Great Video Games

[IG-64]

I was trying to list my top 10 favorite video games, but that list soon turned into a top 20 list. Video games have given me so many great experiences, I just can't decide which ones to place on top. I'd like to hear the great games other swampies have played in the past and why they were memorable, as well as listing my own. I could probably go on for eternity if I listed every video game I ever enjoyed, so I'll try to keep my list relatively short and the descriptions concise. They're also in no particular order. This could also double as a video game recommendations list, and you could learn of something cool that you might wanna try.

 

 

Super Mario RPG: (SNES) While I never actually beat this game myself, I still got the very end, and I still regard it as one of my very favorites. It wasn't just playing it myself though that made this game great to me, like many of the games on this list, I enjoyed it because I watched my brother and sister play it. Usually because I suck. All the way through, it's an amazing game, and being a Mario fan, the fact that it's a Mario game makes it all the better.

 

Donkey Kong Country: (SNES) This game is all atmosphere. And the locations, the characters, and the music all contribute to this atmosphere. A SNES game graphically ahead of it's time with great gameplay challenges and varied levels, also one of my favorites. The co-op is always a plus too.

 

Half-Life 2: (PC) I was not part of the hype bandwagon with this game, I usually don't like FPS games, but I thought I should try this game anyways. It was worth it. It's rare when a game has me hooked from beginning to end, and wanting more, but this game did it. And with the episodes coming out now, it looks like I get my wish.

 

Trespasser: (PC) This is one of the most underrated games I can think of. The arm controls may have been awkward, but the rest of the game was amazing, especially for it's time. This is the game I probably want the most to be remade. I imagine the perfect remake would utilize the Wii remote for the arm controls, and an upgraded graphics and physics engine. This is also one of the only games that ever gave me goosebumps.

If you haven't played it yet, even though it's old, do so.

 

Eternal Darkness: (GameCube) This is one of those games I mentioned that I never really played very much, but I watched my brother and sister play it. And boy was it an experience. Very creative and very moody. Can't wait for the sequel.

 

Kirby's Adventure: (NES) For some reason, I had a surprising amount of fun playing this game. It might be because the difficulty matched my level perfectly. One thing I know for sure is that it had some great gameplay.

 

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island: (SNES) Another one of my very favorites, up there with Mario RPG, also another underrated game. It did finally have some justice when it was re-released on GameBoy, and then the sequel on DS, but the greatness of this game should still not be underestimated.

 

Super Mario World: (SNES) The very first time I learned of the existence of video games was also the very first time I saw my cousin playing Super Mario World. I have fond memories of that game, as well as fond memories of playing lots of video games with my cousin. He would order a thin-crust pizza and eat the whole thing. He's always been really skinny too. X)

 

The Sims: (PC) Will Wright is a genius. The Sims was a great game that stole many, many hours from my life. I played the Sims 1 far more than the Sims 2, mostly because I wad burned out from the Sims 1, and the sims died too fast. :-X

 

Jedi Academy: (PC) This game made me famous. No really, it did. It's when I really got into modding and made some player models, particularly the Mario Bros., Stick Man, and GIR models, that made me pretty famous among the Jedi Academy community (big achievement, I know). I spent many hours on this game as well. Too many hours. I sucked at this game but I wasted my life messing around with the people in my clan and watching my brother own every one he came across. You think you can beat him? Fine, go ahead and try, I bet you'll get owned. He's always beaten the purported "best of the best" at that game. Regardless of damage setup. In fact, he beat someone that was supposed to be really good just the other day. And he hadn't played in months. Ok, I'm done bragging about my brother's JA skillz.

Oh yeah, and this game also introduced me to this forum...

 

Super Smash Bros. Melee: (GameCube) Another game I suck at but might as well try because it's so fun and awesome and stuff. The first Smash Bros. was great, but paled in comparison to Melee. Can't wait for Brawl.

 

Final Fantasy 9: (PS1) Of all the FF games, this one stood out to me the most. I never really saw much of FF7, but I saw all of FF9... several times. And it was a great game.

 

Star Fox 64: (N64) Do a barrel roll! 'Nuff said.

 

Super Mario All-Stars: (SNES) This is just an excuse to put all the classic Mario games in one listing. I'm a Mario fan, so the majority of my memorable childhood games were Mario games. Ironically, the only game I've ever beaten in All-Stars is the first Super Mario Bros. Not including the All-Stars + Super Mario World pack. I've beaten Mario World too. I did help my brother beat Mario Bros. 3 in co-op mode, but not by very much.

 

Tetris: Everyone has played Tetris. It's just so dang addicting. And I'm actually fairly good at it.

 

Resident Evil Series: I can't pick and choose with Resident Evil, they're all similar, and they're all awesome. Though I have to note, I never really played the original Resident Evil 1, but I thought the GameCube remake was awesome.

 

Goldeneye: (N64) Same sob story, I sucked at it but I still had to try because the game wes so dang fun, and my brother owned me at it. etc. etc.

 

Roller Coaster Tycoon: (PC) Surprisingly fun and exceptional simulation game. Creating a roller coaster is streamlined and versitile, and creating a park is one of the most satisfying things I've done in a video game. I played the 1st and 2nd ones to death, and while I didn't play the 3rd one as much, I plan to get back into it soon and create the perfect park.

 

3D movie maker: (PC) The concept of this game is simple: it gives you pre-made characters, objects, backgrounds, animatons, and sounds and lets you use them to make your own primitive 3D movie. It may have been simple, but it was very fun. Now days, I can actually make a real 3D movie, so I have no need to play this any more, but I still look back on it with fond memories.

 

That's all I have for now, and that's all you probably care about, if you even read it all.

 

Now, I wanna hear some other people's gaming experiences. Not-so-mainstream and underrated games are most welcome.

[Mike Windu]

Yes indeedy. Super Smash Brothers = amazing. One of the most innovative fighters of our time.

 

I'd say Guitar Hero and DDR to add to that list. I'll extend it fully later but DDR is the originator in music games and is incredibly fun.

 

And Guitar Hero is just the ****. In fact, it's so much of the **** that it spawned a sequel named Guitar Hero 2 that surpasses it in awesome.

[Lorden Darkblade]

Ok, I'll tag along I'm not very good talking about the games but I'll try to talk and list the ones I enjoyied the most in no particular order.

Just one special comment, about IG's post, I met his brother, was in the same clan and yes... he's ownage. I can't think of any other word to describe him >_> Anyway, back on the topic

 

Streets of Rage 2 (Mega Drive): First game that I really, really loved. I remeber I could never beat it alone, I always needed the help of my brother. It was also the first game I beated!

 

Metal Gear Solid 1 (PS1): THE Game for me. I simply loved it. Story, graphics (for that generation) and all. When I bought it I felt I was like FORCED to beat it in the same day! And so I did . Great game

 

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (PS2): Great gameplay and story. Also, awesome graphics.

 

Resident Evil 1 (Saturn): This game was awesome. I remember it was the first game to scare me. Great story.

 

Jedi Academy (PC): One of the best Star Wars games for me. I loved the multiplayer and the singleplayer.

 

Knights of the Old Republic (PC): GREAT Star Wars game, very good RPG. AWESOME story.

 

Ultima Online (PC): One of the best MMORPGs if you ask me. Depends on what "shard" you play though.

 

Street Fighter Series (Various): One of the best fighting games. Great fighters and cool story.

 

Mortal Kombat Series (Various): Ohhh the memories... The Fatalities on friends...

 

Shenmue (Dreamcast): This game was perfect for me. Sadly I never finished cuz it wasn't mine. I had hopes they made the sequel for PS2 but they never did.

 

Legend of Legaia (PS1): A great RPG. I liked it, the whole living armor thing was very cool

 

Final Fantasy VIII (PS1): For me it was the best FF.

 

Shadow of the Colossus (PS2): Just the idea of fighting enemies the size of buildings is great

 

Need for Speed Series (Various): These are the second best racing games.

 

Gran Turismo Series (Various): Now, these are the best racing games

 

Ok, so far these are all I can remember... if I remember more later I'll post here

[Tinny]

Fav games ever are

 

For sp:

 

ChronoTrigger

Max Payne

 

for mp:

 

Sieken Densetsu 3

Serious Sam: First Encounter

Starcraft: Brood wars

 

for modding:

 

JA

[IG-64]

Shadow of the Colossus (PS2): Just the idea of fighting enemies the size of buildings is great

Oh yeah, that's another great game worth mentioning. I loved that game. I loved the soundtrack too.

