The Best Video Game Ever: “Bastion”

James K

James is a government policy analyst, and lives in Wellington, New Zealand. His interests including wargaming, computer gaming (especially RPGs and strategy games), Dungeons & Dragons and scepticism. No part of any of his posts or comments should be construed as the position of any part of the New Zealand government, or indeed any agency he may be associated with.

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20 Responses

  1. dhex says:

    i liked bastion, but there’s only two or three real choices in it. it’s pretty far down the ladder of choices and consequences in games.Report

    • Plinko in reply to dhex says:

      I would argue that’s the brilliance of the game. Games present choices to you all the time – in most games those choices are have little to no bearing on the story.

      In Bastion you spend the entire game making only those typical choices that have minimal consequence (bow or pistols for this map? Area ‘C’ then ‘D’ or the other way around) – but at when you are presented with those two big choices – you get to decide what kind of person the Kid is and what world he will live in.

      I am very much in James K’s camp – I had to force myself to pick different ones on subsequent playthroughs just so I can see those endings. (Actually, I’ve only picked two because I can’t bring myself to choose the ‘wrong’ first choice).

      Maybe that’s not so widespread – it would be interesting to know if that’s the case. If it is, I’d be really interested to know if people generally gravitate to the same opinion of what the ‘right’ choices are.Report

      • Kimmi in reply to Plinko says:

        You need to play School Days. Seriously, you need to play that game. The character starts out as a tabula rasa, but every choice you make (even the option not to make a choice) changes who he is, and what he will become.Report

    • James K in reply to dhex says:

      It’s not the big choices that define it, it’s the fact that leading up to the big choices is a game whose story and theme is choice. After all the story is about ubj bhe pubvprf pna unir qrinfgngvat pbafrdhraprf, naq jurgure vg vf cbffvoyr gb gehyl haqbar gur guvatf jr qb.Report

  2. Plinko says:

    Also, as long as I’m in the business of recommending Youtube links to video game music for these threads – the video of Darren Korb and Ashley Barret performing Setting Sail, Coming Home in the office is pretty darn good.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGxgFxF47XYReport

  3. Kimmi says:

    I haven’t had a “best game ever”… I don’t think I ever will.
    But I’m seriously tempted to review Brian Reynold’s game for this series.
    Because nobody’s done a strategy game yet, and one should be on the list.

    Then again, so should an adventure game.
    And someone has to have their “best casual game” (*votes for The Yawhg*)Report

  4. Brandon Berg says:

    It’s weird, isn’t it? That curiously powerful aversion we have to picking the “wrong” choice when there are no real consequences whatsoever. It would be interesting to put these sorts of choices into online games and analyze the results as a psychological experiment.Report

    • Brandon Berg in reply to Brandon Berg says:

      That was supposed to be in response to Plinko’s 3:50 PM comment. Posting comments with Opera Mini on a cell phone is a train wreck.Report

      • You use Opera Mini?Report

        • Brandon Berg in reply to Will Truman says:

          Sometimes. It does, for many use cases, clear the admittedly low bar that is not being as awful as Android’s default browser. Posting comments here is not one of them.Report

          • For what it’s worth, I have been pretty happy with Dolphin Mini. It has a nice gesture option which I can use to more easily go to the top and bottom of a page, which is helpful for The League. I use that and Chrome (for bookmarks, since Google is so stingy about letting me use GBookmarks any other way).

            On the other hand, some changes at The League have made commenting on my phone more difficult, regardless of the browser.Report

            • Brandon Berg in reply to Will Truman says:

              Huh. Didn’t know there were other options. I’ll try them out.

              And yeah, the new mobile site handles comments very badly. I switch to the regular site using the link at the bottom.Report

  5. Eric Mesa says:

    Bastion is an AWESOME game with an amazing soundtrack. You should buy the soundtrack whether or not you play the game. The vocal songs are so haunting and beautiful, especially the one that plays during the credits that they are worth the price of the soundtrack alone.

    If I may, allow me to include a link to my lengthy review of Bastion: http://server.ericsbinaryworld.com/blog/2012/01/06/review-bastion/

    If that review and the one on this page don’t convince you to play it – nothing will!Report

  6. Drew says:

    This is the most legitimate claim ever.

    Bastion is an incredible game. I’ve still been unable to make the first “wrong” choice. The rewards (emotionally) for making the right choice are just too high.Report