The Big Gaming in the 2010s Discussion Thread (the 2010s-Defining Game currently being discussed)

Balladeer wrote:

Rocket League is a good shout, and probably the best sports game I played this decade.

In retrospect, Jay should have gone for best MANLY GAMES.

Ha, top callback!

Balladeer wrote:

Remember to change your own title Jay, jeeeeeeez.

Sorry!

Right, with the decade nearly gone, let's just have a free for all and chat about the best of the rest!

Any other genre we've not touched upon, fire away! That includes nebulous genres like action-adventure, narrative adventure games or things we've just not got around to like puzzlers and whatnot. Open season, folks!

Best action-adventure is obviously BotW.  

Best visual novel is obviously Spirit of Justice.  

Best puzzler is obviously Ghost Trick, although that overlaps with the above I suppose.  Best pure puzzler might be Picross 3D or Baba is You.

Best third-person shooter is Kid Icarus Uprising, although that overlaps with action-adventure.

Best stealth game (and mischief sim) is Untitled Goose Game.

I don't think I've missed any genres I have much to say on!

Action Adventure is tough if I include Dark Souls. Lets just say thats purely RPG and then it becomes easy: BotW.

I still struggle to put Monster Hunter into a genre but that has been a huge part of my gaming decade.

Best shooter is Splatoon for me. Love theworld and characters, the singleplayer, the multiplayer, it all lands for me.

If you want a first person pick, Titanfall 2 for the same reasons.

Narrative thingamabobs . . . Her Story needs a mention, and of course Life is Strange. This has been the decade forindies, big time.

Stealth . . . MGSV lads. LADS.

Best action adventure is Botw
Honourable mentions: insert every other game I've mentioned in this thread since they probably fall into this category somehow.

Visual novel: Doki-Doki Literature Club
Runner-up: The Great Ace Attorney, which has been very well fan-translated. Nearing the end and it's done well to hold my attention given my Ace Attorney fatigue. A very interesting instalment in the series and one which I was sort of dismissive towards given the angle its gone for - but I was still hopeful since it was headed by the original writer of the series.

Best puzzler is Tetris 99 (as well as best Battle Royale)
Honourable mentions: Puyo Puyo Tetris - I still suck at Puyo Puyo but this was a nice and charming little game. Story had me laughing at times and the voice acting was pretty good. And of course there's Tetris and Puyo Puyo segments attached to it with some funky music. Sadly the online multiplayer - at least on the Switch - is extremely dead, even before Tetris 99 came out.
Portal 2 - Maybe this should be the outright winner of this category, but to be honest while I enjoyed it I suppose it sort of suffered from Galaxy2itis since it's essentially more Portal. It's still really good and does its own things but that's how it is.

Best third-person shooter: Kid Icarus Uprising

Narrative thingamabobs - Nier Automata

Best stealth game: The Last of Us I guess? Except when your AI partner is zipping around all over the place and distractingly not alerting guards or anything (which is of course is better than them alerting them as the game would have been hell to play otherwise, but yeah). I'm sad there's not a Splinter Cell game I can put here.

Best action/beat-em up game is Devil May Cry 5 for delivering pretty much everything the fans wanted without making it seem like they were just giving in, because you can tell the care, passion and fun went into making it.
Honourable mentions: Yakuza 5, which for me beats out the also good Yakuza 0. Yakuza games are a lot of things, but I think the beat-em-up style combat is just about the most prominent feature - every difficult situation almost always culminates in a fight and usually with a mob. Zero also suffocated me with all the options I had in combat between the two characters - I preferred 5's approach where each of the five characters fight styles revolve around a theme and you become intimate with each one. Some characters were very satisfying to play as.

Best party game: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Right Here we go, boys

Action
Bayonetta
Bayonetta 2
DmC: Devil May Cry

Survival Horror
Alan Wake
Deadly Premonition
The Last of Us
Resident Evil 7
Until Dawn

Action-Adventure
Batman Arkham City
Control
Enslaved: Odyssey to the West
God of War
Gravity Rush
Horizon Zero Dawn
Red Dead Redemption
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Spider-Man
Tomb Raider
Uncharted: Golden Abyss
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

Stealth
A Plague Tale Innocence
Dishonored
Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker
Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain

Fighting
Mortal Kombat
Mortal Kombat X

Puzzle
Catherine
Tetris Effect

Third Person Shooter
Binary Domain
Kid Icarus: Uprising
Splatoon 2

Adventure, a bit of bundle of genres as I'm not doing walking sims then interactive narrative etc
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
FAR Lone Sails
Firewatch
Gone Home
GRIS
Journey
Life is Strange
Life Is Strange: Before the Storm
Night in the Woods
Oxenfree
Sayonara Wild Hearts
Tacoma
The Unfinished Swan
The Walking Dead
The Wolf Among Us
What Remains of Edith Finch

Life Sim
Animal Crossing New Leaf

RTS
Pikimin 3

Shooter
Resogun

Visual Novel
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

Metroidvania
Ori and the Blind Forest
SteamWorld Dig 2

Rhythm
Persona 4 Dancing All Night

Dungeon Crawler
Severed

Stranding
Death Stranding

Drunkalilly wrote:

Action Adventure is tough if I include Dark Souls. Lets just say thats purely RPG and then it becomes easy: BotW.

