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Gamasutra Asks Readers To Vote For 'Game Of The Decade'
by Staff [PC, Console/PC]
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December 14, 2009
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Gamasutra is asking its users to vote for their 'Game Of The Decade' -- the video game title that they think was the absolute best of the last ten years, from January 2000 to date.
While the site's editors continue to round up their Top 5s of 2009, a set of lists that will end with a Top 10 Games Of The Year next week, it's handing over the ten-year game list to its readers.
Any user with a valid Gamasutra user account can respond to the question - anonymously, if they wish - naming a game released this decade for any console, handheld, PC or online platform, and why they believe it outdid any other.
The final article will include a ranked list of the most-referenced games, but also an extensive list of 'honorable mentions' which include particularly persuasive write-ups.
(Respondents are welcome to use sites like GameRankings to remind themselves of release dates and specifics on highly-rated games from this decade.)
Thus, the question, which can be answered at the official Question Of The Week page until the end of Tuesday, December 22nd, is:
"Gamasutra is asking its users to vote for their 'Game Of The Decade' -- the video game title that they think was the absolute best of the last ten years, from January 2000 to date. Name the game, and then explain why it mattered to you and what differentiates it from the multitude of others released in the last decade?"
The best responses will be compiled into an article to be published on the site between Christmas and New Year, and users can either respond publicly, with their name and company specifically cited, or answer anonymously if they wish.
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Simply was bored of games from a long time and Bioshock brought the magic back like in the old days of Castlevania SotN and Super Mario World. The games plays well and smooth, is immersive and allows for skill, exploration and clever play.
FarCry - enough said.
It would help more if you told what was overrated in Bioshock. Gears of War is an awesome game too, the fun factor is better than it is in Bioshock. Of course GoW is a 3rd-person action arcade game. I'd easely put GoW2 instead, the Coop system makes the game 10x better than when played single. The action in GoW is room after room filled up with dozens of enemies, in Bioshock is an exploration/steath/survive game, so run and gun is a good recipe not to enjoy the game. If I was trying to escape alive from a hostile place, I'd try not to be noticed.
Anyway, I still defend Bioshock.
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/bioshock
Grand Theft Auto 3 -- father of sandbox gaming,
Halo: Combat Evolved -- fps on consoles; vehicles+physics in an fps; rechargable health; only two weapons; co-op,
Shenmue -- QTE,
Gears of War -- third person shooter introduced to the masses,
God of War -- epic action gaming,
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic -- the first, great western rpg on a console,
Guitar Hero -- rhythm gaming,
World of Warcraft -- World of Warcraft,
The Sims -- broadening the market,
and Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved -- the title that proved console distribution.
(my vote is going to Halo)
Here's my current short list of favs:
Deus Ex
The Orange Box
Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater
Resident Evil 4
Metroid Prime
Shadow of the Colossus
Super Smash Bros Melee
And and honorable mention to:
Beyond Good and Evil (Easily the most under-rated and under-appreciated but best game of the decade)
Okami (For me this game created the "feel good game" genre. You can't play it and feel bad...it's just a joy to experience)
Star Wars:KotOR
Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core (for pulling off a good prequel that was a tragedy and doing it in a way that you actually enjoy playing the game, multiple times even)
Right now I'm leaning towards MGS3, mainly because I trust others have nominated Deus Ex ;) and also because it's a heck of an awesome game which can really bear the weight of most awesome game of the decade in every way on its shoulders. MGS3 doesn't get enough credit for the series but it's easily the best of those and the best of the decade. Stellar graphics, amazing story that touches your heart and intrigues your mind like no other, phenomenal gameplay, great characters, action, romance, espionage, I mean really, what did this game lack? nothing. It's awesome.
This is such a tough call. I will say this about Gears of War - This game was the sole reason I bought a 360 and brought me back into gaming, after I took a long hiatus from gaming.
Most influential? Maybe, does GOTD go to something the spawned even better titles down the road though? Clearly it isn't the GOTD if it has been trumped by 4 sequels...
Is it the RPG or single player game everyone sold to GS to buy the next game? or is the one they actually held on to?
Is it the game with the most pack-in value? Clearly The Orange box is a clear winner here if you wanted all the games in it.
Regardless of who wins it we will have years of looking at it and going "really?"
Perhaps I'd pick Deus Ex if I had played it longer, but I was one of those suckers who bought the budget-priced Game of the Year Limited Edition, which was ACTUALLY LIMITED: IT WAS INCOMPLETE! So, I'm angry at the game... :-p
My personal pick would be Civilization 4. I've played thousands of hours on it and the mod community keeps chugging along with things to make it fresh. The AI is very competent, and the diplomacy AI is the best in any strategy game I've played.
