You’d think with all the games coming out every year you wouldn’t really run out of games to play. Yet, there are still those games that we keep going back to over and over again that hold a special place in our hearts.
However, how often can we replay our favourite games before we get bored of them, at least for a while before we decide to revisit them again. Ultimately, we’d love to play these games for the first time again, or at least, experience them in a different way than the hundreds of times we’ve already played them.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have games that failed colossally on launch, that we wouldn’t even look at twice after the horrible first experience. However, these games also have a special place in people’s hearts, their developer’s, who’ve worked hard since to turn their failed game into one that’s definitely worth your time now. In contrast to the games above, revisiting these games is actually like playing a game for the first time, even though you’ve already played them.
That’s what we’re looking at in this cover story, it’s all about playing something for the first time, again. Keyword being ‘again’. First, we’ll take a look at the labours of love that are worth revisiting again. These are games that, if you played them upon release, will feel very different – and definitely improved – games
The comeback story
When you think of games that sucked when they dropped, there’s quite a few names that come to mind. These could be games that had all the hype around them or games that were simply exciting to try out. Unfortunately, the game you ended up playing was a hot mess. Your faith in the developer was broken and the game was trashed/refunded, never to be looked at again. Now, we’re definitely not saying that they deserve your forgiveness, releasing a broken game is a big no-no in our books, but unfortunately, that seems to be the direction we’re heading in right now. What we’re saying is that they’ve tried pretty hard since to make their once-a-hot-mess game into one that’s not only playable, but also enjoyable. A genuinely good game. Let’s take a look at a few examples of these labours of love.
No Man’s Sky – Redemption
We were promised the Universe with No Man’s Sky, what we got was an empty husk of that promise. The most hyped game of 2016, No Man’s Sky, would also go on to become the biggest launch failure and game with lowest metacritic score of all time, at least at the time. We’ve surprisingly had worse since – looking at you Fallout 76 and Warcraft 3 Reforged.
This was a daunting situation for Hello Games, their super-hyped game was failing spectacularly and the masses had lost all faith in them. To come back from that is truly something worth applauding, even if they probably should have released the game a whole year later to have avoided this situation entirely.
In its current state, No Man’s Sky is not the game it once was and features a lot of promises that should have been there in the first place. If you were hyped for it before its launch, now is a great time to actually pick it up.
Final Fantasy XIV – A Realm Reborn
Truly reborn, when Final Fantasy XIV first launched it was a barren game, which is saying something for an MMORPG game which depends on people to actually work. When the game launched in 2010 it was an unfinished broken mess with a sad excuse for a story that left fans of the franchise disappointed. It was so bad, that the game’s servers were actually shut down in 2012 and new leadership was brought in. New leadership that promised big changes. Promises that they actually kept, and in 2013 we saw the release of A Realm Reborn, apt. The combat was refreshed, the story was improved, the game, in general, saw some great overhauls and quality improvements. Even the recent Shadowbringers expansion (2019) was released to critical acclaim. To this day, it’s one of the better MMORPGs that you can play on PC or the PlayStation 4.
Warframe – Change incarnate
When the game first launched, it was a pretty generic sci-fi shooter. However, the developer Digital Extremes declared that the game was going to be in a permanent open beta state, of sorts. This is actually quite apt because the game is constantly evolving and changing. It’s definitely nowhere near what it used to be like when it first launched. Heck, the game changes so often, it’s very likely that if you revisit the game after a year it’s going to be a very different game. You’d think so much change isn’t good for a game, but it works for Warframe. A happy playerbase is the best way to measure this. For a game that was doomed to fail on launch, it’s still doing pretty well 7 years later. Remember, ‘Ninjas play free’, so you can have a go at Warframe yourself to experience what we’re talking about.
Anthem – Potential for the future
BioWare’s latest project, Anthem, has been one failure after the other. A failed launch and then the inability to maintain the promised roadmap, you could say that our trust in BioWare is no longer what it once used to be.
