Games that had a lot more meaning behind them then you originally thought

[gargantual]

Bah. Silent Hill series has mountains and cascades of subtlety. Child abuse. Psychopathy, self-identity, guilt, illusion, religion, morality, mortality, euthanasia. Take your pick. It's level of challenging was still on par with or superior to the social challenge presented in our current trend of video gaming. Spec Ops wasn't all that subtle, and it's goal was to force you to look at the futility of your actions. Though I already got the intended feeling from Kane & Lynch Dog Days after slogging through a pointless, and short shootemp campaign with no sense of respite, real accomplishment and no stand out antagonist or characters at all for that matter. Sooo Jipped! and for all it's successes in painting a failed world in Bioshock. It communicated more through setting than through character arc, aspiration, goal and achievement. Silent Hill series was a tad bit smoother, and subtle in establishing setting character and plot of the tortured guilty protagonist. Prodding and questioning you from the shadows as you progressed. One of few games that subtlety painted the protagonist as the real world criminal running from or towards their demons in that town.

How about the simple fact that you see monsters when the other world takes over, but since they're all tied into the SH Cult, an important question does arise, who have you been going around, hacking up and shooting all this time?

 

[JagermanXcell]

No More Heroes. A game about the dark side of fiction, and the harsh reality that comes from fictional violence in an every day society.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pcr8ZKe1hJo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0ugVAxnCMg

 

[TheEvilCheese]

The World Ends With You. That game turned a whiny self-centered bastard into an interesting way of looking at the world, via a story that was relatable and off-the-walls at the same time.

Bastion of course, the ending and the way it narratively expanded on it in NG+ make it one of those games that's going to stick with me for the rest of my life.

 

[Ryleh]

Limbo and Dear Esther are the two that come to my mind.

Dear Esther in particular had so much subtle storytelling that I had to go and read up on it afterwards lest I have to play through it another 5 times to get it all.

 

[pspman45]

Persona 4
the story itself is full of meaning and symbolism and all that other great stuff
but if you take a look at some of the game mechanics, it makes you think about what you're doing in the game compared to what you do in real life
Example: you get more social link points for hanging out with someone when you have the appropriate Persona, like bringing a Magician one to the Magician Social Link.

if we take a look at Carl Yung's definition of a persona: "a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and on the other to conceal the true nature of the individual"
that means that, like in real life, you act differently around different people when you want them to like you, so bringing the right "Persona," or personality traits, would make them like you more

 

[Alssadar]

Dark Souls. Not specifically holding a lot of meaning, but there were large themes about "humanity" and what it means to be alive. Some are granted immortality in the form of undeath, but it is a slow, lasting immortality, that, without any drive, will send one into insanity, turning into nothing more than a hollowed shell of a person.
But more specifically, there is so much lore behind all the characters that inhabit the world. They're fleshed out, in conflicts and pity to their fellows. The gods, the shopkeepers, the bosses, the random people you rescue: all have a goal in their mind.
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?annotation_id=annotation_204016&feature=iv&list=PLWLedd0Zw3c5RCXboUsPwHsZJlXB2CzCz&src_vid=skV-q5KjrUA [Massive, and terrible spoilers ahead]
And every character has it bad. Every single one. And, guess what, you make all of their lives worse.
Helping some people leads them to a worse fate. To help some, the best thing might just be to kill them. You reap what you sow, in your quest to find Lord Gwyn and the Kiln of the First Flame, for better or worse.

Spoiler: Chaos Servants

For the Fair Lady.

 

[Sarah Kerrigan]

Persona 4, definitely. The bullying, homosexuality handled so damn well, family, dealing with ones inner self..it's crazy, but such a good game.

 

[aozgolo]

Again I must debase myself by mentioning Monster Girl Quest, allow me to quote myself from the other thread:

I have perhaps one of the weirdest examples. There's an eroge VN(for the uninitiated that means anime porn game) called Monster Girl Quest. I initially played it much as anyone would pick up and play a porn game, for cheap thrills. What I found in addition to that was a remarkably well conceived story about the prejudices that these monsters all had to endure from humanity's misconceptions about them. The hero goes from a very naive kid who just wants to go out and conquer monsters to a sympathizer with all of them. It puts a very strange effect on you overall when you go in expecting just a very basic plot to give you an excuse for porn and instead find a game that challenges all concepts of morality. I came out of it pretty much believing that all morality is subjective and there is no moral absolute, and the only true evil in the world is extremism. The game is also quite unique in the fact that while it shows very graphic, and often disturbing (depending on the monster type) sex scenes (which happens when you lose a Dragon Quest style turn based battle) there is actually NO true violence. No monsters die, they are either scared off or changed into some form of miniature version of themselves. You can't actually kill anything, a strange line to draw in a porn game.

