Classic Games....

[Hawkwings]

Here are some of my favorites:

OREGON TRAIL: accept no substitutes.

Mechcommander 2: Never played 1, but 2 was fun to play, especially with loading out your mechs and totally going for the Clan ER PPC aimed headshots. The story wasn't bad either, and the "news reports" did a lot for the atmosphere of the game.

EV Nova: Still play this from time to time. Still suck at combat.

Starlancer: It's WWII in space!

Total Annihilation: Oh RTS, where have you gone...

[Netko]

Mechcommander 1 is far superior to 2 - except for graphics (obviously), everything 2 does 1 did better. The atmosphere is better, the story is far superior, actual tactics are appreciated, etc.

Another vote for Terra Nova: TFC - if only it supported at least 640x480 rather then its wonky half-way resolutions. That's a game who's universe and gameplay are simply begging for an sequel.

Also from the under-appreciated pile, another vote for Starlancer. Great story and atmosphere (the music, the great cinematics), graphics that hold up even today, excellent use of continuity in a way that's not in your face (no 'lol, you decided to kill the village, you get the bad ending with you sitting on a throne of skulls!' - it was much more subtle - if you don't bag a Coalition carrier, it shows up at the most inopportune time in a later mission, if you perform well your squadron gets recognized much earlier, etc.). Probably the best Roberts brothers game, with their trademark cinematic feeling fully present. The only way it could have been better is if someone showered them with gobs of cash to do what they did in WCIII and IV and do live-action sequences.

And with that we come to Wing Commander IV. I get the feeling its getting a bad rap around here - for me, it was far superior to WC III. Technically, its more proficient (to the point of not being painful to play even today), has higher production values (actual sets for live-action rather then CGI backdrops which sucked back then), etc. Yes, yes, I know, some claim the story is a problem. But to me, it was better then WC III's. In III, you are essentially fighting a black and white war, and even Hobbes' defection merely adds a pinch of gray. It's not really that interesting. IV's story took a bucket of white and a bucket of black and mixed them to the perfect shade of gray. The story was also far more dynamic, characterizations better, as well as mission design. Its somewhat disappointing to not be able to stay a loyalist for the entirety of the game, but its understandable for budget reasons. The performances were certainly better then in III - Malcom McDowell's performance was simply brilliant in IV, not having him reprise the role in the movie was one of the major disappointments.

[MKSheppard]

And neither hold up well, sadly; Syndicate is a prisoner of it's low res (like a lot of older games, like UFO and MoO

Actually, Syndicate is still great to play, and the same can be said for MOO1.

While absurd amounts of screen real estate in both are taken up by oversized menus, etc; there's just enough of a play window that you can use; and the games were designed to actually work with mice from the beginning as a key UI component, rather than it being added on at the last minute -- "Hey, marketing says we need to add IBM PC Mouse support to the game, so they can have a sticker saying 'MOUSE COMPATIBLE' on the box to move a few hundred more units..."

[Ryan Thunder]

Total Annihilation: Oh RTS, where have you gone...

If you happen to find a Sam's, they're still selling it.

Man, how could I forget that one!? I'd put Supreme Commander on the list as well, if the system requirements weren't so ridiculous. -_-;

[Edi]

In no particular order:

Heroes of Might and Magic 2 & 3
Wing Commander 1-4, but especially 1-2, for reasons already named
Master of Orion 1 & 2
Civilization
Warlords 2 & 3
Empire
Ultima 4 & 5
Doom
Thief 1 & 2
Freespace 1 & 2
AvP 1 & 2
Pirates
UFO/X-Com 1 & 2
Dune 2

Many of the titles listed here by others I know by name but didn't play for some reason or other.

[Tsyroc]

All of these I played on the Commodore 64.

Choplifter (shoot the bad guys and airlift as many of your guys back to the home base as possible).
Crush, Crumble & Chomp (top down movie monster game written in basic). My favorite.
Bruce Lee
Mail Order Monsters
Archon & Archon II (both are basically fantasy based versions of battle chess. The battle elements are very similar to those on MOM).

Honorable Mention.

Pitstop II
Summer Games
Summer Games II


For PC

Dune II

Dune 2000 is okay and has a few nice upgrades but I just enjoyed Dune II more.

[Darksider]

Since i'm just about finished re-playing it, i'm going to chime in with X-wing Alliance.

The final game in the x-wing series, and thus the most developed, gameplay-wise. the missions were fun to play, and you got to see what the rebels were doing during admiral Zariin's Defender project.

Although that one family mission where you had to rescue Aeron from the rebel base that was being destroyed by the Death squadron was a bitch to win.

