Game of the Decade - The Bear and Badger

Brooks

It is. I hate it but the numbers are too real.

Bob

Neither it’s cultural significance or its massive numbers make it any good or gotd

Unlikely

I watched a ten-year-old play Fornite a couple of weekends ago and that is why I will never play Fortnite.

RedDave2

I've watched my nephew whizz through Mario odyessy and that is why I know I am now truly shit at games.

[Deleted User]

Bob wrote:

Neither it’s cultural significance or its massive numbers make it any good or gotd

It’s almost as though it’s an ambiguous phrase which could be interpreted more than one way.

[Deleted User]

If you’ll forgive that tautology.

Bob

Andy wrote:

Bob wrote:

Neither it’s cultural significance or its massive numbers make it any good or gotd

It’s almost as though it’s an ambiguous phrase which could be interpreted more than one way.

Well do please feel free to interpret it anyway you like what with it being a free. Country.

ChopperByrne

DOTA 2 and LoL are this decade too right?

CS:GO too.

All massive games.

GTA V

hylian_elf

What’s massive got to do with it?

If enough people play a shit game, does it become good?

ChopperByrne

Shit game is largely subjective.

I don't enjoy Candy Crush Saga, but it's one of the biggest, and most played games of the decade by far, so many do.

Tempy

They’re influential because they brought a lot of focus to eSports, which has defined a lot of studios approaches to games, and had created a whole unique audience.

Also DOTA 2 is genuinely brilliant, if only on a conceptual and game systems level, anyone who says otherwise hasn’t a clue how insanely deep it is and how high the skill ceiling goes.

Bob

ChopperByrne wrote:

Shit game is largely subjective.

I don't enjoy Candy Crush Saga, but it's one of the biggest, and most played games of the decade by far, so many do.

Elf is right.

RedDave2

As typed earlier, there is your personal preference for best game but there are also games which have and continue to shape how the industry moves. Fortnite really feels like that to me even though I dont play it. Minecraft , gta v both games i dont play but their success affects how future games I will play are developed.

Choppers right in terms of a shit game being largely subjective. But I think most games now are at the least playable and it's down to personal preference if you enjoy it or not. I've never enjoyed the assassins creed series but I'd be hard pushed to say its shit. Breath of the wild hasn't grabbed me as a game even if I've been very impressed with the world they created.

Kow

One man's shit is another man's dinner.

Kow

Ugh.

RedDave2

I guarantee every mans dinner becomes his shit at some point.

acemuzzy

Kow wrote:

One man's shit is another man's dinner.

There's a Yoss joke here somewhere

hunk

Dark Souls for it's impact, world design and deep deep gameplay.
The Witcher3. Open world design and gameplay done right.

LarryDavid

Surely RDR2 was the greatest open world game of this gen.

That world is fucking astonishing. Beautiful, varied and vast. I could happily explore it for the rest of this generation.

The story and characters were pretty good too, by video game standards. By the end I actually cared about what I was doing in that world and why. It’s shallow in comparison to other media obviously but I still ended up quite gripped by it all and wanting to push on to the end of the tale. I give up on most games, let alone vast open world epics that take six months of effort to fully unlock. I really thought it was great, the subtle music really worked well too. You can take your time just wandering about, getting lost on little side quests and investigating your surroundings. I like games with an ‘exploring nature’ theme too, albeit that theme was mostly: explore nature, then kill it & skin it...

Admittedly the tone of noble failure and doomed friendship is hard to maintain in a world where you can accidently mow down an innocent bystander whilst admiring the view in cinematic mode or inadvertently punch your loyal steed in the face.

I’ve not played half the games mentioned in here and I almost certainly never will but RDR2 was a game that grabbed me. I’m still enjoying pottering around that world, discovering new areas and admiring the view.

Brooks

Admittedly the tone of noble failure and doomed friendship is hard to maintain in a world where you can accidently mow down an innocent bystander whilst admiring the view in cinematic mode or inadvertently punch your loyal steed in the face.

This could go on the entire medium's tombstone.

LarryDavid

Yeah, that’s the thing isn’t it?

You don’t get a rogue chicken suddenly teleporting into the middle of Citizen Kane. Humphrey Bogart never accidently trips over the scenery and head butts Lauren Bacall in the face.

