Coming Soon: The Top 25 of this Decade

Quick unrelated news – my apologies for the sudden freeze on Retro Reviews without warning. Life handed me lots of lemons (think vehicular lemons, turned into real life situations, multiplied by 15, maybe 16) when I got back from Las Vegas. They are on hold still for an uncertain amount of time. Basically, that means they will return, I just can’t say how soon.

Now onto the matter at hand.

Over the next several weeks and leading up to 2010, I will be posting my choices for the 25 greatest titles of this decade. This is a list I’ve put together with what little time I’ve had from what I’ve been dealing with. This list does not represent the opinions, thoughts and viewpoints of anyone at CL Gamer other than myself. I know I’ll be providing people with some serious double takes with what I chose and what place they were. Sure, Top XX of YY for ZZ lists are as generic, redundant and repetitious as all hell, but hey, if GameFAQS could live off of recycling the same “best character ever” and “best game ever” votes every 11 hours, I’m sure I can sneak my views in.

Pikachu? Definitely not on this list.

A few things before proceeding -

- As many of you may, or may not know, I have a very unorthadox taste in games. There won’t be as many ‘expected to see’ titles as most would think (though there are a good number anyway, but also some true gems that just stole my heart).

- In the case of two games in a series or more being outstanding, the best of the bunch was chosen. So if lets say, Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart Double Dash made my rough draft list, I chose the one I liked more as my representation, but its not a representation of the series its self. The exception to this rule is if multiple titles under the same name are under totally different genres (ex: Halo 3 and Halo Wars….Halo 3 being a FPS and Halo Wars being a RTS).

- Every game listed is without a doubt a must play title IMO (or it wouldn’t be listed, now, would it). Most are known and have been played like crazy, but a few are not of the generic build of a list like this.

- There are no PS3 games listed because, well, I don’t own one and have always had very limited use of one. So many game experiences were never experienced. By next year, I should have one in my possession. There’s a few titles I did not get a chance to play that might have grabbed a spot on my list (Killzone 2, Uncharted 2, Demon’s Souls, Resistance 2).

- On a similar note, no PSP title made the list either. I do own a PSP, however, I did not find anything so good that it had to be on my list.

- The list has shuffled a ton as I double checked what came out within the allowed time frame. Diablo 2 was the original #25 (I never rocked the boat hard enough for long enough like most others that were obsessed with it) and was bumped down as well as the entire list, to compensate.

- I am refraining from making a list of overrated titles and list of worst titles for the time being. For the latter, I really have to dig deep and see what I bought over the years and still own and put a list together. For the first, I’m still debating whether to make a top 5 similar to this top 25. If I do, I will no doubt raise a ton of eyebrows over the titles I choose. But hey, Eric Bischoff said it best….”controversy creates cash”….which means little when I don’t get paid to do this. But hopefully a friendly and rational debate would suffice.

The Plan….

My plan has been to put out the chunks of five. When I am at the top 5, I may do them one a day, every other day, but I have not decided yet. The time line for acceptance begins January 1, 2000, but the end date is November 10, 2009. If by chance something is released between now and anytime after the list is totally put up, that just grabs me so hard that it deserves a nod, the list will be amended to reflect it. These are all titles I currently have in my possession.

Games featuring lightsabers? Definitely made the list!

Let me leave you all with some random facts about my list, yearly stats and other odds and ends you may find interesting –

List of games per platform -

PC – 1

Wii – 1
DS – 1
GBA – 1
N64 – 1
Gamecube – 2
Dreamcast – 2
PS2 – 3
XBox – 4
360 – 9

- A breakdown of each year, with the number of top 25 titles –

2000: 2
2001: 0
2002: 2
2003: 3
2004: 2
2005: 4
2006: 4
2007: 2

2008: 3

2009: 3

- Even though the 360 has nine of my favorite games of this decade, my favorite system was the Sega Dreamcast. There’s a ton of quality gaming to be found on this underrated and underappreciated system, which also houses tons of quality arcade ports of many fighters, as well as some custom built for the system.

- On the other hand, the Sega Dreamcast was also my choice for “Most disappointing” this decade. It died well before we all really saw its true potential, regardless of weaker specs when compared to the PS2.

- There are specific titles that have had releases before 2000, as arcade releases. I chose their home ports as representations. It’s sort of a cop out, but not really, considering the arcade releases were from mid to late 1999 anyway, and I made the list with the intentions of highlighting home platform titles.

- Least favorite system by far is the Nintendo Wii. The system has turned into a shovelware platform, with one good game per season imo. I own four Wii titles, and the one I played the most I traded in months ago (Animal Crossing Wii). It boggles my mind when I see sales numbers for it before the recession. But hey, give me Zelda, Mario and Punch Out, and you start to pull away from total mediocrity, if only by the slimmest of margins.

- I’ve spent more time and money playing my number one selection than I have over the years playing Everquest, which, if I even tried to crunch the numbers for you, would be nearly unbelievable. Considering I started playing Everquest in mid 2000, stopped in 2003, started again in 2005, stopped again in early 2007 and started again before summer began this year, you better believe it when I say that playing my number one choice for more hours and spending more money on it, is quite an accomplishment.

- As of 3:09am est, I managed to find a title I completely overlooked, and that more than deserves to be listed. The one mind blowing thing about this is that it’s yet another title under a major name, that has released tons of titles throughout different genres over the last 20+ years.

Which games made it to the list? Find out in less than a week!

Check back in to CL Gamer this Tuesday for the unveiling of my Top 25 of this Decade, starting with numbers 25 through 21!