My Top 10 Video Games
1 - Elden Ring
Now I could have put any one of FromSoftware’s incredible video game titles in this position, but Elden Ring is here purely because I have put the most hours into it, and for good reason. Elden Ring lets you explore the Lands Between in search of the Elden Ring, with the owner said to ascend to the title of Elden Lord, facing countless enemies and bosses along the way. I could do a whole other list just on my top 10 FromSoftware bosses because every battle is so amazing. Nothing will ever beat that feeling of spending hours and hours getting the timing right to dodge Melania’s windfowl dance to finally strike her down and then…. oh lord, it’s a second phase! But in all seriousness, learning a boss’ moveset in order to finally dance around them and defeat them gives a sense of satisfaction I rarely get from other games. The art is amazing, reused assets or not, and the scale and attention to detail of their DLC content is unmatched. Now just give us Bloodborne 2 already!
2 - Death Stranding
Amazon Delivery Simulator 2019 thrusts you into the life of Sam Porter-Bridges, and into the wonderfully crazy mind of Hideo Kojima. Kojima Productions’ first major title did not disappoint, certainly in terms of cinematics and innovation, and while some find the gameplay repetative, I find it extremely relaxing. You are tasked with delivering parcels around the remnants of a post-apocalyptic United States of America, where everyone lives in bunkers and hiding from the rain that ages you on contact. The unsetling horror in simply trying to get from one city to another, only to stumble into a massive horde of invisible undead(?) enemies called BTs makes the traversal all the more intense and thrilling. Pair all of that with the slow but sure terraformng of road systems or linking up every single site with ridable powered zipwires, and the intensity of the mind-boggling sci-fi plot, and you have a uniquely winning combo. The end of the game has a feature length film cutscene that leaves you going, “Wait, what?” more times than I care to admit, yet the acting is great from a stacked cast of Norman Reedus, Lea Seydoux, and Troy Baker, not to mention the countless other cameos. The art is great, the story is great, and it has a killer sequel that ties (almost) everything up in a neat little bow.
3 - Two Point Hospital
Now, I could have put any of the Two Point games on this list. Much like a lot of the other games here, it is part of a long-established franchise that knows what it is doing. That original computer I built with my dad enabled me to play one of the most addictive games I have ever played: Theme Hospital. Two Point Studios came onto to the scene, said this forgotten gem needed a remake, and they hit it out of the park. It reignited that nostalgia in me, and made it so that I could relive those childhood moments of building a hospital and treating all manner of patients as quickly and cost-effectively as possible, all the while laughing at all the funny fictional diseases they came up with. Two Point then said, “You know what would be great? More games like this!” And sure enough, Two Point University hit it out of the park again, tasking you with managing universities all across the map to make sure your students had a fulfilling career at the end of their stay, all the while balancing your institutions’ profits. Two Point Museum was another sucess, managing museums and searching the globe for different artifacts to display. The Two Point team have really come through swinging in the simulation genre and I hope they make many more titles to come!
4 - Silent Hill 2
Silent Hill 2 was one of the games I really focused on in my dissertation centred around the Woke World of Video Games. The complex and deep storylines here are glossed over by a large number of its audience, and some people in limited contextual reviews see this game as an insult to the common man and traditional gender dynamics. Now I could get into a whole discussion on why video games aren’t solely for the common man, but you can already read more about that in my dissertation. What I truly love about Silent Hill 2 is that this game is a masterpiece in horror storytelling. Behind the obscenity, blood, guts and gore lies a world twisted and shaped to test the protagonist, James, to see what lengths he might go to to find his missing wife, Mary, in their favourite sleepy holiday town. I won’t go into spoiler territory here, but even just on the surface, the original game gave atmosphere and scares like no other, and the remake really delivered, not changing the core of the game too much, but provding enough quality of life improvements and a sensational graphical overhaul that takes that nostalgia hit into a completely new place of fear, one that lingers long after you put down the controller.
