Metal Gear Solid 3 and The Sorrow.
Changed the way I played games to this day. If you've never played it. Do it.
Changed the way I played games to this day. If you've never played it. Do it.
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Videogames that changed your concept of videogames
- Thread starter lunanto
- Start date
World of Warcraft.
I don't really know how to put it into words, but before WoW I was extremely introverted and really just stuck to myself (this was especially true in the year or two before I started playing, my best friend passed away from Leukemia at 14, it was the first death I had experienced, and I just wanted to go into that shell as far as I could to shield myself from experiencing that feeling again to the point where I was intentionally pushing quite a few of my "real life" friends away), my WoW guild helped be break out of that shell and really start connecting with people again. WoW showed be that games can be more than, well, games and have actual life-changing effects on people.
I don't really know how to put it into words, but before WoW I was extremely introverted and really just stuck to myself (this was especially true in the year or two before I started playing, my best friend passed away from Leukemia at 14, it was the first death I had experienced, and I just wanted to go into that shell as far as I could to shield myself from experiencing that feeling again to the point where I was intentionally pushing quite a few of my "real life" friends away), my WoW guild helped be break out of that shell and really start connecting with people again. WoW showed be that games can be more than, well, games and have actual life-changing effects on people.
I mean, Planescape Torment is the obvious one for me.
When I started it I was like "what is this, why is there so much text ew" and today I'm still thinking about that game and the stories it told.
It's probably the sole reason why I love cRPGs so much.
When I started it I was like "what is this, why is there so much text ew" and today I'm still thinking about that game and the stories it told.
It's probably the sole reason why I love cRPGs so much.
As a kid Phantasy Star IV made fall in love with JRPGs, characters, stories, worlds. Before that video games were mostly just score/level challenges. This made them so much more for me.
GTA III + Deus Ex + Morrowind are the most impactful as far as my current tastes go, no question. That two year span in the early 2000s changed everything. Freedom, immersion, atmosphere, systemic gameplay became core gaming values. Tecmo's Deception and Metal Gear Solid planted some of these early seeds as well.
GTA III + Deus Ex + Morrowind are the most impactful as far as my current tastes go, no question. That two year span in the early 2000s changed everything. Freedom, immersion, atmosphere, systemic gameplay became core gaming values. Tecmo's Deception and Metal Gear Solid planted some of these early seeds as well.
Some obvious ones: Silent Hill 2, Shadow of the Colossus
Something a bit different: Sega GT 2002. Before I got it as an Xbox pack-in title, I had a close-minded and negative opinion of racing games. Sega GT opened my eyes to them, and also taught me a lesson in open mindedness in the process.
Something a bit different: Sega GT 2002. Before I got it as an Xbox pack-in title, I had a close-minded and negative opinion of racing games. Sega GT opened my eyes to them, and also taught me a lesson in open mindedness in the process.
The Stanley Parable is one of the greatest for me - virtually every game is designed with a length-first approach (one long narrative with narrow branching), whereas the Parable is breadth-first (many short narratives with almost constant branching).
Davey Wreden's next game, The Beginner's Guide, is also a thoroughly great work, but interestingly is completely devoid of player freedom and instead is entirely about the narrative.
Spec Ops: The Line has already been mentioned, but I also thoroughly appreciated the way that the narrative is delivered, and the subtle details thrown into what is at first a budget Call of Duty clone, such as the way that your AI teammates get more irritable and less professional as the events grind them down.
Finally, as a non-narrative honourable mention, Driver: San Francisco proved that even for a 'serious' big-publisher game with a storyline, it's possible to design a game to be fun and have the writing excuse the design choices, rather than sticking to genre norms. The most tedious part of a GTA clone is scurrying from one car to a better car, so Driver: SF lets the player simply teleport between cars at will, and hangs the writing from that mechanic, rather than the player's enjoyment of the gameplay coming second.
It also introduced for me the idea of a narrative which is simply the player opting not to engage in the narrative at all, which was very successfully copied by Far Cry 4 a few years later. The Stanley Parable however goes even further, with multiple endings that can only be found by deliberately trying and seemingly succeeding to break the scripting, only to find that the game was designed to allow you to do that. The sheer concept of a game which allows you to defy the narrative and is intentionally built around responding to your defiance rather than railroading you back was fully outside my ideas of how a game works.
