The Quixotic Engineer

Happy new year everyone! You’ll have to excuse another decade retrospective in list form; we won’t get to do this again for ten years, after all. Here’s my perspective on the 00’s in video games, using the only honest metric I know: games that I personally enjoyed.

2000

The autumn years of the Nintendo 64 and Playstation brought us some real gems. Perfect Dark, Rare’s successor to GoldenEye, forced us all to buy 4 MB of extra RAM in order to enjoy four player deathmatch with an abominable framerate. The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask was destined to be the black sheep of the series, but it has found significant critical appreciation with age. We clicked and looted our way through the hellscape of Diablo 2 (including the long-teased “cow level”). Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 found broad appeal outside of skater culture for its deeply challenging trick chaining system, establishing a fan base that would justify dozens of sequels.

2001

This year saw the release of Grand Theft Auto 3, a game that spawned the 3D sandbox genre. A decade later, countless imitators are still iterating on its innovative core concept. Halo: Combat Evolved was the “killer app” for Microsoft’s new Xbox, and revealed the potential of first person shooter games on consoles. Two personal favourites were also released that year: Final Fantasy X, one of the finest in the series, and Super Smash Bros. Melee, a game I played continuously for roughly seven years.

2002

The highlight of this year was Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, a century-spanning horror masterpiece. Most memorably, the game quantified sanity and played frightening tricks on the player as it depleted. Warcraft III introduced RPG elements to the strategy genre and spawned the incredibly successful mod / subgenre Defense of the Ancients. Timesplitters 2 was a tremendous multiplayer game, and one of the few of the era that supported four player spliscreen. Finally, Metroid Prime brought Samus into three dimensions while the maintaining the series’ trademark atmospheric loneliness.

2003

There were several great games released this year, but first in my heart is The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. With gorgeous cell-shaded graphics, distinctive character and enemy design, beautiful music and sound, and a gigantic oceanic world to explore, it’s my personal favourite of the series¹. Meanwhile, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time introduced time-manipulation to Jordan Mechner’s beloved platformer, Beyond Good & Evil became a cult classic for its beautiful world and memorable characters, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic showed us that Luke should have definitely gone to the dark side (they have sassy robots).

2004

Valved defined this year with two pieces of software: Half-Life 2, which showed the storytelling potential of first-person shooters, and Steam, the groundbreaking digital distribution platform. Idiosyncratic Japanese designers Keita Takahashi and Hideo Kojima released Katamari Damacy and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater respectively. The former is a delightful game that defies classification, the latter is the most focused and tight entry in the series to date. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was remarkably ambitious, introducing a gigantic world map spanning three cities, farmland, mountains and desert. What it lost in focus, it recovered in remarkable scale and variety.

2005

With the next generation right around the corner, this year was defined by late era console games. Developers finally had the knowledge and experience to take full advantage of the hardware, and they did so to great effect. Resident Evil 4 surprised everyone by reinventing the third person shooter, and is one of the finest action games of the decade. Double Fine Productions, founded by former LucasArts designer Tim Schafer, released their hilarious debut title Psychonauts. Punk developer Suda51 made his Western debut with Killer7, a game that noone understands but many people enjoy. Finally, the mournful Shadow of the Colossus gave many of us our first inkling of what this whole “games as art” idea was all about.

2006

The beautiful ink painting-inspired Okami was one of the first titles to be declared the Playstation 2’s swan song; the console would continue to see excellent new releases into 2008. Gears of War build on Resident Evil 4‘s over-the-shoulder camera, added exemplary cover mechanics and became the must-have shooter of the next generation. Meanwhile, Nintendo found incredible success with the Wii. The console included the surprisingly fun tech demo Wii Sports, a game destined to be a perennial at family get-togethers. Finally, the long-awaited RPG Mother 3 was released in Japan; it would receive an unofficial translation by dedicated fans two years later.

2007

“Fall 2007” has become a synonym among gamers for “a large number of great games released in a very short amount of time”. Bioshock introduced us to the underwater objectivist paradise of Rapture, which featured remarkable storytelling in every inch of its rich world. Portal was an instant classic with its innovative puzzle mechanics and terrific dark humour. Team Fortress 2 showed the refinement of a decade of development, and Valve admirably continues to support it with free content. Call of Duty 4 : Modern Warfare succeeded with a thrilling campaign and addictive multiplayer meta-game. Finally, Harmonix’s Rock Band brought the peripheral-based music game trend to its logical conclusion. These five tremendous games (and many more) were released between August and November!

2008

It was the year of indie, as World of Goo, Castle Crashers and Braid led the charge for independent games to be taken seriously in the mainstream. Suda51 released No More Heroes for the Wii, a title that was more palatable to the average gamer without sacrificing his trademark eccentric style. Sins of a Solar Empire married real time and 4X strategy with unprecedented galactic scale; I’ve been something of an evangelist for this game ever since. Clint Hocking’s Far Cry 2 became the benchmark for first-person immersion and open-world shooters. Grand Theft Auto 4 was met with exultant praise on arrival, then promptly forgotten about. On more sober recollection, it’s generally agreed that the living breathing city of Liberty City was the game’s real star.

2009

It’s difficult to take a long view on this most recent year, especially since I’m still playing through half of this year’s strong contenders². Here’s what I’ve been enjoying so far: ThatGameCompany’s Flower showed that art games can be beautiful, accessible and rather zen. Chilean studio ACE Team introduced us to the mad world of Zeno Clash, a first-person brawler with a unique punk fantasy aesthetic. Demon’s Souls introduced innovative asynchronous multiplayer mechanics, but will surely be remembered more for its crushing difficulty and tremendous atmosphere. Batman: Arkham Asylum was certainly the superhero simulator of the decade. Having successfully iterated and refined the meta-game formula, Modern Warfare 2 has been my multiplayer mainstay over the holidays.

My favourite passtime has changed a lot in the last decade. I look forward to seeing what the next ten years have in store.

¹ Michael Abbott can back me up on this one.
² I still haven’t played Uncharted 2 and Brütal Legend!