Best Games of the Decade (2011 - 2020)

NyQuil

Big F$&*in Q
Jan 5, 2005
95,345
59,252
Ottawa, ON
Infinite hasn't aged that well.

It's only really any good in that first playthrough.

For me, the combat/gameplay itself was forgettable while things like the soundtrack and some of the story and lore elements were fascinating.

I also agree that Elizabeth is one of the best realized gaming companions ever created.
 
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Big McLargehuge

Fragile Traveler
May 9, 2002
72,188
7,741
S. Pasadena, CA
I love Infinite and find a lot of the backlash against it relatively unwarranted or nitpicky (too much gunplay is a legitimate beef because 2K wanted this game to appeal to the Call of Duty crowd)...but I think honorable mentions makes more sense for a game as divisive as that. It could have been a game of the decade, but given the development cycle that game went through it's a miracle it wound up being as good as it was. I do think I enjoyed the game more because I was so out of touch with gaming during college that I wasn't there for any of the hype cycle and massive changes, which allowed me to basically go into it basically blind aside from it being Bioshock in a floating city.

Elizabeth was a revelation as far as AI companions go, though...sadly Ellie stole her spotlight a couple months later and then it seemed like half of the gaming community decided that to praise The Last of Us they had to rip Infinite to shreds. I loved both of them and gave TLoU my GOTY in 2013 fwiw, but the 'it was never actually good' stuff was a reminder of why I had been backing out of gaming for the preceding decade.

For me Persona 5 pretty much laps the competition for game of the decade. It's the only game I've played for the first time as an adult that's hit me as well as games like Final Fantasy VII & Chrono Trigger did when I was a kid.
 
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syz

[1, 5, 6, 14]
Jul 13, 2007
28,849
12,240
Definitely find Infinite on the overrated side. Gameplay-wise for sure, but even the storytelling feels off to me.

The storytelling is bad, tbh. Levine's centrist shtick didn't age well at all.
 

JaegerDice

The mark of my dignity shall scar thy DNA
Dec 26, 2014
25,020
9,228
The storytelling is bad, tbh. Levine's centrist shtick didn't age well at all.

I didn't really take it as gutlessly centrist in the same way as other games from publishers saying 'it's not a political statement' or whatever.

I don't know if I would have appreciated it more if the game had hammered 'racists are bad' over my head.

Similarly, I don't think Bioshock would have been improved if they had hammered 'objectivisim is bad' over my head.

The very crumbling and dystopic nature of the world I was in was proof in of itself that the underlying philosophies and execution of said philosophies were hopelessly flawed in the eyes of the authors.

The objection to the portrayal of Daisy Fitzroy always seemed silly to me. The idea that one should do everything they can to resist becoming a monster in the act of combating monsters is a theme seen throughout media. The fact that Fitzroy became a monster did not make the fight against oppression in the game in of itself invalid or equal to the oppression itself. It made one character the worse for her cause.
 
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Shareefruck

Registered User
Apr 2, 2005
28,875
3,570
Vancouver, BC
The storytelling is bad, tbh. Levine's centrist shtick didn't age well at all.
I just found the delivery kind of overbearing and overly pleased with itself rather than artful, personally, and I found the twist ending very gimmicky and less interesting than it was being presented as (not a big fan of that type of shock/novelty-driven "whoaaa... all the dots connect!" payoff in general).

It wasn't terrible or anything, but I wouldn't hold it up as particularly great, narratively.
 
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Big McLargehuge

Fragile Traveler
May 9, 2002
72,188
7,741
S. Pasadena, CA
The trying so hard to make both sides bad did leave a bad taste in my mouth that it didn't in my initial weekend.

Narratively I'd still say it's one of the better AAA games of the best decade, even if it doesn't hold up to the original (which few games have IMO). The biggest issue, to me at least, was just that there was too much gunplay for a series that was most fun when played without firearms.
 

Shareefruck

Registered User
Apr 2, 2005
28,875
3,570
Vancouver, BC
What would you provide as an example of a video game that was particularly good, narratively?
I'm in the early stages of Disco Elysium and Kentucky Route Zero right now and I'm loving their narratives so far. I recently played through Final Fantasy Tactics (War of the Lions version) again and I loved the storytelling in that as well. Also a big fan of the less on-the nose way that the Soulsborne games and Hollow Knight handles their lore and narrative. And even something less concrete/literary like Inside is delivered beautifully, in my opinion. And while I'm not in love with the original Bioshock's narrative either, I do think its storytelling is stronger than Infinite as well.

Hopefully this isn't another one of your "Ask a question as an opportunity to find some dismissive gotcha to label my opinion as" things again. It's really getting tiresome.
 
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NyQuil

Big F$&*in Q
Jan 5, 2005
95,345
59,252
Ottawa, ON
Hopefully this isn't another one of your "Ask a question as an opportunity to find some dismissive gotcha to label my opinion as" things again. It's really getting tiresome.

I was just curious if you'd ever encountered anything that was strong narratively in the video game canon.
 

Shareefruck

Registered User
Apr 2, 2005
28,875
3,570
Vancouver, BC
I was just curious if you'd ever encountered anything that was strong narratively in the video game canon.
Good. I definitely feel that it's a weaker narrative medium and that strong examples are rare (understandable because it's still young), but I think that it can do some cool things that other mediums can't, too. The problem for me is when videogames try to emulate TV/movies, which tends to make their narratives feel second rate in comparison (that's how I feel about the storytelling in both Last of Us games, personally).
 
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filip85

Registered User
Feb 7, 2017
1,589
779
Eastisde hockey manager 2007.
Eastside hockey manager 1
Red Alert & C&C Remastered
Starcraft 2 Heart of the Swarm
Starcraft 2 Legacy of the Void
CoD MW Remastered
Civilization 5 (I know it's 2010. but it's late 2010. so I put it).
 

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