T.'s All-Time Favorite Video Games
The visual artistic medium I enjoy the most other than film is video games, though I found as I started this post that I have less to say individually about my favorite video games than I do about my favorite movies, so this post isn’t going to take the same exact same list approach as My Top 10 Favorite Movies but rather chronicle my history with video games and highlight my top ten or so in bold.
CHILDHOOD
As I said in a video retrospective, the ironic part of video games is that they gave me my first attempts at visual storytelling and planted my love for filmmaking through 3D Movie Maker (1995) (NR). I haven’t found a use for this program in recent years, but the ways my brothers and I played with it gave me years of memories. Its wider cult following has always used it rather nastily, though.
As I said in another video retrospective, what really shaped my love for video games as escapism was The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998) (E), which not only happens to be the most critically acclaimed video game of all time but also shaped my taste in medieval fantasy along with Lord of the Rings.
Ocarina also took so much of my childhood to beat that replaying it feels like a personal journey to me more than any other piece of media does, and even its horror elements that have crawled under my skin my whole life help make it feel that way. It touches my inner child in both the best ways and the worst.
As my older brothers loved RPGs and strategy games, I tried to get into them myself, but I just couldn’t stick with them. As such, the games that impacted my childhood the most that I never beat were the Chrono RPGs (1995-1999), especially Chrono Cross for its story, its music, and its character who was my first big crush.
I also played a lot of the The Sims (2000), but again, it’s not the kind of game I play nowadays, especially when I tried to play The Sims 4 (2014) and got hit with the existential dread that my Sim could end up more successful in life than me.
Other highlights of my childhood that followed me into adulthood include:
The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-Earth (2004) (T), the only real-time strategy I still like for how it simplifies the mechanics and places them in Middle-Earth. Heck, I wouldn’t have gotten it in the first place if I hadn’t seen it in the same preview as the Return of the King video game, which made me think Battle for Middle-Earth would also be a third-person action-adventure.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2003) (T), a cautionary morality tale about seeking one’s own glory with really cool parkour platforming, really cool sword fighting against zombie-like warriors cursed by magical sand, and really cool Middle-Eastern-meets-rock-and-roll musical scoring; its pervasively scanty attire is an unfortunate caveat, though.
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (2003) (T), my favorite Star Wars game by default because Fallen Order (2019) ruined its place by putting blatantly occult-inspired ‘magik’ to heroic use, and Knights of the Old Republic (2003) ruined its place by justifying a serious crime against human dignity in the Light Side storyline, but I do love Jedi Academy’s customization and lightsaber combat.
ADOLESCENTHOOD
A lot of my favorite games from my teen years stayed in those years for a variety of reasons, not limited to my own changing tastes, such as Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (2008), Soulcalibur IV (2008), the War for Cybertron series (2010-2012), and The Movies (2005) — many of the shorts I made with the last of which would likely get me cancelled for their racial caricatures, so I’ll never release them publicly.
On the other hand, these were also the years I finally beat Ocarina of Time; in fact, Twilight Princess (2006) had become the first Zelda game I ever beat before then.
And after the Ocarina milestone, I finally played its direct sequel Majora’s Mask (2000) and was blown away by it; alas, I haven’t played it in recent years after realizing how frustrating it still was after several playthroughs. And unlike with Ocarina, my first run of Skyward Sword (2011) took me a mere nine days.
I should also mention the Super Smash Bros series (1999-2018) since I played it a lot growing up, but the last one I’ve actually played, Super Smash Bros Brawl (2008), came out during these years, and now I only play it with my nephews. As such, the title from my teen years I still enjoy the most is Halo: Reach (2010) (M).
I’ve poured more hours into Reach’s multiplayer than any other game’s, playing both alongside friends and family and by myself. The other early Halos are also fun; playing through the first trilogy with a best friend resulted in a lot of inside jokes. But Reach tells one of the most poignant stories I’ve seen in any game, and its armor coloring options made orange and violet my favorite color combo period.
ADULTHOOD
In my early twenties, I began really catching up on the medium, beating more titles than I ever had, and figuring out what genres I’m drawn to the most.
I even collaborated with a couple other media bloggers and launched a now-defunct site called Gaming With Faith to review some of the most acclaimed video games of all time from a Catholic perspective. Alas, after I got seriously burned by The Last of Us (2013), I rethought playing games just to review them (and nothing gives me more morbid pleasure than the backlash The Last of Us Part II [2020] got).
I also followed a tutorial for the game engine Unity a few years ago, and… it gave me more of an appreciation for those who do have the patience to program games.
The Half-Life series (1998-2020) was for a time the Ocarina of Time of my adulthood for how obsessed I became with it, trying to figure out its themes and lore. Alas, the last time I tried to play Half-Life 2 (2004), I couldn’t beat far into it because of its grimness, even if its level of detail for its time still blows me away.
As such, the closest things to the Ocarina of Time of my adulthood are now the Ori Series (2015-2020) (E), which may be the most masterfully designed — or at least most artistically stunning — video games I’ve ever played despite their earth-worshippy themes. They got me into exploratory platformers, and their first entry, Ori and the Blind Forest, was the first game that actually made me cry.
Plus, the fact that I spent the dozens of hours needed to complete Blind Forest’s One Life difficulty is a testament to how well balanced its gameplay is, even when it has one section that was so frustrating on first playthrough that I didn’t think I’d ever play through it again; now it’s a breeze. On the other hand, there’s a boss in Ori and the Will of the Wisps that I still dread on every playthrough.
Other highlights of my adulthood include:
Metal Gear Solid (1998) (M), which broke ground with its cinematic storytelling, and which I actually watched others beat in my childhood, but I’ve now played it myself along with its first three sequels — which, despite their entertainment value, are even more lewd, so I’ll stick with the original.
Mirror’s Edge (2008) (T), a game I like in spite of itself, with its convoluted, overly serious story and clunky yet cool first-person parkour gameplay. Heck, its repetitive reboot Mirror’s Edge Catalyst made me appreciate this original’s short length, linearity, and comparatively charming characters even more.
The Portal Series (2007-2011) (E10+), Half-Life’s sister series that’s still a rollicking blast of brain-teasing puzzle-solving and dark dry humor packed into a breezy length. Not to mention, Portal 2 gives it all a satisfying conclusion as opposed to its ever-unresolved brother series.
Now at nearly thirty years old, even as a bachelor with a lot of free time, I typically prefer single-player adventures on PC that I can beat in just a few hours (like Sands of Time, Mirror’s Edge, Portal, and Ori), and where I can make good progress in short sessions (which is why I didn’t care for Zelda: Breath of the Wild [2017] and have avoided its sequel, Tears of the Kingdom [2023]). And even though I play more modern indies than triple-A titles, I still wait for games to go on sale.
When I do find decent titles, though, I plan to start highlighting them in individual reviews as I do with movies, if not as often as I plan to with movies.
I hope to see you here again when I do!
What are your favorite video games? Comment below with your thoughts!
My tastes are all over the place so I can’t say I have a top game. Most of my all time favorites fall into popular titles (BG3, Witcher 3…) so I think I’d like to point out a game that hit the hardest, had me almost in trance while playing (it was also during the lockdown so extra eerie) - Pathologic 2. A game that you either hate or form an obsession with.