It's been a while (5 years or so) since I have regularly video gamed it, but as an avid gamer from the ages of 5-30, I feel like I have some room to make such a list. This is across all platforms, so a ton of worthy games had to be cut, and I did my usual "1 director 1 film" rule as "1 franchise 1 game" here, sorry Super Mario Bros. 3. I also decided not to rank them 1-10, as getting the list down to 10 was brutal enough that I decided to just stop and list them in alphabetical order. Lastly, many of the games were available on multiple consoles, in which case I listed the console that I played them on. To the list!
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Year release: 2011
Console: Xbox 360
I remember trying to get into the Elder Scrolls games back when their third entry, Morrowind, came out. I couldn't get into it. The imagination was there, but there were too many kinks not worked out yet (like when I stole something from a house with nobody home, all the doors closed, in a windowless room, and I got arrested), things were better in the next entry, Oblivion, but it wasn't until 2011's Skyrim that they finally got it to the heights that I'd been previously promised. Endless quests, crazy levels of customization, and the many sights and sounds of the beautiful land all help make Skyrim one of the great games ever made. Sure, some of the missions get redundant, all the dungeons are basically the same, and if you go with being a sneaking archer you reach a point fairly early-ish in the game where you can overpower any and all enemies. But still, those types of complaints are minimal for me when the game is this good overall.
GTA V
Year released: 2013
Console: Xbox 360
While each GTA game since 3 has been a great entry, I feel like they just keep getting better. Sure, maybe Niko (from #4) is the best character in the series, but the lead trio here are outstanding on their own. They're also diverse and distinct, so that I find myself playing differently as Michael than I do as Trevor, for example. There's no reason to, I can play however I want, but still the characters have such personality and such a hold on me as a gamer that my playing style changes. That's a great testament to the game, I think. Also, the heist missions are thrilling, and the world so fun that I will often just open the game to drive around and explore for a little while.
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Year released: 1998
Console: N64
Now unfortunately, due to lack of funds and lack of time, I haven't played the newest entry in the Zelda series, which I've had friends tell me rivals this classic. This is probably my favorite adventure game of them all. Going from Link as a child to the young adult who conquers Gannondorf, this game is big and sprawling and hits all the right notes (pun intended). There's good humor, characters, puzzles, and only the annoying Navi, who honestly is a help the first time through. I can't say enough about this game, and if I had decided to pick a single #1 game, this might just be it.
Mass Effect 3
Year released: 2012
Console: Xbox 360
I know that 2 is generally the one that gets the majority of the love, but I felt like 3 is just as good story wise and even better combat wise. If I had to pick a series as my all-time favorite, the pre-Andromeda Mass Effect trilogy would likely be it, over some more iconic choices even. This series has such life, such characters, such possibilities that have had me play through it multiple times. Some hated the ending, but I loved the different choices and how it cut its own path without sticking exclusively to the space opera heroes journey ending many expected. It was more ambitious, complex, and I thought satisfying for it.
Mega Man 2
Year released: 1989
Console: NES
Oh, childhood. I won't disagree that this pick has a fair dose of nostalgia attached to it, but really even played today Mega Man 2 is an awesome platformer. The various stages and bosses, their weaknesses that we had to find through trial and error in an age even before magazines were published to help us, much less having the internet at our fingertips to try and find out that Bubble Man's weapon will defeat Heat Man in just a couple of hits, or that the Quick Boomerang is what to use against Dr. Wiley's dragon robot. The controls are tight, it's a short-ish game, but has enough strategy involved in it to make you think too (you won't get through Wiley's castle if you waste your Crash Bombs), to me it's the best in the series, though I know #3 has its champions as well and it's hard to argue with them.
Psychonauts
Year released: 2005
Console: Xbox
I was a big fan of Tim Schafer's before I ever knew anything about game designers or any behind the scenes talent at all. I'd played and loved his previous games like Secret of Monkey Island, Full Throttle, and Grim Fandango. But it was with 2005's Psychonauts that he created his masterpiece. A hilarious, inventive, deeper than it first appears game with great controls and characters but most of all the imagination that keeps shining through. Traveling into other peoples minds, facing their fears and emotional baggage while sorting out the different challenges that each level presents. It's a terrific 3D platformer that is still sadly too unknown by the general gamer.
Red Dead Redemption
Year released: 2010
Console: Xbox 360
From Rockstar, the same studio that gives us the GTA games, Red Dead Redemption actually outstrips its more famous brother to be the best game on the 360 console. A western world brought lovingly to life, with a seemingly endless story mode that also gives us the same kind of joy of exploration that the GTA games give, while being set in the old west that I grew up loving so much. Like GTA, there are times that I will just fire up the game to explore, or maybe play some poker, go hunting, or flower picking, or try finishing some of the also seemingly endless amount of side missions that we're given. It's such a rich environment of a game, with tremendous characters and Rockstar really knows how to give us something to explore. There are other sandbox style games to choose from, but none better.
Shadow of the Colossus
Year released: 2005
Console: PS2
One of the most beautiful games ever made (which looks even better on the recent remastered version), it's also fairly simple. You go around and defeat the colossi, riding the countryside on your horse. But these types of games are deceptive in their transfixing beauty and transcendent abilities. I have actually found this game kind of difficult to describe over the years. You can describe what little plot there is, you can tell someone how beautiful and transportational the game is, but nothing I heard prepared me for the game, and I think the best way to experience it is to just experience it. That is the only thing that will do the game justice.
Super Mario World
Year released: 1990
Console: SNES
This was tough, because I have always considered NES's Super Mario Bros. 3 to be the best entry in the most famous video game franchise of all time. But after replays the last couple of years, I was struck by how Super Mario World has everything that #3 has and more. The level design is fantastic, the controls are superb, there are more hidden things than you can shake a stick at, and the new additions like Yoshi are just wonderful. It's much longer than I remembered it being, and someone the levels don't repeat themselves too much. It's just a wonderful world to inhabit and play in, even now, 28 years after it came out.
Super Meat Boy
Year released: 2010
Console: Xbox 360
The last entry I made on the list, the toughest one to pick. I had wanted to feel like I represented my love for independent games (where you can find masterpieces like Limbo, Braid, and Fez as well), but I wasn't just going to throw one on the list just to fill a nonexistent quota for myself. It really came down to playing the game again. This is the fastest game I've ever played, levels sometimes taking as little as 8-10 seconds. But I read a review once say "I died more in Super Meat Boy than I have died in all other games I've ever played in combined" and I would say that's true for myself as well. This can be a punishingly difficult game. But when the levels are so short, you don't get as frustrated as you might think you would. The game developers made surviving and beating the level into the kind of challenge that it was back in the NES days, back when beating a game actually meant something and the games were a challenge instead of today where the developers want you to beat a game. The controls are so tight and perfect, the story so simple (save your girl from the bad guy), but the levels are so quick, so lightning fast in their danger, and the fact that the game shows you all of your attempts once you've beaten the level, which turns into an amusing cacophony of dying Meat Boys as you watch yourself learn the level, it's all as thrilling as I've ever been thrilled by a game.
What about you? What are your favorite games?
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