I suppose my actual pick for GotD would be World of Warcraft, because it brought a lot of new players into the PC platform, made up a sizable percentage of revenue for the game industry over the past few years, proved subscription-based gaming was profitable, brought forward social gaming to the masses (more than Everquest, DaoC, and other MMOs), permeated pop culture so much that even Mr. T. is co-branding with it, influenced game design (who doesn't play Dragon Age: Origins and think of WoW?) and indirectly caused its players to try out other MMOs on both PCs and consoles, which further affected the industry. I don't even like WoW! However, I can see how big its impact has been. People who make a big deal about Modern Warfare 2's first-month sales seem to forget that WoW probably makes the same amount of cash from subscriptions every four months and with much less development cost.
Bioshock was a rent-and-complete game for me. I really didn't want to buy it but had to try it out, completed it and one sitting and went "Oh, that was it?". There really wasn't much to that game for me, nothing I hadn't seen before in a bunch of other games. Ok some of it was handled better but still. I'm not one of those that felt it needed a multiplayer component and it didn't go down in my estimation because of that. I'm torn on it because I love COD MW 1 & 2 yet you could argue that these games haven't really done that much more than others of the genre but I just feel they are better games in execution than Bioshock. Don't get me wrong, I know I'm in a minority, I felt the same way about Arkham Asylum, just didn't resonate with me.
GoW, I would agree GoW 2 is better but I think the first one had a bigger impact with me. I certainly spent lots and lots of hours playing the game, quite often all nighters. The cinematic impact of the first one was huge for me, for the first time I could see a real video game/movie crossover, while actually playing a game.
Another vote for Orange Box being probably the best value you'll get.
Also gamerankings, metacritic and all that, I agree should not be a good measuring stick. The industry is rife with retarded scoring when it comes to game reviews. Take Assassin's Creed 2 for example, I just spent the weekend finishing it and loved it, like a lot of the reviewers I think AC1 was flawed and the sequel improved upon it. But the top 7 reviews all gave it a perfect score. Really? Did they complete the game? I bet you none of them did. I very rarely base my comments on games I don't complete, unless the comment is "I thought it was rubbish so turned it off" (note: I'm not a reviewer). AC2 is great but has a lot of little flaws that stop it way short of perfection, like how about the majority of the time you start a memory it points you in the opposite direction you're supposed to go, which is a PITA in races. I also fell into the odd building or two, found out that you can't replay missions once you've done them so if you're trying to achievement whore (which I wanted to do, damn) you can't without replaying the game if you missed a certain achievement. Little bits of polish missing. Yet reviewers give it a perfect score. I remember when a certain mag gave Half Life 95% back in the day and said it was the best FPS ever. Then came Q3 that they gave 97% but commented "Not as good as Half-Life", there is just no logic to reviews. Play the games yourself and make your call.
Well considering my first computer was a brand new Vic 20, I don't think you have too much to worry about :)
FIFA 10 is top 5 for me as well. The sports game that will influence all competitive gaming for quite awhile.
Grand Theft Auto San Andreas - It's the best of the series and really nailed a sandbox game.
1) Deus Ex
other awesome games of the decade:
2) GTA San Andreas
3) Mafia
4) No One Lives Forever
5) GTA 4
6) C&C Generals (+ Zero Hour)
7) Operation Flashpoint
8) Age of Mythology
9) Unreal Tournament 2004
10) Roller Coaster Tycoon 3
I am a little biased though...
Uncharted 1 & 2 are up there. WoW is WAY off of my list as it's not my genre. I played many, many, many hours of Battlefield 2 (still do to this day). There are a lot and to pick just one.... has to be CoD.
2. Warcraft3 - personal choice probably, but I still play this about once a week with friends, and still stink :)
3. Oblivion
4. BioShock
5. Left for Dead (addictive game!)
Agreed, the problem is that 10 years are a lot of time when our media is so young. There are many, many games that also deserved this title, it's too confuse to name one. I got Bioshock cause it brought that style of gaming to a wider audience, it's not System Shock 2 or Deus Ex, Ken Levine itself told how much they dried the game in many aspects to wide its range. Well done balance on the feature creep.
Many games with far little features than SS2, Super Mario World ro RE4, where also very innovative and fresh in many ways. RE4 was a very good video game I loved playing, but it has the worse plot I've seen in such a good game, Unreal Tournament is better.
Of course most games in the first 5 years are going to be pointed, cause they've been in mind from all that time, and they had easier concurence (it's like you see a list of the best soccer players of all time, the first ones used to drible totally dumb adversaries). Plus of course, current games are everytime more graphics and less game.
People could say it's WoW, since it's been there almost the whole decade. Well, I thought I was in gaming decadence since RE4 are Bioshock are the only AAA games in really enjoyed, not just played through the last 10 years. Any new game I get still competes hardly for my time against Counter Strike and these blogs...
Everything in one's choice is about what you've seen in the game. I finished Bioshock twice, the first time took more than 20 hours, the second took 3 hours. Finished, not beat. I "beat" the veteran difficulties of MW and MW2, but I wouldn't say I beat the game. Games are not against you. Ok, enough off-topic. =)
And Team Fortress 2 needs an honourable mention. Both are titans of game design.
