ROOKIE745

Greetings once again readers, the season is quickly approaching it's end and we have our second last report for Ori. Points wise it's his weakest quarter yet, one less point than the first quarter which he had 19, still 18 points is a point per game and that's still impressive and what you want from a player like Ori. He only failed to score points in four games and had a point streak of eight games in a row, he had three multi point games. He scored six goals, the same as last quarter but had 12 assists instead of 16. We should mention that Helsinki has made quite the turn around and at points has been within three points of a playoff position. Frustrating if the team was in the NA conference they would be third. Finally faceoffs numbers of course, he won 404 out of 660 for a 61.21 winning percentage. He took overall two more faceoffs than last quarter, 46 being the most he took. With the season entering the final stretch we predict Ori end with about 80 points, maybe one or two points under. After three quarters he has 59 points, 16 goals and 43 assists so 21 more points should be doable for the Canadian center, he had 22 points in quarter two. Thank you so much for reading and we look forward to seeing you all in our final part!! (Word count 237)

1. Better scoring I think? Defense has tightened up to. 2. I'm really hoping so, considering we would be 3rd in NA. 3. I get why it's set up that way but having a overall system where all teams are in one conference would be nice. 4. I guess watching the NHL playoffs? 5. Oilers because they have Mike Smith! But also Florida because they have jumbo Joe. 6. Turkey, lettuce, mayo, tomato. Something like that, whatever is used to make a classic turkey sandwich.

Well at least Ori got a HM.

Hello all and welcome back to our second quarterly report for season 83 for the center Jonathan Ori. The Titans are starting to get it together and the team is playing better, while still out of a playoff spot they are closing the gap. This quarter saw Ori get three more points than the first, staying above a point per game, he had seven multi point games during this stretch and scored in 13 of them. His consistency was good to with only one gap of two games in a row without a point. Overall he had 6 goals to bring him to 10 on the season, 16 assists to bring him to 31 on the season and 22 points bring him to 41. His most notable game was game 28 with 1 goal and 2 assists and winning 27/44 faceoffs. Speaking of faceoffs there's been a noticeable drop off in how many he's been taking, 658 vs the 873 he took in the first quarter, no game exceeded 50 faceoffs taken with 47 being the max twice. He won 402 out of 658 for a winning percentage of 61.09%. The less faceofss could be good for Ori, as other members of the team work on their faceoffs to give Ori a bit more resting time, Ori might even be giving them some tips. Till next time folks! (word count 228)

1. Pretty good, I do wish I was another 5 points or so ahead of what I'm at but still happy. 2. I imagine Ori just took a small trip back home to see family and such. 3. Well I'm boring so I'm still gonna choose somewhere in NA, probably like Montreal or San Jose?

Claiming for a second time May 15th

Hold your horses lamb, I still have one more episode to do of this series, I will be covering Dakota Lamb, don't ya worry!! And thank you very much!!

Greetings viewers, welcome back to what will be the penultimate part of this series, at least for now. When I started this series I always intended to cover the 25 players that at the time had eclipsed 1500 TPE, I'm going to hold myself to that while also at least doing one more part. Currently there are five players left to do, but I'm hoping that Battre Sandstorm will pass 1500 TPE to give me an even six players left to cover. I'm making this decision because while I've enjoyed this series a lot I am craving a new challenge, a new subject to cover. I stated in a recent article that we will likely see a lot more players crossing 1500 TPE and that's great, but I believe it will be better to give that list some time to grow instead of covering it one player at a time. With all of that said we do have three more players to talk about so let's get to that!! 23: Duncan Idaho (OrbitingDeath) 1552* Duncan Idaho is our first active player to make it onto this list, and because of that I added an asterisk. They are still earning TPE and thus can climb higher on the leaderboard, I should also note that for the sake of keeping things simple for myself and readers I am listing him at 23rd but he actually sits at 19th. With all of that covered, this is @OrbitingDeath 's second player on the list. Condor Adrienne is his other, a player who got to 1629 TPE; perhaps Death is on a mission to pass that? Duncan Idaho was drafted third overall in both the VHLM and VHL drafts, in the lower league the Houston Bulls picked him in season 76, in the big league the Moscow Menace selected him in season 77. In the M he played 85 total regular season games, earning 81 points, his full season in Houston saw him with a perfect split of 40 goals and assists, with his one extra goal coming from playing with the Marlins. He participated in 25 playoff games, scoring 13 goals and 9 assists for 22 points. In both of his WC appearances he was at least a point per game, 25 points in 20 games. Entering his VHL career, which again is ongoing, he is seven seasons in, so there's still plenty to look through. Including this current season, Idaho has been at least a point per game five times, he's broken 100 points three times so far and is on pace to do so again this season with 62 points in 35 games. Duncan has spent his whole career so far with his draft team, his career high in points also includes his best in goals and assists. Season 81 he reached 130 points with 57 goals and 73 assists, however the 73 assists mark he actually tied in his follow up season, he had 125 points with five less goals making the difference. The season before 81, Idaho achieved 110 points with 54 goals and 56 assists, I could see him finishing with five seasons above 100 points. His current career numbers are 467 games played, 295 goals, 333 assists for 628 points. The three most recent seasons are the only postseason experience Idaho has had, they've all been deep runs though, in fact Duncan has never failed to score a minimum of 20 points. In season 80 he had 10 goals and assists in 15 games, S81 he had 8 goals and 12 assists in 17 games played, last season he had a crazy high 41 points in 23 games, 13 goals and 28 assists. Post season career totals are: 55 games played in just three seasons, 31 goals, 50 assists for 81 points. Awards! He's got a number of them, Christian Stolzschweiger Trophy has the top rookie of his class in S77, Scotty Campbell Trophy in S80 as regular season MVP, Scott Boulet Trophy S80-82 as best two way forward, that's right, he's won it three seasons in a row. Most TPE in a week 46. 24: Benny Graves (STZ) 1520 Jumping back to the S60's for our next two players, @STZ is up next with his player Benny Graves. Two TPE behind Taro, Graves played 23 games for the Reapers and scored 6 goals and 13 points, in a nine game run in the playoffs he got just two goals. All of that was before his VHLM draft in season 68 where he was selected fourth overall by the Las Vegas Aces, in 72 games played he scored 66 goals, got 77 apples for 143 points. In 11 games in the playoffs he scored 11 goals and 7 apples for 18 points. His VHL draft he was selected second overall by the D.C. Dragons, he'd spend his whole career with the team. In his three WC appearances he stayed above a point per game, he scored 6 goals all three times, 7, 8, and 9 assists for points of 13, 14, and 15. In total he had 18 goals, 24 helpers for 42 points in 30 games. Getting into his time in D.C. he was a point per game five times and reached 100 points just once. Season 73 would have his highest point and assist totals, 103 points and 65 assists, and his 38 goals was his third best. Graves hit the 40 goal mark twice in his career, first time in S74 with 41 goals and 44 assists for 85 points, and then again in his final season with 42 goals and 52 assists for 94 points. His career regular season totals are: 576 games played, 263 goals, 335 assists for 598 points. A shame he didn't get two more points for 600. Graves got to play in the post season six times, he was at least a point per game five times but his best run for sure was in S75 where in 20 games played, he had 10 goals and 16 assists for 26 points. S74 was a great effort too with 8 goals in 9 games and 12 points. Overall his career numbers are: 58 games played, 30 goals scored, 37 helpers and 67 points. Being above a point per game in the playoffs is always impressive and Graves was a big time playoff guy. His award case? Well it doesn't exist sadly, he's got nothing. Most TPE in a week 65. 25: Rayz Funk (Rayzor_7) 1512 Finally, Rayz Funk, @Rayzor_7's hall of famer goaltender. I've had the pleasure of both having my player Jaxx Hextall do battle with Funk on the ice and playing under Rayzor as a general manager. Funk is only the fourth goaltender on this list as we inch closer to exactly 1500 TPE, he was drafted third overall in the VHLM in season 66 by the Mississauga Hounds. Playing one full season with the team he had a record of 41-26-5 with 4 shutouts, a .888 save percentage and 2.76 goals against average. In the playoffs he went 1-3-1 with a .875 save percentage and 3.96 GAA. In his VHL draft in S67 he was taken second overall by the Seattle Bears. In his four WC appearances, while his first go around in S68 he has a .933 save percentage he only played the one game, so I gotta give it to his S70 run with a record of 2-4-2 with a .911 save percentage and 2.57 GAA. Funk spent seven of his eight seasons with the Seattle Bears where he had great success, reaching 40 wins three times and having two seasons that were shy of 40 by a win or two. He finished with a save percentage above .920 three times, his highest was in season 69 where he finished with 39 wins, a .923 and a career low GAA of 2.25, his 8 shutouts also tied a career high that he had set just last season. Arguably his best overall season was S73 with a record of 41-15-4, 6 shutouts, .921 save percentage and 2.48 GAA. His career numbers at the end of his career are: 522 games played, 294 wins, 179 losses, 40 OT losses, .917 save percentage, 2.56 GAA and 36 shutouts. Funk made the postseason six times, only missing in his rookie season and final season where he went to Davos. It's hard choosing what was Funk's best playoff run as, spoiler alert, he won the cup four times. S68 a record of 12-1-1, a .935% and 1.79 GAA, 3 shutouts. S71 a record of 12-3-2, a .937% and 1.67 GAA, 2 shutouts. S73 a record of 12-5-2, a .935% and GAA of 2.04 and 1 shutout. All of these are standout performances, you could argue between S68 or S71 being his best run but S73 is 100% still worth mentioning. Overall career playoff numbers are 85 games played, 55 wins, 20 losses, 10 OT losses, 7 shutouts, .930 save percentage and 2.09 GAA. The trophy case has been fairly light as of late, but Funk is here to change that, four Continental Cups in seasons 68, 69, 71, and 73 with a Victory cup that last season as well in Seattle. He won the Christian Stolzschweiger Trophy as best rookie of S67, and he won the Daisuke Kanou Trophy as playoff MVP a ridiculous four times, winning it each time they won the cup. His most TPE in a week was 73, that is a lot. Thank you all so much for reading and I will see you all next time for what will be the final part in this series, ciao for now. (1560 word count)

