There is a thread floating around right now on twitter where you are asked to pick five games that you will play for the rest of your life, or some variant of that concept. I’ve watched it morph a few times as it burns its way through different circles. Yesterday I managed to get tagged twice in the same day within a few hours of each other, and because I am always looking for an excuse to turn something into a blog post you are getting my response here. First off thanks to Maryalee Scarlet and Dusty Monk for tagging me.
First up lets talk a little bit about theory behind this, because in theory I probably should have picked 5 living MMORPGs and called it good because the constant flow of content would ultimately keep me entertained. However instead I tried to pick five games that more or less represent my tastes in gaming and would cover the majority of my interests. Unfortunately even with that there are things that are going to get left off the list that I am sorta bummed about. However I am doing a few honorable mentions in addition to my official five.
Final Fantasy XIV
I am nowhere near as engaged in this game as I could be, and there are so many rocks that I have left uncovered. For example I have barely scratched the deep crafting system, and I could spend months delving into that along. There are of course a ton of the various artifact weapon quests that I could chase as well and I’ve not really touched raiding since Heavensward. If I so chose, I could be very happy chasing the objectives in Final Fantasy XIV and as a result I am throwing it on the list even though I am not actively playing it right now.
Mass Effect Trilogy
I am absolutely cheating my ass off right here with this pick. However it was in fact released as a single package and there are rumors about it getting a remaster at some point, so for the purpose of this challenge I am calling it a single pick. I love the Mass Effect trilogy and I could see myself playing through it at least once a year start to finish. The real question is whether or not I will keep making some of the same decisions each time because I have never been able to successfully complete a renegade run.
Minecraft
Minecraft is one of those titles that I can continue returning to over and over no matter how many times I have played it. I seem to go through these periods where I just need to do something creative for a bit and I build an entire civilization in Minecraft, and then wander off once finished never to visit again. I figure I have to come up with a way to feed that instinct when narrowing down my five games and as such I’m going for the original. There are other builders out there that are much better “games” but the truth is when I go through one of these phases all I care about is building and ultimately wind up playing the game on creative mode.
Destiny 2
I absolutely love this game and no matter what I am doing cannot seem to stay far away from it. Right now I am heavily into bingeing single player games, but I still spent the entire evening last night playing Destiny. I cannot see a future where I am not playing this game or something similar, and the one I keep returning to is Destiny. It managed to gain traction in a manner that none of the similar looter shooters ever managed to. There are so many secrets that I have yet to unlock and I have still not experienced most of the raid content. The moment to moment gameplay however is what keeps me coming back because it is just fun to fire space weapons at space enemies.
Diablo 3
Some of the most fun I have had over the last few years has been hanging out with my friend Grace while grinding Diablo. As such there is no way in hell it does not make the list… that was absolutely intended. While I am absolutely looking forward to Diablo 4, there is just something about the rhythm of Diablo 3 that makes me wonder if I will ever truly abandon it. There is just something it is doing that the other ARPGs are not and because of it I keep returning time and time again. Also there is something special about the launch of a brand new season that feels very much like starting and MMORPG for the first time every few months.
The Honorable Mentions
Now that I have my official five out of the way it is time for me to delve into some games that almost made the list for various reasons.
World of Warcraft
I have to admit that right now I have a really fraught relationship with this game. In part it is probably why FFXIV got the nod and WoW didn’t because at this very moment I think I would be way happier playing in Eorzea than Azeroth. That said I cannot deny that World of Warcraft would also be an exceptionally strong pick because of the decade and a half worth of content waiting on me to re-experience. That said… the level squishes and gear squishes end up making it feel like a vastly different experience than what I remember, so I am not entirely certain how enjoyable it would be. There is also a lot of repetition going on, and in truth… I find the concept of doing everything on a single character way more compelling than alts.
Elder Scrolls Online
Elder Scrolls Online also came super close to getting the nod because I absolutely love all of the story in this game. I could see myself returning to it over and over to experience different pieces of it and I have yet to actually play a second character to any significant level. That said what stopped me from promoting this title is that I am not in love with its combat. I get that it is doing its best to be Elder Scrolls in MMORPG form, but in truth… I never really loved combat in Elder Scrolls in the first place either. Those games have always been about the freedom of exploration and the rich story being told and not so much combat. Ultimately gets me to walk away from ESO is that I find the combat unsatisfying.
Witcher 3
This game was a real strong contender for maybe knocking Mass Effect off the chart, but ultimately didn’t get the nod because I really only feel strongly about the third game. I cannot under any circumstances get myself to play through the first game, and while the second game has a good story I would not consider it to be a wonderful gameplay experience. All of that said the strength of the third game damned near convinced me to give it a proper place in the list, and I am certain that I will replay my way through it in the near future.
