06-11-2003, 07:20 PM
Mine have pretty much already been mentioned:
Shining Force and Shining Force II (Genesis): I remember reading somehwere that Shining in the Darkness was the unofficial first game in this series, but I could never get into it. The SFs, though, were classics. The underlying game mechanics were quite complex, but the gameplay itself was sublimely simple. I'm playing through SF again now, alongside Bahamut Lagoon (by Square for the SNES) and while BL has alot of neat extras (semi-autonomous dragons, spells that can effect the battlefield, etc), SF is just more fun. And doesn't start every level 1 character with ridiculous 800 hitpoints, blargh.
Final Fantasy I, IV, VI, VII (SNES, PSX): What can I say? They're the Mario of console RPGs. They aren't particularly unique or innovative, but Square had an amazing ability to weave a great story that drew players in. I haven't played the more recent ones (VIII, IX, X) so I can't comment on them. Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest was some fever-induced nightmare I came up with when I was a kid.
Diablo (PC): You thought I wouldn't mention it, eh? Diablo gets a spot because it managed to hold my interest for nearly 4 years, and spawned a nearly infinite number of playstyles (LAWs, BNMs, GOTHs, AMZs, Iron Man anyone?). Diablo II, while fun, didn't have near the longevity. And there was no Hellfire.
Fallout and Fallout 2 (PC): What do you get when you meld a post-apocalyptic satire of the 50s' terror of nuclear war with a robust engine and incredicle writers? Instant classic. The sheer number of choices make these games amazing. I pretend that Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel never happened.
Sierra's Quest For Glory games (PC): I remember when the 16-color EGA Hero's Quest was released; my friend and I would pull 20-hour weekend marathins of the game. It was just that good. I bought the VGA QFG1: "So You Want to be a Hero?" when it was released, and played that one too. I finished it with all three classes, even going as far as to totally max out my Magician (100s across the board). The adventure game framework with just enough combat to keep it interesting, along with the incredibly well-done comedy/satire make it the best adventure game I've ever played. QFG IV and V weren't so good, however. And I only got to play snatches of Trial by Fire (II) and whatever the third one was called (the jungle-based one).
The Gold Box AD&D games (Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades, Pool of Darkness, Dark Sun: Shattered Lands, Dark Sun: Wake of the Ravager, among others) (PC): These were some of my first PC games, and I loved them to death. In hindsight, most were fairly basic, but I believe every AD&D nut should try at least one at some point.
Wing Commander, Wing Commander II, Wing Commander Armada, and Wing Commander: Prophecy (PC): My first space sims, and still the best. Something about the Kilrathi and Nephilim just oozes character that the other series lacked. The series seemed to lose some of its foundations in the later games (III, IV, V, and Prophecy), nearly turning into a "movie broken up by shoot-em-ups", but I don't think the change was necessarily all that bad.
X-COM: UFO Defense (PC): Simply the best PC turn-based tactical combat game. Ever (Although I haven't played Jagged Alliance II). The open-ended nature and the sheer variety of things to do were great. Shooting Sectoids with Heavy Plasmas never got old. The sequel, Terror From the Deep, was decent but actually had worse graphics and was unnecessarily hard. X-COM: Apocalypse never happened. I'll sic a Chrysallid on anyone who says otherwise. If it would only not run at 50x speed on modern computers...
Planescape: Torment (PC): THE best CRPG (one of the few true CRPGs, actually) ever. The fact that combat was almost always trivial, that the game truly was about the plot, puts it in my #1 slot. There were so many ways you could do just about everything, it was great.
Tekken II, III, Tag Tournament (Arcade/PSX/PS2): Simply the best fighting games ever. Realisticly responding characters (none of the Virtua Fighter bee-floating crap), real moves (no hadokens), and interesting characters (Nina/Anna, King, Yoshimitsu, Lei, Ling), along with the deepest fighting mechanics I've ever seen = Instant classic. I didn't see a Tekken machine until after I had mastered Tekken II, so it didn't leave an impression on me. Tekken IV did: It's crap.
Ultima IV (PC/NES): I never got into the other Ultima games, but the freedom to wander around the world and try to become the embodiment of the Virtues was extremely cool. This was probably the first truly non-linear, open-ended game I played.
Phantasy Star II, III, IV (Genesis): The Final Fantasies of the Genesis. These were just incredible, boasting a unique (at the time, at least) fusion of magic and technology. They tended to emphasize the dungeoning aspect of the game more than the plot, although this distinction blurred in III and IV. III also was unique in that there were 4 possible endings, depending on who the main character married and the actions of their offspring. Many people didn't like the generational aspect of the game, but I thought it was great and rather unique.
Freedom Force (PC): One of the few superhero games to actually get published (the only other ones I can think of are Superhero League of Hoboken, Hero-X {Which really doesn't count since it rode on FF's coattails} and some forgettable Spider-Man/Captain America titles for my old Tandy), FF has the advantage of being incredibly good. It hearkens back to the 60s campy four-color comics, with extremely fun missions, incredible graphics, a great physics engine (whack a thug with a lightpole and watch him fly!) and a robust hero creation system that can make just about anything you can dream of.
Random notes and stuff:
- King's Bounty: LiquidDamage, I'm fairly sure KB was a PC game ported to the Genesis. At least, I remember playing it on my Tandy back in, oh... '90 or '91? In any case, it was an extremely cool game.
- I'm playing through Deus Ex and System Shock II at the moment, and they're looking like they'll make my list. DX is just so amazingly complex, with tons of ways to get things done and many different ways to change the flow of the plot, and SS2 is just mindwarpingly freaky.
- The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind is in residence on my HD, but I can't seem to get into it. By all accounts it's a great game, though. I've never played the other TES games, though (Arena, Daggerfall, and Redguard, I think?).
- I really (really, really) want to play Final Fantasy: Tactics :(
- WL
Shining Force and Shining Force II (Genesis): I remember reading somehwere that Shining in the Darkness was the unofficial first game in this series, but I could never get into it. The SFs, though, were classics. The underlying game mechanics were quite complex, but the gameplay itself was sublimely simple. I'm playing through SF again now, alongside Bahamut Lagoon (by Square for the SNES) and while BL has alot of neat extras (semi-autonomous dragons, spells that can effect the battlefield, etc), SF is just more fun. And doesn't start every level 1 character with ridiculous 800 hitpoints, blargh.
Final Fantasy I, IV, VI, VII (SNES, PSX): What can I say? They're the Mario of console RPGs. They aren't particularly unique or innovative, but Square had an amazing ability to weave a great story that drew players in. I haven't played the more recent ones (VIII, IX, X) so I can't comment on them. Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest was some fever-induced nightmare I came up with when I was a kid.
Diablo (PC): You thought I wouldn't mention it, eh? Diablo gets a spot because it managed to hold my interest for nearly 4 years, and spawned a nearly infinite number of playstyles (LAWs, BNMs, GOTHs, AMZs, Iron Man anyone?). Diablo II, while fun, didn't have near the longevity. And there was no Hellfire.
Fallout and Fallout 2 (PC): What do you get when you meld a post-apocalyptic satire of the 50s' terror of nuclear war with a robust engine and incredicle writers? Instant classic. The sheer number of choices make these games amazing. I pretend that Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel never happened.
Sierra's Quest For Glory games (PC): I remember when the 16-color EGA Hero's Quest was released; my friend and I would pull 20-hour weekend marathins of the game. It was just that good. I bought the VGA QFG1: "So You Want to be a Hero?" when it was released, and played that one too. I finished it with all three classes, even going as far as to totally max out my Magician (100s across the board). The adventure game framework with just enough combat to keep it interesting, along with the incredibly well-done comedy/satire make it the best adventure game I've ever played. QFG IV and V weren't so good, however. And I only got to play snatches of Trial by Fire (II) and whatever the third one was called (the jungle-based one).
The Gold Box AD&D games (Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades, Pool of Darkness, Dark Sun: Shattered Lands, Dark Sun: Wake of the Ravager, among others) (PC): These were some of my first PC games, and I loved them to death. In hindsight, most were fairly basic, but I believe every AD&D nut should try at least one at some point.
Wing Commander, Wing Commander II, Wing Commander Armada, and Wing Commander: Prophecy (PC): My first space sims, and still the best. Something about the Kilrathi and Nephilim just oozes character that the other series lacked. The series seemed to lose some of its foundations in the later games (III, IV, V, and Prophecy), nearly turning into a "movie broken up by shoot-em-ups", but I don't think the change was necessarily all that bad.
X-COM: UFO Defense (PC): Simply the best PC turn-based tactical combat game. Ever (Although I haven't played Jagged Alliance II). The open-ended nature and the sheer variety of things to do were great. Shooting Sectoids with Heavy Plasmas never got old. The sequel, Terror From the Deep, was decent but actually had worse graphics and was unnecessarily hard. X-COM: Apocalypse never happened. I'll sic a Chrysallid on anyone who says otherwise. If it would only not run at 50x speed on modern computers...
Planescape: Torment (PC): THE best CRPG (one of the few true CRPGs, actually) ever. The fact that combat was almost always trivial, that the game truly was about the plot, puts it in my #1 slot. There were so many ways you could do just about everything, it was great.
Tekken II, III, Tag Tournament (Arcade/PSX/PS2): Simply the best fighting games ever. Realisticly responding characters (none of the Virtua Fighter bee-floating crap), real moves (no hadokens), and interesting characters (Nina/Anna, King, Yoshimitsu, Lei, Ling), along with the deepest fighting mechanics I've ever seen = Instant classic. I didn't see a Tekken machine until after I had mastered Tekken II, so it didn't leave an impression on me. Tekken IV did: It's crap.
Ultima IV (PC/NES): I never got into the other Ultima games, but the freedom to wander around the world and try to become the embodiment of the Virtues was extremely cool. This was probably the first truly non-linear, open-ended game I played.
Phantasy Star II, III, IV (Genesis): The Final Fantasies of the Genesis. These were just incredible, boasting a unique (at the time, at least) fusion of magic and technology. They tended to emphasize the dungeoning aspect of the game more than the plot, although this distinction blurred in III and IV. III also was unique in that there were 4 possible endings, depending on who the main character married and the actions of their offspring. Many people didn't like the generational aspect of the game, but I thought it was great and rather unique.
Freedom Force (PC): One of the few superhero games to actually get published (the only other ones I can think of are Superhero League of Hoboken, Hero-X {Which really doesn't count since it rode on FF's coattails} and some forgettable Spider-Man/Captain America titles for my old Tandy), FF has the advantage of being incredibly good. It hearkens back to the 60s campy four-color comics, with extremely fun missions, incredible graphics, a great physics engine (whack a thug with a lightpole and watch him fly!) and a robust hero creation system that can make just about anything you can dream of.
Random notes and stuff:
- King's Bounty: LiquidDamage, I'm fairly sure KB was a PC game ported to the Genesis. At least, I remember playing it on my Tandy back in, oh... '90 or '91? In any case, it was an extremely cool game.
- I'm playing through Deus Ex and System Shock II at the moment, and they're looking like they'll make my list. DX is just so amazingly complex, with tons of ways to get things done and many different ways to change the flow of the plot, and SS2 is just mindwarpingly freaky.
- The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind is in residence on my HD, but I can't seem to get into it. By all accounts it's a great game, though. I've never played the other TES games, though (Arena, Daggerfall, and Redguard, I think?).
- I really (really, really) want to play Final Fantasy: Tactics :(
- WL