Half Life 2 was my first real non-flash game. Coming from the world of jumpy, disjointed boundaries between gameplay and story, hl2 was a refreshing change. The way the story is told through...
Half Life 2 was my first real non-flash game. Coming from the world of jumpy, disjointed boundaries between gameplay and story, hl2 was a refreshing change. The way the story is told through character interactions and atmosphere was so different to "You finish the level. You get a story segment. Repeat." that I was confused at the start - I was expecting the g-man speech to be a massive, 10min long monologue with exposition everywhere.
Half-Life 2 was also the one that changed everything for me. I had played plenty of "real" games before, but HL2 both completely sold me on PC gaming and horrified me to the core. That game still...
Half-Life 2 was also the one that changed everything for me. I had played plenty of "real" games before, but HL2 both completely sold me on PC gaming and horrified me to the core. That game still has some of the best sound I've ever encountered and the sheer helplessness I felt in the train station was completely new to me.
For me it was the classic cRPGs of ye olde times. Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Planescape: Torment, Neverwinter Nights, etc. They combined my love of the Fantasy genre with deep story in a game...
For me it was the classic cRPGs of ye olde times. Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Planescape: Torment, Neverwinter Nights, etc. They combined my love of the Fantasy genre with deep story in a game and I often got completely lost in them and absolutely fell in love with the characters portrayed in them.
However, most recently VR games have taken that immersion to the next level. In fact VR is so immersive it's actually kind of a problem. I don't handle horror games well in general, (but still like playing them occasionally)... but I absolutely cannot handle horror VR games. Brookhaven Experiment had my heart-rate spiking so damn high I honestly don't think it could possible be healthy. :P
I tried VR on a low-quality headset and played a tech-demo game that let me launch from platform to platform. It wasn't meant to be scary at all--in fact the whole game had a very calming...
I tried VR on a low-quality headset and played a tech-demo game that let me launch from platform to platform. It wasn't meant to be scary at all--in fact the whole game had a very calming atmosphere.
At the beginning of one level, instead of moving forward, I decided to turn around to see if there were any platforms behind me. Instead I found out that there was a tree/statue thing immediately behind me, only a foot or two away. Despite the game not being scary at all, I jumped, my heart racing, because my sense of space had been so blatantly violated. It was like the thing had silently snuck up on me, and when I turned to face it, it was dangerously close.
That was enough for me to know that I'd never be able to survive an actual VR horror game that is actually trying to scare me. Like you said, the immersion is just too good.
Windlands? I have played the demo too and it's on my wishlist. Some people complain about nausea when playing games like that but so far I have yet to experience any, thankfully. Yeah truly...
tech-demo game that let me launch from platform to platform.
Windlands? I have played the demo too and it's on my wishlist. Some people complain about nausea when playing games like that but so far I have yet to experience any, thankfully.
because my sense of space had been so blatantly violated.
Yeah truly experiencing the feeling of space and scale in the virtual world is the most mind blowing aspect of VR for me too. theBlu has one scene where a Blue Whale swims right up to you and past you and in that moment I realized how seeing them in documentaries on TV doesn't do them justice... at all. But seeing one in VR allows you to truly comprehend the immense scale of them which is genuinely awe-inspiring. The jellyfish scene is also breathtakingly beautiful as well. Both of those is why theBlu is my goto "game" when I demo my Vive for people and even older people who have never played video games in their life before can handle it and are consistently blown away by it. I would highly recommend trying it if you ever get the chance.
No, it wasn't Windlands. I can't remember the name of it, but there was no movement outside of "jetpacking." I couldn't walk on the ground, only launch off and land at different points. This was...
No, it wasn't Windlands. I can't remember the name of it, but there was no movement outside of "jetpacking." I couldn't walk on the ground, only launch off and land at different points. This was on my friend's GearVR running off his phone. The game looked like it would fit in on the PSOne. Low-fi, blocky, polygonal 3D environments--which is funny, because despite the world being far from realistic or even robust, it was still convincingly immersive.
I would have a really hard time with theBlu, I think. Vast expanses underwater unnerve me a bit, and I also have a difficult time with very large digital things up close (for lack of a better explanation). I get a deep-seated sense of dread just looking at something like Jupiter in Celestia. I think confronting a whale up-close in VR would give me the same feeling, despite it being completely harmless.
LOL, yeah one of my friends has pretty severe thalassophobia and it took a fair amount of convincing to get him to try theBlu as a result. He absolutely loved the jellyfish scene (which was the...
LOL, yeah one of my friends has pretty severe thalassophobia and it took a fair amount of convincing to get him to try theBlu as a result. He absolutely loved the jellyfish scene (which was the only one I was planning on showing him) so then he asked to play the other ones I warned him about. He did alright in the dark, deep sea cavern scene, but in the whale one he was too busy looking at the sunken ship details to notice the whale coming up behind him, so when it finally made a call right next to him and he spun around to see it a few feet away from him it scared the absolute shit out of him. Despite him being pretty shaky afterwards he still said he enjoyed it though.... :P
That is the exact scenario that would cause me to unintentionally and reflexively break a several hundred dollar headset: surprise large object, unexpectedly close to me, in an underwater expanse....
