My Favourite Video Game: Cthulhu Dreamt

My Favourite Video Game is a guest feature from bands and artists where we set them a simple task… tell us about your favourite video game. In this feature, Ben Larson (Writer/Keyboards) from the metal melting pot, Cthulhu Dreamt accepts the challenge. You can read all about his choice below.

My favorite genre of video games is 2d and 3d platformers like Super Mario 3, Super Mario World, Celeste, Mario 64, and Ape Escape. My 2nd favorite genre is narrative-driven third-person action games like the new Tomb Raider trilogy, Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel’s Spider-man, and God of War.

So, logically, my favorite game of all time is a first-person shooter: Overwatch (with a 2 now). It’s the most fun I have ever had playing a video game. I have also never howled in the same visceral rage over anything else in my life, video game or otherwise. I’ve spent over 1,000 hours playing it since I discovered it in 2020 when IGN published an updated 10/10 review, and I can’t stop, even though sometimes I wish I could.

There are so many things I love about Overwatch, and I’ll start with the gameplay: the speed, impact, and energy of the gameplay are unmatched in any other game I’ve played. It’s crisp, it’s consistent, it’s fast, it’s visceral, it’s weighty, it makes my heart pound. Overwatch’s simple-but-deep approach to combat, fast pace, and constant action has kept me from drifting away to more popular shooters like Apex, Fortnite, and Valorant.

There’s something about the way Overwatch feels… The feeling you get clutching out a hard fought match with a well-timed ultimate is unlike anything else in the world. Blinking across the map as Tracer (my main hero), burning down an opponent, then “recalling” backward three seconds in time does something to me that no other game can. And that’s just one hero…

In Overwatch, every hero is incredibly different, despite the fact that the roster is over 30 heroes now. It takes dozens of hours to get good at one hero, but if you get bored or frustrated, switch to a different hero and suddenly you’re playing a completely different game. Mercy is an angel that flits around the map damage-boosting and healing and resurrecting allies with a magic wand… Wrecking Ball is an adorable hyper-intelligent hamster that rolls and swings around the map in a giant mechanical ball that knocks enemies around and flattens them from above and opens like a deadly flower with machine guns for petals…Genji is a shuriken-throwing cyborg ninja that can climb walls and sword-dash through enemies like a samurai and deflect bullets like Luke Skywalker.

And then there’s the way Overwatch weaves storytelling into everything. The game feels SO alive. From the art design to the map design to the voice acting, every detail in Overwatch is telling a story. Maybe it’s a story about grief or loss, maybe it’s a story about the fraught nature of technology, maybe it’s just something ridiculous and funny. Overwatch didn’t have to go so hard at storytelling to be a great shooter, but it did… I love that I can be in the middle of a fight and suddenly be laughing out loud because the Mei on my team just said, “Nice shot, me!”

There are also rad comic books and short stories and animated shorts that expand the story outside the game. Even if you hate video games (or just hate Overwatch because you want the popular kids to like you), I highly recommend their series of animated shorts. Have some tissues ready for some of them. I love the story of Overwatch. I love the idea that someday—despite our
shortcomings—humanity will finally get our shit together and become compassionate and empathetic and kind…that maybe we’ll find a balanced way to use technology that doesn’t destroy our planet…that maybe despite the danger that artificial intelligence poses, its development will lead to something beautiful and wonderful that no one could have predicted.

I love that my favorite hero—who happens to be the main mascot of the game—is a lesbian. I also
love that I didn’t even know she was until I read about her and her girlfriend in a comic book, which I think is a testament to how the development team has intentionally diversified the roster in an authentic way, rather than a performative one.

I’m probably too cynical to believe in the world of Overwatch, but I love spending time there.

Finally, my favorite thing about Overwatch has to be the music. It’s epic. It’s thrilling. It’s exciting. It’s scary. It’s perfect. It’s magic, the kind of magic I’m trying to capture on the OST for Cthulhu Dreamt’s upcoming TTRPG. I aspire to tell the kinds of stories Overwatch tells, to write music that moves people the way Overwatch’s music moves me.

Overwatch isn’t perfect. It’s often not even balanced. But it doesn’t have to be either of those things to be a fun, powerful, moving experience. And—to be a little vulnerable—it was one of the only sources of joy I had in my life when the pandemic destroyed my arts career. I don’t know what the future of Overwatch is, and I certainly know I can’t continue to play it as much as I’ve played it for the last few years, but I will always be grateful for the thousands of hours of fun, rage, delight, and joy it’s given me.

P.S. I feel compelled to mention the most important game I’ve ever played: What Remains of Edith Finch. You can play all the way through it in two hours and it will forever change how you think about video games, what you even think video games are, and how stories can be told in a video game. I played it years ago, and it’s still unusual for me to go more than a few days without thinking about it.

Links

Website | Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter