Dead Pixels has 41 chronicles

1. Dead Pixels Presents: The Best Games of the Decade
   

   Player Chronicle -- Posted on Feb 08 2010

   And there you go.
   
   
   Final Fantasy X (2001)
   If you asked most people what the single best game of the decade was, you’d be likely to get one of three answers. Generally speaking, smart people pick FF, ADD sufferers pick CoD, and crack addicts pick World of Warcraft. Japanophiles pick one of those rinky-dink DS games where you play golf with rape victims or something, but no one cares what they think. Anyway, Final Fantasy X was an early forerunner for the modern age of game storytelling. Ushering in voice work to complement a gripping story and serving as a bridge between the past and the future of RPGs, it was the turning point for the genre.
   
   Mass Effect (2007)
   The universe we live in is a vast, mysterious place with as many stories to tell as there are stars in the sky. Most people don’t give a shit. For those who do (or just want animated sex because they can’t get any for real or their moms won’t let them use the computer), there’s Mass Effect. If Bioware’s team of RPG wizards had just plunked down an RPG in space, it wouldn’t have been remarkable. Bioware went one step further: they populated the universe with a vast array of characters, philosophies and problems that helped give games one of their first true sci-fi epics. Good science fiction derives fun from lasers blasting and people throwing cars around. Great science fiction raises questions about man’s role in the universe. Mass Effect is the latter. And of course there’s sex. Lesbian sex. With aliens.
   
   Little Big Planet (2008)
   I’m calling it now: the future of games isn’t in better physics, cooler guns or more robust multiplayer. It’ll be in user-created content, and LBP is leading the charge. Sure, ridiculously cute mascot Sackboy headlined the deepest, yet most intuitive creation tools in gaming. But if you were too untalented or lazy to create your own levels, the game not only provided you with a host of great ones, but allowed you to play everyone else’s for free. So addictive that the level-design community is still highly active, LBP’s philosophy of gameplay promises to hang around for a long, long time.
   
   The Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess (2006)
   The Wii may still be struggling to find a place in the heart of devoted gamers, but Link has never had that problem. The green-clad elf guy’s latest console outing is almost four years old now and still one of the best offerings on the system. On paper, TP isn’t terribly different from the games that came before it. But the story got notably darker, the visuals got even more creative, and it was all topped off with one of gaming’s best final battles. This list is dominated by comparatively recent IP, but Link is still out there proving dungeon-exploring and Moblin-fighting can hold their own in a crowded industry.
   
   Bioshock (2007)
   If you ever really, really wanted a game where you not only could shoot up, but had to shoot up to win, 2K delivered. Where most shooters lack a story of any note and focus on multiplayer, Bioshock was pretty much the opposite, weaving a deep and complex morality play and offering no chances for idiot fratboys to teabag each other. Trapped in the decomposing, dystopian underwater paradise of Rapture, you were forced to genetically modify yourself with designer drugs to survive the threat of the mutated populace. All this was backed up by a perfect vision of ruined beauty that you couldn’t help but marvel at. But it was the fiendishly clever twist that made Bioshock stand out, and gave rise to one of the most memorable lines in gaming history.
   
   Okami (2005)
   If you’ve ever strolled through a gallery of fine art, you know that it is, for the most part, skillful, somewhat provocative, and almost fatally boring. It just has no context, nothing to make you see the beauty. Every single frame of Okami could be hanging on a wall, but the jaw-dropping artwork is much better served bringing Clover’s dreamlike interpretation of feudal Japan to life. I really can’t complain about the sinfully poor sales the game suffered when there were instantly memorable classics like Black on the shelves, but the game’s legend has grown through word of mouth and withstood even the demise of Clover. The unique paintbrush-based action remains a five-star gaming experience to this day.
   
   World of Warcraft (2004)
   Addicts of the world unite! WOW is the quintessential shut-in’s obsession, great ruiner of lives and relationships and careers, and capable of generating a conversation that sounds like a foreign language to anyone not a fellow addict. WOW addicts get much more fired up about Blizzard easing the requirements for a mount than they ever could about poor sick African kids or the spotted owl. All of that would be pretty damning if it weren’t so good. As the decade began, MMOs were a fairly niche, nerdy thing. Now, they’re still pretty nerdy, but thanks to WOW they’re no longer niche. Indeed, WOW’s impact has been such that when it meets its planned end in 2011 with Cataclysm, the effect on the MMO landscape will certainly be interesting. For now, though, WOW is atop the heap of do-it-yourself dungeon-crawling originally popularized by Dungeons & Dragons. Insert a random joke about rogues here.
   
