Note: I wrote this article some months ago, when I was applying for a writer opening in an entertainment site. Since I didn’t get the job, I think there’s no harm to share it here with my fellow Steemians.
I have always loved videogames. I grew up with them. Even if I didn’t always have the newest console, or the hit of the moment, videogames were around me; my cousins were more spoiled by their parents than me, so every birthday and Christmas we were getting new material to test, new worlds to discover. If the game was a coop couch or had a two-player option, I was in… but if not, I could always watch. And I liked watching. There was no Twitch back in the 90´s, but there were my spoiled cousins.
That is why I haven’t really been a skilled gamer. They always kicked my ass at Street Fighter and Killer Instinct. I never made it beyond the third level in Contra. Heck, my natural place was behind the AI runners of Mario Kart. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it. The simple technological act of being able to move something on the TV screen and do it my own way… that awe have never left me.
I’m not saying that I have not played enough. I am more like a “playing in my own room” kind of gamer. For me, gaming is more enjoyable when it’s at my own pace, on my own terms, and absorbing every bite of graphical amusement and storytelling advance; just like reading a book. My consoles? NES, Super NES, Game Boy, N64, GameCube, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4 (current), and the occasional PC Gaming in between (yes, I have the unavoidable unplayed Steam library).
These are my top 5 favorite games of all time. When I made it, after painfully leaving behind some great games and sagas, I realized I was picking some popular and recent triple A choices; and I felt a little disappointed with myself, because I wanted to do an original and alternative list, showing off my inner gaming connoisseur, listing indies and some blast-from-the-past. But then I thought “what is the problem with this list?” If anything, I should feel proud of myself and the gaming industry, because it only reflects their ability to keep impressing the market with better graphics and gameplay (and yes, even stories), and my capacity to keep admiring those worlds and losing myself in them.
So, without further ado, let’s get into it.
5.- ROCKET LEAGUE
Weird choice to start this list, isn’t it? I’m rambling on about worlds and stories, and I start with some funny looking racing cars playing soccer. Really?
When I discovered this thing, I was browsing the PlayStation live channels, looking for interesting streaming. I stumbled on what I now suppose was a developer testing match, because the game was not even released. It took me just a moment to know that I was already impatient to play it. I wrote down the name, googled it, and felt proud of both owning a PlayStation 4 and a PlayStation Plus subscription: I was going to be one of the first people to grab it. And for free. And I still feel proud.
Rocket League is my own personal vice. My pick-and-play sickness. I have never been a big fan of online multiplayer games, because I’ve never been very much into FPS, MMORPGs, or RTS, so that splits the cake in more than a half; but this one got me from day 1, and it has never changed. And that is bad. It’s so bad, that my wife prefers that I play any other thing, because she just gets annoyed by the fact that I am playing it. It’s bad to the point that I incur in rude behavior, like keeping people and food waiting at my door because there’s 2 minutes to go on the clock and I’m just losing by 1.
I don’t know many people around me that play it, or even know about it. I don’t care. I just grab a water bottle, sit on my couch and lose myself into late in the night, even cursing at the screen or raising my fist, depending on what end of the field the ball bursts. I exclusively play ranked matches, and to be honest, I’m not that good; I oscillate between silver and gold divisions (meaning I’m always at the bottom half of the hundreds of thousands of players’ ranking). And there is one more thing: I am an expert at playing with the wrong camera. Everybody seems to prefer the ball cam, because that way you never lose sight of the ball; I just don’t. It feels weird to me. I prefer the fixed one, the one that I assume was God intended (or Psyonix intended, for that matter, because it shows no indication on the screen when I’m using it).
So that’s it. I’m weird for playing this game, and I’m weird for not playing it right. And I still don’t care. GG!
4.- RED DEAD REDEMPTION
Good reviews and the promise of a vast, open Wild West world sold this game to me. And it delivered. Oh darling, it damn did.
From the moment John Marston stepped down off that train, the whole world opened wide its arms, with its deserted plains, its muddy swamps, its oil pumping fields and its snowy mountains, all of it ready to be explored. And its Mexico! It had a Mexico! An alternate one, of course, but it didn’t stop me from looking around the virtual towns and trying to find some likeness to my close-to-the-border real hometown.
