Anyone who knows me would also know that I play a lot of Guitar Hero. However, most people have no idea how bad I actually was when I played it for the very first time in 2006. I actually remember the first time I saw the game was the time when my cousin brought it over to my house one time. I remember watching him play, and at first, I thought it was weird. I didn't actually really give it a shot until just before he left, and I was playing on the Easy difficulty. But I failed on my first try. 15% complete. Easy difficulty. This game sucks. I'll never be good at this game.

So I made it my mission. I bought my own copy of the game for my PlayStation and I'd put every spare hour I had into the game. I'd soon get all the notes on Easy and Medium, but I couldn't play Hard just yet. I'm jumping a bit ahead here, but I remember it was in 2008 when I started to play on Expert. I went straight from Medium to Expert. Wow, what a step up it was. All these notes flooding my screen. Particularly on Guitar Hero 3, which was probably harder than the first two combined, with Raining Blood, One and Knights of Cydonia.

But anyway, this is chronological. We're still in 2006. At this time, I really just wanted a full-on game. Something that was simply (well, not simply, but) much more deep and complex than anything I've ever played before. Cue Final Fantasy VIII. Ever traded a video game with a mate? I practically got this for nothing. Literally, some kid from school wanted A Bug's Life so badly (for his younger brother), so he traded me his copy of Final Fantasy VIII (which I still have to this day), and I gave him my copy of A Bug's Life.

Trading A Bug's Life to get Final Fantasy VIII?
There's pretty much only one way to feel about that...

So, Final Fantasy VIII. It was the first game in the series I'd ever played, back in the winter of 2006. And the cast of characters resonated with me moreso than Banjo-Kazooie did, although I wasn't miserable at school in the 6th Grade. I had a great teacher, I was enjoying all of my classes, even Art, and even though I wasn't Mr. Popular, people actually enjoyed my company now. I changed. I'm not sure how to explain it, but before I played Final Fantasy VIII, I was someone else. That game changed me. I learnt something from it, like some kind of coming-of-age lesson or something.

Pokémon aside, I never really played RPG's as a kid, so this type of game was completely new to me. But man, was it good. One thing though, a lot of people don't like Final Fantasy VIII due to the draw system, the junction system and some other reasons which I can't remember, but I enjoyed it. The whole thing. I've beat the game twice. It's another game I really should get back into.

The entire cast, as I said, were all great in their own way. Squall was that lone wolf type character, something which I see myself as something of the sort. I do love companionship, but there's nothing like accomplishing something without help. I think the game had a fair amount of comical moments, several of which came from Zell and Seifer's interactions. Selphie was kind of that light-headed, free spirited breath of fresh air. That girl who just lit up the room. Oh, and this is without mentioning one Laguna Loire, undoubtedly one of the greatest characters in any Final Fantasy game.

Although I've always considered Gran Turismo 2 to be my favourite game of all time, Final Fantasy VIII has the second spot on that list. And not only that, it's on top of my other list of the greatest games of all time. If you were to ask me which game was my favourite game ever, I'd tell you Gran Turismo 2, but if you were to ask me what is the best game of all time, I'd tell you Final Fantasy VIII. No other game has had an impact on me quite like the one that Final Fantasy VIII did. A bit of a weird and hard to follow story, but it was fantastic. Of course, had I played, say, Final Fantasy VII first, my opinion would likely be for that to be the best game ever. That's my reasoning behind Final Fantasy VIII being the best game I've ever played.

I really enjoyed Final Fantasy VIII, but I wasn't done yet with my quest to find more games that were both entertaining, a challenge, and immersive. I picked up three new games at this time (actually, they were all second hand), Tony Hawk's Underground, FIFA Football 2005 and SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs, all for $5 each. I played the first three Tony Hawk's Pro Skater titles and loved them all, but Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 took the series in a new direction. Backwards. Underground kept the open-world(ish) exploration but added a bit of polish and had a much better Story mode. However, it's not as accessible as the first three games. I can pick up Pro Skater 3 and play it whenever, for however long I wanted.

FIFA 2005 was great. Nice, cheap soccer game. Did its job. FIFA 06 felt too weird when I saw it (FIFA 07 wasn't out yet), so I went back. Great move. It was much cheaper and played much better. Not too much to say about it. I played it a fair bit but there weren't too many memories of it. Not enough to warrant a paragraph on this blog. SOCOM, on the other hand, was so cool. I loved the whole stealth aspect. I could take my time, kill the enemies silently. Unlike the run and gun feels of games like Call of Duty or Halo, time was on my side. If it took one hour to complete a mission, who cares? There's no better feeling than lining up this guy and silently taking him out, without a trace.

But yeah, all in all, I'll remember 2006 as the year when I turned from playing kiddy-type games like Banjo-Kazooie and Super Mario 64 to hardcore games like Final Fantasy VIII or SOCOM. Not that the first two are bad games, like I said, in 2004 I played the absolute crap out of Banjo-Kazooie, but before 2006, RPG and action types didn't really appeal to me. So basically, I'd play both, not just platformers and racing games. Games were really getting somewhere and I was enjoying just about everything I played.

What do you think is the greatest game of all time? Let me know in the comments section below.

Contents:
Part 01 | Part 02 | Part 03 | Part 04 | Part 05 | Part 06 | Part 07 | Part 08 
Part 09 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15