[Samuel Dravis]

I think my all time favorite game is Descent3. Basically you fly a ship around in mines on the moon and elsewhere, blowing up robots. What makes it very different from most games is that instead of standard FPS fare, you literally have to worry about things coming from any direction. MP is totally insane - if there's only a couple of people on the server it turns into a terrifying horror game as you stalk each other in total silence, and if there's more than that it's like everything is exploding at once all around you. If you think that normal FPS games like Call of Duty are fast paced, well, they aren't. ^_^ <3!

 

Planescape: Torment. One word: characters! This is a great RPG, great story, great voiceovers, great everything. 'Nuff said.

 

The Longest Journey. This is my first - and so far, favorite adventure game I've played. I know, i know, I should love all the Lucasarts adventures, but this is where it's at for me. Extremely interesting character development and excellent voice acting, and they didn't even overdo the evil puzzles! Great!

 

Guild Wars. Mainly I put this here because I've been playing it for something like 19 months straight. Very fun game. It eliminates all the bad things from other MMOs and makes online play fun and easy to pick up and put down.

 

Clive Barker's Undying. It's the first actual horror game I've played, and it's quite good. With doors closing behind you, child-poltergeists throwing kitchen knives around while laughing evilly and vampires etc, it's very fun. Just don't play after dark, heh.

 

If I think of some more I'll post em later.

[Commander Obi-Wan]

Knights of the Old Republic (PC): I recently bought this game in the Star Wars: Best of PC set that was also released with Republic Commando, Jedi Knights II, Battlefront, and Empire at War. And I am surprised that I didn't buy this game much earlier when it was released. Funny thing is, Bioware (company that created it) is based in Edmonton (also in Austin, too), and I've been to the place many times, and I've seen all the awards they received and I didn't bother and try it. Anyway, to the point, the game is hard to look away from when you are coasting through the game and completing all the quests. I admit I am not great at these RPGs. It takes me forever to complete some quests. But, the game is great since you can travel through the different worlds of the Star Wars Universe.

 

Goldeneye (N64): I, like IG-64, suck at this game. But the game is pretty awesome. And when I played it back when it was released, I wasn't much of a fan of James Bond. But, now, I am quite an avid fan of it. And I hope it is re-released on the Virtual Console (requiring the Nintendo buys the rights of it from Microsoft ). OR even released as a game available for the Wii or PC

[milo]

Knights of the Old Republic (PC): I recently bought this game in the Star Wars: Best of PC set that was also released with Republic Commando, Jedi Knights II, Battlefront, and Empire at War. And I am surprised that I didn't buy this game much earlier when it was released. Funny thing is, Bioware (company that created it) is based in Edmonton (also in Austin, too), and I've been to the place many times, and I've seen all the awards they received and I didn't bother and try it. Anyway, to the point, the game is hard to look away from when you are coasting through the game and completing all the quests. I admit I am not great at these RPGs. It takes me forever to complete some quests. But, the game is great since you can travel through the different worlds of the Star Wars Universe.

You post in the KotOR forum all the time though. Do you mean to say you hadn't played the game until only recently? BLASPHEMY I SAY.

 

Oh yeah, my favorite games in no particular order:

 

Mario Bros.

Legend of Zelda

KotOR

Warcraft

Starcraft

Diablo (<3 Blizzard :*)

Rayman

[BongoBob]

Legend Of Dragoon (PS1)

 

God, this game was the s*** back in the day for me and my friend Mike. This game that caused us to stay up for 24 hours+ straight playing a single game. This was one of the first turn based RPGs I played that I actually liked. It had a good story, good characters with flushed out backgrounds, and good graphics. But the combat was actually what I really loved. It had something it called the Additional Attack System, kind of like how you pulled off a stronger attack in Super Mario RPG, you did an additional attack as you hit the button with the correct timing. But you had to watch out, because if the timer turned orange, you had to hit O instead. If not, this stopped your additional attack, and they did damage to you. This made it challenging, especially with some of Lavitz' additional attacks, where it had like 9 or 10 button presses, because they went rapid fire, so you'd hit X before realizing it. This also gave the combat a bit of flair, a bit more than just walk three steps, random battle, attack, attack, attack, dead, xp gain, repeat again and again. The additional attacks simply looked bad-ass. Once you're able to transform into Dragoon Mode, you really see the spectacular (for the time) graphics. But even the dragoon mode had a special sort of mini game when it came to attacks that took a while to master, and could be frustrating at times, but I loved it.

