I actually found Lemmings to be a game that changed my life. I played it just before I became a professional programmer. Solving Lemmings puzzles is not exactly like programming, but it does teach you that there is a solution and if you just keep persistently trying different shit, you will eventually solve the problem. Also, it actually helps to be high as a kite all the time.
I’ve always played video games one way or another, so I consider them all to be life changing. In a general sense, because getting games in my country wasn’t easy in the 80’s and 90’s, and most would bring them from the US, so I learned English through the games, which opened the possibility to hang out (online) with people from around the world.
But I think there’s two games that marked me:
Vampire the Masquerade Redemption, because until then I hadn’t played any story-driven true RPG. And after I finished it, I moved on to games like Fallout and Dragon Age, which led me to learn about modding, communities, etc.
The Last of Us, because until then no game (no matter how much I loved it) made me feel so intensely. I played it in several days, and each day I was emotionally exhausted. The ending left me speechless. I would wake up every day feeling like I’d been hit by a truck, for about a week or two.
For some reason there is a disproportionate love for the tutorial world on Xbox 360. I guess a lot of the current generation of players got their start there.
I’m old. I started playing in alpha. We didn’t even have a food bar.
Yah I felt low key attacked when they said that the “old villager” model was nostalgic. I played before villagers even existed, when we did crazy redstone stuff with very basic things.
The tutorial world was always super cool to me growing up. The big floating minecraft sign, the large structures they make for showing the basics, and all the hidden locations around the map. As a kid I thought that was the only way to collect all the discs was to find them hidden in the tutorial world. There was a lot of magic in those worlds, I miss them
Final Fantasy 7, the first two Fallout and Disco Elyisum, Shenmue to an extent, but the Yakuza / Like A Dragon franchise probably tops all of them. I had stopped paying attention to video games after the dreamcast (I considered Shenmue the apex of what I liked in video games and couldn’t find something similar), discovered the Yakuza franchise through Judgment in early 2020 and I was hooked, it was everything I had ever dreamed of in a game. I bought a PS4 specifically to play them, bought 0 to 6 during covid lockdowns and pretty much blasted through the franchise in a year. Rekindled my interest in games and in Japanese stuff, made me take my ass back to martial arts and generally pay more attention to how I behave and look after bad breakups and depression. Disco Elysium came very close to the same impact, I might add.
All of them, really. 0 is the craziest, but all of them are just great. Even 3 which is widely considered the “worst” one is still a masterpiece, especially for its time.
Magic: The Gathering - Arena, but in a different sense. I have played it a decent amount ever since I moved away from the city and have been unable to play with people over the table. I learned that it wasn’t really the game itself which made me interested in Magic, but the interactions with people.
I have since quit the game and haven’t really paid attention to its direction since.
Cyberpunk is the only game in recent memory where I felt like I was not playing into my interpretation of who I wanted the character to be, but rather who I wanted to be as V. Games like Red Dead 2 let me drive the character’s outcome and I definitely has an emotional response to Arthur’s journey (one of my favorite games of all time), but it felt like the character’s story. Cyberpunk did a stellar job at making it feel like my story.
I think about CP77 to this day. I sometimes even miss Johnny. He’s with you the entire time and it’s a really fascinating bond to experience as a player.
How it changed my life: I have a much deeper appreciation to go into nature and feel more confident
Also having that deeper understanding to put together an earth quake survival kit.like you never know if you have to bail and you just gotta be ready to evacuate and survive.
Other games: Titan fall 2. I bawled at the end. I’m just now playing it through again. And I’m not one to replay a game but I would with that one given the bond. Never thought I’d cry at a game but that one …that one was special for me.
That’s fantastic. It’s a survival game ? I remember loving to roam the ashlands in Morrowind and that might have contributed to my tendency to walk everywhere. But nature itself, I’m not sure. I remember fondly the lush hills of Cyrodiil, the enchanted woods of Albion (Fable), but I don’t think any of these really turned me on nature as much as having an edible, strapping on my trekking shoes and getting lost in the forest around my home
Yup it’s a survival game but it has a peaceful option in it so you can just set it to roam and build to your heart’s content.
Elden ring as well has some similar breathtaking moments. not that any of that can be replicated in our earth nature but it is a game that I think of when I think of a beautiful game to play for just sitting there and beholding artist effort and content.
Enderal and its not even close. It shows a world that is in a deep decline and an apocalypse that is all but inevitable but manages to still feel hopeful in a way. Throughout the game there is this theme of how even if everything might fade at some point your interpersonal actions are still meaningful. The Rhalata sidequest alone easily outmatches most games that where published by “real” game studios and the main story just seals the deal.
Osu!, but not in the good direction… the game might have deleted what little confidence I have left in myself and gave me crippling perfectionism issues. Also permanently changed my music taste. May or may not have set me up on a hyper-competitive career path as well so there is that. Upside is… I’m fun at the club and the arcade maybe??
It wasn’t the story of the game that was life-changing, but I met people on PSO that encouraged me to pursue a different career. Without them, I don’t think I’d be the person I am today.
I don’t even mind the second disk because without it, it was shaping up to be 300 hours long and tedious. As it is, I think it wraps things up nicely without leaving too many threads hanging. What a fantastic game! It’s the only PSX game I still have a physical copy of.
I am an emotional person, and I regularly cry during movies, shows and books. But this is the first and only game to day, where I cried. I don’t mean just teary-eyed, actually crying. And on more than one occasion.
It made me want to be a better person. Hopefully I am succeeding.
Cyberpunk 2077 is close second.
I didn’t play Expedition 33 yet, but I saw the prologue and it was very emotional. There is a really good chance this game will be on my list too.
I couldn’ finish Enderal, because I did not want to make one of the two shitty decisions in the end and cried about it. “Just a mod” had me in tears and sobbing twice.
FWIW, I straight up did not like Enderal. And yet, I would still recommend you try it. If you didn’t particularly enjoy Skyrim because it was too open, and instead prefer a more story driven game, Enderal could be your next favorite game.
RDR2 is the only game for which I ever took the day off work for launch day. Totally worth it. I bought eclairs, dropped the kids off at a parkour class, and just drank it all in. So good. Still haven’t finished it, just on principle. I can say I still have more to play.
Yeah RDR2 is the one for me. I had a pretty on-the-nose experience though as I got diagnosed with TB just weeks before playing through Arthur’s illness. When he started coughing 😬
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