The 50 Best Video Games of the 2000s: The Final List [I Heart Video Games]

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The 50 Best Video Games of the 2000s: The Final List [I Heart Video Games]

I had been hoping to have this list done by Monday, but as it turned out, with so many games over so many consoles, this list was much more of a pain in the ass to put together than the 50 Best Movies of the 2000s-- mainly because I tried to be much more objective with this one, which meant some long nights poring over multiple reviews from multiple sources for almost each game to try and narrow down 50 games that represented the triumphs and advances in game creation in the past 10 years. And as with any list, there's always some very difficult choices.

Peggle, for example, almost made the list. You may scoff at the notion, but Tetris, an equally simple and addictive game is often praised as one of the greatest games of all time for its beautiful simplicity, and there's a lot of things PopCap did really well with Peggle. Ultimately, I had to knock it out of the top 50 in favor of games that are more deserving, and there were plenty of games that didn't make the list for some reason or another that were incredible in their own right, but when you make a list of 50, you kind of have to stick to 50. However keep in mind that the top 50 games over a 10 year period is just a tiny slice of the great games that were made in the 2000s, so just because a game is low on the list doesn't by any means mean that it sucks. Every game on this list is awesome or it wouldn't be here.

I also tried to minimize, whenever possible, a single franchise taking up a whole crapload of slots in the list, so there's some cases where if a game and its sequel(s) were all relatively almost equally awesome, I usually just picked one as a representation, though there are several instances of the same franchise taking up more than one spot if one was drastically better than the other and they both deserved to be in the list.

So here it is, the second "50 Best" list. Express your grievances and complaints below.

50. Kingdom Hearts

Disney plus Square proved to be an absolutely winning combination.

49. Viva Pinata

The most fun you can have growing paper creatures in a fake garden.

48. Braid

XBox Live Arcade is pretty hit or miss. Most of the time, you can waste a good amount of time playing pretty decent shooters or puzzle games, but sometimes there's a diamond in the rough. Braid is not only beautiful to look at, but it's incredibly well constructed platfomer that bends time and space and changes your notions of what a platformer can be.

47. Final Fantasy X

The neverending RPG series continues to impress with this tenth installment. With every FF game comes an incredible cast of characters, a huge story and cutting edge graphics and gameplay mechanics. It's just too bad that X had to be followed up by X2. Final Fantasy XII could have also made the list if it weren't for that blasted auto-battle system, that while it looked cool, stripped whatever fun there was in the traditional click, select, click battle system.

46. Black and White

Playing God is a blast, especially when those little people love me so. They do love me, they told me.

45. The Sims 2

The original Sims in 1996 was groundbreaking in terms of being able to waste your life running other people's lives, not to mention torturing your virtual family and the Sims 2 took it up a few notches.

44. Resident Evil 4

After the first groundbreaking Resident Evil, the series hit a rough patch til it got around to the fourth.

43. Super Mario Galaxy

Nintendo shows why it keeps that fat little plumber around-- because somehow platformers just wouldn't be the same without him.

42. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time

The original Prince of Persia moved platformers into a new era when it first showed up and Sands of Time came pretty close to capturing all the fun and adventure of the original.

41. Ico

Simple and beautiful, Ico isn't what you might expect, but it's everything it should be.

40. Burnout Paradise

Not so much racing as artful crashing and destruction, by far the best of the Burnout series.

39. Tony Hawk's Project 8

A brilliant addition to the Tony Hawk franchise that makes real skating look like wussy shit.

38. New Super Mario Bros.

The first 2D side-scrolling Mario Bros. game in years proves that Nintendo's still got it. It's in many ways the same old 2D Mario that you loved when you were a kid, only with all the level-design and gameplay life lessons that Nintendo's learned since then combined into a game that's all at once addictive, groundbreaking, nostalgic and brutal.

37. Super Smash Bros. Brawl

When I was a kid, I used to think that the most awesome thing ever would be a fighting game starring Nintendo's cast of likeable characters and with the Smash Bros series that dream became a reality. But Brawl isn't just Street Fighter in the Mushroom Kingdom-- it's a supersonic all-out multiplayer... uh... brawl.

