The 9 Most Important Games Of My Life

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The year is coming to a close soon which means I'm in a reflective mood. At the same time, the My 9 Game trends has given me the perfect excuse to indulge in a look back at my gaming history, so I wanted to talk about a few of the games that changed my life and shaped my perspective on the medium, as well as who I am.

Check it out the video below or, if you want to read, I've got a transcript of it too.

Street Fighter 2

If I think about the game that I first became obsessed with, the earliest memory I have I of Street Fighter 2 and desperately wanting to play it at all times. It inspired an obsession and also a competitiveness in me/

Initially, I don't think I even played it. I saw it and you'll find a lot of the games on my list are similar in that I didn't actually own a console myself until the Sega Mega Drive, so a lot of my gaming experience came through going to my cousin's house, who owned a Super Nintendo, and watching.

Because there were four of them, I would very much on the back of the line in terms of playing games. Street Fighter was the game that I played the most because it was a two-player game and some people don't want to be playing them hours and hours on end.

One of my cousins was really good at it and would keep playing and inevitably the others would be like cycling out and be like, "I've had enough of playing and getting my ass beat." But I was the one that was always ready to play more and would be like the punching bag that would come in.

My own experience of Street Fighter 2 was on Mega Drive. The difficult thing with Street Fighter 2 on the Mega Drive was the controller only had three buttons, which meant you had to press start in between pressing those three buttons to switch between punch and kick. It was a nightmare, which is why when I got the controller that had three buttons on top of each other it was a revelation for me.

I'm less capable these days because I'm old and I'm not as competitive as I used to be, but I still love playing fighting games. Street Fighter 2 was fighting game that I ever played and was like, "Oh my god, this is this is my obsession. This is all I want to do forever now."

That's the competitive/get good part of my gaming brain's origin.

Super Metroid

Super Metroid--man what a game. I remember being transfixed by it. This was another situation where I was watching before I ever laid hands on it. My cousin sat down to play it, put it in, and they had been playing it for ages. So, they had a save file and everything. But this was the first time I was seeing it. My cousin put it in, flicked it on, and then got called away to do something. He put the controller down, and said, "Don't touch." So, I was just watching the screen, and it couldn't have been a better first experience for me because the opening sequence of Super Metroid is incredible.

The title screen, I think to this day, is probably the best title screen for a video game ever created. The Metroid in the middle screeching and the tense music that plays in the background, just kind of setting up what you're the adventure that you're going on. And it was the first time I had like a feeling of foreboding come from a video game.

The sense of being in a isolated world that I would go on to explore and figure out is a core part of my what I look for in games now. And, if you know me, you know that I'm obsessed with FromSoftware's games. In my mind, FromSoftware, make Metroidvania games in terms of tone and ethos, and also the the feeling that the games create when you play them.

Final Fantasy 9

Third game shifts us over to the PlayStation era, which was the next console that I got. I desperately wanted a Nintendo 64, but this was one of those situations where having that decision taken out of my hands due cost, availability, and whatever else my dad was thinking agbout, ended up being the right decision. The PlayStation had more of my gaming taste shaped by it because a lot of the games that informed who I am now are either PlayStation 1 games or in the PlayStation family.

So, 9 this is the Final Fantasy game on my list. You might be saying, "What? Not Final Fantasy 7?" My first Final Fantasy game was Final Fantasy 9. That's not to say it was the only Final Fantasy PlayStation game that I experienced. It wasn't the first Final Fantasy game that I saw. I did see 7 and 8 but, again, it was a cousin-playing situation where I did not play those games. I watched the bits and pieces of those games happening.

When I got my own PlayStation and games were coming out, Final Fantasy IX was the one that I got. I was a kid. I didn't have any disposable income. I came from a pretty low-income family, so I was going to a market and buying CDR versions of these games. Having said that, I have played and paid for many of these games multiple times over, so, if you're going to come for me, Sony or Square Enix, I've given you more than your fair share of money in the time since.

I was glad that this is the first Final Fantasy that I played because it was at a time when Final Fantasy had a more sci-fi vibe to it. Whereas, this Final Fantasy game was a throwback to the older fantasy style from the pre-Nomura age. And I had such a fantastic time with the whimsy, the humor, and the theatrical nature of it.

The cast of characters is my original crew that I love and they were a big part of helping me realize why Final Fantasy was so so cool. It was the first game that I really went on a long journey; I played it over 50-60 hours. I remember like doing literally everything.

It's very difficult today. This is one of those games where I go back and play it and I think to myself, "How did I play these? I'm getting my ass beat by the first Black Mage." I remember the fight against Ark being such a huge pain in the ass for me but when I finally beat Ark it stands out as one of those moments in my life where the overwhelming sense of accomplishment rewired my brain in a way that I still chase it today. See my Souls obsession for proof.

Counter-Strike

**This is where we make the jump to a completely different platform, the PC. I was obsessed with Counter-Strike because it was my first real taste of online gaming as part of like a community and friend group. It was myself, my cousin, and my cousin's friend in a clan and we'd play Counter-Strike pretty much every day, When I got my own PC and set this all up I instantly became consumed by a competitive shooter obsession **

I can still feel Counter-Strike in my hands. I know the comms shortcuts and that became my whole identity for a really long time. I adored playing Counter-Strike for a really long time and it's what helped me get good at playing competitive shooters, the skills of which transferred over to Valorant when I got into that for a little bit as well. Both Counter-Strike and Valorant are games that I truly feel the pull towards daily, and have to make an effort to resist because otherwise I'd just do that and nothing else. But there's nothing quite like the tactical, skill-based feel of CS.

