CritialGaming said:
DoPo said:
No man of course not. I realize that everybody is different. Everybody likes different things, and is affected by different stories in different ways. Yet I can't speak to other people's experiences can I?
Let me ask you this then.
What games have hit you the same way Crisis Core hits me? You list out genres but don't give any examples.
This question goes to anyone who might be reading the thread as well. If you have a game that gives you an emotional impact no matter how many times you play that game, then let me know.
The thrill of victory doesn't count. I am strictly talking about impact generated from story, not from your personal triumphs.
The
Legacy of Kain series - action games.
The Walking Dead - adventure.
Company of myself [http://www.kongregate.com/games/2darray/the-company-of-myself] and
Swapper - platformers.
Portal and
The Talos Principle - puzzles.
Black Closet - OK, I don't really play much (if any) visual novels and BC isn't really a clean representative of the genre, but it's close enough. Also, it
is built in a VN engine, which helps with it feeling like one. Yet it also has strong elements of resource management.
XCOM[footnote]I'd include it not because triumphs feel good but because how awful failure feels. Not in the sense of "oh, you fucked up" - it's more than that. Soldiers dying doesn't just deprive you of a pawn - they feel close because you've been together through the tough times. Even if a mission has casualties but is successful, the fallen will be mentioned with sadness. And a failed mission backed up by emotional weight, too.[/footnote],
Sims,
This War of Mine - "Resource managing"
These are just a couple of examples for each of the genres I mentioned, which I've played. I don't play MMOs but
EVE online is player driven and
Ultima Online has a lot of player-driven content. And since you're asking me specifically, here are more that don't fall into the above:
Warcraft - first time I played the campaign
played without video for some reason. Yet I let it play listening only to the audio because I was so both so captivated by it and fearing that there was no cutscene replay. Thus I only listened to the entirety of it and it still brought me to tears. Afterwards, I found that I could indeed replay it and it worked, yet now it's burnt forever in my mind as the time I stared at a black screen because of story I didn't want to miss.
The Stanley Parable - it is an exquisite game. Me and a friend spend half a day playing it together when we first got it and it's, to date, one of my most memorable gaming experiences.
Moirai [http://store.steampowered.com/app/496920/?snr=1_7_7_151_150_1] - possibly the shortest game I've played. Sure, some games can be spedrun or otherwise finished fast, but
Moirai is like 5 minutes in total. It still managed to get shit out of those 5 minutes.
Postmortem: One Must Die - if
Moirai is one of the shortest games in existence by design, then this might be one of the games with the shortest possible playtimes
without this length being a gimmick. Concept is simple you are death[footnote]Not THE death, but A death[/footnote] and you have to go to a party and kill somebody. You can literally walk in and kill the first person there and you will complete the objective. You're even told so. In fact, that's what I did the first time, just to test if it's indeed possible. Yet I did have to think about it, too. At the end, you get brief snippets of what happens as a result[footnote]there are some tensions going on in the setting that you might exacerbate or reduce subdue based on your choices[/footnote]. You can also play in order to explore everything and talk to everybody then make up your mind about who to kill. Let me tell you, when I finally thought I found "the correct" target, I was pretty surprised at the result. I used the "RPG method" of finding a victim and...the results turned out much worse than expected. Without making a big deal out of it, the game managed to subvert and surpass any expectation I had. In a very good way.
Save the date [http://paperdino.com/save-the-date/] - probably falls under "visual novels" but...I'm not sure. I guess it's safest to mention it separately.
The End of Us [http://www.the-end-of-us.com/] - it's an "interactive experience, if you will but whatever. Without ever speaking or even writing a word, it manages to say a lot.
One Chance [http://www.kongregate.com/games/lemmibeans/one-chance] - do you want to sacrifice yourself to potentially save your loved ones or would you rather spend your last moments together? Choose wisely, you don't get many chances to decide. [sub][sup][sub][sup][sub]
excluding cheating[/sub][/sup][/sub][/sup][/sub]
Second Sight - it's shooter-y, albeit third person, but also emphasises on stealth-y. I'll be honest when I first saw it, I picked it for the graphics. Seriously. More specifically, it's because I saw the screenshots and the game looked good for the time, however, pretty much all games were coming out on 2+ CDs, so my thought was, and I kid you not, "Did they really manage to make it that good and still fit on one CD?". I played it and it turned out it not only looked good but the gameplay was interesting, too. Yet, after spending time with the game I realised how much the story grabbed me. It did manage to keep me. As even more of it unfolded, I found myself reeling.
Magicka - not sure where exactly to put it in terms of genre, hence an independent mention.
Aliens vs Predator 2 - OK, probably not the entire game, but there is a small slice I very, very much enjoy. I re-install and re-play the first level as marine and/or predator on a regular basis. Why? Because they feel so
correct. The marine campaign in particular has a fantastic beginning. There are absolutely no enemies there. You (almost) cannot die[footnote]although, a friend of mine hilariously subverted it once. He was showing how the level was completely safe and sprinting through, when a truck exploded and landed on him. The only reason he got crushed was because he thought it was safe - had he gone very slightly slower, he'd have been fine.[/footnote] yet, the atmosphere, the pacing, the environment, the setting - everything is impeccable. Hence why I keep going back to it.
Saints Row 2 - probably not for the reasons you'd think. Story-wise some of the events...actually, a lot of the events, are revolting. More in the sense of "monstrous" not merely "just so badly written". The main character is a thug, a
mean thug. Who deals with other such people. Their world is brutal and they brutally deal with obstacles. The amount of disproportionate force and retribution employed made me feel queasy and I can happily eat dinner while watching especially gruesome and nauseating movies. It's an experience I do not want to go back to because it's still fresh in my mind.