Davey Wreden's next game, The Beginner's Guide, is also a thoroughly great work, but interestingly is completely devoid of player freedom and instead is entirely about the narrative.
The narrative itself however is not the actual story being told - the game (or perhaps interactive art exhibition) itself is more about Wreden's reaction to the success of The Stanley Parable, his feelings of being an impostor, and the pressure of having to follow up on such a landmark piece of design. The fact that exploring these feelings actually is the followup, and a worthy one at that, really cemented the game in my mind. I've never played anything else that made me sympathise with the writer so much, instead of characters in their story.
Spec Ops: The Line has already been mentioned, but I also thoroughly appreciated the way that the narrative is delivered, and the subtle details thrown into what is at first a budget Call of Duty clone, such as the way that your AI teammates get more irritable and less professional as the events grind them down.
The player character's crumbling mental state is never actually deliberately concealed, but is invisible for most of the game as he is an unreliable narrator of his own life without being aware of it due to the onset of PTSD. It's much more effective than most media that uses the unreliable narrator idea, as you yourself are carrying out the various war crimes and mass killings that are driving him down this spiral.
Finally, as a non-narrative honourable mention, Driver: San Francisco proved that even for a 'serious' big-publisher game with a storyline, it's possible to design a game to be fun and have the writing excuse the design choices, rather than sticking to genre norms. The most tedious part of a GTA clone is scurrying from one car to a better car, so Driver: SF lets the player simply teleport between cars at will, and hangs the writing from that mechanic, rather than the player's enjoyment of the gameplay coming second.
I bought and quickly refunded Rain World. Interesting take.
Reinstalled The Witness. forgot about that one and never finished
edit: quakeworld changed what I thought pc gaming would be like
and the opengl/3dfx cards. that was an exciting time for pc gaming
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Probably TIE Fighter. I was just coming off console gaming on my buddies machines and suddenly had my hands on a top of the line 486. Doom was amazing, sure. But I never imagined that you could marry action gameplay with the steady hand of orchestrating a sim mission at the same time. Probably why I love meta heavy nitpicky genres like RTSes.
Pyramid was the first proper text adventure I really delved into. Using real world logic and imagination to solve puzzles and advance was fascinating given I mostly played action games before it.
Penguin Land made me realize how much I enjoy it when games have multiple solutions to problems. I spent a lot of time with the built in level maker.
System Shock made me realize that first person shooter + adventure and RPG elements was what I always wanted. Deus Ex really drove home how amazing emergent design can be.
Penguin Land made me realize how much I enjoy it when games have multiple solutions to problems. I spent a lot of time with the built in level maker.
System Shock made me realize that first person shooter + adventure and RPG elements was what I always wanted. Deus Ex really drove home how amazing emergent design can be.
I remember it although I played it maybe ten years after it came out in the early days of emulation.
While no longer one of my favorites, Final Fantasy VII transitioned games from a fun pastime to full-on hobby as a child. The presentation just felt so next-level compared to anything I'd encountered up to that point and really helped immerse my 1997 self into the story and emotional connection to the characters. FFVII was the trigger, then RE2, Metal Gear Solid, and Ocarina of Time in 1998 was the absolute proof of the idea for me. For reference, I was 11 when I played FFVII.
