1

When Michelle first asked me what my favourite game was, I had to think a minute. It wasn’t too long before I came to the inescapable conclusion that despite its faults, WoW really is the best game I’ve ever played.

Now because of the terrible reputation WoW has, I may to explain this a bit.

When I look at a video game for review, I look at all sorts of factors. Visual aesthetic, gameplay value, story, characters, environmental interaction, variety across the gameplay experience, pacing, satisfying trajectory, replay value, et cetera. WoW does a really solid job in all these areas. Plus, it’s actually unbelievably fun. Or at least far more fun than I expected.

And with all Blizzard’s constant patches to the game and latest expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, the game has become far better than it was at launch. I play WoW in spurts. Since launch, five years ago, my general approach has been: play for about five months, take a year and a half or two off, play for five months, wash, rinse, cliche. My reinvigoration with the game has happily coincided usually with the release of new content, but even if Blizzard were eventually to stop releasing expansions, I would inevitibly continue to return to their product because I just have so much fun playing it.

And this may not surprise you, but I don’t really take advantage of the MMO aspect of the game so much. Generally speaking, I don’t group with people and I don’t join guilds. While this tends to mean I don’t get to experience the end-game content so much, I’m still happy to enjoy all the wonderful stuff that is available to me. And there’s piles of it. WoW’s playable environment is like combining GTA: San Andreas, Oblivion, and Fallout 3. Maybe bigger. And the different ways to approach the game leave something for nearly every kind of play style. A good variety of occupations add flavour to some of more far-reaching character choices like faction (the heroic Horde vs. the evil Alliance), race (currently ten playable races), and classes (ten playable classes).

I haven’t played the game since June and I already miss it. Reading about the next expansion, Cataclysm, is mouth-watering. Apparently, everything changes and there are major shake-ups in store for Azeroth. It’s long been my goal to get Michelle to play along with me (so I can enjoy some good MMO action for the first time since maybe the first two months I played the game). She played for about six days of a free trial we set her up with, but like always, she just got too busy with her responsibilities (school and all). I’m crossing my fingers for a time when we’ll have free time enough to enjoy something like WoW together without worrying that we’re neglecting things that we should probably better be doing.

Demo: https://us.battle.net/account/creation/wow/signup/

2

Shadow of the Colossus is a game both beautiful and thoughtful. The mechanic is seamleassly woven between a stunningly realized aesthetic and a perfect subversion of the genre. In a game that essentially amounts to a series of sixteen boss fights (seperated only by the degree of exploration either necessary to discover the next boss or to satisfy one’s own desire to simply ride around a gorgeously conceived environment), the player quickly finds the gamer’s expectation subverted—the degree to which the presumptions are subverted is not fully disclosed until the game’s final moments. The sixteen colossi are not what one has come to expect from game enemies. Beyond the fact that they are largely enormous in size (larger than any opponent I’ve ever encountered), in many cases they are entirely unaware of or unconcerned with the player’s quest to destroy them until the assault has actually begun. In many cases, these behemoths seem to be gentle. And yet, your lot is to kill them in order to bring resurrection life to a girl cursed to death by the civilization you have recently forsaken. It appears all resurrections demand a sacrifice. And they are to be yours.

Shadow of the Colossus offers plenty of fodder for political or sociological readings if one is so inclined—and not all of such would be obscene to the point of the game itself. This is a tragic meditation on interactive fiction and holds the opportunity to teach the player a little bit about life and a little bit about the player’s own self. If only the player has ears to hear. Fortunately the game makes it hard not to have such quality of ears. Above all games, if I were to recommend one as the one that every gamer should experience, Shadow of the Colossus is The One. In some ways, it is the most important game I’ve had the pleasure to play.

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DazoTQaqJrs

3

I didn’t even know there was such a thing as real-time strategy (RTS). I hadn’t ever heard of Age of Empires (as it had yet to be created) or Starcraft (as it had yet to be created). I might have played Populous and I was still a year or two from trying Sim City. I didn’t know what RTS was and I didn’t know what to expect from Herzog Zwei. There was really no reason for me to buy this one save for the fact that I am a born consumer, a purchaser who is the courageous hero of a thousand tall tales that merchants tell their young in order to warm their hearts and to show them that despite the grim apparition of Depression, all will be safe and well so long as The Dane marches through the hallowed halls of commerce. But when I came home with the game one day, I became (upon plugging it in) immediately entranced.

This was a game I had waited for my entire gaming history.

Granted, I was still in high school, but I suspect my feeling would remain unchanged had I unwrapped the game today. Herzog Zwei is still my favourite game to come off the SEGA Genesis—and I liked pretty much everything on Genesis better than the tripe offered on the SNES. The game was fast-paced, smart, and allowed for a range of strategies. It pitted (in a fashion that would herald the jocular play of Team Fortress 2) Red against Blue, where players would establish, through the use of particular types of units, waypoints in order to gradually overwhelm the opposing fortress. If I still had my Genesis, I would still be playing Herzog Zwei as part of my replayable game rotation to this day.

Video review by some guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3EaIIY_gkw

4

Half-Life 2 was an interesting experience in that it incorporated the best elements of Half-Life, added some new and amazing functions (hello, gravity gun *flirt*), had some truly lame moments (note to Valve: stop putting Set Up Automated Turret sequences in your games), and breathed life into a small contingent of characters. Plus, the graphics were pretty stunning for the time. Still, it’s in the episodic expansions that the game really begins to take on its place of greatness.

