Your 5 most influential games

[Kolby Jack]

Not necessarily games you grew up with (though no doubt those are influential) but the games you think have had the biggest impact on your life as a gamer. I'll start:

1: Final Fantasy VII - First played it when I was maybe 9 or 10, it was the first game that had a deep narrative and characters I actually cared about. Sure, as a child my understanding was still not great, but growing older and realizing more and more has only made me love this game even more, despite the overall negative influence it had on games after.

2: Sonic 3 and Knuckles- (come on, it's one game) The other game that dominated my attention span as a child, I eventually had this game down to a science. I knew where every bonus world ring was, the exact layout of every bonus stage, the quickest method to get Super Sonic as early as possible, and I did multiple playthroughs with every combination of characters. No way I'm as a good as I once was, but this game truly made me into an everlasting Sonic fan.

3: Halo- A somewhat but not overly spooky story, insanely fun multiplayer, and the first really good console shooter after Goldeneye, and pretty much the only reason I bought an Xbox. LAN parties with friends were a highlight for me, and though I've never been one of the better players in my circle of friends, I continue to enjoy the series to this day. It also helped me realize that I prefer more slower-paced, methodical shooters over run and gun twitch shooters like CoD.

4: Mass Effect 3- This influenced me greatly, but not in a good way. It was setting up to be one of my favorite games of all time... all the way until the ending. Oh god, the ending. I literally felt deflated after I saw the ending for the first time, and it basically killed any special love I had for the series. Now I can only really see them as pretty good games with interesting characters, but I just can't care about the universe anymore. It made me put down most games for a long (for me) time. It was without a doubt the MOST disappointing game I had ever played in my life. Regardless of your own opinions, that's just how I feel about it.

5: Final Fantasy XI - I know I had fun playing this game, but to this day I can't say for sure why. I played around the time Treasures of Aht Urghan was new and quit before the level cap went past 75. My older brother introduced me to it, and I played mostly with a friend that I introduced to it. I may not be able to recall why I liked it, but I can say for sure that it really helped me figure out what kind of MMO player I am. I had only ever played Asheron's Call before it (and not that much), and most MMOs I've tried after haven't really held up (except for Final fantasy XIV so far).

 

[The Goat Tsar]

1. World of Warcraft. This one is easy, it was the game that occupied a lot of my free time in high school. I don't play it anymore, but I was really engrossed with it back then. But I don't look back at that time morosely, I really liked WoW and met a lot of friends through it. I only ever played casually, so it's not like I didn't have a social life outside of WoW.

2. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. This was the first game I ever got on pc, besides WoW of course. When I played WoW, I was playing on a laptop. But after I unsubscribed I got a nice gaming pc and the first game I got was Skyrim, which had just came out at the time. It's the first Elder Scrolls game I've ever played, and I've put 492 hours into it, so I'd say I enjoyed it.

3. Deus Ex: Human Revolution. This is my favorite game of all time. Not necessarily the best, but I've easily had the most fun in Deus Ex. I grew up on Nintendo games, so this was the first game I played that had a really serious story, moral choices, and stealth gameplay. And it's not the best at any of these, but it was my first and I loved it. I never played the original, but I bought it this holiday sale. Hey, I'm newer to the pc gaming scene, what can I say.

4. F-Zero GX. This is the reason I hate racing games today. This game was so good it killed the rest of the genre for me, because it can't measure up to F-Zero GX. This and Monster Hunter Tri are the only reasons I've held onto my Wii, I still go back and play those games sometimes.

5. Star Wars Battlefront 2. Oh, this game taunted me for a long time. I could never own it, since I owned Nintendo consoles when I was little, but some friends owned it, and I LOVED it. And one by one, my friends slowly got bored with the game, selling it or losing it. And then no one owned it anymore. And it was lost to me. But then...steam sales...a reunion...so good.

Anyway, that's my list. DON'T JUDGE ME.

