Your favourite games from the dark age of pure shit (2005 - 2009)

[Lemming42]

Similar to the "post-decline gems" thread, except focusing specifically on what I think must be the single worst period in gaming history.

I'm making a big list of every game I think is worth playing from 1990 to 2024. Not games I adore, not even games I necessarilly like, just games which are worth playing in some way. Mostly PC-only, though the occasional console game breaks containment.

The lists are being composed from memory; I'm only putting down games I can remember without consulting a list or MobyGames or whatever. For every year from 1995 to 2002, I have at least fifteen games per year, often far more. 2003 and 2004 fare relatively well too. From 2010 onwards, I can at least manage ten games per year, with far more in the 2018 - 2023 period, which feels like a real rejuvination of gaming.

For the whole 2005 - 2009 stretch though? Here's my list:

Spoiler

2005
Stolen
SWAT 4
F.E.A.R.
Quake 4

2006
Oblivion
Titan Quest
Dark Messiah of Might & Magic
Tomb Raider: Legend

2007
BioShock
Portal
Assassin's Creed
Mass Effect
Aquaria

2008
Fallout 3
Mirror's Edge

2009
Dawn of War II
Dragon Age: Origins

That's it. For a full four-year stretch. 17 games I could think of. And a lot of these games aren't even good - Quake IV is the definition of mediocre, Mass Effect is overall very boring, Oblivion sucks and is only there because it's part of the TES series, BioShock isn't up to much, and then there's shit like Stolen and Titan Quest which are just knockoffs of pre-existing, generally better games. I don't like AssCreed much, I just think it's an interesting experiment/tech demo/whatever. Tomb Raider: Legend fucking sucks and it's only "worth" playing to see the destruction of a once-beloved franchise happen before your eyes.

For comparison, here are my preliminary lists for 1997 and 1998 alone - also composed entirely from memory, and thus incomplete:

Spoiler

1997
Realms of the Haunting
Turok
Magic: The Gathering
The Last Express
Outlaws
Shadow Warrior
Blood
Dungeon Keeper
Carmageddon
Claw
Hexen II
Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee
Fallout
MageSlayer
Nightmare Creatures
Dark Forces 2
Take No Prisoners
Total Annihilation
Crash Bandicoot 2
Tomb Raider 2
Myth: The Fallen Lords
The Elder Scrolls: Battlespire
Quake II

1998
Star Trek: Klingon Honor Guard
Die By The Sword
Deathtrap Dungeon
Rage of Mages
Forsaken
Unreal
Descent to Undermountain
Baldur's Gate
Rainbow Six
ODT: Escape or Die Trying
Hexplore
Might & Magic VI
Spyro the Dragon
Delta Force
Fallout 2
Crash Bandicoot 3
King's Quest: Mask of Eternity
The Elder Scrolls: Redguard
Heretic II
SiN
Half-Life
Thief: The Dark Project
Tomb Raider III
Space Bunnies Must Die!

Each of these two years individually has more games I could think of than the entire 2005 - 2009 period. And they're mostly better games, too.

That particular four year stretch is truly dire, the most barren in gaming history. What are your saving graces from this shit period?

 

[processdaemon]

YMMV on how good they are but the ones I liked were NWN 2 in 2006, Jade Empire (on PC, 2005 for Xbox), The Witcher and MotB in 2007, and Divinity 2: Ego Draconis in 2009. I have a particular soft spot for Ego Draconis.

 

[NecroLord]

FEAR and Quake 4 are pretty good.
Especially FEAR. The first game and its expansions, that is. The following games in the series are pretty shit.
Quake 4 is still a decent shooter, despite being clearly inferior to the original masterpiece Quake and even Quake 2: Strogg Boogaloo.