The main game had some awesome experiences with Ravenholm, tooling around on the swampcraft, and the revisitation to City 17 under strider occupation. (Okay, and the ampped up gravity gun was fun too!) But really, it’s in the Episodes that Half-Life 2 really begins to take on its mantle, and especially in Episode Two. While Episode One is much better with pacing than the more sprawling Half-Life 2, it still feels somewhat short of a solid experience. Alyx begins to come into her own in this one, but the game was actually very short (being only about twice as long as Portal. In Half-Life 2: Episode Two, some of the most indelible experiences of the series occur. Along with the addition of the new enemies, Hunters and Advisors, Episode 2 introduces a vastly improved vehicle experience—and the finale is just epic in terms of Half-Life scope.

Demo: http://store.steampowered.com/app/219/

5

Who knew? I had read so many terrible things about the GTA series (beating up hookers, murder simulation, high-temperatured caffeinated beverages, etc.) and so many good things about the GTA series that I didnt’ know what to think. Great gameplay vs. moral depravity?

Sometime after I got my PS2, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. On a whim, I picked up used copies of GTA: San Andreas and Dark Cloud 2. I started off with Dark Cloud 2, which was more within the scope of my comfort zone. It also turned out to be probably the more offensive of the two games due to gaming context. When I started up GTA: SA, I discovered a rich world in which I felt like I could do whatever I wanted. It was amazing.

I spent maybe my first seven hours of play simply riding around the city of Los Santos on a BMX bike. Not taking part in quests (do we still call them quests if there are no wizards involved?). Just riding around, taking in the scenery, and bunny hopping onto pedestrian gang members. I was soooooo in my element here. Then I moved on to giving people rides in taxis. The robust city that at first seemed perfectly daunting soon became a place I could navigate with ease by means of landmarks instead of the game’s minimap. I had a blast.

Eventually, I got to the game’s story and fulfilled the requisite tasks as they became available. In so doing, I discovered the rich tapestry of characters and story that populated Rockstar’s much-lauded/much-loathed game. The violence of the game never bothered me. Kicking an old lady off her motorcycle and then accidentally running over her and then getting off the motorcycle to pick up the money she left behind never really felt any different than stomping on the backs of turtles in Super Mario Bros. Each activity would be entirely horrifying to me in real life, yet my senses of reality, fantasy, and mechanic are acute enough to recognize that there is little connection between in-game behaviour and irl behaviour.

GTA: SA is really one of the best games I’ve ever experienced. My only wish? A profanity filter. Or at least headphones for my PS2—I wouldn’t want to play it with my daughter milling about. Michelle’s not so hot on hearing the character interactions either.

6

Puzzle games don’t tend to have a whole lot of replayability. Their trick is in forcing you to bend and twist your mind in ways it isn’t used to in order to overcome what amount to challenges of logic and invention. As there is no real level of manual dexterity involved, once you know the solution, you can move through the game entirely without difficulty or challenge. It’s like attempting to redo the crossword puzzle that you solved yesterday. Generally, you shouldn’t expect to play the same puzzle game more than once every five years or so (enough time for you to largely forget the less memorable puzzles).

So then, because it’s unfair to demand a puzzle game to boast high replayability, its merits must be judged wholly on the experience of the first playthrough. On that count, Machinarium edges out the other two contenders for the Top Puzzle Game spot by offering up an astoundingly creative visual and aural aesthetic, an indellible lead character, and those kind of puzzles that are simultaneously mind-bendingly difficult and well within the grasp of the patient, thinking player.

Michelle and I played through Machinarium together and it was one of those perfect gaming experiences. She found ideas when I ran out and I did the same for her. And we both so fell in love with our little mechanical protagonist and his dreams and fears that we started calling him “Our Little Robot Friend.” I can’t think of a better recommendation to a character’s value. I switched my mobile phone ring to be a clip from the robot band, which the player at one point assists, and now every time my phone rings, we mimic Our Little Robot Friend’s dance for a few moments before I decide whether I want to answer your call or not.

Machinarium was a joy and I cannot wait for its sequel. I’m presuming such a wonderful game must have a sequel.

Demo: http://machinarium.net/demo/

7

Half-Life 2 had to come from somewhere and that somewhere is pretty cool in its own right. With Warcraft III and World of Warcraft, you don’t hear much praise for Warcraft I. With Age of Empires II, you’ll never find a lot of discussion about how great its predecessor was. Half-Life, though? The game is still revered as being the point at which the FPS became a viable medium for conveying story. There are no cutscenes. No nonsense. And your avatar, Gordon Freeman, never utters a line of dialogue. The entire story (including the awesome opening credits) plays out before your first-person perspective. And it is awesome.

Half-Life might be termed survival horror, only it might be better to replace horror with “radness.” The game deflty ratchets up a non-spooky kind of tension as you crawl through ducts, break through windows, and crowbar the heck out of headcrab-infected zombie scientists—all in an effort to escape the mired in science-gone-wrong Black Mesa research facility. And of course, while the crowbar is emblematic of the series, Gordon in little times moves on to projectile weaponry.

The game makes wonderful use of its earthly environs and only begins to falter when Gordon moves his investigations to more alien climes. Those last few sections can be fun, but they hold nothing over the first 3/4 of the game. Additionally, the expansions Opposing Force and Blue Shift are great in that they explore the same event (the catastrophic portal collapse between our world and an alien one) from the perspective of one of the military men assigned to deal with the problem and Barney Calhoun, a Black Mesa security guard who is just trying to get home.