 

[gamernerdtg2]

Wow this thread is designed to expose age. I'm about to feel really old and crusty. Here we go...

Pong - entertainment can be digital, and a simple concept is all that you need.

Metroid - games are entertainment, but they don't have to be linear. I would play Metroid for 6 hours at a time after I figured out that exploration was part of the immersion in the game. Also, the freaking Screw Attack ruled. For some reason, Metroid hooked me more than Zelda ever did. The music, and everything else. Then you discover that Samus is not male. Metroid changed my life as a gamer. Super Metroid and Metroid Prime will forever live in the original Metroid's shadow. As an arcade gamer, I didn't think Metroid was possible until I played it.

Street Fighter 2 - a sequel can not only build on its predecessor, but also surpass it. Many people don't even understand SF1 because SF2 was so huge. As a SF1 fan, I thought I digitally died and went to gamer heaven when I first laid eyes on SF2. The rest is history.

Double Dragon - this game is the backbone for games that use brawling combat. You feel everything, and it's gratifying without seeing blood. It's got an old-school aesthetic that wouldn't go over well today, but this is the king of brawlers and combat in general. I believe that the PS2 Urban Reign is the modern version of what Double Dragon was in the 80's, but no one knows about it.

Lord of the Rings: Two Towers and Return of the King - movie based games don't have to be terrible. They can, in fact be amazing games.

These threads are always difficult to answer because I've played too many good games!

 

[gamernerdtg2]

I guess my list would be different if you asked for most influential by decade, or by console. It's a tough question.

 

[gorfias]

Wow this thread is designed to expose age. I'm about to feel really old and crusty. Here we go...

Pong - entertainment can be digital, and a simple concept is all that you need.

Before that, for me, Seawolf. I played that for a dime at a bowling alley, first video game I ever played repeatedly. Pong would be 2nd as the first console game I ever had at home.

Third: Ultima 3, Commodore 64. Amazing game that got me deep into video game playing.

Fourth: Legend of Zelda NES. Got me into console gaming.

Fifth: Final Fantasy 10 PS2. I found out I could be a family man and still get 80 hours in to beat a very long game.

 

[Elijin]

Diablo
M.A.X

These two were some of the definers for me, I got a demo disc with both of them before I really had any games at all. And I tell you, I played those demos to death until I finally got my hands on the real things. Probably inspired my preference for arpgs and strategy for...well, ever.

Then came Total Annihilation, which ate many years of my life, and still rears its head and consumes a few days even now.

Carmageddon 2 was just crazy fun that I couldnt get enough of. It was just so easy to pick it up and play a random level for the umpteenth time.

Twisted Metal series also gets to be on the list for being the first one to really open my eyes up to the concept of co-op.

There have been many games I've enjoyed and played like crazy since, but probably nothing that compares to those first 4, which really concreted my interest in gaming as something you could sink unlimited time into. I mean I'd play snes and megadrive and such, but they were something different. They never created that feeling of being a new epxerience every time. I guess its that most of my list either had randomised levels or elaborate maps which could be played different ways, by different factions.

 

[Guffe]

Oh wow, this'll be hard...

WarcraftIII
Pokemon Red/Blue
Mario64
Halo
Tales of Symphonia

I think these 5 would be the ones that would represent me. Mario 64 and Pokemon are the two games that actually got me into gaming at a young age, being 2 different genres and two of my best and most played childhood games.
Then we have WarcraftIII which took me to the next step with PC, actually playing games on it and become one of my all time favorite games. A little later in life I played Halo and ToS which expanded my gaming to FPS and JRPGs and that's why they are on that list, after that I've been playing a lot of different genres and been trying out all sorts of games.
I think something like this.

 

[Raika]

Super Mario Bros. 2: When I was three, my mother allowed me to use her Nintendo to play Sesame Street A-B-C 1-2-3, a collection of minigames centered around pretty much exactly what those familiar with Sesame Street would expect. One day, however, she suddenly grew rather irate with Ernie's Magic Shapes and implored me to "let me show you a real video game." She shouldn't have done that, but she popped in Super Mario Bros. 2, and a lifelong passion was born.



