Favourite computer games of all time.

They are much more in depth than that petty, but more and more are we just seeing recycled ideas with fps games and not many great innovations.

Hey! It's your birthday! Happy birthday, Lorient!

Happy Birthday!

(party hard now you're 16? )

Thanks guys! I'll definitely get right on that Norc!

Happy Birthday Lorient!! Haven't said hello yet either so hello!!

I quite enjoyed playing Halo as a 2 player game. It does get a little repetitive after a while... good story just not too much variation in action.

I always preferred playing games like Socom on-line. Much more tactical than things like Gears of War and Halo etc online. I like shooting someone and them being dead until the next round. And if I die.... then I should have just done better!!!

As Petty said after my idea post.... there really isnt too much innovation out there at the moment. Find it odd since the games industry isn't exactly flourishing and lack of innovation is part of that. There hasn't been too much fresh out there for a long while.

Petty - re Silent Hill... I never played the second game, the first was quite good. I quite liked Alone in the Dark 4... not a great story line but it had quite a lot of atmosphere.

SH2 definetly the best of them all. Its wonderfully ambigous, gives you just enough to piece together the story of James but not enough to answer all the questions- who are the other characters James meets-condemend souls like yourself or aspects of your own personality? What about the monsters? Are those sexy but twisted facelsss nurses there because of your sick wife or because your character was perving on the candystripes when he was supposed to be visiting his dying wife- is it guilt? And so it goes on with everything in the game and no definitive answers- you create and fill in your own blanks based on nothing more than how you are interpreting the game images. And it works wonderfully at creating a sense of a real pschological crumbling far more than if they had laid everything out in a linear story fashion.
Alone in the Dark is a strange one- the first one, which looks ropey as hell now with simple polygon shapes, was heavily influenced by Lovecraft and the Cthlulu mythology, it gives the first game an excellent atmosphere- for some reason they abandoned that side of it after 1 and they have never quite recaptured the same feel ever since.

Game innovation its still there- its just moved to the indie marketplace and to the phone game/xbox live style markets, where the risks are less.
The problem is cost v risk. In the old days when a game could be written entirely by one or two programmers this was not such a problem but if you look at recent big games and their budgets:
Final Fantasy XII- $48 million. LA Noire -$50 million. Gran Turismo 5- $80 million. GTA4- $100 million Star Wars The Old Republic- $150 million.

Ok the reward to cost is still better than a Hollywood blockbuster- the top selling games now make more money than the top grossing film of the year but cost less to make in a direct comparison- but for most game developers making a game in this cost bracket that doesn't sell is the end of the company.
Innovation now comes in small incrimental stages more often- so GoW developed an effective covering and shooting system and now it pops up in just about every game. But an entire game that is innovative or takes risks- those are much rarer.
One of the reasons I still like so many old games is that, even when they fall woefully short, they are are always reaching for the impossible, the excitement and imagination for what is possible drips from old games.

Monty Mole - Spectrum
Actually pretty much any Speccy game
Baldurs Gate 2 - PC
BG2 was the last great rpg, everything else since is lowest comm denom fodder (ok maybe morrowind at a push, but lacked focus)
Team Fortress 2 - PC

You're back, Ol' Cat! Again....!

Oof, there's some great stuff in this thread but there's absolutely no way I can remember and pick out all the stuff I want to reply to, so I'll just stick with a couple of current points.

Silent Hill 2: Sensational, and for me, the pinnacle of the "survival horror" genre, even though labelling it as such seems to devalue it a little in my mind. It's not really about jumps and scares; it's more psychological than that; deeply, deeply unsettling. I can remember much more about that game than I can of many others I've played over the years. A gem.

Innovation: Yep, big budgets restrict innovation in the games industry just as they do in cinema and music. For the really ground-breaking games, I think we have to rely increasingly on the much more modestly-funded, downloadable format; things like Flower, From Dust and Journey etc. Not sure how much of an impact such games will have on the AAA titles, though...

Although my first games platform was a ZX Spectrum 16K (still in my parents' attic), I never really got into gaming until much, much later in my life when a girlfriend at the time suggested we buy a PlayStation. My, how she regretted that!

Like everyone, I've played a whole load of different types of games but one of the predominant genres is adventure. Favourites?

Tomb Raider (every single one, bar the stupidly hard III and the dodgily-controlled Angel of Darkness)
Uncharted 2 (I suspect that if I could lift Tomb Raider's exploration and puzzles and implant them into Uncharted's cinematic rollercoaster, I might have my favourite franchise)
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
Fear Effect 1-2
Project Eden
Read Dead Redemption
Assassin's Creed II

However, for a long, long time my favourite genre was the JRPG. My favourites?

Final Fantasy XII
Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy Tactics
Vagrant Story
Chrono Cross
Legend of Mana
Xenogears

As I've, ahem, aged, though, I've found that the primary-coloured teenage protagonists (and the interminable angst) so typical of the genre have begun to wear on me a little (I played Final Fantasy XIII and XIII-2 out of loyalty more than desire) and, as a consequence, my tastes have moved gradually westwards to the more "adult":

Deus Ex
Mass Effect
Fallout 3
Fallout: New Vegas
Dragon Age: Origins
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
The Witcher 2 (which I'm currently playing and am very, very, very, very impressed with)

PS: Two games that don't really fit into any of these lists but which remain, to this day, amongst the most engaging, enchanting experiences I've ever had on my consoles are Fumito Ueda's Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. If his The Last Guardian ever sees the light of day, I think I'll weep for joy

crikey I have only played Pac Man, like once.

I play chess against the computer. I loose.

Keep it that way, Mrs Figg! It's too late for me, though!

I got a ps2 emulator mainly to play Shadow of Collosus as Id switched to xbox after my ps2 died and it came out later so never got a chance before- when it didnt get an xbox release was a real sickner. Loved Ico, beautiful game in every repsect.
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver was excellent too, great plot and a nice gimmick with the twisted round other world thing.
Think Tomb Raider 3 was th elast one I played, cant remember if I tried Angel of Darkness or not, if so it didnt leave much of an impression.
Red Dead is excellent too, a bit glitchy at times and the random side stuff gets a bit annoying but worth it just for the recreation of the old West to wander in killing buffalo!
I didn't like any of the assassins creed games I'm afraid. Otherwise there's something to be said for all the games on your list.

ps what you playing witcher 2 on? I've got the pc version and its bloody hard. I heard they had toned the difficulty curve down a bit for the console versions (it could do with it just getting through the opening flashbacks scenes is a trial in itself).

can anyone give me some chess tip?

Find someone worse than yourself and play them! Always a handy tip.

Don't forget when you have the opportunity to castle- most people forget that move and it can be useful, especially defensively or to get a rook out of being blocked in by enemy pieces.

thanks, I'll keep that in mind

Kendalf wrote:

However, for a long, long time my favourite genre was the JRPG. My favourites?

Final Fantasy XII
Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy Tactics
Vagrant Story
Chrono Cross
Legend of Mana
Xenogears

I can see final fantasy 10, not sure about 12 though. Did you not play FF7 or just not rate it?

Lancebloke wrote:Did you not play FF7 or just not rate it?

Yes, and it's an absolutely cracking game (breeding a gold chocobo and faffing around with materia are two of my favourite "systems" in JRPGs) but I loved VIII too (though many dislike it) and found IX utterly charming (if a little simplistic). I had to narrow it down somehow!!

Final Fantasy X is the game I've felt the strongest emotional attachment to (played it with my girlfriend at the time and chipped my PS2 to be able to import the US version months in advance and as the first PS2 FF it was such a visual feast, too; spent 250 hours on it) and Final Fantasy XII was just such a shot in the arm for the genre and gave us the peerless Gambit system for controlling your party members (which Dragon Age: Origins emulated quite successfully). So, that's why they're my favourites.

I've picked up from here and there that you're a big fan of VII. Nice!

EDIT: Just read your post about VII on the first page. Agreed.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:I got a ps2 emulator mainly to play Shadow of Collosus...Loved Ico, beautiful game in every repsect.

Have you seen the trailers for The Last Guardian? It looks just as enchanting. On top of the interminable development time, the fact that Ueda-san left Sony recently to go "freelance" to finish it fanned the rumours that things weren't going too well with it. Fingers crossed, eh?

Pettytyrant101 wrote:ps what you playing witcher 2 on? I've got the pc version and its bloody hard. I heard they had toned the difficulty curve down a bit for the console versions

Sweet baby Jesus! If they've toned down the difficulty for the 360 then I never want to be in the same room as the PC version!! It's tough. But, in my opinion, enjoyably so, no? Without wishing to sound like a prize arse, too many games are too generous these days, don't you think? Witcher demands that you pay attention to its crafting and brewing, trapping and burning, blocking and rolling mechanics. Unlike other games (where it's so easy to over-power your character), they're not optional! You need to master the many strings in the Witcher's bow or it's Game Over! Besides the muscular combat, I'm loving the characters and narrative, too, and the fact that the quests can resolve in a bazillion different ways.

I just arrived in the town of Vergen on Sunday evening. Loving it, loving it, loving it. Where are you up to?

I liked FF8- it had some great moments (that was on the one where you have to get through the town while the parade is going on, isn't it?)

I like my games difficult- I was brought up playing games like defender- back when games hated you- the defender arcade machine growled at you when you put a coin in! But seriously the opening of witcher 2 on the pc is ridiculously hard.
After the first 10 attempts to get throughthe I wa sleft the impression the game was saying, "Look how beautiful and well realised this game world is- and this is all your going to see of it!"

I've seen the trailers for Last Guardian, as with Ico and Shadow it looks beautiful. There is no one else captures light the same way.

ps got the skyrim creation kit- long term aim- a Forumshire mod with quests from all your favourite residents!

Final Fantasy VIII
Great! Yep, it is that one. I absolutely loved it. Granted, it was my first ever JRPG and was therefore sort of guaranteed a special little place in my heart but still... I remember there being such a kerfuffle about the fact that it dropped the traditional armour and accessories in favour of the "junctioning" system (remember?) but I really enjoyed faffing around with all that and was completely swept away in the whole epic nature of this new genre I'd discovered. Good times!

Skyrim
Nice! As I'm on the 360, though, I won't be able to take advantage, will I? I'm 160 hours in at the minute and am not even a third of the way through the content. Good times!

Witcher 2
Have you put it on hold for now, then? CDProjekt have made this latest "Enhanced Version" available for free to those who'd already bought the PC version so maybe it's worth downloading to see if it is any easier? I have to admit, it's sent me off scurrying to various online forums and guides more than any other game in recent memory in an attempt to identify the best weapons, armour, runes, enhancements (no point investing precious items and coins in sub-standard goods, is there?) as well as what talents will prove most useful and what strategies to use for the boss encounters (I've taken an average 5 to 8 attempts on each one so far). Good times!

Those were the days