Stew’s Top 10 Video Games From The 21st Century

I am continuing on, counting down my favorite video games of all time. Last time, I listed off my favorite games of the 20th Century. This time, we’re going ahead with my ten favorites of the current century!

Let’s get right into the list here…

10. WWE 2K22-2K24

As this stands, this is a three generation span of the WWE 2K series, and that’s for one reason:

The return of GM Mode.

Honestly, I would buy a WWE game that was ONLY My GM Mode. I do occasionally play other modes in this franchise, but to be honest, I spend 90% of my playtime doing My GM Mode.

I’ve been a big fan of Battle Of The Brands on UpUpDownDown for years now, so when the modern WWE games re-introduced the feature that allows you to build your own show and hire superstars and place them in matches to see how the ratings go… well, I had to get in on that.

And ever since 2K22, My GM Mode has gotten better and better with improvement after improvement. They’ve really been working hard to maximize the fun that can be had in that feature, and yeah… I’m absolutely having a blast with it.

I really should spend more time in the the other modes, though. But I’m not too much of an online battler in fighting games. My ego is too fragile to handle the whippings I’ll receive.

9. Horizon Zero Dawn

GOD is this game gorgeous.

That’s the primary thing to Horizon Zero Dawn is just how beautiful the world you traverse is. The nature is lush. The creatures are magnificent. And Aloy is charming as hell.

Not to say the graphics are all this game has going for it. The battle mechanics are fun as heck, and so are the RPG character-building elements. You really get engaged in fighting the robot monstrosities that roam the countryside, and I had as much fun fighting them as I have had fighting evil in any game I’ve ever played.

The biggest knock on this game was that it’s a one-and-done with no real replayability. I’ll never get back into it, and I never even gave its sequel too much of a chance because I hated how it makes you start over again at zero and doesn’t keep your Aloy built up as she was at the end of Zero Dawn. But still… for one experience? It was a great one.

8. Marvel Ultimate Alliance

This slot for me came down to two games: this or the Playstation Spider-Man game from the past few years. I really needed a comic book representative on this list. So when I weighed them in my head, the decision came down to one thing, and it’s replayability again.

Spider-Man is very much like Horizon Zero Dawn. I loved it–LOVED IT–but I played it once and that was that. I had no interest in going back to playing the sequels because the “run around the city and collect items” got tedious after a while, no matter how much fun web-swinging all over the map was.

Ultimate Alliance, with its big roster of heroes at your disposal, has much more replay value. It also can be played solo or with friends (I had a blast playing this when it came out with my comically inept gamer dad who kept walking poor Thor off ledges). There’s more hours of enjoyment here than there is to Spider-Man.

Great sequel, too, though it was a bit more straight-forward combat-oriented than puzzle-based at points. But that’s either an up or a down based on your preference.

7. Dead By Daylight

Sometimes I get something new, fall in love with it, and absolutely fixate on it for a period of time. Then it kind of vanishes into the ether, and it’s almost like it never mattered to me.

That was Dead By Daylight.

It makes the list because in the year that I played it–and it was a recent year–I played the absolute hell out of it. I was on it several hours a day, trying to survive murderous foes and escape their clutches. The game is addictive! The licenses for the properties it has to draw from rule (too bad there was never a Jason, but the rest of the biggest names in horror are there), and the gameplay is fair and fun.

It’s just too bad I fell off. I hit that point where I was too good to just goof around, but not good enough to be a star. And so the game started getting more frustrating than fun. When I broke a controller over it, that was the end of the game for me, I knew.

Still! What a year it was. I occasionally think I should hope back on to the game I put, like, 700 hours on in a year. I’ll probably have regressed enough to go back to just goofing around. Maybe someday…

6. TellTale’s The Walking Dead Series

With this entry, we jump from the Also Rans and into the games that this list would be wildly incomplete without. Horizon Zero Dawn, Ultimate Alliance, Dead By Daylight… they are all fun, but at various points in my life, I could see other games I fixated on surpassing them. They barely made the cut.

But The Walking Dead is the first game I simply HAD to include.

This series was marvelous because it didn’t matter if I suck at gaming; I barely had to do anything here. I was more a passenger just playing out a story and making choices for the characters involved. Who would live or die? How would they feel about my lead character? That was all in my hands.

