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Top 5 Video Games of All Time

jayjay

Giga Poster
I'm not well versed in video games but my favourites...

1. Super Mario 64 - Brilliant nostalgic platformer. I like pretty much everything about it, even if it does get exceedingly frustrating (it didn't handle 3d camera control well either... though Galaxy did a better job of screwing that up)
2. Myst III Exile - I liked the original Myst as a fun puzzle adventure game, Myst II Riven was way too high on difficulty (if anybody completed this without any walkthrough hints they lied) but the third one felt the best. Very immersive worlds, interesting puzzles and the ending to the Amateria world is one of the most satisfying stage ends I've seen in a video game.
3. Portal - Great humour, simple but great game mechanic, good story to go with it too. Portal 2 was also fantastic, but had one or two rough edges.
4. rFactor - Very personal choice... realistic motor racing simulator. League racing is awesome.
5. RCT 2 - Aaaand the obligatory rollercoaster enthusiast choice. <3 2 had more stuff than 1, and 3 was awful.
 

furie

SBOPD
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Really difficult this one. There are some games that are just gorgeous to play - an "experience", but as great as they are, how do they really compete against games that can eat away years of your life?

I'll do what I can for a top five, but there are so many fantastic games I've played and my list will always be determined by memory and mood :lol:

1. Elite - Millions of years of gaming time must have gone into this. I spent hundreds of hours on the BBC Micro, Spectrum and Atari ST versions and also a few dozen hours on the PC version. It's been copied time and again through the years, but there's exactly the right level of sophistication and simplicity in the game that has never been bettered.

So the space combat is always interesting, but never overloading. Keeping track of stock prices and planning trading routes is easy to understand and work through. Docking is always a heart in mouth moment (until you get a docking computer) and the Thargoids.... OMG, the Thargoids!!!

2. Civilisation II. Another world consuming game, always "I'll just have this turn and then this will be done", every turn, forever until you die of starvation.

3. Grim Fandango. I was going to go for Day of the Tentacle, but I think Grim Fandango is actually the better the game. Maybe. It's a tough choice between them but the Land of the Dead is so superbly realised and the game is the absolute pinnacle of the point and click adventure genre in terms of style, puzzles, character and humour. Sublime.

4. Another Lucas Arts game - X-Wing:Tie Fighter. Absolutely brilliant. X-Wing was a great game, Tie Fighter just surpassed it in every way. Brilliant story, you fight for the baddies, the controls, the combat mechanisms, the sound, the graphics - just everything was the best ever at the time. Complete immersion into the Star Wars universe.

5. "Pirates!". I lost hours to this on the Amiga, then again on the PC, then again on the new version on the PC and now on the PSP too. Another game that it's so hard to just stop playing.

Others that are also superb and need mentioning:
Donkey Kong, Moon Patrol, Space Harrier, Monaco GP, Head over Heels (there's a free PC version of this - get it now), Wizball, Starglider 2, Xenon II, Speedball and Speedball II, Stunt Car Racer, Dungeon Master, Lemmings, Soul Edge, Kick Off II, Sensible Soccer, Micro Machines V3, Skyrim, Race Driver (all versions and the Toca games), Shadow of the Colossus, Ico, Deus Ex, Half Life, Unreal Tournament, Rez, Child of Eden, Flower, Journey, Alan Wake, Tetris, Resident Evil 4, GTA (the original), Burnout 2, Texas Instruments Invaders, Carrier Command, Bomberman, Portal/2, R-Type, Frequency, Rainbow Islands, Tony Hawk 2, Rock Band 3, Red Dead and a million others.

I'm not interested in influential here, just games that have made me sit up and pay attention and held my attention for many hours of joy.
 

slappy mcguire

Mega Poster
I wanted to put loads of retro stuff in, but the problem I had was so many of the games of the current generation have moved me in ways I didn't expect, so have decided the only fair way I can answer is:

RETRO:
1. The Great Escape, Spectrum - something I am surprised someone hasn't had a punt at doing a version of for XBLA, first proper 'open world' game for me.
2. Wonderboy 3, the Dragon's Trap , SMS. If Sega had have had more confidence in the series, it could have been this series, not Zelda that is etched in everyone's psyche.
3. The Immortal, Megadrive - First game to wow me, full of intricate little animations. Criminally overlooked, and way to fiddly, but fabby nonetheless.
4. Tomb Raider. PSOne. The Sphinx, the T-Rex, and the Folly. When graphics really started to matter.
5. Eternal Darkness, Gamecube - Even now, a story that sticks with me, and a game I will play from time to time. Magnificent.

Also rans - Ocarina of Time, Sensi, Buck Rogers, KOTOR, Star Control.

CURRENT GEN

1. The Witcher 2 - If Rockstar Made RPG's...
2. Bioshock - because it was cleverer than inception.
3. Red Dead Redemption - If rockstar made RPG's... :lol:
4. Arkham Asylum. - Batoshock.
5. Uncharted 2 - Because Indy had a child, that wasn't Shia LeBouf...
 

furie

SBOPD
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
slappy mcguire said:
I wanted to put loads of retro stuff in, but the problem I had was so many of the games of the current generation have moved me in ways I didn't expect, so have decided the only fair way I can answer is:

RETRO:
1. The Great Escape, Spectrum - something I am surprised someone hasn't had a punt at doing a version of for XBLA, first proper 'open world' game for me.

