I have always wished that critics kept an open list of the things that they think actually are good and the things they detest as horrible misrepresentations of a medium, that way you could know where their standards lie before you actually read their reviews of the material. You know, a kind of pre-set list of things that they find it hard to criticise because they see so little badness in them or similarly difficult to criticise, but because the flaws seem to them so overwhelmingly present on all fronts that it is difficult to know where to begin.
As such, I intend to do exactly that here (at least the first half), in a more-or-less chronological order. I will first give a list (which I have painfully limited to 11) and then I will discuss what it is about each game that I find so engaging, and what I hate about the game. Again, this list is chronological, not cardinal. Number 1 is not my favorite game and neither is number 11, they’re just what I think of as the best examples.
1. The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
2. Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
3. Jak 2
4. Project: Snowblind
5. Kingdom Hearts 2
6. Bioshock
7. Halo 3
8. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
9. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
9. Minecraft
10. Spec Ops: The Line
1. The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time
Without any of my praise afforded to it, this is already well-respected as one of the best games ever, if not the single best game ever. There is nothing I can say in praise of this game that has not already been said elsewhere by people who were better at their jobs and more knowledgeable about the industry. Nonetheless, the whole purpose of this article is to say why I love things, so I’ll do just that.
Good:
Essentially everything. The game does a good job of building a very small number of skills in a very limited, linear environment to a very large number of skills in a very large, open environment. The music is perhaps the best in any game, and it is certainly the only game for which music which I first heard in the game has stuck with me, both as the melody faintly recalled in my mind and specifically the name or place in which I heard it. The Lost Woods Theme, the Forest Temple Theme and the Requiem of Souls still stick with me, 13 years after I first heard them. Furthermore, I think this is the best example of puzzles implemented as a game mechanic in a larger game. I remember racking my 10-12 year old brain over puzzles in this game for hours, even after several playthroughs, and what true son or daughter of the N64 era doesn’t remember the befuddling Water Temple? Finally, what boss fight is more memorable, more of an industry benchmark and more of a truly final conclusion to a story arc than the battle with Ganondorf at the end of this game?
The Bad:
This is hard for me. I guess my biggest complaint is the two-eras gimmick. I have literally always thought that time travel and alternate universes were the bane of good storytelling. The time travel mechanic is cumbersome, and having to travel back to the temple of time EVERY time you need to go back and forth is more than annoying at a certain point. Furthermore, why the hell, after having spent a few hours as “adult Link” would I want to go back in time and play as little, bratty, high-pitched Link who can’t hold a real sword to save his life and is dwarfed by his only shield that can’t be destroyed by the smallest amount of fire damage? Also, how do I keep all of the bottles and items and heart pieces between time periods? It doesn’t make sense, outside of a kind of defeated “well it’s magic” cop-out explanation.
2. Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy
The Good:
This was literally my first PS2 game, and as I recall it was one of the big launch titles for the system. When I went back to play the HD redo a few months ago, this game held up better than any other in the series, and for good reason. The environments are beautiful, wrapping the player in a semi-open, semi-linear world that is one of the best ever examples of the “show, don’t tell” rule of good storytelling. Utilizing the PS2 to its fullest early capacities, the game exemplifies good design through and through, with bright colors, large vistas and a distinctive stylistic vision. Furthermore, the power-cell collection game mechanism is actually given a decent explanation in almost every single instance, which makes what is essentially a 10-15 hour fetch quest actually bearable. It makes sense each time why you need the power cells you’re acquiring, how acquiring them will move you on through the plot, and why it is that you receive (almost) every one of them. Furthermore, the game really does make you feel like a fast, agile, athletic hero who’s accomplishing genuinely wonderful, astonishing deeds. The cautionary switches between a player-controlled and contextual camera actually do serve to communicate the sentiments of the silent protagonist, and the various “eco” power-ups and thrilling vehicle segments communicate an exciting, moving experience that is fun from start to end.
