Games that required you to mature first to enjoy.

[Kotaro]

I'd go with Conker's Bad Fur Day, and Silent Hills 2&3.

I mean I got the humor and/or metaphors, but I never understood them. For example, as a 10 year old playing SH2, I thought, at the time, that rape simply meant ripping a woman's clothes off.
Never occurred to me that it was sexual because that wasn't a concept yet. My mom at some point set me straight, and when I replayed SH2, oh man...
Suddenly vaguely creepy/annoying was legit scary.

And the entirety of Silent Hill 3, which I hold as my favorite game of Hills series, is all about rape. And playing it again...there is a level of fear and desperation I never understood as a kid before.
Truly a great game!!

Also Conker. Giant tits to bounce on. As an 11 year old, it was funny. Now? Well...its even more funny, but I get that its sexual!!
And fellatio! Oh man!

I second Silent Hill 2. I first played it as a teenager, and while I thought it was good, most of the symbolism and a few of the subtler plot developments went way over my head. Replaying it recently, however, has given me an even greater appreciation for it.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

I dunno, funnily enough I matured *with* the games. By that I mean, as shooters became more "realistic" and atmospheric, from run 'n gun, I got into them as I went along. Games that were too tactical and monotonous, were always too tactical and monotonous (very early Rainbow 6 series).

Racing sims, turn-based RPGs, FPS shooters, even fighting games - if I was into 'em then, I'm still into 'em now. I enjoy playing the same types of old games as I do today. Went from Wolf 3D, to Doom, to Half-Life, to CoD, to R6 Vegas, to Metro: Last Light, and back to Wolfenstein (New Order). Loved each as much as the last. And that's just one genre!

 

[FPLOON]

The Oregon Trail... only to now realize why I never lost that game when I was younger...

Other than that, I guess I'd give the Metroid Prime trilogy an honorable mention on just lore alone...

 

[Smooth Operator]

Not sure if mature is the right word but there needed to be some growth before I could play CRPGs.
For a spazzy little kid who didn't want to read or sit still for more then a minute Baldur's Gate was all kinds of learning experiences mashed together, took me a good long while but I am so very glad I stuck around to understand these games because they are some of the best RPG experiences I found.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

Point & Click Adventures. Still find a lot of the classics heavily flawed though.

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I find them unstimulating. They're basically a book, except if want more of the story you have to waste your time dicking around with stupid ass moon-logic puzzles.

Like the Submachine series are really cool and have an interesting story. But... some of those puzzles...

Do some more maturing. What you call moon-logic is just an alternative to the insultingly calculative logic you find in most games. It's still the only genre where can the unexpected is built into the gameplay and is still encountered after more than a few hours of playtime.

 

[G00N3R7883]

The best example I can think of for me, is the Total War series.

I played a demo of the first Shogun as a teenager, and the first battle I had didn't go well. I don't mind losing, but the worst thing was that my soldiers were running away because of negative morale. I'd never seen that before in a strategy game and I thought it was stupid. I was more into the Command and Conquer style of RTS where units will mindlessly fight to the death. Didn't even have another attempt, just uninstalled it.

I didn't try the series again until 10+ years later when Shogun 2 was released. Thanks to the Steam sales, I was more willing to take a chance on games that I might not immediately think were to my tastes, and I guess being older, I was more willing to takes the time to learn all the deep mechanics. I actually really enjoyed it, and I've since played Rome 2 as well.

 

[ObserverStatus]

When I was in my 40s and I first played Knights of the Old Republic II, I thought it was too wordy and boring, and I was infuriated by how long it took to get a lightsaber. Had to get older to appreciate what the characters were saying and grow out of my fascination with lightsabers.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Interestingly, as I've gotten older, I've found that...while I don't get LESS enjoyment from games...they've definitely lost some of their...how to put this...mystery? I see their systems much more readily and immediately. I think about what an opaque and wild feeling hinterland a game like Everquest was, and how even if it was recreated today with exactly the same design ethos it wouldn't have a fraction of the same mystery.

