Three months left, what's your Game of the Decade?

[SimuLord]

It's almost that time again, time for decade retrospectives where some journalist with too many deadlines and not enough creativity drags out Shogun and Empire and says "look how gaming has changed from 2000 to 2009" or some such bullshit. But it does invite the question, what's the best game released in this first decade of the 21st century...and is there anything that could come out between now and December 31 to take away the Game of the Decade title from your current clubhouse leader?

I'll break down my list by Game of the Year for each year since 2000:

2000: Final Fantasy IX (the last time a console game was worthy of this award)
2001: Tropico
2002: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
2003: Rise of Nations (in a close battle with SimCity 4)
2004: Rome: Total War
2005: Hearts of Iron 2 (barely edging out Civilization 4)
2006: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
2007: Europa Universalis III (it's my list, and Portal's not my style)
2008: Mount&Blade
2009 (so far): Empire: Total War.

Anyone who knows me knows this isn't much of a contest, with Rome taking my Game of the Decade award, and nothing conceivably poised to top it (Empire tried but came up well short). So what's the forum got?

 

[Xhumed]

No Half-Life 2 on that list? Really?

 

[SimuLord]

No Half-Life 2 on that list? Really?

Half-Life 2 came out in 2004. Rome: Total War is the greatest game of all-time, and also came out in 2004. Therefore...

Plus, as you can clearly see from my choices (and my username), I'm not into shooters.

 

[Xhumed]

No Half-Life 2 on that list? Really?

Half-Life 2 came out in 2004. Rome: Total War is the greatest game of all-time, and also came out in 2004. Therefore...

Plus, as you can clearly see from my choices (and my username), I'm not into shooters.

I've played Rome, and didn't care for it too much- it was fun for a while, but I've always preferred Real Time Strategy to Turn Based. And to dismiss Half Life 2 (or Portal) as simply "shooters" is to do them a great dis-service.

 

[SimuLord]

No Half-Life 2 on that list? Really?

Half-Life 2 came out in 2004. Rome: Total War is the greatest game of all-time, and also came out in 2004. Therefore...

Plus, as you can clearly see from my choices (and my username), I'm not into shooters.

I've played Rome, and didn't care for it too much- it was fun for a while, but I've always preferred Real Time Strategy to Turn Based. And to dismiss Half Life 2 (or Portal) as simply "shooters" is to do them a great dis-service.

Right. I get it. Valve is god, their games are wonderful, nothing can hold a candle to them. Never mind that I've played HL2 and Portal (thanks to an Orange Box-owning friend) and got bored in minutes.

Also, I don't know what parallel universe you live in, but Rome (and Total War in general) ain't a turn-based game...at least not where the fun parts (the battles) are concerned.

As an aside, take another look at that list and tell me again how you could possibly get the idea that I would enjoy a game like Half-Life 2...assuming you've heard of any of the games I mentioned up there besides Total War and Elder Scrolls games.

 

[Xaryn Mar]

Well to be exact this decade does not end until December 31 2010. Year 2000 is the last year of the 1990'ies.

Sorry for not being OT but this general misconception irritates me a bit and it is too early in the day for me to remember which games I though were the best 9 years ago

 

[SimuLord]

KOTOR came out in 2003, Vice City and San Andreas in 2002 and 2004, respectively, Max Payne in 2001, and the Source engine debuted with Half-Life 2 in 2004.

 

[SimuLord]

Well to be exact this decade does not end until December 31 2010. Year 2000 is the last year of the 1990'ies.

Sorry for not being OT but this general misconception irritates me a bit and it is too early in the day for me to remember which games I though were the best 9 years ago

You've got decades confused with centuries. The 21st century started on January 1, 2001, but decades are generally regarded by the tens digit...you wouldn't say 1980 was part of the Seventies because the Seventies encompassed "Nineteen seventy-..." where the ellipsis denotes either nothing at all (1970) or one through nine.

Centuries are a mathematical construct, decades are a popular construct. So "2000 was part of the Nineties" is incorrect, although culturally it gets foggier (consider that "The Eighties" on a cultural level didn't really end until Nirvana released Nevermind and Pearl Jam released Ten, sounding the death knell for '80s rock...in the fall of 1991.)

 

[Custard_Angel]

Banjo Kazooie takes the head of my list with no real contest... It was fun, charming, imaginative and awesome. Yellow shorts ftw.

 

[Xhumed]

No Half-Life 2 on that list? Really?

Half-Life 2 came out in 2004. Rome: Total War is the greatest game of all-time, and also came out in 2004. Therefore...

Plus, as you can clearly see from my choices (and my username), I'm not into shooters.

I've played Rome, and didn't care for it too much- it was fun for a while, but I've always preferred Real Time Strategy to Turn Based. And to dismiss Half Life 2 (or Portal) as simply "shooters" is to do them a great dis-service.

