Geekscape Does the Best Videogames of the Decade!
There was no shortage whatsoever of great videogames this decade, to the extent that some fan-favorites didn’t even make our lists. Did your favorites make Jake 108, William Bibbiani or Ivan Kander’s lists, or will you discover some overlooked and forgotten gems to add to your Gamefly queue? Find out in Geekscape’s Best Videogames of the Decade…
…pretty much right about now.
——- JAKE 108 ——-
BEST VIDEOGAMES OF THE DECADE
Halo 2
Don’t get me wrong, Halo: CE brought a lot to the table, but Halo 2 brought more. With the installation of ‘matchmaking’ into Xbox Live, Halo 2 was a force among video games. It’s multiplayer was in a league of its own, and that’s just the multiplayer. Halo 2’s campaign also went deeper into Halo’s story and ended with a perfect cliffhanger.
Knights of the Old Republic
Where should I even begin with this? This was the game that helped you cope with the prequels AND made you feel like a Jedi or Sith. Knights of the Old Republic was fitted with believable characters, great gameplay, and a surprising twist that multiplied it’s awesomeness 10-fold.
Mass Effect
Another Bioware classic. Mass Effect explores an original story with characters you’ll eventually have an emotional connection with because of the decision making system built into Mass Effect. By the end of the game, you WILL be satisfied.
Bioshock
Bioshock fulfilled it’s duty by creeping all of us out. In the underwater city of Rapture you’ll find yourself scavenging for weapons, Eve, and yourself. As if mad scientists weren’t enough, Big Daddies will get the better of you.
Portal
Valve hit one out of the park when they put Portal into The Orange Box. Portal was responsible for a the widely known internet meme “The cake is a lie.” Besides it’s popularity, the game wow’d gamers with it’s simple controls yet puzzling challenges. If you haven’t got it already, buy it off steam or download it off the Xbox Live Arcade, or you can just The Orange Box.
Star Wars: Battlefront
Surprised? Don’t be. This was Pandemic’s first and last great game. It’s sad to say, but it’s the truth. What’s most notable in SWBF is the mixture of ariel and ground combat. I have great memories on the platforms of Bespin and the swamps of Kashyyyk. If you don’t have it, get it. And yes, it aged well.
Left 4 Dead 2
The Left 4 Dead series was made for zombie lovers. Nothing gets better than going through cities, hospitals, carnivals, and ever neighborhoods with 3 of your friends. Left 4 Dead 2 is on this list because it brought in a slew of new weapons, infected, modes, and awesome.
GTA IV
I still have flashbacks of running other gamers over with my car or shooting helicopters out of the air. Liberty City became a gamer’s playground when GTA IV was released. It had one hell of a story, a timeless multiplayer experience, and some of the best DLC.
CoD 4
By the time Call of Duty 4 was released, the series was already in full swing. The groups over at Activision and Infinity Ward made the right choice in stepping into modern warfare. This FPS set the bar for years to come.
Batman: Arkham Asylum
This game has won the hearts of many gamers. With all the Hulk games, Spider-Man games, and X-Men games, none did the genre better than Batman: Arkham Asylum. Pick this game up, and you’ll get your money’s worth.
——- WILLIAM BIBBIANI ——-
BEST VIDEOGAMES OF THE DECADE
1. The Orange Box
Never before has so much bang been given for such a reasonable buck. For the cost of an average game, the consumer received Half-Life 2 (already one of the best games of the decade), Half Life 2 Episodes 1 & 2 (gravy, but particularly good gravy), Team Fortress 2 (one of the best multiplayer experiences of the decade), and Portal… quite simply the best game of the decade. Even if you already owned Half-Life 2, this is one double-dip no one could pass up, and certainly no one regretted.
