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| He's trying so hard to be gracious about it. (image from IFC) |
So in that grand tradition, here's another gift you've already been given at least a dozen times... a best of the decade awards list! If it makes you feel any better, this one's been written from a different perspective than the others you've already seen. Instead of lumping together games from two generations of consoles, I'm picking one personal favorite for each of the dozen systems on this list. It seems more fair that way, since there's a pretty wide performance gap between, say, a PSP and an Xbox One.
If it doesn't make you feel better, just accept this present with gritted teeth and a weak smile, then use all the best of decade lists you've collected as bricks to build an extra room for your house. Hey, it worked for Pee-Wee.
CURRENT GENERATION AWARDS
PLAYSTATION 4
Horizon Zero Dawn
There's no shortage of sprawling action-adventure games on the Playstation 4, but out of the ones I've played, I liked this one best. Mind you, I had to stick with it for a while, but once I got past the introduction and a hunting competition that doubled as a tutorial, Horizon Zero Dawn stole my heart... and a lot of my free time.
It's one of those games where you could progress the storyline about humanity's fall from the top of the food chain, if you weren't too busy hiking from one end of the continent to the other, using arrows to break the fuel canisters of robot deer and picking fights with metal dinosaurs twenty times your size. Who would be stupid enough to take on a fire-breathing monster the length of a football field? You would, because it's tons of fun and you get to brag to your friends about it if you somehow survive. Plus you can use the scrap metal left behind to power up your- eh, who am I kidding? I don't care about the power ups... I'm just here to set traps and launch explosives at giant robot bears. Look, you'd understand if you had Zoids when you were a kid.
XBOX ONE
Killer Instinct
History won't look back fondly on the Xbox One. Customer-hostile decisions by former Microsoft Interactive chief Don Mattrick hobbled the system's reputation months before it was launched, and compromised hardware meant that it couldn't stand on equal footing with the Playstation 4. Even the user interface lags slightly, occasionally taking a couple of seconds for the onscreen cursor to jump from one menu option to the next.
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| Look, Microsoft owns the Battletoads. They had to find SOME use for them. (image from VG247) |
Then you've got Killer Instinct, the game that convinced me to buy an Xbox One in the first place. This reboot of the flashy 1990s fighter buries the original with more accommodating gameplay and a wealth of content, including a Shadow Lords mode which sends up to three heroes around the world to battle the minions of Gargos, collecting helpful items and healing their wounds from previous battles. Maybe it's not better than the Playstation 4 exclusive Street Fighter V, but it feels like a lot more effort went into it.
WII U
Splatoon
I hate online gaming. Nintendo seems to hate online gaming too, which makes it all the more surprising that they managed to make a game that makes me hate online gaming just a little less.
In simple terms, Splatoon is a third-person, player vs. player shooter. That doesn't really do it justice, though... it's more accurate to say that Splatoon is a little like Counter-Strike, but a whole lot more like a day at Nickelodeon Studios, complete with cartoon sea life and rivers of Gak. Your goal is to tag as much territory as possible with your team's color of slime before time runs out. Your Inkling (a fashion-forward preteen squid) can hide from opponents and fill her slime tank by diving into puddles of the same color. However, contact with slime from the other team slows the Inkling down and can even "pop" her, forcing her to return to the starting point on the map.
There are other play styles, generally in the ranked mode, but I found Turf Wars to be the most enjoyable of the bunch. It's easy to learn, fun to play, and you leave each match refreshed and eager for more, rather than frustrated and discouraged. The Wii U didn't live up to my expectations, but Splatoon was one of those rare games for the system that left me with no regrets.
PREVIOUS GENERATION AWARDS
XBOX 360
Mass Effect 2
I bought an Xbox 360 in its freshman year, just months after its late 2005 launch. I own dozens of its games on disc, and at least a hundred of them digitally. It's my favorite system of its console generation, even with the red ring of death that forced me to get another one (and a later model, just in case). So when I say that Mass Effect 2 is the best game on the Xbox 360, that means something.
