Your Top 10 gaming list of all time

[darrenm]

Did someone seriously just post a picture of outrun as a bonus question?

That's like posting a picture of a green square and saying name the colour.

[RunRickyRun]

My top ten:

Kick off 2 - greatest game ever. Still have the odd game 26 years latery

Rogue - Seriously, play it if you never have. The Atari ST version was my favourite version. Still never got to the amulet on level 26. 24 is about as far as I got. You'll learn to hate hunger.

Millennium 2.2 - The first game I played where the story hooked me. Up until then plot was a few lines of text on a loading screen.

Trivial Pursuit (Atari ST version) - Another I still play when the family get together. I've never found a version with a better set of questions.

Dragons Breath - Great music, spells, barbarians and fire breathing dragons. 

Half Life - This came out about a year after Goldeneye. Never has the difference in quality between console and PC been greater. Still has better AI than the vast amount of shooters released today.

Counter Strike - Condition Zero was my favourite version and sunk thousands of hours into it. The social side was really good too - known a fair few people who found their partners playing the game. Most fun when knifing people. 

Civilisation 2. My favourite version because I liked rapid expansion strategy.

Close Combat 3 - The Russian Front. A genre that has died a death but produced this near perfect game. 

Persona 3. A toss up between this, P4 and Virtue's last reward but the final scene in P3 was the most memorable.

 

[Chindie]

10. Tennis for Two (oscilloscope) - a brilliant and groundbreaking moment for sports sims, with excellent graphics and smooth gameplay for the time. A gem.

9. Space Wars (Vectrex) - built upon a giant to develop excellent gameplay on a grossly underloved console.

8. Tetris (GameBoy) - the embodiment of the communist struggle arranged into a puzzle. A game that says a lot about life - you might win for a while but shit keeps coming down and your struggle must go on.

7. Hover Bovver (C64) - it's a game about mowing a lawn. But it deserves outs place on this list for being a Jeff Minter game that features less ruminants and isn't Tempest.

6. E.T. (Atari 2600) - a misunderstood gem, and great value - a copy can be yours for the price of a shovel if your on holiday in New Mexico.

5. Doom (PC) - how many games give you a shotgun to gun down demons and yet also prompt you to think, what if we could talk to the demons?

4. Street Fighter 3 (Arcade) - takes the gauche and simplistic Street Fighter 2 of the masses and develops it into perfection. Daigo showed man ascending to a higher form of life at the controls, and nothing's better than that in the fighting genre.

3. Donkey Kong - introduced the world to that enduring hero, Jumpman, and for that it can be lauded.

2. The Amazing Spider-Man (GameBoy) - a rare bright spot in the world of the videogame adaptation, its a brilliant take on Marvel's best and brilliantly playable to this day. A spiritual ancestor of Arkham Asylum.

1. Ocarina of Time (GameCube) - a very good game perfected.

[CardiffGreens]

Crumbs, where to begin.  The start I suppose (and hey, it beats having to concentrate on the England game), so without further ado I'll adjust my hipster beret, take a sip from my winter spice latte and write 15 pages that would put Consortium11's guardian match reports to shame!  For everyone's benefit I'll spoiler most of the tl;dr nonsense I've dumped onto the page!

Winter Games (C64)

Spoiler

Along with Kickstart II, Little Puff and some Golf game on the C64, my first gaming experiences were on the C64, Winter Games left quite the mark - whether it was the endless laughing at my brother as the ski jumper limply fell off the end of the ramp when he forgot to press jump, or whatever it was that now causes me to drop everything and watch the Biathlon on Eurosport because of all the happy memories.  It was also my first purchase on the Wii's virtual Console.

Sensible Soccer v1.1 (Atari ST).

Spoiler

My brother and I had an Atari for one Christmas, rather than the Amiga that everyone else seemed to have had at that age - so no Dizzy, no Shivering Sheep and generally crappy hand-me-down ports of every other game.  However this beast stood proud above all else (soz, Kick Off 2, Cannon Fodder and Lemmings 2 as you're not making my list) set in the 1992-93 season, it included the World Cup Qualification Campaigns (but no World Cup tournament) and no Villa team, which was obviously edited in manually in place of  (iirc) Norwich.  Endless hours were spent playing this, mostly with the stupid custom team names in silly tournaments.  It holds quite the place in my heart, I've got one of those new-fangled plug and play boxes from a few years ago, but it's not quite the same.