Beyond being a fantastic game in its own right, Half-Life holds great power over the recent history of gaming. Without Half-Life, there would have been no Counter-Strike, no Team Fortress 2, no Portal, and perhaps even more important, no Steam.

8

I had been a fan of role-playing games since I first saw Ultima II on an Apple IIe back in ‘84. I didn’t actually get to play it really. I just saw it and saw the potential of gaming unroll before me like a scroll of prophecy. After that, there was a game I’d get to play (whose title I never knew) in 1987 at my mentally handicapped friends house (ashamedly, I was really only friends with him so I could play his games, which I always felt like dirt about—but I really loved games and could never afford to have a computer myself). Oh, there was also Neuromancer in like 1987, which was sort of a sci-fi RPG about plugging into the internet matrix and hacking into corporations.

My first real (and complete) experience with an RPG was Sega’s Master System game Phantasy Star (maybe in 1988?). That game kind of changed the game for me. All of the sudden, I could not get enough of console RPGs. I still hadn’t been able to get ahold of a computer at this point, so I didn’t know what was happening on the American RPG front.

In any case, years went by and a kind of stagnation in my RPG experiences taught me to not hope too much in the games and, finally, to pretty much abandon them altogether. After a nearly ten-year absence from RPG gaming (the sole exceptions being the wonderful Raymond E. Feist game, Betrayal at Krondor and Sierra’s dreadful “sequel” Betrayal at Antara, of which I only finished maybe a third), I asked a friend who I knew engaged in such trifles if he could recommend a really good RPG for me to really sink my teeth into. He guardedly recommended Morrowind.

I gave it a shot and saw why he recommended it guardedly. It absolutely would not be for everybody. It was too open. There was so much to do and so much ground to cover and so many ways to distract oneself from the actual storyline that it was easy to get lost. I put about twenty hours in and just sort of lost interest. I wasn’t ready for what it offered. I was expecting something more structured. Something like the JRPGs I had been used to.

About a year later, I returned to the game and found myself in much better frame to enjoy all that it held. I played the heck out of that thing and was surprised to find the depth of lore and political investment poured into the games world. I chose factions to support, rose to rank in one of the three Houses of Vvardenfall, and became a powerful figure in the world of Morrowind—and then I decided to take care of the storyline. I had a blast. I played it again several years later (when I was taking a break from WoW and found the experience just as invigorating. And now, having recently re-purchased it on Steam along with its two expansions, I have it to look forward again in the coming year. I count myself very lucky indeed.

9

Myst was entertaining enough to interest me in a sequel, but really, Riven itched my scratch. The world was gorgeous, the puzzles sensible, and the storyline well-wrought. It continued with most of the conceits of the previous game—point-and-click navigation through largely static screens, lush environs, insane family members of the vaguely self-righteous Atrus, as well as the standard revelation via notebooks, letters, and other errant writing—yet it pumped each of these full of new life. Attention to sight and sound was doubly important in this installment with the better-conceived graphics and ambient sounds that figure into game play. And gone was the repetitive, obnoxious gimic of collecting pages for burnt-out books—which really only served to force each player to wander back through puzzles after they had already been solved. Essentially, Riven takes and magnifies the best of the genre while leaving behind the dross.

Video review: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urRNKP9XP-o

10

Bioshock opens with our protagonist (through whom the player experiences the game’s sprawling tale of dystopian objectivism) swimming free from an oceanic plane wreckage and finding himself (sorry ladies!) all too conveniently surfaced an easy distance from the entrance to a great undersea city. Rapture is a marvel to take in. Tycho described it as a meditation on human loss and he is spot on here. The city, even in its entropic state of disrepair and evidently decreasing lifespan, is staggeringly gorgeous. While once a spotless tribute to the mettle of the human spirit, carved of Art Deco lines and hailing the glory of German Expressionism, Rapture has decayed—rotted from the inside as its organic creators have curdled and fouled the nest.

Rapture, by the time of our arrival, is undone.

The city was built in echo of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. Andrew Ryan, the metropolis’s father, felt deeply the unjust burden that society had placed upon the shoulders of the great minds of the time; and so, he devised a sanctuary, a city constructed deep below the ocean waves, in which the greatness of the human race could explore that greatness emboldened by an absence of moral constraints (philosophical constraints are of course encouraged). Doctors and researchers could experiment and develop without fear of ethics boards. Artists and writers could explore their own thoughts without worry for ostracism by the weak-minded who would necessarily fear their work. Ryan hoped his submarine Eden would become the bastion of truth and knowledge, while the outside world would continue to rot, engaging war after war, small-minded and petty.

Ryan’s dream began to show cracks with the discovery of Adam and development of plasmids. Adam was modifiable genetic material and plasmids were the means to altering human DNA. People could now become super-human, or better, post-human. With the new availability of plasmids and the chance to become more powerful (and conversely the fear that others would become more powerful), the greed and fear inherent to the human frame took hold of the city and madness ensued.

Now the city is done for. Though still inhabited, its denizens have been driven to insanity through the voracious and unsafe degree to which they spliced their DNA with plasmids over and again. They are not zombies, but they aren’t far off. And here you are, stuck in a leaking city, surrounded by a plagued and dangerous humanity, and trapped between struggling factions built up by the few remaining sane men and women who rule the skeletal city from its shadows.

The game design is beautiful. Every section of the city bleeds design. The atmosphere is captured perfectly and the many instances in which one is able to view the rest of the city through its gradually flooding windows to the ocean outside are always a treat. Bioshock may be among the five most handsomely designed games I have ever experienced.

