As I've grown older, the concept of "picking favorites" has kind of fallen out of my mind. Used to be I could say things with 100% confidence. "Earthbound is my favorite game." That doesn't seem to be the case anymore.
These days, when I hear or read "this is my absolute favorite game" or "my top five favorite books are...", I am left on the sideline wondering how one decides which is the Best. Clearly, this is not a matter of objectivity at all, so I will leave that for never-to-be-seen-again-in-this-post.
I have a very hard time consciously comparing things. I can't will myself to do it. Obviously, subconsciously I will sometimes think "X author is better at writing Y situations," "A game developer makes better games in the B genre," etc. But none of that really matters to me. I can try to compare things consciously, but eventually I just decide it's not worth the trouble. It is either enjoyable, or not. It is either worth experiencing, or not.
Certainly, there are a number of things which I hold near and dear to my heart, or what have you. Mother 3 (the sequel to my previous beloved, Earthbound), for example, is "one of my favorite" games. Yet, I can't actually, truly place it on any scale. It's not number 1, or number 100, or anywhere in between. It's just one of those games I will always love. In much the same way, I love the series of books known as Discworld, or the Indiana Jones movies (even the fourth one, which people hate for no good reason). I'll always eat a good pizza. Gnarls Barkley really tickles my groove bone. These are just facts of life. But there are so many more things I love, and I love them all.
Just as I have trouble deciding if one thing is better than another, I have even more trouble deciding which is the best. That is, I simply can't do it.
Granted, sometimes I'll get caught up in the moment. I know about a year ago, I would pretty frequently say exactly the following words: "Team Fortress 2 is my favorite multiplayer game." It really is a fantastic game,and I enjoy myself 90% of the time I play it. 5% of the time I'm loading maps. And the other 5% I was miserable before I started, and there's no saving me then. Every time I said this, I was excitedly talking about the game with friends and filled with emotion. I didn't put any thought into it.
But maybe that makes it truer than if I had taken the time to think about it? It is, after all, an entirely subjective statement, and the core of subjectivity is emotion - how we feel about things. If anything, though, such a statement is only indicative of how I feel at that point in time. It doesn't necessarily carry on past that moment.
Besides, those reactions occur quite frequently when I talk about the games I love. Super Smash Bros., Legend of Mana, Super Mario Galaxy, Day of the Tentacle, the aforementioned Mother 3... And any time I slow down and think about it, I remember all the great times I had playing any number of different games in any number of different genres.
Oh well. It's not like I'm upset about my apparent inability to pick a favorite. I'm-a just keep on, keepin' on, content with my gigantic umbrella of love.
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