GAMES OF THE DECADE 2010-2019

Dark Souls

I have actual friends in REAL LIFE because of Dark Souls. It is a game that actually changed my life. It is a game that, despite being very challenging and having the reputation of being utterly brutal, is a game that I find almost comforting to watch or play, such are all of the positive memories I have attached to it. I think Dark Souls is one of the best social gaming experiences you can have, and not just because of the stuff built into the game.

People think the Dark Souls community is a bunch of people saying “git gud” but the reality is, everyone wants everyone to get through Dark Souls because, despite what you think, you can do it. Everyone can do it. It’s so mechanically tight that, although it might be hard as hell and a boss that takes someone six attempts might take you six months - the point is you will eventually be able to do it. It’s tight, learnable and immensely rewarding when you put in the effort and get success back. There’s so much variety in how you can spec your character that you can shape things to your particular style or try some really strange, interesting character builds that keep things fresh on repeated playthroughs. It’s a world that is full of weird characters and cryptic bullshit and yet every single thing is so fucking memorable.

As good as playing Dark Souls is, watching people play it is another amazing part of the Dark Souls experience. Hearing about people’s progress is amazing. Watching people beat bosses you struggled with and overcome sections that give them difficulty, or perhaps just watching the game absolutely wipe the floor with them, is such good viewing. I’ve heard of people from all skill levels play Dark Souls and tell me of their experiences. It’s a game that features the highest levels of both game mechanics and world building and once you get started playing it, you can’t stop thinking about it until it is done.

Firewatch

I’m rarely a fan of these narrative experience games - I’m far too reliant on mechanics to keep my interest in a game these days. Something that isn’t challenging my skills or making me think about ways to progress has a very short amount of time to hook me otherwise it’s getting chucked onto the backlog pile and forgotten about.

I loved everything about Firewatch. I loved the presentation, the setting, the setup and the slow burn mystery that unfolds over its three hours or so playtime. Why did Firewatch get under my skin, while Edith Finch, Gone Home and Dear Esther left me either cold or bored? I’m not saying Firewatch is a better tale than those - that’s surely a case of personal preference - and I think the best answer I can give is due to exactly that.

These games can be used to give you a perspective that you may never normally see, which is obviously fantastic. However, due to the way I like to prioritise mechanics over narrative, if I’m not gripped or invested, I quickly lose interest. I’m never going to be a twenty something year old girl returning to her family home in the aftermath of a family argument around their younger sister’s sexuality, am I? A fascinating story it may have been, but without anything mechanical to get my teeth into, I’m struggling.

Firewatch told the story of a thirty-something year old man who dived into his work to try to run away from his problems and responsibilities. Hard fucking relate.

Bloodborne

After finishing Dark Souls a few times and truly understanding how the combat system works, I was able to shape it to my own personal play style out of the gate, pretty much, resulting in a much, much easier game than my first time through. Turns out, I’m a big fan of slapping a shield on my back, using a big damaging weapon and removing all my armour, relying on my ability to avoid enemy attacks rather than tanking the damage.

Imagine my joy, then, when it was clear, a few moments into Bloodborne, that this was a From Software game entirely built around my preferred way to play. Extremely aggressive combat with a focus on parrying and dodging. I couldn’t bloody believe my luck. Some people consider this to be a regressive move, after the variety available to you in Dark and Demon’s Souls, but when it’s this good I find it hard to see this much more focused approach anything other than a step forward.

The world of Bloodborne and the ‘lore’ that built up a rich history behind everything was also just a step beyond what From had achieved with Dark Souls. A Lovecraft-esque setting of horrific body horror and unknowable cosmic horror actually lends itself better to From’s drip-feed storytelling, as having to fill in the blanks only adds to the mystery rather than occasionally make things feel like the game is being annoyingly vague. Bloodborne was already a winner with it’s combat mechanics alone, but genre best setting, backstory and bosses are what give it the edge over everything else. A legitimate masterpiece.

Hotline Miami

For such a simple concept, Hotline Miami is one of the deepest, smartest games of the past decade. Kill everything to move on. The repetitive nature of dying and respawning immediately, combined with the amazing techno soundtrack, creates a near hypnotic feedback loop of ultraviolence. It draws you in, you focus hard on what you’re doing - which is brutally killing people in some pretty horrendous ways. It’s superb.

