The Important Games Thread

[Mr.]

Okay, so, this post is derived from something that someone else posted a while back.  And by "derived from," I mean I stole the entire concept.  But I had read their list, and I decided that I wanted to make one of my own.

This is a list of the top five most influential games in my life.  That might sound kindof sad, and it probably is.  But whatever.  Video games in general have been very prominent in my life, because I am a huge nerd.  And obviously, there are some games that have stood out more to me, than others.  They are not necessarily my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE GAMES (Although they're all near the top), but these are games that have had an influence on me by... soaking up absurd amounts of my time... facilitating friendships... creating fond memories... modifying my addiction to games... Things like that.




So this is the list I made of my TOP FIVE MOST IMPORTANT GAMES EVER:


1: Starcraft
-Well, it's Starcraft.  Not only is the game amazing, and still fun to play, no matter how long it's been... it had a map editor.  This editor was really the first time that I tried making any real custom content in a game.  I really didn't get too far with anything substantial, but I did a LOT of screwing around with it, as well as all of the modding tools made by the community.

And it is that community that makes this game so important to me, because...well... We've all stuck around for so many years.  It's where I've made friends with people who I talk to every day.  THIS IS MY INTERNET HOME, OKAY?


2: Metal Gear Solid
-Once up a time, video games made an awkward transition into the third dimension.  I missed out on a lot of games for PS1.  All of them, in fact.  I had a Nintendo 64 (TOTALLY DON'T REGRET IT).  I still liked playing all of the awesome games that were coming out, but from what I could tell, a video game could only be 1: A massive, 40-hour long RPG with an epic story and a turn-based battle system, or 2: It could be a "regular" game, where you played in real time, and the story was secondary to shooting dudes.  I was getting bored, thinking that a game would always be one or the other, and for quite some time, I had lost a lot of my interest in video games in general.

Then one day, years later, a friend told me that I had to play Metal Gear Solid.  This was near the end of the PS2 generation.  I had a PS2, but I had only bought three games for its, and one of them was Final Fantasy X (lol40-hourRPG).  Metal Gear Solid completely blew me away.  The awesome blending of genres, and complete immersion the game created for me made me realize that I had missed a LOT of progress in video games over the past few years.  I have been madly scrambling to catch up, ever since.

It is the #2 most important for me, because it made me become obsessed with video games after having forgotten about them for some time.


3: Super Metroid
-This is the game that I have obsessed over the most, played infinity thousand times, and know every detail of by heart.  Oddly enough, I never actually owned the actual cartridge until very recently, despite it being one of my favorite games of all time.  While I didn't own the game, however, I did own the strategy guide, and I read it from cover to cover.  Several times.  This game has infinite sentimental value to me.  It gets #3 because of all of the love and affection I've given to it over the years.  (If you know what I mean)


4: Final Fantasy VI
-The first Final Fantasy game I ever played.  This is when I realized how incredibly epic and... well... just plain LONG video games could be.  I had never seen such a gigantic story told in a video game before, and I'm pretty sure I had not really taken the story of any video games remotely seriously until playing this.  Let's see, games I played before this, Mario, Mega Man, Metroid, they vaguely had stories, but they were just used as excuses for dudes to kick lots of ass.  Even when I played Dragon Warrior back in the day, my first RPG, the story was insignificant.  Right, some dude is a dragon or something, need to kill him.  WHATEVER, I'VE GOT GRINDING TO DO!

You can debate whether or not it was a good story, and then you can get into the realm of WTF known as JRPGs, but the point is not the quality of this game's narrative.  The point is that this game is responsible for me recognizing video games as a storytelling medium.  (And then later I got tired of them, then Metal Gear Solid, and all that stuff I mentioned up there)


5: Goldeneye
-This game is important to me because of the time I spent playing it with my friends.  Unlike Starcraft, I had to have for real, non-internet friends to play this game with.  And there are plenty of memories to be had with shooting each other in the face with rocket launchers... knowing that we had agreed upon house rules (No radar - ever, Oddjob will get you a punch in the face).  It is one of the few games that actually had me being SOCIAL, at a time when I really needed to be, making me friends I would stay with until, like, five minutes after graduating high school.






So... that's how big of a nerd I am.  I enjoy it.

[IskatuMesk]

UNLEASH THE BEAST


1.) Starcraft

No two ways about it, Starcraft decided my life from 11 years ago onwards. It introduced me to modding, content creation, which frayed out like a multi-pronged penis into most other talents I attempted (and failed at), such as modeling and music composition. I've already talked a lot how SC influenced my life, so yeah.

2.) Battle Tanx 1&2

Before Starcraft, it was all Battle Tanx. I was pretty much as anti-social as you could get, so no multiplayer for me - except with BOTS. Yes, the game had AI-controlled dudes, and that's what kept me going for YEARS before I even knew computers existed, to a time after Starcraft had come out.

I cannot even convey how many hours went into these games. So many. It was just so awesome. Ever since then I have yet to find something that meets up to the sheer fun of these games. I've always wanted to make a mod with this kind of playstyle... but there is no engine suitable to it, and I can't model tanks. So that's a bust.

