Slashdot Mirror
Games That Keep You Coming Back?
The Guardian Gamesblog kicked off a great discussion on their site, talking about games that just keep pulling you back in. Games that, even if you've played through them once, you just have to pick them up again. eToyChest and Kotaku both have related threads. So, what about you? What are some videogames that, even years later, you just have to play through one more time?
For me, besides my ongoing fascination with World of Warcraft, Star Wars Galaxies, and Everquest II, there aren't that many that needed more than one playthrough. Both Half-Life titles, of course. I needed to play HL2 just to get everything I missed the first time. Jedi Academy and System Shock 2 required additional plays to try the game at a different angle. Similarly, I've played through the Diablo titles more than once each, as there's just so much clicking to be had. I somehow managed to avoid the gravity well of Civ4 for the most part, but Civilization 3 was almost the only game I played in college. Good times.
The Legend of Zelda
Wasteland
Nethack on alt.org
Star Control II
BZFlag is one of those free multiplayer games that keeps pulling me back in almost every day. The competitiveness of the game coupled with the community is hard to beat. And it's open source to boot!
...It has to be the Zelda games... almost every one is a classic, my personal favourite has to be Ocarina of Time, its so fantastic.
The newest game to captivate me like this is Resident Evil 4, its a classic, getting to shoot anything with a shotgun, brill.
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
TEAM FORTRESS CLASSSIC
I'm still playing the same map (Dustbowl) over and over again after four years. To me, that's a testament to great game design
One of the koulest games around for linux, eighties style.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
Even though I'm a geezer, I find games like Vice City and San Andreas to be supreme. Why is that? Because I can easily edit the vehicle properties, for instance. I like having Cabbies that can go 800 km/h, while cop cars and paddy wagons that top out at 2 km/h. Even modifying the landscape is fun to do. People have added additional islands to Vice City, for instance.
Then again, card games are also always entertaining, and keep me coming back for more.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I still haven't got to the last level :(
I think most people will agree on this game. I play a lot of games, most of them once through (I'm not a huge FPS/online player, so a trip through the single player game and I'm usually done). The addictive thing about Diablo is the play mechanic... I was actually done with the game, and didn't have a desire to keep playing it, but for some reason I had to go through and play it again anyways.
X-Com was a brilliant blend of strategy and role-playing elements that manages to make every game exciting and different.
:)
Fallout 2 was amazing -- a huge world, violent weapons, and intensive role-play action. Anything post-apocalypic gets marks up from me
NESkimos -- Best. Nintendo. Metal. Ever.
"Holy shit! A talking muffin!"
In my experience, I've never wanted to replay a single player game I beat over and over again. For me, it's the multiplayer games that keep me coming back.
I just recently stopped playing Medal of Honor: Allied Assult online, and that came out years ago. C&C Generals had a similar affect on me.
is the one game I've been playing for more than a decade, on and off. No fancy graphics, but great gameplay. Yeah, cool slick graphics and corresponding sound is nice, but no substitute for great gameplay.
Yo, bud... I've got some Evercrack here. By one hit, get one level free...
I just love this game. Probably one of the best RPGS EVER. I'm also playing Civ 2 and Civ 4 on the side.
"It's not stealing if you don't get caught!"
X-COM UFO DEFENSE was my all time favorite. I even played it a year or two ago. I wish they would re-release it with the exact same A.I. only with AWESOME graphics. That would be great.
You guys are probably too old to remember some of these classics, which I still play occasionally today:
Crystal Castles (Rocks)
Omega Race
The original Star Wars, with the vector graphics
Xybots (this one isn't too old)
Continuum: it's like crack!
Only problem is the noobs these days with their artificial lag that think they're "leet"...
As far as crack-like addictive quality goes, I still have to play through Diablo 2 once more about every year or so. Of course, Civilization is right up there as well.
I'm going to get to go first one of these days and win for once.
Super Smash Bros: Melee has gotten way too much usage out of my GameCube. I still haven't collected all the trophies and I've owned it for 3+ years.
The fallout games would have to be the ones that keep me coming back. There was just something about that retro-futuristic wasteland that hooked me.
Hey, ALL games would be so much better if the main character was wearing a goose outfit.
Giants: Citizen Kabuto.
I'm also hoping that Planet Moon will do a sequel of some kind, but alas it seems they're more focused on the PSP these days.
"Half Life". You know you had to complete it a second time with just the crow bar!
Jonathanjk.com
Pong is the only game for me.
Creating D&D characters is somewhat addicting. When I had the ability to create an entire party of characters and run them through a game, I had an absolute blast.
One of my favorite things to do was when I had like a whole day of free time, I'd create a new party, and run them as far as possible. The first time they died, I restarted with a new party. I still have the urge to play that game to this very day, but I keep putting it off in favor of other games.
MMO's will probably top the list of these games, if they are being rated fairly. Even though they are boring, repetitive, and bland, for some strange reason they keep sucking people back in.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
Starcraft... I just love slowly spreading out and dominating a map methodically.
Tetris... I love tetris anyway, but in Tetris Worlds there's a mode called "Fusion" that just keeps me coming back. I like trying to fill the screen with as many fusion blocks as I can. It's got this meditative thing going for it.
Armagetron... Simple fun.
Mahjongg... Another meditative game.
"We shall grapple with the ineffable, and see if we may not eff it after all." - Douglas Adams
Every 6 months or so I spend a few hours with Ski Stunt Simulator. It's difficult to learn but addictive as all get-out when you do.
X-Com: UFO Defense is absolutely amazing, too. The best way to play is to disallow saving during combat (or the temptation is to save/reload like a bitch when something bad happens). You'd be surprised how attached you can get to your team.
Super Metroid Castlevaia Symphony of the Night Vandal Hearts
I like Joust. 1982's finest
Deus Ex - try not killing anyone and then by killing EVERYONE
Red Alert 2/Yuris revenge with the eagle red mods.
As for star control, nerd!
Lux and Pax Galaxia, both distributed by SillySoft, are two simple games that I have spent countless hours playing. They are simple enough to just jump right into, but the gameplay is surprisingly deep and enjoyable. Highly addictive!
This may seem like a sales-pitch, but I am not affiliated in any way.
Ronald said nothing. He flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse, and rode madly off in all directions.
Final Fantasy 3(6) and Chrono Trigger. Freakin classic. Better than any of the other crap RPGs being peddled nowadays.
Chicken fried butter sticks? Do
Best game ever. Bar-none
No one has mentioned SimCity. I've played every iteration, including the PS version and they're ALL amazing.
... and Deus Ex (played that one on my last four computers). Both great games with extreme replayability, since they offer so much customzing options for your character. And, what's more important, those choices actually matter in terms of gameplay and are not purely cosmetic, resulting in sometimes radically different games.
Don't get me wrong, I like (for instance) the Splinter Cell series, but if you don't sneak in the levels where you're supposed to sneak, you simply lose the game; when I've made it through such an obstacle course once I see no motivation to do the exact same thing again the next time through.
-- Language is a virus from outer space.
Street Fighter 3 Third Strike
:)
Mr Do's Castle
Pacman
Mrs Pacman
Garou: Mark of the Wolves
Kung Fu
Mario Brothers (the two player original)
Joust
StarCraft
RC ProAM
Escape from Robot City
Gauntlet
Paperboy
Any Neo Geo or CSP1/2 arcade games.
Mame rules so much. Thank you world for Mame
Call me old-fashioned, but at least once every year or two I fire up Karl Buiter's Sentinel Worlds and play through it from beginning to end. I played it first in 1989 in glorious CGA, sharing the keyboard with my dad for hours every night. My life has shifted dramatically since then--family members have died, jobs and homes have come and gone, but when I sit down and start up that game and hear the PC-speaker music start up, it's like I'm eleven years old and I've come home.
Master of Orion 2.
MOO3 completely destroyed any fun in playing.
Doom. It's a simple game, lots of new maps and addons are still being made for it, and with source ports such as ZDoom or Doomsday, a whole new life is being breathed into it.
NWN has held up for me due to the large number of player created modules, some of which are quite good. It's like a different game each time you play it, and as a nice bonus, it works on Linux and Mac.
Nethack :-)
DeusEx
Tetris
Frontier: Elite 2
M.U.L.E
Several Sid Meier games like Railroad Tycoon, Pirates and Civilisation (Civ4 doesn't have proven its replay value up until now)
All old LucasArts adventures, even though I almost know their storyline by heart
UnNetHack: NetHack Improved!
Monkey Island II is the game I play the most. I normally play through at least one Monkey Island game every year, I just love the humor (I like the first two parts the most but enjoy III and IV as well).
Maniac Mansion II: Day of the Tentacle is also one of those games I replay quite often. Like Monkey Island, the humor is just great.
Too bad Sam and Max II was cancelled and that the gaming industry doesn't produce good adventures (especially humorous adventures) any more... at least I haven't heard of any.
I keep trying to get past that last boss. The AI is eerie. It's almost like a human is behind it. The team that did the text messages and VOIP should be commended. I almost think it could pass a Turing test.
Diable (1 and 2)
Civ (the original)
Masters of Magic
Masters of Orion
XCOM (most of them)
Continumm (formerly Subspace)
Heroes of Might & Magic
WoW
Most of them are games from the ealry 90's and their sequels.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Diablo 2 (is this old enough to qualify I put it down and pick it up almost annually)
Fallout 2 Nothing better than trying a role that I've never played yet.
Masters of Orion series I even fired up MOO on DOS Box the other day just as sweet as it always was.
Frontier: First Encounters Holy crap do I wish I could get x2 working or that they would release Elite 4. That series has always led with graphics, unstructuredness, and fun.
X-Com--Fighting my way to mind control and then making the etherials do my bidding. I'll never forget how scared I was doing the first nighttime terror mission with the etherials I think I broke and ran with half my crew after the town was completely destroyed.
Super Mario Brothers My sister and I still fire this up when we go home for the holidays.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
If what you like out of video games is competition, nothing beats CS. It's so easy to organize 5v5 matches, hop in a server with some friends and it's as if you're in a high stakes shootout with all the tension. There's always TONS of people playing, always tons of competition, it's no wonder it's the top competitive video game around.
Think of it this way, why do you go back and play the same sport you like over and over. Because you like to compete in basketball, or football or whatever. Same thing with CS, it's all about competition, and it'll keep you coming back.
P.S. If you're worried about cheaters, there's many communities that are organized with the specific goal of stopping this threat with sophisticated anti cheat software and admin support.
Check out ESEA CEVO NEL CAL GGL
Gunstar Heroes (Genesis, Treasure) - It just has great gameplay, your characters seem like an extention of you. The stages are each unique and are fun obstacle courses to run through.
Megaman (NES, Capcom) - It's just a really unique and weird game, one of the first of its kind, the enemies and characters had a lot more personality than other games and it's always fun to go back and play because of the aesthetics, ambience, and gameplay.
Wildsnake (Genesis/SNES, Alexy Pajitnov) - It's party fun! You'll never stop playing!
Ghouls & Ghosts (Genesis, Capcom) - Again with the memorization here, plus a very unique concept and characters. The music, stages, and characters all came together to provide a fun experience. One wrong move and you're dead, but it's fun to get to the point where you can run through without dying. It may seem cheap at first but when you become one with the controls you'll do surprisingly well.
Streets of Rage II (Genesis, SEGA) - This game is great. Different characters to choose from with their own moves. Yes, moves in a brawler, like a side scrolling Street Fighter II where you beat up more than 1 opponent. This was the pinnacle of brawlers in my opinion. Had great music, graphics, and long stages that keep you entertained.
Thunderstrike (Sega CD, Core) - A blast! You'll keep playing the missions until you have a shred of life left and must escape. It's an arcade helicopter shooter... Sounds weird but incredibly fun. Lots of missions with varied objectives, music that fits the game, and great controls. Very good presentation and hasn't been a game that comes close, except maybe Warhawk on PSX.
Castlevania SotN, Metroid II, Zelda: A Link to the Past, and Quackshot are some others really worth checking out.
Twinstiq, game news
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri , is one of the few games I truly enjoy to play over and over again.
If you like turn based stategic games, pick it up, its a great game.
http://www.firaxis.com/smac/
There is also an expansion, Alien Crossfire.
http://www.intellipool.se/ - Intellipool Network Monitor
Definitely Super Metroid. Perhaps because the game has the most amazing music and a slew of secrets that just give you a sense of satisfaction to find over and over again, years after you beat the game with 100% of the items. Not many games can do that.
Starcraft: For a RTS with such diverse races, it is amazingly balanced and has some very interesting gameplay in UMS maps. Time and again I uninstall SC only to reinstall it soon after. It is the one game for which I can say that I enjoy it as much as I did the day I got it.
