Game Stooge

50 Greatest Games of the Decade, Part V (Top 10)

• Scribbled on December 29th, 2009 by Jonah Falcon
• Filed in Features, Game Genres, Platforms, Retro

As 2009 comes to a close, GameStooge is looking at the Greatest Games of the Decade. As you may guess, there were tons of awesome games and we’re only going to rank the top 50. To streamline, no handheld games were considered; that may be the subject of a different list. Occasionally, there will be some “batches” of related games. That is because they’re a series of games so similar in gameplay and quality, they’d be listed one after another on the list. Plus, it’s a semi-cheat to include more games. It was hard enough picking 50!

Part V features the top 10 games of the decade. These games are not only the best of the decade, but rank as some of the best games of all time. These games have influenced the industry to vast degrees – they have sold machines, started or continued great franchises. The number one game on the list is the unchallenged leader of its genre, and arguably the most profitable game ever made, bringing its developer and publisher riches, and having a fan base so strong the developer has its own convention.

Without further ado, here’s the final top ten games of the decade. The year and platform listed are for the first platform it was released for, though some multiplatform games had a simultaneous release.

10. The Sims
(PC, 2000)

The Sims is one of the most profitable video game properties in history for a reason. It was the gateway drug for most teens into the world of gaming, as it was a living, breathing unholy marriage between soap operas and dollhouses. The game fed on the inner interior designer for some, and the inner sadist in others – where else could you have a happy-go-lucky family become a moray of despair and angst when Grandma Betty was literally eaten alive by insects while Dad starved to death in the woodshed while Bobby was burned alive in the fire? This often occurred after a player got bored with instructing a Sim to go to the bathroom for the umpteenth time and wanted a little random chaos in their lives.

The original The Sims spawned tons of expansions, but had issues. The Sims 2 gave The Sims lifetime goals, work weeks, and the ability to actually die of old age – unless they kept drinking that green goo of life, which often had Sims outliving their great-great-grandchildren. Expansions abounded, which gave Sim teens the ability to go to college and have their first same-sex Woo Hoo in their dorm room, and the other Sims to acquire pets and home jobs. The Sims 3, the first without Will Wright’s guidance, gave them personalities, a world in which the house and neighborhood became one entity, and the ability for Sims to buy their own places of work.

All the while, the addictiveness and accessibility of the game continued to bring in the masses, especially the hard-to-acquire female demographic. The Sims introduced casual gaming (with serious time management strategic gameplay) to the mainstream, all while spawning endless spinoffs for every platform imaginable. The spiritual successor to Little Computer People has made its mark, and the cash cow will be on the scene for a long, long time.

9. Civilization IV
(PC, 2005)

In 1991, Sid Meier released a little piece of crack-cocaine into the computer game world known as Civilization. Over the years, the game would evolve into two sequels, a bunch of knock-offs – Call to Power, anyone? – and practically invent the “4X” genre (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate). Even with such great games as the Master series (Orion and Magic), Civilization would dominate the turn-based strategy world. Civilization II and Civilization III would expand upon the first game; Civilization IV was the first true sequel in that it was rebuilt from the ground up, made more accessible to the masses while still retaining the deep strategy of the first three games.

For one, the game’s user interface was made more user friendly and intuitive. You could zoom out and see the entire spinning globe with your cities and visible enemy cities. Nearly every aspect of the rules were tweaked, with modular governments and a revamped diplomatic mechanism. Unit combat was redone to eliminate some of the anachronisms, while adding experience points that allowed players to give new traits to them (city defense, defense against archery, flanking, charging, and so on), which personalized some armies. The game also adds religion, which works in concert with the Culture aspect; civs with the same religion have better diplomacy, while players who owned the Holy City for a certain religion earned gold from tithes. Another new addition was the implementation of Great People, who appeared when a city earned them over time, and gave various benefits; where else could you get the “Culture Bomb” but from a Great Artist?

In the end, Civilization IV is the standard to which all turn-based strategy games aspire to. It’s just as addictive in 2009 as it was in 1991, and there’s no end in sight. Two expansions (Warlords and Beyond the Sword) were released that increased the flexibility of the game, in addition to adding new Civs, and whenever Meier decides to create Civilization V, there will be lines around the block for that game, too.

8. Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn
(PC, 2000)

Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn is the last great video game to be based on the seminal Dungeons & Dragons license, and not surprisingly, another game developed by BioWare, who already is represented by several roleplaying games in the top fifty list – this may be one of their most beloved. The sequel reunited gamers with their favorite characters, like gal pal Imoen, Jaheira, and everyone’s lovable butt-kicker for goodness Minsc, still attached to Boo, the all-powerful miniature giant space hamster, and this time, even your arch-nemesis Sarevok joins your party.

