PCG Article Big 2010s games—did you forget them?

[Brian Boru]

https://www.pcgamer.com/the-big-games-from-the-last-decade-we-forgot-ever-existed/

Did you play or consider or forget any of these? Or others?

Lincoln Carpenter covers these games, a few paragraphs on each, and links to get if they're still available—I put them in alphabetical order:
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey
Artifact
Battleborn
Battlefield: Hardline
Civilization: Beyond Earth
Gears Tactics
Hyper Scape
Mad Max
Mirror's Edge Catalyst
Paragon
Rage 2
Ryse: Son of Rome
Watch Dogs: Legion
We Happy Few

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey
I messed around in this—I guess there was a demo sometime in the dawn of mankind—but marked it 'ignore'. I love the idea, but it was way too slow for me, and too much a survival game. I'll check out version 2 if there ever is one, lot of potential.

Civilization: Beyond Earth
Big Civ fan, so I bought this. Spent just over 5 hours in it. In simple terms, just didn't grab me. I think Civ is ideally suited to mankind's history, but not so much to its future.

Ryse: Son of Rome
Very interested in this from Crytek, one of my fav devs—Far Cry & Crysis. Sadly I've marked it 'ignore'—I'm not into hack n slash, allergic to QTE, and I dislike 3rd-person.

Watch Dogs: Legion
I have WD 1&2, so considered this, but never got 'sold' on the idea. Read Lincoln's commentary beforehand, if you're tempted.

 

[Zloth]

(repeating some of what I said in response on Disqus)

Mad Max was really fun for me. It's cheap, too, when it goes on sale!

I think Watch Dogs: Legion was at least as good as Watch Dogs 2, maybe a bit better. WD2 had that 'call gang members' skill that was crazy over-powered. WDL has a hack robot power skill which seems too deadly, too, but not as crazy as the gang member thing. The main character preaching to NPCs about how bad they are being when the main character is clearly FAR worse isn't so much a thing, either.

Civ: Beyond Earth - yeah, I didn't quite make it to 10 hours.

Age of Wonders: Planetfall could be on that list. It got pretty good reviews (like PC Gamer's), then it just vanished from public view.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Mad Max is literally the only game on that list that I took interest in and played, though it was very good. There's a lot of good ones that aren't on that list though.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I've never played any of them. My oldest son had Mad Max, but other than that, I've never touched any of them.

 

[Pifanjr]

I remember reading about Ancestors before it came out and being really intrigued and then reading a review later that made it sound boring. I did kind of forget about it until now.

I didn't really forget Ryse as much as I just was never interested in it as it was a console game and then heard it wasn't a good game anyway.

With Mad Max, it seemed kinda fun but not interesting enough to try it. The review I read was pretty positive about it though, if I remember correctly.

Civilization: Beyond Earth is the only game on the list I've actually played. I haven't forgotten about it, but it just wasn't a very good game. I think my main problem was that it was way less intuitive than normal Civilization. I know what to expect when I research farming, but most of the sci-fi names for technologies just didn't really mean much. Similarly with the units, it was hard to understand at a glance whether one unit would be stronger than another, as you didn't have a frame of reference for either.

I remember Watch Dogs: Legion was a thing. Wasn't it around the time they announced or released Legion that they gave away the first game? I haven't gotten around to playing it yet. From what I understand it's a bit lacklustre and I have plenty of games I'm more enthusiastic about.

I played Rage, but it's was so forgettable that I honestly can't tell you anything about the game besides that it's a shooter, so I was not interested in a sequel.

I do remember reading about Battlefield: Hardline. I think it had difficulty keeping the servers full from the beginning.

The rest I don't think I've ever heard about. Even Mirror's Edge Catalyst, though I really enjoyed the first game. I wasn't aware they made a sequel.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I didn't really forget Ryse as much as I just was never interested in it as it was a console game and then heard it wasn't a good game anyway.

I've been thinking about trying out Ryse, only because it's on Game Pass. If I don't like it, I can just uninstall it, and I'm not out anything. I never cared about it because I always thought it was multiplayer-only, but I recently found out it's a single player game.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Oops, sorry, I guess I did play Rage 2 and Mirror's Edge now that I think of it. That shows how forgettable they were for me though.

 

[Ryzengang]

I haven't played any of these games. Technically I played Rage 2 for like an hour, but that game really didn't have a whole lot going on. The core mechanics weren't bad (e.g., shooting) but everything around it just didn't interest me. I've heard good things about Gears Tactics and Mad Max, and I'd probably give Watch Dogs: Legion a spin down the road for a cheap price.

 

[DXCHASE]

Yes! By far my favorite listed there is Mad Max. I've never forgotten about it. It was a solid and beautiful game. People didnt like walking around in the desert and stuff, but i loved it and loved blowing up cars. Ran really well too, i dont remember having any technical issues. There was talks that theres another one being developed, so im looking forward to that.

The other ones listed that ive played, Ryse, Rage 2 and Battlefield Hardline were all pretty forgettable. Ryse was ok to play maybe 1 walkthrough but that was it. Battlefield ran like crap for me a lot even though BF 4 ran perfectly and Rage just was a rip off mad max in first person lol.

