The Top Ten Best Video Games of All Time

In the opinion of this author, these games are the top ten best video games ever created. This is solely based on the games that I have played. I have not played any Legend of Zelda or Final Fantasy games.  I have chosen to only use one game from a single developer on my list. Please enjoy the list and feel free to tell me in the comments which games I've missed from my top ten.

Honorable Mentions

Mass Effect 2, Uncharted 2, Donkey Kong Country, Grand Theft Auto V, Skyrim, Unreal Tournament, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, The Witcher 3, Bloodborne.

10. Halo: Combat Evolved

When looking back through the many generations of video games and their companion hardware, it's hard to see a time when first-person shooters were not a dominant force on consoles, to a time when it was considered by that that PC was the only place to find quality FPS's. That all changed with the advent of Xbox and its killer app: Halo. Practically single-handed, Halo: Combat Evolved morphed the landscape of console gaming forever by proving that tight, responsive controls and thrilling gunplay could be achieved without the mouse and keyboard. Featuring the most intelligent enemy AI to date, Halo challenged players in ways they never had been before, forcing them to acclimate to the frenetic action on the fly. Combining the pulse-pounding battles with an intriguing and well-paced story featuring one of gaming's greatest heroes made for an excellent campaign experience. Who could forget the sheer terror of encountering the Flood for the first time? Rounding out the package was an addictive multiplayer, multiple difficulties, and the best split-screen cooperative experience for nearly a decade. Cutting edge graphics and a resounding, iconic score elevated the entire presentation even further cementing it as one of the greatest games ever published

9. Pokemon Red and Blue

With Pokemon Go smashing all of the previously held mobile gaming records, it's easy to forget that the original handheld masterpiece debuted over 20 years ago. By taking the player out of the action and replacing them with an oftentimes silly-looking monster that leveled up independently, Pokemon only slightly twisted the traditional RPG formula. However, that twist ended up delivering a massive infusion of freedom and individuality when developing your team of pocket monsters. The addictive game design encouraged exploration and invited trial and error, allowing players to truly experiment with their Pokemon. Do I level up this Caterpie despite its currently weak stats or do I focus on making my Squirtle the biggest, baddest Squirtle the world has ever seen? The pure joy of watching an evolution or finally catching that elusive Abra speaks volumes towards the quality of the game. As one of the best RPG's ever created, no one has been able to duplicate their success with this formula despite numerous pale imitations and the reasoning is simple: there's nothing to improve upon.

8. Red Dead Redemption

When initially announced, people were skeptical whether Rockstar could duplicate their signature open-world success within an wild west universe. As it turns out, Rockstar did far more than copy-paste GTA mechanics into a new setting, they developed a wholly innovative game that shattered everyone's expectations and social lives. The best word to describe why Red Dead Redemption is a classic is polish. From galloping through herds of buffalo to single duels at high-noon, from great train robberies to playing poker, every single activity felt engaging and entertaining.  The relatable and ultimately heart-wrenching main story stayed true to form throughout and the side-quests varied from heroic to fascinatingly macabre while always being appropriately rewarding. Red Dead Redemption simply oozed perfection out of every blade of prairie grass, out of every disturbing character encounter, out of every atmospheric song selection, and out of every moment as the enigmatic and dangerous John Marsden.

7. God of War

Wrestling a minotaur to the ground and jamming a jagged sword down it's throat; slipping between the legs of a towering cyclops and scaling its back before popping his eye like a pinata; bodily ripping a man in half.  These are but a few of the memories that come rushing back when thinking about God of War. Beginning with Kratos falling to his presumptive death, the player relives the events that transpired to lead him to such a tragic moment. God of War tells a gripping story about betrayal, revenge and the horrors that come from meddling with the gods.  From a gameplay standpoint, God of War excels thanks to the brutal and fluid Blades of Chaos that flow around the battlefield carving bloody swaths through hordes of mythological beasts. The lethality of Kratos' attacks are matched by the merciless enemies, presenting a steadfast challenge that ramps up accordingly through out the game.  Punctuating each of these bloodbaths are the quick-time kills that have you sickeningly dismember whatever poor beast got in your way. With incredible graphics for the time and a rousing orchestral score, God of War truly belongs among the pantheon of the greatest games of all time.

6. The Last of Us

Anyone not convinced of The Last of Us' credentials should immediately go watch the first 15 minutes of the game on Youtube and if you aren't emotionally moved by it, then you are a robot. Telling one of the greatest stories of survival and genuine bonding from any medium, The Last of Us delivers not only a unforgiving tale of hardship but also nail-biting, tension-driven gameplay. Between scavenging parts cleverly hidden in the stunningly beautiful environments and crafting on the fly with a superb user-interface, The Last of Us gives the player just enough to survive and it expects you to make the best use of what few materials you have. The vicious hand-to-hand combat feels visceral with each punch and each strangle feeling thoroughly unsettling.  Truth be told however, it would have been simply a good game without the astounding voice acting and top-notch script that are truly second to none.

5. Resident Evil 4

Often heralded as the best survival horror game ever made, Resident Evil 4 turned dread into an art form. Something unmistakable happens when you pick up the controller. Sweat begins to bead at your forehead, your hands go clammy and only during a loading screen do you release breath not even realizing that you had been holding it. Resident Evil 4's greatest accomplishment is that it doesn't rely on jump scares or terrifying enemy designs (though it does have plenty of those) to achieve fear but rather focuses on its peerless atmosphere and genuinely challenging gameplay to generate the terror itself.  A case and point of this design choice is the opening village sequence where you are faced down by an endless horde of intelligent Las Plagas victims and tasked with simply surviving.  You are always afraid of stepping into a new situation that you might not be prepared for.  Each boss encounter offers a wildly different set of rules and mechanics that you have to learn on the fly. Even cut scenes can deliver swift death in the form of a choreographed knife fight or a desperate landing from a chopper. No part of Resident Evil 4 feels safe but every part of it makes you want to continue playing.