Dark Souls really, really helped me expand my gameplay cognizance in a way that made me pay way more attention to how I played games. It's hard to describe, but up until playing Dark Souls in 2011, I feel like I tended to sort of autopilot my gameplay habits and barely thought about what I was doing — as long as it eventually worked, I didn't care about optimally addressing gameplay challenges. I simply didn't care to feel like I was playing a game well, and if a game pushed back and challenged me, I used to find it just instantly frustrating without really stopping and thinking about why I was failing. Ever since I played Dark Souls, I started to appreciate coming up with a mental plan and thinking more in-tune with a game's actual design, and consciously planning and executing my input commands according to a plan based on game feedback. I have been able to even go back to older games and apply it and find whole new appreciation for older games, too! It completely altered how I play games and my thought process about my inputs and how it feeds back to success or failure on-screen, if that makes any sense. It made playing fighting games easier, it made me go back to my pre-FFVII Genesis games with a whole new lens that has vastly increased my appreciation of games that pre-date my "hobbyist" turn, etc... But why Dark Souls? Because I was so compelled by its atmosphere and unusual lore rollout that I just desperately wanted to see what the hell was going on with its world and lore, and a lot of it was just how breathtaking its art direction could be at times. The presentation pulled a completely incapable player like myself forward, desperate to find out just what was going on in Dark Souls and to see some crazy sights, and along the way I literally became a stronger player — both within the rules of Dark Souls and every game I've touched ever since I played it.
Dark Souls really, really helped me expand my gameplay cognizance in a way that made me pay way more attention to how I played games. It's hard to describe, but up until playing Dark Souls in 2011, I feel like I tended to sort of autopilot my gameplay habits and barely thought about what I was doing — as long as it eventually worked, I didn't care about optimally addressing gameplay challenges. I simply didn't care to feel like I was playing a game well, and if a game pushed back and challenged me, I used to find it just instantly frustrating without really stopping and thinking about why I was failing. Ever since I played Dark Souls, I started to appreciate coming up with a mental plan and thinking more in-tune with a game's actual design, and consciously planning and executing my input commands according to a plan based on game feedback. I have been able to even go back to older games and apply it and find whole new appreciation for older games, too! It completely altered how I play games and my thought process about my inputs and how it feeds back to success or failure on-screen, if that makes any sense. It made playing fighting games easier, it made me go back to my pre-FFVII Genesis games with a whole new lens that has vastly increased my appreciation of games that pre-date my "hobbyist" turn, etc... But why Dark Souls? Because I was so compelled by its atmosphere and unusual lore rollout that I just desperately wanted to see what the hell was going on with its world and lore, and a lot of it was just how breathtaking its art direction could be at times. The presentation pulled a completely incapable player like myself forward, desperate to find out just what was going on in Dark Souls and to see some crazy sights, and along the way I literally became a stronger player — both within the rules of Dark Souls and every game I've touched ever since I played it.
The reasons for this may sound odd, but God of War (PS2).
I first played it maybe 3.5 years after release and it was during a point where I was getting rather jaded with a lot of the convoluted and nonsensical storylines in games. I loved deep, story-driven games since I was young, but as I grew older I realized that a lot of games just don't have a "good" story (relative to other media), no matter how deep, complex, or involved it is.
God of War sort of reinvigorated my enjoyment of video game stories. While its story is quite basic and straightforward, it is told very well. It presents the story with just enough intrigue that you want to move forward to learn more, but it also gets out of the way to facilitate gameplay. It does a good job of understanding the medium (i.e., video games) through which the story is told.
I first played it maybe 3.5 years after release and it was during a point where I was getting rather jaded with a lot of the convoluted and nonsensical storylines in games. I loved deep, story-driven games since I was young, but as I grew older I realized that a lot of games just don't have a "good" story (relative to other media), no matter how deep, complex, or involved it is.
God of War sort of reinvigorated my enjoyment of video game stories. While its story is quite basic and straightforward, it is told very well. It presents the story with just enough intrigue that you want to move forward to learn more, but it also gets out of the way to facilitate gameplay. It does a good job of understanding the medium (i.e., video games) through which the story is told.
Metal Gear Solid 2 showed me that games can be an elevated medium capable of delivering artistic statements in ways that only video games can
DK94 on the Gameboy was probably my first transition from arcadey games to legitimately phenomenal games.
It took a childhood wonder and made it something so so so much more
It took a childhood wonder and made it something so so so much more
Final Fantasy XI
It was a whole new world, the first week or so I was just blown away being lost in exploring the world, then I started making connections with the people and it just kept getting better. What a experience, one I'll never forget, and what a world.
It was a whole new world, the first week or so I was just blown away being lost in exploring the world, then I started making connections with the people and it just kept getting better. What a experience, one I'll never forget, and what a world.
