Your best gaming experience (I.E. your favorite game).

[Stark]

'Stealing' ideas is actually a fantastic idea. Or do you think a good design feature should only be present in one game, rather than every game of that time from then on? Why don't all games have active reload, volumetric explosions, contextual ping, squad-based experience, etc?

THAT'D BE STEALING.

BTW once they fixed factions in SR2 having the truckers love me to death made pirates attackng me the funniest shit ever. TEAMSTER POSSE GO!

[open_sketchbook]

Active reload is a brilliant feature (you find yourself trying to do it in other games if you play too much Gears) and I really don't know why more games haven't picked it up.

[General Zod]

So press button to hug cover and regenerating health instead of medpacks are innovations now? Call me when they do something that's actually new instead of us just dealing with developers that steal ideas from each other in a circle jerk of mediocrity.

I'm talking about games in general, not whatever game you have a bug up your ass about. But feel free to keep being a dishonest dickshit.

[Whiplash]

So press button to hug cover and regenerating health instead of medpacks are innovations now? Call me when they do something that's actually new instead of us just dealing with developers that steal ideas from each other in a circle jerk of mediocrity.

I'm talking about games in general, not whatever game you have a bug up your ass about. But feel free to keep being a dishonest dickshit.

Apparently every game that comes out now is a shooter, according to him.

[Ryan Thunder]

The Descent series and Total Annihilation + expansions. Those never get old.

[Norade]

So press button to hug cover and regenerating health instead of medpacks are innovations now? Call me when they do something that's actually new instead of us just dealing with developers that steal ideas from each other in a circle jerk of mediocrity.

I'm talking about games in general, not whatever game you have a bug up your ass about. But feel free to keep being a dishonest dickshit.

Apparently every game that comes out now is a shooter, according to him.

As you fail to note that I ragged on all the KotOR a likes and their 'deep' morality and 'hard choices' as well. Games like CoH, Heavy Rain, and Supreme Commander did something different. The first still hasn't had another company take the idea and improve upon it, the second was a flop due to execution though most would admit the idea was sound, and the third is another game that hasn't really had others take its strong points and create an improved version yet. An honorable mention goes to Alpah Protocol, and it's a damn shame that it bombed for having flaws that many other games share. On handhelds it's most same old same old and the only really new things I've seen in a long while has been Scribblenauts.

[haard]

I can't believe I'm the only one who's simple answer to this is - 'Just one more turn...'
Civ 1 (and later SMAC) is heads, shoulders and knees above the rest.

[Lagmonster]

*sigh* Norade, just give up, you're in a debate you can't win and its really getting the thread off topic.

Agreed; Norade, your arguments are pathetic. As powerful as nostalgia is, you are confusing your changing tastes as you mature withsomething else. The games haven't actually gotten worse, nor has repetition with mild variation indicated a drop in quality - you've just become jaded with experience.

Would a mod mind changing the thread title to 'Your best single player (I.E. campaign) experience'.

As harsh as this sounds, no. I think you've hit upon something here, whether you meant to or not, that is important to all gaming.

[Dooey Jo]

As far as the original SMB versus SMB3 while the later game obviously did more, that first game was the limit of what they could do at the time. They used all the space they had for that game and later on when technology had grown they used a larger cartridge to make the other game. One was on a 320-kilobit cartridge, and the other was on a 3-megebit cartridge that used bank switching to reach that size.

Uh yeah, it's not exactly like bank switching magically became possible 2.5 years later in every NES; it was in the design all along, they just didn't use it for Super Mario Bros. They could have crammed more stuff in there if they wanted to/had more time/money.

Yeah, maybe, but so many games today don't bring anything new to the table. They're just Gears Reskins, two weapons with health regen = realistic, or lol Mass Effect boring as shit RPGs. I'm not saying there weren't a ton of shit games back when the NES and SNES were hot shit, but entire genres were still being born then. Now there's rarely anything new that wows me and games cost so much to make I'm not sure if we're ever going to get back to the days when games were actually fresh.

