Shea’s Top 100 Video Games of All Time

Last updated: Aug 11, 2019

I’ve been playing video games pretty much my entire life. I’m newly 30, and I don’t see my passion for this hobby ever fading. But hitting an age milestone brings about a desire for reflection, so I’ve put together a list of my top 100 games of all time. It’s a personal list, sure, but I think the combination of recency bias and nostalgic, rose-tinted glasses leads to a list that’s pretty varied across genres and release years.

Since I’m only one person and playing every game to ever release would be impossible, there are bound to be some widely-considered amazing games that I haven’t gotten around to playing. Here are a few:

Braid
Dark Souls
DOOM (1993)
Final Fantasy IX
Grand Theft Auto V
Heavy Rain
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Red Dead Redemption
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Similarly, there are widely-considered amazing games I have played that just didn’t connect with me in a significant way. That doesn’t mean I necessarily dislike these games, but they don’t belong in my personal top 100. Here are a few:

Bastion
Halo: Combat Evolved
Metal Gear Solid
Red Dead Redemption 2
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Whittling down to a mere 100 games is intended to be impossible hard, so creating an extensive honorable mentions list would take away some of the point. But as new games come out and things shuffle around, I’ll note the 10 most recently cut games here:

Burnout Paradise
Donkey Kong Country
God of War III
Mirror’s Edge
Ratchet and Clank (2016)
Rime
The Banner Saga 2
The Sims
The Stanley Parable
Tomb Raider (2013)

A note on remasters: I’m not considering remasters or packaged re-releases as their own games. If an old game was put out again and I consider the new version the best way to play the game, that could obviously affect the ranking in a positive way. But you won’t see Spyro Reignited Trilogy or the Nathan Drake Collection on here, and you certainly won’t see Shadow of the Colossus and the Shadow of the Colossus HD release.

With all of the introductions and administrative stuff out of the way, let’s get counting down. The list begins on the next page, and be sure to let me know how much my opinions suck in the comments below!

3 thoughts on “Shea’s Top 100 Video Games of All Time

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