Hopefully everyone has played a game that when you experience any particular part about the game or just the product as a whole you think to yourself, “Wow, that game really does (x-feature) really well.” If you haven’t then I suggest you should just play every game you can get your hands on and embark on a quest of game discovery. There are many ways in which a game can be perfect or can present something unique to anyone who plays them. Whether it be environmental design, character design, voice acting, even something as basic as controller layouts.
Literally any feature or part of a game is a chance for perfection or excellence.
It’s a rare occasion where I put a game into a category with which I will never part because the creators did one thing so well. Perhaps it is because I find myself in a less than totally cynical mood while writing this or maybe it is because it is the holiday release season where all good things gaming are supposedly showering down around us for a good 5 months. My point is that this presentation of something so wonderful is usually a rare experience. So let us take a wonderful journey through some of games I feel truly stand above the rest in one form or the other.
First, my personal undying favorite, is Bioshock.
This game feels pretty dated now when you play it with its less than subtle texture pop and how things can become a bit predictable after your 10th play through. Where this game shines for me is the world it created. When I initially played Bioshock I couldn’t help but try and explore every nook and cranny of Rapture in attempt to glean some other detail about the city, about what happened, or just what life there was like before the revolution/civil war. My experience with the city or world of Rapture made me want to just step through the television into the game in order to see Rapture first hand.
Now unfortunately, the sequel Bioshock 2 was not as wonderful as I hoped it would be and my general feeling about it is mediocre, to say the least. But I’m all the more excited for Bioshock Infinite come early 2012. I have faith that I will want to jump back into my TV to explore.
Next up is just how good Batman: Arkham Asylum is at making the player feel like they are, in fact, the Batman.
Never before have I felt the kind of identification or connection with the protagonist of a game as I did when playing Arkham Asylum. I really felt like I was the one taking on large groups of less than friendly inmates only to come out feeling like a total, well, Batman.
I don’t know whether it was the controls that made the fluid combat so easy, or the very well done sound design of the game that let you almost feel what it would be like to drop from the rooftop down onto some unfortunate villain below. No matter what precisely it did right, Arkham Asylum made me feel there and involved. That’s exactly what I wanted from that game and it is why I keep playing it over and over.
From what I have seen Arkham City just steps that kind of “feeling like Batman” experience up another notch, but I don’t have the hands-on experience to go into more depth than that.
Deus Ex Human Revolution makes my list since I don’t play too many RPGs, so when Malik, your near-constant companion, dies I was honestly upset.
Now it turns out that you can save her if you proceed through that one particular sequence in a particular way, but when I first played it and she died I was a combination of shock, sadness, and rage which I promptly took care of by killing every Belltower agent I could find. My connection to Malik’s character surprised me and drove me to replay the game again just to save her.
RPGs, with their strong characterization through dialogue and exposition, seem the natural genre for this sort of vivid connection. This means that when a character does die, it carries much more of an emotional punch.
The next game, or games, makes the list because playing them made me reconnect with a longtime hero of mine – and my desire to be that hero. Uncharted and Uncharted 2: Among Thieves made me want to change my major to archaeology and fly to Egypt sporting a hat and a whip.
That’s right, I’m talking about wanting to be Indiana Jones. The Uncharted franchise is due credit for tapping into that urge, apparently shared by many, to take up a career as a larger-than-life Adventure Archaeologist and have pulpy adventures. Since Nathan Drake character is not too far off from good ol’ Indiana in profession, roguish charm, or ability to go from bookworm to badass in the time it takes most of us to blink, it’s no surprise.
Finally, The Sims showed me what a horrible omnipotent deity I would be. It may have been knowingly exposing my sim to risk by cooking when he or she has no business even owning a stove, or the classic act of divine Schadenfreude: cruelly removing the ladder from the pool after my sim had dived in.
The Sims was able to make managing someone’s life entertaining to the player when all the player was doing were things that they themselves did every day. Clearly they did something right considering I spent hours going to work or school, cooking food, and reading only to sit down in front of my computer and do them all over again through my sim.
So there you have it: the games that I feel got something right. Some of them are simply the most recent games that have succeeded at offering that one unique gem while others have stood the test of time and still remain in their position on my special shelf.
If you feel like I got something horrendously wrong and want to tell me or perhaps you agree and shared a similar experience please comment below.