Games that left an impact

Parmenides

Supreme [H]ardness
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What are some games that caused you to think about them when you're not playing, and especially after you beat the game, mainly because of the story or atmosphere or emotions it triggered.

I just finished Bioshock Infinite and that game gave me some pause. Same happened with KOTOR 1 and KOTOR 2. There are some others too, I'm just not thinking about them at the moment.

I like when a game just doesn't let me put it down mentally after beating it, regardless of whether there is a replay.
 
all those pearls of wisdom from HK-47 had a deep subconscious meaning reflecting in my life towards my social interaction with other mea.. err, human beings.
 
Fallout 1&2
Homeworld 2
Love the narratives and musics in these games.Fused perfectly with the game world.
 
Super Metroid, Chrono trigger, Half Life, Zelda Ocarina of Time, Resident Evil are some that come to mind.
 
The Longest Journey and its sequel, Dreamfall. Can't wait for Dreamfall Chapters. Deus Ex, Fallout, Diablo, Mass Effect series, Oblivion, COD4 (I'll never forget the nuke going off and the aftermath death scene) had tremendous impact on me, as well. All these games stayed with me very much in the same way as does a great novel.
 
The Walking Dead Season 1.

I almost cried. Not even going to pretend to be some HEMAN. I almost cried.

Just about everything else, I get gamer ADD and hardly ever finish to get the full impact of the story. But that game.. I couldn't stop playing it.
 
I could never list them all, but the ones that come to mind right now:

Mass Effect trilogy
Fallout 1 and 2
The Last of Us
Bioshock Infinite
Knights of the Old Republic

I've played a *lot* of games over past two decades or so, and those stick out in my mind more than anything. Great thread idea by the way... it's not too often we discuss games that leave an emotional impact and resonate with us.
 
For some reason I picked Far Cry 2 to play while recovering from a really traumatic surgery. I was high on painkillers and fading in and out of consciousness for something like 3 weeks.

As some know Far Cry 2 basically consists of you out in the african plains killing black people in 3 missions something like over 100 times.

Though glitchy the game is very pretty.

I still have dreams sometimes of driving around setting brush fires and murdering random black people that had done me some wrong. The game has many lockable weapons and is incredibly boring so it gets to the point where you're just sneaking around in the bush with a knife and a pistol or sniping people from miles away.

I don't recall there being a plot to the game but it seemed to really hate black people.

Possibly the worst game I've ever finished.
 
Half Life Episode 2. After going through the game, it made my wondered a lot about what's aboard the Borealis, how much did Eli knew about G Man, or what he wanted to talk to Gordon about regarding G Man.

The first Half Life game made me curious about who this G Man was too. But EP2 made me even more curious about him now.
 
S.T.A.L.K.E.R :SoC. The open world,RPG type game play completely changed the way I looked at FPS games. I really got drawn in the world of the Zone.
 
Ys I&II on the TurboDuo, pretty much set me down my lifelong path of love for Fantasy and RPGs. Was such an epic game with Video and CD audio / speech, which was impressive for a game released in 1989, competing against FFIII.

Others that I still think of and replay frequently because of how amazing they are:
Ultima 7: The Black Gate, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines

Both are more well known and shouldn't need much explaining!
 
I might get some flak, but Heavy Rain. It drew me in and created such an attachment to the characters. Cried at the ending. Mass Effect 1 is a close second.
 
Cryostasis Sleep of Reason! A thinking person's FPS/survival horror game from 2009. Reviews were mixed but for me, I had several playthroughs in the last several years and I still think of that game to this day. One of my top three games of all time.
 
The first two Quake games. I probably put in a good 700+ hours for the years that I played them with all the mods. I used to run a PC gaming center so playing all day and night was normal.
The first couple months of EverQuest were amazing back in the day. First full 3d game of the scale. I can still strike up conversations with other people that played the same time that I did and it takes me back.
Half-Life single player was definitely in this mix also.
I can always go back to C&C Red Alert 2 and still not get bored. Not sure why but I just love that game.
I will probably get some laughs out of this but Crackdown has a special place also.
 
Off the top of my head…

KOTOR
Portal series
MGS series
Mass Effect trilogy
To the Moon
Brothers: A Tale of Two sons
Thomas was Alone
Gone Home
Super Metroid
Chrono Trigger
Final Fantasy 6 (3 on SNES)
Final Fantasy Tactic
Parasite Eve
Super Mario RPG
Half-Life series (especially Episode 2 ending)
Fallout
The Walking Dead season 1
System Shock 2
BioShock 1/Infinite
Red Dead Redemption
Wing Commander series
Vagrant Story
Valkyria Chronicles
Last of Us
Uncharted 2
Deadly Premonition
 
Various games left impressions but

Ico
Shadow of the Colossus
Last of Us
Final Fantasy 7
Half Life series
Mass Effect
Dragon Age Origins

were probably the ones that got me the most emotionally involved with the game world and characters. That's not to say there weren't others, but those are the ones that I remember the most.
 