36. World of Warcraft

There were MMOs before WoW, but none have ever come even remotely close to putting the "massive" in massive multiplayer online RPGs like this one.

35. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

This is really the Star Wars story that should have been the basis of Episodes 1-3 instead of the trash we got.

34. Mass Effect

Not always the most groundbreaking in terms of gameplay, Mass Effect will one day stand as the harbinger of a new era in storytelling.

33. FEAR

An amazingly engaging, thrilling and involving game of paranormal proportions, FEAR is a game that truly lives up to its name-- this shit can get intense and scary as hell.

32. Dead Space

An incredible sci-fi horror game that will keep you on the edge of your seat for hours. Incredible music, atmosphere and tension smooths over some of the more mundane aspects of the game.

31. Gears of War

GoW was sometimes criticized for its lack of depth, but when you're busy with this much killing, it's hard to think about things like plot.

30. Guitar Hero III & Rock Band [Tie]

Any one of the GH games would have scored high on this list, but GH3 improved the diffculty scheme and of course brought Slash into the GH world. It would also be unfair to leave either GH or Rock Band off the list, but also unfair to take up 2 spots for games that are essentially interchangable.

29. Postal 2

Postal 2 isn't the most refined FPS on the planet, but it is one of the most fun, clever and downright evil. In what other game can you attack a guy dressed as a penis with a diseased cow head, set a high school marching band on fire and then smoke catnip to give you an edge when you go to the mall in order to murder Gary Coleman with a pair of scissors? None.

28. Metal Gear Solid

The original Metal Gear was fun as hell, but its conversion to a 3D world was just what it needed to turn it into a new paradigm in action gaming.

27. Devil May Cry

DMC was innovative from top to bottom-- from the story, to the characters and the controls-- it's like little else out there.

26. Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

A beautifully stylized Legend of Zelda world topped off with an incredible story and memorable new characters.

25. Halo

The first Halo was the beginning of something truly wonderful-- a great story and single player mode that was strong on its own, but made into something genius by the power of its multiplayer mode that encouraged both reckless ass-kicking and careful, creative tactical fighting at the same time.

24. Bully

Bully didn't have quite the epic scope of Rockstar's GTA games, but what it lacked in overall size it more than made up for in story, characters and its refined melee control scheme. And purple nurples.

23. Killzone 2

After the first Killzone was plagued by a whole barrel full of bugs and problems, Guerilla Games stepped up their game and created an amazing game with fluid animation, brilliantly constructed levels and intense action.

22. Halo 3

The original Halo was game-changing, but with the third version, it got bigger, better and offered more reaasons to put up with shit-talking teenagers who think they're bad ass because they got to the energy sword first.

21. Fable

Perhaps a little short, but what you got in this morality play of an RPG was nothing short of incredible.

20. Shadow of the Colossus

No towns, no NPCs, just you and your horse and 16 giants to take down, Shadow is action game minimalism as art.

19. Okami

Speaking of art, Okami-- the story of a ghost wolf and her incredible god powers-- was nothing short, from its visual style to its unique control scheme where skills are activated by drawing glyphs on-screen.

18. God of War

God of War reminded us why we play video games in the first place-- to be way more awesome than we could possibly be in real life.

17. Gran Turismo 4

Gran Turismo has always been a pinnacle of excellence in the world of racing games as well as a test of a console's processing power, and GT4 continued this tradition with more cars and more tracks.

16. Call of Duty 4

When the CoD franchise first started, it was one of dozens of WWII action games, but by it got to its 4th iteration, it stood head and shoulders above the rest.

15. Grand Theft Auto III

The first GTA game to evolve from its 2D top-down roots, it set the gold standard for open world sandbox action games.

14. Little Big Planet

The one and two player games are a hell of a lot of fun, but it's in the power of LBP's enormously powerful level editor where it becomes much more than a game.

13. Left 4 Dead

There's survival games where you know you'll be safe in the end and then there's survival games that make you think that the game honestly wants to kill you. L4D is the latter.

12. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Oblivion scored "Game of the Year" in 2006 from just about everyone and their mother and for good reason-- it's more than a fantasy RPG, it's an entire massive and beautifully rendered world. Like the whole thing.

