favorite game every year since you were born (redux)

28 Sep, 2024

The premise of this post is simple: Start with the year you were born then pick your favorite video game from each year until the current year. I actually already did this blog post before, but I half-assed it and only went through the first 10 years of my life. But now I want to re-visit it because I spent the last few weeks finishing that list and remembered games that totally fell out of my mind that I want to go replay.

If you want to see the full list without all the explanatory text, you can skip to the end here.

1994 - Donkey Kong Country

I actually didn't play many games from the year I was born, but I played Donkey Kong Country in my adult life and loved it. I used to watch the Game Grumps play it, and it motivated me to buy a SNES and play the game on the original hardware.

1995 - Donkey Kong Country 2

Similar to the last year, I didn't play many games from 1995, but Donkey Kong Country is the GOAT game series on the SNES, so it should be no wonder why it wins my favorite.

1996 - Pokemon Blue

Playing this game started me on a trajectory that would shape much of my life. Pokemon has always been an unbelievably popular franchise, but especially in the late 90s, Pokemon was everywhere, and I was obsessed. These games were everything to me.

1997 - Final Fantasy 7

These days, I don't even like RPGs, but Final Fantasy 7 hooked me at a time in my life where I could be completely engulfed by the world-building and characters from the game. If you haven't played this game, you really need to. It tells a story in a way I've never seen from another video game, which is why I completed it about 5 times at this point.

1997 - Jersey Devil (honorable mention)

Okay...I never actually owned this game, just the demo disk for it. That's why it's only getting an honorable mention here. But I played the living shit out of the demo over and over again, and I don't think I actually ever completed it because my stupid child brain couldn't figure out what to do. But I have great memories of it.

1998 - Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX

This was the gameboy color remake of Link's Awakening for the original gameboy from 1993. You might be asking yourself why Ocarina of Time doesn't win the 1998 slot. It's because Link's Awakening is perfect. There's no fluff in it, it doesn't waste your time. It's short. It's sweet. The puzzles and gameplay mechanics are challenging and don't overstay their welcome. And before you know it, the game is over and you're completely satisfied at the end.

1999 - Neopets

Okay this isn't a video game per-se, but it had to win the 1999 slot. I would go to my local library every day after school just to play this shit. It was so addicting. I don't think I was ever good at it, but I just loved to play the mini-games and take care of my blue Kacheek. How could you not love that little guy?

2000 - Dave Mirra BMX

I don't even know why we owned this game. It was my brother's, but I played it all the time, and it's why I even know about the band Sublime. From what I remember, the game is about completing crazy objectives on your BMX bike. The soundtrack is awesome too.

2000 - Pokemon Puzzle League (honorable mention)

I can't move on without at least mentioning this game. If you want to play some candy crush-type game with some of the most amazing midi tracks from the Pokemon anime, then this is it. So good.

2001 - Super Smash Bros. Melee

Not much to say about this game other than it's a classic. I never owned it, but went over my friend's house nonstop to play it with him. I mained Young Link, who is the all time best Smash character. Toon Link just wasn't as good. I also feel like Young Link was not the same in the newer version.

2002 - Kingdom Hearts

I was so gay for this game. I know I said before that I don't like RPGs, but this was another one that grabbed me. I just liked how it was a goofy game with serious moments, and when the serious moments happened, it made me cry.

2003 - SOCOM 2

SOCOM 2 was what Halo was on the Xbox - one of the first massively popular online shooters to come to its console AND promoted microphone chat. I played this game all the time on my PS2. They never made another series like it. You get 1 life per round and you need to communicate with your team over mic to win the round. I met a lot of great people playing this series.

2004 - Runescape 2

Runescape 2 is the version of the game most people played, I'm sure. I lost so many hours of my teenage years playing this fucking game. Just sitting at the computer screen chopping down trees to sell for money so I could buy the best armor and look cool in front of all the poor, lower-level players. It was so lame and so addicting.

2004 - Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories (honorable mention)

Runescape wins 2004 by a mile, but Chain of Memories needs to be mentioned because it is the best Kingdom Hearts game in the entire series, and it's a really unique game. I recommend everyone play the remastered version though.

2005 - Need for Speed: Most Wanted

My cousin introduced me to this game. I haven't completed a single racing game before or after this released, but it's easily one of my favorite games of all the time. The racing is engaging, and the police chases towards the second half of the game get your heart pumping. Most NFS fans laud this game as the best in the series, and frankly it's probably the best racing game of all time.

2006 - SOCOM: Combined Assault

SOCOM wins this year as well. During this time I was playing a lot of Runescape, so my video game playing was pretty isolated to just SOCOM. I'm not even sure I played anything else that came out in 2006.

2007 - Guitar Hero 3

If you played this game back in 2007, you know what the fuck is up. This game was unreal. Nothing felt better than when you mastered a song on a really hard difficulty. And don't get me started on the Dragonforce song. This game was huge when it came out, and I put so many hours into it.

