Games ranking 2010

Instead of leaning on complex mechanics or slow animations, Cuphead offers an unmistakable art style to keep things fresh, pushing the player forward in anticipation of the next visual revelation. And it all comes to life in a dilapidated, gorgeously realized house that somehow feels simultaneously like a video gamey setting and a real place.

Developer Creative Assembly has been plugging away at its historical-strategy series Total War since , with various degrees of critical and commercial success. The game creates a web of intrigue that brings the real challenges of historical leadership to life, augmenting a genre that has often suffered from tactical rock-paper-scissors simplicity.

Developer Simogo has quietly created hit after hit. Adventure game Year Walk explored Swedish folklore. And Device 6 is a Bond-tinged puzzle game.

Each Simogo title is relentlessly stylish, and visually distinct from the others. Nothing looks quite like it, and nothing plays quite like it. Telltale was formed in , with the aim of creating episodic games that would be eagerly awaited by fans.

The first season was its biggest hit, telling the story of a man rare in games, an African-American lead who seeks to save a young girl from a zombie apocalypse.

During the game, players solve simple puzzles while making difficult moral choices that affect the story. The Walking Dead finished its first season with a dramatic high that left many players in a state of emotional turmoil.

The company was wound up in After Resident Evil 4 , Capcom led the legendary horror franchise down an increasingly ridiculous road of betrayals, clones, and infected presidents. Resident Evil 7 took a hard turn off that track, into welcome new territory. Its protagonist is just a guy looking for his wife; the armies of zombies have been replaced by one spooky family with moldy minions; and the action movie set-pieces are gone in favor of one sprawling, creepy Louisiana estate.

This reset works to tremendous effect. There are individual elements that tie the world together, creating a suffocating atmosphere of terror — from small touches like the VHS tapes to big swings like the Baker family matriarch and her jumps between kindly host and single-minded, hysterical murder. But it came with a key innovation: the nemesis system. Players take on the role of The Ranger , who spends his days infiltrating orc strongholds and ambushing orcs in the field.

But if he fails to defeat certain enemies, they become stronger, and they acquire a nasty grudge against The Ranger.

This pleasing dynamic gives an otherwise competent action-adventure the bonus of drama, character, and personality, as variously vile orcs take their turn in the narrative limelight.

Monster Hunter is one of those franchises that is as strange as it is popular. Monster Hunter: World takes everything great about the franchise and polishes it up, while sanding down the rough, archaic bits that have scared away newcomers.

Control , from developer Remedy Entertainment, is weird, confusing, and beautiful. Main character Jesse Faden has powers that allow her to telekinetically pick up and throw nearly anything in the area, which is a thrilling juxtaposition to the pristine, bold lines of the building. This was a decade of mobile games unapologetically tailored toward young women.

While not a visual novel like the other specified titles, Kim Kardashian: Hollywood was perhaps the biggest indication that a mobile game for girls could be successful. Naysayers scoffed at the idea of a Kim Kardashian game.

At first glance, FTL looks like something of a microgame. Every one of its ship designs is the best, and each one of their systems is vital to survival. Its success mainly comes down to its familiarity — the art style evokes Super Mario Bros. This is an unashamedly derivative work that nonetheless offers comfort through simplicity, and a feedback loop that soon becomes addictive.

Indeed, at the height of its fame, Nguyen pulled Flappy Bird from mobile stores, saying that he thought people were spending too much time on the game. Bad guys have been staples of video games since the first aliens invaded our space.

Mostly, their motivations go unquestioned. But Papers, Please is a story about how we are all vulnerable to performing evil acts and, in the right circumstances, capable of being villains. Players take on the role of a border guard working for a totalitarian regime.

The entire game centers on civilians passing through the border. Players inspect paperwork and behavioral patterns, on the lookout for terrorists and political opponents of the regime. Even more spectacular than the graphical upgrade, however, was the addition of controller support that literally makes the game faster to play.

Dialogue has been one of the biggest challenges in game design these past 10 years, as designers have sought new ways to invest characters with depth and personality, while utilizing conversations as a useful, entertaining mechanic. In Oxenfree , players take on the role of Alex, a teenage girl embarking on an island jaunt with her friends.

