About You: Video Games
stealing from Clearin like everyone else: https://www.backloggd.com/u/Clearin/list/about-you-video-games/
trying to limit it to one per franchise but i have honestly just failed. my taste in games is so tremendously boring.
trying to limit it to one per franchise but i have honestly just failed. my taste in games is so tremendously boring.
18 Games
Favourite Game
It's just the game that makes me the most happy. I don't really know what else to say about it.
It's just the game that makes me the most happy. I don't really know what else to say about it.
Favourite Series
I could populate this whole list with games from this series. I think about it more than any other series, and have enjoyed every single main entry to greater or lesser extents. It just rules.
I could populate this whole list with games from this series. I think about it more than any other series, and have enjoyed every single main entry to greater or lesser extents. It just rules.
Favourite Soundtrack
There are honestly other games on this very list with soundtracks I like more, but Persona 3 remains an absolute boppin' stylish playlist from start to finish whose impeccable sense of style resonates completely with the game. Baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby YEAAAAAAH
There are honestly other games on this very list with soundtracks I like more, but Persona 3 remains an absolute boppin' stylish playlist from start to finish whose impeccable sense of style resonates completely with the game. Baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby YEAAAAAAH
Favourite Protagonist: The Jedi Exile
The Exile is my favourite player-created character in a game because it defly manages the extraordinarily difficult task of giving the player tremendous space to decide how their character acts and feels about things within the narrative, whilst still managing to make them a genuinely interesting character for whom the story is about. Baldur's Gate is about the Bhalspawn, sure, but it isn't about their character, or the kind of person they are, it's about their destiny, their fate. Mass Effect is about Commander Shepard but in many ways, Shepard is two defined people that you can either embody one of or switch between incoherently. The Jedi Exile is a person, a nuanced character, and the story responds to that character as constructed by the player. It's a trick that not even Planescape: Torment is able to pull so deftly. It rules.
The Exile is my favourite player-created character in a game because it defly manages the extraordinarily difficult task of giving the player tremendous space to decide how their character acts and feels about things within the narrative, whilst still managing to make them a genuinely interesting character for whom the story is about. Baldur's Gate is about the Bhalspawn, sure, but it isn't about their character, or the kind of person they are, it's about their destiny, their fate. Mass Effect is about Commander Shepard but in many ways, Shepard is two defined people that you can either embody one of or switch between incoherently. The Jedi Exile is a person, a nuanced character, and the story responds to that character as constructed by the player. It's a trick that not even Planescape: Torment is able to pull so deftly. It rules.
Favourite Villain: President Dick Richardson
Probably the best thing about the classic Fallout games, the contrast between the Men Behind The Curtain of both games is Fallout 2's true, greatest masterstoke. Rather than a decaying goo monster speaking with three different voices, the man behind the Enclave's plan to genocide the wasteland is a weedy, cowardly, balding career politician who talks with equal stammering enthusiasm about the great ol' US of A and the systematic extermination of all races deemed impure. The conversation with him recontextualises all that has come before in the game as the satire on american exceptionalism that Fallout mythologically has been characterizedas. There's been some coherent pushback on that idea of late, most notably from the fine folks at Ranged Touch (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hff9PjTvAlA&list=PLVcfOocLDkUzOd8yt3ADY83gvXePlxvi0), but I'm still firmly of the belief that this quietly monstrous man is emblematic what makes Fallout 2 a special game, even setting aside all the, y'know. Racism.
Probably the best thing about the classic Fallout games, the contrast between the Men Behind The Curtain of both games is Fallout 2's true, greatest masterstoke. Rather than a decaying goo monster speaking with three different voices, the man behind the Enclave's plan to genocide the wasteland is a weedy, cowardly, balding career politician who talks with equal stammering enthusiasm about the great ol' US of A and the systematic extermination of all races deemed impure. The conversation with him recontextualises all that has come before in the game as the satire on american exceptionalism that Fallout mythologically has been characterizedas. There's been some coherent pushback on that idea of late, most notably from the fine folks at Ranged Touch (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hff9PjTvAlA&list=PLVcfOocLDkUzOd8yt3ADY83gvXePlxvi0), but I'm still firmly of the belief that this quietly monstrous man is emblematic what makes Fallout 2 a special game, even setting aside all the, y'know. Racism.
