Top 500 Video Games - EOY 2022
My opinion on the likely trajectory of dominant narrative art forms is roughly:
19th century literature -> 20th century film -> 21st century video games
If you are skeptical, talk to people born in the mid-90's and later about their favorite films and then their favorite video games. Then judge which was discussed with more fervent enthusiasm. Over a large enough sample size, I think the preference for games over films will be obvious.
That said I think making such a top games list is likely a fool's errand at this stage of the medium. Imagine someone making a top 1,000 films list in, say, 1935 and comparing it to one today. I am willing to bet that if I lived until 2100 and continued seeing films at my current rate at least half my top 1,000 films/TV (the list for this year is available on my page) would remain in place, I would bet that this games list would become unrecognizable.
My sample size for this endeavor is roughly 4,539 video games played that I have recorded a rating for, though only 3,561 of these are in IMDb's database. This does mean there are roughly 78 candidates for this list that are not on IMDb and at least 2 that would make my top 100 almost certainly if they were on the site.
Count By Decade:
1970's - 6
1980's - 46
1990's - 163
2000's - 157
2010's - 116
2020's - 16
Count By Continent (of primary development studio):
Asia - 313
North America - 139
Europe - 46
Oceania - 2
19th century literature -> 20th century film -> 21st century video games
If you are skeptical, talk to people born in the mid-90's and later about their favorite films and then their favorite video games. Then judge which was discussed with more fervent enthusiasm. Over a large enough sample size, I think the preference for games over films will be obvious.
That said I think making such a top games list is likely a fool's errand at this stage of the medium. Imagine someone making a top 1,000 films list in, say, 1935 and comparing it to one today. I am willing to bet that if I lived until 2100 and continued seeing films at my current rate at least half my top 1,000 films/TV (the list for this year is available on my page) would remain in place, I would bet that this games list would become unrecognizable.
My sample size for this endeavor is roughly 4,539 video games played that I have recorded a rating for, though only 3,561 of these are in IMDb's database. This does mean there are roughly 78 candidates for this list that are not on IMDb and at least 2 that would make my top 100 almost certainly if they were on the site.
Count By Decade:
1970's - 6
1980's - 46
1990's - 163
2000's - 157
2010's - 116
2020's - 16
Count By Continent (of primary development studio):
Asia - 313
North America - 139
Europe - 46
Oceania - 2
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500 titles
- DirectorNobuyuki InoueA young boy from the island of Tazmily must defeat a familiar enemy and his many cohorts, meeting many new friends along the way.Like many great works of art, Mother 3 is one of foolhardy ambition. The plot is centered around the "Nowhere Islands", an idyllic bucolic community that is soon torn apart by the introduction of technology, capitalism, consumerism, greed, and environmental destruction by a group of masked fascist militants called 'the pigmask army'. Like the other illustrious entries of in the Mother/EarthBound series, Mother 3's plot exists as a premise to touch on the philosophical concepts closest to the heart of Shigesato Itoi who is one of the most unique voices in all of the artistic canon. From the "Perfectly Safe Capsule" to the genetically modified chimeras to the trajectory of the arcs of the NPC residents of the Nowhere Islands, Mother 3 is a game that reaches to the core of the flaws with the modern world we live in.
- DirectorFumito UedaStarsKazuhiro ShindouRieko TakahashiMisa WatanabeOn a distant island, there is a legend that anyone born with horns will bring about calamity. When such a boy is locked away in a fortress, he must work together with a girl named Yorda to flee before they can be claimed by the spirits.I will say, any of the top 3 games here could have been my choice for my favorite video game yet made. Ico is a candidate because of a personal connection I have with the premise. My marriage is an intercultural and interlingual one, and the premise of Ico, centered on a boy and a girl trying to escape from a mysterious castle without sharing a language, captures the sensation of two people trying to fight against the overwhelming odds of the world together despite deep cultural barriers. In a way by removing much of the dialogue, Ico captures what is at the core of our all human relationships, and in some ways explains why two people from different parts of the world and with vastly different life experiences could fall in love. The need for companionship to survive, the struggle in life, what your personality is at its core, all of these things transcend language. Because the amazing thing is once you are fluent in a language that is extremely different from your native one, you will be struck by the revelation that despite what you might have thought, everyone is saying the same things that they did back home.
- DirectorKatsura HashinoJinya KitsuiSusumu NishizawaStarsDaisuke NamikawaShôtarô MorikuboYui HorieA high school student forms a group that explores a hidden world accessible through TV sets to find a connection between the "realm of shadows" and the mysterious murders in their town."Video games are the first stage in a plan for machines to help the human race, the only plan that offers a future for intelligence." - Chris Marker, Sans Soliel (1983)
No game has ever taught me more about myself and who I am than Persona 4. Incredible plot and some of the best turn-based RPG mechanics ever seen aside, this game changed my life in more ways than one could reasonably expect. Given the freedom in some limited capacity to relive my adolescence, I realized that my natural instinct was to pursue the same goals in my virtual life that I did in my actual life. It was then that I began to question to what extent I truly possess free will. - DirectorKonrad TomaszkiewiczStarsDoug CockleDenise GoughJo WyattThe monster slayer Geralt of Rivia must find his adoptive daughter who is being pursued by the Wild Hunt, and prevent the White Frost from bringing about the end of the world.The Witcher 3 may lack the personal connection for me that the 3 prior games do, but as far as objectively masterful games go, it is up there. In an age of buggy messes, and massive open-world games that failed to live up to their hype, The Witcher 3 was and remains amazingly polished. I can't call the narrative life-changing but the game is the closest realization yet to a fully immersive and well-constructed fantasy world that deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the all-time classics of the genre like Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. Where many games feel very artificial and game-like, I would call The Witcher III almost unique seven years on as a testament to how "real" a fantasy narrative can feel when it is placed into a playable world.