Championship Manager 92 (Atari ST).

Spoiler

This shipped with an update floppy disk with the 1994 season details on it, I managed to format this within about 30 seconds of starting out, and the game had a hilarious bug where attempting to print anything out on our dot matrix printer (be it squad lists, a player's profile or a list of transfers) would result in pages and pages of simply "N. Spink" being repeated ad finitum.  Thus began my love/hate/Christit's3amandI'mstillnegotiaingtransfers relationship with the series that'd see me attempting to take Villa, Plymouth or Torquay to glory over the next twenty-odd years.

 Indiana Jones and the Fate of the Atlantis (PC).  

Spoiler

Puzzle games formed quite a part of my gaming education, mostly as the puzzle nature meant most of the family could get involved on a Saturday morning (and in Discworld's case, you'd need all the help you can get - if I meet the designer that thought combining an octopus with a toilet seat before using a bag of prunes on some caviar was a sound train of logic, they'll be getting a stern talking to) - and since I only experience the delights of Monkey Island in 2012, this was the pinnacle of SCUMM based gaming for me.  It had it all, fist fights, swinging about on your bullwhip, setting fire to stuff, and all with so very few pixels.  Plus it's on steam so I can endlessly relive the days of the mid-ninties.

Tomb Raider II (PlayStation).

Spoiler

 I got my first console on Christmas day 97, so none of your super mario brothers or sonic the hedgehogs for me.  Just some Bandicoot called Crash and some game about a buxom young adventurer called Lara.  I think we spent the best part of 8 months taking it in turns trying to complete this.  Aside from the competitions between my brother and I to complete the assault course in the quickest time, my highlight was without a doubt due to a display glitch on the mountain levels - where the snowmobile made it's first appearance on the horizon, to which my brother rushed post haste to get on, only to find he was jumping over some rocks, off a cliff and straight onto a game over screen.  Having said that, the endless "Opera House" and "The Deck" levels can stiff eff right off all these years later.

Final Fantasy 7 (PlayStation).

Spoiler

I picked this up second hand from a game store about August 98 for £20 for 3 magical discs of awesomesauce.  Though the 1st disk had a large scratch on it, so the game would sometimes crash when loading an FMV sequence which only got worse as time progressed.  My first run through was a paltry 50 hours, finishing with my party being so weak I'd get wiped out by a random battle in the North Crater, though somehow I'd scrape past the final bosses.  My second play through saw me deploy high-end strategies like pairing my "All" and "Restore" materia to easily heal everyone (previously I'd only considered using "All" with offensive spells - I must be a Black Mage at heart).  100 hours later I'd done just about everything - though I've never smacked Ruby Weapon's face in, but given I had a Gold Chocobo at that point, whatever.

 I think this was the point I developed my gaming problem with 6 hour sessions on a Saturday morning really narking everyone else off in the house when they wanted to watch something else on the TV.  There was something about the opening title sequence, cutting to the speeding train pulling up into to the station before the opening bombing run mission that caught the imagination and blurred the lines between cinematics and gameplay (despite the blocky characters). 

 Unreal Tournament (PC).

Spoiler

I was never really into FPS games, mostly due to my sucky aim.  Then one late-term afternoon in School we somehow convinced the IT teacher to let us play UT across the network for an hour or so, I had a bit of a dabble and got mercilessly slaughtered.  I managed to borrow a copy off a friend and spent the summer getting slightly better.  A chance chat with the head of the School's IT department during the year saw me putting together a case for building "key skills" through the medium of Unreal Tournament and getting it installed on a bunch of school PCs on a more permanent basis.  Sixth form was basically spent playing this most lunchtimes between a few of us, and this opened the door into the Valve world of Half Life, Day of Defeat, Counter Strike and the occasional bit of Team Fortress, and somehow I managed to not flunk my A-Levels.

Planetside (PC).

Spoiler

A Massively Multiplayer First Person Shooter, with pretty awful shooting mechanics, 3 totally unbalanced factions, awful client-side-hit-detection and a monthly fee.  It shouldn't have worked.  But my god it was amazing.  There was something about the early days of the game in 2004, where hundreds of players could come together with combined arms, a free-form inventory system that didn't rely on the class-based-nonsense of today's shooters and have a good scrap over hundreds of square km of varied terrain.  

Being involved in a foot zerg of 80 players converging on one location, or grimly holding off what appeared to be endless hordes of opposition was something else.

