{"id":2948,"date":"2016-08-15T18:37:01","date_gmt":"2016-08-15T23:37:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=2948"},"modified":"2016-08-24T17:11:56","modified_gmt":"2016-08-24T22:11:56","slug":"good-video-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=2948","title":{"rendered":"Good video games"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a journal prompt to make a list.<\/p>\n

So, here are 5\u00c2\u00a0video games to which I refer often when people ask me if video games are art (actually, they never ask that; they just ask what my favorites are. This is mostly in descending order of awesome. Mostly.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Undertale by Toby Fox – an emotional experience like no other, Undertale\u00c2\u00a0speaks to the lost child in all of us. Yes, all indie games feature\u00c2\u00a0this now, but Undertale earns every metagame moment, and genuinely makes you feel things about yourself that you wouldn’t have just hitting buttons in a JRPG on which it’s modeled.<\/li>\n
  2. Planescape: Torment – Released in 1999, this game set the standard for multiple endings based on story decisions and remains the game for which the most writing was ever done. Each setting and every character have unimaginable depth based solely on the writing and the evocation of your own imagination.<\/li>\n
  3. Mass Effect Series – This game has unbelievable scale, broke down barriers of openly gay relationships in video games, and defined the narrative western RPG forever. Although Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic tested the waters for Bioware’s epic, they proved with this series that their writers could create one of the most complex and expansive science fiction universes of modern times.<\/li>\n
  4. Arkham Series – Every one of these games manages to encapsulate multiple eras of comic book feelings in a single game. Players get to tangle with Batman’s incomparable rogues gallery, and examine the reasons why Batman and his comics\u00c2\u00a0are the most psychologically potent of the genre.<\/li>\n
  5. Bioshock Series – Although I am partial to the first story’s setting and villain, each one experimented with agency on the part of the player, making them unwittingly complicit in a Rand-ian tale filled with paranoia, fear, and the desire to give up freedom for a sense of control, all while appealing to the modern-day shoot-em-up crowd.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    That’s all for now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This is a journal prompt to make a list. So, here are 5\u00c2\u00a0video games to which I refer often when people ask me if video games are art (actually, they never ask that; they just ask what my favorites are. This is mostly in descending order of awesome. Mostly. Undertale by Toby Fox – an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p73iP8-Ly","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3016,"url":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=3016","url_meta":{"origin":2948,"position":0},"title":"Play","date":"12\/29\/2016","format":false,"excerpt":"My greatest preoccupation? Games. I play games always. My opinion changes monthly, even daily, on whether games stand on their own as literature, or as social dialogue, or as true escape from the drudgery of life. After all, games can tell the most interactive and compelling stories (though they usually\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ennui"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2785,"url":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=2785","url_meta":{"origin":2948,"position":1},"title":"Your Daily Digest: Dark Souls","date":"12\/14\/2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Video games are a bit of a double-edged sword for me. I strongly advocate their presence in the arts, as they can represent the finest in agency-driven art. One's\u00c2\u00a0necessary presence in a well-written, well-made video game inspires a type of catharsis akin to the best in theatre. In a world\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ennui"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":697,"url":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=697","url_meta":{"origin":2948,"position":2},"title":"I’ve beaten half the games on this list.","date":"12\/3\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Because I did not have a girlfriend until I was 17, really. And video games lasted longer than sex anyway. Old School Video Games that bitch-slapped my peers and me. Because back then they made video games to resemble life. They got harder and harder and faster and faster until\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ennui"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"\/images\/blog\/force_you_have_none.jpg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":221,"url":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=221","url_meta":{"origin":2948,"position":3},"title":"Damned.","date":"11\/11\/2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm not so certain that the cross should be the symbol for good any more. It certainly wouldn't be Christ's choice. In that way, I sort of hope that Christian mythos is true. Christ would come back and see all these people trying their best to love and serve one\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ennui"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2974,"url":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=2974","url_meta":{"origin":2948,"position":4},"title":"Prompted #3019304","date":"9\/23\/2016","format":false,"excerpt":"My favorite way to spend the day is normally via escapism. I know that my most serene times have been sitting alone with a computer or console, discovering the story os a captivating video game, or movie, or sometimes book. I don't have the reverence that others do for reading.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ennui"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":771,"url":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/?p=771","url_meta":{"origin":2948,"position":5},"title":"Science! Fiction!","date":"6\/30\/2008","format":false,"excerpt":"In most science fiction to which I have been exposed, humanity is always the plucky little upstart. We are painted as a civilization whose resourcefulness and adaptability are our main strength. Meanwhile, the alien races are always far more advanced than us in one way or another, and we must\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ennui"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2948"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2948"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2954,"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2948\/revisions\/2954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.steelbuddha.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}