Games
This is a list of games that have been hugely impactful in my life. I'm not even sure I recommend playing them because most don't hold up well today. They will always matter to me though.
I'm thinking of calling these "micro-shrines". Is that a thing on Neocities? I only heard of shrines recently. If it's not, it is now.
Runescape
I think Runescape might be the first game I was addicted to. I vividly remember waking up at 7am on a Saturday to run to a city called Ardougne. For reasons I am still not sure of, I pronounced this "Aragon".
Ardougne was perhaps my most favourite city and I spent a lot of time there lock-picking and pick-pocketing.
I played with my cousin quite a lot too, I also distinctly remember us doing a quest called "Underground Pass" together. This is a notorious quest in the game, famous for its difficulty and length. It all takes place in an underground pass (funny coincidence) and the deeper you get the more sinister it becomes. We beat it together, so that was nice.
What I perhaps remember best is how I could tell if I was ready to beat a boss. See, in the game, most quests finished by having to fight a boss battle. Tough monsters with a lot of health and a lot of damage. I remember that I had tried beating "Horror from the Deep" multiple times and had to keep teleporting out of the final battle because I just couldn't beat the damn thing! On maybe the fourth attempt right before I entered the battle... I had to pee. So I peed. AND I WON! That's the fight that I actually won. And ever since then, whenever I was about to fight a boss, I knew that if I had to pee then I was going to win. If I didn't, I should wait until I did. This is what pro gamers call a "strat".
Runescape is actually still going, in the form of Runescape 3 and Old School Runescape. The former being a continuation of the original and the latter being a re-release of sorts, following on from the 2007 version of the game.
Fable: The Lost Chapters
Probably my favourite game of all time. The Lost Chapters is an extended version of the original Fable game. At launch it was massively overhyped by Peter Molyneux which upset a lot of people and slightly marred people's perceptions of the game. Regardless, it had great reviews and I think is thought of as a decent RPG by most. It has a wonderful sense of humour and decent RPG shenanigans. Be nice or be evil, the game won't restrict you.
I lost myself in this game constantly when I was younger. This was how I escaped from reality. I actually remember that I would remove all my armour and wear regular clothes, equip a stick (because you had to have a weapon equipped) and pretend to be a regular person. I'd marry somebody in Oakvale and when I got bored I'd secretly murder my wife out-of-character and then "discover" her body and go on a murderous rampage through the town.
Maybe I should tell a therapist that.
In 2014 a remaster was released to celebrate the 10 year anniversary and having just written that I now realise that we're nearing the 20 year anniversary and I'll just be over here weeping. I've never bothered with the remaster and probably never will - and to be honest it's not a game I can replay anymore. It has, unfortunately, aged quite poorly. But never mind, it's still important to me.
World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft, maybe the second game I was ever addicted to? I started playing in 2008 because I remember getting an in-game tabard as a tie-in to the 2008 olympics. My first character was a Night Elf Druid and had a lifetime of about five minutes. I'd heard that druids could turn into animals, and that one of them was a sea creature. I created the character, ran to the nearest pond and jumped in. Nothing happened (because you have to unlock it as a spell by playing) so I deleted the character immediately.
My second character was a Human Warlock that I probably still have on my account. I adored Wrath of the Lich King and spent just about every spare second in Northrend. Good times.
Arma II / DayZ Mod
I was playing on a potato and was lucky if I had 15FPS. That did not take away from the fun though. I was a huge coward and would mostly play on low-pop servers. I'd run around gathering supplies, finding the best vehicle spawns and amass a warehouse of goods. Then, usually, I'd log in one day to find it all stolen. Never really bothered me. It's hard to explain but running through a field listening to the Arma II ambient sounds was such a wonderful experience.
Later on I also played the Wasteland mod for Arma II, and eventually Arma III too. I played this far less often though. It's Arma II, specifically in the DayZ mod, that I'll cherish forever.
Need for Speed (Underground, Underground 2, Carbon)
There was an era of games in the early 2000s where the soundtrack had to fucking slap. Need for Speed, SSX, and all the Tony Hawk games knew this and did it well. So much so that I still have a Spotify playlist of the Need for Speed songs and vividly remember the Snoop Dogg & The Doors' version of Riders On The Storm that was in Need for Speed Underground 2. Being a relatively young and ignorant child I did not realise that Jim Morrison had long been dead when this came out so when Snoop says "People don't believe we're really together right now" the joke went right over my head for years. Oops.
I lump these games in together because they all kind of exist as one entity in my memory sphere. Carbon is by far the one I played the most, but I think Underground 2 might be the most iconic? I use a question mark and not a full stop intentionally. Jury's out. Most Wanted release between Underground 2 and Carbon for reasons I do not know I skipped that one. I hear it's popular though.
There's something about these particular games that feel very, very early 2000s. Is it the soundtrack? The graphics? I genuinely don't know, but I look at their game covers, or hear a song, and think "yup. 2000s." It reminds me of my childhood, playing the game(s) with my neighbour(s) or alone and being blissfully ignorant of all the horrors of the world. It was just me, a cool car, and a need. A Need for Speed.
There have been loads of new NfS games that released since Carbon but I do not care about any of them. I know there's one about racing across the country but other than that I think the series generally drifted away from street racing? I guess everybody did - Look at The Fast & The Furious and see how well it lines up to the likes of Underground and then look at something like Fast 9 or whatever it's called and... yeah. Completely different vibe.
Minecraft
Well. Good golly gosh. What do I say about Minecraft? Arguably the most successful game of the early 2010s. It came from a completely unknown indie studio in Sweden to being owned by Microsoft. Lego toys, books, games (other than Minecraft, obviously) - I'm doing absolutely no research and just listing things from memory but wow, it got big didn't it?
Beta 1.6 was the first version of Minecraft I played. It would have been late June in 2011 when I naughtily acquired a cracked copy and made my own survival world to play on. I remember this all very well. I'd heard there were monsters so my first home was a watchtower to protect myself. One sunny afternoon I went for a stroll and wasn't able to find my watchtower again so I built a new base on the shore of lake which became quite the large castle & grounds. I went searching for my watchtower a few times but was to never find it again. It's a little sad in a way.
On the ground floor of my "castle" I had water underneath a layer of glass. On the first floor there was a layer of lava under glass. Health & Safety would have had a field-day in my home, but this was a single player world so I could break as many codes as I liked.
I played on this single world for a few weeks. I had a pet wolf and I took him everywhere with me. Eventually I built a boat and sailed to the other side of this very large lake/sea and established a forward outpost. One day on the journey back to my castle the wolf got stuck underneath my pier and drowned. I was devestated so much I actually stopped playing on this world.
Some time passed and my birthday arrived. I decided to buy a legit copy of the game with the birthday funds and joined my first multiplayer server. I know now that this was the beginning of something special. I wish I could view those memories through a TV or something because I'd very much like to experience them again. I met people I've sadly fallen out of contact with but made memories to last a lifetime.
I could write on and on about that first server, I could write on and on about Minecraft in general, but I'm going to wrap up soon before I get too emotional. All I'll say is, the second server I played on, joining 2012ish, is where I made lifelong friendships. We server hopped together a few times because of drama, eventually made a discord, briefly played Dungeons & Dragons together among other games, and still stay in touch albeit nowhere near as often as I'd like. In fact I sent them an early version of this very site to get their opinions. I sent them pictures when I got married and I complained in great detail when I was made redundant. I love them dearly and I only met them because of a little indie game called Minecraft. Bunch of weirdos.
Other games that deserve to be written about but haven't been yet:
- Guild Wars
- Guild Wars 2
- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
- Terraria
- The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
- Spyro