Best Story
This is a weird/bad category imo because to say that there is one story in the medium that stands above all the others is a misunderstanding of the way we engage with narrative. Different stories will engage with people in different ways, and resonate in different ways. I can't rank how something makes me feel, in all good conscience. So I'll just say that Pathologic 2 left a profound impact on me, and while my enthusiasm for the game has been forever tainted by the allegations levelled at the director, the days I spent at the town on the river gorkhon will never be forgotten.
This is a weird/bad category imo because to say that there is one story in the medium that stands above all the others is a misunderstanding of the way we engage with narrative. Different stories will engage with people in different ways, and resonate in different ways. I can't rank how something makes me feel, in all good conscience. So I'll just say that Pathologic 2 left a profound impact on me, and while my enthusiasm for the game has been forever tainted by the allegations levelled at the director, the days I spent at the town on the river gorkhon will never be forgotten.
Have Not Played But Want To
aaaaaaa this looks so nice and charming and chill i wanna play it so badddddd
aaaaaaa this looks so nice and charming and chill i wanna play it so badddddd
You Love, Everyone Hates
Ok, FFXV isn't so much a widely disliked game so much as it is a divisive one, though I do think that opinion on it skews negative in the circles I run in. The sheer vitriol this game inspires in many is sometimes a little intimidating whenever I go to talk about it, as I'm not really especially interested in contradicting or arguing with the opinions of others, so I'll just express my own. Final Fantasy XV was the game that got me back into my adoration of video games after 2016 was spent largely on the periphery of them. With its idiosyncratic priorities in gameplay and systemic design that often go against common sense and fun in order to best make you feel the emotions it needs you to feel, it convinced me that it was still possible to make interesting games in the big-budget space, after a year where it felt like everything I had played was a compromised version of something that came before. Plus, it came to me at a crossroads in my life, where my latent feelings on gender and masculinity were starting to reach breaking point, and I saw so much of the pain I was going through in this story that was fundamentally about the crushing weight of gender expectations and the aching sadness at the core of friendships wrapped up in masculinity. I will never forget that campfire scene.
Ok, FFXV isn't so much a widely disliked game so much as it is a divisive one, though I do think that opinion on it skews negative in the circles I run in. The sheer vitriol this game inspires in many is sometimes a little intimidating whenever I go to talk about it, as I'm not really especially interested in contradicting or arguing with the opinions of others, so I'll just express my own. Final Fantasy XV was the game that got me back into my adoration of video games after 2016 was spent largely on the periphery of them. With its idiosyncratic priorities in gameplay and systemic design that often go against common sense and fun in order to best make you feel the emotions it needs you to feel, it convinced me that it was still possible to make interesting games in the big-budget space, after a year where it felt like everything I had played was a compromised version of something that came before. Plus, it came to me at a crossroads in my life, where my latent feelings on gender and masculinity were starting to reach breaking point, and I saw so much of the pain I was going through in this story that was fundamentally about the crushing weight of gender expectations and the aching sadness at the core of friendships wrapped up in masculinity. I will never forget that campfire scene.
You Hate, Everyone Loves
Certainly at least in the spaces I run in this is a bit more divisive than deserves the "everyone loves" title, but as we saw in the last section that's a little bit of a misnomer anyway. Regardless, there aren't many games I could say I truly loathe, but God of War is certainly one of them. I hate how it plays, I hate how it looks, with that one-shot gimmick never gelling with the gameplay or the story on any level, I hate how it's written, with the profound amounts of sympathy given to a man who, even post-"character development", refuses to call his son by his own name, and the horrible way the affection of the only living woman in the cast is characterised. I think this is just a vile game, something that plays awful, looks awful, and has awful things to say. Sorry.
