Sujayendra Krishna Nellore is a friend of mine I met online in a gaming group, which he was the admin of. We had similar tastes in gaming and hit it off. He runs a Core i7, with 16GB RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX1070. He also games on his PS4. This is his take on the games of the decade, encompassing 2010-2019. Please welcome Sujayendra to the blog and here's hoping we see more from you in the years to come!
The Bilge Master
The Bilge Master
The Games That Defined This Decade
By Sujayendra Krishna Nellore
As another decade draws
to a close, let us pause for a second and look back on the decade that was in
video games.
In December of 2010, a 19 year old me leaned forward to stare
at the screen as Bethesda Softworks boss Todd Howard took to the stage at Spike
Game Awards. A seemingly compact man, Howard looked like he was bursting at the
seams, and barely got through the prepared speech before revealing a bombshell:
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was announced, showcased, and scheduled to release
on 11.11.11.
I wept with joy.
2010 to 2019 is easily the biggest decade of the video game
industry. Video games went from being disregarded as childish technobabble to
becoming the center of mainstream pop culture. The sudden change in the status
quo has been difficult to digest for some – even as we speak there are
fully grown men bullying others for playing the games they consider to be
childish. Gaming has also been a focal point in the rise of the alt-right, a
global neo-nazi movement that used GamerGate in 2014 as a recruitment ground.
Much to their horror, however, gaming has continued to grow at
a rapid pace. While there are always going to be the incoherent rants of people
desperately clinging to their status quo, video games are a unifying force. And
some of them are better than the others.
With the following several words, I’ll attempt to collect the
best game of each year this decade. Of course, opinions deeply vary, and I do
believe mine are quite aligned to the mainstream video game industry, so feel
free to drop your favourite in the comments below.
2010 - A Tie Between
Mass Effect 2 and Red Dead Redemption
This decade was off to a running start with EA and Rockstar
Games – titans of the industry, releasing two memorable games that remain
close to many a heart even today. With Mass Effect 2, pre-misfortune BioWare
successfully released a competent follow-up that met fan expectations and put
the series on the global map.
Rockstar Games, on the other hand, were quiet about their
spaghetti western open-world game. Designed by Rockstar San Diego, Red Dead
Redemption was a glimpse into the decade that would be in video games. The game
swam its way to high scores and heaps of praise on the backs of powerful
performances by the cast, as well as a unique take on western games that
maintained the immersive cowboy experience throughout its runtime. Oh, and it
introduced the world to John Marston.
2011 - The Elder Scrolls
V: Skyrim
To understand Skyrim’s cultural impact on mainstream
pop-culture, one just has to look at the millions of videos on YouTube,
references to the game in various forms of entertainment media, and look at the
tweets from early 2012.
While there have been several games that pushed the medium
forward in 2011 – this is the same year Portal 2 and Battlefield 3 came
out, Skyrim was everywhere. It was in TV commercials, celebrities were talking
about it, YouTube channels featuring the game went viral overnight. Even in
2019, there are still people who lose themselves in the calming world of
Skyrim.
Bethesda, like BioWare, has also lost favour with fans over the
last few years. With the disastrous launch of Fallout 76, and their continued
efforts to make it worse for players, the next decade will be a litmus test to
an impatient fanbase’s tolerance levels with this storied studio.
2012 - Dark Souls
When Demon’s Souls launched for the PS3, it was hailed as a
return to old-school gaming. Purists decried the modern ‘hand-holding’ of video
games and hailed Fromsoft’s return to the fold as one of the greatest games
ever made. I’m unsure how the From Software, a Japanese company without much
experience in the west, viewed their success, but it was enough to launch Dark
Souls in 2011 for Xbox 360 and PS3.
It wasn’t until August of 2012, when the game launched on PC.
The rest is history.
You see, Dark Souls launched on PC at a time when streaming was
steadily gaining popularity. People thronged in the millions to see their
favourite streamers fail at the game, and it was all the marketing From
Software needed. The community around FromSoft games today is one of the best
in gaming circles – despite the cavalcade of smug know-it-alls who
wouldn’t help you with the game without going ‘oooohhh I’m not gonna tell you
what happens, figure it out!’
Beneath the depressive visuals and tough-as-nails enemies
however, was a solid game with fantastic control mapping. It rewarded the
wackiest of strategies and pinpoint precision. The trend to recreate the
success of Dark Souls has led to a whole new genre of video games called
‘Souls-like’, and prompted YouTubers, Games Journalists, and even gamers to
compare every tough game to Dark Souls for the rest of the decade.
It is my Game of the Decade. Only one other game comes close to
being this influential over the course of these 10 years.
2013 - The Last of Us
It is safe to say nobody anticipated just how massive The Last
of Us would eventually end up being. If Red Dead Redemption signalled a shift
to a more serious, character driven storytelling in video games, The Last of Us
was the proof of concept. It was clear, undeniable proof of the power of
stories told in an interactive medium. One would say this was slightly ironic,
since GTA V released on last generation consoles in the same year. The student
had surpassed the master.
Game Director Bruce Straley and Creative Director Neil
Druckmann became heroes overnight as the reviews started rolling in. They were
the golden boys at Naughty Dog, and while the consequences of making such a
successful game would come back to haunt them during the development of
Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, they – and their game, had secured a place in
video game history.
2014 - Alien: Isolation
In a year with juggernauts like Dragon Age: Inquisition
– which subsequently went on to win Game of the Year at The Game Awards,
the one game that got most of my attention was a game nobody expected to
succeed.
Creative Assembly, the studio known for developing the
brilliant Total War games, took on a project with Sega to develop a visceral
horror game based on the Alien franchise. From hiring the original actors to
voice easter eggs to accurately recreating director Ridley Scott’s
retro-futuristic technology in the 1979 classic, the studio went all out. The
crowning jewel, however, was the AI that powered Xenomorphs in game.
Gone were the set jump scare points, and easily avoidable alien
encounters. The AI was designed to react to your every move. If you crouched a
lot, the alien would crawl on the floor to find out. If you hid in vents and
closets, that’s where it would check first. The raw terror of hiding from an
impossible killing machine that keeps outwitting you when you least expect it
gave us one of the most organically terrifying games of the decade. There still
isn’t anything like it yet.
2015 - The Witcher 3:
Wild Hunt
For Polish developers CD Projekt Red, it was a dream come true.
The company that started in the shaky economy of a former Soviet Union
territory was, in 2014, at the cusp of something truly mind blowing. And they
knew it.
CDPR has always been one for big risks. From managing to sell
official copies of video games by offering appealing merch within the box in a
country where everyone pirated digital media, to taking a strong anti-DRM
stance, they walked the talk and stayed honest with the community. So when the
company decided to go multi-platform with Witcher 3, after a book accurate
Witcher 1 only on PC, and the unpolished gem that was Witcher 2: Assassins of
Kings on PC and Xbox 360, they had to go all out.
A marketing blitz in 2014 that showcased the impressive world
of The Witcher 3 was more than enough for anticipating fans to forgive delays
in release. And when it did come out in May 2015, this magnum opus would go on
to become one of the most successful video games of all time.
2016 - Doom
After 2004’s questionable Doom 3, the franchise was considered
to be dead weight. Dedicated fans of the original Doom games kept the community
alive with mods like Brutal Doom. However, there was interest in the community,
and ID Software got to work.
Blending old-schooling shooting with new age controls, and
adding shiny graphics and a soundtrack that makes one want to rip & tear
their clothes apart and go to war, Doom 2016 was the best reboot one could hope
for. The game was a pure, unadulterated power trip throughout the duration of
your journey through hell. As the overused meme says, ‘In other games, you
fight the boss. In Doom, you are the boss.’
2017 - The Legend of
Zelda: Breath of the Wild
It is hard to explain just how good Breath of the Wild is.
Between the 900 Korok seeds, 120 shrines, four divine beasts, and a massive
open world to explore, Nintendo’s rehashing of the old adventure game formula
gives us a fresh new take on this storied franchise.
At its core, the latest entry to the franchise remains an
adventure game. Players are rewarded for coming up with weird and interesting
solutions to conflicts that present themselves within the game world. The
limited, yet highly flexible array of tools available to Link asks you a simple
question: Why attack head on, when you can annoy your enemies to death?
2018 - God of War
I remember the crowd reaction at E3 2016. The entire theatre
erupted in cheers, and thousands of miles away, all my woes of sleep
deprivation vanished the moment Kratos stepped out from the shadows of his
cabin.
This was, perhaps, the most difficult year to choose a single
game that represents it. Red Dead Redemption 2 blew our socks off with a
compelling story, great performances, and an open world that I still roam
around in for the peace and quiet. And yet, God of War overshadows it. A more
mature Kratos, after murdering his entire extended family, learns to be a
father once again in this epic tale of a father and son’s journey. If The Last
of Us laid the groundwork, God of War is on the first floor.
Kratos, in a way, matured with the Game Director Cory Barlog.
He knew that Kratos could not be the angry Spartan he used to be. In turning
Kratos from a one-dimensional rage monster to a tragic figure befitting of a
Greek tragedy, while also somehow retaining the combat roots of the older
games, Barlog is the latest to push the boundaries of storytelling in video
games.
2019 - Sekiro: Shadows
Die Twice
Look, I love Death Stranding. I think it is one of the most
unique games ever made, but it still falls into the trap of being repetitive.
While Japanese Game Developer Hideo Kojima knocked it out of the park, it still
has to be enough of a game. Death Stranding is a game for the future, hopefully
a benchmark that will guide other studios along the way. But the game of 2019
goes to another Japanese studio – one that defined this decade with Dark
Souls.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is easily one of the greatest games
I’ve ever played. This, despite the fact that it forgoes the freedom and
cheese-making ability of Dark Souls and Bloodborne. Once you overcome the fear
of being hit, and realise that the key to this game is unrelenting aggression,
you are set free. Bosses like Genichiro Ashina become less of a dominant force,
and more of a worthy adversary taunting you to clash swords with him.
That, combined with the tactile feedback of pulling off a
pitch-perfect parry, and doing it again in quick succession, is extremely
gratifying. Once you master the parry, there’s no going back. When once you
avoided combat with fear, you now seek it out of pure bloodlust. That’s just
how good the gameplay is.
Conclusion: 2020 - The
Road Ahead
As gaming continues to become one of the most profitable
industries in the world, video game publishers find new ways to squeeze money
out of gamers. It is the nature of a company, after all, to make as much money
as possible. Despite blatant corporate greed, Indie games continue to showcase
the power of this medium, while the titans of the industry push out a few gems
every now and then.
With From Software’s Elden Ring, CD Projeckt Red’s Cyberpunk
2077, Sucker Punch Entertainment’s Ghost of Tushisma, and even more exciting
games scheduled to release in 2020, the year ahead looks rich in interactive
entertainment.
And with new consoles just around the corner, I am eagerly
looking forward to year-long speculation of technical specifications, launch
titles, and price points. Here’s to another decade of mind-bending, and
genre-defying entertainment on your home consoles and PC.
Cheers, and a happy new year!