Super Smash Brothers Melee: My and my friends spend hours battling it out. One of the few games of this last (meaning pre-X360) generation that really had incredible gameplay. For the majority of people I know that own a GameCube, this game is the reason why they bought it.
Diablo 2: Patch 1.10 added a whole lot of material and pulled back a lot of people who left during the 1.09d era because of hackers, dupes, and overall lack of depth.
Pokemon: Fun to replay it with different creatures...what can I say. I didn't believe that my friends were actually going to spend several hours playing this all over but I have to say, I kinda wanna play it right now haha.
Baldur's Gate II: So much depth in this game. Tons of classes and races, tons of items, over 200 hours of play time because of a myriad of subquests - and this doesn't include the expansion.
Fallout 2: One of the best RPG's ever. And so unique in comparison to the stale overused 'fantasy' setting RPG's. Fun to go run around towns doing side quests and talking to all those people I never talked to before.
Unreal Tournament: Still a great Lan Party game, because it runs well on everyone's computers and just has outstanding FPS gameplay overall. A few years from now, I'll add 2004 to this list because it's gameplay modes are also amazingly addictive.
Note: I know there are a lot of CLASSIC games that aren't on this list (esp. on consoles), but I leave them out because I think the important factor here is replay value and so the grading is a little different. Games that tend to be strictly linear especially hurt from this.
Chrono Trigger
Earthbound
Final Fantasy Tactics
Live life to the fullest. It's not that life is short, but that you are dead for so long.
I can't count how many times I have played through DK1 now. Last time was just a few days ago. /MackanZoor
I play Command and Conquer - Renegade all the time. Renegade was the only FPS in the C&C universe and it rocked. Wish they'd make a second one.
;^) I always shot down every offer 'cause I liked to kill without prejudice ;^)
I bought the game the hour it was released locally (Mechanicsburg, PA, where I was at the time) and was eventually recruited for every clan on the net
Yeah, I play as iggy_mon there, too. If you pick up the multipack for around $20(us) join me!
--iggy_mon - www.ananonymouskiller.com - Die Trying -
for me, puzzle games are the most addictive. my favorites:
Tetris
Bust-a-Move
& Devil Dice (was for PS1, but i cant find it anywhere. should have stolen it from the video store i rented it from)
I know that there are a few other taffers on Slashdot; where are you? Come out of the shadows and give praise to The Builder! Er, I mean Garrett.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
I've beaten it at least 4 times so far, right now I'm going back and seeing how far I can get without any of the special caps. You can get a surprising amount of stars you would supposedly need them for, without them.
Work is punishment for failing to procrastinate effectively.
Starseige Starseige: Tribes Tribes 2 I'm a fanboy, so sue me.
1) Age of Empires. The original, not II, III, or any of the expansion packs. There is something about that game that just keeps me playing it.
;-).
2) Quake. Again, the original, not II, III, IV, or any of the derivatives. Occasionally I like to kill all the lights and at about one in the afternoon, fire up Quake and just start playing. I can usually get through the entire game by midnight or 1 AM. I find it - refreshing
Don't underestimate the power of The Source
Moria.
Empire/Strategic Conquest.
Spaceward Ho!
I agree about Diablo/D2 and Civ, too.
Without fail, my all-time favorite game is Dragon Warrior 4 for the NES. I may be young, but that game had such a great story! It was excellently pieced together and I felt involved.
Other great games were Final Fantasy 3, Lufia 2, and the Zelda on the SNES (whichever that one was).
Cheers,
M.T.
"Support Bacteria - Its the only culture some people have" - Circa 1985
Half-Life
Fascism is the greatest political ideology ever conceived. Sorry.
I loved the original Deus Ex and played all the way through it twice and played just the first few levels a number of times since then. I would definitely consider playing it all the way through again! It's a shame the second one wasn't as good as the first.
The sad thing is I have it for the Mac and it only runs in classic mode now. When the intel move becomes ubiquitous they aren't going to do classic and I'm going to lose Deus Ex (as well as all my nostalgic classic apps). Very sad.
-David
There. Now go play some cool javascript games!
pathways into darkness
marathon
escape velocity
maelstrom
I have played these two more than any other games I bought. Played them each for years, still will play them today.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
How come not many people appreciates the geniunity of Master Of Orion 2? :O
It's a true masterpiece, i still keep spending sleepless nights with it sometimes, and playing it on network... Even more so!
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
From the original all the way to Civilization IV. Addictive.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
www.nethack.org
it's addiction for life
don't get near it...
My biggest problem is spending money on a game, only to find I'm bored with it rather quickly - and can't even get enough gameplay out of it to justify the price tag.
Civilization 1, 2, and 3 were all excellent games with lots of "staying power" though. Every time I run across the installation discs for one of those titles and decide to load it back on a computer for the heck of it, I end up playing another round or two of them.
I've never completely grown tired of Warcraft III (with the Frozen Throne expansion set - which really seems like a necessity to give the game enough interesting characters and things to do). I'd couldn't get enough of Starcraft either, until people finally mastered every last detail of that game to the point where it's simply not enjoyable to play against online gamers anymore. (I don't get why it's supposed to still be "fun" to play, when all you're doing is methodically clicking on objects according to some optimal system you've worked out, as rapidly as possible - which guarantees you a win unless the other person performs the same series of commands a little more efficiently than you managed to perform them?)
I always seem to have a version of Unreal Tournament installed too, which I play online now and again. There are so many great custom levels and mods for those games, you *always* see something new when you connect to a server and play.
Other than that, I think the original "classics" like Mario Brothers, Centipede, Burgertime, etc. are much more the type of games I can "go back and play again and again" - because they're much more basic. They take seconds to load up, and you can play 5 or 10 minutes, be satisfied, and forget about them until some other time when you get a urge to fire one back up again. Modern games are so much more complex, they demand more commitment from players.
System Shock - Simply a stunning game... And although it isn't as scary as it used to be when I played it the first time, I'm still afraid of going to the third level
:P
:)
Nethack - Of course. Though I'm not that good at it
Transport Tycoon Deluxe (And OpenTTD) - This one never gets old, and with OpenTTD it gets new features all the time.
Thief 1 & 2 - Simply great, too bad Thief 3 (imo) wasn't nearly as good as these two
Fallout 2 - I hope Bethesda can make Fallout 3 as good as this one...
Operation Flashpoint - Not that old yet, but a superb game, especially in multiplayer co-op
Doom 1 & 2 - Somehow I still can enjoy playing the same old original maps through one more time
And of course many C64 and Amiga games, though most of them feel too hard today. I guess the new games have spoiled me.
I started playing Empire http://www.classicempire.com/ with my Atari ST about 1987? Move forward to today, and I'm still playing it, albeit a newer version. http://www.killerbeesoftware.com/ Speaking of Atari games ... FTL's Sundog and Dungeon Master
Zelda: A Link to The Past (SNES) Amplitude (PS2)
I have really gotten into this again in the last months. The Excessive Plus mod great
But I find the sim games are pretty timeless too (The Sims, Sim City). One game I wish I still had was Star Control II for the 3DO... man was that game addictive!
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
That game simply keeps on astonishing me. There is also a number of mods available that completely change the storyline and quests (Urban Chaos can't be even considered a mod, it's a whole different game that uses JA2 engine, that's how good UC guys are).
Is simply the best game ever, have yet to see its equal
I still play Halo and Wolfenstein : Enemy Territory, but I've got a Mac and I don't like Unreal, so those games are pretty much it in terms of modern FPS that'll play on my home machine.
Emulators, on the other hand, do a dandy job of making the pile of still-functional cartridges I have for my long-dead consoles very enjoyable:
Bionic Commando (NES, I'd kill for a Metal Gear Solid styled "update")
Final Fantasy 6 (SNES please, the Playstation version introduced load time)
River City Ransom (NES- single player's kind of boring, but the two-player mode is a blast.)
Puzzle Fighter (Playstation, another great two-player title)
Secret of Mana (SNES- good single, fun multi)
Quake III (still hasn't lost the fun factor, still hate the grenade launcher)
Ultima Underworld. Brilliant it still is.
Total A has to be one the best multiplayer strategy games of all time especially because of the many additional units and excellent game play.
Final Fantasy had so many character combinations you could play thru the game with, I'd play it again today if I still had it around.
Final Fantasy II for one of the best story lines I have every experienced in a game.
Dr. Mario has to be one of the most addictive ever.
When I close my eyes, all I see are curious arrangements of blue, red, and yellow pills.
Escape From Butcher Bay .....
Dreamweb
Master Of Orion
Deus Ex
System Shock 1 & 2
Ascendancy
X-Com 1 through 3 (#4 is a little disappointing)
Fallout 1 & 2
and many others.
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
StarCraft. What? Why, yes I am indeed South Korean...Why do you ask?
Halo 2... on Xbox Live. The campaign sucks, but nothing will ever beat a Multi-Flag CTF on Burial Mounds, or Team Slayer on Coagulation, or Classic CTF on Midship, or CTF on Lockout, or Assault on Lockout, or... you get the idea.
Theres just so many possible combinations. Plus the fact that you're playing people, or a group of 8 people that have insane strategy and coordination. AI just doesn't have that appeal.
Animal crossing (Nintendo), Neverwinter Nights and Morrowind (PC) That's about it. Other games just don't interest me enough to come back to.
Great strategy game. Decent AI, good story, and very deep gameplay. You can micromanage to death or automate what you want. I've been playing it since 1999; it's the one game that is always on my hard drive. The Civ games never did it for me.
There are games are fade away when you realize how dull the graphics are. There are games that let your mind make all the graphics.
Morrowind, Civ, and Star Wars Rebellion
Galaga - No one loved Atari? You just have to get a better score than that!
Tetris - The old gameboy version, very addictive.
Armagetron AD [ http://www.armagetronad.net/ ] - A very nicely done Tron light cycle clone.
quake (any)
dune 2
vtrek
elite
wing commander
unreal tournament
railroad tycoon
Combat never gets old. A zillion modes of flawless 2 player action, and it's second only to Pitfall for brilliant use of Atari 2600 sound effects. Seems like the more technology you throw at game developers, the further they stray from games like Combat. Eventually, games will just play themselves. Or do they already? I seem to remember a few 20-minute long unskippable Final Fantasy cutscenes...
http://nerdcartoons.com/
I *still* haven't finished this old PC game, Dune. I'm a fan of the book, and I'd just like to finally once and for all destroy the damn Harkonnens. I've been playing it using the "dosbox" program available in Gentoo, which works like a charm. Not to mention all the old NES titles I've been playing that I never quite managed to finish when I was a kid.
Outside of things like Nethack etc. that have already been mentioned several times, I'd have to name the old LucasArts adventures - in particular, the ones between LOOM and Sam'n'Max. (I didn't really care about the later ones like CoMI etc., and neither the earlier ones either really.)
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Hell, I still play Civ 1 all the way through at least once or twice a year!.
For us carnivores, "Sucking the marrow out of life" isn't a transcendentalist philosophy but a practical instruction.
Both of the Fallout games have incredible replay value. One may think that once you've beaten it, you've done it all, but a year, two years later, I've gone back and realized there's a whole other side to the gameplay that I missed entirely.
The irony, in the 6 years that I've played the game, I have yet to learn how to aim.. instead, I've learned how to improve my spray-and-pray. <shrugs> I must be the most leet noob I know.
/dev/random
The three games that pull me back time and time again are:
Final Fantasy 3 (Or 6, depending on who you ask)
It's like a favourite book - even though you know what happens, and where the story's going, you enjoy the telling of the story so much you keep picking it up.
Tetris
Must. Fill. Holes. With. Falling. Blocks.
Quake 3
OK. So it's hopelessly outdated compared to other FPS's, but it's got just the right level of complexity (that is, almost none) for me to keep at it. What can I say, I'm a sucker for rocket tag - and I don't like games that make me think or require patience (like Rainbow 6, Counterstrike, Splinter Cell, etc.)
- Civ II
- Pirates
- Boulder Dash
- Manic Miner
- Elite
Lot's of others too. Generally, older Speccy stuff and some older PC titles. Gawd, that makes me feel so old...Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
Starsiege: Tribes, Day of Defeat: Source, Planetside, Quake 2 and so on.
Too bad my mod points are gone. This was the game at the top of my list. I've played MOO2 so many times off-and-on over the years. It just has tons of reply value. I just wish there were even small updates available for the game. (It is more fun when you don't know what the Space Amoeba or Dragon is going to do.)
Regarding someone else's reply, MOO I vs MOO II, I think I'm more MOO II. It just seems more refined, IMHO. And of course, MOO3? WTF were they thinking??!?
