The first video game I remember playing was Razor Freestyle Scooter on the PlayStation 1, which released in 2000 when I was three years old. The visuals and animation, coupled with music and sound design, and the inherent mystery of the game's strange interactive world sparked a lifelong love of video games, which has only deepened and mutated as I’ve grown older and played different titles.
There’s an intangible, inextricable element to my love of gaming. The medium sunk its teeth into me during my most formative years, reserving for itself a tidy corner in my imagination and memory. Not everyone has this rather specific experience. A lot of people rarely or never played games growing up, and have perhaps only just started considering the hobby as an adult. For example, I once had a friend tell me she had only begun exploring video games in her 20s, since she felt that they were almost exclusively targeted to young boys growing up—her demographic wasn’t considered. It’s not just young girls who have been overlooked: mainstream gaming has been remarkably teen-boy-oriented for much of its existence. But things have changed, and there are a lot of games that just about anyone can enjoy, regardless of their experience, identity, or skill level.
6 Perfect Gaming Franchises Where Every Mainline Game Is A 10/10
10/10 games are extremely rare, but these franchises make it seem routine.
Mario Party
The Mario Party franchise is explicitly designed for broad appeal and specifically caters to group play, hence the “party” moniker. This design philosophy permeates everything from the games’ controls, which are easy to learn but still satisfying, to the slow-paced nature of the board game structure.
Scratch & Peek
Identify the cover art while scratching off as little foil as possible.
Identify the cover art while scratching off as little foil as possible.
Perhaps most importantly, Mario Party offers opportunities for every player to get a leg up, as it were. You might get a bad dice roll one turn only to be gifted an all-important star the next; you might struggle with one minigame but excel in another. There’s a high skill ceiling, but it’s akin to the skill ceilings of traditional board games like Monopoly. Mario Party is less likely to cause a familial rift, though.
All Mario Party games are great for gamers and non-gamers alike, but Mario Party Jamboree is the most recent and, in my opinion, one of the best in the series.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 81/100 Critics Rec: 88%
- Released
- October 17, 2024
- ESRB
- E For Everyone
- Developer(s)
- Nintendo
- Publisher(s)
- Nintendo
- Engine
- NintendoWare Bezel
Join the latest Mario Party™, a jamboree of seven boards and over 110 minigames
From running through merry-go-rounds to motion-control minigolf, this jamboree is jam-packed with more minigames than any Mario Party game to date. With seven boards in all, you can go with the flow in Goomba Lagoon, search the mall for stars in Rainbow Galleria, or revisit the classics of Western Land and Mario’s Rainbow Castle.
Check out all kinds of additional modes, like the 20-player online* Koopathlon
Race across the party board in Koopathlon, a series-first 20-player online* competition to see who can rack up the highest scores in minigames like the fast-paced Lane Change. The higher your score in each round, the faster you’ll get to the goal.
Koopathlon is just one of a slew of additional modes**—there’s something for every kind of Mario Party enjoyer!
- Multiplayer
- Local Multiplayer, Online Multiplayer
- Franchise
- Mario Party
- Genre(s)
- Party Game
- Platform(s)
- Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2
- OpenCritic Rating
- Strong
Before Your Eyes
The debate about whether video games are art has bored me for a long time. In my mind, games are absolutely, undeniably art, to the point where trying to justify that classification is like trying to explain why movies should be considered art. It’s just not an effective use of time. Having said that, I know that there are still people who need convincing, and a game like Before Your Eyes is certainly more persuasive than any discussion or thinkpiece about gaming could ever be.
Before Your Eyes presents a series of vignettes from the protagonist’s life. You don’t move through these scenes at all, you only watch. The catch is that the game tracks your eye movements, either through a webcam or your mobile device, and if you blink, time jumps forward. Sometimes these jumps are days, sometimes they are weeks, sometimes years. Through this mechanic, Before Your Eyes offers a confronting and devastating comment on the brevity and beauty of a single person's life. It’s one thing to hear someone say that life is over in a blink; it’s another to actually simulate it in a controlled, narratively tailored environment.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 83/100 Critics Rec: 80%
- Released
- April 8, 2021
- ESRB
- e
- Publisher(s)
- Skybound Games
WHERE TO PLAY
It Takes Two
If the whimsical Mario Party is more your speed than the tear-jerking Before Your Eyes, then It Takes Two is well worth a try. It’s more linear than Mario Party—structured as a straightforward narrative rather than an open-ended playground—but it arguably has more gameplay variety. Each level introduces radically new mechanics and scenarios for players to engage with, keeping things unpredictable and refreshing at every turn. Oh, and it features two-player co-op, making it ideal for those trying to guide someone else into the world of gaming.
Unlike a lot of cooperative multiplayer games, It Takes Two is designed in such a way to make both players equally important. For example, the first level gives one character a comically powerful nail gun, and the other a comically large hammer that can swing from nails embedded in walls. In order to complete the level, the first character needs to aim and shoot the nails at specific points, and the second needs to swing across them with the hammer. Neither is “carrying” the other, making it an exceptionally satisfying team-building exercise.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 88/100 Critics Rec: 93%
- Released
- March 26, 2021
- ESRB
- T for Teen: Animated Blood, Comic Mischief, Fantasy Violence, Language
- Developer(s)
- Hazelight Studios
- Publisher(s)
- Electronic Arts
WHERE TO PLAY
Embark on the craziest journey of your life in It Takes Two, a genre-bending platform adventure created purely for co-op. Invite a friend to join for free with Friend’s Pass and work together across a huge variety of gleefully disruptive gameplay challenges. Play as the clashing couple Cody and May, two humans turned into dolls by a magic spell. Together, trapped in a fantastical world where the unpredictable hides around every corner, they are reluctantly challenged with saving their fractured relationship.
