Someday I will…

Both Mass Effect and Crysis are games I’d like to play though

@Daniel - I liked both Curse and Escape. Either way, definitely worth playing. And I will have to check out that artbook.

@Abhijit - I had not heard of No One Lives Forever, before, so I will *definitely* have to check that one out

Mario is one of the most stylistic because 8 bit graphics are all over the place even now.
Fallout had some amazing visuals and unique looks.
Darwinia and defcon both had unique and interesting visuals that were simple and head turning.

I think that this list could be revised a thousand times over.

FF9 is on the list because it broke from the trend of FF7/FF8 of ‘grown-up’ graphics, and referenced old school FF with up-to-date visuals. The character designs are spot on, They aren’t 100% original, but they are polished to a good degree, and post-FF9 the obsession with belts and floppy hair took over completely.

Mario is very stylistic, and I do admire what they managed to create within the limitations of what they had to work with. But I stuck with ten, and - like all lists ever written - that ten is a matter of opinion and circumstance.

Thanks for the pointers toward Darwinia and defcon!

As an addition: TimeShift, though I think the story stinks and doesn’t play out well, also the time ‘puzzles’ are simplistic and repetitive, has a pretty interesting style to the decayed and war-torn urban environment.

Time Shift, hm? You don’t seem to think much of it as a game

Anyway, I’ve got no problem with people thinking I’m a fool for something like my choice of games for a top ten list It was meant to spark discussion, and get people to tell me what games I should be playing next

Bioshock, on the other hand, just stole the art deco styling off of Ayn Rand’s objectivist novels, which were also the source of most of the story’s themes. It was a unique path for a game, but there wasn’t much that was original in it that they didn’t take from other sources. On the other hand, Monkey Island and other games you have listed here were dreamed up completely from scratch.

Compare with Team Fortress 2, a game that utterly oozes character and humor and, dare I say it, style.
Two related games also deserve mention, Ico and Shadows of the Colossus, between the two I have to say Shadows is the more stylish game.

If we’re talking super-powered Nano-suit games, Crysis just walks all over TimeShift, but then again Crysis is very open-ended on the objective route whereas TimeShift is pretty linear. The only real choices you get are how or if you’re going to use your time-shifting powers to take out the next group of badguys as you’re almost guaranteed to have to use them to advance to the next area once they’re all dead because your path is going to be blocked by one of a handful of obstacles: Electrified water, Fire, machine moving things from one area into yours (have to reverse time to get it to go the other way), etc.

I mean, the ideas and the obstacles are neat to progress through…like slowing down time so you can run through a mine field, but after a bit I just started getting the “Oh this again” feeling. The AI has that natural intuitive knowledge of exactly where you’re at, even if you froze time and ran to a different area, which really takes a lot of the time suit fun out of it for me….I mean, you could lay some very evil traps with those abilities. Bad guy grabs you by the collar and is going to punch you…freeze time and put a grenade in the hand on your collar and the pin on his fist - Surprise!

About 99% of the time you’re going to be using the Time-Slow ability, as the other 2, freeze and reverse, either don’t last long enough to matter much most of the time, or leave you powerless to do anything regarding the enemy- reversing time you cannot attack or hurt anyone without stopping the reversion, so it really is only going to be used for the puzzle to get to the next area of the stage.

I will say that the weapons rock, like using a small crossbow with a sniper scope that has explosive darts is pretty sick…stick em anywhere and they go boom. Combine that with the Time-Slow, and you’re the best sniper in existence.

Anyway…the style of it is kind of hard to explain. It made me feel like the whole old-fashioned ‘World of Tomorrow’ theme if you know what I mean.

Monica: I can play Bioshock with all the goodies turned on and 1680×1050, so if you can do at least medium/high on Bio, then you should be fine to play Crysis somewhere around medium, maybe a little under. My 8600GTS is way OC’d by the manufacturer, so your mileage may vary.

I’ve heard the Bioshock is very ‘Ayn Rand’, but to me that doesn’t necessarily prevent it from being stylish. Originality is over-rated, to an extent. Taking something like that atmosphere and translating it into a game - and making it work - is quite a feat in itself. It would be like if someone could capture the atmosphere of the Gormenghast novels and turn that ‘feel’ into a game - that would rock, if done well. It wouldn’t be original, but it would be damn stylish

Mark: I have played Ico, but I didn’t get on with it, surprisingly. I’m not sure why… I know many people think it’s classic. I shall have to try it again sometime and see if I like it any better.

TF2 is obviously something I’ve missed out on

Justin: I see where you’re coming from with the Time Shift… it does bug me somewhat when an entire game revolves around one ‘ability’, whatever it may be. They can be awesome, but they should be kept short.

