This is reposted from a little facebook survey that was going around about fifteen video-games that stuck with me. I normally disdain such things but it got me thinking and I ended up with some nice fodder for my trash blog.
1. Final Fantasy IV- Perhaps my all time favorite game (or at leas the one I have the nost nostalgic connection to). Final Fantasy IV (or Final Fantasy II as it was called at the time of it's original US Release, was a point of origin for my understanding of fantasy and my involvement with involving narrative. There were many important books I read as a kid, but this ranks up there with any of them for sheer engrossing pleasure of narrative. It's story, now from the perspective of an English PhD candidate with more than a few loose and baggy monsters under his belt, is simple and laughably poorly translated. But I think it was the simplicity that incited my imagination. Later final fantasies were played and enjoyed (VI, VII and IX especially were beloved) but in becoming more graphically advanced they lost a lot of their charm. Something about seeing a vaguely amorphous outline of a little girl with green hair and a daisy tucked behind her ear, excited my imagination so much more than if she had been fully rendered and spectacularly realized. These characters were much more real to me, because they were so crudely drawn and narrated. Their tawdry demises chilled me to the bone. A game full of wanton self-sacrifice.
2. Actraiser- Very few games can I call my own. I remember that Duck Tales was the first game I ever beat, but Actraiser will always be my game. A charming side-scrolling platformer checkered with a building Sim, Actraiser was, for me, the ultimate antidote to my insatiable lust for mythology. I think what I liked most about it (other than it's truly epic soundtrack-- think: a poorly synthesized Gustav Horst) was it's clear inspiration from readable mythology but divorced from any of its real tropes. Fighting the so-called Arctic Wyvern atop the world tree, was very clearly somehow inspired by Norse Mythology but it was hard to pin down how precisely. Covering a wide variety of world mythological tropes (Greco-Roman, Medieval Catholic, Egyptian, Japanese, Hindu and Norse) and weaving them effortlessly into a pseudo-Christian narrative about bringing light and order back to a world plagued by chaos, was the best thing a bookish 10 year old dreamer could hope for. Incidentally, the game took me precisely one year to beat. I received it for my 10th birthday, and beat it one day shy of my 11th.
3. Super Castlevania IV- I distinctly remember making up silly names for each of the bosses in this game, with my step-sister, Kristen: Dr. Dominatrix, Mr. Nickels, Sir Reads-a-lot. I was recently informed that I was not alone in this process. The writer of the English game manual presented some obvious silliness (the dancing spectres are referred to as Paula Abghoul and Fed Ascare), along with jokes I only got in the last week: Puwexil, the long tongued skull boss of level four, is merely Lixewup (Licks You Up) backwards. Similarly, Koranot, the stone golem, is a phonetic anagram for Ton o' Rock. A great, operatic metal soundtrack alongside traditional gothic horror tropes and ridiculously charming videogame conventions (whipping repeatedly at a stariwell to receive a roast chicken dinner) made Super Castlevania IV a constant source of amusement.
4. Dragon Age: Origins- DA:O, Bioware's recent masterpiece, more than any other game of my adulthood, seems to be in sync with my desires as a writer. It is a sweeping historical epic that integrates historical notes (Just post-crusades Christendom and Byzantium) with traditional, Dungeons and Dragons-esque fantasy tropes. In the case of this latter obsession, it seeks to play an interesting twist on well-worn fantasy conventions. It's elves live as second class citizens (fulfilling the role of European Jews), sticking tightly to their lost and fragmentary culture. Dwarves live underground but have built a fascinating proto-Objectivist meritocracy out of a rigid caste system. Dark and evil powers gather beneath the surface of the earth, but are treated as a real race with actual political designs and ambitions. All this is a fantastic spin on the typical fantasy epic, but I especially laud it's treatment of homosexual relationships. It manages to not pull any punches in allowing your avatar to be gay, bisexual or otherwise questioning heteronormative identity. It does so flawlessly, not only offering the complete freedom to make those choices but slotting it in to a world that is not always accepting. In a dialogue with pan-sexual, ethical slu/elven assassin, Zevran Arianai about my avatar's choice to ultimately pursue a heteronormative relationship, he sighs sadly, saying that, when it comes down to it, people usually choose the less difficult path. Hooray for frank and honest assessments of interpersonal relations, even in the most highly wrought and intricate fantasies.