GurtTractor

Seems like many are listing games based on the cultural and popular impact, which I think is fine as 'GAME OF THE DECADE' has that kind of import. Personally I'm more interested in what games have really held a place in your memory and resonated with you personally, that made your jaw drop and go "wow". Like all the best works of art it should continue to live on in your mind, long after experiencing it.

So I think a good way to approach this might be to have the two categories, cultural impact and personal impact. For many the two might be the same of course.

Facewon

I don't care about cultural impact for this discussion.

Pending checking what else came out, it's dark souls by a mile. Well over 300 hours, which until recently, killed anything else I played outside of halo mp across multiple versions.

(until recently because the other answer may be slay the spire, I'm coming up on 600 hours. Oh my.)

Facewon

Also, sneaky good shout from davie on bfbc2.

Again, cultural impact be damned, it had that special magic. The mp was fucking spectacular, epic, etc. So much going on, so many great ideas. Fun solo or in a group.

The way those levels flowed like a great single player level, but with 24 folks in there was just awesome.

Perfect balance of massive play spaces with focus and direction.

Facewon

Tempy wrote:

They’re influential because they brought a lot of focus to eSports, which has defined a lot of studios approaches to games, and had created a whole unique audience.

Also DOTA 2 is genuinely brilliant, if only on a conceptual and game systems level, anyone who says otherwise hasn’t a clue how insanely deep it is and how high the skill ceiling goes.

May have been posted elsewhere, but this is quite a read....

https://kotaku.com/as-esports-grows-experts-fear-its-a-bubble-ready-to-po-1834982843

The money being poured in on some very dodgy numbers is eyewatering.

LivDiv

I'm in the Dark Souls camp but for variety I will throw out a favourite of mine.

Mortal Kombat 9.
I have always really liked Mortal Kombat since it first released in the early 90s.

I loved the characters, the signature moves and of kourse the Fatalities, to young Div it was the koolest thing in the world and those early characters have kept my interest ever since despite being teamed up with some total wank over the years.

The problem is MK has in general always been a bit shit in terms of gameplay. MK1 wasn't anywhere near the quality of Street Fighter, MK2 slightly improved in MP but was worse in SP as there wasnt really AI, it just read inputs, it was cheap.

MK3 finally introduced kombos and was good but they ditched Scorpion and half of Sub Zero's outfit.
UMK3 fixed this and along with Trilogy represented the only actual half decent titles in the series for nearly 20 years.

I played through nearly all of them, just missing MK4 and MK Gold. Utter gash.

Then MK9 kame along and it was a really bloody good fighting game, much to everyone's suprise. Solid kombos, juggling and of kourse the new X ray moves. Brilliant.

That would have been enough for me but it was even better than that. MK9 is a reboot of the series and kovers the events of MK1 to MK3 with some artistic license and extended plot.
So not only have I finally got a really good MK game but they have kovered the lore I loved as a kid, with (for then) strong kurrent gen graphics. A roster with every character from the era including the super hidden ones like Noob and Smoke. All bosses were playable for the first time.
Even the bloody Toasty guy was present.
They added stuff to the story and bloody Cyber Sub Zero.
Then they put bloody Freddy Krueger in it as well! Awesome!

Netherealm took something beloved but a bit shit from my childhood and made it into a solid game while retaining pretty much everything I loved about the originals.
The reviews back it up but the true achievement is that MK started to be played at tournaments and developed a following, I believe for the first time in the series it was accepted as a proper fighting game.

Facewon

Left some Cs in.

Would not bang.

LivDiv

Ks only before vowels.
It's the lore.

Frosty

Mk 9 is barred for the female character models and kostumes alone.

I played X and then went back and watched all the kut scenes from 9 and fuck me it has aged really badly. It doesn't look like it should be a game from this dekade. It's embarrassing.

Wookienopants

Dark Souls for me.
No other game utterly consumed my thoughts like this did. I’ve bought it on 4 different platforms and it’s still finding ways to surprise me.

Also Forza Horizon 2, the game itself is just one giant sunsoaked playground and feels utterly brilliant to just hoon around in with mates

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