2. Katamari Damacy
The decade’s most lunatic idea: a flamboyant God gets drunk, destroys all the stars in the universe, and guilt trips his microscopic son into rolling up everything on Earth into balls of, well, lots of stuff, in order to replace the heavenly bodies. Endlessly replayable and possessing the decade’s best videogame soundtrack, Katamari Damacy elicits giddy glee and cries of “Why God?! WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?!” at the same time.
3. Psychonauts
There is nothing more to be said about the decade’s best videogame storytelling. If you haven’t played Psychonauts, you are dead to me.
4. Left 4 Dead
The difference between videogames and movies, fundamentally, are that videogames focus on the individual experience of the player. You may empathize with survivors of the zombie apocalypse in Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later, or what have you, but in Left 4 Dead, for the first time, you actually survived a zombie apocalypse. And you kept coming back for more.
5. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
The decade’s best platformer, with (at the time) stunning graphics, perfect control scheme and exceptional story that might… just might… make the first great videogame movie.
6. Rock Band
Guitar Hero came first and to be fair was, and still is, a great franchise, but Rock Band defined the music “kinda-sorta simulation” genre with all the necessary instruments (keyboards are still sorely missed, but that’s across the board), a great soundtrack and strong customization that Rock Band 2 only improved on.
7. Red Dead Revolver
This wildly inventive, action-packed game from the makers of Grand Theft Auto offered delirious spectacles based on the most bizarre Spaghetti westerns you’ve probably never even heard of. With an innovative quickdraw game mechanic and the decade’s second best videogame soundtrack (even if most of it was directly lifted from the aforementioned films), Red Dead Revolver deserves to be rediscovered as its eagerly anticipated sequel, Red Dead Redemption, finally hits stores in 2010.
8. Shadow of the Colossus
Screw God of War… Shadow of the Colossus was the best epic videogame of the decade, and yet, somehow, its finest moments are those of absolute subtlety. An incredible achievement that perhaps only videogames are capable of.
9. Spider-Man 2
Batman: Arkham Asylum is a better game, but when all was said I done I didn’t spend countless hours after the end of gameplay simply travelling around Gotham because the controls were so effortless and perfect. Spider-Man 2 may not have had the best single-player campaign, but its oft-copied but never improved web-swinging mechanics was some of the happiest wish-fulfillment in videogame history.
10. War of the Monsters
The best fighting game of the decade was this under-the-radar 3D fighter in which giant monsters from the King Kong to the Godzilla to even the Red Ronin variety beat the living hell from each other in various cities throughout the globe. With impressive gameplay variety and exceptional use of the environment (impale your enemies on radio towers, or throw a car at a nearby UFO to cause a tidal wave that destroys the entire playing field), War of the Monsters stood head and shoulders above the impressive competition.
HONORABLE MENTIONS: Assassin’s Creed 2, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Bioshock, Boom Blox, Braid, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Champions of Norrath, Fallout 3, Halo: Combat Evolved, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Professor Layton and the Curious Village
BEST VIDEOGAME MOMENT OF THE DECADE
“Would you kindly…?” – Bioshock
Spoiler warning, although if you haven’t played Bioshock by now there’s a good chance you never will. For over half of the exceptional videogame Bioshock you, the player, are asked if you would kindly perform certain tasks in order to achieve your goals at the behest of a friendly NPC. Then, you enter a room, where “Would you kindly?” is written all over the walls, and you realize you’ve been hearing the same phrase over and over again for hours. The most common of game mechanics – blindly pursuing goals just because the videogame says you should – takes a sudden, sadistic and brilliant turn as you realize you, and the protagonist of the game, have no free will whatsoever. The best is saved for the last, because after you’ve freed your mind an NPC still gives you orders and you blindly follow them without question anyway, because now you want these bastards to suffer.
HONORABLE MENTION: “What the hell is the Flood?” – Halo: Combat Evolved
So you’re a space marine fighting aliens in interesting locales with awesome set pieces, graphics and music. So far so good, but not exactly mind-blowing. Then, you pick up some recorded footage from a dead soldier and realize that you have no idea what this game is really about. Of course the concept of “There’s an even greater threat” is hardly an innovative plot point, but the tone of the game shifts so quickly, and so elegantly, that even this old standard suddenly felt fresh again. When the Flood finally showed up, you ran for your God damned life. Admit it.