3.) Perfect Dark & Timesplitters 2/3

Like Bill, I played a lot of Goldeneye. Unlike bill, I had no friends. So Goldeneye's replayability was limited to recording hilarious videos of me launching guards as high into the air as possible. My technique involved using slow animation, throwing a remote mine, and detonating it at torso level in the air. It worked best on stairs. I'd pour endless, endless hours into caralling infinite-spawning guards into staircases and launching them 30 feet into the air. Of course, lots of time was wasted into cheats.

When I discovered perfect dark some time after its release the first thing that caught me was bots. The endless multiplayer amusement with bots consumed months and months. This was during a time where the battle tanx addiction was dying down, and my perfect dark playtime mixed into the era of Starcraft. I barely played the single player campaign and didn't bother trying to get any cheats, I just played bot scenarios over and over and over. I got pretty damn good at the game, though several of the challenges were very painful for me to complete.

Timesplitters is the successor to Goldeneye and Perfect dark, and I do say, Timesplitters 3 campaign is truly the only single player I have actually thoroughly enjoyed out of any FPS I've ever played. They also features bots and such, even level editors. I transitioned to Timesplitters once HKS introduced it to me.

4.) Diablo 2

Before I went into serious hardcore starcraft modding I played diablo 2 nonstop from classic release until about the release of 1.08. I was never a rich player despite endless hours spent on MF'ing. I played a little bit with Laconius in the recent year who made me rich as hell but by now I had played enough diablo 2 to last me a life time.

5.) Body Harvest

It's hard to say what 5 would be. I played a ton of final fantasy, conquest: frontier wars, and other such games. But as far as influencial, especially in terms of my imagination of perspectives for my writing, Body Harvest takes the prize. I haven't ever actually finished the game and my playtime has been very limited, but it was so influencial in my thought process from what little I played back in the day that it helped define how I would convey things in my writing. Mystery, pacing, fear, and ambiance. There has never been a game that has been quite as awesome in that respect to me as this one.

[Marco]

1.  StarCraft
2.  Starsiege Tribes
3.  Subspace/Cosmic Wars

I could enjoy all three of those today without complaint.  Everything else faded away eventually - rpgs, mmorpgs, whatever it was, its gone.  These three have timeless value as true 'games'.

[Whiplash!]

1. Starcraft
2. Half Life 2
3. Call of Duty 4
4. Team Fortress 2
5. Warcraft 3


not necessarily in that order but games I have felt shaped my views and opinions somewhat on games in general.

[Falchion]

1 - Starcraft:  Who didn't think this isn't a gateway to modding?  I only feel bad that it's too late that I'm fully formed, with WoL coming so close...

2 - Pharaoh (Sierra):  Something I can lose my time on.  I also have Ceasar III, but the horrible Portuguese dubbing is what makes me play this and Starcraft and be proud of American voice acting.

3 - Imperium Galactica II:  It's a funny thing, y'know, the timing thing to either pause or go in a flash to battle and such.  Corny graphics, corny speeches, corny music, everything CORRRNY.  And that's what it makes so fun for me.  Also, I guess Mesk would want it, since the villain race possessed a significant number of interesting ship designs.  Unfortunately, only the destroyer-class pays off what I'm saying.

4 - KKnD 2: Krossfire:  KKnD series was a remarkably nostalgic one for me, everything rocked with the first game.  Industrial rock, big guns, crabs with MRLS, autogun tanks made up my roots in RTS.  Then KKnD 2 came out.  Only thing I liked was the Series 9 race and that's it.  Other thing I liked on it was soundtrack, the Survivors' tracks on first and Xtreme and Evolved on Krossfire.  I just feel so bad that Melbourne made this a pre-Red Alert 3 experiment, replacing some serious and cool with a bitchy cartoony look and humour.

5 - Crysis and Warhead:  Just won them at Christmas.  I swear I almost had a fight with mom because of it, I thought it'd kill my comp.  Apparently I got mistaken.  Still, not so bad game after all, liked the alien flying squid designs.  It also had the freedom of completing the mission anyway I wanted, only feeling too linear at times.  Now, Warhead had great fixes and new guns, but lacked story, replacing the gruff Psycho personality with a Bond attitude, fighting off an already-known villain.

[Xenon]

2.) Battle Tanx 1&2

... I've always wanted to make a mod with this kind of playstyle... but there is no engine suitable to it, and I can't model tanks. So that's a bust.

I've actually considered seeing if the SC2 engine will work for this. Don't hold me to it though, latency is a huge unknown factor.
Coop Body Harvest would be awesome too...

P.S. Can anyone identify what game this image is from? 

[Milldawg]

1. StarCraft
2. Diablo II
3. Heroes of Might and Magic III
4. Ancient Empires!
5. Half-Life 2

Those first three are definitely the top 3. I'm not sure about 4 and 5.

[Laconius]

1. StarCraft
2. Diablo II
3. Gunbound
4. WarCraft III
5. Ragnarok Online

The last console I owned and fluently played was a Sega Dreamcast. 

