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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.
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 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.
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.
And I add Goldeneye, Mario Party, Smash brothers if people are around. For single-player, Zombies Ate my Neighbors, Final Fantasy VII, Console Zelda games, and Anything by Blizzard (although some never stopped playing Starcraft....).
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
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.
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
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.
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 -
That's assuming you ever stopped playing Alpha Centauri.
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
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
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.
Another great open-source game is Battle for Wesnoth, a role-playing, turn-based strategy game. It's available for Windows, Linux, MacOS, FreeBSD - even AmigaOS.
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.
...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
Nintendo games tend to keep me coming back more than any other...
Mario Kart, Starfox, and Animal Crossing...
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.
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.
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.
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 have to add Crimson Skies to the list. It's a fantastic game that was sadly overlooked by many. Good graphics, fun arcade style flying, interesting back story and excellent voice acting.
:-P.
Ah, flightsims! Personally, the one flightsim I keep reinstalling every windows upgrade/(re)install has been European Air War.
I know, Combat Flight Simulator and other very good and technically better, newer flightsims are out there, but EAW has a unique charm and many user add-ons, mods, tools, etc are still around.
Also in the sim category is the Mechwarrior series. I have the full MW3/MW4/Mercs+all expansion packs.
Great game, lots of user mods, etc.
Used to love ruining Heavy/Assault-class jockeys' days in a custom Uller in online play
Haven't been too tempted to go out and buy any more games for a good while (4 yrs?) due to both disgust at some of the behaviours of game companies, as well as the newer games requiring I go out and drop a good chunk of cash on new hardware when what I have works just fine, thank you.
Nevermind increasingly restrictive DRM/online activation and EULA nonsense.
Adding to all that is needing to keep a windows partition and install on my machine (multibooting XP Pro/FreeBSD 6.0/OpenSolaris/linux) in the first place.
Emulators and VMs generally require more RAM than I have (256 mb) to achieve any real usefulness, especially with framerates, etc in accelerated games.
That's if the game will run at all in an emulator/VM.
Ah well. I'll play the games I have on the hardware I have until I'm forced to upgrade hardware by other more powerful reasons. Not playing "Nadda III" by itself just doesn't seem to sadden me enough to part with that much cash or control over my computer.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.