Gotta say tho great choice with Grim Fandango

I sure wished they still made games like that…. aaah the memories

Joey

Some people did bring up some interesting games which would belong on a list like this, but there are a few that were brought up that aren’t really “stylish”. Crysis… not stylish at all. Frickin amazing graphics, but pretty standard fare for an fps. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a great game, it just means it doesn’t belong on this list. Mass Effect is stylish, but it is pretty standard fare for a Space RPG as well (great game though… nay, excellent game).

Bioshock, while “stealing” its style from the 1960s, has more style than most of the games people were giving up as alternatives. How many games have you seen set in this type of a 1960s environment? How many games have the ambiance and overall style that Bioshock has? Not any that I have played… and trust me, I play a lot of games. Too many. I need a life.

All of the games you put on the list deserve to be on a list like this, and certainly there are more games that deserve to be on a list like this as well.

Number 1, a sequel will never be more stylish than its predecessors, except in the event of a cataclysmic change, which changes the game so completely, to look at the two together one would not recognize them as kin. IE GTA 2 and GTA 3. Therefor, Silent Hill 3, while not a bad game, was not that different from Silent Hill 2, or 1. In the end, it is still a thriller zombie game, and frankly, there are enough of those.

Keeping in that tone with the Final Fantasy series, as a whole they are an extremely stylish, very well done series. I didn’t like 9 or 10. However, FF 8 holds a record in my house as having the most playthroughs of any game I have ever owned to date. (KOTOR 1 and 2, as well as Mass Effect are catching up though.) I wouldn’t put 9 on the list, but the entire library would hold at the very least an honorary position.

Frankly, I never could get in to Bioshock. It has a stunning intro, but beyond that, I was disinterested in the first few minutes. It never picked up for me. It is graphically stunning, but frankly, there are plenty of better games that meet that criteria and I wouldn’t put any of them on the list either. I understand the argument so many people make in favor of Bioshock, but its one of the games that I will never enjoy. Its just not my cup of tea.

WoW is the MMO of MMO’s, but its STILL an MMO. My inherent disgust for the genre automatically boots it from my list. My genuine distrust of Blizzard only adds to the effect. Certain aspects of the gameplay I can apreciate, but the addiction to the game itself stops the game from being fun, and turns it into an obsession. Games aren’t supposed to be about obsession, they’re entertainment. No more. They’re not supposed to consume any real part of your life, only add a factor of enjoyment to make your days seem a little less stressful. WoW is denied.

Anything with Disney is vetoed. End of story. Kingdom Hearts was yet another attempt by Eisner to franchise out what was already stretched thin. Mikey Mouse is more recognizable on Earth than any other figure. That includes the traditional concepts of Christian divinity, (IE Jesus) by the way. Anything with a name that big lacks style. There’s no more style left in anything Disney. Granted, FF brought some to the party, but not enough.

I haven’t played the others. I haven’t even heard of some of them. So I’ll leave them from my arguments. There are much better games out there, which I’ve mentioned. Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2 are amazing. Fable has similar qualities and I would probably bump Kingdom Hearts in favor of Fable specifically. Mass Effect has an amazing dialog engine and some great gameplay. All of those games have a system the gauge your evil/good behavior and modifies your surroundings accordingly. Assassin’s Creed has the best open environment I’ve seen in a game yet.

But there is one game that I am ashamed NOT to see on this list. Or rather, a series of them. I’m actually surprised they aren’t even mentioned.

Zelda. How can you have a list of the most stylish games and not even wink at Zelda. The series has not only been iconic, but each addition is unique with a style of its own. Looking at Wind Waker and Twilight Princess you are looking at two entirely different games, with nothing more in common than a main character who shares a common name. On that note, even Mario deserves honorable mention. Now, if you haven’t played Super Mario Galaxy, or any of the Zelda games, I suggest you go out and aquire them immediately and play them through, so they may be added to your list in a proper fashion!

Yes, I have not played Zelda. Throw me out of the school of game bloggers immediately!

However - just because you haven’t played or heard of some of the games on this list, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be on here. I wasn’t looking to make a list of the ‘ten best games ever’. These are stylish and weird and different. Mario, simply because of his own success spawned an entire generation of cheap imitations. Okay, so did Final Fantasy, but what appeals about 9 is the fact that went back and made a kind of ironic, playful game about their roots. FF9 is not my favourite - FF7 is - but I still believe they made a more stylish and imaginative game with 9. I think that one common theme about the games in this list is that none of them play with a straight face - with the exception of God of War, possibly.

The other intention with this list was to highlight games people overlook. Monkey Island, Abe’s Oddysee, these are some incredibly brilliant games. Everyone who was going to play Zelda, has played Zelda. They don’t need my recommendation, or to be told to play it because it’s ’stylish’.

I have to say, though, I do agree with the above commenter about Portal and Half-Life 2. Both games are fairly “real-world” in their setting, but they do have some fantastic designs. HL2, of course, has the creepy and awesomely depicted alien-occupied Earth in Eastern Europe, while Portal has a very white-washed look, like a building designed by Apple. It is your list, of course, but I just wanted to make their case.