Certainly at least in the spaces I run in this is a bit more divisive than deserves the "everyone loves" title, but as we saw in the last section that's a little bit of a misnomer anyway. Regardless, there aren't many games I could say I truly loathe, but God of War is certainly one of them. I hate how it plays, I hate how it looks, with that one-shot gimmick never gelling with the gameplay or the story on any level, I hate how it's written, with the profound amounts of sympathy given to a man who, even post-"character development", refuses to call his son by his own name, and the horrible way the affection of the only living woman in the cast is characterised. I think this is just a vile game, something that plays awful, looks awful, and has awful things to say. Sorry.
10
Best Art Style
I have a real fondness for the look of PS1 RPGs, and while Vagrant Story puts up a good fight for the spot, Chrono Cross is comfortably my favourite looking game on the system - possibly ever. The gorgeous backgrounds artfully blend styles and techniques to give each location a distinct character, whilst still creating the sense of the El Nido Archipelago as a coherent place. Couple this with the music - a serious contender for the best soundtrack spot on this list - and the gorgeous character designs and expressive animations, and you have a game that is sheer joy just to look at.
I have a real fondness for the look of PS1 RPGs, and while Vagrant Story puts up a good fight for the spot, Chrono Cross is comfortably my favourite looking game on the system - possibly ever. The gorgeous backgrounds artfully blend styles and techniques to give each location a distinct character, whilst still creating the sense of the El Nido Archipelago as a coherent place. Couple this with the music - a serious contender for the best soundtrack spot on this list - and the gorgeous character designs and expressive animations, and you have a game that is sheer joy just to look at.
Favourite Ending: True Demon
Prefacing this by mentioning debitnotcredit's fantastic skewering of this ending, a read I have enormous sympathy for https://www.backloggd.com/u/debitnotcredit/review/131007/
Having read and acknowledged that piece, however, it really only serves to make the True Demon Ending even more powerful for me. Shin Megami Tensei has always been a samey, nihilistic series that presents the same conflict progressing eternally with little hope of progressing beyond it. That is the narrative of Shin Megami Tensei, all the way until Apocalypse, who's attempts to provide a half-hearted antithesis to SMTIV only reinforce how unconvincing it's alternative is. True Demon asks us to step outside that narrative, literally moving backstage from the main performance that is the Vortex World, to lay bare the mechanisms and strings that bind the narrative of the main game together. Apocalypse never would have worked as an antithesis for SMT because all it can do is make strawmen of what SMT argues and believes: Nocturne benefits enormously from having, essentially, two games within it: a main game that is fundamentally about operating within the paces allotted to you by authority, where true freedom is impossible and to whom we are all supplicant to the Great Will, and another game, where that premise is thoroughly defied and rejected. It is the only game I can think of with a coherent Thesis and Antithesis contained within it, and that would be remarkable enough, but also everything about the ending is just so fuckin sick, dude. Kagutsuchi being DEAD (or MORT in the borked European PS2 release I own) in the UI is something I think about an awful lot.
Prefacing this by mentioning debitnotcredit's fantastic skewering of this ending, a read I have enormous sympathy for https://www.backloggd.com/u/debitnotcredit/review/131007/
Having read and acknowledged that piece, however, it really only serves to make the True Demon Ending even more powerful for me. Shin Megami Tensei has always been a samey, nihilistic series that presents the same conflict progressing eternally with little hope of progressing beyond it. That is the narrative of Shin Megami Tensei, all the way until Apocalypse, who's attempts to provide a half-hearted antithesis to SMTIV only reinforce how unconvincing it's alternative is. True Demon asks us to step outside that narrative, literally moving backstage from the main performance that is the Vortex World, to lay bare the mechanisms and strings that bind the narrative of the main game together. Apocalypse never would have worked as an antithesis for SMT because all it can do is make strawmen of what SMT argues and believes: Nocturne benefits enormously from having, essentially, two games within it: a main game that is fundamentally about operating within the paces allotted to you by authority, where true freedom is impossible and to whom we are all supplicant to the Great Will, and another game, where that premise is thoroughly defied and rejected. It is the only game I can think of with a coherent Thesis and Antithesis contained within it, and that would be remarkable enough, but also everything about the ending is just so fuckin sick, dude. Kagutsuchi being DEAD (or MORT in the borked European PS2 release I own) in the UI is something I think about an awful lot.