11. Dead Rising

Sometimes we play games because we're looking for a good story. Other times, all we want to do is to mow down walls of the walking dead with lawnmowers.

10. Team Fortress 2

Multiplayer at its distilled finest-- distinct, almost perfectly balances classes with distinct team roles on brilliantly designed maps.

9. Katamari Damacy

Katamari Damacy started as an experiment in gameplay and evolved into one of the most unique and most addictive games in recent history.

8. Bioshock

Frightening, engaging, innovative and fun-- Bioshock took us into the ruins of one man's Orwellian dream. With its alternate history steampunk design and its unique story and gameplay, Bioshock was little like anything else we had seen when it emerged--how much longer til Bioshock 2? February of 2010? Feels like forever.

7. Batman: Arkham Asylum

Of all the great Batman games on every console, Arkham Asylum is the trump. With top-notch voice acting, controls and fantastic storytelling, it brings the best of "I'm going to shove this batarang up your ass" Batman and "the world's greatest detective" Batman into one seamless package.

6. Grand Theft Auto IV

GTA IV was the biggest GTA ever, while fixing a number of minor problems with previous GTA releases and getting rid of all the stilly power-up mini-games that plagued GTA: San Andreas. And it was the first GTA to finally have an online multiplayer mode. Finally.

5. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots

In the 4th installment of the MGS franchise, the stealth action series reached near perfection of the genre it practically invented. Better graphics, better gameplay, better story, critics called it "without equal" and "a gaming revolution" and "the most technically stunning video game ever made".

4. Crackdown

Crackdown initially sold like gangbusters due to the fact that it was packaged with a Halo 3 demo and for many, that's all they wanted-- but those who ditched the game without playing it missed out on one of the most incredibly constructed and addictive open-world action games ever created. Pacific City isn't the biggest sandbox to play in, but the time you spend there leaping from rooftop to rooftop taking out gangs is time well-spent. Crackdown isn't about story or characters-- it's just about having as much fun as possible in this virtual game of cops and robbers.

3. Fallout 3

Over 10 years after the original Fallout wowed PC gamers in 1997, the third Fallout brought a bigger scope, grander goals and a whole new real-time combat system that added a whole new dimension to the FPS genre. Some criticized Fallout 3 for being too open, with areas of the game where the hero is wandering through the mutant-filled wasteland, but that's just part of its beautifully crafted world.

2. Half Life 2

When Half Life 2 was released, it was hailed as not just one of the best games of the decade, but one of the best games of all time. The original Half Life was a classic, but the follow up set a new standard for game development-- from its unique weapons and characters to the gripping storyline to the contributions the Half Life 2 engine has made to the gaming community at large, it's the kind of perfection that only happens once every ten years or so.

1. Portal

Almost all the other games in the top 10 of the 2000s are epic in scope, with huge worlds, huge stories and complex gameplay, but Portal doesn't have any of these. In what could have, in an alternate universe, simply done as a quick and dirty Flash game time waster, Valve turned into a tiny opus on life, death, truth, lies and cake. By current standards, Portal is over in the blink of an eye, but great things can certainly come in small packages.

cranberryzero's blog

Comments

amazing list

Submitted by zero on Wed, 09/30/2009 - 15:37.

the only game i disagree with is probably stranglehold...just due to how awkward and fumbly the controls were as well as how glitchy it was. outside of that all the games on there deserve to be there and yes im sure others deserved it more but this is a solid list...kudos.

dare i suggest a greatest game character list

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Greedo shot first!

I agree but..

Submitted by mynameisfyl on Wed, 09/30/2009 - 15:37.

I totally agree with Portal being at the top...one question though, Dead Space?

...where does this fit in?

The music in that game was one of the best that I've ever heard, it absolutely drew you into the story and made you occasionally crap your pants.

Hmmm... well if this was a

Submitted by cranberryzero on Wed, 09/30/2009 - 15:56.

