#blarfkey

Turok: Dinosaur Hunter (N64, 1997)

You are Turok, in this incarnation a time-traveling Native American who protects Earth from threats that originate from the "interdimensional sewer of the universe" known as the Lost Land. There's a robot guy called the Campaigner who wants to use an ancient weapon to rip open the fabric of space-time and rule everything! He has dinosaurs! Go stop him!

Turok 1 is one of my comfort games. It's something that I can turn my brain off for and play a level or two here and there and be fine with. It was one of my first three N64 games, and it started an obsession with the franchise as a whole that continues to this day. The graphics are dated by today's standards, but it's just the right type of early 3D polygonal for me (please note that a good number of the games on this list share this graphics sensibility!). The music is banger, the weapons are just this side of ridiculous, and the levels are big enough to feel overwhelming without actually being so.

Soul Calibur (arcade, 1998/Dreamcast, 1999)

It's 1586. Some idiot grabbed hold of an evil sword and turned into a bloodthirsty nightmare hellbent on eating everyone's souls. Some people want to take this sword for their own greedy purposes, others want to destroy it to end its reign of terror. Go fight about it.

My first experience with Soul Calibur was at a week-long, computer-focused summer camp at a local university. There was an arcade cabinet in the cafeteria that we all huddled around during lunch. During our free time, a few of us would hunt for character movesets on Japanese-only websites that we could use to thrash each other with.

This game is the reason why I bought a Dreamcast. Part of why I love it is the nostalgia from that camp, but the game itself is really fun to play. The characters are great, the fighting itself is super fluid, the stages are colorful, and the music~ Most of the other entries in the franchise are also really good, but SC1 is the one that's held my heart for the longest.

Half-Life (PC, 1998)

You are Gordon Freeman, a theoretical physicist at the Black Mesa Research Facility, and you're late for work! Unfortunately, today's experiment rends asunder the barrier between our world and a border world inhabited by aliens. You gotta fight your way to the surface and call for help! It's a good thing that the military is on the way to Clean Up the mess and Take Care Of everyone involved...

Half-Life is my favorite game, bar none. If this was a ranked list, it would be sitting very pretty at the top. Black Mesa, for all of it's horror/comedy layout and set-pieces, feels like a real place. The nameless scientists and security guards feel like real people. I love the way that the game doles out its plot in very occasional dialogue or in the levels' environmental storytelling. A lot of what Half-Life did as far as engine tech, gameplay, and level design set the stage for practically every first-person shooter that came after it. And the modding community has made so many mappacks and total conversion mods that you can basically play something new and quality every week of your life and not reach the end.

I almost slept on Half-Life unintentionally. My dad bought it for me for Christmas '99. And I tried to play it! But I was used to FPS games that started you with a weapon, and Half-Life doesn't, even when the enemies start teleporting in. Tiny nine-year-old me was terrified, and it was about a year before I decided that I would try coming back to it. And it's been love ever since.

Pokémon Yellow (Game Boy, 1999)

I wish I could remember more about my first experiences with Pokémon. I vaguely remember seeing an early episode at my grandparents' house when the show was first airing. I have zero recollection of actually acquiring Yellow. But I played the hell out of it.

To this day, it's the only Pokémon game that I've actually restarted and beaten multiple times; everything else has been a one-and-done. There's something exciting about this simple version of the Kanto region. So many playground rumors of hidden areas and secret Pokémon. The world as presented actually feels like something large and sprawling, the tilesets giving just enough of a hint of borders and barriers at the edges of the screen to suggest what might lie beyond. Of all of the games (with possibly the exception of Sun/Moon), Yellow is the only one that really made me want to live in it.

also for one playthrough i traded the pikachu to a friend so she could evolve it into a raichu and give it back to me and i have no remorse

Roller Coaster Tycoon (PC, 1999)

I'm really bad at most types of strategy games. Real-time strategy? Bad. Management sims? Bad. But this one? It's simple enough that I can wrap my brain around it. And who doesn't like the idea of creating their own theme park? There's something relaxing about constructing a sprawling entertainment enterprise.

I'm a sucker for this style of isometric 3D-as-2D art, and I essentially boycotted the series when it pivoted to full 3D. I remember mostly playing this game at my grandparents', but there was a time that I would carry a thumb drive around and install it on any computer that I could, even and especially if it wasn't mine.

