Favorite games and why you like them

Yesterday I made a thread asking for help finding a game I couldn't remember the name of. Some members came to my rescue and provided names and links I could check out. I'm still looking for the game but one of the posts got me thinking:

Originally posted by AthlonSavage
reply to post by Casandra

 

Another simple old classic. Are video games really becoming better or are the graphics just getting more detailed?

Immediately, my mind was flooded with images of some of my favorite games:

Prehistorik 2:



Tyrian


It had an amazing soundtrack too:


Alley Cat



Arcade volleyball



Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego



Outrun



Gauntlet II



Golden Axe



These were the first few images I got in my mind, and that's when it hit me. My favorite games were the ones I used to play when I was little.

"Hmm... ok. Let's try thinking of some recent ones" I told myself.

"Minecraft, Torchlight, Project Zomboid, Fahrenheit (Indigo Project in the U.S)..." I could see in my mind some of the levels and hear the music... then... "Titus the Fox, SilverBall and Epic Pinball, Caesar III, Antarctic Adventure". Wait.. what?

Those are old games too, brain, pull yourself together!

I had no choice but to admit to myself that my favorite games ever were the childhood ones, even if I had played games with a more complex plot and graphics. Why?

Were they better? Because I really enjoyed them more? Was it nostalgia? Am I a hipster?

I guess it's the emotional connection, the laughs I had with my sister, the fights to take over the keyboard, the happiness of looking through our dad's collection of 5 1/4" floppy disks to find a new game to install. Those memories and feelings are attached to the games themselves and can't be separated.

I've played recent games with friends, some alone, and I really enjoyed them. But, the older games will always have a special place in my heart, no matter how much I love (and obsess over) a new game.

Now that my trip down memory lane is coming to an end, I'd like to leave you with a couple of questions.

-What is your favorite childhood video game?
-What's your favorite recent one?
-Do you still play the same genres?
-Have the older games shaped your view and helped form your current standards?
-What is your ultimate favorite game and why?

Thank you very much for taking the time to read the ramblings of a nostalgic fool

hi op

Out run had the best music ever
I miss the the 80s spent so much time in the arcades
The sounds and smells still get to me

-What is your favorite childhood video game?

Sonic, Zelda and Diddy Kong Racing.

-What's your favorite recent one?

Dark Souls, Shin Megami Tensai series, zombie mode on COD Black ops and FF12.

-Do you still play the same genres?

I suppose.

-Have the older games shaped your view and helped form your current standards?

I have no clue.

-What is your ultimate favorite game and why?

I don't have a "Ultimate favorite". If i had to choose it would be LoZ: Ocarina of Time. I think the reasons are self explanatory.

I enjoy these types of threads, so thanks for asking.

Favorite childhood game = Doom/Doom 2
Favorite recent game = Fallout New Vegas

I have always enjoyed the point and click 2D "Adventure" style games, such as the ones from Sierra. (Leisure Suit Larry, Myst, King's Quest, and so on). That type of game has died out with the new technology however.

I do still play FPS and RPG games to this day.

Yes, the older games do set certain standards. The classic "Adventure" or "RPG" games make me a slight bit more critical of today's story-lines involved in games. These classics used to have quite a lot of substance to them, and modern games such as Oblivion and Fallout 3/Fallout NV have lived up to that for certain.

Ultimate favorite game ? That's a hard one. I will take the first game that came to mind though. "The Elder Scrolls : Morrowind". That with both of it's expansions is one that I still spend countless hours on to this day. The fact that you can mod the living hell out of it brings an endless supply of new items, characters, missions, maps, and so on.

reply to post by toomanyideas


HaHa
Im still playing (now and again) Zeus by sierra
Only when im bored lol, but still entertaining

reply to post by Casandra


I got lost just then looking at the alley cat piccy, had memories of playing it as a kid, thought it was silly but it is still tuck firmly in my mind.

I'm the same. All the games these days, 20gb of data, all equates to a lengthy boring movie with a few clicks between scenes. You don't play anything in so much as you just play along.

The old games still to this day elicit fond memories, dos prompt, boot disks, editing autoexec.bat and config.sys with menus to boot up with cd-rom support or no upper memory blocks reserved for things... so all your ram could be used, all 640k of it.

Death track, off road racing, Nuke WAR (I cracked that one myself with debug back in the day, lmao).. they all had something. Star control II.. what was it.. I can never find it.

I've loaded dos box, c64 emulators, sharpmz700 emulators, but they all fall short.

I've tried using really old hardware to do it dos style again. But you soon remember all the problems that you were once adept at solving, but have long since been neglected needs, have become faded fragments of success and discovery..

I miss the old days of sitting up till 6am every night programming and learning hacks, tricks, tips, about the machines I used.

It's all gone these days. The nostalgia I felt, cannot be reclaimed. The fondness remains now in the memory alone, and the years of magic are behind.

Now it's all swipe click point shoot tweet.

and the attention span required of the games is so lacking that they need 19 gigs of pretty pictures and stereo sound track to keep the players attention...

All Zelda Games, except Majoras Mask
Halo
Bioshock.. A new one comes out next week

The only game I've been playing for years is Sins of a Solar Empire, they kept this game alive for years with expansion packs, adding more features. Playing a multiplayer match 5 against 5 takes all my brain sometimes, one day someone will discover it's better than sudoku for Alzhemier.



