Countdown notes If a game was published on a specific platform ahead of any others, we have endeavoured to reference it in the ‘Format’ section. For each game we have also included the issue number in which Edge’s review appeared, along with the score. Finally, we have allowed some leeway around release dates – for example, although SNES Street Fighter II Turbo was published in Japan ahead of Edge’s launch, its arrival in PAL regions later enabled it to qualify for inclusion.
Together with votes from readers and the in-house Edge editorial team, we polled a variety of videogame industry representatives, alongside regular contributors to the magazine and former Edge staff. Thank you to the following for taking part: Nate Austin, Jon Bailes, Callum Bains, Dinga Bakaba, Sam Barlow, Alex Beachum, Joel Beardshaw, Sébastien Bénard, Mike Bithell, Lucy Blundell, Wren Brier, Ben Brode, Mike Brown, Nathan Brown, Jeppe Carlsen, Matthew Castle, Roger Clark, Oli Clarke Smith, Simon Cox, Phil Crabtree, Ste Curran, Dylan Cuthbert, Martin Davies, Tim Dawson, Teddy Dief, Joao Diniz Sanches, Christian Donlan, Nicolas Doucet, Caelyn Ellis, Joel Eschler, Caspar Field, Simon Flesser, Aaryn Flynn, Ojiro Fumoto, Michael Gapper, Ian Hardingham, Duncan Harris, Alan Hazelden, Chris Hecker, Adrian Hon, Sam Horti, Casey Hudson, Joseph Humfrey, Alex Hutchinson, Jon Ingold, Bryan Intihar, Phil Iwaniuk, Steve Jarratt, Meghna Jayanth, John Johanas, Madison Karrh, Greg Kasavin, Mikael Kasurinen, Jake Kazdal, Emma Kent, Paul Kilduff-Taylor, Jason Killingsworth, Andrejs Klavinš, Ilari Kuittinen, Trent Kusters, Rick Lane, Greg Lobanov, Mark MacDonald, Dan Marshall, Corey Martin, Gareth Damian Martin, Ben Maxwell, David McCarthy, Edmund McMillen, Anna Megill, Daniel Mullins, Xalavier Nelson Jr, Dana Nightingale, Niall O’Donoghue, Henrique Olifiers, Dave Oshry, Trent Oster, Craig Owens, Lewis Packwood, Simon Parkin, Jeremy Peel, Gary Penn, Dan Pinchbeck, Lucas Pope, Lena Raine, Jade Raymond, Siobhan Reddy, Paweł Sasko, Andrew Shouldice, Jen Simpkins, Harvey Smith, Randy Smith, Davide Soliani, Jake Solomon, Richard Stanton, Matt Stark, Abbie Stone, Keith Stuart, Goichi Suda, Jörg Tittel, Ragnar Tørnquist, Feargus Urquhart, David Valjalo, Jan-Bart Van Beek, Sean Vanaman, Swen Vincke, Robin Walker, Alex Ward, Alan Wen, Tim Willits, Alex Wiltshire, Erik Wolpaw, Shuhei Yoshida and Derek Yu. Some additional game development and publishing staff who preferred to remain anonymous also contributed.
100
KENTUCKY ROUTE ZERO
Developer Cardboard Computer Release 2013 Format PC Review E342 (9)
Cardboard Computer’s fabulist tale of the crowded-out, the put-upon and the otherwise forgotten is softly spoken but righteously angry – railing at a society that leaves so many feeling alone. But there is tenderness here, too, as its band of misfits find solace in one another. A landmark narrative adventure.
99
WARIOWARE, INC: MEGA MICROGAMES
Developer Nintendo R&D1 Release 2003 Format GBA Review E124 (7)
Most videogames present you with some form of challenge and invite you to respond to it. WarioWare reduces one of the medium’s tenets to its quintessence, barking an instruction and asking for an instant reaction. It mischievously defies your natural impulses, gleefully increasing its tempo and introducing unlikely twists to sustain its breakneck momentum. When you succeed, it’s triumphant. When you fail, it’s funny. It’s the anti-Mario’s finest hour.
“Context is everything, and while Edge and its readers were bored to death of videogames, here comes Nintendo to show us again how delightful they can be. Its secret? Dissect the three core phases of play (understand/execute/hone) into the purest of fragments. Fill everything else with the love of games.”
Robert August de Meijer
98
STARCRAFT
Developer Blizzard Entertainment Release 1998 Format PC Review E59 (7)
A decade ago, researchers discovered that realtime strategy games including StarCraft could improve players’ cognitive flexibility. But Blizzard’s RTS hasn’t been around for so long because it’s an effective brain-training tool. Renowned for its approachability, depth and exquisite balance, it has aged gracefully, as demonstrated by a visually improved remake that otherwise rejected further nips and tucks.
97
GOD OF WAR
Developer Santa Monica Studio Release 2018 Format PS4 Review E319 (8)
Talk about sympathy for the devil. Santa Monica Studio – with assistance from an award-winning Christopher Judge – proved that a monster can be redeemed, reimagining one of the medium’s most violent protagonists as a taciturn, grieving dad. But this Kratos wasn’t entirely reinvented: this reboot equally embraced his raw power for its brutal combat.
“Staggeringly good world and level design.” Hanks01
95
OUTRUN 2006: COAST 2 COAST
Developer Sumo Digital Release 2006 Format Various Review E161 (8)
Were driving this blissful in real life, we’d spend a lot more time behind the wheel. The open road has never been as alluring as in Sega and Sumo’s exceptional sequel, which turned an all-time arcade great into a Ferraripowered fever dream. From beachside to fields to woodland, those hypnotic, impossible track transitions help generate a seamlessly edited highlights package from the best bits of other driving games. Only Ridge Racer comes close to its gorgeous, lazy drifts – and Namco’s game doesn’t have those timeless Sega-blue skies.
