We’re now into the 2nd week of Blaugust 2023: Introduce Yourself Week! One of the many engagement posts floating around the social meeds lately is the simple #10GamestoKnowMe hashtag. I usually side-eye engagement posts as, despite them being a seemingly innocent way to get to know people, they’re usually used with the ulterior motive of using multiple responses to trick the algorithm to artificially boost the asker, placing them into more feeds, so they feel sketchy. Also, I’m terrible at self-promotion. But posting to my own blog? That feels different. Here, it’s Content(tm). Plus, Krikket of ‘Nerd Girl Thoughts’ did it so I’m copying giving proper appreciation to the idea. So, without further ado and in no particular order, here are the top 10 Games to Know Me.
Ultima VI & VII
Quite absolutely the best games to know me I’m just going to place right here at the top. Ultima VII, acclaimed as one of the greatest RPGs of all time and a pinnacle of the Ultima series, that many of today’s most popular franchises take inspiration from. For me, I took a little more than just that, I took life guidance from both Ultima VII and Ultima VI. I played these games at just the right foundational period in my life that I took the concept of the virtues literally as a guiding force in my life. Truth, Love, and Courage. Honesty, Compassion, Valor, Justice, Sacrifice, Honor, Spirituality, and Humility. I take these virtues such to heart that I strive my best to this day to live up to them.
The Secret World / Secret World Legends
Easily one of the best MMOs out there, Secret World encompasses, in a way, sort of everything I personally am not. It takes the modern world we know and supposes that ‘Everything is True’. Every myth, every legend, every conspiracy. All true. Me, though, I’m a skeptic. For me, extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence. That opposite draws me in. It’s fun to play with the idea of conspiracy, but a cautionary tale to wrap oneself in it.
Plus, I’ve been podcasting about Secret World since 2015? 2016? I honestly can’t remember when I started with Holosuite Media‘s ‘Beyond the Veil’ cast initially. However, with the show’s main hosts wanting to retire we officially stopped ‘Beyond the Veil’ and took up the mantle again as ‘The Zero Point Report’, which we’ve ran continuously since and are still going.
Star Trek Online
The MMO that I’ve been playing the longest, continuously, has been Star Trek Online. My draw to it is simply I’m a huge Star Trek nerd. I’ve gone through and watched every series, every movie, read quite a few Star Trek novels, have plenty of swag, and just overall love it. Star Trek Online is that perfect combination for my love of Trek and MMOs.
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Not officially my first foray in the Elder Scrolls series, that was the original Arena, but one which was still largely inspirational for me. Morrowind was the first real open world RPG that I ever fully completed outside of the already mentioned Ultima series, and Morrowind took my breath away. Yes, the game is seen as punishing and janky now, but I was blown away by the sheer depth.
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
Gabriel Knight was the first game that legit scared me. There’s a scene early on in the game where Gabriel attends a lecture, falls asleep during it, and has a dream where a coffin opens before him and he falls directly into it. When I played this as a kid in the mid-90s, this scene alone freaked me out for days. So much that I’m pretty sure I never finished it as a kid. Wasn’t my first foray into beloved Sierra games, I honestly forget what was my first one there, possibly one of the Quest for Glory games, but Gabriel is the one that stuck with me much more than the others. I should really get around to beating it one of these days.
Wing Commander IV
My sister was gifted a brand new computer back in the late 90s and me, like the awful younger brother I am, used the opportunity while she was still home for winter break to fully install and play the heck out of Wing Commander IV. My memory is very fuzzy on whether I played much of the other Wing Commander titles before that. I had to, right? Almost positive I did, but Wing Commander had a depth to it that drew me in beyond just the fun flying aspect and made me appreciate games as being so much more, bordering on movies or TV.
Galaga
The first games I ever played weren’t on the PC, they were on the Atari 7600. My parents gifted us an Atari one year and we loved it, especially me. I hogged the heck out of that system. There were many games that I remember playing a ton of including Ms. Pac Man, Barnstormer, Choplifter, Impossible Mission, Pitfall, Tutankhaman, and many others, but Galaga was one of my absolute favorites. That it’s seen a continuing presence in arcades is no surprise to me.
Lord of the Rings Online
I’ve been tracking and micro-journaling about my gameplay since 2017, a practice that I highly suggest as I’ve derived much enjoyment and data about my own playstyle from. The game that currently holds the top spot as my most played over those 6+ years is Lord of the Rings Online, a game that I’ve grown extremely fond of. As a kid, I loved fantasy novels, from my father reading to me The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, to Dragonlance novels, to reading and journaling the full Lord of the Rings series itself when I was in 8th grade. I’ve loved fantasy, and no game encompasses the world J.R.R. Tolkien created better than LotRO. It’s just an amazing accomplishment and one of the “coziest” games out there, too.
Might & Magic: Clouds of Xeen
Might and Magic: Clouds of Xeen is another game that I just consumed hard when I was a kid. Not a fully open world like the Ultima games, but one that still allowed an amazing depth of exploration with dangers and fierce puzzles around every corner. I lapped it all up. To this day I’m very good at getting my bearings and reading and deciphering maps, which helps a LOT while driving, and a lot of that comes from navigating through Might & Magic. Someday I’m going to give the other Might and Magic games a full playthrough. Someday.
E.T. The Extra Terrestrial
For the last spot on my list, I’m going with what is widely panned as the “worst video game of all time”. It makes my list, though, because I saw it as anything but the worst. I was very good at this game. I found it tricky at times, sure, but totally playable, and play it I did. A lot. So, years later, when I finally found out that others, so-called “experts”, had deemed it awful and a crime against gaming itself I learned very quickly to not take the opinions of others to heart. That the only opinion that truly matters is your own and the only way to get those opinions is to experience something yourself. If all you do is experience the world through the lens of others, especially others who have a vested interest in controlling that lens, who is really in control? So no, I refuse to believe that ET is the worst game ever. I loved it.
This view now extends to all media. Combined with a big dose of Humility, I refuse to believe that any art, made in good faith, is bad. The worst that you’ll ever hear from me is simply “It’s not for me”. It won’t get all the rage-clicks, of course, and I’ve been called ‘immature’ or that my views just ‘aren’t as refined’ for holding it, but it’s how I Honestly feel.
So That’s Me
So there you have it. I gained beliefs and morals from Ultima. Explored who I’m not and found community in Secret World. Got to explore my passions deeper in Star Trek Online and Lord of the Rings Online. Saw a much bigger world in Morrowind. Felt the first time a game really hit me hard in Gabriel Knight. Learned that games could be more and equaled other media types with Wing Commander. Saw the fun of gaming in Galaga. Learned how to better explore the world around me in Might and Magic. And finally, learned how not to take the words of others so seriously with ET.
That’s who I am. To say that these games and more haven’t helped shape me would be a lie. How about you? How have your passions and your hobbies affected the course of your life? That’s one of the many definitions of art, that these games have the capacity to touch us and affect us so.
// Ocho
= Morrowind screenshot from jkgarland on Reddit, Wing Commander IV screenshot from Riot Pixels, Galaga screenshot from NenrikiGaming, Might & Magic Clouds of Xeen screenshot from QuestforGaming, E.T. The Extra Terrestrial screenshot from AtariAge.
Casual Aggro 