I’m not necessarily talking about moment-to-moment gameplay or mechanics (though I could see some interesting points being made about, for example, RTS gameplay or RPG character building influence how you approached “strategy” in your own life).
What I’m trying to get at are the games you felt really had something to say.
For example, while I’m by no means the biggest fan (only ever played 2 and V), playing MGS V recently (and catching up on the background a bit) has created this sense in me, and I wondered where else one might have experienced that from vidya
Hmm tricky, I'd need to split it between two games for a certain reasons:
Nier Automata, it's complex story, different endings with legendary ost was something extremely new to me
Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, specifically it's multiplayer. It gave an advantage to people that could read players, get inside their heads and anticipate what they may do next along with hiding your own intentions. It transferred to other games which is when you notice just how tunnel visioned and herd like a lot players are in games.
Nice to see the first multiplayer answer, and a really interesting point. I remember quite enjoying that experience, where like you say it was far more based on getting in the heads of the other players. It felt like as the series went on the multiplayer became far more “CoD like” and “play to win” with some real OP shit getting unlocked only after sinking ages into the mode, though I basically dropped the series altogether after 4
Yeah I feel like revelations IMPROVED the multiplayer since you go rewarded for being more patient and creative like quicker and more points for kills if you're not detected.
Then 3 introduced the worst mechanic, animus hack, a kill streak perk that allowed you to kill ANY player for 100 points instantly, it made games awful overnight and black flag didn't fix this so multiplayer died with that game as not bothering to mention Unity.