My Favorite Games of the 7th Generation [In progress]
An ordered list of 25 of my favorite games from the 7th generation of videogames.
List items
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It's hard to express how amazing I think Rainbow Six Vegas is so I think I'll just let the numbers speak for themselves. According to the leaderboards, I have sunk over 500 hours into the game's online multiplayer. 500 hours is a hard number to contemplate because after 72 hours, days are simply a more useful unit of time to use. If they were compiled, I'd have played Vegas for almost 21 days straight. That's crazy, but that number only tells part of the story.
The game's leaderboards only trace back to 2008 probably due to a leaderboard wipe to clear up cheaters and whatnot. I had bought the game, partially based upon a glowing review from Gamespot's Jason Ocampo, all the way back in March 2007. I was already an Elite, the highest rank in the game, before the leaderboard wipe.
That's not all though. The 500 hours only includes Ranked matches. Around 2010, Ranked matches were pretty much nonexistent as player matches were becoming more convenient for the dwindling community (with 2009's Modern Warfare 2 being especially draining on the overall numbers).
As is norm in the Vegas community, the 500 hours includes only my main account. I've got another secondary account that's also reached the highest rank in the game and several tertiary accounts that have at least double digit hours logged.
Then there's all the other stuff in the game that isn't related to the online. I've finished the game at least three times, once in co-op. I've beaten all the Terrorist Hunt maps by myself and with a partner.
I don't know if I'll ever get an accurate number regarding how much I've actually played, and I'm not quite sure I want to know. In my best estimate, 1,000 hours seems like a conservative estimate. That's a ridiculous amount of time no matter how you look at it.
Through those hours, it feels like I've seen it all. But what sticks out most is how great the game's community was. It felt as if every person who played was a regular and dedicated player. Matches were always intense, and rival clans always played with both pride and passion. It's one of the few games where quitting in a match was more out of the ordinary rather than an expected occurrence. Part of this is because of the way the game was designed, sticking with traditional server browsers instead of matchmaking, but it wouldn't have truly been the way it was if the people who played it didn't care about winning as much as they did. No game's even come close for me in regards to the competitive nature and the intensity from match to match that Rainbow offers. And that's why I loved it so much.
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Gears is the game that made me "Jump In" and purchase an Xbox 360. I actually purchased the game before I bought the console because I felt I needed some additional persuasion to bait me into getting one. Had I just ended up playing Gears, and not the other 300+ games that appear on my activity list, I feel I would have been satisfied making the $400+ investment.
Gears holds a special place in my heart because it's the first real multiplayer game that I fully immersed myself into. Sure, I had tried some PC multiplayer games and had played Halo 2 at friends' houses, but Gears was the first time I dedicated myself in a way that I've only ever repeated one other time (See: game number 1 on this list). And boy, did I ever immerse myself. I would have been a junior in high school when the game launched, and all of my free time was dedicated towards playing match after match and getting better each time. I had a thirst for competition in a way that I've only ever felt playing a sport.
It's not all nostalgia though, as I genuinely feel as if the game was designed in such a way that promotes this feeling of competition. This can be seen in the basic design and stripped down nature of the multiplayer. It's not a game with ranks, levels, perks, or loadouts. It's a game that pits two evenly matched teams together and it lets them go at it just like that. The best players will win, and that's something I don't feel always translates into every MP game.
The map designs are also perfectly suited for the gameplay and there are so many classics that I'll always remember. Mansion, War Machine, Raven Down, the River, Gridlock, and so many more come flooding back to me even though I haven't played the game in at least a year. I memorized these maps, and I could literally draw all of them from memory.
Then there's the single player. A combination of survival horror mixed with intense action and furious firefights. I've played through Gears more than any other game this generation, and each time I do, I remember how awesome it was. I loved it so much that I had to buy the PC version to see how that Brumak battle went down.
Gears was the first game that screamed next gen to me. The gameplay was original (I know about Winback and kill.switch, and even RE4 if you wish, but it's an evolution of all of those games) and wrapped into one of the most complete games of the generation. It's hard to make a compelling single player with a competent multiplayer, but Gears of War absolutely nails both aspects. It's a game I needed to have when I first saw those initial previews, and it didn't disappoint in the slightest.
It's a classic.
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