© 2024 KMUW
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Your Move: 'Games Of The Decade'

A lot of gaming websites have come out with lists of their “games of the decade” over the last few weeks, and that’s got me thinking. There have been a lot of games in the last decade. Ten years ago, we were welcoming Mass Effect 2, Red Dead Redemption, and Halo: Reach. Now we have new consoles, new handhelds, and even virtual reality starting to make an impact.

I started thinking about what I would consider my game of the decade, and what that even means. Is it the game that had the biggest impact on me personally in the last decade? If that’s the case, my choice might be Undertale. The story was touching, the music was fantastic, and the worldbuilding it did was incredible for a game largely crafted by a single person, Toby Fox.

I also thought about impact in a wider sense, and that made me think about Minecraft, which I never expected to be nearly as big as it is when I bought it in 2011. A fun, silly little indie game about digging and building with cubes became a game that has only ever become more popular. Now owned by Microsoft and available on absolutely everything, it shows no signs of waning.

But Pokemon Go, which came out in 2016, is still bringing me together with my friends to catch rare Pokemon over a lunch hour every once in a while. There’s nothing particularly special about the gameplay - it’s Pokemon’s catch-and-collect gimmick boiled down to the absolute essentials, and certainly not as challenging as the more full-featured games like Pokemon Sword and Shield - but the fact that I see my friends more often is the most special part for me.

Happy Holidays, and go play some games with your friends and family.

Samuel McConnell is a games enthusiast who has been playing games in one form or another since 1991. He was born in northern Maine but quickly transplanted to Wichita.