In honor of the new year I thought maybe we could play a new game! Here's the rules:
1) We start with 2022 (I'll do that by cheating right off the bat)
2) The next player picks a game from the previous year, so 2021, then 2020...2019... etc
3) We see how far back we can get before we decide by collective action to turn around and go forward again
4) You do not need to own the game, or show a physical copy, or a digital copy. A "game" can be whatever the player chooses - AAA, indie, popular, not-so-popular, 'you've never heard of this, bro', a major DLC, a major mod. Just show us something you think is interesting, or maybe just your favorite game of that year.
(5) Make sure to list the year you’re doing somewhere in your post!
You can use it as a header like this
2022
-
By writing, without the parentheses:
(2022)
(-)
(Your text here)
(6) New addendum rule re: double posts for a year: Let ’em ride. If more than one person posts a single year close together, don’t feel the need to delete or anything. Some years can have two games, who cares.
Like I said I'll start with 2022 by cheating! (I tried and I really couldn't find any games that have been released in the last two days. I did not resort to going to Steam and just finding whatever piece of shovelware was available.)
2022
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Elden Ring (FromSoft)
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Obviously this is AAA as heck and also obviously not released yet (though I would have accepted a 2021 pick here for the open Beta). I'm a huge FS fan - you'll notice I in fact started our beloved FromSoft thread - but I came late to the game. I've never had the chance to play a true, big, multiplayer FromSoft game upon release. Sekiro was the first game I had the chance to play when it was new, and I was so disappointed that it didn't have that exciting period of hyper-activity. I can't wait to get wild with summoning in Elden Ring (or whatever it will be called). I've been avoiding spoilers HARD for this game and did not participate in the Beta Test so I really don't know what to expect.
2020 gave us the long awaited sequel to Spelunky -- which felt even more challenging and had even more secrets than its predecessor. It built upon the original's emergent gameplay by adding a lot of small things and iterating on the concepts of the original for an all-around polished experience. It also had its time as a hit on Twitch and created a real sense of discovery and community surrounding the game.
**2019** Shadowbringers seems to have proven itself to be the most beloved FF release this side of X and propelled the game Into previously untouched levels of extreme popularity.
Celeste: I’m actually playing this right now and it’s exactly as good as everyone said it was. Which is to say that it’s one of the best games ever made.
I loved gravity rush 1, I feel like it is a great 7/10 game, for some reason I havent gotten around to playing gravity rush 2. I remember for the last two years always seeing it on sale for like 10-15 dlls and I always thought "i should get it one of these days". Yesterday I intended to buy it, but upon my surprise it now goes for 40-50 dlls used. So now I'll have to get it through the ps store I guess, it's only 20 bucks that way. But at the same time I intended to not update my ps4 anymore now that it can easily be cracked in the version that it currently is, so i don't know what to do anymore.
This situation is kind of funny and karmatic because a younger version of myself that needed money (of which I am currentlty kind of embarrased) may have had something to do with the price inflation of gravity rush remastered, oops!
because I say “2016” every time I say “Hitman (2016).” I’ve had a good few conversations with friends about how e.g. “if this park were a Hitman level there'd be a guard on that footbridge who you could distract using that forklift over there.” Little bit of spontaneous irl level design. One of those games that keeps on giving. I should play Hitman 3.
@“baftaboo”#p52632 I’ve never played a Hitman game, though I’m considering snagging Hitman 3 which I think let’s you go back and play the levels from 1 and 2? It would be very interesting to examine these levels for the gap between “this is like a real world place” and “this is a video game level” since part of the fun of these is noticing that difference. You’re supposed to notice it! I love hearing people say “this house is basically a Hitman level” - that’s fascinating. What makes one house a Hitman level and another not a Hitman level?
@“fridgeboy”#p52638 iirc you can play hitman 1+2 levels in the hitman 3 engine, but you have to buy the previous games to do so.
