Games of the Decade: Part 1
AS WE merrily draw a shroud over the '10s – an era that gave us Tinder, YouTubers, Brexit and man-buns – it's time to cast a glance back (with 2020 vision, natch) at the decade that was in gaming.
'Twas an era that saw the least dramatic leap in console tech – indeed, some games from 2010 look just as good as today's releases. Nearly seven years on from launch, PS4 and Xbox One remain the industry workhorses (though soon for the knacker's yard) while Nintendo, smarting from the failure of the criminally unloved Wii U, bounced back magnificently with the Switch.
This week, I’ll highlight the games that most set my greasy heart a-flutter in the first half of the 2010s before dealing with the decade's backside next Friday.
:: Halo Reach (2010)
Though Halo has since stumbled on without its creator, Bungie's last shift at the helm was, for my tuppence, its finest hour. Virtual adrenaline courses through Reach's binary, which plays out like a highlights reel of the franchise that saved Xbox. An intergalactic smackdown where players bring shock and awe to the cosmos with their Space Rambo, Reach took everything that made previous games fan-favourites and tweaked them red-raw for the perfect blaster.
:: Bioshock 2 (2010)
Having made one of the century's best games, 2K bottled lighting once more for their return to the sunken art-deco nightmare of Rapture. Exploring an undersea dystopia, spurting fire from your fingers and hacking into the brains of killer robots, players filled the massive boots of the very first Big Daddy and stomped their way to a brilliant conclusion.
:: Portal 2 (2011)
Mixing ink-black humour, sci-fi smarts and abstract puzzling, Valve's much-loved lab-rat simulator had players running a gauntlet of deadly tests by blasting dimensional holes in a high-tech maze. The sequel put players through their paces in a vast playground littered with insane conundrums and twists of geometry. With cool new tools and a geek-pleasing cat-and-mouse storyline, Portal 2 is a masterpiece of game design that's yet to be bettered.
:: Dishonoured (2012)
As a metal-masked assassin who gets all stabby in a steampunk city running on whale oil, Dishonoured set new standards in world-building. With fantastic production design shot through with maritime lore, supernatural cutthroat Corvo galumphed through its revenge plot by offing toffs any way players wished – from guns blazing to skulking in the shadows, bleeding guards real quiet like. You'll have a whale of a time.
:: The Last of Us (2013)
A blockbuster with arthouse smarts, the grief-roasted Last of Us had more heart and brains than a tinned meat pie. Investing as much in its storytelling as it did in gunplay, grizzled anti-hero Joel and young Ellie survive a pants-pollutingly tense blend of mutant shanking and folksy Americana. Better still, next May sees the long-awaited sequel.
:: Alien Isolation (2014)
Filling the space boots of Ripley's daughter on a remote space station, androids and a Xenomorph run amok in this nerve-shredding game of cat and mouse that, like its celluloid inspiration, is designed to upset both mind and guts. Made with obvious love for the source material and with an authentic 70s sci-fi vibe, Isolation is a slow-burn masterclass in fear that delivered a warm face-hug to horror junkies.