- StarsAtsushi GotoKachiko HinoHiroaki HirataEdge is one of the soldiers in the service of the mighty Empire. The Empire has recently ordered some excavations at ancient ruins, trying to discover the secret of an old technology that is much superior to that of present time. During the excavation works, Edge encounters a mysterious young girl. He then witnesses the murder of his captain and other soldiers by Crayden, one of the Empire's officers. Coming into contact with an ancient dragon, Edge begins to roam the world, determined to find Crayden and avenge the death of his comrades. Nobody helps him but his faithful dragon. But the Empire is also after Crayden, so there appear to be at least three sides in the conflict - or are there more?It is a shame that few have heard of this game and even fewer have played it. I struggled for months to get the money together to buy it secondhand, because this game has always been frightfully expensive. I remember loaning my copy along with my Sega Saturn to a friend who I then asked for his opinion on it. He said "I wouldn't pay the price it goes for now, but that was a game worth a few hundred dollars to experience". Had it come out on a platform not then on fire, Saga would likely have superseded Final Fantasy VII as the defining RPG of its generation. A plot with an amazing fourth-wall break and core tragedies and themes that give Evangelion a run for its money, Saga also contains one of the best combat systems I have ever seen in an RPG and it's one I wish modern game designers would borrow from. Ben Crowshaw of the Escapist called Undertale the first game to combine real-time and turn-based combat in a way that actually works, but I would argue this game is the best counterargument to that contention.
- DirectorHidemaro FujibayashiHiroki HiranoKentaro TominagaStarsKengo TakanashiYû ShimamuraKôji TakedaAfter a century of hibernation, Link reawakens to once again save a ruined Hyrule from a great evil.Imagine for a second if video games existed in a vacuum without the great tradition of the narrative art forms like literature, theater, and film to borrow ideas from. What would a 3D video game created in such a world be like? I would argue very much like Breath of the Wild. Like The Witcher III in its significance for immersion but very different in its weak emphasis on narrative, Breath of the Wild was one of several games that emerged during the 2010s that showed to me that video games were headed in a direction wholly independent of the mediums that preceded them. Few other gaming experiences have so thoroughly convinced me of why video games should be defended as a medium.
- DirectorHidetaka MiyazakiStarsAdam SoppAndy GathergoodBlake RitsonAfter narrowly escaping a doomed fate in an asylum, an undead warrior fights his way through the desolate remains of Lordran, once a sprawling utopia lead by the gods, to seek his purpose and fulfill a centuries old prophecy.Saying "Dark Souls is hard" might be a candidate for the single most overspoken phrase in the English language during the course of the 2010s. And yes, as many commentators have pointed out, the difficulty borders on completely unfair and is a dealbreaker for most. For those willing to persevere though, Dark Souls is one of the rare experiences in art that can be unironically called "transcendent". It's the details few commentators touch on that make me still prefer DS1 above the others in the series. The use of music, the voice acting, the atmosphere; all of it combines to give a sense of genuine hopelessness and despair. Your character is immortal in the story of this game, doomed by a curse to forever be resurrected until driven insane by the unending trauma of horrific death after horrific death. You can be driven into the dust however many times and your character does not cease to continue to fight this futile fight to maintain the existence of the last few wretched remnants of humanity unless you do. Few works of art have ever felt so genuinely apocalyptic before.
- DirectorYasumi MatsunoHiroshi MinagawaThe land of Valeria is in a state of constant tension between the three nations that populate it. The Gargastan people, which constitute the majority, find themselves in a turbulent political situation. The Walstanian minority is being oppressed by the more powerful neighbors. The king of Bacrum, a nation that considered itself Valeria's elite, eventually gained the upper hand in the struggle, and managed to establish an era of peace and stability. All this ended when mysterious accidents began to plague the royal family. A new conflict arose, and eventually led to the ethnic cleansing of the Walstanians. Denim Powell, one of the survivors, embarks on a quest for revenge against those who slaughtered his people.My ultimate dark horse pick for the top 10, Tactics Ogre suffers as an actual game in many regards (I would recommend anyone to try the PSP remake over the Super Famicom or PS1 versions as it fixes some of these issues). Plagued by bad AI in win condition NPCs and enemy AI that can read your win conditions and mess them up beyond your control, Tactics Ogre can be frustrating at times to play. However it is saved overwhelming by one of the best-written narratives in gaming, containing the best fictional depiction of politics I have experienced bar none. Borrowing heavily from the then-contemporary Rwandan genocide and ethnic conflicts in the Balkans, Tactics Ogre forces the protagonist, who is trying to overthrow the corrupt dictators of his country who came to power through the use of ethnic violence, to himself become the monster he otherwise wanted to destroy. As in real life, Tactics Ogre makes it almost impossible to do the right thing without making massive sacrifices. You must take sides in arbitrary ethnic conflicts to gain the support of enough people to have a chance of bringing about change in this world. In doing so though, to many NPCs you are no less evil than the existing ruling classes. In a world overstuffed with overly simplistic video game plots where the player character can do literally no wrong and the villains are cartoonishly evil, Tactics Ogre stands out massively in that the protagonist by the end can only claim the moral high ground in that they can admit they are a horrible person.
- DirectorCasey HudsonMac WaltersStarsSteven BarrKimberly BrooksKeith DavidA compilation of the first three Mass Effect games.Perhaps this choice among others here will reveal my bias towards narratives over gameplay as someone who is at their core a film buff, as that is the medium with which I have the most personal experience. Mass Effect though deserves recognition for being the greatest science fiction universe yet invented. Eat your heart out, Star Wars and Star Trek. The Reapers are among the best villains in fiction that I can remember. Truly unknowable, timeless beings that are so beyond the power of the existent species that they appear as malevolent deities, it really feels like what Cthulhu might have said if Lovecraft had given him dialogue in a story. The gameplay is a bit dodgy in places, and the final hour left me with a bad taste in my mouth, but the 85 hours of brilliant narrative that preceded it were revelatory.
