What game or games have shown you what gaming can be?

[Jarlaxl]

Just like the title says. If you can add a why, even better.

I got the idea to make this thread when I was playing through Beyond Good and Evil again earlier this evening. While many games are great, I think that this is the game that took me beyond playing games and made me start sincerely caring about a game.

Tight writing, compelling characters, serious attention to detail, game play that wasn't individually awe-inspiring but all worked together to produce a fantastic experience, awesome music...the only downside was the plot, which, while it lost steam over the course of the game, was far from objectionable. This felt like the game equivalent of a sports team where egos were put to the side for the sake of a win. It just...g'ahh. Good.

Your turn! In before one million Skyrim people.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Your turn! In before one million Skyrim people.

I don't really know if you can "in before" your own thread. Of course you were in before. It kind of...ah, nevermind.

Technically all games have shown me what gaming can be.

 

[skywolfblue]

Beyond Good and Evil

I've been playing that for the first time these past few days (got the HD version in a xbox live sale). It's pretty good, I like the cartoony aesthetic, fun vehicles and it's a pretty cool take on making a game about something you think would be boring (taking pictures? whaaat?) into something that is totally fun. The characters were amusing but I didn't consider them all that deep or compelling. I didn't think it was the end-all and be-all, but it was entertaining.

 

[SwishiestB0g]

Just posted a similar thing on another forum...

Burnout Paradise. In short, for me, that game is just perfection in mechanics. Anyone can play, but it takes time to master. So good.


For deep games though...

Mass Effect 1. No not 2.

ME 1 showed us that an entire galaxy could be explored. Sure alot of it was filled with hills and bad textures but that idea of a GALAXY to explore, still just makes me go back to that game to have that feeling of, "I'm a badass Specter and I'm awesome, also Wrex is cool and awesome. Yeah."

 

[Layz92]

God of War series. Because rarely have a played a game with such a strong theme. It showed just how great an aesthetic occures when you have a clear idea of lore and visual surroundings. Also borderline perfect combat, use of quicktime events and visceral cutscenes.

 

[Twilight_guy]

No individual game has ever shown me what your describing. It's actually a sum total, the collective effect of games for me. I can point to any given game and get part of the picture of games can be but its the sum of all my experiences that defines that idea for me.

 

[Mallefunction]

I think Bioshock really showed how complex and compelling a game's narrative (both the actual writing and the execution) can be.

 

[robert01]

Crayon Physics Deluxe. I never thought a game so simple was fascinate me so much.

 

[Last Hugh Alive]

Red Dead Redemption and L.A. Noire, in the sense that they showed me the potential of videogames to make me emotionally invested in a character.

 

[Gali]

Lost Odyssey. At first, I thought it's a normal J-RPG with stereotype characters. I was so wrong. Later, I cared for every character in the game and I cried at the end of it. Also, I like the skill and combat mechanics, even if some aspects about them are really old-fashioned. And the games soundtrack is just awesome. There is so much variety in it, Uematsu is a genius. For me, Lost Odyssey is the real Final Fantasy game of this generation. I'd never played FF back then (tried some FFX but hated the characters), but after beating FFXIII I was really disappointed. I expected more since nearly every J-RPG player likes at least one game of this franchise.

I really hope they make a sequel...

 

[Vault101]

Bioshock..the reason I am here today

beyond good and evil..I FINALLY downloaded that after hours upon hours of heartache..and frustration

turns out you dont pause big downloads :/

 

[Racecarlock]

Vega Strike, starflight, fuck it, every game in the space sim trading genre. These games have shown me that massive and changing universes are possible, albeit with a lot of repeated dialogue, but I'll take what I can get, because what I get is a universe where factions wage war, I have an endless supply of trading and combat missions, and I even meet NPC ships and converse with them, albeit again with repetitive dialogue. I can even trash talk space pirates.

Spore showed me once what procedural generation can do.

Saints row 3, 2, and portal and GTA games have shown me how much fun and yet dark games can be.

Various falling sand games with mods showed me that god games can be fun if you control elemental creations in a universe rather than just the order in which they show up and there are no rules. Also they showed how much fun virtual chemistry can be, especially with no limits to how many chemicals and civilizations you can blow up before you're fired or something.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Tie Fighter. Hear me out on this one.

Tie Fighter was a landmark game in my view because it helped introduce moral ambiguity and shades of grey into what was previously a very black and white "good vs. evil" setting. The Empire is portrayed in the game as a righteous defender of peace, order and security, whereas the Rebel Alliance is regarded as harbingers of disorder, anarchy and chaos. Your average Imperial soldier wasn't evil at all, just an average joe who truly believed that his cause was a just one. It draws many parallels to common soldiers on both sides in real wars.

You also learned that the Empire is not the unified, monolithic front that many believed it to be. On two separate occasions ambitious and power hungry admirals turn traitor with their fleets and cause all sorts of trouble for the Empire. One of them manages to not only severely cripple manufacturing capabilities in the outer rim, but even manages to kidnap the Emperor. The Rebels basically take a back seat as primary enemies the entire second half of the game as the focus shifts to the traitorous Imperial forces instead.

The precedent Tie Fighter sets goes far beyond depicting the Empire in a more sympathetic light. It demonstrates that the medium is capable of challenging preconceived notions about former enemies. Unfortunately, such explorations are still few and far between. Imagine a World War II game that explored how most German soldiers were not Nazis, but ordinary men fighting for their loved ones back home. Imagine a Vietnam War game told from the perspective of a North Vietnamese soldier fighting for national independence. Sadly, it seems few publishers are interested in such things.

Oh yeah, there's also the excellent gameplay. That helped too.

 

[Veylon]

There's a whole slew of games that demonstrated various things to me. But I'll throw X-COM out here.

This is the one that cemented me as the strategy fan I am today. It's nonlinear, has random maps, and hands all responsibility to the player. You don't just get sent on missions; you have to decide which missions to engage in, what and who to bring, and what the priorities are.

What's also interesting is how the landscape can be destroyed during missions. Most games these days don't let you blow a hole through a wall with a rocket launcher or set fire to a building. Many times, you'll start a terror mission with a pristine city and end it with smoking craters and crumbled walls. None of it's scripted; it's just the consequences of playing with high explosives and energy weapons in a built-up area.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I don't understand the question. Do you mean games that are good, were good for the time, or stand (or stood) out as being innovative?

 

[krazykidd]

Lost odeesey

Before this i had no idea video games could evoke emotion. It's the first game that made me feel genuinly sad. I felt the pain of the characters , especially kaim . The writting in that game is simply beautiful. The tousand years of dreams ( short in-game stories) are nothing short of amazing . The characters are well developped, in my opinion . The story is interesting . The characters are well balanced . The gameplay is a little slow but you cannot breeze through the game without thinking, so it adds a bit of challenge ( which i love).

For me that game was a real eye opener for me .

OR maybe it's because i'm getting old ( 23 years in 3 days YEAH!)

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

Uh. All of them? Every game is a different experience. For the most part.

I mean, I'll be the first to admit I play games solely to have fun (I'm a firm believer that no matter what a game has around it, if the gameplay is poor, it's a failure as a video game), but I think pondering what we think made some kind of deep, resonating statement for the medium is taking things a mite too seriously.

 

[Weealzabob]

Ocarina of Time and Metal Gear Solid 3 opened the doors for me concerning cinematic games, with a story as a driving force behind the gameplay.

There's more games than that, but those two probably had the biggest impact on me.