I really enjoy playing video games. I’ve always had some kind of game to play my entire life and some of them have stuck out more than others. These are some of the games I keep going back to play.
LoZ:OoT (N64 / Gamecube)
This is one my favorite games of all time. I can’t even count how many times I’ve beaten it. I love the music. I love the characters. I love the storyline. I grew up playing it and continue to do so now. I’ve also played the other games in the franchise and as much as I love replaying them, they don’t have the same amount of fun from one playthrough to the next like Ocarina of Time does for me.
Every once in a while I’ll start it back up and set some kind of challenge for myself for the current runthrough. I’ve done a 3 heart playthrough. I’ve gotten 100%, I think. It doesn’t have a percentage counter like modern games but I think there was a different ending sequence. I know I’ve at least gotten 100% for each thing on separate playthroughs. I also managed to find a copy of Master Quest for Gamecube my senior year of high school which I tried all my old challenges with. I wish I also had a copy of Majora’s Mask I could play again.
For me, Ocarina of Time is a link to my past, and I hope someday my kids will get just as much joy out of the game and as well as the series as I do.
The Godfather (Xbox)
I got this game in high school when my sister gave me her old Xbox. It was one of the first sandbox games that I really enjoyed. I didn’t have much experience with the genre and this game got me hooked.
I had played Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City before so I was used to the stealing cars and running from the cops aspect of games. But I never really got into the storyline in this type of game before. I’m sure it helped that the setting was based on the movies.
This was also the first game that I knew for sure I had completed 100%. It had an indicator to tell me so. That’s another thing that brought me back to it. When playing Zelda I had to check and see what I had done and try to remember all the things I needed to do. With The Godfather, it had a screen which told me the percentages for different things.
Tomb Raider (PC)
This is one of the oldest games on my list, and one of my first experiences with PC gaming. We had the original Tomb Raider growing up and would play it almost constantly. I wasn’t very good when I was young so my cousin or sister would have to help but it was always fun.
One of my favorite memories was the first time walking through the Lost Valley when the T-Rex came running out. We screamed. And obviously, we died. I can’t even count the number of times we died to the first boss before we realized you aren’t supposed to fight it the fist time you encounter it.
I think I’ve played and beaten every game in the series up until the Rise of the Tomb Raider. I’ve started it but these days I don’t get many opportunities to play much.
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (PC)
I know. It’s overdone. But every once in a while I like to start up a new game and see how long it takes me to switch to a stealth archer.
I’m a huge fan of Elder Scrolls. I first bought Morrowind when I was in high school. My mother was going out of town for 2 weeks for vacation so I had the house to myself. I brought my Xbox into the living room, set it up and when I wasn’t at school I was in the living room playing games.
I don’t think I ever completed it because this was back when I didn’t pay much attention to the storyline and I was too stupid to figure out how the quest journal was organized. It’s embarrassing to even say.
But that got me hooked onto the series and I got Skyrim when it came out a few years later. It also led to me getting Elder Scrolls Online and eventually designing my own Nirn based Risk board.
When Skyrim was announced I was super excited. Part of it was the hype but part of it was because I had so much fun playing Morrowind that I wanted to see a different area of the world. I watched a Let’s Play of Oblivion but I never had the money to buy it until a couple years ago so I decided to save up for Skyrim.
When it came out I made an honest effort to stay on track with the story but it’s a Bethesda Game so I kept getting distracted by climbing things and doing side quests. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten more than halfway through the main quest, though I believe I have completed each of the guild questlines.
Dragon Force (Sega Saturn)
I love everything about this game. The music is among my favorites from any games I’ve played. My senior year of high school I used to walk home during lunch just so I could play this for a little bit.
I really enjoyed the way battles worked. You commanded your troops in real time to change formations and either defend your leader or attack the enemy leader. You could also use your leader to perform special attacks which focused on either enemy troops, the enemy leader, or both.
I can still remember when my sisters and I were trying to get through this and we were so excited the first time someone beat the giant robot. It seemed to take forever for anyone to get to that point but then they had the game beaten soon after. Now when I play it seems like I get to that point really quickly.
A Life, Ensnared 