Your favorite game of all time!

[Mafuyu]

King of Fighter Series! I absolutely love that series and usually being destroyed by my brother and his friends. One day I will improve~

[SilverSyko]

As I stated in another topic, Sonic the Hedgehog CD is my all-time favorite game for a number of reasons.

Number one is because it was a platforming game with the most fun and interesting gimmick I've ever seen. (Time Travel)

Number two is because it was made in the times of Sonic's prime and it introduced my favorite character in the series. (Metal Sonic)

And as a bonus it had two different soundtracks, the Japanese original, and the North American re-composition.

It's gonna be hard for any game nowadays to top this one for me that's for sure.

[Last Sinner]

Overall - World of Warcraft. For over 5 years now. It's not perfect but it sets a good standard.
Early RPG - Monkey Island 1-3. Guybrush Threepwood is a legend.
J-RPG/VN - Seinarukana 2: The Spirit of Eternity Sword. Gorgeous artwork, a very fun battle system and a good story.
RTS - Warcraft 3. Only RTS I've truly enjoyed.
FPS - Team Fortress 2. Its hilarious nihilism and continually clever maps gave it the edge.
Racing - F-Zero GX. Had loads of playing time value, a fun, fast & lethal race style and some cool characters and music.
Platform - Super Smash Brothers Melee. Ah, the fun was never-ending. Unlocking all 290 trophies was harsh though. (But not as harsh as unlocking the 140 emblems in Sonic Adventure DX and 180 in Sonic Adventure 2)
Arcade Fighting - Soul Calibur 2. Future versions felt dull compared to this one. I am such a sucker for Cassandra. Michiko Neya voicing Sophitia in the Japanese language option is also major win.
Facebook - Treasure Isle, Farmville, Cafe World. Simple but fun and not too time consuming.

[JordanRHughes]

I spent the most time on James bond 007 golden eye....

[synaesthetic]

@Last Sinner: The Monkey Island series are actually adventure games, not RPGs.

Also WoW isn't a game, it's digital crack.

[Nosauz]

My favorite game would have to be Grim Fandango, it's a marriage of the best point and click games Lucas arts ever produced, and a very imaginative world, that beautiful and filled with love and care. Every detail is amazing, although these games tend to have weird puzzle logic, Manny still is able to make trecking through the world looking for the right answer to these sometimes illogical puzzles worth while. The writing melds comedy with classic noir style, and the story is brilliant, who would have thought, dia de los muertos would make such a great theme to play on.

On the more "gamey" platforming/actual gameplay with a gamepad, would either be megaman x or donkey kong country, those games so memorable to me, they encapsulate why gaming is awesome. I mean in DKC you could ride an ostrich, rhino, frog, and swordfish, it definetly made platforming fun and entertaining, and although some of the mine cart levels kind of sucked, they were still very enjoyable. It really is hard to just pick out one favorite game, but for now I'll say these three are the most fresh in my memory even without touching them in over 10 years.

[synaesthetic]

The classic Lucasarts point-and-click adventures remind me of a time when that company could actually produce good games... *sniff, sniff* So sad that they suck now!

[Nosauz]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

The classic Lucasarts point-and-click adventures remind me of a time when that company could actually produce good games... *sniff, sniff* So sad that they suck now!

Well to their credit, Battle Front was pretty great, it really gave the star wars universse some depth and it was also an in house studio at Lucas arts, also Empire at War was an interesting take on the rts platform. So yea Lucas Arts has tanked on many games but the smart use of the battlefield gameplay style for battle front and empire at war can at least show some competence at lucas arts. Also smart franchising to bioware for kotr was probably the best thing they could have done, and lets not forget the new Old Republic mmo, albiet are not lucas arts deved, but at least they've made the right choice in development teams.

[gonzo562]

bye genre

rpg final fantasy X
strategy Civilization 4 and rome total war tied
sports MLB the show 09
RTS StarCraft
First Person Shooter Team Fortress 2

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Nosauz

Well to their credit, Battle Front was pretty great, it really gave the star wars universse some depth and it was also an in house studio at Lucas arts, also Empire at War was an interesting take on the rts platform. So yea Lucas Arts has tanked on many games but the smart use of the battlefield gameplay style for battle front and empire at war can at least show some competence at lucas arts. Also smart franchising to bioware for kotr was probably the best thing they could have done, and lets not forget the new Old Republic mmo, albiet are not lucas arts deved, but at least they've made the right choice in development teams.

TOR can die in a hotel fire. Fuck you very much Bioware for pissing away any respect I had for you at all.

(If you can't tell, I loathe MMORPGs and consider them--specifically World of Warcraft--to be partially responsible for the current sad state of PC gaming.)

