I didn't play many video games as a child. I had an N64 and a gamecube, but I never had a relationship with video games like others my age do. I never had pokemons. I was basically introduced to video games when my then boyfriend bought an xbox and showed me Fallout 3 about four years ago, a very memorable game indeed. From there, I began to independently pursue games outside of his recommendations. I honestly feel like I am still just dipping my toes in my enjoyment and understanding of games, but nonetheless I feel inspired to compile a list of my favorites. These are the games that have moved me, inspired joy, tension, and immense satisfaction in me, and have blown me away with their art (well, all but one. More on that later).
Ori and the Blind Forest
I basically decided to write this just so I could bring up Ori and the Blind Forest. Ori and the Blind Forest is the single most magical experience I've ever had from a piece of media and it absolutely has replay value too. Basically, Ori and the Blind Forest exists in this world and now I have reason to believe that art is the result of God using us as conduits. I kind of believe in God because of art like this, and I absolutely stand by the whole "video games are art" thing now even more than I did before. I have played through it three times and every time I still experience that overwhelming swell of awe for every frame, every note in it's stunning soundtrack, every sinfully satisfying bit of mechanic and action, every whoosh of colour, every inch of puzzle/platforming, and Jesus Christ the Ginso Tree sequence!
It can't be beat. It can't. My favorite game is This War of Mine, but Ori and the Blind Forest is the game that showed me what majesty can occur when every bit of video games which I enjoy is executed with god-tier creativity and ingenuity. There isn't much for story and dialogue which is why at first I didn't expect to fall in love with it, but of course I inevitably did because it is essentially a perfect game in my opinion. I cannot think of a weakness in it at all. The only criticism I have for it at all is that after the high of the Ginso tree you are left at a kind of plateau where you can't expect anything else to be as good. This is a legitimate criticism, too- the game does blow it's load pretty quick. The next two following dungeons are very good, but there are about 8 million reasons why they could never be as good as the Ginso tree.
I have to stop now or I never will. The soundtrack and art alone should sell just about anybody, but the game mechanics and challenge also stand out and all of these things make up one of my favorite game experiences to date! I've included a video which fully unpacks the genius of the Ginso Tree alone because I could never articulate it as well as this guy.
I can't believe I forgot to mention that this game is also hard as dicks. It has more than once lead me in to a rage, but every time it felt earned. The game isn't mean, I'm just not perfect. And when you do get it, boy oh boy, when you do execute something well in Ori, I wager its better than sex. This is something I want to talk more about when I discuss The Witness down the list- the merits of a game being challenging while also holding itself up to an ideal of teaching well, rewarding mistakes, and pushing players not just to try try again but to think and do differently.
This War of Mine
This War of Mine is my favorite game. This game is uniquely cherished on so many levels for me, both intellectually and emotionally. It is a game that sticks with me whenever I leave it, both in terms of it's message and story as well as my addiction to it on a strategic level. It is deceptively simple at first- when you and your unwilling companions arrive in the dump house, you manage to scavenge a pretty decent amount of food and supplies. You are able to guard effectively, the weather is good, and scavenging is easy and safe nearby. At this stage, you should be taking the time to go for the harder spots first, building an animal trap and fixing the walls even if it means starving for the first few weeks and losing some moral, and leave food scavenging nearby for the winter and times of siege, but of course that isn't always how it goes. Something I enjoy and respect about this game is that it encourages you to gradually learn strategy- after every soul crushing defeat and death you learn how to do things smarter, organize and prioritize better, and take more calculated risks. The game gives you moral
quandaries and along the way you learn that you do not have much to gain from being a pure angel in the beginning- you really do have to help yourself first before you can even begin to help others. But at the same time, if you are too selfish you will face betrayal, poor morale, and you will miss out on valuable trade opportunities. If you let one of your companions go help someone in need right away before you have a better guarded home, you will inevitably burn out the rest of your team. Burn out is perhaps most dangerous of all because it can lead to depression and lack of productivity as well as effectiveness in consoling and encouraging others. You can bargain for medicine and bandages or even make your own if you have a good operation going with reasonably well rested people and decent morale, but if people are killing themselves and children are losing their sanity, you'll all die like dogs in the cold.