- DirectorShigeru MiyamotoStarsCharles MartinetLeslie SwanWhen the evil Bowser steals 120 power stars and traps Princess Peach within the walls of her own castle, it's up to Mario to save her once again.Super Mario 64 is a game that really shouldn't exist as it is. This would be like if Citizen Kane was the first sound film rather than The Jazz Singer. Truthfully, the transition from 2D to 3D gaming has more than a passing resemblance to the transition in film from silent to sound. Much like how many of the best films of the early days of the sound era in the late 20's and early 30's were still silent, many of the best games of the late 90's in hindsight were still in 2D despite the big marketing push towards 3D games. But Super Mario 64 feels at least a decade ahead of its time. Essentially no other developer has ever managed to capture what made 3D platforming fun in SM64 despite literally hundreds of attempts. Now the genre essentially exists only as the 3D Mario genre which, while adding new twists to the formula, has never strayed far from the brilliant design of Super Mario 64 and still sells untold millions of copies more than two decades on. Mario 64 may eventually be superseded by the next big paradigm shift in 3D game design but, as of yet, it remains a highwater mark that modern game designers still stand to learn lessons from.
- DirectorDaiki ItôStarsJun FukuyamaIkue ÔtaniMamoru MiyanoA group of high school students create a vigilante group to expose the crimes of corrupt adults but soon find themselves in the midst of a worldwide conspiracy and targeted by powerful individuals who would do anything to silence them.This is the best designed RPG I have ever played from a mechanics perspective and it sucked me in enough to justify multiple playthroughs despite a mammoth running time. The issue though is while this game is superior in most other aspects to Persona 4, the story suffers somewhat by comparison. Is that enough to call this game inferior? Well for me and my flawed logic, yes, but for 99% of the players in the world, this game rightfully sits atop the throne of the illustrious Megami Tensei franchise as its best entry yet.
- DirectorShigesato ItoiStarsShigesato ItoiYukari SaitoHirokazu KoyanoNess, a boy from Onett, Eagleland, teams up with new friends to defeat an Evil Destroyer named Giygas. During the epic pursuits, Ness and his allies attempt to find the sacred Eight Melodies.It was when I played EarthBound the first time that I was convinced video games were art and not just children's toys. Particularly the finale and if you have played this game to completion you know what I mean. The break from normal video game win conditions to using a neglected game mechanic to convey a great final message through the battle system itself is to me the first genuine moment in the medium's history of "ludonarrative synchronization" as all the cool kids like to say now. Sure its predecessor, Mother 1, had a similar break in convention in the final battle, but the way EarthBound handles it has a much stronger thesis behind it. Beyond the brilliant ending, we have all the 90's humor and observations and references to American culture that made the game a cult classic despite having one of the worst marketing campaigns in history.
- DirectorFumito UedaStarsKenji NojimaKazuhiro NakataKyôko HikamiA young man brings a deceased woman to a forbidden land inhabited by colossal beings said to house the power to revive the dead.Another formative experience in my video game playing life was Shadow of the Colossus as it seems to have been for many others. While I considered EarthBound the first moment in which games conveyed their potential to be a narrative art form worth taking seriously, for many people in the late 2000's and early 2010's, this was always the first game to get mentioned when the question of whether video games are art or not came up in casual conversation. Truthfully too, Shadow of the Colossus changed my perspective on what made a video game "good". It was not about objectives or beat-by-beat combat encounters. The game purposely made the 16 lone enemies in the game, the colossi, very far apart in an empty world with nothing by ambient sound. While the core themes of Shadow of the Colossus are not as strong as some games, that feeling of ambience that came from wandering the countryside followed by the incredible cacophony that accompanied the exhilarating boss fights, were about setting a mood. You are a small speck in this vast forbidden, long abandoned land. You feel that you really shouldn't be here. That what you are doing will end badly. Shadow of the Colossus didn't need endless audio logs or pages in the environment to tell you this. You felt it. Perhaps this is the best example of narrative conveyed through environmental design in gaming.
- StarsEllen McLainMike PattonAlesia GlidewellA test subject wakes up in a scientific facility controlled by a sadistic artificial intelligence and must escape with the help of the only instrument she has--a gun that makes portals.If I were to go off game design alone, Portal would be even further up this list. If anyone wants to question the quality of the puzzle design of Portal 1 vs Portal 2, get someone with zero prior knowledge of either game and have them play through the single-player campaign for each game and ask which was more fun. While Portal 2's puzzles in the single player campaign often have only one possible solution which involves finding the single spot on the wall you can place a portal, Portal 1's puzzles allow for way more freedom and are the best-designed puzzles in all of gaming as far as my memory allows.
- StarsJared ZeusNell MooneyBrian ProtheroeSimon Jarrett finds himself in a mysterious, ravaged facility after seemingly losing consciousness during a new, experimental brain scan which was suggested to him for his brain damage after his car accident.If you are the dark, brooding, philosophical type who has less concern about having fun in a game and instead wants to use gaming as a means of contemplating the nature of the soul, what it means to be "human", or the societal and ethical implications of humans one day being capable of storing their consciousness in digital form, this is your game right here. An incredible narrative that as far as sci-fi renditions on what qualifies as a "soul" go, is basically peerless as far as I have experienced.
- DirectorWill DubéNicolas GuérinAs ferry master to the deceased, build a boat to explore the world, care for your spirit friends, and guide them across mystical seas to finally release them into the afterlife. What will you leave behind?Every medium has a definitive work that contemplates death. Literature has Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich, music now has Mount Eerie's A Crow Looked at Me, film has Allan King's Dying at Grace and Derek Jarman's Blue. Now video games have Spiritfarer. My, how existential it has grown as a medium.
