Come and join us for the final stretch.
The RPS 100
Creating big lists like this is always an exciting process for me.
That’s what I love most about The RPS 100.
It’s a list that’s designed to change with time, and with the team who compile it.
It’s just at #101.
I think you’ll be pleased with what you find).
Or maybe poisoning their champagne.
Perhaps you prefer the gentleman’s approach, such as pushing them off the roof of an unfinished skyscraper.
Or mulching them into wine thanks to that handy grape press over there.
You get the idea.
It is, quite literally, the best of three worlds.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a lovely bottle of claret that needs corking.
“Chaos is a ladder,” said Game Of Thrones Machiavellian pimp Littlefinger.
Thats Age Of Empires II in a nutshell.
Theyre still adding to it, too, with new expansions even after nearly a quarter of a century.
Yes, there’s a good reason people are still trying to play Age Of Kings.
They’re still trying to climb the ladder.
2:22am
2:22am is a game I played at possibly the perfect time in my life.
But any game can hit that hard if it catches the player at the right time.
Each playthrough, around its core (real?)
plot arc, it semi-randomly draws a selection of vigenettes from a larger pool.
It’s small, simple, and such a haunting mood that I still think of it years later.
There aren’t just disturbing monsters that make your screen shiver and go all bleary here though.
Mysterious, yes, but not frightening.
With each onward step the story cranks up the dread.
A last-minute gamble that will leave you both satisfied and troubled all at once.
Get it wrong and its another clamber out of the blood pool at the start of the game.
Another disapproving glare from dad.
Paradise Killer
What if Suda 51 created a Phoenix Wright spin-off for the Dreamcast?
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
You are the Dragonborn.
Your superpower is that you talk loudly and it hurts people.
This is a massive open world, filled with off-the-beaten-track adventures, and ripe formodding.
Still, in time it may become the most replayed game in history.
Robot dinosaurs, yeah?
Put em in along with the laser skateboards and airhorn explosions.
scenes in modern open world-dom.
Phasmophobia
Phasmophobia is the champion of creating a truly unsettling atmosphere.
The steady hum of audible silence drowns out all other noise as you enter one of its haunted abodes.
Darkness envelopes every room, leaving nothing but nightmares lingering in the murky corners.
It makes every attempt to unsettle your troupe of ghostbusters, and in my case, it always succeeds.
Your task is to investigate a haunted location for evidence of spooky activity.
They might start small, flickering the lights or tossing a plate across the room.
They kind of convince me that ghosts are actually real.
Thats why manuals were important.
Bring back manuals, kids.
Cities: Skylines
What is the best method of urban waste disposal?
Perhaps a single, centralised landfill site with garbage truck routes spreading out like tendrils.
Or maybe multiple smaller rubbish heaps in a secluded zone of each suburb.
Cities Skylines presents you with more than the problem of smelly litter.
How far should your business district be from housing?
What is the most efficient way to get electricity to the retail hub?
How many roundabouts is too many roundabouts?
It is the best building game for the municipal-minded and it staunchly refuses to guide your planning.
This is your sandbox, so build some castles.
Or, uh, some incinerators.
Part of that era, that graduating class.
Doom II
Has there ever been a more perfect weapon in anFPS gamethan the Super Shotgun?
Nope, don’t even make a run at answer.
It was a rhetorical question.
- and it has the best shotgun.
NieR: Automata
Nier: Automata is a mercurial beast that refuses easy classification.
Funny and touching, this is a game about humanity with nary a human in sight.
But Diablo 2 is still the better game because… well, because our deputy editor Alice Bellsaid so.
Titanfall 2
Titanfall 2 could be two games and theyd both be excellent.
The campaign, too, is worth playing by itself.
And yes, Im honest, I did like making friends with the robot.
Rocket League
The quintessential car football game.
Forget your FIFAs and your eFootballs.
This is the kind of modern day kickabout anyone can boot up and play (literally).
The goal is goals.
A simple concept, but one that Rocket League has clearly perfected the moment you start playing.
Hypnospace Outlaw
Coolpunk is dead, BWL.
You do this by exploring web pages, clicking hyperlinks and following breadcrumbs using Hypnospaces built-in search function.
On the one hand Hypnospace is quirky, funny and surreal.
Its a time capsule of an era that never existed, yet one that still feels tangibly real.
If BioShock is a theme park ride of animatronic story-telling, then it is a really good ghost train.
You should leave your skepticism on the grass outside and embrace the nervous scares.
it’s possible for you to’t have everything.
It’s melancholic, otherworldly, but sweet and thoughtful all the same.
Still, achieving that elusive victory royale is certainly a thrill, especially with friends.
Of course it is.
But thats the point!
Basically, the fun is yours to find.
Attend an Ariana Grande concert!
Watch Christopher Nolans Tenet!
Fortnite is more than just a Battle Royale.
Its a platform, and an expansive one at that.
Every action has the potential to attract danger, and that fills the tiniest details with tension.
Thats a rather damning intro, and it makes every day that youre alive feel like a huge achievement.
Half-Life 2
Half-Life 2 is the first-person shooter equivalent of Solitaire.
Everyone has it installed.
There are no special powers or abilities.
Yet the appeal of Half-Life 2 is in the momentum of Gordon’s tireless stride.
Half-Life 2 may have aged since it zapped into existence in 2004.