   Braid (2008)
   There are plenty of people out there who don’t think games can be art. They’re wrong, and Braid is the proof. It hit Xbox Live in 2008 with all the qualifications of art. Insightful, beautiful, thought-provoking and, yes, a tad pretentious. Okay, really pretentious if you count the atomic bomb interpretation, which I don’t, so we’re good. What looks initially like a platformer reveals itself to really be a game of logic and reflexes with a story open to multiple interpretations. Whereas most video game romances are based on the myth of unconditional love, Tim’s pursuit of the princess is really about an obsession. Once you’ve taken a hard look at the devastatingly clever final level, you’ll likely wind up thinking about the message the experience offers for a very long time. If that isn’t art, then someone slipped me the wrong dictionary.
   
   Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2007)
   Frat boys, 14-year-olds and gun junkies rejoiced when Infinity Ward’s reworked take on their definitive franchise hit in 2007. Unlike the brave soldiers of World War II, the attention deficit would no longer have to battle nameless hordes with ancient weapons. Spawning an online empire that persisted for years and story presentation on par with a big-budget action flick, Modern Warfare also imparted gifts of prophecy to frequent players, who were made aware well before launch that Modern Warfare 2 would be the Greatest Game of All Time of Any Kind Ever Made in the History of the World and Anyone who Didn’t Think So was Stupid.
   
   Grand Theft Auto IV (2008)
   There’s a fair contingent of gamers out there who don’t like the idea of having to do anything in a GTA game that doesn’t involve killing cops and driving fast. To them, I sincerely say: shove it up your gun barrel. GTA IV took a risky leap above the gameplay of the rest of the series. It didn’t do this by reinventing the wheel. Instead, it gave us a New York stand-in that served as the most realistic cityscape in open-world games, and populated it with a cadre of losers and dreamers convincing enough for the best work of Scorcese. Niko Bellic was of course the headliner, and his tale of an essentially broken man trying to escape his violent past in a country theoretically built for that purpose made for a gripping tale. The culture of Liberty City came alive through Niko’s eyes, providing players with the kind of stark view of life in America that we’re rarely allowed to see. Sure, you had to answer your phone and go bowling, but the value of a living, breathing city like this one tops all that any day.
   
   Metroid Fusion (2002)
   After a long absence from the gaming arena, the classic side-scrolling adventure made a seven-game comeback in the past eight years. Despite the tech present in the Prime series, this return to Samus’s roots was easily the most heralded of the bunch. Gameplay eschewed any and all gimmicks to deliver a tightly focused 2D adventure that showed that the GBA hardware was capable of. The addition of Dark Samus provided more storyline than fans were used to. And the entire experience was just an all-around blast to play. P.S: if you watch certain episodes of House M.D., you might catch Dr. House playing Metroid Fusion while he’s supposed to be helping patients. Now that’s an excellent game.
   
   Half-Life 2 (2004)
   Sure, Portal gave us a lot of laugh-out-loud moments, and in concession to the inevitable whining about it not being on the list, I will allow all Portal fans to insert one cake-related joke here.
   
   Done?
   
   Good.
   
   Half-Life games take their own damn time to release, but each time one does it reminds us that the single-player experience in shooters is underrated. Hero Gordon Freeman may look like that guy in customer service who you’re pretty sure will eventually snap and take out the store with a semi-automatic, but his opposition to his alien oppressors has earned him the praise of the masses. In this second installment, the events of Half-Life have come full circle, and you must fight your way out from under the Combine’s rule. Working with a cast of memorable characters, the fight for freedom in Half-Life 2 remains an experience every gamer must try, even six years later.
   
   Rock Band 2 (2008)
   Guitar Hero was a long shot that took off and became a phenom. The music genre’s shining star didn’t last long, and although new games are still coming, Rock Band 2 may have been the genre’s zenith. It turns out making yourself look like an idiot with plastic instruments is just plain fun, and the original Rock Band brought the instrument total to four, making it the quintessential party game. The sequel gave with perhaps the best built-in setlist to that date, and the game still goes strong through DLC. It has managed to persist while Activision pumps out Guitar Hero after Guitar Hero, and may deserve to land on the list for sheer persistence.
   
   Resident Evil 4 (2005)
   Purists cried foul, claiming that without crappy controls Resident Evil lost all the suspense. Everyone else ignored them; we were all too busy being immersed in RE4’s creepy Spanish village. Slow, lumbering dummies posed a questionable scare, but the highly intelligent Los Ganados certainly made the heart race. Following you, cornering you, trapping you and ambushing you, they were relentless and wanted nothing so much as your death. The resultant adventure was coupled with a story that kept you wondering what was up, and kept everyone enthralled.
   
