Star Wars: Rebellion by a long shot. And that’s saying something considering how much I loved Jedi Academy and X-Wing vs TIE.
Having characters run missions that shaped the course of the Galaxy really helped the game write its own stories in the Star Wars universe. Things could happen like Chewie becoming force sensitive, getting trained by Luke, and then Chewie could lead a mission to blow up a Death Star!
The constant cat and mouse game between the Rebels and the Empire was exciting. The game has kind of been reimplemented in a board game by the same name by Fantasy Flight Games. The board game is good, but there’s still magic about the original that I haven’t seen replicated anywhere else.
Rebellion was one of my first strategy games and I absolutely loved following the careers of all the characters I read about in the books. It’s what built the foundation of my love for grand strategy games like Stellaris.
For me it was how scary the game got a few levels in. The probe droids with the deserted homes where you get ambushed, oof. Had to have my dad play through those levels while I watched, but he didn’t know where to go so I eventually had to gather the courage to do it myself!
So I have a lot of thoughts on this that I have repeatedly failed to word in a way that I am happy with, so I am going to sideline a lot of those to focus on some more high-level thoughts:
As many have noted, there would probably be significantly better discussion happening if the ideas in the post were framed in a less antagonistic way. While I don’t think the post should be removed, it has been reported multiple times as “obvious rage-bait”, and I have a hard time disagreeing with that view. It is hard to take criticisms of things you like when the tone of that criticism is condescending and antagonistic. This isn’t helped by all the “reasons” given are very subjective and vague, with no concrete examples given to give a reader any context for what you think falls in these categories. In my experience, this type of “conversation” (I hesitate to call it a “conversation” because I think the structure makes having an actual conversation nearly impossible) is really prevalent amongst men who studied STEM and Redditors. Rather than a discussion about preferences in games and strengths/weaknesses of different storytelling styles, it encourages “I’m right, you’re wrong” argumentation, which just won’t be as fruitful and serves mostly to build tension within the community. For me personally, while I do think the ideas in the post make for interesting discussions/conversations, I don’t believe it is possible when this is the initial framing. I hope we can avoid this discussion/argumentation style on beehaw.
As for a more general thoughts on the contents of the post: this feels like it could be condensed down to “I only like a very specific and limited type of storytelling and view anything outside of that as lesser and flawed.” It is also comes off as a very simplistic and “rationalist” analysis of storytelling. It is focused only on tropes and structure and ignores how those tropes might be used to emphasize a theme, or the emotional impact of those stories.
I agree with you fully! Only thing I did not really like is the part about this sort of communication being “really prevalent amongst men who studied STEM and Redditors”. I know you prefaced it with “in my experience”, but it still feels a bit generalizing and not really relevant to the rest of the post. I think the behaviour should be called out, but pinning it on a group always feels a bit “us vs them”. Feel free to reply and discuss further, unlike OP I am looking for connection and mutual understanding :)
I could never get into Bioshock for some reason. I started playing it twice, but just never felt super engaged or intrigued. Which seems really weird to me because I love a compelling story and that game has a reputation for being a great story. Maybe I just haven’t been in the right mood and need to give it another shot.
Depending on how many hours you played, you might not have reached the point that gave it that reputation. I absolutely loved the story already, including the characters and the environment of Rapture, but there’s a certain point in the story where it gets taken to a new level.
Appreciate the perspective. Maybe it’s just not for me. But I may also give it another shot at some point since I’m not inclined to spend a lot of money on games these days and that one’s already in my Steam library.
The villain would have won, if he’d just had the good sense to NOT BE OBVIOUSLY EVIL FOR LIKE HALF AN HOUR. You could have just celebrated your victory over the first bad guy while you let the hero meander back to the surface and fuck off forever. But NO, you have to be like “HAHAHA I’M EVIL SO FUCK YOU!” and now the hero has literally no choice but to stay and kill you. It was so lazy, and so stupid. Up to that point, it was good, and I loved the twist, and then he had to go completely ruin it with a boneheaded move that made 0 sense except to show how evil he was.
Then Bioshock 2 fucking did the same thing again. Let these meddling interlopers get on the submarine and go away, and you’ve won, all your goals are complete, Rapture is yours. BUT NO, we have to show the reader how EVIL the bad guy is again.
Then Bioshock Infinite did it fuckingagain. Great, we’ve won, the revolution is a success, the good guys are triumphant, oh, shit, did we make these people too sympathetic? Better have them suddenly become bloodthirsty child-killers for no reason so you feel ok fighting them instead of fucking off back home! By that point, though, it was kind of a Dead Dove: Do Not Eat situation; I don’t know why I expected anything different after the previous two times.
People who don’t like anything are incredibly boring, in my humble opinion. Imagine putting all of this effort into an essay about why other people shouldn’t like the things that they like. I think a lot of people mistake being a contrarion for being an intellectual.
Oxenfree, A Night in the Woods, Afterparty, and Gris. Gris is a masterpiece when it comes to visuals but not story-heavy. The other three are entirely story.
Seconding Oxenfree. It’s one of the few multi-choice/multi-ending games where I was completely content with the ending I got, and didn’t feel like the game ever lied to me or ripped me off for choosing the “wrong” thing. I had stayed away from it for so long because I wasn’t ready to deal with choice anxiety that I get in a lot of games of that type, but for whatever reason, the game never made me feel like that.
Oh yes choice anxiety was definitely a thing. I think I felt that more with Afterparty and even played the game a second time to try to alter things but at the end of the day, I realized it’s not that serious and simply enjoying the game made it a better experience.
Returnal, Resident Evil REmakes, most Giant Bomb games, Firewatch, Hellblade…
If you liked Alan Wake, definitely give the RE remakes and Hellblade a shot, and don’t sleep on Firewatch. In fact, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice is probably one of the most thoughtful and atmospheric experiences in gaming (at least in the field of 3rd person, pseudo action games).
It is not a normal suggestion because the base game is probably the most pay to win mmo that has lasted more than a year or two. But both versions of Runescape (both old school and Runescape 3) have a game mode called ironman mode.
Ironman mode is an official account type that you can create where you can not trade other players items or money. Everything is earned and gathered yourself. If you want to make a bow you need to gather the flax to spin a bow string and chop logs to fletch an unstrung bow and then string it.
It is a slower mmo with most skills in the game having methods to train where you don’t need to pay much attention and you can mostly watch youtube.
Both games also have very mechanically different and difficult combat encounters you can work your way up to.
Maxing out every skill in the game takes year(s) to do and there are hundreds of incredibly unique quests that in my own opinion set the bar for mmo questing. There are no kill 30 boar quests or fetch quests (really) they are mostly very in depth stories with character archs and so much lore if you are into that.
Would recommend OS over RS3, because much as I love archaeology, RS3 is overmonetised (I think most of the community agrees with that?), and that seems like a big part of what OP wanted to get away from.
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