And again, I love that you learn this gradually- the game doesn't ever stop and give you a lesson on how poor morale can lead to depression, suicide, insanity, theft, and desertion. Turning a child down at the door may save you a mouth to feed, but it may break the hearts of your team. On the other hand, there are team members like Bruno who will start smoking like mad and fly in to a rage if any decision is made at the expense of the team. The game doesn't say at any point "be careful, death can be difficult on children and they may become too broken to eat or sleep. They get in the way and end up getting harmed by bad guys robbing your place. Or are they bad guys...?". You learn this by failing and you draw comparisons by looting settlements just like yours- stealing medicine while a child is coughing right upstairs.
This game taught me that video games can push a message in a way no other art form really can- by creating an experience where the audience participates in the message. You are not just idly watching the horrors of war on a small country you've never even thought of- you are actively participating in it. The game humanizes the victims of war and their stories (which are revealed in times of stress and flashback) are all deeply personal. When you make a mistake or by chance something awful happens, such as someone getting ill in the cold because you ran out of things to burn, or you sell bandages for wood but someone ends up getting injured defending the place that night, it hits you right in the gut. Not only do you hate yourself for your mistake, the consequences feel real and horrifying. I'll never forget the aftermath of the first death, or when I axed an old woman to death for her radio and even selling it for food didn't bring up the morale.
The best part of this game is that even if you survive it is not necessarily victorious. You survive the war but you never find your family again. You survive, but all your credentials and property and possessions are gone. You survive, but you hate what you've become and cannot return to your vocation as a school children because of all the children you damned and turned away. You also never know when the war will end- sometimes it ends right after winter and sometimes it goes long after you've lost hope.
The characters are all incredibly fleshed out and their reactions to choices and suffering all add up. The dialogue is gut wrenching and haunting, and the combat unexpectedly (but absolutely justifiably) intense. I recommend this game to everyone I know not just because it is challenging, painfully emotional, and incredible, but because it offers a perspective in to a reality that is not near as potent through images, words, or video alone. I can count on one hand how many times I've had punches to the gut as hard as the many trials, realities, and heartbreaks of This War of Mine. And yet I return to this game more than any other. I have to periodically delete it from my library because it becomes an addiction- I think through the strategy all day at work and I have this overwhelming need to save all of the characters at least once- see them through it, see how their story ends. Yes, it is that personal. The game is part of me at this point- I don't know if I'd have taken as much interest in treatment of PTSD as I do if I hadn't have played this game. I know that whenever I hear people speak callously about refugees, I wish I could force them to play this game and watch them be changed. The problem is, though, these people are usually also luddites who think all video games are Call of Duty. Such is life.
Fallout New Vegas
Fallout New Vegas looks like shit. It looks irredeemably shitty, especially on a screen larger than my GPS. The thing is, I know in my logical brain that Fallout 3 is better. Fallout 3 has superior side quests, it looks less like shit, and the radio has more than 8 songs (none of which are "Johnny Guitar"). I know this and I would never argue otherwise, but god damn something in me yearns for some re-mastered version of New Vegas. While Fallout 4 isn't perfect, and again absolutely can't shake a stick at 3, some little part of me felt that it was an extension to 3 where New Vegas is a whole other thing. I don't know where I'm going with this, maybe I'll just start listing what I loved about it and go from there.
(I knew this part would be a bitch)
1. I love the factions.
I love that I felt more involved in the overall story of the world than I did in 3 and 4. While 3's main story may hold more emotional weight, ultimately the whole world didn't participate in it. I liked that every place I visited in New Vegas had their own stance on the multiple allegiances and factions that I could choose to participate in. I loved the ending and enjoyed it a lot more than 3/4's respective endings.
2. I love that New Vegas rewarded my maxed out speech abilities.
I am not ashamed to admit that I beat New Vegas more or less just by convincing others to do what best suited me. I avoided at least a third of the potential combat and confrontation in New Vegas simply by using my OP speech. I convinced a computer to kill himself and two waring factions to just fuck off to completely different states. I don't think I once paid an entrance fee or anything stupid like that. I beat the system, and it was fucking dope. I regularly talked people in to giving me their prized possessions and I have no shame about that- what I love most about Fallout is that you can play through it in so many different ways, and I honestly found that New Vegas rewarded this kind of ridiculousness more than 3 and obviously more than 4 and I vividly remember squealing with joy every time I got to just talk around conflict in the most absurd of ways.
