super mario world inches this for me personally, but in terms of raw creativity and legendary developers taking lightyear leaps in every conceivable way but especially visuals and audio, this needs to be on here. it was a masterpiece when it released and it'll still be one when we're all long gone.

as a certified half life 2 stan, this has to be here. aside from the fantastic level design and pacing and acting and everything else, i'm including this because it still has the most compelling worldbuilding i've seen in a game. it takes the game around a minute to convince you of the sheer desperation and loss in the world around you.

not to paint with too broad a brush, but i'm typically not a huge fan of multiplayer games in this vein. it's not hugely interesting to me who can score the better shot, which team is better, i'd usually rather leave that to pros competing at big tournaments. but tf2 is different, valve imbued it with so much personality and a sense of humour that even losing can feel like a slapstick comedy. i love how bold the visuals are, the music is iconic, and every voice actor is perfect. every damn line is perfectly delivered in fact, i've heard them all so many times and every time i think it couldn't be improved. ya wanka

nothing surprised me more than wanting to include this over SH2, considering i think it's generally a more accomplished game in terms of story/themes/characters, but there's just something special about this one. the right place, the right time, the right people. wading through that ps1 fog and exploring a weirdo US town as seen by japanese people through hollywood movies... it's far from perfect but it's a horror experience you could never replicate in another medium, or at another period within that medium.

you can stand in a man's golden piss stream as it rains down on you, and also it has one of the most important narratives in the medium.

didn't create the souls genre but the way it goes about it is so special to me. singlehandedly changed the way i think about difficulty and storytelling in video games.

what a fucking video game
i'm quoting matthewmatosis in one of the videos he made about this game, but this really is like the longest most rewarding most entertaining arcade game ever made. it also has the best ending of any piece of media ever.

i haven't finished this game. i decided to play it without using the ship's automatic tracker of what you've done and things you should still look into, and instead use a physical journal to write down what i've found and draw diagrams. i got pretty far i think. i got the coordinates for the ship inside the thorn planet but i couldn't figure out how to start it. anyway, the reason why i didn't just look up a guide is because i respect this game's construction too much to spoil its sense of discovery for myself. the way they built this solar system is unparalleled within the medium. in a way, i'd rather not see the rest of it, despite hearing the ending's fantastic. this was all over a year ago at this point. i'll come back to this game via a new playthrough at some point and try to finish it again.

a game that believes so truly in kindness it asks you to extend it to fictional pixels on a screen, and is very clever about that. also has an incredible soundtrack, and sans.

a weird entry because the most recognisably "game" parts aren't exactly stellar (although i still find a lot of the mechanics pretty satisfying), but i love all the politicking you can do and all the factions to explore. it all feels very human. the game thrives in particular due to the dichotomy of the ncr and caesar's legion.
the ncr is the closest to the world we know, and through the entire game they're seen to be so weak and stretched so thin. you don't have to dig deep to see their imperfections. and yet, through all the fucked up bureaucracy, there are people who want to do good in there. the game asks you whether you can see past the constant negativity that pervades every corner of the ncr's presence in the mojave.
if you can't see past that, there's the legion. the legions wears its immorality and deep cruelty on its sleeve. a lot of people think the legion is so ridiculously evil that no one would ever choose them; they even obviously got the least dev time as they crunched to get the game done. but the genius is in the roleplaying. for a male courier, someone actually living in that world and not someone playing a paragon power fantasy, they represent safety. they give you special treatment. choosing them means you're almost guaranteed to be holding the handle of the sword and not facing down the blade. for a female courier they're a harder sell, but you can see why in-universe someone living in such a harsh fucked up world might want to feel safe up in that big fort, no matter how much of other people's misery they'd have to look down on each day.
so the ncr is a flawed appeal to our world, the legion appeals to the immorality of their world, and that leaves house and yes man. they appeal to the oft fickle belief in the greatness of individuals, either house or yourself. house promises you so much, yet all his ending slides show is that he uses the power you gave him to subjugate vegas even further. no rocket ships to mars in sight. yes man mechanically is a wonderful way to ensure you're never locked out of an ending, or is perfect for someone who believes they could run vegas all by themselves, possibly encouraged by power fantasy. personally i think the whole place would be on fire within 6 hours of me taking control, but that's just me.
so yeah. i was hooked on this game's systems playing it as a 13 year old, but as an adult i love its morality plays and how, like any great fiction that deals with another time and place, it asks us to reflect on our world right now, how we see people, and we'll choose to act towards them.