2008 - SOCOM: Confrontation

SOCOM again, baby. This was my first PS3 game! It was pretty buggy upon release, but after a few years, it became more playable, and I found a good group of people to regularly hop on and play some rounds with. It was a cool time for online video games.

2009 - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

I'm talking about the campaign here. I played this game originally when it came out, but it's not until recently that I went back and had more fun with the campaign and the special missions. MW2 has good game feel, and something about makes it genuinely fun to play, I can't put my finger on why honestly.

2010 - ModNation Racers

Nobody played this fucking game, but I shit you not - it was the. best. game on the PS3. It was basically a Mario Kart ripoff but 1000 times better. It allowed you to create custom characters and racetracks from scratch. And it had a hub world where you could just drive around and chat with other people if you had a microphone. People were so creative in this game, the racetracks and weapons were extremely memorable, along with the custom characters. I made a niche out of creating Mega Man characters, which were downloaded and used by thousands of other players, which added an extra element of satisfaction to creating things within the game. The servers for this game aren't running anymore, and I genuinely feel sorry for people who never played it. Also the main theme goes HARD

2011 - Dark Souls

This was a tough year for me. Skyrim and Portal 2 also came out this year, but I gotta hand 2011 to Dark Souls. I have great memories watching OneyNG's Let's Play of this game, which prompted me to go buy and play it once I was done with the videos. This was my first Souls game, and it was special because after I completed it, I would very quickly become fatigued by the sequels. Something about Dark Souls was just perfect and none of the later games came close to how this game played.

2012 - Dishonored

This title is as close to a perfect game as you can get. It drops you in this world, gives you a bunch of tools to carry out your objective (AKA killing people), and ends before it gets too monotonous. This game is pure fun and doesn't overstay its welcome. Just great.

2013 - Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

Similar to my comments on Link's Awakening, this game is dense with content and doesn't have much fluff. Handheld 2D Zelda games are my favorite because they're just fun lil' adventure games without any of the never-ending expository dialogue you'll see in the 3D Zelda games.

2014 - Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze

I didn't even play this game, but instead the 3DS release that came out later in 2018, but 2014 was such a bad year for video games. Donkey Kong always goes hard though, there's not much to say here that I haven't already covered in 1994 and 1995.

2015 - Rocket League

Rocket League. What a game. I sunk so many hours into it when this released, and then years later when Covid hit. My friend would come over and we would drink and play this game for hours, and it represents a really memorable time in my life because of that. Being stuck inside was the worst, but there were some silver linings.

2016 - DOOM (2016)

This is my first DOOM game, and it instantly hooked me. The music, the ability to glide around the battlefield, and the open-endedness (is that a word?) of the enemy killing are all top notch. This game reinvigorated my faith in AAA games.

2017 - Wordscapes

Okay....okay this is just a shitty little phone puzzle game, but I spent so many hours playing it that it needed to take the 2017 slot. I know Breath of the Wild came out this year too, but this game would save me so many hours of boredom on the constant airline flights I was on after I moved to California! It's better than Zelda okay!!

2018 - Spider-Man

This game is really fucking cool. The beginning sequence when the game just kinda throws you into the web-swinging around Manhattan gave me this crazy feeling - I can't explain it. It has countless flaws, and a lot of waste-your-time bullshit, but still the combat and web-swinging honestly make up for all of that nonsense.

2018 - Celeste (honorable mention)

I can't not mention this game. Celeste is probably the best indie game I've ever played, and I don't even like pixel-platformers all that much. This game's jumping mechanics kept the challenge high and never got tiring. It's a good one.

2019 - Gato Roboto

I don't remember much about this game. It was a short indie game clearly heavily inspired by Metroid, but it didn't make you feel super lost like a Metroid game. It felt like a game that took all the good elements from Metroid and got rid of all the bad ones. Plus you play as a little kitty cat in a mech suit, which is very sick.

2020 - Final Fantasy 7 Remake

Don't play this game unless you really like Final Fantasy 7. I wouldn't say it's good, it has so many flaws, and just wastes your time entirely too much. The combat is fun and the music is very nostalgic. If I played DOOM: Eternal, it would probably have earned the 2020 slot, but alas.

2021 - It Takes Two

Very cute, very fun co-op platformer. Challenging platforming, but not too challenging where you'll be screaming at your partner 5 hours into it. The set-pieces, the world, and the characters are great. Find a friend and play this.

2022 - Ollie Ollie World

This is another game I played on every flight I took between 2021-2024. It's a really fun skateboarding game that gets incrementally harder as it introduces new tricks and methods to traverse the level. This game is perfect if you're the type of person that enjoys games like Trials.

2023 - N/A

2024 - N/A

Honestly didn't play anything from these years. That's it!

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