- 11 hours ago
A surprise is only surprising the first time around.
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00:00You ever wished you could play a game again for the first time, re-experience a twist,
00:04a really cool level, character reveal, gameplay unlockable, or whatever else, fresh, same.
00:09Whilst it's true that in art across the board, experiencing it multiple times can really make
00:13you appreciate what a team of creators have put together, sometimes part of the intent
00:18is geared towards first exposure. I'm Scott from WhatCulture.com and these are 8 video games that
00:23only work once. Number 8, The Last Guardian. Following Shadow of the Colossus, The Last
00:28Guardian's prolonged development and release had gamers hoping it would strike with that
00:31same whimsical Team Ico brand of magic we'd come to love. To an extent, it did. I personally
00:37adore this game and think it has one of the best representations of that real world bond
00:42that we form with animals and pets in video game form. Scaling towers, fleeing an unknown
00:47sense of evil, reaching those literal heights of the prison you and creature Trico are trapped
00:51in to escape are all such memorable moments. Once it's done, you'll breathe one hell of
00:56a sigh of relief and be immortally glad that you went on the journey. Outside of that being
01:01a reason to not play again, if you do want more, The Last Guardian sadly doesn't have
01:05many secrets. Likely down to how much of a struggle it was to get this over the finish
01:09line across a very lengthy development, things like Shadow of the Colossus' secret garden
01:14area just aren't here.
01:15Number 7, Any David Cage game. As one of the early pioneers of branching path storytelling
01:21and immersive character writing, to a point, David Cage has been quoted multiple times
01:25as encouraging people to only play his games once. Whatever choices you make, whichever
01:30characters live or die and the actions you see, they are yours. Your Ethan Mars opened
01:35the fridge for some orange juice or spent his time sketching architectural plans before the
01:39story really kicked in in heavy rain, that was your Ethan Mars' morning and no one else's.
01:45Go back to Fahrenheit slash Indigo Prophecy and you have one of the coolest opening levels
01:49in gaming history. A possessed man who we watch murder someone in cold blood, then put under
01:54our control to ask the question of what would you do, if faced with a dead body and zero
01:59real context on what just happened. David Cage is a notably divisive figure with more misses
02:04than hits, but his commitment to weighty decisions and asking that you live with the consequences
02:09is second to none.
02:10Number 6, Superliminal. Games like Portal revolutionized first person puzzlers, kickstarting
02:15a trend of titles that do really awesome memorable things with a first person perspective. One of
02:20the absolute coolest that nails the French optical illusion technique of Trompeloi is
02:24Superliminal. Messing with distance and physical space, you can enlarge items the closer they
02:29are to you while holding, or just grab something from the background to instantly bring it into
02:34the foreground, maintaining its size until you start moving closer again.
02:38All of this kinda breaks your mind as it contradicts everything we know about space, physics and
02:44everything else. Once you've recalibrated your brain to experience Superliminal though, there's
02:48a profound sense of knowing you'll never feel this brain expanding sensory overload ever
02:53again. Kinda like going through Portal again. Potentially the curse of all puzzle based games
02:57or completing puzzles in general, Superliminal is an immaculate ride, but one you can't
03:02really take more than once.
03:04Number 5, Second Sight. Back in 2004, Psychic Games were at the centre of a hot debate. Second
03:10Sight or PsyOps, the Mindgate conspiracy. The former a brilliant title with an unexpected ending,
03:15the latter an action focused tutor with some of the most fun psychic physics powers ever.
03:20Second Sight puts you in the amnesiac shoes of one John Vadek, a man once part of a research
03:25team that ends up granted psychic powers. Something's not right, things have gone wrong,
03:29and we don't know why. For the most part, players will be trying to unravel what's happened
03:33to Vadek, why the mission was a failure, and why people keep dying all around him.
03:38The big twist however is that any of this isn't what has happened, but what will happen.
03:43Full on spoilers, but the present we're playing is actually a premonition, a potential future
03:48of what could be. Instead of playing the past, it's the present interspersed with visions
03:52of the future. Once you know it's such a cool narrative framing device that all the
03:56mystery and power of that reveal can never land in the same way again. Second Sight becomes
04:01one of those incredible narratives you can only be in awe of from then on out.
04:05Number 4, L.A. Noire. The rise and fall of a fallible man, Cole Phelps, the seedy side
04:10of Los Angeles, L.A. Noire tells a great story against the backdrop of post-war drug trading
04:15and limited support for veterans. The caveat to such a vast narrative on that first run-through
04:20though is that you're enthralled with the idea that this particular tale could go anywhere.