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| It just doesn't get any better than this. Seriously, ask anyone. (image from VG247's YouTube page) |
What I'm saying is that Mass Effect 2 is good. It's so good you'll want to buy all the DLC missions. It's so good you'll even do the boring stuff to make it last, like searching for minerals on distant planets while making the ship's computer reluctantly say "probing Uranus." It's so good that it... was better than the sequel and the hapless spin-off Mass Effect Andromeda. Maybe Mass Effect 2 was a little too good for its own good.
PLAYSTATION 3
Blur
Merging the competitive racing of Mario Kart with the more realistic settings and vehicles of Need for Speed isn't a "two great things that taste great together" combination. It's a "two great things that shouldn't taste great together yet somehow do" situation, like dipping fries into your Frosty or eating a bag of salted caramel Bugles. It works, but you're just not sure how.
Blur indeed works. In fact, it works better than most of the violent racing games released in the wake of Burnout 3: Takedown. Unlike Full Auto, it remains fun even after the sheen of the polished graphics and the thrill of charging down a city street with a machine gun lose their novelty. Unlike Split/Second, you can attack the other racers directly, rather than starting an earthquake somewhere on the track and hoping for the best. Blur even has an edge over Mario Kart in that its attacks pack a meaningful punch, and that there's no blue shell which flips the outcome of the race on its head. Instead you get a Shock, three land mines with a wide detonation radius that are difficult, but not impossible, to dodge.
Blur isn't exclusive to the Playstation 3, and it may not even be the best game released for the system after 2010, but it's some of the most fun I've had with this console.
WII
Super Mario Galaxy 2
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| That must be the Super Mario world I've heard so much about. (image from VideoGamesBlogger) |
Well, Kirby's Return to Dreamland is a solid if predictable entry in that series, and The Last Story is fine if you like inscrutable action RPGs, but I'm going with Super Mario Galaxy 2. I honestly don't remember much of it beyond a planet shaped like Mario's head, but I did love the previous game from start to finish, and this was more of it. You really can't go wrong with a second helping of Super Mario Galaxy.
HANDHELD AWARDS
NINTENDO 3DS
Super Smash Bros. 4
It took a while for me to understand the appeal of Super Smash Bros., but thanks to this handheld extension of the long-running series, I finally get it. It's as full-featured as any of the previous Smash games, yet approachable in a way they weren't. If you want to get in some quick practice, just flip open the 3DS, start the game, and you're brawling in twenty seconds. Alternately, you can play one of Smash 4's mini games, fun diversions that also teach you the basics of combat along with the unique abilities of each character.
However, the headliner for this version of Smash Bros. (and a feature painfully absent from its Wii U counterpart) is Smash Run. Stuff the levels from Brawl's Subspace Emissary into a sack, smack them a few times with a hammer, and spill the pieces onto a table, and you've got a random jumble of gaming goodness that emphasizes the platforming aspects of the series. As an added bonus, it also lets you punch a bunch of creatures from at least two dozen other video games. What self-respecting nerd would want to miss out on a chance to sink their fists into a Pooka from Dig Dug?
PLAYSTATION VITA
Axiom Verge
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| Some games elicit oohs and aahs. The reactions to Axiom Verge are closer to "Ewws!" and "Aughs!" (image from Engadget) |
Glitching is the most important of Axiom Verge's out-of-left-field play mechanics. The lead character can alter reality with a glitch gun, turning once fearsome enemies into harmless clusters of graphic tiles and pulling platforms out of thin air. You could argue that making progress through Axiom Verge by tugging at its loose threads and unraveling it is a fascinating deconstruction of video games. Even if you don't want to dig too deeply into the philosophical underpinnings of the glitch gun, you've got to admit it's a damn cool concept.
