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Eye-Opening Games of Last Generation

Eye-Opening Games of Last Generation

There have been so many games that it is often difficult for most gamers to pick one game that changed things for them. A game that stands out so much in their mind as something that they would not have normally looked at, but somehow managed to find its way into their console and inevitably into their heads. But there are some games that brought us to a new place in gaming. They changed the way we looked at how video games should look or feel or even play. There have been games that have been artsy for art’s sake and looked very different from everything on the market at the time. Then there are games that come out that cause an awakening to the possibilities of what games could be. They may not be the most epic titles in their own right, but something about them changes us. So we thought we would take a look at a few games from the last generation of gaming that changed things for us.

Okami

Okami

One of the most visually stunning games, Okami brought the beauty and serenity of Japanese calligraphy into video gaming. It combines several of Japan’s myths and legends and weaves them together to tell the story of how the world was saved from darkness by the Shinto Goddess, Amaterasu. She assumed the form of a great white wolf and used the power of writing, using the Celestial Brush, to bind and banish darkness and save the world. The art style of Okami borrowed from Japanese woodcut art as well as watercolor and then applied the use of cel-shading to bring it all to it’s beautiful end. But above the incredible look of the game, it was the use of the Celestial Brush that changed our thoughts on arena-based combat. It was even fun on the Wii. Not many other ported titles can boast that.

LittleBigPlanet

LittleBigPlanet

The folks over at Media Molecule must have known what they were doing when they created this exclusive title for the PS3. Even though on the surface it looked like a very pretty but still fairly unremarkable side-scrolling platformer, it had something else going for it that set it so far apart from the competition that it created very nearly it’s own sub-genre of gaming. It was the application and execution of user-generated content that made LBP so different from the rest. You could use the world creator tools to make your own playable levels. Then you could send them out into the PSNetwork and have your level played and rated by other real-life gamers. Then to take things just a little further, the developers of the game would choose their favorites for inclusion in some game expansions. They must’ve known they were on to something when the user generated level count broke the 8 million mark.

The Unfinished Swan

The Unfinished Swan

Santa Monica Games, most notable for their God of War series, created this game that has flown relatively under the radar. It was met with mixed reviews and never really garnered a huge following. But this game did something that we had never really seen before. It took the overdone concept of a first-person ‘shooter’ and turned it into a puzzling adventure of epic proportions. It was a sad tale that wove its way in and out of fairy tale clichés and storybook scenes, but all of it had to be uncovered by the player’s deliberate use of ink blobs that were thrown. Once they hit the scenery around the player, it would expose the structures and pathways surrounding the player and show the paths that could be taken. The game starts out with a white screen, and if you weren’t really paying attention right off, you would never even notice the tiny black dot in the center of the screen that would serve as your targeting reticle. All in all, this game was an excellent adventure with a very different visual style that will stay with us for some time.

Don’t Starve

Don’t Starve

School age kids of all shapes and sizes can relate to this one. Have you ever been so bored in a class that you started to fantasize about another place and time? Perhaps not even a real one, but a fictitious world where you are in control of all you survey. But what if that world that you sketched into your notebook turned out to be something altogether different than you imagined? What if everything in it was trying to kill you? What if you had no way to sustain yourself so you had to improvise basic agriculture and weapon-making in order to survive? That’s how I imagine the world of Don’t Starve . I imagine that it started out as an idea born of boredom and then it morphed into the sinister yet campy game you see today. With its quirky, sketch-book art style and its ability to kill you at every turn. Don’t Starve has quickly become one of our favorite outside-the-box games.

Catherine

Catherine

I remember the day that I tossed this Atlus classic into my PS3. I remember the preconceived notions I had about what the game would actually be like. And then, just as quickly, I remember all that being stripped away as I was launched into a nightmare. Being a bit of retro game fan, I recall thinking that this game felt a whole lot like a really, REALLY messed up version of Q-bert …on acid. I remember the mounting frustrations that came as the game lingered on. That’s when it hit me. The nightmares that I was being forced to play through brought about the very same feelings of angst and frustration that the main character, Vincent Brooks, was going through as well. I remember thinking to myself as I completed the “king of Hell” ending, that I was not only a terrible person–but that I would also most likely not have survived an ordeal like Vincent’s in the first place. I would have been one of the other nameless sheep trying to escape the nightmare.

