81–90 of 136 posts
The original Half Life.. I believe it is the only game I didn't sleep until I finished. The intro sequence captivated me into the story as I played through it.
Similarly, one of mine is half life 2. A masterclass in art direction, sound design, and world building.
- Bioshock: great atmosphere and story with subtext that almost everybody gets wrong in one of two ways, but is worth digging into
- Titanfall: insanely fast-paced with mechanics that really made one feel (after getting good enough) like an unstoppable killing machine. First game that I was good enough at to just wreck the other team relentlessly. Sucked a lot of my time though, I wouldn’t want to get back into it again.
- VtMB: Good story, good gameplay, buggy as hell, wonderfully sleazy vampire aesthetics.
- Ocarina of Time and Majora’s mask: Mainly because of nostalgia, but they really are wonderful games. The 3D ports were beautifully updated.
- Doom: Nostalgia, and with things like Brutal Doom it becomes extremely intense and immersive.
- Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow: my favorite Metroidvania.
- Deus Ex: Everything about it was perfect.
- MUDs: I used to play a strangely popular local Dystopia MUD run by some of my cousin’s friends. I sucked (I was maybe 12 at the time, and didn’t really learn the mechanics), but had chosen their custom Wraith class which became stronger after each death, and eventually became the strongest player in the game just by being so bad at it. I mostly shot the shit with friends on there. Funniest moment was when my friend from school joined, playing as a female Werewolf and started relentlessly getting everyone he could to cyber with him: the MUD had x-socials, basically x-rated emotes, and tracked one’s arousal level—if one completed the act, they got experience. I think that might be a GodWars feature. He thought this easier than farming kills and just hilarious in general.
- Silent Hill 2: maybe the opposite of doom. I don’t like survival horror generally, but this was the exception. Atmosphere was wonderful.
I like small worlds that I can really dig deep into. I got hooked on Morrowind for a while, but it put me off of the whole idea. I dislike the new Zelda games for the same reason.
The original Half Life.. I believe it is the only game I didn't sleep until I finished. The intro sequence captivated me into the story as I played through it.
Recently, it has to be Grounded. I put in a lot of hours. I was often thinking about it when I went to bed and when I woke up. Although games are a big hobby of mine, that level of excitement about what I plan to do next and how to reach a new area of the game was new for me.
playing games is a big part of my life, and until a few years ago I had self-limited to 'pop' or action/cheerful games. I started going down the road of "interactive fiction" to scratch an itch of "needing to do something productive with my game time"
it gets very very disturbing very very fast. almost whiplash fast for me (went into it blind), and in retrospect it seemed a little 'much', but it helped me get over my inhibitions and start exploring a whole genre of horror/grimdark games that I had been avoiding
System Shock 2. The evil AI, Shodan, still pops up in my thoughts from time to time. Triply relevant today as the game was remastered, and AI is a hot topic.
System Shock 2 was memorable enough that I couldn't play it in the dark and had to cheat just to give me the courage to finish it. I'm a glutton for punishment so I tried a few times to come up with a solid prompt to recreate SHODAN as an AI assistant. The goal was to balance our interactions such that we're both using each other to achieve our goals, but she always ends up becoming an unhelpful, Narcissistic, shrieking banshee like AM (from "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream").
PROTIP: All of the conventional adjectives used to describe her (megalomaniac, Narcissistic, sadistic, etc.) on the Fandom wiki tend to result in all of those traits being played to annoying extremes; she loses her chilling femininity when the only topic up for discussion is her aggressively screaming at you in all caps about how much better than you she is (that's a man, baby). I'm still working on it myself, but recommend ignoring all existing lore and rewriting her character using lesser/alternative adjectives like "helpful, cold, cutting, manipulative, and resentful of your humanity."
King’s Quest III. I think, as a young boy, I related more to the character than in King’s Quests I and II. I really got lost in the world.
Infocom’s Planetfall. Also, lost in the world.
Honourable mention to Age of Empires - played a lot of late night sessions in the late nineties. The music loop is burned into my brain forever.
Then I had kids and had no time or energy for games.