According to me, this game fits perfect for an ATS member. Even one of the mods told me he plays it.

Thank you all for posting

I see the Zelda games make several appearances, I should really get my hands on those. I've never played them but my brother has and he loves them.

Like the Final Fantasy games, never played any until someone recommended me FF VII as the best game of all times. I read a lot of reviews and some said that the game was groundbreaking for the RPG genre, had a huge world, great plot, etc. Some reviews complained about it being called the best RPG ever, saying it wasn't even the best FF (they preferred VI, IX or X).

Then there were people that thought that the only reason all those great reviews call it the best was because they had grown up playing it and it was nostalgia speaking.

I've only played about 20 hours so far (it reminds me of Shining Force). Good music, the plot is... not very strong so far but I still have a long way to go. I haven't been hooked for hours on end like some people that played it have, it doesn't appeal to me as much as other games so I guess it won't be labeled as "the best game ever" by me.

I keep thinking of newer games that have some similar aspects. The Materia reminds me of the Ember in Torchlight and I fail to see the amazing side of it. I'm sure I would feel much different if I had played it when it came out because I'm sort of "tainted" now

I don't play many games anyway, so I don't really think I could decide what the "best game ever" is. If it's FF VII for some, good for them

Carmen San Diego and Golden Axe were awesome....

I loved Ghosts and Goblins

My favorite as a kid was Outlaw.
There was a coin op. version and then atari released it on the 1600.


Currently I am playing the new version of Xcom/UFO enemy unknown.
It, like the others is crap compared to the original.
There was supposed to be another Xcom/UFO game set in the 50's
but I have'nt seen it out yet.

Have you guys seen this movie?

Wreck-It Ralph

A video game villain wants to be a hero and sets out to fulfill his dream, but his quest brings havoc to the whole arcade where he lives.

BioShock 2



The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time



Duke Nukem 3D



Super Mario World



Batman: Arkham Asylum

Originally posted by Casandra
Have you guys seen this movie?

Wreck-It Ralph

A video game villain wants to be a hero and sets out to fulfill his dream, but his quest brings havoc to the whole arcade where he lives.

I watch this movie 6 times a day because it's the only movie my kids want to watch.

Older games:
Castlevania; Ghosts and Goblins; Ninja Gaidan; Any ZELDA game

Newer: Left 4 Dead (1 and 2)

Great thread! My favorite games would have to be Final Fight & Megaman2. Double dragon 2 also (I remember on the NES you could start the game in 2player B , beat up the other guy and claim his lives and start the game with 6 lives) Contra (or Probotector as it was named in my part of the world) was great too. Everybody knows the legendary code nowadays, up up down down left right left right B A start. Agree with the Zelda games too...allthough I only played the first three on the nes/snes.
I don't play much today, but I do have emulators (nes,snes, n64, psx) and a usb controller for the PC.

Out of new games I play it's mostly games like tony hawk and ssx. And fifa..I never get tired of Fifa!

*edit, forgot..I also play Nintendo Wii sometimes, I'm badazz at the bowling game on wiisports lol

reply to post by Verse



I used to play the Tony Hawk ones too... but I suffer from simulation sickness so I had to be careful. Pretty stupid, huh?

I get nausea with skateboarding and BMX games, first person shooters, etc. It was hell trying to play Unreal Tournament and Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Those damn corridors! >_<

Even Minecraft makes me a little sick sometimes, so flying in creative mode is a no-no for me. I don't get sick in real life from things, though. Not sure why it happens with games

The old, old games I enjoyed were (for the atari 2600) Space Invaders, Asteroids, Missile Command and Pit Fall.
For the Sega, any and all of the Sonic The Hedgehog games and Madden Football (it may not have been "madden") i cant remember.
The first generation of the nintendo consoles, pretty much just Super Mario Brothers over and over and over..
N64 was when it really started to get fun. Golden Eye 007 was my very first game, loved it and again Super Mario. Then came my all time favorite, Zelda; Ocarina of Time and various other games and Football.
Then the game cube had Zelda Windwaker (second favorite) and Twilight Princess.
That about covers it..

Chrono Trigger for SNES is probably my favorite game ever, the story, presentation, and game play were amazing for it's time, it's still the best RPG I've played for any system, and the multiple endings gives it a lot of replay value. Recently just been playing 2k13 and Borderlands 2.

Originally posted by Casandra
reply to post by Verse

 

I used to play the Tony Hawk ones too... but I suffer from simulation sickness so I had to be careful. Pretty stupid, huh?

I get nausea with skateboarding and BMX games, first person shooters, etc. It was hell trying to play Unreal Tournament and Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Those damn corridors! >_<

Even Minecraft makes me a little sick sometimes, so flying in creative mode is a no-no for me. I don't get sick in real life from things, though. Not sure why it happens with games

Damn, sorry to hear that I'm the same way with first person shooters. I played them for a while..then went online playing quake and thought I was badazz, then boom!! this dude came out of nowhere on such a high speed and shot me 20240429 times...I thought "F it" and never went back lol. It just moved way too fast and I figgured I was never gonna be able to master all that so all these FPS's have kinda passed me by.
Another game that I really really like btw is The walking dead - by Telltale...I played that on my iphone last year, great adventure and even better story. If you haven't played it I highly recommend it.

As for Minecraft, I've never played that...always on my way to check it though. It's pretty cool, I've seen people make music videos through the game..gotta check it sometime!