The best games ever.

[Wyrm]

I'm surprised nobody's listed games like King's Quest, Space Quest, or any of the other old Sierra adventure games. I did see some of the LucasArts ones listed though. My somewhat random list of games not mentioned already:

Wofenstein 3D - The game that started it all. No, it wasn't the very first FPS, but it was the first one that had you shooting people who bled, etc.

Terminal Velocity - This game was amazing when it came out. The completely wide open planets for you to go wherever you wanted to in were just great.

Commander Keen - I don't know anyone into videogames who's never heard of this game.

Other Apogee classics: Hocus Pocus, Duke Nukem 1&2, Halloween Harry, etc.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

Doom 2 - Dual Barrel Shotgun. 'Nuff said.

Breath of Fire series - Another less-than-FF-popular series that I've really enjoyed. Unfortunately, with the lack of any hint of it at TGS and the sales figures of the last game, it doesn't look like there will be many more of these games, if any at all. (On a similar note: there are a lot of rumors that the same thing will be happening with Suikoden: that Suikoden VI (not yet announced, but it's widely assumed that it will be made) might be the final installment)

Castlevania series - I've only played Symphony of the Night and Lament of Innocence, but I'm very impressed (LoI is one of my favorite PS2 games, if only for the battle system; a hero with a whip as a weapon instead of the conventional sword is just plain awesomeness)

Sonic the Hedgehog series

Mario series - I never really got into Mario the same way I did for Sonic, but that's because I owned a Genesis for most of my early gaming days and had bitter rivalries with the people who owned a SNES over which was the better system. Thus making me biased against Mario a bit. I've enjoyed all the Mario games I've played and don't have anything bad to say about the games themselves, but the Mario/Sonic rivalry still exists. Even though Sonic games are now being produced on the Nintendo systems...

Now we all know that games are constantly getting better

I really hope you're joking there. Maybe in terms of graphics, but most plots keep getting thinner and thinner, characters are as shallow as the 3" kiddie pool, and most games are treating sound and music as little more than an after thought. Xenogears was leaps and bounds over FF7 despite it's lowe standard for graphics. I enjoyed FF7 and other graphical wonder games (even FF10 had some high points - a.k.a. Blitzball). I completely immersed myself in games like Xenogears, FF6, Suikoden I and II, BoF 3, etc.

except for blizzard which seems to be years behind in the graphics department

That's somewhat humorous, since I had always thought of Blizzard as one of the leaders in the graphics department, at least on the PC. The Diablo and Warcraft CG movie sequences were, for their time, incredible. Although, they were a few years back, and I can't really say anything about their newer additions (no WoW for me) as I haven't even bothered getting the expansion for W3.

Suikoden I and II (III and IV aren't bad, but I and II were great)[right][snapback]89660[/snapback][/right]

You're just saying that because Pesmerga wasn't in 3 or 4. Speaking of which, I hope he shows up during V, as that's supposed to take place around the same time as I + II (slightly before, I think, but Georg Prime from II is a confirmed appearance). Who knows, even Luc might wind up making a cameo appearance.

On an aside, I still consider Doom to be the best FPS ever. It wasn't dragged down by the developers trying to tell a story (seriously, I play an FPS game to shoot stuff, not listen to dialogue and learn about people - that's what RPGs are for), make the game 100% realistic (I like being able to carry around every weapon I find without having to drop one just to make room for another; and no, I don't like having teammates get in my way or run the risk of having an instant game over if I let some stupid npc die), or constantly try to mix genres (if I want to play a sneaking game, I play Metal Gear Solid; if I want to play an RPG, I've got my Playstation; when I want to play an FPS, I want to shoot stuff without going through hours of dialogue and customizations just to shoot one thing and go through the whole process all over again).

[Jester]

Wizardry 7: Crusaders of the Dark Savant.

The rest, I'm pretty much with Bolty. Tie Fighter forever!

(And, thanks once again for opening my eyes to Star Control 2... that really is the best game ever, isn't it?)

-Jester

[Rinnhart]

Tribes.

[Swiss Mercenary]

That's somewhat humorous, since I had always thought of Blizzard as one of the leaders in the graphics department, at least on the PC.  The Diablo and Warcraft CG movie sequences were, for their time, incredible.