I still play this arcade game almost daily with my colleagues at work -- we've been playing it for 10 years now, on and off. It started when we ported SS1 to Sega CD, then we played SS2 for ages - when I changed workplace later, some of the other people from Funcom put their money together and bought an arcade cabinet with a NeoGeo arcade unit in it. We've tried SS3, which has beautiful graphics - but the gameplay is just not quite as tight as in SS2. SS4 is a joke, bad graphics, bad gameplay.
The main reason we're still playing the game is simply that it's possible to get incredibly good at it. A beginner can never beat me, he would have to train for years. In fact, even after all this time we're finding new subtleties in the timing and priorities of the different moves. Another reason SS2 is the best 2D fighting game ever is that the characters are all different from each other and require a different way of playing to get the most out of. That also means you have to adapt your style to the character you're playing against. Almost all the characters are nicely balanced, so you can spend ages perfecting how to play each character.
All in all, Samurai Showdown gets a cool 11 out of 10 from me. But get the original, it doesn't play the same in MAME.
The interactive way to Go -- http://www.playgo.to/iwtg/en/
They just don't make them like they used to. No matter how many new games I buy on newer systems. I still find myself going back to the NES frequently. Boy am I glad I never got rid of that system.
- Raid on Bungeling Bay
- Mission Impossible
- Jumpman
- Infocom games
And from a little later in the game, Armor Alley, which I still play in classic mode on my Mac...The CB App. What's your 20?
The graphics are palatable at best, the animations are wooden, and the physics engine leaves much to be desired. Why do I keep playing?
Excellent storyline, deep characters, and the thrill of finding stuff I missed.
Every choice I make, whether to kill or let live, has an impact. I've yet to find a game with a level of depth and choice like this. And it's been at least 5 years since I first had it...
Or, more recently I've been playing ToME, a very addictive roguelike.
Additionally, I'd like to recommend a modern version of Elite, Oolite (for Mac/Linux/Win).
Close runners-up would have to be "Smash the Taco: Signal 11's Revenge", and the sequel, "Attack of the GNAA".
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
Legend of Zelda
Daggerfall
Metal Fatigue
Final Fantasy 1-4 & 6
Mechwarrior II: Mercenaries - to hell with microsoft, this was the best mech combat game ever made!
When moderating, assume I have not yet had my coffee.
Planescape Torment!
Katamari Damacy was a strong addiction for a long time. As was Rez.
A lot of the appeal is the corny jokes and songs. These games don't take much eye-hand coordination (we're not so good with "twitch" games).
How can you not love a game where the main character says "But I can't die -- It's a LucasArts game and I have an unbreakable five-game contract!"
10 years old, and I still play it with some friends. It's small and fast by modern standards, quake2evolved gives it updated looks, and I don't need to learn new controls, carry an external mouse with my laptop, or have a dedicated "just for games" console at home. I've tried the newer FPS games from Id and played Quake3 for a little while, but I keep coming back to Q2.
"Nothing was broken, and it's been fixed." -- Jon Carroll
Asteroids - Thousands of MAME ROMs and I choose to play 1 over and over.
Puzzle Bobble - Well, make that 2.
Galaga - All right, 3.
Alpha Centauri - Best writing in a video game.
Katamari - The gameplay keeps me occupied. The music keeps me coming back.
Diablo II - Therapy
Mario Kart (original and DS) - Weapons are fun, but the racing is second to none.
Wipeout (1 and 3) - Best futuristic racer. Best music in a racer. Psygnosis made them with love.
Pilotwings 64 - Relaxing, beautiful, frustrating.
Goldeneye - How could we go back to two controller ports after that?
Unreal Tournament (1) - Meet the FPS done right.
Animal Crossing - Why can't I stop playing?
The New Tetris - Best multiplayer puzzle game ever.
Point Blank - I can beat it on Very Hard with one quarter.
Super Mario Brothers 2 - There's something about beating things up with radishes.
Mike Tyson's Punch-out/Super Punch-out - One punch. That's all it took. He hit me in the ribs, and my insides shook.
Baseball Simulator 1.000 - There is no better baseball game.
NHL '94/'95 - How good was it? You can find it new on store shelves today for the same price as NHL 2K6.
Eh. That's good enough
Both Myth and Starcraft are ancient games with increible online play. They cant compete on graphics but still have some of the best gameplay around.
There are quite a lot of those games. And everybody has their favorites. So writing an article on something like this is just wrong to begin with.
What one person thinks is a great game must be completed at least once a year an other person wouldn't touch with a 10ft pole.
There is one thing I noticed while replaying old games. I'm starting to get spoiled on the graphical quality, and more granular game flow (e.g. the feeling of more fps in motion). Or it might be just me or the emulator (e.g. dosbox). A while ago I was playing Crusader: No Remorse. A great game, but when I started playing I started to notice things that somewhat make the game much less. I don't know if it was because of dosbox or if the game was always like that (it was a very long time ago since I last played it). For a lot of other games the FMV is often subject to quality, these days with the awesome codecs these old movies look quite aweful. For example Phantasmagoria, a FMV game spanning 7 CDs. The movies are really low quality. Back then tho it was quite high quality. If you can't look past these things it might spoil the game forever.
Since everybody is posting their list. A couple of my favorites that I sometimes\often replay:
- Little Big Adventure \ Relentless
- Anachronox
- Super Mario World
- Tron 2.0
- Beyond Good & Evil
- Unreal
- Vice City
And some games I really should replay some time:
- Crusader: No Regret\No Remorse
- Dark Earth
- Normality
- Phantasmagoria
- American McGee's Alice
- The Longest Journey
- King's Quest 8
Note: I left out the games with a pretty much infinite replay ability due to it's design, e.g. Mario Kart, Transport Tycoon Deluxe, Sim City #000, online multiplayer games
What about console or text-oriented games? You guys are REALLY hooked on graphic just about as much as I'm hooked on Crack-Berry. The real staying powers are in the non-graphical ones.
Anyone remember the followings:
Empire.exe on MS-DOS (and VAX-11)
Adventure
Star Trek (multiplayer) on the DEC VAX-11?
Armada (Naval Power)
Rogue
Dungeons (or D&D)
Any BASIC games that were printed in 1980's computer magazines
Those still have considerably drawing powers to this aging gaming veteran.
Thanks to Linux and its ability to do OS emulation, these games are not forgotten. At least, by this lone breed of classical gamer.
adom of course. I started playing it about 9 years ago. 3 years ago I've won for the first time. This christmas I just won for the second time. So diverse gameplay, each class/character combination is so different I never can belive it.
oh, and system shock 1, and fallout 2, and elite 2/frontier
I even bought system shock 2, but it wasn't that good.
#
#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
#
For the past two weeks I've been playing Defender on the PSP. Like a lot of people, I found Defender in the arcades to be beyond my skills. I rarely got past level 2. I could however see what a cool game it was and loved watching my friend, Grant play for 15 minutes on one quarter. Now that I've got in on my PSP as part of the Midway Arcade Treasures Extended Play. The controls on the PSP are, IMHO, perfect for Defender. Since you are allowed to pick the difficulty level, I was able to start out slowly. I'm still not great, but I have a real handle on the game now and have had a lot of fun. I feel like Defender on the PSP is the fullfilment of the adolescent wishes I didn't know I had. If I only had a PSP back in 1982.
And no, I not having a midlife crisis. Am I?
I've recenetly picked up GTA:San Andreas again and playing through it the third time. Every time I'm impressed at how well they've crafted an entire world, with very few details spared. Definately the best game I've played, and doesnt seem to get old.
Any one of the GTA3's can be picked up at any time and enjoyed, no matter how many times you've played them before.
Ultima 7: The Serpent Isle was the first game I accidentally played until sunrise.
and exult (sourceforge) lets me play in on just about any system i want.
Tomb Raiders I and II. Tomb Raider III is worth re-visiting, but not (ha!) re-playing, IMHO. Final Fantasy I (Dawn of Souls) is worth footling around in, especially in some of the longer (or deeper) dungeons, but leveling up again from zero? Nope.
``Tension, apprehension & dissension have begun!'' - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred Bester's _The Demolished Man_
For its time, a really great game.
======================================
Writers get in shape by pumping irony.
Come on, mods. If the reply is about an interesting game, it's "informative", not "insightful". If you agree with this, then you would mode me "insightful" or "informative" (i.e. FYI) -- or just plain "off-topic", fine, whatever.
The most addictive game, ever: Xpilot. Can not get enough!
Well early Lucasarts/film games- Loom, Monkey Island 1 and 2...
And wizball (yes, we're getting shockingly old now)
Do not forget Fallout 2!
Ashes of Angels, it is/was a free online space trading game. I know there are a lot out there but this one was the best both in gameplay and community. It was so addictive. Its down indefinitely, but I plan on jumping back in if/when it ever starts back up.
In a general case, I keep coming back to most any decent game whose goal is a high score, not to beat the game. Like, games that don't ever "end" until you lose. I've been known to hang around old Asteroids, Centipede, Millipede, and Pac-Man machines (well, okay, the last one technically has a well-known "end", but that's a bit ridiculous) in arcades. Or in the more recent era, Crazy Taxi and the Wario Ware series.
For multiplayer, whenever a couple childhood friends of mine stop by, we always blow off an hour or so with Super Smash Bros Melee. There's just something about it that's done RIGHT that we keep coming back to. The Mario Kart games, too. I'd also keep coming back to Chu Chu Rocket's multiplayer if I could find anyone nearby who wasn't scared off by it...
(side note: why not a WFC-capable Chu Chu Rocket on the DS?)
So I guess the point is that when you take the time to make a game FUN, it stands up over time.
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
Played through Guild Wars with 2 characters. Keep going back and now playing with 2 new proffessions...great game!!
Escape Velocity and Marathon baby!
...and does coming back to CS off and on for the last 5 years count?
TETRIS! Who said nothing good came out of the Cold War?
Try Basilisk. It's a GPL'd 68k Mac emulator, so should be able to run all of your classic Mac OS programs (up to a point), and should be able to work on the new intel macs. PearPC does PowerPC emulation but not sure how fast it will be for classic games. I'm not so sure how fast Basilisk will run as my last experience of a Classic Mac was a 68k performa which most systems should be able to emulate without any problems at all.
When I found out the music in SC2 was MOD files, I found a ripper on my local BBS and promptly extracted the music. That was in June of 1994, and the files have followed me from drive to drive, filesystem to filesystem, with their timestamps intact. I still love listening to that music, having burned bits of it to CD for the car, and all of it still enjoying a place in my Winamp playlst.
Occasionally when a discussion of game storylines crops up, I'll pitch in a few kind paragraphs for Star Control 2. The conversation archives on The Pages of Now and Forever still relate the same compelling story, and I still remember my horror when I initially learned of the Kohr-Ah's plight. The most convincing villain is one you feel sympathy for, and they had that going, for sure.
A few weeks ago, I downloaded the most recent build of The Ur-Quan Masters. The first build I tried a year or so ago wouldn't start up, but this version ran flawlessly. The music was perfect, the graphics were just as I remembered them, and the interface took a little getting used to but then felt very comfortable.
So why did the game bore me? I played for probably half an hour, and couldn't seem to get interested. It's not that I knew the ending -- I played the game through 3 or 4 times back when it was new, and it didn't seem any less fun the second time around. I haven't been much for games in the last few years, and I'm still struggling to figure out why.
The article says Mario 64 had "a perfect 3D camera system."
The need to adjust your angle of motion constantly during a tightrope walk and that one jump I could never make because the camera kept panning around during the crucial moment beg to differ.
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
...but Myth 3 was godawful. Marathon 1 and 2 were good, but I didn't much care for 3. Played through all of those several times, mostly because they're good, immersive games with a great storyline.
Elite. So much so, that I'm now the Linux maintainer for the tribute game, Oolite (originally for Mac OS X). Oolite is an open source Elite clone written in Objective C and Cocoa for the Mac, GNUstep for Linux/BSD. Oolite is extensible with scripts and new ships, too.
http://oolite-linux.berlios.de/ - for the Linux binary installer (autopackage or tarball, your choice - has *no* dependencies for most distros) and source code.
http://oolite.aegidian.org/ - for the Mac OS X version.
A windows port is also under way (currently in alpha, you can get it from ftp.alioth.net/oolite)
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Oh, if only my C64 still worked. Emulators don't do Space Taxi justice.
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
I've played Fallout 1&2 to completion over 40 times each. Fastest runs in a few hours, longest in over 100 hours. I've played just about every type of character possible. And I *still* occasionally find something I didn't know about (although very rarely these days).
