Video games are a unique medium for entertainment.
They’re often immersive and beautiful to look at like a good movie, but also capable of being more
complex and having the depth of a book. And then, you the player get to take the reins and take
on the adventure yourself. The answer to the question Are Video Games Art? Is a resounding
yes. Of course. And some games stay with you long after you complete them, taking hold of
your mind after the credits have rolled. Games that really make you think and ruminate about what
you just experienced. Maybe read up online about others experiences with the game and take part
in discussions about what you each felt about the games story, the soundtrack, art style, or
the characters. This video is a list of games that have done that very thing for me, and why,
years later, they’ve continued to stick with me so strongly. And if you want, go ahead and leave
your list of games in the comment section.
Dark Souls is more than just a game to me. It’s
an experience. A world that consumed me for a very long time and one that I still revisit
multiple times a year. Between the Xbox 360 version and the Remaster on PC, I’ve created
probably twenty different characters with most of them progressing through at least a few New
Game Plus completions. This game is special to me. There’s a reason so many people say Dark Souls
cured their depression or that the game is almost a religious experience in a way, and they’re
absolutely right. It’s not just a rite of passage to say you’ve beat the game. If you pay at least a
little bit of attention to it’s artistic elements, there’s a lot to derive from what Dark
Souls tells you through it’s game design.
First, is the world. Dark Souls opens with a
cinematic showcasing the old world and the ones who ruled it. Setting up the fall of this dark and
dreary, yet beautiful place called Lordran. Lords, Gods, Knights, Dragons, and War. At face value
it sounds like a typical fantasy setting, but as many who have played the game know, it’s anything
but that. The more time you spend in the world, the more you see it’s depth. The NPC characters
and their dialogue immediately sucked me into Lordran. Oscar, Andre, and Solaire of Astora.
Siegmeyer of Caterina, Knight Lautrec of Carim, Petrus of Thorolund. If you spend time listening
to their dialogue, all of the characters have such a rich backstory and history, with their
dialogue giving clues and hints about what their home locations might resemble. For example,
Astora resembles an advanced culture and society, recognized for it’s nobility and I think the
characters perfectly exemplify that. Caterina is a land known for their festivity, drinks,
and jovial groups of people. The personalities of these characters always represents their
culture, thus giving them more depth and a place in the world. This is one of the many
things that immediately made me feel connected to them and to the games’ overall world.
Goodbye then. Be safe, friend. Don’t you dare go hollow. Be safe, friend.
Don’t you dare go hollow.
Don’t you dare go hollow. One of the most quoted
lines of dialogue from the game. Going hollow is giving up and giving in to the harsh world
around you. Several characters along your journey end up meeting this fate, and each time,
it’s heartbreaking. This only continued to make me want to endure to the end, persevere through the
challenges to finish my journey. There are many different lessons one can learn while playing Dark
Souls. Patience is a virtue, don’t worry about what you have to lose to progress, and learning
to keep a cool head while under immense pressure, among other things. But this one right here, is
the one that stuck with me the hardest. No matter how big, terrifying, and challenging something
appears to be at first, it can be overcome. Don’t you dare give up or give in. Don’t you dare go
hollow. Perseverance, hard work, and patience, will always be rewarded. Yes No Yes Oh Oh Oh.
The audio design and soundtrack of Dark Souls adds another layer of depth to the world. Ambient
music is basically nonexistent. There’s a total of four areas in the game where music plays outside
of boss battles. Firelink Shrine, the world hub, the Daughter’s of Chaos Bonfire found behind
a hidden wall after defeating Quelagg, Gwynevere’s Bedchamber in Anor Londo, and Ash
Lake, another hidden mysterious location. Now, each one of these locations are vitally important
to the game, and the music played in each location evokes a very specific tone. Harrowing and
mysterious, glorious and inspiring, soothing and inviting. With the rest of the world lacking
music throughout exploration, it creates a very real sense of loneliness and isolation. With only
the sounds of your footsteps and chainmail armor to comfort your ears. But pay enough attention
and maybe a blacksmith hammer can be heard nearby, a crystal lizard hiding around the corner, or
the cackle of some horror in the distance.