That is the exact scenario that would cause me to unintentionally and reflexively break a several hundred dollar headset: surprise large object, unexpectedly close to me, in an underwater expanse. No thanks! Your friend is braver than I am.
The jellyfish scene does look cool though. Reminded me of ABZÛ, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
The Vive is actually surprisingly resilient and when worn correctly it takes a lot to actually dislodge it. You would basically have to be full-on metal music style head-banging to do so. And yeah...
The Vive is actually surprisingly resilient and when worn correctly it takes a lot to actually dislodge it. You would basically have to be full-on metal music style head-banging to do so. And yeah that scene is very reminiscent of ABZÛ, which is another absolutely gorgeous game and wonderful underwater experience. :)
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind was the one that hooked me the most in the sense that I just walked around and only did quests if I felt like doing them, I mostly just read lore, etc. Neverwinter...
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind was the one that hooked me the most in the sense that I just walked around and only did quests if I felt like doing them, I mostly just read lore, etc.
Neverwinter Nights also but it's more linear.
That said, if by "hook" you mean just hours spent and how difficult it is to stop, I'd say HOMM5(.5). My favorite game by far and I don't know why I keep buying games if at the end of the day I'm just playing HOMM5 lol.
The Last of Us was the game that truly sold me on the fact that some of the very best story tellers are no longer in movies or TV, but in video games. I can't wait for the sequel. Back in the day...
The Last of Us was the game that truly sold me on the fact that some of the very best story tellers are no longer in movies or TV, but in video games. I can't wait for the sequel.
Back in the day though, the first big titles for the N-64. Game changers. They were everywhere because they simply revolutionized gaming. So many kids just got completely lost in them because it felt so real. There's a reason the N-64 was codenamed "project reality" by Nintendo during production. Super Mario 64, GoldenEye 007, Ocarina of Time, Final Fantasy VII. Simply revolutionary.
The Last of Us is phenomenal. The N64 had some of the best games in history in my opinion. That Bowser fight in Mario 64 is something you'll always remember if you've done it.
The Last of Us is phenomenal. The N64 had some of the best games in history in my opinion. That Bowser fight in Mario 64 is something you'll always remember if you've done it.
Ultima Online was the game that got me hooked, and the only one I ever much cared for. I spent many thousands of hours (and a few thousand dollars) playing over a number of years. It was a great...
Ultima Online was the game that got me hooked, and the only one I ever much cared for. I spent many thousands of hours (and a few thousand dollars) playing over a number of years. It was a great value; for the cost of going to see a 90-minute movie, I could have a whole month's worth of entertainment. There was a thriving community around UO in its forums and several fan sites.
I eventually lost interest, not so much in the game or its evolving lore but with the way it was treated as a product. Aggressive i18n efforts took a lot of the rustic feel away from the experience. A new 3D-hotness client was introduced and the 2D client was left to languish. Prices went up. I moved on, playing on emulator servers for awhile and then giving it up altogether.
Haven't found another game that even comes close to giving me that same spark...
Couldn’t agree more with this. I was able to extend my experience by running one of the larger player run shards (Cassiopeia) for many years. It’s hard to emphasize how much UO defined parts of my...
Couldn’t agree more with this. I was able to extend my experience by running one of the larger player run shards (Cassiopeia) for many years.
It’s hard to emphasize how much UO defined parts of my life.
Haha, I'm going to be dating myself here but I'm going to go with Sierra's Hero's Quest (the original Quest for Glory) which I've played on my first PC. It was an XT with a CGA monitor and 256k of...
Haha, I'm going to be dating myself here but I'm going to go with Sierra's Hero's Quest (the original Quest for Glory) which I've played on my first PC. It was an XT with a CGA monitor and 256k of RAM, no HD, just old 5.25'' floppy disks, which I've begged my parents for YEARS to buy.
(EDIT: A few weeks after I got it, I also got my first computer virus - Ping Pong and proceeded to get sick myself)
English is not my first language and my brother and I practically learned English by playing the first Sierra graphical adventure games. Aged 8, we sat there with freakin' hardcover dictionaries trying to understand what it was about and how to piece together a grammatically broken sentence to tell our characters what to do. It took us months, if not years, to solve them and we loved every minute of it!
Nothing makes me sadder than the fact we’ve lost all the quest series. I’d have enjoyed a new release of each quest every three years. Some police quest on my oculus would be nice :).
Nothing makes me sadder than the fact we’ve lost all the quest series. I’d have enjoyed a new release of each quest every three years.
Mine was when my uncle bought me a Playstation and Final Fantasy 8 for my 5th birthday. I couldn't even play it, but I remember watching him play it for hours and being dumbfounded that a game...
Mine was when my uncle bought me a Playstation and Final Fantasy 8 for my 5th birthday. I couldn't even play it, but I remember watching him play it for hours and being dumbfounded that a game with a story like this even existed.
Homeworld 1 true 3D space RTS and the musical score & voice acting put it in a class above. The story isn't mind blowing but it's at least sufficiently gripping to carry you along. edit> The 2nd...