The game is bigger and badder than its predecessor, with more spells and powers, as well as new enemies to fight. Even more, the game featured a world with a more murky morality, with greater questions and solutions forced on the player. That’s not to say the game wasn’t laced with its usual snarky humor – and not all of it coming from Minsc. For example, one memorable exchange featured some byplay between Sarevok and Imeon (Imoen: “So… Sarevok. You’ve had an itty-bitty piece of my soul in there for quite a while now. What’s it been like?” Sarevok: “Well, other than a slight obsession with my weight and the resurgence of a few pimples, it’s been simply grand.”)

Overall, the game was epic, both in terms of scope and quality. It was followed by the expansion Throne of Bhaal, but since then, the series has been in deep hibernation, as BioWare developed other games like Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins, with nary a hint of a Baldur’s Gate III. There doesn’t seem to be one forthcoming as BioWare puts its energy into the MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic. There are still quite a few gamers, however, who long to hear the scream “Go for the eyes, Boo! Go for the EYES! Rahhr!” in the future. When that’ll be is anyone’s guess.

7. Grand Theft Auto III
(PlayStation 2, 2001)
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
(PlayStation 2, 2003)
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
(PlayStation 2, 2004)

<

Grand Theft Auto III is probably the most controversial game on the list, as well as a genre starter. It took the top-down series and placed it in a three dimensional world. It’s not the first game to do it – SimCopter allowed you to render your 2D SimCity cities and explore them from the ground while performing missions – but it was the first truly successful attempt.

The most important aspect of the game was the variety of missions. While you could follow the main storyline as Claude, you could commandeer vehicles and perform various tasks. Take over a taxi, and you could play a variant of Crazy Taxi. An ambulance, and you could perform emergency pickups. Secure a police car, and you could engage in vigilantism. One of the bigger aspects of the game had nothing to do with gameplay: the radio stations. Driving a car, you could turn on various stations which had real life songs announced by a DJ in a realistic manner. It gave the game an immersion feel not seen before in games. As the series continued, the cities grew, until Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas would expand the game about as far as it possibly stretch: it covered three cities, with vehicles including planes, helicopters, and so forth. It had RPG-lite features in that you could customize protagonist CJ in many ways, from working out to increase his physical strength to having an extensive wardrobe. The game was impossibly huge, a game space that resembled an MMO’s world more than a typical action game.

Grand Theft Auto was also a controversy magnet, with its “mafia life” scenario from the first game to the “thug life” world of the third. The controversy finally culminated in the Hot Coffee fiasco in which an on-disc PC mod allowed the player to engage in actual sex on screen. Despite the fact that there was no nudity and the sex was PG-13 rating, it awarded the PC version an AO rating and tons of media hand wringing. The public and media had finally been saturated and tired of moral outrage by the time Grand Theft Auto IV was released, which was released with almost no public outcry.

The Elder Scrolls had existed long before GTA, but it was Grand Theft Auto III that popularized the “open world genre”, which spawned such imitators as True Crime, Saints Row, and Mercenaries, and has melded with other genres to create such hybrids as the open world FPS (S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Halo 3: ODST) and the open world MMO (A.P.B.)

6. Halo 3
(Xbox 360, 2007)

Halo 3 is the closing chapter of Bungie’s space opera regarding a green-armored genetically enhanced space marine named John. It was one of the most anticipated games of the decade, for several reasons. It was the first time the series would be produced specifically for the Xbox 360 – for almost two years, players had to make to with Halo 2’s backward compatibility – and it would end the trilogy’s storyline, after Master Chief promised to “finish the fight” three years prior. It would be the first time Halo would work natively with the Xbox 360’s Live as well. Prior to the release of the game, Microsoft began an ad campaign that would not only up the emotionalism towards the game, but keep dropping hints that Master Chief might not survive the game.

Halo 3 delivered. Not only did the story end on an epic scale, but it bookended the original Halo in a satisfying, if depressing, fashion. For the first time, players could engage in the campaign in a co-op fashion, while Bungie cleverly added a scoring system to make players revisit levels to try to up their score on the leaderboards, as well as earn Skulls that affected gameplay; the most valued Skull was the IWHBYF (”I Would Have Been Your Father”) skull that added NSFW dialogue to the game. Even more importantly, the game added a ton of user tools, such as the Forge, which allowed players to build their own levels, to distributable video replay, which allowed even the most impossible claims to be verifiable. GameStooge was a benefactor of this feature, as the most popular article we ever published involved the infamous traffic cone death even became an in-joke reference in an update by Bungie.

