My parents bought me a Playstation 2 for my 9th birthday. I was excited beyond belief. I recall getting Spyro: Year of the Dragon with my PS2. I don't really know why I wanted a PS1 game with my brand spankin' new PS2, but what did I know? I was a dumb 9 year old. (I still loved the game.)
Then one day, I remember watching a trailer for Max Payne. There was a dude shooting guns and jumping around in slow motion! This game is badass! But of course it was rated M, but lucky me: I have a brother who is 9 years older than me. So I begged him to get it, and he did, much to my happiness.
Turned out, Max Payne scared the living shit out of me. The first level when you find out your family has been horribly murdered by drug-infused thugs still scares me to this day. The baby crying, your wife laying there on the bed in a pool of blood... Simply put, this game terrified me right down to the core. Also, from the perspective of a 10 year old, that game was stupid hard. I remember always using cheats and I still couldn't beat it. The only reason I'm saying this is because I purchased Max Payne 1 and 2 from a Steam sale recently. I knew that these were regarded as great games, so I decided that now, as a 19 year old, I can finally appreciate these games as a mature adult. I feel like this is the part of the movie where I face my childhood fears and I could not be more excited. I am ready to fully understand and adore these games as they were meant to be.
So that brings me to ask you guys: What games scarred your childhood? I'm sure there are plenty of horror stories so please share!
Don't get me wrong, I am pumped to play DOTA 2. I played the original Defense of the Ancients way back when it was just starting to get popular and loved it. I enjoy the MOBA or Hero Arena Games or whatever you wanna call it; I'm actively playing League of Legends right now. But I was watching the stream last night (or early this morning) and when someone killed another player, it still said "pwned". Now, I was okay with the original DOTA doing this because it was a mod that someone created and wasn't anything officially released. Something dumb like that was easily overlooked. But now that Valve is releasing this game proper, in my humble opinion, stuff like that is just simply lame. I mean, I'm still gonna play DOTA 2, but just seeing that kinda irked me the wrong way.
I was playing The Lost And The Damned and I was watching the infamous scene with Congressman Stubbs. His glorious wang is only shown at the last part of the scene and somehow my mom comes into my room at EXACTLY that moment. She didn't get mad or anything like that; she was actually visibly laughing in a surprised and shocked sort of way. I was laughing my ass off, to be honest. Nothing bad came out of it, except for the fact that it was kinda embarrassing. I don't know why that happens but moms and dads always come in at the worst possible moment. I'm sure you guys have tons of stories that are probably way more embarrassing than mine. Let's hear em'!
For some strange reason, I always observe how characters move up and down stairs in video games. It's been something that's been bothering me since I've been a wee lad. I hate how most video game people just slide or jump unrealistically up and down stairs. Rarely do games have their characters take each individual step, and when they do, a part of my brain tingles and sends out good signals throughout my body. L.A. Noire takes its stairs seriously, and that is my first reason why this game is awesome. Only other game that I know of that takes stairs seriously is Killer 7. Loved that game too.
Not having to go back down buildings
I don't really have a good, brief title to express how I loved this feature, but the header says it all. When you're done climbing up a huge building, instead of making you go back down, the game transports you to the bottom. Especially when you're searching for all those clues in the last case of Homicide...seems like a minor thing, but it made a lasting impression on me.
Good Samaritan Hospital
I was freaking born here and it's a landmark in the game. How could I not love L.A. Noire?
...Oh and everything else about the game is fantastic as well.
21 Comments
Super Smash Bros. Melee is my favorite game of all time. You may know this from looking at my list, which I will shamelessly plug here. Now, before you get your pitchforks out and start to kill me, there's a reason for this. A perfectly logical one.
I grew up as a kid playing Playstation 2 and GameCube games. I know this may be heresy to all you old folk, but I'm still pretty young so cut me some slack when I say that I haven't played all the classics of the NES and SNES era. I do have an older brother who played these systems so I still have a lot of exposure to them, but PS2 and GCN games are what I was playing when I was growing up. The first console I ever received was the PS2 as a birthday present. I remember playing a lot of PS1 games on it actually, games like Spyro: Year of the Dragon. I'm not really sure why I played PS1 games on my PS2, but hell, I had a blast. I also loved games like the first Jak and Daxter and Ratchet and Clank. Eventually, I also got a GameCube, and this is when I really started to get into the world of video games.
I don't know. I liked it. I remember the GameCube I bought came with Mario Kart: Double Dash and it was awesome. I still don't know why people still poo poo on that game so much; sure it's not the best but it's still a fun game when you play with friends. And then the next game I got is what changed my life....SSBM!
When I first got that game, I really enjoyed it, but didn't really love it. I played through the Classic and Adventure mode, played some multiplayer, and got some trophies. After that, I unlocked all the characters, and that was about it. I thought I had "beat" the game and I was done. Nothing really amazing popped out at me and it didn't revolutionize anything. So I moved onto my next game and life went on...
Until a couple of years later when I decided to pop this sucker back in. I usually do this; play games you've beaten before just to see how it holds up. As I was fiddling around with the multiplayer, I found the thing that changed SSBM for me: spiking. Now, veterans of SSBM know what I'm talking about. It's when a character is trying to come back on to the platform, and while they're in midair, you jump to them and execute a "spike" move which makes them plummet instantly to their death. The specific spike that I first found was Captain Falcon's jumping down A (aka his dair for you SSBM vets). If you know what that move looks like, then you know it looks hilarious. Captain Falcon would kick both feet at the ground like some psycho, and me and my brother thought this was awesome/funny/ridiculous. We affectionately called it "feet first." Oh Captain Falcon. You so crazy. After discovering spiking, I found out that the SSBM was an insanely deep and complex game. As I became more and more familiar with the Internet and the endless amount of information that could be found there, I learned about techniques such as wavedashing and L-canceling. I also found out about the SSBM tournament scene in the MLG circuit. Players like Ken and Isai amazed me with their skill. After learning about the depth that SSBM had, me and my brother played the FUCKING SHIT out of that game. Seriously. It was scary how much we played. I played more than 200 hours of that game. Probably a lot more actually. I'll never know the actual time spent because Baten Kaitos formatted my GCN memory card for some odd reason (I'll always hate Baten Kaitos because of that). Even after I lost all my data, I unlocked all the characters again and probably spent another 200 hours. This is why it is my favorite game of all time.
Which brings me to my next point. No matter what, games that people have played as a kid will always be considered their all time favorites. Memories of childhood are like wine: they get better with age. People will always look back to the games of their childhood fondly. So try to remember this the next time you're blasting someone for saying that Majora's Mask is their favorite game of all time.
I've been member of GiantBomb since its inception many a year ago. But for some reason I've never really gotten into the community aspect of it. I've always loved the videos, news, reviews, Bombcast, etc., but never really got into the forums. Well, in the summer of 2011, I've decided that I'm gonna become more involved in this so called GiantBomb "community". I may try to write some reviews of games I've finished, but these are gonna be games that are pretty old cause I just don't have time to play all the newly released games. So anyways, this is just basically a blog just to introduce myself. And if any you actually bothered to read this, thanks! I hope this community is awesome!
Log in to comment