Something went wrong. Try again later

stephen_hearts

This user has not updated recently.

3 0 2 1
Forum Posts Wiki Points Following Followers

Top 50 Games

List items

  • one day, not long ago, i was walking through the sleepy streets of my quiet, countryside town in Inaka, Japan. As I climbed the mountainside path, a gentle mist settled over the streets, moving through the unbodied telephone poles and invisible network of black wires. And I had an idea. I was going to play the Persona 4 soundtrack. Why not? It was perfect. A countryside town rolled up in a light fog. i didn't make it to the chorus of Heartbreak, Heartbreak before I felt a force to my gut that stole the air from my lungs and left me breathless and winded on the side of the road. It literally took my breath away. I didn't know that could actually happen. I always thought it was just a metaphor. But it hit me, and hit me hard, and I had to turn it off. I didn't make it ten seconds. I learned my lesson, Shoji. I will never do it again.

    I can't listen to you on quiet nights. But thanks for teaching me to accept myself when I was young. I'm not a sixteen year old deranged gamer child anymore. I'm 28 and have abs and a jawline now. But it's still really hard sometimes, and I'll still need you on occasion. But thank you. Even though it hurts. Especially because it hurts. You're not me. You're not me. You might be me. Thanks again.

  • this game cured my messiah complex

  • this game GAVE me my messiah complex

  • Ask me again in five years and this might move up a couple of spaces. Can't believe how good it is. The leap in quality from P5 to P5R is astounding. This game is a miracle. I would put 200 hours into it again in a heartbeat. There might not be a single game on this earth I could say the same thing about.

  • this game contributed heavily to my messiah complex

  • this is the scariest game ever made, and it isn't close. There is maybe one moment in Fatal Frame II that hits as hard as this game does at its baseline, but that's it. Lets be real here, the mirror scene in the hospital is the pinnacle of video game horror at the height of its artistic power. Silent Hill 2 is better in almost every other respect. But Silent Hill 3 brings the scares. Sometimes I watch scenes from this game before bed to make sleep seem less like dying and more like getting away. Blue sky to forever. Green grass blows in the wind. They look like monsters to you?

    I love this game.

  • moral choices in video games are boring lets commit violent war crimes

  • video games peaked on the playstation

  • "Not Tomorrow" was animated by a single guy, scored by a single guy, and is more effective, tragic, and horrific than any of the mega budget nonsense released on the seventh generation wearing the skin of silent hill. video games peaked on the playstation and no one understands this but me.

  • it is still true

  • the hospital scene in Silent Hill 3 is scarier but the projector room in Fatal Frame II lives in my mind, rent free. I once tried to write a about how my imagination expanded in terror within the four walls of that room. four walls. four angles. no safety. just black lines and dust. i failed worse than i have ever failed at anything else in this life.

    there's just something special about this one. the other fatal frames are just kinda dumb. but this one is...it feels haunted. like the disc itself should be quarantined. in that grounded sort of way the first game gestured at with its "inspired by true events" bit of silliness in the preamble. there's nothing true about the events of Fatal Frame II, but they feel...rooted. this one gestures towards the very real realties of generational tragedy, the limitations of familial bonds, and the casual, careless kind of cruelty that only siblings can inflict on each-other. it isn't true. but it feels more honest. more reflective of the sadness and shame that comes from being the big brother or big sister that has to do all the heavy lifting, and all the letting down.

    here is a game about taking pictures of spooky things, but slowly the images start to feel less like still photographs and more like a living documentary to the dead. is this game real life? sometimes i thought the spirits would actually come out of the screen and scratch at me. but then i remembered that most of the ghosts were just people, and didn't really want to hurt anyone. and then i just get kind of sad.

    fixed camera angles are the light, and we didn't deserve them.

    the wii version of this was a mistake but the original is a bona fide classic.

  • PS2 version

  • Final Mix version.

  • this game should be higher, honestly. I don't really know where to put this one. In some ways, it is the best danganronpa. but it doesn't hit as hard the third time around. And it knows that? It banks on that, in some respect. I still like salmon fishing. and the rpg. and the boardgame. the fossil game though, gave me post traumatic stress disorder. my friend started to text me on her long bus rides home about how she almost got the gold fossil medal, just one more try! And then another. And another. i didn't have the heart to tell her i had gotten it days before. and that it was the worst eight hours of my life.

  • the last two cases of gyakuten kenji 2 are the best things to come out of the ace attorney series. i'm not sure how it happened. playing through this one is one of my most cherished gaming memories because of what a surprise it was. i felt like i stumbled on something that shouldn't exist, like i'd unearthed some forgotten, forbidden artifact. why is this so good? why is this so much better than the first one? i don't know, man. i just hate that fucking clown.