It doesn’t matter which bossfight, all of the
soundtracks go so hard. And some, like Ornstein and Smough’s, will forever be imprinted in
my mind. But that’ll happen after fighting these two for DAYS on end before beating them.
There’s a lot of highs and lows throughout Dark Souls and for the sake of brevity, I’ll just say
that each area does a good job at standing out. You can just name a place and I’ll be like yep, I
remember that place. Sen’s Fortress, Blighttown, New Londo Ruins, Darkroot Garden, I’ve got
distinctive memories and experiences of each location. And not a lot of games are good at doing
that. So many games tend to make each area feel the same, or areas just sort of blend together
into one homogeneous zone. But not Dark Souls.
And lastly, I’ll touch on the games’ ending.
Fighting and defeating Lord Gwyn isn’t triumphant or victorious, but a bit sad and somber.
Linking the fire to enact the cycle again, or becoming the Dark Lord to bring to pass an
age of Darkness. The first time I beat the game, I linked the fire, as many do and I just
remember staring at the end credits for ten minutes listening to the haunting soundtrack
just trying to soak in everything I experienced in those 85 hours. It was an unforgettable moment
in gaming history for me, and one I still try to relive years later in subsequent playthroughs or
watching blind let’s plays. Dark Souls is truly one of the greatest video games of all time.
Firewatch is a short game, around 4 or 5 hours long, but each hour of the game kept me on the
edge of my seat for my very first playthrough in 2016. I replayed the game years later after
remembering how much I enjoyed it the first time, and it hit even harder the second time around.
From moments of heartbreak, to banter between characters, to tense encounters, and of course,
the still and quiet times that give you time to ponder and try to get inside the mind of the main
character, Henry. It’s a game with incredible ambiance and gorgeous environments, that is helped
by fantastic art direction. The dialogue between Henry and Delilah is some of the best written
conversations I’ve seen in not just video games, but any media. The conversations are so simple,
but so layered and real. So no ideas huh? Uh, Delilah’s a nice name. No, you big dummy! I
was kidding. No you were not. You’re sweet. But we can’t call it the Delilah Fire. Okay,
what then? How about my middle name, June? The June Fire. Even though it’s July. I like it.
The story has you take a job as a fire lookout in Shoshone National Forest, Wyoming, in the
year 1989. You rely on your paper map, compass, and basic supplies to navigate the forest. And
of course, a radio to communicate with your boss, Delilah who helps initially as a guide, but pretty
quickly things evolve into something more. When speaking over radio, you’re given several dialogue
options that give you a lot of control of the conversation. And when you replay the game you
can really see how different each conversation can play out depending on the option. This is
Firewatch’s biggest strength. The dialogue. The voice actors do an amazing job of conveying
the strong and unique personalities of Henry and Delilah. The witty sarcasm, the playful banter, or
the more serious and tense conversations, they all lend to feeling a real connection to characters
you can’t even see. And despite it’s bright visual design, the game deals with some pretty heavy and
difficult adult themes and topics. Death, divorce, love, isolation. The flow of each conversation
is done so naturally that it’s able to tackle each topic in a genuine way. Henry, that call was
work. I was just talking to actually, it’s not really your business. Why are you freaking out?
I’m not freaking out. Good. I’m gonna go quiet for a little bit. Call me if it’s important.
Firewatch also does a surprisingly good job at creating suspense and mystery in its plot.
Just when I thought I’d figured out the plot, there’s another twist that had me second
guessing myself, trying to figure out the mystery going on behind the scenes.
Now, despite the game receiving high praise, the ending has always been a topic for
some criticism. Without spoiling anything, some say that the game is underwhelming or
disappointing. For me, I can say that it definitely left me wanting more, but I don’t think
it was a bad ending. The ending really portrayed the overarching themes of the game. Melancholic
is the best way I can describe it, and it’s one of the biggest reasons the game has stuck with
me all these years later. I do highly recommend anyone to play through this game, because
the feelings it evokes is entirely unique.
