10 BEST Games of 2001 We NEVER FORGOT

we're taking yet another trip down memory lane and looking at some of the best video games of the year 2001 now as you know we've covered every year from 2000 on this is our list for 2001 of course and so many games release during that year so we're looking forward to hearing your personal list down in the comments too but let's get started off with number 10 and talk about Conker's Bad Fur Day the surprise raunchy insane over-the-top Nintendo 64 game from rare really was genuinely unique not just for the subject matter and what it was but also because it actually ended up being pretty ahead of its time this game actually still plays surprisingly well today yeah it doesn't look that great anymore but still the humor is there the gameplays kind of there and generally if you were the right age Conker's Bad Fur Day was the the perfect game to sneak by your parents I mean the premise is great a cute little squirrel his name is conker he's having a bad fur day yeah sure your parents will get your that game for Christmas how bad could it be well turns out it's filled with blood gore boobs drinking and a lot of really good raunchy humor but in a great meta style kind of poking fun at video game stuff being very self-aware the context-sensitive button bit always makes me laugh still to this day the great mighty poo and his song there's so many memories attached to this game that it is still worth experiencing today they did kind of remake it and put it on the original Xbox but when it released Conker's Bad Fur Day was basically the game that every kid was talking about on the playground and they probably shouldn't have but it was filled with cool alien references the matrix references a Saving Private Ryan war scene with a bunch of gore money that talks and smokes cigars I can go on and on about all the weird dumb crap they put in this game and I loved it now next at number 9 let's talk about another office favorite that is SSX tricky this over the top our KD fun snowboard game was probably honestly the last gasp of great snowboard games for a while I mean cool borders 1080 those were things of the past SSX tricky really took the formula from the previous game and added some more content just amped it up and made it a really great package it was put out by EA SPORTS big does anybody remember EA Sports big it was kind of like they're obnoxious labels to put out like cool over-the-top action sports well SSX tricky definitely fit the bill with wild crazy colorful cast of characters over-the-top cool tricks and moves you can do midair giant courses that felt larger-than-life and a really good emphasis on music and how the music would change and react to how you play and also of course the Run DMC song which they kind of overused and abused but you know what I love Run DMC so I don't really care SSX did have kind of a comeback a couple years ago but it never really reached the heights of SSX tricky it was one of the greatest games to release at the time for like action sports games you know not counting Tony Hawk's Pro Skater of course but like this was such a good time and we wanted to mention it here we'd be crazy if we didn't next at number eight we have Final Fantasy 10 at the first Final Fantasy game or at least for the PlayStation 2 and the first to really make the jump to complete fully 3d graphics and gameplay really in the grand scheme of things it didn't make too much of a difference to gameplay compared to the previous games in the series but at the time it was just a really big deal because the game did look really damn incredible characters were lifelike that their faces had emotions the new world the new style the new look of the characters their clothing where they live the items that used here were just so unique it also had one of the most insane and exciting openings of games released that years an Argand was just such a cool sequence blitzball as both something shown in cutscenes and as a playable side option mode was so much fun you learn to fall in love with these characters teetus you know waka or in all these characters that would essentially join the pantheon of great memorable Final Fantasy characters they were all here with of course that excellent memorable signature Final Fantasy music and just a lengthy compelling story that you wanted to see to the end this one actually had a pretty good amount of twists and turns to it Final Fantasy 10 has an interesting spot in the series history for a lot of reasons for some people it was their first introduction to the big all franchise for some people it's one of their least favorite and kind of overrated once personally I absolutely loved it and found it to be near perfect except for a couple of weird sequences which I feel like you can say about pretty much any Final Fantasy game but it did go on to sell over eight and a half million copies by 2013 whether you like it or not I think it was a very historic point in Final Fantasies history so we had to mention it here now next at number 7 we have Silent Hill 2 where to start with this one probably one of the most iconic and chilling creepy looking games of the time I remember even just the marketing materials ads and magazines and stuff to be incredibly unsettling the game itself definitely lived up to all that this is where Silent Hill as a series like really came into its own you get more of an idea of the town itself and why it is how it is and how it kind of preys upon people's psyche to kind of represent different things for different people the game was classic good old straight-up survival horror it was very challenging the enemies weren't unnerving the graphics for the time from the fog to the lighting engine you know the the flashlight down the dark creepy hallways the game looked fantastic I really really wish Konami didn't like totally botch the HD re-release of it for a few years back you play as James Sunderland who comes to Silent Hill after he gets a letter from his wife who has been dead for quite some time gets more complicated than that but yeah considering it is like a spooky empty fog riddled town you do come across quite a cast of characters all very interesting and well represented especially