The 2025 Desert Island Video Game Draft

[Tetsujin]

Final Fantasy X (Originally on PS2/Remastered Edition on pretty much anything including Switch)


So this one is a pure nostalgia play from me. As the first PS2 Final Fantasy, this game is honestly a bit of a mess, eschewing the to-this-point standard world map hub design of the previous entries into the series for what essentially amounts to a series of bland corridors with NPCs wandering about. The story is absolutely nonsensical even by Final Fantasy standards, let’s get that out of the way, and I still haven’t the faintest clue what the hell actually happened in this game despite having played it to completion multiple times.

Why am I choosing it then? Well, against my better judgment, it’s still simply a fun time. The battle system is the last hurrah of the traditional Final Fantasy turn-based party system and the Sphere Grid leveling system is probably the best level system/skill tree system any modern RPG has come up with. The character work is solid despite my massive misgivings about the plot, the ending of the game made young kid me cry. This is also the last mainline Final Fantasy game to be primarily composed by Nobuo Uematsu, which is sorta like being the last Star Wars composed by John Williams, and the main theme of the game remains stuck in my head some twenty years after I first played the game.

I’ve been laid out over the last couple days with a bad head cold mixed with what I’m pretty sure is a mild bout of heat stroke (them Tokyo summers are no joke) and being relatively bedridden, I’ve been stuck mostly playing the Switch 2. This, despite all its faults, is the game I’ve decided to play through again as a change of pace form Breath of the Wild. And it still hits like crack. (You’ll never get me to like the broken mechanics of the blitzball minigame though.)

 

[hrdboild]

The appeal of Pokemon has always been team-building from the enemy monster list. That as an itch to my knowledge that’s never been attempted to be scratched by the Final Fantasy series.

Perhaps ironically, my friend and I used to take the enemy profiles from one of the older Final Fantasy games and construct our own teams on paper to compete against each other. It never occurred to us until years later, we had essentially created our own Pokemon game.

Well no, I guess constructing a team from captured enemies (the gotta catch 'em all hook) isn't a part of Final Fantasy but the world map, inventory management, and turn-based battle systems are all close enough that the distinction is somewhat lost on me. And I do know of one Final Fantasy game in the PS1 era that does involve a larger roster of potential party members which you choose from and selectively level-up using the battle system. So like 85% a Pokemon game, right?

Again I'll respect the sprit of the draft and not say it's name out loud but I bet you could reason out what it is pretty quickly. In any case, my brother watched the anime series religiously when it was on so I'm guessing that setting was the biggest driving force for his interest.

 

[macadocious]

Gah, i agreed to take over because I thought some of these games would sneak through!! lol

 

[Spike]

Welp. It's time. I don't see this lasting another round.

NHL '96 (1995)



• Developer: EA Canada / High Score Productions
• Publisher: EA Sports
• Producer: Michael Brook
• Lead Designer: Mark Lesser
• Programmers: Mark Lesser, Colin Lynch Smith
• Composer: Jeff van Dyck
• Platform(s): Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo (SNES), DOS (PC), etc...

Is this possibly the best hockey game of all time? Yes.
Did I rub my thumbs raw playing as the San Jose Sharks? Also yes.

When you smacked into someone, you almost felt it. It was the first realistic hockey game out there. It was fast, it was fluid, it felt like I was actually playing hockey (fun fact: I tried out for the college hockey team. That tryout lasted about 5 minutes. Turns out basketball was where I was meant to be.)
Everything about it seemed revolutionary at the time. Announcing, commentary, crowds. A little bummed that blood was gone, but I bought an earlier version for it. Gretzky on the Blues? OK. Maybe that's when I followed players vs. teams, because I had a Blues jersey. It was also, TBT, a pretty dope jersey. Not as cool as a Sharks jersey, but here we are.

Also, if anyone wants to hook me up with a Tiburones jersey, you know where to find me.

 

[whitechocolate]

Well, I said things were gonna get weird. This is the first game I've seen in this thread that I wasn't even a little familiar with.

It sounds pretty cool

I think Kenshi is a good recommendation for a Factorio player.

 

[Padrino]

With the 64th pick in the 2025 Desert Island Video Game Draft, I select:

GoldenEye 007 (1997)

Developer: Rare
Publisher: Nintendo
Game Director: Martin Hollis
Musical Score: Graeme Norgate, Grant Kirkhope, & Robin Beanland
Genre(s): First-Person Shooter
Platform: Nintendo 64

Fate would have it that I've got the 64th pick, and I'm using it to debut the very first appearance of a Nintendo 64 game in our draft.

It's funny how nostalgia works. Though it ushered Nintendo into the 3D era, the N64 is not thought of as one of Nintendo's better consoles. However, for those of a certain age (elder millennials, primarily), it remains a touchstone gaming experience. And among the many experiences I had with the Nintendo 64, few were as electrifying as the video game adaptation of the James Bond movie GoldenEye.

This was an era in which film adaptations were exceedingly popular within the gaming world, but most of them were terrible cash grab facsimiles that were rarely elevated by the interactivity of the medium. In fact, to this day GoldenEye may still be among the very best film-to-game translations ever made. Its single-player experience follows the film it's based on pretty closely, and while it's a genuinely excellent story mode, particularly at higher difficulty levels, this game is best remembered for its multi-player mayhem.

Despite my newfound love of PC gaming, I have not made the transition to online multi-player games. I've tried my hand at a few, but I just don't enjoy them. I simply cannot find much appreciation for the experience of playing against distant human opponents. It makes me feel like I might as well be playing against a computer-controlled opponent. But I will always have wistfulness reserved for the couch competitive gaming of my youth. A few friends, a sh*tty frozen pizza, some Jolt Cola, and GoldenEye. That was my middle-school experience, memorizing the level layouts so I knew every pinch point in which to plaster the walls in proximity mines. You could be downright dastardly in GoldenEye's multi-player mode. The level of freedom and creativity it afforded players, as well as the depth of the available arsenal, made for a phenomenally good time.

In my adulthood, I mostly enjoy gaming as a solitary exercise. But there's definitely the occasional competitive or co-op experience that reminds me of those days in the mid- to late-90s, when being in the same room mattered. It was absolutely one of those "you had to be there" moments in time, but GoldenEye remains such an important piece of gaming history. Modern multi-player FPS'es owe a lot to this one.

 

[whitechocolate]

Battle Garegga Rev.2016 - PS4, 2017

Battle Garegga was released to Arcades in 1996. It was ported to the SEGA Saturn in 1998. And finally M2 ShotTriggers, the undisputed leaders in making frame perfect ports with identical performance to their arcade originals, released Battle Garegga to the PS4 in 2017. Each of these versions is an acceptable choice. I choose the PS4 version for its perfect representation of the original arcade release and the bonus features, particularly the ability to create 30 save points that can be practiced over and over, and the option to change the color of enemy projectiles making them easier to see.

Battle Garegga is simply among the best games ever made. There is not a game Battle Garegga is not worthy of standing next to. Super Mario Bros. 3? Yes, Battle Garegga is that good. Mainstream gaming culture has become extremely adverse to challenge, originality, complexity, sophisticated game design, and artistic integrity. Production value, Hollywood hallmarks, conformity and size are seen as the markers of a good game. Entire genres get cast aside as inferior or even obsolete, because the idea of playing extremely difficult, arcade length games for dozens of hours to finally be able to clear the game on a single credit, and for hundred or even thousands of hours trying to push a high score; isn't valued as a gaming experience. But for people who enjoy the process of improvement, playing at a very high skill level, and achieving difficult skill based goals, arcade genres such as shoot em ups are an oasis.

