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FINDING MY FAVOURITE GAME by Mr Biffo

15/5/2015

14 Comments

 
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What's your favourite game ever? I could - at a push - probably name my favourite musical album ever. I could, potentially, name my favourite movie ever, and my favourite book ever. 

But my favourite game? It damages my brain to try and boil it down to a definitive.

The game I've completed more than any other is Half-Life 2. I still remain seduced by the atmosphere of that world, all that fannying around with the Gravity Gun, and the constant barrage of ideas, but I'm done with it now. As beautifully designed as it might be, it's stating to show its age next to current-gen titles, and I'm over-familiar with its tricks.

As I've stated before, the game I've had the strongest emotional connection to is The Last of Us. The story might be slight, but it engaged me. It involved me. I've never felt like I cared what happened to a games character before it, but I've played it through twice now, and I know what to expect. I don't want to play through it again: that big shock at the end of the second act would lose its impact a third time. Its narrative linearity is, ultimately, to its detriment.

The game I've played the most is, probably, either COD: Modern Warfare or Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved - the former for the online play, the latter for obsessively trying to beat my high scores. These days I rarely play online, because most of my mates now have better things to do, and though I'm still occasionally playing Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions, even that has lost its hold on me.

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SWELLINGTON
I reserve my biggest swell of affection (matron) for Skool Daze. I mean, I genuinely love it - the sound effects, the graphics, the early sandbox thrill of wandering around a familiar British school being A Naughty Boy... but... it's an old, old game.
 
I accept that, if you're comparing it to something like GTA V, then there is no comparison; it's akin to comparing a chicken embryo to a roast dinner with all the trimmings..

What I love isn't Skool Daze as it is; it's the game as it was, in the context of when I first played it. That context - the who I am, and the how the games industry was in the mid-80s - no longer exists.

Old games, generally, do not age well. Unlike music, they are for the most part stepping-stones to something more sophisticated, part of an evolutionary process. Let's face it, given the choice between dating the world's most awful homo sapien, and the world's best early bipedal hominid - such as Australopithecus - well... y'know. Let's just say you wouldn't want to take Australopithecus to meet your mother, even if you had somehow gotten him into a pair of clean pants.


FRUSTY THE SNOWMAN

Being unable to name my favourite game is something that has always frustrated me. 

Let's try the whole Desert Island Games thing; if you were stuck on a desert island, which video game would you want to be there with? Which game could you easily play for the rest of your life? When I try to think that way, it swings me back round to the endless replayability of Geometry Wars, but there's a barrier there, something stopping me wanting it to be my favourite game. 

And I think that's it: I want my favourite game to be one that I feel in some way defines me, not one that I'm choosing because it offers a potentially endless cause-and-effect high score challenge. 

I want my favourite game to be one that has helped shaped me, and means something to me, and Geometry Wars doesn't do that. Skool Daze comes close, for sure, but the more I think about it, the more I recall my frustrating playing it. It was a chore, frankly - and getting to the stuff that I liked was like chipping away at a granite block to get to the bar of Dairy Milk at its core.

But maybe I'm missing the point. Maybe I'm trying to make video games like movies, or music, or books, when they're not. As a medium, games are defined by technology more than any other art form. Any list that tries to name the Top 100 Video Games of All Time should be renamed The Most Stupid List Ever. Games are so diverse, so open to subjectivity and individual taste, that trying to list them in order of bestness is akin to trying to list The Top 10 Parts of a Badger.


So perhaps that's it. Ultimately, I don't have one definitive, defining, video game that I know is my favourite. Perhaps I just love games, and - while there are some I enjoy more than others - maybe it's fine that there isn't one that I could safely say is head and shoulders above all the rest in my eyes. Or in my heart.

Not yet anyway. 

Ohhh... to Hell with it. Maybe it is Skool Daze. Or The Last of Us. Or Goldeneye. Or Super Mario World. Or Pyjamarama.


FROM THE ARCHIVE:
  • I WAS A BAFTA GAMES JUDGE by Mr Biffo
  • IMMERSIVE THEATRE IS FOR GAMERS by Mr Biffo
  • THE POWER OF NOWSTALGIA by Mr Biffo







14 Comments
LewisQ
15/5/2015 01:20:15 pm

But - this is all wrong! Deus Ex is clearly the best game of all time, closely followed by Deus Ex: Human Revolution - a technological upgrade which reinforced the brilliance of the original.

