FEATURED The Best Games of the Current Generation [Community Poll]

Janus67 · Oct 9, 2013

With the current console generation winding down and the Playstation 4 and Xbox One consoles coming out in the middle of November (as well as the Wii U already having been out for about a year), I thought we could come together and vote/discuss what games we found were the best of this past video game generation.

I anticipate the list to include but is not limited to: PC, 360, PS3, Wii, and Mobile/Handheld games.

As always there are some caveats to this discussion:

PC Games don't directly have a 'generation', so we will need to use a cut-off year. For the purpose of this poll I figure we should begin in 2005 - the year the first of the current generation of consoles (Xbox 360) launched.
There were many series/sequels to come out during this cycle. For that reason I would request only a single game of a series/trilogy be picked per person, as I'm willing to bet one stands out above the others in your minds.
Opinions of what makes a game great can be very subjective. The game does not need to create a new genre or do something entirely new, but instead may perfect a formula or may simply provide a very short but memorable experience. The games also may not have sold millions of copies but can still be a critics/fan choice.

So general rules for a submission:

Limited to 5 votes per person
You don't have to number them best to worst
Feel free to put a system next to them (or can put cross platform if they are available on multiple)
Please feel free to post a brief reason of why you think any or each game belongs in the list.
Lastly, and most importantly, this thread is not meant to start a flame war or heated arguments. This is here to discuss the merits of the fantastic games we have played over the past 9 (2005-2013) years.

Janus67 · Oct 9, 2013

I will try to get us started:

My top 5 list:

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (PC-2007) - I've never sunk so much time into a single game before. I spent 4+ hours 3-4 nights per week in raids with 24 other strangers (who became friends), let alone countless hours farming, leveling alts, and just chatting with guild mates.
Assassins Creed II (Multi-2009) - The experience of running, jumping, and climbing through the beautiful cities, fightng with enemies and guards, mixing in with the common people to avoid being caught, and upgrading your weapons and gear made this game stand out to me.
Portal (Multi-2007) - This game provided an amazing twist on the normal puzzle game. It provided humor, multiple solutions to puzzles, a behind-the-scenes story, and one of the biggest memes of the generation "the cake is a lie".
Super Mario Galaxy 2 (Wii-2010) - While the story of Mario has been re-hashed time after time, Nintendo finds a way to make the games fun and different enough each time you return. Super Mario Galaxy 2 returned to the 3D world with references to the older games, fun puzzles, powerups, huge replayability, and the ability of a friend to participate by using a separate wii remote and help collect stars and knock opponents on their backs to help. Nintendo took everything that it did well in Super Mario Galaxy and improved it.
Mass Effect 2 (Multi-2010) - Mass Effect 2 provided the gamer with an intriguing story, interesting characters to learn and care about, multiple character creation paths, and branching actions/options based on how you play your avatar. The game improved and fixed a lot of the faults of Mass Effect (1) and offered the ability to import your character as well as their choices.

I had a very hard time narrowing my list down to those 5. I'm sure I will have some tossing and turning in bed over if I should have put a different title in my top 5.

I have to add as an honorable mention: Wii Sports (Wii-2006) - For a game with as simple concepts as rolling a bowling ball, swinging a tennis racket/golf club/bat, and boxing I don't think I've ever seen a game (or system) be able to permeate the non-gamer quite like this. Everyone knew what the Wii was and Wii Sports, people's grandparents were buying the systems, and it completely created (for better or worse) the whole motion-controlled fad/industry in gaming.

Pvt.Dancer · Oct 10, 2013

My top 5 would be

Left 4 Dead 2 - I Think this game brought Co-op and a new idea of what competitive gaming could be and wasted over a thousand hours on it
Fallout 3 - I thought this game did well combining an open world and freedom with good addicting game play and pulled a lot of new people to the genre.
Medal of Honor reboot - Now I know this game didn't have the best graphics of all time and a stupidly short campaign and less then impressive MP BUT the short campaign was one of the most intense Single player games I've ever played and that feeling alone was well worth every penny.
DayZ - I think that this Mod that has turned into a game speaks for itself while its not everyone's cup of tea what it does technically alone is very impressive and the fan base it has gotten from the risks they took on making a super challenging game.
Crysis - I think Crysis earns a good spot for its amazing tech advances Pushing PC hardware so far and creating amazing game play and still out paces a good chunk of games in terms of graphics and details.

All of the above were from my experience with them on the PC

And if I'm voting I have to vote for Portal. AMAZING game came from no where.

wagex · Oct 10, 2013

im not good with words but heres my list

cod4(pc)- always end up going back to it because its just a balanced game, pretty simple theres not 500 different weapons and 500 classes and random abilities and crap.

portal(pc)- it was definitely a different turn in gaming for me

halo1(xbox)- the only reason i bought the first xbox was for halo it was probably one of the first games i really spent alot of time playing.