Halo 3 was followed by Halo 3: ODST, which introduced not only a new protagonist, the titular Rookie, but the co-op multiplayer mode “Firefight”, which like Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Gears of War 2, pitted players against waves of Covenant enemies. The main advantage of Firefight over similar modes was the sheer variety and character of the enemies, from the panicky Grunts to the Hunter behemoths – being alone on a map with two Hunters looking for you, while suffering limited ammo, was an exciting if daunting task.

Halo: Reach is due for the holiday season of 2010, and will take place before the events of the Halo trilogy. It will follow the adventures of a group of SPARTANs, not just the sole surviving Master Chief. Odds are, it’ll be the biggest seller of the year, and will live up to Bungie’s strict standards.

5. Diablo II
(PC, 2000)

The Diablo series has proven that the simple Rogue/Moria style roleplaying game remains more addictive than any advanced RPG. Basically, the game revolves around one move: a mouse click. Mouse click, attack, mouse click, pick up, mouse click, move, mouse click, attack again, and so forth. However, it’s the simplicity of this mechanic that allows for in-depth gameplay. So rich is the gameplay that when it was first released, the complaints about the game running on a mere 640×480 resolution were muted. Even today, Diablo II is the hack-and-slash of choice for most gamers, and there are tons of attempts to capture the game’s magic, with such titles as Sacred, TitanQuest, Nox, Too Human, Hellgate: London, and the current Torchlight.

The most addictive aspect of Diablo II were the loot drops. Players were always looking for the special yellow and green drops, or runes to imbue items with new powers – a feature that was not present in the original title. Socketed items allowed players to insert gems and (later) jewels to grant new powers to otherwise ordinary items, and thank the Maker for the Horadric Cube. The specialized drops for various classes would be a bonus, and one of the most irritating moments of the game would be getting an awesome drop… for the wrong class. Of course, accumulating gold would enable players to buy some of the magic loot in stores, but that wasn’t nearly as thrilling. The skill trees were more thought-out than the first game, and would allow players to customize their character for their style. For instance, a Druid might decide to focus on shapeshifting, or having a ton of pets, or employ buffing/debuffing spells, or some combination.

Another major upgrade from the game was the fact that the game was no longer restricted to one single dungeon. Now, players strolled across vast (randomized) land to search for monsters to kill, treasure to loot, and bosses to kill. The game upped the ante on monsters as well, as it added specialized monsters, such as creatures that would resurrect slain companions. The minor and major bosses of each level were thrilling as well, including the infuriating boss of Act II, Duriel.

Perhaps the best part of Diablo II was multiplayer, in which you and some friends would fight together (or apart if you chose not to party up). The game would ramp up the difficulty in kind, but having complementary powers would make short work of enemies. Of course, there was always the Gauntlet-style arguing over loot grabbing; if you took a valuable gem that dropped from a creature your friend killed, that friendship was in jeopardy.

Diablo II was also the game that started the Special Edition craze that remains today; Diablo II SE went as much as $200-$300 on eBay. The game was followed by the excellent expansion Lord of Destruction that actually allowed players to keep a hire throughout the game – and outfit them with weaponry and armor, giving players a reason to keep that magic javelin or have a use for hand-me-down armor. The addition of an Act V alone, though, was worth the price of admission.

Diablo III is tortuously due in 2011, and will likely be the biggest seller of the year, on any platform. After all, the second game is still being played and loved to this day.

4. Halo: Combat Evolved
(Xbox, 2001)

While the original Halo: Combat Evolved is not a better game than its two sequels, it’s probably one of the most important games in console history. During Microsoft’s first year of entry into the competitive video game hardware market, the only game that the Xbox had to offer for the most part was Halo: Combat Evolved. At the time, the market was crowded with three other consoles: the PlayStation 2, the GameCube and the Dreamcast. Until 2003, when Knights of the Old Republic was released, there was no other real reason to buy an Xbox save Halo. Fortunately for Microsoft, Halo was so popular, players were going to great lengths just to play online multiplayer through GameSpy’s Tunnel software; Xbox Live wasn’t launched til a year later.

