I only ever got them off friends or when traveling into London. Then one day I discovered that you could set up a Streetpass ‘relay’ just by setting your home WiFi’s SSID to some secret string and then you’d be able to meet other people using the same SSID wherever they were in the world. It stopped working eventually, but me and about 6 other people somewhere in the world made good use of it!
Spec ops: The line. I think this was delisted from most stores though, so you might need to sail the high seas to get it. It might not be as impactful today as it was when it came out, but it’s a great game with a great twist.
Life is strange. It’s a story driven game, sure you can replay it and choose different things, but realistically you probably won’t since the main of the story is the same.
Batman games. Those were my go to for a while when I wanted something linear with an end.
I think it kinda falls into the same sort of category as citizen Kane. Important for what it did when it did it, but not really good by modern standards.
If I played this in 2012 at release I think I’d feel just the same. What do you find is important about this game? I’m curious as I see it mentioned all over the place, but I really don’t see what’s the big deal. Releasing a game where you shoot US soldiers, in the middle of hyper patriotism in the US, seems edgy for the time but that’s about it. The moral choices were few and only had impact in terms of a bit of flavor. No serious consequences.
I did enjoy the music and especially like the detail of the characters getting progressively dirtier as the game went on.
I haven’t played it, I’ve only experienced it through essays. I think it’s because it took a look at war and such from a pretty different perspective than other shooters had before, and examined the messier psychological aspects of it in a way that incorporated traditional shooter gameplay as hadn’t been done before?
Focusing on the gameplay really misses the point. It was practically an interactive story, but they wanted it to be a shooter so you’d feel more responsible for the outcome rather than just watching things unfold. And while the “choices” in game made little difference, that pretty much reinforced the message that some situations are basically fukt and “pushing forward” doesn’t make it any better.
Gameplay is 90% of time spent in the game, which is why it colored my experience so much. Regardless; what do you feel the game does well? Specific examples, please.
I read a ton of positive comments before playing it, and avoided spoilers for years. Turns out there’s much to spoil, IMO. There’s the white phosphorus scene, but you can’t even choose to not do that. It was very disappointing when I sat there and it railroaded me into using WP when my squad mate was telling me not to. I don’t feel it was a pioneer in any way, and feels quite dated even against games many years it’s senior. Bioshock came out five years earlier and has deeper social commentary, more engaging gameplay, and much better graphics.
If you have specific examples I’d love to hear them. It’s entirely possible I’m just not getting it, but I feel this game seemed epic for some console gaming teenagers in 2012 and it’s mostly nostalgia. I don’t feel the game did anything that special.
spoilerMy interpretation and granted it is probably a bit shaking as I havent played in a long time is: I personally found spec ops interesting into the slow descent into darkness, how your team is professional in the beginning and over time they become savage, to the point of blood thristiness, their animations changes, their speech, mannerisms and their models get gradually worn down. You do actions but over time you think wait - am I really doing the right thing, like if you decide to help the cia guy, you find out you’ve been played and just destroyed the water supply for a whole area that is in desparate need of it, this come back to haunt you later on when an angry mob catches up to one of your team. I still remember feeling vindictive of hearing my teammate scream in panic and fear as I was rushing to get to him Then to get there and see him murdered and and an angry mob looking for blood, my first reaction was vengeance not orderly dispersal… The character and the remaining team mate gunned down civilians mercilessly because I felt outrage at them killing one of my own… and the crowd had just cause to be pissed as your rag tag band of misfits have been blowing up commiting warcrimes after to warcrimes justifiying it to some “greater cause” As you play the game even the loading screen are questioning you if you are enjoying yourself and nothing is stopping you from continuing to play. It is quite in your face to say that what you are doing is wrong, but if you keep playing and by finishing the game you are justifying the main characters actions, you are complicit in the acts of violence as you the player are determined to see the game to the end just as he is Their original mission was to just scout… and it somehow turned into this Dubai tour de violence because the main character believes that there was a radio call from someone he idolised If I recall there is that scene at the end that shows all the bullshit, the hanged men, the voice on the radio your character thinks they see and hear is in their head - they have severe ptsd, and have “main character hero syndrome” and none of the game would have happened if they just followed orders
You’ve got a solid recollection of the events. I think my expectations were set too high from what I read online. It was decent, but I was expecting S tier.