... again, lots of different characters.
...).
...). It doesn't matter what you do, you can still complete the game. But they still have strong storylines that you can (and eventually need to) follow.
I still remember the first time I finished Fallout with evil karma (or was it with a pistol in hand - same effect). Brilliant!
I've completed Arcanum about 10 times - definitely no sub-10-hour runs there
With all of them, I've played games where my sole aim was to depopulate every location (and succeeded). I've also played games where I haven't (directly) killed anyone (a chain of events resulting in a nuclear explosion does not constitute directly killing anyone
The amazing thing about all three games is that you can pretty much play however you like. Good, evil, melee, ranged, thief, sneaking, diplomatic, magic (Arcanum only), technological (Arcanum - obviously it's required in Fallout
C=64
Archon (1/2)
Lazy Jones
Bruce Lee
Almost anything from Infocomm
MAME-
Gyruss
Marble Madness
Mac
Breakout
Super Breakout
Photoshop
The Last Ninja, Raid on Bungeling Bay, Bruce Lee. I occasionally fire up the emulator and give these classics a once-through.
this sig was brought to you by the letter
DOOM (even Doomsday) to enhance the original games), MAME, and other game emulatoors give me replays and nostalgias.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Civilization I
Yes, the original, DOS-based, cluncky graphics. Simple gameplay, not too long-winded, and more fun than management. After too much lost sleep, I go cold turkey on it and kick the habit, only to fall back into it a year or so later.
Do not dare touch Civ IV...
I'm in a Unix state of mind.
Every time I think of a 12-unit rank of siege tanks going, "CHOOM! CHOOM!" I start harassing my friends to get on our bnetd server and play some more.
Nintendo games tend to keep me coming back more than any other...
Mario Kart, Starfox, and Animal Crossing...
A few favorites for me are:
Both Paper Marios,
Zelda:OOT,
Age of Empires 3 (and before that, AOE2),
WoW,
Doukutsu Monogatari,
and my all-time favorite game. It's an old, obscure platformer for NES made by a small development team from Virgin Games. I've beaten it probably well over 100 times all the way through, and it still continues to be fun. That game is
M.C. Kids
Look it up.
Cantr. An online rpg game. I'ts a slow game. You can play up to 15 characters and it keeps you busy, the whole day long. I stopped playing because it took to much time. But now again, I have 4 characters running around...
Maybe it has something to do with it being the first commercial linux game I ever bought.
I still get a tingly feeling when the intro movie plays, and I know that it's running native.
I can pick it up after years of not playing, and still lose an entire weekend. "On my way!".
A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
Quake 1 -- I guess simply because it was the first multiplayer game I played over the "internet" -- I was instantly addicted. I still play it to this day, roughly 10 years later.
Nothing in recent future has been able to totally devour my life the way FFA Start map deathmatches did when I was still using a keyboard to get around at first.
Remember the first time someone showed you how to aim down, fire a rocket, and jump all at the same time?
And don't even get me started on Threewave CTF or the original Team Fortress...
Electronic Gaming has an All-Time best 200 games list with games representing every platform. Fairly representative, although you can never get unanimous agreement on these things.
Any pinball fans out there? I like PC titles Crystal Caliburn, Loony Labyrinth, Pro Pinball series, and a lot of tables recreated with Visual Pinball.
Xenogears.
Contra.
Lufia II.
Call of Duty.
Call of Duty: United Offensive.
Master of Orion 2.
My all time favorite is Sid Meiers Red Storm Rising (a game based on the book by Tom Clancy). It is a submarine warfare game, and I have yet to find a similar suspense in other games. The game manual is also of great quality and I still use it as a reference to modern attack submarines.
Other games by Sid Meier are also favorites, Pirates! being one of the best ones.
Other games, System Shock 1 and 2 come to mind.
Also Tetris!
Visit www.doc2pdf.net for a free, no need to register,
It doesn't take up many resouces, so it's nice to have in the running in the background. I take a break from whatever I'm working on and see if my subs can work their way into range of that juicy carrier group.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
... anyone here remember the Python games ?
I'm just trying out "Complete Waste of Time" again. Perfect example of how to do just that IMO.
nuff said
...circa 1998, or so...Mechwarrior 2 was one of the best games I ever played, and I miss it so much I'm putting together a system just to play it and other games of the day...so, does anyone have an old Thrustmaster X-Fighter joystick? or a 3dfx VooDoo video card? or a pair of Voodoo2s with the SLI cable, or a copy of the 3dfx version of Mechwarrior 2, or....
As a hockey fan and university student, I still play NHL 2004 for the XBox. EA Sports provides the Dynasty mode which lets you control and play your team for 20 seasons. I still play it because each game is roughly half an hour long (that's perfect when you are as busy as I am - just pick it up, play for a bit, and then take off), graphics are still up to snuff, the outcome of every game is different (duh), and the game is always new for you because you can make draft picks or trade players. Kudos to the EA Sports team.
P.S. Although they aren't my favourite team at all, I chose to take the St. Louis Blues through 20 seasons. I have won 3 Stanley Cups in 4 seasons. The real team is last in the league!
How could their be 200+ comments and no mention of Arkanoid??? It is one of the single greatest games of all time, with more rip offs then any other game (well... other then street fighter). It's a fun, challenging puzzle, reflex game that requires skill, patience and tendinitis.
The corner of a round room
I've played that fucker through at least 5 times now, and always found something new. A little ammo cache, a small supply of health, a subtle thing the characters do that'es easy to miss...
As opposed to Half Life 1, which was so painful I don't want to repeat it.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
I see they mentioned Paradroid in their list. I have to agree with that choice. I usually fire up the old C64 every year or so just to play that game. And now that I think about it, I never did actually beat it.
I still have nightmares about that 999 robot.
I have seen nothing to top the old "Phantasy Star" games and "Shining in the Darkness" for the Sega Genesis. I still have the Sega box (packed away, I never got it out after the move to Florida) and some of the Phantasy Star cartridges (alas, somebody ripped off my copy of Shining). But seeing this discussion, I may just dig the stuff out and go it again.
...
And then of course there are the REAL classics like Original Adventure, and Zork and other Infocom games
Teen Angel - a Ghost Story
Free, inexhaustable challenge, choose your level, interesting conversation.
Chrono Trigger! (SNES) i've probably played through this game over 100 times... and yet, for some reason i always find myself going back to it... no other game, for any system, has been as addicting (at least for me!)
now is the winter of our discotheque
Yeah, Rogue was one of my all-time favorites (though I never did get the Amulet of Yendor - damn Purple Worms and Dragons were too much for me :-().
Adventure was fun too, but it was too limited to play over and over again.
I just started to get into Empire on the VAX when I changed jobs and didn't have access any more.
Ah....memories....
Don't underestimate the power of The Source
There are many other games that keep me comming back but everyone else has already listed them. For me however games in the Gothic series are for some capable of drawing me back every year to try new things. Gothic 1 and 2 are little known in North America and never recieved rave reviews but I still consider them to be some of the best RPG's ever created. I'm just waiting for Gothic 3 now. It looks like it will rival Oblivion both graphically and in fun factor.
..and it's not just me. Look at forums on the Paradox website - even now, experienced players are discovering things they never knew about it.
The price of Wikipedia is eternal vigilance
the original game for nes. i still play it to this day, albeit a little differently. usually emulated on my psp though. :P
It's a relatively simple game, but I just can't get enough. I have an NES emulator on my PC just for this game.
I'd write a more detailed comment, but I'm off to play Starcraft.
Do not read this sig.
The types of games that I keep coming back to are simulators with a sandbox interface, that require you to develop a new skill or learn something new. Flight simulators are particularly challenging - There's always something new to learn on Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004, and similarly for remote controlled aircraft on Realflight G3.
In fact I'm a bit of a flight sim nut so long as the sim is sufficiently complex. There is always something new you haven't tried. Learnt Acrobatics? Try navigation. Learnt to navigate, learn to fly a 747 properly. Learnt that too how about crosswind landings, night flying etc. With the remote control sims there's always a new trick to try and master and your accuracy to improve. What's more you don't have to spend $200 and 3 weekends fixing things after every crash.
Then there's software that teaches you a classic game like Chessmaster. You can always get better at chess, and there are lots of tutorials in Chessmaster 10 so you can go through them again after a year or so and you're reminded of something you'd learnt but almost forgotten. The I can play in a virtual tournament against a number of virtual opponents.
These are the sorts of games I keep coming back to. They manage to keep your mind and/or your reflexes going without being completely artificial...and sure it's a cartoon world with virtual this and that, but hell I'll never get to land a real 747 or play chess against a grandmaster for real, so I appreciate these experiences.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Commander Keen is what its all about. 5 and 6 are good too. I have replayed each numerous times.
Carmageddon! Sure, the 3D graphics are dated and campy, but there's nothing quite like a game that sets up some relatively simple rules (in this case, slightly cartoonish laws of physics) and tries to stay out of your way the rest of the time. I recently rediscovered it, and it's even better than I had remembered. (Especially now that it's abandonware, and relatively easily available for free.)
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Last Ninja I/II
Pirates
Turrican 1/2/3
Alien Breed Series (2-Player Mode)
Dynablaster (4-Player Mode)
Eye of the Beholder
Wing Commander
X-Com
Halo (Story Mode)
Probably many more, but these came to mind immediately.
Online Games:
Puzzle Pirates
Dofus
Star Control 2, Super Smash Brothers Melee, Civ 1, and Monkey Island 1.
Best games, ever.
Altogether, I've got hundreds of games for my Playstation (One), Amiga 500, C64, Plus/4 and my PC, but all in all there's only four games I play regularly:
Starcraft (PC/Win98)
Katakis (C64)
Turrican II (Amiga 500)
Chaos Engine (Amiga 500)
Especially, Turrican II by Factor 5 and Katakis by Rainbow Arts are the definition of "computer game" to me.
Besides, the best games ever made were released in the mid-eighties and early-nineties, the "golden age" of computer gaming.
Regards,
Dennis B. Schramm
Sigs suck!
Subject says it all:
... conquer the world as Moldovian prince ...
Kohan Ahriman's Gift - RTS with little micromanagement!
Master of Orion 2 - Galaxy is out there to conquer
Civ* - no comments needed
Europa Universalis 2 Alternative Grand Campaign - over 200 playable countries
Fallout 2 Final fantasy 1 Final Fantasy 9 GTA: Vice city Pretty limited, but I can play these all day...
Jet Set Willy
... the 1997 version. I never get tired of playing either side, and there are still some online strategy and death matches to be won.
I pretty much only play adventure games. I play the Tex Murphy adventures every few years. He's the greatest.
-- Cheers!
Anachronox
Half-Life (& HL2)
Civ 2
Morrowind (& expansions & mods)
Wolf:ET
Diablo 2
GTA:Vice City
With the addition of a laptop in the last year, I've found myself going back and playing a lot of the older games I have (Anachronox, Civ 2, Diablo 2, etc.), since it's not much good for the likes of HL2 or even AoE3, for that matter. It's been fun revisiting good games that I played 10 years ago in a more casual setting, rather than glued to the PC screen in the basement.
Furthermore, that site is down.
...And just to keep on-topic, I only play grown up games.
Capture the Flag !!
Sera
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
Gabriel Knight 1
... a few more, though Gabriel Knight is definitely on the top of the list.
Final Fantasy 1
Ninja Gaiden
Lands of Lore: Throne of Chaos
Minesweeper.
The only game for talking on the phone to clients.
So I'll throw my list in too.
The cool thing is that I can play all of those on my xbox now. Hurray for modding...
Colin Mcrae 2 the best racing game ever. I'm always to improve the time in stages.
Awesome link bro! Thanks!
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
Halo 2 on the Xbox. On live, keeps me coming back for more since it came out. Best shooter EVAR. >_
I can't get enough of the Thief series. Thief 1 & Thief 2 don't get along with WinXP and modern video cards, so I set up a separate "Thief Machine" out of spare parts running Win98 just so I can get my fix. Amazing story line keeps me coming back time and time again.
For a recent-generation game, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne has been an absolute joy to play from start to finish. Movie scenes are few and far between, and all dialogue is textual, meaning it's 4.4GB of pure gameplay.
After Xenosaga, Shadow Hearts 2, and the recent Final Fantasies, I wanted a gameplay-oriented RPG I could really sink my teeth into, and this provided beyond my wildest dreams: a challenging, involved game that had an uncompromisingly dark style and was devoid of the usual cliches found in Japanese RPGs. The demon-recruitment and demon-fusion aspects offer so many combinations and possibilities it's near impossible to get them all, and the ability to actually seriously impact the outcome of the game makes the player feel like s/he has some real control over in-game events. On a related note, the questions asked to the player to influence the creation of the new world are surprisingly deep and some had me thinking and examining my personal philosophy for a good long while before I answered.