Homeworld 1 true 3D space RTS and the musical score & voice acting put it in a class above. The story isn't mind blowing but it's at least sufficiently gripping to carry you along.
Hmm, I feel like your title is asking one thing, your description another, and people are replying to two other unrelated questions. There's a long list of games that hooked me, going from Diablo...
Hmm, I feel like your title is asking one thing, your description another, and people are replying to two other unrelated questions.
There's a long list of games that hooked me, going from Diablo 2/World of Warcraft all the way to most recently Two Point Hospital. Hearthstone made me start a company altogether. But immersion-wise, that'd be Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos (https://www.gog.com/game/independence_war_2). It's the game that makes me hope Star Citizen will end up being at the very least 1% of what it promises to be. I spent days and days as a kid looking for marauders and pirates, hijacking cargo, calling Jafs... The "homey" feel of Lucrecia's base. Oh boy, a modern remake of it would make me so happy. Strongly recommended to anyone who is into space games.
As for what games convinced me gaming can be art, that's also a pretty long list (not that I ever needed much convincing). I think the usual suspects for that question are always Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, The Last of Us, Shadow of the Collossus, etc. But I think it's too easy an answer. They're stories augmented with gameplay mechanics. I like the other end of the spectrum, games like The Stanley Parable, which embrace the gameplay in a unique format. The Witness comes to mind as well, it's a game through and through, but the whole is bigger than the sum of the parts, you know?
Breath of the Wild would definitely be up there too (and I expect Skyrim and the like also, but I haven't played TES games). That's more of the "game world" which can completely suck you in. The art is the world, kinda like you get sucked into a book's fictional world.
There were a lot of classic 90s PC games that I dove into and never left. Games were a lot harder to come by then, so I spent a lot of time replaying things. Heck, half the stuff I played wasn't...
There were a lot of classic 90s PC games that I dove into and never left. Games were a lot harder to come by then, so I spent a lot of time replaying things. Heck, half the stuff I played wasn't even full games but demos. I would go back to the same two levels of a demo over and over again, loving every hour of what was supposed to be only a 20 minute preview.
Betrayal at Krondor, DOOM (of course), and M.A.X. saw a ton of time from me. There was a point-and-click adventure called The Last Express that was genuinely amazing for its time. System Shock 2 was terrifying and awesome. I got a joystick just for Mechwarrior 2. Even Jazz Jackrabbit had me scouring repeatedly for secrets while jamming to its amazing soundtrack.
But in terms of outright landmark, watershed games, I don't think anything will touch Final Fantasy VII for me. The game had a huge marketing push at the time, so my opinion of it was formed long before I'd even played it. I'd go over to my friend's house and we'd play his SNES for a bit, then later, when we were watching TV, a commercial for FFVII would come on and our jaws would just drop to the floor and stay there. It looked so fresh, modern, and robust. The graphics were mindblowing. The characters and world were edgy and interesting. It looked so advanced and grown-up. It made every other console game we'd played in our lives look childish and miniscule.
And when I was finally able to play the game, it actually did live up to the hype. I still love it to this day. It did urban fantasy right, and the playtime and world were worthy of the three(!) discs it came on. It was also my first JRPG, so I didn't have anything else to compare it to. The other RPG's I'd played were very different (e.g. Daggerfall, Fallout), both in execution and in tone. FFVII felt like it was its own game, different and distinct from everything that had come before. I sunk hundreds of hours into the game across multiple playthroughs, and I still didn't see all it has to offer. Up to that point, games had been cool and interesting for me, but they hadn't been transformative. FFVII changed that.
As far as immersion goes, for me that would have to be Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. I had to turn it off on a few occasions because the voices were just getting to be too much, and finishing it...
As far as immersion goes, for me that would have to be Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. I had to turn it off on a few occasions because the voices were just getting to be too much, and finishing it just left me feeling kind of... off? Now I know that sounds negative, but considering this is a game about mental illness I think that's the point. I'll never play it again, but I'll maintain that it's beautiful in a dark way and very much worth playing. Once.
I think that's a very valid critique. The game was pretty much designed to get this reaction from people. But it's an absolutely beautiful game in terms of design and Melina nailed the role
I think that's a very valid critique. The game was pretty much designed to get this reaction from people. But it's an absolutely beautiful game in terms of design and Melina nailed the role
World of Warcraft, hands down. I was 12 or 13 when I started playing it in 2006, and I was hooked from the start. I'd played a couple of games beforehand, like Heroes of Might and Magic, Diablo 2,...
World of Warcraft, hands down. I was 12 or 13 when I started playing it in 2006, and I was hooked from the start. I'd played a couple of games beforehand, like Heroes of Might and Magic, Diablo 2, Age of Empires, Counter-strike... But nothing ever gripped me like WoW did, and nothing really has ever since! I take long breaks sometimes, but will always come back for new expansions - can't stay away! Not liking the direction the game has taken with BfA though, but luckily I'm not forced to play it.
I imagine WoW was the first real game for a lot of people too.
