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
That piece comes from one of the excellent plot threads of the game, which takes Darwinian “Survival of the Fittest” / “red in tooth and claw nature” to its absurd, space-magic conclusion - known as the “Sword Logic”. In an almost American Gods sense, an entire race’s belief in this “logic”, and their dedicated practice to it twists them into an almost unfathomable threat, existing over billions of years in an unending crusade of murder and growing stronger. And this is just one of the 5 or so enemy factions, each one almost a distillation of a storytelling genre or set of tropes into an utterly interesting and appealing force. There’s the “robots” who seemingly exist outside of time, tending the timelines like gardeners, but allowing only those timelines which lead to the extermination of every race but them to flourish. There’s the fallen race of “space pirates”, long ago uplifted by the Traveler who desperately chase after it, coming to sol and putting themselves in conflict with “us”. There’s the Roman Legion of space turtles, who despite their overwhelming military force seem to be running from something.
Ya know? It’s not like you’re just fighting blue guys in level 1 and green guys in level 3, it’s like an actual world of agents in situations, just one that exists within its own set of logical (“space magic”) confines.
Like you say, it’s amazing what kind of ideas can be conveyed to us with a solid foundation beneath them, to build on.
Have you ever heard of the Game of Life in mathematics/compsci? How everything in existence can ultimately come about through a “zero dimensional starting condition” playing out following simple rules? Part 2 and 3 of that “Unveiling” book bring that into the Destiny universe as the ultimate metaphor for what kicked it all off. Our universe, all of existence, is the spillover from the overturned gameboard of a metaphysical Game of Life played by the ontological principles known as the Gardener and the Winnower.
Jumping around, in a sense, the planets themselves are “conscious” “entities” - loops of dark matter, in their cosmic dance tugged by planets and solar systems and the eventual life on that planet - which “woke up”:
I am.
I am I am I am I am I am I am I am I am I am I am I.
At first this is all the loop of dust can calculate. It is the hardest thing in the universe for the dust to make a loop at all, because, like a gust of wind or a river, it was only meant to move one way. For a mind to function, the end of one thought must alter the beginning of the next: so, like rivers, like wind, the Nine could not have minds until they could make loops.
For a game to be able to take something like that, the idea that “planets” have emotions, and senses, and existences distinct from their mere soulless physicality is something that dates back into pre-history right? Mars, Jupiter, we’ve always thought this way. And here comes a video game, which can take all that, and synthesize it into something which not only “makes sense” but which is actually impactful on the game in a variety of ways (mainly story/world building but these entities have been known to aid Guardians with various gifts)
the Demiurge of the Guardian is
So yeah, I think that’s all to say that the reason it had such an impact was because of its apparent depth breadth and width, wholistic design (everything is there for a reason and if you wonder about it there’s probably some extra information or characterization available for you to find), and also knowing where to leave the more concrete and standard approaches to “world building” for more “lore/mystery building”, if that makes any sense.
I’ve never been one for Cronenberg movies, so maybe I’ll skip that lol.
Zhuangzu? Or zhuangzi? Or was he a butterfly?
Interesting.
You made Destiny sound far more profound than any gameplay trailer, video, walkthrough, or even my own play sessions managed to pull from that property.
That's a fascinating way upon which to build a universe and expand from there. Especially this part....
Now that's something interesting because in many ways, Earth does seem to be a conscious entity, in the way in which it breathes life and sustains life. I'm always drawn back to Tesla's experiments with using the natural Earth's wave functions as an energy source to power devices. It's a shame that was never explored more.
The structure of its universe definitely sounds fascinating, it's a shame that the game itself didn't lend mechanics to the experience that were/are as philosophical as its worldbuilding and lore.
He's an acquired taste, for sure. Some of his films I absolutely adore, like eXistenZ The Fly, and Scanners (which is one of my all-time favourite films from any genre)... others... not so much.
Is that Jon Hamm narrating?!
Yep, from one of my all time favorite pieces of media Legion - I strongly recommend it to almost everyone. Show runner was Noah Hawley if you’ve heard of him before (the Fargo show)
“It’s a shame” is a statement which applies almost fractally to that game. Unfathomable potential squandered on greedy monetization and lack of in-game narrative. Like I mentioned I only played actively for a couple years and have since had to abandon it due to their utter disregard for the fans.
Y’know, I actually liked The Fly, and I have memories of that movie eXistenZ seared into my mind (the soup scene) but I didn’t realize those were Cronenberg films. Maybe I can stomach more of his work than I realized lol
Hmm, never heard of that might need to put it on the list to check out
Dude, that soup scene is one of the most iconic scenes in film. I had no idea what was going on with that gross fish, but when I finally understood what was happening, it was awesome how it turns out he was constructing a gun.
That was both inventive and also reminiscent of how a lot of RPGs have item/crafting function (taking different parts of animals/objects/materials/ores to construct a specific item). It was interesting how that film deconstructed game tropes but made them very visually interesting (if not disturbing). It's a shame we don't see more of the reverse; games using novel/movie tropes in more inventive and gamified ways. A few games have actually tried it, like The Stanly Parable or Getting Over It.
Yeah some of his stuff is hit and miss. Like Eastern Promises, A Dangerous Method and History of Violence are so far removed from his films like Dead Ringer or The Brood.
Memes of certain scenes from this movie flood the internet (especially pre-2014 internet). This film was basically a precursor to films like Akira. It deals with psychokinesis, but in a very interesting way -- basically using heightened neurocapabilities to affect central nervous systems in organic and mechanical objects. It's a cool film -- definitely very gory, but it's pretty badass. It reminds me more of a John Carpenter film than a traditional David Cronenberg film.