4. Fallout 3

When I was in college, I used to play Fallout 3 in my dorm's recreation room for hours on end since I didn't have a TV. While I was there, I would have other college students, many of whom did not play games regularly, come in and simply watch me playing Fallout 3, going as far as to make suggestions on what I should do next or questioning my perk selection decisions. It wasn't until many years later that I realized that I was basically a poor-man's Twitch channel except for a game that no one had played before. And yet it was still so good that people would just watch me play it. Bethesda games, on the whole, all share the immense open-world exploration and all the accompanying joy that comes with discovery and progress. However, with Fallout 3, they hit the sweet spot with the conversations, with the V.A.T.S system, with the epic story, with demanding side-quests, with the weaponry, with the stealth mechanics, even with the legendary radio broadcasts. Wandering through a nuclear wasteland littered with desirable loot and tough adversaries with "I don't want to set the world on fire" softly playing in the background, never really knowing what lay around each corner made for some of the greatest gaming moments of the past 15 years.

3. Shadow of the Colossus

What happens when an unparalleled art design meets gargantuan boss fights? Well, one of the greatest games of all times apparently.  Shadow of the Colossus is often used as the poster boy for the argument that video games are art and it's easy to see why. The superbly simple story sees the protagonist aching to bring back the one he loves by tapping into an ancient force trapped inside great colossi. Only by destroying these monstrosities can you accomplish your goal but the story leaves it to you to question why such a force had to be contained and what the price will eventually be to unleash it again. You are the aggressor here, you are the one seeking out these colossi to destroy them, and you are doing it all for love. Is it right or wrong? In any case, once you encounter your targets, they are not so simple to fell.  Only by directly scaling their hides while they try and shake you off are you able to bring them down.  The game remains an incredible achievement in ingenuity and storytelling.  

2. Dark Souls 

It was desperately difficult for this not to be my favorite game of all time, particularly because I have easily sunk more hours into this game then any other, especially considering all time I've spent investigating it outside of actually playing it.  However, that should not diminish what an incredible and important triumph this game was both for me personally and for the industry as whole. At around the time that the gaming industry was rehashing old concepts and continually dumbing down their content to appease a wider audience, From Software and, most essentially, Hidetaka Miyazaki, released this masterpiece, a harder than nails, intentionally obscure third person action game that demanded attention and respect.  With level design that has never been equaled, Dark Souls took a massive environment filled with a variety of locations and interweaved it on itself, allowing the player to travel into numerous areas immediately with no waypoint to guide them. This allowed each player to create their own story, reading item descriptions that fleshed out the expansive lore of Lordran. Every statue, every grouping of enemies, every ruin is not there as window dressing but instead a small piece of the overall tale.  Nothing is accidental in Dark Souls especially the many, many deaths that each player will suffer through knowing that it was their own fault rather than the games and allowing them to return with bolstered knowledge of how to succeed where they had previously failed. The boss designs were at the same time terrifying and beautiful. The air of tragedy that comes with killing the Great Wolf Sif or the ecstasy of finally toppling Ornstein and Smough. All of this comes without even mentioning the brilliance of the multiplayer systems and the ability to invade another's game world at any time. So for brevity's sake, I will end by simply saying that Dark Souls weighty, deliberate gameplay, engrossing lore and ruthless ingenuity make this one of the greatest games of all time. 

1. Bioshock

No Gods or Kings. Only Man. As you enter a mysterious lighthouse, these words greet you, ominously foretelling of your adventure to come.  Never before has a game so completely given itself to it's narrative. The fall of Rapture continues to be one of the most fascinating sagas in modern storytelling.  An underwater, hyper-capitalist society driven to the brink of destruction by it's own unrelenting pursuit of progress. Enemy designs, audio logs, atmospheric touches, cryptic dialogue, they all tell the story in their own way.  All of this happens completely as a part of gameplay, where you travel through a completely realized location that feels utterly believable and lived in attempting to take down the lumbering beasts known as Big Daddies who protect the Little Sisters.  These abominations are made all the more sympathetic when you discover their origins, making the game's truly challenging moral choice even tougher. The story itself holds one of the greatest twists in gaming history that is only successful because of the immense attention to detail the developers had. The gameplay is utterly thrilling forcing you to utilize all of your abilities, hacking skills and firepower to come out alive. Now, with all of that being said, it's not difficult to understand that this game belongs on this list but it might be a little strange to figure out why I consider it the best game of all time. This boils down to the myriad of feelings that this game illicits throughout its twenty hour story. When entering a new location, you can instantly tell what that place was: a bar, a restaurant, a dentist's office, an apartment complex. Then you see that somethings wrong with that place, there's something off about the everything. Blood on the ground, tumbled trashcans, broken doors. And then, right then, the game has you. Why did that happen? What happened here? And as you explore you begin to understand the full cycle of events, from inception to downfall.  When everything in this game is outstanding, it's the peerless environmental storytelling that this games achieves on such an emotional level that elevates to the greatest game of all time. 

Thanks for reading!