I find this list deeply disappointing because of its almost total exclusion of small indie games. No Undertale, Braid, Stardew Valley, etc? This list seems to reflect the author's AAA preferences.
I find this list deeply disappointing because of its almost total exclusion of small indie games. No Undertale, Braid, Stardew Valley, etc? This list seems to reflect the author's AAA preferences.
I find it strange that The Witness wasn't listed, and indeed very telling about what kind of video game players the authors are. The issue here is that the authors do not have a thesis about what...
I find it strange that The Witness wasn't listed, and indeed very telling about what kind of video game players the authors are.
The issue here is that the authors do not have a thesis about what exactly constitutes a "good video game." There is no introduction to this article; it simply begins listing titles. There are plenty of ways to rank such artistic works in a way that respects the subjective nature of the medium, but you actually have to start from somewhere. Is the best game one that provokes creativity in the playerbase? Intellectual and philosophical growth? Problem-solving? Introspection? Meta analysis of the video game industry? A combination of some or all of these? I don't know! The issue isn't any particular choice of popularity, but rather the ambiguity in the article about which route they decided to take.
I am continually surprised by how highly Skyrim ranks in these lists despite its being literally incomplete, deeply buggy, and having extremely repetitive, simplistic gameplay—and how every video game critic who has ever lived has somehow also come to the consensus that the game's story is "unmemorable." (The game does have a sandbox allure, but you kind of have to ignore every detail in the entire game to consider its story and worldbuilding, which are inherently intertwined, boring.) Skyrim isn't on here because it has merits in and of itself that qualify it as the 11th-best game of all time, it's on here because it sold very well and has remained in the public consciousness for nearly a decade. This is not really a representation of the "objective quality" presumed by the article (not that that's a real thing), just marketability. It happens to have been ported to a lot of platforms and is very accessible, both culturally and in terms of gameplay. I think the authors are aware of this, but just don't care. This list isn't supposed to measure artistic value; it measures raw popularity slightly balanced for Metacritic scores, i.e. it is supposed to generate clicks for the newspaper. Because the author's rankings are therefore going to align closely with those of the general consumer base of video games, you end up with a somewhat generic/predictable list.
I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with thinking that the best games out there are the ones that have stuck around in our memories for the longest time. This is a big part of the way that I decide which books from days of yore to read; there are too many to choose from, so I start by looking at the big sellers/perpetually culturally significant works from a given time period and narrowing down from there based on actual characteristics. What I dislike about this article in particular is that it doesn't even admit that this is its approach. The trope on the internet is that you're not allowed to like popular things, so of course they wouldn't state it outright, but it still cheapens any meaning that they tried to get through.
Yeah this is not necessarily a list I agree with, but I thought it would be interesting to share nonetheless. It's looks like they glanced at sales figures and not much else.
Yeah this is not necessarily a list I agree with, but I thought it would be interesting to share nonetheless.
It's looks like they glanced at sales figures and not much else.
Yeah this feels like the New York Times Bestsellers of video games. Games that were well-reviewed, but primarily, widely popular. I opened this list hoping to find some games I hadn't heard of...
Yeah this feels like the New York Times Bestsellers of video games. Games that were well-reviewed, but primarily, widely popular. I opened this list hoping to find some games I hadn't heard of before, or that slipped by without me noticing, but everything was run-of-the-mill popular games. Perhaps if I spent more time digging into the lower ranks, but after glancing at the top 20 or so I was unimpressed.
Well, I gave a rundown for their book list so it's only fair that I do the same for the game list, right? Here's some quick thoughts on the ones I've played: 50 - SingStar It feels weird that they...
Well, I gave a rundown for their book list so it's only fair that I do the same for the game list, right? Here's some quick thoughts on the ones I've played:
50 - SingStar
It feels weird that they included this over Rock Band? Regardless, it's basically just karaoke, so your opinion of it is based entirely on how you feel about singing. I can belt out a mean "Careless Whisper."
49 - Katamari Damacy
This was absolutely splendid when it first came out, with an unmatched sense of scale. Starting as a tiny tabletop item, only to grow to eventually roll up the table you started on (and then later the house that the table was inside of) is viscerally satisfying. The game is fun, novel, campy, and quirky. I bought the remaster and found it a little less splendid (it felt like I was fighting the controls a lot more than I remembered doing), but still entertaining. This is a game concept I really wish more companies stole and iterated on. Also it genuinely has one of the greatest, most charming soundtracks of all time.