5. Mass Effect 2- Arguably, Bioware's best game to date. I don't go in for shooters. I don't go in for sci-fi. But I unabashedly love this game. I love it for the reasons that most people cite: it's open-ended plot based off of impossible moral decisions, it's extremely well-written and voice acted characters, it's adherence to a grim plot about Lovecraftian horror. But the standout thing to me was its ability to integrate a very traditional set of quest-based tropes into a plot that made sense. The main thrust of the game revolves around recruiting a team of top operatives, outlaws and oracles to combat impossible odds, outside the strictly legal domain of civilized space. In securing the loyalty of your companions you must perform a variety of mundane tasks to resolve their own psychological issues. Presented to you by a shipboard psychiatric evaluator, who knows that with a team as unstable and self-involved as yours, distraction and unresolved issues could mean the difference between success and failure. This all comes together in a final mission where each and every relationship forged is tested and utilized in the achievement of a greater goal. The game rewards not just your strength and agility, but your interpersonal acumen and understanding as well. As a final note, Jack, the hard-living, batshit crazy, cyberpunk heroine, might be one of the greatest characetrs ever created.
6. Musya: The Classic Tale of Japanese Horror- I played this game over a weekend when I rented it for the SNES from the now defunct Blockbuster. It's a repetitive, little platformer with a really lousy interface and control system. But it was the first time I had any experience with the Japanese Gothic. The new exposure to giant, badger-like monstrosities in conical, rice padyd hats, tortoises with the face of infants, and living, bronze-age figures, possessed by ectoplasmic organs, oozing from its eyes was so startlingly frightening that I couldn't sleep for weeks afterward. As a Gothic scholar, I think I will always consider Japanese Horror to be several steps beyond me, unfathomably strange and far far more creepy than the western tropes I am used to.
7. Super Metroid- This was the game I played with my dad and sister. Years earlier we played Super Mario Brothers III (after being literally awe-struck by its pressence in The Wizard, a film we went to see because it starred one of my mom's ex-students). While the trials of the angry sun and the novelty of Hammer Brothers Suits held our attention for many weeks, it was Super Metroid (a gift for my 13th birthday) that really brought us together as a family. I won't easily forget the moment we came home from Junior High to find my dad triumphantly declaring his victory over the Mother Brain then watching eagerly as we beat it for ourselves. More than it being a family experience, we really fell in love with the aesthetics of the game as well as its novel gameplay. I marveled at seeing the suggested, flooded ruins of Meridia, or the Alien-esque gothic terror of a Wrecked Ship, while my dad meticulously used the X-ray Scope to hunt down each and every missile upgrade, increasing our overall completion record to 96% (never could find that last Super Missile pack). A game of shocking moments, and clever tricks, based upon an intriguing system of opening up new places by finding upgrades to physically power yourself there, Super Metroid might be (for my money) the greatest platformer of its time, and one unequaled by modern attempts.
8. Secret of Evermore- One of the first American games I ever played, Secret of Evermore was a strange, aiming-for-funny mishmash of 50's B-movie sci-fi tropes and classic, sword and sandal epics, wherein a Boy and his Dog explore the temporally replete world of Evermore in an attempt to get back to Podunk, USA. With a dog companion that transforms with your environs (from hulking Cave-Dog to Egyptian Pharaoh Hound to Fluffy Pink Poodle, to Flying, Dog-faced Laser Toaster) and a variety of alchemical formula that require diligent resource management (Three Parts Water to One Part Ash gets you an acid-rain storm), the travails of toe-headed cinema buff Isaac (always named Isaac in my games--not sure why) was a staple of my young life. I predictably loved the Ancient and Medieval portions of the world, alive with gothic castles, temples full of minotaurs, and Stargate-esque alien invaders.
9. Donkey Kong Country II: Diddy's Kong Quest- Pirate themed with steampunk underpinnings, a surprisingly rocking soundtrack and demeaningly cute animal companions, DKC2 was everything I wanted in a light-hearted platformer. It struck the perfect tone and introduced me to thematic biomes. Sunken, ,muck covered pirate ships crashed in the bayou, oddly zen andscapes of twisted brambles, and intense sequences in which rhinos had to smash their way through the honeycomb labyrinths of malevolent bees. As anarchic and tongue-in-cheek as it was genuinely pretty, DKC2 really changed the way I looked at Apes and Crocodiles, and made me believe, if only for a moment, that Snakes could coil tightly into a spring and bounce to great heights.