3. It looks like shit, but I do like a lot of the locations and bad guys more.
The cazadors are fucking dope, the weapons improved tenfold both in terms of insanity and some options became useful where they were kind of shit in 3 (energy weapons, for one). I remember having one gun with such insane zoom and power that I could scope down a full grown death claw and shoot it before it could run and catch up to me. I adore the Elvis impersonator gangster group, also.
4. I may be the only person on the planet that liked survivor mode.
I liked it a lot, actually. Being able to rely on food instead of stimpacks was just more fun, somehow.
5. Lily is the best companion, bar none.
A schizophrenic old lady nightkin? Yes please.
I've replayed 3 and New Vegas, but New Vegas is the one I wish most to revisit even more. The fun I remember having with New Vegas is not considerably more than Fallout 3, per say, but I did feel a lot more invested in the story despite the fact that unlike Fallout 3, New Vegas really doesn't give a shit if you are invested at all. Fallout 3 starts you off as a child and you are expected to engage with their story and world on a very personal level, and in some ways it works. But I have to admire the reckless abandon that New Vegas offers. "You were shot by some guy, now you are here. Pursue him or not, who gives a shit. Pursue any of the factions or not, who cares. Just fuck shit up" seems to be New Vegas's position, and there is a special place with joy in my heart for that approach. The thrill of entering New Vegas and that final showdown is unmatched, that much I know to be true. I'm done defending my choice now. Maybe I just prefer New Vegas because of the smiley face robot, who gives a shit leave me alone
Mount Your Friends
I feel like I am just naturally gifted at this game the way some are with Rubix cubes and animal training, and I'm ok with that. I am proud of my friend mounting skill in this game and the glory of having it on display when people would come over to play it is still drumming in my subconscious. I was honestly heartbroken when I learned that it wasn't available on the Xbox 1 and while I considered playing it on my laptop I know in my heart it isn't the same. A game with this caliber of artistic character design and use of color would be sullied by my small laptop screen, I just know it.
I mean, look at these men! These absolute units. All of them are given randomly generated names which never stop being amusing. The dick physics in this game are, and I stand by this statement, absolutely revolutionary. Any other game may have men flinging themselves in the sky and grappling over each other QWOP style and keep their nether region tucked in tight as to avoid resistance, Mount Your Friends comes out with the truth. The truth is that at least half the battle of mounting your friends in this deceivingly tricky and skill-based game comes from the masculine roaring in your heart, and nothing quite gets that going like letting the wang hang. The dick physics were probably the most expensive part of this game right alongside the soundtrack which is fucking excellent and totally builds upon the wild swinging dicks of every beastly athlete. Boy- you can even grab on to a fellow teammate's dick to climb further, aspire higher, fling yourself in to the great beyond! If those dicks were tucked in and the development team hadn't made the revolutionary decision to invest in the dick physics, we would be missing a whole other appendage to work in to the skill and strategy of mounting our friends.
All joking aside, of which I haven't been at all because I take this game very seriously, Mount Your Friends is the most fun I've ever had with people for 2$. It may be the best purchase I've ever made in my life. My accomplishments in Mount Your Friends are ones I wear with pride and I would recommend this game to anyone who either wishes to challenge me and be met with a game that requires yes, more skill and bravado than you could have ever imagined, but I'd also recommend it to just about anyone with joy in their heart. The only person I can imagine not enjoying this game or at the very least not relishing in the competition and joy of others playing it is maybe Rosie O'Donnell. Maybe.
The Witcher 3
I have not finished the Witcher 3 yet, but let me get this straight; the main quest line in the Hearts of Stone expansion is the single best story in a quest I have played through ever and I believe in my heart of hearts there is better still to come with this game. The quests in The Witcher 3 continue to impress me as do the cut scenes, especially when they have tits (which is more often than you'd expect). The Witcher 3 universe is intoxicating and lovingly crafted and every bit as authentically Nordic as it is badass and bizarre. When I played Dragon Age Inquisition I thought that was as good as fantasy games can get- and that isn't to say that Inquisition isn't fucking dope, because it is. I just couldn't imagine a fantasy world I liked more, but after playing through about 30 hours of the Witcher 3 (which is barely over the half way point, for the record) I am able to pinpoint exactly where Dragon Age Inquisition still fails to keep my interest and inspire my imagination long term.