with some really great looking pre-rendered cutscenes Silent Hill 2 is really unnerving like I said from the actual survival horror game play to like the psychosexual elements to the gore to Pyramid Head to the music to the loneliness everything about it is so so special and I still recommend you considering experiencing it through this day now next at number 6 let's talk about Max Payne yes the original game developed by remedy that really changed things for a lot of people including myself it was one of the best third-person story based shooters of all time Max Payne was like a disgraced New York City detective searching for leads after his wife and child were brutally murdered you're just essentially a hard-boiled take no [ __ ] detective cop that was basically like from every movie in the 90s but here it was told with a really really exciting and interesting noir style the story progressed through beautifully hand-painted comic book panels with great voice acting and music and then of course the actual moment-to-moment gameplay was third-person action where you're diving around in slow motion bullet time firing off bullets diving down stairs riddling bad guys with bullets in a gory over-the-top and incredibly satisfying fashion it's a place in a surprisingly convincing Manhattan during a snowstorm and just the mood the atmosphere the style everything about this game they just completely completely nailed and it still holds up to this day the only thing that doesn't really hold up is max Payne's face himself sam lake a writer at remedy of course as you probably know served as the model for the face of max payne in the original game and it still looks like they just took a photograph of his face and slapped it over a character model it's really funny but at the time it was incredibly iconic it really worked for the game and kind of gave the game its own identity you know I cannot say enough good things about Max Payne this is one of my favorite games and for honestly the year 2001 has so many great games we gotta keep going with number 5 and talk about Devil May Cry another one of my personal favorites I know for a lot of people it's the start of a beloved series the original Devil May Cry really had a bit of an identity crisis it partially wanted to be a survival horror game that partially wanted to be an action game it partially wanted to be spooky but then on the other hand it wanted to be over-the-top and anime and you know what for me at the time it just hit just right you have Dante the demon slayer mercenary for hire type guy who goes to Malay Island a mysterious spooky island with a castle of course after he's tipped off by Trish dante if you don't know is actually the son of sparta so Dante is part demon that very much comes into gameplay very quick once you start getting some powers all that stuff was great but really it was the gameplay the perfect like hybrid you have a sword and guns - very cool weapons that were very easy to switch between the combat emphasized you racking up combos and a style meter to really just be as badass as you can and change up your moves and not repeat the same thing over and over again it gets easier to do so as the game goes on you unlock more abilities you unlock more weapons you can swap between and you can ultimately just be a complete badass fighting off all sorts of weird creatures and demons and spooky ghosts and it was incredibly challenging it's still this day I think the actual HD remakes are actually a bit more difficult but still it is absolutely worth playing you know for a lot of people they think of Devil May Cry they think of Devil May Cry 3 Devil May Cry for stuff like that but really there was a special time with the original Devil May Cry it came out of nowhere it was unexpected and it was really really unique and I still love it it's very near and dear to my heart but I'm very curious here what do you guys think in the comments if you love the original as much as I do I even defend to which I shouldn't but that's a whole another story down to number 4 we have another iconic game this time a sequel it's Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty hoo-boy where to begin with this one for me as a die-hard Metal Gear Solid fan this was one of my most anticipated games of all time the continuation of Solid Snake's story hmm not quite so as many of you probably know the game was marketed very much to be yet another Solid Snake game it was more Metal Gear Solid ultimately we got the game and realized that you only really played a snake for the first two hours the rest of the game you play is ridin who is seemingly the complete opposite of Solid Snake that was Hideo Kojima being creative and subverting people's expectations in a lot of ways but at the time it was it was it was weird and people were kind of mixed on it you know now of course looking back history has been kind to ride in but at the time it was unexpected still I think what we got here was a great game that was almost as iconic as the original Metal Gear Solid in terms of scenarios gameplay bosses creative characters little weird gameplay quirks stuff like that and honestly if you look it up and you read into it just like where and and what Hideo Kojima was trying to do with the story what he was trying to say it was actually pretty ahead of its time just the state politics culture Internet and how the internet plays into a lot of that and just general information it's pretty wild the story definitely goes off the rails and gets really abstract but still actually playing and actually experiencing it is a ton of fun just really really good stealth action gameplay also the game holds up looks-wise it really still looks great that is just great art direction because everything is still very clear and very clearly telegraphed you know things don't get lost in the mud like a lot of ps2 games here do and also I just want to say I know I said earlier in this list that Final Fantasy 10 had one of the best intros to a game this year I'd actually say Metal Gear Solid 2 Solid Snake jumping off the George Washington Bridge that is still one of the coolest things ever but I digress sorry super Metal Gear fan here I'll move on next at