LoL- might seem cheezy but really in the few years that game has been running look where they are now literally the biggest game in the world, the game is free yes, and yes its full of trolls, but really its not the most popular game in the world for no reason.(hints also say its going to be in the summer olympics)

diablo II- the second game i ever played on pc it was really fun and gave you something to work for and yea it was a little repetitive, but better than WoW! lol

honerary mention, Tibia i played the game for ~13 years, theres still 20k people online on it lol

Janus67 · Oct 10, 2013

Thanks guys for participating! Was waiting for some responses

Wagex, some solid choices there, but D2 and Halo1 came out far before 2005 (as noted in the OP) to count as 'current generation'

Pvt.Dancer · Oct 10, 2013

He must still be drunk from last night :beer:

MunkyTOS · Oct 10, 2013

Skyrim - Unbelievable amount of gameplay, re-gameplay value + the amount of DLC from users was amazing

Portal 2 - Pure genius, this game was so fun and the storyline was great and had me laughing start to finish.

Day of Defeat Source - Probably my favorite FPS out of the half life games, even over counterstrike.

Fallout 3 - Amazing storyline, loved this game so much although I was a bit disappointed to get the all the familiar feeling between fallout 3 and new vegas.

Saints Row 3 - In the process of still trying to beat this but such a great game, enjoyed it way more than I ever remembered enjoying grand theft auto.

Janus67 · Oct 10, 2013

Good choice on SR3. So far it is the only open world game of that style that I've completed. Fun and exciting gameplay and story loved the humor.

OptyTrooper · Oct 10, 2013

Far Cry hands down.

tripleM1515 · Oct 11, 2013

Just Cause 2 - PC - one of the best open world sand box games I've played. beat the game months ago and once in while still go on to mess around and look for the collectables.

Black Ops 2 - xbox 360 - very competitive online game. I like the fast past run and gun type of fps game.

Forza 4 - xbox 360 - ton of cars, extremely realistic looking, realistic driving, lots of fun

Dirt 2 - xbox 360 & PC - everything like forza 4 but in the dirt. PC more cause of my racing wheel and better graphics.

Star Craft 2 - PC - RTS fan and this is the best.

jiccman1965 · Oct 11, 2013

BF2/BF 2142/BF Bad Company/BF3, all day long
Maybe Some Duke Forever/BulletStorm/Starcraft 2

MattNo5ss · Oct 11, 2013

Borderlands - Very unique blend of a First-Person Shooter and Loot Hunting ARPG. Cel-shaded, comic-style graphics remind us that a game doesn't need to have photo-realistic graphics as long as the gameplay is there. Don't forget all the good humor throughout the game.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - A game with great graphics that's also hard to beat in story and immersion. The LARGE modding community is what really pushes this game over the top.

Crysis - Pushed graphics well beyond the hardware of the time. When I bought the game the cashiers were required to give warnings to customers about how graphically intensive the game was and that you needed the top-of-the-line GPU to run it smoothly and they would not accept returns if your PC couldn't handle the game... It became THE benchmark for 3D performance which created the ever popular meme-like phrase "...but, can it run Crysis?"

Call of Duty 4 - The game that boosted the Call of Duty series to where it is today.

RESERVED - Can't think of a 5th one right now. I have a couple in mind, but I need to think about it some more :-/

wagex · Oct 11, 2013

Janus67 said:
Thanks guys for participating! Was waiting for some responses

Wagex, some solid choices there, but D2 and Halo1 came out far before 2005 (as noted in the OP) to count as 'current generation'

wow. im getting old. :facepalm:

Springbok · Oct 12, 2013

Fallout 3 - wow. Talk about making a big impact, 'Oblivion with guns' turned out to have better characters, worldbuilding, and random events than Oblivion could muster. The aircraft carrier, the dog, getting mauled by zombies and mutants, then finally putting on that power suit and saving the world...it felt good! Skyrim and Oblivion are both classics, but I have more good memories from Fallout 3 than those two combined.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - they dragged the whole world out of World War 2 shooters and took a lot of risks doing really edgy stuff from the crazy execution intro to the airport mission. A lot of games try to be like movies, but Infinity Ward showed everyone how to do make the player like they're in the middle of a spy movie and still delivered fun gameplay with tight controls. They also gave us the combination of XP/leveling systems in pure action games, which has carried over to singleplayer in some great ways like in Far Cry 3.