I did really enjoy how “degraded” the characters got as they went through everything like you mention. Very nice little touch.
spoilerIt was watching like a train wreck in slow motion, I ended up just going along for the ride to see how far this rabbit hole would go I really tried to be trigger disciplined in the beginning only firing after the point of a negotiation seemed impossible and before I knew it I caught up in this zoned out mentality - no decision is right, all that matter is the mission, just trying to survive and just devolved into killing on sight and in scenes that feel like it is out of some fever dream - still remember that “lights out” section as someone in some sort animalistic fight or flight zone blinking and someone just appears in front of you I guess it stuck with me how the main character kept making excuses and blaming someone else for all the problems and by the end of it and you see that scene with the chair looking out at Dubai and see that “I caused this” and with that call backs to the the choices and saw how it all was just some “cope” it kind of stuck with me
I loved it. The mechanics of The Scene is still one of the most amazing bits of storytelling I’ve seen in a video game. I think about it frequently when I’m considering how video games can tell stories in ways that movies or books just can’t.
The game as a whole is good, but a little uneven IMO. But I’d put that scene up there with Braid for the sheer impact of storytelling-via-videogame-mechanics.
Tunic is a solid 10-15 hour adventure game, and I highly recommend playing without spoilers as several experiences are information-locked like Outer Wilds. It’s an isometric adventure game heavily inspired by Zelda with some Souls influence bleeding into the lore, mechanics, and boss fights. Replayability is limited to speedrunning and challenge runs.
Bastion is a wonderful adventure game with a heavy focus on combat. It’s a precursor to Hades from the same developer, and shares the same mechanical DNA minus the rogue-lite elements that Hades introduced. The followup game, Transistor, is also worth checking out, though it didn’t quite hit the same highs for me as Bastion. Both are 10-20 hour adventures with limited replayability if you want to achievement hunt.
“Finishing the game” comes before the “replayability” aspect though. You finish the game first, THEN you see if it’s replayable. So… Yes, I completely agree? Replaying is usually always optional lol
I kind of agree with OC’s sentiment. The game is a masterpiece, but the puzzle solving and metagame is half of the game, if not more. Once you’ve solved that, replaying it is just going through the motions of a pretty OK action adventure game. I dunno.
It’s like playing Braid after beating it. Another masterpiece of a game! You could speed run it—which I was very much into—but the thought of playing it again after that just doesn’t interest me. It’s just going through the motions.
That being said, its been years and years since I’ve played it and there’s a new anniversary edition coming out with new content. I’m almost certainly going to buy it.
I loved the built-in speed run of that game. You only had 45 minutes to beat the whole thing. The first time I accomplished that, my time was 44:58 and some change! I lost my shit that I managed to juuuust squeak in a win! 😂
I ended up getting it down to 37 minutes. There are so many tricks in that game to speed it up. I wonder what the official best time is. Back in the Xbox 360 days there were a lot of cheaters using the back-end to submit bullshit scores. Or people doing save trading and all having the exact same time down to 1/100 of a second.
I’ve got my Tunic time down quite a bit too, and since your upgrades carry over I’m super OP with my health, magic, and stamina spanning basically the entire screen lol. To me it’s fun to go in and just do a run here and there. Personal preference obviously but there’s certainly replayability there.
I definitely played through Bastion at least thrice. There is enough build variety that you can make another playthrough feel totally different, not to mention the difficulty modifiers. First game that I took the time to 100% for achievements.
Bastion’s story doesn’t necessitate multiple plays. Sure, it’s fun to play through again and try different builds. I’ve also 100%'ed the game.
The important thing, I think, for OP’s question is that it can be finished in one play. It has a satisfying ending from which the player can set down the game and move on.
I would somewhat disagree with Subnautica. There are lots of different settings you can tweak to make the game harder or more survival-oriented that might warrant a replay (although probably only one) if your first play-through was on a simpler/easier mode. Plus there are the creation modes where you can create your own base without restrictions, which sort of counts as replay? Mostly though the setting in Subnautica is quite unique, and short of playing Below Zero you won’t be able to find that vibe anywhere without playing the game again. However as a story-oriented game I’d agree it has lower-than-average replay value.