However, we owe BioWare a lot, some of those games we keep revisiting, that we mentioned above, are their games. So we’re willing to give them a chance, and it looks like they’re pretty adamant on fixing Anthem and getting it right eventually. We’ll definitely give it a shot later if that’s the case.
If you could play a game for the first time again
With the games we’ve just mentioned, simply playing them again is as good as playing them for the first time. Unfortunately we don’t have that luxury with our favourites. We’ve overplayed them to the point of no return, there’s no way we can enjoy them the way we did the first time we played them… or can we?
As it turns out, there are methods you can employ to enjoy your favourite games again. It may not be the exact same as playing them for the first time, but hey, it’s yet another way for you to be able to enjoy your favourite games.
Modding – The obvious first contender
There’s no denying it, one of the reasons Skyrim is still played as much as it is today is thanks to its many mods. Even after 9 years, the Skyrim modding community is still going strong, and Todd Howard is more than happy to port that game onto every system imaginable. This is, unfortunately, a perk only us PC gamers can enjoy, console gamers don’t have the same luxury. Although, Skyrim and Fallout 4 mods have made their way onto console.
Mods can greatly alter the way you play a game, even changing the game’s core gameplay. We obviously don’t want to change the game too much, it wouldn’t be the same if we did that. But there’s so much you can do with mods that we guarantee you it’ll feel like experiencing a whole new game, depending on the mods you get, of course.
Popular modding sites include Nexusmods and ModDB, both of which house mods for over 1000 popular games.
Cheats and handicaps – The not-so-obvious second contender
So, you’ve finished the game the right way the first time. Heck, you’ve played and replayed the game enough times to find out every possible ending, hidden secret, and dialogue option. Now you can cut yourself some slack and turn on god mode. Of course, this is doable with mods as well, so we guess this could in some cases be a subset of the previous option?
In that case, this is also a possible subset of mods, but basically, give yourself a handicap. This is the opposite of god mode. Instead of becoming invincible, try and do a no-save run. Or try finishing the game using no, or only a single weapon. Try limiting your travel options (no fast travelling!), or disable your mini-map and see if you can still make your way around. Challenge yourself to make your new playthrough an exciting and memorable one.
There are mods for popular games that make the game more realistic, one such example – again from Skyrim – is the ‘Frostfall’ mod, which basically adds a whole new set of things you need to keep in mind when playing Skyrim, such as temperature, hunger and thirst. You need to dress warmly for cold temperatures and eat and sleep regularly in order to survive.
Got an old favourite? – Play the remaster (or remake)
We’ve got both newbie and veteran gamers here in the labs, and while the newer players don’t really have games that they’d erase their own memories for, some of the veterans would love to have a go at say, Half-Life, again. However, with graphics the way it is now, going back to something like the original Half-Life games can feel really dated.
Fortunately, if the developer won’t give you a 4K remake themselves, hardcore fans have your back. Black Mesa is Half-Life remade by a fan, in more modern engines so it’s much easier on the eyes. You can relive the Half-Life experience, with even better graphics. Even mods can’t do that (okay, they can, seriously, what can’t mods do?).
Another great example is Final Fantasy VII. The 1997 game is clearly dated for today’s gaming systems. There’s no denying that it’s a slow grind and the graphics don’t hold up today. However, the new Final Fantasy VII remake takes the game to a whole new level. It’s the same game, but it’s not. There’s really no other way to explain it.
Speaking of fan-made, the recent release of Dreams on the PS4 also got us thinking, what if you went ahead and made your favourite game? Seriously. The Dreams game creation engine is already seeing some wild creativity from fans, who are recreating games like Fallout, the aforementioned FF7, Stardew Valley (in 3D!) and so much more. That just goes to show that if given access to tools that are easy to use, you can get some wild things.
Conclusion
Life’s all about second chances. Don’t take our word for that it just sounded wise in our heads. It’s definitely (probably) a saying. So, take this opportunity to give bad games a second chance, and give your favourite games a second life. Also, be sure to let us know which games you would want to play for the first time again.
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Manish Rajesh
Manish can usually be found fervently playing video games of all kinds or… no wait he’s pretty much always playing games View Full Profile
