There is a huge probability here that after clicking “Publish”, I’ll recall yet another gaming memory that really stood out this year. Such is the way with these kinds of lists but if I were to sit on my memories forever until I was certain I had my absolute top three, then this post wouldn’t make it out until 2010.
With all the recent gaming awards being dished out, comme d’habitude at the end of a year/decade, I found myself more curious as to which games had significant lasting memories. If a game has enough potential to leave an impact, be it positive or negative, can that in itself justify the time you spent playing it? I guess not so much as a gamer but as a game developer – the negatives are just as beneficial as the positives, if not more so.
And so below, you’ll find one specific memory from three different games that come to the top of my head when I think about the past year in gaming. The games I left out still had a big impact on me (Uncharted 2, LittleBigPlanet to name a couple), but these are the three that had a moment I instantly recall and in some cases triggered further memories.
Red Faction: Navigating the pipe systems.
My adventures after breaking into a nearby pipeline had the desired results of leading me to a high mountain peak full of Ore, my exploration had been rewarded, although unfortunately I realised not too long after my journey that there was a much easier path accessible via vehicle. None the less I felt smart and intelligent from using the games destructible enivronments and from that point on I used pipelines as a way to stealthily enter strongholds of future missions quite successfully. Which opens up a wealth of other fond memories of the game.
Overall, Red Faction: Guerilla was a great inspiration to play through, an unexpected joy, somewhat refreshing and providing all sorts of creative ideas for future games.
Kill Zone 2: Intro
“They will know Helghan, belongs to the Helghast”.
Brian Cox VO’ing the opening cinematic of Killzone 2 with Visari addressing his people, cups and plates on nearby tables rattling due to the stereo systems output sent the appropriate beats of adrenaline pummeling through my system prior to kicking off the campaign. The campaign itself didn’t manage to plant many positive sequence of events into my limited memory capacity, but in keeping with the tradition of most games having shitty endings: there were two bad sequences that did (spoiler alert). The ending to the game was dismal and the character who carried out the assassination on Visari was one whom I despised the entire game. He’s your squad mate, you’re meant to like him right? There were two instances where he jumps the gun and pulls the trigger, with the player having no control over the situation or more importantly: being the one who gets to pull the trigger themselves.
In what would be an incredible twist and new direction for Killzone 3’s continuation of the story: I’d love nothing more than to come back and kill that arsehole of a squadmate.
But that’s getting a bit off topic for the memory I recalled, which brings me to the below video of Cox’s VO work (~first 40 seconds or so). Unfortunately it also triggers the negative memories described above.
Dragon Age: Downed Dwarf
One of many amazing moments captured in Dragon Age: Origins upon pausing the game to dish out some tactics. The shot below does a good job of representing the chaos that was taking place at the time whilst also telling a story in itself.
This moment occured early in the game, perhaps two hours or so and imprinted an amazingly high level of expectation for what was left of the game to come. From that moment on, my screenshot folder grew expotentially due to finding joy in trying to take shots which would later remind me of the battle that took place.
