The Games I Consider Unforgettable: Part One

One of my previous blog posts was why I wanted to forget about a game (Pokémon) so that I could play it again for the first time. I figured that it would be good to do a follow up post about games that I find unforgettable, either because of the time of my life when I played them or because they represented such a significant shift that made them totally important to me as a gamer.

This list is, of course, going to be mostly just a few titles with a lot of overthinking between each one, as per my usual method. Of course, this is all from my own perspective; games, like any other media, do not exist in a cultural vacuum and suck in all kinds of associations, good or bad, of the world around them. Why don’t you let me know what games you find unforgettable? I want to test out my commenting system after all!

Minecraft

The first game that is on my list is also one of the most obvious. Minecraft is such a massive title, so many millions of gamers play it daily and it has made entire YouTube careers for some people. Minecraft is one of those titles that has totally threaded itself into the public consciousness, so much so that many would consider it more as a phenomenon than as an actual game. You may roll your eyes at reading this, as the block-building game is one of the most talked about, unavoidable things on the Internet, much to the annoyance of many, but that is exactly why its impact cannot be understated.

(Video credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLRwxgccZt0)

For me, however, Minecraft’s big impact predates it hitting the big public consciousness, and is less about the mainstream phenomena and more about the game itself and what it represented and came to represent. For me, Minecraft represented a shift that gaming needed.

Looking at the time before Minecraft was available to the public (2009, almost 8 years ago…), there was a big problem in gaming regarding creativity. Gamers everywhere were fatigued with Call of Duty rip-offs and generic FPS titles, and it felt like gaming was at risk of becoming stagnant. This video, released just a few years later, attempted to pull apart the reasoning behind this fatigue.

Minecraft certainly didn’t solve the issue of innovation in gaming; if it had, the video that I had linked wouldn’t have been made. However, it had started a trend towards innovation. Between all of the ‘me-too’ copies and survival games that came out trying to emulate the success of gaming’s newest darling, what Minecraft showed was that indie gaming was viable. Pre-Minecraft, yes there were a few indies, but not at the level that it is now. I think that Minecraft was the smoking gun that launched the rise of indie gaming to the level that it has gotten to now, for better or for worse.

Why else I won’t forget Minecraft as a game? That reason is simple; it is a good game. I loved it, the charm of the graphic design (again, a show of aesthetic over horsepower), the satisfying loop of mining and crafting, the music and the sense of doing something productive, turning what would otherwise be hours spent shooting monsters into hours spent making something, even if nobody got to see what I made, at least I made it. It was a paradigm shift in terms of the trend and in terms of the game, and I love it for that.

On top of that, Minecraft was enjoyable and relaxing. It was a game that understood that games can be played to unwind. For a long while, my go-to option when booting up a PC and trying to decide what game to play was to shrug my shoulders and play Minecraft until I made my choice. It had a very easy point of access.

For me, Minecraft represents gaming in its purest form; discovery, creativity, enjoyment and relaxation, and ultimately coming away feeling like you got something out of the whole experience. That is why I find it an unmissable, unforgettable game.

Halo: Combat Evolved

I spoke previously about Halo: CE as an excellent co-op split-screen title, and that is part of why it is on the list; the multiplayer aspect of the game has been some of the purest fun that I have had with other gamers, ever, and the maps are so memorable I still have the memory of how Blood Gulch looks in my mind’s eye to this day.

(Video credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6T5WHpKK-E)

But the second part on why I put it on this list is because of the time my Xbox 360 red-ringed; lacking a current-gen machine I was forced to play the original Halo on the original Xbox. However, that was where I discovered a love for the single player campaign. For the time, the graphics may not have been at the top of what the generation could offer, but the atmosphere, the use of colour, and the way the sound melded into the gameplay, rendered the experience one of the best I have ever had in a single player campaign. My favourite time in Halo will always be flying a Banshee across a snowbound crevasse at twilight.

Halo is on this list because it is overall a great game that is brilliantly made and designed, and while it isn’t particularly amazing or paradigm shifting as other games, it is still very worthy of praise for being just a good game.

Pokémon Red and Blue

The reason that I blogged about this being a game I want to forget is because this game is so unforgettable. That is a strange statement to say, but so much about the game was so iconic that the enjoyment of any Pokémon game is subject to criticisms of the game being formulaic. So much about the original Pokémon games were so memorable that they created a formula that was as instantly cliché as it was iconic, like the ‘I am your father’ moment of The Empire Strikes Back; if any other property attempted to do the same thing as Pokémon it would result in a lot of eye-rolls and derision, much like how any attempt to pull off a villain being a hero’s father in a film is incredibly difficult thanks to the fame of the given example. This is probably why it is difficult to find a Pokémon clone that truly captures the original’s magic.

(Video credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj8k9ajTe2g)

Pokémon was uniquely placed in the time that it was significant, and is so wrapped up in its time that it has been used as a descriptor for a generation of people. It is telling that one of the greatest fads of mobile gaming hit at just the right age to capture the generation that were the right age for it to become a fad on mobile. It may have been excellent marketing, but I think that there was something so magical about the first two games that I have already gushed about; the sense of adventure, of coming of age and becoming stronger, the strong relationships developed with the Pokémon themselves thanks to the design of the game, the collect-‘em-all gimmick along with creature variety so wide enough to make it vital, the music, the graphics, all of it was so uniquely Pokémon that it became a massive, significant part of many gamers’ lives, mine included.

