This is fun for me to think about since I don't play that many games in a given year, it made me have to go back and look at each year to even remember what came out.
- Street Fighter IV - Arcade Edition: I don't really get to have fun with fighting games that often, but for one brief shining moment in the early 2010s I was hanging with a couple of guys and a gal pretty often and we all got super into SFIV at the exact same time. Being that I never really get to have couch competitive sessions like the ones we had as an adult, it's a super nostalgic and unique time in my post-school gaming life. Doesn't hurt that SFIV: AE was an awesome fighter.
- NBA 2K11: The last NBA 2K game that was unimpeachable, this was the game that introduced classic teams and had the Jordan Challenge mode. Both features would be expanded on in future titles one way or another, but 2K had stellar online gameplay at this point still and the Franchise mode hadn't reached the current levels of feature and Virtual Currency bloat that make it a real slog today.
- Red Dead Redemption: I'd just say all the words anybody who'd list this game has ever said about it, so remember what those words are and slot them in here.
- Mass Effect 2: Same.
- The Last of Us: Forever altered the expectations of AAA storytelling; executed so well, my most recent girlfriend who'd never been a gamer watched me do a full run of it and the DLC and would bring it up in casual conversation between sessions.
- Bloodborne: I haven't even beaten this game, but as someone who is generally terrible at games that ask for specific twitch skills, I loved that the only reason I haven't beaten this game was because I put it down to play others. I've watched three styles of Let's Plays of this game, something I haven't done for anything else, and I'm not sure there's an example of game / lore design I admire more.
- God of War: Like Bloodborne, this game just made me feel like I was good at it. I played this immediately afterward and found it too challenging on Hard to start with, but after a few hours I found the same reward center loop as I had from Bloodborne with a slightly more forgiving structure to help me plow through to the end.
- DOOM: I really liked Bioshock Infinite, and I had my fun with Titanfall 2, but FPS have always been a struggle genre for me. I just prefer the third person perspective and cinema-style cutscenes rather than the (usually) silent protagonist, always FPS storytelling of...well, FPS, but DOOM was pure ecstasy from the word go. I had to play it in thirty minute chunks but man was it a thrill.
- Journey: Short, abstract, beautiful. Despite only implied narrative, I was weeping during the final sequences.
- Until Dawn: Normally, any number of the honorable mentions below would take this slot, but the more I think about it, the time I played this with my ex was just such a wonderful experience. Her as the men, me as the women, her constantly fumbling with the controls and critiquing my interpretations of what a woman would do. It was a gameplay experience unlike any I'd had before or since, and a truly unique entry in the adventure game space for its inventive use of genre and variability.
Honorable mentions: Fight Night Champion (boxing seems perfect for a single player experience; turning the final fights into Punch-Out style challenges is the main knock against it), LA Noire (this game disappointed me mightily, but I still want a new LA Noire every year another one isn't released), Portal 2 (I'm not smart enough for this game, but I appreciated that it could convince me I was from time to time), Batman: Arkham City (Batman doing Batman Things!),
The Walking Dead (I don't even like the rest of this franchise, but that first season was such a ride), Grand Theft Auto V (I obsessed over this game when it came out; shame its warts are so obvious in hindsight - same for GTA IV), Bioshock Infinite (the only reason this didn't make the list is that DOOM did), DmC: Devil May Cry (games should have the leeway to be this batshit stupid more often; as someone who finds mainline DMC too challenging, this was just right for me),
The Witcher 3 (a painful third act and combat I preferred to be overpowered than learn the nuances of hold it back), The Phantom Pain (maybe the best game of these past ten years, but man, Konami, why...), Uncharted 4 (The Last of Us and a story that's probably a handful of hours too long keep this out), Ratchet & Clank (has me jonesing for a sale on the Spyro games and constantly contemplating biting on the Jak series when its on sale), Horizon: Zero Dawn (slightly overlong with a story that doesn't fully stick the landing, but man what fun!), Wolfenstein II: New Colossus (DOOM trumps it, and overly confusing level design ensures it couldn't rate), Spider-Man (if only the side activities had been better than serviceable, this had every chance to not just rate but be my personal favorite).
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