Time's Top Ten videogames

I love their Bully (Canis Canem Edit in the UK) writeup:

The thing non-gamers miss about Rockstar, who make the controversial Grand Theft Auto games, is that they're storytellers. Graphics-wise their games are nothing special, but they use games to tell rich, branching, hydra-headed stories, and that's what makes them interesting. In Bully they take that narrative sensibility to a private school dominated by warring cliques: jocks, nerds, bullies, girls, etc. You play Jimmy, and your job is to scuffle your way through the social hierarchy, righting wrongs and shutting down the bad kids (put your outrage down, folks, this is an anti-bullying game). Bully throws new characters and storylines and mini-games and environments at you so relentlessly, it's impossible to get bored, and the script is witty and playfully self-aware. Plus, you can make a dude kiss another dude. Those Rockstar folks have got stones.

Their Top Ten Videogames picks looks pretty spot on to me, although I'm suffering badly from lack of Wii or PS3 to play some of the titles on. Still, they're not going anywhere, are they?

Comments

[rustle]

I agree, their Top Ten looks surprisingly good!
I would have Animal Crossing: Wild World for DS in there. Bully is not my cup of tea but the industry needs people who don't Knee-jerk at every little turn...

[Tim]

"but they use games to tell rich, branching, hydra-headed stories"
Look I would say that the stories are rich, branching and "hydra-headed" not so much. That has been one of my problems with the GTA games, the amount of freedom the game gives you is contrasted by the storys being on a strait track. Now most games are like this but in GTA it is a problem for two reasons:
#1 Outside of the story you have so much freedom.
#2 You can't pick any dialog choices ect.

PS Random Plug: Best story in a game ever: Planescape Torment, RIP Black Isle Studios.

[Jen]

Tim - you're so right about P:T. I've got high hopes for Rogue Dao's Planescape mods for NWN2, but they've got a lot to live up to.

[Jon K]

This is probably a better top ten list than any i've seen on gaming websites... all solid choices, and what's more - they make 2006 seem like a pretty special year in gaming.

Oh, and Planescape: Torment rules :)

[bob]

Dang, now I feel the need to reinstall Planescape: Torment. It was the smartest, most interestingly self-aware game I've ever played. After it came out, I had hoped to see more games that built on its conceptual accomplishments, but sadly it has yet to be.