My Favourite Games of All Time (20-11)

I first started out to make a list of my top 10 games of all time. As I thought and wrote some of them down, I realized that 10 simply wasn’t enough. I couldn’t dare leave out some of these games for various reasons, and so I doubled my list. This isn’t a list of what I consider the “best games” or anything like that, but only my favourite games, and a few reasons why. Without any further ado, here we go!

20. Age of Empires

This one really brings me back. As I’ve mentioned before, one of the things that I love about video games is the social interaction. I still remember back in elementary school, our computer classes and many lunch hours were spent playing the original Age of Empires. We would generally create teams of 2 out of the 6 to 8 players who wanted to join in. Before class I would get together with my teammate to talk strategy, then afterwards talk about what went wrong and how we could be better next time. Fifteen years later I can still remember our army charging on our classmates who would build as defensively as possible – with walls and archery towers and catapults to stop us from getting into their base. Over the years the series lost its way with me, becoming more and more complex and having fewer and fewer people to play with and against, but I will always treasure the memories I had with the original in elementary school computers class.

19. Minecraft

Some people consider Minecraft to be one of the greatest games of all time. It’s one of the bestselling games of all time, but the reason I’m so fond of it actually doesn’t even come from playing, but instead from watching. The first time I watched someone play Minecraft was at lunch in high school. I looked at it and asked what do you do? What’s the goal? He looked over and said there is no goal. You can build things… So I kind of laughed it off and didn’t think of it again for a while. Next came the phase of me playing it over the next couple years. It was soothing to sit there and mine in a straight line for an hour sometimes. Finding diamond and gold was rewarding, but eventually I gave up when there was no real goal to strive for and I had already made my diamond armour and weapons. What came next, however, was my discovery of the YouTube channel Achievement Hunter. A group of guys made gameplay videos weekly and made money doing it. That idea was so cool to me, and I found myself coming back daily. Minecraft was one of their staples, releasing a new episode every week with something new and cool that they were doing, such as creating obstacle courses to race through or other neat challenges. I still look forward to these videos every single week, and that makes Minecraft one of the most creative and entertaining games to me.

18. Fallout 3

I often make the argument that I like to be taken on a journey in a video game, not have to create my own. Fallout 3, is my exception to the rule. The vast openness of the game lets you do whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want. I remember coming out of the vault, looking around and thinking WOW. Where do I go, what do I do? It was almost too much to handle. After eventually finishing the game, I asked people who I knew had finished the game what they thought, and it was almost as though we played separate games. The village I spent the most time in, they blew up before even getting there. The companions I brought with me were ones who died in their playthroughs. This made for some awesome conversations with a lot of “No way!” and “Then what?” The game on its own was great at first, but the fact that I could replay it again and have a whole new experience made it that much better for me.

17. Diablo 3

When most people think of Diablo, I’m sure they think of the great PC games. I, on the other hand, had the pleasure of discovering Diablo for the first time on PS4. Running around this game for many of hours, both alone and in groups of friends, was a joy. Killing monsters and getting loot was so rewarding, that I honestly don’t even remember what the story was about. Some games are just a bit too complex for me to enjoy sometimes, trying to decide whether one point in dexterity would outweigh one point in defense, but this one was simple enough for me to wrap my head around and not discourage myself. One thing that this game also brought me was a sense of nostalgia for another game quite similar to it, which you’ll see right up next at number 16.

16. Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance

This game is the reason I chose to make this list longer. I couldn’t bear to not talk about my live for this game, but looking at the games in my top 10, I couldn’t justify putting it above the others. For many of you that I assume have no idea what this game is, the best way to describe it now is that it’s essentially Diablo. The reason I have this above Diablo on the list is because to me this came first. Enemies were interesting, puzzles were challenging but not impossible, and grinding for loot was fun as always. One of the best parts about this game to me was playing cooperatively. I played through the entire thing start to finish multiple times with different people (and alone as well), including with my neighbor and my brother. Each time felt different, and I was able to use a different character class to make my play style completely different. I never was able to get my hands on the sequels to this game, and after all this time I’m not sure I even want tom because nothing will be able to live up to what this game has achieved in my mind.