Ooh, yeah. WoW isn't the game that "sold [me] on the immersion of games as a form of entertainment", but it's definitely the the game that has hooked me the most. Not in the same way other games...
Ooh, yeah. WoW isn't the game that "sold [me] on the immersion of games as a form of entertainment", but it's definitely the the game that has hooked me the most. Not in the same way other games have hooked me, like where I just go all in HARD on Fallout 4 or something for 30 hours in a week and more or less finish in two weeks. But I have played on-and-off fairly consistently since, I dunno, 2010? I take breaks but I've never quit, and checking now, my main has logged approximately 2,740 hours. 0_0
The games definitely gone in a different direction I'm not a huge fan of, but I still enjoy it at it's core, and having just gotten my girlfriend to start playing for the first time (she enjoys it!), it's just the game that keeps on giving.
Yeah, the /played command in WoW is not for the faint of heart... I have more of a life now than I used to, but I'm probably still a good example of a no-lifer because I have at the very least...
Yeah, the /played command in WoW is not for the faint of heart... I have more of a life now than I used to, but I'm probably still a good example of a no-lifer because I have at the very least 10,000 hours across all my characters, maybe even 15,000. Not a great statistic.
The game that got me into gaming was probably Super Mario Brothers on the Nintendo Entertainment System. I had played an Atari 2600 at my grandparent's place often, Berzerk and Missile Command...
The game that got me into gaming was probably Super Mario Brothers on the Nintendo Entertainment System. I had played an Atari 2600 at my grandparent's place often, Berzerk and Missile Command were favorites. But Mario was something on a whole new level for a kid like me. It caused me to squirrel every penny I found, as my parents made a deal with me that if I could pay for half of a NES, they'd pay for the other half.
As far as immersion goes, I'd probably say Final Fantasy Adventure (as it's known in the States). It was the first game that caused me to cry. I was a pretty sensitive kid, so this was not a huge hurdle to cross, but it still did it for me even with it's clunky Gameboy level graphics.
When I was young I mostly grew up with edutainment games in the DOS era, but one of the early that stood out for immersion was one of the Need for Speed games. I don't remember which one it was...
When I was young I mostly grew up with edutainment games in the DOS era, but one of the early that stood out for immersion was one of the Need for Speed games. I don't remember which one it was but I think you were taking the car for a test drive along a spiral mountain.
Having ADHD makes it hard for me to feel really hooked or immersed in a game. I don't even like puzzles that much, but Portal 2 just clicked with me. The heavily fluid and 3D nature of those...
Having ADHD makes it hard for me to feel really hooked or immersed in a game. I don't even like puzzles that much, but Portal 2 just clicked with me. The heavily fluid and 3D nature of those puzzles where immensely enjoyable for me. Maybe because Portal 2's puzzles are a bit like chess (another game I love): they're entirely logical, require little to no memorization and have no weasely gotchas you must solve through intuition. Everything is there for you to see, and if you can't go through something they make sure that you only have yourself to blame.
Portal 2 is, without a doubt, my favorite game of all time.
Subnautica. I bought it in a steam sale over a year ago because I had a passing interest in it and it was a good deal. It sat around for a year in my library (like so many games do) and then this...
Subnautica.
I bought it in a steam sale over a year ago because I had a passing interest in it and it was a good deal. It sat around for a year in my library (like so many games do) and then this past summer my son took a trip out of the country with his mother for two weeks so I had the house to myself and some time to play through some of my backlog.
I played 30 hours in the first two days, I was hooked so fast. The game is amazing, simple and a really great play. It's a great alternative to the bulk of my library that tends to be more violent. I have since logged around 100 more hours in the game and will log many more.
This is a weird question for me because I don't think I can remember far enough back to get to the first game that got me into videogames. Some of the earliest family photos we have of me are in...
This is a weird question for me because I don't think I can remember far enough back to get to the first game that got me into videogames. Some of the earliest family photos we have of me are in front of a computer.
Starting from where I do remember though, I think it was the strategy games I played. Age of Empires II, SimCity 2000, and Rollercoaster Tycoon are all fond memories.
I'm not sure if this counts, as I don't really play anything these days, but Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. Cataclysm is a roguelike set in a world post-zombie apocalypse, but it wasn't the lore that...
I'm not sure if this counts, as I don't really play anything these days, but Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. Cataclysm is a roguelike set in a world post-zombie apocalypse, but it wasn't the lore that got me.
I was playing the tutorial level, quite a few versions ago. Large room, a few things to interact with, a zombie to whack - I got bored pretty quickly, and started messing around. I pumped out gasoline from the pump on the floor and set fire to it. The fire started to spread, got to the pump, and it exploded - everything was on fire, so I fled to the basement.
After a while I got back up and saw that the walls of the room had burned down, ran through them, and found myself in a forest. I had destroyed the tutorial "level" and escaped into the world.
I died pretty quickly after that - possibly mauled by a bear, not sure - but I was in love.
All Points Bulletin (APB) and it's "successor" APB:Reloaded. I swear I used to play it religiously back in both middle and high school (it was my first online game) until it was unplayable due to...
