3. Papers Please
Papers Please is a game about passport control. Now before you disappear in a Wile E. Coyote-style cloud of your own dust to purchase such a thing, allow me to break down exactly why its one of the greatest achievements in modern gaming. Consequence is a fine thing in theory, but in practice actually getting an audience to genuinely feel the weight behind a decision is a tough one. Many blockbusters, Call of Duty being the most egregious example of this, will throw up plot-point after plot-point assuming that the very mention of any given revelation has the requisite punch to make you care, regardless of adequate setup. Papers reins everything back to the most human aspects of interaction, placing you in the shoes of a border-patrol agent, tasked with checking the documents and passports of those wishing to get through into the fictional state of Arztotska. The rub comes with the variety of people you will encounter. There are husbands travelling separately to wives, potential freedom-fighters who will pay you off if you let them through, and a plethora of situations you must react to in-the-moment, only to live with the consequences. For example the aforementioned husbands papers may be authorised, yet the wife is not. Do you split them up? Reconciling yourself with the reasoning that the system is in place for a reason? Should you decide to let the wife through anyway, the fine for such a thing could make your family go hungry for the night, resulting eventually in their death should you put the needs of the many ahead of the few for too long. Its these details and affectations that strongly guide you one way or another, and with twenty endings chronicling every decision you made along the way, Papers Please is one hell of a nerve-wracking experience that will stay with you long after youve completed it, providing the State doesnt execute you first.