KOTOR is probably the biggest one. I was a console kid growing up, so despite playing a lot of RPGs I was accustomed to a game's story grabbing me by the hand and dragging me along. Being able to influence the narrative through my choices was something I had never really conceived of. I was also a huge Star Wars fan since before I can even remember, which made me love the game even more.
Seeing The Witness love in this thread is great. I'd echo the sentiment: The Witness is a staggering enterprise of brilliance in game design and everyone who cares about videogames needs to play it.
Cheating, here, but the Half-Life series in its entirety represents so many inflection points for game design over the years it's very, very hard to imagine where we'd be right now without that influence. It's why I'm so intensely excited for Half-Life Alyx.
And lately? Fortnite. Yeah, I know, it's fucking Fortnite. But here's the thing: BR games changed the landscape of the multiplayer shooter, and Fortnite wears a large part of that accomplishment, but it is Fortnite and Fortnite alone that has begun to shape how we think about ... shared, virtual worlds where everyone can play and watch a really, really big game twist and evolve into different shapes with radically different meanings. I realize what I just wrote is fluffy as fuck, but put in simpler terms: Fortnite is a game that is endlessly satisfying to play; changes in meaningful ways all the time; invites a universe of 'things' into its play space through other IP crossovers; invites people to contribute to it creatively and change the ways we play as well as the direction of the games evolution in both seen and unseen ways. And it does all of this on nearly every platform, and ostensibly for free. When I first heard about Fortnite I wasn't just skeptical I was downright critical of it, its success, and what it means to people. Today? I think it's one of the most important games of all time, and that just comes from playing it, mostly casually, with my friends.
Cheating, here, but the Half-Life series in its entirety represents so many inflection points for game design over the years it's very, very hard to imagine where we'd be right now without that influence. It's why I'm so intensely excited for Half-Life Alyx.
And lately? Fortnite. Yeah, I know, it's fucking Fortnite. But here's the thing: BR games changed the landscape of the multiplayer shooter, and Fortnite wears a large part of that accomplishment, but it is Fortnite and Fortnite alone that has begun to shape how we think about ... shared, virtual worlds where everyone can play and watch a really, really big game twist and evolve into different shapes with radically different meanings. I realize what I just wrote is fluffy as fuck, but put in simpler terms: Fortnite is a game that is endlessly satisfying to play; changes in meaningful ways all the time; invites a universe of 'things' into its play space through other IP crossovers; invites people to contribute to it creatively and change the ways we play as well as the direction of the games evolution in both seen and unseen ways. And it does all of this on nearly every platform, and ostensibly for free. When I first heard about Fortnite I wasn't just skeptical I was downright critical of it, its success, and what it means to people. Today? I think it's one of the most important games of all time, and that just comes from playing it, mostly casually, with my friends.
This may be cheating since it's technically a visual novel with almost no gameplay, but 999 proved definitively to me that storytelling in video games can absolutely stand head to head with the very best other mediums that are more widely respected have to offer. I have zero qualms whatsoever in saying that it is one of the greatest works of fiction of the 21st century.
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Mass Effect was the first game that genuinely made me feel that enthralling cinematic storytelling was possible in games.
Chrono Trigger : A perfect packaged JRPG that's hard to be topped.
characters, system, story, graphic, OST, the length is just perfect in everyway.
Ocarina of Time : Never would I thought video game can be so much freedom, fun, and epic feeling.
with interaction between characters, items, the world, and all the locations the dungeons are just pure creativity.
I want to explore the whole world and see what interesting things exist.
characters, system, story, graphic, OST, the length is just perfect in everyway.
Ocarina of Time : Never would I thought video game can be so much freedom, fun, and epic feeling.
with interaction between characters, items, the world, and all the locations the dungeons are just pure creativity.
I want to explore the whole world and see what interesting things exist.
Link's Awakening - the first game that made me realize games could be worlds, not just puzzles or levels.
Marathon - the first game that made me feel like I was there. (And used to scare the shit out of me when I was playing it as a kid lol.)
Half-Life - the first game that really gave me that sense of being a character and experiencing a narrative.
