Best game that shows what games can do?

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jamesohgoodie
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10 Feb 2010, 6:50 pm

Quick question. What do Citizen Kane, Watchmen, and Sgt. Pepper by The Beatles have in common?

They've all been voted best movie, best comic book, and best album by critics and magazines of their respective mediums.

Now this isn't necessarily because they have the best stories, best art, or best songs because that's subjective (though more than most would agree they're still really good). But for those critics those three represented what their respective medium could do that no other could. "Citizen Kane" showed what film could do, "Watchmen" showed what comics could do, and "Sgt. Pepper" showed what a multi-track recorded album could do.

So what's the video game equivalent? What's the one game that tells a story and gives an experience that only video games could? I hoped to discuss that here.

Now this is of course subjective to certain genres of games, but I've thought of a few broad examples. First is "Metal Gear Solid", if for no other reason than it's one of the few games that makes you genuinely paranoid and makes you FEEL like you're not in control. Of course the sequels went WAY too far with this concept by extending the cutscenes so long it LITERALLY took control away from you, but I think the first game got it just right. The cutscenes weren't too long (if too frequent), it had some clever left field moments that blew your mind the first time around (Psycho Mantis, etc), had genuine tension towards the end, and when playing Snake you genuinely felt like a bad ass.

Next is "Silent Hill 2", in that what you overcame in the game was emotional rather than just fighting another bad ass boss. I won't go into too many details, all I can tell you is that I was genuinely moved to tears when I got to the end. I don't think you could've done something like this anywhere else (the Silent Hill movie proved that).

And finally, "Portal". Not only was "Portal" a well-designed game that left you wanting more, but it was also hilarious thanks to the interjections of GlaDOS. Would it have been as funny in a movie or book? I don't think so.

Your thoughts and suggestions?


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EnglishInvader
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10 Feb 2010, 7:16 pm

I nominate Desert Strike on the Sega Mega Drive (1992). I don't believe any film or music album could trivialise the Iraq war to this extent without causing a public outcry.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GYK_EfOe2M



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10 Feb 2010, 7:28 pm

Mass Effect 2:
-It shows an interesting outlook on how technology will progress in the future
-The Reapers kind of symbolize how humans are also destroying themselves with technological advances (eg. lack of privacy online, Identity Theft)
-The communication in that game is incredible. It shows true immersion that I believe movies lack


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Darkword
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10 Feb 2010, 7:37 pm

Eternal darkness.
Showed how well a game could work without the health bar. Showed that horror games without a legion of zombies around every corner could still be scary. It also showed that all the creative energy Silicon knights had could lead to something good, but alas they haven't come close to surpassing ED to this day despite the fact they're given massive blocks of time(3-4 years) by their publishers to do it.


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chaotik_lord
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10 Feb 2010, 8:18 pm

Fallout 3. It is a fully interactive world with both a main storyline and months worth of other offerings, and it is visually authentic without sacrificing seamless movement.



TheOddGoat
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10 Feb 2010, 8:30 pm

This is hard, because there are lots of things only a game can do but most of the time a game only does one of those.

but....

Here goes!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-ZzNYwUk7E&feature=related[/youtube]

REmake on the gamecube.

For actually making you fear for your life.



TheOddGoat
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10 Feb 2010, 8:32 pm

Darkword wrote:
Eternal darkness.
Showed how well a game could work without the health bar.


double post sry...

buuuuttt...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ9iEDMLZpw[/youtube]



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11 Feb 2010, 1:22 am

A bit cliche, but GTA 3 really was revolutionary when it came out, no one had really taken advantage of what next gen hardware was really capable of up to that point, plus it was one of the first games to really utilize adult content in a way that was both satisfying and funny. The sequels and knock-offs alone should be testament enough to it's influence, as should the (over) reactions of the Fred Phelpses of the of the world.



Bradleigh
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11 Feb 2010, 2:04 am

It have to be one that has gotten a massive amount of people playing, probably even with online being able to play with each other in the comfert of your own living room, and maybe even having a big impact. Sounds to me one big contender would Halo 2 (others in series) for the large comunity it created and even pushed forward machinima (movies by useing games).

Though others may be being able to be player choice like Oblivion, Mass Effect, Bioshock or maybe even Pokemon (pick one) which how one plays is completley up to the player and created a very large franchise.


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SirLogiC
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11 Feb 2010, 6:38 am

Well the "what games can do" part well that narrows things a lot.

Planescape: Torment showed what a story driven game could be, totally blew apart all preconceptions of what an RPG can be, really showed what party interaction in an RPG can be. An amazing title that was distinctly unique.

World of Warcraft showed what an MMO can be, showed that MMOs can be mainstream, not just for basement dwelling nerds with too much free time. Showed what an easy to use, easy to play game should be. Everyone bags on WoW but even if you don't like it you have to admit it does provide a fun playing experience with many different types of diversion available (crafting, PvP, raiding, dungeons + heroics, even UI customising). So much so most MMOs coming out are either called WoW clones or asian grind clones.