The story design is equally impressive—despite faltering near the end a touch. Through radio messages from various survivors and via cassette-recorded diaries lying around (an admittedly stilted storytelling mechanic), the story of Rapture unfolds, of its citizens and its lords—and even of its protagonist. Piece by piece different stories, perspectives, and chronologies are unveiled, giving the tale a sense of anticipation and mystery that culminates, perhaps, in the climax to the second act.

And of course, as in any contemporary FPS, one’s choice of weaponry is paramount in judging a game. Bioshock certainly holds strong in this respect, offering both the standard array of improvable FPS weaponry (e.g. blunt weapon, pistol, shotgun, machine gun, grenades, etc.) with several choices where ammunition is concerned, as well as the interesting option of taking on plasmids yourself (from more mundane abilities like shooting lightning or flame from one’s finger-tips to more interesting options like controlling a swarm of bees). In any case, the options for building your character are impressive.

Beyond the typical mechanic and the personal genetic manipulation available to players (including the sensationalist means for obtaining genetic material), the game features other things that work toward making it interesting, including the ability to hack security systems and turrets as well as the multitude of vending machines in the city and the ability to research different kinds of enemies by photographing them in action. I’ll admit that while each of these mechanics had valuable results (researching different creatures could give you new abilities), they soon got pretty tiresome. Especially the camera. But, as they were an optional part of the game for the most part, I can forgive.

In any case, Bioshock was an awesome game dipped in great atmosphere. Like any strongly story-based game, its replay value will be limited. I could probably play it through every three years or so, but any more frequent revisitation would dull the blade through over-exposure. It’s no World of Warcraft in this respect. But then, what FPS is?

Demo: http://store.steampowered.com/app/7710/

11

I always sort of liked the idea of the kind of adventure games where you wander around, chat people up, attach parrots to water balloons and use your new invention to unlock the rusted old gate that’s been bothering you for hours. However, most of these games have little going for them outside of the inclusion of some difficult/interesting puzzles. Grim Fandango is different. Grim Fandango is the prince of its genre. In many respects, Grim Fandango will likely never be surpassed, it’s that good.

What is it that is so overwhelmingly special about this adventure over other favourites such as King’s Quest, Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion, and the glorious Day of the Tentacle (which appears later in my list)? The characters. Manny Calavera and his host of cohorts are gems of video game history. Grim Fandango is a strange cross between film noir, Casablanca, and Mexican Day of the Dead celebrations; however, the characters, though all dead (save for the elemental spirits), are the life of the party. Manny plays the snarky lead, kind of a cross between a hip and cool Bogart and some down on his luck schmoe. He’s a skeleton. Don is Manny’s dangerous competition for most of the game and he’s slick as deer guts on a doorknob. He’s a skeleton. The baddy is a Sydney Greenstreet sort of fellow and ominous as all get-out. He’s a skeleton. Your romantic foil is all bones too. Glottis is a Ratfinkesque, hotrodding elemental spirit created with one purpose, one passion, one goal in life: to drive! He’s not a skeleton. He looks more like a big, orange, hairless gopher. And they’ve all got moxie—and that to spare.

This is a game that never loses its flavour and is as fun today as it was when it was released. This wasn’t life-changing but it would likely make it into my top ten games of all time list. It’s subtle that way. (See what I did there?)

Demo: http://www.lucasfiles.com/index.php?file=51

12

Really, watching the first two minutes of this trailer sold me on the game. It was slick and stylish beyond what normally gets churned out of game studios. Plus, there was the added feature of the only means by which you can access your incredible powers (the summoning of personas) is to shoot yourself in the head. I mean, seriously? Wow. This game deserved attention. Take two minutes and check it out (note: the whole thing is seventeen minutes long, which you’re welcome to take in, but is unnecessary to my point).

And after pumping hours of play into it, I can safely recommend that it deserves hours of play as well.

The game boasts a strange mix of RPG elements, dating sim, and deck-building as you and your friends at a posh private school enter nightly into a labyrinth of shadow terrors to discover how to stop the spirit-plague that has been plaguing the city recently. And you work according to a calendar and time is running lean, so you’ve got to balance school, making friends, dungeon crawling, and getting enough rest so that you don’t get sick and lose more time. One of the best games I’ve ever played.

Trailer (again, watch at least the first two minutes):
http://www.gametrailers.com/user-movie/persona-3-full-trailer/79668

13

I was a Populous fan. You may remeber the game: you are a god and your goal is to have your followers convert (i.e. destroy) the folowers of the “evil” god, along the way assisting them by perpetrating acts of god (volcanoes, floods, earthquakes, etc.) upon your enemy’s worshippers. I loved playing that one on the SEGA Genesis, but Populous was nothing for me when compared to its prequel, which would come out years later: Populous: The Beginning.

Not yet having attained your desired role of diety, you are a mere shaman, leading a band of grubby villagers and seeking to attain godhood along the way. Gradually, across the span of levels, you gain more and more “god powers” and become more and more adept and reigning doom upon the shamans and villagers of other tribes. Essentially a hateful, nationalistic endeavor, the game makes it fun by its use of the supernatural. In some ways, I think I’ll always like Populous: The Beginning more than Age of Mythology. Unfortunately, it only runs half-heartedly on XP.

14

Before it decided to largely devote itself to strip-mining the dessicated corpse of the Star Wars galaxy, LucasArts produced some of the finest adventure games the world will ever know. Monkey Island, Sam and Max, the afore-mentioned Grim Fandango. They had a lot of greatness come out of their publishing house. One of their greatest acheivements, however, is one I’m still waiting to be rereleased to run on a system post Win98 (it was designed for Win95). That game is Day of the Tentacle.

