15 Best Games of 2010s
This list is strictly a personal opinion! And no particular order!
Please don't hate me if I love these games. I love that you love your lovely games! <3
List items
-
Portal 2 was the first game I ever pre-ordered. And yes, I know, "don't pre-order video games" and all that. But at no point have I ever regretted that choice.
This game was entertaining me in ways that no other game ever has, long before it was even announced. It all started with the ARGs that I heavily participated in. I still remember setting up dedicated servers for the first time for Killing Floor for the Potato ARG, so that people could grind out the level that helped Portal 2 release sooner. And that was all *before* the game released.
What we got was a stellar Valve produced story, really fun puzzles that I've replayed dozens of times, and co-op! Nothing beats solving puzzles with friends!
-
I have bought this game several times over and own it on 3 separate platforms. Why? Well... I couldn't really tell you why I have it on PS3, it was just what I could play it on. And I have it on Switch for the portability. But playing this game on PC, its possibilities seem limitless. Throw a ton of mods in there and you can really play this as the kind of role-playing game that I've always wanted to play.
In one of my most recent games, I'm not even a hero of any kind. I'm just a loving mother living in a quiet town, running a restaurant and hunting as a hobby and to feed my family and stock up the restaurant kitchen. I'm not exactly a fan of RPGs because I feel like they fail to let me truly role-play, but Skyrim with mods is just the thing.
-
I don't know where to start or what to even say about this game. This game made me feel stuff. It made me question stuff. It made me play through the game several times over. And the crazy thing is, I want to do it again!
Sadly, having already done it once, the second time wouldn't be the same. This game's best quality is the insane twists and turns in the story and all that happens in the end. Especially ending E. And knowing what happens, I can never get the same feeling and sense of awe anymore that I did when I first went through it all.
NieR: Automata is a difficult game to recommend, and in some ways I'm not sure I even want to recommend it. Gameplay-wise it's not really anything special, somewhat mundane and simple even. But the story...
It's indescribable.
-
I still remember first hearing about this game. Blizzard making a first-person shooter? Pfft okay whatever. Oh it's kinda super copying TF2? Yeah this will crash and burn.
Who could've known that a few years after release I'd still be playing it at the very least once a week. Not only that, but also watching #esports and actually being excited about it for the first time in my life.
Countless hours went into playing Overwatch with friends and it has honestly given me so much. I even have a couple of Overwatch t-shirts and that's the only video game merch I have! (Besides a couple of amiibos, if you can count them as merch)
-
I have never been a fan of Mario games. Sure, I've played just about all of them and I've always respected them for what they are. And I may have had a little fun playing a few of them. But besides the first Super Mario Bros game on the NES, I don't think I ever finished one. I never enjoyed playing any of them enough to keep at them for very long.
This one was very different. I could not put this game down.
It almost felt like going back to my childhood, the awe and wonder I'd feel from every new level I'd get to in an adventure game. How different they were from the previous levels and all the different enemies and gameplay I'd see. This is why I couldn't put the game down. I kept wanting to see what comes next. It was an absolute joy to play.
And by getting away from a lives system, this game got me away from the life count anxiety I'd get from previous Mario games. 3 deaths and it would be game over! But not anymore. You'd just lose some coins, which you had so many of and could get so easily the coin loss might as well not have been there.
Sure, some argue that this game was too easy because of how they give you moons at every turn and dying would only lose you a minuscule amount of expendable coins. But that is exactly the reason why I loved this game and why so many other people will too.
There's still more than enough challenge to be found in the game. Heck, I've technically played through the story, but I have still not beaten the darker side of the moon!
-
I love playing games for story. Now that I've grown up, I do love a game with challenge as well, but I'll still sometimes play games at the easiest difficulty just so I can breeze through the gameplay and experience the story.
This game did both really well. The stealth gameplay felt dynamic and high-stakes, and taking out dudes or zombies was satisfying.
But more than anything, this game clearly shined in its storytelling.
I don't think any game has made me cry like this one did, and the bastard did it in the intro sequence. Not only does this game have some really really good writing, but huge props to all the actors. Their performance made me feel their pain so hard it hurts to even think about it.
