My Favourite Game For Every Year I’ve Lived
Author thestrongstylesmarks
As of 3:45AM this morning, I am a 20-year-old. I know most of you probably just groaned at how young that is and I'm sorry...sort of. Regardless, I thought I'd do something a little interesting today and look back through every year that I have been alive on this Earth and talk about what my…
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The Strong Style Smark
As of 3:45AM this morning, I am a 20-year-old. I know most of you probably just groaned at how young that is and I’m sorry…sort of.

Regardless, I thought I’d do something a little interesting today and look back through every year that I have been alive on this Earth and talk about what my favourite game from that year was and why. Of course, a lot of these games I didn’t play in the year they came out because I wasn’t that clever of a 2-month-old, but I’ve looked through as many lists as I can of games that came out in each year and picked my favourite from my current day perspective.

So let’s take a look through the years and see what greets us.

1999 – Rollercoaster Tycoon

I’ve had quite the on-again, off-again relationships with theme park builders. There have been games like RCT 3 that sparked my love for the franchise, then shit like RCT 4 & World completely tore that love down with some horrible systems until being happily revived a number of years ago thanks to Planet Coaster’s released, but the one game that’s always been undeniably great is the original Rollercoaster Tycoon.

For one thing, it was an incredibly impressive achievement in programming. The game was written in x86 assembly language, which is about as close to the base level of programming that you can get without directly inputting 1s and 0s. What that meant is that the game could be filled with ludicrous amounts of detail in almost every nook and cranny of the game. You could have thousands of guest wandering around the park all with their own thoughts and decisions to make about what they enjoyed and what they didn’t about the park, combining this with the bright visual design made for a game that felt so very alive and far beyond its time.

2000 – The Sims

What’s interesting about The Sims is how the fact that it was designed as a totally different game ended being to its benefit. For those that are unaware, The Sims started life as an architecture simulator, with the focus being around modern home design, The Sims themselves were just background decoration to make the game feel more alive, but as development progressed it became clear that actually there was a lot more fun to be had out of managing their lives.

What this meant is that both sides of the game were given such an immense level of care and attention poured into them that it created a style of game that has genuinely never been able to be replicated, there are no “Simslike” games, just The Sims and that’s because the perfect storm that brought this game into being could never realistically happen again.

2001 – Sonic Adventure 2

It’s fairly common knowledge that 3D Sonic games are far inferior to their 2D counterparts, but for my money, this was the best version of the 3D Sonic the Hedgehog formula.

It was a game that understood what was fun about Sonic games and focused in heavily on them, in combination with the fact that the development had largely learnt their lessons from the failings of the original. While the Knuckles/Rouge stages got a bit repetitive, the other two types of stages created a fast-paced and joyous adventure, with a plot that was at the very least competently written, which is more than can be said for most other Sonic games.

Ultimately there’s a reason that many Sonic fans are still clamouring for another entry in the Sonic Adventure series and that’s because this game understood what Sonic should feel like in 3D and left a lasting impression on those that played it.

2002 – The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

When I fell in love with Skyrim not long after it’s release, it was only natural that I look back through the franchise to see if there was anything worthwhile. I wasn’t overly enthralled by Oblivion, but eventually, I decided to give Morrowind a whirl and it thoroughly captured my attention.

It’s a very different game to Skyrim, but that just made it all the more intriguing because I hadn’t (and still haven’t) played an RPG quite like it. It’s a lot more hands-off than most RPGs I’ve played and that honestly meant that I became more involved in the world as a result out of necessity. Those ideas the game introduced me to, such as not being given a quest marker for everything and being left alone to solve things on my own are mentalities that I’ve since taken into RPGs since then and I absolutely love it now when a game takes a step back and says “go on, work it out”.

While there are plenty of areas that I think modern game design has completely eclipsed it in, this game fundamentally changed the way I play open-world games, which is no small feat.

2003 – Beyond Good & Evil

It’s not very often that the culture of the location where the development studio is housed comes across so heavily in a game that isn’t about that culture, but it’s what gives Beyond Good & Evil so much of its unique charm, which is exactly what makes this game so special.

Everything from the visual design to the writing is oozing with this wonderful sense of charm that makes the game an absolute joy to experience as well as play. The game didn’t really innovate anything groundbreaking when it came to gameplay mechanics, but instead took in features from several other game genres and applied them to make a very unique feeling game that could easily be described as both an action-adventure and RPG game.

With a sequel on the horizon, it’s great to take a look back at its roots and realise that there hasn’t been anything quite like this game since it’s release and there probably never will be.

2004 – N

Although later entries into the franchise would expand greatly upon this formula, it’s hard to deny that the original N was a mainstay of free internet gaming for a very long time.

