The sort of games I like: A mild epiphany

[legios]

Something has suddenely struck me about the computer, and console games that I tend to enjoy and come back to replay. The majority of them have something distinct in common:- they all present imitations of functioning worlds. Whether it is "Deus Ex", which is one of the few first person games I can think of that has bathrooms, coffee machines, and telephone boxes in logic places and which actually feel like they are there for a purpose other than as set dressing. Or "Alpha Centauri" which puts on a good imitation of its faction leaders reacting to your economic and social decisions as well as your gross level actions. These kinds of games are the ones that draw me in and keep me coming back.

Now none of them are actually functional simulated worlds. In fact Warren Spector (who was lead developer on "Deus Ex") specifically says that he never sets out to simulate a world - only to create a game environment that feels credible.

I'm not sure, but perhaps that is why I keep coming back to games like "System Shock 2", "Deus Ex", "Civilisation" - the feeling that my actions are taking place in a credible world, bounded by its rules and that they have consequences for other imaginary denziens of these worlds. Perhaps just as important is the sense that bits of these worlds exist beyond my line of sight. "Doom" doesn't exist as a viable world beyond a bunch of monster-filled corridoors, but in "Shock 2" things have gone on before I arrived and are still going on in places where I can't see them and some of these events intersect my own story from time to time.

It is probably just a quirk of my brain, but I seem to get more out of a game with that sense of a larger, logically viable world, to it.

Karl

[Deleted]

Personally, I prefer games that offer a complete break from reality. Computer games were created to do just that and I'm not into playing games that has so-and-so game character in a real country or city (or a fictional country or city that looks real) doing tasks like gunning down the local Mafia boss or fighting for some military group. You see enough of that on the news as it is and I don't want to be playing a game that based on current real events. Saying that mind you, the games you have listed are quality games. I haven't played any of them but every time I pick up a games magazine I see a good review for them.

[kayevcee]

While I love System Shock 2, Deus Ex and Bioshock (and Liberation before them- one of... well, the one good game for the Amiga CD32), I also enjoy absolutely mental FPSes like Serious Sam- pretty much the only FPS I've played since the Wolfenstein 3D era that actually has a score at the top of the screen.

One thing I love about it is the absolutely gargantuan levels- perhaps the only thing it has in common with games like Deus Ex (apart from an incredibly fun rocket launcher) - that make the carefully crafted setpieces of Half-Life and its brethren seem painfully linear by comparison. Er... not that Bioshock is particularly non-linear, but at least there's enough stuff going on that it feels more 'alive' than City 17's seesaw puzzles.

I do love Vortigaunts, though.

-Nick