Those are YOUR favorite games!? Well mine are much better!

[Flechair]

Okay, I just want to start off by saying. I don't want anyone to be as harsh or blunt as my title suggests. I just wanted to see what other people's favorites games are, and what their reasoning is for liking those games. I don't really care how anyone presents them, I'd prefer that you explained what you like about the game(s) though.

I don't want to put the games in any order or category, so I will just list them and say what about them makes them a favorite of mine.

Knights of the Old Republic: BioWare has always made amazing games. Dragonage, Mass Effect, and Jade Empire. They are all amazing, but KotOR has always been my favorite. Ever since the first time I played it, I have loved all of the characters and their in depth storylines. Aside from not having the best combat system or graphics, I feel like it's almost perfect. It delivers the story of your mission and past like nothing I had experienced in a game before, the moment when Malak reminds you of your true identity, my mind was blown. That's the reason why Knights of the Old Republic makes my list of favorite games.

Elder Scrolls IV- Oblivion: Most people say that Morrowind is a better game than Oblivion, but I beg to differ. You can't fast travel places in Morrowind, you don't have a compass, you don't really know what to do. I found the game rather annoying because of it, not to mention the worse graphics. Oblivion is beautiful, and it isn't the storyline that gets me. I think the gameplay is great. The combat, the conversational dialogue, all of the things you can do. The game feels endless (much unlike Fallout). Otherwise, Oblivion is gorgeous, I was amazed when I played the shivering isles and I say the mania side. It just seemed unbelievable that the game could hold such expansive terrain and mysterious places to search. I can tell you right now that I will jump on Elder Scrolls V no matter how bad it were to look.

Half-Life 2: I don't know what many people's views on HL2 are, but I actually just got around to playing it recently because of the Orange Box. I thought that the graphics were amazing for how long ago it was released. The storyline was action packed and very suspenseful at some points, actually rather difficult at others. The way the game plays out, it might be linear but it's much more innovative that those 'run of the mill' FPS' that are constantly being released on consoles. Half-Life actually has those puzzles that you need to solve to finish areas. You don't just run down hallways CONSTANTLY. You actually had to somewhat think. I really hope a third Half-Life is underway. Considering that most of the people working on Portal 2 aren't actually from Valve's main group, I'd hope that HL3 is what the others are busy with.

Team Fortress 2: Okay, so I'm jumping right back into another Valve game, and it will be the last. I'm not going to fill this list with Portal and Counter Strike as well. Team Fortress 2, well there's not a lot to say, other than it's an extremely addicting, decently paced, innovative FPS. I think it blows Halo, Call of Duty, and Gears of War out of the water. It has such originality to it, with warm fun cell shaded goodness, quirky and silliness to pass around. Going along with it's amazing gameplay and character, it has one of the largest skill level curves which you can just see by going on GitP's server, Chocolate Hammer. It is the most fun Multiplayer experience that I've ever had with a FPS.

Freelancer: I have no idea how many of you have played Freelancer, but it's a space combat oriented game. You get different ships and weapons, and go on freelancing missions between storyline missions. The freelancing mission include things like "Go destroy all the ships at the waypoint" "go capture the thug leader" "Collect the contraband" and they can get somewhat repetitive. But the storyline really makes up for it. It's full of plot twists and exciting suicide runs where you need to escape before you get destroyed by enemy armadas. I high suggest this game solely based on the storyline, it starts off with you being one of the only survivors from a space station that was attacked. You realize that there is something going on in the different military's governments. You are forced from being a freelancer for the Liberty Military to becoming a fugitive on the run. Then the graphics are very pretty, but I don't know how hard or easy it is to make space graphics, but I've always loved them.

Populous: I actually find this really funny, it's one of the first games I ever played. It was made in 1989, and it's an early RTS. You play as a Deity and you have a tribe worshiping. You get a bunch of followers and you tell them what to do, build, attack, etc. You can come across these monuments they can pray to it'd give you new powers. You channel your powers through the tribe's shaman. He can cast spells, like fireball, lightning, or earth changing ones. Earthquake, raise ground, lower ground, volcano. It doesn't have good graphics by any means by today's standards, but back in the day it was really good. I don't really remember the storyline, seeing as it's been years since I've played, all I remember was that it was one most fun games ever. I loved being able to cause pandemonium to an opposing tribe with firey goodness.

The Legend of Zelda-The ocarina of time: This game is true nostalgia for me. It was the game that came with my N64. I remember my dad saying "I'm sorry, I tried to get the pack with the star wars game in it." It ended up being my absolutely favorite game for the console. I played it through and through. I remember when I was 7-8 I was too scared to beat the first 3 dungeons. I was afraid of the spiders and lava. When I finally got over that fear, I finally began to truly love it. I still remember fighting the fake Ganondorf for the first time, thinking I was beating the game. It just brings back wonderful memories, making it my first favorite game.

Minecraft: I don't know if I should actually call this one of my favorite games, but I am so utterly excited for the full release. I am so happy when I start up the game and get updates and see what's new, what's fixed, and how the game just works better. It has been looking better and better every week. I suggest everyone gets it. I love the freedom of being able to build your own work and make it however you want. The mining for resources and everything. The monsters are even scary.

Aquaria: I loved this game. It is an indie game that was included in the Humble Indie Bundle. It's pretty, the music is soothing or intense with the corresponding situations. It has original level design and it's extremely fun. When I think about aquaria, I believe that it's like if tLoZ and Castlevania mated and had an underwater birth. Aquaria is that child and is amazing. The thing that really set it apart for me was the mystery behind the main characters story. She's all alone and doesn't remember anything, and she's in this hostile world with no one. It makes me want to help her, to complete the game and see her to a good ending.

I don't know if it's a favorite yet, but I'm rather addicted to League of Legends: I'm sure many of you play it, it's got a thread on GitP and is really popular. The new and improved DotA. It's like, the part of MMOs that I enjoy. PVP. It's really fun to get my friends on Vent and play together. That's really the only reason I truly love it. It's completely free too. Go get it.


Anyways, I want to hear your guys' opinions on games, see your favorites, and just have a nice discussion about why people like games. Maybe people can even make suggestions for others so they find new favorites.

[Remmirath]

No particular order here, either. Well, except the first one. No order after that.

Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate II, Throne of Bhaal: Yes, I'm putting them all in one group, because I tend to view them as sort of the group entity of Baldur's Gate. Why do I love them so much? Well, they have all the things I like most in a roleplaying game. A set of rules that I like and works well for computer games, an interesting storyline, humour, the ability to create your own party, rolling stats instead of point buy, all that sort of thing. Honestly, I can think of very few things I don't like about the series.
It also has, in my opinion, the best slate of possible endings for any game. I also genuinely like the old top-down, painted background style - more than newer games. Basically, to me, it's the perfect series of games.

Planescape: Torment: It took me quite a while to actually finish the game. Normally, I strongly dislike roleplaying games with pre-defined characters. However, for Torment, it really wouldn't work as well any other way. The story is amazing, the atmosphere, the NPCs... and it's got the added advantage of being in the style of game I like best.

Icewind Dale: Similar to Baldur's Gate, though significantly less grand on the story and scale. However, for a just really good fun game, I think it's hard to beat. Many of the things I like about it are the same things I like about Baldur's Gate.

Unreal Tournament 2004: It is, in my opinion, the single most fun FPS out there. Maybe the graphics are a little old now, but hey, they still look cool. I like the fast game play, the high jumping, all of that. I'm quite fond of both online and single-player, though mostly online.

Commander Keen: The first game I ever played, and so I'll probably always like it for that reason if for no other (and there are others). Time was, I could write the Standard Galactic Alphabet as well as the Angerthas, and I could probably still finish them all in hard game with my eyes closed.
You played Billy Blaze, also known as Commander Keen, who created the Bean-with-Bacon Megarocket out of soup cans in his back yard and went on various adventures. The first one was Marooned on Mars, then there was Invasion of the Vorticons, Keen Must Die, Secret of the Oracle, Goodbye Galaxy and Aliens Ate My Babysitter.
I remember holding out hope for a while that The Universe is Toast would ever come out, but it never did.

Lemmings: There's nothing quite like watching a series of colourful Lemmings fall to their horrible deaths while jaunty music plays in the background. That aside, Lemmings (and the other various Lemmings games) are pretty much the only puzzle games I like, but I like them quite a bit. They're just... fun.

Duke Nukem: I only like the first and second games, but I like them a lot. They're pretty similar in terms of gameplay to Commander Keen and other games of that general era, which I do tend to like.
I think most people basically know what Duke Nukem is.

Hocus Pocus: Another old DOS game. You played an apprentice wizard who was trying to defeat an evil wizard (whose name does not come to me at the moment), with the help of your mentor who mostly appeared to give hints (whose name also escapes me). It had the best graphics of any DOS game I've played, and it was quite fun.

Populous: The Beginning: Gets honourable mention as the only strategy sort of game that I have ever liked. I believe it's a lot like the other Populous games (which I've not played, so I can't be sure), except where it's not. Not a great description there.
I'm not really sure why I like it more than other strategy games. It just seems more interesting to me.

Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind: I liked Oblivion. I played Oblivion first (by virtue of once being given Oblivion when I actually asked for Morrowind, and then shrugging and thinking 'eh, I'm not complaining'). However, I like Morrowind better, and that's because I like the storyline a lot better. The graphics are worse, sure, but I think they're still pretty nifty. True, I had to spend half the time alt-tabbing and trying to find maps to figure out where to go (I've an awful sense of direction) - but I really liked the plot and all, whereas I found the main plot in Oblivion to be a bit thin. The Dark Brotherhood quests are my favourite part of Oblivion, whereas the main plot if my favourite part of Morrowind.
I'm not really one for the randomly wandering around part of it, so it's the main plot I look at.

Dragon Age: Origins: It's so close to being a return to the style of roleplaying game that I love best, and it's close enough that I'm quite fond of it (the deviations were all things I can overlook). I find the setting interesting, it holds the record of being the only game where I actually liked all but one of the joinable NPCs (well, all but two if you count the dog - but that's just because I'm afraid of dogs) and actually wanted to take more than one or two of them around with me, and it has a lot of the little things that I like seeing in games.
Honestly, I mostly hesitate to put it on the list because I never put games I only started playing recently on the list. It's been close to a year now, though, and I still like it, so it's probably safe.



My descriptions aren't the best, but there they are. I tried. I don't always really know why I like a game, so that kind of broke down sometimes. There are rather a lot of other games I like, but those are probably the favourites.

Of the already mentioned games, I like both Knights of the Old Republic and Oblivion quite a bit, though not quite enough to make the list (I already mentioned why I don't like Oblivion quite as much, and for KotOR the kind of clunky combat system, the fact that I dislike most of the joinable NPCs and only actually like two or maybe three of them, and the frickin' point-buy system are what's keeping it off the list). I like Half-Life 2, though I like just Half-Life somewhat better.

[MoelVermillion]

Yeah, well, this is just like, my opinion, man. I know there's a few I forgot, I'll edit them back in later when I remember or something.

Solstice: One day my dad and my brother came home from the stores with a new NES game, its name was Solstice and it stuck in my mind for ever. This game is about a wizard trying to rescue a princess from an evil wizard or something, you navigate an isometric view maze and try to solve jumping puzzles and gather these 6 pieces of some staff so you can fight the evil wizard. Your only means of defense you have against enemies are these limited use potions that can do things like stop time, kill all enemies on screen and make you invincible until you leave the room so most of the time you’re just running from enemies. The music stuck in my head when I was young too because I had never and to this day still haven’t heard anything like it in another game (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hGWMeazlhg&feature=related#t=0m30s). This game is in my list because to this day I still haven’t actually beaten it, I’ve revisited it often but I still haven’t made it all the way to the end yet.

Donkey Kong Country 2: In my opinion this game took everything that made Donkey Kong Country great and improved on it. The levels were amazingly well designed with the game play always feeling fluid as you jumped from enemy to enemy or chained a roll through five guys, as an entrance to the DKC series the graphics were of course astonishing for its time and the (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Qp0_NE8M1c&feature=related) music (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J67nkzoJ_2M) was (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkcXD6IkUKM) amazing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KR3hE0_6Nk) too (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdUNrVzT97s). The games only fault was that Donkey Kong himself was not playable but we learnt to love Dixie instead so it’s all good.

Yoshi’s Island: Great gameplay and a great art direction with its story book graphics. The music was great being sometimes bright and cheerful (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ_hUgYKiv0) and sometimes being spooky and mysterious (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeyljeShfL8&feature=related). It also features the most terrifying portrayal of Bowser in any Mario game (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtKh7e2ESBc). Even outside of Bowser all of the boss fights were amazing with their being a particular trick you had to exploit to beat each boss. The games only downside was the annoying crying sound baby Mario made when you got hit but really that’s what happens when you get hit.

Ape Escape: As a Play Station 3D platformer the graphics were never really that great and definitely have not aged well… that being said though I still love this game. The core game play was about trying to capture super intelligent monkeys that would use things like missile packs and machine guns to try and evade you, you could either try and brute force it up to a monkey using your weapons before going in for the net or you could try sneaking up to them and catching them unaware, the different monkeys all had different stats for alertness, power and speed which you could check at any time with the Monkey Radar (which incidentally had some fantastic little jokes if you looked at the personality description/name of each monkey while scanning) to determine the best course of action. As you went through the game you unlocked a series of cool gadgets you would use to help you throughout the rest of the game but unlike modern Zelda games these gadgets were consistently useful throughout every level after you’d gotten them and even for backtracking through quite a few of the levels from before you got them. Also once (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFQUBYfCgk8) again the (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5nCcOj8-gY&feature=related) soundtrack was (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLaSDTdthBI) pretty (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdOFnTjhpK4) kicking (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwFFEkpm3ZM&feature=related).


Half-Life + Mods: This game kept me entertained for years, in fact it’s still keeping me entertained seeing as it’s what my friends mostly play when we have LAN parties. The core game play of Half-Life was pretty amazing, the game always felt well paced giving you just enough of a breather between fights and giving you just enough resources too, the mix of puzzle solving and action led to some of the best stage piece bosses in video game history with things like having to lead the Gargantua in to the generator before it roasted you to death. Add on some multiplayer mods like the absolutely amazing Natural Selection mod and I could play this for hours.

In fact I want to elaborate a little more on Natural Selection seeing as I bought it up. For those who don’t know it the mod is a multiplayer mod that combines the FPS and RTS genres to a “Sci-Fi aliens versus marines backdrop”. The game play is balanced and fun with strategy and shooting skill equally important, if your team has no strategy all the skill in the world won’t save you when the other team storms in fully upgraded however if you have no shooting skills you can’t win skirmishes for resources with the other team so you will end up overwhelmed. This is also the only PVP game I’ve ever played to actually be able to have a sense of atmosphere, with playing as the marines sometimes being a truly chilling experience.

Devil May Cry 3: If you ask me this game is the gem of the Devil May Cry series. The game play is fast and intense with a focus on creating stylish combos, the controls are hugely improved compared to the horrendously mapped and unchangeable controls of the original Devil May Cry, the game play is challenging unlike the badly made Devil May Cry 2 and there are more than five bosses unlike Devil May Cry 4. The four styles system was interesting with each style exaggerating a key part of Dante’s game play even further and seeing as there was no way in hell you were leveling up all the styles to full without playing a new game+ run it meant that you got to choose your favourite gameplay aspect and specialize in it even more. The plot and characters were surprisingly good for an action adventure game too and I liked the insight in to the character of Vergil who had to this point in the series been foreshadowed but not really touched on. I found some of the unlockable weapons pretty useless but other people I talk to swear by them so it seems like the weaponry all pretty much comes down to preference.

Persona 4: This game came to me in a time I was completely burned out by the jRPG genre, I liked how the game was just so different from everything else in the genre I'd played recently, rather than being some medieval villager or a bitter angsty mercenary I was nearly a regular high school student in a small town! The plot is pretty light hearted at times seeing as your entire party (apart from one guy in it) are regular high school students when they're not dungeon diving and it shows in their interactions. The whole murder mystery plot was pretty cool too with you trying to work out the real killer at the same time the characters were. The game play was pretty much standard turn based jRPG game play but the whole forging your persona aspect made it a lot more interesting and I also liked how you had to juggle time between your two lives effectively if you wanted to succeed. Persona 3 was also pretty great but I didn’t like it quite as much as it wasn’t as light hearted.

The World Ends With You: Everything about this damn game was great, the game play was fresh and interesting, the plot and characters were pretty deep and cool with some twists completely blind siding you but then making you realize all the clues were there from the start and the music and art style were great too.

BlazBlue (Series): Unlike many other fighting games (*cough* STREETFIGHTER *cough*) BlazBlue makes a point of having all of the characters feel as different from each other in game play as possible, some people have even gone as far as to say that some characters feel like you’re playing an entirely different game. The fighting itself is well polished though the balance still needs a little reworking. The game is not as complicated mechanics wise as Guilty Gear but it’s still a load of fun. The plot and characters are amazing for a fighting game, this is the only fighting game where I’ve ever really had any feelings towards the characters and their motivations beyond “I hope my guy wins this goddamn fight” and the plot is surprisingly intricate with it being nearly unintelligible if you miss tiny clues here and there. The graphics are beautiful high resolution 2d sprites which I find much more interesting then the hyper realistic 3d of many games today. The (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcB6duc1moc) music (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcduSQw-xio&feature=related) is (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpvs1a0oeeY) pretty (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbItpwfqfEs) amazing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0dPJig2lBs&feature=related) too (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZukz8CzYB0) and it manages to capture the mood of the character its portraying perfectly, there are also specific character versus character themes for some rivalry fights (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGsgDoFp6AM) that do (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppxQGsk1Y5w&feature=related) very much (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeN4_gkoGfw) the same thing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7Ph1T7n6vM).

Guilty Gear (Series): Most of what I said about BlazBlue applies here, the game play is deeper than BlazBlue but the characters and story are shallower in game with most of it being portrayed through supplementary material which is a shame. The (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGetImTgyFA) music (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjnmtLDanJw) is (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhpisRcYuZw) also (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h88e8G-_Sdc&feature=related) amazing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBUWLMbuTgo&feature=related).

[MechaKingGhidra]

Well, might as well join in, as well:

The Simpsons Game
It's just so easy to get into and if you just like roaming around, it's surprisingly time-consuming yet entertaining the whole time. Heck, I spent the first 4-5 days making sure I collected as much as I could without progressing through missions. I even made sure to listen to every line each character had when you "interact" with them, if you know what I mean. *insert Bart's micheveous laughter here*

Plants vs Zombies
*Drooooool*..........oh! Sorry about that, it's just that addicting. I've never been so interested in a generic web-based time killer game as opposed to a console game. For anyone wanting to see a cartoony zombie-killing game with plenty of comic relief (especially when you watch some of your plants' faces when they are being gnawed on), this is most certainly worth looking into. Just try to kill the guy who looked like he just got off the john. No one likes having someone drop their newspaper and run at you. The image kinda burns into your brain and it's kinda disturbing if ya think about it.

Final Fantasy: Anniversay Edition
Oh, the memories...anyway, this is just a fantastic re-creation of the first true sequel rival of Mario & company. Loaded with bonus content, I do believe that this will be my game of choice for quite some time to come. I've already beaten the game with minimal "requirements", for lack of a better term, and frankly, it was amazing to have the old challenge back. And with this particular save file, I never really felt like I had to go out of my way to do anything special.

