Category: Weekly Research: Games

https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/

Overwatch is a multiplayer based game through and through. There is no such thing as a campaign for the game and there aren’t any game modes for single player in any function other than a free for all mode. That’s the most “single-player” any player is going to get. What’s interesting is that there is a story to the game, there is a reason for every character being in the game, and there is a reason for every objective in the multiplayer matches. There is a ton of lore that is communicated through animation short movies, dialogue between characters, and information shown in the game. But most importantly, the game is centered the cooperation of the respective teams. The game is based on character-specific abilities, so the combination of character abilities between players is the easiest path to success for their teams. Teams need to communicate about timing and strategy to achieve victory in the different game modes in Overwatch.

https://www.ssbwiki.com/Super_Smash_Bros._(series)

Super Smash Brothers is a fighting game made by Nintendo that allows players to pick from an expanding roster of famous video-game characters in order to fight one another.  The game features Mario, Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, Zelda, Pokemon, and many other games outside itself in the form of playable maps, characters, songs, items, and collectibles.  Players compete in combat-based match-ups that offer a wide range of versatility through pick-up items, different play-styles, and much more.  And it can be played both competitively and casually — although the casual play inevitably turns into competitive play as friends fight over the right to be called King of the Living Room.

Risk is one of the of the most conflicting games in the canon of classic board games. In it, players must take on their inner Napoleon and attempt to conquer the entire world by moving their different pieces into different territories by rolling dice. The game requires players to create intentional conflict and attack other player’s territories, and this is why many players do not enjoy playing Risk. When players enter into a game of Risk, they go in knowing that conflict, hurt feelings, and contention will arise, and all of these things are on purpose.

http://www.pogo.com/games/risk

MapleStory

MapleStory is a 2D, side-scrolling MMORPG that immerses players in a large, beautifully animated world.  The art style is definitely anime, and this establishes a tone that’s particularly fantasmic in nature.  Players create their own avatar, customizing their appearance, combat class, stats, etc. and then use this character to explore Maple World.  On their adventures, players will come across many different environments, filled with a bounty of monsters to fight and items/gear to collect.  Players will also enter a series of towns/villages where they’ll be able to shop, find quests, join guilds, and interact with a large community of other players.  The ultimate goal of the game, like many MMORPGs, is to level up your avatar to max stats, complete all quests, and simply live out a fantasy life online for your enjoyment.  A long-standing staple of the MMO genre, MapleStory is a must-play for fans of fantasy.

Call of Duty: World War II – https://www.callofduty.com/wwii

One of the biggest names in the gaming industry has created yet another installment, its fourteenth to be exact with Call of Duty: World War II. The significance behind this release is the return to Call of Duty’s or CoD’s traditional sense of game play. The original few CoD titles were known for their realistic take on a first person shooter game revolving around actual warfare. After the tide of first person shooters became more about the fast-paced movement and shooting with games like Titanfall, CoD adopted that function of game play. Recently, CoD games had featured incredible movement such as double jumping, wall running, and unlimited sprint. This change was received with mixed reactions and a lot of original lovers of the first couple CoD games were disappointed. Those fans are pleasantly surprised in the recent release with the same mechanics of older CoD releases such as boots on the ground action, a gritty and realistic campaign, and a World War II centered game. Even the infamous Nazi Zombies mode has been given a revamp and is more gruesome than it has ever been.

http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/League_of_Legends_Wiki

      League of Legends is a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena.  The game pits two teams of five players against each other in a contest to infiltrate the enemy’s base and destroy their nexus.  This action takes place on a battlefield that is halved, parallel.  There are three lanes on this battlefield, and a large jungle in between each of them.  In the lanes, there are towers that guard the way along the push towards the enemy nexus.  In the jungle, there are creatures that can be killed for the buffs that they provide, and this becomes an additional source of competition for these teams.  Each player, before the game’s start, gets to choose an avatar from a vast collection of playable “champions”, all of which have their own unique set of abilities that are to be used in combat against their opponents.  And the community of players decides where these champions best fit on the battlefield (top lane, middle lane, bottom lane, or jungle), based on the roles assigned to each champion.  Winning your lane (by besting your laning opponent in combat) and working together with the rest of your team fluidly and strategically is the key to victory.

Dungeons and Dragons is the single most definitive game in the realm of role playing that first came out in 1974. The game is played by having players select characters who navigate through various situations that are contrived by the Dungeon Master, who officiates play. Players roll dice of various sizes–d4’s, d6’s, d8’s, d10’s, d12’s, d20’s, and d100’s–in order to make certain things happen.

The part of Dungeons and Dragons that separates it from other games is the amount of freedom and experimentation that the game allows for, especially in character creation. Not only can players select their character’s race and class, but also they are able to customize their personalities as well as their weaknesses. Unlike many role playing games, Dungeons and Dragons does not only rely on fighting and customization of your character’s gear in order to submerge players in game play; the only limit to play is the player’s imagination.

http://dnd.wizards.com/

1. Red Orchestra 2

Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad. Tripwire Interactive. 2011. Video Games.

RO2 is a WWII first person shooter set during the battle of Stalingrad. The game features 64-player team matches that pit the Nazis against the Soviets. In the interest of balance and fairness, there are some limitations on what the player can do from match to match; both teams must have a similar amount of human players, so sometimes the team the player is on is forced, and the number of players allowed to use a specific weapon is limited. Most players will be restriced to bolt action rifles (Mosin Nagants or Kar-98’s, usually), while a few might end up being outfitted with sub machine guns, semi-auto rifles, or machine guns. The game also features a command structure for the players; there is a commander who is able to call in artillery strikes and direct troops, and squad leaders capable of issueing command and marking locations for artillery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Orchestra_2:_Heroes_of_Stalingrad

 

Lisi, Brian. “Rescue the chimp, become the robot: A look at Michael Jackson’s insane arcade game ‘Moonwalker’ as we remember the late King of Pop on his birthday.” New York Daily News, 29 Aug. 2016. Accessed 29 Oct. 2017.

The weirdest game I have every played was Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker. I played it in an arcade with by boyfriend and his brother. We each played as a one of three Michael Jacksons. The game consists of Michael Jackson using magical powers to kill a bunch of agents and rescue kidnapped children. There is a special attack in the game called “Dance Magic”. When that move is implemented all the Michael Jacksons start dancing as a heavenly spotlight shines on them. All of the enemies in the vicinity join into the dance and are destroyed because they ca not keep up with Jackson’s dance moves. Bubbles the chimpanzee is also in the game. Once bubbles is recued Jackson turns into a laser wielding robot. We spent an embarrassingly long time playing this game, because it was almost impossible to be killed. The part of the game that I found to be most fun was constantly hitting the Dance Magic button because my boyfriend hated losing control of his character and having to watch Michael Jackson dance to Smooth Criminal for thirty seconds. I don’t know who thought of this game or why but I want to find out what other games he created.

Candy Crush. King. 12 April 2012. Video game.

Candy Crush can be an addictive game. It is a puzzle game, with each level setting a different objective. The player is not supposed to clear the entire board, but is, instead, prompted to crush certain blocks of candy or eliminate certain ingredients. With over 2,000 levels, this game has essentially unlimited game-play. It is different than most games because there is not a clear end-goal; you just keep beating levels and playing on to the next level. Consequently, there has never been anyone that has “won” Candy Crush. This game proves an important point that games are still enjoyable even if they do not have a clear end result.

https://king.com/game/candycrush

Kain, Erik. “’Cuphead’ Is A Wonderful Game, But It’s Not For The Faint Of Heart.” Forbes, Forbes, 24 Oct. 2017.

www.forbes.com/sites/forbes-finds/2017/10/28/best-subscription-boxes-for-babies-and-their-parents/#2fccba8b4d5d

This article discusses the widely popular and controversial recent release of Cuphead, which revives old -timey aesthetics and difficulty levels. The game have received nearly universal acclaim, its intensely hard skill level aside, and this text investigates the game in its whole. Talking about the beautiful artistic designs and highly creative avatars and levels created, the article goes into great length about the beauty of the game, but undercuts such flowery language with the repeated promise of the game’s extremely difficult nature. This arduous aspect of Cuphead especially came into media conversation when multiple game reviewers gave insufficient reviews of the game due to their “obvious” inability to actually be a “gamer.” Many youtubers have also mocked this summation of the game being too difficult, and this piece too denotes that one’s inability to deal with the mechanics of a sound game shouldn’t be seriously considered.

https://bannersaga.gamepedia.com/The_Banner_Saga_Wiki

    The Banner Saga is a wonderfully illustrated, story-driven strategy game that asks the player to lead a caravan full of warriors, giants, merchants, citizens, and loved ones across the harsh, Nordic tundra.  In a fashion somewhat similar to games such as The Oregon Trail (yet with more complexity and modernity), the player must make important decisions constantly along their journey, from the allotment of resources required for survival, to the inclusion or exclusion of new travelers found on the road, and everything in between.  The characters are rich, and so is the combat, which runs on a party, grid, and turn-based system that usually pits the players’ warriors against the evil Dredge (a robotic race of killers).  And, during this whole process, every move that the player decides to make with their caravan, both in and out of combat, very much affects what will happen next, as well as at the end of the game.

https://bindingofisaacrebirth.gamepedia.com/Binding_of_Isaac:_Rebirth_Wiki

The Binding of Isaac is a dungeoneering shooter that pits the player against a series of encounters with numerous enemies and bosses that attempt to overwhelm and thrill.  Isaac, the game’s main character, is tortured by his evil mother, who has locked him in the basement.  From here, the player must play as Isaac in order to fight their way through a psychological hellscape of nightmarish creatures (all with some kind of sadistic and creepily biblical reference built into them) in order to make it out of the basement to fight and defeat “Mom”: a collection of monstrous limbs that try to kill Isaac.  Along the way, the player earns random power-ups for their avatar that increase stats, allow unique abilities (active or passive), etc.  Each completion of the game unlocks new items/power-ups, bosses, and levels (including Heaven and Hell).

https://tetris.com/play-tetris

Tetris is probably one of the most-played games ever, but it is crucial in the development of visual and technological literacies. Tetris can be played across a variety of technologies including computers, phones, gaming consoles, arcade devices. It is essentially a timed puzzle game, prompting the player to make choices in how to they want the falling pieces to fit into place. In this way, it prompts the player to make quick decisions; there is not a lot of time to think. This teaches the player how to visually assess the empty spaces and fill them accordingly, thus teaching visual literacy.

Houghton, David. “P.T. is still the purest horror game around, and one of the smartest on PS4.” Gamesradar, Future PLC, 31 Oct. 2016, www.gamesradar.com/why-pt-first-real-horror-game-years-and-best-game-ps4/.

 

As detailed within this piece, PT exists now as one of the most infamous and well received horror games of all time, and has been consistently praised as such from its release. Acting as playable trailer (PT) for an up and coming game (that has since been canceled), this short gameplay lives on in continuous fame. PT does what most horror media forgets to do by keeping to the basics. Its scares and progressively antagonistic atmosphere are pure aspects of the genre, but its artistic direction also positively affects the play. Clear and concise, this horror game knew what it wanted to be, and most likely would’ve been a fantastic full length piece, However, though it is a short excursion, compared to the lengthy hours some games, especially horror games, can take, this isn’t detrimental to this work. In fact, the level of intensity and often left-unfinished-gameplay of this piece denotes its successful delivery, and speaks to the modern gaming industry as to quality overriding quantity. It’s a fraction of a normal game’s length, but far exceeds most other gameplays.

 

Star Fox Adventures for the GameCube is the first game from the Star Fox games for the platform. In the game, Fox must help to save Dinosaur Planet by returning the different Krazoa spirits and the Spell stones back to their rightful places in order to restore the planet. Just like other Star Fox games before it, Andross is behind the entirety of the problems. Unlike every Star Fox game before it, Star Fox Adventures is not only a scrolling shooter game. Play in Adventures is very similar to the Legend of Zelda games, specifically Ocarina of Time. The game has underlying themes of imperialism, racism, and also Marxism.

