Sekiro (RPG).

It’s not necessarily representative of RPGs as a whole, but man, I have never played a game that felt so polished. The combat is immaculate, the levels are beautiful, and more subtly, the power scaling is really well tuned. Because it’s not open world, they were able to hand tune the enemies’ difficulty more closely to match your own progression, and for me, it resulted in fights that always felt challenging but fair.

So, an interesting point of detail, is a game “gooder” when it perfectly executes its formula after countless iterations, like FF6 did, or is it better when it innovates in a new way, bringing together new ideas into a magical, if occasionally rough-around-the-edges, novel new approach that others start copying, as Doom did?

Also, are we looking at them from the perspective of their time, where Pac Man was once the pinnacle of gaming itself, or from a modern, more objective perspective, where Pac Man struggles to provide the same value as BotW does almost half a century later?

XCOM, XCOM 2 (Strategy)

The balancing of risk/reward, tactics, and roster management spawned a whole genre. The newer XCOMs (Enemy Unknown/Within and War of the Chosen) are still so much fun.

Also, plugging /c/XCOM while I’m here.

The Talos Principle is one of my favorite puzzle games of all time because it actually got me to stop, read, and consider the message

Hades, RoR, and RoR 2 are contenders for best roguelike for me. Not my favorite genre but these hooked me with great replayability

Valheim, while unfinished and full of bugs, was my favorite open world experience with friends but I think Astroneer is a more perfect game. It’s simple and does a great job “directing” you while you make your own choices. The sound design is unmatched for relaxing

I love strategy games but I’m a basic bitch here without a variety of them so Civ6, Cities Skylines, Advanced Wars, FTL, and Into The Breach are my favs

I’d split action into two separate categories: Action and multiplayer FPS.

Tomb Raider (2013) was a pretty perfect action game for me. Probably not flawless but I look back on it fondly

Overwatch remains my favorite FPS even though I stopped playing awhile ago. There’s just no objective-based team shooter with unique roles besides…TF2, my previous favorite FPS

Half-Life was a game changer when it came out.

First-person shooters in those days were basically just spawning in a level, shooting generic bad guys and picking up loot. Half-Life had this insane story and they didn’t use any cutscenes or take away control from the player except to load the map, the whole story was told through the environment you explored and the characters you interacted with.

Even 20 years later, people are still having discussions about who the G-Man works for, or whether Dr. Breen was a good guy.

In terms of games that were so advanced they almost feel like they were made by time travellers:

• Elite (1984) - procedural open world space sim

• Ultima VII (1992) - full NPC schedules, open world and day/night system so you could rob stores at nights, follow people, etc. and awesome exploration. In 1992!

• X-COM (1994) - a voxel-based LOS system, destructible environment, z-levels, natural elevation on terrain (deforming the isometric grid), reaction fire, etc.

• Daggerfall (1996) - a faction system, procedurally generated areas and quests, a lot of options to get to different areas (climbing, levitation, etc.)

• Thief (1998) - a full sound simulation with different materials having different properties, the ability to extinguish torches (dynamic lighting!) and cover metal surfaces, a light system for visibility too (now commonplace).

• Baldur’s Gate (1998) - a semi open-world AD&D2e implementation - with co-op multiplayer! (most modern games don’t manage this)

• Deus Ex (2000) - a branching FPS/RPG campaign where choices matter with a basic stealth system and lots of approaches to each level. It was basically a completely modern game out of nowhere in 2000.

• Runescape (2001) - one of the first major graphical MMORPGs with a full player economy.

• Morrowind (2002) - a fully 3D open world with a lot of options for magic (including custom magic) and exploration.

• Hitman 2 (2002) - first stealth-focussed game with a full disguise system, map, etc.

• Oblivion (2006) - like Morrowind but with some NPC schedules (like Ultima VII), a stealth system (based on Thief) and Havok physics based traps.

• Red Faction: Guerrilla (2009) - fully destructible buildings and environments in an open-world campaign.

Those are the ones that really stick out (also Super Mario and Zelda on consoles, especially the SNES, N64 and recently on the Switch handheld). It’s a shame that the rate of progress seems to have slowed down a lot at least in terms of ground-breaking features and simulations.

But who knows maybe Baldur’s Gate 3 and Starfield will both be on future lists like this.

Ultima VII really sticks out as just crazy though, that game could have released 10 years later and held up.

Best modern games I have played:
Action: Risk of Rain 2 (Roguelite), Hades (Roguelite), Cuphead
Action-Adventure: Alien: Isolation (Stealth/Horror)
Adventure: Subnautica
FPS: Halo 1-Reach (Story), Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (Competitive)
Puzzle: Portal 2
Role-playing: Divinity: Original Sin 2
Simulation: Rimworld (Colony), Stardew Valley (Farm/Life), Squad (Military), Cities: Skylines (Builder)
Strategy: Civilization 5 (4X), FTL: Faster Than Light (Roguelite), Stellaris (4X)
Sports: Forza Horizon 4
MMO: Old School RuneScape
Openworld: Minecraft
VR: Half-Life: Alyx

Some random games I enjoyed and would recommend:
Prodeus - a retro DOOM-like FPS, really captures the DOOM essence
Tomb Raider reboot: casual action-adventure games, just chill to play through
PlateUp! - a cooking roguelite management game, kinda like Overcooked (which is also a blast)
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes - one person has a bomb, the other the manual to defuse, lots of fun
Planet Coaster - a really good modernisation of the classic Roller Coaster Tycoon games
Sea of Thieves - open world PvPvE pirate adventure game, great fun with friends, wish they had progression though
Satisfactory - a factory building game, like a 3D Factorio (also good), it just needs an ending
Until You Fall - a VR sword fighting roguelite, wish they would expand on it, good fun while your arms dont hurt