Leaders in graphics? Don't make me laugh.

CG sequences != game graphics.

They have good CGI people, but the graphics engines are... Let's just say... Diablo 2 running at 4 fps, with 30 skeletons on the screen? :rolleyes:

I haven't even bothered getting the expansion for W3.

The pre-rendered sequences were by and far, dissapointing.

A short introduction, and then not a single CG cutscene until the end. Now, the quality was good, but the length was quite abysmal.

[degrak]

I wonder how many times we've done a thread similar to this. I also wonder how many people mix coffee with their cereal.

Baldur's Gate series, Diablo series, and Heroes of Might and Magic series I had the most fun playing.

But Torment I feel is the best game mainly because its storyline (and the way you interact with it) is probably better than that of any book or movie I've experienced.

[Minionman]

Played several computer games, mostly liked them al fine, here's the ones that kept going for several years:

Civilization 2/civ 2 test of time: the joys of building a 50, or in the case of test of time games, 100, city empire and slowly crushing everyone in your path. I like the way research and city building were as, or more, important than combat, and a lot of the fun from this game was building cities and the empire to work as wel as possible. It was always fun to try and get clarge amounts of cities irrigated, mined, and roaded as fast as possible, while still having production left over for militray, and getting improvements without spending too much for research. Test of time gave multiple map games, which was great, I got more space to settle.


Diablo 2: building up the characters kept me going for three years, though eventually I got bored of the item runs and experience runs.

Lords of magic: I'm not sure why I like this game so much. The combat is pausable, so no looking for hotkeys for multiple spellcasters. Armies have a maximum size, and units gain levels with higher leveled ones being a lot more powerful, so you pget the best units for their jobs, plus the way villages and fealty let you mix and match units from different groups. I've been playing this off and on over the last four years.



Guild wars is making a run for the money right now.

[Doc]

Majesty.

I'm melting!"

[Kylearan]

Hi,

as with most "best ever..." lists, they are dominated by recent products. So I'd like to add some older titles which I feel are superior to most modern games despite having no 3D worlds, cut-scenes or digitized speech. (My feeling that the games of olden times are better than modern ones might be an indication that I'm getting old...)

M.U.L.E...: An economical game from 1983 with support for up to 4 players. Highly original game concept, well-balanced game mechanics, loads of fun!

Nethack: A descendant from the 70's game "Rogue", and the ancestor of all Diablo-like games. I still find it superior to Diablo in many ways, although it has nearly no graphics. Hardcore only, and its fantastic complexity doesn't just come from millions of items and skills, but from more original things. You have random dungeons, monsters, and treasure. You could polymorph into a dragon, lay eggs, and have baby dragons as pets. You had a wand of wishing. For us variant scum, the game supports different kinds of variants in the form of conducts. And the best: You can die in a LOT of different ways, more than you could possibly imagine, and trust me: You will!

Elite: Modern games like Morrowind get praised for their non-linear, open gameplay - Elite was the first game I encountered which was completely open, and it was published in 1984 already! It had 8 galaxies with IIRC 2000+ stars each. You could trade goods, fight pirates (or the police...), buy ships and equipment, and the docking sequence is still a classic!

The Bard's Tale: Hack'n'slash and old-school puzzles at its finest. The most memorable fight to many was the encounter with the 396 berserkers in Harkyn's castle. You would give orders to your party members (usually: attack, attack, attack, cast "mibl", cast "mibl", cast "mibl"), then walk away and drink a coffee and read a good book. Then you would come back after 15 minutes or so to see if your front-line fighters had survived the first round of combat and how many berserkers had died to your spells, and would initiate the next round...

Archon: Chess with enhanced rules, fantasy monsters, spells, and action fights. A classic.

Master of Orion: The best space strategy game ever made!


For non-computer games, I had made a list of my favorite board games over here at Realms Beyond; feel free to add some!

-Kylearan

[pakman]

Strcraft - I play it regularly with my friends

HL 1 and 2

Counter Strike

Day of Defeat

Deaus Ex

Morrowind

Thief 1, 2, 3

NWN +official expansions

I have played all 6 Commander Keen games (at least I stopped at 6)

Halo multiplayer is fun, but the SP is repetitive and boring. There is one part in the game where all you do is go across bridges and through identical hallways like you're in an infinite loop

And a bunch of others that have already been mentioned, and I don't feel like repeating.

[Guest]

Did you read the list?

I think a good many were not recent. Not that theres any problem with your choices.

[jahcs]

A few of these games made the list because they ended up dominating so much of my time they had to be good, right? :huh:
In no particular order:

Civilization series
Diablo Series
Baldur's Gate Series
Most of the Police Quest series
Tie Fighter
Warcraft II (haven't played the others)
Champions of Krynn
Black Hawk Down (multiplayer)
Star Wars Rebellion

Tetris
Goldeneye
Perfect Dark
Metal Gear Solid
Legend of Zelda: A Link from the past (SNES)

Honarable mention:
Silent Hunter
Wing Commander Series
Sim City
Command and Conquer Series
Doom

[Urza-DSF]

My god, I cant believe this thread has gone this far without mentioning:

Fallout 1 and 2
The MechCommander: Mercenaries Series
Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2
The Lucasarts Adventure Games (Day of the Tentacle, the Monkey Island series, Indiana jones and the fate of Atlantis, Sam and Max Hit the Road, etc.)
Black and White

Anyone who hasnt at least checked these out...well, your definatly missing out

[jahcs]

The MechCommander: Mercenaries Series
[right][snapback]89770[/snapback][/right]

I've played the Mechwarrior and Mech Commander series of games. They are fun. I tended to play through the campaign once, customize a few mechs for the arena, and then put the game up on the shelf. For me to put the games onto my list I had to have gone back and played the game again and again and again.

As for the other games you've mentioned, I haven't had the pleasure.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

Did you read the list?

Yes.

I think a good many were not recent.[right][snapback]89755[/snapback][/right]

You're right, maybe my use of the term "recent" was a bit strange. Computer gaming started to become popular and a social phenomenon outside universities in the 1980s, with "homecomputers" like the C64, Apple II, Amiga etc. becoming affordable to people outside university and industry. That's when my computer gaming history started as well. I noticed that most games listed in this thread are games from the 1990s or later, so I felt a good third of gaming history was left out.

Now on second thought, I agree that games from the 1990s couldn't really be called recent, though. ;)

-Kylearan

[Jim]

Hi,

RPG

Diablo & the Hellfire add-on [Why did so many Love Diablo & Not Hellfire :blush: ]

Diablo 2

Dungeon Seige 1 [I will most likly buy DS2]

MMORPG

Asheron's Call 1 [I beta tested it, I'm still playing AC1, I tried the rest this is the BEST :D ]

RTS

Starcraft/BroodWars

CFS

USN Fighters 97 & WWII Fighters [Combat Flight Sims by Janes]

Adventure

MYST 3 Exile

FPS

Quake
Unreal
Deus Ex

[Armin]

Planescape Torment - undisputed #1. Nothing even comes close

Fallout 1+2 (I even liked the much debated Fallout:Tactics)
Baldur's Gate 1+2 (with expansion packs)
Master of Magic - better than Civilization for me
Diablo 1 - and ONLY part 1
The classic Lucasarts adventures (yep, almost all of 'em :P )
Neverwinter Nights - Most bang for the buck ever, incredible user made mods
KOTOR (ONLY part 1 - and mainly because it copied so many features from Ps:T)
Starcraft
Wing Commander Series (For me that also includes Privateer)
Champions/Death Knights/DarkQueen of Krynn
Freespace

[Kevin]

Hmm what games do I still play? What games to do I consider great?

