The younger an industry is, the easier it is for it to rapidly develop. There’s simply more room for it to grow, with major technological innovations never being too far out of reach. Case in point: In 2005, only 15 years ago, the PlayStation 3, Wii, and Xbox 360 hadn’t even launched yet. Most of us were still gaming in 480P. Twin stick shooters had been around for barely four years. The physics seen in Half-Life 2 just a year beforehand were considered witchcraft by console gamers. We were impressed if facial animations even remotely lined up with what characters were actually saying. Younger readers might look at the screenshots of the games described in this article and wonder if their graphics were developed on stone tablets.
Still, call me a boomer, but I would argue that the sixth generation of consoles (PS2, Gamecube, Xbox, Dreamcast) is still the zenith of gaming. That era of gaming hit the sweet spot that has managed to completely elude the following two generations. Games looked good enough to keep us engaged with the characters and world, but not so good that budgets were out of control. Risks were still acceptable, and risks are what tend to lead to innovation.
The Open World Of Shadow of the Colossus Was Considered Huge… At The Time
Speaking of which, when I think of the best games of that era, the year 2005 pops up quite often. So I figured, hey, 15 is a nice round anniversary year. Quite a few highly influential titles came out in 2005. Why not reminisce a bit?
Using their United States release dates, I rounded up three 2005 titles that not only set the bar for their time, but are still damn fun to play in 2020. For my fellow mid-20s boomers here for the nostalgia, and younger readers trying to learn some history, here’s a retrospective on some of the greatest games of 2005!
God of War
2005’s Kratos Was An Entirely Different Beast
A Capsule of the mid-2000s
The mid-2000s were, for lack of a better term, edgy times. This is the era that gave us such decidedly unwholesome games as Jak II, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within and Shadow the Hedgehog. All sequels that decided their bright and chipper predecessors didn’t have quite enough blood and swearing in them, and decided to redress the balance. Perhaps you can blame this on the mind-warping success of Grand Theft Auto III, but the GTA games always had a faint sense of parody and self-consciousness. These games… didn’t.
God of War was a brand new IP born right in the middle of this trend, and boy, did it show. Cast your current understanding of the gruff but understanding father to the side. Kratos circa 2005 was the exemplar of mid-2000s edge. This was not a character motivated by love for his son and wife.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=CV8rbKcAXqE
No, Kratos of old was motivated by rage towards his enemies, and everyone who had the poor fortune of being within a ten mile radius of him. Combat involved decapitating foes with his bare hands. Health pick ups weren’t gems on the ground, they were screaming innocents that he sliced in half. He gladly bedded strangers, coming and going with barely a nod or how d’you do. Yes, there were hints of regret and self-consciousness to the man, but they would quickly disappear the next time he stomped on someone’s head so hard it burst.
Though applauded at the time, this iteration of Kratos didn’t age particularly well. It’s funny reading old reviews of the game praising it for being ‘mature’, knowing that 13 years later, many of those publications would go on to blast the first trilogy in the series as being ‘juvenile’ and ‘crass’. Times move on, I suppose. God of War, as a series, has been nothing if not a trend-chaser, at least in terms of its thematic posturing. The series fit the 2005 understanding of the word ‘mature’. Once games like the Last of Us shifted our perceptions of what that word meant, God of War followed suit.
Kratos Squares Up Against Some Grunts
Setting the Stage for Sony’s Future Exclusives
Where God of War was the trend-setter was in its gameplay. Sony’s current AAA output features a lot of ‘jack-of-all-trades’ games; y’know, a little action here, a touch of platforming there, some stealth if you’re feeling up to it. Games that try to posture as seamless adventures, not broken up by traditional structures such as ‘levels’ or ‘stages’.
To me, it’s clear that God of War was one of the modern architects of this school of game design. It generously pulled its gameplay ideas from several of its contemporaries. The combat, a streamlined version of the highly-technical CQC of Devil May Cry. Platforming, a more automated iteration of what was found in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. The puzzles and layout of environments heavily evoked an older PS2 exclusive, ICO. Indeed, in 2004 interviews with IGN and Gamespot, all three of these games get name-dropped by the developers at some point.
The Game’s Bosses Were Spectacles In And Of Themselves
These were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect little game. I would argue that unlike much of Sony’s current library, however, God of War did manage to keep a tight focus on one element of its gameplay, namely the combat. The Blades of Chaos are two of the most ingenious weapons in gaming, and helped the game differentiate itself from its inspiration. They allowed you to stylishly twirl them around, tearing through trash mobs while barely registering their presence. They made Kratos feel powerful, as opposed to us being told that he’s powerful.
