I am an ESL English teacher, and I teach students from 1st graders to 6th graders. The Minecraft Story Mode games are phenomenal. I use them as a reward for classroom performance -- if they volunteer to speak in class, write their homework, participate willingly in discussions, then we spend the last 10 minutes of class playing Minecraft Story Mode. Not only does the entire class (even the girls) get completely immersed in the game, but we will often have in-class discussions about the choices we make, and the events that happen throughout. Ignore the reviews that trash the story, it's definitely geared towards kids 12 and younger... but for them, both games are an immersive epic journey... like mini-Odysseys... filled with excellent dilemmas and challenges that keep them thinking and pondering morals and ethics. As both a father and a teacher, I have thoroughly enjoyed playing and discussing these games with my students and my own children. They are absolute treasures. It is heartbreaking that there won't be any more after the demise of Telltale Games.
In the 3 decades I've been a PC/console gamer, there are three games that so completely and profoundly affected me that not only do I have fond memories of playing them, they invoke a borderline-reverent reflection on their perfection of experience in playing them. Those 3 games are: Half-Life, Super Mario 64, and Heroes 3. (And this from someone who bought and LOVED Heroes 1 and 2 back when they were first released.) Half-Life was THE game-changer in FPS: story-driven, epic in scope, ever-pushing the player in deeper-challenging scenarios... arguably bested only by Half-Life 2. Super Mario 64 was the ahead-of-it's-time proof that engrossing, balanced, highly-varied-function 3D platforming was possible... arguably never bested until Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii. And Heroes 3 is the pinnacle of TBS... standing strong on the shoulders of it's excellent predecessors... and arguably has never ever been bested, even by its successors. That's about all I can add to the many other 5-star reviews posted here. I agree with all of them.