Your job, using three characters, time travel, and your wits, is to stop the Purple Tentacle from taking over the world. Nefarious old Purple Tentacle… so yeah: awesome.

Video of the Intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HaYZsc66Bk

15

Despite my earlier interest in RTS games like Herzog Zwei, Populous, and Populous: The Beginning, I still stood rather fearful of some of the more hardcore RTS environments out there. Age of Empires II just looked too complicated. I didn’t know if I could have fun with it.

So I skipped it.

Its sequel, however, was too tempting to entirely pass up, for it featured the controlling of mythical beasts and the development of three entirely different civilizations based around their mythologies (the Greeks, the Norse, and the Egyptians). So I downloaded the free demo. The demo was great. It did everything a demo could to coerce me into desiring the game outright. It had a nice tutorial, a couple levels of the rollicking fun campaign, and two of the many maps available for skirmish play. It limited the level of civilization one could gain and the choice of mythologies one could play as, but it gave enough of a taste that I wanted more.

The game, once purchased, astonished me. I played it and played it and played it. I played through the campaign and I played skirmish after skirmish. I never got involved with online play, but just kept upping the number of computer controlled opponents with which I would have to contest. Then, when they released the game’s only expansion, The Titans, my appreciation and esteem for the game only increased. The expansion did what every expansion ought to do: it made the game fresh again.

I still enjoy the game to this day and even played through the entire thing once more just a few months ago. I have a hard time seeing another RTS take its place here, but I’m willing to be wooed by Warcraft III and Starcraft. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Demo: http://download.cnet.com/Age-of-Mythology-demo/3000-7483_4-10167912.html

16

I don’t remember when I first saw Darwinia. I do know that I a) loved the design of the game, b) downloaded and played the absolutely cool demo, and c) forgot to buy it. To be fair, I was probably on one of my WoWcraft stints and other games are usually dead to me in those times. It wasn’t ’til more than a year later that Introversion’s little game popped back onto my radar.

As has become more and more the case of late, Steam was having a sale and I found myself purchasing an awesome game from them. Actually, all three Introversion games (at that time there were only three) for a cool ten bucks. I replayed the demo just to make sure and then snapped it up! So absolutely worth it.

Darwinia is a fascinating RTS sort of game in which you have been invited into the world of the Darwinians, an AI world that was once filled with peaceful little Darwinians, digital creatures that evolved a limited artificial intelligence. Sadly, their world has been overrun by a virus that has corrupted all their data. Dr. Sepulveda, their creator, has tasked you to help the Darwinians return. You use little programs (with guns) to eliminate the virus and help restore Darwinians to their happy land once more.

A charming little game.

Demo: http://store.steampowered.com/app/1502/

17

I was pretty well blown away by Lucidity when I first saw a trailer for it. This was the kind of artistic accomplishment that had been missing from gaming for awhile now. Despite the subdued palette, the game’s visuals conveyed a sense of lushness. Which is entirely appropriate, as the game takes place entirely within the confines of poor little Sophie’s dreamlife.

One of my favourite things about the game (beyond the phenomenal musical presence and beuatifully drawn characters and sumptuous level-design) is the fact that you do not control Sophie. This is her dream and it’s up to her to make it what it is, to turn sunflowers and buttercups* into nightmare and fury. Or vice versa. You’re only there as a comfort to her, to say, “There, there,” wipe her knitted brow, and encourage her to persevere and come to grips with the life she has been given.

The game as a whole was a meaningful experience to me. The way art and music conspired to create deeply dreamlike settings almost instantly made certain the game could do no wrong in my mind. Every level was fun and even as the game ratcheted up its tension and caused the gamer to genuinely empathize with the struggle that Sophie was at that moment wrestling with in her subconscious mind, I was still there every step of the way. For me though, The Moment arrives when having slogged through nightmare after nightmare, Sophia encounters the golden frog. And this just moments after the absence of her grandmother is driven home. That frog returns buoyancy and childhood fancy back to Sophia and introduces hope once more into her dreamworld. The nightmares still threaten but there is the palpable feeling that they shall not endure.

I’m actually one of the few players who have thus far completed every possible thing in the game. All stars, all achievements. I had such an enjoyable time doing it that I would have easily played twice as many levels—and I look forward to playing through it all again in a couple months after all the patterns have faded from memory.

Completely awesome little game.

[*note: there are neither sunflowers nor buttercups present anywhere in the game.]

18

Alright, so to be clear from the start, I never played Fallout or Fallout 2 (though I own both). I came to Fallout 3 through Bethesda, the game’s developers. I loved their Morrowind and had mixed feelings about Oblivion. The way I would describe Fallout 3 is: it’s what Oblivion should have been if it couldn’t be Morrowind.

The setting post-nuclear Washington D.C. is beautifully rendered and, especially as one gets into the heart of the city itself, everything I could want from such a game. It’s a little bit on the easy side and the morality aspect of the game is a little slipshod (though philosophically interesting). Speaking of morality, here’s what I wrote at the time:

A game of the style and caliber of Fallout 3 operates well as a window into the moral values of its developers, functioning as something of a pedagogue—not to teach players how to behave in the real world, but how Bethesda Ethical Systems work.