BioShock

BioShock

Let’s face it. First person shooter titles have been done to death. From the shore of Normandy to the far away worlds nestled within UNSC territories to the terrors awaiting us on LV426, we have played the FPS genre into the ground. So it’s rare that something comes along and brings us a fresh take on the genre. Rarely are we given a deep and rich story to play through that makes us think about our decisions before just blasting our way to the next level. One such rarity is Bioshock . This undersea romp through a twisted, would-be utopia taught us that you didn’t have to have all the flash, glitz and movie grade special effects to create and engrossing FPS title. It showed us through this game and its subsequent sequels that you could give the player an experience rather than just another shooter. It brought the concept of moral dilemmas and fear to a genre in which most problems can be solved by putting more rounds downrange than the other guys.

Gravity Rush

Gravity Rush

Rarely do we mention hand-held platform titles as being ground-breaking or thought provoking, but Gravity Rush single-handedly changed the way that we look at hand-held games. It was the first, and in some ways still the only title to fully exploit the controls of the Playstation Vita. It uses the standard console-style controls while capitalizing on the touch screen capabilities as well as the gyros inside the device itself to create the air of total control over the characters as well as the environment in which you played. Then, not only was the control scheme incredible on its own merit, the story itself became yet another reason to not put this game down. With the exception of spin-off titles from major league console franchises, it’s not often that a hand-held game gives you an awesome story to put the icing on the cake. If more titles took a nod from how Gravity Rush presented itself, the hand-held market would probably be in a lot better shape.

Bastion

Bastion

I personally wanted to include this title for just a few simple reasons. I love the original Legend of Zelda game. It was one of the games that truly got me into gaming in the first place. So anytime that I could ever play a game that felt close to the first Zelda title, I was going to. With Bastion , it was the first time I felt the same way I did the very first time I popped that gold cartridge into my NES. Not since The Bard’s Tale had I seen such clever interaction between what the narrator was saying and what happened on the screen. And the art style really felt like an updated version of the NES classic Zelda . The story was very cool and there was enough action and puzzling to keep me in the game until the end. Supergiant really hit the nail on the head with this one. So if you are a retro Zelda nut like me, be sure to give this title a shot. You won’t be disappointed.

Shadow of the Colossus

Shadow of the Colossus

I know it seems like this game gets mentioned for a whole bunch of different lists and reviews and articles, but there are very good reasons for it. This game, for its time, was incredible. It had a scope and scale that hadn’t really been reached by anyone else when it released. You didn’t just ride into battle to face giant opponents. You didn’t have to fight your way through level after level chocked full of baddies to reach them. They WERE the levels. This platformer/puzzler had a way of making you feel a little bad for what you were doing while at the same time giving you a solid sense of achievement with ever giant you dropped. But alas, you slaughtered the last of these legendary beasts in an effort to save a woman you don’t even know. So beyond the concept of excusable genocide, this game rings out as one of the truest forms of outside-the-box thinking that gets you a spot on this list.

Journey

Journey

Any one of you who plays online games knows that sometimes things can get pretty ugly and all kinds of personal. So much so that it often really only lends to the player’s frustration and eventual stepping out from play to collect themselves and go do something else…like punch kittens. But in 2012, Thatgamecompany did something that no one else had really done before. They gave us an epic adventure that could be played by two people who would never know who the other player was. You could only communicate via a musical chime. You would never find out the name of the other player. You would never be able to text or talk to them. You would only be able to interact with them within the confines of the game. Mix that with the incredible art style and an ever-morphing soundtrack that reacts to the players’ decisions and movements and you have the recipe for a truly and wholly unique gaming experience.

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