Requiem for a Generation: the Greatest Games of the Last Console Generation

With the emergence of the PS4 and Xbox One last year the games of yesterday are now the games of yester-year.  Last week, we gave props to the greatest game series of the last console generation: Batman: Arkham Etc.  Today we tip our caps to the greatest individual games of the PS3/Xbox generation, the five greatest to be exact.

5. Call of Duty: Black Ops - Treyarch/Activision

This would not be much of a list if the FPS (first person shooter) to end all FPS's was not acknowledged in some way.  The Call of Duty series is arguably the most recognizable game series of the last 10 years, right up there with Halo and Madden.  The trouble is singling one out from the crowd.  The games make their money on a formula and they are so faithful to it things all start to look the same.  In the end it came down to which game in the series offered the most "perfected" incarnation of this formula.  That game is Black Ops.

The campaign is among the best in the series - being the first game in the series to utilize quick time events - and it boasts an impressive cast of voice actors including Gary Oldman, Sam Worthington, and Ed Harris.  The highly popular "Nazi Zombies" games from World at War are back (although with diminishing returns).  It's all pretty fun, but that's not why anyone plays CoD.

Every new game in the CoD series features a slightly different multiplayer experience.  Players never seem to struggle to find things to complain about with each new version.  None are perfect, but the Black Ops multiplayer is the closest the series gets.  The game is slowed down compared to other versions letting players move away from a strictly "reactionary" style of play in favor of a more strategic one, in which map lay-outs, coordinated attacks, and vantage points all hold double the importance of any other game.  Sadly, as with all formulaic game series, Black Ops has been history for a few years already having been set aside for sharper, faster, sleeker games.  The new versions may be fun, but everything after Black Ops is just an imitation.

4. Dark Souls  - From Software/Bandai

"Prepare to Die".  That is the tagline for the #4 game on the list, Dark Souls, and believe me when I say it tells no lies.  The game that takes fan favorite Skyrim to the mat, Dark Souls is an open world, role playing, dungeon crawler that fans love for its replayability, highly original multiplay dynamics, and incredible difficulty.  

A game with a rich mythology that you have to search to discover, Dark Souls goes far out of its way to reward players willing to put the time in to, not only win, but explore.  The lore of this game is so rich that you can log 100 hours and not even home close to unearthing it all (trust me, I speak from experience).  The difficulty of the game will have you turning off your system a few times in blind rage, but give it an hour, and you'll come back for more.  You will curse, you will groan, you will say "C'mon!", you will die, and you will have fun.

3. Portal 2 - Valve

Sorry, Tetris, but Portal 2 is the greatest puzzle game of all time.  Innovative, beautifully designed and challenging, Portal 2 would be a great game if it was just room after room of puzzles.  But it is so much more.

You'd never expect it when you first start to play it's seemingly innocuous predecessor, Portal: Still Alive, but the Portal universe is one of the most fascinating and lush of any game series.  That is what makes this game so great.  It isn't just the story, but the way it is revealed to the player.  Everything builds from darkness to enlightenment, like a light bulb slowly turning on to reveal the wold around you (which, in the case of Portal, is quite a terrifying place).

Portal 2 plays out like a black comedy noir.  Fantastic voice acting turns by Stephen Merchant and J.K. Simmons bring the perfect balance of terror (what they say) and hilarity (how they say it) to the game.  The ambient/electronic soundtrack along with the haunting imagery of the game gives everything a properly eerie feel.  Then, of course, there is GlaDOS.

GlaDOS, the passive-aggressive and darkly sinister super-computer that is a lot like HAL9000, if HAL9000 had the personality of a psychotic girlfriend that decided she was going to methodically ruin your life because you forgot to take out the trash one too many times.  Chosen by IGN and GameInformer as the greatest video game villain OF ALL TIME, GlaDOS returns from the dead in Portal 2 to take vengeance and dole out some serious psychological warfare (in the form of scathing sarcasm) on her nemesis Chell, the heroine of the series.

Portal 2 challenges you, not just to solve puzzles, but to solve a mystery.  The results are a hell of a good time.

The Last of Us - Naughty Dog/Sony

I already went deeply in depth into what makes this game so fantastic during last year's Year In Review series when I rated in the Game of The Year, but it was so good it deems repeating.  Gorgeously rendered, expertly told, and a joy to play, The Last of Us was a single console release (PS3) and the last great game its generation.

The game mechanics and style of play are fantastic, allowing for players to have a varied number of game play experiences.  Want to play a stealth/hunter game?  You can.  Want to just run around unloading a shotgun on bad guys? you can do that too.