- DirectorAlexey PazhitnovDifferently shaped blocks descend into a 2D container. The blocks can be moved and rotated, and must be sorted into the rest of the blocks on the fly.As far as pure game design goes, I think Dunkey was basically right when he quipped that Tetris is likely the closest games will ever come to outright perfection. The elegant simplicity that has now been iterated upon in almost innumerable ways with the core gameplay loop that is equally enjoyable to 5 or 95 year-olds from any culture almost without exception is something almost unique to just Tetris in any medium. It will not be everyone's favorite game, but it is going to be the game that appears most regularly on top games list for the forseeable future. Its brilliant design seems to now exist as a part of every subsequent puzzle game's DNA.
- DirectorYoshio SakamotoStarsKenji YamamotoDan OwsenSamus Aran returns to the brooding planet Zebes to recover the last metroid from the Space Pirates.Super Metroid, more than any game in the top 100 of this list, reminds me of how gaming has changed as a medium over the past three decades. This is not in a gameplay regard, as Super Metroid was the game that truly popularized the now-much beloved genre of Metroidvania which was debatably more relevant in the past decade than it ever was in the 1990’s. Rather, I mean this from a storytelling perspective. Aside from a shockingly clear but equally vague opening narration given via digitized speech, there really is almost no concrete storytelling that happens in Super Metroid. I distinctly remember reading a roughly 50-page description of the game’s lore back in the day online, simply because I was so confused by the events of the game on-screen at first. With my glasses tinted rose by my nostalgia, I feel that this air of silent mystery is something sadly missing in more recent games outside the occasional indie darling like Journey. Its franchise’s 2D successors, Metroid Fusion and Dread, chose instead to have a plethora of text boxes explaining everything unambiguously, and honestly, having a mechanic like wall-jumping being explained by nameless aliens who carry zero explanation in-game with zero text or button cues is somewhat needlessly oblique. However, perhaps it is the mystery around these hints at a broader narrative that have made phrases like "Save or Kill the Animals" so iconic in the gaming world. In my opinion, Super Metroid is still a great game because of both the much-copied gameplay centered around nonlinear exploration, upgrades, and secret-hunting and the uniquely antiquated but timeless way it conveys its atmosphere and narrative with no writing whatsoever. I am not sure such a story-telling strategy would work today, I think it only did in the past because of the relative lack of stimulation alternatives that the era had. However, it will forever be a glimpse for modern players of how different things once were for games.
- DirectorTakayuki KobayashiMasashi TsuboyamaStarsGuy CihiMonica HorganDonna BurkeAfter receiving a letter from his late wife, from Silent Hill, James Sunderland heads towards the town to search for her, only to come across a terrifying road of truth and redemption.
- DirectorToru HagiharaStarsRobert BelgradeRamsay ScottKimberly ForsytheRichter Belmont has vanished just as Castlevania reemerged from the mists. Meanwhile, Alucard, the bastard son of Dracula, has awakened from his eternal slumber, intent on destroying his evil father once and for all.
- StarsBenjamin Byron DavisRoger ClarkRob WiethoffAmidst the decline of the Wild West at the turn of the 20th century, outlaw Arthur Morgan and his gang struggle to cope with the loss of their way of life.Perhaps the most conspicuous of absences from the top 100 of this list is any entry from the Grand Theft Auto franchise. While I can understand why that series is so beloved, I feel that its brilliant use of the open-world sandbox gameplay it popularized has always been undermined by a combination of awful writing, lack of a compelling, core narrative and generally the absence of any characters with which I personally can identify. Hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of impressive technology can make all the eye candy in the world, but Niko Bellic’s voice actor’s noticeably phony Eastern European accent in GTA IV, Michael’s family’s supremely awkward arguments that feel like outtakes from the most dysfunctional family on the worst 2000’s-era reality TV show, and an overall sense of trying to be edgy for edginess’s sake has made the single-player campaigns of the more recent GTA games very much less my cup of tea personally.
I am pleased to say that all of these flaws were wholly missing from Red Dead Redemption II which is a good thing as it’s the only single-player game made by one of the most famous video game studios in the world in the past decade. Instead, Red Dead Redemption II uses its absurdly massive budget to create not just a supremely interesting rendition of a historical time and place to explore, but also a plot which serves as a meta commentary on the flaws of the capitalist structure of American society that rivals the best series in the history of American prestige television. Over the course of my 80+-hour initial playthrough, Arthur Morgan truly has a redemption arc on the scale of the best of classic literature. Over the course of this game, Morgan transitions from ruthless outlaw to desperately trying to make up for the sins of the past in a way that is equally believable, profound, and genuinely emotional. When Morgan speaks with the priest in St. Denis and comments that “America was designed to make people apathetic [to the suffering of others]”, I couldn’t help but feel that video games as a medium were passing a point of no return. Yes, I do find it a bit sad that most other artistic mediums are dying by comparison in the attentions of the public, but Red Dead Redemption II proves why gaming’s dominance over fictional narratives will not cause a loss for great art, just as film’s supersedence over literature did not cause a decay in narrative quality among the cream of the crop. Games can be just as profound as the heaviest of classic art and those who doubt that contention should set aside a few weeks to actually play Red Dead Redemption II. - DirectorJonathan BlowA man, Tim, goes on a quest to save a princess from an evil monster.For years I saw this title on “best-ever” video game lists from the kinds of publications and sources that are now scorned in the manner they rightly deserve but at the time were held as the paragons of information for what was or was not a good video game. Thus, I ignored it until fairly recently, but let it be known that occasionally the weltgeist of the dreck that passed for video game criticism in the late 2000’s was occasionally, if by happenstance, completely correct. Braid’s allegory of a man’s deeply flawed romantic relationship through the lens of the paper-thin facade of the typical plot of a traditional old-school 2D platformer is one of the best uses of the video game medium’s tropes to capture humanity’s deeply flawed tendency to rewrite our past in our own favor. As the opening lines of Lovecraft’s Call of Cthulhu go, “The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.” and truthfully the horrid realization that the princess didn’t need saving and that the real monster was you all along is one of the most brilliant subversions of this most ancient of video game tropes that I can personally recall. Much like Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, Braid forces us to recontextualize the inherently flawed nature of our ability to perceive ourselves objectively. One for the ages.
