Can you feel that? It’s
the bitter disappointment of a January dry spell without anything worth a damn
to play. Lately I’ve found myself retracing my steps in games I’ve put way too
much time into already, eagerly anticipating March to bring a handful of treats
to dive right into. I’ve had so much time, in fact, that I managed to finally
sit down and really put together a list of what I truly (at this point in time,
in any case) feel are the 10 most influential games that I’ve played. Or you
could call it my top 10 favorite games, if that’s more your fancy.
Whatever it is, these
are the 10 games that I’ll remember most fondly. They each incorporate the holy
trinity of narrative, gameplay, and presentation into stunning and remarkable achievements
in interactive media. Some of these games are classics, others are modern marvels,
but age means nothing to them or me. They will forever hold a special place in
my catalog and in my heart.
10. EarthBound
Admittedly, I never
saw the appeal in EarthBound growing
up. It’s not that I didn’t have an SNES, it’s just that I was more occupied
playing games like Secret of Mana or Chrono Trigger – you know, the “popular”
ones. I’m embarrassed to say, now having played EarthBound, that it took me so long to do so. Nintendo has that
rare ability to make even the most mundane, innocent affair into something
macabre and nightmarish. EarthBound
is, essentially, a coming of age story about a young boy named Ness (who just
happens to have psychic powers. Why? Who cares, that’s not important) who stumbles
upon a strange alien airship that has landed near his home.
The mysterious
creature, an insect named Buzz Buzz, informs Ness that he is from the future where
the ancient being known as Giygas rules the universe. You are then tasked with
the unenviable job of saving the future of your world. And you’re just a
thirteen year old boy. With a baseball bat. And psychic powers. Did I mention
those? Of course I did. It has that quintessential 90s cornball feeling to it,
and the game knows that it’s dancing a fine line between parody and
pretentious. But ultimately, the game’s notions of lighthearted humor and
schoolyard fun are a mask to hide a much darker, more sinister subtext. EarthBound has one of the most
unsettling finales of any game I’ve ever played, and it’s so carefully woven
into the aforementioned humor that one could be forgiven for having never
noticed it.
9. Alan Wake
Do you like Stephen
King? Do you like The Twilight Zone?
How about David Lynch’s cult classic TV series Twin Peaks? If you answered yes to any or all of these questions,
then Alan Wake is the game for you
(and so is Deadly Premonition, but
that’s a subject you can look more into here). Alan Wake’s presentation is straight out of a serialized TV show,
with its various chapters or story arcs broken up into “episodes” complete
with a full recap of previous events, as narrated by the titular character
himself.
Alan is a struggling
writer, having found success in the past but suffering from a severe case of
writer’s block. His wife, Alice, joins him on a getaway vacation where he can
relax and take his mind off work, but an ancient darkness lurking in the small
pacific northwestern town of Bright Falls has different plans for the reclusive
author. Alan Wake’s exceptional use
of a narrative-driven story, brilliant light and sound design, and unique
flashlight-based gameplay cement it as a truly, wholly engrossing experience.
The idyllic town of Bright Falls is a clear and loving homage to Twin Peaks, right down to characters and
even certain pieces of dialogue. But it’s the game’s wonderfully complex, if
often vague, story that will sink its hooks into you and never let go.
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One of the most storied franchises in the history of the medium has never been closer to perfection than it was in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. Kojima gets enough flak for the often convoluted ways with which he tells the story in Metal Gear Solid. From nanomachines, to cyborg ninjas, to bipedal nuclear warheads; there’s a lot to take in, and not all of it often makes sense. But that’s beside the point. The Metal Gear Solid games are less about coherency than they are about emotion. Of course half of this shit doesn’t make sense. Of course Kojima retconned almost every bit of new information proposed in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. But that didn’t stop them from being damn fine pieces of entertainment. And none of them more so than Snake Eater.
For the first time in
the series, players took on the role of the enigmatic Big Boss, previously
conceived of as Snake’s greatest enemy (and biological father). But Snake Eater sheds some much needed light
on the history of Big Boss, and what led to his eventual disillusion with the
United States. At its core, it’s a love story (as a matter of fact, the entire
series is a love story), but more than just a typical romantic relationship. It’s
a story about genuine love, about respect and trust: with each other, with your
country, and with those you perceive as enemies. Snake Eater teaches us that sometimes the world’s greatest threat isn’t
exactly what it seems.
The Sands of Time
does something that, up until this point, had rarely been attempted: told an
engrossing, compelling narrative in a platformer. Previously, the genre was
dominated with the likes of Mario, Donkey
Kong, Rayman, Sonic, and more. There
was rarely the demand for a complex story in any of these games because, up
until then, the gameplay was strong enough to hold your attention. But as the
structure of the medium changed with the times and story-driven games became
more popular amongst other genres, people started questioning why there couldn’t
be a merger of the two.