 

[The Jovian]

Oddworld: Abe's Exodus was one of my childhood favorites (I just adored the game's gameplay and art style) but it wasn't until I was in my late teens that I began to appreciate the clever satire and the smart social commentary that was central to the game's story. Now I think that it's one of the best games ever made and definitely worth your money, go buy it on Steam (or GOG) it's really cheap and really fun.

 

[dangoball]

Kirby's Epic Yarn!

And that is not a joke. It's a game for kids, sure, little kids, but who else? Most gaming demographics would consider such a game "beneath" them, better put in some GTA or ME or AC, those highly acclaimed games, ya know? All the violence, all the pseudo-morality and half-baked attempts at philosophy. Sure, I like those games as well and some even made me stop and think (KotOR 2 wins here hands down, no one is more Neitzschean than Kreia except Neitzsche himself), but why does no one want to enjoy some harmless ball of cute fluff on jolly adventures? "Because it's for kids"? In this culture so absorbed in violence and sex I find it even more acute for adults to enjoy something like Kirby, full of vibrant colours and all round pleasant, but it requires people to mature from the "I'm an adult and can do adult things now!" phase into people who are actually aware of what and why they do things.

 

[CaitSeith]

Strip Poker *giggles*

Now seriously, when I was a kid there weren't much games that required a mature mind to enjoy. Most of those came when I was already grown up, or I never played them as a kid.

The closest occasion maybe was Final Fantasy on the NES. The first time I played it I got kinda bored and not really interested on continuing (but it was rented, so no big deal). Years later I matured a little as a gamer and rented the game again. This time I enjoyed it much more and was more interested in finishing it (although I didn't succeed).

 

[lacktheknack]

Riven, definitely.

When I played it when I was six: It was really pretty and sounded cool, and the people acted really weird. I had to save a lady because you need a goal in a game.

When I played it last year: OH GAWD THE MEGALOMANIAC KNOWS EXACTLY WHERE I AM WHY IS HE NOT HUNTING ME DOWN DAMMIT DAMMIT DAMMIT I'M FREAKING TERRIFIED I'M GOING TO TURN AROUND AND GET BRAINED BY ONE OF THE BRAINWASHED VILLAGERS GAH I'M REALLY NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE DAMMIT ATRUS WHAT HAVE YOU GOTTEN ME INTO

 

[Someone Depressing]

I first played Oblivion years ago angry and confused and this certainly reflected in my character build: uneven, focused entirely on violence and such. Blame it on catharsis.

It wasn't until I started a new character much, much later that I had more of an appreciation for the different ways you could approach a problem. So I went for a more Stealth-oriented, pacifist/Speech based character and I found this form of play much more satisfying than the violent approach and allowed for a better story, which I mostly ignored on my first.

Also Luck. Immature playthrough, I almost completely ignored it. Luck is love, Luck is life.

Oh right, and Fallout. I was all guns, murder and pick-all-the-perks-with-high-numbers until I actually started giving a shit about the characters, and small things like the flavour text. It's that experience, as well as with a handful of other CRPGs, that I like more passive but powerful roles in RPGs.

My mom was really into videogames back then so she tried to make me play them. Whether or not my maturation was kept in mind, I don't know, but it certainly invoked it.

 

[Qvar]

Hmmm I don't think I ever played a game as a kid that I didn't enjoy, at least partially. If I ever found a game unenjoyable, I haven't played it again to this day. On the opposite, tho, now I'm baffled at how I could stand so much mind-numbing grinding on the pokemon games.

 

[Jiffex]

Spec Ops: The Line.

I had only played CoD 4 to Modern Warfare 2 when it came out and didn't really get why there was a lot of talking and not as much shooting in the first 5-10 minutes so I gave up. About a year ago I decided to give it a go because story has become more important to me since then and I loved it.

 

[Andy Shandy]

While I enjoyed it at the time, I didn't appreciate what Kojima was trying to say with Metal Gear Solid 2 when it first came out. Admittedly that was because at the time I was maybe 9 or 10.

 

[Cowabungaa]

GTA, honestly.

When you're a kid it's just "lololol I can screw hookers and run people over" but then you age and you see that they're basically Guy Ritchie movies in game form. And that's pretty rad.