Add in the sweeping camera angles and expansive scope of the setting, and you had an experience that had truly earned the title of ‘epic’. It didn’t have the most sophisticated edition of any of its ideas, no. But it blended them all competently enough to hide their lack of depth, and delivered an all around satisfying journey.
Even if it WAS headlined by an angry shout-y man who was only really good at breaking things.
Resident Evil 4
Your Dashing, Loud Mouthed Hero
Capcom’s Magnum Opus
Flexibility is a virtue in the gaming world. I appreciate when developers realize that their series has started to stagnate, and reexamine what it was that had made their games fun in the first place.
Resident Evil might very well be the poster child of this practice. Just three years ago, the series needed to pull its head up from the pond of mediocrity that it was swiftly descending back into starting with RE5, and take it from the top. The result was Resident Evil VII, which despite its shift in perspective, was much closer in spirit to the original games with its tight map and focus on actually trying to scare the player.
But this was only a repeat of what had occurred in 2005. After a dozen of questionable sequels and spin-offs, the series was in a rut. The tried-and-true formula of fixed camera angles, stiff movement, inventory puzzles, and corporate conspiracies had long worn out its welcome. I genuinely believe that RE4 might have killed the franchise if it was nothing but RE3 + 1. No, it was time for change, and change it did. In a 2004 interview with IGN, producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi said as much, claiming, “We wanted to change the image of the franchise. We wanted to turn that all around.”
It’s funny how RE4 and REVII would take such divergent routes in their attempts to reinvigorate the series. REVII decided to focus on the ‘horror’ element of the action-horror series. RE4 famously took the ‘action’ path, featuring a Hollywood movie plot involving super-secret agent Leon Kennedy slaughtering his way through rural Europe to rescue the President’s daughter.
Silly, yes, but unlike its predecessors, RE4 was conscious of how trite its story was. It overplayed its dialogue just enough to clue players in that they weren’t supposed to be taking everything that seriously. Any exchange between Leon and his enemies tended to involve the former mouthing stiff bravadoes, while the latter would bluster indignantly. Not uncommon in action games, but there was something endearing about watching Leon maintain a ‘cool dude’ demeanor even as the threats escalated to comical levels. Whether he was being chased by an enormous zombie fish thing or a gigantic statue of his squeaky voiced adversary, he’d appear nonplussed, never dropping the facade.
RE4 Ratcheted The Action Up To 10
Literally Changing Our Perspective
Importantly, however, the zaniness of the game’s plot was grounded by the relentlessness of the combat. RE4’s main claim to fame in 2005, and to this day, was popularizing the over-the-shoulder chase camera that third-person action games continue to lean on. No longer did we have to rely on the vague indicators of targeting as seen in the older Resident Evil games. We were free of the overly generous aiming systems seen in Grand Theft Auto. RE4’s chase camera allowed players to carefully select priority targets within mobs, and accurately target specific body parts. The game took care to encourage such tactics, with enemies realistically reacting to being shot in the legs or arms.
Some say that RE4 has aged poorly, arguing that the game’s implementation of the chase camera pales in comparison to more recent fare. Perhaps so. The RE2 Remake has shown us being able to move while aiming doesn’t make combat any easier, as I once believed. The lack of quick weapon swapping gives the game a slight stop-and-start feel, as you had to constantly hit pause in order to bring out a different gun.
Yes, mechanically, the game has a couple of obvious wrinkles. Where RE4 continues to stand proud over most modern action games is in its imagination. How many games have you shoot at 500 iterations of the same faceless enemy soldier? Or have the token tank or plane section?
Harpooning Zombie Fish Is One Of The Early Setpieces
It’s actually impressive how despite having a relatively long runtime for this sort of thing (roughly 20 hours on a first playthrough), Capcom was able to stuff the game to the gills with interesting content. There’s an astounding number of enemies that call upon you to diversify your approach. Tense setpieces are only ever ten paces away, from chainsaw murderers early on to the aforementioned giant statue chase scene. Unlike previous RE games, the setting is in constant flux, never letting players rest on their laurels for too long. Leon starts in a remote village and somehow ends on an island besieged by enemies on all sides. There’s a bevy of unlockable weapons and items that serve to make the game ridiculously replayable. And that’s before mentioning the Mercenaries horde mode…
Forget 2005. To this day, I’d argue RE4 remains the exemplar of third-person action games. This wasn’t a landmark entry in the Resident Evil series, oh no. This was a landmark title in the history of gaming.
Shadow of the Colossus
A Little More Than You Bargained For
Blindsiding the Industry
If you were to put a gun to my head and ask me to name my favorite game of all time, I’d… probably start by babbling in fright. But after processing your question, I’d calm down and tell you that it’s Shadow of the Colossus. You remember what I said about being able to take risks? This game might be the ultimate example of gambles paying off.
2005, as mentioned earlier, was part of an era of overstated violence and sex in gaming. It took SotC coming out to remind everyone of the virtue of subtlety. The game starts with a very modest cutscene explaining your ultimate goal of resurrecting a mysterious woman. You have to slay 16 Colossi on behalf of some shady spirit entity. And for 99% of the game, that’s about all you’re getting.
See, the game’s name appears quite often in conversations of whether games are art or not, and this brevity is partly why. Despite what you may hear, I don’t actually think its that complicated or impenetrable a plot. It’s just that it tells its story through implication and audiovisual shorthands, not by hand-holding the player through endless dialogues.
For instance, when you come upon your target, they’re almost always just… chilling. They aren’t terrorizing the common folk. They aren’t ravaging the land. The empty open world serves to highlight how there is nothing that they could possibly be threatening, as well as providing crucial downtime in-between the loud, stressful battles.
Wander, the ‘hero’, is the aggressor. For his own gain, he goes well out of his way to slaughter the Colossi, who demonstrably aren’t doing anything wrong. When the player defeats their enemy, the game doesn’t play a triumphant Final Fantasy-style jingle. No, there’s a rather morose piece reserved for victories, and you have no choice to sit there and listen to it as the essence of the Colossi is released and absorbed into Wander.
Oh, and this essence visually corrupts him over the course of the game. Is there any question that what you’re doing is, at best, morally questionable? In a 2019 interview with Cane and Rise, director Fumito Ueda explained that this sort of tone was very much a deliberate decision, stating, “I started having doubts about simply “feeling good by beating monsters” and “getting a sense of accomplishment”. I tried thinking if there were any other choices for different kinds of expression, then ended up with such settings and rules as a result.”
You Probably Shouldn’t Be Here
Proving Art Can Be Fun
It all sounds very obvious when I lay it out like that. But see, the game doesn’t draw much attention to any of this. There’s no pixie in your ear telling you how wrong this all seems. The player has to intuit the big picture for themselves. Seems very artsy-fartsy, I’m sure. You can blame SotC for the following decade and a half of a certain type of indie game. The ones that believe that all you need to catapult to acclaim is a melancholy atmosphere and the implication that either the protagonist or the world itself is disturbed in some way.
SotC sets itself apart from that crop of games by remembering that you’re still allowed to have fun. The game eschews standard enemy encounters and just lets you get to the good stuff. A bold choice to make in 2005, and even now there are very few games that are brave enough to feature nothing but bosses (Furi and Titan Souls come to mind). Describing how the fights play out in this game is actually rather difficult, as they defy any genre’s conventions.
The fights against the Colossi call for puzzle-solving skills, sharp reflexes, and careful timing. The odds are so stacked against your tiny character that your wits are the only thing that you can rely on. Your foes almost all have different frames and levels of aggression, so there’s no consistent method of approach. Being able to assess how your enemy moves around the battlefield is key to seizing the advantage. You have to know when it’s safe to go on the attack, and when you need to fall back and preserve your grip gauge, lest you fall off and have to start from scratch.
Phalanx Is One Of The Game’s Most Jaw-Dropping Encounters
There are so few games that have such a dynamic player-enemy relationship. Intentional, no doubt. The exceptional nature of each Colossi makes the battle feel a little more personal, which makes the inevitable bittersweet victory all the more bitter.
Sadly, it’s not a particularly replayable game. Once you’ve figured out the enemies, there’s not much else to really aspire towards. You can try to beat your record in the time trial mode, I suppose. But if anything, that mode slightly cheapens the effect the game is going for. It transforms the Colossi from important notches in the player’s understanding of the story, to mere obstacles one must beat for a high score. It always felt slightly misplaced, if you ask me.
That aside, SotC is the pinnacle of games as art. Not because it’s necessarily the deepest or most complex story. It doesn’t have much to say about contemporary societal issues (unless you wanna stretch it to represent neoconservative foreign policy or something, which in 2005 might not have even been much of a stretch). It’s because it efficiently spins a tale for the player using the medium’s strengths. Through gameplay and audiovisual design, the game communicates so much without leaning on shortcuts. And again, it crucially remembers that you don’t have to sacrifice fun in the process.
2005 was an extraordinary year for the medium, and this article touches on the absolute top tier. I’m sure there are many, many more that you all love, so share your favorite 2005 games in the comments below!
