darrenm Posted February 17, 2012 Share Posted February 17, 2012 I really don't get all the Mario hype. Sure they're very good games but don't they get a little boring, maybe it's just me but I wouldn't have them near my favourite games of all time. I started playing Mario games in my teens with SMW on the SNES. I literally couldn't stop playing it. It was gaming perfection. The beautifully drawn colourful graphics, the baddies, each with their own characters, the soundtrack, the deviousness of some of the challenges, the different worlds you travel through, the length and breadth of the game, just nothing I could possibly add to make it any better. If you got to Star Road and then got the final level, you ended up just running along with nothing happening for a while. Eventually coins start to appear that as you collect you realise are spelling out 'You are a star player'. Then to get all 96 levels is a massive achievement and gives you a major sense of satisfaction. Once you get playing it and get past IIRC Butter Bridge that's about the hooked point. Then Mario64 took the same reaches of imagination and did it again in 3d. I can quite easily remember racing the penguin down the slide in the snow, the weird level where you raise the water in strange ways but have spiders on the water skating over to you. The big dinosaur in the lake. I could go on. In my 20s and 30s I would have flashbacks to strange places I've been in dreams but then realise it was actually worlds I'd played in Mario64. The sheer imagination of the people who built it is incredible. Finally, with Mario Galaxy, they made another paradigm shift by going one further than 3d and making it so the game was global, fully based around spherical globes. Little Big Planet games are about as close as I've seen to the level of genius pseudo-randomness that Mario games have, but not in the same league. Zelda 3 had a bit of that, but the adventure was the biggest plus on that game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted February 17, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted February 17, 2012 I've played Mario 64 through (and I mean all 120 stars) three times. Amazing game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyblade Posted February 18, 2012 Share Posted February 18, 2012 Looking back, I'm always baffled as to how SM64 never creeped me the hell out as a 10 year old. That game has a really creepy atmosphere (being in an empty castle with Bowser lurking somewhere where you can hear his laughs reverberate around you for example), but it was so awesome I never noticed it as a kid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phumfeinz Posted February 19, 2012 Share Posted February 19, 2012 Definitely disagree (although WW is still an amazing game) out of curiosity Phum, did you play WW before you played OOT? I never played OoT because my best mate had it and I'd just go round his to watch him play it instead. I don't have the same insane nostalgia value attached to it like most people for that reason. I know where you're coming from though. Wind Waker was the first Zelda game I 'properly' played and completed, which is a major part of why it's my favourite. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted February 19, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted February 19, 2012 Yeah that's what I was getting at. Like a lot of people say Link to the Past is the best. But i played OoT before I played that. I think it's an era thing, to an extent Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomaszk Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villarule123 Posted February 20, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted February 20, 2012 im gonna go for red dead redemption.. yes zelda, goldeneye etc are classics but as a western game red dead is perfection, great scenary, great atmosphere and probably the best story of any game. not to mention a great multiplayer it was close between goldeneye and skyrim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regular_john Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 A thousand times this! Other favourites: - Goldeneye 007 - Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 3 : Snake Eater - All of the GTA 3 series (III, Vice City, San Andreas) and GTA 4 - Bioshock - Red Dead Redemption Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knoppy1987 Posted February 20, 2012 Share Posted February 20, 2012 resident evil 2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Si. Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 In recent times Civilization 4 was a work of genius IMO. I remember being addicted to Pokemon Silver. But hands down Championship Manager 97/98 was the 1st time I ever refused to go to sleep because of a video game. The countless sleepless nights and days off school. It nearly got me expelled! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RunRickyRun Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 Meh - preferred Civ 2. Civ 4 tried too hard to stop rapid expansion plus the spies are pretty shite in civ 4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
islingtonclaret Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 Goldeneye, obviously Half-Life 2 gets a big, big thumbs up Original Tony Hawks skateboarding on the Playstation 1 Morrowind Secret of Mana on the SNES Desert Strike on the Mega Drive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ginko Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 im gonna go for red dead redemption.. yes zelda, goldeneye etc are classics but as a western game red dead is perfection, great scenary, great atmosphere and probably the best story of any game. not to mention a great multiplayer it was close between goldeneye and skyrim I loved Red Dead Redemption don't get me wrong, but with regards to the story and it's marriage to the gameplay, more specifically the moral system the game had, it didn't quite fit with me. If you played through like I did, being a good guy, then yeah the story was great. But since you had the choice to be immoral and achievements/trophies which rewarded you for being immoral, it just seemed a little out of place. I mean, for a guy who's effectively being forced to do things against his will since his family are at stake and the story goes to great lengths to portray this character as someone who has turned a new leaf and has it all to lose, it feels out of character to then go and get a ridiculously high bounty by shooting up a saloon full of innocent people. I know it's just a game at the end of the day but it took me out of the immersion somewhat. At least with the Grand Theft Auto series I'm generally playing a character who is at least conflicted between being good and being bad, but the way they showed Marston throughout the game just never really suggested he could be much of a bad guy, despite his past, and even then he would say how they still had a moral code despite breaking the law. Maybe I'm just over-analysing. It's still an absolutely amazing game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phumfeinz Posted February 23, 2012 Share Posted February 23, 2012 it feels out of character to then go and get a ridiculously high bounty by shooting up a saloon full of innocent people. So don't? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ginko Posted February 23, 2012 Share Posted February 23, 2012 Well like I said in my original post, you can get achievements/trophies for doing bad stuff. I know what you're saying, ultimately they leave the choice up to the player and that's fair enough. I just think if you're going to go to make a game where you can play as good or bad then the character should be conflicted between the two and not lean one way or the other. But yeah, it's just a game. I was just saying that this was what took me out of the immersion a little when playing it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dakid007 Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 I played countless hours of this game Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stu_The_Villan Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 Dunno if its been mentioned elsewhere in the thread but i was totally infatuated with this game as a kid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wainy316 Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 Dunno if its been mentioned elsewhere in the thread but i was totally infatuated with this game as a kid Yes! Yes! Yes! This was amazing and the graphics were unprecedented at the time. Here is a game that I used to play for hours as a kid, but nobody I know seems to remember it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NorthEastVillan Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 Flashback on the Megadrive is still in my top 5 of all time: Got it on my smartphone and still have a few goes from time to time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dont_do_it_doug. Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 Oh, and I never played this, but it sounds amazing. You need to be able to listen to YouTube for about ten minutes, but this sounds **** amazing. It's three minutes of setup before it gets going, but the payoff is worth it. As an aside I miss the old 1up Yours pod crew quite a bit. Their demise coincided with me stopping playing video games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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