A run-and-gun retrospective of three modern-day gaming classics

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Sunday, October 28, 2012
EDITOR'S NOTEfrom Eduardo Moutinho

I remember playing through all three games in Jonathan's list. They all left me with some of the best gaming memories from the last few years. Sometimes I wish I could go back and play through Mass Effect for the first time, just to feel that sense of awe once again.

Mass Effect, BioShock, Fallout 3

This article contains minor spoilers for BioShock and Fallout 3.


I finally completed three of the most popular releases in my Xbox 360 collection: Mass Effect, BioShock, and Fallout 3. Although I enjoyed every one of them, I think many reviewers overlooked their many flaws.

Perfect video games don't exisit, even among the biggest blockbuster productions.

As I played through each revered modern classic, I discovered how each game uncovered new capabilities of the current-generation consoles.

 

Mass Effect

Mass Effect presented an exciting new way to play role-playing games. I don't think I've ever had so much fun simply peeking around the corner to fire. Each battle felt like a shootout at the corral. I still hate exploring abandoned planets, but the adventure put a refreshing twist on how to present dialogue and combat in a title.

BioShock was incredibly cinematic. As far as I know, it's one of the prettiest-looking first-person shooters I have ever seen. All the shooting grew a bit redundant, but I love how the entire story played out. The plot twist also spawned an incredibly silly Internet meme. Without giving too much away, I'll just say that the narrative development in question made me want to say "Would you kindly" to every person I met.

BioShock

Oddly enough, my favorite title of the bunch is Fallout 3, a game that I used to really hate. In the first few hours, I really disliked how the adventure showcased the dialogue. The barren, rusty buildings looked disappointing. They looked more impressive than the ones in the original Borderlands, but I literally had to strain my eyes just to see through the dark corridors.

I slowly started to enjoy Fallout 3 more and more, however. I discovered that I could loot and pillage nearly every single person in the wasteland. Technically, the epic journey had a plot, but I had more fun toying with how the narrative played out.

One of my favorite sections is the special confrontation in Vault 112. I ended up trapped in a virtual-reality world known as Tranquility Lane. Although I was supposed to follow a character's order to kill everyone in town, I decided to try the alternate path by activating a "Chinese Invasion" failsafe code in an abandoned house. I then watched in glee as a band of Chinese commandos killed everyone.

Fallout 3

I actually thought I could save the citizens with the failsafe, but this scenario was too funny to watch. Tranquility Lane was just one of many amusing quests throughout my epic journey.

As awesome as all these titles were, none of them were completely perfect. They each provided a new flavor of gameplay, though. Honestly, I hope that all of the big-name developers behind the releases could collaborate together to create the ultimate epic of all time. Chrono Trigger managed to pair SquareSoft with Enix, so I don't see why Bethesda shouldn't collaborate with BioWare or 2K Games.

Unfortunately, business is more intense in the Western world. As much as I'd like to see such a superstar production actually happen, these companies are still at odds with each other. Maybe in 10 or 20 years, everyone could finally learn to team up like the Japanese companies.

Maybe. That would surely blow my mind.


Which other current-generation games would you consider as classics? Let me know in the comments below. I could use some entertaining suggestions.

 
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Comments (3)
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March 26, 2012

how are these games in any way classic?

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March 27, 2012

I figured they were classics, because a lot of other current gamers have played them before. It's on all sorts of "Greatest of all time" lists. I'm certainly not saying that they are classics. I just wanted to play through them because many gamers considered them as classics.

To be honest, my favorite type of classic games come from the SNES/PS1 days. More importantly, what do you consider to be a classic title?

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October 29, 2012

Whoa, I didn't expect anyone would dig up this old article. I think I have a harder time determining classics nowadays. I have to compare each one to all the other games that are considered classics. Assassin's Creed could have definitely turned into a classic if it didn't feel so much like a list of step-by-step chores.

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