Grape_Nuts said:
I've never even heard of Godhand, so I'm just going to attribute that to neurotic erin being neurotic.
Godhand was a PS2 fighting game with a small but devoted fanbase. It never showed up on any big-time lists, nobody mentioned it on the forums and it was generally forgotten aside from that small fanbase.
Then Yahtzee praised it in an Extra Punctuation[footnote]It might have been praised by some other contributors as well[/footnote] and suddenly it's the Greatest Game Ever, according to about half of the Escapist forumites. We've gone through that with
Psychonauts, which everyone praised to high heavens after the Zero Punctuation of it, but was immediately forgotten once the forums were reminded of
Deus Ex.
Godhand is enjoying its ride on the rear seats of the bus for now.
Now, I'm not saying it's not Grey's favourite, or that everyone who praises it is doing so for cool kid points. As I said,
Godhand does have a devoted fanbase. But it's a tad suspicious that apparently millions of people who loved the game were in a coma for the past several years and only woke up after an internet personality said "hey, remember that game?"
Bara_no_Hime said:
And don't forget annoying hand-holding.
I stopped playing Okami early in the game after the game told me I needed to draw a moon, so I opened the drawing thingy and started drawing circles. Nothing happened. Twenty minutes of frustration later, I talked to a random fucking NPC who TOLD ME HOW TO DRAW CIRCLES - at which point the game allowed me to draw a circle and summon the moon (or maybe the sun, I don't remember because I rage quit and gave the borrowed game back to its owner).
This might be a question of perspective. As my gaming method shrank from hardcore (
Dragon Age: Origins finished in its entirety over a single play session punctuated by power naps and pizza) to casual (an hour or two of Screed or
Rocksmith in a week if I find the time), I've noticed that the style of the game became more of a distinguishing factor than gameplay for me. Two games I really, really liked were
The World Ends with You and
Okami. They both featured horrible, irritating hand-holding. But what I found appealing about them were the settings and unique style. They were good for a spot of escapism, and mediocre gameplay doesn't matter if you play in short bursts between daily job, family life and extra work.
On the other hand,
Thomas Was Alone bored me to tears, so maybe it's not all about uniqueness.
OT:
Skyrim was fun. I probably wouldn't put it on any "top 10" list, but I live in a strange world where there are thousands of options between "best thing eva!!" and "turdburger". I got a lot of hours out of it, though the knowledge that my PS3 WILL shit itself if I keep playing beyond 50 hours or so keeps me from coming back.