There had been other games before this that ramped up the difficulty of the platforming genre to levels such as this, but it had never been done this cleanly and intelligently. Most times before this when platformers were this difficult, it’s because they were arcade machines, designed to eat away at all of your spare change, but this was an entirely free game. It was clear from the moment you booted it up that this game was made by people with an extensive understanding of what makes a good platformer and they were able to apply that knowledge to create the best kind of difficult platforming game.

The single screened nature, the simplistic but effective hazards and extremely satisfying movement boiled down one of the old genres in gaming history to its absolute essence and created a game based solely focused around that and could easily act as an archetype for the rest of the genre.

2005 – Black & White 2

Most of the games I’ve mentioned so far are accepted by the general gaming community as great games, this, however, this is a game for me.

Black & White 2 didn’t do anything special or groundbreaking and there’s nothing in it that hadn’t already been done in other games. However, what it did do, is manage to include everything I love about the real-time strategy genre and ball it all up in a single experience. Generally, I’ve always preferred turn-based to real-time when it comes to strategies, but this game feels like it was specifically tailored to my tastes in the genre.

I get so much joy out of building my cities in this game because it’s such a simplistic yet joyous system. I find it so much fun to plot out every inch of my city, placing a sea of foundations and watching my villagers slowly build up the city. You throw on top of that the catharsis in seeing a giant army storm your city, only to be completely wiped out when you drop a massive rock on them and allowing me to train a 10 storey tall cow to play with my people and hip thrust enemy catapults to death.

I don’t expect anyone else to like Black & White 2 anywhere near as much as me, but I’m quite happy to sit in the corner and play on my own with this wonderous toy built specifically for me.

2006 – Hitman: Blood Money

One of the things that has always made the Hitman franchise so much fun is it’s total lack of fear when it comes to going out there where it comes to its ideas for level design. There are plenty of games based around going in and assassinating targets, but it’s the level design that makes Hitman stand head and shoulders above the rest and Blood Money is far and away when that was at it’s best.

It had no hesitation at all when it came to creating some crazy themes for levels and designing them to perfection. Every corner brings in such interesting visuals and absolute genius understands of how it would work to play. The game will take you to such weird places as the Heaven and Hell club and Las Vegas casinos, which makes a level on a fairly ordinary suburb stand out amongst the crowd, despite having a fairly mundane setting.

In addition to that, it’s a game that properly understood the Hitman formula and nailed the puzzle-solving element of working how what’s the best way to assassinate targets, while still leaving plenty of the quirky fun there for players to enjoy.

2007 – Portal

A game has to be something special to remain at the forefront of the gaming consciousness for so damn long.

Back when Valve was a video game company that still made video games, it seemed like they would never be able to make lightning strike twice after the overwhelming success of Half-Life 2 and I doubt Valve even expected Portal to be such a success given how they tacked it onto the Orange Box as a side attraction to Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2, however no-one should ever underestimate the pure genius of Kim Swift and those that worked with her at Valve.

Truly a puzzle game like no other, Portal took all of the lessons of level design that we’d learnt over the years and decided to apply them to a puzzle game about using rips in reality to gets from one side of the room to the other. Once the puzzle mechanics and pure design elements were nailed down to a T, all of that iconic Valve charm was injected in to make one of the cleanest games ever.

Portal has become one of the cornerstones of “nerd culture” online, but behind all of it is a game that truly broke ground in the puzzle genre and provided the audience with something it would genuinely never forget.

2008 – Pokemon Platinum

The best Pokemon game. Also my first Pokemon game.

As anyone who’s ever interacted with me in real life will tell you, it’s almost impossible to imagine me without Pokemon in my life, when it comes to gaming franchises there is simply none I like as much. T-Shirts, over 100 figurines, posters, artwork, a pendant I wear almost daily and even the header image for this very blog. All of it is thanks to this game.

Pokemon is part of what got me through some tough times, always serving to cheer me up when I was feeling crappy, but also just as important during the highs, being responsible for some of my happiest gaming moments. It was the ideas and the formula that this game introduced me to that ingrained in me the beginnings of an unbreakable adoration for the franchise that burns all the brighter to this day.

2009 – Minecraft

Ok, so I’m cheating a bit here and going with the Alpha release, not the 2011 official release, but my birthday, my list, my rules.

What really is there to say about Minecraft? You know what it is, you don’t need me to tell you. Regardless of its cultural significance, or it’s the ability to make ALL THE MONEY, it means a lot to me personally. When I found Minecraft was when I started to form many of my online habits that I keep to this day. It was the first time I got into Youtube as my main platform of video entertainment (yes, even more than TV) and it was also the first time I got involved with an online community.

No matter what friends I had or what kind of things they liked, it was very easy to set a mini server up and play Minecraft together. It’s far and away my most played game of all time and honestly to try and explain what makes it so great would be to do it a disservice. Quite honestly, I think the fact that ten years down the line, it’s still just as – if not more – popular as ever tells you all you need to know.

