Your all time favorite games?

[Crazedwraith]

Not exactly original choices but:

Total Annihilation

Metal Gear Solid 3 (4 is good, but three has the best mix of strong gameplay and story elements. 2&4's stories are terribly convoluted and silly)

GTA: Vice City. (Never got very far at all with San Andreas, lame ghetto story, silly rpg elements and just seemed awkward to play)

[Starglider]

I agree, Starglider, but it's not really our place to tell people which games aren't allowed to be their all time favorites

Sure, but I don't see the harm in having some discussion. These kind of threads are more interesting if people try to justify non-obvious choices.

[Oskuro]

Never got very far at all with San Andreas, lame ghetto story

Yeah, as soon as I got out of the starting city I ran into a clothing store, dressed my character as a Reservoir Dogs style gangster, and forgot all about the gang wars. That is, until the game forces you back into the 'hood at the end and I lost interest (I had assaulted military installations, and they want the finale to be about gang wars and corrupt cops?!)

I agree with Starglider, by the way, and second his opinion on Halo. It was a big thing for kids who never had played anything outside of their consoles, but pretty mediocre compared to other titles of the time.

[Stark]

No, it really wasn't. It wasn't the instant classic people thought it was, but it had a lot of good ideas (especially regarding open levels and vehicles). If people are allowed to like FEAR they're allowed to like Halo.

[adam_grif]

Metal Gear Solid 3 (4 is good, but three has the best mix of strong gameplay and story elements. 2&4's stories are terribly convoluted and silly)

Three clearly has the best story, precisely because it abandoned 90% of the stupid nanomachine bullshit that 2 and 4 can's stop themselves from wanking all over.

[Oskuro]

If people are allowed to like FEAR they're allowed to like Halo.

I never said it was bad, Stark. I actually liked Halo, it was just hailed as the second coming of FPChrist, probably because it was the flagship title for the Xbox, and it wasn't that good.

[Vendetta]

I agree with Starglider, by the way, and second his opinion on Halo. It was a big thing for kids who never had played anything outside of their consoles, but pretty mediocre compared to other titles of the time.

Halo did a lot to speed up the flow of FPS games, rather than many previous games, especially on PC, being all about inventory management and backtracking for more health/ammo, Halo had quick regenerative shield so there was little to no backtracking for health, limited weapon carriage, and every enemy dropping his weapon to provoke a relatively constant recycling of weapons from the battlefield (especially with the nonreloadable plasma weapons).

It also made an attempt at weapon balance, because all of the weapons maintained usability throughout the game, wheareas in most other FPS games certainly prior to it there's a clear progression from rubbish weapons at the low end of the keyboard to really good weapons at the end, and almost no point in using things like your puny starting weapon as soon as you have something better.

Even down to simple things like grenades being not shit and on a single press rather than in a weapon slot were relatively new.

The things Halo popularised in the FPS genre are still present in the biggest titles today, including PC titles.

[Starglider]

The things Halo popularised in the FPS genre are still present in the biggest titles today, including PC titles.

I'll grant that the vehicles were a nice idea, but the vehicle controls sucked (in all Halo games, but especially in the first one). Later FPSes did them much better. In fact Halo 2 did everything better, including the levels (e.g. no endless ridiculously boring archive hallways) and especially the multiplayer, on the same console. That's why I picked GTA:VC instead of GTA3; GTA3 blew everyone away when it first came out, and was certainly the most original. However VC and SA were both better games with more to do, and in retrospect I had more fun with them. This isn't 'which games were significant to the industry', it's 'which games did you like most', and from that point of view I don't know why you'd pick Halo 1 over 2.

F/A-18 Interceptor, despite being released in 1989, remained the best flight sim on the Amiga until the platform died.

[Oskuro]

I won't question that Halo had good ideas, but let's face it, a big portion of my games library is composed of great ideas that failed to yield a great game. Halo, in general, is a run-of-the-mill FPS, wich did contribute to the genre, particularly to the proliferation of shooters in consoles. The problem with it is that its massive popularity was not in accordance to its quality as a game, but that's the Hype machine for you.

And, mind you, many of the good idea Halo uses, from self-regenerating health to vehicle use, were not a first (not by a long run), Halo just had them on a popular mainstream game, wich helped make an impact in how following games were designed. Wich is good.

[Crazedwraith]

Metal Gear Solid 3 (4 is good, but three has the best mix of strong gameplay and story elements. 2&4's stories are terribly convoluted and silly)

Three clearly has the best story, precisely because it abandoned 90% of the stupid nanomachine bullshit that 2 and 4 can's stop themselves from wanking all over.

I think what annoyed me the most was the revelation that Vamp had super healing nanomachines in him that gave him his powers. "Could Vamp be immortal?" "Ah hell no! This isn't a fantasy game!" Except... remember Fortune, Snake? Remember how she really didn't need the technology to do her thing? Remember how Ocelot's line 'there's no such thing as the supernatural' was immediately made to look silly when he was taken over by the dead spirit of your clone brother?

Seriously even without MGS3 having ghosts, and people that mentally control bees all the games have the supernatural in. Trying to explain it all as nanomachines kinda ruins the point of your freak mercenary squads/

[adam_grif]

God, the fucking Ass-Pull at the end of MGS4 to "explain" Liquid posessing Ocelot was the worst for me. Or how they fucking chickened out and didn't let Snake kill himself, only to have the dead body of Big Boss (Big Boss is a fucking stupid name, by the way, and the localization teams should have fucking done something about it back in 1998) fucking reanimated only to provide boring, hideously long exposition, and then be killed again.

In fact, disturbing the graves of beloved things for shitty reasons and then murdering them is a pretty fucking apt metaphor for MGS4 as a whole.

[General Zod]

God, the fucking Ass-Pull at the end of MGS4 to "explain" Liquid posessing Ocelot was the worst for me. Or how they fucking chickened out and didn't let Snake kill himself, only to have the dead body of Big Boss (Big Boss is a fucking stupid name, by the way, and the localization teams should have fucking done something about it back in 1998) fucking reanimated only to provide boring, hideously long exposition, and then be killed again.

In fact, disturbing the graves of beloved things for shitty reasons and then murdering them is a pretty fucking apt metaphor for MGS4 as a whole.

I think Kojima just likes trolling his fans.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Far too many:


RPGs:
Fallout 1 & 2 - Deep, dark and immersive.

Planescape Torment - I only played this a year or so ago (it's hard to find a copy!), but I have to admit, all that hype about the outstanding writing, plot, sandboxing? Totally justified . (Even if the interface and graphics suck by modern standards, to a worse degree than, say, Fallout 1).

Baldur's Gate 2 + TOB: I Played through these games start to finish, crack to hack to edit to Darkest Day to Demogorgon far, far, faaaar too many times. Such a sublime game (Though nostalgia is possibly talking) - A sweet spot between good writing (if not on the level of PS:T) and decent graphics and a good interface.
It also let you have a proper D&D party! With 6 people! 6! Not 2 companions (Fuck you very much ever Bioware game since!)
And Throne of Bhaal is just fucking AWESOME.

Arcanum: A great game, no doubts there. (but on a league below the others mentioned, even if it is better than, say, KOTOR (Still a fun game!)).

FPS/Action:
Half Life2 (+Ep2)
Portal.
- Valve Made Me It's Bitch.
Jedi Knight 2 + Jedi Academy. - Lightsabers. .

Unreal Tournament 2004. (LAN Party memories hoy!)
Halo. Yes, on the PC. I played the shit out of it anyway. And i'd skip the library level .
Bioshock - Incredibly atmospheric, although again this is a "tier 2" game compared to the others.
Super Mario 64.
Tyrian 2000. Raptor: Call of the Shadows. Tachyon: The Fringe (I preffered it to Starlancer, sue me ).

Adventure games:
The Neverhood. - Excrable Hall of records aside, I played this game sooo many times over my childhood . (They're making amovie now, yay!).
The Curse of Monkey Island.
The Last Express. Hard, frustrating and immersive as hell.
Grim Fandango.
Broken Sword 2: The Smoking mirror. (I also loved the first, but didn't replay it as many times).