-
Another game I own several times over. I've always enjoyed just messing around in the sandbox that is the GTA series, ever since I was a wee little babbu playing GTA1 on my cousin's computer. I don't think there's ever been a GTA game that I wouldn't put on a "best of the decade" list. They're all fantastic games, beyond the sandbox. And the stories just keep getting better and more fleshed out.
I played through the story of GTA5 at least 5 times, I wasn't keeping count. And yeah, the ending could've been a lot better. It feels like it was rushed to a conclusion.
BUT, of course more than anything, I played GTA Online.
I'd like to think the way me and my friends played it was fairly different from most other people though. We generally only played in private sessions, where we wouldn't have to deathmatch with random people all the time. We did our missions in peace. When buying cars we focused more on buying and modding up the silliest or most fun looking cars, rather than the most badass and fastest ones. The more rusty and terrible, the better! And we made SO MANY custom races, all of which generally had some crazy twist to them that would make most people think they're terrible.
We straight up have a legendary race called "ANGER" that's just a very narrow corridor that you have to go back and forth in about 6 times or so, while there's concrete pipes falling in the path and the military is spawning in the path to get out of their cars and shoot you, leaving their cars to also block the path.
The game is a sandbox and we could do so much in it.
We once even wore parachutes and pretended they're backpacks and went hiking up a mountain, which of course in typical GTA fashion ended with someone flying a biplane into us and exploding.
According to Steam, this is my most played game of all time. I don't believe it, since there's games that Steam doesn't track that I'm sure I've played way more. But there you have it. It's clunky, its loading times are endless and sometimes only lead to an error screen.
But I love this game.
-
RDR2 got a lot of criticism for being slow.
I would like to use "slow" as a compliment. To play this game, I had to be in the right mindset of course. Yes, it was slow and most of the time you might find yourself just riding your horse from one place to another. But it was relaxing. And boy was it immersive.
Several times throughout the game, despite having already spent a whole week playing it every day and still not being finished with the story, I would go to my camp, hear people singing by the fire, and I would sit down among them and listen to Arthur kinda badly trying to sing along. I would grab a bottle of beer and talk to people at my camp until they had nothing more to say. And I can't remember everything they had to say to me, most of it wasn't even important. But I felt connected. I felt like those moments were real and I enjoyed spending my time there.
I don't know if this was the longest story I've ever played through, but it sure felt like it. Not that it's a bad thing. This story was so so lovingly made and even though it was pretty clear early on what would happen (especially if you've played the first game), seeing how it would all go down kept me on my toes.
I want to play through this entire story again.
-
I went and bought a console just to play this game and once I was done with the game I sold the console with it. Not only was it absolutely worth it, but I actually feel bad for selling the console (had to, financial reasons), because boy do I want to go back and play this game again. Especially after playing RDR2, a direct prequel to this game.
I had always heard great things about this game, but I was not prepared to experience what I would now consider to be among my favourite single-player games of all time. I said it earlier in the list, that I love a good story. This game delivers on that.
It took a while to pick up, but once it did, it was gripping as hell.
And I have to say, music can always affect me in a big way emotionally, and the music that plays at the very end, it kind of wrecked me.
-
I grew up playing fast-paced first-person shooters with no gosh darn ADS and sprint mechanics and carrying 2 weapons and all that mumbojumbo. I grew up with Doom, Quake, Unreal, Half-Life. Games where you move real fast, shoot real fast, and carry an arsenal of - at the very least- 9 weapons, each new one cooler than the others.
Doom 3 was not that. The beta for this DOOM that I got to play before release was also very much not that. So I was really worried. I was certain this game would fail.
This game did not fail. It went back to its roots in the best way possible. Fast-paced action shooting hell demons in the face with big guns with superb graphics and incredible intense music playing in the background. That's what DOOM is all about and it feels gooood.
Like a lot of people have described it, "You're not stuck in a room with demons. The demons are stuck in a room with you."
This game is an absolute blast. And what's better, they included an easy to use level editor that, of course, me and my friends properly abused to make some really silly content which has provided us with many many hours of entertainment beyond what we could have expected.
-
I'm not exactly old, but I do feel like "old man yelling at cloud" sometimes when it comes to the games I like and dislike. Titanfall 2 brings out that reminiscing part of me.
