I have been playing videogames in one form or another since 1985. What has kept me going over this time is the discovery of new games that make me think or feel something that I couldn't get from real life, film or music. Here is a list of some of those games in no particular order, I hope this will encourage you to go out and try a few different things, or perhaps revisit a few old favourites.
The setting in this game is unique. The moment that you slip below the water and see this huge underwater city, it is something to remember. A lot of people like the story, but I think that the atmosphere is the winner here. The final boss fight is a bummer.
This is where me and the shooter took our separate paths. I enjoyed the campaign and never played the multiplayer. The rest of the world took the multiplayer, and now it is now. The sinking ship, the sniper mission in Chernobyl, the ending were all great. But I never felt the urge to go back after this. I’m still waiting for the game that turns this around.
This game was still in alfa when I played it, and I only played the tutorial. That tutorial is one of the most emotive and depressing stories told in gaming that I have experienced. It takes 20 minutes, check it out.
Networks man. If you enjoy joining things together, this is the game for you. It is at its most fun when you r income is limited and you are trying to make train networks that run smoothly and maximise profit. Unfortunately, the end game is always 747s, airports and buckets of cash. There has been some complex modding of this game involving really complex supply chains that I could never get to work. It looked really engrossing though, if you have the time and effort to make it work. Also, the original midi music was unique.
Iphone games usually don’t work because of the interface (we need buttons people.... Buttons). Games that do work are usually quite shallow. More complex games don’t work because nobody poops for long enough to work out the mechanics. Game dev story kept the cycles of gaming short, but had great content, clear goals and fun upgrades. It was a template for making a good iphone game.
The high concept of a roguelike, where many randomised factors meet together in a unique gameplay experience is mixed with responsive gamepad controls. This game also acts as a proof that the roguelike can exist in a sidescrolling, realtime environment. I hope it sold well, because it was a lot of fun to play. I think it is coming to the vita, spelunky on the go would be cool.
FMV. 4 discs. I was just a sucker. There was some pseudo 3d environment exploration in this as well that at the time was pretty out there. B-grade detective story in the future with an exploding space station, totally rad.
FMV. 4 discs. This game was the future when I first got it. The galactic war plot was great. FMV space kissing was also pretty cool. Progressing through the game and getting new ships was also fun. The missions with the bomber ship, complete with functioning tail gun, were something that got cut for the fifth game, but I thought they were really fun. “Her lair mate... Is the heart of the tiger!!!” Roar.
Proof that you don’t have to be good at a game to have fun. I am hopeless at this game, but I still pick it up every now and then to see if I can make it to excalabur (oh no! Water nairds!). Steep learning curve and no graphics make this classic hard to access, but get to know the basic controls and it becomes an old friend that can be downloaded and played on almost anything. If you are keen to understand the genesis of modern roguelikes such as spelunky and rogue legacy, this is also worth a look.
I got into this series late, so the original or the N64 one may be more definitive. I has a blast playing this game. It is great escapism and perfect for winding down after work. A light JRPG combat system works well. It is a charming adventure that is worth checking out.
Another game which has had a lot of shit talked about it. For me, sneaking through the grass into huts and stealth killing dudes, only to have your cover blown and going guns out, escaping in a hang-glidrer and then sniping your way into a bunker complex, it was so much fun. It marks a point where action games became better than action movies. Now that number 3 is out and is so good, probably play this instead, but this one will always hold a special place in my heart (apart from the aliens).
I love games with complex mechanics and a big manual. This has to be the grand-daddy of complex strategy games. There are hundreds of provinces, thousands of units and in game messages come at you thick and fast. It is easy to say “im going to change the course of world war II,” but enacting it in this sim is so hard, because the historical forces around you are so strong. I never got close to understanding this game, but it was great fun to mess around in.
I decided to walk all the way around the map and just do quests as I picked them up. I finished this 40 hours later. I have never really started playing the main quest but I still feel I got my moneys worth. I’m no cheese collector, but this game is superb, even for the rest of us.
There is always a bridge to cross with horror movies- you don’t want to be scared, but once you get used to it, the thrill is amazing. RE4 is like this, the opening sequences are full of forboding, but as the adventure takes off, it becomes more of an exciting romp. I have tried to go back and play this a few times, but the start is too scary. I’m getting old. Also, great bosses.
I have been playing number 3 recently, and it has struck me that being able to sneak around a security system by crawling through an air vent has become a little dated... But at the time of the first game this non-linear gameplay was so fresh. There has always been a bit of a rub with this series where the coolness of the renegade hacker meets the dorkiness of stacking boxes to jump onto a fire escape, but this game really worked in the open ended areas. The hong-kong chapter sticks in the memory as just a really fun environment to explore. As an aside, “the nameless mod” is worth checking out,. It plays well and does some interesting things with the fourth wall such as people discussing the philosophical components of the original game from within the mod.
Hardest tutorial in the history of time. Get through that, and the first mission is an experience you wont get anywhere else. This is a quick-save heavy experience as you work out the exact path through the huge, hand textured world. There are some smaller missions in between that are not so great, but it is the big set pieces (escape from the nazi castle, underground in burma) where this game shines
In retrospect, the orange box is a weird concept, and a little ironic for me given that it was the gateway drug to steam and digital content delivery (but I still have the box on my shelf). The puzzling in portal is great, it is challenging and fun. The game is built on the halflife 2 engine and so it controls really well. The game really takes a left turn when the wall to one of the puzzle rooms comes off, revealing a dystopia waiting to be explored in the second game. The song at the end is great too.