All Points Bulletin (APB) and it's "successor" APB:Reloaded.
I swear I used to play it religiously back in both middle and high school (it was my first online game) until it was unplayable due to tons of issues ranging from the lag, optimization, lack of content, not giving a shit about the cheaters to playing the favorites when it comes to the community.
I've always played games ever since I was 6 starting with Quake Arena but APB is the game that led me to build my first custom rig and get hooked on online gaming.
Oh and I suppose it's also worth mentioning that I've completed Bully almost 20 times on PS2. It's still my fav SP game to this day.
edit: I misread the question. The game that got me into gaming would have to be Halo 2. Once Xbox LIVE was a thing I got hooked on gaming because of competitive multiplayer. I still do like some...
edit: I misread the question. The game that got me into gaming would have to be Halo 2. Once Xbox LIVE was a thing I got hooked on gaming because of competitive multiplayer. I still do like some high-octane multiplayer shooters, but I mostly play single player games now.
Recently, i've been mostly playing Vermintide 2 when I have time.
Its essentially a left 4 dead style game set in the Warhammer Universe. Its pretty big on teamwork and can get really difficult. But theres something really satisfying about slaying hordes of rats as opposed to zombies for a change.
For me it was the first Halo game. I was young when it came out and didn't have an Xbox, but my older cousin did. I have many great memories of going to his house to play. Of course I was like 10...
For me it was the first Halo game. I was young when it came out and didn't have an Xbox, but my older cousin did. I have many great memories of going to his house to play. Of course I was like 10 and he was 17 so he crushed me, but at the time I really thought that Halo was the pinnacle of video games.
Oh there are too many! The very first, was probably something like the Original Elite or Mercenary on the Atari ST. Right now it's X-COM 2, can't get enough of it. been playing it for over a year...
Oh there are too many! The very first, was probably something like the Original Elite or Mercenary on the Atari ST.
Right now it's X-COM 2, can't get enough of it. been playing it for over a year now. Awesome game (and where my botched username comes from).
Final Fantasy 9, I hadn't played many games before and it really drew me in with it's battle system, big world and graphics (for the time). However what really did it for me was the characters,...
Final Fantasy 9, I hadn't played many games before and it really drew me in with it's battle system, big world and graphics (for the time). However what really did it for me was the characters, they made me care about them in way I've rarely experienced again in a game.
Runescape Started playing about 11 or 12 years ago on my current account, and still play (give or take a few 'break' periods). Despite serious changes to the game and complete changes of...
Runescape
Started playing about 11 or 12 years ago on my current account, and still play (give or take a few 'break' periods). Despite serious changes to the game and complete changes of direction, I do still find it enjoyable.
Half Life 2 was my first real non-flash game. Coming from the world of jumpy, disjointed boundaries between gameplay and story, hl2 was a refreshing change. The way the story is told through character interactions and atmosphere was so different to "You finish the level. You get a story segment. Repeat." that I was confused at the start - I was expecting the g-man speech to be a massive, 10min long monologue with exposition everywhere.
Half-Life 2 was also the one that changed everything for me. I had played plenty of "real" games before, but HL2 both completely sold me on PC gaming and horrified me to the core. That game still has some of the best sound I've ever encountered and the sheer helplessness I felt in the train station was completely new to me.
For me it was the classic cRPGs of ye olde times. Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Planescape: Torment, Neverwinter Nights, etc. They combined my love of the Fantasy genre with deep story in a game and I often got completely lost in them and absolutely fell in love with the characters portrayed in them.
However, most recently VR games have taken that immersion to the next level. In fact VR is so immersive it's actually kind of a problem. I don't handle horror games well in general, (but still like playing them occasionally)... but I absolutely cannot handle horror VR games. Brookhaven Experiment had my heart-rate spiking so damn high I honestly don't think it could possible be healthy. :P
I tried VR on a low-quality headset and played a tech-demo game that let me launch from platform to platform. It wasn't meant to be scary at all--in fact the whole game had a very calming atmosphere.
At the beginning of one level, instead of moving forward, I decided to turn around to see if there were any platforms behind me. Instead I found out that there was a tree/statue thing immediately behind me, only a foot or two away. Despite the game not being scary at all, I jumped, my heart racing, because my sense of space had been so blatantly violated. It was like the thing had silently snuck up on me, and when I turned to face it, it was dangerously close.
That was enough for me to know that I'd never be able to survive an actual VR horror game that is actually trying to scare me. Like you said, the immersion is just too good.
Windlands? I have played the demo too and it's on my wishlist. Some people complain about nausea when playing games like that but so far I have yet to experience any, thankfully.
Yeah truly experiencing the feeling of space and scale in the virtual world is the most mind blowing aspect of VR for me too. theBlu has one scene where a Blue Whale swims right up to you and past you and in that moment I realized how seeing them in documentaries on TV doesn't do them justice... at all. But seeing one in VR allows you to truly comprehend the immense scale of them which is genuinely awe-inspiring. The jellyfish scene is also breathtakingly beautiful as well. Both of those is why theBlu is my goto "game" when I demo my Vive for people and even older people who have never played video games in their life before can handle it and are consistently blown away by it. I would highly recommend trying it if you ever get the chance.
