[Question] Top 20 Games of the 7th Generation of Gaming

In no particular order and just from looking across my shelf and based as much on hours spent playing as anything else:

Frontlines: Fuel of War - 360

To many Frontlines was a Battlefield-a-like that wasn't as good as Battlefield but I loved the hell out of it and it was a bit better than Battlefield Bad Company 2 and waaaaay more fun than Battlefield 3. The range of different gadgets was nice and you genuinely had a lot of choices as to how to complete each story mission in the single player. Tank combat was fun and it had some of the best helicopter mechanics of any game I've played in the genre.

Where Frontlines really shone though was the multiplayer. Taking the capture the bases concept of Battlefield, Frontlines improved on it by introducing a moving front line meaning although there were seven or eight points on the map, the active ones you were fighting over were limited to four or five at a time. This meant that although the maps were huge, there was always a ton of action and everyone was in more or less the same place (Unless they were stupid). What Battlefield has always suffered from, the beta of BF4 being the worst offender to date, is huge spread out maps and no incentive for people to be anywhere near each other. If anything, Battlefield rewards you avoiding the worst of the fighting, sneaking behind enemy lines and capturing undefended bases has been a valid and decent tactic forever.

The other great thing about it was the balance of weapons and upgrades. There was no real power class like you get in some games and rather than the horrible unlock mechanic that CoD has cursed the genre with which rewards the people who play the game for hours on end rather than people who are perhaps good at the game but don't have so much time to play it, Frontlines adopted a system whereby you start the match with basic gear and then unlock better secondary weapons as the game progresses. There were different levels of this and you had to decide whether to go for the quick upgrade to a sentry gun or hold out for the insanely powerful, kill pretty much everyone air fuel bomb, or whatever. This meant when you got killed by a sentry gun or whatever, you knew it was because the person who killed you was racking up points in that game, not because they bought the game two weeks before you did and has unlocked a thermal vision sniper scope and can see you from the other side of the map while you're struggling with your iron sights on your starting machine gun.

Finally, it was about the only game I ever played online that actually rewarded teamwork. Sure you could run off to the helicopter at the start of the game and fly off without waiting for anyone else but if you did that, you had no guns, it required a second person to fire the weapons. You could drive around in a tank on your own and do a bit of damage but add two more people and you have double the firepower and can destroy incoming enemy rockets (And the basic engineers rpg had a homing feature). You could snipe from a high tower on your own but the game had a fog distance similar to Turok so you'd be low on targets. Squad up with someone who knew how to use drones properly however (i.e. for spotting, not just as a floating bomb) and you'd get handy red triangles to shoot at, allowing you to snipe from the opposite end of the map, scenery allowing. The real beauty of all of this is that people who had no interest in teamwork or capturing bases and were obsessed with k/d ratios rapidly lost interest in the game leaving it for everyone who wanted to play it properly to enjoy it. Genuinely awesome game and probably the most fun I've ever had playing a multiplayer fps.

Civilization V - PC

I've always loved Civilization since I played the first one in the early nineties and number 5 is easily the best yet. The biggest improvement over the older versions is that you can't stack military units so combat actually requires a hint of tactics, rather than just queuing up hundreds more units than are defending the city and clicking on it until you win. The city states mechanic adds interest and now winning a diplomatic victory is almost as fun as winning a domination victory. For the first time in the series' history, for me at least, Civilization has actually come quite close to how civilisations actually grow and evolve and this is a really good reinvention of the series.

Gran Turismo V - PS3

Gran Turismo is not a great racing series, it never has been. It is a great driving game though and the fifth one is pretty awesome. A decent mix of tracks, hundreds of awesome cars that handle realistically and sound like they should and none of this silly nonsense about drifting or what have you. I don't even know why I like Gran Turismo so much but I play it for hours and hours. I'm not even that good at it and can still barely get a car round the Nurbergring but it's bizarrely addictive.

