Classic Games of the last 10 years

[jimmymckooel]

I was playing Left 4 Dead last night, been playing it on and off ever since it came out and I was thinking this game is a stinking classic.  The level design, characters, the guns and the game play where you have to depend on each other to survive.  No level is the same either, every time you play it the bad guys are respawned in different locations.   The only con is, it's boring as a one player game. 

What games have you played in the last 10 years you would consider a classic?

[Mister Six]

Resident Evil 4. The definitive third-person shooter. Great schlocky story, fantastic mission design, memorable characters, amazing graphics (for the time), loads of great setpieces, and it goes on for ages without ever getting repetitive or boring.

[The Region Legion]

Crysis.

Sorry, but it is. The way the balance of power shifts from you taking out Vietcong soldiers with ease due to your superior tech to aliens taking you out with ease due to their superior tech isn't overdone or overblown in any way, just there. Graphically stunning obviously, but that really helps with putting you "there". The whole anti-gravity section feels so different to anything else I'd played before or since, and by the end you're playing a completely different game to the one you were playing at the start. I'd heard a lot of hype and went into it expecting it to be just good (think I finally got round to playing it a year or more following release) but it was every bit as good as I'd heard, if not more so.

[Brent Cockman]

Resident Evil 4. The definitive third-person shooter. Great schlocky story, fantastic mission design, memorable characters, amazing graphics (for the time), loads of great setpieces, and it goes on for ages without ever getting repetitive or boring.

I have to disagree, I found that game so boring I couldn't even bring myself to finish it. It was the mind-numbing lack of variation between the enemies in areas that was the biggest thing to kill it for me. Not enough dogs, elastic jerky fellas, armoured berserkers, etc. Almost no sense of panic or surprise or anything from that game. There were only so many times I could kill yet another gang of pseudo-zombies whose main difference from the last batch was that they had crossbows instead of dynamite. And it had that annoying little bastard girl in it.

I nominate Shadow of the Colossus even though it was too easy and the ending could be seen from a mile away. I had fun with that game that I hadn't had for a long time and I found the simplicity of the story really profound.

[RacialKen]

Can I be the one who says 'Portal'? Thanks

My slightly-less-obvious nomination goes to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - a cracking RPG and (still) the best Star Wars game since the X-Wing series. I traded in my PS2 to get an XBox to play this, so awed was I at the time having played for a brief period on a friend's XBox. Traded back again once I was KOTOR'd out, natch.

[Famous Mortimer]

I also think Resident Evil 4 is one of the great games of the last decade, and one of the top 10 or so of all time ever.

I kinda don't want to mention this in case I start off a row like the last time, but genuinely Half Life 2. Yeah, it's not sandbox, but there's something about it, some mix of level design and difficulty curve and all that that just draws me back over and over again.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. I sunk a fuck of a lot of time into this game. I remember taking the console with me to my then-girlfriend's house so I could try and crack the taxi mission while she was asleep. Brilliant design, great music choices, and significantly more fun than my ex...and also it never woke me up at 4am to have an argument.

[jimmymckooel]

Yes! I also have to agree Resident Evil 4 is a classic, unlike the other Resident Evil games, it just kept on going and going. The 5th was boring in comparison. You gotta love the merchant who goes "Hello stranger!"

I have to give an honourable mention to Batman Arkham Asylum, it really captured the feel of the Batman universe and the combat system was brilliant not to mention the gadgets.

[Famous Mortimer]

There's some great fan-made videos on Youtube around RE4 - a group of teenagers who acted out most of the game in comedy style, and someone dressed like the merchant who goes up to people outside stores and says "I'd buy that for a high price!"

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Morrowind

Not nominating this would be a betrayal of an embarrassingly large investment of my life. A wonderfully well balanced freeform game which allows you to prat around to your hearts content. The geography of the game, going from bastions of calm and safety quickly to the wild and dangerous is superb, and there's simply so fucking much to do. Playing it is like being on an extended holiday, but one where you get to slaughter things with a daiakatana.