Right. I get it. Valve is god, their games are wonderful, nothing can hold a candle to them. Never mind that I've played HL2 and Portal (thanks to an Orange Box-owning friend) and got bored in minutes.

Also, I don't know what parallel universe you live in, but Rome (and Total War in general) ain't a turn-based game...at least not where the fun parts (the battles) are concerned.

As an aside, take another look at that list and tell me again how you could possibly get the idea that I would enjoy a game like Half-Life 2...assuming you've heard of any of the games I mentioned up there besides Total War and Elder Scrolls games.

Well, obviously personal taste is a factor there, however, I don't see why you needed to adopt a such a supercilious tone in your reply. And the yes, the battles are fun, but a lot of the game takes place on the map- which is turn based. Yes, I have heard of all those games you mentioned. I'm sorry you didn't enjoy Portal or HL2, obviously different people like different things in their games.

 

[Xaryn Mar]

You've got decades confused with centuries. The 21st century started on January 1, 2001, but decades are generally regarded by the tens digit...you wouldn't say 1980 was part of the Seventies because the Seventies encompassed "Nineteen seventy-..." where the ellipsis denotes either nothing at all (1970) or one through nine.

Centuries are a mathematical construct, decades are a popular construct. So "2000 was part of the Nineties" is incorrect, although culturally it gets foggier (consider that "The Eighties" on a cultural level didn't really end until Nirvana released Nevermind and Pearl Jam released Ten, sounding the death knell for '80s rock...in the fall of 1991.)

Decades are as much a mathematical construct as Centuries but I understand what you are saying. But the number 0 does not belong to the "ones" (numbers lower than 10) but 10 does. Ever tried to look at the logarithm? log(10) = 1 whereas log(9) = 0,9542... So mathematically 10 is the beginning of the next decade of numbers. Of course log(0) is not a defined number but then again 0 is a weird entity in mathematics.

 

[Kollega]

Greatest game of all time,huh? Either one depicting Ratchet's shenanigans or something Valve-made. Not sure.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

2001: Tropico

Tropico is an awesome game! I love it! Im looking forward to Tropico 3 in October (16th)

 

[Pink_Pirate]

you know i think i might have to go with EVE online for game of the decade... It is in my opinion one of the best designed and most interesting MMO out there, and the only one that keeps me coming back for more with every expansion. Im not really into MMO's even, i prefer RTS's, fighters and shooters, so yeah EVE is that good of a game.

 

[SimuLord]

2001: Tropico

Tropico is an awesome game! I love it! Im looking forward to Tropico 3 in October (16th)

I'm extremely skeptical on Tropico 3, because Haemimont Games is developing it, and they couldn't make a good game if you put a gun to their heads. The wretched Glory of the Roman Empire and Imperium Romanum were Haemimont-developed games.

If Phil Steinmeyer (who did Railroad Tycoon 2 and the original Tropico and has since moved on to doing casual games) were involved I'd be more hyped up about it, but Haemimont's track record is gods-awful. I still own Tropico (and it runs fine on Windows 7), so I'll just play that.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

2001: Tropico

Tropico is an awesome game! I love it! Im looking forward to Tropico 3 in October (16th)

I'm extremely skeptical on Tropico 3, because Haemimont Games is developing it, and they couldn't make a good game if you put a gun to their heads. The wretched Glory of the Roman Empire and Imperium Romanum were Haemimont-developed games.

If Phil Steinmeyer (who did Railroad Tycoon 2 and the original Tropico and has since moved on to doing casual games) were involved I'd be more hyped up about it, but Haemimont's track record is gods-awful. I still own Tropico (and it runs fine on Windows 7), so I'll just play that.

I liked glory of the roman empire :/ But thats just me I guess, and my Tropico got broken, then my brother got punched in the face, its been bad because I've really been craving to play.

 

[jboking]

2002: The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

2006: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Yeah, I'm not very good with years, so I can't give you a year by year list of my favorites, but these two a definitely among them, along with fallout 3.

I like quite a few games, so I decided my game of the decade is the one I spent the most time with, so...

Professor Layton and the Curious Village

I realize the next professor layton game is out now, but until I can find my DS, it really doesn't matter to me.

 

[irrelevantnugget]

Might change my list a bit later on, but at first glimpse using the lists on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:2000_video_games)

2000: Age of Empires II The Conquerors
2001: Golden Sun
2002: Morrowind, honorable mention to Medal of Honor Allied Assault
2003: Prince of Persia The Sands of Time, honorable mention to Wolfenstein Enemy Territory
2004: Tough one... I'll go with Unreal Tournament 2004 Honorable mention to Katamari Damacy, Metroid Zero Mission, GTA SA and SW KotOR 2.
2005: Guild Wars, honorable mention to Brothers in Arms RtH30
2006: Elite Beat Agents
2007: Team Fortress 2, and Disgaea Afternoon of Darkness
2008: Hmm... can't find anything I'd like to call the GotY or GotD...
2009: Not saying yet, there's still 3 months left!