So ya'll know I'm working on that series of players who have passed the big 1500 TPE mark, something that I believe we will see more of with longer careers now, and with more dedicated users it'll go up even faster. Currently 27 players have reached it and we currently have fours players in the 1400 range, three of them from season 77 and one season 76. Three more in the 1300 range, two S77 and one S76. The leader board currently has a lot of S77 players with a few S76 players left, the highest season 78 player is at rank 9 with 1285 TPE, the player is Hard Markinson, user STZ. Battling it out for S79 is Jerome Reinhart and Jonathan Ori, Reinhart is currently ahead at 1051 but Ori is only behind by 3 (After my updates go through I should be back in the lead). In total three S79 players are on the list. What's really remarkable is Xavier Booberry, Ori's teammate in Helsinki. He easily leads the S80 class in TPE, he's the only S80 player on it and is only behind the two previously mentioned S79 players. Taking a bit of a closer look Booberry is currently 71 TPE ahead of second place in his class, 81 ahead of 3rd and 126 ahead of fourth. Again if he was in the S79 class he'd be ranked third already, it's crazy. One final note is that every player on the leader board is above 1000TPE, it ranges from 1549 to 1007! (word count 256)

1. I really don't have one, what really qualifies as one anyway? 2. I guess that Hexy didn't get any VHL awards, that's really a shame. 3. Enorama, the guy that brought me into this league.

Hello and for a third season now we are back to this series. Once again Ori is up to bat and he's off to a good start for season 83, a little behind last season but still on a good pace. In the first four games he only got one assist which lead watchers to probably think he was gonna be off to a slow start, but he got 11 points over his next six games. The next game saw him get nothing on the score sheet but he had 4 points over the next two before failing to score again. game 15 saw him get a 3 point night before going scoreless the rest of the quarter. Overall he had 4 goals, 15 assists for 19 points. It does seem like scoring has become a bit of a problem for the Titans and he hope Ori can find a bit more scoring consistency for the team. In the faceoff circle Ori is still the main man, he took 873 total faceoffs and won 514 of them which is a winning percentage of 58.88. He had nine game where he took at least 50 and one game where he took 60. It's a little lower than the first quarter of last season but still very impressive, he has also taken more than 100 less faceoffs this quarter compared to last year. We look forward to the next three quarters of the season to see if Ori can step it up and if the Titans can find more consistent scoring! (word count 259)

I don't blame ya XD It is indeed a long post. -Timepslitters 2 was indeed very fun, helps that I have a lot of nostalgia for it, both the first the third games are good to imo, TS2 just stands above both of them. -It is 100% a shame what has happened to the series since then, I've heard the newest game is quite good but still not PM 1 or TTYD in style. If you get the chance though I do recommend playing the first game, it has it's own merits that I think make it worth playing. -Ditto on that, I do think 6 is really good to though. -Well what the hell you waiting for? Go and play it!! It is amazing!!

F - Kyle Peace @Girtsyour second last bud!

1. More points, win faceoffs, win games 2. Team awards 3. For Ori it's 52, no real reason, I just really like the number.

