9. No Man's Sky
Had No Man's Sky been released with little fanfare, it would have blown people's minds. This is a game where you can jump into a spaceship inside a space station, fly it out into space, point it at a distant planet, then descend through a kaleidoscope of refracted atmospheric light to make planetfall, before hopping out to pet local animals and search for resources. It's a game with a particular rhythm, rewarding people who take their time and enjoy mood and place rather than mechanical depth, and it's been supported by a raft of interesting content updates that have transformed it further. By any objective measure, No Man's Sky is a phenomenal achievement for a small team.
Except, No Man's Sky wasn't released with little fanfare. It was released with more fanfare than perhaps any other indie game in history, and its principal custodian, British developer Sean Murray of Hello Games, did little to dampen expectations about the apparently endless possibilities within its procedurally generated universe until it was much, much too late. Ahead of release, people on the game's official subreddit were so bought into its mystique that they were actually interpreting some of Murray's more ambiguous comments as confirmation of ambitious features like PvP multiplayer. In the end, there was no way the game could satisfy expectations, and whether or not you agree it deserved it, No Man's Sky was ripped to shreds by former fans and an ensuing media feeding frenzy.
8. Postal 2
Games in the 90s were often accused of inspiring real-life violence, particularly in the USA, but Postal did things the other way round, drawing on the tragic story of a postal worker who massacred his colleagues as the basis for its over-the-top violence and controversial themes. Developer Running With Scissors stuck with the concept for Postal 2, expanding the range of horrible things you could do as a dude raising hell in Paradise, Arizona. The above video clip says it all, showing how you can literally set people on fire and then put them out by urinating on them. At a time when games were struggling to gain the benefit of the doubt, Postal 2 did its best to suggest they didn't deserve it, and gloried in it. It was a stupid game and the people who made it were idiots.
