Quench Download’s Top Ten Games of the Decade

From poor industrial working conditions to ethically objectionable business models, gaming communities are more critically engaged and effectively mobilised than ever. But amidst the dread, it’s all too easy to lose sight of what drew us to this passion in the first place; bloody good games. These are our ten best games of the last ten years, based on: How important was the game to industrial progress? Did the game offer a unique experience? If not, did it significantly elevate standards in some regard? Let’s go!

10. Rocket League Superficially, Rocket League is just car football. Give it the attention it deserves and you’ll realise the expressive heights this game reaches. For all the sports games out there, none of them feel anywhere near as much like a sport as Rocket League. Few titles offer the exact freedom of movement that makes it a dynamic work of sporting genius, and the fact it’s a blast at any level of skill is a testament to the power of a bulletproof concept.

9. Divinity: Original Sin 2 I fear that Divinity: Original Sin 2 is destined for a cult classic legacy when it deserves much more. A masterclass in role-playing, Divinity: Original Sin 2 is as peerless in player choice and turn-based combat as Grand Theft Auto is to open world crime capers. With a dizzying number of factors and possibilities in both combat and story, it would take a lifetime to traverse every possible avenue of Divinity: Original Sin 2.

8. Sid Meier’s Civilization V Just one more turn; Sid Meier’s Civilization V is not only an intuitive yet deep grand strategy masterpiece, it is a gorgeous history of humanity at its most glorious and its most iniquitous. A diorama of growth and conflict, it never fails to succinctly capture the mood of both a flourishing people and a city starving under siege. By weaving mankind’s milestones into ever-expanding gameplay systems, Civilization V teaches something new with each game. Assuredly more than anything else, it generated the mainstream appetite for strategy that would define the genre for a decade.

7. The Last of Us Striking the balance between creating the space to tell a compelling story whilst offering consistently engaging gameplay is extremely hard – but The Last of Us nails it. A delicate and gritty tale about altruism vs the self. The Last of Us remains the best Naughty Dog title and an instant recommendation for any story enthusiast.

6. Red Dead Redemption 2 In my review, I described Red Dead Redemption 2 as ‘a quintessential exemplar of the artistic reach of the video game and an undeniable masterpiece’. I stand by that. It’s both a technical and artistic masterwork, one which uses immersive space to frame the philosophical debate of freedom versus order. Though clunky in places, it’s a viscerally brilliant experience with a story that truly rivals cinema.

5. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Skyrim’s legacy as the first open-world RPG to fully permeate the mainstream is deserved. With Jeremy Soule’s breath-taking score accompanying the most gorgeous Bethesda world to date, it’s hard not to lose yourself in the Nordic tundras of Skyrim. It lacked the robust combat mechanics of its contemporaries, but the litany of ways to play and grow in this sandbox masterpiece is undeniable, and its staying power is absurd.

4. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild One of, if not the most captivating open worlds of all time. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild uses systems and the natural world to spark organic wonder and creative solutions, eschewing the dotted lines of its contemporaries to perfect a self-led odyssey.

3. Dark Souls Dark Souls is a perfection of formula. Many of its defining aspects – bonfires, blocking/rolling/locking on to foes, challenging boss fights – can be traced back to the early days of Ocarina of Time. But Dark Souls masters it all so expertly that its unmistakable formula has yet to be challenged by anyone else for ten years. Beloved for its precise controls, immersive level design, richly dreadful atmosphere and webs of esoteric lore, Dark Souls is a brutal yet irresistible love-letter to gameplay purism.

2. Minecraft It takes a rare calibre of game to ascend from indie darling to cultural infatuation. Minecraft’s pixel aesthetic, its boundless procedural world, and its extensive crafting systems have left an indelible fingerprint on every genre out there. It earned a spot on this list for its influence alone, paving the way for other generational greats like Terraria and Stardew Valley.

1. Undertale No game is as deserving as Toby Fox’s one-man masterpiece. The best offering from the dominant indie renaissance of the 2010s, every inch of Undertale is an expressive and deliberate component of extraordinary purpose. From the animation of enemy attacks to its living soundtrack to its brilliant flavour text, it’s constantly revealing layer after layer of genius and humanity.

Even the greatest of games might have sufficed as films. Undertale couldn’t have been anything but a game. It engages with the very fabric of the medium, exploiting its conventions to tell a unique story that can’t be told again. I’m being vague, but it’s for good reason. Undertale is best experienced blind, so here’s a bright idea; sod off and play it.

It’s interactive, it’s expressive, it’s inventive, it’s alive; Undertale is the greatest video game of the last ten years.

On Balance:

The Game vs. The Mind

words by: MIKE O’BRIEN design by: LUISA DE LA CONCHA MONTES

The interplay between the game and the mind is powerful and multivariate, demanding far less reductive scrutiny than tossing one’s hat in the ring for either ‘harmless art’ or ‘psychopath incubator’.

Since gaming permeated the mainstream, commentary surrounding its effects on mental health has been unacceptable. In the aftermath of the Columbine High School massacre, journalists were all too keen to emphasise Eric Harris’ hobby of developing custom DOOM levels. When Anders Breivik murdered eight people in Oslo and another 69 in Utøya, media commentators beelined to his manifesto’s mention of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 as a ‘training simulation’. Influential platforms both conservative and liberal, from The Guardian to Donald Trump have expediently sidestepped Harris’ anomic rage and Breivik’s traumatic upbringing to entertain the idea that video games spawn killers. Time after time, academic authorities like the American Psychological Association have unambiguously put this stupid myth to bed without supper.

However, the tendency to view the relationship between mental health and video games in black and white is not exclusive to gaming’s critics. Confirmation bias is a pandemic and it doesn’t discriminate; just as video games can’t be condemned for unspeakable crimes, they can’t be lionized beyond accountability by passionate advocates. For every Daily Mail dingbat decrying Dark Souls as catnip for deranged incels, there’s an /r/gaming subscriber championing the video game as benign and innocent recreation. The interplay between the game and the mind is powerful and multivariate, demanding far less reductive scrutiny than tossing one’s hat in the ring for either ‘harmless art’ or ‘psychopath incubator’. I should know; my own experience with them is grey.

I came to realise through my understanding of Bloodborne that, in life, insight is a punishing burden that reveals malice and erosion in ourselves – but it is necessary to perceive our tribulations if we aspire to survive them. progress. It may not be responsible for mass killings, but it is selective and ignorant to argue that its carefully architected flow of dopamine has no effect on vulnerable audiences. For months, I was so depressed that I surrendered myself to other lives in other worlds; anywhere but here sufficed. Eventually, at the height of my depression, I stumbled upon Bloodborne, a collision of Dickensian dread and Lovecraftian horror set in a hunter’s nightmare. Cobbled streets writhing with madmen, grotesque beasts addicted to blood, red skies of perpetual night, Victorian houses whose bolted doors and boarded windows echoed with the cackling and sobbing of eternal grief. Most modern games want to reach and satisfy as broad an audience as possible, the natural consequence of such a goal being that the games are often trivial or endlessly forgiving. Bloodborne, though, was a ruthless and brutal journey that didn’t want you to win. It never tells you where to go or what to do. Its manic and tortured denizens attack causation, and to that end, I reject the argument that video games have toxic causality when it comes to mental health. There are standout exceptions, particularly mobile games with business models that consciously expose children to gambling mechanics. But the notion that video games cause depression or violence is reductive. They are powerful avenues that take us somewhere else, and that journey is determined by our wellbeing. Video games are a response to a need or desire. When that desire is to connect with friends, or to embark on a compelling story, or to unwind after a long day, the game is a wonderful thing. When the need is for medicine, and the desire is to feel complete, the game is a stagnating force. It affords structure to the disordered, strength to the weak, companionship to the lonely, all of which is illusory. Video games do not cause depression. But when depression wins, the video game is morphine - and that’s the last thing an addict needs. of bed, and my only source of remote happiness. But this romantic vision neglects the other side, that gaming was a destructive pit of fleeting purpose whose sweet bite was irresistible in such bitter times. The internet is quick to defend the video game from any suggestion that, in dire circumstances, it can impart more pain than relief. Those same people bare their fangs at social media companies for quantifying approval in the form of likes and shares, creating a destructively addictive space that exploits hooked teenagers for advertising revenue. Funnily enough, this strategy is called ‘gamification’ for a reason. The video game is the godfather of drip-feeding cathedral wards, the distant off-key singing of demented lantern bearers, and the cries of newborn children. Having more insight makes the game even more challenging in many ways – but it allows you to perceive, and therefore overcome, the threats which had tormented your journey from the shadows prior. I came to realise through my understanding of Bloodborne that, in life, insight is a punishing burden that reveals malice and erosion in ourselves – but it is necessary to perceive our tribulations if we aspire to survive them. The right piece of art at the right time can make all the difference in the world. The essence of the debate is I suffer from bipolar disorder and ADHD. Existing, let alone leading a sustainable and satisfactory life, is nigh on impossible without ruthless mental and physical discipline. During depressive episodes, especially under the influence of powerful antipsychotics and tranquilisers, you will not find colour in your world. Before I was diagnosed, an episode ruined my life, crippling me to the point that I had to leave university without alternative direction. It was a silent day. My father and my girlfriend at the time helped me pack, and none of us said a word all morning. It was a silent three-hour drive to a home I loathed, entombed in the passenger seat of both the car and my own chaos. During this time, video games became my only respite. Had you asked me at the time, I might have fed you some claptrap about how they were the only thing getting me out with the sole, feral desire to rip you apart. It felt no more like a video game than it did a sentient and loathing space of suffering. Yet, for all its bleakness and hostility, Bloodborne unsuspectingly became the harbinger of hope and determination that would chart my life back on course. I had never encountered art which not only manifested the hellscape of a shattered mind so compellingly, but also offered an interactive space whereby I could challenge my own demons with focus and discipline. When killed, some particularly strong enemies will drop a currency called ‘insight’. Insight could be used to purchase items – but fascinatingly, the more insight the player bears, the stronger their perception of the world around them is. Revisiting areas of the game with more insight would reveal previously invisible terrors crawling over