I play this game for the amazing content. Is said content only Astarion? No comment. After being a fan of D&D for the longest time, the best way to continue that journey outside of the tabletop was in Baldur’s Gate, and it is simply a masterpiece in game design. If you can think of it, so did the devs, and that is shown countless times over online with people trying all sorts of crazy ways to break the game, mess up the dialogue, or ruin NPCs, just to be greeted by lines of dialogue that predicted they would attempt exactly that. The dice roll gameplay is truly amazing and feeds my little D&D goblin heart. Both playable and non-playable characters are so well fleshed out, with each origin character having a fully fleshed-out questline and backstories, and if you really exhaust every other angle, Dark Urge is always a fun playthrough: a character who wakes up with no memories of who they are, only a heavy lust for blood. This is a game I replay at least once a year minimum because I always find something new to love and explore.
5 - Baldur’s Gate 3
Resident Evil 2 is another game that ticks the nostalgia box for me, I will never forget my first time playing this game, and the sheer terror I felt the first time that T-00, later known as Mr X, stormed after me in the corridors of the rundown Raccoon City police station. And I felt that same dread all over again in 2019 when Capcom remade it. Resident Evil 2 Remake really set the bar for modern remakes of video games, and not only in the horror genre. The level of detail that was put into development while retaining everything that was amazing about the original game, from the puzzle elements to the truly tight equipment management and gunplay mechanics, really made this one a success. RE3 Remake follwed suit, and while that does not hold the same ammount of nostalgia for me, it really was an amazing game. Zombies will always hold a place in my heart as one of my favourite recurring horror monsters, and this game has them in spades.
6 - Resident Evil 2
7 - Satisfactory
Satisfactory - a game that I followed through early access and felt immense happiness for Coffee Stain Studios when version 1.0 got released. This game makes me lose all sense of time. I can sit down with an idea for a small build and then minutes later, several hours have apparently passed and I have sprawling factories sending all sorts of materials up into the space elevator. This game is my happy place, and it draws me back in time and time again with the satisfying gameplay loop of finding an ore node and figuring out how to plug it in to my sprawling factory landscape, this game will never be boring to me. The art is stunning, the building mechanics are unmatched by other survival and design simulators in its field, and with more and more content updates as time goes on, the devs keep delivering more and more reasons on why I should forever plug more and more hours into playing this game.
That feeling when spring hits and you hear that perfect soundtrack will never not make me happy. This simple sprite-based farming game captured everything good about the genre in one cozy enviroment, and hit it out of the park. This game truly works wonders on my mental health; another hit that I will replay once a year just to see everyone on my farm again. With major updates dropping all the time, and a healthy and open modding community to boot, it keeps giving me reasons to come back. With characters that make your heart melt with happiness, and that real sense of community, not to mention other frustrating and truly heinous characters (why is Marnie never at her house?!), plus the storytelling is truly magnificent. A true master game of relaxation and reward. Also, I will never give up on Shane. I can change him, I swear.
8 - Stardew Valley
9 - Tomb Raider: Underworld
Tomb Raider - another hit to the heart for nostalgia for me. The fact that the original trilogy of games were made in the city I grew up in almost naturally positoned this franchise to become a staple one in my life. However, I will never forget playing the demo for Tomb Raider: Underworld and thinking that was the peak of graphical quality for its time. It was the first time I had seen hair physics with individual strands, and I was in awe. Puzzles, light yet satisfying combat, and a killer storyline each time makes these games just standouts for me. Even the reboot series had me hooked from start to finish. The remakes of 1 through 6 were gratifying trips down memory lane, and now with rumours circulating of Legends, Underworld, and Anniversary remakes in the works, I am certain I will be glued of my computer for weeks to come.
10 - Fallout 4
War, war never changes, and neither does my love for these games. When Fallout 4 was released, I sunk countless hours into it, with multiple playthroughs experiencing countless different ways to bend the world to however I wanted it (apart from the Minutemen ending, no one wants that). Thrown headfirst into the post-apocalyptic landscape of East coast America, where nuclear war caused untold devastation to the environment, and anyone unlucky enough to be stranded out in the open, instead of being safely tucked away inside a patented Vault-Tec fallout shelter, or vault. And you happen to be one of the lucky people! Except whilst in your assigned vault, you were cryogenically frozen for 200 years in a sick experiment, your partner killed, and your baby stolen away. But apart from that everything is great! I’m sure Nick Valentine in Diamond City can help you! Once you escape the vault and find a way to survive all the radiation, the raiders, and the radroaches, that is.