Strategy:
Red Alert 2.
Starcraft. Plotwise - simply awesome. Endless mods, and lots of fun.

Just a short list, and i'll probably kick myself for forgetting some old faves

[Srelex]

Ooh, tough one. Just off the top of my head:

*Super Mario Bros 3
*Metroids Super, Zero Mission, and Fusion, plus the Prime Trilogy
*Advance Wars, all of them
*The Red Alert series
*Fallout 3
*Street Fighter
*The Zelda series
*Civilization
*F-Zero
*Mass Effect
*Halo
*Super Smash Bros Brawl

Probably could come up with more given more time.

[Oskuro]

Jesus Christ, Halo is considered fast?!

I'd say it is more agile than fast. The inventory management system as well as the rechargin shield did lead to less ammo/weapon stockpiling and medkit hunting, wich always makes shotters drag.

[Gramzamber]

I think what annoyed me the most was the revelation that Vamp had super healing nanomachines in him that gave him his powers. "Could Vamp be immortal?" "Ah hell no! This isn't a fantasy game!" Except... remember Fortune, Snake? Remember how she really didn't need the technology to do her thing? Remember how Ocelot's line 'there's no such thing as the supernatural' was immediately made to look silly when he was taken over by the dead spirit of your clone brother?

The Fortune thing was retarded to begin with.

Ocelot: "No Fortune you don't have a freaky power! I will demonstrate this by shooting you!"

Fortune: "Even though it was just demonstrated that I in fact have no powers, I will say that I have powers anyway and while I can't deflect bullets I will DEFLECT THESE MISSILES!" Do you believe in Fortune, kids? Clap your hands to help her out!

Let's face it, if MGS4 had dropped the nanomachine wank and kept the supernatural stuff it would still be an ass-backwards, stupid story.
Also, Vamp was a worthless character supernatural or not.

[MKSheppard]

Assuming you mean games that are still favourites, unlike those like System Shock that were fucking amazing but are now just clunky dinosaurs...

Actually, I played System Shock 1 a few months ago via some hacks and it was pretty good -- it certainly did age better than 95% of FPSes out there. Don't know about the second one in the series though.

Here's the criteria for my list:

1.) These games must still remain some level of playability today -- there are some that I wasted a lot of time on, like Aces of the Pacific that are now horribly obsolete. Additionally, a lot of games in the early 1990s just sucked, as they were still figuring out this new thing called a mouse for UI control.

2.) Do they stand out? I mean; there were a lot of games that were nice but really did not make the final cut since they did not stand out sufficiently well. Crusader No Remorse and No Regret are borderline for me. They're very nice games; but do they stand out well enough for me?

3.) The games must be relatively old. I don't include modernish games on my list (Fallout 3 is the exception since it was so good). I find that age and distance help you make accurate value judgements of a game's worth. Also; I played more games when I was younger. Since I left High School back in 1998/1999; my gaming participation has dropped massively; so the list is biased towards the golden age of PC gaming.

Edutainment
The Oregon Trail (ASSFACE DIED OF CHOLERA)

Sims:
Wing Commander 1/2/3/4 (reservations about 4 -- it seemed that they changed things around -- I ended up using missiles all the time in 4; since getting a gun run seemed five times harder than in WC3)
TIE Fighter (It fixed many of the issues X-Wing had; re: skullcrushingly hard missions)
Silent Hunter 1

RPGs (or games that play like them)
System Shock 1 (Have not tried playing SS2 on a modern computer)
Fallout 1/2/3 (I never did play Tactics)
Star Control 1/2. (Who remembers SC1? I do. I played it on my Genesis a lot)

Strategy
The Operational Art of War Series.
Civilization II (There is no Civ 1, 3, 4 or 5)
Steel Panthers 1/2 (and it's remakes)
Transport Tycoon (Deluxe, OpenTTD too)
Master of Orion 1/2 (Which one you like is a matter of personal taste. But both remain playable)
Master of Magic (raises undead army of skeletons)
X-COM Series (UFO/TFTD/APOC)
Jagged Alliance 2 (I only played JA2 with the 1.34 mod -- and even then it was horribly hard the first few missions -- an easier curve would have worked)

Adventure
Just about Every LucasArts Game
Just about Every Sierra Game

[wautd]

Sims:
Wing Commander 1/2/3/4 (reservations about 4 -- it seemed that they changed things around -- I ended up using missiles all the time in 4; since getting a gun run seemed five times harder than in WC3)

You're forgetting the godawful WC Prophecy
But indeed, how could I forget about Wing Commander 3 (never played 1&2 and 4 was inferior to 3). WC3 was superior in its day and age and probably the only space flight sim I preferred over the old Star Wars games.

[Vendetta]

Actually, I played System Shock 1 a few months ago via some hacks and it was pretty good -- it certainly did age better than 95% of FPSes out there. Don't know about the second one in the series though.

Shock 1 has absolutely horrible controls though. The environments are fun to explore and the characters and much of the voice acting, especially SHODAN, holds up, but actually interacting with the game is a pain in the arse.

[Stark]

Pre-WASD is awful, but people have made wrappers that let you use regular controls (you end up toggling like SS2 or Dues Ex). The idea it's 'better than 95% of FPS' when it isn't one and has crap gunplay is ridiculous, but hey.

[RedImperator]

Forgot to mention:

GTA: Vice City: I recently replayed both Vice City and San Andreas, so I got to compare them. San Andreas had a lot of nice additions (not drowning in an inch and a half of water was nice; I feel like Rockstar should have worked that out before setting a game in Miami) and a lot of fun moments, but Vice City had a tighter plot and made better use of its one city than SA did with its three. In VC, the city felt like a character, whereas in SA, the cities were just kinda there, especially San Fierro and Las Venturas. They looked good, but you don't spend enough time in either of them for them to feel like more than another map to memorize. And then there are SA's writing problems--tl;dr version, either the fourth act should have been left out or the fifth should have been drastically changed, because spending 4/5 of the game building a criminal empire and the final fifth running the streets of Ganton like the previous four acts never happened doesn't work.

[Hawkwings]

Starglider + others: I actually played Halo and Halo 2 on the XBox. Halo was my first real console shooter, and was damn fun. Regenning shields and useful weapons definitely were appreciated, as was the grenade trigger and melee function.

This was me: "Wait... now I can have three attacks easily accessible with separate buttons? And not get confused? *mind blown*"

The low point of that game was, of course, the Library.

[Starglider]

Starglider + others: I actually played Halo and Halo 2 on the XBox. Halo was my first real console shooter, and was damn fun.

Ok, but was Halo 2 less or more fun?

[Ghost Rider]

The problem of asking a person to justify in any particular why is the same to ask what are the criteria to judging for others. I mean we have some baseline for it?

Like this bit with Halo 1. Hawkings likes Halo more then Halo 2-3-Reach-Quake12-Doom44. Having him justify smacks of just being judgemental because you are either actually curious or being a jackass. If you're curious, you can ask the man himself.

I mean I'm not commenting people's choices of fighters or RPGs just to see them justify 10-20 year old games that were broken mechanics that were changed in sequels or actual game breaking bug riddled ones that are only remembered in context of that particular generation.

[MKSheppard]

The idea it's 'better than 95% of FPS' when it isn't one and has crap gunplay is ridiculous, but hey.

Considering you walk through an environment and shoot/beat things, and have different types of weapons....

SS was the first of the FPS/RPG hybrids. And it did it pretty well.

As for better than 95% of all FPS -- I mean honestly, how many FPS can you remember from the past? Most of them were pretty much generic FPSes with some GIMMICK to make them stand out (cough blowing people's heads off in SOF1)

The controls in SS1 were dodgy since yes, it was the pre WASD era; but they weren't a complete "FUCK YOU I LAUGH AT YOUR PUNY ATTEMPTS" when I go back and replay it.