First, there are the monster designs. Holy fuck. Lets use The Ladies of the Wood, for example. You encounter these succubi/witches pretty early in the game, and they are still stunning! Look at how repulsive they are in ways which differ from the usual- they arent just warty and ill looking, but have their own unique style of awful. They are also legitimately frightening in combat, too. And they aren't even beasts! Fiends are among my personal favorites as well, but I can honestly say (save bears, wolves etc.) every creature design in The Witcher 3 absolutely blew me away. Their aren't just a handful of creatures either- The Witcher 3 easily has triple the amount of unique creatures that Dragon Age has and they all come with a lore which feels way more fitting to the world and kind of hauntingly believable even for this real one we live in.
Secondly, there is Gwent. Gwent is the best in-game card game ever. I literally stay awake at night reminiscing on a good game of Gwent, and the in-game tournaments are outrageously entertaining because effort is put in to each player actually having arcs and play styles and you gotta hunt them down in the world. It's just the best. Cant be beat!
Thirdly, I can honestly say that thus far at least 80% of the side quests, Witcher contracts, and even the main storyline are legitimately interesting, effecting, and engrossing. Exploring the world is rewarding in much the same way Fallout was, except instead of wacky shit you get wierd sexual shit or hilariously bum towns with drunks puking everywhere and saying they'll fuck your throat till its as raw as your mum's asshole. At some point you become so accustomed to and integrated in to the sprawling and thoughtfully integrated world of The Witcher that you begin hearing the bitchin soundtrack in your sleep. The Witcher 3 is also the only game with lore I give a shit about, and whats genius is that it hasn't done this by just throwing readable books and bullshit at me like Dragon Age did. No, no. The Witcher 3 got me interested in the lore through it's characters, quests, beasts, and hell even through its soundtrack. Can you imagine- a game that gets you invested in the world through tools other than lengthy texts scattered willy nilly around the place!? It's madness. I am so consistently impressed with everything The Witcher 3 has to offer and also deeply entertained by how it doesn't take itself too seriously like it absolutely could. It is also worth noting that The Witcher 3 has, in my opinion, the best city in any RPG I've played. Novigrad is the only city in any RPG I've played that feels like a real city- even if this means that it can be a bit confusing to navigate at first, it is a delight to explore and grow to understand.
Finally, the sex scenes are legendary and even if Geralt is a masculine oatmeal man, his being so when everyone else is outrageous adds many layers of humour to the experience. To close it off, I'd like to regretfully add that I fucked up my romance with Yennifer so I never got to fuck her on a unicorn (the
exactly one not dope beast design, but only because it is a stuffed animal first), but I did get to fuck another chick in a canoe and got some sick blowjob by a wench in a Gwent tournament, which was excellent. Oh, and its full nudity by the way. Vagina and all. God is good in Skellige.
The Witness
I love a good puzzle game, but I have left all but The Witness with zero desire to go back, rethink it, or even recommend it to others. Puzzle games are good and then you complete them and move on. This was not so with The Witness, and I know I'm not the only person to make this observation. The Witness is about 8 leagues up its own ass, but it absolutely sticks with you and you have an emotional response regardless of how you feel about the philosophical undertones in it.
There is so much I want to say about The Witness but even now as I type I don't know if or even how I want to talk about the ending- on the off chance that one of the 3 people that read this does end up playing it, I want them to have a pure experience of the end because I absolutely stand by it being a spiritual importance. So before I even touch the ending, I have to say first that the game, like many others listed here, is one of untouchable beauty. The game incorporates exploration in to its puzzles which I found fascinating and really interesting to play through. Sometimes you'll encounter a puzzle that you can't begin to understand until you wander across the map and see something else. This is one of many sources of frustration for people, even those who love a challenge. The Witness is undeniably a frustrating experience and is the most challenging puzzle game I've played by a landslide. On principle I don't google solutions to puzzles, but there were a few times in The Witness that it was necessary. And yet, still it wasn't often (even at these times of intense frustration and confusion) that I felt the game was being unfair. There were many occasions were I just about reached orgasm upon figuring something out- it was just that inventive! The game merely expects its users to be acutely observational, and you certainly learn that along the way. The simple grid format for all of the puzzles seems like it would get stale quick, but it doesn't. It is reworked and re-imagined in so many ways that I didn't tire of it even in the end. The game is simple, elegant, and mysterious- this is something I haven't found in a lot of puzzle games. Sure, the puzzles are puzzling, but not since The Witness have I found a puzzle game that has me asking "what does this mean?" and exploring the world just for further clues. The Witness gives you clues, too, outside of it's main puzzle platform. The Witness has a message and a thematic puzzle as well as hundreds of incredibly difficult grid puzzles within.
