Written By:
Tyler Selig
20: Bastion (360)
Bastion is fantastic on all
fronts. The gameplay is easy to get into but has just enough depth to stay
interesting, as they give you different weapons and whatnot.
The choice to make the world
literally materialize in front of you as you move was a good one and made it
original among other games in the genre.
The soundtrack is definitely one
of the finest of this generation, and ranks pretty high up there in the history
of video game music.
The story is emotional. The last
bit of the game is especially so.
Bastion got a lot of credit and
it deserves it.
19: ZP2KX: Zombies and Pterodactyls (360)
This series is one of my
favourite recent multiplayer games. It’s just a 2D action game, but I don’t
know, I just really dig it. I like that this one added jetpacks, and the
variety of guns, swords and bombs make it worthwhile to run around the map and
try to find them.
The only thing that sucks is
that there really is no community. You can play bots online, mixed with real
players, but I wish this indie game had more of a following because it really
is a lot of fun. I’d like to see this type of thing made by a big company with
lots of money, so long as they don’t fuck it up.
18: Metroid: Other M (Wii)
I’d probably get hate here,
because I guess a lot of people didn’t like it, especially since I put this
above Metroid Prime 3.
I dig the side-scrolling
Metroid. I come from that school, what can I say?
I don’t even care that Samus
talks in it. I’m really not caught up in that kind of bullshit. I actually thought
it was a nice touch.
What matters to me is that this
was a solid, direct sequel to the best Metroid of all time. Finally.
17: Halo: Reach (360)
I’m useless when discussing
Halo. I say this because all the games blend together for me. Halo fanatics can
tell you the difference between them, why this one sucks and that one doesn’t,
which game the pistol is overpowered in, etc. They can debate this because they’re
really passionate about it and don’t have a shitty memory.
I like Halo a lot, it’s
important to the genre and it’s one of my popular shooters that I feel deserves
it, even if I don’t like it as much as the fanatics and think there are better
shooters.
Halo, as a whole, is a shooter I’ve
spent a fair time with in multiplayer, so it has that going for it when it
comes to being placed in the list. It also allows me to play the campaign with
a friend, split-screen, which is always a bonus for me.
I chose Halo: Reach because it’s
the only one that sticks out to me. Halo 3 was probably the best (?), Halo 4
was Halo 4, but Halo: Reach sticks out because of jetpacks and the fact that it
is a little bit different in some ways.
I don’t know if it’s technically
better. Probably not. Usually in a case like this I’d just pick the newest game
in the series, but I’m going with Reach. Just for shits and giggles.
16: The Darkness (PS3, 360)
It’s not a multiplayer shooter
so it doesn’t have as much replay value as some of the other shooters on my
list, but story-wise? Pretty much without equal in the genre. There are
probably a few shooters with stories as good or almost as good, but none are
popping into my head.
The Darkness was more open than
its sequel and has one of the most amazing video game scenes of all time
(watching your girlfriend get killed right in front of you, while The Darkness
prevents you from saving her… powerful stuff). The sequel was probably more fun
from just a shooting perspective, as it was more linear and you were always in
the action. Plus it was constantly making you wonder if you were crazy or not.
I also thought the ending was great and the song that plays during the credits
was really beautiful and fitting.
So it’s hard for me to pick one
game, because both are incredible, but I make it a rule to only have one game
in a series when I make these lists. There are exceptions, and I usually have
some justification, but The Darkness 1 can represent both games.
15: Sacred 2: Fallen Angel (PS3, 360)
This is probably my favourite
game in the genre. So knowing this, it’s weird that I placed it 15. I think I
said this before, in a previous entry, but you could switch around a lot of
these games, place some of them higher, and I’d be cool with it.
Within the hack n’ slash/action
RPG genre, this has my favourite levelling up system. In an RPG that’s pretty
important to me. The story is kind of silly and the game has a sense of humour,
and some of the character classes are cool (like a dog with a hand cannon).
I can’t wait for Sacred 3.
14: Fight Night Champion (PS3, 360)
Maybe to some people it would
seem weird that a boxing game is this high, but nothing makes me more obsessed
than a good combat sports game. I will spent hours upon hours just sitting
there building my fighter up. I’ll say, “Just one more fight” but one more
fight becomes the whole day.
Fight Night is the best boxing
game to date. The type of game I can walk away from but then want to go back to
a month later and start a new fighter.
13: Borderlands 2 (PS3, 360)
Co-op gun-porn FPS. You know the
game. It does the RPG element well enough, and the shooting feels fine. I have criticisms
of the series, but they’re minor… mostly just things I hope they do for the
third.
The best thing that was added to
Borderlands 2 was Handsome Jack, for sure.
12: Journey (PS3)
I don’t think I’d ever actually
want to play Journey again, but I place it on here because when I did play it,
it was an amazing experience. It’s a multiplayer game but it’s so different. You
don’t have usernames, people drop in and out of your game, and yet the game
does little things to encourage team work.
I will never forget my play
through of Journey because it’s the type of game that you need to play once,
and see a different direction that games can go in. It’s the type of game that impacts
you on such a deep level that you get the urge to start talking like you’re a
poet, which I’m restraining myself from doing here because I don’t want to make
a huge post.
11: F.E.A.R. (PS3, 360)
I think it’s one of the scariest
games I’ve ever played.
By the time you figure out the
tricks the game uses to scare you, the game is over. The sequel tried to do the
same thing but it wasn’t really the same.
Outside of just being scary, the
story is interesting and the bullet-time mode helps you a lot.
I know some people don’t think
that F.E.A.R. is that scary, but I do.
Mad at me for including Halo:
Reach and not 3 or 4? Let me know in the comments below. Also make fun of me
for being scared by F.E.A.R. if you want.
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