Hi,
Relative to most gaming communities, the Lounge is fairly 'brainy', populated by gamers who are interested in games qua games, but perhaps also in games that make you think a little extra, or deal with interesting ideas.
So, this thread is about that. What are your favorite games that deal with 'bigger' issues, whose stories or concepts are more than just wallpaper for the gaming experience itself?
I'll put down a few of my favorites in chronological order.
1) A Mind Forever Voyaging. Steve Meretzky's remarkable experiment in dystopian science fiction using a tool (interactive fiction) that had previously only been used for mindless "use brass key on red door" games. Political, touching, unusual, and far ahead of its time.
2) Hidden Agenda. This is a wonderful and under appreciated piece of political edutainment. You play the president of a small Latin American nation following a revolution. It models with remarkable realism the impossible dilemmas faced by Latin American governments in the 1970s. It offers a perceptive and largely balanced look at the realities of both left and right, being neither simplistically symmetrical nor trivial.
3) Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. Possibly the 'smartest' game ever made, this game is a tour de force, almost an encyclopaedia of science fiction literature and political philosophy, all wrapped up in a classic story of human self-advancement and conflict. Smart is not surprising from Firaxis, but even by their standards, this game makes you think.
4) BioShock. Perhaps this game is too popular by half, but this Ayn Rand inspired world is, to my mind, a masterpiece. It is a sympathetic-yet-brutal look at science, freedom, and the primal things that really drive humanity. As the world's least likely objectivist, I find myself somehow more sympathetic with its ideas after playing, despite the dystopian setting. (And, as has been pointed out many times, this game is really all about setting.)
These are just a few that come to mind, all of them relatively political, although not all interesting games are. Each of them is less impressive as a 'game' than it could have been. But all of them are memorable for the ideas they grapple with, in a genre which all too often declines to make any meaningful comment about humanity.
-Jester
Edit: I am condemned for eternity for misspelling the name of Sid.
Relative to most gaming communities, the Lounge is fairly 'brainy', populated by gamers who are interested in games qua games, but perhaps also in games that make you think a little extra, or deal with interesting ideas.
So, this thread is about that. What are your favorite games that deal with 'bigger' issues, whose stories or concepts are more than just wallpaper for the gaming experience itself?
I'll put down a few of my favorites in chronological order.
1) A Mind Forever Voyaging. Steve Meretzky's remarkable experiment in dystopian science fiction using a tool (interactive fiction) that had previously only been used for mindless "use brass key on red door" games. Political, touching, unusual, and far ahead of its time.
2) Hidden Agenda. This is a wonderful and under appreciated piece of political edutainment. You play the president of a small Latin American nation following a revolution. It models with remarkable realism the impossible dilemmas faced by Latin American governments in the 1970s. It offers a perceptive and largely balanced look at the realities of both left and right, being neither simplistically symmetrical nor trivial.
3) Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. Possibly the 'smartest' game ever made, this game is a tour de force, almost an encyclopaedia of science fiction literature and political philosophy, all wrapped up in a classic story of human self-advancement and conflict. Smart is not surprising from Firaxis, but even by their standards, this game makes you think.
4) BioShock. Perhaps this game is too popular by half, but this Ayn Rand inspired world is, to my mind, a masterpiece. It is a sympathetic-yet-brutal look at science, freedom, and the primal things that really drive humanity. As the world's least likely objectivist, I find myself somehow more sympathetic with its ideas after playing, despite the dystopian setting. (And, as has been pointed out many times, this game is really all about setting.)
These are just a few that come to mind, all of them relatively political, although not all interesting games are. Each of them is less impressive as a 'game' than it could have been. But all of them are memorable for the ideas they grapple with, in a genre which all too often declines to make any meaningful comment about humanity.
-Jester
Edit: I am condemned for eternity for misspelling the name of Sid.