47 - Dead Space
System Shock 2 is one of my favorite games of all time, and Dead Space felt like a spiritual successor to it. It was scary, atmospheric, and had a lot of neat features (like the built-in pathfinding system and being able to rotate the orientation of your gun).
46 - Limbo
An atmospheric masterpiece. I full on stopped playing when I first encountered the big off-screen spider. I had no interest in going further, but finally pushed myself to do so. I'm glad I did.
43 - Rocket League
I get the merit, but I don't love playing it. I don't know that I ever met the skill floor, so most of my matches were me just rocket jumping randomly and aggressively in hopes of hitting the ball. This is admittedly fun but doesn't have a lot of personal longevity.
41 - Overwatch
I don't normally love multiplayer games, but I fell for this one hard. I loved the team dynamics, the different characters and abilities, and the game's visual style. My friend group got into this for a while, and we have tons of memorable moments from our thousands of hours in the game.
39 - Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
I used to 100% this game, then delete the save off my memory card, just so I could do it all over again. Manuals really opened up the gameplay and made this one so much better than the first.
38 - Super Smash Bros Melee
Another game in which I didn't clear the skill floor, so my experience in playing is mostly losing to people who are better than me and then spitefully absorbing them as Kirby and jumping off the stage just so that we can at least both go down together. Not my cup of tea, but I see the merit.
36 - Spelunky
This is a game that, on paper, I should love, but for some reason it never grabbed me. I've tried to get into it a couple of times over the years and it just never seems to click.
29 - Deus Ex
I didn't play this so much as I watched/backseat drove as a friend of mine played it. More than most, this game lends itself well to discussion as there are different methods you can choose for how to approach situations.
28 - Wii Sports
This was a fun and novel phenomenon. Probably the only game many of the non-gamers in my life willingly played and enjoyed. We did a lot of bowling.
27 - Guitar Hero
This was my jam. I grew up on DDR and loved rhythm games, but they were a nerdy niche until Guitar Hero came out and made them fun, flashy, and culturally accepted at large.
26 - Left 4 Dead
My friend group played this for a bit, but we never really got into it. We were much more into Killing Floor (clock the username).
25 - Ico
This was probably one of the first games I played where I thought "this is ART." The game was beautiful visually, aurally, and narratively, all at the same time.
24 - The Last of Us
Loved the story and characters; didn't love the gameplay. I ended up watching a compilation of the cutscenes and story beats on YouTube rather than finishing my playthrough. The Left Behind DLC was also wonderfully done.
22 - Mario Kart 8
My second most played Wii U game (yes, I had a Wii U!) behind Splatoon. Wonderfully polished, beautiful to look at, and outright satisfying to play.
21 - Mass Effect 2
Everyone seems to like ME2 more than ME1, but I preferred the first. The first seemed more story-focused, while the second seemed more combat-focused, and I much prefer the former (c.f. The Last of Us).
14 - Super Mario Odyssey
It was grand and wonderful and polished, but there was also something about it that just, I don't know, felt a little hollow? I feel bad for criticizing the game when it's clear how much went into it, but I can't shake the feeling that I only liked Odyssey when I should have, by all accounts, loved it.
13 - World of Warcraft
I played WoW for all of three hours and in that time saw flashes of the years of my life I would lose to the game. I then stopped and never went back. In fact, I've resisted getting into any MMO simply because I'm the kind of person that would dive in too deep, to the detriment of everything else in my life.
11 - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
There's probably nothing I can say about this game that hasn't been said. Flawed? Sure. Sublime? Definitely.
9 - Bioshock
As mentioned previously, I loved System Shock 2, so this was a treat. I do think the game overstays its welcome though. It really should have ended shortly after the reveal. I think that would have made it more succinct and memorable.
8 - Portal 2
I remember being doubtful that they would be able to meaningfully follow up the original Portal. The first one was like lightning in a bottle, and everybody knows you can't bottle that twice. Turns out you can, and they did, and they ended up blowing the first one out of the water completely. Smart writing, smart puzzles, and wonderful environmental design.