So why was Halo so fetishized by gamers? Well, it was the first console shooter that felt like a PC-style shooter, using the dual analog sticks as a keyboard/mouse substitute for movement and looking, while the buttons and trigger performed common shooter actions. The levels were large and varied, while the enemy AI (on the Xbox version) was cunning; for example, Grunts would attack en masse, but would flee when their numbers were whittled down and/or the superior units were killed. This was enhanced by the strategic element players would have to employ due to the limitations of Master Chief: he could only wield two weapons, and his shields regenerated slowly.

Most of all, the writing was excellent. Aside from the actual plot, which was cribbed liberally from several science fiction standbys, including Half-Life and Aliens, the dialog was extremely well-done, especially the enemy and friendly spam. Grunts would scream “He’s unstoppable!” when fleeing, while marines would shout at downed enemies, taunting, “Hey, you want some more?” while firing into the corpse. The immersion level of Halo surpassed many PC shooters; Halo: Combat Evolved was the Half-Life of consoles. The game mixed drama and humor well enough to engross even the most run-and-gun style of gamer.

The multiplayer was also spot on. Even without online multiplayer, Halo LAN parties were commonplace, as Blood Gulch became the map of choice, with its wide open spaces. The game’s perfect implementation of vehicles, human and Covenant, made such matches a joy to play; gamers, as stated before, simply couldn’t wait for multiplayer support in the next game. They wanted it now, and the Xbox’s Ethernet port combined with a PC made it possible.

Halo’s legacy is clear – Master Chief has become one of the faces of videogaming, alongside Mario and Sonic. When a new Halo game is released, it’s as much an event as much as when a new Half-Life or Mario title is released. If there was no Halo: Combat Evolved, it’s likely the Xbox would have been the next Apple Pippin or 3DO. As it is, it’s one of the most valuable video game IPs. Not bad for a game that started life as a real-time strategy game.

3. Deus Ex
(PC, 2000)

Deus Ex holds a special place with many gamers. Aside from being the first truly successful first person shooter/roleplaying game hybrid, it’s also one of the most literate, incisive, and in many ways, prescient video games of the past decade, even though its basic premise is that its plot is a conspiracy theory nut’s wet dream: the Illuminati, Majestic 12, alien grays, Chupacabras, One World Government, human cloning and genetic engineering are just a few of the theories covered by the game.

The thing that made the story so great was that even though it was a science fiction tale, it took a hard look at current politics and asked some very serious questions. For instance, it was noted by one character: “In 1945, corporations paid 50 percent of federal taxes. Now they pay about 5 percent. Number two: in 1900, 90 percent of Americans were self-employed; now it’s about two percent.” Morpheus, a blue AI, made strong connections in the human psyche, stating: “The need to be observed and understood was once satisfied by God. Now we can implement the same functionality with data-mining algorithms… God and the gods were apparitions of observation, judgment and punishment. Other sentiments towards them were secondary… The human organism always worships. First, it was the gods, then it was fame (the observation and judgment of others), next it will be self-aware systems you have built to realize truly omnipresent observation and judgment… The individual desires judgment. Without that desire, the cohesion of groups is impossible, and so is civilization.” Wrapped in a candy coating of video gameplay, there was some heady philosophical discussions going on.

The main attraction of the gameplay was freedom and roleplaying. This was an RPG that didn’t give experience points for killing – XP was awarded to problem solving and exploration. This XP could be spent on multiple skills, and since there were multiple solutions to every problem, the choices you made affected how you played the game. If you spent XP on lockpicking skill, you could open harder locks. You could also gain upgrades to your cybernetic structure – if you received a muscle augmentation, you could choose combat strength which increased melee damage or microfibral muscle that allowed you to lift heavy objects. There was no wrong decision – only how you implemented it. At times, the game veered towards being a airvent game, but even through multiple playthroughs, new secrets could be found.

Deus Ex was followed by an inferior sequel, Deus Ex: Invisible War. Due to the constraints of the Xbox hardware which affected the multiplatform release, much of the game was simplified while Deus Ex’s vast levels were shrunk to more conventional corridor levels.

2. Half-Life 2
(PC, 2004)

“Rise and shine, Mr. Freeman. Rise and shine…”

And with that, the nefarious G-Man awakened a Gordon Freeman who had been in suspended animation somewhere, waking up into a nightmare. Earth had been conquered by the alien Combine in the matter of hours, and now the last remaining humanity are huddled in occupied cities, slowly being carted off to the mysterious Nova Prospekt, where a fate worse than death awaited. The Earth’s oceans are being drained, there’s little Earth-based life remaining – God forbid you stick your toe into the ocean – and humans can no longer reproduce. Welcome to City 17.