Second claim May 1st

D - Erlantz Jokinen @DilYour move

Author's note: This was a list I started writing around the end of 2020 if I remember correctly, at some point I lost a bunch progress which killed my mojo for doing this however recently found the energy to work on it again and get it finished. Some of the stuff here I typed up over a year ago and if anything sounds weird or off it's likely because of that gap in time and my writing has changed to some degree over that time. Also sorry if some games after much longer summaries than others, talking about 44 different games is difficult and in some cases I just struggled a little more with what to say, rest assured that I enjoyed every game on this list. This is a list I've actually been meaning to do for some time, like over a year at least. Back when the decade changed from the 2010's to 2020's a lot of people as I'm sure you all know did lists of best movies, games, TV shows and so on of the 2010's. However Gamexplain did a series I thought was cool where they choose a best game from each year (so 2010-2019) before finding out which the viewers thought was the best out of those 10. I won't do that list bit where I rank them but I thought it'd be fun to go back to the start of the millennium and choose my favorite game from each year. It's also just happens to be a good place for me to start, since I'm a kid who was born late in the 90's and haven't had much experience with anything that predates the N64. I've played a lot more games in out current millennium than the one I was born in. Now because video game releases are not always straight forward with re-releases, remasters, remakes, complete editions, and different release dates among consoles and PC, I had to lay out some ground rules for myself to follow otherwise things get confusing and messy. I don't expect every one of these situations to come up in my list. 1. No game can appear on the list twice or be eligible in more than one year no matter if it's the original release, remastered, enhanced re-release, or part of a compilation. 2. Remakes will count as a separate game from their original release 3. I have had to complete the game or put a lot of time into it for it to be eligible for my list. 4. If I played the "remastered" version of a game, I will count it for it's original year of release and not year of release of the remaster. 5. As a console gamer I made the choice that I will be putting a game in the year of it's earliest console release, so Hollow Knight for example was released in 2017 for PC but it's Switch port was in 2018, so I will count it as a 2018 game. 6.In terms of live service games or games with re-releases like a definitive edition, I will count them as part of the year of their original release since that's where the foundation was made, so Destiny 1 for example will still be counted as a 2014 game despite all of the updates and DLC it got through 3 years. To challenge myself further I will be keeping track of who the developer is, the publisher and the genre the game is in and adding it all up to see any trends. Also I will be including a runner up for every year, in some cases it's really close in others there's a pretty big gap between games. The starting year 2000 is a good example of this, speaking of which! (Side note, I originally called the Runner ups honorable mentions, so if you see that at any point you know what it means.) 2000 Paper Mario Developer: Intelligent Systems Publisher: Nintendo Genre: RPG I wouldn't come to play Paper Mario 1 myself till years and years later but had grown up watching a cousin play it. PM is a game I love to death and when I finally played it for my youtube channel I just didn't want to stop. The world, the characters, the places you go were all so great, the game is by no means perfect, I feel the lack of depth in the battle mechanics starts to wear on you as you get deeper into the game but new partners and story always kept me going. Each chapter's location and small stories within each one is great and there's no chapter that I really dislike or feel like it drags on, my highlight would be chapter 3 as I always like the "creepy" chapters. This game could easily top a lot of others but RPG's are not exactly my favorite genre, still one of the best RPG's I have played imo. Oh also the battle music is fantastic!! Runner up Timesplitters (this box art man lol, it sure was a different time) Developer: Free radical design Publisher: Eidos Interactive Genre: FPS I actually started with the second game in the series and would circle around years and years later to get the first game to see how the series started. I ended up disappointed due to the actual lack of a campaign, there is these levels or challenges to do but they don't contain any story elements or cut scenes and some of them where very difficult as well. The real fun I imagine came from multiplayer and the level designer but since I jumped in on this game like 15 years later or something I never experienced any of that and don't exactly have anyone to play it with. Honestly Once I play some more games from 2000 I could see something taking this game's place. I know I haven't said a lot positive here but honestly the game is fine and good-great for it's era, I did have fun I was just disappointed due to having wanted to play it for so many years and it not quite living up to what I thought it had. 2001 Halo: Combat Evolved Developer: Bungie Publisher: Microsoft Genre: FPS 2001 had a lot of great games but even so it was a no brainier for my choice of this year. The first FPS game I ever played and the reason I love the genre to this day is because of Halo. I got hundreds if not thousands of hours out of the campaign alone and while I didn't player multiplayer to much it was a fun time when I did, usually with family. The graphics looked so good and the music was epic for my younger self and the music definitely still holds up of all these years later. The wonder and Mystery Halo brought to my four/five year old self is something I'll never forget. The story has well was captivating for younger me and all the cool camera shots and moments kept me hooked, the enemy faction to that you fight was great. Elites are still my favorite alien race to this day and hunters are a close second for sure, I was always intimidated anytime I ran into a pair of them since they always have a buddy with them, of course now I know you can one shot them with the almighty pistol from H1. Halo 1 has a limited selection of weapons, there's eight total weapons, five UNSC and 3 alien weapons, they each are effective in their own way and none of them are useless. Finally we have vehicles, two human and two covenant, as a kid I was always hyped anytime I had a chance to use a vehicle and spent hours trying to take them to places I wasn't meant to. Also it's always been funny to me how the UNSC vehicles are invincible yet the covenant ones are not. Runner up Sonic Adventure 2 (Battle) Developer: Sonic Team USA Publisher: SEGA Genre: Platformer, Action-adventure I never owned a dream cast and only have played on one once, SA2 is one if not the most iconic game on the console however a lot of kids, like me, grew up with the 2003 gamecube re-release, I believe there was a bump up to the framerate and some extra stuff for the battle mode (hence the battle added to it) but nothing major was changed. This is one of earliest games I remember playing on our gamecube and one of the ones I played the most, raising chao was something me and my brother loved to do although we never really got into the rather deep mechanics of it (probably felt daunting for us), we just enjoyed leveling them up and watching them fight in chao karate and take part in the races. That's not to say it was the only thing we enjoyed but it was the main reason we kept coming back to it. The game as a great soundtrack and we enjoyed the missions and battle mode, not to mention the secret stuff in the game to, it was a good time. 2002 Serious Sam: Xbox Developer: Croteam Publisher: Devolver Digital Genre: FPS So in this case we have the console release rule coming into play, Serious Sam Xbox is the First Encounter and Second Encounter put into one package and released for the original Xbox. Much like Halo, Serious Sam is part of the reason I love FPS games. Playing Serious Sam as a kid definitely made me feel more like a bad ass than Halo did, as I take on hordes of enemies with a minigun, laser gun and tons of rockets. Thanks to it being two games in one there's tons of missions as well, not to mention multiplayer to. I loved all the different enemy types and many of the levels are memorable, and again the game looked so good back then as well, and while not quite as good as Halo the music was awesome as well. I also can't not mention the tons and tons of secrets in these games, finding them is always fun and it can reward you with a weapon earlier on or perhaps it's the series staple Serious bomb? Which is a bloody screen nuke if you didn't know. Runner up Timesplitters 2 Developer: Free radical design Publisher: Eidos Interactive Genre: FPS Yes Timesplitters two is on here as well. In all fairness I played TS2 pretty early on in my childhood to but I don't have the same level of fondness for this game as I do with Halo 1 and Serious Sam. Regardless TS2 was able to fill the hole nicely when I didn't have access to an Xbox to play Halo or SS, I grew up with the gamecube version but now own the xbox version. basically the game improved upon everything from the first game and gave us an actual story that was a lot of fun, every mission has you in a different time period making every level feel fresh, there's tons of extra content as well with challenges to complete, characters to unlock, multiplayer, map creator, and the harder the difficulty on the campaign, the more objectives you have which I think is really cool. TS2 is the best in the series in my opinion. 2003 Pokemon Ruby Developer: Game Freak Publisher: Nintendo Genre: RPG I wasn't sure if pokemon would get on this list but after looking through 2003, there weren't many games that I played that I really enjoyed from this year. However Pokemon Ruby does have a very special place in my heart, while not the first pokemon game I ever played it was the first one I came to own. Thanks to a cousin of mine who got it from a friend I got the game and it already had a file from my cousin's friend, and when I first opened up that party, there it was, a Salamence and to this day it is still my favorite pokemon. It just got my eye the most and feel in love with it. Anyway the game itself is something I got a lot of enjoyment from, just exploring around and beating the gym leaders, the elite four, catching groudon, team aqua and magma, it was all great. I would transfer some of those pokemon into gen 4 including the Salamence which I still have to this day, after that I restarted the game to actually beat it myself. Runner up Mario Kart Double dash!! Developer: Nintendo Entertainment (and others) Publisher: Nintendo Genre: Racing Racing is a genre that ya I get some enjoyment out of but it's never my first choice if I want to choose something to play. Don't get me wrong I've put hundreds of hours into Mario Kart across multiple games, maybe even thousands but I pretty much would always rather play a shooter or 3D platformer. Double Dash is easily one of my favorite racing games though and it's a crying shame they haven't revisited this formal yet. Each play holds an item and you can switch between who's driving and who's attacking, you got more characters, different karts and some really fun tracks not to mention a great battlemode. My only real gripes with double dash now a days is it's control and lack of maps. The control is something I can always adjust to but I find I can never jump right in and fun without some frustration first, in terms of tracks it does have 16 which may seem like a lot but trust me you'll burn through them quick. While I understand there probably wasn't a big enough selection yet in Nintendo's mind (or just haven't thought of it yet) for classic cups, cups that use the old tracks, it really could have done with an extra 4 or 8 tracks. Still though I love the game all the same and I am glad it shows up on my