04:24Cole's personal rise and fall sits alongside solving various murders and visiting crime
04:29scenes, interrogating witnesses with what feels like scores of outcomes as you nail lines
04:33of questioning or fail to extract every piece of information. Somewhat sadly then, and this
04:38did happen with the illusion of choice we had in Telltale's Walking Dead games too,
04:42once you know most outcomes play out the same way regardless of anything, it just isn't
04:46the same. L.A. Noire is certainly divisive with its sporadically programmed responses to
04:51certain questions and prompts, but as a uniquely ambitious detective game, it's arguably never
04:56been beat.
04:57Number 3, Sayonara Wild Hearts. All video games, some more than others, are artful expressions
05:02of creativity, but some majorly prioritise visual punch. Sayonara Wild Hearts is an absolute
05:07knockout, a playable album of quick-time events and timing-based boss battles set to a gorgeous
05:12electropop soundtrack by pop maestro Dan Olsen. Sitting nicely in the genre of games you'll
05:17pretty much play with your eyeballs, the likes of Rez, Journey, Thumper, The Artful Escape,
05:22Grease and more prove there's something to this approach that really works. For Wild Hearts'
05:27story, it's an interpretational tale about heartbreak and losing your muse. Seeing your character
05:31go up against a range of unique bosses in essentially one giant scripted sequence, replete with
05:36martial arts fights, motorbike stunts, superpowers, giant wolves and everything in between.
05:41Feeding the game unlocks album mode, stringing together every level into one extended music
05:46video, though there's no repeating what it feels like to experience developer Somogo's
05:50ideas for each level first time.
05:52Number 2, Soma. Frictional games make very intense first-person horror games, first with Penumbra,
05:58then striking gold with the Amnesia series before the sci-fi focused Soma in 2015.
06:03A trip into the future of sorts, the nature of the soul, existentialism and the power of
06:08memories, Soma adds grey twists on established narratives that Frictional take to the next
06:12level in game form.
06:14Whilst I'll steer away from spoilers because Soma is just so painfully overlooked and underplayed,
06:19the game has memorable spooky moments, indestructible monsters and a really claustrophobic underwater
06:24setting that makes it genuinely terrifying. It goes without saying that atmosphere,
06:28tone and immersion are prioritising factors in why you should plug yourself into Soma.
06:33Dim the lights and just see it through.
06:36Emerging on the other side, you'll know why.
06:38Soma is a tight, linear game with a real focus. There aren't any alternate endings to explore
06:43and no changing where everything goes. Play it once, savour the ending and know you just
06:47beat one of the finest, most cerebral horrors there is.
06:50And number 1, Death Stranding. The game that inspired this whole list, there's something
06:54about Death Stranding's unique rollout of game mechanics, balmy story beats, creative
06:58characters and overall knitting together of the Strand genre that was the most consistent
07:03fun I had with a game across the 8th generation.
07:06Why? Because it's just so different. The appeal is so uniquely tied to pure gameplay.
07:11The setup of go-deliver stuff sounds banal and pointless on paper, but with the tactility
07:16of exploration and the fact you're overcoming a 3D space alongside thousands of other players,
07:20sharing items and pathways alike, there's just nothing else like it.
07:24Also, as I record this, Death Stranding 2 just got confirmed by Norman Readers.
07:28So, praise to this strange AAA indie project of an idea that Hideo Kojima is somehow continuing to explore.
07:35The point with all of this though is that Death Stranding keeps delivering new mechanics and
07:38revelations across its 50 plus hour runtime. Side quests net you new gameplay boosting equipment,
07:44players expanding highways or building zip lines in their respective time zones might encourage you
07:48to explore in a whole new direction. I will say the story barely lands and Trophy Data on PS4
07:54shows less than 30% of people saw it through to its balmy conclusion anyway, but it almost doesn't
08:00matter. For those of us who did stick with Death Stranding all the way through,
08:03felt that weird set of gameplay systems coalesce and trudge through snowy mountain
08:07regions to find a character called Hartman who has a cardiac arrest every two minutes,
08:12that was a journey we can never duplicate. Roll on, Death Stranding 2.
08:16And those are my picks for 8 video games that only work once. Let me know your favourites down in
08:21the comments below and please subscribe to the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast.
08:24For now I've been Scott from WhatCulture.com and I'll catch you soon.
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