- DirectorYoshinori KitaseAkihiko MatsuiTakashi TokitaCrono, a young boy, is thrust to adventure by destiny to destroy an oncoming threat that will destroy the world in 1999.It may seem hard to believe now, but there was once a time that Square was unquestionably considered the master of video game storytelling. For those who did not live through the Gametrailers era of video game analysis and commentary, this may sound like an absurd alternate reality, but believe me, it’s true. The truth is more that Square was one of the only video game companies of its era to even attempt meaningful storytelling, but one need only attempt once to untangle the mess that is the plot of a game like Final Fantasy VIII or the entire Kingdom Hearts saga to realize that while attempting an ambitious narrative is a commendable act, it is not one that guarantees success. However, Chrono Trigger and some other Square-developed games on this list show that there was indeed some merit to the praise Square received in its glory days. Chrono Trigger’s time-travel based narrative may not be life-changing, but it certainly feels like an epic adventure and its combination with one of the greatest soundtracks to any video game ever made and one of the most impressive late-game subversion of conventions that video games have yet seen has deservedly immortalized Chrono Trigger as the 16-bit RPG that almost anyone who has played it can recall with fondness.
- DirectorTakashi TezukaWhile Mario and Luigi are vacationing in Dinosaur Land, Bowser kidnaps the Princess. Mario and his new dino friend Yoshi go on a mission to save her.
- DirectorHideo KojimaStarsDavid HayterPatric ZimmermanPeter LurieA crack government anti-terrorist squad takes over an obscure Alaskan nuclear disposal facility. Solid Snake is up for the task to infiltrate the facility, rescue the two hostages and thwart the terrorists' plans.
- DirectorEiji AonumaYoichi YamadaYoshiaki KoizumiStarsNobuyuki HiyamaFujiko TakimotoJun MizusawaA young Kokiri boy discovers that his destiny is to free the Seven Sages and save the land of Hyrule from the treacherous sorcerer Ganondorf.The eventual fall from grace of Ocarina of Time from the heights of default answer to the question of “What is the greatest video game of all-time?” was surely inevitable in retrospect. The 1990’s were too early in the history of video games for the medium to have peaked at that primordial stage, and while Ocarina of Time is a shining example of how to do a 3D adventure game well, it is not wholly without flaws nor has it aged without its fair share of wrinkles. The best thing I can say about Ocarina of Time is it was such a brilliant adaptation of the 2D formula for Zelda that Link to the Past had cemented that Nintendo effectively added trimmings to it and could resell it for nearly two decades after and still get glowing reviews and overwhelmingly positive reviews. But unlike how 3D Mario has yet to fully remove itself from the simple elegance established by Super Mario 64, Breath of the Wild showed the potential for not just improvement but a complete overhaul of the 3D Zelda conventions Ocarina of Time established. I do think though that this game is still truly great, though I am possibly biased from memories of having played it while it was still relatively new. One of those games that was so influential that a first-time player with some experience with many of the popular games of the last twenty years or so, can see how the foundation for so much 3D game design, particularly with respect to puzzle construction started here.
- DirectorMarty StrattonStarsDarin De PaulKevin SchonAbby CradenOn Mars, a massive research facility tapping energy from hell has been overwhelmed by demonic forces. As the last DOOM Slayer, you have been resurrected to do one thing: to cleanse this world and send them back to where they came from.Ever since the original Doom came out in 1993, the FPS has been one of the top 1 or 2 definitive genres for video games. Over my own lifetime, I have seen the endless stream of realistic WWII shooters stemming from Medal of Honor collapse from oversaturation into an endless stream of modern warfare shooters stemming from Call of Duty 4 collapse from oversaturation into an endless stream of hero-based competitive shooters stemming from Overwatch… This endless parade of shooting things was enough to generally make my eyes glaze over at the announcement of any new FPS and forget why shooting things was even fun in the first place. Then Doom (2016) kicked in my door, throttled me for a solid thirty seconds, slammed me on my floor, cranked up the heaviest of the metal music it could find and strapped me to my chair for the next 12 hours. Forget plots, forget lore, there is no over-long tutorial or extended cutscene establishing how Doomguy ended up in Hell. Doom (2016) simply places a murder-granting explode-y stick in your hands and proceeds to let you rush through the levels and blast the spawn of hell to your heart’s delight. Somehow Doom (2016) translates the raw kinetic energy and rhythm that had been eroded from shooters since the 1993 original. Your character is extremely fast, the deaths cathartic, the levels are open-ended but full of secrets and hidden keys, and overall the raw rush of playing this game especially after the plethora of increasingly anemic copy-and-paste shooter templates that predated it is one the highlights of my gaming life. Doom (2016) is just simply no-nonsense cathartic, bloody fun.
- StarsAndria BatiseKevin BlacktonBilly BrownA gang of teenagers with an affinity for underground music and graffiti artwork fight against a sinister corporation that has taken control of the city they call home.
- DirectorKenta MotokuraStarsKate HigginsNobuyuki HiyamaKenny JamesMario must travel to worlds unknown in order to stop Bowser from marrying Princess Peach.