Hmmm... well if this was a list of Olympic swimming times, there would be probably only about a tenth of a second or less separating 1 from 50, but Dead Space was one of those that aaaalmost made the list. I almost put it in the place of Mass Effect, which may sound goofy considering where Mass Effect is in the list, but I couldn't bear to drop Kingdom Hearts or Viva Pinata off the list to shoehorn in DS.

should

Submitted by zero on Wed, 09/30/2009 - 16:00.

should have dropped stranglehold

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Greedo shot first!

Stranglehold ate more dick

Submitted by Darsh on Wed, 09/30/2009 - 16:12.

Stranglehold ate more dick than a gay cannibal at a Richard Convention. GTA:SA should have been #1 on the list. Good list though. The PS2 version of Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 should have been on the list also.

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www.happyotter666.com/

All right... just because I

Submitted by cranberryzero on Wed, 09/30/2009 - 16:22.

All right... just because I was agonizing over this stupid list for way too long... right up until the point of it going live, I'll make the one concession that Dead Space replaces Stranglehold. Good call.

yay

Submitted by zero on Wed, 09/30/2009 - 17:53.

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Greedo shot first!

Yet again Cranberry...

Submitted by mynameisfyl on Wed, 09/30/2009 - 22:18.

I will be in your debt.

...It was a good list before but now it has become EPIC

Thank you my good man.

Shadow Complex?

Submitted by Darsh on Wed, 09/30/2009 - 16:15.

Shadow Complex?

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www.happyotter666.com/

Come on max payne 2 deserved

Submitted by rikoruss31 on Wed, 09/30/2009 - 17:54.

Come on max payne 2 deserved a spot here for sure. Good list overall, although i smell a bit of metal gear bias; but maybe that's just me.

Tony Hawk? Don't you mean

Submitted by bodychecks on Wed, 09/30/2009 - 18:29.

Tony Hawk? Don't you mean Skate? There hasn't been a decent TH since the PS1. Other than that, good list.

I don't know about Crackdown,

Submitted by freddyk on Wed, 09/30/2009 - 18:33.

I don't know about Crackdown, a game with a metacritic score in the eighties being #4. It should have been Uncharted 2.

Great list, but Project 8 was

Submitted by Jesus on Wed, 09/30/2009 - 18:42.

Great list, but Project 8 was one of the worst games I've ever played. Skate on the other hand amazed me with a realistic and fun skating world with amazing way to control your skater.

Love the list

Submitted by D-leezy on Wed, 09/30/2009 - 18:43.

Great work and I agree with all of them. Dead Rising was classic and way under rated. Also agree with the other poster... stranglehold sucked. I tried to give it a chance. Glad it was removed. DeadSpace was great and glad to see it added. Also agree that Skate was much better then TH. Don't want to sound like I am bitching because it's apparent you put in some good work here and I know you can't please everyone. Love it man... keep them coming.

WOW

Submitted by Havelocke on Wed, 09/30/2009 - 18:45.

I Heart CZero's taste in gaming. I was dreading getting to the top 10, for fear it would be all the overhyped usual crap. But seeing Valve games take 3 of the top 10, and Bioshock and Fallout up there too? Fuckin incredible. I've been a huge Valve fan since HL1, and thought Bioshock and Fallout took a lot of flak despite being incredible games. Bioshock 2 is supposed to have groundbreaking AI, by the way. And as for the Fallout thing, I have had countless flamewars with online critics over how they thought it was too easy to screw yourself over in that game. I said it then, and I'll say it again, it is a ROLE-PLAYING GAME. If you see a broken door, with the switch only on the outside, you'd have to be the most fucktarded wastelander EVER, to press it and run in, sealing yourself forever. Likewise any other situation like that. If you did it wthout saving, and got pissy, you have noone to blame but yourself, dumbass.

...anyways...

Okami

Submitted by yass on Wed, 09/30/2009 - 19:26.

i kinda think Okami should've been atleast number 10 in the list, i mean... have you played the game? its fucking amazing! its the funnest game i've played since i got my damn playstation. besides desert storm 2.

and i think gears of war should've been higher too.

but good call on GTA and counterstrike!

I dont think Crackdown got as much good ratings as it should have, that game was great. I think im gona throw it in rite now.

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