Prince
of Persia: The Sands of Time isn’t just one of the most technically impressive
platformers ever, but it manages to incorporate the act of dying into its own
narrative – and even uses it as a legitimate gameplay design! The Dagger of
Time allows the Prince to manipulate the very fabric of the continuum,
rewinding time back to a previous point. As a mechanical element, this lets you
rewind poorly timed jumps or missteps and try again (up to a certain point). Because
the game was presented as a story being told by the Prince himself to a
then-unfamiliar listener, should you die, you were often treated to one of
these always amusing quips: “No, no, no. That didn’t happen.” The Prince
himself was also by far one of the most charismatic characters I’ve yet to see
grace the presence of a video game (that is, until, his darker turn in Warrior Within).
6. The Darkness
Speaking of dark, most
games don’t really get much darker than this. Starbreeze Studio, responsible
for the often overlooked Chronicles of
Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, and last year’s heartfelt Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, take us on
a much more sinister ride in The Darkness.
It’s not enough that the game starts out with the death of the main character,
but that he’s brought back to life by an ancient demon cursed to possess his
family for eternity? That’s some bad luck, kiddo.
Jackie Estacado’s
brooding angst notwithstanding, The
Darkness (like Metal Gear Solid)
is a love story, although of the more forbidden variety. It’s also one of the
saddest games I’ve ever played, due in large part to one particular scene of
which I won’t even mention the tiniest detail. The voice acting is brilliant
across the board, from the supporting characters, to Jackie himself, and most
impressive of all, the Darkness, brought to life masterfully by famed Faith No
More vocalist Mike Patton. His shrill, ear-shattering screeches and the deep, guttural
growl to his voice create the perfect level of insanity necessary to make the
Darkness a being worth fearing.
5. Chrono Cross
I liked Chrono Cross more than Chrono Trigger. There, I said it. So if
anyone’s still reading, allow me to explain why. I understand the biggest
complaint that most people have with the game, and can even appreciate that it
is not, in fact, a flaw with the game itself; no, the thing that many fans of Chrono Trigger dislike about this sequel
is that it was not, actually, a sequel. Not in the way that they had hoped for:
an entirely new (and massive) cast of characters; a new setting; a completely
different spin on the whole time travel shtick. No, Chrono Cross was not the Chrono
Trigger 2 that fans had hoped for. But taking it for what it was, it was so
much better than a true sequel could have been.
Chrono
Cross
had a lot on its plate. It had to prove that bearing the Chrono name wasn’t just for publicity’s sake. So, yes, there is a
strong, rather important connection between the two games, and particularly
with regards to the game’s main heroine, Kid. But Chrono Cross was more about the strength of friendship, and the
bond’s forged between the assortment of characters across time and space, than
it was about being set in the Trigger
universe. Like Trigger, it established
sympathy with its lead, but also with its entire supporting cast. There wasn’t
a single person whose plight you couldn’t feel sorry for, and while some were
admittedly less pivotal or interesting than others (Skelly, Funguy, etc), they
all had a place in the game. Chrono Cross
also features my favorite female character in a video game, Harle, and arguably the greatest soundtrack in the history of the medium.
Don’t you ever say
the Wii wasn’t powerful enough. The real tragedy was that few developers failed
to realize and utilize the potential of the Wii’s architecture to its
strengths. Xenoblade Chronicles’
developer Monolith Soft took on the burden of creating not only one of the best
looking Wii games, but also perhaps the most grand, both in scope and in actual
virtual landscape. The world of Xenoblade
Chronicles is massive; so large, in fact, that it literally takes place on
the backs of two gargantuan giants, gods of the old world frozen in time,
locked in their eternal struggle. And if that isn’t enough to entice you to
play this game, maybe the rest of this will.
Xenoblade
Chronicles
incorporated elements and concepts from various different types of games: its
combat was similar to Final Fantasy XII;
its exploration was something most often associated with western RPGs, not
quite on the scale or depth as an Elder
Scrolls game; it featured a functional day-night cycle, remote quest
turn-ins, a save-anywhere feature, fast travel, meaningful character-dialogue
choices, exciting cinematic action scenes, and a useful mascot-type character.
In other words, it was the least Japanese Japanese-Role-Playing Game in recent
memory. For that alone, it deserves commendation, but the fact that the game is
just so damn entertaining as well only elevates it.
3. Max Payne
Now we’re getting
down to the big three. Anyone who really knows me can probably already guess
the top two, but for those of you who can’t quite put a finger on it, here we
go. Number three, Max Payne. What can
I say about this game? Some of my favorite video game quotes have come from
Remedy’s hard-boiled revenge story about a former New York
Detective-turned-fugitive in search of his family’s killers. The premise, as
most hard-boiled narratives go, isn’t much to be desired. But it’s in the game’s
brilliant presentation (its blend of graphic novel with neo-noir storytelling),
and Max’s brooding, deep narration voiced brilliantly by James McCaffrey that
really sets this in the pantheon of video game stories.