list, again 2003 just doesn't have a lot to choose from for me. 2004 Halo 2 Developer: Bungie Publisher: Micorosft Genre: FPS 2004 for me has two of my favorite games but Halo 2 was the easy pick because it's in my favorite genre, FPS. While I was never able to play Halo 2 online before the original xbox servers were shut down it doesn't change all the fun I had in the game's campaign and some splitscreen action as well with cousins. Dual wielding was brought in and made you feel even more awesome, energy swords and wraiths were now usable and we got to play as elites for the first time! Again the graphics blew me away and you have more legendary music and a track from one of my favorite bands, Breaking Benjamin. Looking back yea this campaign has some levels that are a slog to get through, overall it isn't the best the Halo series has to offer, but as a six year old it was amazing. Also side not but I didn't know that for years this was actually the first game to have the famous skulls, items you could collect to add modifiers to the game, unlike following games most of them were restricted to legendary difficulty, that was the only way to get most of them, and the only to turn them off was to turn of the game, fun thing to know. Runner up Paper Mario: the Thousand-Year door Developer: Intelligent Systems Publisher: Nintendo Genre: RPG PM TTYD is a very strong contender for one of my favorite games ever and could top many other games but it had to face a juggernaut in Halo 2 on 04. Much like Paper Mario 1 I would watch family play the game a lot before I myself played it and beat it years later for my channel. Much like before I didn't want to put the game down, I believe every recording session I did was over 4 hours long and some cases up to 8 hours. Maybe that doesn't sound long for some but for me it was. TTYD improves upon in almost every aspect, better story, deeper characters, more badges, more interesting locals, and most importantly it had a deeper battle system. Party member now had their own HP and wouldn't go down after one flimsy hit and could be swapped in front of Mario to eat up more of the damage if Mario is hurting for HP. The art style has also helped this game age like a fine whine, while yes it doesn't compare to modern games you'd be hard pressed to get me to say it looks bad. For many years I thought TTYD was a textbook example of a sequel done right but after playing it years later I do have some small problems, one is that there aren't as many party members and the members you do get I just don't find as interesting personally. They went more with new species for party members instead of established species, it's a hit or miss kinda thing. My bigger problem though is the map you travel in, there are a lot more pipes to take you from one area to another and traveling from one local to another is cut down but in it's place is lots of backtracking, some chapters reek of it, especially my favorite chapter, chapter 4. The world just feels less connected to me, there were many areas in the first game you would have to travel to first before getting the shortcut but TTYD decides we'll just give you the pipe route and increase back tracking. It's unfortunate but the pros still heavily out weigh the cons in my mind. 2005 Resident Evil 4 Developer Capcom production studio 4 publisher: Capcom Genre: TPS, survival horror I really do have to thank my cousin for getting me to play this years and years later. Fun fact is that my brother and I actually owned the game for wii way back when, it was one of the first three games we got XD Anyway like a lot of older games I played the game for my channel and it was very very enjoyable. Horror is not a genre I'm into or care about all the much but when it's not as much of the focus, or is there just in the background it can be great. It may sound weird but I love when a game makes me feel unsettled or uneasy about the area I'm in or the enemy I'm fighting. On top of that I love games with great atmosphere and RE4 is drowning in it. While the mechanics of the game feel a bit dated it was something I still adjusted to easily and loved by the end of the game. The story and lines are all kinds of cheesy but it only adds to the charm of this game. The game easily takes number one of the 2005 year for me. Runner up Mario Party 7 Developer: Hudson Soft Publisher: Nintendo genre: Party So if it wasn't for RE4 Mario Party 7 would have taken first place, for me there just wasn't whole lot to choose from in 2005 and I almost forgot about MP7 honestly. But it is my favorite Mario Party game in the series mainly thanks to the fact that I played it the most out of any of the games. From it's simple art style that has helped it age so well, boards, minigames, characters, 8 player mode, and extra features to get in game, I find that there's pretty much always something else to do in the game. I don't have as much to say here because it's a god damn party game but a very good one at that, so congrats MP7, your on this list. 2006 Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess Developer: Nintendo EAD Publisher: Nintendo genre: Action-adventure Alright so here is another case of a game I haven't beaten on the original console, (Gamecube and Wii) I own both versions and have played both versions but never beat either one. The one I beat was the HD port for the Wii U, while there is some small quality of life improvements and such I don't feel that they change enough for me to be uncomfortable putting the game here. I do intend on beating the gamecube version at some point and maybe even the wii version to at some point too, anyway LoZ TP is a lengthy adventure and one I really enjoyed. Tons of places to explore, secrets to find, upgrades to collect and temples to beat. Tons of the bosses were on an epic scale to, just feeling really imposing to face. I don't mind the whole wolf transformation thing in fact I kinda like it, it's cool imo. 2006 wasn't a very strong year for me or I just haven't played enough games from that year but LoZ TP is still a tough one to beat. Runner up Gears of War Developer: Epic Games Publisher: Microsoft Genre: TPS As stated 2006 isn't a year I've played a lot of games from, I think I've completed 3 or 4 at most? Anyway GoW or simply Gears as it's called now is a game I wouldn't come to play till later, I think I got it in a GoW 1&2 bundle if I remember correctly. If I had played it back then there's a chance it would be number one but because I played it later I don't have much nostalgia for it, I also don't get as much enjoyment out of TPS games compared to FPS games. Regardless I still found it a fun game to play through and enjoyed the length of it's campaign and also it's enemies, the locust is freaking cool if ya ask me. I never played the multiplayer which may also hurt it a lot but It was like 6-7 years after it's release when I played it. What largely hurts the game though is it's control, it's a bit stiff or clunky, mainly aiming your gun. Since aiming and shooting your gun is important to the game and something your going to do a lot of I can't ignore, sure I got used to it but I wouldn't say it's the same as RE4 and getting used to it's tank controls. It by no means makes the game unplayable it's just something that hurts it and it's sequels quickly improved upon. Again though, great game. 2007 Halo 3 Developer: Bungie Publisher: Micorosft Genre: FPS This really should be no surprise, Halo 1 and 2 are both on here as my "game of the year" and H3 is no different. Halo 3 finishes the fight for the original trilogy in an epic finale, all levels are memorable in some fashion, whether it's by an epic fight, set piece, cut scene or dialogue. Some other better than others but I find even the worst mission in the game has it's special moment. Ripping off turrets is a new feature that makes you feel even more badass, equipment was added as a new feature as well although this was more of a miss than hit. Multiplayer is fantastic and while not the Halo game I've put the most hours into, I still had a blast in many matches. Theater and forge were introduced as ways to share content with friends, theater being pretty obvious but forge allowed you to create maps for you and your friends to play on. Many, many interesting game modes were thought up and while forge mode is dated and clunky by today for sure, people still did amazing things with it. I do think Halo 3 was the peak of the franchise and was a legendary game. Runner up Call of Duty 4:Modern Warfare Developer: Infinity Ward Publisher: Activision Genre: FPS Honestly I was debating about having this one up here, while I loved the game back when I played it I don't find that I have that level of fondness for it anymore, I enjoy other games in the series a lot more than this one, but in the end I felt it did deserve to be mentioned because it is my entry point into the series just like it was for many others. A pretty good campaign with intel as a collectable that would unlock fun cheats for the game, and a addictive multiplayer that had classes to create by choosing what weapons you wanted to use, what perks to use, and equipment you wanted. Guns had attachments like red dot sights or under barrel grenade launchers. Really I just find the game shallow looking back, basically every cod after this have three modes to choose, campaign, multiplayer and an extra mode, usually zombies or in some cases spec ops. The gun and attachment selection is also just very low for me as well. Still a great game just not one I find myself eager to go back to. Also fun fact I grew up with the Wii version. 2008 Pokemon Platinum Developer: Game Freak Publisher: Nintendo Genre: RPG Pokemon is on here for a second time and it's the one that's still my favorite ans easily put the most time into. Giriatina is a heckin cool pokemon and you could catch Palkia and Dialga in here. I enjoyed exploring Sinnoh and team Plasma, the music was great and it was just a memorable adventure for me. I know now a days it's very very slow, and while it never irked me back then because I usually had nothing better to do and was a little kid I do think it'd bother me now. There also was tons of cool new pokemon and at least for me I still think Sinnoh has some of the best, I think we all know Lucario after all. Sinnoh is my favorite region and this game will always have a special place in my heart. Runner up Super Smash Bros Brawl Developer: Sora Ltd. Publisher: Nintendo Genre: Fighting No shooters this time around, gotta say 2008 was a pretty great year for Nintendo. SSBB is for sure the smash game I've put the most hours into, from it's story mode witch I still think is pretty great, all the awesome cutscenes and even some secrets to find as well. Characters to unlock, a stage maker, trophies to earn, challenges to do there is plenty of content here to keep ya coming back. I don't think I need say anything about the multiplayer because it's flipping Smash bros, get some friends and get smashing each other. I know for more competitive players Brawl is frustrating to play due to some changes they made, mainly tripping at random being a thing, I agree it's probably the worst in the series if your looking at it from a competitive standpoint but from a casual standpoint I think you can argue it's the best. Also lets not forget this was the game to introduce third party characters like Sonic and Snake to the series! 