Street Fighter II: The World Warrior: My mother was one of those parents in the early nineties who was very wary of video games featuring any notable degree of violence-- she was, for instance, very much against the existence of Mortal Kombat-- but my parents had been divorced since before I started hanging onto my memories, and my father, who lived pretty far away, was a bit more lax in his parenting. This came full circle when I visited a CiCi's Pizza(gross, I know, but I was like four, what do you expect?) in Dallas, Texas, and wandered into its meager arcade section seeking similar fare to that of which I was aware. At the time, that consisted of Super Mario Bros. and its ilk on an almost exclusive basis. How unprepared must I have been for Street Fighter II, a game in which all people do is beat the holy heck out of each other. There was even a lady there, kicking dudes' teeth out and whatnot. A forbidden fruit complex burst into being in the span of a single introductory demonstration. The words "INSERT COIN" were burned into my brain, and I'm pretty sure Chun-Li became my first waifu. Since then, only one has followed, but that's another story entirely.



Super Mario 64: By bringing mainstream games into the third dimension, the fifth console generation changed my perception of what video games were capable of doing. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the mission hub and open, sprawling levels of Super Mario 64, a nascent 3-D platformer that I still consider to be peerless within its subgenre. Mario's varied moveset(from which Nintendo has only inexplicably subtracted), the fantastic level design, and the gorgeous music were more than the single step forward represented by games such as the excellent Super Mario World of the generation just past. I saw that video games had stepped it up, and I had to step it up with them. I didn't want to get lost in the shuffle like my mom.



Final Fantasy X: I'd heard about Final Fantasy games before, of course, but dismissed them on the grounds that neither Mario nor Donkey Kong nor Pikachu nor Chun-Li was featured in any of them. When living with my father in 2003, I was introduced to roleplaying through someone whose primary method of play was employing multiple video game characters from different franchises in a comedy/action routine. One of this person's favorite characters to play was MOMO, the pink-haired whatever she is(I'm told 'android' isn't accurate) from Xenosaga. I developed an interest in Xenosaga due to my interest in the way this person(whoever he or she was) played the character, so when I beat the heck out of the standardized tests and my father sought to reward me, I asked for a PlayStation 2 so that I could fire up what a magazine to which I was subscribed called a "fifty-hour-long Nietzschean space epic." Sadly, the EB Games to which my father took me didn't have it in stock, but the clerk(who I thought was very savvy at the time) suggested Final Fantasy X instead.

The game had me at "listen to my story." It was the first time I genuinely paid attention to the wants, needs, and struggles of characters in a video game, and video games ascended from that point beyond catharsis or escapism to a medium for telling stories. Good ones.


The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind: Final Fantasy X broadened my horizons a bit. I became invested in role-playing games that didn't feature Mario as their protagonists(I did eventually come by Xenosaga, but couldn't get past the opening cutscene without skipping it), but my interest was confined to J-RPGs since... as far as I knew, that's what "role-playing game" meant. One day, I was watching Toonami and was informed of something I'd never heard of before.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En5KML-sO4A

I was intrigued beyond intrigue, I was! I didn't have an Xbox, though, so I had to wait until 2005, when I was living in a group home and one of my fellow residents owned one of the glowing black monstrosities(seriously, why is that console so large?). Acquiring Morrowind at a Blockbuster Video back in the days when those existed, I popped it in to my buddy's Xbox and was instantly transported to a world beyond my understanding. I've since fallen out of favor with The Elder Scrolls(I strongly dislike Skyrim), but it's Morrowind that opened up my fixation with games that provide me with rich, detailed, and exciting new worlds to explore. It was probably the gateway to my MMO addiction!