   God of War (2005)
   There aren’t a lot of shades of gray when you’re dealing with a half-mad servant of the gods. God of War’s story involved some business about Kratos’s family, but you got the sense he wasn’t the most well-adjusted guy before they bit the dust. Nonetheless, the story easily propped up the gameplay, which consisted of Kratos dispatching every monster in Greek myth in the most brutal and imaginative ways imaginable. Tearing eyes out of Cyclopes, ripping the heads off Medusas and dropping innocent boat captains down hydra’s throats were all fine and good, but that scene with the vase was just (ahem) icing on the cake.
   
   Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (2009)
   The original Uncharted was a fun time, but the sequel launched the franchise into the ranks of Indiana Jones. Starting off with a train wreck and a literal cliffhanger and only escalating from there, Nathan Drake’s latest adventure became an instant classic almost immediately upon release, and is as close as games have come to being adventure movies. Even the multiplayer was great, giving Uncharted 2 the entire package. That a game from the creators of Jak & Daxter and Crash Bandicoot is great really shouldn’t come as a surprise; here’s hoping Naughty Dog’s latest hero will hang around (pun intended) for a long time to come.
   
   Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem (2002)
   It really is too bad that Silicon Knights’ good name has been besmirched by Too Human, because nothing in their very first game suggests they were capable of crapping that out. This horror title (on the Gamecube, of all things) presented a lot of revolutionary elements that sadly haven’t been adopted by the larger genre. The most notable of these was a sanity meter that caused your environment to become more and more twisted the crazier you got. Eventually, the game would even break the fourth wall. The story gripped from the opening to the ending, and provided characters scattered across time that weren’t even close to the usual invincible action heroes. All these elements combined to create one of the most unique scary games ever made, that messed with your head as much as your reflexes.
   
   Assassin’s Creed II (2009)
   None but the most intractable haters could claim that Ezio’s adventure in the Italian Renaissance didn’t fix the problems inherent in Altair’s outing. The reason the game was amazing, though, is that Ubisoft went above and beyond the necessary fixes to deliver a tale steeped in the lore of 15th century Italy, and immersed in political intrigue. It also delivered a story that sucked you directly in, propped up by some amazing visual set pieces, such as the carnival in Venice or the virtuoso sequence with Da Vinci’s hang glider. Ezio’s adventure benefited from a company that listens to the fans, and it showed.
   
   Ico (2001)
   Never mind that the ending of the game is renowned for making grown men sob. Ico supported itself well with puzzle gameplay for more challenging that the most white knuckle shooter, and a painterly, somewhat mysterious visual design that looked terrible in screenshots but astounding in the game itself. Ico has become the ultimate sleeper hit, remaining a much-sought game to this day and spawning Shadow of the Colossus, itself one of the decade’s most acclaimed titles. And then, of course, there’s the tears shed when you finally reach that beach.
   
   The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006)
   It’s time for the whiny Morrowind fans to come out in droves, because Oblivion was better. Now sit down before I beat you. The sheer, vast amount of land to be explored in the world of Tam’riel makes it feel like nothing more than the closest to a virtual Middle Earth we’re ever likely to get, and the sheer number of things you can do there has sometimes sucked hundreds of hours out of people’s lives. And of course, the game helped popularize DLC, most notably through the Horse Armor, the greatest item in any video game to date.

   
   

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Dead Pixels has 2 comment s on this chronicle.

1. Dead Pixels
   Posted On Feb 21 2010

   Slow response, sorry. Sick and all that. You want me to start a thread for each of these? I can do that. How's about I stagger them, give people time to discuss each one.
   
   Halo wasn't thrown out lightly. If there were 25 games Halo 2 would probably have been in there. That one was one of the first games besides Goldeneye I played MP in.
   
   Also, here is the list as I have it of people needing credit for being present and helping with the massive 120-game list I sifted through.
   
   Name first, then forum tag.
   
   Ben Luke---Link
   Christopher Foelske---Cfoelske
   Matt Cabeen---Cabin21
   
   Nick overton--- I Am Marksman
   Chris Brodeur---Silent Bob
   
   Zach Ellsbury---Ryublitz
   Ike Steoger---Frygel
   Taylor Griener---Vrygel
   
   Ethan Rivera---Sweeticecream
   
   Tyler Filipp---Gaden
   Matt Tower---Wolvatron
   Brandon Pennington---Dynafire
   
   I know there were more than this, at one point there were at least 20 people in there. Step forward!

2. BEN
   Posted On Feb 06 2010

   I'm sure many who have read this have titles they agree with and maybe a few they're not on board with, but thanks for sharing your decade's best video games!
   
   I enjoyed the quick details/insight you shared about each title, but I have to wonder where Halo is on this list. There are many other titles that I would say could be included in this discussion, but once again, thanks for drawing these conclusions and sharing yet another nice addition to the Dead Pixel library.
   
   Can you make sure that ALL these titles are represented in the GoG Forum?