Fleshmechanic’s Top 10 Games – Part 2

The second and final part of my top 10 list of games! 🙂 Enjoy.

5. Batman Arkham Asylum

In Batman: Arkham Asylum, the player assumes the role of Batman as he delivers The Joker to Arkham Asylum. There, the imprisoned super-villains have set a trap and an immersive combat gaming experience unfolds. Batman: Arkham Asylum offers players the chance to battle Gotham’s worst villains with Batman’s physical and psychological strength in a graphically distinct and story-driven game.

It was tough to decide between Arkham Asylum and Arkham City but I settled on Arkham Asylum because it was the first of the series and when it was released Batman had never been done in this way before. The style of the game fits so well, and my personal (and I’m sure a lot of people’s) favourite element in the game is The Joker. Mark Hamill’s voice acting fits so perfectly but although people might be used to hearing him in Batman: The Animated Series, it’s different in this case because the game is so much darker than a show made for children and adults alike. This game makes you see the power of Batman, to go up against Scarecrow, Poison Ivy, Croc, The Joker and many others and still come out the other end intact shows how resilient he really is. In this rare case I enjoy both the villain and the hero as much as each other.

4. Red Dead Redemption

The story of former outlaw, John Marston, Red Dead Redemption takes players on a great adventure across the American frontier. Red Dead Redemption features an open-world environment for players to explore, including frontier towns, rolling prairies teeming with wildlife, and perilous mountain passes – each packed with an endless flow of varied distractions. Along the way, players experience the heat of gunfights and battles, meet a host of unique characters, struggle against the harshness of one of the world’s last remaining wildernesses, and ultimately pick their own precarious path through an epic story about the death of the Wild West and the gunslingers that inhabited it.

Amongst a brilliant story, is a world that you can lose yourself in. Visually beautiful, there’s nothing better than riding your horse through the desert as the sun sets on the horizon. Fast paced action and characters that you really care about helping, with activities to endlessly entertain you, such as hunting wild buffalo and wolves or bounty hunting for criminals and bandits. Even the DLC, Undead Nightmare is awesome. Although the time-line doesn’t fit into the main story it’s still great and adds a twist to the period setting. The ending will always be one of my favourites (and one of the saddest), especially due to the chance you get to exact revenge as Jack Marston.

3. Dragon Age Origins

“Men and women from every race; warriors and mages, barbarians and kings… the Grey Wardens sacrificed everything to stem the tide of darkness… and prevailed.” —Duncan, head of the Grey Wardens in Ferelden
You are a Grey Warden, one of the last of a legendary order of guardians. With the return of an ancient foe and the kingdom engulfed in civil war, you have been chosen by fate to unite the shattered lands and slay an archdemon once and for all. The choices you make guide the path you take through the Ninth Age: The Dragon Age.

Made by Bioware, who seem to have some kind of formula for creating lovable characters, Dragon Age is a conversational RPG with lots of choices to make. It’s obviously a great game for many reasons but for me it was the smaller things that made it enjoyable, like the way the characters interact with each other as you walk through certain areas. Also having Alastair as a partner, not only is the most relevant romance option but the most satisfying. Alastair is funny and eventually if you play it the right way, you can end up ruling by his side. The option of playing as a female Grey Warden I would always take, just for the simple fact that I think it’s more interesting and gives you more options.

2. Mass Effect 3

BioWare completes the Mass Effect Trilogy with Mass Effect 3. Earth is burning. Striking from beyond known space, a race of terrifying machines have begun their destruction of the human race. As Commander Shepard, an Alliance Marine, the only hope for saving mankind is to rally the civilizations of the galaxy and launch one final mission to take back the Earth.

It was a close call between number one and two on this list, it was hard for me to decide. But then, I had to decide which game out of the trilogy was the best and I found that relatively easy. Of course it had to be Mass Effect 3, you finally get the summarization of the story and it’s just the best one by far. The issue everyone has to address with this game is people didn’t enjoy the ending original blah blah blah, but no, I think people have to give Bioware credit for changing to ending and acknowledging that people disliked it, how many other game companies do you know that would even do that? I personally didn’t experience the original ending because I was advised to download the Citadel DLC, I enjoyed a perfect fairwell party and felt it was satisfying. My favourite characters across the entire series have to be Kaidan Alenko and Thane Krios, both my love interests, and both saying goodbye to Thane as he died and saying goodbye to Kaidan on Earth was depressing. Nothing in the game made me cry more than the video messages Thane left Shepard. I just wish Shepard had managed to survive so we one day could have hung out with Garrus on a beach somewhere…
Also again, playing as a female Shepard was much better, I tried to play as both genders and I much preferred the female version.

1. Bioshock

“I am Andrew Ryan, and I’m here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? ‘No!’ says the man in Washington, ‘It belongs to the poor.’ ‘No!’ says the man in the Vatican, ‘It belongs to God.’ ‘No!’ says the man in Moscow, ‘It belongs to everyone.’ I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose… Rapture, a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, Where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well.” – Andrew Ryan

You are the only survivor in a North Atlantic plane crash, floating in the icy water as the fuselage sinks beneath you. Your only hope is a lighthouse in the distance, inside of which sits a submersible capsule. You climb in and you begin your decent into Rapture, a city hidden beneath the sea. Originally constructed as an idealistic society for a hand-picked group of scientists, elite individuals, and industrialists, the idealism is no more. Now the city is littered with corpses, wildly powerful guardians roam the corridors as little girls loot the dead, and biologically mutated citizens ambush you at every turn. Now you’re trapped, caught in the middle of a genetic war that will challenge both your capacity to survive and your moral allegiance to your own humanity.

The Bioshock series was the obvious choice for number one on my list but to choose which one was my favourite out of the series was unsurprisingly pretty difficult. Bioshock: Infinite brings so much more to the story, including the Burial At Sea DLC, additionally Bioshock 2 (although seemingly not part of the main story) was also really great and had its fair share of memorable moments. But, Bioshock was the beginning, the first and where it all began and I prefer it in many ways. The setting is much darker and eerily beautiful, and the grimy, forgotten city of Rapture is much creepier than the beautiful skies of Columbia. The storyline is one no one ever forgets playing, and when you finally understand what the phrase “Would you kindly?” stands for, once you replay the game you’re unable to forget. Additionally my ultimate favourite aspect of the game is the Little Sisters and their bonded relationship with Big Daddies (or as they prefer, Mr Bubbles, their adorable songs and personalities make you forget they’re supposed to be scary.
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Special mentions to games that didn’t make the list:
Tale Of Two Brothers, Bastion, Dust, and Alice Madness Returns.

Writing this list has made me realize how many experiences I’ve had and how many virtual lives I’ve lived, it’s why it baffles me when people tell me they’re not “into games”. I can honestly say my life would suck if I hadn’t been introduced to gaming, it’s something you can share with many different types of people and has given me many hours of entertainment now and for the rest of my life.

So, that’s my list! :) I look forward to playing many more games and adding to this list in the future. What are your favourite games? Got any suggestions of games I should play? Leave a comment and let me know :)