10 Years, 10 Great Video Games: Xav's Picks

All through the week, Joystiq celebrates its tenth anniversary by revealing each writer's favourite - not "best" - video games of the final decade. Apart from selecting a number one, every listing is unordered.

For his top selection, Function Content Director Xav de Matos discusses the industrywide implications that have evolved out of the release of a shooter sequel in 2004.

Half-Life 2 - Valve / 2004
It will not be a bold choice, however Half-Life 2 represents more than a singular product to me. When it launched in 2004, it ushered in what could be the altering face of the Laptop market, specifically, it launched the world to Valve's digital, Steam.

Steam's introduction to the trade was rocky, littered with points when it arrived. But it surely has evolved and within the last ten years Steam has grow to be the defacto Laptop platform. In case your Pc game is not on Steam at present, clients will be vocal in their disapproval.

Half-Life 2 additionally handed the business another vital component, the Source engine. Powering the whole lot from revamped classic mods as standalone video games like Counter-Strike and a plethora of creative impartial video games, the engine has additionally proven itself to be malleable enough to jump into the next generation, Titanfall is powered by Source, for instance. And the place would we be with out Source, maybe we'd miss out on other Valve classics, like Portal, Left 4 Useless, Crew Fortress 2 and the ever rising Dota 2.

As for Half-Life 2 itself, why is it my favorite sport of the last decade? Persevering with the story from the original Half-Life, which was a pioneer in story-telling, Valve launched us to a world after warfare. A police state that developed out of the mistakes made on the Black Mesa Research Facility. It introduced us to new and fantastic characters, we performed with physics and the gravity gun, and visited fantastic places that stand in my thoughts as a few of one of the best any sport has supplied. Stepping into the infested mining town of Ravenholm or strolling off the practice into a secured City-17 are some of my favorite gaming reminiscences. Half-Life 2 instructed a story that, at its heart, is about endurance and survival within the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. I will not argue with anybody who says they hated the airboat sequence, however to me Half-Life 2 was degree after stage of latest challenges, areas, and game styles that we hardly ever see in games in the present day. And that feeling of getting a brand new Half-Life? Seeing these promotional bins on store shelves after ready so lengthy for a new entry in the sequence? Lastly getting my fingers on that sport stuffed me with pure joy.

I really like the Half-Life sequence, it helped form my perception of what an entire recreation needs to be - games that place story in as high regard as gameplay - and I really like Half-Life 2 and the unique for doing that. And someday we'll learn the way its story will finish and we'll get our Half-Life 3. But in all probability not ... Valve's actually busy making hats for Crew Fortress 2, or one thing. It is killing me.

Splinter Cell: Chaos Concept - Ubisoft Montreal / 2005
While I contest that Splinter Cell: Blacklist is the higher game, Chaos Theory wins a spot on my listing for one explicit mission: The bank heist. There is a mission, a part of the way by means of Chaos Concept, that sends Sam Fisher right into a Panamanian bank together with his eyes on discovering the identity of an arms vendor. With the intention to cowl his infiltration, nonetheless, Third Echelon provides Sam a secondary objective: Make it appear to be a financial institution robbery. Guiding your manner by the twists and turns of the large constructing after accessing the financial institution by a skylight, dodging laser journey wires and pocketing $50 million in bearer bonds from a giant vault is the best heist moment I've ever had in any game. It stands up as the very best mission Sam has ever been despatched on, and the quantity of joy I had completing it many times is what places it on this record above the more refined Blacklist - a recreation I chosen as my favorite of last year, and one I've put over 50 hours into.

Minecraft - Mojang / 2011
Earlier than it became a sensation, Minecraft was this tiny game that captured the imagination of a few buddies who tried desperately to elucidate to me why they liked it and why I'd really feel the same approach. To me, it appeared and sounded foolish. I could not think about why anybody would waste hours of their time on a recreation that seemingly had goal or purpose; one of the various errors in judgement featured on this listing alone. When i lastly took the time to play Minecraft I used to be struck by its simplistic creativity. Actually open world, Minecraft provides you little information and asks you to find issues by yourself. On land, in its huge seas, or deep at the core of your own world. On a surface level, the sport is about surviving onslaughts of enemies that come out after dark, however hours later you find yourself building a portal to a brand new dimension with the only real purpose of finding special supplies to make your own home base look a bit fancier than your good friend's own rudimentary structures. It's a uncommon recreation that turns into as complex as you want it to be based on your own private objectives. It is an exquisite experience and one I am joyful to have been confirmed fully unsuitable about.