- DirectorHidetaka MiyazakiStarsDaniel FineJoe SimsWilliam VanderpuyeA hunter awakens in the plagued lands of Yharnam, where the denizens have succumb to beast hood, in an attempt to learn the truth and how to end the plague, unbeknownst of the true horror lurking within the city.
- DirectorEiji AonumaYoshiaki KoizumiStarsFujiko TakimotoSachi MatsumotoKôji TobeAfter becoming the hero of Hyrule, Link stumbles into the enchanted land of Termina, where a falling moon will crush the world in three days.
- DirectorJohn CarmackTomohiko SatoStarsKevin CloudDavid KoserubaChristopher MurveyIn the future, an unnamed marine fights for survival on a space station on Mars where the Union Aerospace Corporation accidentally opened up a physical portal to Hell.
- DirectorYusuke ShiraiwaStarsScott BurnsTomo AdachiToru AsakawaAn enhanced version of Mario Kart 8 (2014) for the Nintendo Switch. Includes all previous DLC, a revamped Battle Mode, the Inklings from Splatoon and returning fan-favorite characters like King Boo and Bowser Jr.
- It is the year 2084, the world we all once knew is now overrun by robots. The majority of mankind was eliminated by the robots during a cybernetic revolt. As the player, you must rescue the surviving humans while defeating an endless wave of killer robots.
- DirectorToby FoxStarsBill FagerbakkeToby FoxWillard ScottEnter the Underground, a massive subterranean cave where monsters who once lived harmoniously with humans on the surface have been banished after losing a war with humanity.
- DirectorTomoyoshi MiyazakiArk, a boy from the underworld, is drawn by two opposing forces to resurrect all of the Planet's living things, and to lead their growth into civilization.
- DirectorDavid SpeyrerStarsRobert GuillaumeRobert CulpLouis Gossett Jr.Dr. Freeman is taken out of stasis by his "employer" to help rid the planet of invading aliens forces known as the Combine that entered through the portals he helped create.
- StarsRichard AntakiAlex BennettRick BetzIn the early 22nd century, a lone starship returns to Earth to discover that it has been conquered by a race of alien slavers known as the Ur-Quan. Its crew embarks on a galaxy-wide quest to rekindle old alliances and overthrow the Ur-Quan once and for all.
- DirectorHiroshi IuchiAtsutomo NakagawaTenro Horai and her followers, the Divine Ones, are conquering every nation and only Shinra and Kagari can stop them.
- DirectorDenis DyackStarsMichael BellEarl BoenCam ClarkeOver the course of two millenia, twelve men and women are linked together by an accursed book known as the Tome of Eternal Darkness.
- StarsYuri LowenthalJoanna WasickBarry DennenA young prince with expert fighting skills acquires the Dagger of Time, and unknowingly releases the powerful Sands of Time with it. Now he is trapped in a palace with sand creatures and must undo the unfortunate deed he has done.
- DirectorYasumi MatsunoStarsPhil LaMarrRobin Atkin DownesKari WahlgrenThe story of a heretic square religated to the lost pages of history
- DirectorMasahiro SakuraiStarsJaz AdamsRikako AikawaJustin AnselmiSuper Smash Bros. Ultimate for the Nintendo Switch brings back every fighter in the history of the series, adds newcomers and over 100 stages, and introduces a new adventure mode called "World of Light''.
- DirectorJosh SawyerStarsMatthew PerryWayne NewtonKris KristoffersonAfter surviving a bullet to the head, Courier Six traverses the post-apocalyptic Mojave desert in search of the men who wronged him, while making an impact on thousands in the process.
- DirectorGenyo TakedaLittle Mac, a 17-year-old fighter from the Bronx, ranked number three in the minor circuit, works his way up through the rankings so that he can challenge Mike Tyson, Kid Dynamite, in a dream fight.
- DirectorYoko TaroStarsYui IshikawaNatsuki HanaeAyaka SuwaIn the forsaken wasteland below, the war between the machines and the androids rages on. A war that is soon to unveil the long-forgotten truth of this world.
- DirectorChad MoldenhauerJared MoldenhauerStarsLuke de AyoraDenise HattonAlana BridgewaterAn anthropomorphic cup embarks on a journey and fights a series of bosses to repay a debt to the devil.
- DirectorMasahiro SakuraiAfter King Dedede breaks The Star Rod, which serves as the power source of the Fountain of Dreams, apart and gives the pieces to his minions, Kirby travels across Dream Land to repair the Star Rod.
- StarsTakashi NagasakoKatsumi SuzukiToshihide TsuchiyaAfter being marooned on a distant island by viking invaders from the Arctic, DK and his crew must fight to reclaim their stolen (and newly frozen-over) island home.
- DirectorMatthew SamiaStarsGlynnis TalkenJack RitschelPaul AinsleyAfter the events of StarCraft (1998) the Protoss try to unite their divided race while still fighting the weakened Zerg which is also attacked by human expedition from Earth.
- DirectorKoichi HayashidaStarsCharles MartinetDex ManleyScott BurnsMario goes back in the galaxy to save Princess Peach from Bowser.
- DirectorJun FuranoA century after Christopher Belmont slew Dracula, the vampire lord indeed rises from his grave and Simon, the most famous of the Clan, steels himself for war against the forces of darkness to cleanse Transylvania of his curse.
- DirectorTetsuya TakahashiStarsHikaru MidorikawaTomokazu SekiYumi TômaYoung warrior and artist Fei Fong Wong sets off on a journey that tests his faith as well as courage as he is suddenly thrown into a battle where no one is who they seem.
- The classic space trading game. You and your Cobra Mk III battle wagon have to become 'Elite.' but this is only achieved if you do very suicidal things You start the game with the rating 'Harmless,' and must work your way up the ranks by trading and blowing the rocket fuel out of everything you see.