Spec Ops: The Line, at a glance, looks
like just another Military Shooter released during the era of many, many, MANY Military
Shooters. The gameplay feels very familiar to third person shooter fans, cover mechanics,
ammo pickups, a typical squad of soldiers, not really breaking new ground in the genre
there, but Spec Ops: The Line is anything but a cookie cutter military story. It’s a game
that presents awful moral choices for the player, where there’s usually no good outcome, no
matter what you do. Witnessing the psychological downfall of the main character, Walker, after
partaking in some of the most horrifying war crimes. Particularly in Chapter 8 with the White
Phosphorous scene. The game doesn’t shy away from depicting the psychological trauma of warfare.
You wouldn’t listen. Didn’t have a choice. He turned us into ducking killers. That’s enough
Seargent. No. NO! We need to keep moving. What?
So what initially starts off as a typical
military shooter, begins to feel more like a horror game in the last few chapters.
Walker’s hallucinations becoming more pronounced and intense leading up to the finale.
The game was not at all what I expected going into it. I wasn’t aware at the time of the direction
the developers would be taking the story, and what I was left with was a very thought provoking and
dark look into the realities of war. What might happen to a person that can justify doing terrible
things when under the notion that they’re the hero, or they’re the main character so to speak.
You brought this on yourself. Do you feel like a hero yet? No one can help you now. You can’t
go home. The game explicitly hammers home some pretty dark commentary about your actions.
And by the end of my first playthrough, I had a lot to think about. Not only was the story
full of unexpected good twists, but thinking about the morality of my actions from the beginning
of the game right up to the ending was at the very least something that consumed my mind for
a week or so after completion. And upon a second playthrough recently, its crazy to see how much
more I was able to catch throughout each chapter, when I now know the full context. It’s impressive
how carefully crafted and well thought out the story set up is, in order to then deliver on
the rest of the games’ themes. You were never meant to come here. We have our order. Leave
the city. Radio Command from outside the storm wall. They send in the cavalry. We go home.
Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2 are some of the greatest games ever made, and while both
games have stuck with me over the years, it’s the first game that really made the biggest
impact on me. It’s a pure western, in every sense of the word. Sprawling landscapes, a badass
protagonist, sheriffs, outlaws, gangs, revenge. Red Dead Redemption has all the tropes. But it
manages to handle the tropes in a more realistic way than that of the mid 1950s television shows.
Set in 1911, former outlaw and gang member John Marston begins his heroes journey by
hunting down his former gang members. See, the FBI kidnapped his wife and son, and this
is the only way he can redeem himself, save his family, and have his past crimes erased.
Throughout the journey in Texas and parts of Mexico, the cast of characters you meet
along the way have always stood out to me. Bonnie Macfarlane, Nigel West Dickens, Irish,
Landon Ricketts. Everyone you meet are such distinctive and unique characters, and there’s
a lesson to be learned from all of them. Even the crazy ones. C’mon partner. Okay I was
just foolin. Partner. You know the thought of that treasure does funny things to me.
But my favorite character to come across in the game is The Strange Man. Still to this day, nobody
really knows who he is or what he is. Satan, Jesus, God, Death, a ghost of Christmas
future? It’s a mystery. He knows where John will be buried, he seems to know John’s
heart and mind, and he speaks in ambiguous riddles. He leaves you guessing. His dialogue,
as well as many other characters in the game, is the type of dialogue that will always stay
with you. You know, I admire you, John. I hope my boy turns out just like you. For your sake I hope
he don’t. But why are you faithful to your wife, if you pay a man to sleep with hors? I’ll let
the appropriate authorities judge my morality, friend. Yes you will and they shall.
Exploring the world in Red Dead is one of the games’ biggest strengths. The layout of
the map and locations in the world, the fact that there isn’t a single loading screen if you
trekked from one end to the other and entered and exited several buildings along the way, is a
real achievement for Rockstar’s game design skill and optimization. And doing this in 2010 on the
Xbox 360 and PS3 is all the more impressive when some games still can’t figure out the no loading
screen issue in 2024. When you’re out exploring, the ambience of the quiet and dangerous western
civilization is almost haunting. The sounds of John Marston’s footsteps, the creak of a
saloon door, the gunshots in the distance, it’s all very hypnotic. Pair the ambience
with one of the greatest soundtracks in video game history, and the audio design
is nothing short of epic exhilaration.
