The Jeff Gerstmann Hall of Fame 009 (Patreon)

Law of the West (C64, 1985) | The Jeff Gerstmann Hall of Fame 009

This game was always on the list I keep in my head of "games we need to talk about someday," but after it came up on a stream a few weeks back, it jumped right up to the head of the line. 1985's Law of the West is probably a visual novel from the days before we called them "visual novels." It's not the deepest game in the world, but the dialogue trees and options at your disposal did a great job of making the possibilities seem way larger than they probably are. As a kid, this game felt totally different every time you played it, whether you were sweet-talking the criminals into submission or gunning down everyone in sight... it was up to you. I can't tell you how many times I popped this C64 disk into a drive and played through it. It may be more load time than video game, but this is great game that I still probably pop in once a year or so... thankfully emulation can help with those load times these days.