I was ~ tagged by @b1uetrees to share MY TOP 9 VIDEO GAMES (but there are obviously more than 9) and I promised a selection of some indie shit because I'm a terrible ! gamer (the ceiling of game mechanics difficulty for me is Nancy Drew), but I decided not to add some of the nice indie games (journey, valiant hearts, night in the woods, etc) that I like but not enough, but to add a few games that I haven't played directly because of the mechanics, but which for various reasons have been a part of my life and have influenced my perception of aesthetics (these are obviously the last three items on this list):
Life is Strange
SEASON: A letter to the future
Oxenfree
Firewatch
Syberia series
GRIS
Kentucky Route Zero
Nancy Drew series
Dreamfall / The Longest Journey series
BioShock / BioShock Infinite
Final Fantasy series
Bloodborne
because I'm not sure who of my mutuals is an avid gamer, consider yourself automatically tagged if you're interested! but I'm, obviously, tagging my fellow LiS mutuals - @artioptera, @celinou, @hardhuilen, @aenseidha
Sorry for the radio silence in here, that was not the plan, but I got completely sucked in by the one and only world of Arcadia 😍
(Bought Dreamfall: Chapters some two weeks ago on sale with the thought that oh well, I have no time for it now but one day surely I will... 'One day' lol. Like if I could resist anything TLJ related!)
Zoë Castillo (Dreamfall Chapters) by Max Sarin (Giant Days, Harley Quinn: The Eat, Bang! Kill Tour--maxthecartoonist on Instagram). I've wanted to commission artwork of Zoë forever, but hadn't been sure what I wanted it to look like.
As an aside, God, post-bombing Zoë looks so good. It is a crime that she only has this hair in one chapter.
All the games I have on Steam with a female protagonist (that involve combat), rated by how cool their weapon is.
'Combat' is a very loosely defined term here, as is 'protagonist'. 'Female' would be too, but it never really came up. That said, characters must have a name to be considered.
If I missed any game in my library that you know I own and yet didn't include, then let me know, I suppose.
Alice: Madness Returns
Alice has a knife (good start), a pepper mill / Gatling gun, a hobby horse, and a teapot that fires blobs of hot tea.. Pretty nice selection, honestly. Of course, all of these only exist in Wonderland; in plain old London she has only her ability to shove people. This is sometimes effective though. 8/10 - points deducted for not existing.
Before people ask; the first American McGee's Alice is not on Steam for some reason. It does not count for this list.
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey
This is the only game in the The Longer Journey / Dreamfall series that involves combat, and if you've played Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, you'll understand why.
April fights with a staff. Not the fanciest of weapons, but it does the job. She can beat people with it, she can block with it. Really, that's the minimum a weapon needs to do. 3/10 - it's a stick
Zoe is a kickboxer, so I guess her weapon is her whole body. I'm going to just consider it to be her fighting skills though; rating all the female characters by their body is a different type of list entirely and not one I really jive with. 5/10 - she mostly does short jabs but gets some sweet kicks in there too.
Kian uses a sword, but he is male and doesn't count.
Kena: Bridge of Spirits
Kena also uses a staff, but hers is a lot cooler. For one thing, it's got a big blue crystal on the top, that's neat. Second, it's more than just a wooden pole. It's a bow, it shoots energy blasts out the top, it's pretty sweet. She can also summon bombs, but they're mostly used to make objects levitate. 9/10
Left 4 Dead / Left 4 Dead 2
Neither of the two female protagonists (Zoey and Rochelle) have any weapons unique to them, but there's a wide variety of guns to use. None of them really stand out as especially cool to me, though I am fond of the classic Zombie-killing shotguns, or the classic Everyone-killing grenade launcher. 4/10 for guns.
Now the mêlée weapons, that's where it's at. Machetes, fire axes, rock guitars. The classic Zombie-killing chainsaw? All cooler. 5/10
Phantasmagoria
Does Phantasmagoria have combat? No, not really. But you can throw drain cleaner into a rapist's face, and I can't hate that. 10/10 - burn, burn his face
Portal / Portal 2
Chell's only weapons are her wits, her unbreakable spirit, and a machine that opens spatial distortions. So in the context of the game then she's a formidable foe. If she happens to be in a situation where her opponent does not have any rockets, bombs, lasers or tall pits in the area for her to actually use against them, then she's kind of at a loss. 9/10 for the idea but 1/10 for lack of any real offensive abilities.
Raft
Like Left 4 Dead, there are no weapons specific to the female characters here. And the weapons aren't as cool in general; some spears, some swords, a bow that feels really slow somehow. And while the swords do more damage than the spears, they're actually slower to use and often less practical. Very strange. 2/10, honestly.
I remember playing Dreamfall: The Longest Journey just as it came out. It shook my world. I still get goosebumps every time I play it. "Find her... Save her..." and all that. I love the original TLJ, which I've played many times) and Chapters (it's so beautiful, I've made all the choices there are), but none of them give me those goosebumps. I can't even explain.