Castlevania Symphony of the Night
For years when someone has asked me what my favorite game is, I have often times said Symphony of the Night. There is just so much that I enjoy about this experience. That said I have also been replaying this game on a regular basis since its original release on the Playstation, and own it for pretty much every platform that it exists on. I am not sure if I want to keep doing this for the rest of my life. As it stands there are only so many more secrets for it to summon forth and only so much more joy that I can squeeze out of it. It is so filled with nostalgia and good memories… but maybe it is time for me to see other games.
Bloodstained Ritual of the Night
In a similar fashion Bloodstained damned near made the list because if I were going to choose between this and SOTN right now… I am more than likely going to be playing Bloodstained. It does everything I loved about Symphony of the Night but better and presents it in a much higher fidelity package. The only reason why I didn’t make the cut is that I have not spent anywhere near as much time with it as I have with some of the other titles. I know that I can keep returning to the ones that made the list, I am not sure how I will feel about this game on repeat playings.
So there are my five games. I am going to stop the chain however and not name any successors because I figure this viral thread will burn its way through the gaming community with or without my help. I could tag some of the AggroChat crew but honestly… we just did something similar and have our games of the decade show that we still plan on recording where we have asked everyone to chip in with topics.
Featuring: Ammo, Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra and Tamrielo
Tonight we talk a bit about some technical difficulties that almost prevented us from recording the show. As a result if anything sounds weird we are on a different server, and will likely be on yet another different server next week. Grace was able to join us so we finally get to talk about Paper Diablo aka Book of Demons. Throughout the weekend I saw the strangest comments over our staff slack channel about a game called What the Golf and Tamrielo finally explains what the hell is up with that. Kodra and Tam talk a bit about the close of Kentucky Route Zero. Bel talks about diving further into Spiders games and playing Technomancer and how once again their ambition outstrips their technical prowess. Ash talks about CrossCode and we wrap things up with a random topic about the perils of opening a Game Store.
This week has been full of craziness and as a result I don’t have an awful lot of gaming news to talk about. We are in full prep mode for my wife going out of the country, and I am trying my best not to think about it. Last night for example I didn’t properly get set down in front of a screen until almost 9 pm… which generally speaking on a normal night I am trying to wind down about that time. As a result you are going to get a Josie picture and some talk about how that is going. Unfortunately you are only getting a single picture because I am nowhere near the prolific cat photographer that my wife is, namely because when I get home I rarely have my phone handy.
One of the struggles of late is trying to figure out how best to deal with the fact that Josie needs a steady source of water. Kenzie and Mollie prefer to drink out of a cup and Josie has not exactly mastered the art of doing this and just ends up knocking it over and making a mess. When we have had the traditional water dish, the older girls end up playing in it and also knocking it over and making a mess. Some years back we purchased a little water fountain but it never took off because the water more bubbled up than streamed. As a result I spent some time on the interwebs looking for a better option and finally landed on something else.
The above picture doesn’t exactly show off the final device that well, but it is the product shot from the amazon page. The diameter is almost 14 inches wide and when filled with water the entire thing is extremely heavy… enough to keep it from getting slid around on the kitchen tile floor. One of the favorite things for our cats is to get up in the sink during the winter time when we are dripping the faucets and to drink straight from the tap. This in theory mimics this and I have already seen them using it more than the previous option. Josie has figured this out as well and is now using it, so in theory I think we have a winner. It is dishwasher safe and everything unlocks easily so in theory it should be pretty easy to clean as well unlike the previous option.
As far as Josie and her adjusting, she is still very much in kitten “everything is new and exciting mode”. She loves stealing silverware and pens and playing with those so we now have to be way more cautious about such things. She continues to be mostly oblivious to the other cats borderline hostile reactions, and the frequency of those is reducing. Kenzie more or less gives a half-hearted growl when she sees her like she is somehow obligated to keep up the ruse that she doesn’t like Josie. They sniff each other often so I think at some point that rampart is going to fall and for the most part Kenzie is back to her normal behavior.
Mollie on the other hand is a bit of a hold out in this department. They also sniff each other and the other morning Josie came bounding into the kitchen and headbutted Mollie. Mollie was sorta stunned and just sat there for a moment and long after Josie had walked away gave a delayed growl. It is working far better than we would have hoped for, and now we mostly have another snugly baby. The photo is of her snuggling with me on the sofa… in the spot Kenzie normally occupies. Shortly after snapping the photo Kenzie came over and laid on arm of my chair beside me. Were it Mollie who had trespassed on Kenzie’s territory… she would have growled and pushed her out of the way because I have seen her do it numerous times. The kitten however seems to keep getting deference from both of them, which ultimately tells me they are adapting fine.
It has been an interesting weekend, but also a very productive one. Friday night my wife spent the evening in her office penned up with Josie as we had been doing for the last several nights. Saturday morning we took her to the vet to get a brief checkup and to establish her with the practice. They said that she looks like a very healthy young cat and while there is a bit of a bump where the incision for her surgery was, that this was more or less normal. Young female cats especially are active and stress the muscles around the incision causing some inflammation. We were told to watch it and watch her behavior and if anything strange happened to bring her back in.
Josie was getting bored of being penned up in the office and had become a rather successful escape artist darting out between our legs the moment we opened the office door. On Saturday we more or less just went with it and let her out into the world to roam around and explore. There were some hisses as to be expected but no violent reactions. In fact Josie seemed adorably oblivious to any shade that Kenzie and Mollie were throwing her way. There were a few times where Kenzie was intent on blocking her path and Josie just ran quickly around her like nothing was going on. The one that I have been the most surprised by is Mollie who seems to be having the biggest reaction. All of this time I have attributed the dynamics between Kenzie and Mollie as Kenzie being a bully. However watching Mollie with Josie is making me start to doubt this.
Always in the past Kenzie would try and get close and sniff Mollie… and then Mollie would make the first hostile sounds which would lead to Kenzie reaching over and bopping her on the head. I always sorta took this as Kenzie being the aggressor, but it could just be the Kenzie is big and adorable and doofy and couldn’t figure out why Mollie didn’t want to play. I am not sure if I am ready to attribute all of the malice here to Mollie, but so far Kenzie seems to be relatively chill about this whole thing with occasional bouts of hissing. However there have been long periods where they have both been in near proximity without any sort of violent reaction. The truth is this is going as smoothly as I could possibly hope, because Luna several years back would have horrible clashes with Kenzie and I never knew how much of that was Luna and how much was Kenzie. We eventually had to find her a new home with a lovely lady where she could be part of a single cat home.
Saturday night she went back up to the office for the night, and then after I got breakfast and did the morning tasks I let her out. I fed all three cats in the same room from separate bowls and for the most part that was acceptable. From that point however she was out the entire day, including a period of time when we went out and ran some errands leaving the girls along at home to fend for themselves. For the most part things seem to be smooth, enough so that we opted to leave her out over night. She crawled up with us in bed and slept there the entire night, or at least as entire night as our conscious selves were aware of. I know she tolerated being adjusted several times without getting up as I ran to the restroom around 2 am and she largely ignored that I jostled her. There was a short period of time when I had both Kenzie and Josie side by side on the bed… and while Kenzie hissed and eventually hopped down that was all that came of it.
The major transgression happened Sunday morning however while I was editing AggroChat. Josie had been dragging this cat toy around with her and she drug it into my office because she apparently wanted to be close to me and be able to play with it at the same time. It isn’t like she was trying to bring it to me to play, she just wanted to roll around and attack it while being nearby. Various things happened and it ended up down in the landing along with one of the Kenzie’s hairbands that she loves to play fetch with. My wife decided to toss both up since Kenzie and Josie were sitting a few feet apart near the entrance to our two offices, and Josie completely misread the signal. Both Josie and Kenzie dove for the hairband at roughly the same time… but Josie was a little faster and snagged it running off quickly causing Kenzie to ponder this sequence of events and run away herself. Kenz had this massive “what the hell just happened” look and decided retreat was the best possible course of action.
For now at least I am trying to spend most of my time downstairs on the sofa, so that the other two girls can snuggle in a manner that is “normal” and uninterrupted while Josie roams around and does her thing. While Josie regularly comes to visit, I am trying to choose Kenzie and Mollie time because they are both bonded more closely with me and I don’t want them to view this as some grand betrayal. While they have shown a bit of hissing and minor aggression towards my wife they continue to still be willing to love on me so I am guessing this is working as intended. Tonight I will likely be downstairs on the sofa again playing things remotely through Parsec with my fuzzy blanket and in theory will have Kenzie on my legs and Mollie on my side. At some point Josie will need to learn the joy of the fuzzy blanket, but for now I am trying to remain a sanctuary for our elder girls.
All of that said… things are going as smoothly as possible, and I think we have our cats introduced as well as could be expected. Four days of isolation, two days of partial interaction, 1 day of full interaction and now we are just in seemingly permanent free roam mode.