7 - Halo: Combat Evolved
I have never played the campaign, but I've spent countless hours in deathmatch. I credit this game with making me love "The Duke", which is still my favorite controller of all time.
4 - Half-Life 2
Dare I say it? Overrated. I didn't like it then, and I still don't like it now. It's not that I think it's bad, it's just that I don't understand why it would garner #4 on a list like this, and no one has been able to adequately explain it to me. If you can tell me what you see in HL2, I'd love to hear it.
2 - Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
I'll admit it's very good -- it's just not for me. I played for an hour or two and put it aside. It does have a beautiful, stunning world. I'd love to play a version where I can simply fly around its environment and appreciate the scenery.
Half-Life 2 was a landmark title. It did a lot of things well at the same time, and pioneered so many subtle shifts in game design: integrated physics engine in an advanced way (previous physics...
Half-Life 2 was a landmark title. It did a lot of things well at the same time, and pioneered so many subtle shifts in game design:
integrated physics engine in an advanced way (previous physics in games was much simpler, and more guided)
facial animations
significant use of scripted events (compare CoD to CoD2 for an example of an early influence)
maintaining control in cutscenes
showcasing the importance of art design on top of technical achievements (see how Far Cry's and Doom 3's graphics aged compared to HL2)
impeccable level design (it's easy to know where to go in a game without using blatant UI markers)
huge amount of interactivity with the world
putting the plot almost entirely in the background details of the game
Individually, these are all pieces. Together, Half-Life 2 brought a campaign experience that was so singular, that you can see the huge shift in FPS game design pre- and post-HL2, similar to how the first game ushered in the era of stories driving FPS campaigns. HL2 showed how an FPS campaign could be polished into something truly cinematic in presentation, while fully engaging and fluid as a game.
Combined with the format of the Half-Life series (you play every second of Gordon Freeman's viewpoint, no conscious timeskips, since the opening tram ride of Half-Life 1), it culminates in a highly immersive FPS campaign, in a level that many campaigns before and after it don't match.
There aren't any meta elements like UI markers or diaries that track things for you, nor are there moments where the game takes camera control away from you to show you what you need to do or hit. When you enter a new area, you have to find your way around and out yourself, and all the levels were so precisely designed that you can see where they put effort into finding out how to draw the player's eyes so they knew where to go next without any explanation or even explicit indication. To this date, HL2 may just have the best immersive linear level design of any game out there because of how effectively and consistently it can do this for almost every single player without any repeatedly used visual cues. Everything was built within the context of its very environment, no yellow rails or tarps inexplicably strewn across the game world.
Everything you do in Half-Life 2 is entirely within your own effort as the player, there are no abstractions or momentary contrivances to give you more than anyone else on your screen gets. You had to look around, see what your options were, and put something together. So when you figure out a puzzle, a pathway, or a method to defeat a new enemy, that's entirely you and it feels great when you do it. There's no commanding officer screaming at you to throw a grenade over there to progress, it's just you and your wits.
Even the characters don't talk around your silent protagonist, they address you directly and are very aware that you won't respond back. They don't treat it like a contrivance, they basically treat and acknowledge the player, via Gordon, as a mute figure who they actually interact with.
And on top of all this, it had some of the best art design in any game on top of the industry-leading technical graphical achievements. A testament to its image fidelity is how well it aged compared to every other game from 2004.
Half-Life 2 is often likened as another entry in the Seinfeld is Unfunny trope for good reason. There's no real one thing you can point to with Half-Life 2 as why it's so foundational or a landmark. It's the entire package together that brought the polish of an AAA presentation up a level. FPS campaigns in 2005 were suddenly very different than they were in 2004, and as the Xbox 360 launched and FPS games were getting cranked out, one could see the influences of Half-Life 2 throughout many of them.
HL2 set the standard for video game physics from then on and the story was very well paced out, sure it wasn't the first game with in-game physics, but it did it so well everyone after had to...
HL2 set the standard for video game physics from then on and the story was very well paced out, sure it wasn't the first game with in-game physics, but it did it so well everyone after had to emulate it in some fashion, not only that but the graphics still hold up today. The facial animations were a thing of marvel for their time and still look good today.
