I’m definitely showing my age here, but for me it would be a PC game from 1996 called The Neverhood. When I played it at age 15 a lot of the biblical overtones were kind of lost on me, and the guy who created it turned out to be kind of a nut job, but it’s one of the most fun and creative puzzle games I’ve ever played. The entire game was made in stop motion with real clay sets and figures. The music is amazing and the soundtrack is definitely worth listening to on its own even if you don’t play the game. I’ve replayed it on emulators a few times over the years, but it was nothing like experiencing it for the first time and discovering all the puzzles and secrets! This was pre YouTube so even if you had to occasionally check the walkthrough you still didn’t really know what to expect next!
Oh, yes. This was also a game of my childhood. I first played it when I was six, maybe? Didn't get very far, because I never thought to go back to the place the Weasel popped out of for that final button to get out of the first area. I think I was eight when my older sib and I finally completed it. This was before I had access to the internet, so we called up the family member who had given it to us for hints when we finally put our nose to the grindstone to get it done.
In retrospect, the help we needed was ridiculous and somehow we figured out the harder puzzles with less issues. (Probably not me. My sib is better at those things than I am.)
I also didn't know anything about the biblical overtones, because I wasn't raised with religion. It was just nutty and unique. Yet I still listen to the Neverhood OST and quote Willie Trombone's tapes.
I remember being scared of the first person sections. I genuinely expected something to pop out. XD
I’ve never been particularly religious so I missed that part the first time through. I loaned it to a friend of mine at school and he pointed it out to me lol!
My family has just gotten the Internet maybe a year or two before I got the game so I did have the advantage of being able to use a walkthrough someone had posted, but I tried to do as much on my own as I could!
I still listen to that soundtrack once or twice a year lol! The guys name is Terry S. Taylor and I checked out a few of his other albums later on but the OST from Neverhood is still my favorite thing he’s done!
Yeah, there really is nothing like the Neverhood OST either.
I'm glad I got the whole experience in my life before I really knew anything about Western religion or the creator. I just got to enjoy the game as a child would. With some help from smarter people around me. XD
The gameplay is pretty unique in this one, and the world is enormous, so a long tutorial makes sense. Once you final escape the snowy mountains and can access the wider world you feel a real sense of release and freedom that’s really worth it.
That said, like skyrim, it makes a new game a slog and I wish you could skip it on subsequent play throughs.
I only just started this game, but I will say this one too simply because I got the ending spoiled way back, and now that I’m finally playing it I can already tell it would have had a massive impact on me. So I’m sad I’ll never get to experience that.
There’s a fantastic racing game called Split Second on the PS3 that I always go back to. I tried the PC version and there’s an audio bug which means you can barely hear the engine noise. So the PS3 lives on!
Man I loved Discworld as a kid. I remember my dad bringing it home on a burned CD from one of his cooler friends at work.
Also, it’s bloody absurd that Chazza gets as much of a say in what happens to the IP as the guy that created it. If we needed any clearer indication that IP law is not about protecting or incentivising creators, this is it.
Huge difficulty spike compared to what comes before it. Accounted for a full 5 hours out of my 45-hour play time. Even when I was totally in the zone, it took some good RNG to get through the hardest part of the fight.
I don't regret grinding it out, but I'm certainly not going back for seconds any time soon.
Normally I summon help for her and am at least level 90 if not higher, but I was level 30 and trying to twink out for invading. Something just clicked and I managed to beat her without even taking a hit; even through a bullshit spam cycle of the waterfowl attack (bitch did it 4 times in a row!).
The only thing I haven’t beaten in any of these games is Owl in Sekiro (and technically everything after him). I have a hard time in that game because it’s so damn hard to see the visual cues through all the sparks and anime bullshit that flies off your swords when you’re deflecting and attacking hella fast. 😭
Not really a boss but the Darker Side of the Moon in Super Mario Odyssey, the grueling end-game gauntlet of platforming challenges without any checkpoints.
For an actual boss? Probably all of Cuphead, that game was insane!
I spent hours trying to get through that level and it beat me. Eventually I gave up and haven’t been back since. I decided to take on easier challenges like… Cuphead and Sekiro 🤣
I loved Odyssey so I was really happy to have this big final challenge, and it did take me several evenings of saying “I am good at video games, I will not be beaten by a children’s game” for me to finally get though it. Cuphead though… I got to the end and it said hey, you’ve unlocked hard mode and I just thought that’s good to know.
The terrain destruction in the original Red Faction comes to mind for me. I remember using the rocket launcher to tunnel through the ground, and it was cool.
I feel like SUPERHOT’s concept had one problem: That the original game basically perfected it.
Like, how do you improve on that? It’s got melee and gun play. It’s extremely tight in timing and the puzzle aspect. It needs to be as minimalistic to be readable and not overload the player with options.
I guess, maybe I am also just saying that I feel the game concept isn’t as extensible, if one game can do it all.
Games that feel like tool-assisted speedruns have a lot more potential than Superhot’s last-scene-in-The-Matrix simulator. It should be a general compromise between turn-based and real-time combat. Like VATS without the menu. Looking is a free action. You don’t have to dodge bullets to make tactical combat more visceral and vice-versa.
Integrity of power dynamics not being interfered with by sales models. Turns out that cost-benefit analysis means we can’t have nice things. People are too willing to pay money to pretend they’re better than others.
Morrowind tier of spell brokenness is actually super fun IMO. I’ve never understood the people who complain about how exploitable it is. Like. Don’t exploit it if that’s not your style. Why does the game gotta keep you contained?
Why aren’t there loads of 6DOF spaceship games? Descent is goddamn sick and there’s been depressingly few games like it since PS1.
Defrag movement style arena shooters is absolutely baller! Why you gotta have a load out when you can master the map and spawn timing instead?
Games are fucked because players want dopamine progression systems, status symbols, and to feel dominant without actually mastering mechanics.
Morrowind tier of spell brokenness is actually super fun IMO. I’ve never understood the people who complain about how exploitable it is. Like. Don’t exploit it if that’s not your style. Why does the game gotta keep you contained?
I feel like that’s mostly a matter of expectations. Most video games encourage min-maxxing, so when players first experience Morrowind, they’ll often start looting all the houses and buy the most powerful equipment and spells, which ruins their own fun.
In a way, I definitely see it at the core of a gamedev’s job to prevent players from ruining their own fun. That happens much more often than one would think.
But in a way, you can’t win 'em all and Morrowind not preventing that, gives it lots of freedoms and playstyle choices which you don’t get in other games.
Defrag movement style arena shooters is absolutely baller! Why you gotta have a load out when you can master the map and spawn timing instead?
Quoting a long-lost source:
“Most people aren’t very good at video games, and nothing reveals that like arena shooters.”
The skill ramp is brutal for Quake 3 / Unreal Tournament style games. One pro can embarrass a dozen newbs. One pro can probably embarrass a dozen reasonably high-skill players, in a free-for-all. Aimbots only recreate what obsessive maniacs can do in a trancelike caffeine-fueled flow state. And peak map control means, you can try whatever you want, but you’re just picking where you’d like to die. Against someone fully-stacked and well-armed, flying around the level faster than noclip would let them, it barely matters where you stand or where you fire. You’re gonna lightly scuff their fresh armor and they’re gonna perform railgun dentistry.
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