One thing I really found interesting with Fallout 3’s karma system was that it was only partially based on NPC witnesses. In other like games, so long as you do something bad yet no one sees or your victim doesn’t have time to cry out, your karma doesn’t take a hit. Yet in Fallout 3, while the result of being caught red-handed can be mild or terrifying, there is an invisible deity (the F3 game system) who tracks and reports on your every infraction.

So whereas in many other such role-playing experiences, I would find myself playing the stealthy thief character who would commit a multitude of crime but never get caught, in Fallout 3 my style of gameplay changed dramatically. My first time through, I played as a genuine do-gooder and because of the moral system, I was unable to engage in any of my typical subterfuge without getting caught. It was fun and a bit of a challenge and it was a struggle sometimes to not just end certain characters in the most utilitarian fashion. This was the first time that a game’s moral system actively altered my manner of play.

The second time through, I played as a lawless Asian woman, punked out and essentially of raider disposition, both in look and attitude. I nuked the good town of Megaton (after killing and looting everyone there). I joined the slavers of Paradise Falls. I turned in the android. I destroyed both the superhero and his masked nemesis. I had people trying to jump me at every turn. In it’s way, it was crazy and wonderful.

And unlike with Bioshock, there is a huge benefit to being an evil character in Fallout 3. The game was not only easier to complete and interact with if one held no concern for the rules of society, but I was never at a loss for money or guns. I actually kind of prefer it when it’s harder to be quote-unquote good than it is to be bad.

In any case, the game was good fun—though i would have filled for a little bit more greenery than this solitary piece of flora found in the Arlington Cemetery.

19

This is really where it began for Nintendo, where it began to take on a life of its own. Before Zelda, I had never dreamed in video game. Like any juniour high kid, I was attracted to the crazy gold packaging. This had to be something interesting. I was already knee-deep in my Nintendo infatuation—to the point that kids at school would call me up at random times and beg tips off me (this was before the internet, you remember; it was also pretty much before GamePro, Game Informer, Electric Gaming Monthly, or Nintendo Power).

Zelda was, quite simply, a revelation. It opened up to me a whole new vista of what gaming could entail. And saving? On a console? Without entering a horrendous password and hoping you got your Is, Ls, 1s, Os, 0s, Ks, Hs, and Xs straight? Holy smokes that meant depth and challenge and growth and hours of play previously unimaginable. Comparing something like Asteroid—in which a game might last for five minutes if you were lucky—with Zelda’s never-ending gaming potential, and really, you’d have no comparison.

As I said, I dreamed Zelda. Not that I was Link and romancing the stone. No, I dreamt that I was playing. So desperate was my need to find the entrance to the level Level 8 dungeon that I actually dreamed looking for it. And what’s more, I dreamed where and how to find it. Sick, huh? Now that right there is a good game.

20

Peter Packrat was pure joy to me as a quarter miser. The easy of the first and second levels assured me at least a good four minutes per quarter (though a bit longer if I was good) and the visual distinction of the levels proved blissful. Crawling around colourful environments in which a rat might really find itself kept me loving arcades for quite some time during the depression years of the mid-’80s, when nobody was having fun with games.

Video of Gameplay: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaPK8lB8GfE

21

Braid is interesting and poses a dilemma for me. It was a great kind of action-puzzle game using time as the operating mechanic that attempted something most games don’t bother with: it tried to present a story with interpretive depth. This is one thing I’d like to see in gaming more as developers begin to grasp the limits of technology and begin focusing on other ways to make their games memorable. I was excited to see the attempt made.

The reason the game appears as low as it does, though, is that at the end of the day, I didn’t feel the story told (an extra-conventional love-story used as allegory for the issues of responsibility and regret in relation to the invention of the Atom Bomb) was really all that coherent. It’s a great idea. It’s a fantastic idea. Only, the execution was a little bit scattered and one had to pay maybe a bit too close attention to the sometimes awkwardly written story moments to be able to suss out the game’s ultimate meaning.

Still, the gameplay was fun and the painterly visuals were a pleasure to take in. It’s heart was in the right place and the finale was a little bit mind-blowing (in a fun and amusing way).

Demo: http://store.steampowered.com/app/26810/

22

Voice acting and the surprising presence of a small-scale story took what could have been a cool test for the next new alternative weapon in the Half-Life series (a la the gravity gun) and turned it into something wonderfully delicious. Not best game delicious by any means, but still. Portal offered a glimpse into a coherent world via the perspective of a test subject from Aperture Science (possible competition for government dollars for Black Mesa) and did so with humour while allowing players to try out one of the fun FPS ideas in a long time. Still, as cool as the portal gun was and as neat as the challenges were, the real star of the show was the robotic administrator of the facility and your tests, GLaDOS. Voiced by Ellen McLain and given a song by Jonathan Coulton, GLaDOS is probably the one thing you’ll remember from Portal.

That and the existential question of cake.

Demo: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/404612 [Okay, not really a demo since its 2d.]

23

In reality, so much of the gameplay is scripted—but to its credit, it rarely feels that way. The scenery is amazing with atmospheric environments and graphical intensity to drop jaws (to come from River Raid to this in twenty-five years? incredible). Your character, Kratos, is probably the angriest, most fear-striking hero of any game I’ve ever play (‘cept maybe for Earthworm Jim). He’s mad and cares about nothing so much as revenging himself on Ares, the titular god of war. And this isn’t one of those cathartic tales in which the hero realizes that vengeance accomplishes nothing and doesn’t right past wrongs. No, nothing so cliche as that. Kratos is beyond caring—and so you have a chance to stick it to a pissed off mythical diety. And man does that feel good. And though you’re in the dark at the beginning, slowly are Kratos’ motives revealed. And even if you felt bad for Ares in the beginning (come on, really?), you just plain don’t in the end.