It was brilliant until Sony started messing with it, but there hasn't been a gaming experience like it for me since, though the main loss of players was due to...

World of Warcraft (PC).

Spoiler

It was good.  I've sunk hours into MMOs before (2 days of played within the first week of Final Fantasy XI's EU release spring to mind), but there was something about the colourful, uncluttered art style, the generally forgiving nature of the gameplay, the unfolding storylines in each zone, the gentle release of skills and complexity, that feeling as you waded through the deadmines for the first time (Repel the invaders!).  A housemate was playing this with me as we got into the end game about 4 months later,  we happened upon some crazy greeks looking for mages and paladins to join them on raiding fun.  We joined and many years of raid fun (the highlight was probably our drunk Irish warlock singing "forever blowing bubbles" after we down Neffy for the first time) was had, we even had The_Rev grace us with his appearance on our Guild forums, despite us being alliance scum!   Somehow I managed to kick the habit in December 2009 and Laredo Cronk donned her Judgement Armour for one final ride to Northshire Chapel.  

I cannot begin to dread just how high my /played was at the end.

Little Big Planet (PS3). 

Spoiler

And this was basically my post-WoW fix.  The art style, voice over work and "gentle" game play was a joy to play and try to uncover every hidden extra and some of the online user-created content was something to behold.  Plus it was the sort of game the GF could join in with which always helps.  It is very much my modern-day comfort blanket of games.

[darrenm]

Do we have a retro gaming thread? Lots of retro fans here it seems.

At some point I'll be arsed to put this back together.

 

[CardiffGreens]

36 minutes ago, RunRickyRun said:

My top ten:

Trivial Pursuit (Atari ST version) - Another I still play when the family get together. I've never found a version with a better set of questions.

Oh man, that brings back some memories!  Was that the one where you'd blow up planets after you got a question right to try and find a teleporter to the next "level"?

Edit, possibly not - "Trivial Pursuit: A new beginning" was what I rememer playing.

Edited November 15, 2016 by CardiffGreens

[Tegis]

24 minutes ago, darrenm said:

Do we have a retro gaming thread? Lots of retro fans here it seems.

At some point I'll be arsed to put this back together.

 

Aaah, the good old Coleco I think my old one is either in my parents attic or at my brothers.

[RunRickyRun]

That's the same version I have. I played mostly the standard version (there were 3 versions on the disk IIRC)

 

[villa4europe]

Tomb raider 2 is a good shout, from what I can remember it took the very good first game and expanded the gameplay and most importantly the gunplay

i used to play it at my cousins house, me him and my uncle all taking it turns, great times, got fond memories of the Venice level near the start

timb raider is a very important game series IMO glad the latest one is such a good game too 

[Midfielder]

I listed Sensible Soccer, so did a few others. I wonder something. Recently there was an official release of a Megadrive console with 80 "classics" installed. It's about 40-60 quid, £40 in Argos i think. I have checked the list of games and yeah there's plenty of good ones on there, plenty of "filler" too. No Sensible Soccer though, although there'll be cartridges on Ebay etc and it takes the original cartridges. 

As good as Fifa and Pro Evo are, i wonder if i got this machine, it would be a novelty that wore off quickly. Would be a cool thing to have for a bit of retro when entertaining... Graphics muight be #### compared to the modern day and the gameplay simplistic, but Sensible Soccer was one hell of a game that I havent played in 20 years and want to. Right now!

I was THE master at the halfway line from out of nowehre curling lob that smacked in off the post. And the diagonal diving header to the far corner. Memories. I think I have talked myself into it... maybe.

edit, yeah megadrive £39.99 in argos and the cartridge about £20 on ebay.... hmmmmmmmmmn maybe not just yet.

double edit, nostalgic flashback for all those Amiga / St'ers:

 

Edited November 16, 2016 by Midfielder

[Daweii]

What a hard list to make!! I think a lot of my list will be nostalgia driven and not an accurate representation of my actual Top 10. There are so many games that could make this list so let's get started;

• Jetpac (ZX Spectrum)
• Commander Keen (MS-DOS)
• DOOM [1993] (PC)
• Tomb Raider [1996] (PC)
• Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64)
• Metal Gear Solid (PS1)
• Counter-Strike 1.6 (PC)
• Diablo II (PC)
• Star Wars Galaxies (PC)
• Bloodborne (PS4)