——- IVAN KANDER ——-
BEST VIDEOGAMES OF THE DECADE
1. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
An odd choice to be sure, but when everyone else was killing people in multi-person Halo death matches, I was busy traversing the whimsical environments of ancient Persia. Stunning to play, beautiful to look at, and filled with one of the best linear video game stories since…well..…ever, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time changed the way adventure games are played. That’s a good thing, people.
2. Braid (Changed the way I think of video games as an art form. Perhaps the most innovative game of the last 10 years)
3. Deus Ex
4. Half-Life 2
5. Bioshock
6. Beyond Good and Evil
7. Gears of War 2
8. God of War
9. Halo: Combat Evolved
10. World of Warcraft (I’ve actually never played it. But, it’s hard to deny this game’s impact on an industry. So, I included it. Sue me.)
WORST VIDEOGAMES OF THE DECADE
1. Sonic the Hedgehog (xBox 360)
I remember the days when the Sonic the Hedgehog was fun. Back in my youth—since I didn’t have a Sega Genesis—I’d sneak over to best friend Timmy’s house just to get my hands on a little anti-Nintendo contraband. I’d race my blue buddy through a series of rings and loops, pushing the power of blast processing to the limit. Oh, what fun I had. So, this begs the question: What the hell has happened? In 2006’s Sonic the Hedgehog that old school platforming joy of yore was replaced by one of the worst games of all time—ridiculous load times, horrendous graphics, terrible gameplay, and a human love interest! He’s a hedgehog for crying out a loud. The only people who find this game compelling are either five-year-old kids or furries.
2. Bad Boys 2: Miami Takedown
3. Kabuki Warriors (xBox)
4. Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing
5. The Guy Game
6. Blinx: The Time Sweeper
7. 50 Cent: Bulletproof
8. Drake of the 99 Dragons
9. The Bouncer (Came out in 2001. I checked.)
10. Metal Gear Solid 2 (Yeah, remember when this game made no sense. Me too…)
BEST FRANCHISE OF THE DECADE
1. Half Life
The folks over at Valve really out-did themselves with Half-Life. Although the first game was released in 1998, the subsequent follow-ups in the 2000s were mind-blowing to say the least. Hello gravity gun! Hello physics! The Half Life series is proof that a game should, above all, be well-designed. Just thinking about it, I have an urge to pick up a crowbar and beat the crap out of some headcrabs.
2. Call of Duty
3. Gears of War
4. Rock Band/Guitar Hero (lets face it folks…they’re essentially the same game)
5. Prince of Persia
6. Uncharted
7. Halo
8. Zelda
9. Grand Theft Auto
10. Splinter Cell
BEST CONSOLE OF THE DECADE
1. Xbox 360
I don’t normally buy into the “best console” debate. Good games are just that…good games, and it doesn’t really matter to me what platform you play them on. That being said, since I’m being forced to list crap (people love lists after all), my vote goes to Mircrosoft’s Red-Ring of Death machine. Beyond having a solid library of games, it was the system that finally made the transition from plain ‘ole video game console to home entertainment machine—something other companies had been trying (and failing) to do for years. With the power of Xbox Live, online gaming became standard fare, I can stream HD movies at the press of a button, and also watch an entire line-up of DVD movies all with one machine. How’s that for synergy? Microsoft’s white box has delivered a solid experience, and for me, that’s far more important than any form of this motion-sensing-not-that-much-fun gimmickry that is currently all the rage.
2. PS2
3. Xbox
4. PS3
5. Sega Dreamcast
6. Game Boy Advance
7. Game Boy DS
8. Nintendo Will
9. Nintendo GameCube (it did have Wind Waker after all)
10. PSP
