10: Age of Empires 2
- Year: 1999
- System: PC
And the buildings had scale. Traditionally, RTS buildings would take up roughly 4 squares to your characters 1 square. Well Age of Empires 2 had giant castles. Although not true scale, they made the game feel so much more realistic.
There was nothing more satisfying than rolling up on an enemy with a half dozen Trebuchets or put in the cheat code and roll in with a missile firing Shelby Cobra.
9. Persona 4: Golden
- Year: 2012
- System: Vita
Persona 4: Golden was my first experience with the Persona franchise. After the extended tutorial, I 
was introduced to my first social link. Fast forward 90 hours on the couch later, and I was absolutely hooked. I saw the credits roll... and immediately booted up the New Game +.
Persona 4 tells the story of youths stuck in small town Japan trying to solve a murder that seems to be happening via televisions. It's such a perfect time capsule of mid-2000s Japan. All the technology, all of the pop-culture references, all the settings just had that Toonami feel to it.
I went so far down the rabbit hole that I read a long form essay about how all the kids are going to grow up to essentially be stuck in this small town forever, ultimately content, but not exactly happy.
8. Silent Hill 2
- Year: 2001
- System: PS2
Silent Hill 2 has a cast of characters with varying reasons for being Silent Hill. There was the physically, mentally, and sexually abused Angela who just wanted to die. There's Eddie, a man bullied so much growing up that he murders one of his bully's dogs and enjoyed it. Leading to him murdering other people. And there's the mysterious little girl named Laura, who seems to be unaffected by everything around her.
And the protagonist James, well he is guilty of murdering his sick wife. Partially to end her suffering, partially to end his. Silent Hill doesn't care about your reasons, it only cares about your ends, and thus the people that often end up in Silent Hill spend much of their time justifying the thing eating them from the inside out.
7. Left 4 Dead
- Year: 2008
- System: Xbox 360
Left 4 Dead was a frantic and chaotic experience. Yes, the maps were the same, but every time you 
played the game the enemies were in different places, your friends were different, where your shot landed is different and that's all it takes to completely change the experience.
Slowly moving as a group through the darkened offices, listening for where the witch is hiding. Trying to coordinate quickly taking out the bloater while keeping the runts off of you. And picking your defensible corner of the final portion, trying to survive the waves and waves of the undead coming for you, waiting for that helicopter to come for you.
6. Last of Us
- Year: 2013
- System: PS3
So when Joel makes a tough decision in the game, you can justify if as if you could steer the story any differently.
The set piece set up for interesting encounters with both human and infected. The characters you meet along the way show you that although everything is bad, humanity survives. People are motivated largely by fear.
And although the bittersweet ending leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth, you feel closure and can wish a happy life to your two new family members.
5. Resident Evil 2
- Year: 1998
- System: PS1
Resident Evil 2 had an incredibly high bar to clear after one of the world's first tastes of "3D" games 
was the incredible Resident Evil 1. It clear the bar and then some.
The mythology around Resident Evil 2 alone has been the grail of Resident Evil fans. 80% complete with the game, Capcom gave permission to scrap everything and start fresh because the game felt too much like the first one. This Resident Evil 1.5 has been a sought after ROM ever since. (I've played it and there are a million and one ways to break the game)
When the released 1998 version of Resident Evil 2 finally released, it set up some of the most important plot points the Umbrella story line would explain, re-explain, and pre-explain for the next two decades.
The hellish nightmare we witnessed Claire, Leon, Sherry, and Ada fight through continues to be discussed in the pantheon of greatest videogames of all time.
4. Mass Effect 2
- Year: 2010
- System: Xbox 360
What really made Mass Effect 2 work was all of your decisions had weight. You could close off entire planets or kill characters. Nothing was culminating yet, so Bioware was allowed to give you really interesting decision points and story beats. This was a freedom they lost with Mass Effect 3.
The strongest part of the game was the loyalty missions. Side stories for each of the characters on your team. The two-dimensional archetypes of the type of crew mates you should have. The side missions were a couple hours start to finish, but often did the job of creating a bond between you and these NPCs.
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