No, it wasn't Windlands. I can't remember the name of it, but there was no movement outside of "jetpacking." I couldn't walk on the ground, only launch off and land at different points. This was on my friend's GearVR running off his phone. The game looked like it would fit in on the PSOne. Low-fi, blocky, polygonal 3D environments--which is funny, because despite the world being far from realistic or even robust, it was still convincingly immersive.
I would have a really hard time with theBlu, I think. Vast expanses underwater unnerve me a bit, and I also have a difficult time with very large digital things up close (for lack of a better explanation). I get a deep-seated sense of dread just looking at something like Jupiter in Celestia. I think confronting a whale up-close in VR would give me the same feeling, despite it being completely harmless.
LOL, yeah one of my friends has pretty severe thalassophobia and it took a fair amount of convincing to get him to try theBlu as a result. He absolutely loved the jellyfish scene (which was the only one I was planning on showing him) so then he asked to play the other ones I warned him about. He did alright in the dark, deep sea cavern scene, but in the whale one he was too busy looking at the sunken ship details to notice the whale coming up behind him, so when it finally made a call right next to him and he spun around to see it a few feet away from him it scared the absolute shit out of him. Despite him being pretty shaky afterwards he still said he enjoyed it though.... :P
That is the exact scenario that would cause me to unintentionally and reflexively break a several hundred dollar headset: surprise large object, unexpectedly close to me, in an underwater expanse. No thanks! Your friend is braver than I am.
The jellyfish scene does look cool though. Reminded me of ABZÛ, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
The Vive is actually surprisingly resilient and when worn correctly it takes a lot to actually dislodge it. You would basically have to be full-on metal music style head-banging to do so. And yeah that scene is very reminiscent of ABZÛ, which is another absolutely gorgeous game and wonderful underwater experience. :)
I feel you, I tried playing the Until Dawn VR game and it's seriously so terrifying. Imagine when VR technology actually improves. It'll be lethal.
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind was the one that hooked me the most in the sense that I just walked around and only did quests if I felt like doing them, I mostly just read lore, etc.
Neverwinter Nights also but it's more linear.
That said, if by "hook" you mean just hours spent and how difficult it is to stop, I'd say HOMM5(.5). My favorite game by far and I don't know why I keep buying games if at the end of the day I'm just playing HOMM5 lol.
That's how I am with the older FF series games. I'll buy the latest and greatest game and then I'll just play FF 6 for the umpteenth time
The Last of Us was the game that truly sold me on the fact that some of the very best story tellers are no longer in movies or TV, but in video games. I can't wait for the sequel.
Back in the day though, the first big titles for the N-64. Game changers. They were everywhere because they simply revolutionized gaming. So many kids just got completely lost in them because it felt so real. There's a reason the N-64 was codenamed "project reality" by Nintendo during production. Super Mario 64, GoldenEye 007, Ocarina of Time, Final Fantasy VII. Simply revolutionary.
The Last of Us is phenomenal. The N64 had some of the best games in history in my opinion. That Bowser fight in Mario 64 is something you'll always remember if you've done it.
Ultima Online was the game that got me hooked, and the only one I ever much cared for. I spent many thousands of hours (and a few thousand dollars) playing over a number of years. It was a great value; for the cost of going to see a 90-minute movie, I could have a whole month's worth of entertainment. There was a thriving community around UO in its forums and several fan sites.
I eventually lost interest, not so much in the game or its evolving lore but with the way it was treated as a product. Aggressive i18n efforts took a lot of the rustic feel away from the experience. A new 3D-hotness client was introduced and the 2D client was left to languish. Prices went up. I moved on, playing on emulator servers for awhile and then giving it up altogether.
Haven't found another game that even comes close to giving me that same spark...
Couldn’t agree more with this. I was able to extend my experience by running one of the larger player run shards (Cassiopeia) for many years.
It’s hard to emphasize how much UO defined parts of my life.
Gran Turismo 1 and 2 on the original Playstation. I played that game endlessly as a kid. Then Jeanne D'Arc on the PSP.
I just endlessly crashed into walls and spun out
Haha, I'm going to be dating myself here but I'm going to go with Sierra's Hero's Quest (the original Quest for Glory) which I've played on my first PC. It was an XT with a CGA monitor and 256k of RAM, no HD, just old 5.25'' floppy disks, which I've begged my parents for YEARS to buy.
(EDIT: A few weeks after I got it, I also got my first computer virus - Ping Pong and proceeded to get sick myself)
English is not my first language and my brother and I practically learned English by playing the first Sierra graphical adventure games. Aged 8, we sat there with freakin' hardcover dictionaries trying to understand what it was about and how to piece together a grammatically broken sentence to tell our characters what to do. It took us months, if not years, to solve them and we loved every minute of it!
OMG, great stuff!! But I was more partial to Space Quest myself!
Nothing makes me sadder than the fact we’ve lost all the quest series. I’d have enjoyed a new release of each quest every three years.
