its plodding punishment. Also it's responsible for ALL THE GODFORSAKEN CLONES WE'RE STILL OVERRUN WITH.
You mean like Nioh? ;)
icemann on 20/11/2019 at 04:41
1. The Witcher 3
2. Fallout - New Vegas (2010)
3. MGS V
4. Prey
5. Alien Isolation
6. Dishonored
7. Dead Cells
8. Hollow Knight
9. Shadowun - Hongkong
10. XCOM 2