Master unique and connected character abilities in every new level. Help each other across an abundance of unexpected obstacles and laugh-out-loud moments. Kick gangster squirrels’ furry tails, pilot a pair of underpants, DJ a buzzing night club, and bobsleigh through a magical snow globe. Embrace a heartfelt and hilarious story where narrative and gameplay weave into a uniquely metaphorical experience.
It Takes Two is developed by the award-winning studio Hazelight, the industry leader of cooperative play. They’re about to take you on a wild and wondrous ride where only one thing is for certain: we’re better together.
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer, Local Multiplayer
- Number of Players
- 2
- Split Screen Orientation
- Vertical Only
- PC Release Date
- March 26, 2021
- Xbox Series X|S Release Date
- March 26, 2021
- PS5 Release Date
- March 26, 2021
- Nintendo Switch Release Date
- November 4, 2022
- Platform(s)
- PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC, Switch
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
- Local Co-Op Support
- 2
- How Long To Beat
- 12 Hours
- X|S Optimized
- Yes
- File Size Xbox Series
- 44 GB (November 2023)
- PS Plus Availability
- N/A
Abzu
Back to the single-player realm, Abzu is perfect for anyone seeking something relaxing and aesthetically striking. You play as a diver on a mysterious ocean planet, gracefully swimming through vibrant coral reefs, playful schools of fish, and stunning bioluminescent depths. There are some environmental puzzles and secrets to uncover, but the game is about calming exploration at its core.
That doesn’t mean it’s not fun, though. In fact, a new or exploratory gamer will likely have more fun with a game like Abzu than with a more mechanically complex title, such as an action game or shooter, because they can play on their own terms. There’s nothing fun about failing repeatedly at something when you're trying to learn. Abzu, alongside its spiritual siblings Flower, Journey, and Sword of the Sea, are the counterbalances to such extremes.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 80/100 Critics Rec: 73%
- Released
- August 2, 2016
- ESRB
- E For Everyone Due To Mild Fantasy Violence
- Developer(s)
- Giant Squid
- Publisher(s)
- 505 Games
WHERE TO PLAY
From the artistic mind behind Journey® and Flower®, ABZÛ is a beautiful underwater adventure that evokes the dream of diving. Immerse yourself in a vibrant ocean world full of mystery and bursting with color and life. Perform fluid acrobatics as the Diver, using graceful swimming controls. Discover hundreds of unique species based on real creatures and form a powerful connection with the abundant sea life. Interact with schools of thousands of fish that procedurally respond to you, each other, and predators. Linger in epic seascapes and explore aquatic ecosystems modeled with unprecedented detail. Descend into the heart of the ocean where ancient secrets lie forgotten. But beware, dangers lurk in the depths. 'ABZÛ' is from the oldest mythologies AB, meaning water, and ZÛ, meaning to know. ABZÛ is the ocean of wisdom.
Balatro
Video games might often have stories, fancy visuals and sound design, and more advanced mechanics, but they’re ultimately fun for the same reasons that non-virtual games are fun. They reward participants for pattern recognition, forethought, reaction time, critical thinking, and long-term strategy. In other words, if someone likes card games, they’ll probably find a lot to like in certain video games, and Balatro is a better fit than most.
Balatro has the same scoring rules as five-card draw poker, but it injects hundreds of different variables, leading to a dizzyingly high number of permutations that you wouldn’t experience in real-life poker. For instance, you might get an upgrade that makes clubs and spades be counted as the same card, offering a strong incentive for a flush-focused strategy. It’s unbelievably addictive, though, to the point where even someone like me, who is miserably bad at poker, can sink countless hours into it. Indeed, you definitely don’t have to be a capital-G gamer to get hooked on Balatro. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 92/100 Critics Rec: 100%
- Released
- February 20, 2024
- ESRB
- E10+ For Everyone 10+ // Gambling Themes
- Developer(s)
- LocalThunk
- Publisher(s)
- Playstack
WHERE TO PLAY
Balatro is a poker-inspired roguelike deck builder all about creating powerful synergies and winning big.
The poker roguelike. Balatro is a hypnotically satisfying deckbuilder where you play illegal poker hands, discover game-changing jokers, and trigger adrenaline-pumping, outrageous combos.
Combine valid poker hands with unique Joker cards in order to create varied synergies and builds. Earn enough chips to beat devious blinds, all while uncovering hidden bonus hands and decks as you progress. You’re going to need every edge you can get in order to reach the boss blind, beat the final ante and secure victory
- Genre(s)
- Strategy, Digital Card Game, Roguelike
- Platform(s)
- PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Android, iOS
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
- How Long To Beat
- 8 Hours
Honorable Mentions
I’ve suggested a lot of games to non-gamers over the years. Some have struck a chord, but many haven’t, despite my confidence that they would. For example, I thought my movie buff father would have loved the cinematic Red Dead Redemption 2, but he bounced off of it. Perhaps this is because, unlike the aforementioned games, something like Red Dead 2 is still built around traditional, long-standing gaming tropes like cover shooting and open-world exploration, rather than elements that non-gamers can immediately appreciate. Still, the especially adventurous or open-minded might enjoy the following titles:
- Assassin’s Creed 2
- Bound
- Dark Souls
- Disco Elysium
- God of War (2018)
- Gorogoa
- Kentucky Route Zero
- Pentiment
- Red Dead Redemption 2
- The Forgotten City
- The Last of Us
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild