Favorite Games and Disappointed Games

[ralimar]

Hello All,

As I had not seen this thread previously I decided to see what few games shaped my guild mates to be, and which handful of games they thought little of, or did not live up to expectations.

Favorite Games

I will try and stick with just my few most favorite, or rather profound. In no particular order. I will say Wasteland (An old DOS game) as it gave birth to games about being in an apocalypse and my favorite universe fallout. It made me for the first time in my young life truly BE SOMEPLACE ELSE. Then I would say a little game called EVER QUEST. Being a D&D and fantasy nerd my whole life, I always knew how fun it was to do a "dungeon" with someone else. It was not til THAT game that I fell in love with my favorite type of game, which sadly has fallen on very very hard times lately. The MMO. To play in a fantasy world, where the PC out numbered the NPC 100 to one. Guilds, Quests, none of these things were known to me before that game. An lastly I would say Final Fantasy, as it and Zelda both shown me my second greatest passion the RPG. Where I was the hero, where I was in a unique place, doing unique things, seeing a cut scene for the first time after growing up on games you read, or pong lol just blows my mind how far we have come since the 80's.

Sadly where there is sun, there is also the need for rain. An with that in mind here are 3 games that..well..... I did not enjoy much at all, and really wanted to.

I would say again in no real order, would be Tomb Raider. An let me explain, I loved Laura Croft the character, and I am very very excited for the terrific reboot they are doing. An well at 10 or 11 or whatever I was, seeing a sexy woman was not bad either. However this game is on the list for the following reason. The pay off sucked. You saw a game like no other before it, puzzles, and water and game physics, and on an on. An the end.....after dozens and dozens of hours and in my case hundreds of deaths is a 1 minute cut scene... of her jumping into a boat.... and speeding off..... fade to black.... My inner child still gives a huge FU to those game makers. The next game on the list is Ever quest 2 sad for me to say. I spent 8 years in EQ, built my own guild twice, met life long friends there, had years of memories, laughs and even a few tears. So imagine our joy a gamers joy when we heard of a sequel. Now imagine a gamers hurt and disappointment when it is 1) set so far ahead in time you recognize nothing..... when they take away everything that made it fun, a challenge (some raids took actual weeks), and removed the very heart or "soul" of that world, that universe. If you came to EQ 2 as someone new, it would be different, but it was such a huge disappointment to so many of us who truly spent years an years in its predecessor. An lastly there is whatever game, which ever game of call of modern duty in the battlefield it was that gave us gamers the same, soulless, mindless, story less tripe that is rinsed, repeated, and put out every single year like clockwork. I will detest this very type of game forever. As it is at least 50% to blame for the current state of any co op, multi player style of game, which has so many elitist, no life jerks, I can not give numbers to them all .

[Zypher Wynn]

My two favorite games to date have to be Guild Wars and City of Heroes. Spent a lot of time playing both of those. Only recently did I uninstall CoH.
Star Wars Galaxies and DCUO both disappointed me. Star Wars died for me in the beta test when it became too dependent on crafting. DCUO because it has not a lot end game content.

[kassats]

Favorite game was super Mario 64. At the time it was revolutionary and the depth of the game was awesome. Have to also include
Tecmo Bowl because it was some damn fun
Worst game was spy hunter. Could never make it pass the boat mode. Too damn hard

[riffraff]

Another vote for Fallout. That game had atmosphere in spades.

Other faves include Planescape Torment, Baldur's Gate 2, Thief, System Shock 2, and vanilla WoW (which really was an outstanding game for its time). The key for me is the depth of immersion a game provides. I'm hoping that GW2 will make it into this list.

Worst games...hmmm...I tend to research games before I play them, so it's rare for me to play a bad one. Maybe The Black Dahlia?

[Slovo]

Favorite games?
Legend of Zelda series, Contra, Sonic the Hedgehog (Sega Genesis mostly), Diablo 1/2, Doom series, Duke Nukem 3D, Unreal Tournament, Quake series, and most of the Final Fantasy games.

Disappointments?
Almost every Sonic Game after Adventure 2, Final Fantasy 13, Diablo 3, New Super Mario Bros. (DS and Wii), and any Call of Duty after Big Red One (story-wise).

[danomeon]

Aug 18, 2012 23:08:56 GMT -6 ralimar said:

An lastly there is whatever game, which ever game of call of modern duty in the battlefield it was that gave us gamers the same, soulless, mindless, story less tripe that is rinsed, repeated, and put out every single year like clockwork. I will detest this very type of game forever.