Deus Ex was the first game I actually physically bought with "hard" cash, never having been much of a gamer. I bought it on the strength of one favourable review, in a teletext-based gaming magazine. I think it was called Computo-Read Magazine or something.

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Penyrolewen
15/5/2015 04:27:20 pm

Word up Biff.
Unlike your normal missives, I'm not sure you boiled this one down to its essentials. To me, a lot like with music, it's the context- yeah, yeah you said it but you dint EXPLAIN it proper.
First, 'when'. There ain't many who'd play Horace Goes Skiing now, for the first time, and like it. It's cack. But back then, it was ground breaking (a bit). That also applies to other 'seminal' games- Manic Miner, Knight Lore, Elite. Amazing then. Shit now. You had to be there, maaaan.
Then there is 'where' which is a bit like 'when' but about you. Goldeneye multiplayer, endlessly, in your student house, with like-minded mates, is a lot better than a few goes with your wife while the kids are temporarily asleep. Same for Halo, COD, whatever. I had a lot of amazing nights with 2 mates playing Wip3out- with a toaster in the living room. We passed the controller clockwise after each race, if it wasn't your race next then you got a slice of toast (a race being the perfect time to toast and butter 2 slices. The toasting duty rotated too. We got the highest accolade (whatever it was) on all tracks with all vehicles. Took a lot of nights, a lot of beer, cigs and mother's pride)
Then 'who'. Kind of similar to the above. Wip3out alone is not as much fun. I tried. And taking turns, learning from each other's mistakes, laughing when they get it wrong, cheering when someone cracks it, is (or can be) so much more fun than doing it on you own. But on the other hand, a solitary, deeply immersive campaign can be so much more profound than a shared one. Depends where your head's at at the time...(maaaan)
But also, as you again kinda mentioned, games don't last. Books, film and music sometimes do. Some date terribly, some are timeless. But all games date, given long enough, and it's not even that long. You can't go back and enjoy it the same way, even if your first play through was alone. Even if a game wasn't all that ,graphically, when you first played it, and you didn't care, in 10 years you WILL. It'll look so bad you won't see past that.
So, in summary, before I go on forever, I reckon you NEARLY pinned it down. For me, it's favourite game MEMORIES. Unlike other media, you can't enjoy it again in the same way (I know that is true to some extent with other media, especially music, but none date quite so badly). My favourite games are Manic Miner (solitary), MatchDay (with my brothers), Elite (solitary), Super Mario World (group play) Tomb Raider 1,2, and 3 (with my wife), Wip3out (with toast), Red Dead Redemption (solitary) and Super Mario 3D world (with my son). But I can't recreate those experiences. Just got to hope for more as good!
On a desert island? Dunno. I'm stopping. Hit me with some contrary shizzle and maybe I'll have thought this out a bit more clearly i.e with less alcohol involved. Nice article!

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Jabberwoc
16/5/2015 05:14:54 am

I agree with the erudite toast-muncher above. I'd also like to add that the age you first play a game, with the surrounding spirit of the age i.e. the current music plays a large part. If, like me, you like Road Rash on the Megadrive to remind you of Ozzy's "No More Tears" you're going to be disappointed nowadays for as excellent as Red Dead Redemption is, you'll never remember it to a soundtrack of "MAJOR LAZER FT MO & DJ SNAKE" or "CLEAN BANDIT".

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Keith
16/5/2015 03:17:28 am

"Its narrative linearity is to its detriment"

Not sure I agree with this - the narrative is its biggest strength, slight as it is, the emotional investment on the first play through is what it's all about. I'm currently playing Dying Light, which I'm really enjoying but ultimately won't really remember any emotional connection to, while I can still get goosebumps about the Last Of Us. It's just trying to do something different.

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kelvingreen link
16/5/2015 03:35:34 am

Well this is easy. My favourite game ever is Sonic 2.

Or maybe it's Turrican.

Or Super Mario World.

Or Baldur's Gate II.

Or The Secret of Monkey island.

... okay, point taken. If I had only one to play forever on a desert island, it would be Turrican.

Or...