The Bad:
As was the spirit of the era, all of the humor is fairly juvenile, and usually it hinges on painfully pointing out genre cliche or a more elementary, “Daxter used to be a person and now he can’t wear pants” flavor. Furthermore, why are Jak and Daxter on the island with the dark eco in the first place? Why the hell does it turn Daxter into an animal? Why does it kill you when you fall into it later in the game? Could the two antagonists be any more elementary?
3. Jak 2
The Good:
I loved the first game, and somehow Jak 2 manages to completely change the tone of the series while maintaining a consistent artistic vision while simultaneously completely revamping the gameplay experience by genuinely adding to the experience and attaching components like gunplay and more frequent vehicle operation in such a fantastic way that rather than feeling new, it seems like you didn’t know that they were really supposed to be there all along. Also, while the plot is fairly formulaic, for the T rating they kept the game to, Naughty Dog managed to make a dystopian political takeover act both appropriately dark and gritty and accessible to the young minds that were the target audience of the first game. I think that’s an achievement.
The Bad:
You’d best like moving through large expanses, because the game has you drive to and from every single thing you do. Often, you drive to a base to receive a mission, only to be required to drive to a completely new part of the map to complete the mission. This wouldn’t be so terrible if you didn’t set off alarms everywhere you go in the city, but at a certain point it just gets ridiculous. Furthermore, Jak’s incredibly limited health makes surviving the alarm-triggered police chases all the more difficult. Anyone who’s played the game will remember one particularly hellish experience where you have to wade through what seems like an army of enemy soldiers across a linear dock in a kind of floating slum. At times, the game is simply frustrating enough in its design that the player simply wants nothing more than to surrender and die.
Also, the collection sidequests are, I think, the most annoying facet of the series as a whole. My only comment here is that I have never looked back on a game and said, “Man, I really loved that timed fetch quest!”
4. Project: Snowblind
The Good:
This little-known and under-appreciated shooter was a hallmark of my collection for a few months. Somehow both overblown and understated, this was, if I recall correctly, one of the first shooters to implement any kind of powers into otherwise standard gunplay. I don’t even remember what any of them are, but I do remember several things about the game, first and foremost that it’s fun. The action is tightly paced, and you get new powers at a frequency which is appropriate without being overwhelming. The gunplay is visceral and fast, mostly predating the Gears of War “let’s make you hang out behind walls for 75% of combat time” era, and the guns were varied without being overwhelming.
The Bad:
The story, to paraphrase Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, is the kind of story you could miss if a large dog walked in front of your screen and barked at just the right moment. It’s something about a terrorist organization or corporation or something trying to destroy the world or kill the lady with the world’s last and only recipe for cupcakes, or something like that. Also, it suffers from an early but severe case of what I like to call gray-and-brown syndrome.
5. Kingdom Hearts 2
The Good:
A sequel that, like Jak 2, manages to add to and revamp the original’s gameplay without either ruining it or quite repeating it. A Square-Enix story that manages to be less nonsensical than other Square-Enix stories, a protagonist with whom the player can really identify as confused, lonely and dutiful. Beautiful worlds expertly rendered in the fused Final-Fantasy/Disney hybrid that made the first game a success. And the Lion King level. And the Tron level. And the Mulan Level. And Sepiroth. Really, I think this might be the second best example of level design on this list. The aesthetic is consistent in its own way, and it generally makes a kind of memorable, stylistic sense.
The Bad:
Call it a difference in taste, but the plot on this game really is a bit overblown. I can’t even remember a good deal of it, which I would assume is because its structure (common to Japanese games) is more unnecessarily convoluted and confusing than a metaphor about a tangled pile of technicolor spaghetti that’s been thrown into a blender and then left in the desert sun to congeal into some kind of strange mass of rainbow carbohydrate. Also, even though it came before the area of the achievement list, it has the kind of collection mechanic that seems to scream out “YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO COLLECT EVERYTHING!”
