For me, it’s always been Civilization games. I love thinking up an agenda beforehand, a motive for the nation I play as; science victory, one city-play style, Just picking gunpowder as tech research and getting there first and just demolishing everyone (not that possible in later games, but Civ2 was always that way).
SimCity is the same way, I loved making the most beautiful, high tech city and just launching disasters on it.
For a more gameplay kind of thing, story-driven ones it’s Bioshock. The ending, the ‘would you kindly’ parts, that revelation and its commentary on how we all play games (linear ‘rollercoasters’) was amazing, I’ve so much respect for Ken Levine and that whole development team.
I like to break up favorites into three categories: My sentimental favorite, which is just the game that means the most to me. Then there’s the artistic favorite, which is the game that I recognize as just being artistically, mechanically, etc the best. And then finally there’s the current favorite, which is the game I’m really into right now
So to break it down:
Sentimental favorite: Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap. My very first video game that wasn’t shovelware garbage. I’ve beat that game probably 20 times, which is a lot since I don’t like to replay games.
Artistic Favorite: Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies. Everything about this game is great. The story, the cutscenes, the dialogue, the controls. This game is incredible at making you feel incredible and untouchable
Current Fave: Stardew Valley. My life has been really stressful recently, and this is the best decompressing game I’ve ever played. Every evening I just fire it up and play for an hour or two before I go to bed.
Jak and Daxter without a doubt. It’s such a joy to play. The characters are light-hearted and creative, and the art style follows this mood. Jak’s roll jump is incredibly satisfying, and the levels are all distinct with their own quirks filled with collectibles worth taking the time to find. (The fishing mini-game is also kind of a blast to play, for some reason.)
Never have played any Ace Combat games, or any Flight combat games in general. Is this a recommended title to start with? It’s pretty cheap on eBay, so I am interested in giving it a shot!
It’s regrettably the only one I’ve played, but yes, it’s an excellent one to jump into the series with! Ace Combat 04 and Ace Combat 05 are generally considered the 2 best in the series, and the story is pretty disconnected so you won’t jump into something you don’t understand
Sweet! I’m a little thrown back by Ace Combat having its own worthwhile story. I must have really written this series off as just another Flight Combat Arena. Thanks for the recommendation!
It’s hard to point to a single game cause I enjoy different games for different reasons. I don’t really value anyone particular reason above the others.
Today I’d say it’s LoZ:Breath of the Wild. Tomorrow it might be Thief 1 and 2. Just last week it was Deus Ex.
Sunset Overdrive is one of the few games where simply moving around the environment was half the fun. It’s like a giant game of “The Floor is Lava”, and I could visibly see how much better I was getting by how efficiently I was getting from A to B.
Depending on the day, I’ll waffle between Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back or Crash Bandicoot: Warped as my favorite technical platformer.
Portal and Portal 2 are also puzzle games that were thoroughly satisfying from start to end: the combination of humor and technical execution is second to none.
I also have a loose mental association with Spec Ops: The Line and Bioshock Infinite, as they both left me contemplating exactly what had happened throughout for days after I’d reached the credits.
I’ve also 100%'d Psychonauts a few times simply because I enjoy the world and concept so much.
I didn’t premeditate this list, it’s completely off the top of my head… Although I do often think about these games as some of my favorites of all time.
Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - I like that this game’s open world is built around a series of tools that can be used to creatively solve its encounters and problems the whole way through, rather than built to try and act solely as a setpiece. Mind, it is a setpiece on top of all that. I also like that the limitations put on the player, such as degrading/breakable weapons and only regaining health via foods or resting, makes it a constant affair of planning – similar to any decent survival game. It’s a nice mix between constant puzzle solving, artistic beauty, and elegantly designed struggle that had me hooked. Plus, I played it on the Switch, hardware which not only allows something of this technical magnitude to exist, but to make it much easier to have with me wherever I go. Game absolutely consumed me this year.
Rez Infinite - Built around the idea of meshing gameplay with music, the game is relatively easy to play but has a lot of really neat tricks that blend your actions to the music that’s playing. It also offers up a fun light sprinkling of narrative to kind of make its abstract visuals make more sense than being a really trippy playable visualizer. Area X is also a stunning update to the original’s format, allowing a slight bit more freeform gameplay and even more dazzling abstracted visual effects, and built around an even more dynamic soundtrack (Area X alone is comprised of several different songs mixed together, rather than featuring one single continuously built track). Add VR immersion to the package if you have it available to you, and I can’t think of anything that feels so… satisfyingly artistic to me. There’s also optional arcade-esque skill challenges buried in there if you need a more hardcore goal to pursue, but I personally don’t factor it into my enjoyment of the package.