And the ending, oh, the ending. The Witness has got to be the only puzzle game with replay value. It has to be! Its genius because the end of the game introduces a deeper layer that was always there, though you were probably lucky even to chance upon them while you were exploring. I know I did a few times and every time I met these observations with a double-take and almost a sense of unease, as if my eyes had been tricked somehow. But its there and yes, it does mean something. There is a false ending too that happens first- it seems as if you're just starting a new game, but then upon closer inspection you see what you've been lead to and a whole other realm of possibility opens up. I left
this game in awe and saw the world with a new wonder, desire to explore and see things that may or may not be there as acts of a God, and a new perspective on what it is to make a game or any piece of art and play God in some sense. In all video games you are an active participant, but in this one you are a witness, as well. On that level, it kind of reminded me of Superhot. Except way better and more to say other than just "SEE! SEE DO YA GET IT!". There is so much to unpack with the ending, but the fact that this puzzle game has an ending that inspires thought, emotion, wonder, and awe past you closing the game is already a feat in its own right. The thing is, even if you played through The Witness knowing all the answers and not learning a thing, there is still that other layer and the other stuff going on, and that's where it gets its replay value- a true rarity among puzzle games. Godbless this game.
To the Moon
I have less to say about To the Moon so much as I have to feebly convey in terms of my feelings towards it. Playing through Two the Moon is one of my most cherished memories in gaming for a couple of reasons. Before going in to that, I have to admit I've surprised myself at not including any Telltale games on this post, and there are a few reasons for that (basically, I really enjoy the majority of the Telltale games, but the more I play the less I like the ones I've played previously. They have started to make me feel kind of tricked and cheated). When I first played the Telltale games, I felt liberated and overjoyed because I'd believed that I finally found the games I really like. Turns out this isn't completely true, but again I want to stress that I love the writing in Telltale games and I enjoyed most of them. I've replayed some, but they aren't the same after the first play-through for me and none stuck with me past the ending really even if the writing and story were really good and emotionally gripping. The only one that comes close is The Walking Dead Part 2, so if I were to write about any it would have to be that one. Maybe, to me, a lot of the Telltale games have stories that I feel like I've already heard before and am just enjoying going through again and making the tough moral choices the game is known for, but nothing really felt as original to me as stories in games like this one.
Not even the Walking Dead Part 2 stuck with me the way To The Moon did. Just thinking about To the Moon fills me with a warmth and comforting melancholy that damn near inspire tears.
I don't have much to say on the story, despite it being brilliant and emotionally rich. I must play through it again because I cannot remember details as much as I remember the way it made me feel. I remember leaving the game with a feeling I haven't found in any game since- a feeling of gratitude. I felt honoured and thankful for having played through it and the game feels intimate in a way that few other stories have felt for me. I think part of it is that you play the observer in the story alongside two characters that are also going through this just like you, observing and feeling with you as the player. Another thing which makes the game feel so intimate is that it is unashamedly sentimental while skillfully avoiding any moroseness or cliche. I honestly left this game looking at my own life with a haze of magic and sentimental warmth for days. Incidentally, the humour in this game is unique and absolutely delightful.
To add to this, my experience playing this game was very intimate as well. I played through it in one sitting with my best friend, whom I had not quite grown comfortable crying in front of, but still our friendship was one which allowed for the emotional landscape set before us in this game. I felt gratitude to the game for letting me look in on a character the way it did, a character which was fleshed out with such care and obvious love, and I felt gratitude for having Isaiah with me to move through it.
The game is also beautiful; the art evokes a softness which further adds to the story's sentiment and they end up playing off each other beautifully. The game feels like what I imagine crawling in to bed with your newly cancer-free spouse feels like- maybe I don't know what I'm trying to say. All I know is that I played that game and my heart both grew 8 sizes as well as clenched in response of topics that have always bring fear and anxiety in to my heart- sick spouses, regret, and loneliness.
Diddy Kong Racing for the N64
Remember when I said that all of these games look amazing except for one, Fallout New Vegas. I meant it. Say what you like but Diddy Kong Racing does have a vivid charm. I am not sentimental about virtually any other video game from my childhood, but I'll play this game 'till the cows come home. I fondly remember my sister and I playing this but not actually racing half the time, just dicking around (the game has a surprising amount of hidden stuff and the mini games are actually super dope).