For such people who are in the know, Battle Garegga is often considered the greatest shoot em up of all time. From my experience, it is the best I've played, and easily my favorite. The graphics are great; and the music is quite superb taking influence from the Detroit techno scene. But what gives Battle Garegga its GOAT status is the gameplay. The framework of the gameplay is formed by the rank system. The higher the rank, the more difficult any given moment will be compared to if the rank was lower at the same point. The rank goes up when the player scores, collects power ups, collects bombs, plays more powered up, strategically flies over certain ground based threats, destroys things, uses special option formations. The only way to make the rank go down is to die. The less lives a player has when they die the more rank goes down. Players earn an extra life every time they score a million points. Every decision comes with a risk and reward. Tiny choices have ramifications that affect the entire play through. Variations and mistakes require present and future adaptation. As a result, the way every individual player plays through the game is unique and personal to them as a player. It's a pure, single player gameplay experience, that allows for self expression.

Clearing Battle Garegga without usuig continues is one of the landmark 1CCs (one credit clears) in the arcade community, generally considered among the harder to do so, games with ultra difficult second loops aside. I posted my 1CC of Battle Garegga in the gaming thread. Nobody acknowledged it, but I expect that. Another thing though that makes the game so phenomenal is how high it pushes the skill level. I just wanted to get through the game on one credit and didn't worry about score. That's difficult, but nothing compared to the super players who push the score. The more a player scores, the harder the game is. The rank climbs higher, bombs are used to take advantage of scoring opportunities instead of for safety, the strategic decision making process becomes increasingly dense. Players always have room to improve. And no matter how good a player gets, the balance is such that the player is always on the edge. I included a video of Kamui, the best Battle Garegga player in the world, playing the game. The video includes commentary to give you an idea of the things players think about while playing the game.

 

[Turgenev]

There are several reasons for owning a Game Boy. This was one of them. The game that started it all:

Pokémon Red and Blue (1998)

• Director: Satoshi Tajiri
• Publisher: Nintendo
• Developer: Game Freak
• Programmers: Tetsuya Watanabe, Takenori Ohta
• Designer: Satoshi Tajiri, Ken Sugimori
• Composer: Junichi Masuda
• Platform: Game Boy

Sure, the allure of color and the appeal of more than 151 Pokemon was hard to pass up, but this was a grinder back in the day. That's right kids - some games were in black and white! You could trade and battle via link cable (what's wifi?) and it helped evolve the Game Boy into more than "just a toy."

Want to enjoy the Snorlax hotel room in Japan? You're welcome.
Typing, EV, IV, team-building - Pokemon had it all. The formula for Pokemon hasn't changed since its inception, and now that the mantle has been passed from Ash to Liko, the fun still remains. I have a 17 yr old (mine) and a 7 yr old (kinda mine) who both enjoy both ends of the Pokemon spectrum. It's hard to find that kind of universal appeal in a game, but Pokemon has managed to do it.

I would have picked this at some point. I remember an assessment we had in 8th grade English was just to present an argument for something, anything. A friend argued that Bulbasaur was the best Pokemon.

 

[Turgenev]

With the 64th pick in the 2025 Desert Island Video Game Draft, I select:

GoldenEye 007 (1997)

Developer: Rare
Publisher: Nintendo
Game Director: Martin Hollis
Musical Score: Graeme Norgate, Grant Kirkhope, & Robin Beanland
Genre(s): First-Person Shooter
Platform: Nintendo 64

Fate would have it that I've got the 64th pick, and I'm using it to debut the very first appearance of a Nintendo 64 game in our draft.

It's funny how nostalgia works. Though it ushered Nintendo into the 3D era, the N64 is not thought of as one of Nintendo's better consoles. However, for those of a certain age (elder millennials, primarily), it remains a touchstone gaming experience. And among the many experiences I had with the Nintendo 64, few were as electrifying as the video game adaptation of the James Bond movie GoldenEye.

This was an era in which film adaptations were exceedingly popular within the gaming world, but most of them were terrible cash grab facsimiles that were rarely elevated by the interactivity of the medium. In fact, to this day GoldenEye may still be among the very best film-to-game translations ever made. Its single-player experience follows the film it's based on pretty closely, and while it's a genuinely excellent story mode, particularly at higher difficulty levels, this game is best remembered for its multi-player mayhem.

Despite my newfound love of PC gaming, I have not made the transition to online multi-player games. I've tried my hand at a few, but I just don't enjoy them. I simply cannot find much appreciation for the experience of playing against distant human opponents. It makes me feel like I might as well be playing against a computer-controlled opponent. But I will always have wistfulness reserved for the couch competitive gaming of my youth. A few friends, a sh*tty frozen pizza, some Jolt Cola, and GoldenEye. That was my middle-school experience, memorizing the level layouts so I knew every pinch point in which to plaster the walls in proximity mines. You could be downright dastardly in GoldenEye's multi-player mode. The level of freedom and creativity it afforded players, as well as the depth of the available arsenal, made for a phenomenally good time.

In my adulthood, I mostly enjoy gaming as a solitary exercise. But there's definitely the occasional competitive or co-op experience that reminds me of those days in the mid- to late-90s, when being in the same room mattered. It was absolutely one of those "you had to be there" moments in time, but GoldenEye remains such an important piece of gaming history. Modern multi-player FPS'es owe a lot to this one.

I remember hiring this out from the video store and being really bad at the multiplayer.

 

[Spike]

With the 64th pick in the 2025 Desert Island Video Game Draft, I select:

GoldenEye 007 (1997)

Developer: Rare
Publisher: Nintendo
Game Director: Martin Hollis
Musical Score: Graeme Norgate, Grant Kirkhope, & Robin Beanland
Genre(s): First-Person Shooter
Platform: Nintendo 64

Fate would have it that I've got the 64th pick, and I'm using it to debut the very first appearance of a Nintendo 64 game in our draft.

It's funny how nostalgia works. Though it ushered Nintendo into the 3D era, the N64 is not thought of as one of Nintendo's better consoles. However, for those of a certain age (elder millennials, primarily), it remains a touchstone gaming experience. And among the many experiences I had with the Nintendo 64, few were as electrifying as the video game adaptation of the James Bond movie GoldenEye.

This was an era in which film adaptations were exceedingly popular within the gaming world, but most of them were terrible cash grab facsimiles that were rarely elevated by the interactivity of the medium. In fact, to this day GoldenEye may still be among the very best film-to-game translations ever made. Its single-player experience follows the film it's based on pretty closely, and while it's a genuinely excellent story mode, particularly at higher difficulty levels, this game is best remembered for its multi-player mayhem.

Despite my newfound love of PC gaming, I have not made the transition to online multi-player games. I've tried my hand at a few, but I just don't enjoy them. I simply cannot find much appreciation for the experience of playing against distant human opponents. It makes me feel like I might as well be playing against a computer-controlled opponent. But I will always have wistfulness reserved for the couch competitive gaming of my youth. A few friends, a sh*tty frozen pizza, some Jolt Cola, and GoldenEye. That was my middle-school experience, memorizing the level layouts so I knew every pinch point in which to plaster the walls in proximity mines. You could be downright dastardly in GoldenEye's multi-player mode. The level of freedom and creativity it afforded players, as well as the depth of the available arsenal, made for a phenomenally good time.

In my adulthood, I mostly enjoy gaming as a solitary exercise. But there's definitely the occasional competitive or co-op experience that reminds me of those days in the mid- to late-90s, when being in the same room mattered. It was absolutely one of those "you had to be there" moments in time, but GoldenEye remains such an important piece of gaming history. Modern multi-player FPS'es owe a lot to this one.

Dammit. I had a good story about this one, too.

Short version: friend failed a class in college because he was in the quarterfinals of our Goldeneye tournament.

 

[whitechocolate]

View attachment 13831

SimCity 2000 Special Edition
Developer: Maxis
Year: 1995
Platform: PC

The granddaddy of all "recent" sim building games, I fell in love with this the moment I started playing. As an engineer by trade, this game speaks to my desire for order, organization, efficiency, and "watching something I made just work".

While I've never played this particular version (only the "basic" version of the game), if I am stuck on an island I definitely want to have the extra content to play around with (SimCity Urban Renewal Kit (SCURK), Scenarios Vol. I: Great Disasters, and bonus cities and artwork).

So, any time I get tired of shooting things (or shooting holes in things to jump through), I can sit down with this and build something cool instead.

View attachment 13832

View attachment 13833

View attachment 13834

@Löwenherz - go!

My list coming into this wasn't even ten long. I don't know what I'm going to end up doing in those later rounds, but this probably would have been one of my picks.

 

[Löwenherz]

I have a feeling I’m about to get far more pensive over this pick than is warranted for an online anonymous video game draft, but as you’ll see, we have history.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64) - 1998



There was an extended period this was my unquestioned “Favorite Game of All-Time“ and into adulthood I saw no reason to challenge its position. In my mind, Ocarina of Time was the pinnacle of the Zelda formula, a series I had followed, cherished, and invested myself in for nearly 2/3rds of my life to that point. OoT hit every single note of the foundation laid by its predecessors, and expended the universe in exciting and enduring ways.

The introduction of the Goron, Zora, and Gerudo people made Hyrule feel more alive and teaming with a diversity of culture than any entry before then. Hyrule felt bigger than in either the original NES Zelda, or A Link to the Past. Naming the Sages after the towns in my favorite entry on the NES (yes, you read correctly) was a subtle, but thrilling touch. The addition of Epona and horseback riding may be a staple in the series now, but was mind-blowingly inventive at the time. The time travel mechanics were exhilarating, but so was the simple fact of an active day and night cycle. Z-targeting set an industry standard. Ganondorf gave our series villain a compelling backstory beyond being a corrupted pig-man bent on world domination. The dungeons are inventive and memorable, from the inside of a giant fish, to a haunted forrest temple, to a graveyard catacombs, to flipping back-and-forth between time periods to complete. Even the most frustrating temple in the game and possibly the series, has a fun duel with Dark Link in the middle. The world is fun to explore, the puzzles are challenging but conquerable, the combat is effective and engaging.




But it was more than that. On a personal level, this marked the end of my Golden Era of gaming as a hobby and my adolescents as a whole. Like @Padrino, my gaming history started with the NES/SNES/N64 triad - with one of my earliest memories seeing Super Mario Brothers played on a TV in a display window of a KB Toys and even then thinking of the exciting and enormous possibilities of having the ability to explore an entire digital fantasy world. Ocarina of Time was the closest to bringing that idea to fruition before I decided it was time to put aside my childhood things and join the adult world.



As mentioned in the GoldenEye pick, the N64 is looked at as something of a failed console. It had less than 300 titles released in the U.S. and I could count on one hand the number of those that actually excited me. I gathered a small collection of my favorites, but the N64 was little more than a Zelda-playing machine for me. OoT’s direct sequel was the last game I played on the console before I boxed up all my games and systems, and bequeathed them to my sister, declaring myself retired.

And with it, I locked OoT and its indomitable status away in my memories, coated in the insular protection of nostalgia.



In the years that followed, my personal opinion was popular consensus, leading Nintendo to continuously endeavor to recapture the magic of OoT by trying to recreate the formula over and over with middling results. But with less than stellar entries populating the seriesc the online tastemakers and YouTube critics began to loudly question what had been to that point established fact: “Was OoT ever really that good anyway, or are we all viewing it with Nostalgia glasses?”

Predictably, their answer was the latter. Even leaving aside the quirky creaky of-its-time annoyances that might otherwise be forgiven for the series’ first foray into 3D, the culprit that was killing the franchise was its linearity. The OG Zelda was wildly more open for exploration than anything that came after it. Since the reviled NES sequel, the franchise had been distressingly more narrative focused gatekeeping players with linear dungeon progression instead of offering a wild garden playground to explore as was Miyamoto’s intent.

This revolution led to Breath of the Wild, and the most successful Zelda since Ocarina of Time, and in the minds of most, not just surpassing its but leaving its predecessor in the dust.




The sudden turn on a certified classic and genre trailblazer, let alone my favorite game of all time infuriated me. I was inspired to break out my boxed up N64 and prove to myself if not the masses OoT was still worthy of the title.

… and I soon discovered they were right. The control scheme on the N64 is ridiculous and not designed for human hands. Navi and the stupid Owl are obnoxious and merely slow things down. The progression locks feel incredibly confining - I became stuck because I missed a random object with no indication of how or where to find it. Kept plowing through each dungeon eager to get to “the good part” and realizing I was continually moving the goalposts as to where the good part supposedly started.

How did this happen? How could I have been so wrong? How was I tricked into loving something so flawed?

While contemplating this and staring blankly at the screen, suddenly a melody started playing from the game. Malon was nearby to offer a hint for a puzzle, but apparently at nightfall, she starts humming Epona’s song for no discernible reason. It has no impact on gameplay aside from being a fun sweet Easter egg that I discovered for the first time at that moment. And suddenly I was flooded back with all the actual reasons this had been my favorite game and still deserved to be hailed as a heavyweight not simply as a historical curiosity, but as a blueprint for future games.

It is meant to be explored, not rushed through and beaten - the latter of which being how my adult result-orientated mind approached it. It is designed for slow summer days and lazy afternoons of being immersed and lost in a world just like BotW, but with attached levels progression and achievement added and an emphasis on an evolving story. It hadn’t changed. I did.

OoT is still great. And I couldn’t pass up the chance to have what I consider the best games on my first 3 consoles together.

 

[Padrino]

I have a feeling I’m about to get far more pensive over this pick than is warranted for an online anonymous video game draft, but as you’ll see, we have history.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64) - 1998

View attachment 13850

There was an extended period this was my unquestioned “Favorite Game of All-Time“ and into adulthood I saw no reason to challenge its position. In my mind, Ocarina of Time was the pinnacle of the Zelda formula, a series I had followed, cherished, and invested myself in for nearly 2/3rds of my life to that point. OoT hit every single note of the foundation laid by its predecessors, and expended the universe in exciting and enduring ways.

The introduction of the Goron, Zora, and Gerudo people made Hyrule feel more alive and teaming with a diversity of culture than any entry before then. Hyrule felt bigger than in either the original NES Zelda, or A Link to the Past. Naming the Sages after the towns in my favorite entry on the NES (yes, you read correctly) was a subtle, but thrilling touch. The addition of Epona and horseback riding may be a staple in the series now, but was mind-blowingly inventive at the time. The time travel mechanics were exhilarating, but so was the simple fact of an active day and night cycle. Z-targeting set an industry standard. Ganondorf gave our series villain a compelling backstory beyond being a corrupted pig-man bent on world domination. The dungeons are inventive and memorable, from the inside of a giant fish, to a haunted forrest temple, to a graveyard catacombs, to flipping back-and-forth between time periods to complete. Even the most frustrating temple in the game and possibly the series, has a fun duel with Dark Link in the middle. The world is fun to explore, the puzzles are challenging but conquerable, the combat is effective and engaging.

View attachment 13851
View attachment 13852

But it was more than that. On a personal level, this marked the end of my Golden Era of gaming as a hobby and my adolescents as a whole. Like @Padrino, my gaming history started with the NES/SNES/N64 triad - with one of my earliest memories seeing Super Mario Brothers played on a TV in a display window of a KB Toys and even then thinking of the exciting and enormous possibilities of having the ability to explore an entire digital fantasy world. Ocarina of Time was the closest to bringing that idea to fruition before I decided it was time to put aside my childhood things and join the adult world.

View attachment 13853

As mentioned in the GoldenEye pick, the N64 is looked at as something of a failed console. It had less than 300 titles released in the U.S. and I could count on one hand the number of those that actually excited me. I gathered a small collection of my favorites, but the N64 was little more than a Zelda-playing machine for me. OoT’s direct sequel was the last game I played on the console before I boxed up all my games and systems, and bequeathed them to my sister, declaring myself retired.

And with it, I locked OoT and its indomitable status away in my memories, coated in the insular protection of nostalgia.

View attachment 13854

In the years that followed, my personal opinion was popular consensus, leading Nintendo to continuously endeavor to recapture the magic of OoT by trying to recreate the formula over and over with middling results. But with less than stellar entries populating the seriesc the online tastemakers and YouTube critics began to loudly question what had been to that point established fact: “Was OoT ever really that good anyway, or are we all viewing it with Nostalgia glasses?”

Predictably, their answer was the latter. Even leaving aside the quirky creaky of-its-time annoyances that might otherwise be forgiven for the series’ first foray into 3D, the culprit that was killing the franchise was its linearity. The OG Zelda was wildly more open for exploration than anything that came after it. Since the reviled NES sequel, the franchise had been distressingly more narrative focused gatekeeping players with linear dungeon progression instead of offering a wild garden playground to explore as was Miyamoto’s intent.

This revolution led to Breath of the Wild, and the most successful Zelda since Ocarina of Time, and in the minds of most, not just surpassing its but leaving its predecessor in the dust.

View attachment 13855
View attachment 13856

The sudden turn on a certified classic and genre trailblazer, let alone my favorite game of all time infuriated me. I was inspired to break out my boxed up N64 and prove to myself if not the masses OoT was still worthy of the title.

… and I soon discovered they were right. The control scheme on the N64 is ridiculous and not designed for human hands. Navi and the stupid Owl are obnoxious and merely slow things down. The progression locks feel incredibly confining - I became stuck because I missed a random object with no indication of how or where to find it. Kept plowing through each dungeon eager to get to “the good part” and realizing I was continually moving the goalposts as to where the good part supposedly started.

How did this happen? How could I have been so wrong? How was I tricked into loving something so flawed?

While contemplating this and staring blankly at the screen, suddenly a melody started playing from the game. Malon was nearby to offer a hint for a puzzle, but apparently at nightfall, she starts humming Epona’s song for no discernible reason. It has no impact on gameplay aside from being a fun’s DJ sweet Easter egg that I discovered for the first time at that moment. And suddenly I was flooded back with all the actual reasons this had been my favorite game and still deserved to be hailed as a heavy weight not simply as a historical curiosity, but as a blueprint for future games.

It is meant to be explored, not rushed through and beaten - which is how my adultmind approached it. It is designed for slow summer days and lazy afternoons of being immersed and lost in a world with attached progression and achievement. It hadn’t changed. I did.

OoT is still great. And I couldn’t pass up the chance to have what I consider the best games on my first 3 console together.

I thought about using my previous pick on Ocarina of Time, but I've decided that I want no series repeats on my island. If I'm honest, this one means more to me from a nostalgia standpoint than my own Zelda pick, as it falls squarely in that same middle-school time period as GoldenEye. I'm certain I've played through OoT more than any other game in the series. Some years ago, I went back through the mainline games I missed in my time away from video games. And in my estimation, Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword aren't a patch on Ocarina, though Wind Waker gets kudos for rendering Ganondorf a tremendously interesting and tragic figure.

I think Ocarina has simply been a victim of its revolutionary nature, giving Nintendo a template from which it could not extricate itself until Breath of the Wild. But it remains such a lovely gaming experience, so full of heart and joy and sadness. Stepping out into Hyrule Field for the first time was so, so special (once you got beyond that stupid owl). Meeting Epona in childhood and the promise of riding her in the adult timeline. The Fishing Pond at Lake Hylia. The legendary Water Temple. The belly of the whale. So much about this game feels so important to me. I carry it with me wherever I go whether I want to or not. I mean, my god, the music. I'm not sure there's a game in the series with more standout themes than OoT, which makes sense, I suppose, given its namesake.

The highest praise I can give Ocarina of Time is that it inspired me to write the only poem I've ever written based on a video game, so moved was I upon revisiting its version of Hyrule in my adulthood.

 

[Padrino]

I haven't always had the best relationship with sharing my creative work in online spaces. I made a point of scrubbing most of it from the internet about a decade ago. But this particular Desert Island Draft has drawn out more of my personal life than I've shared online in many years. So here's a little something I wrote upon revisiting Ocarina of Time in my adulthood. It's the only poem I have written that was inspired by a video game series. That said, I may delete this before too long (and I'd ask you not to quote the work published in this post in case I do decide to take it down).

Its title is in reference to my second pick in this draft, but it mostly draws on events and images from @Löwenherz's most recent pick, Ocarina of Time. I always adored the way Link's and Zelda's relationship was depicted in that game. It's the first time that Nintendo actually created a bit of romantic tension between the two characters. Link himself is largely a silent character in The Legend of Zelda series, but I wanted to mine his interiority for an understanding of what it might be like for the adult Link of Ocarina of Time to look back on his stolen childhood. There is a surprisingly affecting sadness that runs through Ocarina of Time, and much of it is rooted in the death of innocence. What pain, what regret would Link find upon reflection? What losses would he mourn? From where did he summon his courage? Did he even think himself courageous?

Anyway, for the moment, this is dedicated to the spirited GMs of the 2025 Desert Island Music Draft:

A LINK TO THE PAST

The flow of time is always cruel. Its speed seems different for each person, but no one can change it. A thing that doesn't change with time is a memory of younger days.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

I was born at the base of a Great Tree.
This year, spring brings with it
a song of kindling to overthrow
the undergrowth. Time wilts
like apple blossoms in our hands.

I was just a boy.

There are some
men who believe themselves
to be larger than mountains,
who hurl boulders from their
cracked lips, who would dwarf
the forest below with a curse fit
for the least of us.

I met one such shadow in a dream
of the desert. As livid as a parched
riverbed he sprinted towards oblivion,
chewing sand down to its jealousy
of much grander beings.

Lusting after a holy trinity,
he’s had his way with the sun, made love
to a blackened sky, stoked the embers
in his chest ’til a tempest boiled itself
at the edges of a sacred realm.

Alas!
Flame has made itself my
neighbor. The oxygen around me
turns to vapor. His face is all I can see
through the haze. I want to watch him
choke on these ashes. My life, a splintered
shield, dashes from the wreckage.

I was just a boy.

It is so difficult to explain what
home set afire looks like to
those who can claim one.
I’ve since memorized that smell:
charred chainlinks and singed wings.
I left the forest with a leaden heart
sunk as far south as my boots.

Hail!
The great fields of Hyrule
are a mirror, green as the modesty
wrinkled at the sleeves of my tunic.

Princess Zelda, fill my emptiness
with confetti enough to contend
with a fate too big for my body.
Help me to wield this mastery,
plucked so easily from a stone
I approached with only mild curiosity.

I had not strength as wide
as the crossguard,
nor courage as bottomless
as the scabbard.

I was just a boy.

There is nothing coy about me
anymore, fearless Zelda.
At the tip of a sword,
you are a collision of contradictions,
thick-skinned and tuneful,
eyes savaged like a hunter's moon.

Hark!
Can you hear the howling?
Those wolves have chased
an infinite ache back to their bones.
It is an ache we both know.
We are learning how to live in
a world scorched of its luster.

I remember the fish of Lake Hylia,
the sunset upon the closest I can
recollect to a second home.

You may never know how much of me
withered just to get back here.
There is something left to be said
before the granite slab of my courage
fractures at the return of a blade
I could never have lifted by myself.
Dearest Zelda,

I was just a boy

when I met you in a castle courtyard.
We both stopped. We blank-stared.
There was a melody carried on the wind
that day, carried on our backs,
like a link to the past.

We might have kissed in the grace
of tomorrow, if only we had
known where to find it.

 

[whitechocolate]

I riverbed just last week. I riverb all the time.

 

[Warhawk]

I’m at work. I’ll make my selection this evening.

 

[Warhawk]

Command & Conquer: Generals - Zero Hour
Developer: EA Games
Year: 2003
Platform: PC (Steam)

While this series has had some very popular games, I think Generals Zero Hour has been my favorite of the bunch. So, when I get tired of building cities, now I can also just try to wipe out the (military) one the enemy has put together.

I've played the heck out of most of the major C&C games starting back in the mid-90's (my last year or so of college) - I remember hanging out at a friend's house playing the first-generation game the first time and absolutely loving it. While the various iterations have all had their pluses and minuses, Generals, and especially with the Zero Hour content, has been my particular favorite. The nice thing is, on Steam you don't need to buy the base game to play Zero Hour!!!

This game guided C&C away from the tiberium-centered storyline of previous games and basically turned it into all-out warfare using USA, China, and the GLA guerilla group. Generals boosted that idea with various "Generals" that had different playing styles and focus for their attacks. Zero Hour added 15 bonus single player missions, new weapons, new abilities, etc. Basically, it took the excellent Generals game and gave it a steroid shot.

Personally, since my online connection wasn't always great, I loved the skirmish modes where you can pick the map, number of opposing enemy players (computer controlled), and go at it.

Want to build a kick-ass air force? Do it! Want to build nukes? Help yourself! Want to launch SCUD missiles at an enemy base? Knock yourself out! The variety of weapons and approaches to this game are incredible, and you can always find something new to try to win.











@SLAB - you're up!

 

[SLAB]

Pick 6: RESIDENT EVIL 2 (PS1 OG!)

Another game that holds a very special place in my heart! Not only is it an amazing game (more on that later) but it’s the first M FOR MATURE game I ever bought for myself. I remember walking into WalMart and being like “I want that one!” … and they just let 12 year old me have it and walk out with it!

Immediately when the game boots up, you’re greeted with this …



To let you know you’re not playing just any other game. No no no! This is a different game for the big people! The opening cutscene was excellent for the time, and it sets everything up with both your characters, and depending on which disk you choose, you’re on your way into the world of SURVIVAL HORROR.

I remember the feeling of dread when I first saw the Licker crawl past a window… but I thought I was safe. And in the very next room!



He finds you. Your instinct is to shoot, but you don’t have a lot of bullets so you probably die until you learn to avoid him! Later in the game you meet your stalker MR X who’s just so menacing and intimidating. He scared the hell out of me as a kid. This game had me and my childhood friends up all night at sleepovers screaming and spilling our sodas and trying not to die. So many good times!

The game also has staying power, with 2 playable character (Claire and Leon) in addition to multiple versions of their stories when you beat the alternate’s first! (Beating Leon unlocks Claire Story B and vice versa)



There’s also a time-attack type minigame tacked on for good measure!

@Sluggah youre up!

 

[Löwenherz]

At the risk of being accused of going for the classics (but really just to stick to drafting games I have actually PLAYED), for my fifth pick I’m going to go with another OG that has spawned several games already drafted here…

The Legend Of Zelda (1986) - NES originally (but drafted here for the NES Mini as explained below)

Unlike the games I’ve drafted so far, the original Zelda works on an overhead map, both on the outdoor map (which was extensive for the time) and inside the numerous dungeons where as Link you gather pieces of the TriForce to help save the titular princess. As with most of the best games of its era, there are too many randomly hidden items for you to really be able to beat the game on your own - a subscription to Nintendo Power was pretty much required.

There was one cool aspect of this game at the time - it had a battery! That meant that you could actually store a save point in the game and pick it up later, a total first. You didn’t have to beat the game in one sitting (and man, if you could, you had a lot of time on your hands!) Of course, that does have a down side - batteries don’t last forever. So instead of picking this game for the NES, I’m going to select it on the NES Mini - same game, no battery issues thanks to much newer data storage technology.

When I bought the NES Mini, I did it largely to turn it into a new Tetris machine, but at one point I did go back and beat The Legend Of Zelda once for old times’ sake. It’s still fun! It’s nothing like modern games in terms of graphics, and Dr. Internet has replaced Nintendo Power as the cheat sheet, but it was totally worth my time to beat the game again.

I meant to ask you if you finished the second quest

 

[Capt. Factorial]

I meant to ask you if you finished the second quest

On the Mini, no, just the first one. Did do the second quest on the NES back in the day though.

 

[Sluggah]

Title: Dead Space
Format: PS3
Year of Release: 2008
Developer: EA

Survival horror in space? Yes please! Love this series. Tense as hell, great environments and mechanics, super fun weaponry. Wish they released one every year. Should only be played in the dark.

 

[Turgenev]

Welp. It's time. I don't see this lasting another round.

NHL '96 (1995)

View attachment 13849

• Developer: EA Canada / High Score Productions
• Publisher: EA Sports
• Producer: Michael Brook
• Lead Designer: Mark Lesser
• Programmers: Mark Lesser, Colin Lynch Smith
• Composer: Jeff van Dyck
• Platform(s): Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo (SNES), DOS (PC), etc...

Is this possibly the best hockey game of all time? Yes.
Did I rub my thumbs raw playing as the San Jose Sharks? Also yes.

When you smacked into someone, you almost felt it. It was the first realistic hockey game out there. It was fast, it was fluid, it felt like I was actually playing hockey (fun fact: I tried out for the college hockey team. That tryout lasted about 5 minutes. Turns out basketball was where I was meant to be.)
Everything about it seemed revolutionary at the time. Announcing, commentary, crowds. A little bummed that blood was gone, but I bought an earlier version for it. Gretzky on the Blues? OK. Maybe that's when I followed players vs. teams, because I had a Blues jersey. It was also, TBT, a pretty dope jersey. Not as cool as a Sharks jersey, but here we are.

Also, if anyone wants to hook me up with a Tiburones jersey, you know where to find me.

My history with hockey games: i) I used to rent out a game (no idea which one) for SNES and the one thing I remember is the 'crossing the blue line' commentary; ii) I had one of the EA NHL games (prob around 1998?) and played the hell out of season mode with the Sharks. Never seen a real hockey game in my life but know who Vincent Damphouse and Patrick Marleau are.

 

[Turgenev]

NBA Street Vol 2.



Yay basketball. Yay fun. And yay Bobbito Garcia aka Kool Bob Love aka DJ CucumberSlice called the games.

 

[Insomniacal Fan]

World of Warcraft - PC - 2004- ...

When WoW it came out it was a huge moment in gaming history, (...a moment that has lasted years) The open world of Azeroth was not only loved by hardcore gamers, but was accessible enough to be some people's first exposure to PC gaming. (And to gaming addiction.) It's so popular, that I hardly feel like I need to describe what's amazing about this game.

It's very surprising to me that WoW made it this far in the draft. I didn't want to pick this game, as I don't love this type of game today. But then, I still have things I want to do in life.

If I didn't, the world of Azeroth offered an easy sense of accomplishment, socialization, and a bit of narrative here and there. For the Desert Island scenario, I feel good about drafting this one

 

[hrdboild]

R6.P12 (#72 Overall)
ALIEN: ISOLATION
​

Format: PC
Year of Release: 2014
Developer: Creative Assembly
Genre: Survival Horror
Why I picked it: Atmosphere


For my next pick I'm going to highlight one of my favorite game experiences of recent (ish) years and one of the rarest occurrences in gaming: a licensed movie spin-off which is so good in its own right that it actually enhances my enjoyment of the movie(s) that its derived from. I was already a big fan of Ridley Scott's 1979 Sci-Fi classic Alien (and some of its sequels) when my brother mentioned that he'd bought this Alien game on Steam and asked if I wanted to come over and play through it. Over the course of about 3 afternoons he watched while I crept, ran, puzzled, and mostly cowered my way through the game's many obstacles. I now consider this to be the best sequel to Alien in any format. "Impossible!" scoffs James Cameron, from atop an enormous pile of money most likely. Well let's see if I can make the case...

And already I have to apologize to Mr. King-of-the-World because the jumping off point for this game is actually derived from his follow-up movie Aliens. We play as Lt. Ellen Ripley's daughter Amanda and in the opening scene we are recruited to join an extraction team bound for the space station Sevastapool where the flight recorder of the Nostromo has recently been recovered. I don't think anyone familiar with the Alien series will be surprised to hear that the Sevastapool shows signs of distress by the time we arrive. Oh well, I guess we'll just have to bring a flashlight and space walk over to one of the airlocks to turn the lights back on. If any of us were put in this position in real life (unlikely as that may be), I would hope that the prospect of investigating a mysteriously abandoned derelict space station would be met with an immediate "hell no!" but this is only a game so naturally we will climb aboard for the ride.



Once onboard the Sevastapool, the first third of this game is devoted to establishing the mood. As we walk down dark hallways and crawl through portions of the ship's damaged internal infrastructure we have time to take in the art team's stunning accomplishment in recreating the brilliant production design of the original Alien movie. This game looks so good that Alien: Romulus director Fede Álvarez recreated parts of the digital sets for real in his 2024 movie -- a movie which doubles as a filmic re-adaptation of this game, at least for its first act. The ship isn't entirely abandoned, but we'll soon wish it was. We are occasionally haunted by creepy android workers with glowing eyes who lumber about still completing their programmed tasks. They are unfazed by our presence for now but as sure as they've got chips in place of hearts and milk colored blood pumping through their tubes, we know that they will almost certainly turn violent before the game is over.

And I think I've buried the lead long enough because we will eventually come face to face with the titular xenomorph, as do all protagonists unfortunate enough to be scripted into an Alien story, and when we do the game takes a hard turn into pure survival horror. With no colonial marines in sight and very little weaponry of any kind on-hand, there is no hope of fighting this perfect killing machine face to face. That means that much of this middle portion of the game is spent hiding in lockers and under tables as we catch glimpses of our hulking foe or hear its pounding footsteps approaching from down the hall. This is where the game either wins you over or becomes an exercise in frustration. Because the xenomorph of Alien: Isolation does not follow any pre-scripted paths, its procedurally generated behavior is unpredictable and can result in sequences like the one I experienced where I was trapped under the same medical bed for over 30 minutes waiting for a chance to sneak out. I enjoyed every nerve wracking minute of it, but your results may vary.



Now I'm not going to pretend that those quick time event prompts (requiring you to press the right button in the right half second to avoid meeting a calamitous end) work any better here than they do in the hundreds of other games utilizing this most universally despised of game mechanics. And there's one sequence in particular near the end where I was laughing out loud at the absurdity of the gameplay gauntlet that the designers expected me to navigate. I can imagine the lot of them cackling, "No Ms. Ripley, we expect you to die!" as they gleefully type up code. And maybe there is some bizarre meta version of Stockholm Syndrome taking place here where the more punishing the gameplay got the more juiced up I got to find a way to make it to the end anyway. Normally I would argue that any game which requires the player to die repeatedly in order to learn how not to die is poorly designed but for the survival horror genre I can make allowances. If this were all a walk in the park, after all, how would I get the sweaty palms and elevated heart rate that are the main selling points of horror?

Where so many of the Alien sequels (and for that matter, most horror movies) miss the mark for me is in the final act where the author's temptation to empower the main character reaches a tipping point and all of the carefully orchestrated tension is replaced by some big dumb showdown. Alien: Isolation does occasionally falter when reaching for big moments, but thankfully the bulk of the playtime is stuffed to overflowing with clever little touches which all serve to enhance the suspense. Like the way our first person view racks focus to blur what's directly in front of us whenever we pull out the motion detector. Or the coldly sinister way the androids taunt us as we try to evade their clutches: "Running causes accidents." Or how familiar strains of the Jerry Goldsmith score creep along our neck hairs with spider-legged menace in the quiet moments between the action. This isn't just a love letter to 1979 Alien, it's a vehicle for transporting us right inside of the frame -- a trip I never would have thought to ask for but I'm really glad exists.

 

[hrdboild]

R7.P1 (#73 Overall)
RIVEN (VR REMAKE)
​

Format: PC (VR)
Year of Release: 2024
Developer: Cyan Worlds
Genre: Graphical Adventure / Puzzle
Why I picked it: An Ode to Imagination

I have a lot to say about Myst but Capt. got there first so I'm re-sorting my draft priority list a bit here to take the 1997 sequel a round earlier than I had planned to. I'm also going against my better judgement to take the recent (2024) VR remake instead of the original release, making this the only title on my video game roster that I have not (yet) actually played. This is the desert island draft though so I figure I can get myself a VR headset thrown in with this pick and re-experience everything I loved (and didn't love) about Riven in the late 90s with a modern facelift and new control schema. I'll just have to hope that there aren't enough of the "Han shoots first" type of changes in store to spoil my nostalgia trip.

...

​

Once upon a time... is a familiar phrase in the English language. It denotes a traditional start to a Fairy Tale and the folkloric connotations it carries prime us for mystery and adventure, perhaps some romance, and if we're lucky a sprinkling of magic along the way. All of this exists in a place out of time, between the written words on the page. Conventional wisdom tells us that a picture is worth a thousand words but contained there within four simple words at the start of this paragraph are a thousand pictures -- a hundred thousand even. As many pictures as our over-saturated brains can dream up. Which suggests to me that the relationship between words and pictures is not so easily quantified.

Spoiler: Continue reading...

_____To discuss the relevance of Myst both as a cultural phenomenon and as an entity unto itself I'd like to start here with that hazy in-between world on the edge of imagination. When Myst arrived on CD-ROM in 1993 it marked a dramatic change in the adventure game genre. From the earliest days of text on a screen, almost as long as there have been computers, gaming enthusiasts had been programming their tales of adventure in written form. Indeed one of the earliest exercises in learning any new scripting language is the creation of a program which is, at its core, a rudimentary text-only adventure. PRINT PROMPT. ACCEPT USER INPUT. PRINT RELEVANT RESPONSE. That is the core gameplay loop of a text adventure in its entirety, all that's left is the writing of pages and pages of words to spark imagination.

_____Those early text-only adventures are the stuff of legend for gamers of a certain age -- to invoke their series titles is to invite recognition within a secret society of likeminded weirdos (a phrase I use lovingly, by the way -- we should all be so lucky). Gradually images would start to accompany the text, though with only 16 colors and limited storage space the words still needed to do most of the heavy lifting. A hybrid form emerged with sprite-based animations and clickable verb commands adding a graphic-UI on top of what was still essentially a literary format. The killer idea which Robyn and Rand Miller built an entire game around was to tell a story with only pictures. When I think of Myst I think of that dividing line where the text-based adventure stepped down from its pedestal, ceding the spotlight to a new form of adventure game -- the graphic adventure -- which peaked quickly but sold millions and millions of copies during that peak.

_____But the inter-connected "words into pictures" relationship of Myst goes even further than the physical form. After the astounding success of the first Myst game, Robyn and Rand Miller were presented with the opportunity to adapt the fictional world they had created into a series of novels. The first novel in the series titled "The Book of Atrus" introduces us to a group of people called the D'Ni who lived underground in a massive Jules Verne inspired cave city deep within the Earth until some unknown calamity nearly wiped them all out. The D'Ni were masters of an art called writing by which they could script whole worlds out of words -- magnificent worlds with their own internal logic and alternative physics. Through the use of proprietary ink and book-making processes (since lost to time) the D'Ni writers created physical links into the worlds they described. All one had to do was reach out and touch a panel on the page and you would find yourself inside that world, able to walk around and smell the pollen in the air.

_____In the wake of Myst's growing popularity, the Miller brothers recruited a new team of artists and programmers to help them craft a worthy sequel -- a game that would eventually be given the title Riven. This time the images would be rendered in much more vivid detail. Unlike Myst, which broke its explorable levels up into small chunks to accommodate the limitations of a HyperCard derived game engine (in the parlance of the game these chunks are referred to as Ages), Riven's five main islands would be connected via one continuous pathway. And the gameplay had evolved as well. Myst pioneered an esoteric form of visual puzzle solving wherein the clues needed to unlock a particular key hole were hidden, scavenger hunt style, somewhere else in the game world. The puzzles in Riven were both better-integrated into the environments (through a consistent visual language) and twice as difficult to solve due to the vast distances that players sometimes had to traverse between the lever that needed to be pulled and the gizmo which that lever operated. Dedicated puzzle solvers filled whole notebooks trying to connect these distant levers and gizmos together -- reasoning out cause and effect through a kind of scientific process: "If I do 'X' what change will happen, and where?" The rest of us relied on strategy guides to save us when we were unable to reason out where to go next.

_____As much as I adore Myst and Riven for the visual imagination evident in every one of their artfully composed still frames, I will admit that the experience of re-playing them is not without some frustration. Where was the clue to this one puzzle that I know took me 6 hours to find last time? Is this the door with the hidden passage behind it which I never would have found on my own? Knowing that the answers are one quick internet search away is a trial of willpower not unlike trying to fill up a page with words entirely of my own cultivation in an era of ubiquitous regurgitative AI tools all claiming to short-cut you right past the frustrating aspects of creation. That would be the actual act of creation itself, for those keeping track at home. "Yes, but at what cost?" I will continue shouting at the walls. With a guide on hand to walk me through every puzzle, the experience of playing Riven isn't much of an experience at all. Consider this then an ode to the transformative power of imagination and to the vitality of putting in the work yourself. Like the D'Ni in their cave city scribbling out Ages in longhand, we too have the power to make manifest through mere ink and paper innumerable fantastic worlds and then to share those worlds with our peers. There is no short-cut to imagination which doesn't rob it entirely of this transformational power. It's a loaded analogy, but one that I hope can still catch on.

_____Riven sold well in 1997 but garnered mixed reviews and was ultimately relegated to "niche appeal" status while the focus of the PC gaming industry moved on to high-profile real-time strategy games and online shooters instead. Now in the 2020s, the advent of VR technology represents a potential rebirth for Cyan and likeminded design teams. There may be no other game series and game genre more tailor-made for a reawakening in VR form than the Myst series and the graphic adventure, or to borrow a phrase with increasing adoption on Steam's gaming store, the Walking Simulator. Time will tell if another adventure gaming boom is on the horizon. So far the modest successes in the VR gaming category have been few and far between but just as Myst arrived from out of nowhere (a literal garage in Spokane, Washington to be more specific) to become the best-selling PC game in its day, it seems likely that it will be the Indie gaming space from which the next bolt of inspirational lightning will emerge.

...

​

I've already outlined (or least made the attempt to outline) why the literary subject matter of Myst is so appealing to me. As a writer I have an abiding belief in the transformative power of words. As a photographer I'm also constantly scanning my immediate environment for opportunities to isolate and preserve the visual poetry of the natural world within an attention focusing still image. Both impulses come together here in the shared middle of the Venn diagram. What I'd like to do in this section then is attempt a definition for "visual imagination" -- what is it, how does it work, and why does it work better within human brains than in machines? And I'd like to do that by referencing as source material my own relationship to the look of Myst and Riven and how these games have influenced the way I see the world.

Spoiler: Continue reading...

_____To begin this exploration, I'm going to define "visual imagination" as the ability to retain a diverse range of visual sensory data points and re-contextualize them through mental synthesis into a coherent vision of something (a place, an object, etc) which does not exist. Something new from something familiar. This may be one of those cases though where words can hinder rather than enhance understanding, so I'll just dive right into the examples...

_____The look of Myst (and Riven even more so) encompasses several loosely related nodes : the worlds are decorated by hand-crafted objects which proudly display the natural materials of which they are made. Brass, wood, and bone are omnipresent often decorated with traditional techniques like embroidery and etching. There is also a blending of 20th century industrial technology (valves, pipes, boilers, platforms and hand rails) with natural environments similar to what you would see in one of the United States' natural parks or monuments. And there are nods to mid-century design aesthetics in the way that practical construction materials like glass, concrete, and brick are utilized in an elevated artistic manner. Taken individually each of these nodes of visual reference are memorable enough but when combined together the overall effect is more than just a random sampling of visual motifs, it is a style. And as a style it can be referenced and even meme-ed. I could easily imagine a random assortment of found objects or pictures of places and a binary sorting into two bins: Myst and not-Myst.

_____All of this might be summed up as design taste. Even though the game environments here are virtual, they are highly curated to embrace the viewer in earth tones punctuated by oxidized copper, adobe, and terra cotta. I paid a visit several years ago to Cosanti, the workshop of deceased architect Paolo Soleri, just outside of Phoenix. It has been preserved as a travel destination and gift shop where guests can tour the grounds and purchase earth-casted ornamental bells to place in their yards back home. As soon as I stepped foot at Cosanti I was instantly struck by how much this place feels like it belongs in a Myst game. I don't know all of the design lineage here -- was there direct inspiration involved or simply shared design preferences -- and for these purposes I don't really care. My point is simply that the look I associate with this series of games is so distinctive that I recognize it instantly whenever I encounter it in the real world.

_____What is particularly revelatory about Riven's visual presentation is the absence of any kind of on-screen interface. Similar to the first Myst game, in Riven there are many found objects which reveal information about the story through writing but the overwhelming majority of information to take in here is purely visual. And this is essential to the experience of playing the game. It may be one of the first (and only) video games which incorporates filmic production design as a key element in its storytelling. That massive blue port hole in Gehn's throne room and the ostentatious flight of stairs we must scale to reach the throne itself are the most striking example of this design philosophy at work. We don't need someone in the game-world to tell us that Gehn has megalomaniacal tendencies, to walk into this throne room is to understand that fact in vivid technicolor grandeur.

_____Speaking of production design, I do not count myself among the many admirers of Denis Villeneuve's recent Dune movie adaptations and the look of Myst / Riven plays a role in why that is the case. For an imaginary environment to create the illusion of a lived-space, a bar needs to be reached; a standard of visual consistency must be met. This will vary from viewer to viewer but for me, somewhat paradoxically, this standard involves the presence side-by-side of visual elements that we would not expect to find together. Lived-spaces are messy, designed spaces are not. It follows then for a designed space to look as if it is a lived-space, a degree of messiness must be artificially introduced into the design work. This doesn't necessarily mean that everything needs to be grungy and dirty, but it does mean that clutter and incongruence should be part of the curation process.

_____So that takes care of the what that I'm talking about when I refer to something as being rich in visual imagination, how then to approach the how of it? What I can tell you is how I think this process works for me. As I'm decorating my apartment I'm primarily looking to create a stress-free comfortable space within which I can be creative without distractions. I naturally gravitate toward earth tones punctuated by oxidized copper greens, warm adobe creams, and terra cotta faded reds. Hmm. This sounds familiar doesn't it? I don't think I'm merely recreating the color palette of Riven and Myst because I'm nostalgic about playing those games as a teenager any more than I believe the Millers took a tour of Cosanti in their formative early years and sought to recreate its aesthetic in video game form. Rather I think what's happening is a shared reaction to a set of sensory stimulations. Colors originate from natural materials interacting with light and exist only as a mental construct filtered through the imperfect organic matter of our eyeballs and optical nerves. We all see colors slightly differently. Even the geological shape of the environment we live in is subject to change. I've noticed as I've aged that my environment keeps getting smaller as my eyeballs now render everything as if the elements of a zoom lens were rotated further apart or a wide angle lens were swapped in front of the film plane.

_____There is a phrase repeated throughout the second Myst novel -- "The Book of Ti'ana" -- what do you see? This question is asked of the titular character by her father when she is first introduced to us in the narrative and the authors make it a rhetorical leitmotif to which that character returns whenever she is presented with a problem to solve. It's the same question that Riven asks of us as we search the game world for clues. I'd like to change the emphasis of the phrase here to highlight its subjectivity : what do you see? This is the key to understanding visual imagination in my opinion. Everybody sees something but what do you see? How can you convey the shape and color of your environment for someone else? In the curation -- the addition and subtraction of visual elements and stylistic reference points -- you are making a decision about how best to communicate whatever feeling is important to you.

_____I promised to touch on why this makes machine-based image and video generation inferior to the mental synthesis taking place within a living human brain but I feel that it's already self-evident why this should be the case. A machine can only ever see visual data in one way, that data point simply is what we've told the machine it is. Contrast that with how human beings can all have different interpretations of the same visual data point -- either because of cultural references, differences in physiology, impairments due to age or injury, etc -- and I hope it becomes obvious the extent to which machine-based visual tools are straight-jacketed at best and at worst completely incapable of doing the work of visual imagination that even a novice designer is capable of. More than anything else, Style is something you feel -- it is more intuition than logic.

...

