Favorites - Video Games
Video Games
Resident Evil 4
Where's everyone going? Bingo?
- Leon Kennedy, Sex Symbol and Role Model
Borderlands I & II
Fable II & III
Some pretty formative stuff here, so nostalgia may apply.
Fable II has probably the best pacing. The spire is such a strong narrative element which all comes to a satisfying close with the endgame choice and how that affects your post main quest adventures.
I remember feeling worse about Fable III off the bat but the plot twist in the main quest really pulled it all together. I don't want to give too much away but I think seeing a strong allied character look so weak and pitiful is a great trope. Breaks my heart every time.
Endless Space & Endless Legend
Incredibly refreshing installments in the 4X strategy genre due to bold creative decisions from the team which got them the highest honor of mostly getting ripped off by Civ in their later releases.
The most interesting and bold choice being, of course, making the different character choices asymmetric. Fundamentally, playing as the defensive woodland elves (Wild Walkers) should feel different than playing as the cancerous unliving monsters (Necrophages). Civ for many iterations got this wrong by throwing you one unique unit, technology, and building then calling it a day. What a fucking bore. Instead, as the necrophage you cannot grow your population with arable land or farms; however, you will gain population by killing enemies. So you fight long, drawn out wars that aren't based on winning as much as parasitically draining the population of your enemies. OH MY GOD what an insanely cool mechanic to get you to feel like "I am the war faction, I do war" as opposed to "one unit from one technological era gets +1 movement and +10 damage"... like come on now.
The next is placing buildings physically on the tiles surrounding your city. This should have been obviously cooler for much longer. Just passively gaining stats for settling somewhere is soooo boring! Being able to interact with the land you settle on is such a fun way to see your territory grow overtime! Watch as ancient capitals turn into metropolises and border towns become tangled webs of forts and military encampments.
Another interesting creative choice is unifying concepts of citizen happiness, international politics, and local politics. If your citizens are fed and taken care of (happiness) you get influence points. These influence points can be spent on managing relationships with other players (international politics) or enforcing policies that affect what your citizens do (local politics). For reference, in Civilization citizen happiness mostly just affects productivity while politics is a matter of how often you're willing to navigate menus.
The Last of Us: Part II
I generally hold disdain for sequels, so I went into this pretty guarded, and came out a huge fan. I like this game more than the original!
As the timeline progressed between installments so did the narrative, the mechanics, the project scope, and so much more. Everything felt familiar without being samey. Characters explored emotionally complicated narratives in satisfying ways. What else is there to say?
Hollow Knight
Halo: Reach
Halo: ODST
CoD: Black Ops
Fire Emblem 8 (The Sacred Stones)
Monkeyball
Pokemon Leaf Green / Fire Red
Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap
Shadow of the Colossus
Bloodborne
A hoonter must hoont.