Some police quest on my oculus would be nice :).
Mine was when my uncle bought me a Playstation and Final Fantasy 8 for my 5th birthday. I couldn't even play it, but I remember watching him play it for hours and being dumbfounded that a game with a story like this even existed.
Homeworld 1 true 3D space RTS and the musical score & voice acting put it in a class above. The story isn't mind blowing but it's at least sufficiently gripping to carry you along.
edit>
The 2nd most poignant moment in the game: obviously spoilers
Hmm, I feel like your title is asking one thing, your description another, and people are replying to two other unrelated questions.
There's a long list of games that hooked me, going from Diablo 2/World of Warcraft all the way to most recently Two Point Hospital. Hearthstone made me start a company altogether. But immersion-wise, that'd be Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos (https://www.gog.com/game/independence_war_2). It's the game that makes me hope Star Citizen will end up being at the very least 1% of what it promises to be. I spent days and days as a kid looking for marauders and pirates, hijacking cargo, calling Jafs... The "homey" feel of Lucrecia's base. Oh boy, a modern remake of it would make me so happy. Strongly recommended to anyone who is into space games.
As for what games convinced me gaming can be art, that's also a pretty long list (not that I ever needed much convincing). I think the usual suspects for that question are always Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, The Last of Us, Shadow of the Collossus, etc. But I think it's too easy an answer. They're stories augmented with gameplay mechanics. I like the other end of the spectrum, games like The Stanley Parable, which embrace the gameplay in a unique format. The Witness comes to mind as well, it's a game through and through, but the whole is bigger than the sum of the parts, you know?
Breath of the Wild would definitely be up there too (and I expect Skyrim and the like also, but I haven't played TES games). That's more of the "game world" which can completely suck you in. The art is the world, kinda like you get sucked into a book's fictional world.
There were a lot of classic 90s PC games that I dove into and never left. Games were a lot harder to come by then, so I spent a lot of time replaying things. Heck, half the stuff I played wasn't even full games but demos. I would go back to the same two levels of a demo over and over again, loving every hour of what was supposed to be only a 20 minute preview.
Betrayal at Krondor, DOOM (of course), and M.A.X. saw a ton of time from me. There was a point-and-click adventure called The Last Express that was genuinely amazing for its time. System Shock 2 was terrifying and awesome. I got a joystick just for Mechwarrior 2. Even Jazz Jackrabbit had me scouring repeatedly for secrets while jamming to its amazing soundtrack.
But in terms of outright landmark, watershed games, I don't think anything will touch Final Fantasy VII for me. The game had a huge marketing push at the time, so my opinion of it was formed long before I'd even played it. I'd go over to my friend's house and we'd play his SNES for a bit, then later, when we were watching TV, a commercial for FFVII would come on and our jaws would just drop to the floor and stay there. It looked so fresh, modern, and robust. The graphics were mindblowing. The characters and world were edgy and interesting. It looked so advanced and grown-up. It made every other console game we'd played in our lives look childish and miniscule.
And when I was finally able to play the game, it actually did live up to the hype. I still love it to this day. It did urban fantasy right, and the playtime and world were worthy of the three(!) discs it came on. It was also my first JRPG, so I didn't have anything else to compare it to. The other RPG's I'd played were very different (e.g. Daggerfall, Fallout), both in execution and in tone. FFVII felt like it was its own game, different and distinct from everything that had come before. I sunk hundreds of hours into the game across multiple playthroughs, and I still didn't see all it has to offer. Up to that point, games had been cool and interesting for me, but they hadn't been transformative. FFVII changed that.
As far as immersion goes, for me that would have to be Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. I had to turn it off on a few occasions because the voices were just getting to be too much, and finishing it just left me feeling kind of... off? Now I know that sounds negative, but considering this is a game about mental illness I think that's the point. I'll never play it again, but I'll maintain that it's beautiful in a dark way and very much worth playing. Once.
I think that's a very valid critique. The game was pretty much designed to get this reaction from people. But it's an absolutely beautiful game in terms of design and Melina nailed the role
World of Warcraft, hands down. I was 12 or 13 when I started playing it in 2006, and I was hooked from the start. I'd played a couple of games beforehand, like Heroes of Might and Magic, Diablo 2, Age of Empires, Counter-strike... But nothing ever gripped me like WoW did, and nothing really has ever since! I take long breaks sometimes, but will always come back for new expansions - can't stay away! Not liking the direction the game has taken with BfA though, but luckily I'm not forced to play it.
I imagine WoW was the first real game for a lot of people too.
Ooh, yeah. WoW isn't the game that "sold [me] on the immersion of games as a form of entertainment", but it's definitely the the game that has hooked me the most. Not in the same way other games have hooked me, like where I just go all in HARD on Fallout 4 or something for 30 hours in a week and more or less finish in two weeks. But I have played on-and-off fairly consistently since, I dunno, 2010? I take breaks but I've never quit, and checking now, my main has logged approximately 2,740 hours. 0_0
The games definitely gone in a different direction I'm not a huge fan of, but I still enjoy it at it's core, and having just gotten my girlfriend to start playing for the first time (she enjoys it!), it's just the game that keeps on giving.