I'd probably be pretty bored with movies too if I only watched the Michael Bay summer action flicks... Sounds like you're only aware of the most heavily marketed games.

[CaptHawkeye]

Well it's no secret that I think Flashpoint was the best game I played. The freedom of action in the game world plus its detail just made it exactly the kind of game I had been craving for years. Sadly ArmA 2 is still being made like its 2001 and until BI figures that out, Flashpoint has no proper sequel.

'Stealing' ideas is actually a fantastic idea. Or do you think a good design feature should only be present in one game, rather than every game of that time from then on? Why don't all games have active reload, volumetric explosions, contextual ping, squad-based experience, etc?

It's pretty clear developers play other guy's games and already take ideas from them as is. Can anyone honestly think that Gears of War 2 was *not* responsible for the sudden inclusion of a Horde Mode in a ton of recent shooters, hell even RTS games?

It's sad though that they miss a lot of things. I think developers tend to have a very concrete idea of what they want their game to be like and are very hostile to good features from other games. Ironically, this attitude probably makes their game MORE bog standard.

[j.eller]

The games I've played most are probably Rome Total War or Morrowind. Oddly enough, I'm not sure I'd say that they were my favorites. Don't get me wrong, they're both brilliant games (that pretty much exemplify their respective genres) but to say FAVORITE game, that's more difficult...

[General Zod]

It's sad though that they miss a lot of things. I think developers tend to have a very concrete idea of what they want their game to be like and are very hostile to good features from other games. Ironically, this attitude probably makes their game MORE bog standard.

I think this is a combination of different things. A single game engine can't possibly do everything a developer might want to include, and if they make their game too much like something else that's popular at the time reviewers are going to notice it and hammer on it.

[The Vortex Empire]

One of the best experiences I ever had was Chromehounds. A tactical mech combat game. It was broken, it's balance was fucked up beyond all repair, the AI was dumb as a stack of potatoes. And yet, playing with a squad of my friends was almost beyond compare. Unfortunately, they shut down it's online back in January due to not enough people laying, and since the singleplayer is basically just training for the multiplayer, it's now a drink coaster.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Well they say seeing is believing, so here's the trailer (I never even saw this until after I played the game).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPFEkmq0z6k

Thanks for reminding me why I haven't played JRPGs since I was thirteen.

As for myself I don't think I could really peg it down to one game.

Also since we're on the topic of developers 'stealing ideas' from other games, I'm surprised it took until MAG to take the MMO multiple miniserver idea to use for huge FPS maps.

[Stark]

I'm surprised more FPS games don't steal other genre ideas, like context ping, group buff effects, bonuses etc. MAG and BC2 both have elements of this, but most people want to play shit like MW2.

Games like Singularity which are nothing BUT a collection of stolen ideas, however, are awful. It even had weapon upgrading for NO REASON!

[Vendetta]

Games like Singularity which are nothing BUT a collection of stolen ideas, however, are awful. It even had weapon upgrading for NO REASON!

It's possible for a game to not have an original bit in it's code and still be respectably fun. I picked up a cheap copy of Darksiders recently, and although it's a shameless Zelda clone (with grimdark and shoulder pads), it actually does the job pretty well, the character is fun to control (even more so than Link), the dungeon puzzles work, the world is interesting and gets the exploration right.

It's not original, but the people putting it together were competent and at least understood all the ideas they were stealing and what made them worth stealing in the first place.

[Stark]

That's it though; Darksiders was still effective because it used the ideas well. Thoughtlessly adding mechanics from popular games is generally bad (Singularity even does the whole infinite money and mana at the end of the game' thing making all the decisions in the upgrade system meaningless).

I liked Darksiders. The setting, story, and art set it apart from what it emulated.

[Sinewmire]

Probably the level editor that came with the Marathon Infinity box set. Marathon was the first proper game I'd played since Ghostbusters two on the Amstrad tape decks. I'd got the demo with an Mac Power magazine, and sent off for the full game when I was, what, 13 or 14?

I spent hours on the level editors making cool stuff to explore, ruined buildings being my favourite.

[CaptHawkeye]

It's possible for a game to not have an original bit in it's code and still be respectably fun. I picked up a cheap copy of Darksiders recently, and although it's a shameless Zelda clone (with grimdark and shoulder pads), it actually does the job pretty well, the character is fun to control (even more so than Link), the dungeon puzzles work, the world is interesting and gets the exploration right.

CoH is a pretty good example of this. It really doesn't do anything other RTS games haven't done. But it brings a lot of the good ideas of other irrelevant War RTS games together into one package. Making it way more than it appeared during the years of advertising it had. Too bad it took Relic like 4+ years to balance the damn game properly. RANGER SPAMZ ZOMG.

[Whiplash]

Wow ... you guys are totally in love with Company of Heroes (If I've had a dollar for every thread its been mentioned in ...). I'll pick it up soon as an alternative to not having enough money for Starcraft II to get my RTS fix.

Well they say seeing is believing, so here's the trailer (I never even saw this until after I played the game).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPFEkmq0z6k

Thanks for reminding me why I haven't played JRPGs since I was thirteen.

I'm not a fan of the genre myself, but in terms of this game, there's nothing quite like it.

[General Zod]

Wow ... you guys are totally in love with Company of Heroes (If I've had a dollar for every thread its been mentioned in ...). I'll pick it up soon as an alternative to not having enough money for Starcraft II to get my RTS fix.

I'm going to buck the trend here and go ahead and say Dawn of War 2 is better.

I'm not a fan of the genre myself, but in terms of this game, there's nothing quite like it.

Most of Squenix's new releases have been kind of "meh", but it's arguably one of the best rpgs they've put out in years.

[aieeegrunt]

I'd say that the most fun gaming experiences I've had are still the old skool lan parties where everybody lugs an xbox and a tv to my apartment. We did this just last weekend; playing various games and then ending with a couple hours of hilarious stupidity playing bumperhogs in Halo CE.

[The Yosemite Bear]

there was the only time I got Stormbringer in Rogue/Nethack...

yes that's right I got the daemon soul eating sword and proceeded to become totally evil, eventually getting killed by a trap door, long fall and starvation....

[Kheitain]

a circle jerk of mediocrity.

Colourful as always buddy, keep it up

General Zod said: A bunch of shit

I understand that this was not a direct quotation, but there seems to be a lack of a paraphrase button This thread, if I read the title right, was not, "Flame people because they're reasons for enjoying a game, then and now, are not acceptable to you."

If I were to put my finger on the greatest game (to me) of all time, despite the fact that people on here seem to be more interested in flaming each other for their personal taste, I'd have to say Donkey Kong Country 2. Not that there was anything different about this game than a thousand other SNES titles, but my little brother or my cousin and I could play this game all day. When we were little we didn't have any video games so going to see my cousin and play his SNES was pretty eventfull. When Glenn and I finally got one of our own we could play co-op for days, if we beat the game we'd just delete the file and play again. It was one of the few times we found fun in something that didn't involve scrapping. We were rough and tumble kids and my parents were grateful for the video games I think

There was a time when playing video games was something you did when it was too cold/raining/unbearably hot or a means of non-violently interacting with family. *Before General Zod misinterprets my statement and we get off track, I am exadurating for the sake of humour* I'm surprised more people on here aren't being nostalgic about gaming with someone they no longer have/are just rekindling a relationship with. I've kicked myself constantly ever since I traded in that SNES for a few playstation games because, "It was better."

After all that, if we must choose purely a single-player campaign style game I would go with Rome: Total War. It was the first of the Total War series I recieved and I accidentally stayed awake untill my alarm went off more than a few times while engrossed in the campaign. They AI had it's faults but overall the game was fantastic, so long as you made those pesky advisors shut up. Replayability was excellent as you got different armies to campaign with, all of which felt slightly different. Britannians or Celts had to be my favorites by far though.

[General Zod]

This thread, if I read the title right, was not, "Flame people because they're reasons for enjoying a game, then and now, are not acceptable to you."
>snip<

Instead of whining about it you could point out where my points are flawed. Otherwise kindly fuck off and stop playing hall monitor.