Favourite Boss Fight: Roxas
Ok, I really tried to avoid putting Kingdom Hearts on here multiple times, but I really just love this fight. I've done it so many times over and over, the reaction command is so cool, the music is ace, the emotions are big and melodramatic and wonderful, and it looks amazing. There are fights in the series that are more fun on a visceral level for me (particularly KH3, seriously that game doesn't get enough credit for how absurdly good the ReMind bosses are) but nothing captures the Emotions of this moment. Before finally getting the chance to play it for myself, I would watch it over and over again on 120p on kh-vids.net, adoring it completely and totally.
Ok, I really tried to avoid putting Kingdom Hearts on here multiple times, but I really just love this fight. I've done it so many times over and over, the reaction command is so cool, the music is ace, the emotions are big and melodramatic and wonderful, and it looks amazing. There are fights in the series that are more fun on a visceral level for me (particularly KH3, seriously that game doesn't get enough credit for how absurdly good the ReMind bosses are) but nothing captures the Emotions of this moment. Before finally getting the chance to play it for myself, I would watch it over and over again on 120p on kh-vids.net, adoring it completely and totally.
13
Childhood Game
Mass Effect would seem to be kind of a weird choice for this category, given that it came out when I was 12 years old, but taking this to mean "a game from my childhood I have not carried forward an unbroken chain of affection for into my adult life", there has undoubtedly been a shift in how I perceive Mass Effect. This series, for much of my teenage years, was a complete fixation. It was the second series I remember engaging with as part of a fandom. I talked on forums, wrote fanfiction, and was somewhat dishonest with myself in pretending that the fact that you could romance and form relationships with the characters wasn't a huge part of the appeal of the series for me. And over time, I generally found other places that do that a lot better, now that I can be honest with myself and say that I do really like romance as a genre, and am less inclined to defend Mass Effect for it's tendencies towards ethno-nationalist apologia, colonialist fantasies, and Respecting Da Troops.
I still kinda like it, though. Well, some of them. Mass Effect 2 can suck it.
Mass Effect would seem to be kind of a weird choice for this category, given that it came out when I was 12 years old, but taking this to mean "a game from my childhood I have not carried forward an unbroken chain of affection for into my adult life", there has undoubtedly been a shift in how I perceive Mass Effect. This series, for much of my teenage years, was a complete fixation. It was the second series I remember engaging with as part of a fandom. I talked on forums, wrote fanfiction, and was somewhat dishonest with myself in pretending that the fact that you could romance and form relationships with the characters wasn't a huge part of the appeal of the series for me. And over time, I generally found other places that do that a lot better, now that I can be honest with myself and say that I do really like romance as a genre, and am less inclined to defend Mass Effect for it's tendencies towards ethno-nationalist apologia, colonialist fantasies, and Respecting Da Troops.
I still kinda like it, though. Well, some of them. Mass Effect 2 can suck it.
14
Relaxing Game
Something about the droning tones of Trent Reznor's killer score, the muted palette and the shift in emphasis away from keyhunting compared to Doom has made Quake a consistent favourite of mine when I need to just move my hands and chill while listening to an audiobook or something. In university, it became a go-to revision tool: I would record myself reading notes, then listen to those notes over and over again as I ran through the rusted halls of Quake's otherdimensional fortresses. At this point, Quake brings me as close as I can imagine any piece of media to a meditative state. Quake IS good for you!
Something about the droning tones of Trent Reznor's killer score, the muted palette and the shift in emphasis away from keyhunting compared to Doom has made Quake a consistent favourite of mine when I need to just move my hands and chill while listening to an audiobook or something. In university, it became a go-to revision tool: I would record myself reading notes, then listen to those notes over and over again as I ran through the rusted halls of Quake's otherdimensional fortresses. At this point, Quake brings me as close as I can imagine any piece of media to a meditative state. Quake IS good for you!