 

[Maximum Bert]

Wow this thread is designed to expose age. I'm about to feel really old and crusty. Here we go...

lol I was thinking the same thing but at least im not as old as you it seems

1)FFVII - Not the first RPG I ever played but its the first one that I actually liked and actually got me to change my views on how I look at games after I finished this game I actually went back to other RPGs I had dismissed as crap and boring (i.e everyone I played) and actually find that some were pretty decent. I still love this game to this day no other game has had as much of an impact on how I game and to think I went in fully expecting to hate this game.

2) Street Fighter 2 (grouping all the editions here) - When I first saw this game in the arcade my mind was blown I had never seen anything like it the game was so friggin beautiful and the artwork was incedible I just had to have a go and of course get blown up. This game started my life long love (and hate) of fighters and while I am pretty rusty now I still love a lot of the games in that genre.

3) Super Mario Bros (NES) - Pretty much got me into gaming properly I had a C64 but before the NES I never really counted gaming as a hobby it was just something to burn time and then I played this game and well the rest is history and its still as playable today as it ever was a true classic.

4)Valkyria Chronicles (PS3) - yup a pretty late game here but wow what a game and I hate strategy games in general this game came at a time when I was getting pretty jaded about gaming in general and it was just the tonic I needed, beautiful gameplay, characters, story and artwork I was amazed at what they accomplished with this game and how well tackled a lot of the themes running through it were and how it wasnt just the typical pro or anti war black and white message we usually get. Also the presentation in this game is beautiful.

5)Soul Calibur (DC) - Yup another fighter but this one changed how I play them before I was ok I mean my fundamentals were pretty solid but I never really delved any deeper into the systems of them .With SC that changed mostly thanks to a friend of mine who was also obsessed with the game and was actually a pretty good player with his coaching and constant smackdown I actually got a lot better mainly at this game but fighters in general. I suppose its influence on me was down to how much I loved this game and later series to this day the SC series is still my favourite fighting game series and SC1 is still my favourite one in that series only SF2 Turbo comes close to SC for me.

 

[GundamSentinel]

Age of Mythology. This was the game that made me enthousiatic for gaming again. Before that, that last time I'd played games a lot was on an old 486 when I was 5 or 6. My uncle gave me Age of Mythology and I loved the hell out if it. It brought me to RTS and to more 'modern' games. I'd also mention GTA III and Half-Life 1 and 2 here.

Metal Gear Solid 3. This game re-acquainted me with console games and persuaded me to get a PS2 and by extension, a PS3. That defined my gaming life for 7 or 8 years.

Shadow of the Colossus. That was the game that persuaded me that games could more than just a thing to pass the time. It is still my favorite game.

Final Fantasy XII. Another game that changed my view of games. While I can't put my finger on what exactly it did for me, I feel it opened my world for a wider spectrum of games I like. This game is still one of my preferred standby games; It's a game I always like playing when I have nothing else to do.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. This game solidified my love for western RPGs, and western games in a broader sense. By no means the first western RPG I played, but it was the first one I really liked. Oblivion made me like Fallout 3/NV, Mass Effect, Skyrim, Guild Wars 2 and even by extension Demon's Souls and Dragon's Dogma. Oblivion itself doesn't rate incredibly high on my favorite games list, but it has had great value in redefining my tastes.

 

[sovietmisaki]

1. Donkey Kong Country, I may have started playing video games with the Super Mario games, although it was really DKC that really solidified my interest in video games when I was a young boy growing up.

2. Super Mario World. as far as I can remember, this is the first game I actually remember playing at all, at a store in Virginia way back in 1991, although my parents wouldn't buy an SNES until a few years later. I spent hours playing the game, and being scared out of my wits with the haunted houses and those darn ghosts.

3. Red Alert 1, honestly this is kind of a tie with RA2 and Warcraft 2 as what led me down the path of the RTS fanboy I am today, and a partial influence to my username due to the fact I abused soviet tank rushes like there was no tomorrow. It's also one of the games that really got me into PC gaming.