The game play is enough to make it memorable, but the story of The Last of Us is what makes it special (notice a theme?).  In any serious game with voice actors there comes a moment of groan inducing hoaky-ness that gives birth to the phrase "Great story, for a video game".  Resident Evil, Call of Duty, Assassins Creed they all have their moments of weakness (Final Fantasy is full of them).  The Last of Us is one of those truly few games that has the story and script that will draw you in as effectively as any movie or television show.  It is simply excellent story telling.

1. Bioshock - Irrational Games/2K

Dark, exciting, nerve wracking, beautiful, I could go on for days with adjectives that make Bioshock the greatest game of the last console generation.  Also mentioned in last year's Year in Review, this is a game that I will never tire of playing.

A fast paced FPS, Bioshock, takes familiar game mechanics gives them a tweak here and there and throws it into a wholly original world and lets you have at it.

Inspired by the musings of novelist, champion of objectivism, and tea party patron saint, Ayn Rand, Bioshock takes Rand's paradise city of Galt's Gulch from Atlas Shrugged and dives deep to see what life may have been like in such a paradise had it existed.

Man alone is responsible for the world of Rapture, and Man alone suffers in it.

Of course, by the time the events of the game transpire, the underwater city of Rapture is no paradise.  It is a bombed out hellscape where drug addicts fight viciously under the banner of warring megalomaniacs, Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontaine.  The Orwellian world that Bioshock brings the player to is rich with fascinating characters and dark history, all in front of a majestically designed 1940s style art deco backdrop in a city under the sea.

Sander Cohen, Rapture's Phantom of the Opera.

When it isn't turning your knuckles white, this game is delighting you some fantastically original characters and sending shivers down your spine with disturbing imagery.  GlaDOS might be the biggest and baddest, but Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontaine (also known as Atlas) are two of the most complex villains ever to be pixelated.  Part noir, part science fiction, Bioshock is a gripping game experience that not only makes you think but might even get you to read something.

2013 Year in Review: Game of the Year, The Last of Us

I downloaded The Last of Us one day onto my PS3 on whim when I turned it on to play Injustice: Gods Among Us.  It was an impulse buy.  Boy, am I glad I followed that impulse.

 

Zombies have been big in recent years.  The Walking Dead, Warm Bodies, Dead Rising, Left 4 Dead, no matter the genre fighting the dead is a popular story. 

The gaming realm has focused most of its zombie smashing energies on providing online-based antics rather than a story driven experience.  Even the classic Resident Evil series is more memorable for its thrilling game play than the convoluted plot lines.  The Last of Us breaks that mold.

Technically, the mindless flesh-consuming villains in The Last of Us aren’t zombies, and that’s part of the beauty of it.  They actually aren’t the primary villains either, also part of the beauty of the best game to come out this year.  A large swath of the global population has been infected with a “zombifying” virus, much like in the Resident Evil series.  Unlike Resident Evil, The Last of Us draws inspiration from a real life cordyceps fungus which effects ants.  Science fiction makes it possible for the virus to take the leap from insect to human, chaos ensues and the game begins.

On a technical level, The Last of Us is fantastic.  It looks amazing.  The voice acting and sound is of the highest caliber.  The weapons system is easy to understand and lends itself well to the survival/horror genre.  The upgrading system encourages multiple playthroughs and world exploring.  The only place where the game disappoints is in the multiplayer game, which had the opportunity to be an immersive, world building system but instead was relegated to a simple CoD style team deathmatch system.  But most players will spend little time on the multiplayer experience, because the story mode is just that good.

**Minor Spoilers** Ahead. (Minor spoilers are spoilers that will only really bother you if you’re a whiney jerk, as opposed to a real spoiler, such as Darth Vader is Luke’s sister in Star Trek.)

The game begins with the outbreak, but the story doesn’t really get going until several years later.  After surviving the initial wave of chaos and making it through the subsequent decades as a smuggler the protagonist of the game, Joel, is enlisted by a questionable ally to transport a young girl across the country.  Joel and the young girl, Ellie, portrayed in stellar performances by Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson, embark on there journey through cities that are either under strict martial law or completely lawless.  In turns running from armed soldiers, marauding groups of scavengers, and the always present infected humans, Joel and Ellie make there way from Boston towards their final goal encountering many equally well written characters who either become valued allies or terrifying enemies.

As they near the finish line both struggle with their past choices and what will become of them when they do reach their final destination.  The weight is especially heavy on Joel, who is still struggling with the loss of his own daughter at the outbreak of the virus.

All of their decisions and struggles culminate in what is one the most realistic, subtly shocking, emotional, and fantastic endings ever to find its way into the medium of gaming.

Even without the incredible story, The Last of Us still would have been one of the top games this year.  With the ending, no other game even came close.