I've played nearly every Zelda game there is, and breath of the wild ranks as one of the worst for me. How could I think that you say? The dungeons/divine beasts are the worst dungeons I've ever played in a Zelda. They're simply the digital equivalent of a really shitty rubics cube. The shrines are also terrible, they are in no way a replacement for traditional Zelda dungeons and they only exist to pad out the gameplay. There was so much missed potential with this game it hurts, the weapon degredation, master sword running out of energy, hylian shield breaking, the ganon bosses essentially being the same enemy fought 4 times, the ending was absolute trash. Needing 5 heart pieces instead of the traditional 4 just to pad out the game is stupid, the korok seeds are terrible and pointless to an extent, especially since every weapon breaks anyway it doesn't matter how many weapons you can carry. I will say this, it's the best rendition of Hyrule graphically nintendo has created. I wish I hadn't purchased it digitally as it would instantly go back to a GameStop.
SPOILERS
The ending was simply Zelda telling you "congrats! You beat Ganon, but do you even remember who I am?!" THE END. It was straight up lazy garbage. I get what they were trying to do, and they probably ran out of time at some point developing it, but my goodness BotW was just one giant missed opportunity after another and I wouldn't even put it on a top 50 list. Skyward Sword on the other hand had some of the greatest dungeons in all of the series, and yes motion controls aren't the greatest but regardless the story was excellent, the gameplay was excellent, the enemy was awesome with Demise, and come on, the origin of the master sword. Yes Fi was annoying at times but whatever, I easily overlooked that with so many amazing dungeons and locations. BotW is overrated garbage, and skyward sword is an underrated gem. BotW needs a few things to make it the greatest Zelda ever, cut back on the shrines and make traditional dungeons, take out the stupid and completely pointless weapon breaking system, whoever thought of that should be fired on the spot, cut the heart pieces back to 4 and balance the game for it again, create unique and interesting bosses again, and put more emphasis on the story, they were overthinking the gameplay and it showed. If they can do that for the sequel they have one of the greatest Zelda games in their hands, until then it's just hot garbage
My friends and I had a discussion about this article a while ago. Our consensus was more that these were the most influential and/or popular games of the 21st century, rather than strictly the...
My friends and I had a discussion about this article a while ago. Our consensus was more that these were the most influential and/or popular games of the 21st century, rather than strictly the best. However, I do agree with a fair amount of the games listed.
Myself, I'd have liked to see some more mobile games, as well as some indie titles. Especially if they're approaching from a popularity/influence point of view, something like Pokemon Go should definitely have been in the list.
All that said, isn't it wonderful that we live in a world where a list like this can get published, and we can not only disagree with it, but have an almost limitless supply of alternatives to submit in their place? It's a fantastic time to be a gamer :D
It seems like strategy games are entirely absent from this list. No Warcraft 3 or Starcraft 2, no iteration of Civilization nor any Paradox titles, really nothing that could be classified as a...
It seems like strategy games are entirely absent from this list. No Warcraft 3 or Starcraft 2, no iteration of Civilization nor any Paradox titles, really nothing that could be classified as a strategy game at all. I don't see any fighting games on the list either. At times it seems like they're going for the most influential or popular games, but there's no League of Legends or Dota, which seems odd seeing as Dota is the origin of the genre and LoL has been one of the most popular games for the past decade. It's really odd that major genres would be entirely absent from a list like this. On the other hand, shooters seem to be overrepresented. Kind of expected for one of the most popular genres, but it seems like they went out of their way to include an iteration of almost every major FPS franchise except Counter-Strike, curiously.
No list like this can ever be satisfactory: there's too much subjectivity, too many genres and too many conflicting ideas of what we value in a game. But I like to at least try to figure out the criteria that were used, and try to see if the list at least succeeds on its own premises. Here, the premises are left unspoken but I can't infer any coherent set of guiding principles that doesn't fall flat on its face. I could agree or disagree with particular entries, but it seems kind of moot when I can't make heads or tails of the basic principles.
I think the concept of ranking the best games or books or movies is a great conversation starter, even if any concrete answer to the question will be inherently flawed. But this one just leaves me scratching my head.
I agree, if there was a criteria for what gets on this list it isn't immediately obvious. At first I thought they were going for popularity and cultural relevance, but then they excluded...
