Bioshock

I played Bioshock back in 2011. Bioshock is the first story based game I’ve played that truly enraptured me (lol). As a younger gamer, Bioshock helped me understand and see the potential for deep, meaningful, and well crafted stories and experiences in games. It was the first time that I played a game and really felt invested in the story, and felt very rewarded after i finished the game, especially because of how the choices you make during the game influence the ending (albeit in pretty limited ways). For my playthrough, I tried to be the good guy and ended up getting the happy ending, which was actually genuinely touching, and I still remember watching the final cutscene and feeling very satisfied. It also definitely helps that the game looks very good and was most importantly very fun. The plasmid / weapon combo felt very fluid, especially the one two electric jockey, and I wish more games had a similar combat system.

Skyrim

Skyrim is the one singer player first person RPG that I was the most invested into. I honestly don’t even know if the game was that good (sorry Isaac) but I enjoyed it a lot and I played the shit out of it in 2013. It was so fun (and so stupid) to make literally hundreds of iron daggers to level up my smithing (lol), backstab a bunch of grey monks for my sneak (also lol), and run around killing dragons and shouting at things. I also really liked the side quests!!! All of them were super fun and I actually think even more enjoyable than the main quest. I think that was the best of all the open world games that came out this decade, the release of which is thankfully slowing down.

World of Warcraft

I started playing World of Warcraft on a private server (molten wow) in Taiwan around 2012 with some friends. Wow is my second favorite game of the decade. I was more deeply engaged with and engrossed into wow than I was with any other game, and to this date wow is one of the most community oriented gaming experiences I’ve ever had. I played and loved so many different parts of it. I got deep into raiding, and spent a lot of time raiding ICC with a bunch of Eastern Europeans in our guild super late into the night (I would sneak up and play until 3, 4 am). I played a bunch of pvp and especially arena, climbing the ladder as a frost mage + disc priest duo. I enjoyed every part of it, even the objectively unpleasant parts, like grinding levels, grinding reputation for titles, fishing / farming for unique mounts, wiping in raids after hours of progress / practice bc of someone’s small silly mistake, rolling for loot, farming mats. But out of it all I was for sure most into PVE raiding. The excitement of clearing a raid together was electrifying, the communal experience of everyone doing their role and working as a 25 person unit so satisfying. Raiding was so meaningful and enjoyable for me that I actually wrote the first draft of my common app college admission essay on wow, but it got vetoed by my college counselor, which I’m still mad about that today. That essay was better and way more sincere than the one I actually submitted.

One Night

I don’t play a lot of board games and never really did until the summer of 2016, although I always liked them. During my internship, I played a veritable fuck ton of One Night with my mason bros Andy, Brian, and Austin, and it was SO much fun. I also played a bunch of it in college in my senior year with my friends there, and I still play it occasionally here. The game is very well designed and balanced, and there is so much engaging depth in the game. It’s so fun when you manage to figure everything out and play the game perfectly and you feel mad rewarded when you pull off a narrow or unexpected win. Special shoutout to 3 person One Night, the purest and most difficult form of One Night.

Fallout 4

Fallout 4 is honestly not that great of a game (the building is so boring) and the game is so buggy (one of the more boring building missions near the end bugged out for me, and I pissed so I never even finished it). It’s on my list though because this was when I first discovered my complete lack of brain when playing games. I don’t like puzzles and I (usually) don’t like having to learn hard mechanics, I just wanna hit stuff and watch cool things, and I discovered this during my Fallout 4 baseball bat only playthrough. Smacking things in vats is *chefs kiss*

Vermintide 2

Vermintide 2 is a really really simple hack and slash that I started playing in 2017. For some reason I got really into it and immediately sank about a hundred hours of it. I picked this game not just because I spent a ton of time playing it, but also because it helped me understand a dimension of gaming I enjoy deeply that I previously did not recognize. It’s an extension of Fallout 4, except even purer because Vermintide 2 has even more limited plot and map options to explore. Ultimately to be honest with myslef I just really like hitting stuff with melee weapons in games, and if there are satisfying visuals / feedback (aka a gory spurt, a loud thunk) then the game is going to be fun for me. Add on a solid progression system and there goes 50 hours of my life. I think it is very revealing that my favorite part of Pubg is punching people in the loading area, and my first kills in all 3 battle royales I’ve tried have all been melee kills.

Monster Hunter World

MHW is my first foray into the Monster Hunter franchise (although I really wanted to get it on the PSP. My mom wouldn’t let me). My enjoyment of the game was definitely not tied to my master of the game because I was honestly pretty bad at the game. Diablos and Nergigante kept fucking me up which was super brutal cause I had to farm them a bunch for my big diablos hammer and my armor. All the dodging and all the carts were worth it though, because holy shit swinging my hammer and whacking monsters is so fun, and when you hit the end of the big bang combo that last swing is so satisfying to land. I’m really not into late game jewel grinding though, even though I heard apparently the grinding is worse in the previous MHs.

Teamfight Tactics

Tft belongs to a genre of games that came out this year (autobattlers). I loved physical TCGs like Yu-Gi-Oh when I was younger, but since then I haven’t really played any games that hit that strategic niche until TFT. I find it very rewarding to plan around other people both in building a comp and positioning your comp, and it’s very exciting / a big hype moment when you either finish a comp or outposition someone in the late game. I think I also feel a lot of additional excitement because it’s sort of unofficially Riot’s 2nd game, and watching it grow / being a part of its success has been very cool.

Stardew Valley

I started playing Stardew Valley this year with Shicong because we wanted to play some chill games together, and much to my delight but also chagrin SDV is horribly addictive. SDV is so so so so much fun, an incredibly wholesome and terribly engrossing game. It is a true labor of love. ConcernedApe is a top tier game developer and I can’t believe he made that game totally solo. There is so much rich detail in the game, and the mechanics / game systems are simple but repeatedly rewarding and engaging. It is endlessly entertaining to just run around the farm and do stuff, and so exciting when you catch that fish you haven’t caught before, when you collect the fat stacks after a full set of kegs are ready, when you get that first giant crop. I recommend it to anyone.

League of Legends

League of Legends is the most important game that I have ever played, and likely will be the most important game that I will ever play. My league experience started in 2012 when TPA won the championship (Bebe’s cross map Ezreal ult snipe is forever seared into my memory). I’ve watched every worlds final since (some in person), and have spent many many hours grinding ranked solo and many many more playing casual league with friends. League is a transformative experience in games for me because the game wasn’t just limited to a one and done experience; league is something I’ve consistently returned to in the last 7 years. Outside of personal experiences, I also started my career at Riot and am still working there, so I feel a lot of personal investment in league. I find it difficult to imagine a game more personally transformative than that.