34. Dragon's Dogma
One of the PS360 era's biggest sleeper hits. Much like Alien Isolation, I bought this game during a bit of a dry spell, without much expectation, and ended up completely in love with it. Climbing around on monsters, cutting off limbs, stabbing them quite literally in the ass, etc...what's not to love about that? All the classes/jobs had their own unique, enjoyable flavor, that kept the gameplay highly engaging all the way through. The Pawn system was quite interesting, and could be greatly expanded for a future entry, and I really liked the idea of the endgame, with a shared world boss that players all across the world have to tackle together over the course of many battles (this too could be greatly fleshed out). It's been a long-ass wait for a sequel, but hopefully it'll be worth it.
33. Batman Arkham City
The best Batman game we've gotten to date, and Batman is awesome. Not much more need be said.
32. Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth
So, Lord of the Rings was pretty much my most favorite thing ever as a teenager. Yea, shocker, I know. I also love strategy games, and so Battle for Middle Earth was just perfection for me. 2 campaigns, that let me either follow the story of the movies, or fight for Sauron and tear it all down? Sweet. All the heroes and villains with huge impact abilities to affect battles? Nice. Command armies of all the various races and monsters of Middle Earth? Rohirim cavalry running over orcs, Ents stomping orcs, Olyphants stomping everything? Fuck yes. I actually also quite liked the very simple, modular base system they had in the game. One they abandoned for the sequel, and ironically, would have been a much better fit for a game built to also ship on consoles. In any case, probably one of my most played games of all time.
31. Dishonored 2
Memory is a funny thing. It can mislead you greatly. I loved Dishonored 1 so much at the time it released, being the spiritual successor to Thief that I didn't fully know I needed in my life, that I actually viewed it in a very distorted lens for a while. So much so, that when I first jumped into the sequel, I wasn't impressed with it. This is just Dishonored 1.5...Arkane didn't do enough with 4 years...it doesn't have the same magic...etc. These were the thoughts running through my head playing the first hour or so of Dishonored 2, and I actually put it down. In fact, I didn't return to it for a couple of years. Alas, I eventually got back around to a craving for stealthy assassination in my life, so I played the definitive edition of Dishonored, and Dishonored 2, back-to-back. Wow. The Dishonored 2 is so many leaps and bounds better than the first game, it actually blew my mind how basic the first game felt in comparison. Like a proof of concept to the sequel's masterful execution of pretty much every aspect. Particularly the level design, which is just an absolute masterclass. Sometimes, it's good to be wrong. Once you finally realize it, of course lol.
30. Borderlands 2
If we could just take the gunplay, and gun variety of Borderlands 3, and throw them into this game, we'd have the perfect Borderlands game. I think it's generally agreed upon that Borderlands 2 is the best in the series, and it's for good reason. The story, the characters, whether it's base game, or DLCS...it's all excellent. I still go back and re-play the whole thing with some friends every now and again, cus it's just a damn good time. For contrast, I couldn't name a single new character from Borderland 3, nor do I care to ever play through that campaign again.