24

Another of the fascinating offerings that Valve generously packaged in Tbe Orange Box (which also included Portal, Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, and Half-Life 2: Episode 2). I didn’t play it for a while. I mean, I had Portal to play. The HL2: Ep 2. After that I replayed the other two offerings (at the time of Orange Box release, the early two Half-Life 2 games had been around a while). Then, finally, I got around to Team Fortress 2.

I was skeptical. I’m not a huge fan of online gaming. And TF2 looked like it might have a learning curve, what with all the unique character classes. I didn’t want to piss anyone off with my inept n00b play.

Still, I gave it a shot because I had it and the ads looked funny (note: please watch all of the “Meet The” ads and wonder to yourself why you are not at this moment playing a game with this good a sense of humour).

The game was actually incredibly easy to pick up and I was able to jump into CTF matches (capture the flag) and try out all the character classes without anyone getting angry at me. I found the classes that made me happy while playing and stayed away from one’s that would take too much practice (medic, spy, and engineer) since I only had limited time to play. The game flow is great, the characters are well balanced and a visual treat, and the environments are fun to romp around in. And best of all, the game is humourous.

Trailer: http://store.steampowered.com/app/931/

25

I was never sure which I liked better, Unreal Tournament or Counter-Strike. Now, years after having played either, my choice has been made clear. If Counter-Strike had featured CTF (capture the flag) matches, I don’t think I would have had much question—but oh CTF how I loved you. I think that in the end I had downloaded perhaps up to fifty different CTF maps, playing them each time after time after time. After time. Hall of Giants, Horus, Twin Valley, Warlords—these (amongst others) were the fraglands and the places I loved.

26

After the joy we felt with Guitar Hero, it was natural that we should like to try out Rock Band. And honestly, we were mostly satisfied. After all, extending the game to four player, adding drums and vocals, couldn’t be a bad idea. The only problem really was all the songs that we didn’t know and didn’t want to know. It’s one thing to play some lame heavy metal song on Guitar Hero (at least there you might have some interesting harmonies to solo out), but it’s positively torturous for the vocalist in Rock Band to attempt a song that a) he doesn’t know and b) wouldn’t want to sing under any circumstances. We ended up playing maybe half the songs on Rock Band and leaving the rest to rot on the floor—where they belonged.

Also not helping was the fact that the wonderful visual flair of Guitar Hero was wholly absent, replaced by lifely polygon-puppets whitout soul or joy.

The Beatles version of the game offered solutions to all these problems. The first thing one notices is that visually the game has more love poured into than, really, any rhythm music game out there. Each song (and especially those played in the Abbey Road studio) has unique visuals that accompany each piece. “Octopus’ Garden” takes play underwater. “I Am the Walrus” features the band in parkas with animal masks (like you were watching The Flaming Lips or something). “Here Comes the Sun” is brilliantly psychedellic. And cetera. Design-wise, Rock Band: The Beatles is just a stunning piece of work.

Song-wise, its really hard to go wrong. The Beatles sang in so many different styles and their music is so accessible that you and any of your guests can really just pick up and go. Even on vocals usually, too. And Beatles adds something awesome: vocal harmonies. We played with six people (guitar, bass, drums, vocal lead, and two on harmonies) and it was just a stupendous experience.

Trailer: http://www.thebeatlesrockband.com/videos/cinematic

27

Before it was Electric Gaming Monthly, the magazine (if I recall) was Electronic Game Player. In one issue, EGP featured a year-end wrap-up of the best games. Under Best Graphics was a picture of a sand worm that blew me away. Compared to what had previously been seen, Phantasy Star blew away the NES’s best efforts. Still, it was an RPG and I didn’t get it. Sure, I had played D&D, Top Secret, and Star Frontiers back in the day, but the whole idea of a turn-based fighting system baffled me. For the first two-weeks I mashed buttons as fast as I could, believing that if my attack missed its target, it was because I was too slow. Eventually I realised that it didn’t matter and from that point on (for a good five years), my favourite games were RPGs—though I never again encountered an RPG that excited me like Phantasy Star did (though its first sequel was mostly fun).

28

In case you hadn’t gathered, I like role-playing games. I like being able to follow a story by building my character through experience and armor and tricked out weaponry. Dark Cloud 2 was right up my alley.

The game is one of those action-JRPGs that takes place across different time periods (the present and the far future). And there is a lot to do. By collecting photos of various everyday objects around the world, you can combine them to come up with ideas for inventions (you are an inventive child). By taking various pieces of weaponry, you can combine them to form new and powerful weapons (or new and weaksauce weapons if you don’t do it right). You gain control of a constructor thingy and do city-planning in the present and then go visit your city in the far-flung future. You can golf or fish or tend to an aquarium or race fish or gain friends. You also have a multitude of playable characters.

Probably my sole objection to the game is the light misogyny with which the game treats your female companion, giving her the option of wearing a leopard-print bikini and cat ears into battle. I mean, seriously? Cat ears I can see, because who wouldn’t look more intimidating with cat ears, but the bikini just plays to the baser instincts of male gamers—and really, with live chat and stuff out there, do we really need to be encouraging that? (note: even doing an image search for this entry’s banner reveals an inordinate amount of Monica-in-leopard-bikini fan art *groan*)

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_QNJT24Dnw

29

Before there was Zelda and battery backups, there were the password games. And the first two games on the NES to feature a password-save function were Kid Icarus and Metroid. Both were packaged in handsome silver boxes (remember, NES games were always packaged in black boxes with day-glo fringe) and were released at the same time. I had thirty-three hard-earned bucks and I had to choose between the two. I chose poorly indeed.