4. Metal Gear Solid 3, I may have got into the MGS series somewhat late, although it was really MGS3 that really snatched my interest in the series, due to missing out on 1 and 2 due to hype aversion, and due to the fact my family was often stretched for cash, leaving very little for games. For me, it's one of the greatest games I've ever had the gratification of playing on the PS2, I've recently tried playing it again via emulation, although years of playing other games have sort of left the controls feeling clunky to say the least, I'll figure out a way to do it with ease, somehow. It was this game which really converted me into a MGS fanboy to say the least, and although I've played some other stealth based games before, it was this game which more or less pushed the genre right up there with Real Time Strategy on my list of favorites.

5. Company of Heroes, at first when I read the basic premise of this game, I wondered how it would exactly work with a tech tree that all RTS games have, so I was a little skeptical at first, although I was soon blown away by the emphasis on battlefield tactics, as it was clear that this definitely wasn't a usual base building game of the type I had grown accustomed to. The fact that I was supposed to keep a close eye on my units in order to maintain a sustainable advance in order to achieve victory was very intriguing, among many other factors. and this game was really the one that re-consolidated my love of the RTS genre at a time it was sort of on the wane.

 

[babinro]

5) Jumpman - The earliest game I remember that truly got me into gaming. Same for my brother. I doubt it was the first game I ever played but it's the first one I devoted dozens of hours to and continually revisited over the years.

4) Puzzle Quest - This is the game that got me to truly respect indie games as an equal to AAA titles. I don't even know if Puzzle Quest is consider indie but it the game that got me thinking this way. Today I buy more indie titles a year than AAA.

3) Rock Band - helped me appreciate how positive gaming can be for your future development. I've known several people who used this experience to get into actual music for the first time in their lives.

2) Final Fantasy 6 (aka FF3 on SNES) - the game that got me interested in instrumental music. I had enjoyed plenty of video game music before but this is the one that made me want to listen to their songs outside of playing the game.

1) Pandora's Box - a fantasy based MUD. It taught me the value of role play in video games. It also proved to me that graphics are meaningless to the experience as it was a text only game that I got into during the SNES era.

 

[Tom_green_day]

1. Fallout 3. Great world
2. Mass Effect 3. Great story and characters.
3. The Saboteur. Great blend of tone/game play/story all that jazz
4. The Last of Us. Emotional story
5. Grand Theft Auto 5. Clever. Very clever writing. Characters are all fun too.

Excuse me if I don't write an essay on each game but I think I make my motivations clear.
EDIT: Oh shit I forgot Skyrim! Well it gets an honourable mention for the same erasons as #1. These are games that inspired my writing etc, not me as a gamer or whatever.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Silent Hill 2 - I haven't played this game in years, but back when it was first released I absolutely squeezed it dry of all its content. It became one of my "auto-pilot" games, where eventually I didn't even have to think about what to do or where to go next, because I had played it so damn much. When I wasn't playing Silent Hill 2 I was thinking Silent Hill 2.

Resident Evil 2 - A really dumb game by today's standards, but as with Silent Hill 2 it was a game I played so much it has become hardwired into my brain.

Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee - The game that turned me into the gamer I am today. Before that I had played some games that I enjoyed, like Super Mario Bros. 3 and Kirby's Dreamland, but I really wasn't that into it. The only reason I even had a NES was because my brother gave me his. Then one day a friend invited me to his place to show off his new Playstation, and the first thing he showed was the demo of Abe's Oddysee. The moment I saw that main menu I was smitten. It was like Jim Henson on crack. It was the first game that made me realize games could be more imaginative than movies. My most influential game across the board.

It feels too early to put The Last of Us on this list, so I'll leave it at that for now.

 

[pilouuuu]

The Secret of Monkey Island - the first adventure game I really played and I was so spoiled for it... It made me dream of the possibilities of interactive storytelling and humour in games.