 

I need to find this game and actually beat it.

[TiE23]

Top 3's evar in no particular order...

 

[PC]

Mech Assault 4: Vengeance - I played this game online for countless hours back in the day when I was still in California with 56k internet.

Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield - Even though I sucked when I was 13 at this game, I still played it for many many hours online, even though 90% of the time I would die before a match ended.

Battlefield 2 - Yeah, I'm pretty much sick of it, but when you play a game for over 200 hours, you kinda need to admit you love it.

 

[Xbox]

Burnout 2 - Still in my opinion the best Burnout ever. Before the days of takeouts and revenges and stuff. Plus the fact that I probably hold one of the longest burn-out chains ever on the scoreboards shows I liked it... even if 50% of the time I got a DDE when I started it.

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory - One of my most favorite games ever, I've played it so many times that I can get through most of the levels without hurting a single person or getting spotted.

Project Gotham Racing 2 - Even with all my other games this was still the one that I sat down to play for an hour or two at a time on Xbox Live.

 

[Xbox 360]

Dead Rising - Just a great game over all, killing zombies dead is a great amount of fun.

Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter - I've said this before, "No other game has made me feel like such a bad-ass before." One particular section when you are sniping people on large stretch of grass and when you finally get close enough that you have to use the pistol, nothing is more fun than taking your SOCOM and blowing some guy away with a full 15 shot clip of ammo in less than 2 seconds. Great fun.

Project Gotham Racing 3 - Ferrari 430 on Tropicana Tour in Las Vegas = The sex.

 

[PS2]

Shadow of the Colossus - Best. Bosses. Ever.

Okami - I'm still playing this one, some of the best graphics and music I've ever seen. Totally awesome game.

Metal Gear Solid 2 - I technically played this on the Xbox, but whateva... Just a great game, the story was... weird, but the flavor of it (minus Rose and her incessant bitching) was pretty good.

 

[Nintendos]

Ocarina of Time - Need I bother?

Wind Waker - Need I bother?

Twilight Princess - Need I bother?

-- Resident Evil 4 - Need I bother?

[Pho3nix]

Well, the games that I consider were pioneers (some of them) and with which I share many good gaming-memories are:

 

1. Command & Conquer

2. Doom

3. Castle Wolfenstein 3D

4. Grand Theft Auto 3 (PS2)

5. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

6. Half-life 2

 

That pretty much sums it up I guess. Great games.

[DarthAve]

My top ten games.

 

1. Psychonauts-It's just so awexome. You can't touch that.

 

2. JSRF-Fun concept, cool soundtrack, sweet graphics, and lollerblades.

 

3. Guitar Hero-I wish I had a PS2 so I could play this forever. But the hours I put into it at my cousin's house showed me that this game is genius.

 

4. DDR Ultramix 2-DDR games are really fun. I mean, we had one in gym class.This is my favorite because it offers beginner mode, and has a better soundtrack.

 

5. Halo 2-Haven't gotten really far into the first one yet, but the second one is appealing ot me a lot more.

 

6. Sid Mier's Pirates!-Who doesn't want to be a pirate. This is a great pirate game with fun graphics, sweet gameplay, and ballroom dancing wiht governor's daughers!

 

7. Destroy all Humans-WEE AILENS!!

 

8. Star Wars Battlefront 2-Jedi action! Starfighter action! ACTION SCIENCE!!

 

9. Lego Star Wars- Fun, legos, wee.

 

10. Tony Hawk's American Wasteland- I never got Underground or Underground 2, so this was the first non THPS game I've played. and ....I love it.

[jon_hill987]

Deus Ex (PC)

IMO the best game ever, full stop.

 

Half-Life (PC)

A good game on it's own but it was the user made mods made it great.

 

American McGee's Alice (PC)

If you haven't played this one pick up a copy, it is on budget now so there is no excuse not to.

