Just as with books, movies, plays etc the past holds a treasure trove of amazing experiences. Unless you have a lot more free time than I do it’s unlikely you’ve played anywhere near the majority of the classics. Let’s get out those pink sunnies and compare notes on some of our favourite releases.
I’ve recently been going back in time a little on the retro pi and looking at console games I never had.
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I have to say Chrono Trigger blew me away with it’s stunning art, puzzles with surprisingly little moon logic, and beautiful music.
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Mario golf on the SNES is very simple but for tired evenings cuddling on the couch it’s been a winner in our household.
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The n64 Zelda games are surprisingly great too although that awkward period of 3d had some unusual controls. Even the gameboy ones are a blast although the water temple in oracle of ages it a bit frustrating.
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Heroes of might and magic 2 and 3 hold a special place in my heart and I can still dump hours into skirmishing with those (32167 for when hom2 gets too frustrating amiright?)
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I loved neverwinter knights as a kid but recently tried to check it out again and just… idk the magic wasn’t there. I think now I’d rather just play some actual ttrpgs instead of sprawling CRPGs
PS1 is a mystery box to me so I’d love to hear some recommendations from that old thing. All I ever played on it was time crisis at my mates house (which was and is soooo coool, RIP lightguns).
What about you folks? What games hold a special place in your heart? or what have you checked out for the first time recently and found it’s actually pretty good?
Not a unique opinion, but Portal is probably the closest thing to a perfect game. Nothing feels unnecessary, and every part of it (story, gameplay, visuals) is not only good on its own, but also work together to make the game better than the sum of its parts.
Portal 2’s also great but suffers from a lot of fluff imo. The analogy I like to use is Portal 2 is like a big feast of really good food, while Portal 1 is just one small dish, but it’s the best version of that dish you’ve ever tasted.
Morrowind. It was such a magical experience to play it. The world was mysterious and beautiful. I fondly remember the first night as I walked to Balmora. I gazed at the starry sky and at that point the game had me. The game was difficult - you had to find quest locations by mere descriptions of them. As a result you got lost in the game a lot - both metaphorically and literally.
Are you me? I could not describe it better.
Some other mentions for me would be: Heroes of Might and Magic 1-3, Diablo 2, Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines, and of course Duke Nukem 3D.
And plenty others I forgot right now.
One of my all-time favourites is Freelancer, 2003. Just a really fun arcade space sandbox with an engaging campaign and great multiplayer and modding scene.
Freelancer was basically a modernized Wing Commander: Privateer IIRC. Both are games I was a huge fan of, and I’m constantly looking for the next fix in that genre. Starfield is looking to be mighty appealing!
Beyond Good & Evil, 2003. It’s been so long since I played it, I don’t remember much other than it was a sandbox and it had some neat mechanics and cute characters and I loved it. The closing credits musical sequence is magical, too.
I think I rented it for the gamecube but never played much. Apparently it’s famously good! I’ll have to check it out.
One of the first games I played that was translated in Dutch with good voiceovers! Loved it and made me more open to localized games.
First 4 Gran turismo games had amazing campaign that isnt grindy and features amazing collection of cars from a golden era. I heavily recommend playing them over an emulator
I played Max Payne and its sequal recently and I was surprised how well they held up. The gameplay and level design kept it consistently fun
The first game definitely shows its age, but is fun nevertheless. The second game, though, has always surprised me how amazingly it has held up.
Fantastic games.
Deus Ex, System Shock 2, Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines, all of these still hold up, and are totally worth a play even if you never played them back in their day.
Also, Alpha Centauri has SUCH a great narrative. Each faction has a strong identity, each leader has a fitting personality, the whole package is great.
It really deserves a remake to update the controls and UI, it still plays really well if you can get past that though.
My response to this will look like a who’s who of Dreamcast games. The Dreamcast was the first console I bought myself, so I have lots of fond memories.
- Soulcalibur I & II
- Sega NFL 2K1 (and I was NOT a sports game person)
- Shenmue I & II
- Jet Set Radio
- Phantasy Star On-Line
- Quake III arena
- Tony Hawks Pro Skater 2
- Hydro Thunder
- Fur Fighters
Had a partner want to practice hacking a 3ds before they closed the shop so I can play PS1 games. The first one I put on that mofo is Azure Dreams, my first and probably favorite dungeon crawler roguelike with a city builder. Also Breath of Fire IV is one of my absolute favorite games ever.
Both Azure Dreams and BOF IV were great. Haven’t heard mention of them in years
I haven’t even heard of either of these so I’m definitely going to have to check them out!
I definitely think they are loads of fun but they both have amazing soundtracks, too! Breath of Fire IV still brings me to tears!
Civilization III. Still undoubtedly the best from me, every subsequent change to the series has been negative.
I liked all the Final Fantasy games.
Recently I got Phantom Brave on Steam, it is decent though it does not hold a special place in my heart :)
Going very old-school, Darklands was amazing. Reinstalled it a few times over the years until I stopped buying 3.5" floppy drives.
All the old MechWarrior games, starting with MechWarrior 2. That was my childhood. PGI didn’t have what it takes to recapture that with MechWarrior Online or MechWarrior 5.
Shout out to Half-Life 1 and Team Fortress Classic (1.5). THAT was my teenage years. I played an insurmountable amount of TFC, adminned a couple servers, and took zero interest in TF2, because it just wasn’t the same without concs, throwable frag nades, etc.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl was a gamechanger though. That released when I was in college. Fell in love with the hopeless atmosphere, good gunplay, and the eurojank. I still play the various S.T.A.L.K.E.R. mods to this day and am eagerly awaiting the release of number 2 (slated for December, but we will see. Devs have been through a lot).I played the first STALKER at uni as well and loved it. Along with Red Orchestra that a mate was a play tester for.
All games paled in comparison to how much time I sunk into WoW between 2006 and 2011 though.
I know a lot of people that played WoW back then, and their experiences were largely the same. I didn’t get much into MMOs beyond Guild Wars 1 at that time. Final Fantasy XIV was good for a time, but Elder Scrolls Online blew me away after they basically redid the game. That was obviously much later in life, though, and that’s a very different framework of MMORPG than classic WoW and its early expansions.
This game is actually a bit before my time since it was released two years before I was born, but the original XCOM game (aka UFO: Enemy Unknown) is still one of my favorite games of all time. And it’s just gotten better over the years with fixes and modding through OpenXcom.
I like the modern Firaxis games a lot too, and Xenonauts even moreso, but nothing has quite hit the same as the OG.
For me it was metal gear solid 3 snake eater. I thought it was the perfection of the metal gear formula. I’m exited to see its remaster.
You want to go WAY back, the old Sierra games back when you still had to type in your commands.
I remember getting a copy of “Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards” from a cousin when I was very young. Much too young for that game! It was on 2x low density 5.25" floppys (320KB storage each!) and labeled “Larry Lizard”. It had an age check at the beginning: you had to answer several multiple choice questions that anyone over 18 at the time would know easily. My best friend and I would spend huge amounts of time brute forcing and memorizing the answers so we could play. The game came out in 1987 so I was probably 10-12 years old at this point.
Anyways, yeah, that game was hilarious and led to a long-lasting love of Larry Laffer. It was also a gateway into all the Quest games (Kings Quest, Police Quest, Space Quest, etc). No idea if those games are still available but they hold a special place in my heart.
I know “Day of the Tentacle” and “Grim Fandango” are both available in remastered forms (and possibly on Game Pass, IIRC). Slightly later time frame but similar style games and both very good!
EDIT - Oh for PS1 games: Final Fantasy Tactics is sublime, FF7 (the best FF game of all time), Tony Hawk 2, original Tomb Raider. And I never played it, but I’ve heard great things about PaRappa the Rapper.
