8 Video Games That Only Work Once

Australian Cinephile

11 hours ago

A surprise is only surprising the first time around.

Transcript

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. The big

03:38twist however is that any of this isn't what has happened, but what will happen. Full on spoilers,

03:44but the present we're playing is actually a premonition, a potential future of what could

03:48be. Instead of playing the past, it's the present interspersed with visions of the future.

03:53Once you know it's such a cool narrative framing device that all the mystery and power of that

03:58reveal can never land in the same way again. Second Sight becomes one of those incredible

04:02narratives 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 prioritize visual punch. Sayonara Wild Hearts is an absolute knockout,

05:08a playable album of quicktime events and timing-based boss battles set to a gorgeous electropop

05:13soundtrack by pop maestro Dan Olsen. Sitting nicely in the genre of games you'll pretty

05:18much play with your eyeballs, the likes of Rares, Journey, Thumper, The Artful Escape, Grease

05:22and more prove there's something to this approach that really works. For Wild Hearts Story, it's

05:27an interpretational tale about heartbreak and losing your muse. Seeing your character go up

05:32against a range of unique bosses in essentially one giant scripted sequence, replete with martial arts

05:37fights, motorbike stunts, superpowers, giant wolves and everything in between.

05:41Beating 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 Samogo's

05:50ideas for each level first time.

05:52Number 2, Soma. Frictional games make very intense first-person horror games, first with

05:58Penumbra, then 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. Whilst I'll steer away from spoilers because Soma is just so painfully

06:17overlooked and underplayed, the game has memorable spooky moments, indestructible monsters and

06:22a really claustrophobic underwater setting that makes it genuinely terrifying. It goes without

06:27saying that atmosphere, tone and immersion are prioritising factors in why you should plug

06:31yourself into Soma. Dim the lights and just see it through. Emerging on the other side,

06:36you'll know why. Soma is a tight, linear game with a real focus. There aren't any alternate endings

06:42to explore and 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.

06:50Number 1, Death Stranding. The game that inspired this whole list, there's something about Death Stranding's

06:55unique rollout of game mechanics, balmy story beats, creative characters and overall knitting

07:00together of the Strand genre that was the most consistent fun I had with a game across the 8th

07:05generation. Why? 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 of

07:16exploration and the fact you're overcoming a 3D space alongside thousands of other players sharing items

07:21and pathways alike, there's just nothing else like it. Also, as I record this, Death Stranding 2 just

07:26got confirmed by Norman Reedus, so praise to this strange AAA indie project of an idea that Hideo Kojima

07:33is somehow continuing to explore. The point with all of this though is that Death Stranding keeps

07:37delivering new mechanics and revelations across its 50 plus hour runtime. Side quests net you new

07:42gameplay boosting equipment, players expanding highways or building zip lines in their respective

07:47time zones might encourage you to explore in a whole new direction. I will say the story barely

07:52lands and trophy data on PS4 shows less than 30% of people saw it through to its balmy conclusion anyway,

07:58but it almost doesn't matter. 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 regions to find a

08:08character called Hartman who has a cardiac arrest every two minutes, that was a journey we can never

08:14duplicate. Roll on Death Stranding 2. And those are my picks for 8 video games

08:18that only work once. Let me know your favourites down in the comments below and

08:22please subscribe to the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast. For now I've been Scott from WhatCulture.com and I'll catch you soon.

8 Video Games That Only Work Once

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