Top 10 lists are dumb and not often effective measurements of things that remain in motion, so I don’t give them much credit… But they’re also very fun and sometimes we could all do with taking things less seriously, and just enjoying things for what they are. To that end I have nailed down what my top 10 games currently are and a solid, hard-thought order for them to be ranked. I did, however, utilise one key rule: I could not use multiple games from same franchise. So, if I wanted to put a Fallout game in there, for example, I could only put in one Fallout game. This stops the list devolving into measuring the same two or three franchises against each other in a top 10 format. Anyway, now that I’ve over explained myself, here are my current Top 10 Games (subject to change, probably by tomorrow morning): 10. Red Dead Redemption What I’ve always loved about Red Dead Redemption is how unromantic it is. It’s a western story about an outlaw, John Marston, forced to hunt down former members of a gang he ran with by the pinkertons. It doesn’t idolise anyone in the story; there are no “good guys”, just the innocent and the guilty. Something narrative games, including this games brilliant prequel, fall trap to is romanticising their own characters and plots. If you ever wanted a game to give it to you straight: Here it is. Capped off with brilliant writing that will stand the test of time, some visuals and environment that still hold water today, and one of the best gaming protagonists ever, I couldn’t not include this on my list. It also has an amazing DLC in which the wild west is hit with a zombie virus, and poor ol’ John Marston is stuck in the middle of a less serious and much more comedic, tongue-in-cheek adventure where the innocent survive while the guilty get eaten. 9. Crusader Kings 2 Crusader Kings 2 is a grand strategy roleplaying game where you play as a medieval ruler and build a dynasty. The game ends if you lose all your land, by it either being conqoured, having not legitimate heir to take it (and thus no claim to it), or if you just happen to die before you get a chance to marry and pump out children. What you do is entirely up to you: Join a society of monks, mystics, warriors or heretics. Maybe join a crusade for the hply land or, if playing as an Islamic character, defend the Holy Land against the crusades. Maybe your goal is to reform paganism into an organised religion and rewrite it’s doctrines. Or maybe, just maybe, you want to seduce every person in the game within reach and ensure the survival of your dynasty by having 20 children. All this and more is possible, if your court physican doesn’t hate you, your council doesn’t think your a tyrant and your religious head doesn’t excommunicate you. Even then, this is all still possible, just a lot harder. Because there are so many infinite possibilities on such a huge game world, with a massive time scale to achieve it all on, Crusader Kings 2 has to be on the list for the sheer freedom it allows players. 8. Baldur’s Gate 3 Baldur’s Gate 3 is a Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying game about trying to get a worm out of your head and stoping a. Giant brain from conqouring the world. It’s an incredibly versitile game that allows for so much replayability due to the countless different character builds, origin characters who give new perspectives on the main story, and the sheer number of branching paths and secret locations that only a second playthrough might yield. The fact you can experience the exact same story several times and take take aomething new away from the experience on each run makes this game incredibly fun and hard to get tired of. 7. Marvel Ultimate Alliance This is one of the more niche games on this list. This is an action roleplaying game where you control a party of 4 Marvel superheroes, which you can sleect from an absolutely huge roster, and take them on a journey through the Marvel universe to stop Doctor Doom and the Masters of Evil from stealing Odin’s power and conqouring Earth. If the concept of creating your own superhero team from a generous gallery of the most famous, and a few deep cuts, sounds fun then this is the game to do it with. I personally fallback on Captain America, Ghost Rider, Blade, and Wolverine. But you can swap new heroes in and out at almost any point, upgrade them, unlock new costumes, and visit tons of famous Marvel locals such as Asgard and Atlantis, before going to lesser known places like the Shi’ar Empire. It’s also a bitnof a time capsule; Marvel comics as it existed in the early 2000’s in it’s purest most accessible form, with several optional interactions that exist solely to inform you on what the hell the lore is accross the comics at that time. 6. Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Nailing my favourite Call of Duty game is not easy, but it has to be this one for how good the co-op elements are. Since the dawn of time, I have played splitscreen zombies and multiplayer with my Dad on this game, so it’s safe to say it has a lot of sentimental value that some previous games on the list lack. It has one of the most insane, absolutely batshit crazy, but also enjoyable stories in a Call of Duty game. It’s not the best by far, but it’s so self aware of itself and full of so many memorable characters that it sticks the landing anyway. The zombies mode peaked here with experimental new maps, like the one where you have to build a plane to escape from prison in Alcatraz while zombies try to eat you and the undead Warden pursues through the tight corridors. Then there’s the underground western town where ghosts and zombies alike try to murder you, as you build traps to fend them off. It’s so creative, thriving in excess and dismissive of anyone trying to say “tone it down a little” that the chaos really brings it together as one of the most “out there” Call of Duty games. 