Crackdown - 360

I must have been one of the only people on the planet who didn't buy this for the Halo demo it shipped with. I didn't actually buy it until quite a while after it came out and only because I saw a second hand copy for a fiver. It's such a fun game though, one of the most pure fun experiences of the generation. I played through pretty much all of it with Phong and we did it in a dumb order and it didn't matter. Once you power up a bit it's such effortless fun jumping from roof to roof, murdering hordes of crims with a couple of well-placed rockets, hurling cars down the street and beating people to death with a lamp-post. You don't really need to think about what you're doing too much and you don't need to worry about the story too much, you can just piss about for hours on end. The sequel was decent enough but it never really lived up to the pure joy of the first one.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine - 360

I don't think it's a secret that I'm a huge Warhammer nerd and this played right up to my fanboyism. Even without that, this is a great game. The story mode has great set-pieces, is tense in places, frenetic in others and above all else, has the most hilarious healing mechanic in gaming history whereby you regain health by performing messy executions. For the first time, a computer game managed to capture what GW Space Marines should look like, move like and fight like. The story is predictable and silly which is perfect for the universe it's set in and it's all very grim and dark.

The multiplayer was fun too, if a little under-populated and beset by network issues. The weapons were well balanced and buzzing about as an assault marine is hilarious, even if it did bring one of my mates to question why I constantly took a sword to a gun fight. The maps were well thought out too and there was no one obvious way to dominate. Decent DLC with the Dreadnought mode being completely ridiculous and silly and the horde mode being a lot of fun too. I played this until the community died out and it's a real shame that the death of THQ means a sequel is unlikely at best.

Condemned - 360

Condemned is the only game I've ever found actually scary. Fuck Resident Evil and Silent Hill, real scares come from poking around a dark apartment building with only a shitty torch to light the way and a length of wood for protection, waiting for a psychopathic junkie to jump out and attack you. It's tense as fuck constantly and you can easily wind yourself up playing it in the dark. Towards the end it gets a bit silly and the second one was awful but this is the only game I would describe as actually scary.

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 - 360

Some people enjoy fast-paced run and gun thrills in their fps. I prefer hiding behind cover, popping up occasionally sniping some fool and generally ordering my team around to kill things for me. Fuck opening doors myself when I can tell the three goons with me to open it, chuck in a grenade then kill everyone while I hang upside down and shoot through the window like a boss. Sneaking and sniping is always more fun for me than running and gunning and R6V2 had a great mix of sneaking and sniping. It also had an order system that the AI would follow and a spot on cover system. It's a source of eternal shame that I never managed to finish the game on Realistic wearing only a white vest and cowboy hat and using a pistol.

The versus mode was a bit shit but terrorist hunt mode was about the most fun co-op game I've played. The combination of pre-set and random spawns made every game different and the wide range of equipment setups meant playing with randoms was always interesting too. The game also had a hilarious array of customised looks for your soldier so you could look like a cyber ninja, a real world soldier or John Maclane depending on your sense fo style.

Halo Reach - 360

Some of the other Halos might be technically better but Reach was the one I had the most fun playing. Primarily for the Firefight mode which I think improved on the one from ODST. Having basically entirely cosmetic upgrades to unlock was exactly how experience unlocks should work and although the multiplayer never matched Halo 2 for fun, the Forge meant there was a constant stream of new stuff to play with and the different playlists meant you could completely swerve battlerifle deathmatches if you wanted. People still never learned how to play objective games and Bungie really should have increased the points tally for scoring objectives but that aside the game types were solid. I also had a lot of fun playing the co-op campaign, especially the first playthrough from start to finish with Phong, Kyndig and Sailor Daravon.

Guitar Hero Metallica - 360

I never got a Rock Band game and Metallica was the GH game I played the most. To this day I suck at Guitar Hero but I still go back to Metallica from time to time to belt out Master of Puppets at comedy volume.

Armored Core: For Answer - 360

Massive mechs, fuck yeah! I've played and loved all the AC games up to For Answer and this one takes the concept and turns it up to eleven. Huge turbo boosts, setups that let you permanently fly, huge clouds of missiles and massive laser cannons. Again there is no "right" way to play each level and you can get through the whole game using a variety of mech styles and half the fun is designing new mechs and painting them stupid colours. I genuinely believe I spent more time designing mechs than playing through levels.

GTA V - PS3

GTA IV was technically impressive but they completely missed out on the fun element that made Vice City and San Andreas so great. GTA V almost got this back and the game is pretty funny. There's a fair bit to do, the missions are interesting and varied and the soundtrack, whilst not as good as Vice City's, is not as bad as the one in IV that made me just take taxis everywhere. I couldn't really be arsed with the online mode but the story was more than enough to warrant the asking price, especially as my playstyle is to explore the world and try everything rather than plough straight through the missions to the end which I think is kinda missing the point of the game.