(and by extension.. brotherhood). This game is at its best when you are climbing stuff. Ezio is great as well. The plot turns into a load of old nonsense, and I really couldn't care about the stuff set in the present. The historical cities are great, you can really lose yourself in them. Great escapism.
The potentially damaging effects of videogames became apparent when I was unable to be torn from my 80386 after discovering civ. I loved playing on the real world map.
Space boning. These guys have it covered. Also space fighting, space politics, space levelling up, space exploration, space toilets, space double-crossing, space revenge, space difficult decisions… it’s all there. While the third game was a bit of a bummer, I still think that if you take it in the context of the arc of the whole game, it is okay. I also really liked it when you were having a really long winded conversation with some whiney alien and there was an option to just shoot them. Badass.
So much trash has been talked about FFVII, and it is hard to like this game without being considered a fan-boy. I played this game while I was going through some tough times, and I found that thinking about the world and plot points that I had played helped me to get to sleep. It is a benefit of gaming that I now use often. It was a great adventure, I recommend it, but obviously it is not for everyone and there are other great JRPGs out there. And those random encounters….. god damn!
Great ambient music. Fun platforming. For a lot of people this game was about the secret puzzles and cracking the code. I am not smart enough to get a kick from that kind of thing. The anti-cubes I did find were fun, but for me the main draw in this game was a return to simplicity, a relaxed pace and just fantastic music.
Advice. When you get to the flying boat sequence, get a save file and skip ahead to level 8, when you return to the city. Fun shooting, great plot without cutscenes. A feeling of gradually increasing power until going nuts with the gravity gun in the final sequence. Going up that tower will stay in my memory forever.
Grognards unite… when this came out it was in a league of its own. A serious, open world shooter. You could drive the tanks and fly the planes and helicopters. The soviet era plot had you playing as a raw grunt and as a gnarly spec ops dude. The game has been modded to bejesus and I think you can even play it in the Arma engine. The later games in this series lack the drama of the original, sacrificing plot for more multiplayer focus. If you get through the campaign, I can recommend playing the expansion where you play a resistance fighter in a hopeless struggle against the soviet jugganought. Trudging over hills in the rain to fight tanks with a single rocket launcher and 3 rockets was truly demoralising. The ending bummed me out completely – but in a good way.
I played this with keyboard on a laptop. The driving was solid, the cutscenes were great, and I still catch myself muttering the lines under my breath every now and then (look out for the sample on an Infected Mushroom track). A reasonably fleshed out game from a different time with a great world and a nice structured story on top of it.
I recently played this again and it reminded me of how hard games were before checkpointing. So much backtracking. I love this game for its huge world and the (pretty) good story that is hung from it. Samuel L Jackson, Dennis Hopper and James Woods are all awesome. There is almost an entire game worth of content before the plot takes a massive left turn and you end up on a romp through redneck nation and the desert. Yes, there are rocket packs and tanks, but this game still feels like a real journey. While GTA-IV gets the critical acclaim, I feel like San Andreas is more fun. But that’s just a taste thing. If you haven’t already, you should probably play both.
Time probably hasn’t been kind to Shenmue, but at the time, the fully realised world was great. Walking down the street from your Japanese house, talking to the kids, playing arcade games at the shop to waste time. Working as a forklift truck driver. I really felt like I was living in late 80s Japan. From memory, the combat system was pretty good too. The cinematic nature of the back end of the game wasn’t for everybody, and it got pretty indulgent. The final scene where he is on the boat and the excitement I had for the sequel are easy to remember. These days, I would just play sleeping dogs, and if you need more, then go hunting for this on Dreamcast.
This game was limited in scope, but there were missions and races that gave the driving some structure. Most racing sims a soulless desert, giving you the opportunity to race 3 laps on 10 tracks over and over again. This game is a primer on how to give a sim soul without being crass.
Another example of a huge open world gone wrong. The whole one of the islands of Hawaii is here. You can drive through the high rise hotels, along beachfront terraces, along highways through rolling hills and forests, along straight roads through fields, wind up mountains and to secluded beaches. While trying to split the line between arcade and sim, the cars just feel boring. There is nothing at the end of any street or road to make you want to go there. Play it to cruise the locations or for an endurance race around the island.
This is not a very good driving game. I think about this often because there is so much potential in here. These French dudes created a procedurally generated world (post-apocalyptic, of course) that is something like 200 km across. Hand made features such as a sunken city, crater lakes, mountains and canyons are also there. Exploring this environment took me to some really amazing places, and it was a really fun way to escape reality. Unfortunately, there was never anything worth driving towards. No interesting characters, very few unlocks or trophies. The racing was sometimes fun, but too often boring. You had to win to get any points, and seeing as the races could be very long, there was not enough reward for the effort you put in. This game came out in the late naughties, and I think it is a real high water mark for huge open worlds and procedurally generated content. It stands as a great example of scope over tightness. Beautiful and disappointing. (Also, I changed all the music files from the testosterock that came with it to weird ambient music, which helps).
More and better portal is delivered. I had the ending built up by the bombcast, and I was a little disappointed. But in retrospect, the characters and locations have really stayed with me.