I agree, if there was a criteria for what gets on this list it isn't immediately obvious. At first I thought they were going for popularity and cultural relevance, but then they excluded Undertale, included GTA 5 instead of 3 (which was way more genre-defining and I don't think that's up for debate), and included Limbo for "indie revival" instead of Super Meat Boy. Okay, so maybe they're just going by sales -- but then they include lesser-selling (but still great) titles like Papers, Please and the aforementioned Limbo. What if they're going for games that are most fun? Well that's subjective in and of itself, but then there's developer overlap all over the place. I honestly just think these writers don't know what they're talking about.
So, I have only played two games on that list: Minecraft and Limbo. Well, kinda. A friend had Limbo and I got to play it for like an hour, but I will say that I did enjoy it. I'm biased, since I...
So, I have only played two games on that list: Minecraft and Limbo. Well, kinda. A friend had Limbo and I got to play it for like an hour, but I will say that I did enjoy it.
I'm biased, since I friggin love Minecraft, but I think that I (as objectively as I can possibly be) agree that it deserves the #1 spot. It's been just tremendously influential and has managed to stay fresh for a decade with frequent updates that cost $0. It's kind of my mental gold standard for what a video game ought to be.
I find this list deeply disappointing because of its almost total exclusion of small indie games. No Undertale, Braid, Stardew Valley, etc? This list seems to reflect the author's AAA preferences.
I find it strange that The Witness wasn't listed, and indeed very telling about what kind of video game players the authors are.
The issue here is that the authors do not have a thesis about what exactly constitutes a "good video game." There is no introduction to this article; it simply begins listing titles. There are plenty of ways to rank such artistic works in a way that respects the subjective nature of the medium, but you actually have to start from somewhere. Is the best game one that provokes creativity in the playerbase? Intellectual and philosophical growth? Problem-solving? Introspection? Meta analysis of the video game industry? A combination of some or all of these? I don't know! The issue isn't any particular choice of popularity, but rather the ambiguity in the article about which route they decided to take.
I am continually surprised by how highly Skyrim ranks in these lists despite its being literally incomplete, deeply buggy, and having extremely repetitive, simplistic gameplay—and how every video game critic who has ever lived has somehow also come to the consensus that the game's story is "unmemorable." (The game does have a sandbox allure, but you kind of have to ignore every detail in the entire game to consider its story and worldbuilding, which are inherently intertwined, boring.) Skyrim isn't on here because it has merits in and of itself that qualify it as the 11th-best game of all time, it's on here because it sold very well and has remained in the public consciousness for nearly a decade. This is not really a representation of the "objective quality" presumed by the article (not that that's a real thing), just marketability. It happens to have been ported to a lot of platforms and is very accessible, both culturally and in terms of gameplay. I think the authors are aware of this, but just don't care. This list isn't supposed to measure artistic value; it measures raw popularity slightly balanced for Metacritic scores, i.e. it is supposed to generate clicks for the newspaper. Because the author's rankings are therefore going to align closely with those of the general consumer base of video games, you end up with a somewhat generic/predictable list.
I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with thinking that the best games out there are the ones that have stuck around in our memories for the longest time. This is a big part of the way that I decide which books from days of yore to read; there are too many to choose from, so I start by looking at the big sellers/perpetually culturally significant works from a given time period and narrowing down from there based on actual characteristics. What I dislike about this article in particular is that it doesn't even admit that this is its approach. The trope on the internet is that you're not allowed to like popular things, so of course they wouldn't state it outright, but it still cheapens any meaning that they tried to get through.
Yeah this is not necessarily a list I agree with, but I thought it would be interesting to share nonetheless.
It's looks like they glanced at sales figures and not much else.
Yeah this feels like the New York Times Bestsellers of video games. Games that were well-reviewed, but primarily, widely popular. I opened this list hoping to find some games I hadn't heard of before, or that slipped by without me noticing, but everything was run-of-the-mill popular games. Perhaps if I spent more time digging into the lower ranks, but after glancing at the top 20 or so I was unimpressed.
Well, I gave a rundown for their book list so it's only fair that I do the same for the game list, right? Here's some quick thoughts on the ones I've played:
50 - SingStar
It feels weird that they included this over Rock Band? Regardless, it's basically just karaoke, so your opinion of it is based entirely on how you feel about singing. I can belt out a mean "Careless Whisper."