Wii Sports - 2006 and outta nowhere Nintendo gives us motion control, swinging a golf club or bowling a ball had never felt so good in a video game. It was a reminder to the whole gaming industry that graphics aren't as important as gameplay. By simplifying games, it opened gaming up to older generations who didn't "get" gaming before the Wii. It probably paved the path for the development of mobile gaming apps we see today.

Mass Effect series - like Modern Warfare, it mixed action with leveling up, and felt like you were living in your own movie, only Mass Effect grew from role-playing roots. The stronger focus on story meant I was more invested in the characters and events, conversations felt like a fun game in themselves!

Team Fortress 2 - pure multiplayer at its finest, it gave us great maps, loads of user made content, went free-to-play right, delivered humor through Pixar-quality animated characters, and through its multiple classes has so many different ways to play the game.

All the WoW expansion packs also deserve mention, but I excluded them since vanilla was launched in 2004.

piker · Oct 12, 2013

WoW - We've all spent countless hours raiding with friends to the early hours of the morning and then getting up to work the next day!

Eve Online - Probably the best sandbox game out there that i have played by far, such a complex system.

Final Fantasy XIII (xbox 360) - Great graphics, awesome battle system, fun story line (even though it was linear)

CoD 4 (pc) - Think this was my first CoD game, and im always going back years later.

Warcraft 3 - Personally like it better then the starcraft series. Storyline was immense, and loved the hero system.

manu2b · Oct 12, 2013

MassEffect2
Borderland
The Witcher 2
Dirt 2
Crysis

Firey_chasm · Oct 14, 2013

cod4 - revolutionary brilliantly balanced fast paced fps. Addictive, great story/single player. Even better multiplayer. (although cross platform, I would say this was the last cod game still made with pc gamers in mind)

portal - clever, funny, unique. Brilliant new addition to the puzzle genre. Surprised there arent more copy cats to be honest (definately best on pc, although available cross platform)

Crysis - Crysis 1 took what Far cry 1 did well and made it shine. Shame the multiplayer wasnt great, but one of the single best fps campaigns ive played. All looking absalutely stunning even this many years on. (PC)

WoW:Vanilla: Feb2005 release in EU so I think I can get away with it. No game has ever managed to get as many people as addicted as this. There is no doubt wow changed the face of gaming (PC)

Starcraft 2: as great a game as this is it isnt a revolutionary as the games above. This is just a shining example of a well polished, fun rts. It is the definition of easy to learn, impossible to master. (PC)

BugFreak · Oct 15, 2013

Left4Dead 2 - The game was a huge part of bringing the zombie genre to the current generation and imo made co-op good again.

Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn (Aug 2006) - While UO is very much older than the timeline we are considering Kingdom Reborn from 2006 isn't and was the "new age" of the game under new developers and brought some pretty big changes. The UO game as a whole belongs on the list just because it more or less created the MMORPG with monthly fee game style carving the way for WoW and the like. It's also in the Guinness Book of Records and still exists today which not many games from 1997 can say.

Portal - (To steal from the above post because I think it sums it up very well) - "clever, funny, unique. Brilliant new addition to the puzzle genre. Surprised there aren't more copy cats to be honest."

WoW: The Burning Crusade - There is no game on the market that can say it has accomplished what WoW has. To draw and KEEP as many players as that game has is something truly amazing. The number of divorces, suicides, and shear mayhem that game has brought on real life makes it worthy of a hall of fame spot for sure.

Jcw88 · Oct 15, 2013

Starcraft 2
Portal 2
Xcom: Enemy Unknown
Tomb Raider
Can't think of a 5th right now.
All PC.

juanpe966 · Oct 15, 2013

My List:

Mass Effect 2- Incredible game, nice mechanics, great upgrade system and missions. The character development was incredible. In the last mission I lost 3 men, and 1 was my favorite crew member (the assassin), and I actually felt slightly sad.

Mario Galaxy 2- Amazing game, tons of fun, an insane amount of maps, great game

Super Smash brawl- Was a great game with a tone of characters, and I remember playing this with 3 other friends at a friends house.

Assassin´s Creed 2- It was quite innovative at the time. Graphics were stunning. The story was incredible and long. I loved the feel of the city and the characters. Just awesome. Plus u got to fly Da Vinci´s machine.

WoTLK/Zelda Skyward Sword/Bioshock Infinite/Last of Us- All amaing games and I can not really decide. WoTLK was the first WOW instlment that I played, and I barely played the following ones. Zelda games are great and this was no exception (not nearly as good as Mahora´s Mask, but that game is impossible to beat). The later two are recent. Bioshock has a great story with an epic ending and good characters and gameplay. Last of Us has all that, but the character development does not compare to anything I have seen. I felt attached to the protagonists.

FEATURED The Best Games of the Current Generation [Community Poll]

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