@mZuzek hey, how would you prefer we send our lists to you? Ascending from 1-50, or descending from 50-1?

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In the unlikely event anyone cares, my top 50 this year (which will, as usual, simply be a list of my 50 favorite games, NOT some objective listing of games according to what I'd consider technical quality) will include seven games that weren't on my list from last year, including three that have been released within the last year and four older titles I've finally found the chance to play over the year. All of these new additions but one will be located in the top 25, moreover. The result is that independently-developed games have now just about taken over the list, displacing nearly all of the more properly corporate releases. Knowing myself, I figure that's a trend that will most likely continue in the coming years as well. There are some highly notable exceptions though that aren't likely going anywhere, including two new AAA releases from this last year that both now rank in my top 13.

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Well there was this guy you'll recall I had an exchange with here on the analogous thread to this from last year who explained that not every game on his list was actually among his personal favorites, but that rather he included some games based instead on what he perceived to be simply the quality of design behind them. Told me he felt that that should be part of one's evaluation, as implied by the title of the event, "Greatest Games". I was just seeking to clarify that that's NOT my approach.

Anyway, yeah no, I despise capitalism with a passion. I really do. Like my favorite news program is still what's today known as the PBS NewsHour and everything. I cannot stand the concept of profit. Always been that way. Profit just seems to make everything more callous and fake. I need the world to have a soul, not "incentives". I know the faults with other approaches to the economy and life and I don't claim to truly know what the answer is specifically and in detail, but there has just GOT to be a better way, a better system, than this. This simply cannot be the best way that it's possible for people to live. There has to be another, more human way. When it comes to games, for example, I want people to make games that they themselves want to play; games that are expressions of themselves, not just what market testing tells them the average consumer supposedly wants. You know, I don't want the design and themes of games to be dictated by money-making prospects.

That's pretty similar to my list, though I do have a lot of retrogames in my list to spice it up a bit.

I just felt this year's sequel had a more conventional vibe than the original in the sense that it tells a thematically similar story using the same play style but tilted more toward action and scale this time around. In essence, it does what the original did in a "bigger", less intimate way like sequels usually do. That just makes it seem a bit less sincere and more motivated by the promise of money...to me! Obviously that's simply my personal judgment and nothing more. That's also not to say I disliked the game! Not at all! It just wasn't as genuinely distinctive and special to me as the first game was, which is why the original still makes my top 50 list and the sequel doesn't. That's all. The 'more epic' contextualization just didn't connect to me quite as personally, I mean as someone who has lost my parents in real life.

It's just taking more and more over time not to displace older games beyond the rank of #50. Only my absolute favorites from the old days survive the culling at this point. However, one game from 1995 still ranks among my top 10 favorites, although it's a pretty obscure title with a lot of personal value attached that influences its ability to stay there. Namely, it was a birthday gift from my first girlfriend, who's family moved away shortly thereafter. We played it together a lot during the brief interval in-between and it always reminds me of her. ...I get sentimental that way.