It’s been a few weeks since I wrote my last post. Many things actually delayed the writing of this one : I’ve started a new job, I’ve sent back my expensive Sony Vaio, and bought a few days ago a very powerful and cheaper Acer laptop.
But the biggest problem was to choose what game to talk about. I carry several games in my heart that I could qualify as “the best game ever” (and there are also a lot of famous games that I didn’t have the chance to play).
So, I guess the best thing to do to break the “white page” curse, is to introduce them, and make the next post easier.
The first game that comes to my mind is Shadow of the Colossus. If you didn’t play it, please take a few hours and a few bucks to play it (and complete it). This game is the most artistically accomplished I ever played. It shines in many aspects which are not specific to video games (cf. Different forms of art), but it also has so many great game design features. You can find many articles about it, as it is the typical example used when it comes to speak about art and video games.
The second game that I name when debating about best video games is Deus Ex (the first one, even if Human Revolution may be objectively better). It really was the first time I felt I had control on the way I was playing the game. There might have been some games which such freedom before Deus Ex, but I didn’t play them, nor did I heard of them (though I am interested in knowing about them). This game possesses every artistic form I described in my Games and Art post.
Then, we have A Link to the Past. Among all the Zelda I’ve played, it really is the definitive masterpiece. Ocarina of Time is often cited as the best game ever, but I use to think that it’s mainly because it was revolutionary in its time, but it is not as accomplished as A Link to the Past. I played Ocarina of Time two or three years ago, and, while I found it really enjoyable, it couldn’t stand the comparison with its ancestor on SNES (which I played in 2000). But we shall talk about them later.
To conclude, there is a game I’d like to talk about sooner than later : Mirror’s Edge. It is the game I enjoyed the most in the current-gen consoles (among many great games). It might be the most controversial of the list, and I will detail my opinion in a future post. It has many good game-design features and deserves a lot more praise than it got.
There’s also (as it comes to my mind) Journey, Half-Life, Portal, Beyond Good & Evil, Alone in the Dark, WonderBoy III : The Dragon’s Curse, Metroid, Super Mario Bros 2, Diablo, Guild Wars, The Elder’s Scrolls : Morrowind, Ico, and many others, but it’s late, and writing in English is kind of tiring for me.
See you soon…
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