Posted by We’re back with our “thinking about thinking” series! If you’re interested in our previous deep thoughts, check out the Metacognition series. Join us for some deep thoughts (and maybe the occasional not-so-deep thought) about gaming. If you find one you’d like to answer, you can either comment below or write a post and share the link so we can all read your fantastic thoughts!
What’s a game you love but never talk about? Why don’t you talk about it?
I mean… this one comes up, but I remember someone left a comment saying they never would have thought this was my second-favorite game.
I… really, really love Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. But I rarely talk about it, and it’s certainly not the running joke here the way Dragon Age is.
In all honesty, I’m not sure why it doesn’t come up. It might be because it’s a game that’s hung around in my life for a long time, and it’s been a while since I’ve completed a Metal Gear Solid game so it’s not always relevant to what I’m talking about. It also might be because it was the first game that really encouraged me to start looking behind what the game actually presented, mostly because the entire game was set up so the playable character wound up questioning the reality of the game.
Sometimes I also think that it was a game that was just in the right place at the right time. While it’s a great game, and I love the series a lot, there’s nothing to tell about why I love it that could convey to you that special X factor the same way I could point to the reasons Dragon Age: Origins makes me squee like a fangirl.
Well, that’s not true.
Sometimes it’s not a matter of what game you’re playing, but when you play it. I am a Metal Gear fan, and so would have enjoyed the game at any time that I played it. But when I needed a game to just make me happy, to test my abilities just enough that I had to be fully invested, but not so much that my already overly-taxed emotions couldn’t handle it, Metal Gear Solid 2 was there.
And something I never realized until my annual replay this past New Year’s Eve, was that when I needed to see a guy who was a victim of circumstance and yet just refused to die no matter what happened to him… well that was really nice, too. I’ll let you interpret that how you will.
If I played it for the first time now would I have such a connection to it? No, probably not. It would be on the list of “Metal Gear Solid games I like,” just like the fantastic Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and pretty much any other MGS game I’ve put my hands on.
So I ask:
What do you think? Do you think a game becomes a favorite because of the mechanical aspects of it, or the emotional connection we form while playing it? Is it based more on head, or on heart? Do you have a game you love but rarely talk about? Will you share it with me? Let me know in the comments!
Thanks for stopping by, and I’ll see you soon!
~Athena
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Snake is pretty badass! I’m glad he was residing in your PS2 when you needed him the most 🙂
I definitely game more with my heart, and not so much with my head. Lightning and her friends were there for me when I needed them the most, that’s for sure. There is something very inspiring about a character who just won’t quit, no matter how much of an ass fate is being to them. Would I love FFXIII and Lightning so much if I had played the games under different circumstances? Probably not.
A special game I don’t talk about much is Taz-mania on the SNES. It was the first game I ever played and it was a wonderful escape from a tough situation. I guess I rarely talk about that game since I barely remember it. Also, Hybrid Heaven on the N64 got me through another scary time. The previous sentence is the first time I’ve ever mentioned that game on the internet, actually. I really want to just forget the whole experience attached to it, haha.
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It’s funny how some games just appear when you need them. I guess that’s why they’re so memorable.
I think I played Taz-mania maybe once at a friend’s house haha. I don’t remember that much about it, but I remember we had fun! And Hybrid Heaven is one that I’ve never heard of! I’m glad you found them when you needed them… one good thing about media is that, while some can stay with us, some can also be left behind, as needed.
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It’s Shin Megami Tensei for me. There was a game that to me has a lot of memories of communities and friendships tied up in it, and it’s a game that I pored over during a very important transitional time in my life. But it’s also a game that wasn’t localized except for a very quiet cell phone port, has aged incredibly poorly, and was very brutal even back in its heyday. The fact that it’s a little xenophobic doesn’t help either. I love it, it makes me feel feelings, and it’s one of the most nostalgic games that comes around to me, but outside of it’s context in what the series has become, it’s very rare to come into conversation with anyone who actually knows much about it.
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I think a game that makes anyone feel feelings has a lot of good attributes – or at least good memories, and that’s really all that matters at the end of the day. I unfortunately don’t know much about it, other than the Megamei Boobei article veryverygaming wrote about the series, but again I think if a game is meaningful to you, it’s meaningful to you!
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