I'm going to do my list in reverse, because I'm a rebel, starting out with the rain and concluding with the rising of the sun. First though, I'd like to offer a wee disagreement to the above quote. While I certainly am not a big fan of either CoD or BF3, I will say that I disagree that they are all the same. Well, I wouldn't know about BF3, but the recent call of duty game that is coming out is actually making some pretty major changes to gameplay. The setting of the game is being changed, the campaign is now allowing for multi-pathed levels with different content for each chosen route, all of the weapons are newly designed futuristic fare, the multiplayer features a plethora of new doodads to kill enemies with, killstreaks are now based on points rather than kills, and to top it off the game will now use an entirely new loadout system in multiplayer that completely changes the way players go about selecting weapons and perks. It's not about filling up slots with perks/weapons anymore, now players are allotted 10 points and are allowed to use those 10 points to select whatever weapons/perks they can afford. It's less cookie-cutter and more free-form. I don't really like the gameplay of the call of duty games, I'd just like to point out that they seem to be making an effort with changing this one. I probably won't be buying it as I don't like the base gameplay, though.

Anyways, here are my least favorite games. I'm not a big fan of them.

-The Assassin's creed series. I've tried to get into these many times, but the automated platforming makes the game feel almost like it plays itself. Jumps feel stiff and robotic when all it takes to be a platforming master in holding the analog stick forward. This frustrates me to no end. Blargenflargen! I can see why other people like these games, but they aren't my cup of tea.

-Call of Duty and Battlefield. Yeah, I know I just spent a paragraph above defending these games, but I really hate the community and base gameplay. I wish people would hate on them more for these reasons than the 'they never change' reasons, however.

-A lot of different series' that have abandoned their roots in search of a more 'streamlined' gaming experience. Splinter Cell is no longer about stealth, the new game is directed towards action. Resident evil's horror roots have been dumped in favor of explosive co-op. The new Tomb Raider made me think, 'uncharted, is that you'? I don't HATE these games, per se, I just dislike this recent trend of games shifting to become as action and explosion-oriented as possible at this years' E3. It seems almost as if the whole affair was just a big 'let's see whose explosions are bigger' competitions.

-Guild Wars 2. What idiot wants to play that game? Not me!

But enough sadness! Now I'm going to offer a much longer list of the games I LOVE. These are my favorites!

-Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2

The Left 4 Dead Series is about two things; casually slaying zombies to your hearts' content and cooperation. The game directs players to stick together and work together by throwing obstacles in their path that require several teammates to overcome. Good luck getting through a game if the players aren't willing to revive teammates and shove all manners of infected pinning their friends to the ground away. Being a lover of cooperative games, I really dig this.

The great thing about L4D is that it is really easy to pick-up-and-play. The game starts you off in a campaign stranded with no one but your three teammates. An objective is provided - something like "Reach the airport so you can fly out of here" or "Head to mercy hospital for evacuation". After 5 seconds or so of exposition you are sent on your way, and the next 45 minutes of your life and concerned only with your survival and the survival of your teammates. You navigate the wreckage of a world overthrown by raving mad men conquered by a virus, and after a massive and climactic final stand at the end of the campaign you reach your evacuation. It's a survival horror experience from beginning to end packed into 45 minutes that you get to enjoy with friends.

There's also a lot more than just campaign to these games, however. Survival mode allows you to set up shot in an area, setting traps for the zombies and planning your survival. Then you flip a switch and see how long you can hold out for before being overrun. Versus allows you to play as the zombies, attacking an enemy team of players and trying to stop them from reaching their objective. Scavenge tasks a team of players with loading cans from around a map into a generator, and tasks a team of zombie players to stop them. And then you have the mutations - small additions to your playing experience that can drastically change the way you play. Throw on the gibfest mutation and all of your survivors enjoy heavy machine guns with infinite ammunition. Throw on the 'bleed out' mutation and your characters are constantly being sapped of their health throughout the game, with nothing but pain pills to tide them over. Throw on 'Taaaank!' and the game becomes a run to the finish as you and your friends are chased by several massively muscled zombies.

Did I mention that L4D2 has an almost unprecedented amount of content as well? Every valve developed campaign for the L4D series ever is in L4D2, meaning players get more than 10 unique campaigns and more than 50 levels, all playable in both campaign and versus. There are also several add-on campaigns that have introduced new weapons and modes, and they're all free for PC players. What a deal?