2010 – Sid Meier’s Civilization V

As mentioned earlier, turn-based strategies are my favourite kind of strategy game and I’ve not had more fun with one than I’ve had with Civ 5.

I’m well aware that plenty of people have problems with Civilization, but it’s just the right balance of complexity and user-friendly so that it’s not super basic and boring if you play it frequently, but is also not too difficult to learn if you’re someone who liked TBS games. I’ve spent countless hours playing Civ games with various people, weaving great tapestries of war and peace.

I have very fond memories of winning games by playing both of my opponents against each other at every opportunity and double-crossing both of them at the last second and just as vivid memories of being betrayed countless times leaving me in total ruin. The length of games means you get fully invested in everything you’re doing and it can create some extremely memorable moments as you play through all of history.

2011 – The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

I tried to generally keep this list to one game per franchise, but there was no way I could avoid talking about Skyrim, which took everything I love about RPGs and rolled it into one.

There are plenty of valid complaints out there with Bethesda’s melee combat system, but I find it incredibly enjoyable and it allows for great variety when it comes to play styles. Second, only to Minecraft in terms of playtime, I’ve done the same quests and dungeons countless times in Skyrim and I honestly never get tired of it because of the sheer number of ways I can play through everything.

Every place you went to in Skyrim felt like a part of a living, breathing world and the more I learnt about what was going on, the more I wanted to get involved and make a difference. The visual design is also something unmatched in the genre as far as I’m concerned, Skyrim has such a beautiful sense of culture to it no matter where you look and not real-world culture either, it’s own culture that the game itself has cultivated through its world design.

Last year’s announcement of The Elder Scrolls VI is honestly the most excited I’ve been about something in quite a while and that’s entirely thanks to how much Skyrim dragged me into its world and desperately made me want more.

2012 – FTL: Faster Than Light

There are certain games that you just can’t put away, no matter how much you try to separate yourself from it you constantly come back for more and cannot ever really get it out of your head, FTL is one of those games.

The idea of a longer roguelike is something that’s not often explored, but FTL proved exactly why that idea can work. With each playthrough lasting roughly an hour, it allowed you to form a bond with your crew and truely power up your ship as you dashed across the galaxy blowing up everything that stood in your way and occasionally helping someone out. More importantly, it made the final boss damn near impossible, proving that you need true mastery of all the game’s systems in order to defeat it, so much so that in the 7 years I’ve been playing this game I’ve only beat it (without cheating) once.

Even when I finally beat it though, I still had that desire to come back because no two playthroughs of the game ever look the same. With 28 different ships and hundreds of different weapons, augments, drones and even crew species, you’re never going to be able to “solve” FTL which is exactly what makes it so hard to put away and what makes it the best the roguelike genre has to offer.

2013 – Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag

Boats, boats, boats, I really like boats.

I’ve generally always been a fan of the Assassin’s Creed formula, I get quite a lot out of sneaking around with more streamlined stealth system and the ability to climb just about anything made for great fun and extremely compelling gameplay. What AC4 does is ask the question “What if we did that, but pirates?” and that was a very good question to ask indeed.

AC4 has all the regular hallmarks of an Assassin’s Creed game, but those mostly took a back seat to the boat-based combat which was absolutely fantastic. The number of weapons at your disposal meant there were plenty of different ways to tackle any situation and you had to be very careful going into almost any encounter. Once you were in the heat of battle though, it was an absolute blast. I had so much fun circling around the Man O’Wars unloading cannon fire into them before quickly moving out of range of their cannons, before turning my attention to the frigate that’s just decided to get involved and dropping some explosive barrels behind me to get the pesky tiny boat off of my tail.

AC4 nailed the feel of being in charge of a ship and having to deal with everything at once, making for an extremely fast-pace and adrenaline fuel experience that is yet to be matched in the genre.

2014 – Towerfall Ascension

Once again, cheating a little bit here since Towerfall technically released in 2013, but it was only on the Ouya and yes, I forgot that existed too. So I’m going with the 2014 release of the game on the consoles people actually owned.

I’ve always been of the view that games should focus primarily on being fun before anything else and there isn’t a single game in existence that provides me with as much fun as Towerfall. I played Towerfall with friends on an almost daily basis last year and it honestly never got old, because rounds will never ever go the same way. You can have down to the wire epic fights that are super tense and it’s joyous, but you can also do a series on incredibly stupid movements and die instantly and that’s just as hilarious.

The singleplayer is also brilliantly designed, Matt Thornson and his team seem to have a perfect understand of how to make a game difficult, but keep it fair and that’s entirely clear in Towerfall’s singleplayer because every level will slowly build on your knowledge of the game until you get to a point where you can tear through them no problem at all.