M.U.L.E. (mostly through an emulator but my old 128 still works). - As mentioned this simple game is still a blast the AI is no challenge unless they get lucky but since you can have 4 humans playing it that doesn't matter.
Elite (Yes I do fire this one up now and then) - I still would like to have more than just line models for the ships but the game play is still good enough for me to play it. And I still lame out and get a docking computer early though that doesn't help if the police are after you. :)
Master or Orion 2 - The original is still better but I play two more simply because of the UI. I hate scrolling the galaxy in one.
Tie Fighter - Sometimes I just want that flying for the empire feel. Though admittedly I've been firing up X-Wing vs Tie Fighter more for that.
FreeSpace - I like the story of the game. I've even managed to take out the first Shivan you encounter, yes before the new weapons and shields, you can do it, though it takes a long time. :) Lately I was playing the total conversion to the FS 2 engine though. Both the FreeSpaces are just better space combat games then the Tie Fighter stuff, I only play those for the universe they are set in over Freespace.
FreeSpace2 - A sequel where they didn't break what worked and what they added was generally better. I do still skip some of the Nebula missions when I play back through, and this last time I went from hard mode to easy to get my medal for making sure the Aquatane was healthy enough in the help us test the stealth fighters mission, even cheating the load out I was having problems. I have taken all 4 beams on the Sathanas on the highest difficulty though.
Starcraft - Jim Raynor rocks. :) There was actually a decent single player story and there are good maps for multiplayer. Heck I've even managed to make (though I've lost them) some good co-op vs the CPU maps where you got a sustained challenge the whole game.
World of Warcraft - It gets more play time than anything else right now.
Myth - The Fallen Lords - Though with my Voodoo cards dead and no luck with a Glide wrapper on my Ti4200 I can't get it working with acceptable graphics anymore. (though I haven't tried in about a year) :( But the uniqueness of this RTS was just great and still entertaining today.
Diablo - Yep still fun today.
Halo - Yes a console game oh noes!
Thief - Though with the some of the save bugs it's got issues playing on modern systems. :(

[Pesmerga]

You're just saying that because Pesmerga wasn't in 3 or 4. Speaking of which, I hope he shows up during V, as that's supposed to take place around the same time as I + II (slightly before, I think, but Georg Prime from II is a confirmed appearance). Who knows, even Luc might wind up making a cameo appearance.

I'll admit, I was a little bitter when Pesmerga didn't show up in 3 and 4. I felt as if the one character from IV could have been him. Who knows. Ok, really bitter.

Regardless, I'm seriously looking forward to V, mostly because of the time period and the fact that they're moving back to 6 fighters, instead of 4.

Also, Suikoden Tactics looks like it might make up for IV's lacking storyline (if you are a fan of Tactical RPGs, which I am)

[Dozer]

Top 4 (In no particular order) chosen by hours logged:

Diablo II
Baldur's Gate II(The ultimate single-player experience. I played through the game, with all the sidequests and the expansion, at least four times, and I can still come back and have fun with it. Game design at its absolute finest.)
Starcraft
World of Warcraft (and I've only had it since July! gee, I wonder why my grades have gone down ;x)
Counter-Strike (my team was brutally killed and murdered by WoW, within a timespan of a week)


Another 3 (In no particular order) chosen by memorable game expriences:

the Metal Gear Solid series (another example of game design, and storytelling, at its finest.)
God of War (play it now.)
Civilization III (fun if you play for 5 minutes or 5 hours, one turn or 100. And awesome when the internet is down :D)

[whathuh]

I wonder how many times we've done a thread similar to this. I also wonder how many people mix coffee with their cereal.

Baldur's Gate series, Diablo series, and Heroes of Might and Magic series I had the most fun playing.

But Torment I feel is the best game mainly because its storyline (and the way you interact with it) is probably better than that of any book or movie I've experienced.
[right][snapback]89722[/snapback][/right]

Well now, i'm sure it's a lot. But since WoW came out, nobody has done it, so I thought I'd start a new one.

I also feel this thread has gone crazy with sub-par games. I meant games that were simply AWESOME for their time. While d2 was an awesome game for me, diablo was so much better. D2 was simply a remake of d1 with a whole lot more options, but the classes were still not balanced. Doesn't change the fact that it's still an addictive game, but not one of my "greatests".

I suppose the BG series should go under this title as well, but I haven't play PS:T yet, so I need to wait until i get into that game before I decide whether BG or PS:T deserves this title.

I've heard Metal Gear solid was a truly incredible game, but I've never played it, sorry.

Nor have I played Deus Ex. Gotta get me some of that.

Halo, while I don't have it or an xbox, is also a best game ever, since it is crazy addictive, and IMO completely knocked out all other fps games out there simply because of its multiplayer capabilities. Halo 2 was disappointing, and I like Halo 1 better, but then again, I haven't played much of either.

I suppose Quake needs to go in there somewhere, but I never got into it, so it's not one of my great games. It just had way too many shades of brown.