Notable mentions that got left out;

Spoiler

• Super Mario Bros. (NES)
• Street Fighter II (SNES)
• Quake (PC)
• Unreal Tournament (PC)
• Super Metroid (SNES)
• Resident Evil (PS1)
• Super Mario 64 (N64)
• Goldeneye 007 (N64)
• Final Fantasy VII (PS1)
• Shenmue (Dreamcast)
• Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox)
• Grand Theft Auto III (PS2)
• Metroid Prime (Gamecube)
• Half-Life 2 (PC)
• Resident Evil 4 (Gamecube)
• BioShock (PC)
• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (Xbox 360)
• Metal Gear Solid IV (PS3)
• Mass Effect (PC)

There are so many games I could list. I haven't really included anything super recent apart from Bloodborne solely because I think age truly tells us what is great and what isn't. Any game that is still amazing 10, 20, or even 30 years on is truly great and maybe in 10 years some of the games released in the last 5 years will make the list then. 

[AJ]

My list in carefully arranged random order

:10. Gran Turismo 2 - A good variety of cars, and if you lap the jalopies in your souped up rocket, why not waste time with some awesome head ons?

9. Playboy the Mansion - Yes, it does contain sex and boobies, but I liked playing this game for the articles.

8. Syphon Filter - The original, and only that one.

7. Resident Evil 4 - The last truly great game of the PS2.

6. FIFA 99 - Recognisable names attached to blocky looking aliens playing football on the PS1. Rockefeller Skank still has that Pavlov's dog effect on me,  making me think of this game.

5. The Last of Us - Awesome story, and even better gameplay. If you don't like this game, you are a zombie to me.

4. Resident Evil 2 - The game that just kept on giving.

3. Tomb Raider 2 - The sound effects, the weapons, and the locations. The Floating Islands level feels like I have dropped some serious acid.

2. Grand Theft Auto San Andreas - Easily the best and most complete game of the series.

1. Bubbles - I have this game on my work computer. When it is slow, I flick over to this game.  No matter how discrete I am, I always get busted playing it.

[BOF]

 

[darrenm]

16 hours ago, darrenm said:

Do we have a retro gaming thread? Lots of retro fans here it seems.

At some point I'll be arsed to put this back together.

 

By the way the games there are

Space Panic

Donkey Kong

Space Fury

Looping

Mouse Trap

Smurf Rescue

Donkey Kong Junior

[Designer1]

11 minutes ago, BOF said:

 

Meh.

QS II FTW.

[villa4europe]

17 minutes ago, AJ said:

8. Syphon Filter - The original, and only that one.

yeah i remember it being a good game, surprised sony have have revisited the franchise, it seems to be high up on the "E3 surprise" list every year and then never happens, the company behind it is doing days gone

7. Resident Evil 4 - The last truly great game of the PS2.

or the only truely great game on the gamecube

5. The Last of Us - Awesome story, and even better gameplay. If you don't like this game, you are a zombie to me.

im the other way round, gameplay was good enough but the story is what meant it made it on to my list, best story ive ever played, think the industry has spent the last 10 years rushing off to get online multiplayer, the last of us is where im still at with gaming

4. Resident Evil 2 - The game that just kept on giving.

first game i ever properly bought in to hype over, i used to buy loads of magazines to try and get new screenshots and info, much like tomb raider 2, how to take a great game and make it even better, capcom smashed it out of the park, its better than RE4 IMO, cant wait for the remaster

[villarule123]

Thread has been taken over by the over 50s!!! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My first game was Lemmings on the Atari (?) 

[Nicho]

Made sure I skipped everyone`s posts apart from opening, I dont play alot of games so got to my list by the ones I remember playing and the ones I spent the most time playing. 

Listed in the order I remember them them not how Id rate them. 

1. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

2. World Cup 98

3. Red Alert 2

4. Roller Coaster Tycoon

5. Red Dead Redemption

6. Far Cry 3

7. Bioshock: Infinite

8. Football Manager 2011 (According to Steam)

9. Civilization

10. Oddworld: Abes Oddysee

[BOF]

5 minutes ago, Designer1 said:

Meh.

QS II FTW.

Or this back in the Spectrum days, with a Kempston interface

Best stop now or @The_Rev will kill me

[BOF]

14 minutes ago, darrenm said:

By the way the games there are ...

... Donkey Kong and a load of ripoffs