 

[Dr1f7]

• Star Wars Battlefront 2
• Guitar Hero

i think that's it

 

[Grauken]

2005
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
Wizardry Gaiden: Prisoners of the Battles

2006
Lyle in Cube Sector
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin
Within a Deep Forest
Wizardry Gaiden: The Five Ordeals

2007
An Untitled Story
Etrian Odyssey

2008
The Dark Spire
Etrian Odyssey 2

2009
Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey
Knights of the Chalice

 

[Falksi]

2005

• God Of War
• Rome: Total War - Barbarian Invasion
• Phantasy Star Universe

2006

• Persona 3
• Okami
• Yakuza 2
• Only really getting into it now, but Neverwinter Nights 2 is impressing me so far now that the camera is fixed. Definite contender.

2007

• Mass Effect
• The Darkness
• Earth Defense Force 2017
• Lost Odyssey

2008

• Valkyria Chronicles
• Dead Space
• Condemned 2: Bloodshot
• Far Cry 2
• Persona 4
• Saints Row 2
• Last Remnant
• Fallout 3 - This is always an odd one for me. I think it's a pretty shit game, and have utterly detested any attempt to replay it, but I really enjoyed my first playthrough of it. I played it over the X-Mas hols with a constant belly full of ale, whisky and chocolate, and having just moved in with the ex so having lots of filthy sex too; so I put this down to being the wrong game at the right time. I think for those two weeks I could have played with a shitty stick and though it was the best thing ever lol.

2009

• Divinity 2: Ego Draconis
• Batman Arkham Asylum
• Red Faction Guerilla
• Dragon Age: Origins
• The Saboteur

Honestly, I look at the above games and, whilst they were the best for me at the time and offered some enjoyment, only half of them stuck with me. There's a lot of junk-food gaming in there, enjoyable junk for one-&-done, but junk none-the-less.

The only game with a chance of breaking my top 20 out of those is Mass Effect. Possibly Dead Space, but I'd have to replay it.

I really need to play Etrian Odyssey.

 

[Grauken]

Neverwinter Nights 2 is impressing me so far now that the camera is fixed

it is? was there a new patch?

 

[Blutwurstritter]

Games that I remembered and have played close to their release. It wasn't a total wasteland if you consider all genres. Some of those games are great.

2005
Flatout
Earth 2150

2006
Call of Juarez

2007
The Witcher
Supreme Commander
Crysis
Stalker
Stranglehold

2008
Dead Space
Sacred 2

2009
Riddick Assault on Dark Athena
Trine

 

[Falksi]

Neverwinter Nights 2 is impressing me so far now that the camera is fixed

it is? was there a new patch?

Honestly no idea mate, but I assume so because somethings changed.

I first tried playing it back in the day to no avail, then again around 2017 and still issues, and now have just been rerunning old games such as Baldurs Gate, Icewind dale etc. got to NWN2 and it's suddenly playing like it always should. I didn't start playing it because I was aware of any change, I just got around to it again and it finally feels like the game it should have always been.

Part of me wonders if the BG3 popularity may have prompted them to sort it out, to make some easy sales on the back of the current CRPG trend?

 

[Max Damage]

Quake 4 and Doom 3 kind of blend together into same game that I can't remember much about besides lots of dark corridors, more of a tech demo than anything resembling a fun game. Seconding FEAR and Arkham Asylum. For me the real gem from that time period is Mount & Blade: Warband (2008), great game and many good mods, even though sieges were as enjoyable as watching paint dry. NWN 2 OC sucked, but I enjoyed Mask of the Betrayer. Storm of Zehir was lots and lots of loading between tiny locations, couldn't finish it. Oh, and Knights of the Chalice came out in 2009, pretty sweet turn-based fantasy adventure. DoDonPachi DFK and several good Touhou games also got released during that time period too.

 

[Lemming42]

Honestly, I look at the above games, and whilst they were the best for me at the time and offered some enjoyment, only half of them stuck with me. There's a lot of junk-food gaming in there, enjoyable junk for one-&-done, but junk none-the-less.

Yeah, this seems to be the mood of the whole era. I forgot about Dead Space, which I liked a lot when I played it but have zero desire at all to revisit, maybe ever.