2009 Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Developer: Infinity Ward Publisher: Activision Genre: FPS My favorite game ever, Modern Warfare 2!! So many good memories with this game, where do I start? Well graphicly even as someone who plays it on the 360 I still think the game looks damn good, sure it's not comparable to modern games but every time I go back I'm still surprised by just the amount of detail in everything. The art style really helps and the color choices are great, everything is vibrant without getting washed out or getting to color happy, it strikes a very nice medium I find. The music, while not on the level of say the Bungie Halo games is still great and has very memorable pieces. The campaign while short is one of most enjoyable I've ever played and I still go back to it this day. The multiplayer does have it's problems, mainly infinite grenade launcher spam with danger close, it's still a lot of fun and I've always found the game is surprisingly balanced, (when looking pass OMA GL's) while there are weapons that are next to useless there is no weapon that outright dominates the game, I would say the UMP45 gets the most use but still players bring a lot of different weapons. Finally spec ops, while not as fun as zombies I still think the missions had there own charm to them and gave you extra challenges to work towards and unlock more missions. To me the overall package of MW2 from the technical side of it to the game modes is fantastic. Runner up Halo 3 ODST Developer: Bungie Publisher: Micorosft Genre: FPS Even though it's not my GOTY Halo still finds it's way onto this year, ODST for sure is not as strong as H3 as it lacks it's own multiplayer and forge mode but did introduce firefight. ODST remains one of my favorite games to this day thanks to a very strong atmospheric campaign and one of my favorite characters, the Rookie. (where do you think I got my name from?) The Rookie is your standard silent protagonist with only grunts and such that you'll hear from him but the way he expresses himself in the cutscenes is still one of my favorite things and I wish more video games did it as well. ODST has possibly one of the best soundtracks ever and is some of the best from the Halo franchise. Firefight was a good choice for this game and it's locals, plus since your playing as an ODST and not a spartan your not as strong and things feel more dire when your outnumbered. Due to limited dev team size and time the game wasn't able to reach it's full potential which really sucks as a huge fan of this game, still I love it all the same and am glad it exists. Author's note: We're now getting out of my childhood and into my teen years, nostalgia is less of a factor in these games as I began to understand what actually makes for a good game or a bad game. That's not to say any of the previous games are actually bad, I just have rose tinted glasses for them. 2010 Halo Reach Developer: Bungie Publisher: Microsoft Genre: FPS Reclaiming top spot is Halo again, Bungie's last outing with the franchise went out on a high note. Their biggest game yet full of content, a prequel to Halo 1 you aren't playing as the Chief here, you play as a spartan where you can fully customize their armor and it shows in the campaign and in the cutscenes, that was heckin sweet for 12 year old me, you got firefight back with now the ability change settings and such, forge is back and bigger than ever, theater is back to share clips and pictures and multiplayer had tons of modes and options to mess around with. Halo 3 was still the peak in the series imo but Halo Reach was still great and it's easily the game in the franchise I put the most time into, from the forge maps I made to the ones I played on from friends, co-op campaign with friends and family, and the hours I sunk into multiplayer, I will never forget just how awesome this game was. Armor abilities were the new thing here, they definitely had a bigger impact than equipment did in H3 and were more fun to play around with, while still not an overall improvement to Halo's core they did allow for some more interesting forge maps and such, armor lock is the only one I really hate and if you've played the game you know why. Sprint was also an ability in this game. Runner up Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood Developer: Ubisoft Montreal Publisher: Ubisoft Genre: Action-adventure, stealth Besides beating AC3 back in 2012/2013 I've only started completing some of these games more recently, going through the Ezio trilogy was a blast, yes I should add I have not beat the games on my 360 yet but the collection doesn't change anything major, just better res and FR. Brotherhood is often considered one of the best games in the franchise and I can understand why, tons of stuff to do and see, a great story, a city to rebuild, new gadgets to make and use, upgrades to get and all in a world that just felt so fun to play around it. While I didn't 100% it or anything I did go out of my way to do side quests and get most collectibles. The new mechanic introduced here was being able to recruit and send assassins to different locations in Europe to complete missions and such that could earn you money, the more interesting ability was that you could call an assassin in to assist you, this was far more useful and helped make it feel like a "brotherhood". I really do have to say that Ezio is such a likeable character and for sure one of the best characters in any video game series. 2011 Assassin's Creed: Revelations Developer: Ubisoft Montreal Publisher: Ubisoft Genre: Action-adventure, stealth Yes the AC franchise is back already and GOTY for me, looking through 2011 there honestly wasn't a lot that I enjoyed from this year or perhaps just haven't played enough from that year. Regardless Revelations takes top spot thanks what may still be favorite story in the AC franchise and is the conclusion to Ezio's story, he remains the only character in the series to get multiple games dedicated to him. While the location you have to explore isn't as big and is in stark contrast to AC: Brotherhood location it was still fairly interesting and fun to explore. The start of the game left such an impression on me it still is one of my favorite beginnings to a game. You have a few new things to play around with, the biggest being bombs and the hook blade, some really really fun levels and side missions even but the driving factor all the way through for me was Ezio, I love the guy the most here and it's the main reason this game is number one for me. I wouldn't say it's my favorite in the series, part of that being due to some issues I had with the climbing in the game, I just got stuck in a spot more often or it just wouldn't let me climb when I should have been able to, but it's still top 5 for me in the series. Runner up Gears of War 3 Developer: Epic Games Publisher: Microsoft Genre: TPS I wasn't expecting GoW 3 to be on here but nothing else really stood above it for me, so it gets the HM. GoW3 was the first Gears game I got and played, it definitely left an impression on me with it's enemies and weapons and so on, of course a lot of this I could say for the first game but GoW3 was my entry point into the series. It's campaign was a great deal of fun, getting up to 3 buddies to play along with ya was great and I have some..... very frustrating yet fun memories of playing it on it's hardest difficulty and beating it for achievements. I never got into the multiplayer for any Gears game but did spend a lot of time playing against bots or playing in the horde mode. It may sound weird but the main reason I never got into PvP here is because the time to kill was just faster than I felt it should be? Like all the other modes give you a feel of it being a slower time to kill game but in the multiplayer it's pretty fast. That said I still got a great deal of enjoyment from the game so here it is. 2012 Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Developer: Treyarch Publisher: Activision Genre: FPS I know I know COD again? We were just in the golden era of cod here, and while I didn't enjoy the last two entries as much BO2 was fantastic. It had quite possibly the best campaign in the series with branching paths and multiple endings, it had new side missions that had some RTS elements in them, and the story itself was deep but understandable. Zombies got even more complicated with it's story and easter eggs but had new items you could craft in each level, like a shield to protect you back or a jump pad, while the maps that came with game weren't that good imo Mob of the Dead and Origins were great and I can't not mention the fan favorite Buried. Multiplayer brought in the pick 10 system for create a class which meant you could load up on perks and just have one gun or load on with two primaries thanks to the new wildcard system and load them up with attachments. It was really fun, my only problem here was the maps, Treyarch has pretty much always used a 3 lane design which here just really drags at points, it makes maps kind of blend together and not stand out as much, it just doesn't feel like there's much room for creative play if that makes sense. Still one of the best in the franchise and I understand some may not sure the same problems I have with it. Runner up Halo 4 Developer: 343 Industries Publisher: Microsoft Genre: FPS Halo and cod again? Yeap, though this is likely the last time Halo will be on here, some may be surprised to even see Halo 4 on here at all but frankly I've never hated this game and even grown a little softer towards it over the years. While I'd still play any Bungie Halo game over it I still had a great time with it. It's campaign is one of the most emotional I've ever played and as someone who grew up with the series since I was a little kid, that ending was a gut punch that I had never felt before, the game had me cry twice through out and it has some of the best voice work I've heard from any video game. While the new art style isn't something I really like graphicly the game was gorgeous and was really pushing the 360 to it's limits, and the music, while not as good was still quality. Spartan Ops while not as fun as firefight imo still was an interesting new mode with it's continued story over multiple updates and such, it was just stuck using the same locations over and over which made it hard to playthrough, no differences just straight up the same map. Multiplayer is the most talked about with a new system in place that would let you call in a random power weapon or power up after you got enough points..... ya it didn't go over well, sprint was now something you could do at any time and armor abilities were back, there was a create a class system that I shouldn't even need to mention on why it doesn't work for a halo game, and at launch the DMR was vastly overpowered, thankfully as time went on and many updates later it did get better but it was still never going to be as good as a previous game. Despite all of that though I did have fun in the multiplayer because I could still play it like a classic Halo game even with all the gunk over the core of it. 2013 Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag Developer: Ubisoft Montreal Publisher: Ubisoft Genre: Action-adventure, stealth AC is back with one of their highlight games, again I didn't play it when it was new but when I did eventually get around to it, man was it an adventure! The pirate theme of it, sailing ships and ship combat which had been introduced in the previous game and improved upon here, an engaging story and another great character to connect with and follow along. New activities to do thanks to pirate life that you character partakes in, there's just once again a lot to do here and keep you busying, melee combat is still great and now you carry old school flintlock pistols on you! You also have great supporting characters like black beard for example! I've played any of the multiplayer modes in any AC game, it just doesn't interest me but the campaign and open world have always been enough to keep me busy anyway, which I should add this open world is very fun to explore, with many different islands to visit and towns to go to. Runner up Battlefield 4 Developer: DICE Publisher: EA Genre: FPS Alright, BF4 was a mess when it launched, multiplayer matches were buggy and you were lucky if you were ever able to actually finish one but as this was the firs BF game I got into, not the first I've played but the first one I really sunk time into and especially as the game got patched up it became a game I really enjoyed. I will also note I had problems with the campaign not saving my progress early on either but that was fixed to. I made sure to get BF4 on the XB1 as I really wanted to experience the large scale battles of 32V32 and man was it something else for me, as someone who had mainly played COD and Halo multiplayer the destruction and scale of the battles was epic, not to mention just the size of the maps alone and the new levolution system was something to behold, watching the skyscraper fall down or flooding the map with water was hella cool. While the campaign is nothing special I do feel it has it's moments and is better than BF3's. I like the characters and some of the missions are cool, it kept me entertained throughout. 