It wasn’t ’til months later that I picked up the glorious adventures of Samus (who would be revealed later as a woman). Metroid took skill and patience, and involved the kind of character-building that I would later come to love fanatically in RPGs. If I were to download an NES emulator to replace my three long-since-broken NES consoles, Metroid would be among the first ROMs to be downloaded onto my rig (that along with Goonies II, Solomon’s Key, Zelda, and maybe Clu Clu Land). It was that good.

30

Let’s be clear from the first: I’ve never played Diablo or its lauded sequel.

That said, I really got into Titan Quest and its expansion, The Immortal Throne. Especially when playing with the expansion the game is just a barrel of click-y fun. Click, click, click. I’m sure these kinds of games (Diablo, Titan Quest, Torchlight) have destroyed more mouses than any other destructive force on earth.

Titan Quest features numerous classes to help you customize your style of play, and allows dual classing to get the most out of your class options. Unfortunately, it’s possible to choose your class poorly and then have a massive struggle through the later portions of the game—guess who that happened to…

Demo: http://store.steampowered.com/app/4590/

31

Katamari was the reason I got the PS2 (man that turned out to be the best system ever made, huh?). I thought I was done with console systems. It took the weirdest game I’ve ever played to bring me back; I mean this thing is weirder than Clu-Clu Land. Rolling over junk, sticking it to a ball, in order to build a new star and therefore move one step closer to recreating the universe? Wow. And a royal dad who talks in recod scratches? Dude. And the little girls you roll over—rather than scream until their bloody, pulpy ends—giggle like they’ve been waiting for this pony ride since last Easter? Alright then. It’s impossible not to be charmed by this little guy, despite the sometimes awkward controls and maybe because of the frighteningly fun soundtrack.

Game Intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgrnIBlxZCk

32

It’s a bit passe to like Guitar Hero these days. And yes, the series certainly lost steam as Activision claimed it for its own. And no, it didn’t help to see all the kids blasting through ridiculous songs on Expert, knowing that I neither had the time nor the inclination nor the dexterity these days to come even remotely close to that level of play.*

Still, Guitar Hero (and its first sequel) remain a joy to me simply because they are what they should be: fun. The art and animation (especially in the first one) are awesome and exactly what this kind of game should be. The song choices are largely worthwhile. And the idea of playing along with some songs you know has yet to be better accomplished than in those first two games.

The whole idea was rather surprising to me. It looked so dorky. It looked like that to Michelle too. But I got it anyway. And made her try it. One day later, we went out and got a second guitar. We had a ton of fun. And now she’s waaaaay better at it than I am.

———-

It’s worthwhile to note here that I have recently become quite cognizant of the degree to which one’s hand-eye coordination and reaction time diminishes as the years wane. Videogame tasks that would have been no issue for me at the height of my gaming prowess (sixteen years old, when I was taking prototypical bullet hell games in stride) are very much struggles these days. Not to play and succeed at, but to play at anything near the level of the better online players. When once I would have been indefatigable at whatever online FPS you want to consider (not that they had those when I was sixteen…), now it takes an effort to score in the midrange in CTF or Team Deathmatch. And using an analogue stick for an FPS seems wholly outside the range of adaptability for me.

The lesson here is manifold: a) aging sucks, b) no matter how rad you are at games right now, you too will age, c) I hope that as game devs continue to age that we’ll see more and more games in which success and fulfillment relies less on diminishing reflexes and more on other aspects of gaming.

33

Torchlight baffled me. And still does.

Really, this is a game I shouldn’t like. It’s not built for my mindset. There is, essentially, no story. The developers came up with a slick-looking Diablo/Titan Quest clone, featuring WoW-style graphics, and then draped the artifice of a story on top of it. They barely tried and it shows. Regardless, I put a lot of hours into this game, playing a half-hour here, an hour there.

And the reason?

Despite the absolute dearth of any compelling narrative to push me along in my clicky-clicky monster killing, the game manages regardless based on one simple idea: it’s just a lot of fun. I know. Weird, huh?

Demo: http://store.steampowered.com/app/41510/

34

Blistering fun and another game unheralded by the several gaming resources I had at my disposal, Target Earth was the ideal battle mech game. The levels were intriguing, mission-oriented, and (on Hyper difficulty, perhaps an early precursor to Bullet Hell) began increasingly furious, to the point of sweat and shakey arms. I adored every moment with the game, despite never before having heard of it.

35

It was the grue, really. Coming face to face with that terror more times than I can imagine, we eventually became friends.

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

> what is a grue?

The grue is a sinister, lurking presence in the dark places of the earth. Its favorite diet is adventurers, but its insatiable appetite is tempered by its fear of light. No grue has ever been seen by the light of day, and few have survived its fearsome jaws to tell the tale.

Need I say more? I thought not.

Download and Play (both Mac and PC): http://www.infocom-if.org/downloads/downloads.html

*

I can’t even begin to describe how much I want to play Ico. I went to special pains to obtain it. As proof of my desperation I, gasp, went online to a seller that wasn’t Amazon. Unfortunately, the disc does nothing in my PS2 but make a gruesome noise. Apparently first-gen PS2s have problems reading the disc. So I can either wait until I am overflowing enough with discretionary income to buy a more recent edition of the console, or I can wait in vain for PS3 support of PS2 games. *sigh*