the guardian isn’t easy, however. In addition to the vicious mutants that stalk you, there are packs of bandits that survive by taking what they want by force. Indeed, combat in The Last of Us is forceful and violent, and though a stealthy approach is often best, there are many times when brutal melee attacks or loud gunfire are your only recourse. Fights have a hard-edged intensity that is both stressful and gratifying.
You simply must play the remastered version of this game because it includes Left Behind, and these extra chapters are a paragon of video game storytelling. Playing as Ellie, you venture just outside of your walled city with your friend, Riley, in the post-apocalyptic version of a day at the mall. Participating in their teenage mischief involves some sublimely inventive gameplay, and the dialogue and character performances are utterly captivating. Even if you’ve already been playing them for years and years, Left Behind is the kind of experience that makes you fall in love with video games all over again.
Portal 2
PC, X360, MAC, PS3
First Released Apr 18, 2011
The story of a woman with a portal gun and an artificial intelligence with a sadistic sense of humor first captured our imaginations in Portal, a spectacular, if short, game released in 2007. By shooting this gun at one surface and then another, you could create two oval-shaped portals. Walk in one and you come out the other. Jump off of a ledge into one and fly out the other. Put one on the floor, one on the ceiling above it, and you can fall forever. Playing around with the portal gun was great fun, and using it to solve the tricky puzzles was very satisfying. Tie it all together with an A.I. guide that slowly transitions from innocuous instructor to malevolent manipulator, and you’ve got a lovely little game.
Portal 2, then, is this lovely little game blown out in every direction to make a sequel that is bigger, brainier, and more bizarrely hilarious than its predecessor. The small test chambers open up to a sprawling scientific complex, packed with outlandish new discoveries and plenty of portal puzzles. There’s a cooperative mode, so you can team up with someone else to take on even tougher puzzles with twice as many portals.
And then there’s the writing. Portal 2 has some of the most sublimely funny writing ever to grace a video game. From the ambitiously maniacal founder of this strange science facility to the sophisticated A.I.’s that vie for your loyalty to the demented talking machinery you must wrangle, there are perhaps more quotable lines in Portal 2 than in any other game. These characters aren’t just comic relief either; they are sympathetic and nuanced and genuinely intriguing. (Yes, even the spherical one that just yells about space most of the time.) You’ll laugh, you’ll cheer, you’ll have a fantastic time, and you’ll never volunteer for a scientific study ever again.
A.I.’S SAY THE DARNDEST THINGS
Okay, fine. Let’s all act like humans. ‘Look at me. Boy, do I love sweating. Let’s convert beef and leaves into energy and excrete them later and go shopping.’
Mass Effect 2
First Released Jan 26, 2010
Okay, this is a weird one. The Mass Effect trilogy is a tremendous achievement, a sweeping space opera that takes place in a universe so richly imagined that it rivals titans like Star Wars and Star Trek for sheer narrative potential. So why select Mass Effect 2? Why not just start with Mass Effect and carry your character through the whole trilogy? Well, hopefully that’s what you’ll do, because it’s a grand, awe-inspiring journey. This book is a bucket list, however, and if there’s one game from this series you simply can’t miss, it’s the crown jewel, Mass Effect 2.
You play as Commander Shepard (gender, hairstyle, and facial features chosen by you), a heroic human space captain in a future in which humanity has recently emerged on a galactic stage populated by fascinating alien races. Faced with an overwhelming threat from deep space, you must recruit a multicultural crew that is ready to lay down their lives for the fate of all organic life. The combat is exciting, thanks to your powerful mix of guns and space magic (that’s not a technical term), but it’s the relationships that make Mass Effect 2 so special.
Relationships are fueled by choices, large and small. As you choose responses in the game’s frequent conversations, you mold your own version of Shepard. Though you take ownership of her decisions and actions, you’re more of a guide than a ventriloquist. Shepard has her own personality as well, and this makes playing the role of the Commander much more engaging. And then there’s your crew, a diverse cast of some of the most memorable characters in all of video games. Conversing with them is a reward unto itself, and the bonds you form with them won’t soon be forgotten. Mass Effect 2 is a marvel of grand-scale drama made personal, the emotional high water mark in a captivating series.
A SCI-FI MAJOR GENERAL
Just because it’s a space opera, doesn’t mean there is singing. But there is singing in Mass Effect 3, and it’s a fantastic Gilbert & Sullivan cameo.
Gone Home
PC, MAC
First Released Aug 15, 2013
A girl comes home from college. Her parents are out for the evening, and her sister has left a note, asking her not to investigate where she has gone. The girl explores the house, looking for clues to her sister’s whereabouts. That’s it.
That’s... it? Well, yes, in a way. There are no alternate places to visit, enemies to fight, puzzles to solve, or conversations to navigate. Many of the elements you’d commonly associate with video games are absent from Gone Home, and this is part of what makes it special. Video games are a constantly evolving art form, and decades after the first ones gained mainstream popularity, we are still seeing new games that push the boundaries in exciting and intriguing ways.
Gone Home is such a game, but it didn’t earn a spot in this book on the strength of novelty alone. As you explore the house, you learn a little bit about who you are: a college student named Kaitlin, come home after a year abroad to the house her family moved into while she was away. You, like Kaitlin, don’t really know what mom, dad, and lil’ sis have been up to, but as you find letters, diaries, books, photos, and notes of all kinds, you begin to weave together the tapestry of your family’s life.
You read about your father’s work struggles, your mother’s loneliness, and most poignantly of all, your sister’s growing friendship with a new girl at school. The rooms in which you find these scraps are rich with details, and the subtlety and humanity of the writing is astonishing. By the end, you don’t just feel like you know these people, you feel like you understand them in a meaningful way. This is called empathy, and that a video game can so powerfully
