Games with lasting emotional impact

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some stuff does this for me

psychonauts the first and second metal gear solid or ico and sotc for example did

and other stuff doesn't even though on the surface it looks like it would ( braid brütal legend limbo mgs 3 +4 ) ( still great games mind you ! )

so i haven't found a formular to determin if a game will do this or not

but i am actually exclusively seeking out those games that do have that strong emotional impact on me

and i am rather turned off when games dont end up delivering on that front

I can relate, obviously. and what Warby said too.

Not a lot of games made me feel like that tho, but there's a few. DeusEx (duh) MGS1, Mafia, and NOLF maybe.

I know that feeling but not so much with games. I get it after finishing tv shows that i really liked. It's a certain sadness because a) it's over and i would love to see more of it b) because i know i will never again experience the awesomness of that show for the first time.

I felt like that when mass effect ended =) The first half of the game is great but the second half (virmire - ilos - citadel) are mind blowing!

Yeah it doesn't happen much, but games that've left an impression on me are definitely Grim Fandango, Metal Gear Solid (all of them really, especially the legendary MGS3 though), Uncharted 2, and Beyond Good and Evil. Some rare examples of truly superb writing in games. We can only hope one day all games have such good writing.

Max Payne games definately spring to mind here...

A few like Half Life, Uncharted, Mass Effect and Republic Commando. I do get real feelings of attachment to some game universe's. Halo as well but, than tends to be more from the books. I find Dragon Age and Half Life 2 really great for just forgetting about everything.

Quote from D3ads

Max Payne games definately spring to mind here...

Oh fuck, how did I forgot about Max Payne, of ALL fucking games!

Quote from dux

Everytime I watch those films they leave a long lasting impression on me for weeks where it takes me a while to feel my normal self again. Am I making sense here?

I feel like this very often with films. I wish video games would give me the same feeling more often.

The last time I can remember feeling like this was when I played Limbo, both at the ending and during a part where I had to kill the large spider. For some reason I felt a bizarre sense of sadness when I had to "kill" it. It was heart-wrenching to remove its leg and then roll its body into the water pit. I had probably died (gruesomely) 3-4 times to the spider prior to that and it had done nothing but chase me down to kill me the entire game. It was just sad to see how helpless it was. I can't really make sense of the feeling or why I felt that way.

Also when I finished MGS4, which is strange because I don't really like the game that much in retrospect. Demon's Souls also made a lasting impression on me. I think that was just the catharsis of everything I had gone through to finish it.

edit: forgot about mafia 1 and super metroid

the absolute desolation of tomb raider 1. been searching for something like that experience in an sp ever since.

the follow-ups certainly didn't deliver.

What steppen said. More in series like Lost or Chuck or HIMYM.

Games - only Half-Life series maybe. Everything else is more meh meh, Crysis did a kind of good job but it was so dissappointing ending that it destroyed the nostalgic moments.

Hotel Dusk 215 did that for me, I'm looking forward to playing Again (the game again, not playing hotel dusk again...)

Seriously though, tv shows like allot of you said. After 200 + 45 min episodes you kind of can't help getting involved mentally.

prob only game that I think about ALL the time is Mass Effect 1

Shadowrun on the Genesis, it took me weeks of daily play to figure out how to get through the game's plot, with a lot of going on random runs and working stats. I nearly maxed out my stats by the time I gathered the courage to go explore the wilderness outside the city and further the plot, and then the story missions seemed to all quickly fall together and within a week I had reached the ending. I had spent so much time playing the game that I didn't want it to end, even though I loved the ending.

So I just replayed it. Ended up playing through Shadowrun like five or six times after that, getting the story down so it could be gotten through entirely, including doing side missions for cash and rep, to like four or five hours. I only stopped when I got a copy of Gunstar Heroes.

Morrowind!

Unreal too, but Morrowind, especially because of its sheer size and art style just sucked you in and kept you in its world for months.

It was the first real RPG I played and I had no clue what to do at all, which only increased its appeal to me. I had no idea what quests were, so the first thing I did was I dumped the tiny little piece of paper you get at the start of the game (main quest item) somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and I started walking. I walked all the way to the other side of the island, and then all the way around the volcano in the center which was a super huge distance especially considering you walk super slow as level 1. It took me 2 weeks of playing to do just that, and by the time I got back to my starting point I was level 30 or so

I then found out that there is a Main Quest and that you apperantly needed that piece of paper, so I went back to where I thought I had dumped the paper, and it was still there. Awesome game.

Bioshock, Diablo 1, Half Life series, AND MORE!

The STALKER games, especially the first one because of exploring the environment for the first time, Bioshock again just got immersed in the world, though I had to take a break half way through because the game play got a bit repetitive, and then of course the whole Half-Life series. Portal left me feeling actually ecstatic for a while after which is a bit different to wanting more, eventually though I gave in to realising playing again would never have the same effect again.