  • Nintendo DS version. miss me with that mobile version.

    i started playing this in the corner of the student center on my college campus between classes and skipped fourth period because of how captivated i was. it was one of the only **only** times i have ever missed a class. it was worth it. it was WORTH it.

  • PSX version

  • extremely, extremely flawed. but ambitious and cool and so so so ahead of its time. has some interesting thoughts about the things we inherit and the things we don't. is sort of about the privileged in the way that Tharcia 776 is about the disadvantaged. everything is inherited for Seliph and his game is quite easy. Leif inherits nothing, and his game is comically difficult. Together, the two take on this brotherly quality of epic poems. The Iliad and The Odyssey. But I like The Iliad a little more. I'm a sucker for great men and tragic heroes.

  • why is the north american box art for all these games so friggin bad??? alucard is hot. put him on the box!

  • "take a gamble that love exists, and do a loving act" is my favorite spoken line in any video game.

  • "what can change the nature of a man?" is maybe numero dos

  • New Leaf supremacy squad

  • sorry freddie

  • i heard that the polito form is dead, and rushed here to tell you the news

  • Listen, we all know Third Strike is the better game. But I spent way too much of my life obsessed with the Alpha style and lore not to put this one above it. I love Street Fighter. I love Marvel vs Capcom. But for some REASON this was the game that got me into it all. And I still love love love the way it looks, moves, and sounds. My favorite fighting game, for sure.

  • This is the only BioWare game on my list. So weird.

  • I left school early for a dentist appointment that day. I had two cavities and must have been twelve years old. It was a morning appointment, but I didn’t have to go back to class because I had parents who loved me, perhaps a little too much. Instead, I went to the BestBuy with money in my pocket. I still had my innocence then. I know this, because when I walked in there, it was with every intention to buy Nintendogs. Intendogs? Whatever.

    The right man in the wrong place.

    And I did buy Nintendogs, which is not on this list and shouldn’t be on anyone’s top list of anything. I don’t even know why I wanted it. I **had** a dog. A real, live dog. Anyways, I also came out with a chunky cardboard box containing Half Life 2. Remember when PC games came out in those big, bulky boxes? It had a man with glasses on the cover. He wasn’t scowling or even holding a gun. Actually, he looked kinda sad.

    I don’t know why I bought it. I shouldn’t have even been able **to** buy it. As I ran through the check-out lane, the woman scanning the items looked at the big black M on the box, and then to me, and then to the box again, and asked with a curious smirk “Are you 17?” I was awkward and shy and not 17 at all. So I showed her my copy of Nintendogs like it was the world’s least convincing fake ID, thinking the jig was up. At least I could still maybe pet some virtual dogs later. Her smirk became a smile at the sight of it and she gave me a big thumbs up and said “Nintendogs?! Awesome!” She must have seen the innocence still in my eyes, and let me go with both games. Nice kid, she must have thought. What could be the harm?

    The only reason I was able to get out of that BestBuy with Half-Life 2 was because of Nintendogs.

    The right man in the wrong place.

    Does this game mean anything, outside of what I bring to it? You show me a crowbar, and now all I see is an instrument of terrible violence. You tell me to pick up a soda can, and suddenly I’m an anti-authoritarian freedom fighter. Alyx Vance looked great in those jeans, but now when I close my eyes, all I see is Judith Mossman. I’m a sucker for redheads and tight turtlenecks. Even Portal and Portal 2 can be read as metaphors for abuse and reconciliation. What does this thing mean, outside of groundbreaking facial animations and seesaw puzzles? And why is it so important to me that it means anything at all?

    For me, it is an ending and a beginning. This game would fully unlock the deranged gamer child sleeping inside me, through no fault of its own. And that is a pit that I still find myself nails deep into crawling my way out of. The end of innocence? That seems like a lot to lay down at the feet of Half Life 2. I think, more than that, it is the beginning of my appreciation for games as something more than just games. What does it mean? What can it tell me about my life? Or anyone’s life?

    I’ve changed since I met you. Put me in the combat boots of Solid Snake today, and I will take great pains to kill nothing and hurt no one. That doesn’t make me a good person, but it's progress from the bitter, angry animal I used to be. I know what Metal Gear Solid means. Can love bloom on a battlefield? What makes a person, a person? Is it our DNA? Our genes? Or are we the reflection we see of ourselves in the eyes of someone who loves us? Metal Gear Solid tells us, explicitly, to go outside and enjoy our lives and stop caring so much about damn video games. Go pet a real dog, idiot. But I can only know what Metal Gear Solid means because of Half-Life 2. And I can only know Half-Life 2 because of Nintendogs.

    Maybe that’s the answer. Maybe Half-Life 2 means exactly what it said it meant in those iconic opening lines.

    The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference.

    "thanks, nintendogs!" - gordon freeman, maybe