 

[Brian Boru]

Mad Max … People didnt like walking around in the desert and stuff, but i loved it and loved blowing up cars

I always avoided even considering it because vehicles are not my thing. Are you saying you can mostly avoid driving and instead play mostly on foot?

 

[Zloth]

No no no - there's quite a lot of car battles going on. There're fortresses, though, that you need to take yourself.

 

[Frag Maniac]

I always avoided even considering it because vehicles are not my thing. Are you saying you can mostly avoid driving and instead play mostly on foot?

Mad Max would never be caught dead traveling on foot. He was a muscle car man.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Mad Max would never be caught dead traveling on foot. He was a muscle car man.

Haha. Exactly what I was about to say!

 

[Frag Maniac]

Haha. Exactly what I was about to say!

Well, that said, the game still has some interesting on foot segments too, especially when you're looking for alternate ways to infiltrate camps. You also can't use your vehicle weapons against most enemies in camps like you can in Rage 2, so that keeps the on foot combat honest. It's a great game, but there IS a lot of stuff you have to do in vehicles, so I could see how it might not be interesting to those whom would rather not do a lot of driving.

 

[Zloth]

Oh rats. I thought of another great example of one of these games last night, and now I forgot it!!

 

[Shodan_]

I can never seem to remember Deserts of Kharak even though it's one of my favorite experiences of the 2010s...

 

[PCG Jody]

Age of Wonders: Planetfall could be on that list. It got pretty good reviews (like PC Gamer's), then it just vanished from public view.

That's a good suggestion. I liked Planetfall a lot, but it vanished from the conversation pretty quick and I haven't thought about it in ages.

Same with Gears Tactics, I guess, though playing Daemonhunters recently, which encourages a similarly aggressive playstyle, reminded me that it was a thing.

 

[Frag Maniac]

Oh rats. I thought of another great example of one of these games last night, and now I forgot it!!

LOL, you sound like me. I often remember only part of what I want to say, but forget key elements. I usually just excuse it by my age, but sometimes it's very embarrassing.

 

[mainer]

I never played any from that article, though I did take a hard look at Mad Max. There were some great games released in 2010, but I haven't really forgotten them, as I replay them frequently:
Fallout New Vegas
Mass Effect 2
Dragon Age Origins: Awakening (expansion)

There was also Two Worlds 2, which was fun at times, but not near as good as Two Worlds 1. Alpha Protocol was also released in 2010. That could have been a great spy game, but it was buggy, and the combat was terrible.

Drakensang: The River of Time I've read is supposed to be a really good RPG, but somehow, it's been buried in my TBP Steam library for all these years.

 

[Brian Boru]

games released in 2010

Just to clarify, it's about the 10s decade, not just the year 2010

 

[Zloth]

Drakensang: The River of Time I've read is supposed to be a really good RPG, but somehow, it's been buried in my TBP Steam library for all these years.

It was a good one - especially the bit with the bull. There's nothing particularly great about it, but I don't remember anything bad, either. Just a nice, solid RPG.

 

[Colif]

I haven't played any on the list. I had the first WD but didn't really get into it, 2nd game just looked more of same and 3rd where you can pick anyone off street didn't really appeal to me.

Fallout NV deserves a mention for being last good Fallout game

 

[WoodenSaucer]

In my opinion, something happened to where games started getting a lot better, at least graphically, around 2013. Games from 2012 look like crap now, but for some reason, games in 2013 started getting better to where some of them still look decent, even today. Like the reboot of Tomb Raider came out in 2013. Sure it's dated, but it still looks good today.

I was a big fan of Thief 2014. It was a great game. People say Dishonored was better. I think Dishonored is a great game, but for some reason, I think Thief was the better game.

 

[Frag Maniac]

In my opinion, something happened to where games started getting a lot better, at least graphically, around 2013. Games from 2012 look like crap now, but for some reason, games in 2013 started getting better to where some of them still look decent, even today. Like the reboot of Tomb Raider came out in 2013. Sure it's dated, but it still looks good today.

I was a big fan of Thief 2014. It was a great game. People say Dishonored was better. I think Dishonored is a great game, but for some reason, I think Thief was the better game.

You kind of have to grade the graphics quality curve on a "for it's time" basis though. In 2004 for instance, the original Far Cry was considered a graphics breakthrough. In 2007, Assassin's Creed was fairly ground breaking, and even more so, in 2009, AC 2, with it's intricate Italian architectures.

We will no doubt see leaps in architectural rendering with UE 5, but I'm already seeing a lot of negative feedback on performance issues with it, so it remains to be seen how thoroughly it's capabilities will be used at first, and how many dev teams will end up mastering using it. Even UE 4 is still causing a fair bit of stuttering in some games.

 

[mainer]

Just to clarify, it's about the 10s decade, not just the year 2010

My mistake. Guess I just glanced at that article/title rather that reading it.

It was a good one - especially the bit with the bull. There's nothing particularly great about it, but I don't remember anything bad, either. Just a nice, solid RPG.

Good to know. I've got some more gaming hours freed up this year now that Starfield is delayed, maybe I'll try that (and knock a chip off my backlog). I also have Dranensang & Drakensang 2 - Phileasson's Secret. I'm assuming that River of Time is the 3rd one?