The Impact Factor's Top 10 Games of the Decade

The Impact Factor’s Top 10 Games of the Decade

Perspectives

Yep. You guessed it. Mr. (Dr.?) I love lists had to make his own Top 10 video games of the decade. Because of course I had to. Anyway. I’ll keep this super brief, since if I don’t, this will turn into a 10,000+ word essay and two-hour long podcast. So let’s avoid that, shall we?

Most of my favorite games of all time came out in the last ten years. So if you wanted to see an updated top ten ever, this is pretty close. (2005’s Shadow of the Colossus being the obvious entry excluded, of course). Anyway, here’s my list.

10. Undertale
Honorable Mention: Yakuza 0

I went back on forth on this one a lot. But I had to give the nod to Undertale. The game is part clever commentary on gaming and RPGs, part tightly controlling bullet hell. With easily one of the best soundtracks this decade. I’ve played through this short adventure 2-3 times at this point, and each time back has been great. (But I also really wanted to add Yakuza 0 to my list. IT IS FREAKIN GOOD)

9. Portal 2

Perfectly paced, perfectly challenging, perfectly funny, and a sequel that does the impossible — improving on what is widely regarded as a perfect game. Portal 2 has it all. It’s rare I remember much of anything story-wise even a few months after beating a game. I still vividly remember most of Portal 2. “Exile Vilify” also became my go to sad man song, so there’s that.

8. The Walking Dead: Season 1

Clementine is an all-time best in the gaming character pantheon. I cried at the end of The Walking Dead, and even thinking about it makes me want to cry. Decisions were tough, and the plot kept Justine and I glued to the screen with each entry. The game also kicked off a decade of shared story experiences that we enjoyed, and for that I’m also eternally grateful.

7. Borderlands 2

Like The Walking Dead, which kicked off a long lineage of shared story experience games for Justine and I, Borderlands 2 started our shared/split screen co-op obsession. We fell deeply into the Borderlands hole, and became attached to our original heroes. We kept going back and back, replaying the story, playing as new characters, playing all DLC. I remember sitting in our large chair, snuggling, playing Borderlands 2 into the wee hours of the night. The game also came at a really challenging time in our lives that, for me at least, helped keep me afloat. So thank you, Borderlands 2.

6. Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3

My favorite fighting game of all time. To play and to watch. I dumped easily 300+ hours into MvC3 and still feel the itch to get back into it. I loved carefully crafting my team, designing combos, and the brutal struggle of climbing the online ladder. Like so many other games on this list, it also bonded Justine and I. She loved watching it played. We loved watching it played at EVO. I miss it. I love it. Taskmaster main for life.

5. Hearthstone

Hearthstone is far and away my most played game this decade. My most played game ever. I’m probably at 1000 hours? And still counting. Simply designed, perfectly executed. At first I loved it as a Magic: The Gathering surrogate. And then I loved it for its own merits. I’ve been playing on a near daily basis for the better part of 6 years and I’m nowhere near sick of it. 

4. The Last of Us

What a powerful, exceptional experience. I teared up something fierce after the opening scene, and felt gut punches through the adventure. In a lot of ways the journey reminds me of Homer’s The Odyssey, which is a narrative structure that just works for me. I see a lot of the headier critics pan The Last of Us’s gameplay, but I thought it was perfect. The aim sway, the minimal resources, the crafting — it was the best Resident Evil game that wasn’t an RE game. I played through The Last of Us three times back to back to back at launch, and also dumped 50+ hours into the multiplayer. The bleakness of the world and characters has made this entry slip in recent years (it has not been something I’ve wanted to return to, which has me worried about how The Last of Us Chapter 2 will land with me), but it is still phenomenonal and impactful. 

3. Persona 4 Golden

Honorable Mention: Persona 5

In the span of a few short years, the Persona franchise went from something I didn’t care about to an all-time favorite. That conversion was due to Persona 4 Golden. Critical spheres I followed at the time hyped this game to no end, and 10 times out of 10 those games don’t live up the the hype. Persona 4 Golden vastly exceeded those expectations. It’s just so. dang. good. The characters are great. Inaba is great. The midnight channel is great. The perfect blend of school life sim and RPG dungeon crawling is great. We became obsessed with Persona during, and following, our time with P4G. Persona 5 is the better game is almost every way, but I gave the edge to P4G for its main party characters and how strong an entry point it was for us. I go back and forth between which of the two is better all the time, though.

2. Spelunky

Every time I put Spelunky on a best-of list, I feel guilty not putting it at number one. It’s fantastic. I would argue that objectively (if there could be such a thing), Spelunky is a contender for best ever (maybe losing out to Tetris? Maybe?). Spelunky is a design marvel — an infinitely compelling and infinitely challenging journey deeper. I became obsessed with Spelunky very soon after first playing. I wanted to be better. I had to be better. Every run is a journey, and every death a comedy. I have played for hundreds of hours and never once got sick of it. I 100%’d the game, which feels to this day a huge personal accomplishment. Spelunky got me thinking critically about game development and game design, and was a huge influence on starting The Impact Factor itself. So yeah. It’s pretty special to me.

1. Dark Souls

Honorable Mention: Sekiro, Bloodborne

Dark Souls is the best game of the decade. There’s too much so say. I can’t condense this to a few sentences. You don’t get many new genres in games, yet Dark Souls (Demon’s Souls, really) created something new. Something forward looking. Something that challenges the player, rewards them for their work, and pushes them to be better. It trusts the player on a deep, fundamental level that beforehand big devs would never. For goodness sake, Dark Souls puts content in the game that players may never find. That’s crazy! Dark Souls and the Sekisoulsborne genre it created puts the balance of risk vs. reward at the forefront of gameplay and player decisions. The world Dark Souls created is unendingly fascinating. Dark Souls has some of the best boss fights of all time. Dark Souls will shape games for years to come — a legacy I am thrilled to see continue. Sekiro: Shadows Die twice has my favorite gameplay in the series, and Bloodborne was a fantastic reinvention of the formula, but Dark Souls struck new ground upon which the later entries built their own foundations. For that, Dark Souls wins out. And Dark Souls is the best game of the decade.