- DirectorRyota KawadeStarsCharles MartinetJen TaylorScott BurnsMario must find all the seven crystal stars to enter the Thousand-Year-Door and save Princess Peach.
- DirectorYoshiaki KoizumiStarsCharles MartinetKenny JamesSamantha KellyWhen Princess Peach is abducted as part of Bowser's galaxy creation scheme, stalwart plumber Mario must leap to her rescue, with the help of new celestial friends and powers.
- DirectorEthan EinhornMasaaki FujitaHiroto MatsuuraStarsMitsuaki MadonoYoshiko KameiIkue ÔtaniA supreme being created the universe to find ultimate warriors to hire as its personal soldiers.
- DirectorTakashi TezukaHidemaro FujibayashiStarsFujiko TakimotoThe wizard Agahnim has abducted seven maidens, intent on using their power to open a portal to the Dark World. Armed with a trusty sword and shield, Link begins a great and treacherous journey.
- DirectorKôichi KimuraHitoshi YamagamiStarsCharles MartinetAn evil gem called Black Jewel, hidden amongst Wario's treasure collection, awakens, turns his treasures into monsters and transforms his castle into four worlds. Wario sets out to recover his treasures and rescue the Spritelings.
- DirectorFrançois CoulonCory DavisStarsNolan NorthChristopher ReidOmid AbtahiSet in modern day Dubai, massive sandstorms have buried the city. As Capt. Martin Walker, you're sent in to find any survivors and learn what happened to the original rescue and evacuation team led by Lt. Colonel John Konrad.
- StarsTôru ÔkawaYûji KishiMitsuo IwataFight your way through ten opponents and character-specific rivals before facing the final boss to become the ultimate street fighter.
- Missiles from the sky are attacking the cities, you, as the player, must defend the 6 cities as long as you can.
- StarsBeastie BoysDavid BowieElectric SixSimulating the experience of performing in a band, Rock Band 2 allows up to four players to use remotes modeled after microphones, guitars, bass guitars, and drums to engage with their favourite songs.
- DirectorShigefumi HinoYuji KandoStarsJulian MacfarlaneAtsuko AsahiKazumi TotakaCharlie, Alph, and Brittany set out to the planet of the Pikmin to retrieve enough fruit to save their home planet, Koppai.
- StarsKurt BauccioSean R. LynchJon BernthalDeath-row inmate James Earl Cash awakens from his "execution" to discover that prison officials were bribed to fake his death and deliver him into the clutches of a snuff film ring that wants to use him as its newest star.
- DirectorKazuyuki YamaiStarsTomotaka HaradaAkatsukiYu SaitohThe events of this game occur shortly after the ones described in the first installment of the series. Once again, the player takes the role of Raidou Kuzunoha the 14th, the youngest in the long line of devil summoners. It is the Taishou period (the 1920s) in Japan, and once again the Capital City is threatened by supernatural forces. Raidou works undercover at the Narumi Detective Agency, solving cases with mysterious backgrounds. It all begins when a young woman enters the office and asks the detective to find a missing man.
- DirectorNikolay DybowskiStarsVsevolod KuznetsovPathologic 2 is an adventure game by Ice-Pick Lodge. Originally planned as a remake of the 2005 video game Pathologic, it has been set to be a complete re-imagining of the original game.
- DirectorShinji MikamiKuniomi MatsushitaStarsPaul MercierCarolyn LawrenceRino RomanoSix years after the events in Raccoon City, Leon Kennedy, now a federal agent, is sent to a rural part of Spain to rescue the U.S. President's kidnapped daughter, Ashley Graham from a sinister cult.
- DirectorJenova ChenA robed figure in a desolate world undertakes a journey towards a distant, glowing mountain.
- DirectorHiroyuki ItôWhen bandits try to kidnap the princess, they discover that it's the princess who wants to be kidnapped. But they are chased by an evil queen and an even more powerful entity.
- The player controls a gun that can only move in the bottom fifth of the screen. The object is to shoot a centipede that works its way down to the player area through a field of mushrooms. Other attacking enemies are fleas, spiders, and scorpions.
- DirectorRon GilbertHal BarwoodStarsDominic ArmatoEarl BoenAlexandra BoydYoung pirate wanna-be Guybrush Threepwood sets out to pass the Three Trials, woo the governess Elaine Marley, reach the fabled Monkey Island and vanquish the nefarious ghost pirate LeChuck.
- DirectorTomomi SakaiGimmick is a 2D side-scrolling platformer developed and published by Sun Electronics. Players control a small green youkai named Yumetaro (Mr. Gimmick) who was mistaken as a toy and was given to a young girl for her birthday.
- DirectorNobuya NakazatoA steampunk-ish adventure starring Sparkster, an Opossum Knight with a jet-pack.
- DirectorYasuhiro TaguchiWar breaks out between the nations of Aspinia and Destonia due to manipulation by a religious cult known as the Bulzome Sect. On opposite sides of the war, Synbios and Medion must work together to uncover the true intentions of the cult.
- DirectorHiroyuki ItôYoshinori KitaseA mysterious woman joins a group of mercenaries in order to find out about her destiny and means of saving the world from an evil madman.
- StarsKae ArakiLawrence BayneRick BennettA pirate-woman named Ruby-Heart who united fifty-two of the Earth's strongest heroes and villains, transports them to another dimension on her enormous battleship to fight an evil shape-shifter named Abyss who wants to rule all realities.
- DirectorKoji HiroshitaA terrorist organization named Red Falcon declares war on humanity and tries to take over the Earth. Two soldiers, Bill Rizer and Lance Bean, are sent to stop the Earth's destruction.
