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| source// Nintendo |
A lot of games that come out these days are, for one reason or another, fairly forgettable. Sure, they’re visually superior to the games that came before them, but they sometimes feel like they’re lacking that special little spark that made us fall in love with gaming in the first place. Nowadays, we buy them, we play them, and then we forget about them almost immediately; they’re just products to be consumed, and fairly unremarkable products at that.
Of course, this isn’t always the case. Every now and then something does come along to remind us why we love this medium, you’ve just got to look hard enough for them. For every XCOM or Dark Souls, there’s a dozen Assassin’s Creed games, handfuls upon handfuls of Call of Duty clones, and an endless stream of repetitive sports games.
Luckily, we’ll always have the games of yesteryear, the games that introduced us to video games in the first place; the enduring, infinitely rewarding experiences that’ll always be there, waiting for us to come home. Some of these games are classics, others are seemingly endless, but they all have one thing in common: they’ll never die. For one reason or another, we’ll be playing these games for the rest of our lives.
We’ll play other things, and we may even forget about these games every now and then, but we’ll always come back, again and again, because they’re the very definition of timeless.
15. The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time
Everyone’s favourite Legend of Zelda game, Ocarina of Time, is an absolute classic, and you’ll definitely be playing it for the rest of your life. There’s just something about the game that managed to strike a cord with players; in technical terms, it may not be the most impressive game in the series, but it’s certainly the most memorable.
Again, like many of the examples on this list, Ocarina is the archetype; it’s the game you back to when you want to remind yourself how great a particular genre of video games can be. Not only are the puzzles excellent, and the dungeons varied, but everything from the music to the characters is positively buzzing with life.
Ocarina of Time is the real deal, a genuine adventure that games today could learn a thing or two from.
14. Tetris
Is there anything more timeless than Tetris? The game’s already been around for over thirty years, and there’s absolutely nothing to suggest it’s going anywhere any time soon. In fifty years, maybe even a hundred, Tetris will still be one of the highest selling games of all time.
It’s a perfect game, a simple, uncomplicated puzzler; it’s instantly identifiable, and it has one of the most iconic theme songs of all time.
There have been countless versions of the game over the years, and various disputes over the game’s rights as well, but in one form or another, Tetris will live on. It’s already on display at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, and it’s reportedly the highest grossing game of all time.
Believe me when I say, we’ll all still be playing Tetris when we’re old and grey.
13. Super Mario Bros.
Speaking of timeless, iconic video games: Super Mario Bros. will certainly live forever, in one form or another. Not only has the game been incredibly influential over the years, but it’s still perhaps the best example of the platform genre to date. The controls are tight, it functions perfectly and it’s only improved with age.
There have been so many sequels and spin offs to Super Mario Bros., but nothing will ever quite manage to top the original. Nintendo themselves seem to agree, because they’ve been banking on nostalgia for the game since it was released back in 1985.
12. Half Life 2
If video games have become a little stale as of late, the FPS genre has to be the worst offender. Honestly, it’s getting hard to differentiate between most military shooters; they look identical, and they’re all so busy stealing each other’s ideas that none of them ever seem to attempt anything remotely original.
For this reason, every now and then, you’ve just got to go back and play Half Life 2. In terms of varied environments, interesting puzzles, unique enemies and dynamic gunplay, it’s just never been topped. To this day, it’s still considered one the greatest FPS of all time, and that opinion is very unlikely to change. Well, until Half Life 3 eventually steals its thunder…
11. Chrono Trigger
Originally released for the Nintendo Entertainment System back in 1995, Chrono Trigger is one of the most recognisable RPGs in the world, and a hell of a game. The plot revolves around a group heroes travelling through time, attempting to prevent catastrophe; the graphics were impressive for the time and the battlesystem was fairly unique.
Nearly everything about Chrono Trigger was revolutionary; it was one of the first games to include multiple-endings, and miscellaneous side quests with a specific focus on character development.
In years to come, Chrono Trigger will still represent the standard for RPGs; the game was a perfect collaboration between several of the biggest names in the industry, including Hironobu Sakaguchi, Yuri Horii, Akira Toriyama, Masata Kato and Yasunori Mitsude. It was a perfect storm of talent, working at the top of their field to create one of the most memorable and iconic games of all time.
No other game has had quite as many notable composers, developers and illustrators contribute to its success. If for no other reason, you’ll be playing Chrono Trigger for the rest of your life.
10. The Witcher 3
The Witcher 3 is a big game, a really, really big game. It’s absolutely massive, with hundreds upon hundreds of things to occupy your time, from side-quests to the Gwent card-game. In fact, it’s so big, it’ll probably never feel stale, because even after you’ve beaten the game, there’s still 200+ hours of content to explore.
The open-world is massive, the characters are believable and sympathetic, and the game’s story is unparalleled in both complexity and scope. What’s not to like?
A person could spend their entire life playing Witcher 3 and still find they’ve entire quests, hidden details, and other little things along the way. The game is huge, it’s absolutely massive, and for that reason, you’ll probably never stop playing it.
Even after it’s eventually been topped, it’ll still be the game that set the standard to beat. It’ll always be the game that came along and showed us how epic, or expansive games can be.
9. Super Metroid
Like Super Mario Bros., Super Metroid is still one of the absolute best examples of the platform genre. To this day, the game has yet to be topped; it was the perfect blend of action and story-telling, and to this day, it continues to be a huge influence on the way people think about gaming.
The series has gone on to do some interesting things, but nothing will ever quite top the original. Metroid Prime came pretty close, but in recent years, the series has gone sour; Metroid Other M was a disaster, and the upcoming Federation Force seems like a huge departure from what made the series such a delight in the first place.