5. Resident Evil 4 Remake The most modern and unexpected game on this list. Previous games on this list benefit a lot from nostalgia and the fact that, as a child, i could indulge in them as much as I wanted. As an adult with a child, I can’t do that as often and play new releases less often. So the fact that I played Residetnt Evil 4 from start to finish three times over in the course of two months, because it’s just that damn fun, says a lot. It has such an addictive combat loop that perfectly balances you on the knife’s edge between control of the situation and panic that I can’t stop going back for. I also enjoy all the exploring and treasure hunting, trying to maximise my points for the most upgrades possible before the game ends. The story might such, but it’s so tongue-in-cheek you can’t help but love it and the characters are all just as ludicrously fun as the plot is. After a hard day at work, it’s even harder not to get carried away in this adventure and even harder to try and reason with it, so why not just get carried along? 4. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind There is no other game in existence that sparks such a sense of advdnture and endless possibilities as Morrowind. The game opens with you feeling like you may never overcome the simplest of obstacles, and functionally ends with you being a god without even having to cheat or game the system. But then, Morrowind is a game that encourages you to cheat and game it. It invites creativity and experementing within the sandbox. It also features one of the most vividly imagined fanstasy cultures imaginable. I really like that there are some thing sin the game that the player just can’t change: Slavery exists and no one man can end it just because he has the protagonist badge. These sorts of things can always be engaged with and either fought for or against, but often exost regardless of your intervention. For a game that looks a bit like bacon due to age, what hasn’t aged is it’s ability to captivate. Every minute of play has you wondering what exactly you’ll see next, and I’m hooked on it. 3. Fallout Fallout has to be a top 3 game because it really broadened my horizons. If I didn’t play the original Fallout, I’d never have got into isometric RPG’s or games older than 2004 in general. No Heroes of Might and Magic 3, no Morrowind, no Daggerfall, no nothing. I can’t imagine what I’d be filling my time with without these games, and all that is thanks to how good Fallout is. Contrary to it’s sprawling and sparodic sequels, Fallout is a very airtight game with every single thing you do, no matter how grand or seemingly insignificant, always moving your forward in some way. In modern day there is often a misunderstanding that the amount of content in a game, and thus the game’s length, is directly related to it’s quality. Fallout is kind of truth of the opposite: More than any game I’ve ever played, Fallout repsects you as a player and your time. It’s a very complex game, but one you can beat in a single weekend and I can’t think of a reason that’s a bad thing. They clearly ran a tight-ship in development, had a clear vision, and did not get distracted from it. The passion comes through, the love for what they made, and I can’t find myself able to play this game anywhere except in the top 3. 2. Rome Total War I am a white male, which means I was born with an innate interest in the Roman Empire and strategy games. Rome Total War is an action-first turn based strategy game that really feels alive, unlike many of it’s own sequels or more reactive real-time games. It’s so simulational that you get lost in it; You need money, so you build your cities. You need armies, so you train units. But units pull directly from the city population, so more armies and bigger armies don’t just hurt the economy because of upkeep, but because you’re slowing the city growth by cknstantly building them. Characters also have a lot more perosnality here. One of my generals went a bit mad after a battle and became known as “the mad” on his character sheet. In one battle he feinforced my main army and suicide charged into a prepared Carthaginian phalanx and died. It was so funny because I know this was a result of the game’s bad AI, but it was also so in character for this insane general that I couldn’t help but let this stand and that death be his lasting legacy. There’s so much to do, so many challenges, and so many units and yet none of it feels like excess: Nothing feels copy and pasted, everything has it’s place and it fits together like a very ambitious jigsaw puzzle. 1. Halo 3 If you think I hate Halo, I don’t blame you: I seem to have only reviewed the ones I don’t like on the blog, but on balance I actually quite enjoy the middle period of the franchise. Halo 3 is my favourite game for similar reasons to both Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and Resident Evil 4 Remake: It has all the creativity and potential for chaos, along with coop, that Black Ops 2 has, while also featuring an addictive combat loop just like Resident Evil 4. Halo 3 is a game about having the right tool for the job, but only being able to carrry 2 tools at a time. Sometimes you need a plasma pistol to diable vehicles, sometimes you need a shotgun for a tight corridor. Sometimes you need to drive an alien Ghost vehicle to stay mobile and dodge, and sometimes you need to drive a tank and blow shit up. If you have the right tools you can fly through the game. If you don’t, you kill whichever alien has the tool you need and then you take it from them and use it to kill all it’s friends. It also has my favourite soundtrack out of any video game I game I have ever played, so there’s that. I listen to it semi-reguarly and it always ranks somewhere on my Spotify wrapped.