Anyway, as far as keeping me coming back, it's mostly for the Demonic Compendium-the index of all the demons you've recruited and/or fused. You keep your demons when you start a new game, so you can keep replaying for different outcomes and paths, as well as build up your collection at the same time.
And unlike the latest pixel-fest from Squaresoft, the visual style stands out without exploiting every graphical trick in the book. The demons you interact with are all unique and interesting to look at, and environments, while some are plain, frequently leave a lasting impression, with particular regard to the optional dungeon. I think Kazuma Koneko is a twisted bastard, but creativity and talent are two things he has in spades. Playing is kind of like walking through an art gallery from Hell.
Much of this is personal bias, of course (though that's the point of the article), but Nocturne just impressed the hell out of me at every turn. If you're a fan, try the Digital Devil Saga games as well. Stylistically similar, same gameplay engine, new plot and characters, lots of fun.
Help protect civil rights from abuse by the TSA - visit TSA News Blog.
http://www.tsanewsblog.com
Games are for people who havent entered puberty yet.
'Nuff said.
Chess! Oh, and NetHack, of course.
Possibly the greatest space flight sim of all time. Freespace 2 was the sequel to the phenomenal Descent: Freespace. The sequel surpassed the original giving you an incredible feel for the massive scale of the ships involved (sometimes many kilometers long, while you flew in a fighter or bomber only a few meters long), and had absolutely incredible dogfighting. Tons of varied weapons, and extremely diverse gameplay; you've got escort missions, stealth reconnaisance, bombing runs, search and rescue, etc.
The game gets complicated with all the different tasks it requires you to do (switch the targetted subsystem to destroy critical points of capital ships, commanding squadmates to attack specific targets, targetting bombs, etc.) but flows into it smoothly with a very forgiving learning curve.
This is an all-around fantastic game. It's showing its age, but still looks excellent graphically.
No comment.
Games like Counter Strike, UT2004, and Quake 3 bring replay value because the experience is never the same each time. This is why I prefer racing games and multiplayer games.
A modern game with infinite replay value is SimCity 4 (and really any other SimX game). You can build a city different each and every time. I NEVER get sick of that game, whereas I'm already bored wtih Doom 3. Same goes for Civilization 4 and its previous versions.
I could fire-up this one up and still find my way down to level 4 before I'd have to re-check our old notes: Wizardry - Proving Grounds Of the Mad Overlord. 3 of us played it for 11 mths - on weekends; one on keyboard, one mapping and one tracking stats, gold, armour, items, spell levels, etc. Of course, one got spoiled by having TILTOWAIT as an offensive spell.
And it just never ever got old.
"Don't teach a man to fish, feed yourself. He's a grown man. Fishing's not that hard." - Ron Swanson
The Thief "1st-person sneaker" games are my favourites. Unlike 1st-person shooters which reward fast reaction times (he who has the biggest weapon wins), Thief rewards guile and cunning. Sneaking through a map only to accidentally bump into a monster and have to haul arse out of there really gets the adrenalin flowing. In contrast, Doom 3 was just tedious: "ho hum if I walk in there, I bet the lights will go out and three baddies will jump me. Uh huh..."
The Hitman series aren't too bad either; similar stealth features to Thief, but being able to pull out an Uzi and waste the baddies if things go pear-shaped takes away some the fear element.
I am so glad Wasteland was mentioned in the first post. This is my all time favorite. I spent years of my life playing it over and over. Fallout was a good followup/tribute, but nothing beats the original game.
There are some linear games that have really good replay value.
Any Zelda game,
Secret of Mana,
Most Final Fantasies,
Final Fight,
and as you mentioned above, Pokemon
There is just something about all of these games (and the ones you mentioned) that have a certain individuality about them... They are things that address the gaming needs of everyone so well that we feel inclined to go back to them when we are feeling particularly "itchy" to play something good. It all just rings true to the statement "know your roots".
It's not often you can claim you've played some multiplayer game precisely once.
Those 3 are in constant rotation on my gaming box...and Allied General too. .H*P*D.
"When in doubt, I whip it out!"
.H*P*D. "When in doubt, I whip it out!"
I have to chime in with these two. Enemy Territory is still going strong despite
being 5 years old.
Enemy Territory Fortress updates QWTF and Q3TF, and is a blast to play online.
Of the games i've bought in the last 5 years, i've probably got the most mileage out of
Quake III and UT2004.
Urban Terror, CPMA, OSP, and Defrag are all good Q3 mods too.
Any of the Myst games II-IV (Riven, Exile, Revelations).
Final Fantasy VII, VIII and X.
Syberia. ICO (PS2).
And of course several Lucas Arts adventures such as The Dig, Grim Fandango, Full Throttle
I've played the damn thing over and over again, but I just can't quite make it all the way through on the hardest level without dying at least once. However, I think once I go all the way through it without dying I probably won't ever touch it again.
Diablos 1 and 2, Battlefield 1942, The Patrician 3, Unreal Tournament, and an odd little game called Kumoon. Every one of these game I find myself playing over and over again, and if I uninstall one, it's usually just for a few weeks.
*****
Dear Mary,
I yearn for you tragically,
A.T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
For the Playstation, N64, and NES respectively.
I'm so alone.
Ever since I purchased FFVII in 1997, i've always replayed as soon as I finished it. I play it constantly, it's one of those games I can't go without. It rawks.
Werdna will return and Trebor still sux!
My eyeballs shiver and scream with horror when ever it sees either of those two start up.... they know it's going to be a long and tormented night.
Extremely unique.... damn I miss that game.
Icemaann
http://www.nugg.org
And my heart still pounds as I press the keys with all the force I can muster, as if this will make my planeteer go faster.
...and so does the article, really. The only game I can think of that really satisfies this condition is Diablo II. Anyone that's played it for a significant length of time will understand why.
The games that keep me coming back have mostly been more or less complex simulation games, since they often provide a wide varity of gameplay and huge scenarios to explore. Some of those games I rememeber having played for years would be Eurofighter2000, OperationFlashpoint, Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix, F/A 18 Interceptor and Falcon4. There are of course other non-simulation games that have keep me coming back, AnotherWorld being probally the one I replayed the most, even so it has almost no non-linearity, its just so perfectly done and so different from all other games, that its worth to be replayed every now and then. Other games I have replayed a lot would be Yoshis Island, Mario64 and last not least MarioKart(SNES), that one I have played for at least half a decade more or less regularly.
first and foremost is Enemy Territory. staying power like no other
gravitar is supremely difficult and addictive, as is marble madness. both essential mame offerings.
worms 2 is multiplayer gaming beyond compare. wonderfully social and never boring, this is one of the best games ever. the ability to design your own levels and create your own sound schemes (movie wavs) is the icing on the cake. never fades
Swat 3 is excellent. best of all is the level in which you and your team of elite cops have to pay a visit to a survivalist, and politely ask him if the weapon he has been firing at people on the highway is licensed or not. forget the hk on this mission, its got to be assault rifles across the board
Herzog Zwei was a real megadrive stunner. it invented the genre of RTS game and yet it was almost completely ignored by the gaming community. The music in this game was very strange, as were the titles of the tunes- "The Super-Fighter Invigorated Us" is one that stands out. still great fun to play
Goldeneye, Road Rash 2, Micro Machines 2 & Ecco the Dolphin all deserve an honourable mention, as does the great Pilotwings and Speedball 2. i still love you all
apart from GTA, what the hell has happened to game design!
I think the only time anyone ever used it (after finding out what it did) was in tanking the Demon Highlord. Basically, the Demon Highlord was the most badass monster on the MUD for some time, and was generally fought by teams of at least 3-4 players. The stuff he had was more or less the best stuff on the MUD.
Now, due to nearly 20 years of inflation, it's possible for a single player to successfully take out the Demon Highlord, but few do, because his treasure is no longer the best stuff around. But, once in a while, someone gets bored and gets together a few other bored someones to go beat him up.
Good times... :)
http://neokosmos.blogsome.com
Anyone know any combination of recent hardware (i.e. you can buy it new) that is fully compatible with DOS 7, DOS game devices, and DOS sound cards?
Most modern Mobos have integrated AC'97 sound that isn't DOS compatible. I bought a dos soundcard that supposedly had a dos compatibility Soundblaster emulator, but it didn't work.
I'm currently using an old laptop that has a port extender with all the good stuff. But I'd like a cheap box with a huge hard drive to do DOS games with.
Spare me with the DOSBox/VirtualPC/VMWare posts. Those can't run Master of Orion with sound at an acceptable speed on modern CPUS. ANyone got a NewEgg wishlist that will do what I'm talking about?
Hey, I'm just your average shit and piss factory.
I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the awesomeness that is VGAP. Long-term, 11-player space exploration/combat/conquest game.
tetris for the NES has always been a favorite of mine, and someone in the house i live in leaves the nintendo on 24/7 so that the high scores stay in the machine. actually, tetris is the only game ever really played. it never ends. it always goes higher. you can always beat your personal best. it fosters a friendly sort of rivalry among the guys and gals in the house. modern games don't seem to have the same replayfulness because they end. in tetris, you always lose, and you can always get a higher score. (unless you're playing B-type). and it also gives your mind a bit of a workout as far as spatial/rotational manipulations go.
I have been hooked on ogame http://www.ogame.org/ for over a year now. I can't stop! Someone help me. This game is worse then crack.
It's a web game with little graphics and the start is beyond slow, but once you get going watch out!
It's free so if you haven't heard of it, go give it a look see. I really can't recommend it enough.
Every platform game since has been basically a poorer imitation. It's just good fun.
I am trolling
Carmageddon 1, 1.5 and 2 are among the greatest games ever created in my view. The third is very good, but lacking something, especially the way the multi-player modes were changed. Why mess with perfection? Playing Fox and Hound Carmageddon 1 with eight players over IPX was the pinnacle of gaming for me nine years ago. I wish I could play it again now. Sigh. It was hilarious hurtling down a mountain road chasing the fox car with six others, only to have someone cock it up and cause a pile-up sending a couple of cars somersaulting over your head and into the sea. I've never laughed so much playing any other game.
Such a shame that Carmageddon 4 got canned. I still have hopes for its appearance though. Fingers crossed.
OIDS -- just an old 2D scroller, but the feel and responsiveness are great,
and the gameplay is superb. it combines the best of all the early games
i'd been exposed to: defender, asteroids, lunar rescue; the closest we
came on the TRS80 was a game called 'sea dragon' -- a side scroller.
the author has also shown years of cross-platform dedication --
first released for the atari, then the mac plus, then the powerPC mac,
and finally, OSX -- every release has maintained the feel of the original,
and improved it where the OS offered better abilities (e.g. the OSX version
uses openGL).
Games I always come back to:
:) Call me a sadist? Sure.
The entire Castlevania series, mainly Symphony of the Night.
Megaman 2 - the music is the best, I'm actually listening to the Minibosses "Megaman 2" song now.
Final Fantasy - Tactics is my favorite in the entire series, but FF4 was my fave out of the numbered FFs
Grant Theft Auto - Just because it's great to jack cars and blow stuff up.
Diablo 1 and 2 w/ expansions - no explanation required, I think.
Starcraft Brood War and Warcraft 3
Knights of the Old Republic 2 - I love screwing with the other character's emotions and turning them whichever way I like in order to do my bidding
Contra, the orininal.
Gradius series + Life Force
Double Dragon II
I'll end it here, but I'm sure there are more. I just can't think of the list because I don't have it right next to me. I can always come back to those games though, some of them for nostalgic reasons and some just because they are THAT good. IMHO a lot of game producers are making total crap these days, so when something decent comes out everyone raves about it like it's the hottest shit since sliced bread.
What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
This game's been around since '97 but I only really got into it in about 2002... and I've been playing it ever since. It's a brilliant real-time strategy, which is like a mixture between chess and tetris -- you have to place buildings, not units, (which fight,) on the ends of bridges, in order to defeat your enemy and capture their priest (like a King in chess.) The game is abandonware and can be found at http://www.netstormhq.com/
So, aside from still playing Carmageddon regularly, I've just installed Fallout again. I'm half way through. It certainly deserves its acclaim. After I've been through it again, maybe I'll finally complete Fallout 2. I've been on that one for years, and have no doubt that when I do complete it, I'll play it through again a year or so later.
CIV 2 came close as did Railroad Tycoon, but MOO2 tops them all
Duh.
