Top Ten of the Decade: Part 1

By Jennifer Allen

Over the coming days, a collective of Resolution regulars will be penning their own personal top-ten lists.  The theme?  Favourite games of the decade.  Not the best, not the most polished, not the most influential.  Just favourite.  Our trusty comrade Jennifer is up first…

10. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2003)
I’d never actually played a Prince of Persia game for more than five minutes until Sands of Time. And the only real reason behind my spontaneous purchase of Sands of Time for the Gamecube was because it was cheap and I was bored. Fortunately I adored it. I wasn’t very good at it, dying far too often, but it was still brilliant. The fluid movement felt so new, so exciting, that I would repeatedly play levels just to try to pull off a more impressive acrobatic sequence. This was also why I never actually finished the thing, but just the memories of the first few levels make me desperate to return.

9. Final Fantasy X (2001)
Ever since the Christmas of 1997 hooked me on Final Fantasy VII, I’ve adored JRPGs and the Final Fantasy series. My foolish young mind meant that I was disappointed by VIII and IX despite them being fantastic games, simply because they didn’t live up to my personal hype. However , when X appeared, I was ready to embrace a new RPG love. Tidus might have been a little whiney for my liking, but with the likes of Auron balancing things out, and the tremendous Sphere Grid levelling system, I loved it so.

8. The Sims 2 (2004)
Everyone has a guilty pleasure that they don’t want to admit. The Sims 2 was mine for many a year. Surely no one can honestly resist playing God, and The Sims 2 perfected what its predecessor had started wonderfully. Even now, it’s the game that I’ll play obsessively for three or four months at a time. Then I stop and realise that actually all I’m doing is living, which is exactly what I can actually do in the real world. Yet I still always go back to it a few months later. It might be ultimately pointless, but it’s so addictive to see what happens next. Kind of like a gaming soap opera, really.

7. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 (2000)
I’ve never been any good at skateboarding. The fear of breaking a bone always put me off as a child [I believe it's worth noting that Jennifer recently broke her foot while answering the door - Ed], but it never stopped me being impressed by the likes of Tony Hawk. Pro Skater 2 was perfect for allowing me to live my hidden dreams of being a skateboarding champion. It also captured the real drive that games had before achievements: the high score. I would repeatedly play the same arenas over and over again in an effort to acquire the best high score, simply for my own satisfaction. And it was glorious when I finally pulled off a particularly difficult move.

6. Fahrenheit (2005)
Fahrenheit (known as Indigo Prophecy in North America) is one of a handful of games for which only five minutes spent with the demo meant that I had to buy it. I was a poor student at the time, but this game was way more important than food. It might have been greatly flawed at times, especially with its weak ending, but I loved it for its potential. It actually felt like I was in an interactive film. After so many years of being promised this was the future, I felt like I’d finally reached it. Sure, the mini-games felt a little silly and, in hindsight, weren’t very well implemented, but the innovation Fahrenheit demonstrated for the time was tremendous.

[Continues...]

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