My top 10 games of the decade: Honorable Mentions!

Apologies for not uploading a post in a while, my blog was sick and I had to socially distance myself from it. Anyway, moving on….

Now that we have reached the half way point of my “Top 10 Games of the Decade,” I figured I should take a post to talk a little bit about the games that didn’t make it to list and why they didn’t. These are all very, very good games and deserve all the praise and awards they achieved. These games are very similar in-terms of genre mostly being RPGs but all from different franchises and publishers so I feel like there is a diverse selection!

Elder Scrolls: Online

In 2013, I happen to be one of the lucky few to be selected for the first ever ESO beta. As excited as I was, I was skeptical as I had never played a large-scale MMO before and also had no friends to play it with for quite a few years afterwards, a trend that happens quite often for me. The beta was fun but definitely made me want the main game, which I obviously purchased day one.

However, for the first year the game was a tad dull and lacked anything that really pulled me in to keep playing, the game really punished you for not having people to consistently play with and was a big turn off for me, because I am socially inept. Over the next few years though, leading up to 2018 the game had major improvements and large content drops, this is when I decided to pick it back up, purchase the dlcs and continue where I left off. This time I had my girlfriend to play through the game with and we played a huge portion of it and really enjoyed it. The game has a huge learning curve and can become quite in-depth, which you would expect from any large-scale MMO.

Whilst definitely an improved and much more fun game with a wider variety of classes and races to choose from, this game only deserved honorable mention and not top 10 due to the reasons above. It is still a game that I dabble in from time to time however and will continue to do so!

Spider-Man PS4

“Don’t forget the hyphen between Spider and Man.”

This game is the best version of Peter Parker we have ever had on screen, there I said it. The game was phenomenal and although I never finished it, I did get to the end of the game and I do know how it ends. I couldn’t bring myself to finish it because once it is over, it’s over forever, that feeling of experiencing the story for the first time.

The Spider-Man PS4 game exceeded expectations and might be tied for the best PS4 game with God of War. It does however have an issue that most superhero games, films and books always have, which is the fact that the plot tends to be rather predictable and lacks surprise. Which is why I could not justify its place in Top 10 over the other games and how much I enjoyed them or how much they meant to me. The game does have some incredible surprising moments, such as the introduction of Mile Morales and the events which cause him to become a Spider-Man, or the Sinister Six and Otto Octavius’s decent into madness.

This is a game that I will have to build up the courage to finish which is something I might not be able to do until the sequel is announced, the game is very much deserving of a sequel especially with the secret ending reveal. Spider-Man PS4 is a wonderful journey from start to finish and I look forward immensely to the sequel and seeing where this new adaptation of Spider-Man goes for the playstation consoles!

Also the boat NPC’s.

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel

Oh Borderlands: TPS, the game that could of been. A fantastic story based entry to the amazing series that is Borderlands, also adding some of the best vault hunters we have had in the series, the game simply let me down in the gameplay department as the game simply drags out in so many different ways.

The game has the amazing premise of explaining the backstory of the tyrannical leader, Handsome Jack, and his rise to power. This falls short because once you have experienced it for the first time the game never has that same spark that the other entries in the franchise have. Like most Borderlands games, the story starts of slow and picks up somewhere near the end of the first act, or the beginning of the second, however TPS doesn’t pick up till the third act and it takes a good 6 hours to get through to that point of the story if you wish to do everything.

As a completionist I simply cannot go through any game without doing everything. This of course does come with some amazing highlights such as the introduction of Laser weapons, the zero gravity atmosphere allowing for a lot of in air combat and to repeat myself, the incredible story of Jack’s rise to power and decent into madness. The game also has so many nods and Easter eggs to the previous installments in the series, such as the overturned picture of Jack’s daughter on his office desk after he saw into his future as to what he does to his daughter, or the amazing DLC campaign about how Jack destroyed the Claptrap product line.

With all the bad stuff aside, I have still had some amazing playthroughs and made some great memories with this game and if I ever feel like going back and playing the old Borderlands games again once the Borderlands 3 hype train has made its final stop I will certainly play TPS again.

Dragon Age: Inquisition

Actually one of my favourite games of the decade and at the current time of writing I am replaying through the game on PC, I originally played it on PS4, and it is just as delightful as I remember! However, Dragon Age: Inquisition has the exact opposite problem as the afore mentioned game, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. The build up to the final act is incredible, a lot of sidequests and vast open maps to explore and loot, whilst the final act almost feels rushed and unpolished. It was not memorable at all other than the exciting reveal at the end, which I shall not spoil, I actually cannot remember what happens at the end which is why I am playing through it again.

The game is heavily based around the politics of a mythical land as an evil storm has opened above the destroyed “Conclave” tearing a rift in the dimensions allowing the world of demons to pour into our own. Your character, the Inquisitor, is tasked with closing the mighty rift by mastering his new found power by closing smaller rifts. It is a cliche story, one heroic figure has the power to save us all, but the politics of the game are so captivating that it really opens up the story more than you would think. Having to recruit different members to your inquisition, really helped feel like you were progressing towards something big and climactic. Like I mentioned though, it didn’t feel like the ending was very climatic at all, from a mediocre villain to leaving the player on a cliff hanger waiting on the next installment. The whole ending was undermined compared to the dramatic journey you took to get there.

The game has so many amazing moments and fights, specifically the Dragon fights which were so incredibly done and very challenging. I definitely enjoyed the game, but the fact I simply cannot remember how it ends really ruins the enjoyment for me and that is why it didn’t make the top 10.

Destiny 2.

Oh boy, do I have a lot to say about this game? Yes. Will I in this post? No. I will do a separate post covering my in-depth feelings towards Destiny 2 and how the game has come along in the past 3 years it has been released. For now though, I will leave it short and sweet.

Destiny 2 was the sequel I really wanted to a game I loved so dearly, Destiny, however it fell flat on its face as the game has had far too many downs and not enough ups. Whilst the game is incredibly fun and has so many more in-depth mechanics and systems that are light-years better than Destiny’s, it simply doesn’t make me forget about the original Destiny like it should. When I load up Destiny 2 and play it all it does is make me miss the enjoyment and times I had in Destiny. The game is not as social any more as the games population is split completely down the middle as with the release of Destiny 2 came its PC release. This is where my main issue lies.

The game runs like a dream on PC, it is currently my preferred way of playing as 60+ Frames is something I simply cannot let go of any more, but the game just doesn’t have the population on PC to keep me engaged. On PS4 in the original Destiny I had a large clan full of close friends who all got on at weekly reset every Tuesday morning to play and now, because of Destiny 2s poor launch, none of them play any more and I moved to PC. It always feel like a struggle to get any endgame activities done on PC as I am always using an external group finding tool rather than playing with people I know.

This however doesn’t take away from the amazing points Destiny 2 has, the PvE (Player vs Environment) is so much better than Destiny’s. It is far more expansive and diverse with more things to do rather than just simply, strikes and a raid. It introduced interesting game modes like Gambit and Competitive, I will get into these more in-depth another time, whilst also keeping that core feeling the original Destiny had in its PvE activities. The raids are so much better in terms of mechanics but certainly not in terms of how they feel as an experience.

I really love Destiny and I think I will always play the new content when it comes out and will always enjoy it, but the main reason this never made my top 10 is because it simply lost that spark that Destiny had and I sincerely hope one day it comes back!

Thank you for reading this, I am very bad at giving myself a set time for these posts and I hope to improve upon this but as you can tell, I love video games, so they tend to take up most of my time.

Harry.