I find Subnautica has less replayability than other survival games since the map and questline is static. Once you know where everything is and you’ve seen all the plot beats there’s not much reason to play the game again unless you want to challenge yourself with a speedrun or, as you said, one of the harder difficulties.
I wouldn’t consider creative mode or sandbox mode to be a core part of the game. They’re great for fucking around or as an extended tutorial, but I see them more as external tools than as part of the game experience proper.
For me the story really drew me in. It was like watching Terminator 1 and 2 for the first time - you had no idea where it was going but it was going to be awesome.
I have watched both movies again, and while they are great they don’t hit the same as the first time.
I would absolutely consider replaying subnautica if managing inventories wasn’t so bad. Playing it to build up a base would be fun if it wasn’t such a frustrating process to deal with. I think all crafting should pull from all inventories in your base, and also preferably adding inventories just increases the size of one large abstract storage system of your base that you don’t need to worry about organizing.
As it is, once the story was done I was done. I had become so annoyed with building out my bases that I just couldn’t be bothered to do it again.
Please Don’t Touch Anything. What genre does it even belong in? It would have been a flash game if made 10 years earlier. You’re left at a console with a single large red button, and told to wait for a minute and don’t touch anything. Depending on how you interact with this console, there are many different things it can do/behaviors it can have, and your goal is to find all the different endings. It was entertaining, I don’t need to own it anymore.
Shenzhen I/O and TIS-100. Both Zachtronics assembly-em-up games, which…I don’t think there’s absolutely zero replayability, because you might redo the level you just did or go back to an earlier one with a solution you just learned from a later level, but I don’t know finishing these games feels less like beating Bowser at the end of Super Mario and more like graduating from high school. I’m done with that phase of my life and I can now move on.
Antichamber. The video game equivalent of a Piet Mondrian painting. It’s an abstract and brain knitting non-euclidean first person puzzle game that uses its surreal mechanics as a metaphor for the journey of life itself, and halfway though you get a gun that shoots cubes and it turns back into a video game. A lot of the actual impact of the game comes from how it comments on the epiphany you just had, and that effect is spoiled somewhat by “Oh I remember this part.” I will note there is a speedrunning community for this game.
Firewatch. There are some games where you’ll watch a Let’s Play, decide you want to have a go, so you’ll buy and play the game. Not Firewatch; a Let’s Play gives you 96.4% of the experience. It’s a walking simulator that probably should have just been a short film. I’m not even convinced it is a “video game” because…how do you play it well or poorly? Like do we need a new term like “narrative software” or something?
I liked firewatch, even though I usually dislike walking simulators. It really was a good mesh of dialogue and voice actors, unlike others where the dialogue just drags.
Interactivity really helps relate to the character you’re playing even if you’re not making any actual choices. And like you said, the dialogues are done pretty well to be enjoyable and not annoying. I liked Firewatch a lot.
So did I, which is why I listed it among good games that have no replay value. I enjoyed the thing that it is, I appreciated the visual style, it’s well performed…it’s one of the better walking simulators. The ending is controversial, which I take to mean it’s a work of art.
Firewatch is more in the visual novel category. I did in fact give it a replay with completely different choices to see how it changed things, and was disappointed to find that all choices are merely for aesthetics and make zero difference in the plot. However it’s a well-made enough game (especially dialogue and voice acting) that it was still kinda fun to play again.
I was going to write anti chamber, because I never want to play it again, but %'s 30-90 of the way through the game I was itching to start over. It had me so hooked, but then the ending just took the wind out of the sails so hard. Heck maybe 10-98% of the game had me itching to replay it.
When I think back on my time with AntiChamber, I don’t really think about the ending. I really think of the beginning up through getting the green gun. It starts leaning farther into the direction of Talos Principle or Portal at that point.
To me the game was about the experience of coming to terms with this strange new world you’ve found yourself in, and the THIS IS AN ALLEGORY wall tiles. It’s impressive how long the developer managed to keep that schtick up.