49 - Katamari Damacy
This was absolutely splendid when it first came out, with an unmatched sense of scale. Starting as a tiny tabletop item, only to grow to eventually roll up the table you started on (and then later the house that the table was inside of) is viscerally satisfying. The game is fun, novel, campy, and quirky. I bought the remaster and found it a little less splendid (it felt like I was fighting the controls a lot more than I remembered doing), but still entertaining. This is a game concept I really wish more companies stole and iterated on. Also it genuinely has one of the greatest, most charming soundtracks of all time.
47 - Dead Space
System Shock 2 is one of my favorite games of all time, and Dead Space felt like a spiritual successor to it. It was scary, atmospheric, and had a lot of neat features (like the built-in pathfinding system and being able to rotate the orientation of your gun).
46 - Limbo
An atmospheric masterpiece. I full on stopped playing when I first encountered the big off-screen spider. I had no interest in going further, but finally pushed myself to do so. I'm glad I did.
43 - Rocket League
I get the merit, but I don't love playing it. I don't know that I ever met the skill floor, so most of my matches were me just rocket jumping randomly and aggressively in hopes of hitting the ball. This is admittedly fun but doesn't have a lot of personal longevity.
41 - Overwatch
I don't normally love multiplayer games, but I fell for this one hard. I loved the team dynamics, the different characters and abilities, and the game's visual style. My friend group got into this for a while, and we have tons of memorable moments from our thousands of hours in the game.
39 - Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
I used to 100% this game, then delete the save off my memory card, just so I could do it all over again. Manuals really opened up the gameplay and made this one so much better than the first.
38 - Super Smash Bros Melee
Another game in which I didn't clear the skill floor, so my experience in playing is mostly losing to people who are better than me and then spitefully absorbing them as Kirby and jumping off the stage just so that we can at least both go down together. Not my cup of tea, but I see the merit.
36 - Spelunky
This is a game that, on paper, I should love, but for some reason it never grabbed me. I've tried to get into it a couple of times over the years and it just never seems to click.
29 - Deus Ex
I didn't play this so much as I watched/backseat drove as a friend of mine played it. More than most, this game lends itself well to discussion as there are different methods you can choose for how to approach situations.
28 - Wii Sports
This was a fun and novel phenomenon. Probably the only game many of the non-gamers in my life willingly played and enjoyed. We did a lot of bowling.
27 - Guitar Hero
This was my jam. I grew up on DDR and loved rhythm games, but they were a nerdy niche until Guitar Hero came out and made them fun, flashy, and culturally accepted at large.
26 - Left 4 Dead
My friend group played this for a bit, but we never really got into it. We were much more into Killing Floor (clock the username).
25 - Ico
This was probably one of the first games I played where I thought "this is ART." The game was beautiful visually, aurally, and narratively, all at the same time.
24 - The Last of Us
Loved the story and characters; didn't love the gameplay. I ended up watching a compilation of the cutscenes and story beats on YouTube rather than finishing my playthrough. The Left Behind DLC was also wonderfully done.
22 - Mario Kart 8
My second most played Wii U game (yes, I had a Wii U!) behind Splatoon. Wonderfully polished, beautiful to look at, and outright satisfying to play.
21 - Mass Effect 2
Everyone seems to like ME2 more than ME1, but I preferred the first. The first seemed more story-focused, while the second seemed more combat-focused, and I much prefer the former (c.f. The Last of Us).
14 - Super Mario Odyssey
It was grand and wonderful and polished, but there was also something about it that just, I don't know, felt a little hollow? I feel bad for criticizing the game when it's clear how much went into it, but I can't shake the feeling that I only liked Odyssey when I should have, by all accounts, loved it.
13 - World of Warcraft
I played WoW for all of three hours and in that time saw flashes of the years of my life I would lose to the game. I then stopped and never went back. In fact, I've resisted getting into any MMO simply because I'm the kind of person that would dive in too deep, to the detriment of everything else in my life.
11 - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
There's probably nothing I can say about this game that hasn't been said. Flawed? Sure. Sublime? Definitely.
9 - Bioshock
As mentioned previously, I loved System Shock 2, so this was a treat. I do think the game overstays its welcome though. It really should have ended shortly after the reveal. I think that would have made it more succinct and memorable.
