So, I was thinking about the games that had the most personal impact on me, and wondered about how others had might have had similar experiences. Mostly referring to games that you didn't expect to be so powerful, either because you bought it on a whim, or just were expecting X, but got Y, and Y blew your mind.
For me, the strongest example, was the original Homeworld game. I remember the experience vividly. I had been playing a lot of EQ at the time, and had just deactivated my account due to stress and other factors. At that time, I was working 3rd shift, so it was like 2am, and I was without an activity to pass the next several hours before I went to bed. I was pacing around my house, and decided to go to the local Wal-mart and see what they had for sale in the electronics section. I was browsing through the racks, nothing really catching my eye, and then I saw the box art for Homeworld. The Mothership, suspended in a field of stars, with the little ships around it. I remember picking it up and looking at it thinking. "Huh, an RTS in space. That....might be interesting. Not a huge fan of RTS but, hey why not, it's on sale so I won't be losing much if it's a dud of a game." Bought it, went home, took out the instruction manual for it (yep, back in those days), and went to the bathroom for some light reading while I handled business. I proceeded to sit on the toilet for well past the required time, because the narrative backstory for the game, as it was written in the manual, felt more like a short story novella, than just a "how to play the game". I was instantly intrigued, and installed the game.
From the opening sequence I was hooked. With it's stillframe storytelling of the situation, the ambient, ominous music in the background, and the gravely voice of the narrator, setting up the stage of this beleaguered planet of nomads, being united in a purpose of expanding beyond their inhospitable planet, just all of it. Then it cuts to the test launch of the Mothership, and the panning camera sequence, while Adagio for Strings (with choral accompaniment) played, it just...REALLY hit me. The mood the devs were going for, felt incredibly awe-inspiring, for me at least. Now I'm a sucker for space/scifi stuff, especially stories of a people uniting and trying to improve and expand into the stars, in a positive nature. That's just narrative crack for me. Couple that, with the game setting the player up as the Fleet Commander, who's basically in charge of the expedition, meaning I'm responsible for the lives of the people I'm controlling, that's an even bigger level of personal investment for me. So I was already deeply hooked into this game, and I was totally on board with shepherding these people into the stars. Then you do the first jump, to test the hyperdrive, and suddenly find yourself off course. Then the camera angle cuts to an outside POV, and it's from the viewpoint of some unknown squad of ships, and you see them approaching something, and it's the Mothership, and I remember having anxiety of that. It was a really well done, and instantly set up a feeling of immediate threat. Not to mention I didn't really have a sufficient squadron of my own to handle the attackers, so I felt unprepared and exposed. Plus the music became very intense, further heightening the mood for me. I dealt with that mission, baby's first combat scenario, and transitioned back to the planet for debriefing.
You load, into the camera focused directly on the northern polar cap (where all the civilizations still live) completely on fire. Every bit of it. You float, helpless in space, watching the planet, and everyone alive on it, burn. You suddenly find yourselves as the last remnants of your people, instead of an exploratory group being sent out like a seed into the winds. And then you get notification that the cryotrays with hundreds of thousands of your people (the last ones aside from the crew of the ship of course) are under attack.
Now, as I stated above, putting me in charge of taking care of people in your game, really quick way to get emotional investment out of me. Telling me that hundreds of thousands of helpless, sleeping people are being attacked, that's how you get me to burn our badguys to the ground. I was 100% on board to taking out those squads, with no mercy. The mission has you fighting off the enemy fleet, while you try and load the trays onto the ship before they are destroyed.
And I found myself noticing that in the span of 2 missions, I had had multiple, genuine emotional responses to the game, and what it was trying to invest me in. And very few games had ever accomplished that. It was a really wonderful experience for me as a gamer, to not just be playing the game, but to actually be emotionally invested in the events going on. And that has become my true metric for what I consider my favorite games of all time. Did it hit me emotionally? If no, it's probably just a standard game, not to be remembered.
