Nothing has shaped how I view games more than Dark Souls.
Halo comes to mind straight away. The way the enemies react, dodging out the way or charging towards you was something special. Also the music score and freedom it gives you in the semi-open levels to play differently.
I like that sometimes taking your time is not the best strategy. Sometimes you need to be aggressive and push the attack relentlessly otherwise you’ll just get blown to pieces.
Questions like these always reveal the core audience of millennials and older Gen Z.
Caught me, I’m a CIA plant doing statistical anilisis on the fediverse
Fallout New Vegas set my expectation for quest choice and faction interactivity. I could go on about that, but everyone knows what people think about New Vegas.
Last year, I beat Dark Souls. That’s now set my standard for RPG gameplay. There’s bullshit, same as any game, but I don’t think I’ve ever played another RPG where I’ve felt my skill going up alongside my in-game stats. Then you get to the Bed of Chaos, and that kinda goes out the window…
Halo Life is Strange Final fantasy VIII World of Warcraft Expedition 33
None of them are perfect but they all made me think about games in a different light and keep me wanting to play.
Life is Strange was perfect.
I also went to Arcadia Bay in real life, and found the most sleepy, boring town with a really good fish and chips joint. Aside from the good food, I came to appreciate more why Max and Chloe yearned to leave.
Ocarina of Time is my GOAT. Finishing it as a kids and realizing that games could be more than just killing time, that they could be epic journeys with satisfying endings, that they could be a whole art form was really transformative.
In case you’re not aware, check out Ship of Harkinian, an updated PC engine for OoT. Grab a proper controller if you have the cash.
OoT in 2K at 200fps is wild.
Hey, hope you don’t mind my asking but maybe you could help me with a question about those controllers - they also sell a DIY kit, how is that in comparison?
No problem! Unfortunately I haven’t tried their DIY kits, but I’ve bought several things from them and they’ve all been solid, so I imagine they’d be good.
When I was 6 I was so excited to get a SNES. I wanted the bundle with super Mario World but it was sold out. So my parents gave me the option of waiting of getting this other bundle with this Zelda game. That sounded kind of girly to me being 6 and knowing nothing, but I was also 6 and had no patitience so Zelda it was.
I got home and started playing and was immediately hooked. I spent the next few years exploring every inch of Hyrule and the Dark World.
To this day I still don’t have Super Mario World and have only played a few levels but I have played every Zelda since.
I’ve played dozens or hundreds of games since thrn, many that were absolutely amazing but nothing until Breath if the Wild gave me that same magic of wanting to discover every nook and cranny of the world just to see what’s there.
Super Mario Bros 1, 2 & 3
Super Mario World
Mortal Kombat 1 & 2
Wolfenstein 3D
DOOM
Commander Keen
Starcraft
Diablo 1 / 2
Unreal Tournament 2003/4
Counter-Strike
Half Life
Everquest
World of Warcraft
The Secret of Monkey Island
Indiana Jones Fate of Atlantis / Last Crusade
LOOM
Resident Evil 1 & 2
Legend of Zelda 1
Ocarina of Time
Mario Kart (SNES & 64)
Ogre Battle 64
WCW/NWO Revenge
Portal 1 & 2
Grand Theft Auto 2, 3 and 5Yeah I’m old. Some modern ones:
Breath of the Wild
Valheim
Outer WildsYour not old, your me!. Most of these plus some others definitely, plus a bunch of modern ones as well. Shocked you only liked Half-Life 1 and not 2. I thought 2 was mind blowing at the time and still feel like it’s the first game to bring us into the modern era of games to this day.
Spyro the Dragon:
This is basically the pinnacle of game design to me. It is a collect-a-thon of course, but the gems always sparkle no matter how far you are from them so that if you are in line of sight you will know that they are there making it easy to find them.
Far off sections of the map are basically always reachable and rewards you for trying to get there and utilizing uncommon paths through the map.
When you beat the game to 100% it rewards you with extra stuff and a little more game to show it had fun being made as much as you hopefully did playing it.