I know that many people were expecting this game because they were already fans of the western genre, but for me it was the whole way around: once I finished the game, I started to watch some of Clint Eastwood’s finest movies (well, only The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, and Unforgiven, but I really liked them and made me appreciate them).
After this game, I went on to play my only GTA experience, GTA V. And while Los Santos as a city had a monstrous lot more things to do than the whole North American deserted country, Trevor, Michael and Franklin combined cannot make a character as complex and big as John Marston alone. I truly put myself into his shoes… or his boots, while he was pushed and pushed down into a dark spiral of the life of crime he had already left behind, just for the sake of getting back his family and his peace. Yes, I felt for him, and also enjoyed clothing him with ponchos and sombreros.
When the dust of the ending twist was dissipated, I actually didn’t feel as cheated as some people shouted they did. Not at all. Sure, it wasn’t the same character I started the adventure with, but the world and the towns and the activities were all the same, so it didn’t matter. I kept indulging myself with hours of poker games at rusty tables against mean cowboys, and making scary excursions through snowy pine trees looking for bears to hunt (only to end up running back to the closest cabin looking for shelter).
I just hope that Red Dead Redemption 2 can wear those big ol’ boots.
3.- ASSASSIN’S CREED II
I have always loved to travel (or, at least, the beautiful idea of it). For my honeymoon, I got to go to Cancún, and for visiting my sister’s family, I got to go to Florida a couple times. And that’s as far as I have gone.
The Assassin’s Creed II gameplay trailer was what bought me into gaming adulthood, making me to renounce Nintendo and The Legend of Zelda games, and to leave behind all the beloved family entertainment titles, in pursuit of more complex and obscure narratives. Well… it was that, and also the idea of how cool it would be to play, pause and browse content just by moving my hands in the air in front of the TV, how crazy was that! So of course, instead of upgrading from the GameCube to the Wii, I switched to Microsoft’s promise of the future, and gifted myself with a brand new Xbox 360 Kinect bundle… and a copy of Assassin’s Creed II.
The Kinect promises vanished promptly in the air, along with the couple of games that came with it, that were okay just for a couple of parties. But what that gameplay trailer promised… it didn’t just kept its word, it took me far and beyond. Florence landscape was not only large, but majestic, and I even enjoyed letting Ezio take a rest on a rooftop and feasting my eyes with the horizon, the changing lights in the sky while the sun hid and the moon rose, and all that busy sound of chatter filled the Renaissance painted streets below me… I never felt that before in a videogame. It actually was me, not Desmond, in the Animus.
I have come to play what I consider the golden age of the series: Brotherhood, Revelations, and Black Flag. I have III waiting for me on my Uplay account, and I honestly do not care much about Unity and Syndicate. I really don’t see myself going back to playing with Altair in the original, known as it is that II improved so much in gameplay and storyline over that game. And for the most recent ones… well, I have learned to wait for the launching reception and reaction before getting into possible unpleasant surprises; although the perspective of fooling around from pyramid to pyramid and getting to chat with Socrates is really tempting.
But for me, the Ezio Saga is where this games took their place in the gaming Pantheon. Altair may have invented all those iconic moves, but Ezio perfected them: the hidden knife, the walking through the crowd, the blending in, the fluent parkour, the leap of faith… trademark gameplay features that have carried the popularity of the Templar’s enemies, for better or worse, to cross ways with different universes, such as a not-so-lucky movie and a rather corny but funny DLC on the latest Final Fantasy entry.
I still have it on my bucket list to visit Europe and tour through the Tuscany beauties. But, in the meantime, I can always steal a gondola and row through the Venetian canals… sporting a badass assassin hood.
2.- THE WITCHER 3: WILD HUNT (AND ITS FANTASTIC DLC’S)
Let’s admit it and get it out of the way: no, I didn’t know who the hell The Witcher was. I never read the books, and I had never even heard of the previous games before. Neither the comics, nor the apparently unsuccessful polish TV show. So, I didn’t know why Geralt was a witcher, or why it was so important to find Ciri, or who was Dandelion. And I did not have prior sympathy for either love interest; I think I chose Yennefer because she is brunette and because I saw her first. That, and her attitude.