Come on, give credit where credit is due- this racing game allows for players to race on the same track using bikes, cars, hovercrafts, and planes and somehow remains reasonably balanced. You may be thinking to yourself "shit Megan, what did you know about balanced gameplay when you were like 12?" Well, you'd have a point. I knew dick all about balanced gameplay in 2006. However, a miracle happened two years ago in late February where I got to play Diddy Kong Racing in all its madness and glory with a client at work and boy, let me tell you it still somehow remains fairly balanced. Some tracks don't have enough water to give the hovercraft the boost they need and others are kind of boring to do via plane, but by and large the tracks are vibrant, delightful, and in my eyes hold all the charm of a Mariokart game from that same time period.
I also remember the story mode being more fun than any racing game has a right to be, like more fun than Crash Bandicoots even was. This elephant genie has you saving dinosaur eggs and flying them around active volcanoes, corralling penguins, and also Conker (as in Conker's Bad Fur Day) is a playable character and even if he is g-rated to shit, he is still a little asshole and I love it. The item system, too, is unique and I like that it is a bit convoluted because that also allows for players to inexplicably get super OP when they hold out and collect 3 green balloons and use that bullshit magnet thing. I maintain that the wild decision to allow for players to drive planes, hovercrafts, and cars in the same race and track doesn't make the race unbalanced at all, but the items might. I remember planes having more access to red balloons, and cars and hovercrafts green and blue, meaning that in a way they'd have different item pools. I never noticed any inequality as a kid, but maybe it does exist there. Irregardless, game is fun as fuck. The ice castle battle level is the best, doughnut island or whatever the fuck from Mariokart can suck my dick.
I just love it. I love it so much, and I will probably never play it again. But I can dream! God if there was an online version of this...I'd be living my best life. I really would. It's a delight, absolutely adorable, and also thrilling because of the space station "track" and there are no bullshit blue shells. Let me have my Diddy Kong Racing. Just let me have it. Or don't. Be a thief of joy.
Ori and the Blind Forest
I basically decided to write this just so I could bring up Ori and the Blind Forest. Ori and the Blind Forest is the single most magical experience I've ever had from a piece of media and it absolutely has replay value too. Basically, Ori and the Blind Forest exists in this world and now I have reason to believe that art is the result of God using us as conduits. I kind of believe in God because of art like this, and I absolutely stand by the whole "video games are art" thing now even more than I did before. I have played through it three times and every time I still experience that overwhelming swell of awe for every frame, every note in it's stunning soundtrack, every sinfully satisfying bit of mechanic and action, every whoosh of colour, every inch of puzzle/platforming, and Jesus Christ the Ginso Tree sequence!
I can't believe I forgot to mention that this game is also hard as dicks. It has more than once lead me in to a rage, but every time it felt earned. The game isn't mean, I'm just not perfect. And when you do get it, boy oh boy, when you do execute something well in Ori, I wager its better than sex. This is something I want to talk more about when I discuss The Witness down the list- the merits of a game being challenging while also holding itself up to an ideal of teaching well, rewarding mistakes, and pushing players not just to try try again but to think and do differently.
This War of Mine
quandaries and along the way you learn that you do not have much to gain from being a pure angel in the beginning- you really do have to help yourself first before you can even begin to help others. But at the same time, if you are too selfish you will face betrayal, poor morale, and you will miss out on valuable trade opportunities. If you let one of your companions go help someone in need right away before you have a better guarded home, you will inevitably burn out the rest of your team. Burn out is perhaps most dangerous of all because it can lead to depression and lack of productivity as well as effectiveness in consoling and encouraging others. You can bargain for medicine and bandages or even make your own if you have a good operation going with reasonably well rested people and decent morale, but if people are killing themselves and children are losing their sanity, you'll all die like dogs in the cold.
This game taught me that video games can push a message in a way no other art form really can- by creating an experience where the audience participates in the message. You are not just idly watching the horrors of war on a small country you've never even thought of- you are actively participating in it. The game humanizes the victims of war and their stories (which are revealed in times of stress and flashback) are all deeply personal. When you make a mistake or by chance something awful happens, such as someone getting ill in the cold because you ran out of things to burn, or you sell bandages for wood but someone ends up getting injured defending the place that night, it hits you right in the gut. Not only do you hate yourself for your mistake, the consequences feel real and horrifying. I'll never forget the aftermath of the first death, or when I axed an old woman to death for her radio and even selling it for food didn't bring up the morale.