“Substitutes the intensity of a Daytona or Sega Rally with the bliss of a sun-drenched escape, and fleshes out the (already satisfying) template introduced in OutRun 2.”
Dan G
96
PERSONA 5
Developer P-Studio Release 2016 Format PS3, PS4 Review E305 (8)
Beyond the slick menus, the jazzy soundtrack and the joy of managing your social calendar in bustling Tokyo, Persona 5’s real triumph lies in its dungeons. These weaving spaces are densely designed, transforming what can often feel like busywork elsewhere in the genre into enticing places to explore, littered with treasure, secret routes, and a litany of demons to fight or befriend in order to craft a squad of infernal allies to assist in snappy combat.
94
THE SIMS
Developer Maxis Release 2000 Format PC Review E82 (7)
Will Wright and co applied a magnifying glass to the SimCity concept, and opened up a new, brilliantly mundane world to players. There had been life sims before, but none that sold a fraction as well. And that success was well-earned – The Sims laid such solid foundations for its successors that, to this day, it’s still really the only game in town.
“I’d never seen whole families consumed by one game before. The Sims is so deeply relatable. Everyone needs to sleep and bathe. Everyone needs to get a job, make friends and treat themselves to an extension. Who doesn’t want to make that dream a reality?”
Tom Cooper
93
YAKUZA 0
Developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio Release 2015 Format PS3, PS4 Review E303 (8)
Regarded as RGG Studio’s finest hour, this trip back in time to Kazuma Kiryu’s formative years found a thematic match for Yakuza’s gaudy excesses in the vulgar extravagance of Japan’s bubble economy. But Kiryu’s tale isn’t the half of it; this is the Goro Majima show, the original game’s eyepatched thug reinvented as a tragicomic antihero. His spectacular entrance here is one of the greatest character introductions in games.
“Celebrates everything that made its five prior games great in telling a thrilling story full of gritty crime drama that’s tonally whiplashed with sidestories involving running cabaret clubs and building real-estate businesses.”
Alexander Davies
92
FEZ
Developer Polytron Corporation Release 2012 Format 360 Review E241 (9)
Some found it hard to square Phil Fish’s oft-discussed dismissal of Japanese games with the debt Polytron’s pixel-art adventure owes to Nintendo in particular. His argument, as most sensible folk understood, was that few games since had captured the magic of the games from overseas he had enjoyed in his formative years. Developed with Renaud Bédard, Fez was Fish’s attempt to do just that. In that regard, it was already a triumph, but its mysteries seemed to extend much deeper than its inspirations. Eleven years on, its influence is keenly felt among a new generation of indie games.
“Both old and new school, and the best of both worlds, this was Tunic ten years ahead of time crossed with the peak of all ’90s platform games combined. A magical, mindbending pixel soup.”
Joe Stevens
89
SYSTEM SHOCK
Developer Looking Glass Studios Release 1994 Format PC Review n/a
There’s a problem aboard Citadel Station: its onboard AI wants to enslave humanity, so she’s not opening doors for you any more. In perhaps the first recognisable immersive sim, the solution might involve gunfights, stealth, hacking, demolitions or, most likely, a hastily improvised combination of each as you work through its labyrinthine floors in search of an off button for an all-time-great antagonist.
“My goal was not to choose the best games from this period of Edge’s existence. My goal was to choose the games that haunt me, staying in my mind, and making me who I am. In a sense, I’m my genetics, culture, interests, experiences and memories, and the media I have loved – and which has shaped me. Like a replicant dying in the rain, memories fading, some of these are the games I hope no one forgets. As such, my number one pick from 1993 until now is System Shock.”
Harvey Smith (Deus Ex, Dishonored)
91
TEAM FORTRESS 2
Developer Valve Release 2007 Format Various Review E182 (10, as part of The Orange Box)
Yet more evidence that Valve is incapable of making anything that ends in ‘3’. In this case, it has a good reason. Or rather, a quarter of a million of them. Sixteen years on from launch, the game recently broke its own record for concurrent players, with over 250,000 Spies, Medics and Engineers logging on at once. Over time, TF2 has taken on unexpected shapes: free-to-play millinery emporium; test site for one of the most dedicated communities in videogames; a training ground for bots to practise. But underneath it all, nine silhouettes stand firm, their personalities established in animated shots that laid the blueprint for Overwatch and every hero shooter that followed.
90
PAPERS, PLEASE
Developer 3909 LLC Release 2013 Format PC Review E258 (9)
Lucas Pope’s dystopian tale of a border checkpoint guard given an all-but-impossible job is a feelbad classic: the kind of game where you find your choices keep you awake at night. Can you really deny a desperate refugee entry to the country on a technicality? What if your family’s wellbeing is at risk? Yet as you struggle to weigh up the personal and moral stakes, there’s no denying the bureaucratic process is satisfying in itself, even as the game’s ‘glory to Arstotzka’ mantra sticks in your craw.
“Can a videogame teach you something about yourself? About human life? Yes, it can.”
Bernardo González Paz
“Do you uphold the rules, bend them, or outright flout them? Wonderfully evocative and thought-provoking.”
Nicholas Robinson
88
FALLOUT 3
Developer Bethesda Game Studios Release 2008 Format Various Review E196 (7)
There’s a case for the introduction still being Bethesda’s finest. At the very least, it’s one of gaming’s greatest moments of delayed gratification: after a childhood spent underground, you finally leave
