The Top 10 Videogames Of The Generation.

I’ve seen a few of these lists around so I figured since I spend as much time gaming as I do watching films, I might as well throw my opinion into the mix because I’ve through enjoyed this generation of gaming and I wanted to look back on my time with it.

Please note that I only have a PS4 so I’ll only have games for that system on here.

A quick rundown of Honourable Mention, or rather the games I never got the chance to finish but did want to and will do someday.

Marvel’s Spider-Man

Bloodbourne

God Of War

Resident Evil 7

Doom

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice

Middle Earth: Shadow Of Mordor

Now then, let’s get started.

10: What Remains Of Edith Finch

Both this and another game coming up I played through twice consecutively because I wanted to grasp as much as possible, for Edith Finch it was reconceptualising this tragic and fucking depressing history of a family through generations of ghastly deaths. While on the surface it’s another walking simulator – which I am a fan of funnily enough – the way the game showcases how the Finch family has handled so much death and loss to the point of near-acceptance is chilling and the several vignettes you play as each family member at the moment of their death are all unique in their design, from a comic-book retelling of a grisly murder to the game’s standout moment of a fantasy world overtaking the monotonous real one. It’s only a couple hour long so I fully recommend anyone interested to give it a look, but beware of how heavy it can get at times, the emotional reaction I got sealed its place on this list.

9: Firewatch

Oh look, another walking simulator. Well it’s my list so piss off. Besides Firewatch is the best of the walking sims for doing so much with so little, all you do as player character Henry is walk around this gorgeous Wyoming forest park and talk to fellow firewatcher Delilah on your walkie-talkie. But in that the game builds a full-on government conspiracy mystery filled with mysterious figures and electronic surveillance. Perhaps more impressively though – and why it’s on this list – without ever actually meeting the relationship built up between Henry and Delilah is absolutely fantastic, it’s charming, playful, sometimes flirty and develops a deep care between the two which carries a lot more weight than you think, especially how much you choose to disclose to her. It’s a game that has this beautiful shiny exterior but the real meat comes from how much it carries on the interior.

8:Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag

I’ve not played Origins or Odysseys yet so either of them could’ve made this list but as a big fan of the franchise, Black Flag captured something I didn’t even know I wanted, the best goddamn pirate game ever made. Ironic as it is to say that the assassin stuff plays second fiddle but it’s true, so much of the game relies of the sailing mechanics and improving your ship that it often feels like the assassin’s creed portions were an after-thought. But being a pirate is so much fucking fun and the Caribbean is so fucking beautiful that I don’t mind, anything to stay part of Edward Kenway’s story that much longer and spend more time with the amazing supporting cast including one of the best depictions of Blackbeard around.

7: Red Dead Redemption 2

The only reason Red Dead 2 isn’t higher on this list is because it’s too fucking dense, I played 100+ hours of the campaign and I still had several hundred of side-quests to do which almost overwhelmed me. But it’s on this list because while Red Dead 1 told the story of John Marston trying to escape his part, this followed Arthur Morgan – one of the best protagonist ever put to gaming - trying to save his friends from a future, a future that you know is coming but it still hurts to see these friends tear themselves apart. It’s the best story that Rockstar have written since GTA4 and the wild-west gameplay is as phenonmenal as ever, with the improvements to Dead-Eye and horse-riding being welcome additions. It’s a vast, packed to the brim sort of game that you could easily get lost in for weeks if not months, but that’s precisely what it’s so good.

6: The Walking Dead: The Final Season

By the time The Final Season came about I wasn’t as hot on Telltale’s series as I was at the start, Season 1 was and still is an emotional powerhouse of surrogate father/daughter Lee and Clementine finding redemption in the apocalypse, Season 2 was a slight step down as the new characters were harder to root for and The New Frontier took a risky sidestep that didn’t pan out. But The Final Season manages to iron out the problem by returning to its roots, with Clementine – who for the record is probably my all-time favourite video-game character – now in the Lee role and her own surrogate child A.J. trying to finally settle down in a world which has been distraught for nearly a decade. The characters you meet are all well defined even if they don’t even last the episode they’re introduced in, the moral choice system actually has weight as your choices as Clementine actively affect the outcome of your relationship with A.J. and how he views the world and the ending gave me the best ‘Fuck yeah’ moment in a long time. A perfect ending to the series and Clementine’s journey.

