Note

The criteria for this list are wholly arbitrary and idiosyncratic--mostly having to do with how much I enjoyed the experience of playing the game. Video games are a young artform and the ratings here might prove to be more inflated than they should be when more developers start to take risks by making innovative games. This is a tentative list and there is certainly a lot of room for revision. This is not a list of historical importance, though I do take that into consideration from time to time. A lot of early games were innovative, but whether or not they are still fun to play remains up to question. I've also limited myself to one release per series, unless that release took a significant departure from other games in the series. I'm still fairly ignorant of games released before the 90s, so if there are any major omissions let me know.

Favorite Video Games

    8.5:
  • Dark Souls
  • Shadow of the Colossus

    • 8.0:
  • Half-life
  • Metal Gear Solid 3
  • Morrowind
  • What Remains of Edith Finch
  • Portal
  • Resident Evil (remake)
  • Super Mario 64
  • Super Mario Bros 3
  • Metroid Prime
  • Tetris
  • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

    • 7.5:
  • Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
  • Civilization III
  • Deus Ex
  • Papers, Please
  • Gone Home
  • Grim Fandango
  • Heavy Rain
  • Journey
  • Planescape: Torment
  • Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
  • Psychonauts
  • Rainbow Six
  • Silent Hill: Shattered Memories
  • Silent Hill 2
  • System Shock 2
  • The Legend of Zelda

    • 7.0:
  • Alien Isolation
  • Amnesia: Dark Decent
  • Antichamber
  • Bayonetta
  • Beyond Good and Evil
  • Bioshock
  • Cave Story
  • Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
  • Chrono Trigger
  • Crysis
  • Dark Cloud
  • DayZ
  • Doom
  • Dwarf Fortress
  • Earthbound
  • Fallout: New Vegas
  • Final Fantasy Tactics
  • Final Fantasy VI
  • Gabriel Knight
  • Geometry Wars 3
  • Ghost Trick
  • God of War
  • Katamari Damacy
  • Killer7
  • Megaman 2
  • Minecraft
  • Myst
  • No Man's Sky
  • Okami
  • Painkiller
  • Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
  • Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
  • Pillars of Eternity
  • Pokemon: Red/Blue
  • Red Dead Redemption
  • SimCity
  • Stanley Parable
  • Subnautica
  • Team Fortress 2
  • The Last of Us
  • The Longest Journey
  • The Sims
  • The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
  • The Witcher 3
  • Thief II
  • Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2
  • Undertale
  • Xenogears
  • Zork