Now, I’m going to spoil the ending of Red Dead
Redemption 1, so be warned here. But the ending of this game might be the only time I’ve truly
gotten choked up over a character’s death. John making it all this way, surviving his time in
Dutch’s gang, hunting down his past gang members, being reunited with his family, trying to move on
and become an honest, hard working man. Only for the government to betray him and put him down
like a sick dog on his own property. I don’t think I could properly describe my emotions in
this moment during my first playthrough. But it was almost instantly, the first five stages of
grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, nah not acceptance. I felt
a need for revenge. And with the epilogue, that would become a reality. A few years later,
Jack, John’s son, would follow in his father’s footsteps and become a bit of an outlaw himself.
Tracking down Edgar Ross after his retirement and finally getting his revenge on the old bastard.
Could there be a better ending? And could there be a better character than John Marston? Don’t get
me wrong, Arthur Morgan is fantastic, but John Marston from the first game is still my personal
favorite in the series. A true badass, a living legend, that got caught up in the wrong crowd, and
couldn’t make it out alive in the end despite his very best efforts. One of the most unforgettable
characters, and one of the most unforgettable games ever created. And how this man, this brave
man, hunts the man who killed his father.
The Bioshock series is one of my absolute favorite
series in gaming. From excellently crafted worlds, unique and diverse gameplay toolkits, and
complex and intelligent storytelling. All of the Bioshock games have left me in amazement
after the credits rolled. But for this video I want to focus on just the first game.
The biggest strength the Bioshock games have for me is the visual storytelling and symbolism.
The game opens with a plane crash, and a descent 20,000 leagues under the sea, to the reveal of
Rapture. One of the most iconic and memorable reveals in gaming history, Rapture continued
to shock and surprise me further the more I explored it. The city, dreamt up and created
by Andrew Ryan, is a utopia built on the idea of complete freedom, a world free from religious
morality or government restrictions. And at first, things seemed to be going well, but it didn’t
take too long for the city to fall in a civil war between political activists like Atlas and his
followers, and the government of Andrew Ryan. You start the game shortly after this Civil War. New
Years Day 1959, Rapture was turned upside down. Chaos ensuing amongst every district, from high
society clubs and theaters, to farmers markets and fishing ports. Each area does a great job at
showing the kind of place Rapture was before the fall, and then what it became in the aftermath.
Warnings written out in blood, corpses strung up in grotesque ways, advertisements for different
professions that lead to sinister discoveries. Bioshock visually presents the hellscape that
Rapture has become so perfectly. Even without the audio diaries, or Atlas chirping in your
ear, you’d be able to get a good idea of what happened in this world before you arrived.
This again, is Bioshock’s biggest strength.
The voice acting and dialogue is another area
where Bioshock excels. Each character performance delivers in all the right ways. I can’t think of
a single instance where I cringed or rolled my eyes at any of the dialogue. It all fits right in
with the universe and the context of the story.
And speaking of the story, it’s a masterpiece. The
moment-to-moment discovery and putting the pieces together yourself, the constant tension between
Atlas and Andrew Ryan’s different philosophies, the Would You Kindly reveal. It’s truly a
once in a lifetime storytelling experience. This is the type of stuff that deserves to
be studied in College English classes. The symbolism alone could fill an entire textbook.
The next biggest strength is the gameplay itself. It’s entirely unique. Adam and Eve abilities,
weapon upgrades, the strategies to taking down Big Daddies, nothing else has even come close to
the uniqueness and cleverness in the FPS genre. Even Bioshock Infinite didn’t live up to the
intelligent design of the gameplay in the first.
Bioshock is a franchise that to me will always
be a perfect example to use in regards to the Are Video Games Art question. This game oozes artistic
creativity at every turn. And it’s themes, writing, and art style have always stuck with me,
and I can’t get enough of it. It’s one of the few games I will replay every year because there’s
something new to discover or experiment with each playthrough. A man chooses. A slave obeys.