[MKSheppard]

Since i'm just about finished re-playing it, i'm going to chime in with X-wing Alliance.

I'm going to chime in with a resounding no. I remember when Game 3 was announced, and that it was going to focus on Smugglers. I went "fuck yes!" and imagined being a swashbuckling smuggler, playing off the rebels and imperials against each other.

Instead, we got "Generic cliched rebel sympathyzer storyline v1.0" because you know, the empire is evil.

[CaptHawkeye]

How about the missions in the game that were virtually unplayable without "unlimited shields/missiles" on? It made perfect sense to the developers for you to run around in a big family transport against wave after wave of missile armed gunboats.

I would have hoped the Endor mission would be cooler, but for some reason, the X-Wing series has always loved portraying Wars' uber fast space fighters and ships as FUCKING SLOW. Heading down the exhaust shaft at a brisk walk = not very interesting?

[weemadando]

XW:A was fucking terrible. TIE Fighter was the peak of that series. GOURAD SHADING MOTHERFUCKERS!

[Vendetta]

TIE Fighter was certainly the best of the bunch, and with it's two expansion packs has approximately ninety zillion missions as well, so longevity is no problem for it.

I often find myself wishing that someone would replicate TF's mission structure of secondary and bonus mission goals in a modern game, it was the tits.

[Big Phil]

The Jane's fighter series of the late 90's - ATF and USNF - great balance of fun and realism. Their later games, where you almost have to be a military trained pilot, weren't so much fun.

Also Aces of the Pacific and Aces over Europe

[Knife]

lolz; you are are silly;

Hate it, bored of it, burned out of it. Say what you want, WOW is the game of the decade.

For the record; I stopped playing.

[RogueIce]

The Jane's fighter series of the late 90's - ATF and USNF - great balance of fun and realism. Their later games, where you almost have to be a military trained pilot, weren't so much fun.

Ah, USNF '97, I remember thee fondly. Sure the graphics weren't all that awesome, but it was such fun anyway. And I don't care if there was never an actual F-22 carrier version; I can live with the ahistorical when it means letting me fly a badass fighter to sink some commie ships.

A shame I never got ATF to work...and this was on a Win95 machine!

[Darksider]

I'll admit that TIE fighter's bonus objective structure was much better done than XWAs (Extra points that go towards nothing at all whee!), but I just couldn't get into the storyline as well as the other games on account of the fact that I like being the good guys. I like to go around blasting faceless imperial goons, rather than going around opressing people. I didn't really start enjoying myself in TIE fighter until I went toe to toe with Zariin.

[weemadando]

lolz; you are are silly;

Hate it, bored of it, burned out of it. Say what you want, WOW is the game of the decade.

For the record; I stopped playing.

Actually for game of the decade I'd go (in no particular order):

Sims [series]
Brain Training
Wii Sports/Play/Fit

Because these games just turned gaming mainstream in a way which we'd never dreamed of before.

[Spyder]

• Sonic the Hedgehog 2. My favourite of the games (Yeah, Sonic 3 is fun, as is adventure and S&N. But it's hard to get S&N/S3 to work ).

Do you mean S&K as in Sonic & Knuckles? If so, I don't know what kind of version you got but my STH3&K (the 'combined' version) always works great. Still does whenever I plug in my Genesis. And it is an awesome game. Even if I hate Carnival Night Zone with that stupid bouncing/rotating platform puzzle thing you need to do to advance.

It wasn't until more then a decade after selling my mega drive (Genesis) that I learned that all you had to do was press down when the rotating thing goes down to make it drop further. I used to use the water shield to get through it.

[Guardsman Bass]

Super Mario 64: Whatever you think of the system, this game was very fun to play, and one of the best "once-in-a-system Mario adventure games" released. There was a degree of item-questy-ness in it, but it was still quite enjoyable, and I loved some of the worlds.I think of it as the quintessential Mario adventure game.

Starcraft: I know it has its critics, but it was (and is) a very popular RTS game, with a good storyline, good multiplayer, and an extremely well-balanced set of races to play.

[RogueIce]

It wasn't until more then a decade after selling my mega drive (Genesis) that I learned that all you had to do was press down when the rotating thing goes down to make it drop further. I used to use the water shield to get through it.

Indeed. If I had known about that at some point (I must have, since I have game files that are at the end...with all the Super Emeralds to boot! Go go Hyper Sonic! ) I forgot for the longest time, as evidenced by the multitude of Act 4 save files... In fact it was one or the other: either a completed game, or a game on Act 4.

Then I figured it out again quite by accident and went from there. I never know about the Bubble Shield thing to get through it though...

[Darth Yoshi]

Starfox 64 forever! And I still haven't managed to get a copy of that game for my N64 anywhere... .

Did you ever get a Wii? You can nab that for Virtual Console, although granted it's not quite the same without the actual 64 controller.

I'll throw in Earthbound. It's nowhere near as long as a Sqeenix game, and the graphics aren't anything to look at, but damn if it wasn't a fun game. The rolling HP counters were a welcome break from the stereotypical JRPG, since you can take a fatal blow and still keep fighting for several turns.

[R.O.A]

Jetfighter IV and V are classic's in my book. They each had some problems and glitches (I just destroyed you with the Vulcan cannon and got a kill point but you are still flying?!) but I miss the game play they had in them. I liked the mechanics behind bombing runs in IV better than in V, because I could never get the laser designator or whatever to work.

[TheMuffinKing]

I'll second DooM 1 and 2. Once my Xbox get repaired, I'll start playing DooM 1 all over again. I also nominate AVP 1 and 2, I felt both were just awesome while I found AVP 2's add-on to be very entertaining.

I'll mention Quake 2. I thought it was best game ever when it came out and had awesome levels, enemies, and effects back in the day.

Blood 1 and Blood 2: the chosen were both great. I loved the campy humor and various (though mostly evil dead) references in both games. I loved blood 2! I demand to play it again!

My hat goes off to Duke Nukem 3d and Shadow Warrior. Duke 3d had attitude and humor, and Shadow warrior built upon this while poking fun at anime and using some cool stuff like detailed sprites and I guess polygonal objects like health packs and stuff.

[Pulp Hero]

Rogue Squadron (N64): Damn that game (except for a few levels) was HAWT. Especially because it included the Naboo fighter as a badass unlockable, back when everyone thought the Episode one was going to kick ass.

Fallout 1: Never really liked the brokeness of FO:2, but I occasionally play FO:1 to this day.

Robert E. Lee-Civil War General: A hex based game with a full campaign tearing ass through the South. The AI was a tad stupid, but the fighting was often so vicious that you still had to really work to make sure your troopers didn't flee.

Splinter Cell 1 (XB): The best of the Splinter Cell games overall.




And to those who say Goldeneye, look at it on Youtube, it looks like dried vomit by todays standards, and the gameplay is way inferior to modern games.

[Akkleptos]

Classic games... classic games... Let's see...

Chrono Trigger (SNES): Good story, great graphics for the system and the time, outstanding music and totally awesome characters. Addictive. I'll vouch for that.

Chrono Cross (PS1): Same as above, minus the "Good story" part. Now, the music is not computer generated on this one, and it blows yer mind away!

Resident Evil Nemesis (PS1): Absolute classic. Incorporates many features that would become standard later on (I know, I should mention RE1, but sadly I have never played it)

Druid (Commodore64): action filled, the graphics and the theme captured my imagination back in the 80's.

Gateway to Apshai (Commodore64): Were those infinite dungeons we had to explore, or were they randomly generated every time we played?

Turmoil (Atari 2600): You can't beat me on this one! Non-stop action and seizure-inducing flashing colours! What's not to like?

Battle Arena Toshinden 3 (PS1): Likeable characters, very good animation for the time and system, splendid music. And you get to slash/hit people with yer sword/club/dagger!

Dino Crisis 2 (PS1): Shoot the dinosaurs! Shoot, shoot! Make money! Then buy more weapons to shoot more dinosaurs! Enough with the puzzle-solving bog of the first installment. Sweet!

Quake -all except Q4, which I haven't tried- (PC) - Immersive, atmospheric and gloomy in all of its encarnations, it set many standards for the future of FPS's. I really recommend the Afterwards mod for Q3.

Bomberman (SNES): Blasting fun and lots of power-ups. Quite addictive.

Doom -all- (PC): The most influential videogame in the history of anything. 'nuff said. The music in the PS1 version is my recommended listening when reading Mr. Stuart's most excellent fiction Armageddon.

... amongst many, many others... ah, the good old days!

[charlemagne]

There's no games I get more nostalgic about than the classic Lucasfilm/Lucasarts adventures, namely from The Secret of Monkey Island until Grim Fandango. Monkey 4 wasn't bad either, but I think I only played it one time.

Monkey 1 was what made me buy a Soundblaster for my 286, because the music was so awesome on a friend's Amiga.

I second Wing Commander 2 - oh, that game was pretty hard to get to run on my computer back then. Thinking about it, even installing it was hard, because my hd was so fucking tiny. But once it ran, it was pure awesome - later topped by Tie Fighter, of course. I played Tie Fighter pretty much for two weeks straight with not very much sleep in between while my parents where on vacation.