- x Lord Revan x
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- Forum Ninja
Truth be told, all of the games up for the nomination have truly been impressive titles deserving of game of the decade. Each of them has managed to propel the industry forward with new resolve to become a better, more immersive artform that blends all other forms of art together to engage the player.
In some ways, they've helped people turn heads and realize that video games aren't solely games, but rather artistic expressions that people get to experience.
Half-Life 2 introduced us to one of the best constructed universes out there, filled to the brim with subtle story mentions, a story that moved you, characters you learned to love, and took the FPS genre and reminded us that we can be intelligent inside of it (puzzles!). Level design is superb. Whenever people attack Half-Life 2, I think, "Have you ever truly played it?"
The Bridge level alone is an example of unbelievable design. Moving across the bridge initially trains you for walking on these odd, never truly traversed in a game beams, and then it culminates in testing your ability with a boss fight afterward. It harkens back to classic platforming and is an example of teaching the player to be a proper badass (something Uncharted 2 does incredibly well with their train mission-their escalation is incredibly well done).
The others haven't quite done as much as Half-Life 2 IMO, but are also incredibly important for the industry. RDR channeled an amazing story and environment, WOW was an incredible social experience that has influenced all other games encouraging persistent universes, and a game like portal shows that a simple idea can spawn a truly unique universe and gameplay.
I could honestly write a bunch on each game and comment on their contributions, but ultimately I'll still be questioning why Batman: Arkham City was on that list. Its an amazing game and absolutely kills it with making you feel like Batman, but it never screamed Game of the Decade to me. I don't feel its influence spreading over to other games...