Favourite computer games of all time.

Hi Ally,

I think Petty and I are clearly showing our age (Petty more so as he is actually ancient). You started at the medieval times of gaming, think I am about stone age but with the experience of some of Petty's Mesozoic gaming childhood.

Have you ever played on some of the early games... the mythical 'Pong' for example.

You should hunt them down and have a go... I am sure Petty has a lot of them stored up but you should go and buy yourself one of the old black joysticks with little orange button to get the full experience.

I used to love asteroids.... except the whole hyperspace thing which just plopped you somewhere randomly on the screen to get pulverised!

Frogger was great too.... I never realised how hard it was for a frog to cross the road or a river until then!

Going to the N64 era though... one of the greatest shootem-ups of all time, the original Goldeneye! I spent MANY an hour blasting people away on that one.

Remakes never quite made the grade.

P.S. - Bob may be dead, but what is his mate Tony doing? He doesn't even have a gun.- lance

Problem thee was putting my base on the west coast of Scotland- the lads insised they could winthis war with nothing more than harsh language an dhead butting- only Bob (who is the only Englihsman) insisited on needing a gun. Needless to say the alien shot him first.

Ally you can by a classic square atari joystick that has all the games from the atari built into it- you just plug it in- acts as joystick and console. ME and the Elder Scrolls games are never far from my HD (in fact got all 3 installed at the moent although not played morrowind or oblivion for a v long time). Skyrim is wellworth getting into Ally- its a great return to form after Oblivion which, although lovely loking, seemed to have suffered a personlaity loss.

Goldenyeye was indeed a class shooter- and one of the few four was splitscreens that actually worked. Great fun and a proper single player campaign in there too.

How about Super Mario World on the SNES? And the original MarioKart!

While I'm on the SNES... Starfox!!

Pettytyrant101 wrote:P.S. - Bob may be dead, but what is his mate Tony doing? He doesn't even have a gun.- lance

Problem thee was putting my base on the west coast of Scotland- the lads insised they could winthis war with nothing more than harsh language an dhead butting- only Bob (who is the only Englihsman) insisited on needing a gun. Needless to say the alien shot him first.

Ally you can by a classic square atari joystick that has all the games from the atari built into it- you just plug it in- acts as joystick and console. ME and the Elder Scrolls games are never far from my HD (in fact got all 3 installed at the moent although not played morrowind or oblivion for a v long time). Skyrim is wellworth getting into Ally- its a great return to form after Oblivion which, although lovely loking, seemed to have suffered a personlaity loss.

Goldenyeye was indeed a class shooter- and one of the few four was splitscreens that actually worked. Great fun and a proper single player campaign in there too.

I agree on your point about Oblivion. It is much a prettier game than Morrowind, graphically, but I got a little tired of the repetitive landscapes and trees. Playing a bit of Skyrim I think they have fixed this, because the landscape is breathtaking! I also loved the hugness of the map in morrowind, which oblivion (partially thanks to fastravel) just didn't seem to have. I think it was just generally the freedom I felt with Morrowind- yes you started a main quest with the note- but then you could stroll off to do anything. I feel Oblivion lost that sense of adventure and it was far too easy! Plus the feuding houses plot line is much better IMO!



Ive put a little game time into a pure mage (no idea why) in Skyrim, and boy, so much harder than Oblivion, just for the fact I've found no easy money exploit yet

Lance, I don't think I have played the original version pong in fact I'm not sure if I've ever played any retro games! I think that could be a mission for the summer holidays.

Lancebloke wrote:How about Super Mario World on the SNES? And the original MarioKart!

While I'm on the SNES... Starfox!!

I guess I missed that console with the N64. I love MarioKart on the wii, so I'm a little disappointed I never played it on N64 or anything when I was a kid

Ally - If you do go retro gaming, I think you will probably find 2 things. Very early games are so basic that you don't relate them to what you play these days as they are so different. These kind of games are easy to play, probably even up to Mega Drive and Super Nintendo

The problem often lies in playing games of the N64--->PS2/xbox era. As these are the building blocks of the type of game you see now, it is easy to relate the 2 and so immediately see how bad the graphics are rather than try and play the game. I have seen many people just look at a game and then not play it or 'try it' and not enjoy, purely because of that.

