How the hell is it the end of the decade already? What the actual hell has happened over the past 10 years, and how has it gone so quickly? It’s been a fantastic 10 years for me personally, as I have gotten married, got my dream jobs, and I am having a baby girl before 2019 is up.
…But that’s not why we are here, it’s time to discuss my favourite video game from each year in the past decade. These are not my top 10 games of the past 10 years, as some of those came out within the same year – These are the best games that came out each year, with a few honourable mentions when I really really struggled to make up my mind.
It should also be noted that this is the first half of this list, so it will cover up to 2014. 2015 to 2019 will be in part two!
Alright let’s do this…
I am going to start this one off by cheating a tiny little bit, and putting a game I have only really gotten into over the past year, but alas, it came out in 2010, so I am counting it riiiiight here.
Final Fantasy XIV is the best Final Fantasy game. Yes, I appreciate that in 2010 it might not have been the best game out there, but at this point it’s one of the games I have sunk the most time into in 2019, and had the most fun with.
Final Fantasy XIV is the game that made me fall in LOVE with MMO’s, and the grind that came with it was undercut by a phenomenal Final Fantasy story that knocks all the others out of the Park.
Honourable Mentions: Mass Effect 2, Alan Wake, Mario Galaxy 2, God of War 3, Red Dead Redemption.
Overrated Games of the Year: Fallout: New Vegas, Halo: Reach.
Was it going to be anything else? I mean this is arguably my favourite game of all time. The punishing challenge was something I initially hated at first but I fell in love with as time went by. NOTHING on this list has had me buy the game on 4 different consoles and replay more than once on each one.
Seriously, I own Dark Souls on the PS3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Switch AND PS4, and I am on a minimum of New Game +++ for each of the consoles. There was absolutely no contest that this game would be my favourite of the year, perhaps even of the decade but more on that in the next list!
Honourable Mentions: Arkham City, Skyrim, Dead Space 2, Uncharted 3.
Overrated Games of the Year: Little Big Planet 3, LA Noire.
Minecraft released on the 360 at exactly the right time for me. I was at Uni down in Cornwall and struggling to make new friends when my friend Zeke from back home told me to install the game so we could mindlessly hang out online, and flex our creativity muscles. At first I was a little hesitant that the game would be any good, but these feelings were quickly set to one side when I found myself regularly staying up to 5am to finish the last few blocks on my “Sky Base” or “Lake Base”.
There were many a time where we would troll friends who invited us to their worlds to show off their creations, just for us to lead a gang of Creepers into the area to blow up entire chunks of their creation. Ahhhh the memories.
Honourable Mentions: Dishonored, Sleeping Dogs, Hotline Miami.
Overrated Games of the Year: Far Cry 3, Halo 4.
This one was really really difficult for me to place as a lot of my favourite games came out in 2013 (see the honourable mentions below) but ultimately I had to give the place to The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds.
The incredible sequel to A Link to The Past came so long after the first game that people were unsure how it would age in terms of modern Zelda games… But heres the thing! It didn’t age. Aside from some updated visuals the game came out with the absolutely perfect Zelda formula that I knew and love and had me hooked to my 3DS like no other game before that or since.
I LOVE A Link Between Worlds, in fact my wife (Girlfriend at the time but this cemented it) even bought me the 3DS in the first place because she knew how much of a Zelda fan I have always been.
Honourable Mentions: Last of Us, Bioshock Infinite, Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag, DMC: Devil May Cry.
Overrated Games of the Year: Injustice: Gods Among Us, Battlefield 4,
Arkham City was my very close 2nd place in 2011 and it’s been very well documented by love for the Batman franchise as a whole in my Batman Obsession Diaries in recent months… However, whilst I do absolutely adore the Cowl. There is a single fandom that I hold above all else and that’s The Lord of The Rings.
Imagine my ABSOLUTE DELIGHT when I was told that an Arkham style game was coming out… But it was set in Middle Earth… AND it was far more violent than the Arkham series allowing me to cut the head off of Orcs at my pleasure. Above all this though was the nemesis system. Something which has revolutionised NPC’s over the past few years and given players absolute choice and consequence in their actions.
Hell, a Dark Souls game came out in 2014 but I still put Shadow of Mordor above it.
Honorable Mentions: Dark Souls 2 (yes I loved it), Dragon Age: Inquisition, The Evil Within, Alien: Isolation.
Overrated Games of the Year: Destiny
And that will do it for the first part of this article! Join me in part 2 where I’ll run through 2015 to 2019!
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