LogFAQs > #941794930

This was from a newsletter so I can't post a link.

#10: Katamari Damaci
I love things that make me look at the world in a new way. Katamari did this in spades. It is an imaginative, bizarre vision with unique gameplay. It is like nothing else in the world and I love it for all its strangeness and occasional lack of gameplay polish.
I was transfixed the first time I played it, and have looked forward to it being remade and rereleased on multiple different consoles. I love the cuteand somehow creepy at the same timestoryline. It feels like a fever dream more than a game sometimes, and is probably the closest Ill ever get to understanding what its like to do drugs.

#9: Undertale
This is an oddball on this list because I think its the only game that is not a franchise from a major studiobut is instead an indie game, which I believe was originally funded on Kickstarter.
I loved how this felt like a novel as much as a game. It was one persons vision; a single story told really well, with a huge amount of personality. The humor was just my kind of wonderful/terrible, and I was instantly enamored with the characters.
That probably would have been enough, but it is a nice deconstruction of video games as a mediumand has not one, but multiple innovative gameplay mechanics. Together, the package left me enamored. This is a work of genius that I feel everyone should at least try, even if it ends up not being for them.

#8: Fallout: New Vegas
I have played all of the core Fallout games, and I was one of the (it seems few) who was really excited when it moved from turn-based tactics to first-person shooter. While Fallout 3 was good, it didnt have the charm of the first two.
New Vegas delivered on everything I was hoping to see. The charm was back, the writing sharp, the quests imaginative. The gameplay was engaging and branched in a variety of directions, the gunplay was solid, and the atmosphere immersive. I of course love the first two games in the seriesbut New Vegas combines everything I like in gaming into one package. (As a note, I own the Outer Worlds, and am looking forward to digging into it. Consider this item on the list a recommendation of other Obsidian gameslike Knights of the Old Republic Tworegardless of genre, as Ive found them universally to be superior to their contemporaries.)

#7 Super Mario World
When I was eleven, I flew (alone, which was very exciting to me) from Nebraska to visit my uncle Devon in Salt Lake City. Before I left, my father gave me $200 and told me to pay for my own meals while on the tripbut of course, my uncle didnt allow this. At the end of the trip, I tried to give him the money, which he wouldnt take.
I mentioned my dad would take the money back when I got home, but that was okay. Well, my uncle would have none of that, and drove me to the local mall and made me spend it on a Nintendo Entertainment System. (This uncle, you might guess, is an awesome human being.)
Since that day of first plugging it in and experiencing Mario for the first time, I was hooked. This is the only platformer on the list, as I dont love those. But one makes an exception for Mario. Theres just so much polish, so much elegance to the control schemes, that even a guy who prefers an FPS or an RPG like me has to admit these are great games. I picked World as my favorite as its the one Ive gone back to and played the most.

#7: The Curse of Monkey Island (Monkey Island 3)
I kind of miss the golden age of adventure gaming, and I dont know that anyone ever got it as right as they did with this game. It is the pinnacle of the genre, in my opinionno offense to Grim Fandango fans.
This game came out right before gamings awkward teenage phase where everything moved to 3-d polygons. For a while after, games looked pretty bad, though they could do more because of the swap. But if you want to go see what life was like before that change, play Monkey Island 3. Composed of beautiful art pieces that look like cells from Disney movies, with streamlined controls (the genre had come a long way from Get yon torch) and fantastic voice acting, this game still plays really well.
This is one of the few games Ive been able to get my non-gamer wife to play through with me, and it worked really well as a co-op game with the two of us trying to talk through problems. Its a lovingly crafted time capsule of a previous era of gaming, and if you missed it, its really worth trying all these years later. (The first and second games hold up surprisingly well too, as a note, particularly with the redone art that came out a decade or so ago.)
Also, again, this one has my kind of humor.

#6: Breath of the Wild
I never thought a Zelda game would unseat A Link to the Past as my favorite Zelda, but Breath of the Wild managed it. It combined the magic of classic gameplay with modern design aesthetic, and I loved this game.
Theres not a lot to say about it that others havent said before, but I particularly liked how it took the elements of the previous games in the series (giving you specific tools to beat specific challenges) and let you have them all at once. I like how the dungeons became little mini puzzles to beat, instead of (sometimes seemingly endless) slogs to get through. I liked the exploration, the fluidity of the controls, and the use of a non-linear narrative in flashbacks. Its worth buying a Switch just to play this one and Mariobut in case you want, you can also play Dark Souls on Switch... (Thats foreshadowing.)

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