However, that was but *one* of many ways to go about this so the re-play value is extremely high on this game. I will probably grind out a new party to absolute completionist status so I can actually get through the timed dungeon runs (I think it was 39 different floors for that, oh boy, that'll be a good day since it will not allow saving mid-way with that challenge).

Sorry to go on about FF longer than really needed. I just love that game so much. My favourite party so far: black mage x2, white mage, warrior. However, I think I'll try thief, monk, red mage, black mage for my next playthrough.

"But, MechaKingGhidra," you might ask. "You talk about that game like it's perfect and would never be replaced by anything else. Surely you can point out a flaw with it *somewhere*?"

And you'd be correct. The ONLY, and I truly mean ONLY part of this game that I did not appreciate was that there was no world map. However, it certainly adds a bit extra fun to actually make it out to be a puzzle and construct your own map of sorts via memory. As long as you can recall a few specific landmarks, you'll eventually get it right.

Anywaaaaaay, moving on.

Dynamite Headdy
A Sega Genesis game that is simply hilarious, although confuses me to this day as to some of the plot sections. Why does Heather (the character who takes the master keys from boss battles to help you with them at a near-end boss) live in a sky fortress or something (you find this out at the end of the game)?

She could have served her purpose while being a normal member of the 'cast', so to speak. Why does Mad Dog Bruin hate Headdy so much? Did he work for Dark Emperor? The list of questions just go on and on but I won't bore you any further than I feel is necessary. I tried to enjoy this game for just a really neat take on how to design a game but it just bugs me SO MUCH! I'm sure the masses who also played this ignored these questions and enjoyed themselves, so kudos to them.

Not to say this isn't a ludicrously fun game, it really is. I just tend to overthink these things and it dilutes the awesome-ness that is 'Dynamite Headdy'.

Subterrania
I never actually got to have all that many Sega Genesis games but of those that I *did* have, this was my very first foray into console gaming (yes, I had experienced Nintendo AFTER the fact). It was probably the best game I could have played to get me first started with gaming as a whole since it had the perfect balance of difficulty, forgiving points (via lives, re-fuelling points, reasonably predictable boss/trap patterns, etc) and graphic appeal (well, aesthetics count, too, y'know).

[Setra]

Favorite games of all time... hmm
jRPGs
I'd like to pick just one game to sort of generalize the reason I like jRPGs. However this just really isn't possible, and I love all of them. At best I could narrow it down to three; Dragon Quest 3, Dragon Quest 4, and Final Fantasy 1.

Simple gameplay, yet at the same time it wasn't so easy you could just bull rush your way through the game. On the other hand, the games weren't so hard as to be unfair... most games these days try too hard I think, added elements to a battle system can make a game interesting, but generally I like games simple, yet challenging.

As far as more recent RPGs, my favorites would be ...Legend of Dragoon, Shadow Hearts, and Lost Odyssey. They all have their little gimmicks, yet at the same time they're fairly simple overall in how they play. Turn based with a twist.

FPS
Somewhat hesitant to mention this, but probably Counter-Strike as far as fps games go. I don't care much for most modern shooters. Counter-Strike is my favorite for a few reasons. It feels easier to pick up and play, no need to worry about unlocking weapons or stuff like that, and I just like how it plays. Team Fortress 2 would be a close second as far as FPS goes, for pretty much the same reasons, minus unlocks.

Special mention to Warcraft 3. Not because I prefer it as an RTS, really I don't care for it much in that regard, but because the overwhelming amount of custom maps.

[J.Gellert]

The first few are "in order".

Baldur's Gate Series
Obviously, the number 1 spot. The games that started everything for me.

The Witcher
Fantastic game, great plotline, great setting, great dialogue, great characters, perhaps the deepest I have seen in any cRPG.

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines
Just awesome all around. Bugs? Who cares about bugs? I will forgive everything if the game is made of awesome.

Icewind Dale Series
Only a little lower than the above, and that's because it lacked very "strong" characters...

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
Fantastic setting and "scavenger" type of play, really, very different and "new", at least for me.

Jade Empire
A lot more cartooney and "arcade" than what I am used to, but really, great music, fun characters, a new setting, and one of the greatest (if short) RPG stories. Also a really badass evil path. Make a Jade Empire 2 already!

Dragon Age
Can't pin down exactly why, I loved the gameplay, and its scope is epic, but it's nothing like the above. I can't quite pin it down yet, but I think it's the quality of the dialogue, and the limited choices it gives. Otherwise a very enjoyable game.

Diablo 2
Just for the time I've spent running through it with my brother on a LAN. Can't do that in any other cRPG.

The Battle for Middle-Earth Series
A little over those below, because of all the time I've spent grinding the ladders of BFME2, and building my own modification for Rise of the Witch-King.

The Rest
Many other great games, but... I can't differentiate between them. Games I've loved, 1 to 5 stars (but not listed in any particular order):
Dark Reign: The Future of War *****
Total War (Rome/Medieval 2) ****
Age of Empires 2: Age of Kings ***
Age of Mythology ***
Necrovision ****
Portal ****
King Arthur: The Roleplaying Wargame ****
Need for Speed: Most Wanted *****
Oblivion ***
Neverwinter Nights Series ****
Heavy Gear ***
Heroes of Might & Magic III *****
F.E.A.R. ****

Edit: I had forgotten FEAR. :smallcool:
Edit again: And Jade Empire. This is pointless. :smalltongue:

[deuxhero]

Elder Scrolls IV- Oblivion: You can't fast travel places in Morrowind, you don't have a compass, you don't really know what to do

Which is why Morrowind is better. Actually having to find where you are going (and most of the time the directions are very clear) instead of next gen hand holding. Fast travel's primary effect is to make the world even smaller. Morrowind's world is actually exotic, rather than a series of plains (why they came up with some nonsense about a god terraforming the place instead of going with the rainforest it is said to be...)

Morrowind's plot is also a whole lot better, esp with the lore (Very little in Oblivion is new, almost all is taken from Daggerfall or Morrowind). I loved the fact that the story was so

Ambiguous as to if you were actually Lord Nerevar, or just a pawn for Azura to go take out the Tribunal





Knights of the Old Republic: BioWare has always made amazing games. Dragonage, Mass Effect, and Jade Empire. They are all amazing, but KotOR has always been my favorite. Ever since the first time I played it, I have loved all of the characters and their in depth storylines. Aside from not having the best combat system or graphics, I feel like it's almost perfect. It delivers the story of your mission and past like nothing I had experienced in a game before, the moment when Malak reminds you of your true identity, my mind was blown. That's the reason why Knights of the Old Republic makes my list of favorite games.


I disagree.

The combat, which takes up most of the game (seriously, do I need another group of enemies around the next corner?), is complete and utter poodoo . Beyond a rare heal, there is no point in selecting any option but a single attack for the entire game. You have to wait 6 seconds for your orders to actually happen and the AI is stupid beyond belif.

The plot is similarly awkward. Stop the big bad by finding the four objects! Get help from a street urchin, a whiny holier than thou Paladin Jedi, a wangsty widower that somehow has become a renowned solider despite the fact that before you get to him he refuses to work with anyone ect. There is no "in depth"ness, there is that one twist that doesn't even change the plot if you are a "good" character and nothing else.


The 2nd game is better as it focuses much less on combat, has a plot that matters, and fairly interesting characters.



Anyways my favorites are Deus Ex, for the serious effort in world building (It's scary what basis in reality the background info you can find has), the high tolerances of player choice, with actual consequences for their actions and the fact that I can still find new stuff after half a dozen plays.

Bloodlines for similar reasons.


Jagged Alliance 2 for well developed unique characters and solid tactical turn based combat.

Honorable mention to Planescape Torment and Pokemon Crystal.

[Dogmantra]

Elder Scrolls IV- Oblivion: Most people say that Morrowind is a better game than Oblivion, but I beg to differ.
We... we can't be friends anymore.


Populous:
Sounds like Populus: The Beginning to me. Because it sounds awesome.
We can be friends again. :smallbiggrin:


My list, from first to fourth.

Morrowind: Very rarely can a game get me so absorbed into the world. I could spend literally hours reading books in there. The main quest was incredibly deep, and I can recite the entire opening section up to where you leave the census office (with voices) nigh-on word perfectly because I played it so much.

Gotcha Force: The only game I can say I've completed over ten times and am still enjoying. It's got a bit of everything. There's the collection aspect, the nice art style, the okay story, and the hilarious voice acting. There are over 200 different playable "borgs", and a good proportion of them play completely differently, so you can easily change to a different force when you're bored of your current one and have a fresh game experience. It's the only game I find myself inexplicably grinning whenever I play. Just... everything about it is brilliant.
Also I played it because of the soundtrack.

Portal: Ah yes, time for the cliché section! Also time for the continuation of the "I played this because of the soundtrack" theme. Apparently though, I played a completely different game from everyone else. I played a mediocre puzzler masquerading as an FPS with a frigging amazing storyline. Everyone else seems to have played Valve's gift to puzzle games with "good writing" tacked on at the end. Dunno why that is. But yeah, I liked the story and the ambiguity. The mechanics weren't nearly as good as they were hyped to be.

The World Ends With You: Cliché Combo! Also more "played becase of the soundtrack" whoo! However, I understand exactly why people call it the best game on the DS. What can I say that hasn't been said?
Other than Twister is frigging GOOD.

[CrimsonAngel]

Guild Wars :smallfurious:

[Zevox]

Well, I guess it has been a while since we saw one of these, so what the hell.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 and 4: I'd pretty much be saying the same things about both, so I'll list them together. These are probably my favorite games ever. Fantastic storytelling, characters, character development - hell, half of each game is nothing but hanging out with people and getting to know them, progressing their own personal stories. These are the only two video games to contain scenes that made my eyes water (Junpei-Chidori in 3, Nanako in 4 [especially the latter] - you know the ones if you've played them, and I won't elaborate if you haven't since they're spoilerific). Moreover, the gameplay is great - even on normal difficulty the combat is challenging, and you really have to abuse the games' combat system to win, because the enemy sure will if you don't. And really, some of the concepts they draw from things like tarot cards and different mythologies are just fascinating to see and pick apart.

I'm actually currently replaying Persona 3, and doing so has helped me decide which one I think is better - Persona 4. I couldn't choose between them on the basis of the stories, characters, etc, which really are the highlight of the game, but replaying 3 has helped me appreciate the gameplay improvements 4 made, and I now think they outweigh the couple of aspects where I wish 4 hadn't changed the gameplay (reducing physical damage to 1 type and removing the main character's ability to choose his weapon). Also, the music is better in 4. In any event though, both are excellent games.

Banjo-Kazooie & Banjo-Tooie: Like the Persona games, I have pretty much the same things to say about both, so I'll group them. These are my favorite adventure-platformer games, bar none (yes, they're better than anything Mario has ever done IMO, and I like Mario). They're pretty goofy and over the top, and quite creative and interesting in the process. I mean really, in what other games is your projectile attack having the bird riding in your backpack spit out eggs? And Tooie adds in different kinds of eggs, including grenade eggs and eggs that hatch little mechanical walking chicken bombs. Or in what other games do you get a shaman to turn you into a pumpkin or washing machine to solve puzzles? Really, these games games are just crazy, fun, and crazy fun. It's an absolute shame that it doesn't seem like Rare will ever be able to continue the series in a way that does these games justice (yeah, I tried the demo for Nuts & Bolts - was not impressed).

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: Yeah, everyone knows this, so I'll be brief. This is what Zelda should be, period. Solid gameplay, great length, epic (if simple) story - it's easily one of the greatest action-adventure games of all time.

Super Smash Brothers (series): I'm sure everyone knows this series too, so I'll be brief again. Between the great concept of taking all sorts of great Nintendo characters and tossing them into battle with each other in a crossover and the simple yet original and extremely fun gameplay mechanics that, this remains my favorite fighting game series of all.

...at this point I've spent too much time on this post already, so I'll wrap it up for now with just a list of a few more games. I'll explain them later, probably.

Tales of Vesperia
Dragon Age: Origins
Disgaea: Hour of Darkness
Mega Man (main series)
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor

Zevox

[Forbiddenwar]

The Legacy of Kain: Raziel series for the twisted convoluted storyline. Yes, it maybe a bad game, and terribly easy. But it's the only game I feel compelled to play and complete, every few years.

[MoelVermillion]

Hmmm I remembered some other games I missed out on my initial run:

Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow: Well this was certainly going to come up in this thread eventually. These games were pretty amazing no matter which version you had. To any young kid playing the game the entire thing felt like a grand adventure with music (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQZPGtFMijs) like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpKiC9wuU5E&feature=related) only adding to the feeling. The game play was great where you had a real incentive to explore the entire map if you wanted to fill your Pokedex and no game in this series has yet trumped it for the title of best battle music (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crGtvSoZIIY).

Gold and Silver versions were great too, the game had a little less of an adventurous vibe but had a more mysterious vibe with odd locations like the Ruins of Alph and some events only occurring on certain days of the real life week, once again the (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdmcXhXUJjs) music (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om0xoAvlmRo&feature=related) helped to create this mood nicely. Unlike later titles in the series none of the new Pokemon ever felt redundant or like they were stepping on any of the old one's toes.

Casltevania games in general: First off are Castlevania 1,3 and Dracula X which I love all of them for the old school difficulty. Bats will send you down the nearest instant death pit, Medusa heads will make you wish you were still fighting the bats and Dracula will make you wish you could jump down an instant death pit in real-life. The difficulty is bearable though because you feel awesome when you finally beat a hard level and the music is generally good enough to keep the game interesting.

Then there are the more modern games: Symphony of the Night, Harmony of Dissonance, Aria of Sorrow, Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin and Order of Ecclessia. There are a lot of games here and while I definitely preffer some over others, my least favourite probably being Harmony of Dissonance, it is quite hard to pick a clear winner out of all of them. These games are great due to the metroidvania exploration gameplay, the cool special attacks, the ussually at least somewhat challenging gameplay and of course the music. Castlevania (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AZ5XZHIDh0) music (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kban8-_C4tA) is (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG5EzU2EZ5o) pretty (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f-GEWMp76w) much (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6kqjf16fLw) amazing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Usa_0WaaKKA) no (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRN4R1QR8v4) matter (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dh1qqLbuBww) which (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiSo9yL59Pw) of (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqT-eWAWbHk) the (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyXRV7wkeyo) games (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVbpN30SwWA) you (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4yc3sx0WLw) play (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOElM9CJ7h0).

Team Fortress 2: Yeah I enjoy this game a lot, it is one of the only FPS's I know of where all the characters just ooze personality even when you're playing as them. The game play is fun and pretty fast paced and the possibility of getting a hat at any moment somehow manages to keep me coming back for more. The (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRDmirJATKs&feature=related) music (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxTN_KfUzBM) is (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcGFDhIUG4k) once (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMPdOt_DQ4k) again (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlXeqsZMoSY&feature=related) pretty (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zm1_zBSUYFc) good (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YciTA18gq_E) but it doesn't really play much in game.

Metal Slug: This game is fantastic, the sprites are amazing with a whole bunch of hilarious joke animations and the like on certain enemies if you have the patience to find them, the game play is fast paced and hectic but very addictive and its one of the few games I actually go out of my way to try and get a high score in. For a while there was a period where I could sometimes make it through the first metal slug without being hit I played it so much but I've dialed that back a bit now. The music in the game isn't the best but still there are some memorable (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es8L7qudmjI) songs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dF5PlhFXEZ8) that stick (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl68uOXIY_g) out to fans of the series. Unfortunately the series kinda went down hill rapidly with the last good one being Metal Slug 3 which even then eats your coins like a madman. Also, ROCKET LAWNCHAIR!

Advance Wars (Series): This series is pretty cool, the graphics were nicely done whether it was the cutesy cartoony sprites of the first three games or the more gritty and realistic sprites of Days of Ruin. The game play was fun with its general rock-paper-scissors tactics though I sometimes found some COs seemed way over powered. The plots were usually not that great though the dialogue could be pretty funny at times. Once again I also thought the (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfYyz6ZOMfM) music (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtCDmCfW78A) was (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPyFspBIFKg) pretty (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCD6ribbc-4) good (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT9-unQMV4c).

Yeah I think you guys can already tell but I place a fairly big weight on the game's soundtrack when it comes to my enjoyment of it.

[Gralamin]

In no particular order:

Anything By Bioware

Starcraft & Starcraft 2

Duke Nukem (1, 2, 3d)

Diablo 2

Super Metroid

Final Fantasy 6

Anything By Bioware

Planescape Torment

X-COM

Final Fantasy Tactics

Chrono Trigger

Anything By Bioware

Advance Wars (1, 2, DS, Days of Ruin)

Civilization (4, 2)

Dwarf Fortress

and

Anything By Bioware

[Penguinizer]

Guilty Gear: It's the predecessor to BlazBlue, and is paradoxically superior in most ways. The gameplay is faster, leading to a smoother feel. The gameplay is more punishing and complex. While the storyline is worse, I feel that GG is just plain superior.

[Cheesegear]

Commander Keen: [...]
The first one was Marooned on Mars, then there was Invasion of the Vorticons, Keen Must Die, Secret of the Oracle, Goodbye Galaxy and Aliens Ate My Babysitter.

You never played Keen Dreams then? :smallconfused:

[Unrest]

@Anyone saying Morrowind > Oblivion, +1. I just spent hours walking around the world, scared like a little girl in suburban Austria, not caring at all for the fable. I remember first time seeing Dwemer ruins, high in the mountains, amidst an ash-storm, hearing some strange noises around me. A shiver down the spine as I'm even recalling it!


Guild Wars :smallfurious:

Meant as a sarcasm? (Sorry, it's the Internet, you know what it does to sarcasm.) For me, it was fun for all the customizability and teamwork once you got the right people. But it's so totally devoid of atmosphere it's not an MMORPG, it's an all-numbers, sport-like MMO. That's why I can't imagine playing it without people making your "Firing Squad Alpha!!" for a split second.



Metal Slug: Also, ROCKET LAWNCHAIR!

No, sir! SHOG-GUN! Game of my childhood.



X-COM

Final Fantasy Tactics


Amen, brother! Final Fantasy Tactics especially, probably best game I've ever played.

As for my types:
Stronghold: I mean, building your own castle stone by stone? Give me a HELL YEAH! My sick imagination could build anything it wanted AND tear the place down afterwards with a thousand maces! The kind of game that you just sit down and watch without doing anything after you've built up your fortress and town. I love that harmonic ballet of a bustling city.

Devil May Cry series: On part three I got 60 hours of playing in 4 days, and I don't think that except for that I spent more than 4 hours in a row playing any game. It's plain beautiful. The animation, effects and aesthethic feel in this game compared to e.g. so hyped games like the Witcher or Monster Hunter Tri is well, like high-class anime being compared to South Park. I mean, looking at the latter two games got me wondering what the hell were the developers thinking. Giant Enemy Crabs?

[Forbiddenwar]

You never played Keen Dreams then? :smallconfused:

true fans of Commander Keen know that Keen Dreams is no Keen game.
Let us never speak of it again.
Actually I did fine it fun just, Different

[Gorgondantess]

Hmmm. Well, Planescape of course, and "Insert Bioware Title Here" (Mine happens to be Jade Empire), and Pokemon and Ocarina of Time and Morrowind and Half-Life 2. So I'll talk about a few I think most people won't be talking about.

Black & White: You can't imagine how much time I spent as a wee child just playing this game, toying with the villagers, having my creature eat them and poop on them and hurl them into the ocean. It's really Lionhead's crowning achievement. Excellent, fun story, both childish and mature, challenging but not too challenging, free but not too free, and a great concept that nobody has managed to recreate. Not even in Black & White 2 (which was terrible, by the way). An oldie but a goodie.

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: Everyone always talks about Ocarina of Time... but actually, I prefer Majora's Mask. Sure, it didn't have that cleanness, that consummate professionalism that OoT had that made it one of the greatest games ever made... but it had atmosphere. Pretty much all of my favorite games have atmosphere. It was just so damn unique- not the Black & White tale of OoT, it had grotesque transformations and a confused, lonely kid as the villain, as well as some lovely characters and settings that OoT can't even get close to.
Of course, it's not as good from a gameplay standpoint, but Morrowind isn't as good as Oblivion from a gameplay standpoint and it's still better as far as I'm concerned.
Well, okay, swimming around as a zora was effing amazing. Damn straight they copied that in Twilight Princess.

Dawn of War: This was really my first introduction to Warhammer. I'd played Chaos Gate when I was younger, but it was just, eh, fun. Dawn of War, though, had feeling. It had this vivacity that you just don't see in other games these says. It said, "Yeah, I'm crazy and over the top and effing insane. And you love me for it." Sure, it's not as polished as some other RTS's, but nothing beats hearing "MAIM BURN KILL! MAIM BURN KILL!" Whenever you click on one of your chaos marines. Another atmospheric game. GRIMDARK.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow Over Chernobyl, specifically. The other ones were okay, but the first was fantastic. Glitchy as hell, mediocre graphics, broken quests, who cares? The gunplay was really, really fun (most fun I've ever had in an FPS) and the atmosphere was unlike anything I've ever played. It takes all the best things from Half-Life 2 and Fallout and the USSR and makes it even better. My favorite game, hands down.

Metroid: Fusion: This one's a gem. It has that hardcore play that all the other Metroid games have, taken to another level: it's frantic and fast and very well made.
Aside from that, it's just damn cool. The plot is cool, the character is cool, the bad guys are cool, the concept is cool, everything is really, really cool. Not exactly creative (though some of it is- especially Nightmare, who I'll get back to-) but cool. Especially the whole Fusion suit thing.
Then there's the atmosphere. I used to think it was impossible a GBA game could creep me out, get my pulse pounding, and then scare the crap out of me, as well as providing mood. I was wrong. From running around frantically, helplessly from the ice X's, to the horror of Nightmare's melting face, to walking in a room, hearing the music stop, and the echo of SA-X's footsteps... crappy system or no, everything from the setting to the sounds to the mood made the atmosphere in this game both exciting and oppressive. I've also never felt more helpless in a game. Second only to S.T.A.L.K.E.R., who wins for more creativity & RPG elements.

[kyoryu]

Portal. Cute puzzler until it started to get twisty. The writing and the humor made the game. Hate if you want, it was a huge step forward for the industry in many ways.

X-COM. 'Nuff said.

Ultima IV: The quest to open a book.

Psychonauts. One of the few games I actually re-play, the whole thing, on a regular basis.

Mass Effect: Best BioWare game I've played. I'll be willing to give ME2 a shot at it once I finish it.

Dawn of War: My favorite RTS. The Blizzard games are just too micro-managey in the wrong ways for me.

Sam & Max series: Dog. Bunny. Needless violence. Yay!

Civ IV: God help me when Civ 5 ships. I have it on preorder.

Master of Magic: I need a remake of this, stat.

Starflight: Best ending twist EVAR.

Elite: Wasted my entire 9th grade spring break playing that... didn't regret a thing.

Borderlands: Don't know why, I just can't stop playing!

[SparkMandriller]

Mars Matrix is pretty good. Pretty cool shooter. You've got your awesome bullet reflecting shield, and you have to keep finding the best spots to use it so you're not caught while it's still recharging, 'cause this game shoots ridiculous amounts of bullets at you. Then once that's done you have to find the best spots to reflect shots, 'cause that's the key to getting scores that don't suck. Lots of dodging all over trying to grab the +score cubes, trying to keep grabbing them so your counter doesn't reset, reflecting shots when you need to to keep your chain going. Moving all over, trying grab cubes, trying not to die, it's really good, even if it is crazy hard.

Also you can make Touhou fans rage when you point out how much better it is than their games in pretty much every way. So that's good too.

[thegurullamen]

Mass Effect My absolute favorite space opera of all time, books and movies included. The internally consistent technobabble (and I hate using that word seeing how much the creators cared about the background information) is the platinum standard of science fiction. The characters are all amazing (save for the humans, oddly, but even they have their moments) as are the levels. The final mission is so. Damn. Epic.

Mass Effect 2 A sequel that does not disappoint. Characters: more and better implemented! (Only one human "sucks" this time, out of a potential four!) Levels: more varied and just as epic! Combat: as hectic and fun as ever! Story: YES.

Bioshock Late to the game, I know, but I just beat this thing two days ago and I love it. Great, great atmosphere, beautiful characters (Ryan might be a monster, but he's so damn charismatic when he's talking about his ideals that it's easy to forget why you're mad at him,) and interesting combat, if a little easy.

Fallout How can a game over a decade old completely school modern RPGs in terms of freedom? There are so many valid options available in this game that it's sitting firmly in second place as the most replayable game I've ever played, just after

Fallout 2 Where the first game gave you a good little story about saving your extended family (how cute), the sequel forces you out into the Wasteland to SAVE THE DAMNED WORLD. And it feels like it. In no other game (save maaaaaaaybe Mass Effect) has a cinematic depicting your character's achievements (both the boat and the end summations of your effects on the world) made me feel so damn awesome. This thing represents a standard some RPG makers need to return to.

Guitar Hero 2 It's fun to pretend guitar while real music is playing as a result of your "playing". Also, "Carry On My Wayward Son", "Sweet Child of Mine" and "Freebird". All it's missing is Boston.

GTA: San Andreas Best sandbox out there. All of the goofy fun of last generation's GTA missions with the largest world created thusfar. With the largest amount of things to do after the last mission is done, this game is head and shoulders above the next best (which oddly enough is Saints Row 2.) A good example of what sandboxes should be. And playing with the Hydra is awesome.

GTA: Vice City Soundtrack, sunsets, soundtrack, Ray Liotta, soundtrack, GTA humor, soundtrack.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 & 2 Pure nostalgia here, but the games are still fun today. Shame about the franchise as a whole.

Max Payne NORSE MOTIFS! No idea why they're there, but NORSE MOTIFS!

Eternal Darkness Cthulu's lesser known brothers and sister want to play with the past thousand years of human history. Oh, and skull **** your sanity. Have fun!

[Jonzac]

Falcon 4.0--especially with the mods and the eventual release of those mods and code changes into Falcon 4.0 Allied Force. Fully fidelity F-16 and other aircraft handling (I mean...the engine starting sequence and checklist are right from teh F-16-1. Full dynamic campaign...THE best in modern Aircraft combat.

Rowan's Battle of Britian and MiG Alley, the same for WW2 and Korea. I know that many like IL-2, but BoB had a more realist flight envelope...and you would have over a 1000 aircraft in the sky. Nothing like it before or since. Black Tuesday over London where you are against a German force of over 1000 bombers and fighters with only 350 or so Brits is amazing to see and fly in. MiG Alley is the only foray into the Korea war and the first war of jet combat. Combine both of those in a dynamic campaign that you set the target and IP and all other function...PURE FREAKIN WIN!!!

X-Com: Really enough said.

Wing commander Series: Perhaps the reason I enjoy space and flight sims today. Compelling storyline, continuous universe throughout the series, great writing...and Mark Hamil...

Taychon: The Fringe Bruce Campbell as the voice acting!!! That alone makes this a great game. First, space opera where you got to choose which path you wanted to take. Overall a great game.

Rome: Total War to me the ultimate total war game. Empire would come close if my computer could run it but the mods of Rome and the time frame its on put it in a class all its own. Hands down my favorite strategic game.

[Eldan]

Elder Scrolls III- Morrowind: Most people say that Morrowind is a better game than Oblivion, and I agree. You can't fast travel places in Morrowind, you don't have a compass, you aren't told what to do. I found the game amazing because of it,despite the worse graphics. Morrowind is beautiful, but it is also the storyline that gets me. I think the gameplay is great. The combat, the conversational dialogue, all of the things you can do. The game feels endless (much unlike Fallout). Otherwise, Morrowind is gorgeous. It just seemed unbelievable that the game could hold such expansive terrain and mysterious places to search. I can tell you right now that I will jump on Elder Scrolls V no matter how bad it were to look.
:smallwink:

To finish that stupid joke and elaborate a little: despite Planescape:Torment's much, much better story, I would probably call Morrowind the best RPG I ever saw. Why? Because it's world is huge, fantastical, mysterious, deep, fascinating and more such adjectives. Oblivion's main flaw, to me, was that the world did not interest me. I have seen city quarters in real life which look more or less like those in Oblivion. And wandering through them IRL s more interesting than in a game and has just as many fascinating details. I can stand up, walk ten minutes, and stand in a forest which looks like one in Oblivion (well, except for the absence of trolls and bears). I've seen more than enough snowy mountains. All in all: Oblivion was too close to reality for me to really explore. I want mushroom forests. Swamps inhabited by mysterious creatures. Volcanic wastelands. Cities were every building was created by magic and levitation is the only way to go around.
Then came the aspect that really, in oblivion, there wasn't much to explore. Part of that came from the game mechanics. In vanilla Oblivion, everything levelled with you, and for me, that destroyed part of the feeling. In Morrowind, you wouldn't know if that cave you walked in held three rats or Dwemer murder machine. Even the treasure in Oblivion levelled with you.
Then, other than the world itself, there were the inhabitants. Or more specifically, the organizations. In Morrowind, I much more got the feeling that it was a living world. Everyone was plotting against everybody. Some Dunmer wanted all those dirty outsiders dead and were only waiting for their Mahdi to purge them all. Others? They made a lot of business.

Wait, should this have been a short description? Sorry. On to other games, then.

Riven: The Sequel to Myst
I love all the Myst games, even number four, which had that one puzzle I could never solve, not even with the walkthrough printed and stuck to the wall next to my screen. They are all beautiful. But Riven was one of my first "real" games. I was a kid when it came out (ten years old, Wiki tells me), and I played nothing else for pretty much two years straight, until I had solved it (I was only allowed to use the computer on weekends for a few hours).
This game had everything. Challenging puzzle, a beautiful world, a good story and, as I mentioned in Morrowind, it doesn't start telling you everything you need to know to solve it, which I love.

Planescape: Torment
Best World, best story. Non-combat solutions actually work better than blowing stuff up, despite blowing stuff up actually looking good for once. This is what D&D should be like.

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
Yes, the Civ games are straight, and I can play them for eight hours without noticing. But Alpha Centauri is better. In the Civ games, you would get a world that had a strange, patchworky, schizo-feel to it. Why would the Aztec ever build the great pyramids of Gize?
Alpha Centauri had a working world, great characters, rich background and nicely researched science fiction (and a game guide which was a three hundred pages of concentrated nerdery) on top of all that made the Civs great.

[warty goblin]

Mass Effect My absolute favorite space opera of all time, books and movies included. The internally consistent technobabble (and I hate using that word seeing how much the creators cared about the background information) is the platinum standard of science fiction. The characters are all amazing (save for the humans, oddly, but even they have their moments) as are the levels. The final mission is so. Damn. Epic.



If Mass Effect's your platinum standard for science fiction science, you really need to read more of the classic stuff. Also possibly take some physics, because then not only will you realize that none of Mass Effect's technobabble comes close to doing what it says it does, but you will appreciate it when Heinlein calculates actual orbital dynamics in The Cat the Walks Through Walls.

Hmm, favorite games...

STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl. As others have said, there's something different about this game. I suspect it's the bleak yet beautiful landscape, the lethal yet unpredictable creatures that inhabit it, and above all the sense of never really understanding what's going on. Too many game explain everything - not just how to play them but things that you haven't even encountered yet. STALKER often doesn't tell you what it was that nearly killed you until long after. It keeps the mystery intact.

ARMA II: Operation Arrowhead I really wanted to like the first ARMA, but it was just a bit too buggy and spastic. I stayed well clear of ARMA II since it was supposed to be just as buggy, but Operation Arrowhead has been pretty much bug free for me.

And damn is it a fine piece of work. I've not seen a landscape this tempting to explore since I first left the sewers in Oblivion. The terrain is harsh, desolate, epic, and utterly beautiful. One of my favorite things to do is to go into the Armory mode, grab a helicopter, and simply fly around. And the game itself uses its attention to detail and realism to really stick in your mind: How many other shooters have you worry about civilian casualties, or have enemies that surrender and retreat? It sort of makes the less simulation minded shooters look, well, shallow. There's still the challenge of getting past the vaguely inscrutable interface, but if you have any interest in something more interesting than the Battlefields and Call of Duties of the world, I would recommend this in a heartbeat.

Also it has a mode where you can play as a goat.

Battle for Middle Earth II There's lots of deeper, better balanced RTSs out there. However none of them lets me feed orcs to trolls, or build a fully automatic fortress of doom that covers half the map. It helps that the lighting is really drop dead gorgeous, and it has loads of little soldiers running around (often on fire), but for simple fun I don't think any other RTS comes close.

Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45. If there's one complaint that I still have with Operation Arrowhead, it's that the aiming remains a bit weird feeling. This is not an accusation that can be made about Red Orchestra. In fact, apart from the somewhat dim bots, there aren't a lot of complaints to make about Red Orchestra, because so much of it just feels so right. Nailing a Wehrmacht solder at 300 meters with a bolt action rifle, or stabilizing your MP 34 on a boxcar because your wounded arms can't hold it steady anymore, or the dumb moment of disbelief when your rifle gets shot out of your hands, knowing the next round is for you, it stays in your head.

[AtwasAwamps]

Not even remotely an easy list to compile. In no particular order:

Final Fantasy IV: The first RPG I ever played and my first encounter ever with the word ‘Paladin’. I fell in love with this game and I haven’t fallen out yet. Incredibly simplistic, not a great translation on the original SNES version, nothing really innovative or incredible, but every moment of this game still feels good to me.


The moment where you first take off in the Big Whale, Cecil’s class change, every sacrifice your party members make so YOU can save the world, and every single party member coming BACK to help you during the battle with the giant of Bab-el. I don’t care how dramatic today’s games are. When I watched all my friends roll up in tanks to take down a giant fantasy mecha after thinking all of them were dead, I got a little misty. Still do. And sure, Zeromus comes out of nowhere, but after you’ve fought your way through the whole game…breaking the incarnation of hatred just feels GOOD.


Final Fantasy Tactics: I don’t think I need to explain myself here. This is one of the best games out there if you’ve got a certain mindset. Great plot, fun gameplay, and all around goodness make this still one of the games I hold nearest and dearest in my heart.

Final Fantasy Dissidia: Okay, I admit, not a great game. But I love the reworked/updated FF songs and let’s be honest…almost ever single FF ‘main character’ you can think of gets their own incredible badass moment in this game. I never thought someone could make the phrase “A World of Roses” sound badass. And of course, I get to play as Cecil, which pretty much wins everything in the world for me.

Diablo II: It’s hack and slash boiled down to its elements, then dressed up to kick butt and take names. Sure, the game was basically point a to point b, but to hell with it, who cares? If it moved, blow it up. If it didn’t move, loot it. Proceed.

Super Mario World: Gaming purity. I still play this and beat it at least once a year. Why? Because there’s a joy there that nothing else can match.

[thegurullamen]

If Mass Effect's your platinum standard for science fiction science, you really need to read more of the classic stuff. Also possibly take some physics, because then not only will you realize that none of Mass Effect's technobabble comes close to doing what it says it does, but you will appreciate it when Heinlein calculates actual orbital dynamics in The Cat the Walks Through Walls.

Hey, I didn't say the physics were good, just that the technobabble was internally consistent. None of their technical answers to problems felt like ST:TNG-esque Ass Pulls. Better, they put the available technologies (biotics, mass effect fields) to a wide variety of uses, as opposed to a lot of scifi which just dabbles with the most obvious applications of their phlebotinum, leaving the fans/detractors to later ask themselves "If X can do Y, why not just [action that undermines plot/causes world dominance]?"

Also, it's fun as hell just to think about.

Mass Effect is my platinum standard for exposition/background world-building in science fiction. If I had to go plain science (which I usually find dry as hell and more concerned about the author's ideas than an entertaining story,) I'd be hard pressed because like I said, it ain't my cup of tea. Accurate orbital physics, discussing the myriad of reasons interstellar flight is untenable and other extensive investigations of the minutiae underpinning science fiction often gets in the way of a good story, in my opinion, and a lot of authors forget that.

[rerail]

Illusion of Gaia An older RPG, but a fun one I replay from time to time. Still seems extensive for an SNES title, to me at least.

[Aricandor]

Umm. Without going into too much detail and inviting pointless debate (c'mon, you won't change my opinion of my favourites and I won't change yours about yours :smalltongue: )...

The Baldur's Gate series, the Neverwinter Nights duo, Dragon Age: Origins, the Knights of the Old Republic duo, pretty much everything by Blizzard from Warcraft 2 and onwards (is it a guilty pleasure to enjoy World of Warcraft these days?), the Warlords Battlecry trio, Heroes of Might and Magic 3 and 5, Emperor: Battle for Dune... Strangely I really didn't like Mass Effect, which is odd since I'm usually a sucker for Bioware's work... As evident.

Well. Mostly fantasy with CRPG elements, I guess, with some sci-fi overlap. :smallbiggrin:

[fknm]

Solstice: One day my dad and my brother came home from the stores with a new NES game, its name was Solstice and it stuck in my mind for ever. This game is about a wizard trying to rescue a princess from an evil wizard or something, you navigate an isometric view maze and try to solve jumping puzzles and gather these 6 pieces of some staff so you can fight the evil wizard. Your only means of defense you have against enemies are these limited use potions that can do things like stop time, kill all enemies on screen and make you invincible until you leave the room so most of the time you’re just running from enemies. The music stuck in my head when I was young too because I had never and to this day still haven’t heard anything like it in another game (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hGWMeazlhg&feature=related#t=0m30s). This game is in my list because to this day I still haven’t actually beaten it, I’ve revisited it often but I still haven’t made it all the way to the end yet.

YES! A thousand times yes! Solstice is, IMO, the most overlooked game on the NES. An absolute classic in every regard. Beating it was one of my most proud gaming moments, right up there with beating Eye of the Beholder for the first time. That last room is NUTS!

A few tips for beating it:
1. Make sure that you can get every 1-up on the first try. You'll need the extra lives, especially towards the end; don't mess up and lose lives when trying to grab them, though. It's especially important to practice these rooms.
2. The only potions worth facing any danger for are the Blue and Purple. There are about 2 rooms in the game where the Yellow is useful, and it's easy to memorize where the hidden blocks are for the Green. However, there are many spots where the Blue is mandatory (in fact, it's the only potion where the use is mandatory to finish the game), and many rooms are insanely difficult without the Purple (I'm especially thinking of the rooms with the floating spiked balls, and the room with the geometrically-impossible architecture and disappearing blocks, patrolled by an evil eye).
3. Think before you grab a Credit. When you come across one early in the game, leave it for later when you're back in the area. Having extra late-game continues is extremely helpful.

Have you ever played its SNES sequel, Equinox? I'm torn as to which I like more. Equinox, by having a save system AND a basically free source of infinite extra lives given to the player early in the game loses a lot of the pressure and tension to execute 100% perfectly that I liked so much in Solstice; also, Equinox's overworld system is pretty clearly filler, and there's a REALLY annoying glitch that, if you don't know about it, can get you stuck for a long time (for years, I wondered why a certain puzzle didn't work correctly, until I learned that it was a glitch and not intentional). On the other hand, I actually like Equinox's somewhat slower "in dungeon" pace, the game looks beautiful and its art has aged incredibly well, it has the best music of any game I've ever played (which, sadly, AFAIK, no emulator gets 100% correct), and in the late game, the puzzles are MUCH tougher than nearly anything in Solstice, while the dungeons as a whole are much more logical/much less random than Solstice.

EDIT- Holy crap, the guy playing in that video you linked is insanely good. I had no idea a bunch of the shortcut jumps he makes were possible.

[warty goblin]

Hey, I didn't say the physics were good, just that the technobabble was internally consistent. None of their technical answers to problems felt like ST:TNG-esque Ass Pulls. Better, they put the available technologies (biotics, mass effect fields) to a wide variety of uses, as opposed to a lot of scifi which just dabbles with the most obvious applications of their phlebotinum, leaving the fans/detractors to later ask themselves "If X can do Y, why not just [action that undermines plot/causes world dominance]?"

Also, it's fun as hell just to think about.

Mass Effect is my platinum standard for exposition/background world-building in science fiction. If I had to go plain science (which I usually find dry as hell and more concerned about the author's ideas than an entertaining story,) I'd be hard pressed because like I said, it ain't my cup of tea. Accurate orbital physics, discussing the myriad of reasons interstellar flight is untenable and other extensive investigations of the minutiae underpinning science fiction often gets in the way of a good story, in my opinion, and a lot of authors forget that.

[rerail]

Except the technobabble isn't internally consistent. Biotics are the worst offender here. OK, so you run electricity through eezo, it produces a field that raises/lowers the (presumably rest) mass of everything within it, that's fine. The problem is that for biotics the eezo is in their heads. It is not in the guy twenty feet away they are trying to lift. By any reasonable interpretation of eezo's capabilities the only person a biotic should be able to lift is themselves, and given the fairly low currents that run around in a person's head, probably only if you hooked them up to a car battery.

Shields also aren't possible with this. Again, you lower the mass of the oncoming projectile. That's really great, and may - assuming momentum is not conserved - make the projectile less deadly by lowering it's kinetic energy*. The problem is that Newton's First Law is still there to bite you in the ass, because changing the mass of a projectile does not exert a force upon it, and unless you do that, you cannot change what direction it is travelling.

*If momentum is conserved, then this is a very bad idea, because you just increased the projectile's velocity and therefore seriously increased it's kinetic energy.

[Lord of the Helms]

Aside from the obvious choice of saying "Every Bioware Game I've Ever Played Except the Neverwinter Nights Original Campaign", I'd stress:

Baldur's Gate series: incredible storytelling, incredibly cool companions that really make the games feel alive, excellent gaming and combat system, and oh yeah, the absolute pinnacle of 2D graphics.

Planescape Torment: Less awesome combat, but even more awesome storytelling and similarly awesome companions.

Deus Ex: Also excellent storytelling, and consistently allows you tons of different solutions to every mission depending on how you want to play it.

Vampire Bloodlines: Similar to Deus Ex, but with a different scale of storytelling (Rather than affecting the fate of the world, this game is one huge brilliant execution of It's Personal and a quest for your own character's sake), and better combat, especially Melee (I always wonder how hard it seems to be to make a system as simple yet fluid as this one - Fallout 3, while a great game, made me cringe by comparison due to how terrible its melee felt).

Of the more recent games, Mass Effect II and Dragon Age come the closest to these oldies' brilliance.

Honorable Mention: Earth 21xx series, for introducing me to RTS games. 2140 was cool in its time for what it allowed you to do, and the later games were incredible deep gameplay-wise and gave me tons of fun just from endlessly tinkering with the countless possibilities for unit setups. Oh, and Starcraft for multiplayer goodness.


Which is why Morrowind is better. Actually having to find where you are going (and most of the time the directions are very clear) instead of next gen hand holding. Fast travel's primary effect is to make the world even smaller. Morrowind's world is actually exotic, rather than a series of plains (why they came up with some nonsense about a god terraforming the place instead of going with the rainforest it is said to be...)

Morrowind's plot is also a whole lot better, esp with the lore (Very little in Oblivion is new, almost all is taken from Daggerfall or Morrowind).


Hang on, hang on, you lost me there: Morrowind had a plot? :smalleek:

I would never have guessed :smalltongue:

[ryzouken]

Well, might as well join in, as well:


Final Fantasy: Anniversay Edition

"But, MechaKingGhidra," you might ask. "You talk about that game like it's perfect and would never be replaced by anything else. Surely you can point out a flaw with it *somewhere*?"

And you'd be correct. The ONLY, and I truly mean ONLY part of this game that I did not appreciate was that there was no world map.

... which edition of the game?
The original nintendo cart certainly had a world map, accessible by pressing SELECT + B. The variants since (Origins on PSX, PSP, and GBA) have all had maps (different button presses here and there. The manual or the brooms in Matoya's Cave will tell you how to access it). Did they release a fifth iteration of FF1 with the map stripped?

[Athaniar]

In no order (unless otherwise noted):

Mass Effect 2
My #1 favorite game. While the first game was also excellent, the sequel is even better. Epic story, great gameplay, truly living characters, and lots of interesting and hilarious details. Will part 3 be even better? Hopefully.

Knights of the Old Republic
That is the first game, not the abominable blasphemy that is the "sequel". It's Bioware, which means it's awesome.

Neverwinter Nights
Once again the first game in the series, and also awesome. And yes, I liked the original campaign.

World of Warcraft
One of my favorite game universes, good gamplay, lots of variation, and excellent roleplaying opportunities (at least on my server).

Age of Wonders II (Shadow Magic)
Turn-based strategy at its finest, and what an editor! Has it ever been easier to create your own units and play them against each other on hexagons?

Civilization IV
Just one more turn...

Warcraft III
One of the best RTS games, also with an excellent editor.

Age of Empires II
Also an excellent RTS. Best one in the series in my opinion.

GoldenEye
Why is this still so fun after all these years? No idea, but fun it is. Especially with cheats. Invincible invisible slow-motion tank-gun mode for the win!

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time/Majora's Mask
Two other great N64 games. Best ones of the series in my opinion (and I do think I slightly prefer Majora over Ocarine).

Super Mario 64
If Majora's Mask is the best Zelda game, Super Mario 64 is the best Mario game. Some say Galaxy is better, but I have yet to play it. Until I do, 64 tops my Mario list.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Not that I've played many fighting games, but this one is my favorite. Each game in the Smash series just keeps getting better, and Brawl's mix of classic characters, addictive gameplay, and an intriguing story makes it a really great game.

Mario Kart Wii
I don't play many racing games either, but Mario Kart Wii is simple fun. I'm not too happy about the lack of a decent Vs mode, though.

Super Mario Bros. Crossover (http://supermariobroscrossover.com/)
You like classic Nintendo games? Play this.

Galaxy of Fantasy
Based on Turian mythology, this... What do you mean, "it's not a real game"?

[Eldan]

A

Hang on, hang on, you lost me there: Morrowind had a plot? :smalleek:

I would never have guessed :smalltongue:

Which is another plus point in my opinion. It doesn't stuff the plot in your face.

[MechaKingGhidra]

... which edition of the game?
The original nintendo cart certainly had a world map, accessible by pressing SELECT + B. The variants since (Origins on PSX, PSP, and GBA) have all had maps (different button presses here and there. The manual or the brooms in Matoya's Cave will tell you how to access it). Did they release a fifth iteration of FF1 with the map stripped?

Since my save was a bit far and I couldn't remember where her cave was, I looked in the manual and it said select + O. I tried over and over, thinking my select was slightly stuck or it was just not going to work with my PSP (I got it used). I then accidently did it reversed and it's all good now. Thanks for assuring me that I was incorrect. :smallsmile:

Sooo...I guess this game is more-or-less perfect for me, then, now that I know that. :smallbiggrin:

[ryzouken]

Actually, certain versions, inclusive of the original had one, glaring flaw that caused the game to qualify as "Nintendo Hard" (aside from faulty batteries causing your save data to get fragged when you turned the console off... on a 40 hour game): The amount of healing needed to keep your team up and fighting outstrips your healing potential very easily, even in a party with a dedicated WHM. If you were planning on supplementing on items? Good luck. You can only carry 99 potions and they only heal 50 HP. No Hi Potions or better exist.

Later versions added in Hi Potions, which made the game manageable up to the last two possible fights anyway... They buffed the end boss to compensate. I think they also buffed Warmech, but can't say for sure since I only ever fought the beast on the PSP version. Side note: that beastie? Warmech? Yeah. That's what I love most about this game. The rest is amazing, don't get me wrong, but the fact that one particular square that you HAVE to cross to get to the endboss is the spawnpoint for a RANDOM MONSTER who's tougher than said end boss? Amazing. Anytime anyone claims to have beaten FF1, the exchange always goes:
"Really, you beat Chaos?"
"Yup sure did! Took me X and blah blah blah"
"That's great! What about Warmech? Kill that?"

My absolute fav game of all time has to be FF Tactics: War of the Lions though. That's the PSP remake, for those not in the know. It revamps the original, including FMV's for critical plot points and overhauling every single text box to include archaic english dialogue instead of crappy mistranslated engrish.

[X2]

No descriptions. But here's my list.

1. Goldeneye 007 (Nintendo 64)
2. Super Castlevania IV (SNES)
3. Mega Man 2 (NES)
4. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Multi)
5. Ninja Gaiden (NES)
6. Fallout 3 (Multi)
7. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3)
8. Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)
9. Tetris (Multi)
10. The Legend of Zelda (NES)

[Caustic Soda]

Here's my list, in no particular order:

Alpha Centauri
Like Eldan, I really appreciate the interesting setting and characters, along with the reasonably convincing techs. One of my favorite 4x games, even if it can get a bit micromanagement-heavy.

Thief 2
The Thief series was my first encounter with proper stealth games, and I loved them. I feel Thief 2 is a marked improvement, though. The levels were more convincing and 'real'-seeming. The levels were more focused on sneaking around and less on exploring abandoned areas with zombie, giant spiders and the like. The graphics were decent for their time, and some fan-made levels are actually beautiful.

Rome: Total War
I like the tactical battliUnreal ng that the Total War series offer, and Rome has some of the better mods in the series, IMO. The vanilla game is kinda meh, but Europa Barbarorum rules. I like the use of variosu languages for the units, too. Taking over the world with hordes of celtic 'boat-rows' and 'bat-eye-rows' is hilarious. I like the hammer and anvil tactics of the Successor Kingdoms, and the independents are actually kinda challenging.

Diablo II: LOD
Relatively easy Roguelikes are some of my favorite games, and what is Diablo but a real-time Roguelike with graphics? Theres something about the pointless accumulation of items by pounding on hordes and hordes of monsters that fills me with childlike glee.

Unreal Tournament 2004/UT3
Multiplayer FPS games with vehicles and semi-durable players? Yes please. Stuff like Battlefield and Counter-strike can be fun, but I'd take a game of Assault or Onslaught any time given the choice. Even the single-player campaigns can be fun, providing an experience kinda like the retro gameplay of Wolfenstein 3D or Serious Sam.

***

You'll note that I didn't mention any CRPGs up there, unless you count Diablo. for som reason it just isn't as satisfying for me to slaughter mooks in Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights. And while the settings and story can be interesting, I would consider that more atmosphere than gameplay. Then again, I like the setting of the Unreal Tournament Games, even if the plots are a detailed as FIFa 20XX or Madden.

***

That said, I'll give honorary mention to Planescape: Torment, my favorite Interactive Novel. Like others here, I really enjoy the storytelling and the characters, and the way the designers have made the Planescape setting live. the widespread options ot skip otherwise dull combat is a definite plus, too.

Likewise, the Geneforge series has a rather compelling setting, and a delightfully snarky narrator, even if the combat is bland. That, and it manages to latch onto the other thing I viscerally enjoy in games: to have my own private army to send to fight and kill for my character, and possibly take the bullet for him/her.

[UnChosenOne]

No descripitons, only the list.
Thief II
S.T.A.L.K.E.R - Series
Baldur's Gate-Series
Planescape Torment
NWNII - MotB
NWN - HotU
Dawn of War+Winter Assault and Dark Crusade
Hitman III Blood Money
Mass Effect
Fallout II

[Mx.Silver]

Really obvious choices that require no further elaboration since they've all been mentioned several times in the thread:
Planescape: Torment
Bladur's Gate 2
Mass Effect 2
Civ IV
Advance Wars

The Interesting Stuff.

Shadow Hearts 2: Covenant
The first Shadow Hearts was a surprisingly original game both in style and gameplay and might have actually had some success were it not for its release date having been only a couple of months before FFX came out. Lacking the graphics and the name recognition, Shadow Hearts was buried in the initial FFX hype (despite being the better game).
Covenant's story follows on directly from the first game, and in both plot and characterisation manges to be both compelling and genuinely moving while at the same time never taking itself entirely seriously. It's one of the few times I've actually seen a game with a fundamentally dark narrative still manage to pull-off a fair amount of humour without either aspect detracting from the other. This is complemented by the game's setting, which is earth during WWI - except with magic, demons and the odd Lovecraftian-esque horrors from beyond.
Gameplay mechanics pack a few interesting twists on JRPG standards, particularly the combat system. Like the first game, all combat actions require a use of the 'Judgement Ring', essentially a timing puzzle where the more accurate your timing, the more damage you inflict - meaning that each fight requires some attention. More surprising is that while combat starts off looking like the usually 'static lines' characters and monsters will move and be knocked around as they attack and take damage, which can be exploited both with area effect spells and combo attacks (e.g. you can smash enemies into walls for additional damage).
This is my favourite JRPG to date, although sadly it never achieved widespread success. The soundtrack is also extremely good.

Rock Band 2
I've probably wasted weeks of my life on this, and yet I don't care.

Heroes of Might and Magic III
Although the second game had the better visual aesthetics and the fourth had the best music and some extrememly good writing (in places), 3 pretty much stands out in terms of gameplay, which is about as tight as the series ever got (certainly more than the fifth, anyway). Not that 3 is lacking stylistically either, but as far as gameplay goes this never seems to get old. .

May add some more if I think of them.

[MechaKingGhidra]

Actually, certain versions, inclusive of the original had one, glaring flaw that caused the game to qualify as "Nintendo Hard" (aside from faulty batteries causing your save data to get fragged when you turned the console off... on a 40 hour game): The amount of healing needed to keep your team up and fighting outstrips your healing potential very easily, even in a party with a dedicated WHM. If you were planning on supplementing on items? Good luck. You can only carry 99 potions and they only heal 50 HP. No Hi Potions or better exist.

Later versions added in Hi Potions, which made the game manageable up to the last two possible fights anyway... They buffed the end boss to compensate. I think they also buffed Warmech, but can't say for sure since I only ever fought the beast on the PSP version. Side note: that beastie? Warmech? Yeah. That's what I love most about this game. The rest is amazing, don't get me wrong, but the fact that one particular square that you HAVE to cross to get to the endboss is the spawnpoint for a RANDOM MONSTER who's tougher than said end boss? Amazing. Anytime anyone claims to have beaten FF1, the exchange always goes:
"Really, you beat Chaos?"
"Yup sure did! Took me X and blah blah blah"
"That's great! What about Warmech? Kill that?"

No worries about me trying to claim having beaten the original game. That is why I specifically noted the anniversary edition in my original post. I've gotten maybe two floors down into Chaos' shrine before realizing I didn't have nearly the levels nor the items to survive and I was pretty sick of playing literally nothing but that game so I went back to the my sega genesis to work that out of my system and I just happened to never go back to it. I certainly like a reminder to the insanity of original FF but not a total doppelganger of it.

Difficult can be fun, yes, but 'I'm going to DIE from stress working over a game like a bloody JOB!' is certainly *not* fun.

However, long after the fact, having got the re-make for my PSP, I can say that it is far more balanced than I expected and I easily came to appreciate it. And now that I've beaten the game once by the time of this post, I'm now on a second save file for the purpose of getting to (and with crossed fingers here: hopefully fully complete) the extra bonus dungeon that has a timed portion to it with a slightly less-than-typical party: black mage, red mage, thief, monk. I wanted to specifically not use a warrior or white mage.

Between the timer, difficulty of mobs (black dragons so far were the largest problem when I tried and failed miserably on the 5th or 6th floor), memory brain teasers to activate the teleporter to the next floor, and the 'turn off miscellaneous actions/options before you start' which was floor-specific, I'll likely have to grind at least into the 70's, preferably the 90's.

I think I've got a fair start to my goal so far as I've gone completely overkill on levelling up before so much as killing Garland. I'm level 15 and going to stop at miscellaneous intervals.

[psilontech]

Several of these have already been said, so little to no description here.

Alpha Centauri
Fallout 1/2
Final Fantasy Tactics (The only FF I liked outside of 6...)
System Shock 2
Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines
Deus Ex
X-COM
Homeworld
Master of Orion 2 - I don't believe this has been mentioned yet. As for how much I love this game: Look at my username. Go ahead. Look at it.

[Ignition]

:smallbiggrin:This should be fun :smallwink: If you're expecting anything by Bioware, or view the lack of Bioware games on my list as heresy, then feel free to send me your ignorant hatespeech at your leisure :smallbiggrin:

Parts of the Legend of Zelda series (LoZ, Adventure of Link, Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time): I'm only listing the ones I've played; the rest I have little interest in, either due to system requirements or due to gameplay changes/graphic changes from these four. I love the puzzling and exploration aspects, as well as the nonsensical world.

Nintendo-Era Mega Man and the first Mega Man X: I played the hell out of these as a kid! I wasn't very good at Mario, but I was awesome at Mega Man.

Lufia Series: This was about as cheesy as JRPGs got back in the day, but both the first and second games were large portions of my gaming career, haha. Fun characters, saving the world, what else do you need?

7th Saga: Wow this game was tough in parts! But it was one of my favorite SNES era RPGs. Plus you get to play as a robot who shoots lightning, how awesome is that? :smallbiggrin:

Final Fantasy Tactics: I played this for several years, doing challenges and exploiting and so forth. I love the characters and the mechanics that basically amount to Fantasy Super Chess.

Diablo 2 and its Expansion: How many bloody hours did I waste on this crap... haha.

Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead Series: I'm not that big of a FPS fan, but both of these games have provided hundreds of hours of entertainment for me.

Ultimately, when I play a game enough, I move on and leave it and all my memories of it behind. These games are ones I come back to from time to time, just to refresh my memories. There are probably others I'm forgetting, though, which probably means they weren't as good