[tipereth]

Doom. (and starcraft/warcraft 3 too, i guess)

[Pr0nogo]

Jesus christ people.

No one remembers ACTRAISER?!

[Lavarinth]

1) StarCraft
I'm sure majority of us here consider this to be our top game. The story, the characters, the creations by fans- It's all there. Truly a game that would outlast many more, and over a decade later people of all ages from toddlers to the retired play this game with sheer enjoyment.
2) Monkey Island
Ah, my second joy. I can never get enough of LeChuck and Threepwood. I played the DOS versions endlessly when they released, and fulfilled the fantasy of being a pirate. The Curse of Monkey Island brought these characters even more to life with their voice and true animation. Sequels followed and they all stayed true to the comic relief of the originals.
3) Dungeon Keeper
Oh how I loved Bullfrog. By far the only company I cherish more than Blizzard, and unfortunately they no longer exist. Dungeon Keeper, Themepark, Theme Hospital- They paved the way for sim games in an entertaining and comedic route compared to Maxis. Be evil. Dig your way through caves and call upon a horde of creatures to conquer over good. Please them with lairs, food, gambling, and battle arenas.. How could anyone not love this game.
4) Final Fantasy VII
The first Final Fantasy I ever played, and to this day still do. I played this perhaps three years after it released. I never owned a Playstation, but when I moved my cousin let me borrow his and this game, and I spent my lonely hours playing this day after day. I got attached to the story heavily and still remember almost any portion of it off the top of my head. I can only hope the tech demo was a tease to reality. (FF1-5 remade, 6 in progress.. Hope for 7 rising.)
5) Shining Force
Probably a game unheard of by most- this top-down RPG was the first RPG I ever played. Back in the days of the Genesis, I was too young to understand the complexity of RPGs and the inevitable main character's battle, so I'd sit him off in the back and let the rest of the crew work. So when that solo battle came, I was literally stuck with no chance of survival. Woops! I still play this game and bought it off the Wii store.

[GreatGodSajuuk]

1) Starcraft - naturally, it was the most amazing game for me on my IBM 486 100mhz machine, I actually had to get windows 95 to play it, I usually always stuck to DOS at those times.
2) A.R.S.E.N.A.L. 1&2 This RTS is quite unknown to anyone, but it simply amazed me when I first got Taste The Power on my pentium machine, you had to run it in dos with some trickery but it had:
An awesome soundtrack. A full CD of professional music composed for it, the music was quite damn beautiful and fitting for the realistic World War 2 setting.
Really entertaining gameplay. This game had navy, ground forces and air forces, the tanks in it had really cool sound effects, light tanks being these fast thingys that had light canon fire effects, medium tanks had this shotgun'ish sound to their canon which totally rocked and heavy tanks were just monstrous, their movement sounds and their canon, you could hear them coming from quite far as every unit makes a sound when moving. Navy was simply amazing, it had battleships that would totally RAPE buildings and units (although they were defenseless against aircraft and submarines), aircraft carrierers that you could fill up with 9 navy fighters which after an upgrade could fire missiles at ground targets and of course the destroyer that hunted submarines and was good as a mobile anti air defense and an all around cruiser that was quite cool too.
However what makes this game for me is air. this game tried to do it realistically, meaning that aircraft would take off from airfields and engage targets by doing strafing runs or they would engage in occasional dogfights, these were just amazing to watch, now the bombers were just menacing, that rumble of a 4 engined B 17 was just awesome.
All in all A.R.S.E.N.A.L. is a great RTS tough it has it's flaws, now the 2nd game fixes those, it adds multiplayer, boosts AI capabilities(AI will attack on two or more fronts depending on how well it is established), completes the realistic aircraft feel and all in all it completes the gaming experience of it all. The only reason why no one knows it is that it was never really advertised. Which is a shame.
(end rant)
3) Transport Tycoon (Deluxe and OpenTTD flavours included)
Singlehandedly the BEST economic game, not to mention it might as well outlive Starcraft, Heck, original was released in 1993 with deluxe being released in 1995, deluxe is still being played with the TTD Patch that basically adds LOADS of features to the game, OpenTTD was born in 2002 and rapidly grew and now has all the features the patch had an more, it's the 8th most active project on SourceForge and pretty much one of the most successful open source games ever made. It hasn't aged visually, it's still very appealing and it's just infinitely replayable, i spent so much of my childhood playing this it's not even funny.
4) Carmageddon 2
This game is just amazing, i believe it was the first to have dynamic damage and detachable car parts, also the goal of the game is very appealing, you have to cause havoc by killing people and smashing up cars, what's not to like? This game was also extensively modded, and some bits of the modding community are still alive today. It wax rushed though and that's a shame.
5) Doom
Face it, it's just the father of pc gaming. Everything about it is awesome.

I  end my horrible mangling of the English language now.

[tipereth]

Also AvP2.

[dreamerhorwitz]

1. Hourglass of Summer
http://vndb.org/v32
2. Warcraft III
3. Metal Gear Solid
4. Dirge of Cerberus
5. Marathon

[Pr0nogo]

4. Dirge of Cerberus

That's a bad horwitz. Bad bad bad!