Shadow of the Colossus - the first game that made me feel emotion (remorse), beyond "oh this is an annoying part" or "wow that was cool" or "arghg fucking online hackers."
Journey - the first game that just encapsulated aesthetic beauty: visual, aural, and even the beauty of connecting with other humans.
Those are a few, there have probably been more.
Marathon - the first game that made me feel like I was there. (And used to scare the shit out of me when I was playing it as a kid lol.)
Half-Life - the first game that really gave me that sense of being a character and experiencing a narrative.
Shadow of the Colossus - the first game that made me feel emotion (remorse), beyond "oh this is an annoying part" or "wow that was cool" or "arghg fucking online hackers."
Journey - the first game that just encapsulated aesthetic beauty: visual, aural, and even the beauty of connecting with other humans.
Those are a few, there have probably been more.
Dark Souls 3. My first Souls game. Unparalleled combat, responsive controls, hitbox porn, and the awesome summoning/invasion/message system that somehow makes you feel like you're playing a single-player game and a MMO at the same time. It has basically ruined all but a handful of action RPGs for me.
Unfortunately I played The Witcher 3 directly after experiencing DS3 for the first time, and couldn't get over how weightless the combat felt, and how wonky the controls felt. Really, really wish I had played TW3 first. I know it's an objectively well-crafted game; great open world, characters, quests, etc., but goddamn did the gameplay fall flat compared to DS3.
Unfortunately I played The Witcher 3 directly after experiencing DS3 for the first time, and couldn't get over how weightless the combat felt, and how wonky the controls felt. Really, really wish I had played TW3 first. I know it's an objectively well-crafted game; great open world, characters, quests, etc., but goddamn did the gameplay fall flat compared to DS3.
In my teens, whereas I was making small, shitty video games with just about all of my free time, I did not play any and thought the medium as a whole was trash. The Path convinced me there was value in the medium. And like movies before, I eventually grew to appreciate some of the mainstream stuff as well.
Then there are some games and that changed my perception not of what video games could be, but of what "video game" meant. But really those are semantics and not as profound. It's ultimately an arbitrary categorization, like all are.
While I've long thought the "game" in "video game" was a misnomer, asphyx (and some writing I don't remember) solidified to me just how little the two have in common and how very few video games are, by themselves, irrespective of their communities, games. That is, of course, insofar as any thing can ever be a game (chess is a game, a chess set is not). To clarify, I think a game is a ruleset which one or more participants elect to follow. Video games do not have such rules, they have laws being enforced by the software, with no room for interpretation. So "Mario" is not a game, but "Mario any% no warps" is. And asphyx is, because it requires a human to enforce (or not) the rules.
But that really just solidified a previous perception, what truly completely shattered my understanding of "video game" was 4 minutes and 33 seconds of uniqueness. It convinced me that video games do not have to be interactive. It is something that I believe most people, when asked "what is this?" would answer "a video game" even if they believe video games have to be interactive and would agree that this particular one is, in fact, not. So this is what made me truly understand for real that all categories are arbitrary. A "video game" is whatever we feel is a video game and any detailed definition is post-rationalization.
Of course, this is not limited to "video game", it applies to the aforementioned "game", or "vegetable" or whatever.
Then there are some games and that changed my perception not of what video games could be, but of what "video game" meant. But really those are semantics and not as profound. It's ultimately an arbitrary categorization, like all are.
While I've long thought the "game" in "video game" was a misnomer, asphyx (and some writing I don't remember) solidified to me just how little the two have in common and how very few video games are, by themselves, irrespective of their communities, games. That is, of course, insofar as any thing can ever be a game (chess is a game, a chess set is not). To clarify, I think a game is a ruleset which one or more participants elect to follow. Video games do not have such rules, they have laws being enforced by the software, with no room for interpretation. So "Mario" is not a game, but "Mario any% no warps" is. And asphyx is, because it requires a human to enforce (or not) the rules.
But that really just solidified a previous perception, what truly completely shattered my understanding of "video game" was 4 minutes and 33 seconds of uniqueness. It convinced me that video games do not have to be interactive. It is something that I believe most people, when asked "what is this?" would answer "a video game" even if they believe video games have to be interactive and would agree that this particular one is, in fact, not. So this is what made me truly understand for real that all categories are arbitrary. A "video game" is whatever we feel is a video game and any detailed definition is post-rationalization.