Now for the first multiplayer game on the list, Sea of Thieves. There’s always a joke in
gaming discourse about how review sites like IGN say things like, This game makes you feel like
Batman or feel like Spider-Man but in this case, Sea of Thieves really does make you feel like
a pirate. Gold is all you’re thinking about. We gotta do this Fort of Fortune to get a lot of
gold, we gotta optimize our time to get the max amount of gold in the shortest time possible.
Oh a Grade Five Reaper on the map? I bet if we go kill them, we’ll make a lot of gold.
Is there anything more Pirate than that?
All of this is helped by the fact that you’re
doing it with friends. You and the boys, squading up, sailing the high seas, destroying everything
in your path, playing music, cooking steaks, bucketing toxic douchebags, it’s glorious.
The PvP in this game is really something special in my opinion. Sometimes you’ll wreck certain
ships, and other times you’re the crew that’s gonna get wrecked, but oftentimes, the battles
are a close match up, and it’s almost an endurance fight to see who can outbattle, outmaneuver,
and outrepair the other crew. And it’s in those intense battles that Sea of Thieves magic
really shines. The cheers and excitement when you finally defeat a crew after a long fight is such
an epic moment. And the losses in those moments, well we just don’t talk about the losses.
You’re a bussy. One on one, one on one beach. Get off your boat, one on one. One on one.
I’ve had a lot of fun with friends in different games over the years, but Sea of Thieves just
hits different. I’ll never forget the awesome memories I’ve made and all those late night gaming
sessions just to get a little bit more gold.
Sea of Thieves also has one of the most
beautiful art styles. Utilizing a somewhat cartoony stylized aesthetic, the way Rare has
used the Unreal Engine to make this game really pop is incredibly well done. The lighting, the
skybox, the WATER, dude look at that water! The sound design and music really put a nice bow
on it all and solidify the game as a flawed, yet unforgettable multiplayer experience.
The Witcher 3 is one of the few games that can truly be called a masterpiece. From the Characters
to the Quest Design to the Story and the Voice Acting. The Witcher 3 rarely misses a beat. When I
first played the game, I had just finished playing Dark Souls 3, so getting used to the combat did
take a bit of time, because nothing beats third person action combat in the souls games, but
when I finally did get a handle on the gameplay of the Witcher 3, I came to love it too.
So first, I want to talk about the story and the Witcher universe. Witcher 3 was my first
introduction to the world, and after spending over a hundred hours in the game my first time
through, it prompted me to immediately go buy the books. The Witcher universe is familiar if you’ve
played a lot of fantasy games or read numerous fairytales, but there’s something different
about it that makes it stand on its own. And that’s likely due to the fact that CDProjekt
Red are based in Poland, and the books were written by Polish author, Andrej Sapkowski. The
specific influence of Polish, Slavic, and Germanic mythology is something that I hadn’t quite seen
before, and now, because of the Witcher 3, I’m a huge fan. CDProjekt Red did the books justice
by sticking as close to the source material as possible, while still creating their own separate
stories for the games, and that’s something to be commended. It’s why the characters are all so well
written, why the quests that you play through as Geralt, feel like the ones written in the books.
And that’s sort of the main point I’m getting at. The Witcher 3 feels like you’re playing through an
incredibly well written book, while also having a lot of choice in which direction certain stories
will go. The famous, Triss or Yennefer choice, helping or evicting Sarah, choosing whether
or not to kill the cursed botchling, or even choosing who will rule the North. And of course
the many decisions that involve Ciri. There’s an insane amount of choices to make throughout
the game regarding SO MANY different characters that will affect all different areas of the
game. And the best part about these choices, is you get to return to those specific areas,
or have specific conversations that note these choices you’ve made along the way. The Witcher
3 absolutely took over my life for a short time, becoming obsessed with the lore, the different
outcomes, the exploration to uncover more tidbits of worldbuilding, or find unique weapons
and armor. There’s something about this game that made me want to never put it down.
And don’t even get me started on the DLC. The Witcher 3 DLC’s are arguably the best pieces of
DLC content in any game, ever. Blood and Wine is content filled and large enough to be considered
it’s own standalone game. And despite the amount of time it takes to play through this game and
it’s two amazing DLC’s it’s something I’ve done three times now, with my most recent playthrough
totaling to almost two hundred hours.
