Tetris
Okay, I don’t hate it. It’s a really great action game, but at the same time, it’s just…falling blocks. I guess what I really hate is how it inevitably finds its way onto the top spot of every “Greatest Games of All Time” list. Yes, I have a compulsion to read these and that’s my problem. It’s often trumpeted as a “perfect game,” as if games could only be perfect if they were complete abstractions of reality. To me, however, it’s lacking in so much that I find interesting about games. There’s no atmosphere, no world to explore, no fingerprints of craft except in some versions like Tetris Effect and Tetris Plus, no human interaction (no, making the game harder for someone else because you’re good at your instance of the game is not human interaction).
I just want people to be honest with themselves when they take on an endeavor as serious and existential as deciding what games made their lives worth living. Make number 1 Rocket Knight Adventures. Make it LSD: Dream Emulator. Make it Dragon Ball Z: Budokai 3. Make it whatever that feels right, all else be damned. Just try not to be objective about it. Our lives depend on it.