15. Uncharted 2

As someone who never owned a PS3, I never really paid much attention to what came out on the console. My friends were all with me on XBOX 360 so I never even heard them talk about these games. That is, until my best friend’s brother came home with a PS3. He raved about the uncharted games, but at the time I didn’t really think much of it. One day, though, I came over and saw him playing it on the big screen TV. It looked like a movie. So realistic, so beautiful. I watched and played along for a couple hours, and by the next time I’d come over, they had already finished the game. Many years later, I got the Uncharted collection on PS4 for Christmas ahead of the release of the 4th in the franchise. I couldn’t believe that I’d missed out on these games for years, but was so glad to have gotten to play them now. While I do have criticisms of the game (the shooting mechanics simply aren’t fun), the cinematic nature, the story telling, and the awe-inspiring moments of the game make it one of my favourites.

14. Donkey Kong Country 3

For many of you who’ve played all of the Donkey Kong Country games, I know you must be thinking “Really? The 3rd one??” To that I say that I loved all of the DKC games I’ve ever played, but when looking back on them this one gives me the fondest memories. Having the 2 characters in the game actually be different in terms of play style and abilities opposed to 1 and 2 where the characters were essentially the same was a fun new dynamic. The levels were all so different in terms of look and design from each other, and the music I can still hear in my mind to this day. Getting to play this one with my brother and dad was some of the most fun I’ve had with them.

13. Bioshock

I’m generally not a fun of being scared, or spooky jump scares. I think that this shows how good of a game Bioshock is, that despite knowing from the get go that I would possibly end up soiling myself at some point in this game, the story was just so fascinating that I had to keep going. The gameplay was fun, and the atmosphere was cool, but to me the best part about the game was the story. Without spoiling anything in case somehow you’ve never played, the ending is one of the best and most shocking moments in my gaming history.

12. Rock Band 2

If there’s a game that I know I’m good at, it’s Rock Band. The thing that makes me most proud in saying that, is that it wasn’t because of talent, or luck, but from practice. I started out playing Guitar Hero, and struggling to get by on medium. Over the years I was able to get to a point where I was good enough to beat one of the hardest songs in the game, Through the Fire and Flames by Dragonforce, on expert. Then came Rock Band. I grabbed the guitar and played through the game on expert, having an immense amount of fun along the way while learning new songs that led me to love some of my now favourite bands like Avenged Sevenfold and Breaking Benjamin. Having thought I had mastered the guitar, I thought it was time to learn the drums for Rock Band. I had played drums in grade school and wasn’t very good, so I was worried that I would suck, and so that’s why I hadn’t jumped in on them right away. After hours and hours, I got good enough to play on expert. I still remember the scream of joy I let out when I finally beat Run to the Hills by Iron Maiden. Even now I still love breaking out the guitar and drums to play Rock Band 4, but the reason that 2 will always be atop my list is the song list and the times I had playing with friends and at parties.

11. Destiny

As you’ll see later, Bungie has created some games that mean the world to me. When I learned that they were going to be creating something new, I was so excited that I could hardly wait. Destiny sounded like the coolest idea for a game I’d heard of and when the beta came out I spent hours playing the same level over and over again, realizing that I was right, this was one of the coolest things I’ve ever played already. My time spent on the first Destiny clocked in at just over 168 hours. While the story took only a small percentage of this time, doing raids and strikes to grind and unlock better gear was so much fun. Even outside of that I spent hours running around the maps looking for loot chests to open so that when I did unlock the next best gear I would be able to upgrade it right away. I spent hours at the notorious loot cave with people racking up gear that was barely better than what I was wearing, but I was still having fun. Destiny 2 came along and I’ve put up just over 78 hours on that so far as well, and was able to write a review for it that you can read on this very site. While I still loved it, the original has its place in my heart because of the hype and originality that came along with it.