PLAYSTATION PORTABLE
Grand Knights History
The PSP was near the end of its lifespan in 2011, leaning on a cane with one wrinkled hand while waiting to pass its baton to the Vita with the other. While the system was largely forsaken in America by this point, the Japanese weren't yet willing to let it go, releasing games for the PSP in 2011 and beyond. Not just the usual mediocrities designed to cash in on the latest cartoon, but good games! Games rivaling the best you'll find in the PSP library! Games like Grand Knights History.
Designed by Vanillaware and featuring the company's gorgeous hand-drawn artwork, Grand Knights History is a role-playing title where you assemble a team of young warriors, archers, and wizards, and take them on a series of scouting missions across a vast continent ruled by three kingdoms. Your goal is to give these squires enough training to serve your kingdom as knights. Eight years ago, there was an online component where you could pit your best fighters against those of other players, but even without it, there's enough in Grand Knights History to keep you engaged... and dazzled. When you're not staring gape-jawed at the graphics, you'll battle gangs of monsters in turn-based combat, with you and your enemies trading blows on a grid-like battlefield. Imagine a cross between tennis and chess with the usual RPG trappings, and you've got the right idea.
MOBILE
Forget-Me-Not
Smartphone games generally don't hold your attention for long, and they generally don't have the restraint to charge you once for the experience, opting instead to periodically halt your progress and demand micro-transactions if you wish to continue. I suspect the frequent tolls are why people don't play smartphone games for very long, and I'm also sure that the lack of them in Forget-Me-Not is why I've kept playing it long after its 2011 debut.
You pay for Forget-Me-Not once (or not at all on iOS devices), and you get millions of randomly generated levels and hours of Pac-Manly fun for the price of admission. You'll eat flowers, quaff strength-boosting potions, blast abstract monsters with an unending stream of lasers, gobble the fruit prizes they leave behind, and get blown to bits by kamikaze bomb creatures. And you'll keep doing all that, not only because the action is perversely compulsive, but because it won't cost you a cent beyond the initial download fee.
REALLY FRICKIN' OLD STUFF AWARDS
ATARI 2600
Galagon
The Atari 2600 wasn't supposed to amount to much; basically, it was designed as an evolution of the Pong machines Atari released in the mid 1970s. It had very little RAM, no video RAM at all, and its early cartridges topped out at around 4K, just enough for simple player versus player challenges like Combat. Nobody expected it to survive into the 1980s and beyond, yet it did just that, getting the Legend of Zelda inspired Secret Quest in 1989 and the puzzle game Acid Drop in 1992.
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| I don't get how it is, but here it is! |
ATARI 7800
Rikki and Vikki
Truth told, this puzzle/platform hybrid has issues. The control is a little sluggish, and because the lead characters crumple in a single hit, boss fights are unreasonably difficult. I was lucky to get past the mole in the first level, but the last level- reachable only with a second player- demands not just perfection, but perfection in stereo.
Having said that, the stunning presentation in Rikki and Vikki goes a long way toward smoothing over the game's flaws. Few games on the Atari 7800 look as good as this one does, and absolutely no games sound this good, not even the small handful of official releases with a POKEY chip built into the cartridge. The catchy soundtrack and expressive cartoon artwork lend a sense of professionalism to Rikki and Vikki that too many Atari 7800 games lack. Just don't expect the joys this title has to offer to come easily.
SEGA GENESIS
Darius
The last two years have been pretty good to the Genesis. Not only did it finally get a worthwhile mini console to make up for all those duds by AtGames, it's seen a handful of high quality homebrews as well. There's been Tanglewood, and Xenocrisis, and of course Darius, which was included as a bonus on the aforementioned Sega Genesis Mini.
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| Details like these close-ups of the Silver Hawk ships would have wound up on the cutting room floor of a eight megabit port of Darius. |
The second reason is that it's a really good conversion of Darius, four times the size of the Genesis port of Sagaia and noticeably less compromised. Seeing what was done here makes you wonder what might have been possible on the Genesis if cartridge space hadn't been so tight back in the early 1990s.
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