A list of games I could play at least once a year indefinitely without growing bored, if I had the time.
(Will probably grow as I think of more.)
Showing 1-8 of 8 items
Wind Waker has an incredible visual style (one I would like to see Nintendo use and evolve for another game, not even necessarily another Zelda game), gorgeous music, and a moving story. It's my favorite Zelda game of all time.
This one isn't even for the story (though I did like the story). Playing through on insanity difficulty is a heck of a lot of strategic fun. At a certain point, it ceases to be frustrating. It clicks with you. You just know that you should be taking out that Harbinger before he blows you out of your cover and you get riddled full of space bullets.
Being one of my favorite games of all time, entirely because of the beautiful art, fantastic writing and wonderful characters (because the gameplay has aged poorly, like every video game that tired to shoehorn together a system using something resembling the D&D ruleset), I'd be happy to experience that over and over again with different party members to keep things fresh.
Not only *could* I play this game once a year; it just sort of happens that I *do* wind up playing through it every year. I think Half-Life is the greatest video gaming memory of my pre/early teens. I was blown away by the technology, spending a lot more time with a friend that had the game because I needed to play it.
Obviously, if I thought so highly of Half-Life the First, I'd feel something just as strong for Valve's follow-up released years later; astonishing me again with its tech, this time with its unrivaled physics sandbox.
The graphics hold up, and the shooting is top-notch. Bullet-time done right. Plus, one of the nicest endings to a game series (until you factor in Max Payne 3) ever, all because of two lines. And then you beat it on its hardest difficulty level and see Mona live.
There are so many origin stories to experience, and great little changes to the way things play out because of who you are, that it's easy to get lost in a new character in Dragon Age: Origins; a game I've already played to completion 4(?) times now.
Pretty much everything else on this list is story-driven. Civ V is purely about strategy (unless you count the story of world history as story). For as much as I loved IV (admittedly, I came into that game way too late), I feel like the changes made to V (except the yanking of religion) serve to make it polished as hell, and a pleasure to play a pick-up match against the AI pretty much any time.