Yeah, I get it. I'm the same, for a long time I played nothing but Enemy Territory, I love that game and if I hadn't decided to get out of PC gaming, would probably still be playing it. Definitely one of my all time favorite games.
@Chris
I mentioned Deus Ex, but had to go for GoW, one of the few games in the last 10 years that blew me away. I'm a cynical little git so it was huge to have that kind of impact on me. I'm a huge movie fan, and I think the way the game was presented it tipped it over the edge of other favorites like L4D, COD: MW, Deus Ex for me.
Side note: IDK if anyone pointed this glaringly obvious fact out yet, but 'Orange Box' is not a game, and therefore can't land-slide this competition.
My short list (in no particular order):
Grand Theft Auto 3
Dues Ex
Mario Galaxy
Half Life 2 (only if the source engine was allowed as an argument for it)
World of Warcraft (possible Anarchy Online, since WoW was practically a re-themed, dumbed-down sequel to it)
Guitar Hero / Rock Band
The Sims (good call on that)
Marrowwind (Oblivion's prequel)
Desktop Tower Defense (representing the flash games :) )
Zelda: Wind Waker
Metroid Prime
There are way too many great games from 2000 up to now it's simply way too hard to choose the 'best' one. I actually think it would be better if everyone can pick 10 instead of 1, especially for gamers who enjoyed a lot of different genres (rpg, fps, rts, tbs, etc)....
still deciding.... LOL
I'll second FIFA 2010. It's not a one-time ground breaking title because the franchise was built on yearly incremental improvements. But as they say, "practice makes perfect", and it really shows in FIFA. I can't think of any other game with a higher level of polish and more complex gameplay mechanisms - the incredible thing being that it's still not perfect yet.
I don't play WoW but it's got to be out there somewhere too.
Super Mario Galaxy for second place, and Diablo 2 for third place...
As a game to REPRESENT this decade I agree completely about RE4. It is a perfect example, polishing up earlier trends and set new standards for other things in the 3rd person shooter genre.
And it is very good, however as you play it you are constantly thinking "oh it would be awesome if i could do X" or "why did they make Y like this".
Deus Ex on the other hand, while not being fantastic at any single thing, manages to be passable and internally consistent in every way, while still letting players feel everything is up to them. A feat no other game this decade even seemed to dare to try emulating, and thus never came even close too.
I'm not sure what you mean by your Deus Ex 2 comment, or what relevance it has to anything?
Deus Ex 2 came out a year before RE4, and it was a competent but uninteresting game.
Way before Assassin Creed could climb walls, Garret had those clever Rope Arrow, Moss Arrow, Water Arrow, Fire Arrow, Sounds Arrow, etc.
While the story was linear, the game itself gave to the player the ability to free roam where they wanted in the close city, looking for treasure all around the docks and houses.
Often forgotten, it has been a model for a lot of great games.
(Clearly the ancestor of Splinter Cell)
I might be wrong, but for me, even if it wasn't a perfect game, it was way over his time.
As to sales, should that be the only measure of a game's excellence? I don't object to it being one factor, but I'd say other factors -- such as design innovation, support for multiple playstyle interests and problem-solving styles, an intelligent and challenging story handled in a mature way, polished and appropriate artwork and audio, a high level of overall integration of all these elements, and replayability over years -- are also appropriate criteria for judging the lasting quality of a game.
Based on those factors, there are plenty of worthy candidates for a Game of the Decade accolade. I'd like to think that those of us interested in this question can nominate candidate games without needing to criticize other contenders.
Demon's Souls
Okami
Resident Evil 4
Heavenly Sword
Portal
Cave Story
Beyond Good and Evil
Shadow of the Colossus
Metal Gear Solid 4
Disgaea
Demon's Souls
Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne
GTAIII
...just to name a few
If I had to pick one (while not my favorite) it would be GTAIII - that game changed everything. 2nd would be wow.
I did want to add that Resident Evil 4 was released FOUR times too. Every year or two between 2004 and 2008. GC, PS2, PC, and finally Wii. So a game that was being bought, sold, and played for almost half the decade should take the prize. But by that standard WoW should take it without question. I find myself a bit confused now as my yard stick is morphing.
And sorry if i seem like i was bad mouthing Deus Ex. I was trying to follow the question form about comparing games...
I believe Oblivion was owed a token vote from me because it was such a pleasure to play from my perspective as a longtime RPG gamer. Deus Ex is a very good nominee for both GOTD and for a revamp of the series for today's gamers.
For those considering Guitar Hero, please check out the game Guitar Freaks from 1999. Should your vote count for bringing something, though very pleasing, to the masses?
My vote was Shadow of the colossus, because I think the one button grab / hold mechanic makes the camera work superfluous. Which is pretty much revolutionary for the basic third person camera games. I would go so far as to say it is the only game of that type I would put up against old school 2d stuff. Sad as though I might be :D