Star Fox Adventures marked a new direction for the series for a time, with the next released game Star Fox Assault almost pushing the series toward a third person adventure/shooter direction. However, Adventures received many positive reviews, especially considering that it followed after one of the best video games of all time, Star Fox 64. 

http://starfox.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Fox_Adventures

Vampire: The Masquerade- Bloodlines. Troika Games. 2004. Video Games

VTMB is a narrative-driven RPG in which the player takes control of a newly created vampire and must learn how to successfully navigate byzantine vampire politics as well as their own inner nature in order to survive.. The game presents a great deal of choices in how to resolve quests, often posing moral choices. In many instances (though not all), combat is avoidable, and many missions penalize the player should they kill anyone. The game also does much with immersing the player in the gameplay; the player needs to drink blood in order to fuel various vampiric abilities, and the world is extremely detailed.

http://vtmb.wikia.com/wiki/Vampire:_The_Masquerade_%E2%80%93_Bloodlines_Wiki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal_(video_game)

Portal is crazy fun game. This puzzle based game has a certain aesthetic that appeals to the eye while the mind-bending spatial puzzles appeal to the mind. There isn’t much story given to the player other than you are a test subject that is supposed to complete certain puzzles while using a portal gun. The portal gun can create two teleportation portals where one leads to the other and vice versa. The character that you play as doesn’t say much, in fact nothing at all, but the game is narrated by an artificial intelligence called GLaDOS which stands for Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System. She has a monotone and apathetic voice where she directs you through the game until you find out something just isn’t right. Your character breaks out of the testing facilities to ultimately defeat GLaDOS using the same mechanics that you’ve used to get to her and the game ends in a very vague way by your character ending up on the outside of the facility. Re-playing this game for my project research made me realize the complexity of the story and how really hard the puzzles seem to be. I felt like I better understood them when I was younger.

Assassin’s Creed 2 – Xbox One

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassin%27s_Creed_II

Assassin’s Creed has created multiple installments to it’s franchise but one of the most notable games in this franchise is Assassin’s Creed 2. The story of Assassin’s Creed begins as following the character of Desmond Miles in a world where the memories of people’s ancestors can be accessed through a machine called the Atlas. Desmond finds that the corporation that is using his memories really wants use him to find ancient artifacts for power. This corporation calls themselves the Templars. Desmond’s ancestors are a part of the Assassin Brotherhood that actively fights against the Templars. This is where the story then follows Ezio Auditore. Ezio becomes an assassin when his family is murdered by a member of the Templars. Ezio then goes on a journey to stop the Templars and avenge his family. You fight alongside other members of the Creed with help from Leonardo DaVinci and his engineering prowess to stop the Templars in the Atlas and in the real world.

Blizzard Entertainment. World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria. Activision Blizzard, 2012. Online.

World of Warcraft is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) where players have the ability to choose their own avatar and their primary skills and secondary skills. First, one chooses the race and class of their character where class determines what skills the character can acquire and develop throughout the game. One’s avatar grows up throughout the game and their skills develop as their character progresses. The map is an important aspect throughout Wow as the player goes on different quests and faces different obstacles.

https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Gold_and_Silver_Versions

      Pokemon Silver/Gold, just like most other Pokemon games, is a top-down RPG that throws you into a world full of magical animal-like monsters called Pokemon that become your companions along the way.  Quickly, you become an official Pokemon trainer and have to battle other trainers, defeat gym leaders to earn badges, and search for rare Pokemon to collect along the way.  The game has two ultimate goals for the player: to complete your Pokedex (a research database) by catching every Pokemon and to defeat the Elite Four (a series of battles similar to a “big boss” mechanic) in order to become a Pokemon Master.  In order to do so, players will need to build a team of battle-ready Pokemon with trust and dedication.  Without this foundation, each player will surely fail.

Donkey Kong Country is the very first Donkey Kong game in the series, outside of the original arcade game where Mario tries to rescue Princess Peach while having barrels thrown at him. Definitely a classic in all senses of early 90’s video games, Donkey Kong Country it is the fastest selling video game of all time, and the second best selling SNES game. The game is a platform side-scroller in which players must beat the 40 different levels and bosses in order to get Donkey Kong’s bananas back from King K. Rool. Donkey Kong Country has also spawned many different sequels, and sprung Donkey Kong into cultural legacy and elevated him to an important spot in Nintendo canon. It’s also one of the classic games that most millenials remember playing growing up and throwing their controllers in frustration.

http://donkeykong.wikia.com/wiki/Donkey_Kong_Country

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metroid_Fusion

Metroid Fusion for the Gameboy Advanced, the fourth installment of the series, was a return to the side-scrolling action adventure style that fans had been clamoring for since the release of Super Metroid nearly a decade earlier. Many of the same gameplay elements and tropes return. Fusion follows Samus Aran, a intergalactically renowned bounty hunter recruited by the Galactic Federation to investigate a possible outbreak in one of their research labs. As the player, you explore the abandoned vessel, find weapons upgrades, and eliminate the alien foes that stand in your way.

Fusion makes a purposeful deviation from previous games though. There she encounters a parasite know as X that has the ability to replicate the DNA of its host, mimicing and enhancing their capabilities. After making contact with the parasite she is stripped of all her suit abilities, making her extremely weak. By contrast, the parasite gains her power and uses it to hunt her down. Samus has no other choice but to hide or run from the X parasite until she discover a way off the ship. The player feels helpless.  This gives Fusion a horror tone which is much stronger than any other in the series.

 

• Victoria II. Paradox Interactive. 2010. Video Game.

 

Victoria II is a grand-strategy game created by Paradox interactive. In the game, the player takes control of a country in the year 1836 and then leads that country until the game’s end date in 1936. Every country that existed or could have existed in that time frame, from major nations like the United Kingdom to small nations like Ulm, is both portrayed and playable. The game’s main draw is the complex political and economic system; different political parties (liberals, conservatives, communists, fascists, etc.) can come into power, and the party in power determines what the player can do (liberals will force lower taxes and more laissez faire style economy, conservatives do the opposite, etc.). Likewise, the nation’s economy will grow and develop with or without the player’s intervention, and is affected by what kind of factories are built, how many workers are available, tax rates, and numerous other factors. Like all Paradox games, Victoria II is highly moddable and has a very large modding community that surrounds it.

http://www.victoria2wiki.com/Victoria_2_Wiki

https://telltale.com/series/guardiansofthegalaxy/

Telltale is a company that produces a multitude of games with the same mechanics in common. Telltale has tackled the universe of Batman, Borderlands, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, and most recently Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. In the Guardians series, the player follows the narrative surrounding Peter Quill (Star-Lord) while dipping into the past memories of the other Guardians such as Rocket Racoon and Gamora. Telltale is known for their immersive and intricate stories accompanied by their quick-time events. This puts the player directly in the first person state of mind with various universes to play within. Quick-time events are short situations, normally within a cut-scene of a game, in which the player presses a button on the controller within a small gap of time in correspondence to whatever is happening in the cut-scene. Telltale takes this up a notch by adding in dialogue options for the main character, thumb-stick movements also in correspondence with the events within the game usually associated with movement, and free-roam aspects of the story. When the entire story is centered around these mechanics, a simple story is more immersive with the player feeling like they are creating the story.

