My Top 10 Video Games (and why)

Everyone loves a good top 10 list right? Well I'm not an exception to that rule. So I figured I'd finally sit down and write out a top 10 list for video games. Let me say though, before I get started, that this was a lot harder than I figured it would be. Naming them off to my friends is always easy, it's whatever I like the most at the time. For this list though I tried to come up with good reasons why, and that makes this harder to do. Now I know why other blogger's / site's lists didn't always make the most sense to me.

Obviously this is my opinion, and as such based on my experience. My experience is primarily as a PC and Xbox gamer. I have played plenty of games on the PS2, N64, and Gamecube, but it's been about 10 years since I've done so. After I got my first Xbox I never looked back on the other consoles. Love me or hate me for it, that's where this list comes from. I also had to have reasons for where things came on the list other than just "I thought this was fun" unless it was really really really really fun. So games that I may have put higher on the list simply for enjoyment didn't make it otherwise. I may do a "games I like the most list" but this is more of a combination of like+innovation+impact on the gaming world. So anyway, here we go!

Number 10

Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare: The CoD franchise has basically become the biggest gamer joke there is. People buy the exact same game over and over again with just slightly better graphics. However, it wasn't always this way. Modern Warfare took Call of Duty out of WWII and brought it up to the modern age. Interesting and relevant events happened in it pertaining to terrorism, nuclear war, and really questioned what it meant to be an American Soldier. Plus it had one of the best multiplayer systems of any game that had existed to that point. With great maps, game types, and customization. While all of this stuff is standard now, and wasn't exactly new then, Modern Warfare really upped the anti of it all.



Number 9


Forza 4: Racing Games in general are either really silly like Mario Kart or super serious like Gran Turismo. Forza is mostly serious with a hint of silly, giving it broader appeal than either extreme. Plus the serious stuff is really good. Real racing drives have said Forza has the most realistic car feels of any game compared to real life, making it the best Racing Sim there is. However, the huge variety of customization options, and game modes like tag and bowling, make this game fun and easy enough for non sim players to enjoy too. Forza 4 Got this spot over the more recent Forza 5 because it has so many more cars and tracks, that Forza 5 actually felt like a step backwards.



Number 8

Final Fantasy 8: I will probably be crucified for this, but I think FF 8 was the best game in the Final Fantasy Series. Even better than FF 7. While 7 was good, 8 had a better story, better battle mechanics, a bigger more open world, better characters, and Squall was a much better more in depth protagonist that Cloud was. FF8 gets the spot over FF7 because it was the peak of the series so far. With the best implementation of the best features of all the Final Fantasy's.



Number 7

Rock Band / Guitar Hero: This is another choice that I'm afraid will get me a lot of flak, but think about it. These two series' of games inspired a lot of people I know personally to get into music. They learned some of the basics about guitars and got good practice at finger spacing playing these games. On top of that they led ultimately to the rise of Rocksmith. A video game that teaches you how to play Guitar. So while these games were honestly huge cash in's on a short lived fad, they ultimately did some real good in the world by helping kids and adults alike become interested in making music. Then providing the starting point for those same people to learn how to make that music. It's at number 7 because honestly the games weren't that great, and after you mastered Through the Fire and Flames on Expert (I did) there wasn't much left to them.



Number 6

Halo Franchise: Coming in just out of the top five is the Halo Franchise. Without doubt the first Halo game is what put the Xbox on the map back in 2001 with its vast in depth story, inventive gameplay mechanics, and then cutting edge graphics. The series evolved over the years to become one the biggest franchises in gaming, turning out record sales numbers and evolving into its own subculture. It has its own successful books, comics, live action movie, anime, and spawned the extremely popular Red Vs. Blue series. However, recent changes to make the game more like a mix of CoD and Battlefield combined with the ever shortening campaign has left a bitter taste in my mouth that's just enough to keep it at 6th place.



Number 5

Minecraft: What can I really say about this Juggernaut? Minecraft practically rewrote the rule book for crafting games, open world games, and it wrote the rule book for early acces / beta release. It has taken the world by storm with about 15 million copies sold (when this is being written) if you combine pocket edition and the console versions with the original game. It's fun and simple gameplay mechanics have turned playing with digital blocks into an artform where people's only limitations are their imagination. It however only hits the fifth spot because despite all of this, it doesn't offer anything else. It's a great game to play when you are bored and just want to mess around a bit, but not having a story or any sort of characters relegates its primary use to those players with good imaginations. Which sadly a lot of people don't have.



Number 4

The Walking Dead Season 1: Some people may be reading this going "That's a TV show, not a game". But it is a game too. It's an original story based in the same universe as the comics, but people who are only fans of the show can enjoy it too. This game is on my list because of how engaging the story it. I got so sucked into this 10 hour adventure that I actually cried at how the game ended. Make fun of me if you want, but this is what game design is supposed to be like. A medium that is both entertaining and engaging, and this game nails it. The only reason it isn't higher on the list, is that after you finish it once, that's about it. You can replay it, but all the shocking story twists are gone and it's hard to get as attached again.



