My Top 5 Games of Each Year, 1991 - 2023
My five favourite games of each year, starting at 1991 since I'm not as familiar with most years prior to it. Formatting is (from left to right) my pick for game of the year, runner up, #3, #4 and #5. Pretty much every row's subject to change to some extent as I play more and more games; I wish we could retroactively edit our GOTY picks on here because of that, but hey ho.
Some other tidbits and stray thoughts:
- 1996 right through to 2009 is pretty much all pure gold, my single favourite year being 2005. Apart from those, 1994, 2013, 2017, 2019 and 2022 also jump out to me as particularly strong years for games.
- Although I think it was also good, the way everyone wanked off 2023 struck me as kind of odd. I didn't find it to be hugely better than the rest of the 2020s so far, which I reckon have so far all been decent at worst.
- In contrast, I found 2016 and 2018 relatively grim, but that could change as I play more games from those years. I find that most instances of writing off an entire year's worth of stuff can be pinned down to not looking hard enough for stuff that appeals to you, so I try to be mindful of avoiding that.
- The row of games that’s consumed the most hours of my life total is probably 2010.
- I’ve included some rereleases in place of the original if they’re A) generally considered to be the definitive version of the game and B) released not long after. DMC3SE, Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen, M&B Warband, etc.
- Uppa Zoo Tycoon. Planet Zoo's also good, but I'd need to spend more time with it before I could slap it on here without feeling like a poser.
Some other tidbits and stray thoughts:
- 1996 right through to 2009 is pretty much all pure gold, my single favourite year being 2005. Apart from those, 1994, 2013, 2017, 2019 and 2022 also jump out to me as particularly strong years for games.
- Although I think it was also good, the way everyone wanked off 2023 struck me as kind of odd. I didn't find it to be hugely better than the rest of the 2020s so far, which I reckon have so far all been decent at worst.
- In contrast, I found 2016 and 2018 relatively grim, but that could change as I play more games from those years. I find that most instances of writing off an entire year's worth of stuff can be pinned down to not looking hard enough for stuff that appeals to you, so I try to be mindful of avoiding that.
- The row of games that’s consumed the most hours of my life total is probably 2010.
- I’ve included some rereleases in place of the original if they’re A) generally considered to be the definitive version of the game and B) released not long after. DMC3SE, Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen, M&B Warband, etc.
- Uppa Zoo Tycoon. Planet Zoo's also good, but I'd need to spend more time with it before I could slap it on here without feeling like a poser.
165 Games
1991
1992
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2002
2003
2006
2007
2008
2010
11 Comments
Hey @grihajedy, cheers for commenting. I actually do have a separate list of all time favourites over here:
https://www.backloggd.com/u/ProudLittleSeal/list/my-favourite-games/
There's some overlap between the two but I mainly did this list just as a way to gauge how I feel about different years for games, just for a bit of fun. For my money, 2005 is/was the best. I can think of about a dozen other great games released that year you could interchange with nearly any of the five I picked.
https://www.backloggd.com/u/ProudLittleSeal/list/my-favourite-games/
There's some overlap between the two but I mainly did this list just as a way to gauge how I feel about different years for games, just for a bit of fun. For my money, 2005 is/was the best. I can think of about a dozen other great games released that year you could interchange with nearly any of the five I picked.
Love the 5 game grids for each year, will probably steal this idea and do my own list, thanks :)
Also I was surprised to see Hulk: Ultimate Destruction in 2005, I loved that game so much as a kid and I've barely seen in get much recognition lol
@LunchboxLars No worries, cheers. Enjoyed reading yours too, love to see how people rate different years against others and stuff. Ultimate Destruction's still the best superhero game in my book, looking back on it I think it was pretty instrumental in why I like it so much whenever games let you pick up random objects and use them in silly ways. Vehicles alone in that game are makeshift boxing gloves, skateboards, projectiles, shields and probably other stuff I'm forgetting all at once, it's crazy. Whenever I was a kid I'd always jump from helicopter to helicopter just to see how long I could stay in the air.
2005 was THE year for underrated, semi-unknown fun games especially on the PS2, Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, Samurai Western, Devil Kings, The Punisher, Altered Beast, Nano Breaker, 10.000 Bullets, and outside of the obscure titles even the big names we had were nothing short of spectacular, Capcom with both Resident Evil 4 and Devil May Cry 3, Rockstar with GTA Liberty City Stories and The Warriors, and Shadow Of The Colossus, the first Yakuza, the first God Of War, Shadow The Hedgehog and so much more. Fantastic year.
@LunchboxLars 2005’s my single favourite year when it comes to games for sure. I’ve a big preference for the 00s in general, but for it specifically I could fill up a bunch of rows on this list if I wasn’t being pernickety about keeping it to just five. I haven't it on here (at least for now), but I remember playing tons of Battlefront 2 online when I was little and the space battles in particular felt like the future to me then with how you could board and steal the other team's ships and everything.
i love the way this is set out i will be doing my own version of this thank you for the idea
@Tarkzy No bother 👍
Really cool and creative list idea
Cheers @brende!
grihajedy
1 year ago