PixlBit

 Okay, here's the deal. I like doing top 10 lists. For some reason I got it into my head to do a series of top 10s about each year in the 2000's – because hey, that's when I truly became a gamer. I mean, I gamed before then, sure, but this was when I went from kid who plays games sometimes to kid who religiously buys Playstation magazines.

Obviously, we'll start with the year 2000. What a year. The dawn of a new millenium – we were alive for that shit, isn't that crazy? I turned 8 that year, and that's the year the best console ever released was... um... released. Yeah, I'm talking about the Playstation 2. The golden boy. The console that marked the turning point for video game's pop culture takeover. I remember, every man and his dog had one – they were just that popular.

Also, the games that came out – damn. This seemed to be the year where sequels to games that created genres all came out, and seemed to improve on them and really help cement those genres' place in modern gaming.

Now, just remember that these games have to hold up somewhat decently to be ranked highly on this list. If they don't hold up today, sorry, but they don't make it. Sorry Perfect Dark.

So, without further ado, have a list you smarmy bastards.

10. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2

This game is silly. It's awesome, but it's silly. As a kid, I mostly remember watching my stoned stepfather play this game constantly and giggle at the cutscenes. You don't have to be stoned to giggle at the cutscenes, however, as they are insanely silly and filled with the best kind of cheese imaginable.

That would be for nothing if this wasn't also an insanely satisfying strategy game. I won't go too much into specifics, because my knowledge of the genre begins and ends with the campaigns of Starcraft 2, this game and Age of Empires II. However, the campaign is fun, varied, and hilarious.

9. The Sims

Shut up. Don't even think about judging. Just because a game isn't catered directly to your tastes does not make it bad. The Sims is a well made game that has stolen countless hours from the lives of many people – not only housewives.

Whether you just want to indulge your architectural desires virtually, pursue dreams you have long since given up on, or simply make characters who look like your family members and then torture them until they wet themselves and die, there is no denying that there is appeal to the game.

8. Banjo Tooie

Oh Rare, what happened to you? You were the king shit to every kid who ever owned a Nintendo 64. Then, like all good things, Microsoft happened. Now you are a soulless husk who makes shitty Kinnect.

Banjo Kazooie was like Mario 64, but in my mind – better. It was funnier. It controlled a bit better. It was also a touch on the weirder side, and I dug that. The sequel took everything that made the original a success and ramped it up, including the meta humour, the tricky platforming, and the awesome music. Seriously, This game was dope.

7. Thief II: The Metal Age 

Thief II should be higher. I get that. However, I find that it hasn't aged as well as some of the games on this list. The movement is a bit too clunky, the visuals are awful by todays standards, and it's a bit on the slow side for my liking. While I loved it as a kid (to be fair, I mostly loved bonking dudes in the head and then running away giggling), I simply don't have the patience for this kind of thing anymore. It's too a bit too slow. Also, while the first half of the game is phenomenal, the second half kind of gets a bit too complex and weird in my opinion.

However, what this game does right, it does phenomenally well. It has the best level design of any stealth game – period. The areas you steal from and explore feel like real places, and are laid out in a believable manner. It's almost like the level designers were architects more than game developers, as it seems like they created the levels first as actual places to live, and then worked out how the player was supposed to interact with it. This leads to the game being one of the most immersive experiences you'll play – simply because of the believability.

As I stated before though, it hasn't aged well at all. It's tense, the writing is sharp, and it helped pave the way for an entire genre in a big way, but to me, it simply isn't fun to play.

If you disagree, write your own damned list.

7. Resident Evil Code: Veronica

Resident Evil Code Veronica was the first Resident Evil I finished. I'd played all of the others up until this point, but I was too young to truly wrap my head around the puzzles, or defeat some of it's trickier bosses. However, when I first played Code Veronica, it all clicked. I realised that wasting my ammo was stupid, I worked the puzzles out on my own, and I kicked some serious zombie butt!

Originally, this was supposed to be Resident Evil 3, and Resident Evil 3 was supposed to be the spinoff, and you can kind of tell. This brings back Chris and Claire as playable characters, and its plot advances the world far more than Resident Evil 3 did.

However, this game sticks in my mind for another reason. Poor, poor Steve...

6. Diablo II

 What I've often found sets a great game apart from a good game is a fantastic soundtrack. You see, a game's sound can make or break a game for a number of reasons, but mostly, it's because sound is pivotal in creating atmosphere. Silent Hill did this through terrifying industrial noise. Ocarina of Time achieves this with soaring orchestrals that evoke the spirit of adventure. Dark Souls does this by removing music in most areas and simply having ambient noise, and then ramping it up with chaotic harmonies as soon as you face a boss.

Diablo 2 has a lot of imitators, and yet none of them come close to this game's legacy. There are games that might have a better sense of impact and weight behind combat (Diablo 3), keep the core gameplay in tact but refine and polish it (Torchlight 2), or games that hire Blind Guardian to cover up shitty gameplay (Sacred 2). Yet none of these have a better soundtrack than Diablo 2. Okay, Sacred 2 might but it's really hard to beat Blind Gaurdian's brand of Tolkien obsessed cheese.