 

Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega master system)

The original adventures of the speedy blue hedgehog, before all the other characters got in the way. It's just you Vs Dr Robotnic.

 

Doom (PC)

So Successful it has been ported to most platforms. I'm playing this again on my DS at the moment

 

Tekken 2 (PS)

Beat 'em up at it's finest. prefect game to stay up all night playing with you mates whilst drinking apple schnapps. (it sounded such a good idea on Shaun of the Dead we just had to try it.

 

zAngbandTK (PC)

I first started playing this when I read this in PCGamer. I am now a level 32 Vampire Chaos Warrior.

 

House of the Dead III (Arcade)

Pump action shotguns and the undead! what a combination! and none of that stupid ducking, yes I'm talking about you Time Crisis!

 

ReVolt (PC)

I heard it was rubbish on the PS and Dreamcast. Good on the PC though, it combines all the fun of Mario Kart with believable handling/physics. The physics may not seem important in that sort of racing game, but when you swerve to avoid an oil slick yet one wheel still goes in you really notice it.

[Mace MacLeod]

KotOR

KotOR: TSL

Half Life series

Deus Ex

Tachyon: Beyond the Fringe

Dungeon Keeper 2

GTA: Vice City

Serious Sam 1+2

JA, JO

Zeus, Pharaoh, Caesar series.

 

No doubt the second I turn off the computer, I'll think of a dozen more.

[Titanius Anglesmith]

4. DDR Ultramix 2-DDR games are really fun. I mean, we had one in gym class.This is my favorite because it offers beginner mode, and has a better soundtrack.

Good Lord, I couldn't agree more. DDR games are the best. I haven't played the newest one, but I have played DDR Extreme 1 & 2 and DDR Max 2. I've been really deprived of DDR recently, since the only place I'm able to play it is at a friend of mine's house and he's been obsessed with Guitar Hero II recently. It's really fun too, but I just can't get into it nearly as much as I can DDR nor am I nearly as good at it as I am at DDR.

 

But anyway, the best games I've played are probably-

 

1. KotOR I & II

2. Halo 2

3. DDR games

4. Sims 1 & 2

5. JO & JA

6. BF I & II

7. Republic Commando

8. Empire at War & FoC

9. Guitar Hero II

10. Roller Coaster Tycoon 2

 

And of course, my favorite classics, Super Star Wars, Super ESB, Super RotJ, and Donkey Kong Country 1, ,2, and 3 for SNES.

[BongoBob]

I'd rather cut my own testicles off than play DDR

 

Darth Ave reminded me of one.

 

Jet Set Radio (DC) and Jet Set Radio Future (XBox)

 

God, where to begin. The first cel-shaded game I ever played, and I loved every damn second of it. The cel-shaded graphics coupled with some unique visual flair gave it some of the best graphics of it's time. Combine the graphics, with the awsome unique music (no other american game had the japanese music that I know of), and a unique gameplay concept that they managed to pull off well just made it awsome. The sequal, Jet Set Radio Future, was on the Xbox, and it had everything that made the original great, but it did one thing I loved. It got rid of the Time Limit from the first game. These two games are by far two of my most favorite games of all time that alot of people might not even have heard of.

 

Now for 2 of my all time favorite Dreamcast Games...

 

Power Stone (DC) & Power Stone 2(DC)

The night that I got my dreamcast, the first game I played was Sonic Adventure, the game that came with it. Then, I popped in the demo disk, and played Power Stone. This game is the reason my Dreamcast sits proudly next to my Xbox. With environments that were awsome and interactive (alot of things could be thrown/pushed into people). One of the best things was that if you had a smaller character, and you used one of the lightpoles as a weapon you just swung around it and kicked em. If you had a larger character, you just picked up the damn pole and swung it at em. Then scattered around the levels were little chests with items in it, that ranged from bazookas, to flamethrowers, to handguns, to baseball bats, to molotov cocktails, to cats. Yes, cats. They also contained food that would regenerate your health, as well as the Power Stones themselves. You collect three of these bad-boys, and you transformed into what I called your power form. Basically, everyone fired projectiles as a normal attack, but pressing L or R would unleash your power move. You only have a limited bar of power for this mode, that drains with each attack. You could normally pull off 2 power moves, with a couple normal moves sprinkled inbetween. This was just an awsome multiplayer game. Then Power Stone 2 came out, but with a big change. Now, you could pit four people against each other, and it became the smash bros. of it's time. It also added an adventure mode, where you ran around and collected cards that came from the chests as well as gold. These cards and gold where used at the item shop, where you could buy new weapons, and use the cards to create items. This was where me and my friend Josh could spend hours. Some things made sense (staff + thunder = thunder staff), but some things made no sense whatsoever (cat + bear trap = panther). Things got even crazier if you added in a wild card (cat + bear trap = fork). I love Power Stone 1 & 2 so much, that I want a PSP for the sole reason that they re-released them on the PSP.