I haven't played 3 but I doubt its levels are much less interesting than the first two. Some things that make a hitman level are
(1) there are multiple ways in and out of any room
(2) there are ways of influencing one space from a different space, like dropping something off a balcony onto the floor below, or just of seeing one space from another (and imagining what you could do to it)
(3) lots of places where you could hide a body
Hitman levels are (mostly!) not archaeological sites, but there's usually some historical depth and repurposing of existing spaces e.g. (a) a fashion show hosted at a palace that had been converted into an art museum or (b) a militia compound on an apricot farm. NPCs temporarily transform the architecture of a place just by standing guard near an open archway. You transform the space when you find a suburban house with a good view of your mark's bedroom across the street and get out your sniper rifle (the chance to rethink balkanized suburban space as one big murder playground is darkly satisfying). I think you might have interesting observations about that layering process!
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I truthfully like the first one much better for its simplicity. The second added too many different gimmick characters that necessitated different play styles, which took away from the experience for me a bit. It does have an over the top story that contains the events of the first game within it.
I recently revisited the 2012 game of the year podcast where the first was somewhat dismissed, and I understand why. However, it was one of the first indie games I played and stood out to me as different than anything I've ever played (and just about anything since). It arrived to me via a roommate when my only game playing was a Nintendo 3DS with Pokémon and probably some other stuff
After playing Supergiant’s first game Bastion, I was onboard for their next title Transistor when they announced it. It was initially a timed PS4 exclusive and I recall having my mind blown by how they implemented the controller speaker and the light bar as an extension of the Transistor itself.
I played through it again on Switch a year ago and think the music, art and overall feel still holds up. I hope they get around to porting Pyre onto Switch.
They released a game that ruled so hard, there didn't really need to be any more games made afterward. They kept making more, but if they hadn't, it would've been okay, because we got this one.
One of my top 10 favorite games ever, I played the entire thing in a single sitting. I was mesmerized. A real triumph. A sweet adventure. Missile's magnum opus.
Too much to say about this one. It completely changed the way I thought about video games when I first played it as a teenager. The moment when this game transformed in my mind from an object of mirthful ridicule to a beautiful work in its own right was a formative one. And I thought I was the only person who liked it until I found this forum.
I started college in the fall of 2009, and was living in an oncampus dorm. I made a friend (who’s a good friend of mine today) who had a PS3 while I had an Xbox 360. During our first semester we spent a lot time going back and forth from each other’s dorm rooms playing Left 4 Dead and Borderlands. Right before Christmas break, he had me come by his place after his roommate went home for the holidays to show me Uncharted 2.
We ended up marathoning the entire game over the course of a day or so. I had not played the first game outside of a demo kiosk at a Gamestop, and was absolutely blown away. The detail, level design, and story sucked me in real good. It may have been the most fun I had in a dorm room. _(Wow there was a great typo here earlier…)_
We went our seperate ways for the holiday break, and with my part time job at a Best Buy, I bought myself a PS3 Slim over the holiday break because of Uncharted 2. I was in love.
Metal Gear Solid 4
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I don't know if MGS4 was my first _proper_ weird game - maybe Chrono Cross was that. It was definitely significantly weirder than almost every game I'd played before and changed my perspective on what video games could be. To this day I have a huge soft spot for weird, bizarre, emotionally honest games and at least some of that is thanks to MGS4. It was so unexpected after playing MGS1-3 religiously. Yes, those games had weird stuff in them, and MGS2 had properly boiled my brain years earlier but just not on this level.
Gameplay that feels like a direct evolution of Final Fantasy X. It’s got an Uematsu prog rock score and Sakaguchi’s schmaltz, but also over thirty interactive kinetic typography shorts written by novelist Kiyoshi Shigematsu. I played it quite recently because I never had a 360 back when it was current, and while it didn’t become my favourite FF I did have a cozy time with its characters. Comfort food for the starving FF fan.