So if we want to talk about greatest RPG’s
of all time, there’s no question that Witcher 3 should be in the discussion. It’s a game
that delivers on almost everything I could ask for in a story driven RPG experience.
I’m a Witcher. Heard you wondering about my swords. Well one’s for monsters the other for
humans. Only got one prick though in case you’re wondering about that too. Don’t touch him.
Destiny 1 is a game that is very flawed, and some might make the argument that it was
the beginning of the end for Bungie as a company after previously being heralded as one of the
greatest developers of all time. But despite it’s many problems, Destiny 1 and the memories I
made during it’s three year lifespan will never be forgotten. In a sort of strange way, it made
me who I am today, and I’ve made some incredible lifelong friends because of this game. So I
absolutely had to mention it in this video.
First, I want to talk about the art direction and
immersion that Destiny 1 provided. Bungie’s art team were truly at their peak when creating the
environments. Each location looks like it came straight out of a painting, like the concept art
leaped off the page and onto your screen. With ambience, lighting, and atmospheric effects that
feel so engrossing. Strike and Raid environments that feel like true labyrinths and hold so much
mystery in their visual storytelling. The game is breathtaking visually, even ten years later.
The audio design is also incredible. From the enemies, to the guns, to the abilities, they’re
all so perfectly well mixed. The soundtrack is a masterpiece, and has easily become my all
time favorite soundtrack in gaming. It’s melodic tracks still give me chills to this day.
Marty O’Donnell is a true master of his craft.
The gameplay of Destiny is something
almost everyone universally acknowledges, whether they like the game or not, is incredibly
fluid and amazing to play. It just feels good to shoot a hand cannon, leap through the air,
or slam the ground as a striker titan.
The story of Destiny has never been great, but
the Lore has. Destiny’s visual storytelling, worldbuilding, and lore, is some of the greatest
I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing. It’s second, only to Dark Souls and Bloodborne lore for
me. The amount of time I’ve spent diving into lore cards, watching lore videos, and crafting my
own theories is probably close to the amount of time I’ve actually spent playing the game.
But without question, the thing about Destiny that sticks with me the most, is the memories I’ve
made playing this game. I never thought when I started this journey back in 2014, that I’d create
my character, and then take that character with me through 3,000 hours worth of several campaigns,
nightfalls, raids, crucible matches, and quests. And a lot of that is thanks to my clan.
For the first six months of playing, I was mainly doing LFG and playing with a few IRL friends, but
shortly before the Taken King released in 2015, I made friends with someone who I’d come to know,
not well at the time, but eventually, and I would join their clan shortly after meeting them.
The members of this clan would become lifelong friends as we spent thousands of hours together
raiding, pvping, and just shooting the breeze. I’ll never forget the countless raid nights,
the countless Trials cards, and of course the endless laughs while hanging out in the tower.
Destiny 1 came at a perfect time in my life, and again, despite it’s flaws, I will
stand by that it is a great game, especially with each subsequent expansion release.
It just nailed so much of the fundamentals that are needed to make a great co op looter shooter
experience. And the game excelled in areas still yet surpassed by it’s successor Destiny 2.
Assassin’s Creed 2 wasn’t my first introduction to the series, but it’s the game I will always revere
as the best. The Ezio Trilogy as a whole really, but I have to give it to AC2 for doing
what it was able to do on it’s own.
So what did it do? Assassin’s Creed 2 gave us
the greatest protagonist in the franchise. Ezio Auditore da Firenze. Ezio is a character that
really exemplifies a good hero. He’s flawed, makes mistakes, but learns from them, grows as
a person and a man. Not just across the trilogy, but even just within AC2. We see him as a baby,
as a young man at seventeen, and throughout several different years of his life, with him
being 41 years old by the ending AC2. That is truly wild to think about, but his character arc
from the beginning of the game to the end really shows his growth and knowledge that he’s gained
over the years. Ubisoft’s writers were on point with Ezio’s writing. We are free to follow our own
path. There are those who will take that freedom from us, and too many of you gladly give it. But
it is our ability to choose whatever you think is true that makes us human. His heroes journey
really begins when his father and his brother are wrongfully imprisoned and then executed
publicly, sending him down the path of becoming an Assassin. And it’s all thanks to his Uncle
Mario for taking initiative and beginning his training. We get to see so many different moments
of Ezio’s life that make him the man he becomes by the end of the game. Even in the gameplay
and cutscenes, Ezio starts off a bit sloppy and careless in his executions of his enemies, but
by the end, he’s a master of his craft. Seeing Ezio’s character progression is my favorite part
of the game, but AC2 is more than just Ezio.