And the story is POWERFUL. It really got to me at various points. It’s the best property, for my money, under the Walking Dead banner.

5. Dragon Ball Z Budokai 3

This is my one obligatory fighting game since WWE 2K doesn’t really count. It’s also the only fighting game I was ever partway good at.

It had a rich roster of the most important Z Warriors, a fun build system where you could design your characters to use various transformations or moves. And the fighting was fluid and crisp. It wasn’t too button-mashy. You just… fought.

This was another blast to play with others. And again I harken back to being able to play this with my dad when he was with us, as this was basic enough for even him to learn after a while. We had a blood feud of my Fat Buu vs his Super Buu.

4. The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

I feel like a lot of people’s lists of favorite games from the current century would include Skyrim, and here I am, being unoriginal and part of the crowd. By Skyrim was as much of a cultural phenomenon as video games get, and for good reason. For its era, its graphics were amazing and almost unheard of. The world was thick with lore and backstories and things to run off and do. You could ignore the main quest line for an age if you wanted to as you ran around and leveled up your skills to hell and back and helped (or hurt) hundreds of NPCs across the mythical realm.

I’m probably Skyrimmed out in my life. I’ve played it and replayed it and played it again more times than I can count. I’ve tried out various builds to see what is best. I’ve had a blast with and without mods. I don’t know that I’ll ever play the game again at this point, and that’s all right. I’ve dedicated a lot of time to Skyrim, and I think it knows I love it.

3. Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Series

For this entry, I’m basically cheating and considering a four game series (which, you know, is the same thing I did for The Walking Dead). I’m talking Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice For All, Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Trials & Tribulations, and just for the heck of it, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney. But if you think that’s too much, you can rule out Apollo Justice and just count the Phoenix Wright trilogy.

It’s weird how much, while also how LITTLE, this series has in common with The Walking Dead franchise. It’s a tremendous story that you play through without having to do much “playing”. But it is certainly more playing-oriented than TWD, and you don’t get to affect the outcome. The game has a definitive story to tell, and you are just guiding Phoenix to the end of that tale.

But what a story it is! I was enthralled with the first three game trilogy! I had two friends who were playing it the same time I was, and we compared notes on how we were doing and what we thought. There were twists and turns that blew me away! Rich, full characters who were a joy to interact with! And such hilarious banter between characters.

This was another one-and-done–I tried playing it years later with my wife spectating because she loves WATCHING games, but the lack of voice acting quickly turned her off, as she did not want to read the screen–but WHAT a one-and-done it was.

2. Fallout 4

Picking a Fallout was hard, as I love both 4 and New Vegas equally. New Vegas is a better, more entertaining story. But 4 has better gameplay mechanics, graphics, and replayability (though neither is lacking in that regard). Fallout 4 just gives you a lot more to do, even if a fair bit of that stuff to do is somewhat tedious. Like constantly needing to find god damn adhesives.

Like Skyrim, I’ve played Fallout 4 to death. Unlike Skyrim, I am sure I’m not done with it. Since the Fallout show started, I’ve been playing it again. I’m not sure what I’m going to do differently; I’ve previously beaten it with each of the main factions. I’ve played all the DLC. I’ve been a Raider boss. I’ve played with and without several mods.

Maybe I’ll try to do what I’ve never done and get a settlement to 100% happiness. How hard can that be?

(I bet it’s very hard)

1. Pokemon Crystal / Pokemon SoulSilver & HeartGold

I told you last time that we would see more Pokemon, and here we are.

I genuinely had no idea what to choose. It came down to a few options: Crystal, the generation 2 third game that I owned for the Gameboy and played a ton of on my N64 with the GB adapter. HeartGold or SoulSilver, the generation 2 remakes that added a ton of fun features to the already crazy enjoyable Johto realm. Black or White, the generation where I really started getting into competitive play and had 600-700 hours on from playing against other people online while I was on the treadmill. Or any of the later games where I kept playing competitively but added in a fascination with breeding my own Pokeys.

Ultimately I went with the Generation 2 games because as much as I enjoyed online battling and breeding, to me, Pokemon was at its best when I found it more simple. When I just played through over and over and over to use new teams and find new Pokemon to love. That was my favorite era.

*******

And that’s that! My top ten games of the 21st century!

Burt what are YOURS? Let me know in the comments. And tell me why you love them!

Until next time… take care!