Best games of the decade

[newt42]

Call of Duty Modern Warefare

Gave FPS fans a fantastic online experience without Master Chief.

[TheyCallMeTheSwede]

Shenmue, it is the game that inspired games like Resident Evil 4 and God of War with its QTE, and it is the first 3D free-roaming sandbox game.

[Luke]

Metal Gear Solid
GTA III
Shenmue
Half-Life/Counter Strike (sorry ack, they got it right first, and they got it right the first time)
Guitar Hero
World of Warcraft (Never played it, but can't ignore it's fingerprint on gaming)
Final Fantasy X
Wii Sports

[crux]

Odd how many responses have mentioned iconic games, rather than simply great games.

I'm honestly not sure that I've delved into enough series in the last ten years to judge what reigns supreme (I've ignored a great deal of the first and third person shooters in the last decade), but I do know Katamari deserves to be somewhere on the list. I also know what undoubtedly deserves to be at the top of the list: Ikaruga. Ikaruga is the closest I've ever seen a video game come to perfection. It's a brilliant experience, regardless of one's feelings on shoot 'em ups.

Past that, such an incredible amount of games have been released in the last ten years that it's hard to quantify. It was easier to recognize brilliance in the 80's to mid 90's because the industry was still finding itself. The bulk of the Dreamcast library is from 2000 and beyond, so that's a good place to start for the retro enthusiast. That also indicates that the entire library of PS2, Gamecube, Xbox and beyond is up for grabs. I'll let someone else do the hard work.

Metal Gear Solid is 1998, by the way. The sequels are this decade, but I still haven't gotten over losing the bird's eye viewpoint, really.

[Luke]

Odd how many responses have mentioned iconic games, rather than simply great games.

Metal Gear Solid is 1998, by the way. The sequels are this decade, but I still haven't gotten over losing the bird's eye viewpoint, really.

Says the guy who only lists one game. In all seriousness, all the games I listed are great games.

Whoops on MGS.

[FiftyDollarCurse]

Half-Life, Counter Strike, Metal Gear Solid and Shenmue all arrived in the 1990s.

The "best" and the "most important" are two different categories. Which one are we doing here?

Most important, in addition to the obvious ones already mentioned (World of Warcraft, Guitar Hero, Halo, Grand Theft Auto III):

Nintendogs
Brain Age
God of War
Gran Turismo 3
Gears of War
Modern Warfare 2

The Best:
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
Shadow of the Colossus
We Love Katamari
Psychonauts
Uncharted 2
Dead Rising
Batman: Arkham Asylum

and so forth...

[crux]

He pretty clearly used "best" right in the title, thus my confusion on some of the responses. He muddled the topic with the word "defining" a bit, but I'm still under the presumption that we're talking about "defining" in the sense of those that represented gaming the best.

Wii Sports is far in my mind, for instance, on any "best" list. It's fun, sure, and defining of Wii's entry to the market, sure, but it does very little that sets it apart aside from offering motion controls.

The other problem with these lists are the reflections on personal biases. Katamari and Ikaruga were the easiest games to mention that I feel shouldn't reflect any biases on my part (despite the fact that I have a huge bias for shoot 'em ups). Ikaruga is genre defining and Katamari... well, can't be defined.

Another that should have come to me sooner is Portal. It should be evident that one of my particular biases is game design, and Portal is absolutely brilliant in terms of it. I'm not sure if they're indicative of the best of the best, but I wouldn't argue against admissions for games like Ico or Okami either.

[Luke]

I wonder how many "best of" lists we now have on this forum.

[lordofduct]

I think everyone was keeping the word 'best' in mind... leaving alone the fact the word is mostly arbitrary in this context as everybody takes it to mean something different.

Especially how contrived it all is for being based merely on each person's opinion.

With that said, best most simply means "the most advantageous, desired, iconic, etc." and well... the games listed are just that (even in your own words... iconic). This can include any game you/anyone suggests as well...

People will say Led Zeppelin was one of the bests... is this true? I beg to differ. But they certainly sold well and are iconic of the age... they quite easily receive a 'best' rating by many. Are they the best like the Beatles? Well that comes down to the person judging and the idea of what that person would choose to use the word 'best'.

Really I could come out and say "Sandy picks crabs from her pubic hair" the best game of the decade... if it were a game. And under any definition of the word 'best' it could be allowed into the list.



in the end, I go with Luke... in a more cynical context though. Really... what use is this 'best' crap. Is this what this forum has degraded itself to?

We have lowered ourselves to deploying long lists of what we call best, then telling each other our lists are innacurate based on some arbitrary meaning of words and intentions of OP that are completely contrived. And in the end dilute ourselves into emphasizing our opinions as facts by propping them up on ill-conceived stilts we make out of semantics and non-sense.

bleh

[Veno]

Well, to me, the MGS series. But I wanna go with something a bit different from everyone else.
I'd say Viewtiful Joe. Viewtiful Joe has got to be one of my favorite action/platformers ever. When it first came out, it was very unique, and I think it's still unique to this day. One part of the game that captured me was when you fought Another Joe, my favorite boss with some kickass music.

Oh, and Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner. Sure the first one didn't go so well, but this is one of my all time favorite games. Never have I played a mech game this good, and sure the story was a little cheesy sometimes, but I still liked it. I've beat this game as many times as I've beaten MGS2 and MGS3, a lot.