- DirectorMasahiro SakuraiStarsDean HarringtonCharles MartinetNobuyuki HiyamaSmash Bros. installment for the GameCube with fast-paced, highly competitive and technical gameplay of realtime chess and hype using various Nintendo characters, with simple controls yet deep mechanics.
- StarsAlan AdlerBhasker PatelCharlie BoyleRico Rodriguez, a CIA agent, travels to the infamous and beautiful island of Panau and joins various tribes bent on destroying each other. What follows is a story of politics, greed and exploration throughout the huge open world of Panau.
- DirectorChihiro FujiokaYoshihiko MaekawaJust as Mario trounces Bowser for the millionth time, a giant, malevolent sword crashes into Bowser's keep, casting Mario, Princess Toadstool and Bowser far and wide, and breaking seven pieces from the wish-granting Star Road.
- StarsMikee W. GoodmanJullian ChampenoisTariq KhanYou're a detective tasked with solving a murder in the strange world of Elysium. Utilize a new and innovative skill system to be the detective you want to be. Become a hero or an absolute disaster of a human being.
- DirectorSatoshi KushibuchiStarsHikaru MidorikawaRyôtarô OkiayuTetsu InadaAfter the events of "Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow." Soma Cruz finds himself at the center of a mysterious cult's plan to resurrect their evil lord and master Dracula.
- DirectorYoshiaki KoizumiKenta UsuiStarsCharles MartinetJen TaylorKit HarrisAfter being framed for polluting tropical paradise Isle Delfino, Mario is forced to spend his vacation cleaning up the island and tracking down his evil doppelganger.
- DirectorAnthony GiovannettiStarsTamara RyanMichael SchwalbeIt's a combination of roguelike-like gameplay with a deck-building card game. It requires players to develop a strategy for their deck on the fly based on the cards they can obtain from loot.
- DirectorYoichi TadaGoro AbeStarsCharles MartinetAlex CazaresStephanie ShehWarioWare Gold is the first installment of the WarioWare series on Nintendo 3DS. Bringing back multiple mini-games, alongside new ones. This is the ultimate microgame collection.
- DirectorTakayuki HironoMusha Aleste: Fullmetal Fighter Ellinor is a vertically scrolling shooter where you take the role of a flying mecha pilot who must destroy a large super intelligent computer threatening planet Earth.
- StarsMakoto AwaneJun HashimotoKyôko HikamiLong before humanity existed, death was an unknown, equally distant concept. When death first came to the world, the "Messenger from Afar" was born. With time, the Sealing Rite was held to seal Death behind Hell's Gate. At that time, two worlds, one near and one far, were born, beginning the history of life and death. Half a year has passed since Suzaku's madness, and the underworld is still linked by a great portal. Our world has been called upon. Legends of long ago told of the sealing of the boundary between the two worlds. The Sealing Rite would be necessary to hold back the spirits of that far away world.
- StarsTim DadaboKeith DavidSteve DownesMaster Chief and the Arbiter must join together to attack the Covenant and destroy the Flood.
- A young boy who enjoys playing video games, has recently been invested his time by playing an RPG genre game that is titled "Moon". The game offers a typical RPG concept in which the main protagonist is a sword wielding hero who kills various monsters while trekking on a grand quest. The boy continues to play the game up until his mom advised him to go to bed. After turning off the game console and TV, the boy was about to tuck himself into bed. That is until the TV that the boy was using to play his game had mysteriously turned itself on, and sucks the boy into the world of the game "Moon". The boy finds himself in the fantasy land known as "Love-de-Gard", and learns that the main protagonist in which he was previously controlling was a troubled individual. So troubled, because all the sword wielding protagonist does is slaughter endless amounts of monsters, barge into people's homes just to ask pointless questions and take their possessions without asking, and complains about not reaching the final dungeon. The boy also learns that the "Love-de-Gard" inhabitants are horrified and the creatures the sword wielding hero killed are now restless souls. The boy realizes the only thing to resolve the turmoil that has plagued the RPG world is by offering love and kindness.
- DirectorTodd HowardStarsJeff BakerJonathan BryceLynda CarterThe protagonist travels by Morrowind, eastern province of the Septim Empire in Tamriel. He/she can save it from enslavement or explore for personal purposes.
- DirectorRyosuke HoriiToshihiro NagoshiStarsKazuhiro NakayaKaiji TangAkio ÔtsukaIchiban Kasuga, a low-level Yakuza member looking to prove his self-worth, and follows him and his motley crew of unlikely allies as they attempt to rise from rags to riches in this modern human drama.
- DirectorOsamu KoderaTetsuya Mizuguchi
- StarsMichael T. WeissRob PaulsenJennifer HaleIn the city of Sigil, the only place from which all realities of the Planescape universe can be reached, an immortal amnesiac, the Nameless One, must uncover his past, the mystery of his immortality as well as who's trying to kill him.
- DirectorShuichiro NishiyaStarsScott BurnsCharles MartinetDeanna MustardSixth installment in the series with new characters, the use of the GameCube's microphone, and the introduction of a day-night cycle for boards and minigames.
- DirectorKoushi NakanishiStarsTodd SoleyKatie O'HaganJack BrandAn ordinary man must embark on a search to find his missing wife that leads him to an abandoned house where a mysterious family lives who harbor an evil secret within the house and themselves.
- StarsLarry CedarBen DiskinMelissa DisneyYou and your friend Eric Sparrow are local skaters in New Jersey, discovered by professional skater Chad Muska, he tells you to find a sponsorship. You travel around the world to get noticed and meet other skaters.
- DirectorGabe NewellRandy PitchfordStarsKathy LevinHarry S. RobinsMike ShapiroDr. Gordon Freeman must fight his way out of a secret research facility after a teleportation experiment goes disastrously wrong.