#97 Destiny

I hear your growning, stop it, stop. I have put in probably over 500 hours in destiny and destiny 2, any game I spend that much time on is one of my favorites. Bungie is untouchable when it comes to the feel and responsiveness in shooting, the gunplay is so good. Just that alone makes every encounter fun to play, mix in the special powers and teamwork and you have a FPS that's mechanically one of the best. Destiny was at its best a year in when the expansion The Taken King came out and evolved the game into something special. The dreadnaut was filled with loads of secrets and the great court of oryx where we would go weekly to accomplish a cool mini horde mode. It had a great raid, raids which are still the best online FPS levels ever made, nothing I see are as complex and demands more teamwork. They are the zelda dungeons of the FPS genre. When destiny works it is better than nearly any FPS, sadly the grind model for GaaS really holds it back.



The best part about Destiny though is getting online with your friends every night. Solid and Dez were my main crew, we would get on and just grind it out to try to get raid ready. Raids were like epic events where we needed to clear our schedule cause we would be playing till late nights. There were so many fun moments like times when one of us just couldn't make a crazy jump. Figuring out the war of the machine raid on our own was one of the best online experiences I've had. Destiny can represent the worst practices of this gen but at the same time shows the potential of these living evolving games.

#96 Astrobot

VR has been a dream of mine since I was a kid. The idea of being inside a game was fascinating to me. I have Sega Visions magazine and one issue they revealed that Sega was working on a VR helmet, this was like 95, obviosuly that never happened but I kept the dream alive. Enter Oculus and this new wave of VR, finaly VR gaming is a reality and its still in it's infancy. While many VR experiences are incredible because of what you can do, true 1:1 recreation of hands in a full 3D space, full body movement, there is no way to describe it if you haven't tried it. Yet the games remain stuck in a sort of experimental phase, many feel like tech demos of something greater, this is mainly due to none of the major developers really putting effort into VR. Sony of Japan decided to make a platformer, the old classic flagbearer of new tech, to show what VR can do to a traditional game. I bought a PS VR just for this game (and RE7) and I am satisfied. Astrobot works because not only is it a genius platformer if you remove the VR, but because of how well it uses every aspect of this limited tech that Sony has.

PSVR is not room scale and Astrobot does not use move controllers. This is a traditional third person platformer in which you sit and play with a controller. Maybe thats why this game is so great, the camera and controller are taken from traditional gaming. The dualshock 4 has motion built in and almost no game used it until now, Astrobot has so many clever uses for the controller. From firing water out like a hose, to shooting out ninja stars, or creating zip lines for your little bot to run across, the controller allows the player to be a character in the game independant of the bot. You can control astrobot like normal while controlling these gadgets, its two separate actions happening at once and both easily controlled by the player. This game is at its best when the levels require interesting uses of the gadgets while having great platforming.

The star of this show is the VR perspective and how it can enhance a traditional game. The game world appears all around you, your head is the camera and you will control Astrobot as he runs behind you, jumps of platformers on your right, climbs over your head, jumps way down where you need to lean and look down to see where he is landing. Not only does this allow for insanely clever level design but it allows for incredible precision jumping. This game isn't that long but what it lacks in length it makes up for in quality. Every level adds something new or is a new twist, there is no fat in this game. Each world ends in a gigantic boss battle, for real giant because the sense of scale is accurate, you fight stuff the size of a building. The last two bosses in particular are stunning battles that can't be appreciated the same way if it were on a screen.

Astrobot is a brilliant charming platformer at heart and that is why it works. This may not be the Mario 64 moment VR needs because it's not showing the future of gaming, instead it shows how VR can take the established norms and make them better. This is Nintendo quality level design and has that innovative spirit Nintendo had in the Wii days. I just wish this game was more challenging and had more depth to its combat, clearly its a first step into a hopefully longer franchise. The best VR exclusive game I have played.

I haven't replied to this list yet, but I condone your inclusion of Rogue Leader.  That game was, and still is, awesome.  One of the first battels saw you dipping in and out of green cosmic fog while you were taking down ties.  Back then it was just amazing, coming off the first gen of 3D gaming with the N64.  And then they did it all again with including the whole game in Rebel Strike, but in co-op this time.  I bought Rebel Strike just for the co-op.  I never even bothered playing the actual game itself.

On Beatsaber: the transformative shifts for VR happened with the Wii. VR allows for their expansion, but it is an expansion in that sort of game.

But I think Vader's point on it making precise platforming potentially more enjoyable valid, just as perfect 1:1 aiming controls can make FPS games so much better.

#95 Pixeljunk Eden

At the start of the 360/PS3 era indie games started to explode. Geometry Wars was a standout 360 launch game, it set the stage for indies on consoles. Many were great, but few better than this odd platformer from Pixeljunk. Eden is a sort of platformer but its all about getting a highs score. You control this little seed looking thing and it can shoot a web and swing around these massive verticle levels. The point is to collect pollen to fill a seed up so a plant can grow giving you new areas to jump or swing from as you make your way around the level. The art style is minimalistic but unqiue, that combined with a fantastic synth music sountrack sets the tone.

The game could be a relaxing semi exploratory platformer where you just figure out how to complete a level and be done with it. Thats not how I played this, I became obsessed, I needed the high scores. There is something about a game where you combine skill of platforming and reflexes with a timer where finding the fastest way to complete the level is almost a puzzle on its own. When that mixuture occurs it speaks to me and I want to master it, Eden achived that mix beautifully. The levels keep raising the stakes with new elements or enemies but the core scoring system remained. I was top 3 in the WORLD in some of these levels, it would give me a rush that few games did. For like a month I was the Eden master, completely engrossed in this game in a way I rarely do with games today.