8 Video Games That Only Work Once

WhatCulture

05/12/2024

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 Wackulture.com and these are 8 video games that

00:23only work once. Number 8, The Last Guardian. Following Shadow of the Colossus, The Last

00:27Guardian's prolonged development and release had gamers hoping it would strike with that same

00:32whimsical Team Ico brand of magic we'd come to love. To an extent, it did. I personally adore

00:38this game and think it has one of the best representations of that real world bond that

00:42we form with animals and pets in video game form. Scaling towers, fleeing an unknown sense of evil,

00:48reaching those literal heights of the prison you and creature Trico are trapped in to escape are

00:52all such memorable moments. Once it's done, you'll breathe one hell of a sigh of relief

00:57and be immortally glad that you went on the journey. Outside of that being a reason to not

01:01play again, if you do want more, The Last Guardian sadly doesn't have many secrets.

01:06Likely down to how much of a struggle it was to get this over the finish line across a very

01:10lengthy development, things like Shadow of the Colossus' secret garden area just aren't here.

01:15Number 7, Any David Cage Game. As one of the early pioneers of branching path storytelling

01:20and immersive character writing, to a point, David Cage has been quoted multiple times as

01:25encouraging people to only play his games once. Whatever choices you make, whichever characters

01:30live or die and the actions you see, they are yours. Your Ethan Mars opened the fridge for

01:35some orange juice or spent his time sketching architectural plans before the story really

01:40kicked in in heavy rain, that was your Ethan Mars' morning and no one else's.

01:44Go back to Fahrenheit slash Indigo Prophecy and you have one of the coolest opening levels in

01:49gaming 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 real

01:59context on what just happened. David Cage is a notably divisive figure with more misses than

02:04hits, but his commitment to weighty decisions and asking that you live with the consequences

02:09is second to none. Number 6, Superliminal. Games like Portal revolutionised first person

02:14puzzlers, kickstarting a trend of titles that do really awesome memorable things with a first

02:19person perspective. One of the absolute coolest that nails the French optical illusion technique

02:23of Trompe l'oeil is Superliminal. Messing with distance and physical space, you can enlarge

02:28items the closer they are to you while holding, or just grab something from the background to

02:33instantly bring it into the 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,

02:43physics and everything else. Once you've recalibrated your brain to experience Superliminal

02:47though, there's a profound sense of knowing you'll never feel this brain expanding sensory overload

02:52ever again. Kinda like going through Portal again. Potentially the curse of all puzzle-based

02:57games, or completing puzzles in general, Superliminal is an immaculate ride, but one

03:02you can't really take more than once. Number 5, Second Sight. Back in 2004,

03:07psychic games were at the centre of a hot debate. Second Sight, or PsyOps the Mindgate Conspiracy.

03:12The former a brilliant title with an unexpected ending, the latter an action-focused shooter with

03:17some of the most fun psychic physics powers ever. Second Sight puts you in the amnesiac

03:22shoes of one John Vaddick, a man once part of a research team that ends up granted psychic powers.

03:27Something's not right, things have gone wrong, and we don't know why. For the most part,

03:31players will be trying to unravel what's happened to Vaddick, why the mission was a failure,

03:35and why people keep dying all around him. The big twist, however, is that any of this

03:40isn't what has happened, but what will happen. Full on spoilers, but the present we're playing

03:45is actually a premonition, a potential future of what could be. Instead of playing the past,

03:50it's the present, interspersed with visions of the future. Once you know, it's such a cool

03:55narrative-framing device that all the mystery and power of that reveal can never land in the

03:59same way again. Second Sight becomes one of those incredible narratives you can only be in awe of

04:04from then on out. Number 4, L.A. Noire.

04:07The rise and fall of a fallible man called Phelps, the seedy side of Los Angeles,

04:11L.A. Noire tells a great story against the backdrop of post-war drug trading and limited

04:16support for veterans. The caveat to such a vast narrative on that first run through though is

04:20that 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 scenes,

04:29interrogating witnesses with what feels like scores of outcomes as you nail lines of questioning

04:34or fail to extract every piece of information. Somewhat sadly then, and this did happen with

04:38the illusion of choice we had in Telltale's Walking Dead games too, once you know most

04:43outcomes play out the same way regardless of anything, it just isn't the same. L.A. Noire is

04:48certainly divisive with its sporadically programmed responses to certain questions and prompts,

04:52but as a uniquely ambitious detective game, it's arguably never been beat.

04:56Number 3, Sayonara Wild Hearts. All video games, some more than others,

05:01are artful expressions of creativity, but some majorly prioritise visual punch. Sayonara Wild

05:06Hearts is an absolute knockout, a playable album of quick-time events and timing-based boss battles

05:11set to a gorgeous electropop soundtrack by pop maestro Dan Olsen. Sitting nicely in the genre of

05:17games you'll pretty much play with your eyeballs, the likes of Rez, Journey, Thumper, The Artful

05:22Escape, Grease 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

05:31character go up against a range of unique bosses in essentially one giant scripted sequence,

05:36replete with martial arts fights, motorbike stunts, superpowers, giant wolves and everything

05:40in between. Beating the game unlocks album mode, stringing together every level into one

05:45extended music video, though there's no repeating what it feels like to experience developer

05:49Samogo's ideas for each level first time. Number 2, Soma. Frictional games make very

05:55intense first-person horror games, first with Penumbra, then striking gold with the Amnesia

06:00series before the sci-fi-focused Soma in 2015. A trip into the future of sorts, the nature of the

06:06soul, existentialism and the power of memories, Soma adds great twists on established narratives

06:11that Frictional take to the next level in game form. Whilst I'll steer away from spoilers because

06:16Soma is just so painfully overlooked and underplayed, the game has memorable spooky

06:20moments, indestructible monsters and a really claustrophobic underwater setting that makes it

06:25genuinely terrifying. It goes without saying that atmosphere, tone and immersion are prioritising

06:30factors in why you should plug yourself into Soma. Dim the lights and just see it through.

06:35Emerging on the other side, you'll know why. Soma is a tight, linear game with a real focus.

06:41There aren't any alternate endings to explore and no changing where everything goes. Play it once,

06:45savour the ending and know you just beat one of the finest, most cerebral horrors there is.

06:50And Number 1, Death Stranding. The game that inspired this whole list,

06:53there's something about Death Stranding's unique rollout of game mechanics, balmy story beats,

06:58creative characters and overall knitting together of the Strand genre that was the most consistent

07:03fun I had with a game across the 8th generation. Why? Because it's just so different. The appeal

07:09is so uniquely tied to pure gameplay. The setup of go-deliver stuff sounds banal and pointless on

07:14paper, but with the tactility of exploration and the fact you're overcoming a 3D space alongside

07:19thousands of other players sharing 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 Reedus. So,

07:28praise to this strange AAA indie project of an idea that Hideo Kojima is somehow continuing to

07:34explore. The point with all of this, though, is that Death Stranding keeps delivering new

07:38mechanics and revelations across its 50-plus hour runtime. Sidequests net you new gameplay

07:43boosting equipment, players expanding highways or building ziplines in their respective time

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

07:53and trophy data on PS4 shows less than 30% of people saw it through to its balmy conclusion

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

08:08a character called Heartman who has a cardiac arrest every two minutes, that was a journey

08:13we can never duplicate. Roll on, Death Stranding 2. And those are my picks for 8 video games that

08:19only work once. Let me know your favourites down in the comments below and please subscribe to

08:23the 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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