​

In choosing to call his fictional society D'Ni -- similar to the Navajo term for 'people' : Diné -- and in setting his story in a desert locale with a heavy emphasis on hand-crafted cultural objects, Rand Miller invited comparisons to indigenous history which are mostly implicit in the video games but are ultimately made explicit in the novels. In this section I want to talk about those comparisons -- more specifically how the theme of colonization is developed into the main focus of all three novels and, uncomfortable as the subject may be, how we might begin to approach the conversation around fetishization of cultural artifacts for science fiction and fantasy world-building with a more nuanced critical eye than is often allowed for in discourses of this kind. Myst may be mostly known colloquially as "that game with the pretty pictures that I couldn't figure out" but upon closer examination, there is actually a lot to talk about here culturally.

To be continued...

 

[Padrino]

R6.P12 (#72 Overall)
ALIEN: ISOLATION
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Format: PC
Year of Release: 2014
Developer: Creative Assembly
Genre: Survival Horror
Why I picked it: Atmosphere


For my next pick I'm going to highlight one of my favorite game experiences of recent (ish) years and one of the rarest occurrences in gaming: a licensed movie spin-off which is so good in its own right that it actually enhances my enjoyment of the movie(s) that its derived from. I was already a big fan of Ridley Scott's 1979 Sci-Fi classic Alien (and some of its sequels) when my brother mentioned that he'd bought this Alien game on Steam and asked if I wanted to come over and play through it. Over the course of about 3 afternoons he watched while I crept, ran, puzzled, and mostly cowered my way through the game's many obstacles. I now consider this to be the best sequel to Alien in any format. "Impossible!" scoffs James Cameron, from atop an enormous pile of money most likely. Well let's see if I can make the case...

And already I have to apologize to Mr. King-of-the-World because the jumping off point for this game is actually derived from his follow-up movie Aliens. We play as Lt. Ellen Ripley's daughter Amanda and in the opening scene we are recruited to join an extraction team bound for the space station Sevastapool where the flight recorder of the Nostromo has recently been recovered. I don't think anyone familiar with the Alien series will be surprised to hear that the Sevastapool shows signs of distress by the time we arrive. Oh well, I guess we'll just have to bring a flashlight and space walk over to one of the airlocks to turn the lights back on. If any of us were put in this position in real life (unlikely as that may be), I would hope that the prospect of investigating a mysteriously abandoned derelict space station would be met with an immediate "hell no!" but this is only a game so naturally we will climb aboard for the ride.

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Once onboard the Sevastapool, the first third of this game is devoted to establishing the mood. As we walk down dark hallways and crawl through portions of the ship's damaged internal infrastructure we have time to take in the art team's stunning accomplishment in recreating the brilliant production design of the original Alien movie. This game looks so good that Alien: Romulus director Fede Álvarez recreated parts of the digital sets for real in his 2024 movie -- a movie which doubles as a filmic re-adaptation of this game, at least for its first act. The ship isn't entirely abandoned, but we'll soon wish it was. We are occasionally haunted by creepy android workers with glowing eyes who lumber about still completing their programmed tasks. They are unfazed by our presence for now but as sure as they've got chips in place of hearts and milk colored blood pumping through their tubes, we know that they will almost certainly turn violent before the game is over.

And I think I've buried the lead long enough because we will eventually come face to face with the titular xenomorph, as do all protagonists unfortunate enough to be scripted into an Alien story, and when we do the game takes a hard turn into pure survival horror. With no colonial marines in sight and very little weaponry of any kind on-hand, there is no hope of fighting this perfect killing machine face to face. That means that much of this middle portion of the game is spent hiding in lockers and under tables as we catch glimpses of our hulking foe or hear its pounding footsteps approaching from down the hall. This is where the game either wins you over or becomes an exercise in frustration. Because the xenomorph of Alien: Isolation does not follow any pre-scripted paths, its procedurally generated behavior is unpredictable and can result in sequences like the one I experienced where I was trapped under the same medical bed for over 30 minutes waiting for a chance to sneak out. I enjoyed every nerve wracking minute of it, but your results may vary.

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Now I'm not going to pretend that those quick time event prompts (requiring you to press the right button in the right half second to avoid meeting a calamitous end) work any better here than they do in the hundreds of other games utilizing this most universally despised of game mechanics. And there's one sequence in particular near the end where I was laughing out loud at the absurdity of the gameplay gauntlet that the designers expected me to navigate. I can imagine the lot of them cackling, "No Ms. Ripley, we expect you to die!" as they gleefully type up code. And maybe there is some bizarre meta version of Stockholm Syndrome taking place here where the more punishing the gameplay got the more juiced up I got to find a way to make it to the end anyway. Normally I would argue that any game which requires the player to die repeatedly in order to learn how not to die is poorly designed but for the survival horror genre I can make allowances. If this were all a walk in the park, after all, how would I get the sweaty palms and elevated heart rate that are the main selling points of horror?

Where so many of the Alien sequels (and for that matter, most horror movies) miss the mark for me is in the final act where the author's temptation to empower the main character reaches a tipping point and all of the carefully orchestrated tension is replaced by some big dumb showdown. Alien: Isolation does occasionally falter when reaching for big moments, but thankfully the bulk of the playtime is stuffed to overflowing with clever little touches which all serve to enhance the suspense. Like the way our first person view racks focus to blur what's directly in front of us whenever we pull out the motion detector. Or the coldly sinister way the androids taunt us as we try to evade their clutches: "Running causes accidents." Or how familiar strains of the Jerry Goldsmith score creep along our neck hairs with spider-legged menace in the quiet moments between the action. This isn't just a love letter to 1979 Alien, it's a vehicle for transporting us right inside of the frame -- a trip I never would have thought to ask for but I'm really glad exists.

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DAMN. This was quite literally my next pick. I should have known you'd get to it before I would. Nicely done.

 

[Warhawk]

World of Warcraft - PC - 2004- ...
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When WoW it came out it was a huge moment in gaming history, (...a moment that has lasted years) The open world of Azeroth was not only loved by hardcore gamers, but was accessible enough to be some people's first exposure to PC gaming. (And to gaming addiction.) It's so popular, that I hardly feel like I need to describe what's amazing about this game.

It's very surprising to me that WoW made it this far in the draft. I didn't want to pick this game, as I don't love this type of game today. But then, I still have things I want to do in life.

If I didn't, the world of Azeroth offered an easy sense of accomplishment, socialization, and a bit of narrative here and there. For the Desert Island scenario, I feel good about drafting this one

Having never played this, I was about to pick it up as a value pick (just so I could play it uninterrupted on my island)!

 

[Insomniacal Fan]

Sid Meier's Civilization IV - PC - 2005

Picking up a classic here. Civilization IV was the ultimate version of the series for me personally. I played this so much that it became hard for me to play the sequels, so I don't know if later iterations have improved things beyond the presentation.

The things from this version that stood out to me:

• Diplomacy mechanics were more visible, and religion was added as essentially a viral force that affected relationships in diplomacy and civ happiness and almost nothing else. (The attempt to not make any value statements about any particular religion was in itself a value statement about religion in general).
• Strategic resources (e.g. Oil) were revealed in later eras (after civilizations were mostly already set up.) resulting in a destabilization of the world

I think lots of the ways Civilization games represent human history that are a bit silly in how abstract they are, but it is interesting to think about them as reflections of the time in which they were made.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

Sid Meier's Civilization IV - PC - 2005

Picking up a classic here. Civilization IV was the ultimate version of the series for me personally. I played this so much that it became hard for me to play the sequels, so I don't know if later iterations have improved things beyond the presentation.

The things from this version that stood out to me:

• Diplomacy mechanics were more visible, and religion was added as essentially a viral force that affected relationships in diplomacy and civ happiness and almost nothing else. (The attempt to not make any value statements about any particular religion was in itself a value statement about religion in general).
• Strategic resources (e.g. Oil) were revealed in later eras (after civilizations were mostly already set up.) resulting in shaking up the world's stability

I think lots of the ways Civilization games represent human history that are a bit silly in how abstract they are, but it is interesting to think about them as reflections of the time in which they were made.

I haven't ever played the Civ games, but I've been tempted to try them out once or twice. Maybe there's no time like the present...