So yeah that's my big example.

 

[TheRiddler]

The BioShocks, well, 1 and Infinite did a pretty good job of this.

When I first picked up BioShock, I thought: "A pretty, survival-horror FPS game with cool superpowers and a shitty moral choice system in crazy neon Atlantis. Sure. Count me in."
But then it revealed itself to be an indictment of Randian Objectivism, a haunting dystopia that really built up tension and fear like I didn't expect it to, the story of the decay of both a great city and the values of the man who built it, a meta-commentary on railroading in games, and a narrative told nearly entirely through gameplay (with all backstory told through audio logs that you could listen to during gameplay). Holy shit.

On BioShock Infinite, I was expecting more deep insight, pointed this time at American Exceptionalism , but found that this was mostly lacking. I mean, the game was all over the place, trying to cram racism, xenophobia, economic disparity, religious zealotry, the deification of the Founding Fathers, patriotism/nationalism, glorification of the military, etc, without giving any of them the amount of care and interest that the original did. They then proceeded to layer on multiverse stuff, a weird revolution plot and mysterious parallels to the original BioShock, convoluting everything further.
However, I think all of that was just a fancy light show, similar to the neon superpower Atlantis thing in the original, concealing the true purpose of the game. And that purpose was to show us how Booker and Elizabeth talked and thought. In the end, for me the most memorable parts of the game were just watching Elizabeth dance happily around on that beach, or trying to find more about Booker's past, or that sweet little guitar scene. They gave us a game that looked like just "BioShock 1 but in racist sky America," but gave us a dark story of a veteran haunted by his past and an innocent girl who you actually begin to feel genuine affection for.

 

[Icehearted]

Bully, and helping someone commit date rape. For some reason I was too fixated on accomplishing the mission to realize what I was helping someone do. Same with Fallout 3. I actually felt bad for poor Diego when I realized what a horrible thing I'd done.

Just guessing, but Dead or Alive Xtreme 2, I got the feeling that hidden behind a bad beach activities game was a simulator designed to show me what trying to win over a shallow, materialistic, vapid Barbie doll would be like (Hint: It sucked)

 

[Drummodino]

Going to be echoing a few people but Spec Ops: The Line wins hands down. It is such an amazing criticism of shooting video games that everyone should play. That game really sweeps the rug out from under you and shows you just how horrific you are. It's great

Points to Katawa Shoujo as well. On the surface it looks like an average, titillating, hentai dating sim. Yet I view it as one of the most incredible experiences of my life. No game, movie, novel or TV show has had more of an impact on me than KS. The way it deals with romance and disabilities is just unbelievable.

 

[Drummodino]

Spec Ops: The Line. You think it's just some third person cover based shooted based in the Middle East ala CoD but it's actually a really deep story decontructing war and videogames and that entire genre of games. Pretty mad.

Why was everyone surprised by this? The devs stated years before the game came out that it was a modern re imagining of Apocalypse Now. Everyone just wrote it off as a shitty shooter without actually looking anything up about it until people started praising it everywhere.

I was expecting it and it still surprised me. That's how good it was.

 

[bafrali]

Definitely Bastion. At the first playthrough, I just thought it was a decent game with a cool narration. Though the ending did made me tear up a bit, I didn't give it much though after that.

After several playthroughs, I have discovered many layers of subtext that was hidden in the narration. First instance that ticked me of was Ruckus saying how Gods have became nothing more than cheap souveniers that could be sold and bought in a whim. It especially hit me hard since I had been exposed to that topic through my early years of religious education.

I really can't give more examples without spoiling anthing but be sure to look for political and religious themes and subtexts in your next playthrough. I can safely say that it is one of the most relevant games in our age and it does its job so subtlely rather than succumbing to pop-cultural references. Looking your way DmC.

 

[ViridianV6]

Hotline Miami.

Anyone who said that their first playthrough was more than just viciously killing people is lying.