Mario and Final Fantasy franchises- each in their own ways for showing what a properly managed franchise can be. Both have survived the volatile gaming market from very early in video gaming history. To still be played, after so many iterations is a testament to what a well managed franchise can do. Compare to the (Heroes of) Might and Magic franchise, now quite dead.

Mass Effect franchise for two major things. The chat wheel made dialogue easier, made for more fluent dialogue and allowed on the fly choice, massive boost for immersion there. The franchise has to be taken as a whole for its continuity of progression too. Having save games follow through each iteration, continuing the story, is a real innovation. Perhaps Bioware didn't invent it but the implementation is superb. I eagerly await ME3 to see what the consequences of my decisions of ME2 *AND* ME1, that is amazing.

Lastly Duke Nukem Forever, for being a game that has become famous, been reported so many times and had one of the longest development times for any games. All this for a game that NEVER got released after 12+ YEARS, even while still clinging to the faintest sliver of hope that it will be finished in the future. It truly is Duke Nukem *Forever*.

Tetris for making such a simple concept sooo damn addictive.



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11 Feb 2010, 6:57 am

Dwarf Fortress, of course. It's the most open sandbox and the most complicated simulation. (And incidentally, probably the most horrifically and gruesomely violent game ever.)


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SabbraCadabra
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11 Feb 2010, 2:39 pm

I could've sworn there was a game I played once where somewhere near the end of the game, the main character was told that he was being controlled by someone else, and I started getting a bit spooked, thinking "Are they talking about ME?", and it turned out that they were. The main character was not very happy about this.

I seriously can't remember what game it was, though...I probably dreamed it =/

Speaking of dreams, this "game": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSD_(video_game)


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12 Feb 2010, 2:22 am

The Mass Effect franchise has indeed broken new ground in a number of ways, often by recombining aspects of older games; the great innovation, as far as I'm concerned, is that they took the old "good/evil" dichotomy (most clearly on display in an older BioWare game, Knights of the Old Republic), and repurposed it as a dichotomy between being a "nice guy" and just getting the job done. Renegade Points don't mean you've done something evil, per se - they mean you've cut through all the courtesy and bullstuff most people surround themselves with, and gotten the job done in the most expedient fashion possible. (Also, that in conversations you've acted paranoid and xenophobic, but again, those aren't evil qua evil, they're just not mainstream.)

The conversational options also approach a state in which this will become the new way we consume SF "movies" - not as a single filmed experience, forever unchanging, but in a fluid state which changes for each observer. This becomes more so with ME2, in which the character can actually interrupt certain cutscenes with an appropriate action - say, shoving a recalcitrant merc through a plate-glass window, half a mile above the street... (Hey, all she had to do was answer a lousy question. She decided to start getting belligerent with me - and as she had pointed out herself, if I started shooting the room would almost immediately be crawling with Eclipse troopers. What was I supposed to do, wait until they tried to kill me first?)

The Grand Theft Auto franchise, starting with GTA III, combined FPS, driving games, a dating sim (starting with GTA: San Andreas), and a number of classic minigames into a semicoherent whole, and rounded it off with continuing characters that don't even matter to the storyline. (For instance, in 1985 Lazlow was a DJ on the hard-rock station in Vice City; by the early '90s, he had moved to public radio in San Andreas; come the turn of the century, and he finally had the call-in show he wanted, in Liberty City; nine years later, and he's out of work, coming back to the Liberty City airwaves as the representative of a pirate talk-radio station. The two slacker mechanics in the boat warehouse Tommy bought in Vice City were later driven from the town by the Mafia, and wound up as a hot-dog vendor and a mechanic in a chop shop in San Fierro, then got picked up as part of CJ's crew. And so forth.) All this gives a marvelously organic feel to the world, as if things are going on even when the protagonist isn't looking. Other games have used this feel since, but GTA did it earlier, and well.


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12 Feb 2010, 2:29 am

Suprised nobody has mentioned Ocarina of Time yet lol



Xenu
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12 Feb 2010, 2:31 am

SabbraCadabra wrote:
I could've sworn there was a game I played once where somewhere near the end of the game, the main character was told that he was being controlled by someone else, and I started getting a bit spooked, thinking "Are they talking about ME?", and it turned out that they were. The main character was not very happy about this.

I seriously can't remember what game it was, though...I probably dreamed it =/

Speaking of dreams, this "game": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSD_(video_game)


Holy crap i know what game you are talking about but cant remember the name :(



Ambivalence
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12 Feb 2010, 3:54 am

Xenu wrote:
SabbraCadabra wrote:
I could've sworn there was a game I played once where somewhere near the end of the game, the main character was told that he was being controlled by someone else, and I started getting a bit spooked, thinking "Are they talking about ME?", and it turned out that they were. The main character was not very happy about this.

I seriously can't remember what game it was, though...I probably dreamed it =/

Speaking of dreams, this "game": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSD_(video_game)


Holy crap i know what game you are talking about but cant remember the name :(


Not Limbo of the Lost? :lol:


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