All with a fun story that wraps it up and doesnt require anything special to jump in. I want to see games that have thoughtful level design and world building while using the game mechanics in fun ways. The fact that you jump into levels directly and the loading screen is akin to you actually flying to the world is all engrossing to the world.
A few that seem under represented here: Oregon Trail Sim City 2000 Earthworm Jim
DUSK was the game where shooters finally clicked with me, I’ve played many of them before, whether it was CoD, Serious Sam or DOOM but DUSK is where it finally all clicked and I started to enjoy them. Chrono Trigger completely changed my outlook on RPGs from boring grindfests with pointless texts where you get confused every second to making it my fav genre and finally Yakuza and Zelda BotW completely changed how I viewed open world for better or for worse
My Younger days:
- Legend of the Red Dragon
- Police Quest 1
- Anarchy Online
- Bard’s Tale (OG)
- Shadowgate
- Metroid
- Forgotten Worlds
- Super Mario World
- Paper Mario TTYD
- Guitar Hero
- Tony Hawk’s Underground
- Star Wars: KOTOR
More recently:
- Cave Noire
- AC: Odyssey
- Fallout 4
- Cloverpit
- Offline Games (Android)
Mostly tried to stick to a single release per platform for the earlier games. I’m sure I’ve missed some.
Newer games…I know the AC and Fallout titles aren’t most people’s favorites, but I love those worlds. Games are all about comfort for me.
Ohhh shit someone else who has visited Rubi-Ka? Loved that game when I was younger
I miss it so much. Last time I tried to fire it up again, it just wouldn’t even run under Windows. And I just haven’t ever found something that hits the same.
I had no issues running it a couple years ago…though it was a pretty disappointing. Very very dated and plain. I couldn’t remember how to get anywhere either and for a game so reliant on portalling around, it was rough
Here is my Quality Slop list (I only like them because they are good):
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
- Metal Gear Solid
- NieR Gestalt
- Test Drive Unlimited 2
- Halo Combat Evolved
- Dark Souls
- The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
- Half-Life: Opposing Force
- Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair
- Silent Hill 2 (the original, not the remake)
- Super Metroid
- Need for Speed Underground 2
- Shenmue 1, 2, and 3 (Shenmue 3 is probably the worst game on this list, but its still pretty good regardless)
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 1 & 2
- Age of Empires II
- Command & Conquer: Generals - Zero Hour
- Policenauts
- Panzer Dragoon Orta
Each of these have contributed to my high bar of expected quality for games. Most of these games were made on a very tight budget and schedule, with pretty harsh hardware limitations, usually with a small team of less than 100 people, and are the greatest games of all time. Modern game studios have no excuses for the awful quality they launch games in today with more time, money, more people on the dev team, and lack of hardware limitations.
I’m really intrigued by your one and only C&C entry being generals? Not red alert 2?
I liked it more. Red Alert 2 was good but I just prefer Generals Zero Hour.
RA2 isnt bad, I just wanted to really limit the list to not repeat a bunch of games from the same series if they werent equally as good IMO (which is why Danganronpa 2 is the only one in its series, for example). I just had more fun with Generals Zero Hour.
Can’t really argue with that, RA2 was just such an icon and a mainstay whereas I feel like the C&C brand was largely on the way out by the time of generals, personally
Its hard to argue with Russian Tim Curry. He was such a fun pick for that role.
An absolute joy to watch, as always
Half life 2. I could conceive of shooter games but until playing HL2 as a teenager, I didn’t quite understand how much storytelling they could pack in. Suddenly, it felt like games could be thoughtful and entertaining pieces of art instead of solely fun time
Definitely Ace Attorney. It hits a lot of marks; it gives you the feeling of beating enemies by being clever, rather than powerful. It ties in with a sense of justice, and contains some murder mysteries that rival some of the greats of Agatha Christie with twisted, complex motives and multiple lying witnesses. It has VERY creative character designs, making each new face very memorable. Its localization team had their own sense of humor, conveyed well with how they chose to adapt many things. In spite of the humor, they often follow through with deeply emotional endings to each case.