Medieval: Total War

This is my favourite Total War game. The battles are less realistic than more recent games but it is more varied than Medieval II (though I'm really glad they made that) and is simply the best era for a game of this type. The campaign is marvellously simple and reduces you to a princely obsession with provinces and territories, the management of which actually takes a bit of practice to succeed on, especially in the harder difficulty levels. Mainly though, it's about rocking up with an army and beating another army. You end up creating memories only you could care about, but what you dearly wish you could enthrall other people with. Like the time I sat on top of a hill in Bulgaria with 300 men and watched a 1000+ strong Persian army wear themselves out, and then repeated it for 8 turns before my reinforcements arrived and crushed them. Memories that live forever? Thermopylae? Fuck that shit.

[A.A]

Heavy Rain

Flawed in many, many ways but still one of the most compelling and atmospheric gaming experiences I've had the pleasure of partaking in.  It lacks Angelo Badalamenti's (Twin Peaks) haunting score from Fahrenheit- the company's previous effort- but, fortunately, it's story doesn't go off the rails quite like it's (spiritual) predecessor.

[mcbpete]

For me I'd say my favourite game of the last 10 years that could be considered a classic is Ico. I think I'm yet to be as wowed by the sense of scale and [oddly calming] atmosphere of isolation as this game offered. Yes it's not a particular complex premise (Enter new area, kill off ghosts, push/pull/trigger obstacle, take girl to exit) but all the way through the game you're in complete wonderment about what kind of environment comes next - I remember grinning like a fool when you had to use the windmill to get to the next location.

And though Yorda has not a single line in English (well, not until you beat it anyway) you empathise with her more than 99% of any game character that has a traditional dialogue track. Seeing her playfully walking about the castle, toying around with the blocks you've pushed and interacting with the wildlife is just heart warming.

So yeah definitely Ico, I've lost count the number of times I've completed it ....

[Capt.Midnight]

Katamari Damacy

Magical atmosphere, amazing soundtrack and i'd say one of the most original games of the past 10 years.  It really is a lovely gaming experience with lots of humourous touches throughout (especially the descriptions for every single item that can be collected in the world!).  It was a great move on Capcom to recognise the talent that is Keita Takahashi and release this game.  True, some people get bored after the first 5 minutes and don't see the point, but I would argue that they take a long, hard look at their lives and wonder where it went wrong.

[mcbpete]

Good call, I've never played the first one as it never made it over here but apparently it's not quite as focussed as We Love Katamari or Katamari Forever so it doesn't sound like I'm missing much by not owning that edition. The ones I do own however are something very special indeed :)

[Nik Drou]

Resident Evil 4. The definitive third-person shooter. Great schlocky story, fantastic mission design, memorable characters, amazing graphics (for the time), loads of great setpieces, and it goes on for ages without ever getting repetitive or boring.

I'll nominate Uncharted 2 as the definitive third-person shooter of the past 10 years.  Excellent production values, tight controls and a cover system that actually works.

[The Region Legion]

There's some great fan-made videos on Youtube around RE4 - a group of teenagers who acted out most of the game in comedy style, and someone dressed like the merchant who goes up to people outside stores and says "I'd buy that for a high price!"

Mega64.

http://youtu.be/7oXx0qwe0wc

[Mister Six]

Katamari Damacy

Magical atmosphere, amazing soundtrack and i'd say one of the most original games of the past 10 years.  It really is a lovely gaming experience with lots of humourous touches throughout (especially the descriptions for every single item that can be collected in the world!).  It was a great move on Capcom to recognise the talent that is Keita Takahashi and release this game.  True, some people get bored after the first 5 minutes and don't see the point, but I would argue that they take a long, hard look at their lives and wonder where it went wrong.

Here's something I was never sure about: is this basically a genocide simulator? Do all the people who get rolled up into the balls get killed? According to wikipedia, Katamari Damacy has a subplot about a girl whose town is rolled up to make the moon. What happens to her at the end?

I find this genuinely disturbing.

[Danger Man]

For me I'd say my favourite game of the last 10 years that could be considered a classic is Ico.

Ico, Rez and Super Monkey Ball made 2001 one of the greatest (if not the greatest) years for games.

[Capt.Midnight]

Here's something I was never sure about: is this basically a genocide simulator? Do all the people who get rolled up into the balls get killed? According to wikipedia, Katamari Damacy has a subplot about a girl whose town is rolled up to make the moon. What happens to her at the end?

I find this genuinely disturbing.

Yeah, i like how when you roll up skyscrapers you can hear the screams of the people within, definitely hinting at a dark undercurrent of rolling space balls.

I incorrectly said it was made by Capcom in my other post, when it was, of course, Namco.