Topic: The 69th Annual Best Game of All-time World Series of Gaming at its bestest ever Gaminess

@colonelkilgore @RogerRoger
I’m sure my list might be different depending on my mood too, but these ten have consistently shined in my memories.

I chose to go mostly with impact at the time they were played, rather than judging based on a modern scale. To me it only seems fair that way, given technological limitations. So, the original Tomb Raider and it’s improved successor Tomb Raider II were simply transcendent for their time and a cultural phenomenon amongst gamers. The reboots are arguably better games and I’d rather play Shadow of the Tomb Raider any day, but it doesn’t quite pierce me like the originals did. Same would apply to FF7, where the remake I’m playing now is superior in most ways, but hasn’t created an obsession like the original FF7 did in my mind.

Perhaps it’s my stage in life now versus as a kid, but those older games consumed me at the time. Part of it may have been a lack of play options where you had to play the one game you had as a lad with no money. It’s an embarrassment of riches with my gaming library now and so nothing is given the proper spotlight for very long.

In a way, the modern classics do deserve more credit when they can cause me to be obsessed for a few weeks, since they are against such stiffer competition. Still — few games have changed the landscape of gaming like FF7 and Tomb Raider.

I could say a sermon about why I chose each of the ten, but I’ll try to restrain from getting too nostalgic. I thought briefly about lumping RDR and RDR2 together as one continuum since it is all one storyline, but each game is so large that I felt it unfair. The same for Metal Gear Solid, which is technically one overarching narrative across all the games. But each entry is a distinct experience in my mind, versus Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy which seem to be two sides of the same coin, and actually BioShock as well. I think if BioShock Infinite (my favorite of the two) isn’t nearly as impactful without having experienced the first BioShock.

Interestingly, when I made an earlier top 25 list a couple years ago I had Red Dead Redemption higher in my rankings. But the presence of RDR2 actually took some of the shine off of RDR. I think it has to do with learning Marston’s back story in more detail. I loved Marston as a character when I played the first game, but after seeing him in the second game I didn’t relate to him quite as well. Strange how that happened.