8 - Portal 2
I remember being doubtful that they would be able to meaningfully follow up the original Portal. The first one was like lightning in a bottle, and everybody knows you can't bottle that twice. Turns out you can, and they did, and they ended up blowing the first one out of the water completely. Smart writing, smart puzzles, and wonderful environmental design.
7 - Halo: Combat Evolved
I have never played the campaign, but I've spent countless hours in deathmatch. I credit this game with making me love "The Duke", which is still my favorite controller of all time.
4 - Half-Life 2
Dare I say it? Overrated. I didn't like it then, and I still don't like it now. It's not that I think it's bad, it's just that I don't understand why it would garner #4 on a list like this, and no one has been able to adequately explain it to me. If you can tell me what you see in HL2, I'd love to hear it.
2 - Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
I'll admit it's very good -- it's just not for me. I played for an hour or two and put it aside. It does have a beautiful, stunning world. I'd love to play a version where I can simply fly around its environment and appreciate the scenery.
Half-Life 2 was a landmark title. It did a lot of things well at the same time, and pioneered so many subtle shifts in game design:
Individually, these are all pieces. Together, Half-Life 2 brought a campaign experience that was so singular, that you can see the huge shift in FPS game design pre- and post-HL2, similar to how the first game ushered in the era of stories driving FPS campaigns. HL2 showed how an FPS campaign could be polished into something truly cinematic in presentation, while fully engaging and fluid as a game.
Combined with the format of the Half-Life series (you play every second of Gordon Freeman's viewpoint, no conscious timeskips, since the opening tram ride of Half-Life 1), it culminates in a highly immersive FPS campaign, in a level that many campaigns before and after it don't match.
There aren't any meta elements like UI markers or diaries that track things for you, nor are there moments where the game takes camera control away from you to show you what you need to do or hit. When you enter a new area, you have to find your way around and out yourself, and all the levels were so precisely designed that you can see where they put effort into finding out how to draw the player's eyes so they knew where to go next without any explanation or even explicit indication. To this date, HL2 may just have the best immersive linear level design of any game out there because of how effectively and consistently it can do this for almost every single player without any repeatedly used visual cues. Everything was built within the context of its very environment, no yellow rails or tarps inexplicably strewn across the game world.
Everything you do in Half-Life 2 is entirely within your own effort as the player, there are no abstractions or momentary contrivances to give you more than anyone else on your screen gets. You had to look around, see what your options were, and put something together. So when you figure out a puzzle, a pathway, or a method to defeat a new enemy, that's entirely you and it feels great when you do it. There's no commanding officer screaming at you to throw a grenade over there to progress, it's just you and your wits.
Even the characters don't talk around your silent protagonist, they address you directly and are very aware that you won't respond back. They don't treat it like a contrivance, they basically treat and acknowledge the player, via Gordon, as a mute figure who they actually interact with.
And on top of all this, it had some of the best art design in any game on top of the industry-leading technical graphical achievements. A testament to its image fidelity is how well it aged compared to every other game from 2004.
Half-Life 2 is often likened as another entry in the Seinfeld is Unfunny trope for good reason. There's no real one thing you can point to with Half-Life 2 as why it's so foundational or a landmark. It's the entire package together that brought the polish of an AAA presentation up a level. FPS campaigns in 2005 were suddenly very different than they were in 2004, and as the Xbox 360 launched and FPS games were getting cranked out, one could see the influences of Half-Life 2 throughout many of them.
HL2 set the standard for video game physics from then on and the story was very well paced out, sure it wasn't the first game with in-game physics, but it did it so well everyone after had to emulate it in some fashion, not only that but the graphics still hold up today. The facial animations were a thing of marvel for their time and still look good today.
I've played nearly every Zelda game there is, and breath of the wild ranks as one of the worst for me. How could I think that you say? The dungeons/divine beasts are the worst dungeons I've ever played in a Zelda. They're simply the digital equivalent of a really shitty rubics cube. The shrines are also terrible, they are in no way a replacement for traditional Zelda dungeons and they only exist to pad out the gameplay. There was so much missed potential with this game it hurts, the weapon degredation, master sword running out of energy, hylian shield breaking, the ganon bosses essentially being the same enemy fought 4 times, the ending was absolute trash. Needing 5 heart pieces instead of the traditional 4 just to pad out the game is stupid, the korok seeds are terrible and pointless to an extent, especially since every weapon breaks anyway it doesn't matter how many weapons you can carry. I will say this, it's the best rendition of Hyrule graphically nintendo has created. I wish I hadn't purchased it digitally as it would instantly go back to a GameStop.