(oh and Burnout 3)
It would have to be Fallout2, this game is rich with popular culture and the combat system really works for me. Also, both Deus ex titles on realistic difficulty(otherwise, you dont really need your augmentations). And third would be total annihilation, massive carnage on metal maps with friends.
I consider Tetris the best game ever created, and the original Mac version the best version of it. (I usually get really picky about the physics, and that version gets it perfect.) It's the game that never gets old, and has the simplest concept (next to Pong).
As for Quake 1...I first played it in 1997 on my Windows 95, Pentium 1 computer. I've since played it at some point on every computer I've owned since then. I don't know what it is, but I have yet to find a finer FPS, especially one to replay so much. Perhaps it's the complete lack of scripted events mixed with the oldest-considered realistic graphics and atmosphere...but whatever it is, I can't get enough.
I also have a soft spot for Novastorm, a somewhat mediocre Playstation (1995) sci-fi blaster game. Despite its flaws, I have to play it every now and then, for the primitive charm.
I am surprised no-one mentioned WORMS yet. I like the 2d versions, and played Worms World Party most often (ninja rope master :) )
Subspace.
Vorgin killed it, but the community picked it up - now known as "Continuum".
Now with smart-phones and pdas those great addictive games of york, like tetris and pacman are with you everywhere. Now you don't have to be bored waiting for your colonoscopy, you can play a great match of pong with the receptionist.
Even though Homeworld is from 1999 it is still fun to play (Homeworld 2 too). Until then i was addicted to space combat sims like XWing or Descent Freespace.
Sven
Planeshift (from www.planeshift.it) is an open-source graphical RPG which runs on Windows, Linux and Mac! It is still in alpha stages, but plays great and has a wonderful role-playing community.
Meh.
Years ago I was hooked, like a crack addict to Civ2. each game was different from the last but I could still settle old scores. I knew how the game played yet it also gave me something different every time. Rome Total War is superb. Its gotten more game time than all my recent FPS's put together. You can go through quake or fear the first time and see pretty much all the best parts. With these open ended games they give you something slightly different every time.
X-com, Nethack (Falcon's Eye version), Baldur's Gate II, Minesweeper...
:P)
And some fast stuff I really like:
Sonic 3, Sonic 4, sonic and knuckles
Alien Soldier (genesis) is one of the fastest games ever.
Jazz Jackrabbit - fast pc side scroller
Torus Troopers - fastest pc game (3d, with techno
Planescape: Torment was amazingly well done, not much replay after getting all the way through, but it has to get a mention.
As far as overall replay value goes, I can't think of any game better than Megaman X (SNES). That's the game that finally convinced me to go out and buy a gamepad for ZSNES purposes. That game has so many little hidden secrets and hard-to-get items (the heart tank in Spark Mandrill's stage is difficult to obtain, as is the blaster upgrade in Flame Mammoth's, and the Hadoken powerup once you have everything else). I actually found a site featuring videos of a guy tearing through that game as fast as humanly possible - finishing the game with all items and all powerups in under 45 minutes. Like most Megaman games, it was an instant classic.
Here are some other games on my list (not necessarily sports-related), most of these chewing up significant time at college:
- GoldenEye
- Super Tetris for N64
- Civilization II and its clones (even CivI was pretty cool back in the day)
I don't really play computer games anymore, I'm not into keeping up with the hardware requirements and whatnot. I prefer the consoles, just stick a disc in and it works, no worrying if your video card won't be able to pump out an acceptable number of fps. For XBOX the Brothers in Arms game has been my main game over the past several months, as I'm now about half way through the Authentic setting.I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
I find myself loading my Apple II emulator to replay Ultima III-V often. Had a Palm Trio briefly at work that I downloaded an Apple II emulator for. Best cellphone games ever. :) And of course, the Fallout Series. Fallout and Ultima series are just about the greatest RPGs to ever grace the computer screen.
Since I played at the Dallas site in 1994 I have traveled all over the country, met pilots from all over the world and spent thousands of dollars.
There is still nothing else like Martian Football out there, it is best multiplayer game ever created I have ever played (and I have played most of them). I even liked it so much, when the opportunity came to purchase a set of the Tesla cockpit simulators, I did. If you live in or near Dallas, check us out at http://www.vwlegends.com/.
Animal Crossing!
The Thief series (not to even mention the Dark Loader maps)
HL1/2 and CS/CS:S
Medal of Honor
Alice (perhaps the most visually appealing game ever)
Elite
Hitman 1/2/3
And I've recently revisited some old Atari and C=64 games with an emulator... Lots of good stuff.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
I keep coming back to 3k.org. Great fun, low on CPU requirements and an ever-expanding game where char death has significant consequences. First char in 1994. Latest incarnation a month ago after a hiatus of a few years.
Slashdot: Where nerds gather to pool their ignorance
Red Planet was great though....
Starcraft+Broodwar
Diablo II
Battlefield 2 (until BF3 comes out)
When are Blizzard going to come out with a Starcraft 2? SC is excellent.
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
Playstation 3 the big titles will be Killzone 2, Gran Turismo 5, Grand Theft Auto 4, Final Fantasy 15 or something like that. Metal Gear Even More Solid. Any one see the trend? In fact, how many games for xbox360 came out that weren't sequels? How many games really come out that aren't sequels? That's the whole thing, Crash Bandicoot was designed to be a series, Jak and Daxter was exactly the same way, total buzz kill to beat a really fun and well made game only to see it's "just the beginning" it's bitter sweet, you want a few more levels but you kind of want something new. Halo stood on its own but since it was popular it was doomed (pun) to become a series.
Why do people want a revolution? Super Mario brothers 10, Zelda 15, Super Ultra Metriod XV.
Doom (played in the form of zDoom)
Counterstrike (great standby LAN game)
Diablo II (any computer these days can play it)
Neverwinter Nights
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
Easily Heroes of Might and Magic 3, I constantly keep going back to play it. With the two expansions it's a really good game that unfortunatly takes way too much time and lacks multiplayer (or rather that turnbased multiplayer sux). This means I play it a lot and get bored after spending a week playing nothing but homm3 and don't play it for 6-12 month.
The old arcade "Star Wars" game - not the new 3d accellerated one. I mean the one with just 8 or so colors on a black background. That kicked ass and it still does! Get the rom and play it on MAME; I recommend playing with a mouse.
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
I know it's not a popular choice, but Volition's "Freespace 2" is still one of the best damn games I've ever played. It had a genuinely interesting storyline with good voice acting and some truly terrifying moments, graphics which were unbelieveably good for the time, and the best space-sim game play of all time, Tie Fighter be damned.
Super Maze Wars, SimCity 2000, Sonic (on Genesis), Super Mario Kart (on GBA), GTA III, and pretty much all of the games I used to play years ago.
You just got troll'd!
I've beat it atleast 10 times, but I just found myself picking it up again within the last month. Almost 10 years after it's release it still has a massive amount of replay value (and def. more than any Final Fantasy titles released after it).
Distributed proteome folding @ WorldCommunityGrid.org
Team Slashdot - Members:#1 Run Time:#1 Points:#1 Results:#1
Dungeon keeper was a fantastic game. I've yet to see anything that had a similar premise and was as good. Evil genius tried but was pretty boring.
I've went back and played through DK several times since I first bought it something like 5-10 years ago. While the graphics feel worse and worse every time, I still find myself sitting here for hours losing myself in the game.
Jedi Knight 2: jedi outcast is another game I've played several times. For me, no fps game compares to the feel of being a jedi. I loved jedi academy too. I wish they'd make another game with updated graphics and even more depth in the jedi fighting system and powers.
I'm quite partial to Pitfall! and River Raid on the Atari 2600. Other 2600 games I like include Breakout, Centipede, Ms. Pac-Man, Jr. Pac-Man and Asteroids. Even if most of the 2600 arcade ports are vastly inferior to the originals in terms of graphics and sound, the ones I listed still have excellent gameplay and keep me coming back.
--Z
EarthBound for the SNES, easy. I've beaten it 310 times, and I'm still playing it.
Can't believe these aren't dominating the responses - this isn't a non-PS2/non-racing thread, yet for anyone who enjoys automotive games and especially if you learn more about racing and tuning over time, Gran Turismo 3 and 4 are the must-return to titles to see how your new ideas work and have a blast at the same time. FPS's have always felt weak in technique (though I may just not get it) and RPG's, though fun, take about as much effort to advance as real life and I'd rather spend it where it counts. :)
the original and Carmageddon 2 Advanced (a sweet mod).
DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
Transport Tycoon def. has my vote.
From the music up, each scenario or new game you load is going to be addictive.
There's at least 24-50 hours gameplay in each new game, and if you get the amazing mods (advanced train signals etc) you can kiss your life goodbye.
When I found this again a few months ago, I lost at least two weeks. I gave a copy to a friend. He lost the same amount of time.
We've vowed that we won't touch the multiplayer option until we're both retired.
For me it's Civilization 2 and whatever the latest Gran Turismo is. Gran Turismo is a good game in that you never actually "beat" it. Sure, you can unlock all of the cars and get all gold medals in every race, but you can always keep coming back and racing again and (hopefully) improving on your laptimes. (I think that's what I like about racing in real life, as well.)
There's not much to be said about Civilization 2, other than it was a really good game in its day and it just hardly ever gets old. It's simpler than 3 or 4, but that's what I like about it. The ruleset is easy enough to memorize that it's an easy game to find your way through. The other thing I love about it, and this might sound silly, is that it actually runs in a freakin window! It's all 2D graphics and is lite on the hardware requirements, which means that it will run on practically every computer I own. But hands down, I *love* being able to minimize the game when I want to take a break and do something else. It is always one of the first games I install on any computer I own and one of the few games I always come back to. Before that, I was the same way with Civ1. In fact, I remember copying Civ1 onto a set of diskettes that I snuck into my CAD class in High School and proceeded to install on my workstation.
Lastly, I can't forget to mention Super Mario Brothers 3. Especially the GB Advanced port which lets you go back and replay any level at any time after you beat the game. Of course, I do miss having an inventory full of P-Wings or Hammer Brothers suits like on the original NES version, but I guess I can't have my cake and eat it too. (For those that don't know, on the original NES version of SMB3, if you started a new game right after finishing a game, you began the game with an inventory full of P-Wings. Game 3 == Hammer Brothers suits. I played up to game 5 one day in college (oh how I miss those days of being a semi-professional slacker) and never got anything other than that.)
Oh, and as a slight addendum here, when I still had a computer around that ran DOS, I would always come back to Duke Nukem 3D from time to time. There was just something about that game that I really enjoyed.
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
A couple games that keep pulling my friends back in are Runescape and WOW. IDK what is so absorbing about em, but evidently they cannot step away from the games for more than a couple hours.
Angband/Moria/NetHack has had me coming back for decades now. --Xan
"Congratulations, Boots. Your robot has become self-aware. You're a daddy now." -- Dr. Rho Bowman
T2 got me and wouldn't let go.
My current addiction(s) that were brought back from the dead have to be the re-incarnation of Sub Space (Continuum) and Star Control 2 (Urquon Masters).
I played both back when they were new, was a Sup Space fiend during the early beta testing days up until Virgin started charging for it (and locking guests to one or two type of ships), and completely quit once they killed it off for good. Star Control 2 I picked up from a friend a long time ago and played it for a while until I realized I had started off wrong and would have to start over to have any chance of completing it, and after a few attempts (and computer rebuilds, and College exams and work..) it got forgotten/lost.
A discussion on this very topic (addictive games of the past) had me looking for those two upon which I found they had both been re-built by the fans of the games. I play Sub Space Continuum far more than urquon masters simply because it takes less time, and is generally less involving. Being a Top-view MMPOG shooter, its easy to see why. Jump in, blow up a few ships and get blown up a few times, turn it off... The plot lines involved in Star Control/Urquon Masters makes it harder to leave, especially when you just figure out the next set of clues or get something that you know what to do with. Both are about as addictive as Civ is, to the point where I had to un-install urquon to get any work done.
Tm
ps: Sub Space (Continuum) is up and live at subspace.net
And Star Control 2 (Urqon Masters) is on Source Forge at SC2.sourceforge.net
Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
Two Words: Yuri's Revenge
Does God treat us as servants or friends? Check my homepage.
The first Battlezone (Activision) for the PC frickin' rocked! Played it for 6 years easy, multiplayer. Started on LAN and ended up playing coast-to-coast, Florida to California. BZII was ok, but the first one was the best.
I actually went back and played the original Ultimas. I, II, and III were all just incredible. I played the later ones, but they started to lose the feel a bit. Great games.
Wizardry (the original) can still make me salivate. I first played it back in 1982 if I remember correctly. And I could probably still navigate all the way to the bottom. Contra Dextra Avenue, anyone?