The Witcher III: Wild Hunt - I love the two protagonists and all of their supporting characters and I like that the game offers player input on their reactions to things but doesn’t really feel extremely atonal or inconsistent, even if you react differently to different situations, the gameplay is serviceable (I personally find it fun but I can easily detect how it might come off as weak to others), the world is gorgeously detailed and expressed in the game’s engine. I personally wept at journey’s end with the Witcher III, the ending being one of the most emotionally striking and satisfying I’ve ever experienced in a videogame (and I admit, I’ve cried at the endings of videogames on more than one occasion before I played Witcher III). It has exceptionally great writing for a fantasy RPG, and it came off to me feeling like its world had far more at stake to me than most other RPGs I can personally stomach to play. And let me clarify the last bit of that statement – I have a hard time with RPGs, I have a difficult time with their layered mechanics and I generally am attuned to getting satisfaction from a more immediate reaction to my inputs in games (I just want to react more immediately to things rather than consider the various systems that will be impacted by my play decisions), I have a difficult time reading through endless journals and text and keeping track of all the details and then the systems on top of all of that. Witcher III streamlines a lot of that for people like me and I really appreciate it, and it tells some of its most compelling details in ways beyond journal entries and text documents littered across the world, despite the game still having plenty of that, too. It may read as an “RPG for dummies” to some of the more dedicated fans of the genre, but for folks like me, the easier interaction with the game’s world and robust storytelling presentation made it an unforgettable experience.
Too many to post honestly! Most games I play are single player, aside from the Rocket League’s of the world.
From a combination of nostalgia and just being genuinely good games, Final Fantasy 7, 8, 9 and 10 are ones I always revisit.
More recently there has been Red Dead Redemption, The Last Of Us, Bloodborne, Breath Of The Wild, DOOM, Nier Automata and probably more that I can’t remember right now. The one connecting thread, I think, is that they were each made with a consistent vision, theme or goal. I’m also amazed at how a lot of my favourite games have been made in recent years. It’s been a good few years for single player games!
I just took KotOR for a spin last night on my Xbox One and hot damn is that game still incredible. It certainly ranks as one of my favorite games ever, and it’s single player!
Kentucky Route Zero is just so incredible, I’ve played the first four episodes again and again and it has such an absolute handle on its tone its so good
Championship Manager Italia
Bard’s Tale 2
Suikoden
Xenosaga
This year has been pretty great for sp games for me I must say. Zelda and Golf Story in particular. But those four above have always stayed with me over the years (outside of Bard’s which I never found a decent way to replay it)
The comedic timing of GladOS recovering her clapping subroutine while falling down with Chell is one of my most cherished memories of that game. It was so funny and bizarre. So yeah, I’d also list Portal 1 and 2 as some of my favorite single player games.
There have been dozens more, but recently, I think Hollow Knight takes the cake for me. I didn’t think I could ever love an action/adventure game as much as I’ve loved Demon/Dark Souls and Bloodborne; I was dead wrong. And it doesn’t stop at scratching that itch while being casually gorgeous. It also gets so many things JUST right. The movements, combat, npcs, music. The exploration.
And I honestly think it’s one of the most well-crafted world-building I’ve ever seen.
How two to three people managed to create so much content, most of it ranging from really good to stellar, is beyond me.
Mass effect 2 rates pretty highly for me just on the character interactions alone. I also really like the story and cast of characters in Dragon Age 2 even if the gameplay’s not that compelling.
I really need to play KOTOR, I tried on PC but I like playing games with a controller. Is it backwards compatible on 360?
For me it was probably Outlast. I played hours and hours of that game in order to get all the trophies, and it was also my first attempt at speedrunning a game. In the end I wasn’t even scared of the game anymore, It was just hide-n-seek, but still fun.
Metal Gear Solid 3 came out over 13 years ago, so not exactly recent. But it is definitely the definitive linear single-player game of the 3D era. It is one of the few games which delivers equally in terms of game design and storytelling. In that regard, I think it set a bar that has yet to be surpassed.
