Nick’s Picks: My Top Ten Games of the Decade

First and foremost, let it be known that am not a juggernaut gamer. When I say juggernaut gamer, I refer to the kind of gamer who will devote their every waking free moment to playing a game from start to finish. I have only ever done this with one or two games in my lifetime. I am the other end of the spectrum – a social gamer. Four out of five games in my collection are there because of a strong multiplayer element, and as such when I dedicate a slice of time to gaming, it is more likely to be a multiplayer session. I preface my list with this detail to establish a certain fact – there are titles that you’ll see on other ‘games of the decade’ lists that are absent from mine. These tend to be games driven around a single-player campaign, and my involvement with the game was purely as spectator, enjoying the game more as a cinematic experience. That having been said, I present my own top ten games of the past ten years. Instead of trying to rank them, I’m simply going to follow them back in time.
(And for the record, I have no earthly idea why this text is smaller than the rest. It shouldn't be, but the posting editor is one big bug that has given me nothing but trouble tonight.)

10. Fallout 3 [2008] for 360

This is a game in which I’ve barely scratched the surface, so in terms of describing the total impact of the game, I can’t make a true declarative yet. What I have experienced so far is nothing short of majestic. The Capital Wastelands are themselves a work of art. The levelling system is practical and in all technicality what you would experience in reality – a gradual learning of how to better use and maintain an arsenal of weapons and devices. The story unfolding before me is very compelling and unbelievably expansive; the designers really went above and beyond making sure every element of the game would be appreciated. I ventured into the underground railways, and it was a genuinely creepy experience. The truth of this game is that it encapsulates a world wherein there is the potential for so much story and exploration, and the designers made sure that we would be spending more time on this game than any other three combined. I haven’t touched the extra content yet, but I’m confident it will be just as engrossing as the main quests.

9. Gears of War 2 [2008] for 360

The Gears universe is one that hooks me as a military-science-fiction geek. You’ve got guys with guns. You’ve got an alien war machine bent on exterminating humans. While these elements are definitely not unique to this franchise, they do click together in a successful way. It goes without saying that the Gears franchise was one of the first to integrate a vital key necessary to victory in a firefight – taking cover. Gears 2 didn’t progress too much on game-play mechanics; structurally it is most of the same things, if just a little cleaned up. What Gears 2 brought was the Horde. Until this point we had been asked to wage war on our friends in death-match arenas, killing them repeatedly to prove our superiority. Now, we had an opportunity to fight with them, united as a whole against a greater tide of enemy aggression. I have very few memories of the multiplayer from the first Gears; overall it seemed a little shallow. But I do remember the Horde; the numerous sessions of six hours and beyond spent holding our ground from waves 1 through 50. Gears 2 helped introduce a new way of approaching multiplayer, and it’s something that a lot of newer games are adopting.

8. Left 4 Dead [2008] for 360

I remember long ago thinking “Wouldn’t it be a fun change of pace to play as the zombie instead of the gun-toting survivor?” A short while later my at-the-time roommate found and purchased Stubbs the Zombie, an Xbox original. While it was cute in its nostalgic style, it would be soon overshadowed by Left 4 Dead. L4D brought forth a much more visceral and genuinely frightening vision of the zombie apocalypse. These zombies have the realism of science on their side – a viral pathogen that kills the higher brain functions and turns the infected into a primal creature, a rage-driven monster. And while they may not conform to the more puritan Romero-esque supernaturally undead zombie, it doesn’t make them any less scary.

The cinematic touches are a huge part of what make this game a profound experience. Modern games are pushing hard to play more like interactive movies, and it’s definitely succeeding for many franchises, including this one. The L4D franchise also has a little trick up its sleeve. They are games that practically discourage individual campaigning – you want, and more often than not, require a second, third, and even fourth player to ensure that human competence determines the survivor’s actions.

I’m using the first game as opposed to the second one for the simple reason that L4D set the bar, and I feel L4D2 didn’t exactly exceed it. It introduced a whack of new weapons, health utilities and the melee option, but with new good came new bad – the human AI got dumber and the special infected are just as frustrating as ever. But the franchise is a definite landmark in terms of setting the stage of zombie apocalypse.

7. Rainbow Six Vegas 2 [2008] for 360

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 has become a multiplayer staple for me, one I can come and go from without ever losing passion for the game. The campaign, as with most games, had its fun moments and equally frustrating parts, nothing substantially memorable. But like Gears 2, the game sticks with me for the multiplayer. Once again it is a team effort, working as a counter-terrorist fire team flushing the enemy out and picking them off one by one. There will be nights where I can’t summon the energy to want to hold out against zombies and alien hordes, but a small part of me never gets tired of killing a few terrorists.

6. Portal (Orange Box edition) [2007] for 360

People who know me know that I’m not a person who proactively buys every title that hits the shelves. The Orange Box is one of those situations – I didn’t have it until the summer of 2008, and I honestly had no idea what to be expecting from the games within.

Valve accomplished something distinct with Portal. They created a gaming experience that offered genuine creepiness without throwing any enemies at you. They did it through omnipresence. GlaDos builds on what you initially perceive as a sort of testing session, psychologically prodding you through the trials until you realize that you are a rat in a sadist’s death-maze. The moment you break free of the sterile environment, things become even creepier as you stumble across ominous traces of those who endured the trials before you. It’s the prolific emptiness that lets you focus on your mental state as opposed to your physical state. These days you have to do something truly unique to make a game stand out, and Valve did it.