Ooh, really? I know you love DS, but I thought BotW was far and away your fave!

Kriken wrote:

Runner-up: The Great Ace Attorney, which has been very well fan-translated. Nearing the end and it's done well to hold my attention given my Ace Attorney fatigue. A very interesting instalment in the series and one which I was sort of dismissive towards given the angle its gone for - but I was still hopeful since it was headed by the original writer of the series.

I need to get on this. How have you played it?


Best party game is a good shout, and Jackbox Party Pack 3 makes it an absolute no-brainer for me. Quiplash is tremendous at parties! In fact, I could do a top five local multiplayer games:

JPP3
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
Overcooked 2
Smash Bros. Ultimate
Overcooked 1

I thought we'd done Metroidvania, but maybe not. I think I've only actually played Hollow Knight this decade to any degree of satisfaction, but it's a very good one.

Fighting is SSBU. Rhythm is Beat the Beat: Rhythm Paradise. Stranding is not a genre.

First Person Shooter wasn't a genre till someone made one

We did platformers which Metroidvania goes under but thought I'd highlight them a bit more.

Best Metroidvania - not an official release but want to say Another Metroid 2 Remake. Otherwise it would be Samus Returns. Want to get around to more of them - thought I'd rate Bloodstained really highly but it didn't turn out that way.

Balladeer wrote:

Kriken wrote:

Runner-up: The Great Ace Attorney, which has been very well fan-translated. Nearing the end and it's done well to hold my attention given my Ace Attorney fatigue. A very interesting instalment in the series and one which I was sort of dismissive towards given the angle its gone for - but I was still hopeful since it was headed by the original writer of the series.

I need to get on this.  How have you played it?

Soft-modded 3DS.

MSR was also good. Also bleah, that sounds like a pain and my 3DS is pretty much kaput.

MSR = Metroid Samus Returns? Sure, I mentioned it and like it a lot and it is pretty much my Metroidvania of the decade since AM2R doesn't exactly count.

And yeah at the moment modding a 3DS is a massive pain. Back when I did it was easy, but the methods these days sound annoying.

MSR is a racing game on Dreamcast

A bloody cracking one it was as well.

Agreed, great game.

masofdas wrote:

Stranding
Death Stranding

Balladeer wrote:

 Stranding is not a genre.

masofdas wrote:

First Person Shooter wasn't a genre till someone made one

Jesus I thought I'd seen the Most Mas Post Ever in the "Yesterday I Didn't Buy" thread but wow.

Balladeer wrote:

Ooh, really?  I know you love DS, but I thought BotW was far and away your fave!

Dark Souls is the only other game that comes close, and I'd argue that so far DS has had more of an impact on gaming than BOTW, not least of all influencing BOTW itself.

Yeah, Death Stranding is a walking simulator with the occasional action game elements thrown in.

I can tell you as someone that's played a few walking sims which I've even got listed above, Death Stranding isn't one and why can't a genre be created from it? A genre like Walking Sims or whatever started somewhere and would have been new at the time.

From a 4 or 5 hour stream I watched & reviews I've read it just didn't look like anything new, don't get me wrong as it definitely has some interesting aspects like the online integration but even those aren't brand new ideas either.

Maybe walking sim is the wrong category and despite the PR from Kojima productions it just isn't something totally new either so let's go with our usual forum wiki rule and settle on action-adventure.

If I had to put in a normal genre, it be Adventure as closer to those games then a Uncharted (why I've never thought of Zelda as a Action Adventure).

Embling
Fire Emblem Fates Conquest

Kriken wrote:

Embling
Fire Emblem Fates Conquest

I think it Death Stranding is a unique game, but I do immediately have a problem with the creator of the game un-ironically making up a genre name for it and expecting people to use it.

I got a good wee laugh out of that Kriken post as well.

----

Also a game can still be unique in and of itself and still be part of a specific genre.

Maybe but as someone who's actually played Death Stranding it is hard to put into any genre, as it's not clear and obvious. It does also mean it's the worst Stranding game as well.

You can say that same thing for so many games these days though because there's a fuck tonne of genre bleed, like how many games use some form of RPG mechanics these days? Loads of them do but that doesn't make them an RPG or something brand new either.

I do agree there as said before Horizon Zero Dawn is a Action RPG to most people, where God of War is a Action Adventure to most. I can't tell you what the difference is.

But I'm being honest and not just going Kojima said it or taking the piss, I've not played anything like Death Stranding as it truly is it's own thing.