10 Years, 10 Great Games: Xav's Picks


All through the week, Joystiq celebrates its tenth anniversary by revealing each writer's favourite - not "greatest" - games of the last decade. Except for selecting a number one, each checklist is unordered.


For his top choice, 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 may not be a daring selection, however Half-Life 2 represents more than a singular product to me. When it launched in 2004, it ushered in what can be the changing face of the Pc market, particularly, it launched the world to Valve's digital, Steam.


Steam's introduction to the business was rocky, littered with issues when it arrived. Nevertheless it has evolved and in the final ten years Steam has turn out to be the defacto Pc platform. If your Pc recreation isn't on Steam as we speak, clients will be vocal of their disapproval.


Half-Life 2 also handed the business one other important factor, the Supply engine. Powering all the pieces from revamped classic mods as standalone video games like Counter-Strike and a plethora of creative impartial games, the engine has also confirmed itself to be malleable enough to jump into the next era, Titanfall is powered by Source, for example. And the place would we be without Source, perhaps we'd miss out on other Valve classics, like Portal, Left four Useless, Team Fortress 2 and the ever growing Dota 2.


As for Half-Life 2 itself, why is it my favorite sport of the last decade? Continuing 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 errors made on the Black Mesa Analysis Facility. It introduced us to new and great characters, we performed with physics and the gravity gun, and visited implausible areas that stand in my thoughts as some of the most effective any game has offered. Stepping into the infested mining town of Ravenholm or strolling off the practice right into a secured Metropolis-17 are a few of my favourite gaming recollections. Half-Life 2 advised a narrative that, at its heart, is about endurance and survival in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. I won't argue with anybody who says they hated the airboat sequence, however to me Half-Life 2 was level after degree of new challenges, places, and sport kinds that we rarely see in video games at the moment. And that feeling of getting a brand new Half-Life? Seeing those promotional containers on retailer shelves after waiting so lengthy for a brand new entry in the sequence? Finally getting my palms on that sport crammed me with pure joy.


I really like the Half-Life sequence, it helped shape my perception of what a complete game must be - games that place story in as excessive regard as gameplay - and I really like Half-Life 2 and the unique for doing that. And in the future we'll learn the way its story will finish and we'll get our Half-Life 3. But in all probability not ... Valve's really busy making hats for Team Fortress 2, or one thing. It's killing me.


Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory - Ubisoft Montreal / 2005
While I contest that Splinter Cell: Blacklist is the higher sport, Chaos Theory wins a spot on my checklist for one particular mission: The bank heist. There's a mission, a part of the way by means of Chaos Concept, that sends Sam Fisher right into a Panamanian financial institution along with his eyes on discovering the identification of an arms seller. With a purpose to cowl his infiltration, however, Third Echelon provides Sam a secondary goal: Make it appear like a financial institution robbery. Guiding your method through the twists and turns of the large building after accessing the financial institution by a skylight, dodging laser journey wires and pocketing $50 million in bearer bonds from a large vault is one of the best heist second I've ever had in any sport. It stands up as the perfect mission Sam has ever been despatched on, and the amount of joy I had finishing it time and again is what places it on this listing above the more refined Blacklist - a game I chosen as my favorite of final 12 months, and one I've put over 50 hours into.


Minecraft - Mojang / 2011
Earlier than it turned a sensation, Minecraft was this tiny recreation that captured the imagination of some pals who tried desperately to explain to me why they liked it and why I might really feel the identical manner. To me, it appeared and sounded silly. I could not think about why anybody would waste hours of their time on a recreation that seemingly had objective or function; considered one of the many errors in judgement featured on this checklist alone. Once i finally took the time to play Minecraft I was struck by its simplistic creativity. Truly open world, Minecraft offers you little info and asks you to discover issues by yourself. On land, in its vast seas, or deep at the core of your individual world. On a floor stage, the sport is about surviving onslaughts of enemies that come out after darkish, but hours later you find yourself constructing a portal to a brand new dimension with the only real objective of discovering particular supplies to make your home base look slightly fancier than your buddy's personal rudimentary constructions. It is a rare sport that turns into as complex as you need it to be based on your own private targets. It is an exquisite experience and one I am completely happy to have been proven utterly fallacious about.


The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings - CD Projekt Crimson / 2011
My 2011 Sport 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 played and loved during the last decade, however nothing holds a candle to the choices obtainable and characters met in Assassins of Kings. The story is sophisticated, injected with the same stage of political intrigue that fascinates viewers weekly with HBO's Recreation of Thrones. It's techniques are very completely different and specific, its combat can be troublesome and thoughts-warping, but the Witcher 2 is a mountain of a game. It presents challenge rarely seen anymore. Almost like Darkish Souls, The Witcher 2 refuses to tone down what it wants from a participant to be enjoyed, patience and perseverance. It's a beautiful sport and i urge anybody who has but to experience it to leap at the chance before Geralt of Rivia's story concludes within the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.


