The first time capsule we dropkicked into space was all about the best games from 2010.
This time, we’re excavating the best games from 2004.
Which games will make the cut, and which ones will be consigned to the all-consuming digital super bin?
Here are the rules.
In Bloodlines, you play as a brand-new vampire stalking the streets of Los Angeles.
You pick your clan of vampire, and thus the vampire powers you wield.
You get into many a scrape, you find many a MacGuffin, you suck many a neck.
You really do get to play that role how you want.
Until you get railroaded into gunfights a bit later in the game, you could go basically zero combat.
Honestly, if one of us didn’t pick Bloodlines we’d be in for it.
Happy to take one for the team, in this case.
Half-Life 2 is just one of those games that manages to be everything at once.
Back in those Vanilla days,World Of Warcraftdidn’t have baggage.
Azeroth was vast, but not like, home to countless regions and isles and such.
It was less streamlined, too.
No entering menus and teleporting over to dungeons in a flash.
You’d have to find folks and send whispers, then hop on your mounts and meet outside.
I liked that it encouraged me to step out of my shell and interact with folks.
My first ram mount cost me everything, too!
And it only unlocked at level 40, a whole 20 levels later than WoW nowadays.
Mainly, though, levelling was slower in Vanilla WoW but encouraged exploration.
Eachding!felt like a real milestone.
It captures World Of Warcraft as I remember it best, an MMO adventure that set the benchmark.
You dont play as the heroes or fly around in space.
The lack of playable heroes also makes vehicles much scarier.
Thats an experience that I definitely want to preserve.
What a brilliant idea for a weapon.
The fury of Zeus himself, distilled into a single beam of instantaneous death.
Theres none of this bullet drop nonsense when youre wielding a Lightning Gun.
No holding your breath to steady your shot.
There are just three simple steps: Click.
This simplicity is the green luminescent blood that runs through the rusty cyborg veins ofUnreal Tournament 2004.
As a package its little more than a collection of classic multiplayer game modes.
Your capture the flags.
Unreal Tournament 2004, meanwhile, is still a joy to play.
A true classic worthy of preservation, if only for the inclusion of that beautiful, uncompromising Lightning Gun.
PC gaming was in a very different place.
I feel Cave Story was a major inspiration on that, for both developers and players.
He proved it was possible and gave people a hunger for more.
But influence and legacy aside, Cave Story simply was - and is - a good game.
Delightfully, the script is based on an unpublished fanfiction novel, because of course it is.
Sid Meiers Pirates!
When you actually think about it, Pirates!
If nothing else, their simplicity works to their advantage.
They are as familiar as they are exhilarating, as comforting as they are dramatic.
Don’t mistake that simplicity for a lack of challenge, though.
But if were having Half-Life 2 in the capsule, why not throw in its greatest mod?
That would be unfair.
What also separates GMod from other sandbox games and mods is the diversity of whats been crafted with it.
If that kind of creative spirit isnt worth preserving, I dont know what is.