The only thing that pisses me off worse than TOR is the Fallout MMORPG that zombie-publisher Interplay is trying to make. I hope Harve Caen does something stupid and puts the company in trouble with the SEC again and kills the project.

[Nosauz]

I doubt WoW is the reason why the current generation of PC gaming has been suffering. I believe it's more of the trend that as consumers our time is becoming more valuable, and with the rise in console gaming, has really been whats been ailing the pc. Like what activision did with MW2 is completely asinine, it tossed out an old multiplayer backbone in favor of one that had more problems than dedicated servers. It's really the instant gratification crowd that has spurred this matchmaking and "pc's are for elites" mentality among gamers, as if installing a graphics card is hard at all.

I do hope interplay gets swallowed by the sea again, although they did give blizzard and bioware their start.

[Last Sinner]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

@Last Sinner: The Monkey Island series are actually adventure games, not RPGs.

Also WoW isn't a game, it's digital crack.

It's been so long since I've been able to play them since those games don't seem to work retrospectively anymore - forgive my genre mistake.

As for WoW - I mainly play on Saturdays. I think that's not a negative to be condemned to the 9th circle of hell for, surely.

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

The classic Lucasarts point-and-click adventures remind me of a time when that company could actually produce good games... *sniff, sniff* So sad that they suck now!

I blame Monkey Island 4. 1-3 were win. Day of the Tentacle was win. Sam and Max: Hit the Road was win. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis was win. Then Lucasarts lost the plot with GUIs, game design and actually being funny anymore.

Originally Posted by Nosauz

I doubt WoW is the reason why the current generation of PC gaming has been suffering. I believe it's more of the trend that as consumers our time is becoming more valuable, and with the rise in console gaming, has really been whats been ailing the pc. Like what activision did with MW2 is completely asinine, it tossed out an old multiplayer backbone in favor of one that had more problems than dedicated servers. It's really the instant gratification crowd that has spurred this matchmaking and "pc's are for elites" mentality among gamers, as if installing a graphics card is hard at all.

I do hope interplay gets swallowed by the sea again, although they did give blizzard and bioware their start.

Thank you, mate. Took the words right out of my mouth. Good to see you're still around. You always were on the mark.

I only have time for one game now. I'm too busy with IRL responsibilities to go beyond that. Something that accomodates casual gaming. That's what I roll with. So be it.

[ChainLegacy]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

TOR can die in a hotel fire. Fuck you very much Bioware for pissing away any respect I had for you at all.

(If you can't tell, I loathe MMORPGs and consider them--specifically World of Warcraft--to be partially responsible for the current sad state of PC gaming.)

The only thing that pisses me off worse than TOR is the Fallout MMORPG that zombie-publisher Interplay is trying to make. I hope Harve Caen does something stupid and puts the company in trouble with the SEC again and kills the project.

What specifically do you hate about it though? Everything about the game seems top notch from what little we've seen (writing, graphics, expansiveness). I mean, I hate racing games with a passion but I still love some like Mario Kart 64, so just hating a genre doesn't mean you automatically start hating every game in the genre.

[MetalCookie]

The Legend Of Spyro: Dawn Of The Dragon
Devil May Cry 4
Bayonetta

That's all I can say. xD

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by ChainLegacy

What specifically do you hate about it though? Everything about the game seems top notch from what little we've seen (writing, graphics, expansiveness). I mean, I hate racing games with a passion but I still love some like Mario Kart 64, so just hating a genre doesn't mean you automatically start hating every game in the genre.

Because I want my three years back.

No, seriously, because it (and arguably, Everquest before it) took what was a really awesome genre and made it into a mindless grindfest.

The idea of a persistent, changeable world was dashed by constant grind and gear farming. MMORPGs could be incredibly awesome if it was a wide-open sandbox, giving players the option to do virtually anything they wanted to. If MMORPGs tried to simulate tabletop roleplaying games instead of this carrot-on-a-stick purple pixels scavenger hunt.

I don't think TOR will be anything but this. Everyone looks at Blizzard's financial success and believes (rightly so) that they have the "right stuff" and if their MMO is to be successful, they have to follow the same "grind levels, grind rep, grind gear" formula with "kill twenty ogres and bring me their asses" and "kill a boss to get gear to kill a stronger boss to get stronger gear to..."

You get the idea.

[S.t inFAMOUS]

Gotta say my favorite game of all time is The Witcher. I was expecting a shallow game first but the moment it came out I was absolutely blown away by its story. Can't wait for the Witcher 2
Another of my favorite game series is Mass effect serie.

[Nosauz]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

Because I want my three years back.

No, seriously, because it (and arguably, Everquest before it) took what was a really awesome genre and made it into a mindless grindfest.