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings - CD Projekt Crimson / 2011
My 2011 Recreation of the Year was CD Projekt Crimson's gorgeous and vicious RPG, The Witcher 2. Not to take away from every other RPG I've performed and enjoyed over the past decade, but nothing holds a candle to the alternatives out there and characters met in Assassins of Kings. The story is difficult, injected with the same level of political intrigue that fascinates viewers weekly with HBO's Game of Thrones. It's programs are very different and specific, its fight will be tough and thoughts-warping, but the Witcher 2 is a mountain of a game. It offers challenge rarely seen anymore. Nearly like Dark Souls, The Witcher 2 refuses to tone down what it wants from a player to be loved, persistence and perseverance. It's an exquisite game and that i urge anyone who has yet to expertise it to leap at the prospect before Geralt of Rivia's story concludes in the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

Xenoblade Chronicles - Monolith Tender / 2012
A game that almost never launched in North America, if not for the outpouring of followers demanding its arrival, Xenoblade Chronicles lastly hit stateside retailer shelves in limited launch in 2012. From the moment the sport begins you are handled to a JRPG that makes substantial developments to storytelling and gameplay. Its tale is ready in a captivating locale: A world actually constructed on the again of two huge dueling deities. Its fight system takes hints from MMOs and Western RPGs with cooldowns and particular skills, however positioning is essential to success. Moreover, Xenoblade Chronicles options a myriad of encounters that players must intelligently consider. It is not like typical JRPGs where you roam and battle at random intervals, come beasts simply exist in the world and solely interact if they feel threatened. It removes the standard sense that every part that isn't you and your occasion outside of city wishes for your demise. It's natural and lived-in. Xenoblade Chronicles features genuinely charming characters I needed to guard, an authentic and mystical setting and a narrative about discovering your significance in a world that seems too vast to be impacted by a single particular person.

Batman: Arkham Asylum - Rocksteady / 2009
I remember taking part in Eurocom's mediocre Batman Begins game and thinking, "I suppose this is the best we'll get" when considering the historical past of Batman's video sport adventures. NES recreation apart, the respect video game developers have had for the license had been laid out next to the chalk define of Bruce's dad and mom in Crime Alley for years. After which little-identified developer Rocksteady got here out of a mysterious and magical place - I consider they call it London - to carry us Arkham Asylum. What adopted was an amazing adventure, featuring performances from voice actors that helped develop my fondness for the franchise as a toddler within the early 1990s. I desire the original to the bigger Arkham Metropolis as a result of it places Batman in a more isolated scenario. He is essentially the most feared entity in Gotham, but stuck within the partitions of Arkham he's faced along with his whole career. It is a monument to his success and it is slowly making an attempt to choke the life out of him. From its combat system to its gorgeous effects, Arkham Asylum is an amazing piece of entertainment that finally provided the Dark Knight the respect he'd been uncared for.

Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy - Midway Games / 2004
Psi-Ops is a recreation that was way higher than it ever deserved to be. Developed by the now defunct Midway Video games, the third-particular person shooter featured crazy psychic skills and one of many earliest uses of a recreation that really embraced its use of the Havok physics middleware. Grasping an exploding barrel together with your thoughts and hurling it at an enemy who'd then blast the sky bouncing off any object it passes was embarrassingly hilarious. Later we'd get video games like the Pressure Unleashed which tried to follow in its footsteps, however did not seize the same spark. The power to take management of an enemy's thoughts, open fire on his squad and then leap off the facet of a ledge sending him careening toward sure doom was among the dumbest enjoyable I had gaming in 2004. It's a bizarre and random choice, however I remember dying to complete work or school so I might get house to play the same ranges many times.

Hotline Miami - Dennaton Games / 2012
Dennaton discovered the formula for addictive gaming bliss: Rope me in with nostalgic graphical design, add buckets of blood, horse head masks, and probably the greatest gaming soundtracks I've ever heard and you have got yourself one of my favorite video games of all time. Hotline Miami is a weird game, however its puzzle-like construction captured my consideration when it launched in 2012. I've since gone by way of the game once more on Vita, exploring each corner in search of those hidden letters to get the "real" ending and that i all the time find myself happy to replay previous ranges. Did I point out the soundtrack? Wonderful.

Dark Souls - From Software / 2011
I've written a number of options about how incorrect I was when i first played and discarded Darkish Souls. I've spilled loads of blood in-sport, struggling via every encounter and studying my errors. Darkish Souls is a demanding recreation, but one which by no means feels low-cost. Failing in Darkish Souls is purely up to the participant. The tools to dominate are all present, but solely persistence is rewarded. Thankfully, I realized the error of my ways.

Metroid: Zero Mission - Nintendo / 2004
There was some speak internally when I discussed that I was going to pick Metroid: Zero Mission as one among my favorite ten video games of the last ten years. Some are adamant that it is a cheat as a result of it's technically a remake of the original Metroid, but I contend that it's way over that [and editor-in-chief Ludwig Kietzmann sided with me on that, so here it's!]. Minecraft-servers : Zero Mission does comply with the same unfastened narrative featured in the NES basic, nevertheless it has fully new areas, new gameplay, and features a detailed story that outlines Samus Aran's origin, beforehand only actually fleshed out in manga. Samus is, by far, my favorite video recreation hero. Metroid Prime and Tremendous Metroid are amongst my favourite video games of all time - both ineligible right here - however Zero Mission introduces a new generation to Nintendo's sturdy female protagonist. We be taught the place she came from and who does not love an origin story?

[Images: Nintendo, Ubisoft, Valve, From Software, Dennaton, ZOO Digital,
Rocksteady, CD Projekt Pink, Mojang, Monolith Smooth]