5. Burnout Revenge [2006] for Xbox/360

I think it may be genetically programmed into the brains of men that we like cars. They are aesthetic and unique fusions of form and function; an innovation that truly changed the face of the earth. But there’s another thing that seems built-in as well – we like seeing things destroyed. Call it a morbid fascination with our potential for destruction if you will; cars exploding are one of those things that excite us. And this is pretty much a summary of what Burnout Revenge offers – the chance to destroy cars. The game is a damage-physics extravaganza disguised as a racer. The races are definitely fun; multiplayer is structurally limited to online and those experiences tend to be incredibly one-sided, but it’s still fun. This game is also one of the titles that has given me my most intense gamer-rage moments – the burning laps require you to complete a single circuit of a map in a set amount of time to earn a certain medal, and your only hope of earning gold is to accomplish two things at once – use every shortcut route in the map, and Don’t Crash. Where my record stands, I have yet to successfully merge the two concepts into a gold medal. But I’m not about to stop trying.

4. The Sims 2 [2004] for PC

To understand why this title is on my list, you need to know that I did not actually possess my own desktop computer until September 2006. From there until June 2007, through my final year of schooling, my most intimate capability for gaming came in PC form, and thus along came The Sims 2. I had played the first one on our home computer, and I found it addictive enough.

Games like the Sims are interesting in that when you take a step back and look at yourself, you realize that the game does nothing more than allow you to live someone else’s life, at the expense of time from your own life. And when you really hit yourself over the head with that fact, it’s easy enough to push the game aside. But at the same time, we are all a little voyeuristic, and the godlike ability to not only observe but control the actions of people satisfies that weird little lust. And when you allow the game to draw you in, you can start to find yourself caring about the people, and not just as peons under your thumb. That decision to start caring is what pushes you farther into the game, playing a family longer and through the generations.

Another reason we like games of this nature are because for most of us at some point, life tends to suck. In a simulation we can create the virtual-avatar, the replica of ourselves done in all its low-poly greatness, and give them the better life. Their lives aren’t truly as complicated as ours, but the mechanics of a relationship and a career seem to ease greatly when reduced to a series of skill-influenced challenges.

And like I said, this was basically the only game I heavily indulged in for the bulk of the 06-07 semesters and I still come back to it on occasion. I know that graphically and mechanically it’s very simple (so is Starcraft, which is unfortunately too old for this list) compared to any newer games, but sometimes less is more. Sometimes we don’t want a violence-charged shooter. Sometimes we just want to watch how life plays out.

3. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City [2002] for Xbox

Vice City holds a slot on this list for being one of those games in which I did my damndest to reach one hundred percent completion. My first open world experience, I did technically play a very tiny bit on the PS2 in first year university, but it was not until one of the summer-breaks home from school that I was able to offer many addicted hours of the day.

There would be days when I wanted to push through campaign missions, and some days when it was preferable to just find a motorcycle and stunt until the bike’s damage tolerance maxed out and it blew up. I also remember Vice City being one of those games that the paranoid watchdog groups were attacking for the glamorization of murder and ‘turning kids violent.’ Video games do not make me want to conduct violence against my fellow man. The exact inverse is the truth - wanting to do so results in me going home and playing a video game where I can do that in a controlled and artificial environment. Games like this provide catharsis, the release from those emotional extremes.

What helps make the game stand out above San Andreas and GTA4 for me is the 80’s element. The neon, the fashion, the annoyingly catchy one-hit-wonder tunes on the radio, and the great big homage to Scarface permanently stuck the game in my mind.

2. Fuzion Frenzy [2001] For Xbox

Fuzion Frenzy was my first enjoyable party game, and noticeably non violent. There was very little variety in the game types, but playing with friends and family was always an entertaining prospect. I think the nonviolent nature leaves you in a better mood after finding yourself on the constant losing end of the challenges. Most of the time what made it a challenge was not so much the other players but the environment itself besting you. Until a lot of the good shooters came out, this was probably the game wherein we clocked the most hours.

1.Halo Combat Evolved [2001] for Xbox

And we come to Halo. To reiterate, I am a science fiction geek and by proxy a scifi military geek. Halo delivered. Everything I’ve ever loved about the genre came to fruition nine years ago in this now noticeably dated shooter. It’s presence at number one is coincidental for the timeline but intentional for my history as a gamer. Halo has an undying replay quality in my heart. Halo 2 was a half-baked handful of attempted improvements. Halo 3 was pretty and shiny but really short and featured the now unavoidable contagion that is the no-health-bar policy in games. In Halo you could stand in a room and spray death at your enemies and fall back when your shields fell. In Halo 3 you can barely peek around a corner without a jackal sniping you between the eyes. Master Chief got a serious downgrade in his armour between 1 and 3, that much is clear.

Halo falls into that ‘less is more’ category of quality. Comparing it to its successors, it is graphically plain, but it was 2001. That was top of the line graphics ten years ago. It’s laughable now, but for the loyal fans it is a huge part of the nostalgic feel. Multiplayer was a gem too. Warthog flipping in Blood Gulch. Rockets on Hang’Em High. We would play until our thumbs hurt, but you didn’t regret one second of that experience. The only game to come near it in my social circle as the killer app for multiplayer is probably Left 4 Dead, and there is still a huge gap between the two.

Halo didn’t just captivate the gamer in me. It hooked the scifi geek in me with its mythology. At the end of it all I could care less about the gameplay mechanics and graphics. I liked the universe. I’ve gone through geek epochs in my lifetime – junior high was my Star Wars era, high school that of Aliens, Predator, and with a propagating franchise, Halo has been a solid part of my life for the last ten years.