6. Bioshock
The Good:
The towering, golden face of Andrew Ryan above a crimson/gold banner proclaims “No gods or kings, only man.” Afterwards, the poignant, direct and deceptively simple propagandized introduction lets the player in on the complex ideology which underlies the city setting that is the incarnation of the ideology itself. The level design is, I think, the best, highest tier of linear shooters. Rapture is a place that appropriately enraptures the player, and the ghostly audio logs backfill a story of an ideology which, like leaking pipes of the city, buckled under its own libertarian weight. Furthermore, what may be the best mid-narrative twist in any video game has practically become a meme, and the death of Andrew Ryan was the specific point in my life in which I decided videogames were a meaningful medium of art. What’s more, I think that this game more perfectly embodies the philosophy of Ayn Rand, and most valid criticism thereof, than any other game parallels any other ideology. I think this is the best philosophical, high-minded game. Ever.
The Bad:
The narrative’s energy dies with Andrew Ryan ⅔ of the way through the game. The final boss fight is poorly imagined, and it feels like it was tacked on to satisfy someone in the production sequence who didn’t like or believe in the game as a whole. The game’s research mechanic is painful and unnecessarily slow. The escort mission is terrible and tedious, the process that precedes it is frustrating, and all of this is made all the more infuriating by the on-screen exclusion of your peripheral vision. Furthermore, the moral choice system is made arbitrary since ultimately the “good”, “sacrificial” path is just as valid, getting only 40 or so less adam than the “evil” path. Also, the evil and good endings are both ridiculous, and it’s similarly bewildering that there’s no middle ground. I played one playthrough in which I only “harvested” two little sisters at the beginning of the game and saved the rest (which amounted to something like 18 or 20) and the game gave me the evil ending. Really? That’s ridiculous.
7. Halo 3
The Good:
The shooting is solid. I’ve never liked that much about the Halo games, but they know what they’re doing and they do it well. If nothing else, this one managed to avoid the incipient cover-based focus, and it at least manages to feel and look like a big deal. Also, I think that this game had the single best-managed and best-populated online multiplayer in its heyday, and I don’t know how many hours I spent perfecting my SWAT technique with friends in 4-hour long double XP weekends. Everything about the multiplayer aspect of this game screamed and begged to be played whenever and however much possible, and I wish more developers in the market today would take note of the fact that the only unlockables were both meaningless and cosmetic, and did not mean anything to the gameplay in the slightest. Please, developers, keep in mind that a community based multiplayer WORKED without having to unlock every damn gun you used.
The Bad:
The campaign is lacking, and for all that it looks and feels like a big deal, and supposedly big things happen, but the narrative’s reach exceeds its grasp and it ends up being ultimately underwhelming. The second to last level sticks in my memory as one of the most painful, miserable levels I’ve ever played in any game. Also, I can’t help but include in the criticism the very multiplayer culture that made the game great is also its most tiresome burden. The culture of people who make Halo a bestselling series is juvenile and abhorrent to any kind of thoughtful life. I cannot recall a setting in which I have heard more rape jokes, more racial slurs, more misogynism, more sexism, or more anti-LGBT sentiment than I have while playing Halo. That is not Bungie’s fault, but if one of a game’s selling points is its online community, and that online community is full of shitheads, it’s a valid criticism of the game.
8. Elder Scrolls IV:Oblivion
The Good:
The storytelling. Oblivion creates a fantastic world and then invites you to play long, protracted stories in it that are appropriately fanciful for the fantasy setting. Stopping an evil god from entering the world via a mystic cult? Yes. Taking on a resurgence of necromancers within the Empire? Yes. A murder mystery in which you are the murderer? Yes. Also, the perk system which became a big deal in Skyrim was only based on standard progression. This was helpful, because it let the player feel like he or she was or could be the master of the universe, and if that’s not the point of an open world fantasy game, what exactly is?