Number 3

Eve Online: This is actually a fairly recent addition to my gaming collection, but it is a powerful game all the same. At 11 years old this year, it is 10th Oldest still running MMO in existence and it has evolved over the years to keep up with technology and what gaming culture wants. This game has the steepest learning curve I've ever seen in a game, but has the most reward. Players literally control everything in the game. All items are manufactured by players, and the economy stabilizes itself based on player action. Players create in game corporations that can be toppled by espionage as well as war. Players can build space stations, moon bases, and colonize planets. Thousand+ player battles happen in open areas of space resulting in hundreds of thousands of real world dollars lost (I'll explain this in a future post where I am going to really talk about this game). There is so much depth that anyone can find a number of things to do for a very long time.



Number 2

The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion: I think everyone who plays games has to have an Elder Scrolls on their top 10 list. For Good reason too, the whole series is full of epic story telling, deep and interesting characters, and really complex meaningful gameplay. Oblivion however stands as the best of the series. While I've extensively played them all (even the old PC games) I've easly put triple the amount of time into Oblivion. It makes the list at 2 because of how perfect the game really is. It is the perfect balance of serious with casual. It has the perfect amount of depth to play it for 1000+ hours (like I did) but is accessible enough to play it just to beat the story. Morrowind was to serious, Skyrim to Casual, and as such that makes Oblivion the best and second on my list.

Number 1

Mass Effect Trilogy: Ever since the first released back in 2007 I've loved this series more than all the rest combined. A great story, great writing, wonderful voice acting, solid combat, and decision making that actually mattered made this game series my favorite. It changed throughout each game in the series with things being refined or altered to set a better pace for the game, but it never lost what made it so great. What makes this game #1 is the decision making aspect of the game, that went beyond good and evil choices. Throughout the games you literally decided the fate of races and worlds as you prepared for the final enemy in the last game. People were going to die, you just had to choose which ones to save. All of those decisions mattered too. Certain alien races or characters really helped you out in the end, and if they were dead then you felt it. Missing ships, soldiers, equipment, and/or characters that you really cared about affected you and the game world as a whole. The ending only went a few different ways, but how you got there was a sprawling journey with hundreds of different paths. If you've never played this series before, then you should give it a shot. Out of all my 360 games, this was the only series I kept when I upgraded to the Xbox One. I gutted the rest of my collection and either sold them, or put them in my display case. This series though still proudly sits on my gaming shelf ready to be replayed this year at least one more time for nostalgia sake before it too gets a shelf of its own.

Conclusion

So that's my list. If you were just curious, thanks for coming and feel free to comment about the choices I made or what you think should have been in there. If you are about to crucify me in those comments, then hold on and keep reading.

Let me nip (hopefully) some problems in the bud before things get out of hand here by answering what I feel are going to be the most common ones.

Why didn't you put a Mario or Zelda game on this list? - Well, as I said at the beginning I primarily play Xbox and PC games. I do that because Mario and Zelda don't cut it for me. Sure some of them are good, but they are basically the same game rehashed over and over and over and over again. There are a few gems, and obviously they get brownie points for being the original game series', but the overall state of their respective series is telling the same story over again with different graphics. I don't have anything against them, but I'd rather spend my money elsewhere.

Why isn't the Half Life Series here? - See the above comment. I liked Half Life 1 and 2. They were solid games, that had a lot of good stuff in them. I just never saw them like everyone else did. Maybe I missed the point of them, or just didn't understand how amazing they were supposed to be. They just didn't do if for me like other games did. Part of that is probably because I've always been more of a simulation and RPG fan, and that shows in my list.

But, FF7 is much better because...... - If you are just going to rage at me, I don't care. If you want to debate me, that's fine but I probably won't change my mind. I have played both. I own both for PS1. That's one of the only reasons I've kept my PS2 all these years. I like both of them a lot, but when it comes down to it 8 is the better game in my opinion. You can have your opinion too, that's fine.

Why isn't X on the list? - Maybe I didn't play it. Maybe I didn't think it was fun enough. Maybe it didn't have any other qualities other than just being fun. Feel free to ask, but one of these three answers is probably it. I will gladly respond with reasons why if I considered it, but odds are these are going to be the top answers.

Seriously, Guitar Hero? - Just don't, I defended this position fairly well.

Why so many new games? - Well like any other medium games change over time. While it is still pertinent to occasionally point to games from the past, like all other things we have to move on. Eventually the relevance of a game becomes non existent because culture moves on and people get older. Games from 15-ish years ago are losing their relevancy, but in the case of Final Fantasy, that series still continues today. That one particular item is still relevant to today's culture because of the rest of the series.