My Favourite Co-Op Games

I am sad that two-player split screen has been on the way out for so long, to be replaced by online communities and competitive play.  So many of my fondest memories in gaming, particularly multiplayer gaming, have come from times spent on the couch playing with my friends.

There is so much to be said for playing on a couch with your friends. The experience of being together, shouting at one another and having loud, rowdy fun is just difficult to match. I love couch gaming with my friends and some of my best social memories are with them!

I much prefer co-op to competitive gaming, because the act of working together toward a goal really builds the friendship and competitive can just get too heated sometime. It is nice to just unwind, kick back with a friend and a few snacks and play together. So without further ado, here are my favourite titles to play with friends on co-op!

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

This game is just excellent fun. I was introduced to this game by a close friend of mine who was a huge fan of Tomb Raider. The swashbuckling action is really well designed, as are the puzzles. I love the rolling-stone puzzles in particular and the way in which you can co-operate together to solve the different challenges is interesting and engaging. The top-down perspective, you wouldn’t expect to work so well with a Tomb Raider game, but here it works well, allowing interesting puzzle-solving opportunities in the context of the perspective of the game.

One of my issues with Guardian of Light is that it is a little bit on the repetitive side, however, especially as one works toward the endgame, and the difficulty can spike sometimes in an odd way, particularly when you are trying to work toward getting all of the collectibles, but overall it is a very fun experience when playing with friends and I would definitely recommend it.

Halo: Combat Evolved

I first was introduced to Halo by a friend of mine, just before the Xbox 360 came out. We stayed up all night with pizza and played co-operatively through the campaign, and then we binged Halo 2 the night after. If that doesn’t tell you all you need to know about how enjoyable it is to co-op Halo then I don’t know what will, but I will certainly try!

The game is just fun, and the way you can approach the missions basically makes it a playground. The variety of weapons both Covenant and human enable you to have a lot of fun playing around and finding a playstyle that works. The driving sections are also a great demonstration of how the co-op works in Halo, where one person can be on the gun and the other driving. I have had many fun nights shouting at my friend’s driving while he was sending us careening off of cliffs.

Halo isn’t without its issues, and sometimes with how dated the combat is, it can feel a little clunky to aim at times, and some weapons are just overpowered to the point of breaking the game, and oftentimes the game can be too difficult in places, particularly with the Flood. There are certain levels around the mid-point of the game that can extend overlong, and the drab colour on show in these levels when compared to the vibrant designs of earlier stages just makes it that bit more of a slog, but overall as an experience the first Halo is an adventure through-and-through, especially when played together with a friend.

Diablo III:

Many dislike Diablo III because of how it simplified and streamlined the series’ gameplay, and a few of the business decisions around the game. Putting that aside for a second, I love playing Diablo III with my partner and her brother. We always love to play an action-RPG game together, and I found that this game had a really fun style.

I often played a tank style as the Crusader, and my partner would play as a Witch Doctor, while her brother used to play as a Demon Hunter. We had a lot of fun playing through the campaign together, and it was one of my favourite gaming memories.

I can’t say I would recommend Diablo III for everyone. There are some gamers that are annoyed by a lot of its design decisions and I think that they are valid complaints. However, I love how the combat is so fluid and rewarding, and the nature of being so instantly gratified by ever-increasing levels of loot is addictive and intoxicating. If you put aside Diablo’s shortcomings for the series, I think underneath is a genuinely enjoyable co-op experience.

Super Mario 3D World

Taking the insanity of New Super Mario Bros. Wii and applying it to a 3D formula on the Wii U was a stroke of genius. The platforming and controls are as tight as we have come to expect from Mario games and the aesthetic and graphic style looks phenomenal.

Super Mario 3D World is not just an excellent co-op game, but it is also an excellent all-around game, possibly one of the best in the current generation. Each level is full of wonderful secrets and Easter eggs, and it is impossible to play without smiling at the many cute and exciting references that there are on offer.

Some of the best times in the game are spent racing to get the green stars before other players, and frantically fighting for the best score and the right to wear a crown on one’s head during the levels. The love put into all aspects of Super Mario 3D World, the sound, the graphics, and the gameplay is wonderful, and if you can pick up a Wii U, I would recommend this game for anyone who is looking to play co-operatively with a friend. There may be elements of competitiveness, but overall the experience of 3D World will just leave you with a smile.  

Honourable mentions to Left 4 Dead, an enjoyable shooter but marred by some poor spikes in difficulty as a result of the AI director. An extremely fun game, especially as things get frantic. I also would recommend Gauntlet, a fun dungeon-crawler with easy-to-grasp, difficult-to-master gameplay, and Gears of War, which, while extremely violent and sometimes a little too tied into modern FPS tropes, is just a well-polished, well-made game that is very fun to play, especially the Horde mode. Portal 2 is one of the best examples of co-op in gaming, but I haven’t played it enough to justify putting it in the list for myself.

It is a shame that co-op isn’t as emphasised these days in game design, and more games are trying to become competitive online experiences. Competitive gaming is inherently confrontational and sometimes is a little less fun to play as it can become quite frustrating, so to have games out there that make people play together is always a good thing. I find that co-operative games, as a result, have a better online community and are nicer to play with others. I hope we never forget that familiar image of two or more people sat on a sofa together being loud and rowdy and just having fun playing games that they love.