10. Grim Fandango- Scott McCloud in his briefly lived Computer Game Blog Comic described Grim Fandango as the closest game to Art he had ever played. I have to agree. Video Games are moving towards high art, and the debate can rage on as to which have actually achieved that status or if it yet to be conquered, but for my money, Grim Fandango is already there. I grew up playing Tim Schaffer Lucas Arts adventure games (Monkey Island, Sam and Max, The Dig), but Grim Fandango seemed designed for me. A truly organic vision combining Aztec and Mayan mythology with Golden Age of Cinema Film Noir, Grim Fandango followed the exploits of spun-sugar skeleton, Manny Calavera, a hapless travel agent caught up in a twisting labyrinth of insurance fraud, beatnik poetry and blood-sacrifice. It got me in touch with my Mexican roots while reminding me of the greatness of Chandler-Bogart films. You really don't know what you are missing until a tiny, talking skull with Peter Lorre's voice tells you about his trek to the 9th Underworld.
11. 7th Saga- The Enix adventure game had the highest disparity between integrity of musical composition and quality of synthesizer I have ever seen. I still will get some of the music stuck in my head and any of my grad school friends can tell you that I obsessively play certain tracks on endless repeat while I write my papers. The game had an incredibly difficult learning curve and was plagued by a panoply of random encounters. It also had a fantastic central conceit of being able to play one of seven mercenary types competing for a set of seven ancient runes. Each of the seven played slightly differently (though I always played as Lejes Rimul, the magic-savvy demon prince) and allowed for a large number of strategic combinations by allowing you to team up with another one of the playable options.
12. Sanitarium- It's hard choosing one serious Adventure game for this list. Stephen Spielberg's sci-fi archeology epic, The Dig certainly was a close runner up. But there is something about Sanitarium's central conceit of a character trapped in his own paranoid fantasies that made me shiver. Very few games have given me literal nightmares but this was one of them. It was also one of the last games my step-dad and I played together, making it especially important. It's hazy dream-logic where nightmare sequences involving Midwestern children slowly rotting away into plant matter, unspeakable Aztec curses, terrifying circus sideshows and insectoid invaders from outer space, contained the seeds of a real life tale of corruption and betrayal. It was a game about horrifying mysteries where the mundane and bureaucratic turned out to be the most horrifying prospect of all.
13. Shining Force- My friend Casey first introduced me to Shining Force in the form of a pen and paper roleplaying game, meticulously based on the Turn Based Strategy game. There were certainly other games I enjoyed. But Shining Force was the reason I needed a Sega. The game, like Final Fantasy IV, was one of those situations where less was more. Casey and I not only played a few rounds of the pen and paper strategy game, we ended up making intricate back stories for its 30+ playable characters in the hopes of writing a novel. There was just enough personality in the portraits of each character to suggest a real history and a corresponding fondness for each of them. To this day I have a lot of trouble remembering what was fact and what was my own imagination.
14. Arcanum- My friends have labeled this game a triumph of style over substance. An amazingly story well-told, with pitch perfect Victorian social mores, in a frustratingly (and sometimes hilariously) buggy game engine whose learning curve was butterfly knife sharp. Alongside my step-dad's Victorian roleplaying game and Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentleman, Arcanum formed the trifecta that would lead me into Victorian Literature Scholarship. It's a little bit embarassing to admit that my career was inspired by comics, DnD and video games and not, say, by reading Middlemarch for the first time. Coming back years later though, its amazing how much of the 19th century they really capture: Poe, Dickens, Hawthorne, Gaskell-- with a healthy dose of Darwin and Faraday thrown in for good measure. Everything from a misguided faith in electro-magnetism to a supernatural recreation of the Jack the Ripper murders, Arcanum created a world that was essentialized Victorian. Obviously it copped to some Steampunk influences along the way, but unlike Steampunk, it first and foremost loved the society and aesthetic of the era it amulated, not just the technology. I wish the Steampunk movement were more like Arcanum. And whatever its bugs, Arcanum was, and is, my vision of my field and my life, in private, indulgent moments.
15. Sword of Vermillion- The first real role-playing game I ever played. Its instruction manual (a monstrous 100 page guide) served as a major source of inspiration, and I spent hours trying to illustrate the strangely named weapons and armor (graphite sword? carmine shield?). Monsters grunted with now-comical exuberance. The endless expanse of brightly colored yellow pillars that was apparently supposed to be mountainous terrain is still comforting to me. I still have the muscle memory of the difference in feel between cutting through a giant floating eyeball, and a serpentine Medusa-ling. Probably invented. Definitely affective.
