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
Tie Fighter was an eye opener in so many ways, to the point to where I still come up with new thoughts and insights derived from bits and pieces of the overall experience.
The game was remarkably subtle without trying to press any particular idea or point very hard, just showing you a fairly neutral and balanced canvas of what an authoritative regime like the Empire might be like from the inside. Both the good and the bad, as well as the sometimes hilariously inept.
Admittedly, twas still only a small window into the overall possibilities for how heinous and pathetically wretched an authoritative power might be in reality.