Few games have ever been as immersive and alive than Half-Life 2, which debuted the Source engine. From the advanced facial expressions of the characters to the wide open terrain to the amazing physics, this was Valve’s masterwork. The game went out of its way to show off its strengths: physics puzzles abounded in which natural logic would solve the problem, like putting a bunch of concrete bricks on one side of a see-saw to get over a high wall. Massive levels that stretched out for miles (though there were level loads in between parts of them.) The technology was so new, that some of the puzzles and levels seem like padding and slow the pace of the game, but at the time, it was Valve showing off. If there was only one problem with the game, it was that the Combine AI was a serious downgrade from the first Half-Life, relying on prescripted sequences like tossing flaming barrels at you to break their monotony.

Despite the few issues, the game was filled with “Wow” moments, from the first appearance of Dog, to the lonely trek through dark, creepy Ravenholm, to the nighttime assault on Nova Prospekt in command of ant lions, to the voyage through the Citadel and glimpses of such horrors as Stalkers.

Half-Life 2 would appear on a few systems, such as the Xbox, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and was followed by Episode One and Two, which were exciting but seriously defeated the concept of “episodic content”, being released three years apart; the final Episode Three has yet to be released. The wondrous Source engine has not made the same impact as Unreal, appearing in very few third party games such as Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines. The true legacy of Half-Life 2 are the mods that have sprouted from it, including Left 4 Dead, as well as the HD upgrades to such games as Day of Defeat and Counter-Strike. Will there be a Half-Life 3? Undoubtedly, but probably around 2020, knowing Valve’s history.

1. World of Warcraft
(PC, 2004)

Love or hate massively multiplayer online games, there is no game that has dominated the videogaming world in the 2000s like World of Warcraft. From South Park to Mr. T, World of Warcraft has been the crack cocaine addiction of millions of players who are willing to plunk $15 a month just to be a night elf mohawk. Players who have been playing since launch have dropped around $900, not including the purchase of the original games and the two expansions. There are plenty of MMOs in the field, but WoW’s subscribership dwarfs even the most popular MMO, five years after release. What makes it so attractive?

The first reason is that it is simply Diablo II with the Warcraft license, from a chiefly third person perspective. The obsession to collect the best gear in Diablo II is stretched, broadened, and increased by tenfold, to the point that players will feverishly compete and redo instances they’ve done a dozen times just to get that elusive purple uber-item. It doesn’t hurt that the crafting system adds to the fun, making people literally stop to pick flowers if they’re herbalists, or mine rocks if they’re miners. The economy of the game makes the professions necessary; tailors who are also skinners, for instance, can earn tons of gold merely by crafting 16 plus slot bags. With the most recent expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, jewelcrafting and inscription filled the last two Diablo II features into WoW.

Another chief reason is that it’s a perfect marriage of casual and hardcore gaming. The game doesn’t require tremendous computer assets; anyone with a good laptop can play. The rules of the game are easy to learn, and accessible to almost anyone. However, the hardcore players will debate how to maximize a PC’s abilities: what skills to learn, what spell combination macros to employ, choosing between two epic items and which would fit best, what party makeup is best for a certain dungeon. World of Warcraft players can get downright scientific with the game, thanks to the flexibility. Endgame dungeons and PvP make reaching level 80 the start of a whole new game, rather than being the final end point.

World of Warcraft, like any MMO, is constantly evolving, but no MMO has ever maintained its strength the way WoW has. The game is constantly updating, with holiday-related quests, tweaks and updates, new expansions, new dungeons, and so forth. Thanks to World of Warcraft, Blizzard even has its own con, BlizzCon, that people are willing to put down $100 to attend – and the last convention was sold out in just eight minutes after tickets became available. WoW has become a social arena; friends join because other friends play.

There will never be a World of Warcraft 2, because Blizzard instead uses expansions to create new experiences. The closest thing to a WoW 2 there will be is 2010’s Cataclysm expansion that will completely resculpt Azeroth, changing deserts to jungles, sinking some areas into the sea while some new land is raised. It’s a cunning way of revamping the game without alienating players, and it’ll be a long, long time before World of Warcraft loses its membership. World of Warcraft is the most influential, most popular and most addictive game of the decade – and it’s not even close.

Click here for a chance to win Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 or Wii.
• Part I: 51-40
• Part II: 31-40
• Part III: 21-30
• Part IV: 11-20
• Part V: 1-10