VideogameVagabond.com

Now that it is finally and fully revealed, I completely expect there to be plenty of criticism. The main one I expect is “How can you not include Grand Theft Auto?” followed closely by “How can you not include Legend of Zelda or one of the Mario games?”

Simple. I don’t like those games, and this is my list.

I hated Yahoo’s list, so I came up with my own. If you hate my list, exercise your Constitutional rights and make up one of YOUR own, too! That’s how it works in America; we don’t have to change our opinions to please others, and that’s all this list of the Top 20 Vidoegames of the Past Decade is… my opinion.

Are there games on here I loved that didn’t make the cut? Sure there are. I loved the Fatal Frame series, for example; but it just didn’t seem like a Top 20 kind of love. I love plenty of text-base sports management games on my PC, too; but they also didn’t seem like they belonged.

So, these are my decisions, my opinions. Take ‘em for what they are. Disagree on your own blog. But if you think spamming me because I didn’t include a game you like is gonna influence me, think again and spend your time saving up for those adult acne treatments! This is my blog and my opinion… and these are the games I loved most over the past ten years.

‘Nuff said.

1. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (360, PS3)

Sure, we know there are other Elder Scrolls titles out there. I enjoyed Morrowind on PC back in the day. Buy when it comes right down to it, only TES IV: Oblivion really shook the world awake that the next generation of videogame hardware had not only arrived, but defined a new level of gaming excellence.

Bet your Xenadrine RFA X on the fact that this was the defining game of the current generation of hardware, just like Final Fantasy X was the defining RPG for the previous generation of hardware.

Much as I enjoyed the more-recent Fallout 3, that game was merely riding in the shadows of Oblivion. Not only that, but for as much as I love Dragon Age and Mass Effect, it must be admitted that they are RPGs that owe at least part of their inspiration to Oblivion.

Yet here’s the bottom line for me: despite being just about the first – and for a long time, only – RPG of the 360/PS3 era, Oblivion still holds up well today, and ultimately it’s the videogame that converted my non-videogame-fan wife into a gamer.

Not only that, but between my wife and I, we pretty much KILLED out first Xbox 360 playing and replaying Oblivion… a game we own on two platforms, both 360 and PS3. Despite offering over 100 hours of gameplay, we’ve both played through the game more than once – there’s simply no other game this decade I can say that about. Between my wife and I, we’ve probably played 500 hours of Oblivion.

Nothing else matches that, or even comes close.

2. The Metal Gear Solid series (PSone, PS2, PS3, PSP, Xbox, Xbox 360)

Solid Snake may have looked vastly in need of an eczema treatment by the time the series wrapped on PS3 with Metal Gear Solid 4, but Hideo Kojima’s masterpiece was one of the highlights of the past decade for me as a gamer.

While the first Metal Gear Solid on PSone doesn’t count since it released in 1998, the remaining three installments – two on PS2 and the final on PS3 – are some of the best gaming experiences one can hope to have on any platform this series has appeared on.

Although some criticized Kojima for the game’s political agenda, as well as its heavy focus on story segments over gameplay, few could argue that there are many games out there that have pushed the boundaries of platform limits as hard, or implemented storytelling with gameplay quite as creatively.

The series virtually invented a whole new genre: stealth action. And for those who had complained about the game’s overemphasis on storytelling over gameplay, one need only point to Metal Gear Solid 3′s riveting showdown between Solid Snake and The End to establish that Kojima was still a master of gameplay within the series. Any boss battle that literally takes over an hour of real-world time to complete is plenty hardcore in my book.

3. Mass Effect (360)

Whether they knew it or not, the Xbox 360 scored one of the best platform-exclusive franchises of the decade when they got BioWare to create Mass Effect for the Xbox 360. While sometimes the main characters appear to need the best eye cream for dark circles, the truth of the matter is that the game was one of the genre-defining titles of the 360/PS3 era.

The space-opera role-playing shooter owes a lot to both Star Trek and Star Wars while somehow being its own thing as well; and although the second title in the series didn’t arrive until the decade was over, the first title was promising enough to show that the series, planned as a trilogy, would be rock-solid.

No matter what type of “Shepherd” you created, he made a memorable hero and the universe of planets he was given to explore was quite impressive. It’s one of the few that have made me want to play to completion; not just once, but more than once.