When modern gaming gets you down, you’ll always return to Super Metroid, and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon.
8. Final Fantasy VII
Perhaps the most standout Final Fantasy game of all time, there’s a reason Final Fantasy 7 is constantly being rereleased, it’s just that good. The series itself has had its highs and lows, but the seventh instalment has to represent the series’ peak; the story was captivating, the gameplay was dynamic and the characters had far more depth than you’d expect.
The game is currently being remade, and is due to hit shelves later this year. It’ll no doubt be a visual treat, but only time will tell if it’ll be able to top the original. Regardless, we’ll always have Final Fantasy 7 to remind us of how fantastic JRPGs can be.
7. Donkey Kong Country Trilogy
Released back in 1994, Donkey Kong Country was one of the first platformers to utilise realistic 3D sprites, pushing the limits of the Super Nintendo to breaking point. It was also the first Donkey Kong game to me made by someone besides the series’ creator, Shigeru Miyamoto. The game featured multiple levels, a co-operative mode and barrels upon barrels of secrets and easter-eggs. As a result, it’s lived on ever since, cultivating an entire generation of new fans through the Nintendo Wii and Wii U virtual console.
The series has moved on since, but nothing will ever quite top the original trilogy; it was the perfect blend of Nintendo and RareWare, a perfect formula that the more recent iterations of the franchise haven’t quite managed to match. The graphics may look quint, but they’ve aged fairly well considering how long ago the games were released.
As the years go by, the Donkey Kong Country games are only going to grow in popularity as more and more gamers steadily discover them. There’s no doubt: Donkey Kong Country is timeless.
6. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Like the Witcher 3, Skyrim is a staggeringly massive game, featuring hundreds of quests to occupy your every waking hour. It’s also potentially endless, seeing as how the game generates an endless stream of new quests after the guild storylines have been completed. Granted, these quests usually just involve running errands, taking out random targets for the Dark Brotherhood, ransacking properties for the Thieves Guild, or just delivering messages and retrieving items.
It’s busy work, but it’ll keep you occupied forever, potentially at least, running around sorting out everyone else’s messes for them. The game doesn’t choose locations at random either, it’s designed to send you to places you haven’t already explored, so you’re constantly discovering places you never even new existed.
5. Elite: Dangerous
A space-adventure, trading and combat simulator, Elite: Dangerous has something for everything. The game revolves around collecting resources and trading them in order to make improves to your ship, but the possibilities are endless. It features an incalculable amount of different scenarios, and the mass-multiplayer aspect means players can actively impact the story, change the course of the game and effect everything from resource prices to the influence of each of the game’s factions.
You can complete bounty hunter missions, you can focus on trading resources or you can complete missions for each of the various factions. The game allows players to explore galaxy of some 400 billion star systems, meaning that you’ll never run out things to do, places to see or adventures to have. Honestly, it’s almost like a second life.
4. Counter Strike: Global Offensive
The consistent popularity of CS: GO is proof enough that you’ll be playing this game for the rest of your life. It originally launched back in 2012, and the game has been featured almost continuously on Steam’s list of best selling games ever since.
In the four years since it came out, there have been five Call of duty games released: Black Ops 2, Black Ops Declassified, Ghosts, Advanced Warfare and Black Ops 3. While Call of Duty has been forced to constantly reinvent itself to keep fans invested in the series, CS: GO has been entertaining the same community of PC gamers for years, effortlessly.
The game still looks great and plays great; it’s being updated constantly, and it probably won’t ever need a sequel. it’s a complete package, and that’s unlikely to change any time soon.
3. Harvest Moon
There’s a whole genre of games about menial labour, games like Papers, Please and Night Shift, or Viscera Cleanup Detail; games that force the player to fulfil the parameters of an actual job, completing repetitive tasks for monetary compensation. Of course, these games aren’t for everyone, but they’ll always have a place; they can be a great way to turn your brain off, and they can even be therapeutic in a weird way.
Again, not for everyone.
With that said, Harvest Moon is perhaps the best farming game ever made. That may not sound like much of an achievement, but the game is utterly captivating. It was a story, and some interesting characters, but the game itself revolves around harvesting crops, tending to farm animals and generally working nine to five to make a living.
I strongly believe there will always be a place for these kind of games; they’ll always be a niche, no doubt, but they satisfy a very particular gaming itch in a way few others can.
2. Resident Evil 4
The Resident Evil series has gotten pretty convoluted over the years; at this point, it’s almost impossible to keep track of all the characters, their relationships and whatever the hell the plot has turned into. With that said, Resident Evil 4 stands out from the pack, not because it was particularly better than the other Resi games, but because it was a stand-alone story with only a few ties to the rest of the series.
As a result, it wasn’t bogged down trying to contextualise everything; it was able to stand up on its own two feet, resulting in one of the best horror games of all time.
Seeing as how the series itself has died a slow painful death in recent years, Resident Evil 4 will always stand out as the last great entry in the franchise. In years to come, we’ll look back in amazement, and wonder where it went wrong from here.
1. Minecraft
A game that is literally endless, Minecraft is constantly loading new terrain for the player to explore. Simply pick a direct, and start walking; you could walk for months, years even, and you’d never bump into an invisible barrier. The game just keeps procedurally generating new environments, meaning you’ll never run out of places to explore, or things to do.
Best of all, Minecraft is about creating whatever your imagination can dream up, which is something that should appeal to just about everyone. It’s essentially an infinite sandbox with no parameters, where the only limit is your own imagination.
It doesn’t matter if you’re nine of ninety, Minecraft has has something to offer everyone. It won’t ever need a sequel, and it won’t ever be topped, because there’s nothing about it that could be improved. The game is exactly what it needs to be, which is why you’ll no doubt play it for the rest of your life.
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