Star Wars Episode I: Racer (N64, 1999)

I love Star Wars. I really like racing games. And this is two great tastes that very much taste great together. There's not much that I can say except for: you go sooo fast! The weird aliens have cool pods to pilot. The tracks are really neat to race through (see the above pic for the planet Baroonda, which also has desert, jungle, and beach locales in addition to this lava pit). The design of everything is very much The-Phantom-Menace-inspired, which is great because that's the best Star Wars movie, fight me.

Deux Ex (PC, 2000)

It's the year 2052. You are JC Denton, an agent for the United Nations Anti-Terrorist Coalition. Your mission is to help take down a paramilitary group, the National Secessionist Forces, before they can do more things like bomb the Statue of Liberty, which they did. Get to it!

also basically every conspiracy theory is real, nobody is who you think they are, the bad guys are actually the good guys (and vice versa)

Deus Ex was a game that we originally bought for my dad; I didn't get around to playing it until I bought my own copy on Steam many years later. It was my first experience with an immersive sim. Here was a game that let you tackle objectives in multiple ways (or avoid them entirely), and it kept track of most of what you did?? And I hadn't yet played a first-person game that involved so much reading (the reading is a good thing! there are so many books and newspapers and journals and notes to find!). There's a joke online that every time someone mentions Deus Ex, someone else re-installs it. I always keep it installed on my PC as a matter of principle, but I really need to replay it soon.

It's also responsible for this video, which I quote constantly.

Star Wars: Obi-Wan (Xbox, 2001)

Another game from the Phantom Menace era, you play as Obi-Wan Kenobi starting just before and during the events of the movie. But Expanded, of course, because we need to extract more gameplay.

This game is so janky. It's so bad that it wraps back around to being good. I love it, it's such a mess. The controls are weird (though swinging a lightsaber around with an analog stick is pretty fun), the voice acting is terrible, it's super buggy.

I bought this game at a Sam's Club along with a copy of Crazy Taxi 3 (Crazy Taxi is a game that almost made this list btw). In my opinion, both were excellent purchases. My friend Alex and I referenced this game at least once every other day it seemed like. Even my dad got in on it occasionally. The day that this game is actually fully playable on an emulator, i will be unstoppable.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (GameCube, 2001) / Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 (GameCube, 2002)

I'm cheating a little bit with this entry and placing two games in one slot. THPS 4 was my first Tony Hawk game. I first read about it in an issue of Game Informer and thought it looked neat! So I got it for I think my birthday. Never had an interest in skateboarding before then, just jumped right into it. And it was glorious.

A few months later, I picked up a copy of THPS 3 and loved it, too. Both games rank equally in my mind, and I can't easily decide which (or if) one I like better. The levels are really fun to mess around in. The soundtracks are excellent (a lot of Tony Hawk music lives on my iPod). It oozes that early-2000s feel, where pro sports and MTV ruled in the social consciousness of my age group.

(i was so excited for the 3+4 remake, and i was so so so dissappointed)

Assassin's Creed Origins (PlayStation 4, 2017)

oh hey, look, a newer game

You are Bayek. It's the year 48 BCE. Your son was killed a year ago, and you're on a vengeance quest to track down the shadowy shitheads what did it. also there's a pyramid or ten because we're in late-ptolemaic egypt brotherrrrr

My first attempt at playing an Assassin's Creed game was the original on the Xbox 360. I was really into the setting (Third Crusade, 1191, Jerusalem and Damascus)! But the gameplay loop was absolutely boring to me. I bounced off of it hard and didn't touch another entry. And then a trailer drops for Origins (I don't remember the timeline, but the first one I saw was the one with Leonard Cohen's "You Want It Darker" and I loved it), and I'm like "ancient egypt?? i love that, sign me up"

I remember the first time I played this. I'm sitting in front of the TV with the dopiest grin on my face, staring at everything going on in the first main location, Siwa Oasis. It's just, I had spent the past few years reading a number of books and even more of a number of journal articles about pharaonic Egypt. To see it simulated with such detail blew me away.

I love everything about this game. The setting, the characters, the music, the gameplay (very glad that i didn't bounce off this one, too). The only thing I don't love is how big the game is, because it's just big enough that I don't think I could replay it without getting tired of it too soon. And that's sad!!

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Okay, so, like I said, I had trouble narrowing down my list. So I'm going to quickly mention five more games (no pics with these) just because I really think they need to be listed, too!

Jurassic Park (SNES, 1993)

My dad and I love this game. We only ever beat it the one time, but we played it constantly back in the day. And he'll still occasionally hum the elevator theme.

Blood (PC, 1997)

I can't remember which came first, but if Turok: Dinosaur Hunter wasn't my first FPS game, then it was this. A love letter to gothic horror and old monster movies.

Chaos Island: The Lost World (PC, 1997)

It's a strategy game set in Jurassic Park. Hatch your own dinosaurs to fight off the hunters that want to steal eggs for nefarious purposes! Also, they got the cast of The Lost World to voice their characters in a bespoke story, which I think is neat!

Sonic Adventure DX (GameCube, 2003)

I only got to play the original Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast for a little bit before my console died. But then it was re-released on the GC. My favorite Sonic game. Most everybody else prefers the sequel, but I love how colorful and janky this game is. And the music is really fuckin' good!

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Switch, 2017)

Essek knows he’s about to spiral. He closes his eyes, inhales deeply, and focuses on Caleb’s voice and the feeling of their joined hands. He takes another slow, deep breath, steadying and grounding, then asks, in a voice that trembles only slightly, “Did I die?”

The question is followed by silence. He opens his eyes, meeting Caleb’s exhausted stare.

“No,” he says quietly, in a way that tells Essek there’s more. And indeed, a few seconds later, “But things were dire here for a moment.”

Essek’s memory is fuzzy. The last thing he remembers is entering a room that looks a lot like the one they’re in right now. “A hunter?”

“A trap, I think.” Caleb is rubbing his thumbs on the back of Essek’s hands in slow, repetitive motions. Essek doesn’t think he realises. “I did what I could, but I’m afraid you’ll have a scar.”

Oh. That explains why he stopped Essek. His shoulders slump a little in relief. He wants to say he doesn’t care about scars, that it could be worse, that some of his favourite people have scars. If he’s honest with himself, though, he doesn’t know how he’d react to it.

He squeezes Caleb’s fingers for a moment, then slips his hands from his grasp and brings them to the front of his clothes, already half undone. He fumbles a bit, but he doesn’t ask for help, and Caleb knows him too well to offer.

He has to tilt his head at an uncomfortable angle to see it, because whatever pierced him did it just below his shoulder. It’s star-shaped, and the skin is pale and puckered. Not the prettiest thing he’s ever seen. He considers touching it, but changes his mind at the last moment.

“Does it hurt?” He can hear Caleb’s frown in his tone. “I think a healing potion could help with that.”

Essek shakes his head. “No, I feel fine. A bit dizzy, but whole. I imagine I have you to thank for that,” he adds, looking up. “And I also suppose this accident made a dent in our stack of healing potions. We should take inventory before we set off again.”

“That’s not necessary,” Caleb replies. “We should rest for a bit. And I didn’t use any potion.”

Essek frowns for a moment before he remembers. “Oh, your stone.”

They discussed that as an option before leaving the outpost. The fact that Caleb had the means of healing or even revivifying had been a comfort through their journey so far. A comfort that is, for the moment, gone.

“It’s a shame it got destroyed,” he says, breezily but honestly. “It was a pretty stone.”

He remembers that night in the Blooming Grove, not long after their return from the Astral Sea: a clear sky, the stars looking down from the gaps in the branches, the two of them conversing quietly of everything and nothing after a long day. Caleb soaking in the water of the hot springs, Essek merely plunging his feet in.

He didn’t have the guts to look in his direction (way too much exposed skin; that way lay only trouble), let alone to join him in the water. He did take a single small step out of his comfort zone when he handed Caleb the stone he’d been toying with all night, a pebble the size and shape of a small egg, pinkish red with silvery veins. “It would make a nice replacement for the one you lost,” he told him, and it was the truth. (It made me think of you was also the truth, but this one he kept to himself.)

Now, years later, Caleb reaches inside his coat. When he opens his hand, the pink stone sits in the middle of his palm. “I never used it,” he murmurs.

Essek gives it a puzzled look and he feels his already battered heart sink a little. He doesn’t know anything about transmuter’s stones, not now nor then, so it may very well be that the pebble he chose was unsuitable. Too humble, maybe, or just wrong. He feels himself blush at the thought of Caleb politely refraining from telling him about this faux-pas, sparing him the humiliation.

“I never used it,” Caleb goes on, hurriedly. “I picked a different one. That’s the one which got destroyed. I couldn’t…” He cuts himself off, shoulders heaving a frustrated sigh.

Slowly, a different kind of understanding makes its way through Essek’s mind. Something in his chest seizes as he takes in Caleb’s distress. This won’t do. But everything Essek could say or do involves a degree of honesty, of intimacy he’s not sure they have reached yet.

