Title: My top 20 video games | |
Author: Solène | |
Date: 31 August 2023 | |
Tags: life gaming | |
Description: In this text, I'm sharing my top 20 video games I like the | |
most | |
# Introduction | |
I wanted to share my favorite games list of all time. Making the list | |
wasn't easy though, but I've set some rules to help deciding myself. | |
Here are the criteria: | |
* if you show me the game, I'd be happy to play it again | |
* if it's a multiplayer game, let's assume we could still play it | |
* the nostalgia factor should be discarded | |
* let's try to avoid selecting multiple similar games | |
* I'd love being able to forget the story to play it again from a fresh | |
point of view | |
Trivia, I'm not a huge gamer, I still play many games nowaday, but I | |
only play each of them for a couple of hours to see what they have to | |
offer in term of gameplay, mechanics, and see if they are innovative in | |
some way. If a game is able to surprise me or give me something new, I | |
may spend a bit more time on it. | |
# My top 20 | |
Here is the list of my top 20 games I enjoyed, and with which I'd be | |
fine to enjoy play them again anytime. | |
I tried to elect some games to be a bit better than the other, so there | |
is my top 3, top 10, and the top 20. I haven't been able to rank them | |
from 1 to 20, so I just made tiers. | |
## Top 20 to 11 | |
### Heroes of Might and Magic III | |
Product page on GOG | |
I spent so many hours playing with my brother or friends, sharing the | |
mouse each turn so everyone could play with a single computer. | |
And not only the social factor was nice, the game was cool, there are | |
many different factions to play, the game is cool and there is strategy | |
at play to win. A must have. | |
### Saturn Bomberman | |
Game review | |
The Sega Saturn hasn't been very popular, but it had some good games, | |
and one is Saturn Bomberman. From all the games from the Bomberman | |
franchise, this looks really the best, it featured some dinosaurs with | |
unique abilities, and they could grow up, some weird items, many maps. | |
And it had an excellent campaign that was long to play, and could be | |
played in coop! The campaign was really really top notch for this kind | |
of game, with unique items you couldn't find in multiplayer. | |
### Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 and 2 | |
Product page on Epic Game Store | |
I guess this is a classic, I played a lot the Nintendo 64 version, and | |
now we have the 1+2 games into one, with high refresh rate, HD textures | |
and still the same good music. | |
A chill game that is always fun to play. | |
### Risk of rain 2 | |
Product page on Steam | |
A pure rogue-like that shines in multiplayer, lot of classes, lot of | |
weapons, lot of items, lot of enemies, lot of fun. | |
While it's not the kind of game I'd play all day, I'm always up for a | |
run or two. | |
### Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War | |
Product page on Steam (Dark Crusade) | |
This may sound like heresy, but I never played the campaign of this | |
game. I just played skirmish or in multiplayer with friends, and with | |
the huge factions choice with different gameplay, it's always cool even | |
if the graphics aged a bit. | |
Being able to send dreadnought from space directly into the ork base, | |
or send legions of necrons to that Tau player is always source of joy. | |
### Street Fighter 2 Special Champion Edition | |
Video review on YouTube | |
A classic on the megadrive/genesis, it's smooth, music is good. So | |
many characters and stages, incredible soundtracks. The combos were | |
easy to remember, just enough to give each character their own identity | |
and allow players to quickly onboard. | |
Maybe the super NES version is superior, but I always played it on | |
megadrive. | |
### Slay the Spire | |
Product page on GOG | |
Maybe the game which demonstrated we can do great deck based video | |
games. | |
Playing a character with a set of skills as cards, gathering items | |
while climbing a tower, it can get a bit repetitive over time though, | |
but the game itself is good and doing a run occasionally is always | |
tempting. | |
The community made a lot of mods, even adding new characters with very | |
specific mechanics, I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a card | |
based game. | |
### Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate | |
Game review on IGN | |
My first Monster Hunter game, on 3DS. I absolutely loved it, insane | |
fights against beloved monsters (we need to study them carefully, so we | |
need to hunt a lot of them :P). | |
While Monster Hunter World shown better graphics and smoother gameplay, | |
I still prefer the more rigid MH like MH4U or MH Generations Ultimate. | |
The 3D effect on the console was working quite well too! | |
### Peggle Nights | |
Product page on Steam | |
A simple arcade game with some extra powers depending on the character | |
you picked. It's really addictive despite the gameplay being | |
simplistic. | |
### Monster Train | |
Product page on GOG | |
A very good card game with multiple factions, but not like Slay the | |
Spire. | |
There are lot of combos to create as cards are persistent within the | |
train, and runs are not that much depending on RNG (random number | |
generator), which make it a great game. | |