It wasn't actually that long ago when first-person shooters had the kinds of grand single-player stories that took you through all kinds of settings and situations. Yet, by the time Titanfall 2 came out, they all felt like a distant memory. I guess Half-Life 2: Episode 2 was the last game to make me feel the way that Titanfall 2 felt as an FPS.
Coupled with the combination of infantry and giant mech gameplay the likes of which I don't think we've ever really seen before, this game was breathtaking in every way. And it has badass boss battles!
And so far I only mentioned the single-player. Now, I'm not exactly a fan of multi-player games that I don't play with friends and I did not really have anyone to play this with. But despite that, a very rare thing happened. I had a LOT of fun with the multiplayer.
-
Rocket League kind of took me by surprise. I only really first got it because I had just bought my PS4 and subscribed to PS+ and this was the first game that I got through PS+. Of course in my excitement over buying a PS4, I had already been keeping up with PS4 news and seen a lot of people fawning over this game. I did not expect to play it as much as I have.
Countless hours have gone into playing this game with friends, and by myself. Just as I said before, I generally don't like playing multiplayer games solo, but this game is just fun no matter what. So obviously I now have it on 3 different platforms again, just so I can play it in any setting. It is easy to learn, hard to master, which also makes it a pretty good party game.
-
Who could possibly say no to shooting giant robot dinosaurs with explosive arrows in a far-future post-apocalyptic dystopia.
While this game's story is kind of nothing too special, the setting and ESPECIALLY the gameplay is absolutely incredible.
Dan Ryckert did this game a disservice in its Giant Bomb quick look where he completely disregarded all the information the game offered him and bruteforced his way through combat! The game gives you details about the robot dinosaurs' weak points, what kind of damage they are most vulnerable to, what you could focus on to disable certain attacks the enemy could use, and so on. And then you can use a variety of weapons to most effectively take down your opponents.
And wow do you feel real cool strapping down a robot dinosaur, setting its oil tanks on fire, stripping off the giant guns on its back that it used to shoot you with, and then using its own guns to shoot it straight in its robot heart to kill it.
Just writing this made me really want to go back and play through the expansion now. Maybe after exams...
-
This game belongs here along with the previous title in the series. The whole deal with "games were better in the old days grr kids play dumb stuff now" applies here as well. The gameplay feels very much like older FPS games. But the story... Wow I mean, I really don't know what to say. It's intense, it's hilarious, it's a rollercoaster. There is a lot happening in these games and it is hard to keep up, but I love every minute of it. And wow you can't really talk about any of it without spoiling huge moments.
Besides having that classic fun FPS gameplay with a plethora of guns and whatnot that I really love, the games also do something right that I wish more games would do. The skill tree! While most games will give you a skill tree and an XP system where you level up and get some points that you can use to unlock or upgrade your skills, that's not how it works here. It works a lot better.
As an example, let's say you sneak around and use throwing knives a lot. Great! If you keep doing it, you can carry more throwing knives!
Not only does this make sense (do something a lot and you get better at it), it also encourages different gameplay approaches if you want some specific upgrade in the skill tree. It's a win-win! Other games, take note. Do this please.
-
Oh boy... This game made me so incredibly happy when it was announced and it made me so incredibly happy when I was playing it. And it's still making me incredibly happy every time I play it again!
But the reception this game got made me sad. I feel that Catalyst took everything I loved about the first game and made it better in every single way. And I *loved* the first game! I still play through it every now and then! But I think Catalyst is the better game.
The movement feels better, it's more smooth, responsive and you get a greater sense of speed.
The combat can actually be easily ignored and the game even encourages that.
The story is actually decent and features some pretty lovable characters.
Everything about this game is incredible to me.
But then there's the public reception, which trashed the game on day 1 before it was even released, getting review bombed for reasons unrelated to the quality of the game, it went down to "essentially free" prices mere months after release, and of all things was accused of being "feminist propaganda".
I know, my enjoyment of a game should not be affected by other people's opinions, and it's not. But I remember not having much hope for a new Mirror's Edge game, then getting that dream certainly crushed when I heard the news of "Mirror's Edge 2" being canned, then this game got announced and I was over the moon. And despite loving the first game and really really loving this one... This reception made it fully certain there will never be another Mirror's Edge game.
I'm at least glad we got this much. I love this game.
Load Comments