Did you ever play the spiritual follow up "Where Time Stood Still"? Similar stuff but more action based. I guess imagine The Great Escape crossed with Dino Crisis?

You can play it here:
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseek ... id=0005671

It's hard... VERY hard...

But yeah, Great Escape was fantastic and I don't think anything tried to mimic that open world style for a long, long time to come.
 

slappy mcguire

Mega Poster
As a kid, I always wanted to play it, but only had a 48k, so never got round to it until years after, until ironically playing it on the magnificent World of Spectrum. I'd always imagined it to be something it never could be, and was thereby disappointed, largely due to the wonky controls. It did however make me realise why so many of the more intelligent or open world games such as GTA or Arkham City pay their heritage to an army of would be future coders growing up in front of the Spectrum...
 

furie

SBOPD
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Just like Dino Crisis and Resident Evil, there were more deaths due to the bad controls than stupidity/poor reactions. When you got it right though, it was deep and complex. I think I went back to The Great Escape though and it was a much better game to just play - it worked.
 

slappy mcguire

Mega Poster
furie said:
I think I went back to The Great Escape though and it was a much better game to just play - it worked.
It's still actually decent to play even now. The concept of morale was years ahead of it's time. Imagine a GTA game with that in now...
 

furie

SBOPD
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
I'm tempted to try and find a Kempston joystick and Spectrum and try to find out :lol:

I suspect we've lost people now though Slappy... Youngsters of the **** Nintendo generation eh? ;)
 

kimahri

CF Legend
Amiga 500 fangirl here. I will not tolerate you silly ramblings about inferior hardware not made by commadore I mean who uses casette tapes for games anymore? 3 1/2" floppies are the future!

That's what I would say if I had toddler hair.
 

Martyn B

CF Legend
It really is quite hard to come up with just 5, and reading through the thread is making it worse! There's so many that I keep forgetting about.

There are the obvious ones, such Mario, Sonic etc. But Final Fantasy VII definitely deserves a mention, as well as GTA Vice City, Gran Tourismo 3 and the Football Manager series (PC). But for me, the best video game of all time has to be The Legend of Zelda: A link to the Past. I can never, and will never, get bored of playing this game. And even though I have completed it many, many times, I still get stuck every now and then!
 

furie

SBOPD
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Kebab said:
1. Tombi
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl_rB-yTD9s[/youtube]
Oh boy, where to start with this masterpiece. Firstly, this game will cost you best part of 100-200 pound if you were to buy it second hand, this game is RARE! Probably so rare, that the disc you will buy won't work, because no-one in the right mind would let this game go. It's the only game that beats Kingdom Hearts as an RPG for me, and theres no other RPG in the world like it, nearest game to it is Super Paper Mario, but even that doesn't hold a light on this outstanding game. Imagine the combination of your all time favourite platformer (Tombi is my all time favourite platformer) all time favourite adventure (again, same) all time favourite RPG (same...) and smack that into one game and thats Tombi. It's like a 30 hour Super Mario game with 101 quests in between, it is so **** good. I just recommend you watch it if you can't play it, and you can imagine how innovative and amazing this actually is!


Due a PS3 release in a few weeks (it's already out in the US) so we'll be able to call you out on this one ;)
 

kimahri

CF Legend
Kebab said:
1. Tombi
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl_rB-yTD9s[/youtube]
Oh boy, where to start with this masterpiece. Firstly, this game will cost you best part of 100-200 pound if you were to buy it second hand, this game is RARE! Probably so rare, that the disc you will buy won't work, because no-one in the right mind would let this game go. It's the only game that beats Kingdom Hearts as an RPG for me, and theres no other RPG in the world like it, nearest game to it is Super Paper Mario, but even that doesn't hold a light on this outstanding game. Imagine the combination of your all time favourite platformer (Tombi is my all time favourite platformer) all time favourite adventure (again, same) all time favourite RPG (same...) and smack that into one game and thats Tombi. It's like a 30 hour Super Mario game with 101 quests in between, it is so **** good. I just recommend you watch it if you can't play it, and you can imagine how innovative and amazing this actually is!

Doesn't seem as Scary as Panzer Dragoon Saga in terms of price. Or... any Neo Geo or MSX games. THEY are scary.
 

Stevo

Roller Poster
1. Dead or alive 4
2.Halo 3
3.Metal gear solid
4.Uncharted 3
5.lord of the rings battle for middle earth 2
 

Chris Coasters

Strata Poster
Kebab said:
4. Spyro The Dragon 2
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSMm1p9rFak[/youtube]
This one didn't occurr to me at the time, but just the thought of all those hours I spent during my childhood recovering all of those orbs and gems just reminds me, how much fun this game was. And I'm not one to be a completionist, I get bored after the first set of credits on most games, but theres never been a play-through on Spyro 2 where I didn't bother 100% it. Brilliant!


Spyro<33
My favorite was Spyro: Year of the Dragon when you had to fight all the different bosses, collect gems, and get all of the dragon eggs that had been stolen. I still play that game from time to time and it is one of the few games I got 100% everything. It is probably my favorite video game of all time.
 
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