OFF (2008)

No, I'm not starting with Pathologic. Strap in, we're going to Zone 0!

OFF is a puzzle-based RPGMaker game created by Martin Georis, better known as Mortis Ghost. It was released in French in 2008 and translated to English in 2011, quickly garnering a cult following afterwards. The basic premise is simple: You, the player (directly acknowledged by the game), are in control of a being called the Batter, who is on a "sacred mission" to purify the world. You travel through four "Zones", killing phantasmagorical beings referred to as spectres. That seriously undersells what's going on here, but there's not much else I can say without risking spoiling it. It's a short game that's best played blind - it doesn't reveal everything to you from the get-go, and it can easily be completed in one sitting. Also, it's free! You can download it here! You have nothing to lose, except maybe a few hours of your time if you don't like it. It's not a huge commitment.

OFF is an incredibly important game to me, if not maybe the most important, and it's definitely within my top 3 of all time. To this day, I've never played anything else quite like it, and it's absolutely what kickstarted my love of weirdo indie games. I'm not exaggerating when I say I wouldn't be the person I am today without it. It's not perfect, but that's part of the appeal - it's flawed in the way that only something experimental can be. I honestly prefer "unique and interesting" over "technically perfect, but doesn't try anything different", and OFF is absolutely unique and interesting.

DRAGON AGE 2

You know, I wish I got into Dragon Age sooner. Not because it's, like, good, but because then I'd be able to justify having as many opinions about it as I do.

Dragon Age 2 shouldn't be good! I'd be the first to tell you everything wrong with it. It had an insanely rushed production time (holy shit, how did anyone working on this game survive) and it shows, it's a hot mess from start to finish, it has some godawful writing decisions, and... I love it. A lot. Dragon Age 2 is the kind of game you can't stop thinking about once you've finished playing it - or at least, it's like that for me. Plus, on a pure gameplay level, I actually think the combat is super fun! I like the skill trees, and even though you can't chain things together the same way you could in Dragon Age Origins, it feels smoother and a lot more "snappy". (It's better than the hot garbage that Inquisition combat is. Seriously, it's ass.)

I prefer stories that take place in one area, so the tighter setting of Kirkwall is exactly my thing. I'm not exactly an open-world kind of guy. Like, yes, give me a city built on blood! Give me a city where the first thing to do there is leave, and then give me a reason to stay! I love that stuff. I think stories tend to have more impact when they're grounded in one area, especially because it makes it hit harder when things change.