For me the real gem from that time period is Mount & Blade: Warband (2008), great game and many good mods, even though sieges were as enjoyable as watching paint dry.

Agreed, although Warband is 2010. The original M&B was 2008 and definitely one of the best games of the era, though I didn't put it on my list for 2008 since Warband just totally supercedes it.

 

[Max Damage]

Oh right, I kinda forgot about vanilla at this point, feels weird to suddenly try to remember how the map looked pre-sarranids.

 

[Arryosha]

My favs would be:

Civ 4 (2005)
Flight Simulator X (2006)
Risen (2009)

 

[Max Damage]

Civ 4 + expansions I have about 600 hours in, my favorite 4X of all time. I guess I just forgot it came out so long ago because there wasn't really a successor ever since, 5 and 6 are sidegrades (if I could speak charitably of those).

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Yes, with the exception of STALKER, the western games in the period 2004-2009 were shit. There are some relatively good game in this period from Japan, but they are very few.

The ps3/xbox360 is truly the worst period in gaming history.

 

[3 others]

Yeah, Civ 4 for sure. The high point of the series and civlikes in general.

SWAT 4 (2005) was such a focused, well-polished tactical police shooter. Not sure that it has been surpassed after all these years.

Braid (2008) put both "puzzle-platforming" and "indie games" on the major stage. Braid's a significant title in gaming history in that it showed that a singular auteur/autist vision and a tiny team can produce a game that can stand audiovisually shoulder-to-shoulder with AAA giants, and be commercially viable in the process. It's also a genuine 5/5 game stlll today.

That's probably the big three of the era.

 

[3 others]

Times surely have changed. The state of indie games was so dire at the beginning of the time frame that even a mediocrity like Gish was something of a big event back in 2005 and the AA midlevel industry didn't really exist then to nearly the extent it does today. But there were some other games worth a mention:

Silent Hunter 3
Cave Story
DEFCON
Arkham Asylum
Trine
Psychonauts (forgot about this, it should have been in the previous highlight list)
World of Goo

 

[AndyS]

Psychonauts
Brutal Legend
Mercenaries
Fire Pro Wrestling Returns
The Warriors
Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
Bully
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic
Yakuza 2
Crackdown
Persona 3
Mount and Blade
The Witcher
STALKER
Arkham Asylum
Spelunky
Way of the Samurai 3

 

[Joggerino]

I'd have to look at the games released to give a proper list but for now I'll just mention battlefield 2 (2005) and call of duty 2 (2005)

 

[Vorark]

Some of my picks were mentioned already, so not to be repetitive here are other games I enjoyed and still remember fondly to this day. Hopefully I got the release dates right:

2005
Shadow of the Colossus (PS2)
Tales of the Abyss (PS2)
Trace Memory / Another Code (DS)

2006
Ridge Racer 2 (PSP, Europe only at the time for some reason)
Disaster Report 2 / Raw Danger (PS2, spotty localization though)
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon (GBA/DS, surprisingly good game in spite of the pokemans)

2007
The World Ends With You (DS)
Puzzle Quest Challenge of the Warlords (Multi)

2008
Monster Hunter Freedom Unite (PSP)
Knights in the Nightmare (DS, got an enhanced PSP port later)

2009
Devil Survivor 1 (DS)
Dragon Quest V remake (DS)


Portable scene and the venerable PS2 were pumping good titles back then, the drought was mostly restricted to PC and PS3/Xblob.

 

[luj1]

This was the shitest period for games ever, but I liked Guild Wars 1

 

[__scribbles__]

Demon's Souls
Portal

 

[Dorateen]

2008: Storm of Zehir

2009: Knights of the Chalice

 

[Iucounu]

Yes, with the exception of STALKER, the western games in the period 2004-2009 were shit.

Stalker is Ukrainean, so no exceptions (except Crysis).

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Yeah, Civ 4 for sure. The high point of the series and civlikes in general.

civ3 was overall better. but civ4's mods surpass anything and everything.