For me pretty much every single linear / story type game. Even great ones I sometimes attempted to have another run but would immediately get bored and ended up quitting. They just don't really offer anything to me to make it worth it. Even a lot of New Game Plus modes aren't cutting it, because they're typically just some extra items or abilities.
Hmm, tough question since a lot of them I played personally years ago as I eventually began EA & Ubisoft, which have some of the more commonly known franchises here and the feelings I have towards them unfortunately also tainted their games and the experiences I had with them. And I also generally got much more into more open ended / non linear type of genres like sandbox, open world or 4X games.
I guess I enjoyed Horizon Zero Dawn quite a bit, I also love TLoU Part 1 & 2, even though Part 2 is probably the heaviest story game I've seen (not played since there's no PC port yet but I watched stupid amounts of Let's Plays at this point), a little underdog / hidden gem is probably CrossCode, which was a complete surprise hit for me and one of those games that I will always try to sell whenever I can get the opportunity for it.
Agreed. I feel the same of most story games. My favs such as: The last of us, God of War, Spiderman, Midnight Suns, FF7R, FF16, Like a Dragon, Days Gone, new Ratchet and Clank. The games don’t really offer anything new upon replay so I consider them one-and-dones.
OneShot is very much based on its story and immersion. Contrary to the title’s implication, there’s not so much potential for risk during play, even if it’s themed that way, but it does feel like any efforts to repeat the game would ruin some of the immersive thoughts present.
Baba is You - simplistic graphically, but immensely satisfying mechanically. Amazing puzzle game.
Celeste - gorgeous graphics and buttery smooth controls, a platformer that is encouraging and supportive all the way through but ranges from “easy as pie” to “hard as nails” as you progress. One of the most satisfying games to complete every level for. One of the best soundtracks ever. Trans rights!
Fez - another simple-ish at face value platformer game, but this time with puzzles as the main thread instead of action. Super satisfying puzzles and an amazing soundtrack.
Omori - an RPG which eventually deals with some heavy subject matter but does so tastefully and maturely. It’s a splendid story either way you spin it, and lots of fun.
Undertale - same as above, but shorter and more “punchy”. One of the best soundtracks in gaming, and a cast of characters you’ll come to feel like your family. It’s quite subversive for the genre, so it’s a fun experience. It has an episodic sister game Deltarune which is still in the works.
Void Stranger - a block-pushing styled game, but incredibly subversive for the genre. Gorgeous visuals, great soundtrack, and some truly mindbending puzzles. It gets super hard, but it’s also super satisfying to beat.
Stardew Valley - cozy farming game, really just oozing passion and love from the developer(s). Lots to do, many unique people to meet and things to see. Pretty graphics and stunning soundtrack. Fall in love with an NPC, marry them if you want. Or don’t do any of that. Make your own fun in this one, there’s a bunch of aspects to get into.
Citizen Sleeper - not technically 2d but may as well be. A gripping, beautiful sci-fi story, told in a tabletop RPG style. You won’t be able to help falling in love with the rag-tag character cast, and shedding a few tears along the way. It’s very down to earth but makes me long for the stars at the same time.
Ori and the Blind Forest/Ori and the Will of the Wisps - a drop dead gorgeous, lovingly crafted metroidvania with one of the best soundtracks you could ever ask for. Platforming is gorgeously refined, and the sequel improves upon the first game in many ways.
Hollow Knight - I could copy paste the majority of the Ori blurb here, however this game has a deeper focus on the deep, winding, sprawling exploration, and combat aspects. Gripping soundtrack and stunning stylised visuals. You will, however, join the wait for Silksong with the rest of us, which drives many people mad!
I definitely recommend Baba Is You and FEZ as well. Similarly to FEZ there is a mobile game Monument Valley (and Monument Valley 2) which I adore. It’s spendier in $/time, but I find is highly worth it.
Bastion isn’t a 2D game, but I’d like to recommend it while I’m at it, it’s play is perhaps close enough, and it’s stunning.
Been just thinking about one of my favorite SNES era games – Illusion of Gaia. If you’re doing emulation, highly recommend. I’m in the process of picking up a SNES and functioning cart to play it myself for the first time in a decade.
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