favorite (or just influential) games
I play a few video games (mostly from the mid-2000s) and this is a list of my favorites. Most of the plot descriptions are going to have spoilers, if you care about 20-year-old game spoilers.
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
This game has probably been my top favorite. I also have a modlist I will add to the site eventually. Uhhh more words will be here soon.
Plot
You start as a prisoner in the Imperial City. After being heckled by the guy in the cell accross from you, the actual Emporer shows up and frees you from prison with his guards because he dreamed about you becoming a hero. He gets assasinated before your very eyes, but you're given the magical amulet and have to hunt down his illegitimate heir to prevent demons from overrunning the land. You can also completely ignore the entire main quest and do a very large number of cool other things, such as: becoming an assassin, stealing things, becoming a powerful mage, repenting for your sins, becoming a god, exploring a bunch of dungeons, doing errands for NPCs, buying a house, or just enjoying the lovely atmosphere.Harvest Moon: More Friends of Mineral Town
It's been a while since I played through this one seriously, but I played it a lot as a kid.
Plot
You're a young woman (there is also a version where you play as a man) who is bored of her tiny apartment and office job in the city. You get an ad in the newspaper listing a farm for sale in a distant village. You take the offer to find that the farm has been abandoned and overrun with trash so you have to clean it up and start planting things and buy animals to make money so you can upgrade your buildings and get even more animals. There is also fishing and mining, plus festivals to attend (most are centered around the animals you can own and enter into the contests). You also can pursue a romance with one of the town's bachelors (there are several) and eventually have a kid who remains a toddler for all of eternity.Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life
This is also a childhood favorite that I've played through as an adult. My childhood addiction to games about running a very small farm and owning chickens has caused no lasting effects to my personality whastoever.
Plot
Similar to the above game, you take over a run-down farm, except this time the farm belonged to your late father. His friend still helps the farm by bringing the things you grow and produce to the city to sell. Similar to the above game, you can also fish and dig at a dig site, but unlike the above game the village is a lot smaller and getting married within the first year is a requirement (you are only given 3 options of husband). You also age in this one, and so does your child (who is always a son). Your friendships and focuses as a farmer influence what your son does as he grows up, and eventually he picks a career when he is an adult and your character dies.The Sims 2
Another game that I have put a lot of hours into. I prefer building to playing with the sims themselves. I might show off cool builds I make.
Plot
There really is no plot to this game. It's a virtual dollhouse. You create some little people, build them a house, and try to not let them die of starvation because they're really, really dumb. Or you can kill them on purpose. It's now abandonware so getting ahold of a legit copy is hard. It's very open-ended. Your sims can get married, have families, work a job that they can get promoted or demoted from, advance their skills, and expansions let you have hobbies, grow plants, make crafts, own their own business, become supernaturual creatures, and a lot more. It's also very mod-able.Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines
Despite being another 2000s-era game, I did not play it until somewhat recently. It's a very good game. You get to be a vampire.
Plot
After creating a character (which is a lengthy process of reading about your vampire clans or taking a fun quiz to decide one for you, you start the game after an implied one-night-stand, where some people suddenly kick down your door and shove a stake through your character. Your character was turned into a vampire by the person you hooked up with. The vampire sire is executed, but you are let go in exchange for being an errand-mule for the rich and powerful immortal vampires in Los Angeles. They're all greedy monsters, as vampires tend to be, so you just spend every turn getting screwed over. However, the voice acting and animations are extremely good, for the era and even today, so it's more entertaining than it sounds.Mass Effect series
Mass Effect is a game about being a cool space hero and fulfilling all of your heroic space hero fantasies, and you get to romance aliens. The ending had a lot of angry responses, and people sometimes point out how cheesy the writing can be at times, but to me it's all part of the charm.
Plot
You play as Commander Shepard, an accomplished space marine. You're put in charge of a space ship and are sent on a mission by the Council of cool aliens in space to hunt down someone who is allegedly betraying the council and attacking human colonies with an army of robots. Eventually the truth behind the betrayal is revealed and the action gets more action-y while the drama gets more dramatic. It's a very good RPG with a large cast of neat characters.Night in the Woods
This game is very long and mostly boring, but it has a story that I really related to, especially at the time of playing. It fell into obscurity a few years after coming out because of a lot of unfortunate events with the developers.