## Top 10 to 4 | |
Not ranked, let's enter the top 10 up to just before the top 3. | |
### Call of Cthulhu: Prisoner of Ice | |
Product page on GOG | |
One of the first PC game I played, when I was 6. I'm not into point & | |
click usually, but this one features Lovecraft horrors, so it's good :) | |
### The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion | |
Product page on GOG | |
A classic among the RPG, I wanted to put an Elder Scrolls game into the | |
list and I went with Oblivion. In my opinion, this was the coolest one | |
compared to Morrowind or Skyrim. I have to say, I just hesitated with | |
Morrowind, but because of all Morrowind flaws and issues, Oblivion | |
built a better game. Skyrim was just bad for me, really boring and not | |
interesting. | |
Oblivion gave the opportunity to discover many cities with day/night | |
cycle, NPC that had homes and were at work during day, the game was | |
incredible when it was released, and I think it's still really good. | |
Trivia, I never did the story of Morrowind or Oblivion, but yet I spent | |
a lot of time playing them! | |
### Shining the Holy Ark | |
Video review on YouTube | |
Another Sega Saturn game, almost unknown to the public I guess. While | |
not a Shining Force game, it's part of the franchise. | |
It's an RPG / dungeon crawler in first person view, in which you move | |
from tiles to tiles and sometimes fight monster with your team. | |
### Into the Breach | |
Product page on GOG | |
The greatest puzzle game I ever played. It's like chess, but actually | |
fun. Moving some mechas on a small tiled board when it's your turn, | |
you must think about everything that will happen and in which order. | |
The number of mechas and equipment you find in the game make it really | |
replayable, and game sessions can be short so it's always tempting to | |
start yet another run. | |
### Like a Dragon | |
Product page on GOG | |
My first Yakuza / Like a dragon game, I didn't really know what to | |
expect, and I was happy to discover it! | |
A Japanese RPG / turn based game featuring the most stupid skills or | |
quests I've ever seen. The story was really engaging, unlocking new | |
jobs / characters leads to more stupidity around. | |
### Secret of Mana | |
Game review on IGN | |
A super NES classic, and it was possible to play in coop with a friend! | |
The game had so much content, lot of weapons, of magic, of monsters, | |
the soundtrack is just incredible all along. And even more, at some | |
point in the game you have the opportunity to move from your current | |
location by riding a dragon in a 3D view over the planet! | |
I start and finish this game every few years! | |
### Baldur's Gate 3 | |
Product page on GOG | |
At the moment, it's the best RPG I played, and it's turn based like how | |
I like them. | |
I'd have added Neverwinter Night, but BG3 does better than it in every | |
way, so I retained BG3 instead. | |
Every new game could be played a lot differently than the previous one, | |
there are so many possibilities out there, it's quite the next level of | |
RPG compared to what we had before. | |
## Top 3 | |
And finally, not ranked but my top 3 of my favorite games! | |
### Factorio | |
Product page on GOG | |
After hesitating between Factorio and Dyson Sphere Program in the list, | |
I chose to retain Factorio, because DSP is really good, but I can't see | |
myself starting it again and again like Factorio. DSP has a very very | |
slow beginning, while Factorio provides fun much faster. | |
Factorio invented a new genre of game: automation. I get crazy with | |
automation, optimization. It's like doing computer stuff in a game, | |
everything is clean, can be calculated, I could stare at conveyor belts | |
transporting stuff like I could stare at Gentoo compilation logs for | |
hours. The game is so deep, you can do crazy things, even more when | |
you get into the logic circuits. | |
While I finished the game, I'm always up for a new world with some | |
goals, and modding community added a lot of high quality content. | |
The only issue with this game is that it's hard to stop playing. | |
### Street of rage 4 | |
Product page on GOG | |
While I played Street of Rage 2 a lot more than the 4Th, I think this | |
modern version is just better. | |
You can play with a friend almost immediately, fun is there, brawling | |
bad guys is pretty cool. The music are good, the character roster is | |
complete, it's just 100% fun to play it again and again. | |
### Outer Wilds | |
Product page on Steam | |
That's one game I wish I could forget to play it again... | |
It gave me a truly unique experience as a gamer. | |
It's an adventure game featuring a time loop of 15 minutes, the only | |
things you acquire in the game is knowledge in your own mind. With | |
that knowledge, you can complete the game in different ways, but first, | |
you need to find clues leading to other clues, leading to some pieces | |
of the whole puzzle. | |
# Games that I couldn't put in the list | |
There are some games I really enjoyed, but for some reasons I haven't | |
been able to put them in the list, could be replayability issues or the | |
nostalgia factor that was too high maybe? | |
* Rimworld | |
* Left 4 Dead | |
* any Mario Kart game | |
* Warcraft III: Frozen Throne | |
* Death Stranding | |
* Tetris | |
* The Story of Thor | |
* Neverwinter Nights | |
* Morrowind | |
* Dyson Sphere Program | |
* Diablo 2 |