Originally, this started as summary of thoughts about BEYOND: Two Souls, but it's quickly morphed into another mess of ideas and feelings, and I hope to be able to do a regular segment.
I've been told by people close to me that I'm too trusting.
Maybe it's because I've been hurt before. Maybe it's because I know that pain sucks, and I don't like to put anybody through it. Maybe it's all some subconscious desire to get an angle on everybody (and not to break off into this tangent, but needless to say I'm actually quite useless at this). Whatever happens to be the case, I think I can empathise well with people.
That's the reason I find it hard to be evil in video games, and as such I can use it as a judge of what games I like, and what games I don't. In my favourite games, I can actually feel the characters as people in real life, with real stories and emotional states (which is great, considering that games are state machines). Even to those background characters there to add ambience, I can just imagine the stories of the people and want to bring them no harm based on what could be. In the absolute best games, I have difficulty in killing the enemies as I imagine what it must be like to be just "doing your job". Dishonored was great at this, tying consequence to every death.
To take this even further, the best games I've played are able to hide everything. They lower my analytical defences and suck me right into the experience. Bugs and glitches suddenly become aspects of the world I just accept. The character's motives and missions match mine. For me, the best games will hide the fact that they're a game, and blur the line between the developer's created world and my own perceived reality, to a point where I can easily transfer the lessons between each. This is, in part, my mission; to create games that are able to suck players in, so that the practical lessons I want to teach hit that much harder and stay with the player for much longer.
I know I'd make a lot of enemies this way, but in terms of how I've gamed in the past, I've never been super fortunate. For most of my early years it was demo disks and budget titles. I managed to stretch a Windows 98 budget PC right up until about 2005/2006. Even with countless upgrades, I've still yet to have an incredible 60FPS, 1080p experience with maximum graphics that other PC gamers always bang on about. I'm one of the people gifted (or cursed) to be able to not have headaches with an inconsistent and/or low framerate, and I've never been really bothered by FoV (Side Note: In terms of development, I do really care about these things when making my own games for other people, but as a personal preference, it's not a big deal for me as an individual, so long as the game experience is brilliant).
For that reason, I think that's why, when I choose the games I want to play, it has less to do with numbers and stats, and more to do with design and concept.
People have berated me for every game I've ever liked, be it Ratchet & Clank, Sam & Max, Assassin's Creed, Heavy Rain, Uplink and far more. I've learned to ignore it, but with that said, I've still been left questioning...
...why do I enjoy these games? Not just the ones listed, but all the ones on my favourites list?
BEYOND: Two Souls is what started this chain of thought. In trying to platinum this game (I'd like to one day have a blog entry about Achievements, and how I think they can be made practical), during the many countless scenes I had to reply to unlock various trophies, I started to have conversations with myself. In all honesty, I found that BEYOND had great moments, and so many great elements. But there was things missing. Something that put it on the list of my "Liked" games, but not my "Favourite" games.
That's what I want to do, for the next few weeks. To trace my gaming history, and to find the games I love dearly so, and break them down. I need to discover what makes me love them, how I love them, and what lessons I can take away for design. If I'm really good, I might even answer two other questions; why did others not like these games as much as I did, and how would I fix them if I was given time and a big budget?
There's two last questions I'd also like to answer, and it's one that's far more personal.
"How has this game changed my life?" And if so, was that change more positive or negative? Just maybe, I'll be able to trace down why I'm so trusting, alongside why my narcissism is so bad among other personality flaws.
It'd be nice if people held me to some kind of rough schedule, given the fact I now find time slipping with all the other various bits and pieces of projects I'm working on in the background, but realistically, I will try and do right by my audience and be as orderly as possible.
As a final note, you might have noticed that all the games I've mentioned (with a few exceptions) are story-heavy and AAA. In the long run, I will absolutely need to discuss puzzle games and Indie games. The thing about puzzle games, however, is that since I'm a writer who wants to teach, and most puzzle games are designed to be time-wasting, many of the ones I spend a lot of time in go against my own principles I wish to live by, and as such I won't include in my favourites list.
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