This is a blog where I plan on just generally giving my opinion on current and retro pop culture. Movie reviews, must have music playlists, and desert island survival video games will be common here, along with other random pop culture stuff that I come up with. Basically, this is my point of view on enetertainment, (hence, Pov's P.O.V.) So, I'll start off with the first in my series of segements I'm going to call my Desert Island Survival games.
Essentially, desert island survival games are broken up into genres (I.E. shooters, horror, platformers, strategy, etc.). In each genre, I pick my definitive game, the game where if I could only play one game in that genre for the rest of my life, that would be it. This is not limited by rating, system, age, or any other factor. Also, I will list the runner up and give reasons for that as well. Lets kick this off with one of the most popular genres:
First-Person ShootersThis is not an easy decision. The realm of shooting games is many and varied, and many games have rabid fanbases. For me, though, the game I would have to choose is an oldie but a goodie:
TimeSplitters 2 for the PS2. I know I'm probably going to get flak for this in a world of Halo 3s and COD 4s, and I can understand the surprise. It's an old game, with fairly dated graphics, a story mode with no tangible story, and no online play. But the beauty of this game is not in any of that.
This game's charm comes from it's masterful arcade play. It is the ultimate party shooter. Practically everything is customizable, from the weapon sets, to the plethora of characters, right down to the music track playing in the background. There are simply too many variables to name, not to mention the many game modes, ranging from standard deathmatch and CTF to territories to the brilliant Virus and Monkey Assistant modes. There's even an incredibly in-depth and complelling map maker mode. The size of your maps ends up being fairly limited if you want any exciting elements like turrets or teleports, and the AI is not the greatest at adapting to custom maps, but it works, and can be quite fun. And I could go on and on, about the well designed weapons, maps, and balanced characters, but I've already dragged on quite a bit here.
Add to all this well-polished (if sometimes unorthodox) shooter mechanics and you have the ultimate party shooter. There's nothing quite as satisfying as lighting a monkey on fire with a flame thrower with a buddy. The only let-downs to this game is that unlock some of the more exotic characters and maps, you have to play through the single player game, and even this isn't that bad, as the single player Arcade League and Challenge modes are surprisingly compelling, and provide a perfect learning curve to hone your skills. Only story mode falls flat on its face, which is a shame, because some of the cooler maps are only unlocked by completing the campaign, but other than that, the fun you can have with this title is never-ending. It's still one of my most played games, and rarely leaves my PS2's disc tray for more than a day or two at a time.
Runner-UpThis one is more of an expected decision. The original Halo, a launch title for the X-Box that became a cultural phenomenon and spawned two amazing sequels, not to mention several spin-offs in the works, is a classic, and deservedly so. It hones standard shooter mechanics to perfection, and the graphics are still acceptable today (not amazing, but acceptable, certainly better than many later original X-Box games), all while providing one of the best, most indepth stories in the game industry. It is a giant in the annals of game history.
