Ricardo’s Top 10 PS4/Xbox One Games (July 2017 Edition) Part 1

Last month I mentioned that I working on creating a list of my personal top 10 games of the current console generation. Originally I was hoping to publish this list last week, but some things got in the way and working out the exact order of the list proved harder than expected. This week, however, your patience will be rewarded as I present the completed list to you. Today, Tuesday, and Wednesday I will count down the entries on the list, and Thursday I’ll publish a post of the list in its entirety.

Before we get started, I do need to give a few quick notes on this list. First, I haven’t played as many games from the current console generation as I would like, so the pool of nominees was on the smaller side. No doubt the list will get shaken up quite a bit as I play more games and I’m currently thinking I will try to update the list every six months until I transition to whatever console generation comes next. Second, unlike my list of my top 20 PS3/Xbox 360/Wii games, there are no special restrictions as to what games can get on the list. That means that multiple games from the same serious could potentially show up and even remakes/remasters or collections of older games are in the running if I played them on the current console generation. Third, please keep in mind my habit of playing games months or even years after their initial releases, so don’t expect anything from the past 12 months on this edition of the list. Fourth, and last, you might have noticed from the title of this list that I am omitting Nintendo’s current console, the Switch. This isn’t because of any personal animus against Nintendo—I simply don’t own a Switch and have not played any Switch games so I can’t include Nintendo games at the current time.

With all of that out of the way, let’s get started. Today we’ll count down numbers 10 through 7 of my Top 10 PS4/Xbox One games.

10. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (Singleplayer only)

Lasers!!!

Kicking things off is Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, whose inclusion on this list is impressive given the fact that I only played the game’s singleplayer campaign. Delivering a substantial shakeup to the Call of Duty gameplay formula that hadn’t changed much since Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Advanced Warfare threw exosuits and other futuristic technology into the mix but still maintained the series’ trademark fun factor. Kevin Spacey gave a fantastic performance as the game’s villain, Jonathan Irons, and greater emphasis on storytelling helped make Advanced Warfare the best overall Call of Duty that I’ve played so far on this console generation.

9. Infamous: Second Son

Seattle won't know what hit it.

Amongst the human population are a small number of persons, called Conduits, who have super powers and are largely feared by the rest of humanity. In Second Son you are Delsin Rowe, a very special Conduit who has the unique ability to absorb and copy the powers of other Conduits. Seattle is Delsin’s playground to flex the powers he acquires, and the choice to be either a super hero or a super jerk is entirely up to you. Will Delsin strive to heal the rift between regular humans and Conduits, or will he show humanity just how afraid they should be of Conduits? Either way, Second Son is a power trip.

8. Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag

The Golden Age of Piracy.

Once again it’s time to dive back into the Animus, a machine that allows its users to experience the lives of people from the distant past, and this time you are Edward Kenway, a pirate turned assassin whose ship prowled the waters of the Caribbean in the early 1700s. Though Black Flag does feature the usual Assassin’s Creed elements of traversal, stealth, melee combat, assassinations, and exploration, at the heart of the experience is fantastic naval gameplay that lets you live out your pirate fantasies of battling on high seas, plundering valuable cargo, and building up your ship and Edward to become the most fearsome pirate around. Black Flag is the pirate game we’ve always wanted and it is undeniably one of the best entries in the voluminous Assassin’s Creed series.

7. Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture

Where is everyone?

What happened here? That’s the question you’ll be trying to answer in Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture. Set in fictional Shropshire County in rural England in the 1980s, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture has you walking around a land that appears to have been abandoned just a few minutes before you arrived. Mysterious visions of the events in Shropshire prior to the mass-disappearance give you tantalizing pieces of the puzzle as well as insights into the lives of the people who are now gone. Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture’s story had me hooked from start to finish of it’s five or so hour playtime, and together with its outstanding soundtrack and colorful visuals made for one of the best gaming experiences I’ve had in the last few years.