It’s Italy. The recreation of Italy and it’s
iconic locations set in the 15th century is done so incredibly well that when I first played
the game, I fell in love with Italy, it’s history, it’s architecture, and it’s language. It made me
want to visit and see the beauty for myself. The real world characters you meet in the game like
Lorenzo de Medici, Caterina Sforza, and of course Leonardo da Vinci. Meeting these characters was so
badass, and reading their codex pages let you know the real history behind them in the real world.
In fact, AC2 is one of the few games that I would actually read the codex pages to learn more
about the history of Italy and it’s customs, economy, and society. I truly owe a lot to this
game for my knowledge of Italy. And that’s a real testament to how well Ubisoft were able
to design this world and the game systems.
The gameplay of Assassin’s Creed 2 is
also a perfect balance between open world, and action adventure. The world isn’t overly
bloated or full of filler content. It’s just big enough to feel big, and small enough to
100% the game in a reasonable timeframe. The fighting and climbing mechanics are just complex
enough to be an improvement over the first game, but not overdone with ridiculous skill trees like
we find in some of the later games. The MUSIC, holy crap I almost forgot about the music. There’s
a reason Ezio’s Family became the main theme of the franchise after this game, and it’s because
it’s just perfect. The other tracks of course are great as well, and the ambient music you hear
while exploring is relaxing and calming. To me, Assassin’s Creed 2 is the greatest game
in the franchise, it nailed the character, the writing, the balance of the game
design, everything, and it’s another game I will always go back to and replay.
Now before I get to the last game on the list, I want to sprinkle in a few honorable mentions.
Alan Wake, a game that is obviously heavily inspired by Stephen King novels and the TV Series
Twin Peaks. It’s such a unique and interesting psychological horror game. It’s not overly
scary or anything as the game is still rated T, but the way it conveys the narrative through
Alan’s own writings, and finding the missing pages scattered about, using your flashlight to
break down the barrier of the enemies, there’s just so many cool little details about this game
and how it’s presented. It’s a really great game.
Battlefield 1, one of my favorite FPS games
of all time primarily due to the immersion and intensity of the gameplay. The large scale warfare
taking place on these epic real world locations, inside of the underused World War 1 setting. It’s
just an epic game to sit down and play if you want to get sucked into some high action battles for a
while. See my video I made dedicated on this game if you want to hear some more praise about it.
It Takes Two is a game I played through with my wife when it first came out and we had
an absolute blast. Just a simple, good, fun video game. There’s not much else to it.
Each of the games’ levels were well varied, and each level came with a new set of mechanics
to learn, which led to the game staying fun and interesting the whole time. This is one I should
probably revisit with my wife again soon and this time we’ll swap characters to experience
the other players side of the gameplay.
Call of Duty Black Ops. Yes, a Call of Duty
game is on this list, and it’s my personal favorite in the franchise. The Black Ops
campaign is easily the most memorable for me, filled with wild 1960s conspiracies, government
corruption, excellent villains, badass squad mates, and crazy plot twists. The zombies mode
of course, needs no explanation. It kicked ass, and I spent so many hours playing it. The
multiplayer gave us some of the greatest maps in CoD history, and the greatest menu theme
in CoD history. What a time to be a CoD fan.
Bloodborne. Probably my next favorite FromSoftware
game after the first Dark Souls, Bloodborne hit all of the same highs as Dark Souls 1, and in some
places it hits even higher. The boss fights were amazing, the areas, incredible. And like the
Witcher 3, the DLC goes HARD including some of the best bosses and zones in the game. If you play
any FromSoftware game it’s gotta be one of these two. But now, on to the final game of the list.