Knights of the Old Republic - my first RPG and it's such an epic story full of interesting characters, hard decisions and incredible twists. All that set in the Star Wars universe and it's better than prequel movies!

Street Fighter II - so much cash I spent in this amazing game. Easy to play, hard to master. Amazing characters, music and graphics.

Bioshock - this game suprised me so much with its world. It also showed me that FPS games can be so much more. They can even touch philosophy.

Half-Life 2 - so varied. Great companion. For once you think you're playing alongside real people. I'd say this FPS has perfect gameplay.

 

[Artina89]

Here are mine:

Resident Evil 2: I love the early Resident Evil games, but my favourite has to be Resident Evil 2. I liked the re playability of it, through the Leon A and B scenarios, and the Claire A and B scenarios. I also liked some of the little secrets in it as well, such as

Spoiler

If you can go through the beginning section of the game without picking up any items, you can encounter the zombie of Brad Vickers, and if you kill him, you can get a key that unlocks costumes for Leon and Claire

.

Final Fantasy VIII. I played so much of this when I was a kid, and I loved the weapons, such as Squall's and Seifer's gunblades. I even have a model of Siefer's gunblade on my desk, which everyone who visits thinks is cool.

Jet set radio future I freakin' love this game, I love the cel shading, and I love the soundtracks. I have both the soundtracks to Jet grind radio and Jet set radio future and I listen top both nigh on constantly.

Silent Hill 2 Another old favourite, from the story to the characters, in my opinion, they never made the story any better in the Silent Hill series. I like how complex the characters are, and that all of them have their dark side and their own motivation to be in Silent Hill. The ending still sends shivers down my spine.

Deadly premonition One of my favourite games of all time, from the characters to the story, this game for me is perfect. The controls and the map can cause some issues, but I love the game all the same. I also like the little nods to Twin Peaks throughout the game if you take the time to look for them.

 

[TheEvilCheese]

1. By far the most influential to me as a gamer and a person in general: Pokémon Gold. I was a little young when Red/Blue came out and Gold was the first game I ever bought with my own money. By a wide margin the best £30 I've ever spent. Still playing Pokémon to this day. This game basically taught me to read.

2. Chrono Triggger I find it so hard to get into JRPGs after experiencing CT. I didn't play it until the DS remake in 2009 or so, but it instantly became a favourite of mine. Sure it's cliché as hell, but it's just so good I don't care. And the soundtrack ranks among the best I've ever heard.

3. Oblivion My first, and most loved TES game. This was the first game I got with my Xbox 360(along with Halo 3) and I'd never experienced anything even remotely like it. I was in love with the combination of freedom and genuinely interesting quests. Opened up WRPGs to me in a way that nothing else had managed. Again, amazing soundtrack.

4. Super Smash Bros. Melee: Oh Melee, where to begin? I still regularly play this game with the same group of people that introduced me to it a decade ago. It was instrumental in forging friendships that lasted and is the most pure fun I've had with local multiplayer ever. It also made me crave other similar experiences, but I've never enjoyed a more technical fighter in the way I do SSBM, it's just pure fun. (Aside, I don't really like Brawl. The floatiness really ruins it for me)

5. Either Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare or possibly Halo 3 both were my first introductions to the respective series and loved for different reasons. CoD was my first experience with online multiplayer in any serious fashion and it provided some of the most intense fun I've ever had. On top of this it had a genuinely interesting story (at the time at least, but since everyone is still trying to outdo it, it feels more played out). I only wish later games in the series lived up to it better. I played Halo 3 at a similar time to CoD, but this was all about the splitscreen. Amazing co-op campaign, ability to go online as a guest of someone else, robust game creation tools, pure simple fun. Not to mention the forge and everything that led to. Halo 3 was by far the best for custom games online, the limitations in forge inspired creativity the likes of which the community has yet to repeat.

Honourable mentions go to Dark Souls, The World Ends With You, Fire emblem (GBA), Sonic 2, Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, Super Mario Bros Deluxe. I could think of more, but this is probably enough.

