20. Resident Evil 7: Biohazard
As a lifelong fan of this series, I didn't agree with but I understood the general feeling that the series had lost its way by the release of the sixth entry in 2012. To me, this series has always been about surviving a zombie outbreak; the setting, mechanics and particulars beyond that didn't really concern me. I always had a good time. But I absolutely acknowledge that Resident Evil 4 pivoted the series toward the action genre and away from the horror genre, and I do understand why fans craved a scarier experience that was more in line with the tone of the first three titles.
Well these cries were clearly heard, because this was a massive rubber band snap back into the horror side of things, and there are moments of it that are absolutely terrifying, including an early sequence where the patriarch of the family who has kidnapped you is chasing you through his house, plowing through walls without warning, as you're trying to escape to the next area.
It's one of the most anxiety-inducing sequences in any game I've ever played.
The body horror is front and center in this one. It takes place in the murky swamplands of Louisiana, creating a hot, sticky dingy setting that you can smell the entire time you're playing.
I would easily put this as my third favorite in the series (behind 3 and 4), and I can't wait to see what the future holds if this is the direction it's headed.
19. Elements
The indisputable non-video gaming trend of this decade was escape rooms. Never forget, though, that escape rooms have their origin in browser flash games, probably beginning with Toshimitsu Takagi's early-00's masterpiece Crimson Room (which you can thankfully still play on his website, along with its marvelous sequels).
The best browser escape room artist of them all is a lady who calls herself Neutral. She started with a few small Christmas-themed rooms released in 2007, but her first proper escape room was Switch, released in June of 2008.
She takes her time crafting her rooms, and her attention to detail is what sets her work apart. Her rooms are airtight: The art and puzzling are both flawless. They're truly a labor of love.
Elements, released in May of 2015, remains Neutral's magnum opus.
Every wonderful thing about her previous rooms is integrated into Elements. It's a winding maze of puzzle solving and exploration that will have you perched by your laptop for hours scribbling notes, doing arithmetic, and drawing sketches to solve each puzzle.
She has only released one room since Elements: The much smaller Sign, which is clearly her getting her feet wet with Unity and WebGL (hopefully so she can move away from Flash and continue making these amazing rooms after it's no longer supported.)
You can play all of Neutral's escape rooms on her website. They're all wonderful and will provide you with days of puzzles.
18. Duck Game
I know that a goose game got a lot of attention this year, but don't sleep on the most original (and arguably the most fun) couch game of the decade.
You have but one mission: Eliminate all other ducks. You are given an absurd arsenal with which to complete this task. Each round can be over in seconds or become a tense Mexican stand-off that ends in profanity and quacking.
Everything about this game is hilarious. There's nothing like obliterating all of your friends and then topping it off with a condescending solitary quack.
Cannot recommend this one enough if you do a lot of couch gaming with friends!
17. Alan Wake
I'm a huge fan of Twin Peaks, and this is probably as close as we'll ever get to having a video game based on that universe. Bonus: It's actually a horror game!
You are mystery author Alan Wake, and you're just trying to spend some time with your wife away from your work in the peaceful woodsy island community of Bright Falls, Washington. Nothing goes according to plan, however, when it turns out that everyone in town becomes a shadowy hellbeast at night, and you have to fight them all after they kidnap your wife.
The settings are amazing, from very true-to-life (minus the shadowmonsters, I think) Pacific Northwest woods, to sections of the town, to a big gorgeous mental health facility that feels like a more modern Great Northern Lodge.
Having to zap your enemies with a flashlight before you can shoot them proves to be an interesting mechanic. It's almost like an adult version of the elemental ghosts in Luigi's Mansion, huh?
16. L.A. Noire
This has to be one of the most jam-packed games I've ever played. There's just so unbelievably much to do in L.A. Noire, and it's varied enough that it's easy to get lost in the game for hours at a time.
You are Cole Phelps, a rookie cop for the Los Angeles PD. The year is 1947. You must visit crime scenes, collect and examine evidence, interrogate witnesses, and - perhaps the signature element of this game - pass judgment on the veracity of their responses to you.
Extreme detail went into the motion capture and animation of these interrogation sequences, enabling you to watch for tells like nervous twitching, shifty eyes, vocal stunts, etc., all in the effort to get to the truth and close the case as defiantly as possible.
There are shootout and chase action sequences, but the real fun of this game is the unraveling of the mysteries in each of the cases.