Fallout New Vegas man, where do I even begin. So my first Fallout game was Fallout 4 in 2016, and
to be honest, I thought it was just okay. There were a few things I really liked, and lot more
that I didn’t. After finishing the game, I thought I’d never return to the franchise, assuming the
older games were likely similar. But in 2020 a friend of mine recommended I try out Fallout
New Vegas, hyping it up to me and talking about playing the game on Survival mode and long story
short, he convinced me to play it. Bought it on Steam the next day for like 5 bucks, and dude. I
have now completed New Vegas over five times, have hundreds of hours in the game, and I still get
the itch to hop on and play it all the time. It’s easily in my top three games of all time and I
just can’t get enough of it. So what made me fall in love with this game? Again, where do I start.
Let’s just start with the intro. The camera panning through a post-nuclear Vegas, and a war
torn Mojave, ending with Chandler Bing poppin you right in the dome. I mean what an intro man. Ron
Perlman then introducing the factions and setting up the story, I was already hooked. There’s just
something about the set up of New Vegas that just felt right. Like the Fallout universe
was created just for this game to exist.
And it didn’t take long for me to become invested
into the game after that. I was still in Good Springs resolving a conflict between the town and
a group of felons known as The Powder Gangers, and just seeing how many different player choices
I had in that moment, I immediately knew. Yep. This game is going to consume my life. And after
resolving that conflict Obsidian just hands you the reins and says, okay go play the game
now. And from there, I just started exploring, dipping my toe into every nearby area,
taking on quests and trying to get involved in everything the world had to offer.
Out of all the games on this list, I can confidently say that this game is the one where
I latched onto it the fastest and really sunk my teeth into it. I would Eat, Sleep, New Vegas
when I first started playing. So why is that?
Quest design. The quest design of New Vegas
is something to behold. For a game made in eighteen months, the quests have a level
of depth and freedom that is just awesome. There’s almost always a really creative or
hilarious way to go about each questline.
The characters. New Vegas NPC’s and Companions
are really interesting. Great backstories, and even better dialogue options. The amount
of information and worldbuilding jampacked into these text boxes is truly insane. You
can learn about every little thing in the world from exhausting NPC dialogue options. And
if you’re paying attention, you can really start to see which kind of direction you might want to
start taking in the main quest in order to reach whatever you consider the ideal outcome.
The gameplay. The gameplay is simple, kind of jank, but filled with charm. No
the game isn’t the prettiest graphically, or the most fluid gameplay-wise, but the charm of
the gameplay really does make up for some of the games flaws. I’ve mentioned it in previous videos
before, but the Pipboy being your in-game menu, is one element of the game that lends
to some really good immersion. Having to navigate your map, weapons, food, and radio
on a device strapped to your arm is so cool.
And on the topic of the Radio, New Vegas Radio
contains some of the greatest classical, jazz, country, and rock tracks of the 1940s
and 50s. If you ever need a mood booster, just turn on the New Vegas radio
soundtrack and crack open a cold one.
The main quest of New Vegas along with the many
factions is probably it’s greatest strength though. Choosing between Caesar’s Legion,
the NCR, Mr. House, and Yes Man. These are difficult decisions when you start branching out
and talking to minor factions like the Boomers, the Brotherhood of Steel, and the many
families of the Strip. I still go into my playthroughs unsure of who I’m going to side
with because it’s such a difficult decision.
The DLC’s are also insanely good. High
quality quests, stories, characters and writing are found inside all of them. They’re
honestly equally as good as the base game, except this one, can’t stand that playing that
one, other than Christine though, she’s cool.
Fallout New Vegas is a game I never knew I was
missing out on, but it’s a game I will never stop playing, especially thanks to mods that I’ve
recently gotten into. Some of the Mod Content is even on par with the base game. New Vegas players
are some of the most passionate fans I’ve ever seen in any game franchise, and the modders
are the same. And it’s so cool to see a game still see so much love fourteen years later. And
that’s how you know a game is a true masterpiece.
But that is it for this video
guys, I hope you enjoyed it. Again, leave your list of games that stuck with you in
the comments section or your thoughts on my list of games. Thank you so much for watching
and I’ll see you all in the next one.