The idea of a persistent, changeable world was dashed by constant grind and gear farming. MMORPGs could be incredibly awesome if it was a wide-open sandbox, giving players the option to do virtually anything they wanted to. If MMORPGs tried to simulate tabletop roleplaying games instead of this carrot-on-a-stick purple pixels scavenger hunt.

I don't think TOR will be anything but this. Everyone looks at Blizzard's financial success and believes (rightly so) that they have the "right stuff" and if their MMO is to be successful, they have to follow the same "grind levels, grind rep, grind gear" formula with "kill twenty ogres and bring me their asses" and "kill a boss to get gear to kill a stronger boss to get stronger gear to..."

You get the idea.

Oh come on... do you know how hard it would be to program the game you wanted? It would take thousands upon thousands of programmers working overtime and working everyday and they still could not create the D&D style game you would want, because in truth, if they didn't reprogram each time you played the game would just slowly show it's scripted qualities and those that like to min/max would exploit those scripted qualities. I'm just saying that until you get self-aware ai, you will never be able to have D&D/the game you want without thousands of man hours poured into the game at the rate you want it to. I can understand your frustration but having realistic expectations from games is also quite important, it's like expecting a worm to be your soulmate when all it wants to do is sit next to your sprinkler.

[Bonta Kun]

Favortie games of all time eh?
Thats a toughie, there are just too many to consider and no way I could pick an outright favorite.

Lets see what are my favorites are

X-COM Enemy Unknown - the best turn based strategy ever, couldn't care what anyone says about this it's simply a classic.

Guild Wars - I've spent the last 4-5 years playing this so yea, gotta mention it, have played WoW but I just prefer GW over it.

Grim Fandango - I'm so glad someone else picked this, friend had bought this when it came out and got me into the whole point click genre. I did play a few before being Moneky Island and Discworld but Grim Fandango was the one that really got me into it.

Half-Life 2/Counter Strike:Source - call me raging fanboy or whatever but this game/series deserves the praise. Guess that goes for for Portal and TF as well.

The Settlers II(the original) - This was something different and I liked it alot. Seeing the ins and outs of your empire working was very charming.

Total Annihilation - I love my Supreme Commander, its awesome but really without TA we wouldn't have SC and even today I still play it. C&C would be the other RTS I would mention but really I have much more love for TA over C&C.

Total War Series - I would point out again that the 1st game of the seires deserves the praise but this series overall is just too great so it all gets the nod.

Halo - Yea I love the Halo series, can't be helped I lvoe the lore and verse it's set in and the fact when the 1st game came out I was completely taken in by it. So much friends and I went down to mates house to play when we were supposed to be studying for exams>_<

Diablo II - It's Diablo II, what more can I say

[synaesthetic]

Originally Posted by Nosauz

Oh come on... do you know how hard it would be to program the game you wanted? It would take thousands upon thousands of programmers working overtime and working everyday and they still could not create the D&D style game you would want, because in truth, if they didn't reprogram each time you played the game would just slowly show it's scripted qualities and those that like to min/max would exploit those scripted qualities. I'm just saying that until you get self-aware ai, you will never be able to have D&D/the game you want without thousands of man hours poured into the game at the rate you want it to. I can understand your frustration but having realistic expectations from games is also quite important, it's like expecting a worm to be your soulmate when all it wants to do is sit next to your sprinkler.

Uh... there were games like this. Star Wars: Galaxies was like this, basically a wide-open sandbox with all content provided by the players (and no killing blue dragons for purple pixels).

In fact, there's a number of indie MMORPGs that are just big sandboxes where you can do whatever you want as long as nobody else stops you. To a large degree, EVE Online is also like this. Just a big world to play in where what you do has real impact on the game universe.

The problem is nobody plays them. The market doesn't want that. It wants its false validation and sense of self-worth in the form of purple pixels and huge flaming shoulderpads. It wants scripted encounters that reset every week so they can get more purple pixels. Nobody wants to fight intelligent, thinking human enemies--PvP in WoW-alikes is dumbed down to the point of just being a revolving door of rock-paper-scissors.

The problem here is clearly capitalism! The MMORPG customer base is too stupid to know it's encouraging shitty game design!

[Last Sinner]

They tried world PvP in vanilla WoW. It was killing servers in terms of latency. They did bring it back somewhat with Wintergrasp in Lich King but initially that caused servers to nearly die when Wintergrasp matches occurred. It's more the viability of whether it can be maintained rather than whether they want to do it or not. Tol Barad is going to be world PvP in Cataclysm, hopefully implementation will be less of a strain on servers.

As for what makes a good game or not, that's up to the individual. Frankly I've had it with what makes a decent FPS, RTS, non-MMO RPG or console game anymore because I find them all utterly lamentable and repetitive. But I respect the right of others to play what they like. And there's a difference between ideal game design and what can realistically be implemented.