You almost died, he tells himself. And this man is the whole reason you haven’t.

“Caleb.” Essek waits until he’s looking at him, then he reaches out and takes the hand that’s not holding the stone, slowly bringing it closer to himself until Caleb’s palm is flush with his chest, covering the scar. “You don’t have to explain.”

In the silent stillness that follows, Essek hopes he hasn’t been too forward, misreading the situation. Caleb must feel how fast his heart is beating. His hand slips from Essek’s grasp just enough to trace the edges of the scar. His fingertips are rough, and the sensation is straddling the line between ticklish and actually unpleasant, but Essek bites his tongue, staying completely still.

“I knew there was a chance I would have to destroy it,” Caleb says eventually, following his fingers with his eyes, “and I wanted to keep the stone you gave me. So I chose another one.” He rolls his eyes with a self-deprecating smile. “I’m becoming sentimental in my old age, apparently.”

That thought drives her across the room to the piano. She throws it open with trembling hands and sits at the keys, almost tripping over her skirt in her hurry. She doesn’t stop shaking until the first soft, haunting chord drifts from the gentle press of her fingers. 

Nothing else exists. Nothing else matters. Shay and her beautiful curls, silk skirts, and sunny smile vanishes. Varric’s perfect manners, coy grin, and velvet voice evaporates. 

Maria is alone and she’s fully and completely herself. 

She loses herself in the music until the emotion is drained from her veins, until she feels scraped hollow on the inside, and then still longer. She loses herself in the gentle melodies, old songs, newer ones sung in the town, ones she’s made herself. By the time the last note fades to silence, the sun is starting to set. Water droplets glitter on the ivy, the lake shimmers in hues of rose and gold. 

“You are… more than proficient.” 

She doesn’t quite jump, but her spine tightens and her shoulders hitch up. Solas. He must have been in the library, must have heard her, must have…

“You are quite skilled, in fact,” he continues. “I have never heard a dwarf play so well.” 

That makes her spin and pierce him with a furious stare. “And you’ve heard lots of dwarves play?” 

“No,” he admits softly, sorrowful eyes on her and her alone. “But you are special.” 

When he says it, she almost believes it. It sounds like the truth, at any rate, and it makes her drop her eyes quickly. 

“I’ll get out of your way,” she mumbles, the words familiar even if they taste like poison. “Sorry to trouble you, messere.” 

“This is your home,” he says simply, like it’s the honest truth. “How could you be in the way?” 

She looks up, stunned, into his kind smile. “I was taught to play, but I fear I was too impatient to pick up any true skill.” 

“I thought elves only danced,” she retorts, all prickled pride and breathless pleasure that he recognizes this is her space, her skill. 

Hers.

“That I learned quite well.”

She narrows her eyes suspiciously. Solas extends his hand. 

“I would be happy to show you, my lady.” 

It doesn’t feel real. It feels like a half forgotten dream, a memory of the fade, and that’s why she reaches out and takes his hand. That’s why she lets him help her from the bench. 

He’s much taller than she is, but somehow it doesn’t seem awkward for his hand to settle on her back, for hers to land on his chest instead of his shoulder. She stares up into his deep eyes and feels almost lightheaded. 

“There’s no music,” she protests. 

Solas chuckles. “I suspect there is always music in your head.” 

He’s right, and he’s the first person to ever say it. 

Even without hearing the song in her head, he knows how to move. His steps are elegant, sure, and she’s helpless but to follow his lead. Long fingers press across the width of her back, the pressure of his hand heady. 

She doesn’t know when her fingers curl into the worn cotton of his shirt, but she has to untangle them when he spins her gently away and then back into his arms. She’s flush to his chest for a dizzying second before they’re parted again. 

There’s something in his eyes she doesn’t quite have a name for, although it dances on the tip of her tongue. 

“Your lessons paid off.” She murmurs. 

“It is easy with a partner as magnificent as you.”

His manners are just as polite as Varric’s, but there’s no flash of show, and it’s easier to believe he’s sincere. 

Especially when he bends low, raising her hand to his lips, and presses a chaste, courtly kiss on her raw, red knuckles. 

“Perhaps you can teach me to play, and I will instruct you in dancing?” he asks. 

She should say no. That’s the wise thing, her life is complicated enough. She can’t bear the whiff of any more scandal attached to her name. 

Her mouth, as usual, does not cooperate. 

“I think that’s an adequate exchange.”