Nethack/Moria... I can blow hours on end with either one, just to see if I can FINALLY reach the end of it. More than a dozen years later, I still haven't gotten to the bottom of that damn dungeon! But every few months, I give it a whirl.
Both Fallouts were great, but I didn't really enjoy Arcanum, even though it was the same engine and mechanics. I can play them both, but I'd love to see a similar game (more mature audience) with better graphics come out.
NeverWinter Nights still makes me have a lot of fun. One of these days I will complete it using every single class.
The Icewind Dale/Baldur's Gate games still are fun to me. Fun engines and good stories.
But the big winner for me has been Diablo II. I have played the original, and lots of similar ones. Sacred was probably the best knock-off. But Diablo II (plus LoD expansion) is the king. I just am not bored playing it. The different items to get, enhancements, and the like... Whew! Time to salvage that from my recent HD crash!
Man, some of the games I remember make me feel my 39 and some change years. Ugh!
No comment necessary.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
The game that has always succeeded in keeping me coming back is Demise. I will play it for a while, then move on to new games, but always return.
I played Close Combat 2, on my mac, on another mac, and when it wouldn't play under System X I played it on someone else's PC. I've played some of the CC's that came later, but none seemed to have that perfect level of player control. There was real tension, "are my guys going to perform when the time comes, or will they crack and get everyone killed?" Making a backup plan was always more than just a good idea.
Munchman was the first game I was ever really good at. Just thinking about it, I can feel the controller in my hands, moving through the maze pattern that must be burned into my muscle memory. Some might think it was just a knockoff of Pac Man, but the speed of it made Pac Man look like a lethargic stroll in comparison. I broke about three controllers playing it.
Other games I have to mention are Myth, Quake III, and GoldenEye. The latter is still a favorite multiplayer game between some of my friends and I. Favorite mode? Slappers only.
The game that has kept me coming back over and over is Quake one (I play the Normal Quake build, not Quakeworld). Something about the zen-like simplicity of it and the very primal of bettering my technique with each match is what does it for me. Quake 1 seems to strip away all the extras that bog down many newer FPS games. The juggling that goes on between using the rocket launcher and the lightning gun remind me very much of being a samurai equipped with a katana and a wakizashi. Quake 1 feels very much like hand to hand combat to me, despite being mainly projectile based.
I suppose when you're young, replayability is an important part of the gaming experience. When you get older, you don't have time to play most of the games you want, so it's hard enough to find time for old games, let alone new ones. I'm not old really (24), but I don't have time to play most of the games I have. The only system I have is a gamecube, but medical school doesn't even allow me to play all the games I want to. Metroid Prime is still on my list of games I want to finish, let alone getting to Metroid Prime II. Ah, to be young and in college again. Stupid medical school, I can't believe I ever felt pressed for time as an engineering double major (sigh).
Still have to fire up my old favorites. X-Com, Total Annihilation, Fallout, Fallout 2, TES3 Morrowind, Super Mario Brothers, Zelda, Metroid, Galactic Civilization, Homeworld, Homeworld: Cataclysm, Starscape, Kyodai Mahjong, and Afterlife. Nethack still gets fired up at times as well. Can't get Tie Fighter and Interstate '76 to run under WinXP, but I still crave those. I also still play Everquest while dabbling with Everquest 2 and SWG. I am waiting for TES4 Oblivion and Vanguard.
I'll second that. TA was by far my favorite top-down RTS. Command and Conquer (the original, not Generals) came close, but the first time I played TA and saw how it dealt with terrain and high ground, I was hooked.
It's a pity there's no Mac OS X native version. I haven't played it in a while because my Classic install is severely borked and TA by itself, while great, isn't enough motivation to wade through a bunch of Extensions conflicts.
Frankly, I think that's what's killed a bunch of older computer games, that I'd otherwise play -- it's that running them now would be a project, rather than something I could do just for an hour of fun. I'd love to fire up Marathon Infinity or HAVOC, but when I think about how much work getting them running again might require, it's easier just to launch something newer instead.
I guess this is an advantage consoles have over computers; at least consoles that don't get upgraded, anyway. If it works today, then it ought to work fine five years from now, or ten years from now. Aside from some banging and blowing into the cartridges, I can fire up my NES and play Super Mario Bros. III just fine, if I wanted. It'll be interesting to see whether today's console and computer games, which have such a focus on networked play, have that sort of longevity. I doubt it.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
For this generation, I've been going back to Kingdom Hearts and Mega Man X8. X8 fixed some of the problems plaguing X5-X6. Kingdom Hearts is just damn good fun.
Can I get a witness from da crowd??? :D
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Absolutely agree with you. I was in a UK online League for Grand Prix Legends from just after it was released in 1998 for several years. Racing online with other people was fabulous, and once people had worked out the format from the track files, people built simultations of race tracks from all over the world. The original NurburgRing was awesome. The fact that it was hard and the fact that you could race others around the world kept my interest.
I finally lost it from my hard drive about a year ago - although I still occassionally think about a re-install (if I can find all the patches:-))
My second favourite was SU-27 Flanker. Again, on-line league where you could have dog fights with other people. Graphics where poor (by comparison with its contemporaries) but because of a very realistic flight model (meaning to win at dogfights you had to understand and practice the real techniques used by jet fighters). I even won a small prize from the makers for completing a set course through some mountains, flying at under 100meters faster than anyone else.
Microsoft's Allegiance is the most replayable game I have ever played.
Released in 2000, this game's still got a strong following at http://www.freeallegiance.org/
It's a space-combat RTS... Picture "Starcraft meets Xwing vs TIE Fighter", and add in strong teamplay and you've got Allegiance.
When Microsoft stopped supporting it, diehard fans got together and kept it playable. It's now available 100% free for everyone.
It's got a steep learning curve but once you've climbed it, it's the best game ever.
--TE
I expect I'm the only one on the planet still playing Sherlock ---- made it past 5000 games just this week.
Two of the best games and time spenders ever.
http://bisqwit.iki.fi/nesvideos/WhyAndHow.html
I downloaded uTorrent so I could watch their metroid and super metroid runs ---- amazing!! Not real play, but fun to watch anyway.
I keep playing Roll Away/Kula World. I love that game. It's a 3d platform puzzle game for the PSX where you're a beach ball that can jump and/or roll forward, but when you reach the end of a platform, which are constructed by cubes, you roll off the edge and roll down the platform since gravity shifts forward 90 degrees.
So, the levels are complicated because you have to figure out which of the six sides you have to be on to reach the nest platform or exit or whatever. Oh, and all of this takes place high up in the sky, so when you jump or slide off the edge to your death, and even when you simply roll over the edge, it's visceral.
Alpha Centauri. The commercial game ever ported to Linux
How about an old classic like Tetris?
You can jump in, have a quick game or two in a few minutes, or you can really get stuck in tying to beat your high scores. Multiplayer adds another twist to it as well, and you don't need to devote hours upon hours to it to get satisfaction.
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
Final Fantasy Tactics and Jet moto.
FFT has a great battle system that I can play for hours. I wish it got a real update intead of the gba version.
Jet moto although very dated is a great concept and quite fun. Suicide tracks were easy but very exciting to play through. I play this with an emulator to cut down on load times and to improve the graphics somewhat.
[20:36] wwwdot/.dotorg
MOO2 is one of my all-time favourites too. Although the gameplay has not offered much surprises for a long time, I still enjoy going through it every now and then. Stellar converter fitted on a ship is so awesome thing that it alone would suffice as a reason for replays :)
Everyone who makes generalizations should be shot.
If you're a fan of Angband, a variant of it might be of interest:
http://www.zangband.org/
Basically, it's Angband with quite a few ideas borrowed from Roger Zelazny's epic Chronicles of Amber series, including a totally changed magic system.
Everyone who makes generalizations should be shot.
All of these are games that I've wasted plenty of time with.
Mech Force is a Battletech (tm) inspired game for the Amiga. I can't even estimate how much time I've used with that, probably something like half an year of real time though. It would be nice if the source code for that would be released, but I'm not holding my breath... (last time I checked, nobody had managed to locate the original developer anyway)
MOO2 has already been mentioned, so I'll just say that it's most addictive "conquer the universe" game I've ever seen.
Zangband is one of the umpteenth Angband variants (which in itself is an evolution of the Moria, which is an evolution of the Rogue). I used to play that quite a lot over years, although not that much recently; somebody appears to have eaten my spare time.
Master of Magic is from the same people who also did MOO2 (SimTex) and could be said to be a cross between Civilization and name-your-fantasy-RPG here. It's just utterly impressive to use the magic to transform one's own units to be better suited to some purposes. (No ships available and you need to cross an ocean? Just pump waterwalking or flying to your units). Several remake projects for MoM appear to be in progress, so maybe I'll get an updated version to enjoy some day...
Everyone who makes generalizations should be shot.
Best. Game. Ever.
:) ) Was fun. Was not dumbed down for 12-year-old kiddies, but hard, as a game should be. Was not overbloated like its successor. I have 5 registered resp. bought copies, and 2 old computers that actually run it decently. Get your sharewared version at http://www.frontier.co.uk/
Got the physics of spacetravel right (Ever tried a planetary slingshot with Freelancer? Even helped me improving my shopping cart skills
Screw the FSM - Real geeks believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn
I keep playing since Civ 1, I love the concept despite a poor interface at each new version ( Civ4 is horrible, I still can't play, I need some time to pass thru the new interface)
http://www.frontier.co.uk/games/frontier/index.htm l
Screw the FSM - Real geeks believe in the Invisible Pink Unicorn
where I come from this means "a man" or is used as an informal greeting with positive overtones to a male acquaintance, as in "all right geezer", a bit like "mate" "pal" etc. What does geezer mean where you come from?
Those bring back memories... In Voodoo Castle, you come across a cast iron pot... If you type: "smoke pot" you get a response back "That's Illegal"...
The day Microsoft creates a product that doesn't suck, it will be known as the Microsoft Vaccuum Cleaner!
It's just the feel of the game. The opening soundtrack, the jokes, the cheesy story. It's like reading your favourite book again. The tentacle, the pink car, the red button, it's simply a really entertaining game.
cheers mate, you're a diamond geezer (ace bloke). As they say this side of the pond and my end of the Smoke (London). My manor is Hackney so not cockney but similar kind of language used, geezer, I dunno, definitely London, probably pretty general southern UK. As somebody or other famous said, America and Britain are two countries separated by a common language...
Heroes of Might and Magic III with addons is what makes me play it again and again. The most beautiful, interesting and exciting game I've ever dealt with. I forgot about my studies, about my friend and I could not stop playing it ...
Again and again
and again
Yes, it is a very fun, well designed game. When you get big games going tho, it can take awhile (with friends at least)
There is no spoon.
Seriously - OIDS? That's pretty awesome. I played that on the Atari. Too bad there's apparently no version for x86.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
-: I can fire up my NES and play Super Mario Bros. III just fine :-
More importantly. SMB3 is such a great game that I want to. I have an emulator so I can play SMB3 on My PC and Laptop. I own a USB game paddle for the exclusive use of SMB3. All my other games are keyboard or mouse centric.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
New games don't seem to have that "magic" in them, like it used to be.
I just play a lot of old games (would put you to sleep if I started listing them all) that start with the C64/Atari 2600 era and end at around the PS1 Era. These where days when a lot of thought and talent went into the making of a game, not like today's games that have gore and high-tech graphics, as a priority.
Kind of makes me wonder, are you using an alternative input device? In your posts, most all of the letters are there, but jumbled or with odd letters switched. It doesn't seem like phonetic spelling errors, more like what would happen if you had an imprecise control on the keyboard, reminiscint of a friend of mine who had to point things out a letter at a time due to a motor control problem.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Perfect Dark 64
Golden Eye 64
Jet Force Gemini 64
Both Smash Brothers
Rampage World Tour 64
Any and every super mario anything.
Zelda Oot and MM and WW
RE 4
Amplitude
Frequency
Guitar Hero
Animal Crossing WW
Star Fox 64
Half Life
Harvest Moon 64
Day of The Tentacle
Sam and Max Hit the Road
Zone of Enders Second Runner
Golden Sun
Golden Sun Lost Age
(where the hell is golden sun 3???)
Thats all for now.
sol.exe
... in no particular order:
Thief & Thief II
Fallout and Fallout 2
Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
I just can't leave them alone. Must play them over and over and over...
EA used to have a couple of great space adventure games, Starflight, and Starflight 2. The original fit on a single 3.5in disk, the sequel took 2 disks.
I still break them out every few months to play.