But I started to watch gameplay, and I started to find a combination of things that I already loved in other games. The world was gigantic and lavish, as in Skyrim, but more beautiful and alive; the 3rd person combat not as seamless as in the Arkham series, but definitively better looking that Assassin’s Creed’s; the RPG dialogue system and leveling up… again, better than Skyrim’s (I should note that Skyrim is the only Elder Scrolls game that I have played, and that for some reason I have only started Fallout 4 and NV).
But the character development was simply impressive. From the smallest interaction to the big branch decisions; and from the way that every dialogue has its unique body language behavior, to how it really fits not only with my choices, but with Geralt’s persona… every single scene was a delight for the eyes. I imagine it would be a close battle, but maybe the butcher of Blaviken somehow would win a competition for the best grumpy-likeable videogame main character, feeding dust to guys like Snake (Old or Naked, your choice), mature Ezio Auditore, or even my beloved John Marston.
And fortunately, Geralt is not alone. Every friend and foe that he finds in his way has every reason for needing his help, or for feeling menaced by him, or even both. I cannot avoid remembering the Red Baron: an easy anger explosive personality, but a man who still has deep feelings for the ones he loves. Just a few games have been able to make the players care so much about support characters (such as the Mass Effect first games, or the Final Fantasy saga), and CD Projekt Red, with their adaptive character dialogue animation, have really set the bar high for the industry’s future ambitious projects.
One moment perseveres in my memories: the first time I stepped into Skellige, and looked up to the Ard Skellig Bridge… it was the Florence skyline for me all over again. It was the marvel of videogames shining its light on me one more time. It was witchery.
Right now, I’m preparing potions and poisons for whatever monster comes out from Netflix lair.
HONORABLE MENTIONS: THE LAST OF US, THE ELDER SCROLLS: SKYRIM, BATMAN ARKHAM SERIES (EXCEPT ORIGINS), GTA V, THE UNCHARTED SERIES, LIMBO, JOURNEY, PORTAL 2
1.- THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: OCARINA OF TIME
I think every gamer has that “falling in love with games” moment. Maybe it was when Samus Aran revealed herself as a girl, or when Psycho Mantis told you what games you had played, or that Aeris scene, or when you finally got to beat that impossible water level at TMNT… for me, it was waking up to the magic of Kokiri Forest.
Ocarina of Time was my awakening to 3D gaming. Of course, as time goes by, the graphic limitations are more than obvious; but back then, it was just overwhelming. The understood barriers of side scrolling, or isometric, or even primal first person like in Doom or Turok, were completely shattered, as Link was rolling around on the grass while all those white glowing particles floated around him. Sure, other games like Mario 64 or Banjo Kazooie were already doing it, but Ocarina of Time was my own door.
I could go on and write poems about the gameplay, the story, the cleverness in the dungeons’ puzzle design (that I honestly believe had a lot to do at the development and formation of my own personal cleverness); but what has always stuck with me and had been part of my life since then is the music. I can’t even finish writing the word “Gerudo” before starting humming in my head that Spanish guitar, or better yet, those magnificent orchestral arrangements that I had heard hundreds of times with Symphony of the Goddesses. The OoT soundtrack has almost become my own life’s soundtrack; if I’m feeling reflexive, I subconsciously hear the Fairy’s Fountain theme; if I need to strengthen my senses and feel brave, the main theme or the aforementioned Gerudo Valley song will do the trick.
The Legend of Zelda is the series of games of which I have played the most entries; it was my gaming alma mater. I loved A Link to the Past dungeon levels and the Dark Overworld music theme; I let Majora’s Mask play with my head with its dark psyched subjects; I appreciated Twilight Princess’s graphic effort… and so on. I’m still eager to put my hands all over Breath of the Wild’s massive Hyrule and its RPG/survivor system*. But for me, all of it always comes back to that game, the cornerstone of all awesomeness.
Games will come and be gone, but unfortunately for them, their future is certain: for my sake, they will be always be measured by the greatest rule of all, the rule of Hyrule.
Cue to the big treasure opening theme.
*I have already played it. It messes up my list.
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Image sources:
Rocket League
Red Dead Redemption
Assassin's Creed 2
The Witcher 3
The Legend of Zelda