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Beavis
24/5/2015 05:12:34 am

Or Turrican 2

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kelvingreen link
24/5/2015 08:09:46 am

Ha1 Yes, or that.

Old Red
16/5/2015 07:37:34 am

Secret of Mana

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ted sallis
16/5/2015 01:55:56 pm

Games are like arseholes, we've all got one...?,,,,, imposs to pick just one arsehole (game), but i can just aboot boil it doon to fav game (arsehole) on systems i have owned
Megadrive -Ex Mutants
Saturn - Shinobi X
Ps1 - Resident Evil 2
Dreamcast - Shenmue 1 &2
Ps2 - Gran Turismo 4
Gamecube - Res 4
Ps3 - Uncharted
Xbox 360 - Deadpool
Ps4 - The Last Of Us

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Klone
17/5/2015 09:45:26 am

I can't name my favourite anything. Whenever I ask my brain a 'Favourite' question it blasts a bleep load of images at me, similarly to how Bad Influence used to do that thing at the end where you had to record it and play it back in slow mo to read reviews and cheats and stuff, or drop acid and read it all at once, backward, in Swahili. I am also dismayed by this, but I guess it just means I've seen/played/read/drank/eaten/suckled on so many great things that choosing one is impossible.

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penyrolewen
19/5/2015 04:21:05 am

I'm kind of with you on the music thing, some music does need you to have been there or have some understanding of why it was so amazing at the time but I don't know if that's true of all music. Disregarding classical, jazz etc., some 'popular' music has dated terribly - some of the Beatles certainly, The Sugar Hill Gang definitely, your other examples too, but I would still argue that some would hold up on a first listen with no context at all. Sticking with the Beatles example, I would say that Abbey Road, Revolver, Let it Be (maybe) would still be well regarded now without any cultural context at all. Anything before Revolver would not, Sgt Pepper's is definitely 'of it's time' although with some great tracks. The White Album? No. There are other examples too - Led Zeppelin 1 is just a great blues album (apart from Jimmy Page's noodle Indian inspired stuff), 'The Stone Roses' is way less dated than other 'Madchester' era britpop, 'Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space' by Spititualized is not '90s' in any way. But maybe they're exceptions. Or maybe it's me - it's all subjective and these are bands that I like. But on the whole, I agree, most 60s music sounds way too 60s for today, same with the 70s, 80s, 90s...Maybe the great bands are great precisely because they CAN span eras?
With games, I don't think I had thought far enough into the modern era. OId games (Spectrum, C64, NES etc.) have of course dated and are by now virtually unplayable except for nostalgia reasons. I don't know how more modern fare will cope. I still play Rogue Squadron (gamecube) and it stands up fine. How PS3 and Xbox 360 games will be in 10 years I don't know - I imagine pretty good. Graphics haven't come on that much, gameplay mechanics change (regenerating life, spawning etc) but you can always enjoy a game for what it is and not all games follow these trends anyway.
But back on topic i.e favourites, I still stick to my original argument that 'it depends'. Pretty conclusive there, huh? But that's why this is an interesting topic - lots of viewpoints.

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Super Bad Advice
18/5/2015 04:52:04 am

It's the bleedin' obvious arty bollocks choice, but if we're talking games that actually affect you, it's got to be Shadow of the Colossus.

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colincidence link
18/5/2015 04:55:31 pm

I argue that music does work in a similar way to this. Starting with popular song since 1960: If we cut The Beatles from history - with no knock-on effects - and pasted them into Right Now, someone born this century would see them as kinda dull, right?
The Beatles were amazing because of what they did that was new. This is true of landmark 'best ever' video games - though I admit games are more tightly bound to technological progress.

If you don't like this analogy with The Beatles, replace them with someone else who brought a lot to music or is considered the progenitor of a subgenre (The Sex Pistols, The Ramones, Little Richard, The Sugar Hill Gang). Music composition through history is definitely an evolutionary process, though, if you look on a scale of millennia.

So, I'm saying... when a youngling discovers media from before their time, their appreciation bears an element of how well they understand the past culture it's from.
[a related concept is 'Seinfeld Is Unfunny', google that]

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Clint Magnum
23/5/2015 05:07:08 am

Newbies..
Tuesday night, EVERYONE sat around the telly, Atari 2600 booted up and Decathlon inserted. End of.

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