Gaming

Both Psychonauts games had this exact same dopamine release. I spent all of my time playing both as they both came out right around the time of a close family member dying and the games were my outlet for those emotions at the time. Very special games to me.

Nothing has ever hit me harder than Disco Elysium, and I don't think anything else ever will. Everything from its themes of failure and depression and addiction and clinging to the past to its surprising message of hope in the face of unrelenting nihilism resonated with me on a molecular level. And the Final Dream is just the single most impactful, emotional and heart-rending moment I've had in any game ever. The culmination of the entire game distilled into one scene, and even the whole pathos of that one scene concentrated into three closing words:

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic (the first one). This one was my complete entrance to the RPG games and i was so soaked into the atmosphere and the characters. And well of course Witcher 3. For me the best game ever. Setting, characters, story, choises…

Mass Effect.

3’s ending didn’t quite stick the landing, on launch, but was fixed a few months down the line with the Extended Cut DLC.

1 and 2 were amazing. 1 especially had a great ending.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice stayed with me for quite a while. It's a walking simulator with some mild puzzles and fun combat, but the real experience is something I've never seen before. They really made the best of the medium to tell their story. Also there is a short documentary you should watch after finishing the game.

Homeworld. The end credits were so beautiful. It still gives me frisson thinking about it.

"Madeline is gonna make us a pie with all the berries she collected"

Madeline is gonna jump off this mountain from embarassment after making a pie with two strawberries

Chrono Trigger

Dark Souls.

I used to play mostly FPS. Now it's all soulslikes and practically nothing else.

Spiritfarer was one for me. Idk what it was about it, because the character development for the spirits you're carrying was pretty meh, and the twist at the end was ruined by the achievements early in the game, but that shit had me almost in tears when each person was dropped off at the gate.

One that should get way more attention: Little King's Story. It presents as a cutsie Pikmin-like, but is actually a dark, metaphorical tale about abuse and trauma.

Most recently, the final choice in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 gutted me.

Final Fantasy 7, the first two Fallout and Disco Elyisum, Shenmue to an extent, but the Yakuza / Like A Dragon franchise probably tops all of them. I had stopped paying attention to video games after the dreamcast (I considered Shenmue the apex of what I liked in video games and couldn't find something similar), discovered the Yakuza franchise through Judgment in early 2020 and I was hooked, it was everything I had ever dreamed of in a game. I bought a PS4 specifically to play them, bought 0 to 6 during covid lockdowns and pretty much blasted through the franchise in a year. Rekindled my interest in games and in Japanese stuff, made me take my ass back to martial arts and generally pay more attention to how I behave and look after bad breakups and depression. Disco Elysium came very close to the same impact, I might add.

Stray

KOTOR

Obligatory HK-47 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XXvVVCr_6P8

Fallout 3

Nier: Automata, like the final ending. I've 100% this game three times and each time I end tearing up, thinking about a world where would could all come together and help eachother, then I look at the news and that dream is immediately shattered.

Not really computer games.

Camarilla. A LARP that I was part of for about ten years. I met hundreds of people. A few girlfriends. There were chapters all over the world with a couch to crash on and a group of nerds into the same shit I was. I drifted from my local group and they fell apart a few years later. I've recently reconnected with some remnants of that group and in the blink of an eye I've found twenty friends and have a busy social life.

JiuJitsu. I don't see it as an art. I don't see it as a way to beat someone up. I see it as IRL PvP. I got into it from the early Joe Rogan podcasts where he had obscure interesting guests rather than the coco bananas direction he's been on for the last 10+ years.

World of Warcraft 2. A pirated copy got me a job at my local collectible card store. They had a computer in the store but weren't IT nerdy kids like I was. I'd downloaded it from a pirate BBS, YES BBS, that a friend at school ran. I like that Steam sees developers getting paid but man was DOS piracy next level easy, you were more likely to need the "decoder" that came with the game to act as the license.

Osu!, but not in the good direction... the game might have deleted what little confidence I have left in myself and gave me crippling perfectionism issues. Also permanently changed my music taste. May or may not have set me up on a hyper-competitive career path as well so there is that. Upside is... I'm fun at the club and the arcade maybe??

Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

Desperados 3 did it for me. The game ends right where it promised, getting revenge and jumping to black as soon as the trigger's pulled. Knowing something like this will likely never be made again drove me into a light melancholy.

Metal Gear Solid 2

me, 12 years old in my room, with little awareness of 4th wall breaks:

mom! The TV is talking to ME, MOM!

I'm going way back, almost 30 years.

Phantasmagoria 2: The Puzzle of Flesh

Assuming I remember correctly, some ways into the game, you, the player, realizes your character is the one who has been committing all the horrible, tortures and murders. I stopped playing at that point. I never play "evil". For instance, in FO4, I never took over the Commonwealth with the raiders, raiders are always cannon fodder.

So, it didn't really change my life, per se, but I have remembered it all these years, and still have no interest in finishing the game.

Life is Strange 1 - There are just a lot about life that I wished I could change. Lots of regrets. I think about the idea of butterfly effect a lot. I know a lot of movies also show this, but they often portray in a very "high stakes" scenario which its hard to feel relatable to, since its so far detached from realism. Meanwhile, in LiS, the portrays a scenario that's more localized, it "hits home" stronger, especially that part where...

Life is Strange: True Colors

Some people might relate less, but for me I can relate to the Alex a lot, the emotional aspects of life. I wasn't an orphan, but I feel practically like I'm one. I wasn't originally supposed to be born, I kinda feel like this life, this "timeline", is an anomoly. Everyone in my family hates me, kinda like how

It wasn't the story of the game that was life-changing, but I met people on PSO that encouraged me to pursue a different career. Without them, I don't think I'd be the person I am today.