15
Stressful Game
The only game I had to put down (twice!) because it was stressing me out so much. Admittedly, the second time was because of backseat gamers on a twitch stream, but XCOM 2 is still a tremendously stressful game for me, being harder, more purposeful, and meaner than Enemy Unknown ever was. XCOM 2 never lets you go on autopilot, and if you do, the cumulative weight of your mistakes will build and build until you find yourself fighting hordes of sectopods with no way to fight back. The resistance dies. Earth is lost. Yeah, you can say it's a bit stressful!
The only game I had to put down (twice!) because it was stressing me out so much. Admittedly, the second time was because of backseat gamers on a twitch stream, but XCOM 2 is still a tremendously stressful game for me, being harder, more purposeful, and meaner than Enemy Unknown ever was. XCOM 2 never lets you go on autopilot, and if you do, the cumulative weight of your mistakes will build and build until you find yourself fighting hordes of sectopods with no way to fight back. The resistance dies. Earth is lost. Yeah, you can say it's a bit stressful!
Game You Always Come Back To
This is practically an annual replay for me. I know this game like the back of my hand, and it's always a breezy joy to go through. Soma Cruz is goals.
This is practically an annual replay for me. I know this game like the back of my hand, and it's always a breezy joy to go through. Soma Cruz is goals.
Guilty Pleasure
Kind of a stand-in for the CRPG genre as a whole, here. I love these things, they tickle my brain just right, but there's no denying the incredibly fraught nature of the space and the influential voices within it. It's a scuffed scene, to put it mildly, if one of the most progressive and genuinely likeable voices within it, Josh Sawyer, directed Honest Hearts, an almost absurdly racist DLC for New Vegas. I know all of this, and yet, I love these games anyway. Them's the breaks.
I put Bloodlines here because it is the most scuffed of all of these games: it is outrageously misogynistic, ableist, and racist, the game falls apart into nigh-unplayable disaster in the last quarter and doesn't even have the decency to start off on a particularly high note to fall down from...and yet, the vibes, the atmosphere, and the spaces of interaction this game does give you are so evocative that I admit a kind of grudging affection for it anyway. I don't think this game is actually particularly good and has developed a reputation that I would argue is undeserved. But I kinda like it anyway, despite everything.
Kind of a stand-in for the CRPG genre as a whole, here. I love these things, they tickle my brain just right, but there's no denying the incredibly fraught nature of the space and the influential voices within it. It's a scuffed scene, to put it mildly, if one of the most progressive and genuinely likeable voices within it, Josh Sawyer, directed Honest Hearts, an almost absurdly racist DLC for New Vegas. I know all of this, and yet, I love these games anyway. Them's the breaks.
I put Bloodlines here because it is the most scuffed of all of these games: it is outrageously misogynistic, ableist, and racist, the game falls apart into nigh-unplayable disaster in the last quarter and doesn't even have the decency to start off on a particularly high note to fall down from...and yet, the vibes, the atmosphere, and the spaces of interaction this game does give you are so evocative that I admit a kind of grudging affection for it anyway. I don't think this game is actually particularly good and has developed a reputation that I would argue is undeserved. But I kinda like it anyway, despite everything.
18
Tons of hours played.
Origin tells me I've played this game for about 750 hours. Given that the bulk of my playing of this game occured following launch and prior to Origin's very existence, that is a truly terrifying statistic.
Origin tells me I've played this game for about 750 hours. Given that the bulk of my playing of this game occured following launch and prior to Origin's very existence, that is a truly terrifying statistic.
4 Comments
it has the worst gameplay (stripping out all RPG elements to become a below-average cover-based shooter), the dumbest plot, and i hate how i have no choice but to work with the neo-nazis from the last game
Fair enough. I want to give the series a replay at some point to reevaluate them now that my politics have shifted. I put it as my favorite series for similar reasons you liked it (was one of the first fictional worlds I really let myself get immersed in and learn all the little details of) but I haven't played it since I was a teenager.
annoyed by how much of mine would be exactly the same as this!!! i am not a thief!!!!!
Hot_Anarcocoa
2 years ago