#and several other zelda games yippee!!

[starshadyy]

PSYCHONAUTS MENTION HECK YEAHHHH WE WON TODAY

Video Games

We combined the console and mobile games lists and two dating sims still came out on top. Go figure.

Genshin Impact

Baldur’s Gate 3

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Five Nights at Freddy’s

Splatoon 3

Twisted Wonderland

Undertale

Ace Attorney

Pokémon Violet and Scarlet

Obey Me! Shall We Date?

Disco Elysium

The Sims 4

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Deltarune

Team Fortress 2

Hogwarts Legacy

Final Fantasy XIV

Honkai: Star Rail

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Minecraft

Persona 5

Pizza Tower

Rain World

Hollow Knight

Hades

Danganronpa

Arknights

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Project Sekai

Elden Ring

Touhou

Stardew Valley

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

ULTRAKILL

Pikmin 4

Guilty Gear

Overwatch

Portal

Omori

Flight Rising

Resident Evil 4

God of War

Red Dead Redemption 2

Sonic Frontiers

The Stanley Parable

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Cyberpunk 2077

Limbus Company

Mortal Kombat

Bendy and the Dark Revival

Destiny 2

Bloodborne

Among Us

Yakuza

Silent Hill

Ensemble Stars

Cookie Run

League of Legends

Bendy And The Ink Machine

Fear & Hunger

Dragon Age: Inquisition

Cult Of The Lamb

Fallout: New Vegas

Half-Life

Resident Evil Village

Pathologic

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time

The Murder Of Sonic The Hedgehog

Professor Layton

Dragon Age 2

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Fire Emblem Engage

Devil May Cry

Pokémon Legends: Arceus

The Sims 2

Fallout 4

Cuphead

Persona 3

Metroid

Final Fantasy VII

Dragon Age: Origins

Metal Gear Solid

The Witcher

Psychonauts

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon

Street Fighter

Guild Wars 2

The Sims 3

Dead By Daylight

Horizon Forbidden West

World of Warcraft

Starfield

Umineko

Detroit: Become Human

Yume Nikki

Monster Hunter

Pokémon Black and White

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

Night in the Woods

This is a newly-combined list! Yay!

[it-brought-me-to-my-knees]

GAMER MOMENTS #1: WHAT IS A GOOD GAME

"In Oklahoma, Bonnie and Josie, Dressed in calico, Danced around a stump. They cried, "Ohoyaho, Ohoo" ... Celebrating the marriage Of flesh and air."

Wallace Stevens, "Life is Motion"

"Wah! Wah! Wahoo! Yippee!"

"Super" Mario Mario

If you spend too much time on the nerd side of YouTube you start to see a whole industry of gamers speculating about Good Game Design vs Bad Game Design, which is absurd to me, because from where I'm standing it really couldn't be more simple.

A Good Game generally involves a little guy running around killing things with third-person real-time melee combat. First pioneered by Japanese NES/SNES titles like Zelda and Mario, but a wide array of other Good Games have been built on these foundations since.

Good Games often possess two or more of the following traits:

- enemies drop health, incentivising aggression over passivity (Mega Man X, Metal Gear Rising)

- enemies can kill you in seconds but when you dodge or counter their attacks you can stunlock and brutally combo them (Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!, Devil May Cry 3)

- intuitive gameplay evolves to include a wide range of skills and tools, allowing for individual player expression and more complex world/enemy design (Sekiro, Hollow Knight)

- intricate, deliberate level design that wordlessly teaches and tests the player (Bloodborne, Donkey Kong Country)

- a bittersweet sense of nostalgic whimsy wouldn't go amiss (Nier: Automata)

Conversely,

What is a Bad Game?

- ticks some or all of these boxes but I don't like it (God of War)

- superficially similar to a Good Game but the combat feels like playing Bop It! while drowning in syrup (Arkham)

- first-person shooters. A dirty habit for children and Americans.

- anything that involves playing online. Except fighting games, those are pretty good.

- "turn-based" combat. You know who lived in the moment, his well-honed skills working in concert with his raw reflexes? Pele. You know who sat back, crunched the numbers, and took his time considering his options? A certain dictator by the name of Adolf Hitler. Something to think about.

- all those pointy-clicky strategy things with the big maps. You know the ones. Latinus Eugenicus 4

- "ludonarrative dissonance". For the uninformed, that's when the "narrative" around a game ("BioShock Infinite is the best game of 2013") doesn't match the experience of playing the game (BioShock Infinite, which is shit)

- anything where the entire point is the writing but the writing is terrible (Life is Strange)

- anything where the writing is good but the gameplay is terrible (I will probably read a full Elder Scrolls wiki before I ever finish Morrowind)

Many good games—Pokémon Gold, Saints Row: The Third, Dishonored, Tetris—break several of these rules, but technically they are still not Good Games, and should probably be reclassified as something else, maybe some kind of interactive virtual sculpture.

God I fucking hate BioShock Infinite.

NEXT TIME IN THE KNEES ARTS SECTION: Cinema - is it good?