Homeworld Cataclysm, an often forgotten entry in the franchise, but a much better followup than HW: 2 in my opinion. I won't go into lenghts on why I love that one even more than HW:1, but it's just as good in a lot of ways, and better in others.
For me, the strongest example, was the original Homeworld game. I remember the experience vividly. I had been playing a lot of EQ at the time, and had just deactivated my account due to stress and other factors. At that time, I was working 3rd shift, so it was like 2am, and I was without an activity to pass the next several hours before I went to bed. I was pacing around my house, and decided to go to the local Wal-mart and see what they had for sale in the electronics section. I was browsing through the racks, nothing really catching my eye, and then I saw the box art for Homeworld. The Mothership, suspended in a field of stars, with the little ships around it. I remember picking it up and looking at it thinking. "Huh, an RTS in space. That....might be interesting. Not a huge fan of RTS but, hey why not, it's on sale so I won't be losing much if it's a dud of a game." Bought it, went home, took out the instruction manual for it (yep, back in those days), and went to the bathroom for some light reading while I handled business. I proceeded to sit on the toilet for well past the required time, because the narrative backstory for the game, as it was written in the manual, felt more like a short story novella, than just a "how to play the game". I was instantly intrigued, and installed the game.
From the opening sequence I was hooked. With it's stillframe storytelling of the situation, the ambient, ominous music in the background, and the gravely voice of the narrator, setting up the stage of this beleaguered planet of nomads, being united in a purpose of expanding beyond their inhospitable planet, just all of it. Then it cuts to the test launch of the Mothership, and the panning camera sequence, while Adagio for Strings (with choral accompaniment) played, it just...REALLY hit me. The mood the devs were going for, felt incredibly awe-inspiring, for me at least. Now I'm a sucker for space/scifi stuff, especially stories of a people uniting and trying to improve and expand into the stars, in a positive nature. That's just narrative crack for me. Couple that, with the game setting the player up as the Fleet Commander, who's basically in charge of the expedition, meaning I'm responsible for the lives of the people I'm controlling, that's an even bigger level of personal investment for me. So I was already deeply hooked into this game, and I was totally on board with shepherding these people into the stars. Then you do the first jump, to test the hyperdrive, and suddenly find yourself off course. Then the camera angle cuts to an outside POV, and it's from the viewpoint of some unknown squad of ships, and you see them approaching something, and it's the Mothership, and I remember having anxiety of that. It was a really well done, and instantly set up a feeling of immediate threat. Not to mention I didn't really have a sufficient squadron of my own to handle the attackers, so I felt unprepared and exposed. Plus the music became very intense, further heightening the mood for me. I dealt with that mission, baby's first combat scenario, and transitioned back to the planet for debriefing.
You load, into the camera focused directly on the northern polar cap (where all the civilizations still live) completely on fire. Every bit of it. You float, helpless in space, watching the planet, and everyone alive on it, burn. You suddenly find yourselves as the last remnants of your people, instead of an exploratory group being sent out like a seed into the winds. And then you get notification that the cryotrays with hundreds of thousands of your people (the last ones aside from the crew of the ship of course) are under attack.
Now, as I stated above, putting me in charge of taking care of people in your game, really quick way to get emotional investment out of me. Telling me that hundreds of thousands of helpless, sleeping people are being attacked, that's how you get me to burn our badguys to the ground. I was 100% on board to taking out those squads, with no mercy. The mission has you fighting off the enemy fleet, while you try and load the trays onto the ship before they are destroyed.
And I found myself noticing that in the span of 2 missions, I had had multiple, genuine emotional responses to the game, and what it was trying to invest me in. And very few games had ever accomplished that. It was a really wonderful experience for me as a gamer, to not just be playing the game, but to actually be emotionally invested in the events going on. And that has become my true metric for what I consider my favorite games of all time. Did it hit me emotionally? If no, it's probably just a standard game, not to be remembered.
Homeworld Cataclysm, an often forgotten entry in the franchise, but a much better followup than HW: 2 in my opinion. I won't go into lenghts on why I love that one even more than HW:1, but it's just as good in a lot of ways, and better in others.