The Bad:
The leveling system is terrible. Over-convoluted, counter-productive and generally the biggest headache of the game. Also, it was weird that the conversations froze the world. Also, you couldn’t make any items, you had to find them or buy them, which got annoying after awhile.
9. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
The Good:
Almost everything that was good about Oblivion. Also, it fixed Oblivion’s crazy leveling system. I could go on about this one for hours, but I think that this is close to being a perfect game. Let that suffice, and assume that anything I don’t say is wrong with it is right.
The Bad:
The perks system is eventually ungratifying. It feels great in the early levels when you’re growing and getting stronger, but it feels drastically limiting once you more or less pick a specialty. Or, if you tried to play the wide game, you waste your perks and eventually can’t grow anywhere. Also, the stories feel and are less involved and extensive than their counterparts in Oblivion, and this is a problem if you ask me. Also, it bugs you eventually that no one ever seems to know who you are. I played a file in which I had completed the main quest and literally saved the fabric of space and time, and I was simultaneously the head of the Thieves’ Guild, The Arch Mage of the magic college, the head of a guild of assassins, and a low member of a kind of warrior’s brotherhood called The Companions. I approached a guard in a city and he remarked, “So, you’re the new member of the Companions, eh? What do you do, fetch the beer for the real heroes?” Really? That’s bad scripting.
10: Minecraft
The Good:
Legos forever in 3D.
The Bad:
Creepers, I know they’re an icon but anything in a game about creation says, “Oh, gee, you weren’t checking for enemies for one second? Too bad. Now you’re dead.,” gets on my nerves.
11: Spec Ops: The Line
The Good:
“Oh god. Oh god. Ohhhhh god. What the hell have I done” is an actual quote from me while I was playing this game. This game and the way it deconstructs the shooter genre are glorious, asking with uncompromising sincerity whether or not what it’s doing is actually okay. The way it leaves ominous messages like “There is no difference between what is right and what is necessary” on loading screens where you’ve come to only expect technical game advice, is understated and truly sublime. I love everything about the way this game’s narrative is constructed and about what it’s trying to say.
The Bad
The gameplay itself is a bit formulaic, which is part of its criticism, but at times it feels almost boring, until the story comes back. The difficulty, in my least favorite kind of turn, is almost entirely based on “oh, you didn’t see that 189th of 260 guys hiding in the corner? well now you’re dead.”
Games that I like that couldn’t quite make the list:
-Infamous 2
A great story, a good job of working a comic-book style narrative into a game, and it’s refreshing to play a game set in a copy of New Orleans instead of a copy of New York, but the game simply lacks a certain ummph.
-Burnout 3
The best racing game ever if you ask me. It manages to communicate speed better than any other game I’ve played.
-Soul Calibur III
I’ve always had a soft spot for these games, and this is the best one, but I can’t articulate why I liked it so well, so it stays off the list.
-Far Cry 3
One of the most immersive experiences I’ve ever had in a game, and I love that there’s not really a happy ending either way. Also, can more free-roaming games PLEASE give me a flightsuit? I can’t think of a single game that wouldn’t be improved with a free, unlimited access flightsuit.
-Pokemon Yellow
Except maybe this one. A defining classic of my early years, but it hasn’t aged well.
-Killzone 3
A glorious multiplayer, but the single-player story makes Halo look like Atlas Shrugged
-Madden (Let’s be honest, there’s only one of them really)
There’s nothing quite like playing a good game of Madden with some buddies, but it’s not quite good enough to get on the list.
-Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Genre defining, groundbreaking, probably one of the best military shooters ever, but something about it doesn’t grab me.
-None of the other Call of Duty games
Probably all of these. They’re like cheap copies of the first (fourth).
Well, there you have it. The games I love and why. Next time, because it’s easy to deconstruct simply bad games, I’ll give you a list of five games everyone loves that I think are shit and why.
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