2014 Destiny Developer: Bungie Publisher: Activision Genre: FPS, looter shooter Alright so 2014 was actually kinda hard to choose, as four games stood out to me, I was considering COD AW and Assassin's creed rogue as well but felt they came a little short compared to the two I did choose. Destiny, Bungie is no longer under MS and finally got to make something new! And that was Destiny, which at the start it was honestly a disappointment, maybe the expectations were to high or some of the troubles at Bungie and reworking of the story and game hurt it, whatever you want to believe (I believe the latter) it wasn't the game the fans or perhaps even the devs were hoping it would be. While it had great gameplay the story was a major let down, filled with bland characters and not having time to explain why they don't even have time to explain. Still thanks to years of continued support and through DLC's and updates the game got a lot better, basically everything was improved from how it was at launch and raids were something totally new for me, working with five other players to conquer them still remains some of my favorite memories and I made great friends. I have to admit that Destiny is tied to some dark days of my life, it just became that game for me that helped me escape from irl when I needed it most, it also has one of my favorite guns ever in the Invective shotgun, that gun never left my side on my titan. Really if I did this list early 2015 no way is Destiny here but thanks to all of it's changes it does take top spot for 2014. Runner up Farcry 4 Developer: Ubisoft Montreal Publisher: Ubisoft Genre: FPS Farcry 4 is the other game I was considering that wasn't mentioned, while I had started with Farcry 3 and enjoyed that game a lot it was stuck behind BO2 and Halo 4, Farcry 4 battles it's way onto my list thanks to just giving me such a great time, with it being on the newer hardware of the 8th gen consoles it had a very cinematic feel at a lot of points during gameplay, like just lots of times I was like "Damn that looks straight out of a movie!!" As I blow of a enemy vehicle with my grenade launcher while riding in the back of a truck. While I'm sire if I'd say the story was good as Farcry 3 it was still very memorable and there was a lot to do as is the case in most Ubisoft games, just lots of busy work you know? There were secret weapons to find, radio towers to climb which I have to admit always made my hands sweat to some degree and other side quest like activities to partake in, the game never failed in keeping me entertained and I also have to say the DLC Valley of the Yetis was a great time, I streamed that on twitch way back when and got up to 60 viewers! XD Just something I remember, great game and deserves this spot. 2015 Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 Developer: Treyarch Publisher: Activision Genre: FPS For one last time, yes COD is on the list, I can tell you though this is the last time it will be on here. If I'm to ignore my nostalgia for MW2 BO3 is my favorite Call of Duty game, it took the advanced movement from AW and refined it, it had a very deep story campaign that sadly suffers from just how deep it is, if you aren't willing to dig into it yourself, on the surface it makes no sense, it has a mode where you can play the campaign but it's with zombies instead and the missions are in a different order, it's not great but it's fun as extra content, the dedicated zombies mode is back and at it's best imo, multiplayer is also at it's best and also has these courses you can run through to test your skill with the new wall running mechanic and just being able to get through them as quick as possible while boosting around, wall running, swimming and sliding. The extra year of dev time really let them pact a lot of content in here and the game's graphics are also top notch. Specialist were also new to this game with each one having a special weapon or ability you could choose before a match. While 3 lane maps are still the norm here the boost movement, wall running and water really helps it stay more fresh and I don't get nearly as tired out as I do in BO2. Most importantly though BO3 just manged to capture a fun factor in the series that I hadn't felt since MW2 and that's what to me makes it one of the best in the series. Runner up Ori and the Blind Forest Developer: Moon Studios Publisher: Microsoft Genre: Platform adventure, metroidvania Considering all the shooters on this list and just in general more 3D combat focused games this probably feels out of place here, but Ori and the Blind Forest has given me an appreciation for 2D platformers that I simply never had before, while I had played a few I grew up in an era where 3D games were all the rage and 2D games always just seemed kind of..... meh? compared next to them, generally I didn't care for them but Ori hit me in all the right places starting with that trailer at E3 which just made 15 year old me cry. When it finally came out omg was it something else for me. Any time I think of Ori three things come to mind right away, gorgeous visuals, amazing music and top notch control. I just loved playing this game and while I don't think the story was that strong or made me cry the music alone was making me cry. I loved exploring the world of this game and getting upgrades and just listening to it's soundtrack, even the damn main menu music was great! Ori for me quickly became my new favorite series when my others were starting to dip or loose my interest. The Definitive edition added two excellent new abilities and a new area to explore, I can't say enough about this game, I want everyone to go out and play it! 2016 Titanfall 2 Developer: Respawn Entertainment Publisher: EA Genre: FPS Had Titanfall 1 had a campaign I might of put it in for 2014, as I enjoyed the multiplayer but there was just nothing else to do. TF2 improves upon the game in just about every area, including a rather memorable and enjoyable campaign with some very fun missions and compaion partner in BT. (Your titan AI) The gameplay still feels great and wall running is smooth as butter, titan gameplay is still fantastic, there is always something special about calling down your Titan and jumping into to take control! There's a few more guns and many more new abilities to mess around with, like a graple or sensory darts, more titans to choose from although their presets now and little you can actually change. There's more visual customization and weapons are sill pretty balanced. The horde defense mode is a good bit of fun to, overall an excellent game and I will keep hoping for a Titanfall 3. Runner up Forza Horizon 3 Developer: Playground Games Publisher: Microsoft Genre: Racing I hope you guys are ready to see Forza on here a few times because it's a series that has brought me a lot of enjoyment, FH3 is where I jumped into the franchise, I don't think I got it right at launch but sometime before FH4 came out. Honestly I won't have much to say here because well, it's a racing game, every Forza game is packed with detail in both the environments and vehicles, the games have excellent graphics, lots of events to partake in, lots of cars and trucks to unlock, and tons of collectables. FH3 takes place in Australia and has tons of cool places to see, every FH game from my experience has great player flexibility in how they want to play, in that you can aim for a more arcade like experience or go for more realism. I've always gone for the more arcade feel because it's just what I tend to enjoy more, I wanna have fun and not worry about my car's performance because it's banged up. Great game and expect these to be shorter for the next ones. (Author's note: We're now into the era where I've graduated from high school and got my first job, leading me to be able to buy all the games I want but also creating a massive back log for myself, in some regard I miss the days when I had a limited allowance and had to choose carefully for what games I wanted, it definitely made getting a new game feel more special.) 2017 Destiny 2 Developer: Bungie Publisher: Activision Genre: FPS, looter shooter For like the seventh time Bungie is on here, I was honestly debating on having them up here again but there wasn't much for me to choose from in 2017 that I felt I would be happy with. Destiny 2's launch was kind of the inverse of Destiny 1, D2 actually had a pretty good campaign with characters that had personality and feelings but the post game felt worse. Still it delivered on excellent gameplay once again and the art style got all the right improvements, music was pretty good although a little over dramatic at points when nothing really epic was happening on screen. Again thanks to years of support and updates and changes the game got better in a lot of areas, however I would say that I've taken more issues with some of the changes or things they have added in, like champions for instance and how it basically requires you to change your loadout and perks on your armor to deal with them on high level activities, to me it's just not how I would go about making the game more difficult, it also just breaks the lore to. D2 has a lot more ups and downs over it's many seasons, my favorite being season of the splicer which again got a little bit personal for me as I felt it had parallels with real life, and how covid was effecting me mentally and such, again during that season the game brought me much comfort, at the start of every week I was happy to do what I could to help in game with the story. I won't drag on with this, the only other thing I want to mention is gambit..... which I really enjoyed until they changed it down the road, now it's boring and I barely play it. D2 still deserves this spot but it's more up and down compared to D1 over it's life span. Runner up Pokemon Ultra Moon Developer: Game Freak Publisher: Nintendo Genre: RPG How about this? Pokemon is back on this list after 9 years! While I enjoyed most games after gen 4 I just wasn't into pokemon as much I used to be and while I still bought them I just didn't put as much time into them as I used to. Despite Sun and Moon having changed up some things up with how gym battles weren't gym battles any more, but a kind of trial of sort and your helping establish the elite four for Alola, it was a good time. Ultra Moon and Sun made them even better and gave an even deeper story with more end game content (if I remember correctly). HM's had been done away with by this point and I just found myself really enjoying these games, I know there by no means fan favorites (or at least from what I've heard) but I had a blast and it was the most fun I had with pokemon in quite some time, I also just like how weird and strange the story got by the end? With the worm hole to other dimensions and such. To me the series just took a nose dive after it jumped to the Switch with Sword and Shield. 