 

Staff, Games Radar. “The Top 7 Ways Grand Theft Auto III changed the face of gaming.” Gamesradar, Future PLC, 18 Oct. 2011. Accessed 24 Sept. 2017.

www.gamesradar.com/top-7-ways-grand-theft-auto-iii-changed-face-gaming/2/

As discussed within this online article, the game Grand Theft Auto III is hailed as one of the most important games of the 21st century’s first decade. It recalls the milestones of gaming that this one work created and incited. Far from being just a gritty but realistic gameplay, GTA III can be broken down to arenas of different social discourses, as is listed within the article. From catalyzing the genre of real-world games to incorporating allusory Mods, this game jump started and reinforced many of the tropes that games hold today. Along with trans-worldly allusions, the appearance of celebrities within the game also added to its foul but realistically capitalistic empathy. Though the celebrities featured were lower tiered, that game of being able to recognize a somewhat familiar face only added to the interactive levels this game featured. The music featured therein played a large part too, as the required in-world aspect of how its tunes originated once more added to its authentic atmosphere. Overall, this text illuminates the well known reasons that GTA III was a seminal work of visual interaction, but also recalls the minutiae of the game that truly made it great. It was a generational magnum opus, and continues today as a generational dialogue as well. 

 

http://oldschoolrunescape.wikia.com/wiki/Old_School_RuneScape_Wiki

      RuneScape 2 is a medieval-fantasy MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) that allows each player to create their own avatar and navigate the huge world of Gielinor.  In this world, players can choose to train their combat (including options of melee, ranged/archery, and magic), explore dangerous and beautiful environments, set out on adventures and complete quests, train a whole host of resource skills (such as fishing, woodcutting, mining, smithing, fletching, farming, hunting, herblore, runecrafting, and more), socialize with other players, fight intimidating bosses, kill other players, trade, and so much more.  It’s really up to the player what they do with their time.  But, with the final goal of the game arguably being to max out all stats/skills to level 99 and complete all of the quests, players are going to need a lot of time on their hands if they want to master the game’s exponential leveling system.  

The Oregon Trail is a game that came out in the early 1970’s with the intentions of teaching players about the realities of frontier life in the 1800’s. The game requires players to try and keep their family alive long enough to make it across the Oregon Trail. Players must make decisions to deal with things like typhoid, wagon wheels breaking, cattle being stolen, etc. The game is extremely difficult to most players because each decision that is made could effect the course of the game either directly after it is made or a long ways down the line. The Oregon Trail has also spawned a variety of spin-offs, such as The Amazon Trail, The Yukon Trail, and even parodies like The Organ Trail. It has become an icon in the world of gaming.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oregon_Trail_(video_game)

 

• Dragon Age: Origins. Bioware. November 3, 2009. Video Game.

 

Dragon Age: Origins is the first game in Bioware’s critically acclaimed Dragon Age series. It is a tactical RPG that concerns itself heavily with the player’s choices in order to shape the overall narrative. It follows the story of a player character who is drafted into a legendary order known as the Grey Wardens in order to a race of abominations called Darkspawn. What the player does (as in, who they side with, who lives and who dies, etc.) not only matters during the course of the game, it also carries over into future installments in the series, as the player is able to import a save file into the other games and see how their choices affected the overall world. The game is also known for its memorable companions who react and modify their opinion of the player character based on their decisions. Features like these are essential to both Bioware’s Dragon Age and Mass Effect series, creating a high level of player involvement and conscientiousness in their desicions during play.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Age:_Origins

2) Significant Game:

Finkel, Irving L. “On the rules for the Royal Game of Ur.” Ancient Board Games in Perspective: Papers from the 1990 British Museum Colloquium, with Additional Contributions. London: British Museum. 2007.

Detailed within this book’s chapter, the ancient game of Ur is discussed, wherein it is revealed that said game is one of the oldest surviving board games in the world.  Found in the 1920s, in The Royal Tomb of Ur in Iraq, this simplistic game survived centuries buried, only to be resurrected by archaeologists who didn’t know how to play it. It was saved only by a partially intact tablet that described it’s intended gameplay. This chance find separates The Royal Game of Ur from other ancient games, for which many survived without their accompanying rule lists. However, though this archaic board game was paired with rules, it’s formulated gameplay is still debated over, which highlights a prevalent societal construct. Though this recreational activity hasn’t been highly played in over 2000 years, it still brings about the problem of communication within human connectivity. Humans have more problems communicating with one another than any other living creature, be we at the top of the biological and technological food chain. And this simplistic game, set with rules, can still incite defiant rhetoric. If there are rules, even for a board game, there will be someone to counter those limits, and therein a model scale of  one of society’s oldest issues is present, brought to light by an ancient tile board.