The best part of this game is that even if you survive it is not necessarily victorious. You survive the war but you never find your family again. You survive, but all your credentials and property and possessions are gone. You survive, but you hate what you've become and cannot return to your vocation as a school children because of all the children you damned and turned away. You also never know when the war will end- sometimes it ends right after winter and sometimes it goes long after you've lost hope.
The characters are all incredibly fleshed out and their reactions to choices and suffering all add up. The dialogue is gut wrenching and haunting, and the combat unexpectedly (but absolutely justifiably) intense. I recommend this game to everyone I know not just because it is challenging, painfully emotional, and incredible, but because it offers a perspective in to a reality that is not near as potent through images, words, or video alone. I can count on one hand how many times I've had punches to the gut as hard as the many trials, realities, and heartbreaks of This War of Mine. And yet I return to this game more than any other. I have to periodically delete it from my library because it becomes an addiction- I think through the strategy all day at work and I have this overwhelming need to save all of the characters at least once- see them through it, see how their story ends. Yes, it is that personal. The game is part of me at this point- I don't know if I'd have taken as much interest in treatment of PTSD as I do if I hadn't have played this game. I know that whenever I hear people speak callously about refugees, I wish I could force them to play this game and watch them be changed. The problem is, though, these people are usually also luddites who think all video games are Call of Duty. Such is life.
Fallout New VegasFallout New Vegas looks like shit. It looks irredeemably shitty, especially on a screen larger than my GPS. The thing is, I know in my logical brain that Fallout 3 is better. Fallout 3 has superior side quests, it looks less like shit, and the radio has more than 8 songs (none of which are "Johnny Guitar"). I know this and I would never argue otherwise, but god damn something in me yearns for some re-mastered version of New Vegas. While Fallout 4 isn't perfect, and again absolutely can't shake a stick at 3, some little part of me felt that it was an extension to 3 where New Vegas is a whole other thing. I don't know where I'm going with this, maybe I'll just start listing what I loved about it and go from there.
(I knew this part would be a bitch)
1. I love the factions.
I love that I felt more involved in the overall story of the world than I did in 3 and 4. While 3's main story may hold more emotional weight, ultimately the whole world didn't participate in it. I liked that every place I visited in New Vegas had their own stance on the multiple allegiances and factions that I could choose to participate in. I loved the ending and enjoyed it a lot more than 3/4's respective endings.
2. I love that New Vegas rewarded my maxed out speech abilities.
I am not ashamed to admit that I beat New Vegas more or less just by convincing others to do what best suited me. I avoided at least a third of the potential combat and confrontation in New Vegas simply by using my OP speech. I convinced a computer to kill himself and two waring factions to just fuck off to completely different states. I don't think I once paid an entrance fee or anything stupid like that. I beat the system, and it was fucking dope. I regularly talked people in to giving me their prized possessions and I have no shame about that- what I love most about Fallout is that you can play through it in so many different ways, and I honestly found that New Vegas rewarded this kind of ridiculousness more than 3 and obviously more than 4 and I vividly remember squealing with joy every time I got to just talk around conflict in the most absurd of ways.
The cazadors are fucking dope, the weapons improved tenfold both in terms of insanity and some options became useful where they were kind of shit in 3 (energy weapons, for one). I remember having one gun with such insane zoom and power that I could scope down a full grown death claw and shoot it before it could run and catch up to me. I adore the Elvis impersonator gangster group, also.
4. I may be the only person on the planet that liked survivor mode.
I liked it a lot, actually. Being able to rely on food instead of stimpacks was just more fun, somehow.
5. Lily is the best companion, bar none.
A schizophrenic old lady nightkin? Yes please.
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| Lily Bowen, the best companion |
Mount Your Friends
I feel like I am just naturally gifted at this game the way some are with Rubix cubes and animal training, and I'm ok with that. I am proud of my friend mounting skill in this game and the glory of having it on display when people would come over to play it is still drumming in my subconscious. I was honestly heartbroken when I learned that it wasn't available on the Xbox 1 and while I considered playing it on my laptop I know in my heart it isn't the same. A game with this caliber of artistic character design and use of color would be sullied by my small laptop screen, I just know it.