2018 Forza Horizon 4 Developer: Playground Games Publisher: Microsoft Genre: Racing Oh yes, it's back, and now we're in Great Britain for this entry! The stand out feature here is how the seasons actually change and effect the environment in different ways, like having bodies of water frozen over in winter, lots of rain and mud in spring and leaves just everywhere in fall, it's not something I've seen any other racing games put time and energy into but it does help keep the game fresh and fun. I don't think I need to say that they expanded the car roster and that's there's probably even more to do here. I failed to mention it before but I'll mention it here you do have car customization, you can upgrade every car to handle differently, make them faster or make them better off-road or on roads, you can of course also put decals and change the colors of you cars while being able to download other creations from other players. I wanna say FH4 is the game in the series I've put the most time into, and if not it must be close to FH3, still again great game and even feels weird to me to having racing games as my GOTY. Runner up Hollow Knight Developer: Team Cherry Publisher: Team Cherry Genre: Action adventure, Metroidvania Hollow Knight, a game I myself did not get or play when it was brand new on Xbox, and yes this game did come out in 2017 but it's console releases were in 2018 so it falls under this banner for me. Thanks to a cousin that convinced me to buy it and later a friend who finally got me to play it after watching him play it, I quickly came to enjoy it's sorrowful world where nothing happy ever seems to happen and the wonderful soundtrack by Christopher Larkin. Your first playthrough will be full of wonder, always curious whats beyond each pathway, what new enemies could I run into? What new bosses might I face? What new charms could I find? What new and strange characters might I run into? Which pathway do I take? There's a lot of different results you could have on your first playthrough. It was something that really stuck out to me as I am far more use to liner direction, where you always from point A to point B, but in HK you could go from point A to point H, you could stumble upon an area that's not meant for you till much later but hey if you want you can battle through and see where it takes ya. I haven't been bothered to do some of the DLC stuff as it feels targeted towards the hardcore players with boss rushes and such but the main game was more than enough for me, the path of pain is by far one of the hardest 2D platforming sections I've ever done. Also I love the stag, he is the best! 2019 Metro Exodus Developer: 4A Games Publisher: Deep Silver Genre: FPS Remember how I said I love atmospheric video games? It doesn't get much more so than with the Metro series, minimal hud elements, lots of stuff would usually have it's own screen are built into what your character has, like you map and compass for instance are something you pull out. The Metro games have also been some of best looking games of their years, the world is very heavily detailed and they just look fantastic, and it definitely helps with the immersion I get in this series, not many can beat Metro in the immersive department as well. Exodus changed things up from previous games with having most of the game take place above ground compared to the previous which took place mostly underground. There also now these huge expansive levels with side objectives and upgrades to find hidden around the map, the game has multiple endings, I think it's better incorporated here than in previous games. I had a lot of fun and the ending of the game left me feeling like I had failed the character you play as, which isn't something I have felt before, so good job on that. Runner up Gears 5 Developer: The Coalition Publisher: Microsoft Genre: TPS Gears is back after 8 years of not being on the list, again though it's just I didn't see anything else to place above it. That said I did enjoy it more than Gears of War 4, GoW 4 I felt had it's campaign dragged down by fighting robots that weren't particularly interesting (at least imo) for most of the campaign and also just being borderline enemy spam at many points, it was just kind of mentally tiring to get through. Gears 5 (which yes they dropped 'of War' I understand why but I still don't like it) thankfully fixed this and also just had a more interesting story. It's got a more impactful story, better missions, more interesting enemies to fight and much like my GOTY of 2019, it now has these big, massive levels with side objectives and items to find off the beaten path. Again I never got into multiplayer with any of the Gears games and I did spend some time on the horde mode for 5 but the campaign was where I put most of my time and left the biggest impact on me. 2020 Ori and the Will of the Wisps Developer: Moon Studios Publisher: Microsoft Genre: Platform adventure, metroidvania Ori is back baby!! I can't remember the last time I had been so excited for a video game as I was with Ori and the Will of the Wisps. This game was revealed back in 2017 and man was that a painful couple of years waiting for this game to come out, I bought the physical collectors edition for it, something I had never done before for any game. (okay well Blind forest did get a special edition that I bought to, but that was down the road, not when it was new) Will of the Wisps somehow improved on the already gorgeous visuals from the previous games, the game one again had a fantastic sound track and the control was tightened up to god damn perfection. The game is more combat focused now with multiple weapons to get and upgrade, there are new abilities and side quests, one which made me fucking cry. There's also a hub type location to build up and restore to it's formal glory, the story, while still not a strong suit of the game in my opinion is still much better than the first game to. I can't stress how much I love these two games and makes me sad that we probably won't see anything new in this series for a long time if ever. Runner up Bug Fables: The Ever lasting Sapling Developer: Moonsprout Games Publisher: Dangen Entertainment Genre: RPG If Bug Fables console release was in 2019 it'd probably at the top of the list, or at least RU, but as it was in 2020 it's stuck behind what was my most hyped game that I was looking forward to. Bug Fables was a game that I had been looking forward to for multiple years as well, a spiritual successor to Paper Mario and Paper Mario TTYD (both on this list!) I had plenty of reasons to be excited, however I never got overly hyped because the trailers for the game always left me kind of underwhelmed, just left me feeling mixed anytime I saw them. That said when I did buy it, I wasn't disappointed. While the game didn't have 6-8 partners you could get in Paper Mario, the 3 characters we did have all get way more time to develop, they all have interesting backstories and personalties. The turned based system got improved upon in all the right ways, being able to swap a party members turn to another member if they can't effect the current enemy, or for other reasons, and a reason to think about your placement of who's in front. There are medals to make use of for different strategies, team attacks and items for consuming or throwing at the enemy. It takes what worked in PM but improves upon it adds it's own flavor into the mix, it was one of my favorites games of the year for sure. 2021 Death's Door Developer: Acid Nerve Publisher: Devolver Digital Genre: Action adventure GOTY for 2021 was a surprise for me, something I've taken to doing in the last year or two is browsing the Xbox store more often, seeing what games make their way onto there. Death's Door was one I had never heard of till I saw it on the store, but from the trailer and screenshots I was impressed and made the purchase. As per usual on this list, I wasn't disappointed, a rather interesting story line, cute but also grim visuals for how twisted some things are in this world, it is about death after all. Challenging combat and good bosses along with new abilities to get the deeper you get into the game kept me going. You can also upgrade your HP and magic points for using your abilities with items you find in the different locals you go to, although the game is a little lighter as you can only upgrade them twice in total, there are also upgrades for your combat abilities that you can purchase with the souls you collect, they can increase your melee damage or increase the power of your dodge move. Also can't forget different weapons to get, like an umbrella, a giant hammer or my favorite, dual daggers. Just an unexpected gem of a game that I bought on a whim, highly recommend it. Runner up Forza Horizon 5 Developer: Playground Games Publisher: Microsoft Genre: Racing For the final game on this list, he head back to the racing genre for a final time, honestly I don't have much else to say about this franchise, it's been one of best in the genre for about a decade right? Just consistently providing top tier games in the genre and so much fun. This time in the series we head to Mexico with many unique locals, from the desert, to thick, lush forests, to beautiful beaches and even a volcano. You can run into tropical and sandstorms now, there's plenty of the usual in collectables and challenges, of course cars to collect. With the game having been developed for the Xbox consoles to it is an absolute treat for the eyes visually. I don't think I need say much else at this point, and hey this is game number 44 on this list, so I think ya'll understand if I'm a little tired by this point DX. Great game if your a car lover. I hope everyone had a good time reading this, it was quite the task to put this together, to look through 22 years and select my favorite two and write about them. For some of you younger than me maybe you look into a few of the older games on here, and I'm sure some will say: "How do you not have (insert game here) It was the best of (insert year here)!!" Sorry to tell ya but I only buy what I'm interested in, and I have a huge backlog to get through, honestly really expecting at least one person to bring up Dark souls or any game like it that's from FS. Developer count: Bungie x7 Ubisoft Montreal X4 Playground games X3 Game Freak X3 Free Radical Design X2 Intelligent Systems X2 Infinity Ward X2 Treyarch X2 Moon Studios X2 Epic Games X2 Sonic Team USA Croteam Nintendo Entertainment Capcom production studio 4 Hudson Soft Nintendo EAD Sora LTD 343 Industries DICE Respawn Entertainemt Team Cherry 4A Games The Coalition Moonsprout Games Acid Nerve Yeah this makes sense, I have basically stuck with Bungie sense I played Halo 1 way back when, they have pretty much always made games I enjoy, Ubisoft Montreal surprises me a little bit but hey great to see some Canadian representation on here. A lot of the studios on here make sense and in total 15 different studios made it onto my list. Publisher count: Microsoft X14 Nintendo X9 Activison X6 Ubisoft X4 Eidos Interactive X2 EA X2 Devolver Digital X2 SEGA Capcom Team Cherry Deep Silver Dangen Entertainment It's about what I'd expect, as someone who's main gaming platform is the Xbox it's fairly understandable they'd be up here a number of times, from Halo to Ori and Forza they easily eat up a lot of spots, Nintendo had a big impact on my childhood as they had the gaming platforms I grew up on for the most part, they pretty much disappear once you get into the 2010's though outside of Pokemon Ultra Moon. Activision makes sense, lots of shooters, 4 from COD and 2 from Destiny but It would be wrong of me to not mention that Bungie is no longer under Activison, I only included it since the games released while under them. Ubisoft for it's AC games and one Farcy game on my list checks out. Devolver Digital being on here twice I find funny as there is a 19 year gap between their published games on my list, Serious Sam from 2002 and than Death's Door in 2021. Genre count: FPS X19 Action adventure X7 RPG X6 TPS X4 Racing X4 Stealth X3 Metroidvania X3 2D X3 Looter Shooter X2 Platformer Adventure X2 Platformer Survival Horror Party Fighting This should be no surprise, my favorite genre is FPS so almost 20 games being in that genre is expected. I did just use each games wiki page for genre while adding looter shooter and 2D. I am slightly amazed that there aren't more third person shooters on my list and 6 role playing games is more than I expected. Looking at the last few years though I have been getting more enjoyment out of racing games and 2D platformers as I just haven't found a lot of FPS games I enjoy, maybe I'm starting to not enjoy the genre as much? Just loosing interest? Who knows. What I do know is that this list is finally done! I talked about 44 games that all mean something to me, yes even Timesplitters 1. This is probably the biggest post I've ever made and the closest I've come to doing a "my favorite games of all time" list, if anything it's a good starting point, a lot of these games would be on that list if I were ever to make it, and how many games would I include on it? Hmmmm questions to be answered in the future I suppose, for now though I need to take a break, this has been mentally exhausting and I'm so glad to finally have it over with after a year of it sitting on the back burner. Cya guys next time! (Apologies for any spelling and grammar mistakes along the way!) This was over 11,500 words, kill me now

