A Decade Gone by – Best Games of the Decade
5.Max Payne
“I don’t know about angels, but it’s fear that gives men wings.â€
When the credits rolled, we all knew we had something special in Max Payne. Max Payne was truly a cinematic experience and it’s no wonder that countless games after it were inspired by the revolutionary bullet-time that became the identity of the game. Intense, frenetic gunfights and explosions – all brought to a standstill by the jaw dropping slow-mo. Remedy had crafted a masterpiece, not only in terms of gameplay, but also with the intricate storyline, presented as a slick graphic novel. Watching your wife and son being murdered, diving sideways in slow-motion while emptying clips into your foes, seeing each bullet casing hit the ground, finding your way through an inferno…Max Payne engulfed the players in a hailstorm of WOW moments. Good ol’ Max deserves his place high up on our list.
4. Ico
“The island bathes in the sun’s bright rays; distant hills wear a shroud of grey. A lonely breeze whispers in the trees; sole witness to historyâ€
Fumito Ueda is a genius.
And not just because he makes brilliant games… He is a genius because his games accomplish things you would not expect a video game to accomplish. There is no greater testament to that than 2001’s action/adventure Ico. The moment you start the game, an aura of intrigue surround you. Who is this boy? Where are they taking him? What’s going on? And the beauty of the game is that you never really find out any of these things.
You see, the world of Ico is that of contrasts. It tells a touching tale of a boy and a girl’s attempt to escape the clutches of an evil witch, without ever revealing the details. The game world is sparce and desolate, and yet it pulls you in and doesn’t let go long after you are done with the game.
But the greatest accomplishment of Ico lies in the way it challenged the notion of what a controller button can be mapped to. Pulling a trigger, making you jump, aiming your reticule, switching weapons – Ico gave you a button to hold Yorda’s hand.
And right through the length of the game, you have to lead this helpless girl across the labyrinthine fortress, amidst environmental puzzles and apparitions which are hell bent on returning Yorda to captivity. Ico’s genius lies in evoking genuine concern for the safety of Yorda in the player. Whoever played this game would have wanted to run a little faster than the game would allow when the apparitions would grab Yorda, or want to hold her hand a little tighter, hoping against hope not to let go.
There’s a scene towards the end of the game where Ico loses his footing and falls. He reaches out, and Yorda grabs hold of his hand to save him. In that moment you realize they are not the only ones holding on to each other, and that it’s not just a tale of survival for two people from two different worlds. You are there too, and it matters just as much to you.
Ico is a masterpiece from the moment it begins to the song during its end credits. It transcends from being just a game into a space which very few games have been able to touch in the last decade of gaming. It makes you a part of its world… a world you cannot leave for a very long time after playing the game, and one you can never forget. Truly deserving of its spot in videogame history.
