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Games That Keep You Coming Back?
The Guardian Gamesblog kicked off a great discussion on their site, talking about games that just keep pulling you back in. Games that, even if you've played through them once, you just have to pick them up again. eToyChest and Kotaku both have related threads. So, what about you? What are some videogames that, even years later, you just have to play through one more time?
For me, besides my ongoing fascination with World of Warcraft, Star Wars Galaxies, and Everquest II, there aren't that many that needed more than one playthrough. Both Half-Life titles, of course. I needed to play HL2 just to get everything I missed the first time. Jedi Academy and System Shock 2 required additional plays to try the game at a different angle. Similarly, I've played through the Diablo titles more than once each, as there's just so much clicking to be had. I somehow managed to avoid the gravity well of Civ4 for the most part, but Civilization 3 was almost the only game I played in college. Good times.
The Legend of Zelda
Wasteland
Nethack on alt.org
Star Control II
...It has to be the Zelda games... almost every one is a classic, my personal favourite has to be Ocarina of Time, its so fantastic.
The newest game to captivate me like this is Resident Evil 4, its a classic, getting to shoot anything with a shotgun, brill.
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
... and Deus Ex (played that one on my last four computers). Both great games with extreme replayability, since they offer so much customzing options for your character. And, what's more important, those choices actually matter in terms of gameplay and are not purely cosmetic, resulting in sometimes radically different games.
Don't get me wrong, I like (for instance) the Splinter Cell series, but if you don't sneak in the levels where you're supposed to sneak, you simply lose the game; when I've made it through such an obstacle course once I see no motivation to do the exact same thing again the next time through.
-- Language is a virus from outer space.
I loved the original Deus Ex and played all the way through it twice and played just the first few levels a number of times since then. I would definitely consider playing it all the way through again! It's a shame the second one wasn't as good as the first.
The sad thing is I have it for the Mac and it only runs in classic mode now. When the intel move becomes ubiquitous they aren't going to do classic and I'm going to lose Deus Ex (as well as all my nostalgic classic apps). Very sad.
-David
There. Now go play some cool javascript games!
There are games are fade away when you realize how dull the graphics are. There are games that let your mind make all the graphics.
The types of games that I keep coming back to are simulators with a sandbox interface, that require you to develop a new skill or learn something new. Flight simulators are particularly challenging - There's always something new to learn on Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004, and similarly for remote controlled aircraft on Realflight G3.
In fact I'm a bit of a flight sim nut so long as the sim is sufficiently complex. There is always something new you haven't tried. Learnt Acrobatics? Try navigation. Learnt to navigate, learn to fly a 747 properly. Learnt that too how about crosswind landings, night flying etc. With the remote control sims there's always a new trick to try and master and your accuracy to improve. What's more you don't have to spend $200 and 3 weekends fixing things after every crash.
Then there's software that teaches you a classic game like Chessmaster. You can always get better at chess, and there are lots of tutorials in Chessmaster 10 so you can go through them again after a year or so and you're reminded of something you'd learnt but almost forgotten. The I can play in a virtual tournament against a number of virtual opponents.
These are the sorts of games I keep coming back to. They manage to keep your mind and/or your reflexes going without being completely artificial...and sure it's a cartoon world with virtual this and that, but hell I'll never get to land a real 747 or play chess against a grandmaster for real, so I appreciate these experiences.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer