We all have that one game that holds a special place in our hearts. What game is it for you?
For me, it’s Metal Slug. Growing up, every Monday, my parents would drag me to the laundromat after work. As a kid, it was a pretty boring, but I had my toys, origami books, and coloring books to keep me entertained. However, my favorite thing to do was playing the Metal Slug arcade machine with my dad.
My dad was great at the game, and he taught me how to play. Though I improved, I could never keep up. When I’d inevitably die, he’d let me take over his side to let me have a bit more playtime. My favorite part was when he’d share stories from when he lived in another country and would go to the local arcade.
Those moments are cherished memories, and even today, whenever I visit an arcade, Metal Slug is the first game I play, despite still being terrible at it haha
Honorable mention goes to Mario 64, another game that holds a special place in my heart. I got an N64 from a garage sale, and playing Mario 64 while at home, with my mom’s “chore” music in the background ignited my love for gaming
For some reason, Adventure Quest, yes that old flash game :p.It got me hooked when I was 7yr old and I find myself coming back every now and again.
AQ3D is pretty fun, never played the OG though, but was looking into downloading it the other day
Legend of Mana and the Tomb Raider series.
Spiritfarer. I don’t think I’ve ever cried harder while playing something than this.
Oh god, “Spiritfarer” can break a person.
The soundtrack really hits you deeply, too.
Never played the game, but I do love the soundtrack
I played this after losing both of my maternal grandparents within weeks of each other a couple years back (they were both in their mid-90s and one of them brought COVID home) and Spiritfarer really helped me process my emotions and get through everything. Some of the characters reminded me of them in various ways, which was touching and cathartic. What a beautiful game.
The only time i cried harder was while playing RiME, and part of it was how unexpected it was. That spiritfarer got to me was kind of expected from the start, still dived in head first.
Marathon.
Life is Strange. For me it was the most emotion I ever got out of any medium ever
It’s crazy how much of this game was exactly what I needed. I had lived not far from the Oregon coast during the time this was set. Spent a lot of time there. I left a couple years before this game out, just long enough to start missing it deeply. The visuals and the dialogue especially were so on point that it was deeply nostalgic for me. The story about losing and reconnecting with friends, the nerdy shit, all the anxieties, even the animist undertones, I connected with all of it. This game is even a big reason why I started following voice actors, as I was so impressed by Ashly Burch in this role. Chloe is why I played Before the Storm and the Farewell episode, too.
This is the closest a game has ever felt to being tailor-made for me. It was a step on my mental health journey. I started journaling after playing this. And I started moving on.
I’ll definitely check it out now! You make it sound like a great game
I don’t want to oversell it! So much of how the game connected with me was due to unique circumstances and a lot of coincidences.
It’s not a bad game, though. Got pretty decent reviews.
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Sonic the Hedgehog and Alex Kidd in Miracle World
Super Metroid
Fallout 1 and 2
FF7
Time Crisis
Soul Blade
Quake
Tomb Raider
Sim city 2000
Games that I want my kids to play as soon as they are old enough:
Secret of Mana Ocarina of Time Diablo 2 Minecraft
I don’t think I could possibly pick just one.
- Playing Civilzation: Call to Power, together was one of the first shared activities I ever did with the woman who is now my wife.
- When I was in middle school, my dad made me a text-based game (mildly Roguelike, even, if I recall correctly) set at school centered around going to classes and solving puzzles/collecting school supplies.
- Years ago, I made a game myself for my then-girlfriend to play that secretly just an elaborate proposal wrapped in a video game.
Honorable mentions would go to Xenogears, Metroid 2, Ur-Quran Masters, and obscurities like Rollin’, Tranquility, and Omega, which collectively ended up defining my taste in games, more or less.
Wow, I was not expecting to read Civilization: Call to Power in this comment section. There are so few people who even mention the game!
If you’re not in there already, there is a Discord for the Call to Power games you should totally join: https://discord.gg/qwe83zjXES
Baldur’s Gate 1. It was my childhood game, i played it when i was 12 years old and it was amazing and very hard. I haven’t progressed beyond the first chapter with the kobold’s mine and Boo’s quest but i enjoyed replaying it every summer, at the beggining.
And i finished it once for all when i was a student. The game was amazing. Time pause, speech, character creation…
And the second is the mmo Dofus, very cool turn based strategy game. :)
Never finished bg1 or 2 but enjoyed them both in my youth so I figured I’d hammer through them - beamdog had them on sale for $5 recently. This way I can justify buying bg3 lol.
Finish them you won’t regret it :) i never played bg2 but it was an amazing adventure. Bg3 is different and more deepth with relationship, it does look like DO2. :)
The original Starcraft.
First game I ever bought with my own money. It’s a bargain bin edition I still own to this day, with a bug that prevents one level to be loaded and crashes the game.
Had to discover the cheat codes in a time where the internet was still dial up and not affordable for the average commoner.
Managed to finish the game nonetheless. Made such a great impression in me that cimented my passion for space science fiction.
Still not going to buy Starfield any time soon.
Check out Mass Recall, if you haven’t already. StarCraft 2 is free, so you can have even more than the full original 6 campaigns with StarCraft 2 mechanics, graphics, and units. Imagine having actual pathing… kinda… mostly.
Ico on PS2 by Fumito Ueda.
I binged the game over a long weekend whilst suffering from flu, my partner at the time picking it up from Blockbusters based on the box art alone.
The mood of the game, its lighting, the mysterious setting and circumstances, paired with being ill was already quite the experience. But what completely caught me off guard was a simple but rather genius mechanic.
As to not spoil the game (too much), throughout much of Ico, you lead another character around the game by holding their hand. This is implemented as holding down R1.
I can’t explain it but it was an emotional experience when you had to get go of R1. The risks, the worry, and the longing to hold your follower’s hand once more.
Binging the game, you do a lot of hand holding, but you truly feel it in your hand too; that comforting tension of gripping the controller, squeezing R1, and holding a digital hand.
I appreciate it’s not an accessibility friendly mechanic but I still think about how meaningful holding a single button could be in a game.
Ico proved to me that “games” can be art, designers can be auteurs, and that the medium can be more impactful and evocative than absolutely any other.
There’s nothing better than finding a game whose game’s atmosphere perfectly fits what you’re going through in life
A game that did that for me was Kona. I don’t even think it is that great of a game honestly, but the mood/vibe of the game captured me and made me fall in love with it.
I still even remember the scented candle that was lit while I played that game and every time I see the game on my catalog I instantly get reminded of the scent.
Team Ico’s games are without doubt some of the best possible examples of the unique storytelling power that games have. They take full advantage of how different it feels when you’re an active participant in something that happens in the story, even if you aren’t making a decision about where the story goes
It’s Shadow of the Colossus that holds a special place in my heart among the three, but I’d love to go back to all of them for the first time again
The Talos Principle for sure, and now i hear they’re coming out with a sequel!
Persona 4 Golden!!!
MYST. I still think about this game and the sequels weekly. I would sit next to my dad and explore, take notes, read books, and become completely immersed in the worlds of MYST.