Super Smash Brothers Melee for the Nintendo GameCube is still one of the most popular and played games of all time. In the game, players play as one of 26 characters who fight using different moves specific to their character and the original Nintendo game that they are from. Smash Bros, or Smash as avid fans call it, has gained a very competitive fan base with players participating in tournaments since the early 2000’s. Since it’s release in 2001, the game also has become a point of technical analysis for game-play, with techniques like wavedashing, l-cancelling, shield dropping, etc. While not the very first game in the Smash Bros series, with other games on Nintendo 64, Wii, and WiiU, Melee has stood the test of time as the most perfected of the four games, not including a mod of Super Smash Bros Brawl called Project M which mimics Melee physics while containing the Brawl platform.

https://www.ssbwiki.com/Super_Smash_Bros._Melee

4) Significant game:

Forward, Jordan. “Why Menaphos is the most important Runescape update in four years.” PC Games News, Steam, 5 June 2017, www.pcgamesn.com/runescape/menaphos-runescape-update. Accessed 7 Sept. 2017

This article discusses the importance of one of the forefronting MMO’s (Massively multiplayer online-game), Runescape. MMO’s feature many different styles and formats, and date back to the mid 90’s, however, Runescape, founded and released in 2001, exists as a MMORPG (Massively multiplayer online role-playing game). It’s online presence quickly exploded and has since come to define a generation not only technologically, but also rhetorically. Being able to directly interact with one another online bred face to face conversations with peers via their shared interest. This specific article details a massive change the MMO recently undertook, one that could potentially revive not only the platform, but also the connectivity it encourages. Fostering the childhood antics of many current adults, it was a construct wherein freedom and interaction were rampant.

http://bioshock.wikia.com/wiki/BioShock_Infinite

      BioShock Infinite has players assume the role of Booker DeWitt as they are given one simple but mysterious ultimatum: “Give us the girl and wipe away the debt.”  Booker, who initially seems like just a mercenary or disgraced employee, is thrust (back) into the world of Columbia — a floating, Dixie-esque dystopia in the sky invented by a dual-bodied physicist named Lutece and run by a “prophet” named Zachary Hale Comstock — in order to find a girl named Elizabeth, Comstock’s daughter.  However, BioShock Infinite has its name for a reason: the game plays around with multiverse theory, and, by the game’s end, DeWitt discovers that he is both himself and Comstock (the game’s villain) simultaneously, as the world runs on a looping system in which DeWitt becomes Comstock over and over again through the deliverance of Elizabeth (also his daughter, logically).  With this realization, players soon find themselves to be equally responsible for the creation of and participation in the system of Columbia.

Dark Souls: http://darksouls.wiki.fextralife.com/Dark+Souls+Wiki

A medieval fantasy RPG that sends players on a quest to light the fire (continuing the gods’ dominion over life and curing the curse of man), which can only be reached after finding a way through each labyrinthian, trap-laden area of the game’s expansive world and defeating a series of difficult bosses.  This is all the information that the player is presented with in plain sight, however.  The real richness and complexity of the game’s storyline can be found almost entirely in the descriptions of in-game items (weapons, armor-sets, scrolls, shards, etc.) that players are left to interpret (and draw connections between) in the way they see fit, but players could just as well not read any of these descriptions and just enjoy the game as a dungeoneering, boss-slaying RPG without any substantial storyline, too.  That’s the magic of Dark Souls, as players are sent on a quest that they don’t fully understand and possibly never will, as they can also refuse to light the fire at the end of the game (essentially choosing to forfeit the identity of mankind yet grant them power over life and death and the gods) — an equally sordid solution to the one offered to the player at the game’s start.  Thus, players must choose between fire (meaning) and darkness (freedom).  Dark Souls aims to convey an ambiguous, yet somehow understood, message about life and its origin, meaning, and lack thereof.