Yeah, the /played command in WoW is not for the faint of heart... I have more of a life now than I used to, but I'm probably still a good example of a no-lifer because I have at the very least 10,000 hours across all my characters, maybe even 15,000. Not a great statistic.
The game that got me into gaming was probably Super Mario Brothers on the Nintendo Entertainment System. I had played an Atari 2600 at my grandparent's place often, Berzerk and Missile Command were favorites. But Mario was something on a whole new level for a kid like me. It caused me to squirrel every penny I found, as my parents made a deal with me that if I could pay for half of a NES, they'd pay for the other half.
As far as immersion goes, I'd probably say Final Fantasy Adventure (as it's known in the States). It was the first game that caused me to cry. I was a pretty sensitive kid, so this was not a huge hurdle to cross, but it still did it for me even with it's clunky Gameboy level graphics.
When I was young I mostly grew up with edutainment games in the DOS era, but one of the early that stood out for immersion was one of the Need for Speed games. I don't remember which one it was but I think you were taking the car for a test drive along a spiral mountain.
Having ADHD makes it hard for me to feel really hooked or immersed in a game. I don't even like puzzles that much, but Portal 2 just clicked with me. The heavily fluid and 3D nature of those puzzles where immensely enjoyable for me. Maybe because Portal 2's puzzles are a bit like chess (another game I love): they're entirely logical, require little to no memorization and have no weasely gotchas you must solve through intuition. Everything is there for you to see, and if you can't go through something they make sure that you only have yourself to blame.
Portal 2 is, without a doubt, my favorite game of all time.
Subnautica.
I bought it in a steam sale over a year ago because I had a passing interest in it and it was a good deal. It sat around for a year in my library (like so many games do) and then this past summer my son took a trip out of the country with his mother for two weeks so I had the house to myself and some time to play through some of my backlog.
I played 30 hours in the first two days, I was hooked so fast. The game is amazing, simple and a really great play. It's a great alternative to the bulk of my library that tends to be more violent. I have since logged around 100 more hours in the game and will log many more.
I was not expecting to love it as much as I do.
This is a weird question for me because I don't think I can remember far enough back to get to the first game that got me into videogames. Some of the earliest family photos we have of me are in front of a computer.
Starting from where I do remember though, I think it was the strategy games I played. Age of Empires II, SimCity 2000, and Rollercoaster Tycoon are all fond memories.
I'm not sure if this counts, as I don't really play anything these days, but Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. Cataclysm is a roguelike set in a world post-zombie apocalypse, but it wasn't the lore that got me.
I was playing the tutorial level, quite a few versions ago. Large room, a few things to interact with, a zombie to whack - I got bored pretty quickly, and started messing around. I pumped out gasoline from the pump on the floor and set fire to it. The fire started to spread, got to the pump, and it exploded - everything was on fire, so I fled to the basement.
After a while I got back up and saw that the walls of the room had burned down, ran through them, and found myself in a forest. I had destroyed the tutorial "level" and escaped into the world.
I died pretty quickly after that - possibly mauled by a bear, not sure - but I was in love.
All Points Bulletin (APB) and it's "successor" APB:Reloaded.
I swear I used to play it religiously back in both middle and high school (it was my first online game) until it was unplayable due to tons of issues ranging from the lag, optimization, lack of content, not giving a shit about the cheaters to playing the favorites when it comes to the community.
I've always played games ever since I was 6 starting with Quake Arena but APB is the game that led me to build my first custom rig and get hooked on online gaming.
Oh and I suppose it's also worth mentioning that I've completed Bully almost 20 times on PS2. It's still my fav SP game to this day.
edit: I misread the question. The game that got me into gaming would have to be Halo 2. Once Xbox LIVE was a thing I got hooked on gaming because of competitive multiplayer. I still do like some high-octane multiplayer shooters, but I mostly play single player games now.
Recently, i've been mostly playing Vermintide 2 when I have time.
Its essentially a left 4 dead style game set in the Warhammer Universe. Its pretty big on teamwork and can get really difficult. But theres something really satisfying about slaying hordes of rats as opposed to zombies for a change.
For me it was the first Halo game. I was young when it came out and didn't have an Xbox, but my older cousin did. I have many great memories of going to his house to play. Of course I was like 10 and he was 17 so he crushed me, but at the time I really thought that Halo was the pinnacle of video games.
Oh there are too many! The very first, was probably something like the Original Elite or Mercenary on the Atari ST.
Right now it's X-COM 2, can't get enough of it. been playing it for over a year now. Awesome game (and where my botched username comes from).
Final Fantasy 9, I hadn't played many games before and it really drew me in with it's battle system, big world and graphics (for the time). However what really did it for me was the characters, they made me care about them in way I've rarely experienced again in a game.
To this day it's still in my top 3 games.
Runescape
Started playing about 11 or 12 years ago on my current account, and still play (give or take a few 'break' periods). Despite serious changes to the game and complete changes of direction, I do still find it enjoyable.
Asheron's Call, Tribes.