Xenoblade Chronicles - Monolith Smooth / 2012
A game that nearly by no means launched in North America, if not for the outpouring of fans demanding its arrival, Xenoblade Chronicles finally hit stateside retailer shelves in limited launch in 2012. From the second the sport begins you're handled to a JRPG that makes substantial advancements to storytelling and gameplay. Its tale is about in a captivating locale: A world actually constructed on the back of two massive dueling deities. Its fight system takes hints from MMOs and Western RPGs with cooldowns and particular expertise, but positioning is essential to success. Additionally, Xenoblade Chronicles options a myriad of encounters that players must intelligently consider. It is not like typical JRPGs the place you roam and battle at random intervals, come beasts merely exist in the world and only interact in the event that they really feel threatened. It removes the standard sense that all the pieces that isn't you and your celebration outdoors of city needs in your demise. It's pure and lived-in. Xenoblade Chronicles features genuinely charming characters I wanted to protect, an original and mystical setting and a story 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 playing Eurocom's mediocre Batman Begins game and thinking, "I suppose this is one of the best we'll get" when considering the historical past of Batman's video sport adventures. NES game apart, the respect video game builders 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. And then little-identified developer Rocksteady came out of a mysterious and magical place - I consider they name it London - to bring us Arkham Asylum. What followed was a tremendous journey, featuring performances from voice actors that helped develop my fondness for the franchise as a baby in the early nineteen nineties. I favor the original to the bigger Arkham City because it places Batman in a more remoted situation.GAMES 's probably the most feared entity in Gotham, however caught throughout the walls of Arkham he's faced along with his whole profession. It is a monument to his success and it's slowly attempting to choke the life out of him. From its fight system to its gorgeous effects, Arkham Asylum is a tremendous piece of entertainment that finally offered the Dark Knight the respect he'd been uncared for.


Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy - Midway Games / 2004
Psi-Ops is a game that was way better than it ever deserved to be. Developed by the now defunct Midway Games, the third-person shooter featured crazy psychic skills and one of the earliest makes use of of a sport that actually embraced its use of the Havok physics middleware. Grasping an exploding barrel along 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 would get games just like the Force Unleashed which tried to follow in its footsteps, but failed to seize the identical spark. The power to take management of an enemy's thoughts, open hearth on his squad and then leap off the facet of a ledge sending him careening towards sure doom was among the dumbest fun I had gaming in 2004. It is a bizarre and random choice, however I remember dying to finish work or faculty so I could get home to play the identical ranges many times.


Hotline Miami - Dennaton Video games / 2012
Dennaton discovered the components for addictive gaming bliss: Rope me in with nostalgic graphical design, add buckets of blood, horse head masks, and among the best gaming soundtracks I've ever heard and you have yourself one of my favorite games of all time. Hotline Miami is a weird sport, however its puzzle-like construction captured my attention when it launched in 2012. I've since gone by the game again on Vita, exploring each nook looking for these hidden letters to get the "actual" ending and i always discover myself completely happy to replay outdated levels. Did I point out the soundtrack? Fantastic.


Dark Souls - From Software program / 2011
I've written a lot of features about how mistaken I used to be once i first performed and discarded Dark Souls. I've spilled numerous blood in-sport, struggling via each encounter and studying my mistakes. Dark Souls is a demanding game, however one that by no means feels cheap. Failing in Dark Souls is purely up to the participant. The instruments to dominate are all current, however only persistence is rewarded. Thankfully, I discovered the error of my methods.


Metroid: Zero Mission - Nintendo / 2004
There was some discuss internally when I mentioned that I used to be going to select Metroid: Zero Mission as one in every of my favourite ten games of the last ten years. Some are adamant that it is a cheat as a result of it is technically a remake of the original Metroid, but I contend that it's excess of that [and editor-in-chief Ludwig Kietzmann sided with me on that, so right here it is!]. Metroid: Zero Mission does comply with the identical free narrative featured in the NES classic, nevertheless it has completely new areas, new gameplay, and features a detailed story that outlines Samus Aran's origin, previously solely actually fleshed out in manga. Samus is, by far, my favorite video game hero. Metroid Prime and Tremendous Metroid are among my favourite games of all time - each ineligible right here - however Zero Mission introduces a brand new generation to Nintendo's sturdy feminine protagonist. We learn where she came from and who would not love an origin story?


[Photos: Nintendo, Ubisoft, Valve, From Software program, Dennaton, ZOO Digital,
Rocksteady, CD Projekt Purple, Mojang, Monolith Mushy]