Metal Gear Solid

This is one that took storytelling to a different level for me and it became the game that eliminated every other form of media for me. I was playing video games, I was watching TV shows, I was watching movies, I was reading comics, I was reading books, I was watching anime. But when this game came out, I was so obsessed with it that it changed the way I saw games and made the medium the only thing I care about.

It was a medium that was growing and evolving and I wanted to be there every step of the way because I felt like I was watching something that blended everything that I love together. It felt like a movie, it felt like a video game, it felt like an anime, it felt like a comic book, it was a TV show since I was playing it in like chunks so it felt episodic.

So it became the like the apex the of of entertainment for me. And it also made me like think about how I approached storytelling and my understanding of media changed after I played this game. It's what made me start writing about games.

After MGS I began sitting down and actually writing down my thoughts on a game and what it made me think and what it made me feel, what I thought the the game was trying to tell me, what I thought the developers were trying to tell me, what I thought the director was trying to tell me.

I had no idea that Snake had adventures before this. And that was such a big part of why I loved it. There were constant references to him being this legendary soldier. The way he was built up--for people who played Metal Gear--there was context, but for me, it raised Snake as a character to a higher level because people were talking about this figure as a mythical and that worked on me.

Some of my favorite modern media experiences have that similar vibe to it. My favorite movie of all time is Demolition Man and the crux of that movie is two eternally feuding characters who have a history. And it also extends to FromSoftware games: Chosen Undead; Foul Tarnished; Good Hunter--there's a baggage and legacy to characters that I really really love unpacking and having frame stories.

Mass Effect 2

I talked about this last video about BioWare but Mass Effect as a franchise is another one of these situations where it felt like it was changing who I am inside and I could feel it happening.
There are games that you play where you where you can feel the world shifting around you and it and it's touching you and connecting with you in a way that is fundamentally shaping who you are. And Mass Effect is that for me.

It helped me discover things about myself, understand the power of video games even better, and understand what I like in characters in video games, as well as how important agency in stories can be.

This was the first game where I actually cared about what I was saying to people. I wanted to play Shepard a certain way, but I also wanted to be authentic to myself and that character. So, there were moments where I was like really struggling. But more than anything, the whole sci-fi element of it converted me the genre. This was the series where I was like, "This is my Star Wars. This is my Star Trek." And that whole journey, I think it's for all its faults, was perfect because I needed it in exactly the way it came to me. It opened the door to me to so many other things.

Dark Souls

I won't say too much about this because I think it's pretty well documented why I like Dark Souls. It's kind of like the culmination of everything that has come before it. The idea of like competition and overcoming difficult challenges from Street Fighter; the isolation and exploratory nature of Metroid; the fantasy element of Final Fantasy IX; the narrative of Metal Gear; the feeling of connecting with characters like Mass Effect

I for all its ups and downs, the performance issues of it in particular, it's another one of those games where I struggle to call it anything less than perfect. Not because of what it is on disk and on screen, but what it what it meant to me and how it changed who I am and how it informed who I would become. Even today, if you ask someone who knows me about what kind of person I am, they'll probably say I won't shut up about FromSoftware. I just have this love for Dark Souls that is super deep and meaningful.

Bloodborne

No game is more illustrative of my love of FromSoftware than Bloodborne. I genuinely have reached a point where I don't know how to talk about how much I love Bloodborne. It's to the point where I don't even know how to express it because it's simply a game in perfect synchronicity with my heart, soul, and mind, so I struggle to fully capture in words what that means and I will never be able to completely explain how much I love it to other people. It's a deeply personal connection. If you speak to someone who's married or in a relationship and ask them, "Oh, why do you love this person?" they can explain it but, ultimately, you know that no matter what they say you'll never be able to fully grasp the core essence of why they love that person. You'll You'll never be able to feel the same way about that person in the way that they do.

And I think that for me is the way that I think about Bloodborne. I can talk to you day and night about how I love the the atmosphere, the ambience, the lovecraftian nature of it, the story that it tells, the characterization, the themes, the music, how it feels to play, the mechanics of it. I can talk all day long. I have done that.

I could do that for the rest of my life and I still don't think I would probably properly be able to capture the extent to which I love the game and why. It's just one of those things where it's like someone made something magical and it feels like it's entirely for me and I'll never be able to fully understand why I love it so much myself. And I think that's why it is powerful.

Elden Ring

The final game in the list completes my trifecta of FromSoftware titles: Elden Ring. This was the first open-world game that I think I really helped me zero in on what I love about open worlds. I played Assassin's, I played GTA. I love those games, but it feels like an academic love in comparison to Elden Ring, which showed me the true magic of an open world.

Everything that was happening felt unexpected and a surprise. And the sense of awe that it inspired from me is like and nothing I'd experienced before. Everything was jaw-dropping and it was something that made me feel like a child again. Nothing will ever capture that same feeling and I suspect I will still spend the rest of my life trying to find that feeling again.

I don't think there's going to be a game like Elden Ring again. Same goes for Mass Effect, Super Metroid, Final Fantasy VII, Counter-Strike, and Street Fighter II. These were games that hit me at the exact right moment.

Because of that and the way I experienced them and the context of my life when I experienced them, they had a hand in shaping who I am as a person that enjoys games and as a human being. There are parts of me, good and bad, that can be traced back to the experiences I've had with these games.