[Reclaimer]

Hmm, I've got a few.

 

Halo 1 & 2 [XBox] What more is there to say? Both games offer great multiplayer and the single player storylines are amazing. I'd do anything to own Bungie and make them my slaves, then finally Halo 3 will be released and not keep being delayed.

 

Guitar Hero 2 [PS2] Guitar Hero 2 makes up for what GH1 didn't have. The list of songs keeps growing and growing, and it also features so Homestar Runner Songs like "Trogdor" and Adult Swim Hit Metalacypse's Dethklok song "ThunderHorse." GH2 packs a very powerful punch, and is a great addition to any wanna-be rocker's collection.

[Curt-Man]

Halo 1

Knights of the Old Republic 1

Super Mario (most of them)

TMNT the old school one

Rampage

Fable

X-men Legends

Mortal Kombat (all of them)

Flatout 1&2

Tetris

Pokemon Blue

Crash Bandicoot 1&2 and Crash Team Racing

Sled storm

Syphon Filter

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2

Tai Fu Wrath of the Tiger

 

amongst many others.

[Grey Master]

My favorites:

 

1. SUPER MARIO BROS.

2. Fable: The Lost Chapters

3. KOTOR

4. Halo series

5. Pokemon: Silver Edition

6. Metal Arms :Glitch in the System

7. The Punisher

8. Ultimate Spiderman

9. Kindom Under Fire :The Crusaders

10. Jet Set Radio Future

11. Contra

12. Star Wars: Republic Commando

13. Jade Empire

14. LOTR: Return of the King

15. Ninja Gaiden

16. Mortal Kombat

17. Super Castlevania

18. GTA

19. Gears of War

20. Samurai Warriors

[IG-64]

Oh yeah, I wanna add this to my list as well:

 

Tie Fighter: (PC) For me and my brother, it was our first major PC game. And surprisingly, it still holds strong on one of the best games we've ever played. Packed full of recorded dialog, music, 3D graphics, cut-scenes, and a whole lot of levels, as a 1995 release, it was amazing for it's time; and, if you can get it to work on the newer computers, it's still amazing today.

 

And for some other notable games:

 

Rush 2: (N64) One of the funnest racing games I've ever played. It's not exactly realistic, but that's kinda what makes it fun. Each track had it's own shortcuts, and from flying through ramps in buildings to driving through a cornfield, it definitely made the racing experience better. Also, each track had things you could collect, and if you collected all of the keys or mountain dew cans you can unlock new stuff, like a full pipe track which is really fun. Not to mention the stunt track, which is genius level design. One time, we played Rush 2 so much, that we could race without even looking at the screen.

 

Rampage: (NES) The NES version of Rampage. This game we never actually owned, but we played it at our cousin's house. We stayed up one night and beat it on that sort of co-op sort of versus thing while drinking wild cherry pepsi. Good times.

 

Uniracers: (SNES) It's racing with unicycles! Brilliant! With looping (2D) sonic-esque tracks, you race and perform tricks by pressing buttons for each axis of spin. If you do a trick, you go faster. And on trick levels, it turns into a sort of THPS-type score game. The music was pretty cool too. Note, there was nothing actually on the unicycles, they were just unicycles that moved like they were alive.

 

Mario Kart 64: Because it's Mario Kart. 64 version is still the best.

[Darth Groovy]

I'm going to do my yearly top ten list soon. I have just been way too busy to finish it. I just have a few more games I have to investigate just a bit further before I make it happen.

 

I could probably do an all time top ten list as well, but games change with the times, so that makes it difficult. I been playing video games since the 80's...