number three let's talk about super smash brothers melee the follow-up to the surprise hit super smash brothers this one was released on GameCube and really expanded things and became like massive insanely Massud I can't even really articulate how big of a deal this game was for GameCube for Nintendo fans and just gaming in general super smash brothers melee still holds on today in the fighting game tornament that says so much right there this was the Super Smash Brothers game that really put the franchise on the map I mean just think this game released in 2001 we're talking about it in 2020 and it's probably one of the more relevant games on this list because people are still playing it right now as we speak not only that putting all that stuff aside just like the complete overhaul in graphics taking it to the next level all the new modes they added all the new items and abilities this game was just a hell of a follow up to Super Smash Brothers even if you were just a casual fan of the series I think it's legacy and how long it is lasted is very important to point out but I think it's also very important to not lose sight of the fact that it's just so much fun it's a good game and a really good time but down to number 2 let's talk about halo combat Evolved another game that really surprised people and thankfully pave the way for Microsoft to enter the console gaming market no I do want to get real for a second I like a lot of people like younger folks out there I think you know halo combat Evolved was really the first big first-person shooter it was not it was a huge success of course and it revolutionized things but I just want to point out because I'm like an insufferable PC nerd we were already playing quake like crazy but I do want to point out that halo combat Evolved really really paved the way for first-person shooters to be a legitimate and competent thing on consoles played with a controller in a lot of ways it was kind of like halo combat Evolved was the left hook and then halo 2 a few years later was the right hook knockout punch but the way the game felt the way that first-person aspects controls just made this game incredibly fun and addictive and it sold a lot of X boxes word-of-mouth was still a very powerful thing at the time and I remember scrounging up and buying an Xbox because of Halo and then showing it to other people who had no idea what halo was and then they ran out and got an Xbox as well that's a hell of a thing and honestly like you know if Microsoft didn't have that I don't know if we'd be talking about Xbox today I don't know if that's incredibly reductive or anything that's just me I am really glad that halo combat Evolved does exist because you know most first-person shooters on console before that were way less streamlined and way less fun to play whereas Halo was like a well-oiled machine like I said from the first-person mechanics to the large open environments the visuals the vehicle sections and how they controlled all of that stuff was great just a solid package that we still talk about today but of course at number one I'm say it with me now grand theft auto 3 the game that really put rockstar games on the map is how they are today the game that also very much reignited the video game violence debate that was kind of simmering after mortal kombat a few years back Grand Theft Auto 3 was embroiled in lots of controversy but also it's a damn good game we had had open-world games before it but none like this none where you really felt free to run around a city and do whatever you want something about it just hit absolutely right the way it embraced a lot of pop culture I'd had mafia elements Liberty City was a really fun recreation and kind of stylized version of New York the driving mechanics were a ton of fun racing through the streets was easy and rkt beating up random people in the streets with baseball bats and shooting people and then getting the cops to chase you and see how many Swanton level stars you could bring up was just so much fun even if you weren't following the main storyline quests this game just had hours and hours of fun in an entire city to explore that just felt like nothing else we have experienced it also paved the way for a long line of not only GTA clones but just an entire new genre of open-world action games that we're still just getting tons up to this day thankfully there has been a lot of innovations on this formula the Grand Theft Auto series itself has come a very long way but Grand Theft Auto 3 was really the ground floor the starting better things no slights at Grand Theft Auto 1 and 2 of course those top-down game fun as well but three is an absolute legend and there are a lot of games out today that would be nothing without Grand Theft Auto three's foundation so we thank them for that and I do want to point out before we go some bonus games we got to mention of course Return to Castle Wolfenstein Iko released that year believe it or not of the original Luigi's Mansion Onimusha warlords and jak and daxter those are some really great and important and fun games that we love that we think are worth mentioning in 2001 but of course like I said so many games released this year so we want to hear your list down in the comments what are some of your favorite or some of your most important significant games that released that year if you were even alive whoever you are let's talk about video games down in the comments we'd love to hear from you guys what your favorite games were if you enjoyed this video though and maybe learn something clicking the like button is the best way you can help us out we'd really appreciate that and if you're new consider subscribing and maybe hitting that notification bell because we've put out videos every single day but as always thanks for watching we'll see you guys next time

Channel: gameranx

Views: 859,092

Rating: 4.8931665 out of 5

Keywords: best 2001 games, best 2001 ps2 games, best 2001 xbox games, best 2001 pc games, top 2001 games, best 2001 gamecube games, max payne series, silent hill series, halo combat evolved, gta 3, gameranx, jake baldino

Id: cwoELz0XFtU

Length: 16min 19sec (979 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 10 2020