Anyway, Diablo 2 has an incredibly rich atmosphere that pulls you into it's world. It's dark, ominous, and mysterious, and helps to keep you in the moment. Oh, and loot. Loot is badass.

5. Final Fantasy IX

 While many will argue which PS1 Final Fantasy was Final Fantasy VII, it's undeniable that IX has held up the best. At the time it was criticised for being a more traditional fantasy game with a cartoonish aesthetic, but those changes helped it in the future. The game's visuals have aged quite well, all things considered, and the world is much easier to navigate than either VII or VIII.

While FFVII might have a more engrossing world, I'd argue IX has the better characters. It has heart. It has charm. It has humour, and when it goes dark, it never feels forced. This is my second favourite Final Fantasy game (number 1 being VI) and it's one that truly deserves its place as one of the best JRPGs ever made.

4. Deus Ex

 

 Um... it's Deus Ex? If you haven't heard of this game, you aren't a gamer. It's that simple. This is game that said do it your way. Do you want to hack the robot so it kills everyone? Do you want to sneak past everyone? Do you want to stack boxes against the wall and just jump over it? You can do all of these things – and more! - in the first level. Yeah. That's a level of complexity we rarely get these days, let alone at the time.

Not to mention the writing is superb writing, layered characters, and a dope as fuck soundtrack, there's a reason PC Gamer constantly calls this the greatest game of all time.

Unfortunately, it's not my favourite. I love it, don't get me wrong, but I guess it just didn't impact me as well as some of the other games on the list. I didn't play it when it first came out, and by the time I did play it, well, other games had copied the formula. It wasn't as new to me as it was to many people. Oh well. I still think this game is awesome.

3. The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

I shouldn't need to comment on this game. In my mind it's the best Zelda game in the history of ever. Why?

It's darker. It's more layered. The story tackles some really adult themes that blew my mind when I was a kid. See, I was that weird kid when I was 8. I'd just graduated from Goosebumps to Stephen King, I had played the shit out of Silent Hill and Resident Evil, and I was at that stage in my life where I didn't want to do kiddy shit. Damnit, it 2 years, I would be 10! I needed to demonstrate my maturity by liking things to be as dark as possible.

Majora's Mask was that.

It's all about juxtaposition. When you juxtapose the haunting imagery with the cartoonish and bright aesthetic, and becomes unsettling, because it's unnerving. This is a horror game hiding in the shell of an all ages game, and Jesus Christ is that effective. It was unexpected. When I played Resident Evil and Silent Hill, I expected to be terrified. When I played Zelda, I expected to have fun. By toying with my expectations like this, Majora's Mask managed to scare the bejesus out of me.

Sure, the 3 day thing can be annoying now, but at the time it was revolutionary, and just added to the horror vibe the game was going for.

2. Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn

 Dude. It's Baldur's Gate 2. Or, known by its more accurate name: That time that Bioware made a sequel to a fantasy game that didn't suck.

I'm not going to lie, when I first played this I was confused and didn't like it. I was 8, don't judge me. The levels were seriously huge, the likes of which I hadn't see at the time. There was so much to do, so many people to talk to... it was too much!

In some ways it still is. Although I've now finished it and love the hell out of the game, when you first step out of Irenicus' Dungeon, there's a feeling of “Okay, what the hell do I do now?” There is very little direction at first, and a hell of a lot of options.

If you can get past this, though, you will be rewarded with one of the best written and complex rpgs ever made. It's deep, it's dark, and it's frequently hilarious. Also, the amount of different things you can do is mind numbing. You can solve a murder mystery. You can take sides in a feuding family and convince them to kill each other. You meet a talking sword. You have a guy in your part who has a pet space hamster who frequently talks to him.

If you are an rpg fan and you haven't played this, do it. You won't regret it. If you love the writing in Mass Effect or Dragon Age, you owe it to yourself to play this.

1. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2

 Whoa. Put down your pitchforks and step away from your shotguns. I know that compared to the other games on this list, this game isn't anywhere near as revolutionary, deep, or, hell, even good.

However, you have to understand what this game did for ME, you know, the guy writing the list? This game defined a large portion of my life. I took up skateboarding. I got into punk, metal, and rap because of this game. My entire music collection is a result of this game. I mean, that fucking soundtrack. Sure, it's not high art by any means, but it worked so well with the game that, even if you weren't a fan of any of these bands, you couldn't help but love it. It was the perfect skate mix tape.

This wouldn't be number 1 though if the soundtrack were just awesome. The gameplay is also damn fun. The skateboarding you loved from the first game was still there and just awesome. However, now there were manuals. Looking back, I don't know how I played THPS1 without them – they are just so essential to the Tony Hawks Formula that it doesn't make sense not to have them.

Anyway, this game defined my life. It changed my personality, my interests, and was the cause of much of what happened in my early years of high school. Not many games can claim that sort of influence on a person.