The depth comes when you begin looking at the high score board. You can’t afford to be timid when gunning for top scores and a slight randomisation to the enemy positions and weapons found in the levels forces you to think on your feet and be creative, while all the different abilities you get from the different unlockable masks allow you a bit of pre-planning. Picking one that suits your specific strengths or play style might give you a slight headstart but you still have to react to what each level throws at you. One hit, and it’s all over, of course. One button press and you’re straight back in. No messing. Relentless.

It’s a perfect arcade score attack game, wrapped up in an aesthetic package that many others try to copy but fail to capture Hotline’s effortless, gritty, punk-as-fuck cool. A spiritual follow-up to games like Robotron and Smash TV and more than worthy of being considered as much a classic as either.

Street Fighter V

Spent a few hours on this one, lads! Street Fighter V split opinion at launch because although it’s a bloody brilliant game, a lack of single player content and some frankly piss poor network issues led most people to try and bury the game on arrival. Honestly though, I couldn’t care any less about single player content in fighting games. Give me great, fun mechanics to mess with, a competent training mode and solid online play and I’ll play it forever.

Over the best part of half the decade, Street Fighter V has grown in terms of its roster and content - most of it being trash for the single player - but it’s constantly evolved. Near annual balance patches that have changed the game considerably. It’s barely recognisable from its original release and plays almost completely differently.

The core of Street Fighter V’s combat is so strong and easy to understand that Capcom can drop six new characters into it every year and make vast balance and mechanic changes without breaking it - although there’s been a few close shaves! - and each time one of these is released it’s like a mini Street Fighter Christmas and a load of reasons to fire it back up and start learning the new stuff. Constantly rewarding, a never-ending journey of self-improvement and skill sharpening, Street Fighter V is the one game on this list I’d take with me if I could only have one.

Hollow Knight

For some reason I had squared this one away in my mind as some roguelike Dark Souls-esque also ran and didn’t play it until it appeared on Switch. I bought it and proceeded to ignore it for around six months then begrudgingly fired it up when I was at a pretty extreme loose end. I am a total fucking idiot.

It’s not often to have that feeling, when you’re playing a new game, that you’re playing something that could challenge the old all-time top ten list that lives in your head. I loved everything about Hollow Knight. I loved the setting. The characters. The structure. The exploration. The bosses. The satisfaction from not only besting a boss, but also from simply finding a way to progress. I loved the ‘lore’. I loved the music. I couldn’t believe I had put off playing it for so long. I will not be making this mistake with the forthcoming sequel. In fact, it’s one of my most awaited games of 2020.

I love Super Metroid and, subsequently, the Metroidvania genre. Hollow Knight only sits beneath the two games responsible for the bloody genre name in my list and that is astonishingly high praise. The best Metroidvania of the decade, bar none.

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

When the game is regarded as probably the best overall Legend of Zelda game it shouldn’t be a surprise at all that it’s appearing in many ‘Game of the Decade’ lists, including this one. It’s a game that appeared at the perfect time for me. I was burning out on open world games something chronic. They’re all so similar, structure wise, and there’s some significant padding in these games to fill out the large world. Not all of it is of a high quality. It’s almost all busywork.

Breath of the Wild takes the complete opposite approach. It doesn’t fill the world with generic kill/fetch quests so you can gain arbitrary stat bonuses and move a percentage closer to 100%. It spends the first hour or so teaching you the rules that dictate the land you’re about to traverse - how physics work, how elements will interact with one another, for instance - and then basically says “Right, the final boss is over there. You can fight him whenever you want. You can explore this vast land at your own pace and your own methods of getting things done are totally valid. Crack on.” and it is so fucking refreshing.

Despite it’s cartoon-y, Nintendo visuals, Breath of the Wild is one of the most mature games I have ever played, because it never holds your hand or assumes you’re unable to make decisions and learn from your own mistakes. It encourages experimentation and never tells you right or wrong directly, instead allowing you to figure out what works for you. Also - the weapons breaking is actually a brilliant idea and stops ‘Bethesda RPG’ style item hoarding and forces you to constantly think and re-evaluate your situation at all times, ensuring you’re constantly engaged with the combat system, the enemies and the world around you. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

Nier: Automata

This past decade was the one where I found myself moving away from JRPGs. It wasn’t due to a sudden disliking of the genre or anything like that (although the Persona games have some of the most irritating characters I’ve ever seen/heard and frankly, I can’t do it) I just haven’t had the time to commit to a 70+ hour game, especially when I spent a lot of this period reviewing games and constantly having to move onto the next thing.