It also pioneered the
bullet time mechanic in gaming, something that many games still utilize to some
degree. The dialogue was tongue and cheek, if sometimes a bit campy, but it was
never without intent. Sam Lake’s hyperbolic use of metaphors and run-on
sentences were what gave the game its lifeblood. There was nothing else quite
like it for a while, and to this day remains one of the most important examples
of video games as a story-telling medium. As revolutionary as the gameplay was,
the presentation will always stand out as its crowning achievement.
2. Dark Souls
What? This isn’t
number one? No, it isn’t. But not without a good fight. And one shouldn’t
expect anything less than a good fight from Dark
Souls, a game notorious for punishing its players with relentless intent.
When I first played Demon’s Souls back
in 2009, I knew it was going to become something truly special. To proudly say
that you were there and you witnessed the birth of a cult phenomenon isn’t
something I take for granted. I had been waiting so long for someone in the gaming industry to treat
me, as a player, with a bit of respect. In that regard, I wished they would
have the decency to not consider me an idiot for playing their game. I was
getting frustrated with the way games pre-Demon’s
Souls had largely felt sorry for its players, to the point of pity. There
was no challenge left anymore. Achievements were the final nail in the coffin,
and while there was merit with their initial intent, what they had become was
just a sign that developers were getting extremely lazy.
Enter a game that
felt no remorse; a truly living, breathing entity that only had one goal in
mind – make you suffer. Contrary to the notion of its contemporaries that
gamers were getting dumber, Demon’s Souls
throws its face to the wind and says, “No, they’re not getting dumber. We are.”
The game relished in the fact that you had to earn your victories, that death
wasn’t an obstacle, but a necessity. It’s simply part of the structure of the
world. You will die. Accept it, and enjoy your stay. From the brilliant level
designs, to the terrifying creatures, to the weighty, freeform combat, and the
game’s exceptional use – and lack thereof – of sound and music, everything
about Demon’s Souls reinvigorated the
jaded gamer in me.
Two years later, From
Software launched their follow-up, a spiritual successor that promised to ramp
up the difficulty to 101. Largely the same on nearly every fundamental level to
Demon’s Souls, what Dark Souls did, and why I have selected
it as my number two game instead of Demon’s
Souls, is it made the world truly feel alive. Where Demon’s Souls took place in five disassociated environments
thematically connected in the same “world,” Dark
Souls takes place entirely in the kingdom of Lordran, evident by the
game’s brilliant environmental structure. With few exceptions, everything in
this world is connected via elevators, shortcuts, narrow walkways, cave
systems, bridges: you name a place, and more often than not it’s just a hop,
skip, and a jump away from Firelink Shrine, the game’s central hub.
Having such an
interconnected world that only revealed its web of design the further you
pushed into the game made it all the more rewarding when you actually found one
of these shortcuts after having spent hours trudging through a new area.
Opening up that previously locked door or turning on the elevator shaft has
given new meaning to the word “achievement,” and this, truly, is what it feels
like to succeed.
You may think Final Fantasy VII is the greatest in the
series, if not one of the greatest of all time. Fewer, still, might think of VI,
or VIII, or IX, or X. I could go on. Sadly, you’d all be mistaken (but are
entirely free to have your own opinions, wrong as they may be). No, the
greatest game in this longstanding franchise is Final Fantasy Tactics. Here’s why:
1. A main character
whose personal struggle is actually relatable on nearly every fundamental level
(he’s just trying to keep the peace and protect his family).
2. One of the most
deceptively-hidden, subtle villains in all of gaming (Delita is, in fact, the
true villain of the game; the man who orchestrated the entirety of the game’s series
of events just for himself, even
though he is portrayed as a victim of the system).
3. The other “villains”
aren’t exactly what they seem, even though modern gaming has trained us to
think the hero is always right; this is not the case (most apparent in Ramza’s
rivalry with Wiegraf, a soldier who is simply trying to avenge his sister and
whose only true act of villainy is that he was too weak-willed to reject
power).
4. A game where death
and war actually go hand-in-hand, and loss isn’t just an afterthought (several
main characters die in the game, not just one or two for an emotional
response).
5. No forced romantic
love interest, no teenage high-school angst, no inane, irrelevant sidequests.
6. And, most
importantly of all, Thundergod Cid.
Honorable
Mentions
Demon’s
Souls
Shadow
of the Colossus
Shin
Megami Tensei: Persona 3
The Legacy
of Kain: Soul Reaver
Breath
of Fire III
Amnesia:
The Dark Descent
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