Greatest Game Ever

Frosteh said:
RTS - Most old school RTS fans will probably agree Starcraft was/is the best RTS

You're forgetting Total Annihilation :D

(let's not get into a debate over it here, they're both great and radically different games. It's just that I prefer TA to SC for more reasons than I can count :) )

My favorites:

Strategy:

X-COM: UFO Defense (addictive, original, and fun)
Homeworld / Homeworld 2 (the ultimate space-based RTS)
Total Annihilation (yes, I'm a fanguy)
Medeival: Total War (because it's so dramatically different than your typical RTS)

FPS:

Quake 2 (it just about perfected the run-and-gun kill-everything-that-moves FPS)
Half-Life (it gave us more to play for than blood and guts, and did it remarkably well)
Descent (gameplay was so different, yet so easy and fun)
System Shock (no list is complete without it)

RPG:
Neverwinter Nights
Fallout 1/2
 
RTS: Total Annihilation --This game defined RTS. Starcraft was great, but TA beat it.
FPS: Half Life 1 --HL1 added a story element to FPSs that every game since has been trying to emulate.

Most Ground Breaking: The Bard's Tale


Just a noobs .02
 
X-Wing - because it got me to buy a $2700 PC just to play it.

Civ 2 - because I have put more time in it than any other game in my entire life of gaming.

Civ 4 - because it is making me upgrade now (but Oblivion is also making the upgrade desirable).

Starflight 1 and 2 - I got into PC gaming because of these games.
 
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

There is no other.
 
Some games that influenced me..not saying they're the greatest, but they're the ones that impacted me the most.
In no certain order:
Doom - My friends and I used to play with all the lights off taking turns finishing levels. Scared the crap outta me, hehe.
GTA 3 - Sole reason I bought a PS2. The only game I had for quite awhile. Set my record for longest gaming session with this one at 22 hours. Ah, youth.
Morrowind - To me it was like GTA medieval style. Huge game. Purchased origionally on the XBOX, then on computer. Mods made it fresh again(and still do).
Super Mario Bros. - Hours and hours of fun. My first real "game". Was a giant leap up from Atari games.
Gran Turismo 2 - GT1 was good, but 2 trumped it big time. I am a big car nut, and these games were like a dream come true.
FFVII - This one got me into RPG's. My favorite genre now.
Sims - Content and mods. Brilliant game.
UO - My first online game. Was so different for me coming from single player games. I still play now and again.
There are a few others, but these are probably the big ones.
 
Strategy:

Aoe1&2
Homeworld series
Starcraft
Disciples 1/2

One of my fav genres but few games I truly love...

FPS:
Tribes2
CS:S
Halflife 1/2
Halo 1/2
Battlefield 2
Deus Ex

RPG:

Fallout 1/2
Elder scrolls series
Baldurs gate 1/2
NWN
Planescape
KOTR

Notice a pattern here? :p

Action/Adventure:

Grand Theft Auto series
Ninja Gaiden
Crimson Skies
God of War
 
DoomRulz said:
so many HL lovers...u guys aint gonna like me after my post about HL lol

Just went back and read it. Missed it the first time through.

You're looking for a major technical acheivement (which it accomplished, probably more than you realize) but what made HL so great was how it delivered a story. It was really the first major FPS to do what it did and changed the way FPS was done afterward.

Doom 3, for example, resembles half-life more than it does Doom in its gameplay.
 
Obligatory warning: Old Dude Speaking

Campaign: Battlezone (Activision PC game)
FPS: Unreal Tournament
Sim: Railroad Tycoon

With all of them, the "What the hell do you mean it's dawn?!?" statement was mentioned a time or two... :D
 
PopeKevinI said:
You're looking for a major technical acheivement (which it accomplished, probably more than you realize) but what made HL so great was how it delivered a story.

Technical achievement? How?
 
HL has never been a big pusher for technological advances, but more or less a pusher for good art design and well made models
 
Babbster said:
Well, it has to be something by Sid Meier, so I'll go with Pirates!. That game, to me, defined free-form fun on my Commodore 64, and later on the PC. I couldn't tell you the number of hours that game stole from me. Civilization would come in a very close second.


QFT Pirates is my All time favorite game hands down.
 
G'ßöö said:
:confused: you gotta be kidding. I was unaware anyone liked that P.O.S.. it was wanna B fps and a resource pig. it takes all kinds I guess

You have to be kidding, the first Deus Ex was a masterpiece. The second one was a POS.
 
DoomRulz said:
Technical achievement? How?

I recall two major things being talked about in the magazines of the day: the AI, and the skeletal character modelling.

Half-Life introduces us to team-playing AIs. Marines worked in squads, creatures ran in packs, each had a distinct personality.

And the models in HL made a lot of things possible that had never been done before. Talking characters, for example, rather than rendered cutscenes. Also scripted sequences, because characters could be posed; they were rigid frame-by-frame animates, as in Quake.

It was a big step forward technically, just not so much in the eye candy department (which is probably what you're looking for)
 
Interesting...I see that now.

Well, I still say that DOOM had a bigger impact than HL. Always remember: if it weren't for DOOM, FPS games wouldn't be as big as they are today.

Consider: w/o DOOM, no Quake, w/o Quake, no Half Life (b/c HL was built on the Quake engine ;) )
 
well, if it wasn't built on the quake engine, it would of eventually been released on the Unreal engine
 
Well by the time valve was done chopping up the quake1 engine, i'm unsure if you could really say it used it ... i mean they did ALOT of work to that thing, and scrapped the project and started new probably 3 times!!!!

It was a good engine but built on the premisis of working on a 486 structure and up, all valve really did was up the anty, it looked good but i wouldn't say its because the quake1 engine was that revolutionary, especially when it took that much work.
 
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

Absolutely the best game ever made. So great that I even ended up looking through a Japanese music store for an hour in Tokyo just to find the limited edition soundtrack.

Honourable Mention:
Gran Turismo 3
Final Fantasy X-2
CS 1.6
 
Was the first RTS I ever played and from what I heard the first in that genre as well. It was just incredibly good.
 
DoomRulz said:
Always remember: if it weren't for DOOM, FPS games wouldn't be as big as they are today.


Correction. If it wasn't for Wolf3D... :)
 
merlin704 said:
Correction. If it wasn't for Wolf3D... :)
You're both right. FPSs wouldn't be the same today without Doom, and Doom wouldn't be there without Wolf3D. Both were huge steps forward for the genre (ever play Catacomb Abyss?).
 
Trimlock said:
Well by the time valve was done chopping up the quake1 engine, i'm unsure if you could really say it used it ... i mean they did ALOT of work to that thing, and scrapped the project and started new probably 3 times!!!!

It was a good engine but built on the premisis of working on a 486 structure and up, all valve really did was up the anty, it looked good but i wouldn't say its because the quake1 engine was that revolutionary, especially when it took that much work.

With minor modification to the quake engine, you can easily play HL maps on it.

I will agree with you about them changing it heavily in areas much deeper than just the maps.
 
Spazilton said:
You have to be kidding, the first Deus Ex was a masterpiece. The second one was a POS.

Hell yeah! Deus Ex is still my favorite game, even though Invisible War blew chunks. I would be happy if they remade the first game with updated graphics and physics.

Honorable mentions:
Command and Conquer (GDI/NOD storyline ftw)
Day of the Tentacle (Yay SCUMM)
Heroes of Might and Magic III
Starcraft

I'm not sure if this thread is meant to include console games as well but:
Gunstar Heroes
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
TMNT: Turtles in Time

Mods (for the hell of it):
Garry's Mod (Just due to the fact that you can make almost anything)

It's so hard to pick out just a few. It's also interesting to see that many of everyone's favorites are pretty old. Not many outstanding games in the past five years sadly.
 
So hard to choose for me :(

Diablo2, Starcraft, Halflife, Unreal Tournament, and Resident Evil4 are the top of my list.
 
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