Final Fantasy XIII - 360

People hated FF XIII for being linear and not having towns. Towns in FF games have always just been lists of shops with a bit of walking in between and endless, uninteresting dialogue. Jog that shit on and give me a shopping menu. FF games have also mainly been essentially linear hiding behind vast expanses of dead space. Sure you could wander the world in all the earlier ones but there's fuck all there. Neither of these things were negatives for me. The story was bollocks but then if you're playing a FF game for the story you need to get out and read more books. For me, jrpgs have always been about the battle system and collecting shit and FFXIII did both these things well. I enjoyed mucking about with the paradigms and I enjoyed working out the best combinations to get through each area. I actually really enjoyed FFXIII-2 and was tempted to put that in this list instead but I do think the first one is a slightly better game.

The Last Remnant - 360

Another jrpg with a great combat system, Last Remnant really made you plan ahead with your party setup and rewarded exploration of the system (Or reading about it online I guess). It was also fucking tricky in parts and killing all the optional bosses gave me a rare sense of achievement. What really sets LR apart from other jrpgs is that you can't really grind your way past tough bosses. Well you can, but if you're not careful you end up making the game harder, not easier. I spent hundreds of hours playing Last Remnant and loved every minute.

Too Human - 360

Famously shit, I really enjoyed Too Human. It's a mindless hack and slash with a WoW-esque compulsive grinding element. I loved the setting, I loved the look of it, I loved the way combat involves pushing the sticks rather than hammering buttons. It's just great, shut up, Skills.

Sacred 2, - 360

A western rpg and one of the most needlessly massive games I ever played. Fuck only knows what the over-arching plot was, there were so many side plots and missions I lost track of that within minutes. Another game more about manipulating the system rather than anything else, the loot system was really well balanced and encouraged you to keep looking for that one better item that would round off your build. Also, in a game this big, once you've uncovered 70% of the map it would be rude not to go on and uncover all of it. Games like this are why I've never risked starting to play World of Warcraft, I need my loot games to have some semblance of an end to them.

Lumines - PSP

I've never really been into puzzle games. I was shit at Tetris and swerved the whole genre for years as a result. Lumines is awesome though and it's far too easy to sink hours into this without even realising it. I'm also not that bad at it as it happens, my current high score on the Vita version is more than twice Infernal's, about the only game I can claim to be better than him at in terms of comparative scores. It's simple on the face of it but there is surprising depth to the game and having great music doesn't hurt at all.

Ni No Kuni - PS3

It's a jrpg, a cartoon and pokemon all rolled into one! Yay! Charming game, lots of depth, loads of fun and only marginally spoiled by the main character having one of the worst, most out of place voice actors in the history of gaming and for being way too easy, including the optional bosses. If you need a boss strategy faq for this game you need to give up playing rpgs, seriously. I did love my time playing Ni No Kuni though.

Pokémon Soulsilver - DS

I'm not one of these people who understands the hidden characteristics, who breeds egg moves or gives a fuck about tournament movesets. I'm someone who has an almost ocd need to collect things in rpgs and this was the first Pokémon game where catching em all was reasonably achievable! I think I have about 300 hours logged on this version, no other game can come close to that in pure hours spent playing.

Mass Effect - 360

Yeah, the first one. Even with the bollocks driving the mako bits it was still more interesting than the second. It's a shame the whole morality thing is entirely superficial and the whole outcome of the game boils down to one choice at the end but that's apparently Bioware's thing. The universe was well realised, the story was interesting enough and you could attempt different play styles. Still not as good as KOTOR mind you.

Fallout 3 - 360

I enjoyed Fallout 3. There was lots of stuff to find, lots of people to talk to and plenty of scope for free roaming and different approaches. Yes, the whole map was an almost unending swathe of the same destroyed office blocks and uniform grey and browns but it was fun to explore. Even after you get reasonably levelled and can one-shot Deathclaws the game remains interesting and fun. I thought it was a lot better than Oblivion and spent a long time playing it.

Other games I could have put on this list include: GRID, Battlefield Bad Company 2, FFXIII-2, Halo ODST, Little King's Story, LocoRoco and doubtless many others once I remember them!

Jam it back in, in the dark.