She interacts with them through dialogue trees presented as speech bubbles, and in real time. Oxenfree is a smartly written coming-of-age mystery that holds promise for the future of dialogue-as-game. Years before most folks were talking about inclusion, and in a genre where the subject is rarely brought up, PGA Tour 13 was doing it matter-of-factly, as a value-added feature for all players.

This is the game you get when developers actively listen to what players want. Nintendo managed to take everything we loved about the past Animal Crossing titles and crank it up beyond our expectations, adding a plethora of new features. New Leaf gave us the customization and control over our towns in ways never imagined. It serves as a feel-good game , a welcome escape from reality.

It also brought us our adorable queen puppy, Isabelle. Humor is difficult to come by in video games, but The Stanley Parable offers plenty of wit by lampooning the po-faced culture of Gorogoa is one of the most visually appealing games ever made. I mix and match images, playing with size and perspective in order to create sense from disorder. The story and the puzzles are engrossing without being annoying, marking a new direction for a genre that had become wearying through obfuscation. I would like to thank whoever at Sony spent all of their goodwill to get a sequel to Gravity Rush greenlit.

The original was a beautiful and quirky open-world game. Fortunately, the game could be played anywhere on the PlayStation Vita. Unfortunately, few people played the game anywhere because, hey, PlayStation Vita. Minus a comically slow and off-putting intro, Gravity Rush 2 builds upon the potential of its predecessor. On the PlayStation 4, the creators have the graphical power to make a world that matches their concept art, a world that is bigger than I expected.

MX vs. The Misadventures of P. Bonanza Bros. Club Steam Rankings are automatically updated at least once a day from live Steam reviews data. Learn more. Movement indicators show the change in position since yesterday.

Club Patreon Club aggregates all 54 million reviews on Steam to provide full ranking history, whereas Steam only looks at the last two days. T Adventure, Comedy, Sci-Fi. A test subject wakes up in a scientific facility controlled by a sadistic artificial intelligence and must escape with the help of the only instrument she has--a gun that makes portals.

T Adventure, Fantasy, Romance. A celebrated young athlete is drawn from his futuristic hometown and convenient lifestyle to a harsh and techno-phobic land by a mysterious force only known as Sin.

Votes: 7, M Action, Adventure, Thriller. The Call of Duty series returns this time into a modern day setting. The player takes control of a character nicknamed "Soap," for the majority of the campaign and will need to progress through many modern warfare scenarios.

Votes: 21, Niko Bellic comes to Liberty City, America to live the good life, but ends up having to assist his dangerously indebted cousin Roman with his financial troubles, by any mostly illegal means necessary. Votes: 33, A troubled NYPD cop is framed for murder and finds himself being hunted by the police, the mob, and a ruthless corporation.

Votes: 14, After being freed by the Emperor of Tamriel, the hero must prevent the gates of Oblivion from spreading throughout the Empire. Centuries following nuclear war, a teen leaves the safety of an underground vault in order to find their father, who left in hopes of creating a water purifier. M Drama, Horror, Mystery.

After receiving a letter from his late wife, from Silent Hill, James Sunderland makes his way to the town in an attempt to find her. Votes: 6, In a technologically advanced future, an elite human soldier takes command of a prototype star ship and works to defend the galaxy from danger. Votes: 17, A young bank robber escapes from police custody and works his way up through the mafia ladder of crime-ridden Liberty City, USA.

M Action, Adventure, Mystery. Super-soldier John, Master Chief of the United Nations Space Command, must battle a genocidal alien race known as the Covenant following his violent crash-landing on Halo, an ancient and mysterious ring-world. When his latest case ends up involving the thought-dead femme fatale Mona Sax, he finds that his journey through the night is far from over.

E Animation, Action, Adventure. When Princess Peach is abducted as part of Bowser's galaxy creation scheme, stalwart plumber Mario must leap to her rescue, with the help of new celestial friends and powers. T Action, Adventure, Mystery.