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
Simulators keep me going almost for ever, because you can never finish them. On-line sims doubly so. So for me it's Warbirds, (WWII on-line fighter sim) and Grand Prix Legends, (simulation of 1967 Grand prix series). Both take months or years to master, and it is always possible to go back and do slightly better
***You learn something Every day. And then you die.***
I had played this game since 2000, back when I first started college. I finally managed to put the game away a little bit over a year ago, and nearly caused me to fail out of college as an undergrad. I was part of the game's competitive scene, as in online leagues and tournaments. It was a bit more than just a game; it was really a community, which is either dead or slowly dying now. When I say community, I mean the people that played team deathmatch or capture the flag, without any mods. That may be a bit biased, but the truth is the greatest players that played the game in its "golden age" came from either of those competitive backgrounds at least in North America, though some good ones were from the insta-gib scene too. The rest were generally considered to be scrubs.
With the arrival of 2K3 and 2K4, the UT community somewhat forked, with half going to the new generation and basically starting the end of the UT99 competitive scene. That was nearly four years ago, and it took all that time for it to really die. I would say that is attributed to the quality of the game, which could not be said of 2k*, whose competitive scene lasted much, much less than seven years.
Personally, I had liked 2K4, but not 2K3. Both were different games than UT99, and that was the main reason for the split. Originally, the competitive community only wanted 2K3 to basically be UT99 but with better graphics, not a different game all together. When 2K3 was released, the competitive community felt betrayed, as if Epic Games didn't listen to us, and those that didn't like the new game and failed to accept it stayed with UT99. Epic tried, or at least seemed to try, to fix the situation with 2K4, which had been developed to play more like UT99. More people were accepting of their efforts this time, but again, for most of the UT99'ers, it was not what they wanted.
Now, we have 2K7 in development. From what I understand, Epic wants to go back to the UT99 roots with that game. Hopefully, they won't fuck it up, and the community can pull together for a change and have some fun. Along with the new gametypes and potentially the most advanced 3D game engine ever made, it should be really fun. I must admit, onslaught in 2K4, which will hopefully mature a bit in 2K7, was very entertaining, but I wouldn't play that competitively. It's just not my style I suppose.
Anyway, this is one thing that I understand about games: great games have great communities around them. It seems that that's more of an accurate measure of the quality of the game than anything else. UT certainly had one, and so do/did the other great ones.
Bored/board games: Settlers of Catan, Islands, Monoply.
Card games: Poker (for fun) Go fish.
Computer Games:
Classic games-Adventure, Dark Castle 1 and 2. Lemmings 1, Marathon 1 and to a lesser extent Marathon 2. Oni (Windows edition) Multiplayer mods and just a good solid fun game. Master of Orion 1 and somewhat 2.
Counsel Games: Final Fantasy 1-9. X Would be on this list if not for some of the iritating things about the game.
Many of the nintendo games: Mario Cart, Mario Brothers, Smash Bros etc.
RTS: War Craft 2 both Battle.net and orginal. Star Craft 1 sort of kind of liked the regular game. The LAN games irititated me.
Older Arcade games: Dragon's Lair, Samurai Showdown 1.x.x A -The 'bugs' made the game tons of fun.
I have a Palm T|X and regularly play the solitare game that comes with it but also like Chess Genius, which on the T|X is much more challenging than it was on my m505, which had an older processor.
I also like Space Trader, though it may grow a bit stale after a few playings.
If anyone here has any suggestions for good Palm games that keep you coming back, I'd love to entertain them. Lots of my former monochrome games for the older Palm OSs break under the new one.
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
Noene has mentioned Adom, atleast I play Adom a lot, and the newsgroup rec.games.roguelike.adom has a lot of posts each day.
-- Kimme Utsi
Yeah - it looked neat, and moddable, and had all sorts of things going for it, it just
Never
- - - quite
- - - - - - WORKED!!!!
It still seems like it could be modded into a heck of a game - rip everything out and rebuild on the basic engine. But if I was going to rebuild something to that extent, I'd rebuild it on top of Celestia anyway.
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
Colonization is one of those games I just can't stop playing.. :) Even though I passed it in Viceroy level several times. My current goal is to complete it with 13 developed colonies. :)
Scortched Earth is one of the most genious games I think, and even though it's old and with poor graphics, it's still really good now.
Defender, Tempest 'nuff said.
It's not a particularly brilliant title. The game mechanics are a little weak in spots and there are a few bugs here and there. And yet. . . The game speaks to something in people in a very powerful way. . . Heck, I remember seeking it out, years after its initial release. I got it for about $15.00 packaged with Fallout2, and I don't even know how it entered my brain as a possible title to look for, but I remember waking up one day just knowing that I had to look for it and play the thing.
The first thing which struck me a couple of years afterwards was how the political picture of our current times was beginning to merge with the intro to Fallout. Cue it up and watch the intro movie on the disk again; "War. .
I sincerely hope that my fascination with the game doesn't mean I'm subconsciously preparing to survive the coming holocaust in that particular mode. --Worn black leather and a reliance on old shotgun shells doesn't strike me as a particularly fun way to exist.
Anyway. . .
Might as well add mine to the list of favorites from years past. . .
I don't own games anymore. Need to get work done. . .
-FL
The race of giants in the story, as depicted by genetically altered enforcers, are possibly analogous to the Nephilim, the race of 14 ft tall aliens scheduled to arrive sometime in the next five-ten years once the so-called 'apocalypse' is underway. Hm. I didn't make that connection before.
Also, that whole sequence of religious fools you meet half-way through the game, all spinning in misery are an interesting foot note as well. . . Particularly if my memory serves correctly, regarding their association with the giants through some kind of virus. --The Nephilim, whenever they show up in human history, (I believe 8-9000 years ago was the last occurrence), are presented to us as gods, when really they are just a bunch of aliens similarly enslaved and co-opted by the next race up the food chain. Inter-breeding through genetic engineering apparently is also a feature of the whole cycle.
"Fallout" is a very interesting dream sequence indeed! The subconscious yelling up from the depths with warnings. . .
-FL
Not only do I play, but host a NWN PW. www.twilightlegacy.ca
I know - Mac niche game, however - I've been playing this sucker for AGES.
~/words_by_grainfed.txt
I loved MOO1 (Master of Orion) and waited very impatiently while MOO2 got delayed a few times, but man was it worth the wait. I still to this day will take it out for a spin now and then. :(( sooooo disappointed. For me the coolest part of MOO2 was designing my own super ships and then stomping the other races into the ground with it. The rest was just work I did to get there. With MOO3 they made it almost impossible to play that way. It was like they took the most un-fun parts of my real-life job and put it into a computer game. What a bunch of junk! I see that MOO3 is now available on the discount game racks. Please please please, for your own sake-do NOT buy this game. I considered buying them just to spare other people the pain. It's really that bad.
I then talked it up to everyone I knew and was so excited when I heard MOO3 was coming out. You would believe how excited I was. Then when I finally got it...
One other awesome game (actually the whole series.) Heroes of Might and Magic. I am especially fond of version 3 (which has a native Linux version via Loki if you can still find a copy) although 4 is very good too, but a little different. There is a fan site you can Google for that makes new maps freely available too.
Best two games of this entire generation, that keep me going back at least once a week, at times daily, despite having beat them 5 thousand and 6 times:
Naruto Gekitou Ninja Taisen 4 (import)
-and-
Super Smash Brothers Melee
Can't wait for the sequels, those games never die, even more than the old school stuff.
"I love games that allow the players to make expansions for the games. It's the one thing I miss since I switched from PC to Console gaming. I switched because it was too costly to have a computer that could run all the newest games."
So you're the guy who dumped all his PC games for an Xbox. Thanks, I have your Far Cry, Doom 3, and Mafia. BTW, all the previously mentioned games are moddible (especially Far Cry with it's Sandbox editor)
Every other year or so on DOOM's birthday (December 13th) I play through the shareware episode. I always think I'll get bored, but by the time I pick up the chainsaw, I'm back in corridor rampage mode. Modern shooters have piled a lot on top of the simple formula that was DOOM, but by and large they've just made it more complicated, not more fun.
Dungeon Keeper II
Populous II
The Settlers III and IV
In 26 years of computer gaming only Transport-Tycoon was able to survive ten years of attention and still rock.
Ok, today I am playing the Open-Source-Clone OpenTTD but it is still the same gameplay, just with more depth in resources.
The original TT was rather blunt (needed a 386dx40) but already TT Deluxe was pretty deep in gameplay (fun at 486dx2-66). The Windows-Version TTDW wasn't a big step but is nowadays the base of all further versions (starting at a 486dx4-133).
There is TTDW-Patch which adds hundreds of features to the old original game by doing binary patches at runtime, especially likeable are the very advanced train-signals. I suggest a Pentium-200.
OpenTTD is a clean-room-reimplementation of TTDW+TTDWPatch with source-code and a working internet-multiplayer-system. Needs a pretty tough machine though, at least a PentiumIII-400 but even my Athlon-2100+ has a hard time when playing at 1600x1200 with some thousand vehicles on screen.
"Life is short and in most cases it ends with death." Sir Sinclair
X-Com UFO Defense: Enemy Unknown for the PSX is one that has brought me back every two months. The fact that I've never been able to beat it just spurrs me on. I think I managed to get what.. 88% of the research tree, and managed to manufacture an Avenger, but I ran out of Elerium to fuel it. I doubt I'll be able to fbeat it in the near future, but it's one that continues to pull at me. DAMN THOSE CYBRIDS.
Empathetic-- 94% You tend to walk in someone else's shoes a hundred miles before pointing a finger.
These Games I play just for the fun of it, I usually play most games twice just make sure I didn't miss
anything
Zelda 3
GTA (any though SA has been played the least so I'm playing through it again to get 100%)
Halo
Might and Magic (5-10 so big I never finnish them)
HoMM 3&4
FF 3,7,10
Vagrant Story
Splinter Cell CT
Ninja Gaiden (now the Black ver.)
Privateer 2
Starcraft
Diablo II
Fantasy Empires
Mechwarrior 3 (liked 4 but didn't enjoy it as much)
Anyone ever play Stunt Island (very old game)
BG 1&2
The Summoning (also old)
Tie Fighter
Achea (Free MUD)
Fallout 1 & 2
Daggerfall (played that game to death)
Morrowind (still play occasionally, going on 4 years...)
Goldeneye (on the 64)
PD (64 also)
Timesplitters 2 (loved making maps)
Mr. T carries a postage stamp in his wallet at all times on the back is a list of all the fools he doesn't pity
I still come back and play Grim Fandango from time to time. That was one great game--voice acting, difficulty. It's really a shame that G.F. didn't get nearly as much popularity as it deserved.
I have discovered a truly marvelous
My father and I played this game for hours and hours when I was young. It had staying power. In fact, at Christmas last year we pulled the old Colecovision out of it's box and played for a few more hours. The controllers are getting awful worn, but the game was still a lot of fun.
I must say that for me the all time fav is Ghost Recon.
As a clan with some 70 players it was awesum to play over the internet.
Over the years we tried several different ones, but always came back to GR. I've never played anything for as long as that one.
Even though it's now been a while, I often think about building a windows machine so that I can play it again.
is a game I've repeatedly gone back to since 1996.
Originally it was made by VIE in an attempt to make money charging players for gametime online. Since they dropped the project it has been adopted by numerous techs and suported fairly well. Still a lot of fun. Get it at http://beginners.subspace.net/
Free Beer!
Not the 8-bit Nintendo versions.... the Budweiser arcade version of Tapper and the arcade version of Bump N' Jump. Games like these never get old (unless you play for hours straight!)!
seriously.
My son (now 14) and I just find ourselves playing those every so often.
Looking forward to the new console versions of Sims 2 which appear to be a good blend of Sims 2 (console) and Sims: The Urbz. Must have tats! Must unlock areas! Must surf waves and save the downtrodden geeks being bullied!
And Animal Crossing - must have about 10 memory cards filled with characters for that - there's just something that draws you back in.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Adom is the best computer game written so far. :)
But a live GM is still better
As for other games, those that I like:
Heroes of Might and Magic 2
Supaplex (and its cousin Rocks-n-diamonds: http://www.artsoft.org/rocksndiamonds/)
Cilivization
Warcraft 2>&1
Doom 2
And a 50x30 kminesweeper with 1/4 of the field being mines (haven't won ever).
And no, I haven't played Elite. But was impressed to watch/hear.
WYSIWIG, but what you see might not be what you need
I agree, I still have active Diablo II characters - which means I must play them at least once a month - haven't played WOW though.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
N, Way of the Ninja.
Here: http://www.harveycartel.org/metanet/n.html