Within the next few days I will begin my own retrospective of the past decade in the games industry. I felt it wise to say a few words beforehand. There is bound to be a lot of disagreement and questioning as to why I left certain games or events out and shoved others in.

Firstly, it should be noted that at the very start of this decade I was 14 years old. Not the greatest authority on games, not capable of affording every great title to be released, or even interested. In fact, I was primarily still in love with Japanese role-playing games. With the exception of a random adventure into a title like Gex 2: Enter the Gecko or Metal Gear Solid, I was primarily sticking to JRPG’s. It wasn’t until the release of the Playstation 2 and, most of all, my purchase of an Xbox that my tastes began to shift and morph, growing more broad. Thus this past decade I’ve not only witnessed the mutations of an industry into the mainstream, but I’ve also transformed myself.

Of additional note is the fact that this list is going to contain a lot games and events that are noteworthy to me. This is either in games that I personally fell in love with or games and events that I have seen go from ripples to waves. It is not intended to be encyclopedic by any means, but merely a recollection of major impacts to me, and to a lesser extent the entire industry, over a matter of ten swift and long years.

I am not going to be doing this retrospective in one brief post, either. Each year gets its own entry. While major publications and other bloggers may feel fine plugging ten years worth of gaming into 1200 words or less, I would like to spend a little more time on games that have long been forgotten or merely remain ignored.

The major problem with this approach is there isn’t much documentation to remember everything. Wikipedia’s recounting of the years in video gaming are less and less detailed the further back you go. They also only list “notable releases”, though often enough there are some major titles curiously left out. This will easily lead to entries for later years being much longer and full than earlier years. There are also some games that may not be included merely because I forgot all about them. Some games I simply don’t know well enough about to discuss, so I may list them at the end of the entry as “other notable games”.

With all of that said, I did want to take a moment to list out a few games I hadn’t played from this past decade but have strongly desired to. While some may find it to be sacrilege that I never touched these titles, I felt I can at least provide reasoning for it as well. Thus here are the games I regret not having played yet, and don’t know if I ever will.

Chrono Cross

Yes, this was released within the decade. I’ve heard a large number of people complain that the game was “terrible” and couldn’t compare to Chrono Trigger, but they said the same thing about Legend of Mana. Yet from the few I’ve discussed the game with that enjoyed it, I don’t imagine it was supposed to be viewed the same way as Chrono Trigger. It sounds like the game was trying to do a few different things, and I would have liked to have seen how it was handled. Particularly because I was such a big fan of Chrono Trigger to begin with.

Silent Hill 2

Technically I am playing this now, but I still regret not playing it when it was new. In fact, the game had recently released when I started working at GameStop. For the first few days of work it was loaded in the demo unit, and the music and cinematic that played had me intrigued. Yet for some reason I never picked it up. Now I’m used to so many modern game design conventions that so many small flaws become major issues for me. Not to mention a major spoiler or two have been ruined for me. My first experience with the game will not be what it ought to, and thus I’ll likely enjoy it a lot less than I would have if I had played it years ago.

Beyond Good & Evil

I still don’t know what this game is supposed to be about. Apparently you use a camera or something? I don’t even know. All I do know is the game is critically acclaimed and the highly anticipated sequel has a humanoid pig in the trailer. Even so, for someone as pretentious as I tend to be this is the sort of game that ought to be in my portfolio of things I’ve played. Then again, at the time I was also playing Metal Arms, which I’ll be discussing in depth during the retrospective.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

I confess, the first actual Prince of Persia game I ever played was last year’s Xbox 360/PS3/PC entry in the series featuring Nolan North as every other character he’s done. By time I heard all the praise and good things about Sands of Time I was waist deep in other titles I needed to catch up on and new releases coming out. I intend to get to it someday, but who knows when that day will come.

Psychonauts

The only exposure to Tim Schafer I have pre-Brutal Legend is Full Throttle. By time he finally made a console game I would play, well… I don’t quite know what happened. In fact, what I remember most is it was supposed to release much earlier on the Xbox until it suddenly disappeared from the collective consciousness of the industry. I later discovered this was due to publisher issues, but by time the game had released my interest waned and I had other titles I needed to play. Turns out this was bad as the game is a pain to find now and costs quite the penny.

Shadow of the Colossus

I’ve never held interest in Ico and don’t really regret not playing it. Shadow of the Colossus, on the other hand, captured my interest greatly. It was such a fresh take on the adventure genre while also capturing the aesthetic of an 80’s fantasy film. To this day each time I play a game with a Quick Time Event for giant boss fights I wonder why they couldn’t just rip off of Shadow of the Colossus instead. I’ve seen it played, certainly, but have never experienced the full thing myself. The biggest reason is because, by time it released, I had passed off my Playstation 2. I much preferred the exclusives on GameCube and Xbox at that point, though there were a few titles I regret missing (like this one!).

Okami

While I originally freaked out over the unveiling of The Wind Waker, I’ve since matured to a different perspective on the Zelda franchise. If they don’t want it to look like Ocarina of Time and seek to make it a family friendly affair, let them. It’s their game, and even my favorite A Link to the Past was a wonderfully colorful game. If gamers and developers want to see a more adult Zelda, then they can make one themselves. Of course, by time someone did make one, I didn’t have a PS2 to play it on. As for why I haven’t played it on Wii, I keep hearing it doesn’t play as well. Curious, really, as it seems as if it should play better.

In any case, those are the games of the past ten years that I regret not having played. This does not mean that none of them will be mentioned in the retrospective, but I will not necessarily be speaking from personal experience. Rather I may mention them out of observed knowledge.

In the end, they are just a handful of games that released these past years. 2000 through 2009 was massive, and as screwed up as it sounds the old sound of the Xbox, GameCube or PS2 loading up brings out a sense of nostalgia. I can only imagine what the next ten years will bring in gaming.

Foreward! Into a new Millenium!

Discuss games you wish you had played on the forums