 

[captainballsack]

This is a good question/thread.

1. Shadow of the Colossus: It has pretty much become my ideal game. I could, but I won't, write you an essay on why I think this game is the pinnicle of fantastic game design. It executes a little thing I like to call thematic gameplay, where the game design/level design communicate themes on their own right that are then accentuated by narrative. Shadow of the Colossus tells you a story through being a game; that's why if I were to label a true Citizen Kane of Gaming (although I tend to reject that idea a lot), it would be SotC. Not to mention, it is a genuinely challenging and empowering game that is just objectively designed well. The awkward controls really give you a feel for how human Wander is, and that makes it all the more rewarding when you conquer literal moving mountains with nothing but your skill and wits.

2. Castlevania (NES): This game showed me a lot about game design. It taught me about challenge vs. difficulty, and of course, it taught me about reward. Castlevania taught me a really great hint to judging a game: if you don't want to keep playing after you die, then there is a significant chance the game isn't designed that well. It also showed me that catharsis doesn't necessarily mean good - Dynasty Warriors feels good to play, but the game is essentially broken.

3. Donkey Kong 64/Banjo Kazooie/Ocarina of Time/Super Mario 64: These games taught me the extent atmosphere can accentuate a great game and also remedy poor ones (Ocarina and Super Mario 64 specifically). I'm not going to go into too much detail, because it is a little controversial, but Ocarina and SM64 are not very well designed games. You strip away the atmosphere, story and whatever from Ocarina of Time, and you're left with a pretty vague and broken game. There are some fantastically stupid design choices in Ocarina (the owl, Jabu Jabu etc.), but these things are swept under the rug by the glorious music of Kondo and this ill-replicable, eerie atmosphere. A good atmosphere can pick up where a game falls short and keep the player's attention, although I think it can only do so to an extent - unlike Ocarina, Super Mario 64's awesome atmosphere doesn't save that calamity. DK64 and Banjo taught me though, that if your game IS solidly designed, a great atmosphere can immortalize your work.

4. Monster Hunter: Simply, trust in your player-base's intelligence can go an incredibly long way. Yes, Monster Hunter's "tutorial" quests at the beginning contradict this entirely, but let's face it, they don't prepare you for shit. Monster Hunter is a game where you climb your way out of trashy gear and work your way up the ranks. That game taught me that if developers stop holding the player's hand and instead focus on the potential of the player as opposed to the pleasure, they can create some incredible games. Of course, with the gamer demographic growing older, a lot less players want a game that takes commitment, which is totally understandable - but that doesn't change the effectiveness of a rewarding game that gives the player nothing but a world and the tools needed to survive in it.

5. Dynasty Warriors: Dynasty Warriors taught me that even poorly designed games, with the right catharsis and context, can occupy my time. Dynasty Warriors is brokenly easy - to put it simply, you can just finish each battle by running to the enemy commander and fighting them without much sweat - but if I haven't clocked in at least 500 hours of Dynasty Warriors in my life time, I would be really quite surprised. Point is, Dynasty Warriors is fun because it has a combat system that makes you feel awesome and it romanticizes (even more so) a period in history that I just outright love. It taught me that a fun game isn't necessarily a good one, just like a fun film isn't necessarily a good one (I really enjoyed Iron Sky and Kung Pow, but are they good films? Not exactly). I guess I could put it as: just because a game is fun, doesn't mean it is good, but it does necessarily mean that it isn't bad.

I probably could have thought of some others, and I'm sure I'm missing a really important game I would otherwise put here, but here is the main stuff. This very much just scratches the surface though - I could write for hours about how SotC has influenced the way I criticize games, and criticizing games is what I like to do most as a gamer so, there we have it! c:

It may also be worth mentioning some people, too, who have influenced my gaming life. Guys like Egoraptor, Yahtzee, Jonathan Blow, Miyamoto (one true god) etc.