At the bottom of it all, the game is just plain fun. There's a nice feeling of progression in every campaign. All of the weapons just perfectly tear apart the infected to give you a real feeling of feedback when you blow a zombies' limbs off with a shotgun blast or you reduce a zombie to mulch with the swing of a fire axe, like a knife through butter. It just feels right.

-Psychonauts

Psychonauts is a really, really cool platformer developed by the legendary Double Fine studios. It is about a little boy named Raz who goes to a summer camp where psychic children hone their skills and are transformed into soldiers of the mind - or psychonauts. You have the ability to dive into people's minds, and as a result you'll often be platforming around the crazy environments inside people's brains. The camp's drill seargant's mind looks like a crazy and twisted battlefield with artillery fire exploding all over and massive buzzsaws lining every pit. An insane actress who was expelled from acting school has a mind that is a massive stage in which ugly actors act out all of the unfortunate events of her life while a massive critic sitting in a huge chair overlooking the stage hurls insults at everyone. There's even a level where you go into the mind of a giant lungfish and appear inside 'lungfishopolis', a city in which you are a massive godzilla-like creature terrorizing a population of tiny lungfish who flee in every direction at your approach. It's awesome.

-Legend of Zelda

I don't need to really say why ocarina of time is one of the best games ever. You guys already know this.

-Demon's souls/Dark souls

These two console games were known for their dark fantasy worlds filled with all sorts of horrific monsters, their massive and incredibly fierce boss battles, and their punishing and extreme difficulty. The game puts you in the role of a nameless character trying to save his land by navigating throughout horrifyingly dark environments and slaying everything within them. The game is driven by the 'soul' system: by killing enemies you collect a currency called 'souls' that doubles as both money and experience that you can use to purchase stat upgrades. Die within the game and you lose all of your precious souls, though you are given a chance to go back to where you died to reclaim them. Die again and they are gone forever.

The environments are dark trap-filled places featuring horrifying monsters like centipede-men and horrifying fusions of nature and machine. Getting through these terrifying places won't do you much good, however, as standing at the end of each area is a huge boss waiting to take your life - and your souls.

I strongly advise anyone who wants an incredibly unique and hardcore experience while exploring some of the darkest levels in gaming history to try these games out. I'll give you an example of one of my favorite bosses. This video showcases some of the game's incredibly dark atmosphere.

[morgwath]

Favorites? wow how to list some favorites from 34 years of gaming. I could break it down into genres. Or just list a few that i spent hours playing. In no particular order:

I will start with one that i think deserves special mention for its ingenuity and uniqueness on the n64 Eternal Darkness(loved that game)

contra(had to have the cheat code though), final fantasy 1-3(which was actually i think 1, 3 and 5 or somthing like that). Legend of zelda (never played the ones on gameboy), nba jams (nba hangtime), sonic 1-2. Mega man (1-3), Rogue squadron, diablo 1-2, quake, doom, ultima exodus, ultima avatar, dragon warrior, mario bros(all of them, even though 2 was weird and my least favorite), star fox (and star fox 64), goldeneye, gears of war(1-3), guildwars, wow, swtor (even though the high end stuff and multiplayer is lacking, the solo story is good), super mario kart and mario kart 64, batman arkham asylum/arkhum city, mass effect 1-3, dragon age, Knights of the old republic, Champions of Norrath, Baldur's gate, Dungeon siege 1 and the xpac, age of empires 1-2, sacred(even with the horrendous bugs that took multiple patches to fix), spellforce, Battlefield 1942, castlevania symphony of the night


disappointments...once again, so many years of playing has led to a bunch. Dungeon seige 2, Age of Conan, everything on the Wii (not a big fan, some are ok but i guess i'm just too lazy for it), LOTR Battle for middle earth, starwars battlefront, lotr (on nes), castlevania 64. e.t., superman(on the atari), nearly every game ever made from a Movie, and many more

[danomeon]

Let's go ahead and add Guild Wars 2 to the 'favorite games' list for me. Yeah, it's up there.

[ralimar]

Works for me I have a strong feeling in a year or two when I truly get a handle on this giant massive game this will finally be the one to unset EQ as my favorite all time MMO. An that was a thing I never thought possible....

[Slovo]

Definitely adding GW2 to my faves, as well as Torchlight II come September.