Towerfall is a game that I honestly think I will never get tired of and will introduce to all of my friends at any opportunity because there’s so much fun to be had.

2015 – Rocket League

Very much not a game I expected to enjoy when I first heard about it, but there’s something about the chaos of Rocket League that drew me in and kept me there for quite a long time.

As I mentioned, it’s the chaos that took the game above the level of a regular “quirky sport” game. It filled the casual game feel that I love where you can have equal amounts of fun by playing totally casually and just messing about and playing seriously and trying to pull off skilful manoeuvres and understand how to actually make the ball go in the direction you intended it to.

Football is very much a sport that I just don’t get but when playing Rocket League I found myself easily getting lost in the moment and slipping into the role of a yelling football hooligan, beating my own drum and rubbing I in my opponent’s face, even though it was almost definitely luck that I scored. Once again it was a game that seeped into that pure joy of sitting on a sofa with friends and having a blast playing an easy to learn game that gets such joy out of me.

2016 – XCOM 2

While Civilization creates great feels of ruling empires and controlling armies, you can’t form the kind of bonds that you do with your soldiers in the XCOM games.

For one thing, as far as I’m concerned no game does turn-based strategy better. XCOM presents you with so many different abilities and playstyles that all mesh so seamlessly with each other that it doesn’t take much effort to get into a mindset where you can evaluate everything at your disposal and come up with a clear and coherent strategy for how you’re going to play out every turn. No strategy game has forced me to develop a unique way of assessing situations and devising plans before or since XCOM, which is was elevates it above standard TBS gameplay.

What makes the experience of playing XCOM so special though, is the level of customization and personality you’re able to give your soldiers. Thanks to a couple of additions from mods (which the dev team made very easily accessible on PC) I was able to give all fo my soldiers unique looks and in my mind that gave them personalities. I become attached to all of my soldiers in XCOM and it ends up massively raising the stakes because if you lose a soldier, that can be devastating to both the mission and your game as a whole.

You come away from XCOM with genuine war stories about that time where a last-ditch attempt, 5% chance shot hit and saved everyone from certain death, or situations that when the opposite way and that’s the kind of extension beyond the game that very few other games can provide me with.

2017 – NieR: Automata

I honestly don’t even know where to begin with NieR: Automata.

I’ve never before had a game that weighs on my mind so much a week after finishing it. That was what I found with NieR: Automata, is that I just couldn’t put it away in my mind, partly because it was easily one of the best hack and slash experiences I’ve ever played but also because of the story is told and the number of layers that there were to everything it touched upon.

There’s no way I could ever do the story justice in as few words as I’m going to use here, but what this game presented to me, is something that’s really stuck with me since finishing it and I’m not even entirely sure what that something is. It’s not only the content of the story but the method in which it chooses to tell it, almost from the very beginning, all of the pieces of the puzzle are there for you, but the game is so clever at obscuring how they fit together until it’s ready to show you that every revelation seems like such a big hit; not to mention, it takes some balls in the modern era to make a game that you have to complete twice to get to the second half of the game.

I’ve had so much time to process NieR: Automata now, I’ve watched a bunch of video essays and the like on its themes and story and I just still can’t remove it from my mind and that is truly the mark of a special game.

2018 – Octopath Traveler

Let’s face it, what really is left for me to say about this game.

I’ve done a full review, talked about my favourite music and each of the characters so comprehensively by this point that I honestly don’t think there’s anything new for me to say about why I love Octopath Traveler so damn much.

It took a deep and fun turn-based combat system and placed in a world completely full to the brim with life. The visuals, the sounds the characters and their stories, everything in the game was focused on making the game pull you all the way into what it had to offer. I’ve played through it two complete times now and both times were just as fun as each other despite both being around 70 hours long.

Octopath Traveler has such a clean mix of every element of a game and does all of them to such a high level of quality that I just find it impossible to stop talking about it.

2019 (so far) – Descenders

That’s the way to go about it Ryan, make a list talking about all the games you’ve loved through the years and end it on one that’s not even remotely similar to any of them. Good going.

There’s never been a game before that since discovering it, I’ve played almost every single day I’ve been able to for at least half an hour; I even have to take a couple of weeks away from Minecraft every once in a while, but not Descenders. Ever since I discovered it on early access in February 2018, I just can’t put it down.

The way it treats movement is so damn smooth and damn near flawless that I totally forgive some of it’s rougher edges. As I stated in my review late last week, the smoothness and flow create a sense of pure enjoyment that no other game can give me. Plenty of games have tried their hand as extreme biking and they all have their appeals, but none nailed that feeling of satisfying movement quite like Descenders, which is why it’s currently my favourite game to release this year.

And that’s the list! Thank you very much for taking the time to read this, let me know your thoughts either in the comments below or on Twitter @10ryawoo! Make sure to come back here this Saturday for the next entry in my Doctor Who Reviews!