We continue our countdown of our favorite video games of all time. Last time, we named our favorite games of the 20th century. This time, we'll be introducing our top 10 favorite games of this century.
Let’s take a look at the list…
As it stands, this is three generations of the WWE 2K series, and there's one good reason for that.
GM mode is back.
I'd honestly buy a WWE game just for the My GM mode, and while I do play the other modes in the series from time to time, I'll be honest and say that I spend 90% of my playtime in My GM mode.
I've been a big fan of UpUpDownDown's Battle Of The Brands for years now, so when the latest WWE game reintroduced the ability to build your own show, hire superstars, put on matches and measure viewership, I was keen to get involved.
And since 2K22, My GM mode has been improved and gotten better and better. They've really worked hard to maximize the fun you can get from this feature. And yeah… I'm really enjoying it.
I should really spend more time on other modes, but I'm not the type to do online fighting in fighting games, and my ego is too weak to withstand the beating I'm about to receive.
God this game is amazing.
The best thing about Horizon Zero Dawn is how beautiful the world you travel through is. The nature is lush. The creatures are magnificent. And Aloy is just stunning.
But it's not just the graphics that make this game so appealing. The combat mechanics are a blast, as is the RPG character creation. Battling the robot monsters that roam the countryside is truly engrossing. I had as much fun fighting them as I have fighting evil in any game I've ever played.
The biggest drawback of this game is that it's a one-off and has zero replay value. I'll never go back to it or give the sequel a chance because I hated having to start over from scratch and not being able to keep Aloy where she was at the end of Zero Dawn. Still… as a one-time experience? It was great.
The slot was narrowed down to two options: this game or any PlayStation Spider-Man game from the last few years. This list absolutely had to have a comic book icon, and after some mental deliberation, the decision came down to one thing: replayability.
Spider-Man is a lot like Horizon Zero Dawn. I loved that game. I loved it. But I played it once and that was it. No matter how much fun it was to web-swing around the map, the “run around town collecting items” got boring after a while, so I had no desire to play the sequel again.
Ultimate Alliance has much more replay value thanks to the multitude of heroes at your disposal, and can be played solo or with friends (I had a blast playing it at launch with my hilariously bad gamer dad, who repeatedly pushed poor Thor off cliffs) providing many more hours of fun than Spider-Man.
It's a great sequel, but it's also a bit more combat-oriented rather than puzzle-based, which can be either a good or bad thing depending on your tastes.
Every now and then I get something new and I fall in love with it, I'm obsessed with it for a while, and then it just disappears and it's like it never mattered to me.
It was Dead By Daylight.
This game is on this list because I played it extensively during the year, and that was quite recently. I was engrossed in the game for hours every day, trying to survive and escape the clutches of its brutal enemies. The game is addictive; the licensing of the properties it references is impeccable (it's a shame Jason wasn't in it, but there are plenty of other big horror characters); the gameplay is fair and fun.
It's a real shame I fell off. I got to the point where I was too good to just mess around but not good enough to be a star. So the game became more frustrating than fun. When I broke my controller because of it, I knew it was over for me.
But still! This year has been amazing. I sometimes wonder if I should re-engage in the games I spent 700 hours playing in a year. Maybe I'll regress enough to go back to just messing around. Maybe someday…
In this entry, I'll be jumping from other games to games that are essential to this list: Horizon Zero Dawn, Ultimate Alliance, Dead By Daylight… they're all fun games, but at various points in my life I was convinced other games would surpass them. They just barely made the cut.
But The Walking Dead is the first game I absolutely had to include.
What made this series great was that it didn't matter if I was bad at games. There was almost nothing I had to do here. I was just a spectator playing the story and letting the characters make choices. Who would live and who would die? What would they think of my protagonist? It was all in my hands.
And the story is so powerful. It really touched me in so many ways. For me, it's the best of the Walking Dead brand.
This is a must have fighting game for me since WWE 2K doesn't count, and it's also the only fighting game I've ever been moderately good at.
There was a large roster of essential Z-fighters and a fun build system that let you design your character to use a variety of transformations and moves, and the combat was smooth and crisp – no too much button mashing, just… fight.
This was also fun to play with others. I remember playing it with my dad when he was still around. It's a basic game, so even he could pick it up after a while. We had a bloody battle between my Fat Buu and his Super Buu.
It seems like Skyrim is on so many lists of favorite games of the century, and I, unoriginal as I am, am one of them. Skyrim has become a cultural phenomenon as a video game, and for good reason. The graphics were stunning and almost unheard of for its time. The world had tons of lore, background story, and things to run around and do. You could ignore the main quest line for a while and just run around, level up your skills, and help (or hurt) hundreds of NPCs in a mythical world.
I'm probably bored of Skyrim at some point in my life. I've played it over and over and over again. I've tried different builds to see what works best. I've had a lot of fun with and without mods. At this point, I don't know if I'll ever play this game again, and that's okay. I've spent a lot of time in Skyrim, and I think Skyrim knows that I love it.
For this entry, I'm basically cheating and looking at four game series (you know, the same thing I did with The Walking Dead): Ace Attorney, Ace Attorney: Justice for All, Ace Attorney: Trials and Tribulation, and, just for fun, Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice. But if you think that's too many, just leave out Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice and only count the Ace Attorney trilogy.
It's strange how much and how little this series has in common with The Walking Dead series. It's a great story that you can play without really “playing” much. But it's certainly more play-heavy than TWD, and you can't influence the outcome. The game has a clear story to tell, and the player just has to guide Phoenix to the end of that story.
But what a great story it is. I was obsessed with the first three game trilogy. I had two friends who were playing at the same time as me, and we would exchange stories and stories. There were twists and turns that surprised me. I enjoyed interacting with all these rich, full-bodied characters, and the interactions between them were really interesting.
This was also a one-off game. A few years later, I tried playing it while watching with my wife, because she loved watching the games. But she quickly got bored of it because there was no voice acting and she didn't want to read the screen. But it really was a one-off game.
It was hard to choose between Fallout 4 and New Vegas, as I like them both equally. New Vegas has a better and more interesting story, but 4 has better gameplay mechanics, graphics, and replayability (though neither is worse in this respect). Fallout 4 has a lot more to do, even if a large part of it is a bit boring, like having to constantly look for glue.
Like Skyrim, I've played Fallout 4 to death. Unlike Skyrim, I'm definitely not done with it yet. I've been playing it again since the Fallout show started. I'm not sure what I'd do differently, but I've completed it with each major faction so far. I've played all of the DLC. I've even gone through the raider bosses. I've played it both with and without some mods.
Maybe I'll try something I've never done before and achieve 100% happiness. Is that really that hard?
(That would be very difficult.)
Last time we said that more Pokémon would be appearing, and now they're finally here.
I honestly didn't know what to choose. I had a few options: Crystal, the third game of the second gen that I had for my Gameboy and played a lot on my N64 with the GB adapter; HeartGold or SoulSilver, the second gen remakes that added a ton of fun features to the already super fun Johto region; Black or White, the gens where I really started to get into competitive play and played 600-700 hours against others online while on the treadmill; or the later games where I continued to play competitively but got hooked on farming my own pokies.
I ultimately chose the Gen 2 games because, as much as I enjoyed the online battling and training, to me Pokémon was at its best when it was simpler. Playing over and over again, using new teams, discovering new Pokémon to love. Those were my favorite eras.
There you have it! My top 10 games of the 21st century!
Bart, what's your favorite? Let me know in the comments and tell me why you like it!
Until next time…take care!