SPOILERS
The ending was simply Zelda telling you "congrats! You beat Ganon, but do you even remember who I am?!" THE END. It was straight up lazy garbage. I get what they were trying to do, and they probably ran out of time at some point developing it, but my goodness BotW was just one giant missed opportunity after another and I wouldn't even put it on a top 50 list. Skyward Sword on the other hand had some of the greatest dungeons in all of the series, and yes motion controls aren't the greatest but regardless the story was excellent, the gameplay was excellent, the enemy was awesome with Demise, and come on, the origin of the master sword. Yes Fi was annoying at times but whatever, I easily overlooked that with so many amazing dungeons and locations. BotW is overrated garbage, and skyward sword is an underrated gem. BotW needs a few things to make it the greatest Zelda ever, cut back on the shrines and make traditional dungeons, take out the stupid and completely pointless weapon breaking system, whoever thought of that should be fired on the spot, cut the heart pieces back to 4 and balance the game for it again, create unique and interesting bosses again, and put more emphasis on the story, they were overthinking the gameplay and it showed. If they can do that for the sequel they have one of the greatest Zelda games in their hands, until then it's just hot garbage
My friends and I had a discussion about this article a while ago. Our consensus was more that these were the most influential and/or popular games of the 21st century, rather than strictly the best. However, I do agree with a fair amount of the games listed.
Myself, I'd have liked to see some more mobile games, as well as some indie titles. Especially if they're approaching from a popularity/influence point of view, something like Pokemon Go should definitely have been in the list.
All that said, isn't it wonderful that we live in a world where a list like this can get published, and we can not only disagree with it, but have an almost limitless supply of alternatives to submit in their place? It's a fantastic time to be a gamer :D
It seems like strategy games are entirely absent from this list. No Warcraft 3 or Starcraft 2, no iteration of Civilization nor any Paradox titles, really nothing that could be classified as a strategy game at all. I don't see any fighting games on the list either. At times it seems like they're going for the most influential or popular games, but there's no League of Legends or Dota, which seems odd seeing as Dota is the origin of the genre and LoL has been one of the most popular games for the past decade. It's really odd that major genres would be entirely absent from a list like this. On the other hand, shooters seem to be overrepresented. Kind of expected for one of the most popular genres, but it seems like they went out of their way to include an iteration of almost every major FPS franchise except Counter-Strike, curiously.
No list like this can ever be satisfactory: there's too much subjectivity, too many genres and too many conflicting ideas of what we value in a game. But I like to at least try to figure out the criteria that were used, and try to see if the list at least succeeds on its own premises. Here, the premises are left unspoken but I can't infer any coherent set of guiding principles that doesn't fall flat on its face. I could agree or disagree with particular entries, but it seems kind of moot when I can't make heads or tails of the basic principles.
I think the concept of ranking the best games or books or movies is a great conversation starter, even if any concrete answer to the question will be inherently flawed. But this one just leaves me scratching my head.
I agree, if there was a criteria for what gets on this list it isn't immediately obvious. At first I thought they were going for popularity and cultural relevance, but then they excluded Undertale, included GTA 5 instead of 3 (which was way more genre-defining and I don't think that's up for debate), and included Limbo for "indie revival" instead of Super Meat Boy. Okay, so maybe they're just going by sales -- but then they include lesser-selling (but still great) titles like Papers, Please and the aforementioned Limbo. What if they're going for games that are most fun? Well that's subjective in and of itself, but then there's developer overlap all over the place. I honestly just think these writers don't know what they're talking about.
So, I have only played two games on that list: Minecraft and Limbo. Well, kinda. A friend had Limbo and I got to play it for like an hour, but I will say that I did enjoy it.
I'm biased, since I friggin love Minecraft, but I think that I (as objectively as I can possibly be) agree that it deserves the #1 spot. It's been just tremendously influential and has managed to stay fresh for a decade with frequent updates that cost $0. It's kind of my mental gold standard for what a video game ought to be.