I agree with most of the ones mentioned in this thread. Off the top of my head:

Dishonored
Bioshock Infinite
Dues Ex
Half-Life 2
Mass Effect
Risen 2
Far Cry 3

Most games that have really good endings really. While it's really more fun to be able to keep playing after you beat the main quest of a game, ones that have a big definite ending tend to have greater impact.

There are really 3 categories: games that cut off too soon or just had horrible endings (played Witcher 2 recently, felt like it was about half the length it should have been, ending was mostly a dissapointing cliffhanger); second, there are games that are the right length and have a great ending as mentioned above; lastly, there are games that just keep going on and on and on, like the Elder Scrolls games, even though they have an ending it's not really the end, and honestly I'd say the third option is really the best. I like to be able to determine for myself when I want to quit playing.
 
Star Control II
Secret of Monkey Island
Wing Commander games
Fallout 3
Rainbow 6

Those are the only ones I can think of that make me think about anything after I was through with them. Others were certainly great games, but never made me retrospective. These particular games for one reason or another did.
 
Journey

I recognized the headstones of the dead for what they were the moment I crested the first sand dune, but the slow unveiling of the reality of why the headstones were all there and the realization that the entire journey will just endlessly repeat itself for the wanderer(s) still makes me think about the game off and on. The only achievement I can't seem to get is the one for finishing the game all the way through with the same companion.
 
Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight
Legend of Dragoon
Xenogears
Farcry
Red Faction 1 and 2
KOTOR
KOTOR 2
Portal series
MGS series
Mass Effect trilogy
Final Fantasy 4, 5, 7, 8, 10
The Walking Dead season
Jade Empire
Red Dead Redemption
 
Lunar: The Silver Star Story Complete
Knights of the Old Republic
Myth: The Fallen Lords
Diablo 1 and 2

Those are the games off the top of my head that have had an impact on me.
 
Chrono trigger. On its surface its just a fun JRPG from the SNES era. underneath its a very well thought out storyline regarding causality, fate and string theory. As a teenager this game really got me thinking about temporal dynamics more than it really should have :p
 
The first time I played a video game... Super Mario for NES
The first time I played a "new" version of that video game... Super Mario World for SNES
The first time I played a Gameboy
The first time I played a 3D game and was able to swim underwater... Super Mario 64


Then I got a PC

The first time I played a pseudo-3D FPS... Doom
The first time I played a cooler version of Doom... Duke Nukem 3D
The first time I played a truly 3D multiplayer FPS... Quake
The first time I played a team based multiplayer mod for Quake... Team Fortress Classic
The first time I played a game with a 3D accelerator card... Voodoo 3 + Quake
The first time I played a console emulator... It's amazing how much fun can be had from a 3 MB SNES ROM.
The first time I played an RTS... Starcraft - 3 completely different races? Amazing
The first time I played a large scale battle RTS - Total Annihilation... This game is still awesome to this day
The first time I played Diablo... a pseudo-RPG character progression game that made you attached to your character by finding cool items
The first time I played Diablo 2... Taught even more character attachment by killing the same bosses over and over for cool items... a "slot machine" effect
The first time I played an MMORPG... a random korean massivley multiplayer RPG that also had character progression and subsequent attachment
The first time I played World of Warcraft... The "character attachment" elements were already in place from the other games, and I was already a huge Blizzard fan at this point so them making something like this I knew I had to get my hands on.
The first time I saw an MMORPG that actually might be able to compete with Wow... Rift
The first time I played Diablo 3... I thought Blizzard was invincible and could not make a bad game, this was a huge reality check.

Right now I'm back to enjoying emulators. Playing Final Fantasy 6 on an Snes9x. Still amazing how much fun can be had from 3 MB.
 
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Playstation 1 version of Doom reignited my live of video games and set a new standard for me.

Commodore 64 version of One on One (Larry Bird vs Dr J). I'd never seen graphics or game play that good. Totally changed everything and is the game that got me hooked on PC gaming.

Mass Effect. Never in 30 years of gaming have I become emotional attached to a game before or the characters in it. Mass Effect I did. It's now my all time favorite game.
 
When I was a kid....Mortal Kombat games and Duke Nukem 3D...gore and tits!

Action! Quake 2, Unreal Tournament 99/2k3/2k4, original Counter-Strike, Rainbow Six, BF1942...so many hours put into these games.

In recent memory...Bioshock Infinite, The Last of Us (even though I haven't finished it yet, still really good)
 
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