The Witcher 3
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| The Ladies of the Wood |
Secondly, there is Gwent. Gwent is the best in-game card game ever. I literally stay awake at night reminiscing on a good game of Gwent, and the in-game tournaments are outrageously entertaining because effort is put in to each player actually having arcs and play styles and you gotta hunt them down in the world. It's just the best. Cant be beat!
Finally, the sex scenes are legendary and even if Geralt is a masculine oatmeal man, his being so when everyone else is outrageous adds many layers of humour to the experience. To close it off, I'd like to regretfully add that I fucked up my romance with Yennifer so I never got to fuck her on a unicorn (the exactly one not dope beast design, but only because it is a stuffed animal first), but I did get to fuck another chick in a canoe and got some sick blowjob by a wench in a Gwent tournament, which was excellent. Oh, and its full nudity by the way. Vagina and all. God is good in Skellige.
The Witness
I love a good puzzle game, but I have left all but The Witness with zero desire to go back, rethink it, or even recommend it to others. Puzzle games are good and then you complete them and move on. This was not so with The Witness, and I know I'm not the only person to make this observation. The Witness is about 8 leagues up its own ass, but it absolutely sticks with you and you have an emotional response regardless of how you feel about the philosophical undertones in it.
And the ending, oh, the ending. The Witness has got to be the only puzzle game with replay value. It has to be! Its genius because the end of the game introduces a deeper layer that was always there, though you were probably lucky even to chance upon them while you were exploring. I know I did a few times and every time I met these observations with a double-take and almost a sense of unease, as if my eyes had been tricked somehow. But its there and yes, it does mean something. There is a false ending too that happens first- it seems as if you're just starting a new game, but then upon closer inspection you see what you've been lead to and a whole other realm of possibility opens up. I left
To the Moon
Not even the Walking Dead Part 2 stuck with me the way To The Moon did. Just thinking about To the Moon fills me with a warmth and comforting melancholy that damn near inspire tears.
To add to this, my experience playing this game was very intimate as well. I played through it in one sitting with my best friend, whom I had not quite grown comfortable crying in front of, but still our friendship was one which allowed for the emotional landscape set before us in this game. I felt gratitude to the game for letting me look in on a character the way it did, a character which was fleshed out with such care and obvious love, and I felt gratitude for having Isaiah with me to move through it.
The game is also beautiful; the art evokes a softness which further adds to the story's sentiment and they end up playing off each other beautifully. The game feels like what I imagine crawling in to bed with your newly cancer-free spouse feels like- maybe I don't know what I'm trying to say. All I know is that I played that game and my heart both grew 8 sizes as well as clenched in response of topics that have always bring fear and anxiety in to my heart- sick spouses, regret, and loneliness.
Diddy Kong Racing for the N64
Remember when I said that all of these games look amazing except for one, Fallout New Vegas. I meant it. Say what you like but Diddy Kong Racing does have a vivid charm. I am not sentimental about virtually any other video game from my childhood, but I'll play this game 'till the cows come home. I fondly remember my sister and I playing this but not actually racing half the time, just dicking around (the game has a surprising amount of hidden stuff and the mini games are actually super dope).
I also remember the story mode being more fun than any racing game has a right to be, like more fun than Crash Bandicoots even was. This elephant genie has you saving dinosaur eggs and flying them around active volcanoes, corralling penguins, and also Conker (as in Conker's Bad Fur Day) is a playable character and even if he is g-rated to shit, he is still a little asshole and I love it. The item system, too, is unique and I like that it is a bit convoluted because that also allows for players to inexplicably get super OP when they hold out and collect 3 green balloons and use that bullshit magnet thing. I maintain that the wild decision to allow for players to drive planes, hovercrafts, and cars in the same race and track doesn't make the race unbalanced at all, but the items might. I remember planes having more access to red balloons, and cars and hovercrafts green and blue, meaning that in a way they'd have different item pools. I never noticed any inequality as a kid, but maybe it does exist there. Irregardless, game is fun as fuck. The ice castle battle level is the best, doughnut island or whatever the fuck from Mariokart can suck my dick.I just love it. I love it so much, and I will probably never play it again. But I can dream! God if there was an online version of this...I'd be living my best life. I really would. It's a delight, absolutely adorable, and also thrilling because of the space station "track" and there are no bullshit blue shells. Let me have my Diddy Kong Racing. Just let me have it. Or don't. Be a thief of joy.
Welcome my friend to the wonderful life of a gamer. Video games can be master pieces, and amazing experiences.
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