5: Fallout 4

In regards to Fallout 3 and New Vegas, Fallout 4 does not hold up, 3 has atmosphere so thick you could kill a Brahmin with it and New Vegas is simply the best game ever made. But while overall it’s not the best at being an RPG, it is the best open-world shooter I’ve played this generation and the amount of hours I put into my first playthrough alone put it here, the lack of a level-cap and sheer amount of content is staggering and the fully realised Boston and how fucking dangerous it can be reminded me of my first time playing 3 and New Vegas, where I didn’t know all the tricks, where every new location brought about new treasures and threats. I adored that about the game and every playthrough since then still manages to keep me on guard which not a lot of games can do.

4: Life Is Strange

Like Edith Finch, I immediately played Life Is Strange again after I finished it because I wanted to absorb this story in its entirety. Some might say it’s too ‘woke’ for its own good, some might say its pretentious, I say it’s blending of time-travel with modern high-school issues like sexual repression, narcissism, outcasts, cyber bullying and angst ridden trauma is exceptional. The main pairing of player character Max Caulfield and her childhood best friend turned ‘Fuck the man’ punk Chloe Price gives this story so much heart and decency amongst the trauma of survivors guilt and facing the consequences of your actions with the butterfly effect taking some interesting turns. I became fully invested in these two and this world they lived in, it might feel like an episode of Riverdale every now and again but damn I did enjoy it.

3: Resident Evil 2

My history with Resident Evil amounts to me playuing R.E.4 a few years ago and not getting the hype, I found the enemies annoying, the ammo too limiting and the lack of health items concerning. Flash-forward several years and not only has the Resident Evil 2 remake warmed my heart to the franchise – I picked up Resi 7 based on how much fun I had with this – but it’s made me rethink how to play some videogames, to appreciate the few items I have and use them when necessary. That level of reteaching put the game into a frightening new light for me that I couldn’t get enough of, even more so once Mr X became part of the story and made me shit myself more times than I care to mention. I’ve already played through both sides of the campaign several times while in quarantine and I’ll play them both several times more to try and find every nook and cranny this game has to offer.

Hopefully I can add R.E. 7 to this list in the future if I can learnt to play first-person horror without being a little coward.

2: Horizon: Zero Dawn

I’ll be completely honest, Horizon didn’t initially grab me, the starting area felt too hard to traverse with so many robotic animals on high alert and the bow and arrow combat to finicky to get a hang of. But the deeper I went with the game, unlocking more weapons and more enemies to face the more I found myself embracing the challenges, it’s tough but fair relying on you to use the right weapon on the right enemy to grab every advantage you can. More than that though the world building is out-fucking-standing, this is a world 1000 years after the apocalypse, where anything resembling normal life is gone and how the game is able to build out its own world with several unique tribes, religions and beliefs as well as presenting the mystery of what really happened at the end of the world is nothing short of spectacular. Plus the building of the actual world remains one of the most gorgeous landscapes I’ve seen in gaming with a massive open-world filled with tons of unique biomes and climates that seamlessly blend together. I loved the game, I loved following Aloy on her journey and the announcement of Forbidden West has got me itching to go further into this world again.

1: Hitman 2

When it came to choosing the games for this list I looked at what made them standout for me, for some it was how their stories affected me, for others it was how they presented their worlds in a new and exciting way and for some it was just how much fun I had playing them. But why Hitman 2 came out on top boils down to one simply element; flexibility. Both this and the original Hitman could’ve taken the top spot but Hitman 2 takes the spot for its little refinements of the formula and how it embraces the replayability of this new Assassination Trilogy, each level is fairly easy to complete but the real challenge lies in the challenges, finding the right sequence of events to trigger more and more unique kills, filled with black humour – one mission has 47 pose as a real estate agent but can only point out the best ways to hide a murder throughout the house – and intrigue. I have played each level countless numbers of times trying to play around with the system and at no point has the game stopped me. Do I want to play the silent assassin and get in and out without anyone even realising I was there? I can do that. Do I want to set my targets up from a distance and snipe them from afar? Not a problem. Do I want to slap someone in the face with a fucking fish then blow them up with a rubber duck all while dressed as a flamingo mascot? You’re goddamn right I can do that. No other game this generation for me has not only allowed but insisted that level of free-thinking and experimentation and for that Hitman 2 is my top game of this generation.