Hopefully if you decide to try some older games, you can ignore how bad the graphics may be compared to today's game and really get in to them. Maybe even start from the beginning and work forward as graphics developed.

Petty - Did you ever play Vandal Hearts? The first one was a great game... never played any of the sequels though.

an old game called Decent or something is very good. It's old and I've only played the demo. I think it is really good. It's like no up and down cause it is weight less in minds in the moon. google it. can't explain it. but it's very good. and the robots are scary.

I remember Descent... I enjoyed that too although never had the game so had to enjoy it when I ever managed to play it.

I know I keep listing games here but there are so many great ones that just keep popping in to my head. The first 2 Populous games were really good.

Also, the first Destruction Derby. The sequels were never quite up to the original.

I might have to create a top 10 list by genre soon. I'm getting all sorts of sentimental flashbacks going on thinking of times playing these games.

Oh... Tekken... the first one!! And the first 2 Mortal Kombat games! And Street Fighter 2 (before all of the various sequels.... like Street Fighter 2 Mega Alpha Super Duper Ultimate )

Starfox was a great game- could have done with it being less cutesy mind but thats just my tatse- I never can feel entirely 'in the game' when I am supposed to be a smart arse fox.

Descent probably was a good game- I heard it was a good game and the 2 or 3 minutes I managed to play it before motion sickness and a strong need to vomit overpowered hinted at a good game!

Thumbs up to Tekken 1 &2 Original Destruction Derby is one of favourite driving games of all time, so much fun and it seemed so impressive at the time, and the original Driver too- what a game, the directors mode was genius too, spent more time mucking about in director mode in the end that playing the game. Always thought the GTA series should have nicked the directors mode, they nicked almost everything else after all.

Never likek Mortal Kombat- too gimmicky and the controls were sluggish as hell- press the punch button, go make a cup of tea, watch your charcater punch the air ineffctually, repeat till death.

Was trying to think of all the sytems I've owned over the years- first one was a third party copy of an atari in th elate 70's. Then I got the actual Atari 2600. After that in the 80's I got the spectrum zx48k, eventually upgraded to a spectrum 128k with built in tape deck! Then briefly had a commadore 64, an msx (the first computer I had that also had a carttridge slot- seemd amazing then, games with almost no loading times-well copared to waiting 10 minutes or more loading from tape) )and then for many years an atari ST before switching to its main (superiour) rival the Amiga500. After that switched to consoles for a bit, with a snes then a megadrive, N64, and the Atari Jaguar, then onto the playstaion. (I had a pc too but pc games were still shocking back then for the most part or the processing power and graphics card were to expensive compared to its getting a console) then playstation 2, xbox, xbox 360. By which time I had invested in a decent pc capable of gaming- since then I have barely switched the xbox on and as I can get all the games cheaper and at better graphic quality on the pc.
Weird thing is on my pc I have much of my old games collection. I have the amiga, ST, Jaguar and snes emu's installed. As well as all the remkaes etc done on pc. So strange that several of what was once the pinnacle of computing run as small background programs barely detectable on memory and processor usage on my current pc.

Talking of Descent current fav retro game is Freespace 2 rom the same family tree as Descent, the stories are even connected though not exactly sure how given the aforementioned vomit problem with Descent.
Its a space combat sim- but its really a flight sim that just happens to be set in space. Excellently paced, compelling narrative, and love how the training works- you do some training missions- learn to target ships, select and fire weapons, then its off into the main game, do some missions , then a bit more training where you learn some more controls, then more missions. By the end of all the training you will be using a large percent of the keyboard to do all sorts of things from allocating shields to specific areas, to targetting enenmy subsystems and firing off chaff to defelct enemy missiles and calling in your squadron and issuing orders- but because you learn piecmeal its never overwhelming. The best space sim I've played based on combat. And some of the battles really are on an epic scale. Recently released on Gog label to run on modern pc's. I would always recommend the mod pack just to update the textures and explosions a bit.

descent is great! but it takes time to get use to the 3D map and those fucking robots and to control everything! but the music is shit. it's much more exciting if you just have the sound effect. much more claustrophobic.

Norc - you seem to have a real issue with those robots!! They were annoying but it was fun getting the weapomn upgrade (like the vulcan cannon) and riping them up!!

yeah, they freak me out every time. I could never really get the hang of how to control the spaceship, so that's partly the reason why I would always panic when those robots came xD

Even still. Bluuurgh!!!

still? no, I gave up after five tries and wathced my sister play. much more fun. and I made her panic.

Took me a while, but got my first top 10.

This one is for Strategy games including RTS:

1 - Total Annihilation
2 - Command and Conquer - Red Alert
3 - UFO: Enemy Unknown
4 - Command and Conquer - Red Alert 2
5 - Supreme Commander
6 - Command and Conquer
7 - Civilisation (not sure which one)
8 - Star Wars: Supremacy (Rebellion in the US)
9 - Populous 2
10 - LotR: Battle for Middle Earth 2

Lots of these types of game that I haven't played though, so completely based on the ones I have spent significant time on.

Thats a decent top ten.

I have a few others going... not all quite built up to 10 yet though.

It's all very difficult to decide.

None of the Total War games make your top ten RTS? Just notcied there isn't one there.

Another classic- Another World (Also known as Out of this World)

Another world was good... had it on the Amiga 500. I actually have flashback on one of my other lists that I have yet to publish.

And no Total War as I haven't played them. I keep looking at the games and review etc but never get around to actually playing to se if they are any good.

I have been, and am still, waiting on a realistic RTS. Have you played Supreme Commander? The scale of the game is about what is needed for something realistic, however it is obviously still based around conventional RTS type formats of health bars and unlimited fuel/ammo etc. That takes away a HUGE element of the strategy as it allows you to spam units at your enemy without worrying what really happens as they will deal some kind of damage.

I would love to see a game on that scale where you could send an aircraft out on patrol but it would have to come back and refuel or rearm after using its realistic complement of ammo. Or naval units that need to either come home to resupply or need dedicated supply ships to bring them new ammo etc. And front lines that need actual supply lines to keep them from being overrun.

I would also love to see a game where a dude with an AK47 could not eventually kill a Challenger 2 if he fires his infinite ammo for long enough. Or a bomber take cannon and 12 missiles before it gets shot down.

With things like that, there would be real strategy involved. Holes in defences could be exploited, balanced forces would be needed with offensive and defensive needs carefully assessed.

You would, obviously, need to think about how this would all be resourced. No more tiberium mining or spice gathering. I would personally go with some kind of construction units (engineer corps) type thing where you would have infinite resources (delivered by off screen helicopter or something) but the balance would be in a) choosing the right things to build (e.g. a barracks can on hold 50 men and takes x amount of time to build or a tank requires building a dedicated building and also uses those same engineers to build a tank... more engineers take much longer to train than troops so you cannot just spam them out and build tons of buildings/units).

I think that should be the next evolution in RTS games that seem to be re-hashing the same format over and over these days.... normally to complement whatever the trending film is at the time.

Innovation is in shorter and shorter supply in the games industry. The cost of making a modern game is so huge that innovation is seen as too risky- much like Hollywood.

More classic goodness- Silent Hill 2 the pinnacle of the franchise. A man gets a letter from his dead wife asking him to come to the town they had their honeymoon in- Silent Hill.
Disturbing, unnerving and leaves you wanting to able to scrub the inside of your head out with soap after playing. One of the greatest mood games ever, this is as good as the survival horror genre ever got for me.



Also the Silent Hill games had the best soundtracks out there. Equally unique. Here's two tunes first one is the original theme and a song from SH4 (which had some great ideas but too many bad ones as well, but I loved the music and the lyrics in this are so dark and twisted;
'Here's a lullaby to close your eyes.
It was always you that I despised.
I don't feel enough for you to cry.
Here's a lullaby to close your eyes.
Goodbye.'

Perfect Silent Hill).





Some more SH goodness- the disturbing end of nurse Lisa in SH1

Always good coming back to a good thread! Personally I love Xbox games over any other format and I have to say that the Halo and Battlefront series are the best there. The only other format I really play is regular PC games and I would say any Blizzard made game is up there!

I never got into Halo- the first one was a great solid game, the shield management was an excellent innovation. But other than that I found them pretty bland. Might be an age thing, my little brother loves 'em.
But then I view 90% of fps games as pretty poor- they are just space invaders in 3d- shoot wave after wave, hide behind walls pop out and shoot badguys- get led down corridors to where the game wants you next, repeat.