First claim April 24th

Welcome back once more for another installment in my series of looking at players who passed the 1500 TPE milestone! I would like to acknowledge that Duncan Idaho has passed 1500 TPE and by the time I get to the next part he will have moved above top 20, if not even higher. Now let's move forward with our player at spot 20! 20: Jerry Garcia (Gustav) 1541 TPE Staying in the S60's,@Gustav's player Jerry Garcia is the subject of our next conversation. A low pick in the VHLM draft, which is honestly refreshing to see, Garcia was taken in the 5th round at pick 36th in season 65 by the Houston Bulls. He did play that season with them, all 72 games, earning 28 assists and 33 points. In the postseason he had just 1 assist in 7 games. For his VHL draft he was selected 7th overall by the Malmo Nighthawks in season 66 and would spend most of his career with his draft team. In the WC his most standout performance was S70 where he had 9 assists and 10 points in 10 games. Entering the top tier of ice hockey play, Jerry Garcia only had two seasonsato ro above a point per game, that's among the lowest yet. He was above a 0.5 points per game in seven of his eight seasons at least, with the best two seasons of his career actually coming once he left Malmo after six seasons with the team. Those final two seasons in Davos saw his points and goal jump up significantly. Season 72 he had 39 goals, a career high, along with 45 assists for 84 points, a career high yet again, in his final season he had 32 goals, 40 assists for 72 points. Really it is shocking to see as his whole time with Malmo his best season goal wise was just 11, although his career high in assists was with the Nighthawks as season 68 saw him get 50 helpers and 60 points, his best with the team. His regular season totals are as follows: 576 games played, 123 goals, 297 assists for 420 points (if only I typed this up two days earlier). Garcia made the postseason a total of five times, three times with Malmo, twice with Davos, and his first time in the playoffs was probably his best; it was the only deep run he had during his career. 16 games, 3 goals, 11 assists for 14 points. This isn't to say his other playoff performances were bad, but they usually went between 4-6 games with him sitting anywhere from 1 to 4 points. All in all, he played 35 postseason games, scoring 7 goals, 18 assists for 25 points. Garcia..... well he has no personal awards as one could have guessed, but he was part of the Victory Cup winning Malmo Nighthawks in season 68! Most TPE in a week is 48, which he managed twice. Small tangent time: From 13th to 20th there's a drop of 5-7 TPE between each player, you already have four players that have a drop of six between each of them, with minor edits of subtracting or adding one TPE you could have eight players in a row where there's a drop of six TPE per player, what could have been. 21: Thomas Landry ll (Doomsday) 1527 TPE Our first "big" drop off in some time, Landry ll sits 14 TPE back of Garcia. @Doomsday should still be proud with this player though as he achieved a lot; just goes to show, TPE isn't everything. Drafted 9th overall by the San Diego Marlins in season 70 in the VHLM, he had played 20 games with Hextall in Halifax the season prior, putting up 7 points and in the playoffs managing 6 points as the 21st went 11 games deep. In San Diego the next season he put up 145 points split between 60 goals and 85 assists in 72 games. In the playoffs the Marlins were somewhat upset by the Ottawa Lynx who had 3 less points than them in the regular season; in those 10 games Landry ll put up 7 goals, 8 assists for 15 points. In the VHL he was drafted 5th overall by the Prague Phantoms, a team he would spend his whole career with. In the WC he was very consistent, above a point per game all 3 times, in 30 games he had 16 goals, 19 assists for 35 points. Joining the Phantoms now Landry ll achieved a point per game pace in half of the season of career and almost hit it a fifth time in S74 with 71 points, he did reach 100 points once in his career. That 105 point season in S76 also had 67 assists, both career bests, and his 38 goals was his second most in a season. For his career high there next season is where you look, 45 goals, 50 assists for 95 points. He reached 30 goals six times during his career and 40 assists five times, overall in 576 games played he scored 265 goals, had 335 apples for exactly 600 points, nice round number there. The Phantoms reached the playoffs five times while Thomas Landry ll was with the team, S76 and S78 being their best runs where both times they played 11 games, in the former season he had 6 goals and 9 assists for 15 points, and for the latter season 4 goals and 8 assists for 12 points. All together he played 39 games in the post season, netted 14 goals, had 26 helpers for exactly 40 points, again another nice round number. Unlike Garcia, Landry ll does have a personal award from the VHLM, the Matt Bentz Trophy, which I think may be my first time mentioning it in this series. Most TPE in a week 40. 22: Taro Tsujimoto (Gustav) 1522 TPE Somehow when I'm only doing three players per post now Gustav gets on here twice, lucky guy. @Gustav's player Tsujimoto sits 19 TPE back of his other player on here and is also our youngest player so far. Drafted 4th overall in the VHLM by the Mississauga Hounds in season 74, he played a total of 91 games in the M split between the Hounds and Lynx, 50 goals, 69 assists for 119 points with his drafted team and 3 points in season 73. In 20 playoff games he has 4 goals, 10 assists for 14 points, I would be remiss not to mention that all of those points came in 15 games played with the Hounds. In his VHL draft he was selected 9th overall in season 75 by the HC Davos Dynamo. All of his WC performances were great and again I feel I should mention them all, in 30 games he's scored 16 goals, 29 assists, for 45 points, even better than Landry ll's WC showings. Tsujimoto would spend seven of his eight seasons with his draft team before heading to Seattle for the final season of his career. Taro reached the point per game mark six times during his career and reached 100 points twice, his final season in Seattle in S82 was indeed a swan song for the ages, 139 points, 53 goals, 86 assists, all career highs for him. Wouldn't be much fun to leave it at that though so let's look at some of his other seasons, S80 Taro got 114 points with 46 in the back of the net and 68 apples, S81 he reached 50 goals for the first time in his career and had 98 points and in S77 he got 44 goals and 92 points. His regular season career totals are: 576 games played, 312 goals, 412 assists for 724 points. In the playoffs he only got there four times but was a point per game or more every time, his first appearance was his best with 21 points in just 10 games, 11 of goals and 10 assists, his last go around was great in Seattle, 7 goals, 8 assists for 15 points. In total he netted 26 goals, 22 assists for 48 points in just 29 games! Although his trophy case may be lacking in minor awards, the two Scotty Campbell awards in season 80 and 82 are hallmarks of an elite player, as the majority of players never get any MVP recognition, let alone in the VHL. Most TPE in a week 39. With this part concluding, Benny Graves, Rayz Funk, Dakota Lamb, Hulk Hogan and the previously mentioned Duncan Idaho are the current remaining players to cover. At the time of writing Battre Sandstorm sits 40 TPE away from 1500, if he reaches the milestone that’s six more players to cover; until next time readers! (Word count 1468)

1. Pre season wise it seemed pretty good, actual start of the season? A little rougher 2. Pretty good although a lose or two that we probably should have won? Or at least I feel that way. 3. A bit more on faceoffs than banking 4. I hope not, although depending on if I'm still here next season or not, someone may have to fill that hole 5. I didn't do them so I don't have any hopes. 6. I was working that night, so sleeping.

D - Asher Reinhart @Jack Johnsonjust a reminder it's your go

G - Xavier Booberry @Dil your turn

Yes

I swear I got tagged, my apologies

F - Nico Pearce @Girtsback to you