The best games are the ones that make you feel

Josh
Wednesday
9:39 pm

When I finished Mass Effect last year, I realized that it scratched an itch so deep I hadn’t realized it had been bothering me. At first I thought it was the nostalgic stylings that resembled 80s science fiction movies.

But then, months later, when playing Fallout 3 and feeling like it was so close to being great, but wasn’t scratching the same itch, it came to me: my single criteria for what makes a game memorable.

It’s not graphics, control sequences, voice acting or even plot. For a game to be truly memorable, it has to make me feel emotion.

If a virtual thing can make my collection of glands, hormones and nerve cells actually replicate feelings only reserved for the real world, then it passes the test. I play games not to mindlessly twitch buttons, but to escape into another reality for a short time.

And, as much as the media made a huge deal of the Mass Effect sex scene, it actually made sense when not taken out of context. Throughout the course of the game, you really get to know your teammates, and the dialogue you have with them affects how the game plays out. And, if you wanted to start a relationship with someone on your ship, the game allowed for that to happen, but it was a drawn-out arc that took place between several missions. Leisure Suit Larry it wasn’t.

So, in honor of Mass Effect 2’s imminent release, below are four classic games whose creators knew what games were about, and parlayed the right combination of experiences to create true, emotional reactions.

Wing Commander 1

Angel. And Blair, holding his stick. If I didn't say it, you would have.

ABOUT THE GAME: Noted software designer Chris Roberts’ first real breakout game was Wing Commander in 1990. At its heart, Wing Commander was a space flight simulator with (then) extraordinary graphics. But where it split from the pack was its cinematic nature. The game had multiple endings based on your performance in the mission — by the end of the game, you’d either have the enemy on the run, or be pulled back in near defeat. There was even a “Kobayashi Maru”-style mission that was virtually impossible to win, just so you could feel the sting of defeat at least once.

The other thing that was so extraordinary were the between-mission interactions. Wing Commander starts you out as a cadet, and as you mature, you end up commanding the squad. Each of your team members have unique personalities and flight styles, and if they get shot down during a mission, they’re gone. You could talk to them after missions to see how they were holding up, and move people around on the roster based on that.

WHERE IT GOT TO ME: I remember when I lost Angel during a difficult mission. She was a pixelated beauty, sure, but her relationship with your character always seemed to have so much more depth than anything you’d expect from a flight simulator. I accidentally saved the game, and remember feeling a huge pang of genuine sadness when I went into the next battle without her.

Questron

Shut up. It was scarier than it looked.

ABOUT THE GAME: Questron was an old, Ultima-style adventure game that, on the surface, didn’t seem to break new ground. It had the requisite evil magician, and the weak protagonist that must wander around killing all manner of rats and moles to advance in power before the climactic battle.

WHERE IT GOT TO ME: The one big twist was below the surface, literally. The dungeons were all rendered in 3D. In retrospect, it was primitive, but I remember closing the curtains and slowly inching forward in the wire-frame dungeons. The first-person perspective was radically new for an adventure game, and seeing a creature at the end of a corridor was a chilling sight.

Doom

ABOUT THE GAME: It’s Doom. Although other 3D games had come out before it (most notably Castle Wolfenstein), Doom took that structure and give it atmosphere and polish.

WHERE IT GOT ME: It was the first game that really, truly scared me. I can remember turning out all of the lights, replacing the 8-bit MIDI soundtrack with Nine Inch Nails on the CD player, and letting the flickering lights and creepy scratching noises completely weird me out. More than once, a monster leapt out of nowhere and had me clicking the mouse in reflexive fright.

The Dig

ABOUT THE GAME: Oh, man; where do I begin? Take Spielberg, Orson Scott Card and other big names, attach them to a script Spielberg originally pitched to be an episode of “Amazing Stories,” and underpin it with a script that’s part “Armageddon” and part “Contact.” The result was a Lucasarts-style game along the lines of Monkey Island, but with much more mature themes. The game was beautiful, had a fantastically ethereal soundtrack, and a story unparalleled in even modern games.

WHERE IT GOT ME: The whole thing. Spielberg created a fully-realized alien world. The technology behind even the most basic objects was equal parts logical and foreign. The whole atmosphere contained a sense of wonder and exploration — playing through The Dig is like reading a novel you can’t put down. You want to be part of the characters, sure, but more than anything, you want to be a part of the world.