Nier: Automata isn’t a JRPG. Not entirely, anyway. It’s an action game, by Platinum Games, no less, and rewards skillful play through its slick as hell combat. However, in terms of its narrative, progression structure and even the way you improve your character, it has more in common with your Final Fantasy games than your usual Platinum titles. It’s a mix that works so damn well, allowing for a really well paced experience, jumping from sections of exposition into full on hardcore combat situations.

The story, though. A genuinely interesting tale about humanity and what it is to be human that - at first - appears to be another pop at one of Sci-Fi’s more overused story tropes but fast throws a few curveballs at you. It’s a story that is constantly engaging, often hilarious/surreal and occasionally truly shocking. The kind of shit that will stick with you for a while. Subquests hold the kind of revealing moments lesser games will reserve for major moments during the main quest line. It’s a game that really warrants playing until true, 100% completion. Yoko Taro makes a real claim to be one of the most exciting Japanese game directors with this game, his next title should be looked forward to like something from Kojima, Miyazaki or Mikami.

Titanfall

The best shooter of the decade, Titanfall was very much the game that tied together my favourite shooters from 90-99 and from 00-09 into one perfect package. Taking influence from movement based FPS games like Unreal Tournament and Quake and the Call of Duty 4 style loadout and strategy FPS games that dominate the console market, Titanfall has lifted the best aspects from all of these titles, but still feels very much its own thing.

A fairly limited but varied weapon set combined with the tactical abilities, like a healing boost or temporary invisibility, mix together to offer a whole load of flexibility within the combat. If you like to snipe, you’re not just destined to be camping, crouched at range, but could also be someone who bounds from rooftop to rooftop, popping heads and moving on before someone can draw a bead on you. I loved using the shotgun and stim, which boosted movement speed and recovery and dashed around the level like a total maniac, point blanking as many people as I could before I wore off. This felt like playing a classic PC shooter and I bloody loved it, but you can just as easily tweak your loadout to give you a totally different and completely viable experience.

Then, there’s the titular Titans. Blood great big robots that come in a variety of different flavours, with a set of weapons to choose from and their own abilities. Again, this allows for even more choice in how you decide to take on the enemy team. I barely use the Titan, instead using it as a big walking distraction, but some players love to tear a team apart with one.

It’s just so rewarding, and not just for the elite players. The use of AI controlled minions packs out the levels and offers less skilled players a means of contributing to the team and get a taste of success. I haven’t gone for Titanfall 2 because I think the single player is good but these multiplayer maps have a special place in my heart, and I spent less time on the sequel.

P.T.

If you’re a fan of horror games, the cancellation of Hideo Kojima’s crack at the Silent Hill series is probably the past decade's biggest disappointment, but at least we got this taste of what it could’ve been. In the past, all we’ve had of these cancelled dream games was a screenshot or a trailer, but this time we actually got a taste. Perhaps that’s worse, because after P.T., we all know that we’re missing out on something truly special. And utterly terrifying.

A short trip through a now-infamous corridor where something clearly extremely bad has happened at some point brought up instant memories of when Silent Hill is at its best - seemingly normal environments that are slightly off-kilter to at first unnerve you, before twisting into a terrifying, nightmarish version of itself, all caused by a human act of evil. It can create a true feeling of dread from something so normal, that when things do go completely fucking tonto it’s almost a relief - before you realise it is much, much worse that you even imagined.

P.T. being removed from the PSN Store only adds to its legacy, in my opinion. It’s now like a banned video nasty, something spoken about in hushed tones. People talking about this ‘scariest game of all-time’ and it being removed from purchase by the platform holder is something that, for someone who grew up when horror movies weren’t as freely available and the wealth of information that is the internet didn’t exist, so you couldn’t just fact check every bullshit claim, really ticks a few nostalgia boxes. There’s a romance about P.T. and everything that happened around it that, as a horror movie/game fan, it’s impossible to shake. Until you play the fucking thing and shit your pants, of course.

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