They can be expansive, overwhelming and time-consuming in ways that just don’t respect your time.
Team Fortress 2 is the shooter that throws out the textbook and gives you a nice easy cheat sheet.
Their goal: to capture the enemy team’s briefcase of paperwork.
It’s a fast-pacedmultiplayer shooter, yes.
You will get shot in the bonce from across the map.
But the chaos is manageable.
In Team Fortress 2, a Spy is a spy.
Bernband
Take a walk through the streets of another world.
Bernband is all about atmosphere.
But also a full-body transplant into the clattering frame of an extraterrestrial in a pixelly alien city.
Bernband is best enjoyed in a quiet, unpressed moment.
Portal
What can be said about Portal that hasn’t been said already?
It’s the game that cemented Valve as great makers of games.
The lasting impression is GLaDOS, though.
Possibly the greatest video baddie of all time, the robot that launched a thousand memes.
It’s an extraordinary game, and one that will forever stand the test of time.
At least, not with a police detective as stinking of booze and desperation as you.
How are you ever going to solve the murder behind your hotel with such a thundering hangover?
This role-playing game is all characterisation, all the time.
The real character-building is done by you, in the head of your disgraced policeman protagonist.
Take smug paladin Anomen and evil cleric Viconia along, and youll see what I mean.
Baldur’s Gate II is like that, building on its, to my mind, weaker predecessor.
It takes the already excellent Baldurs Gate and ramps everything up by a factor of ten.
Oh, and Jan Jansen.
Mass Effect 2
Go to space, punch a reporter.
Mass Effect 2 covers all the major power fantasies in one intergalactic third-person sci-fi RPG of guns and conversation.
The problem: you don’t have the posse yet.
you’re able to help your war-hungry Krogan crewmate get through his brutal Rite of Passage.
Or aid Mordin the Salarian in a quest to find his scientific protege.
Inscryption
Many collectible card games are cut from the same cardboard nowadays, aren’t they?
Enter Inscryption: a card-based plunge into the depths of a nightmare.
It’s part rogue-like, part deck-builder, part escape-room, and almost entirely a psychological horror bonanza.
Maybe the key to a getaway lies buried away in a drawer?
Or maybe, the solution lies in the cards themselves?
I mean, listen to your ever-reliable stoat.
Watch for any physical changes.
Carve out your tooth and stick it on the counter.
Telltale’s The Walking Dead: Season 1
The Walking Dead Season 1 has plenty of choices to make.
Will killing a bandit help you protect your food supplies?
Sure, but its much harder to pull the trigger when Clementine is watching.
Its a tragic tale filled with heartwarming moments, and itll probably make you cry a lot.
Apex Legends
The fun person’sbattle royale.
Every character has their own abilities, and they are all extremely quick and nimble.
But in terms of fun, Apex Legends runs rings around these games.
Then fills the ring with toxic fumes and surrounds it with laser fences.
Your superpower is fists, feet and thoughtfulness.
But not before he’s helped all and sundry work out their problems on the side.
There are video game sidequests, and then there are Yakuza sidequests.
Kiryu is the perfect mark for the city’s many conmen, and the hero-about-town for its put-upon citizens.
He is naive and well-meaning, an avatar of Power Ranger wholesomeness.
The real treat, though, is finding that even these small stories have layers of their own.
Factorio
Ah, the fresh, untouched surface of a brand-new alien planet.
What shall we do with this blemish-free world?
What shall we achieve?
The suggestion is that you go find out exactly why this stellar time loop is occuring.
But you will always come back, warming your feet in front of a campfire.
As a game, it is a wholesome, beautiful thing.
That’s all fine.
But also, you will be crushed by a boulder and set on fire by a dragon.
Yes, it is all one giant level, a “closed world” rather than an open one.
But Dishonored 2… Crikey.
Simply put, Dishonored 2 is a masterclass in design.
you could choose to leave everyone alive if you wish or you could opt for a more chaotic approach.
Whichever you’d prefer, I mean, you’re in control here.
Whatever methods you opt for, the outcome is the same: delight.
Is this stealth perfected?
Elden Ring
It’s a wonder that Elden Ring even exists, to be honest.
Again, the sheer scale of the operation doesn’t ever mean the momentum drops, either.
A definitive game for many of us in the RPS Treehouse, it is the ultimate sandbox.
The things people build in Minecraft are, by and large, reminders that humanity is not so bad.
From simple beautiful houses to whole towns spreading vertically across the hillsides to an entire modern city.
And let’s not forget its functioning computers.
All this, and we have still not exhausted everything this literal blockbuster has to offer.
Portal 2
Almost got you there, didn’t we?
Putting the first Portal further up on this list without even a whisper about its superior sequel…
It was, and still is, the most wonderful magic trick ever performed in video games.
Indeed, Portal 2 feels like a true phenomenon.
I think that still holds.
How much of this is nostalgia and posturing reverence?
How good actually is Deus Ex today?
Honestly, pretty great.
It’s a game of grand philosophical speeches and also terse muttering.
Its secret places and stories often open more plots than they resolve.
But no matter how much you know Deus Ex, it always feels like a facet of something bigger.
Return Of The Obra Dinn is a creation of rare brilliance.
The problem: you don’t know their names.
So begins a 60-person murder mystery that requires all the logical deduction of a maritime Miss Marple.
To say any more would be to spoil its many secrets, which are best left discovered for yourself.