Of course, this is not limited to "video game", it applies to the aforementioned "game", or "vegetable" or whatever.
MGS1 showed me that games can be more than just mindless fun
MGSV showed me the dangers of getting overly hyped
MGSV showed me the dangers of getting overly hyped
Finished Nier Automata today and while it's still early to comprehend exactly how big its impact will be on me, I can already tell I'll be thinking about it for a long time.
Ultima VII and Dark Souls are two games that completely changed the way I look at and play games.
The Stanley Parable. Seeing a game that was about the way games tell stories and how we interact with them blew my mind. It just keeps pulling interesting tricks based on the various things you try out. Usually if you think "I wonder if it'll respond to this" the answer will be yes, and in a hilarious and insightful way. It's easily one of my favorite games from this past decade.
Ocarina of Time is the experience that can't be done again. It taught me that games can be genuine adventures. Now, several games do this, but whereas Final Fantasy games were full of minutia and plot-plot-plot even some of the better onces like FFIV I've found to be poorly told when looking back at it.
Zelda Ocarina of Time is a showpiece of video-game composition, and I don't mean musical composition, I mean video-game composition. The way it takes the idea of the 3-act monomyth structure and applies it in the way the game's levels, items and story progresses and rewards it with a properly climactic multi-part finale is why it still holds up, and why subsequently games such as Metal Gear Solid 3 still hold up. They're composed so they're like a good song, it doesn't matter how old it becomes it will always feel good to go through from start to finish.
Mass Effect Trilogy is also the only time in games such a thorough job has been done of taking choice and consequence, a custom player hero and a save-import feature across a LOTR-styled trilogy strcuture across 3 real released video games, on a AAA budget. There are close contenders like Witcher 3 and Deus Ex Human Revolution and MD, but it's only Mass Effect that pulled off forming a real trilogy structure with the same premise across all 3 games: "Stop the Reapers", whilist doing all the player's-story stuff. And it's incredible to think because a lot of parts are arguably not done very well. In some ways it even seems like a warning sign to the industry of how overly ambitious such an idea is and how unlikely you are to even pull it off... and that's a shame. I don't want the failures of Mass Effect 3 to create a stigma against genuine video-game trilogies going forward or have it seem like BioWare were stupid for trying to do it, in the same way the LOST showrunners were stupid for starting a Mystery Show with no plan. It is hopefully a matter of time before the next big Player's Journey trilogy is made, and hopefully it will also be sci fi and have as real conflicts and minutia as this IP did.
Zelda Ocarina of Time is a showpiece of video-game composition, and I don't mean musical composition, I mean video-game composition. The way it takes the idea of the 3-act monomyth structure and applies it in the way the game's levels, items and story progresses and rewards it with a properly climactic multi-part finale is why it still holds up, and why subsequently games such as Metal Gear Solid 3 still hold up. They're composed so they're like a good song, it doesn't matter how old it becomes it will always feel good to go through from start to finish.
Mass Effect Trilogy is also the only time in games such a thorough job has been done of taking choice and consequence, a custom player hero and a save-import feature across a LOTR-styled trilogy strcuture across 3 real released video games, on a AAA budget. There are close contenders like Witcher 3 and Deus Ex Human Revolution and MD, but it's only Mass Effect that pulled off forming a real trilogy structure with the same premise across all 3 games: "Stop the Reapers", whilist doing all the player's-story stuff. And it's incredible to think because a lot of parts are arguably not done very well. In some ways it even seems like a warning sign to the industry of how overly ambitious such an idea is and how unlikely you are to even pull it off... and that's a shame. I don't want the failures of Mass Effect 3 to create a stigma against genuine video-game trilogies going forward or have it seem like BioWare were stupid for trying to do it, in the same way the LOST showrunners were stupid for starting a Mystery Show with no plan. It is hopefully a matter of time before the next big Player's Journey trilogy is made, and hopefully it will also be sci fi and have as real conflicts and minutia as this IP did.