Your gaming 3*3

[Slagathorian]

That's not a 3x3! Ban him! BAN HIM!

 

AHH!!!

 

I failed miserably.

[Slagathorian]

WHAT IS THIS 2x5x4 NONSENSE!?

 

It comes out to 9 : )

[FredEffinChopin]

I would love to do this, but fuck me I am too lazy.

 

That's what took me so long. I think I'm finally ready, let's give this a shot. In no particular order, and with apologies to the games I wanted to include but couldn't:

 

 

Dragon Warrior

My first ever RPG. What a monster this game created. I remember starting the game over from scratch when I was done, and deciding to try to obtain some piece of Erdrick's gear (maybe his sword?) as one of my first goals of the game. It took hours of failed attempts, running away from every random encounter (as a single connected shot from an enemy in that area at that level guaranteed death) as I made my way through some dungeon, but I finally did get it, and commenced my next playthrough with one of the most powerful items in the game from (nearly) the start. What a sick little boy that was

 

Final Fantasy II (US)

I would never forget the name Final Fantasy after this. I hadn't played too many RPGs at this point, but enough to know I was a fan. This game took it to another level in terms of storytelling, plot/character development, world design, and combat mechanics and balance. I still remember how caught off guard I was when my character became a Paladin... Or when the world ended, who saw that coming? I can't say I like this better or worse than (US)VI, but this one came first, and really sealed my identity as a fan of RPGs. Back then anyway.

 

Double Dragon (arcade/NES)

Contra and River City Ransom were close runners up for this spot. I'm pretty sure the arcade Double Dragon preceded both of those though. Either way, I have very fond memories of myself as a child hanging out at some bodega and getting in on some of the first and best co-op action of my youth. Whether my partner and I were teaming up to tackle yet another Abobo (or whatever the hell that guy was called), or accidentally grabbing each other by the hair and kneeing each other in the face, I couldn't get enough Double Dragon. I even enjoyed the sequel.

 

Street Fighter 2

Street Fighter 2 was more than a game, it was a fucking event. It took over grocery stores all over NY, and remained in control for years. Even people who weren't gamers (or what qualified for one at that time) caught the SF2 bug, and when school was over we all knew it was so on. I would itch to play SF2 when I couldn't, and thank god it came out on SNES eventually, because I was ready to plan a heist if not.

 

Metal Gear Solid 2

While the first MGS had already laid out most of the unique gameplay and presentational elements that its successors would build on one day, I give the spot in this list to MGS2 anyway. I thought the first MGS was really cool, and unlike anything else I had played, but it didn't bring me back the way MGS2 did. Even after I collected every single dogtag in the game, I still threw it in for a good week afterward just to tool around. Hell, I'm pretty sure I played the demo for it more than I played Zone of that Enders, which it came bundled with, and I loved Zone of the Enders.

 

Katamari Damacy

Ah, Katamari. In some ways this is my favorite entry in this list. The day I went to my friends' house and they showed me this was magical. From the second I heard the theme song being hummed at the start screen I was intrigued. As soon as the game began I was hopelessly hooked. The story, characters, gameplay, music (the music!), it was all there, totally unique, and hotter than hell. It was like some huge and loud mushroom-induced love fest, complete with the subtlety of a lounge singer crooning about how he lovingly wanted to roll the world up into a star, as spiky-haired kids and fat guys labeled "American Guy" screamed in horror while I rolled them up like so much ramen and manga. In terms of accessibility, this is what people are talking about when they say "easy to play, difficult to master". I could play this with first-timer friends, then when they left I could get set on some goal or other that required precision, timing, and patience. What else can we say? We were deeply moved.

 

Heavy Rain

I'll admit it, I've cried at a few games. While I don't think Heavy Rain was one of them, the emotional rollercoaster that this game put me in was second to none. Games have been tackling some heavy themes for some time now, but none of them put me so squarely in the shoes of the characters the way this one did, where I found myself seriously questioning not only which decisions to make, but why I was making them. The beauty of it is that you usually didn't have much time to ponder on it, as the situation was already in motion, and it was time to act. Like in life, hindsight usually would tell you what you could've done differently, but it's too late, you had to act and you did. ***SPOILER When that one trial had Ethan go to the drug dealer's house to kill him, I was ready to do what needed to be done. After a scuffle the moment arrives where Ethan in his the dealer's daughter's room with a gun aimed at him, and the man is begging for his life and pointing at the photograph of his daughter.... and I don't know what to do. I'm well aware even at the time that it's just a game and doesn't really matter, but still, the pressure is almost physically present. Can I do that to this little girl as I try to rescue my own son? I decided to pull the trigger, and Ethan says "I'm a father too" before putting a bullet into the pleading man's head, and then proceeds to fall to the floor and vomit, in keeping with the discomfort that I felt as a player for having done that. I wanted to throw roses at the screen. SPOILER*** The contextual controls were brilliant too, making me contort my hands when the character I controlled was contorting his body, shoving the controller forward to kick doors open, and softly rotate the analog while cleaning a wound. While I hoped that Heavy Rain might be as immersive of a game as it wound up being, I didn't expect the controls to play as large of a role as it did in that immersion. I feel like Quantic accomplished something huge with that game, that in a way shouldn't even have worked, but somehow did, beautifully.

 

Final Fantasy XI

With the exception of some BBS games as a kid and a clueless couple of weeks on Everquest, this was my first online gaming endeavor. There were some gaps in my FFXI career, but I can safely say I played it regularly for a few years, which I can't really say about any other game. I loved party combat, especially when attacking the unknown and having to figure out weaknesses and how to exploit them. I loved the huge gorgeous world and the beautiful music. I loved the feeling of accomplishment for every huge task that finally got completed. I LOVED the fact that it had an auto-translate system that let me communicate with anyone in the world, regardless of their spoken language. There was nothing like getting into those late-night Japanese parties and experiencing the subtle differences in the way they operate... Also wondering why they were so willing to spend money on and use expensive food items even in low-lvl partying. I even had a Japanese beastmaster that I would duo with on a regular basis for a few months. Once one becomes familiar enough with the auto-translate system, it was even possible to carry on little conversations of sorts. Without being able to type unique sentences to each other, that player and I had possibly the best chemistry of any duo I had played in before or after then. I miss this experience, sometimes I feel like I might go back into it for a bit. Maybe one day, if they never wind up getting FFXIV up to par.

 

Skate (series)

I feel guilty for not putting a Tony Hawk game in here. Not only did they provide me with countless hours of enjoyment, but I feel that they played a significant role in the increased adoption of skateboarding as a passtime for American youth, which I strongly approve of. The series will always have a place in my heart. Skate though... Skate feels like skateboarding. The timing is unforgiving, the tricks require precision (and they FEEL like the tricks you're performing, as much as controller moves possibly can), and the name of the game (if it's your style of play) is using the world around you to try to pull of badass moves. Exploration is fun, as is just skating around aimlessly in an online room with others or take turns grinding a rail. The ability to record and edit (with considerable flexibility) clips of yourself and share them online makes it all that much more worthwhile. Skate 2 was probably the most re-playable for me, as I was still playing it online once or twice a week when Skate 3 came out, and I had earned the platinum very early on. They kind of ruined the online structure of Skate 3 though, making it harder to find a game, and less sensible to stay within one group. Still though, Skate is Skate, and I love all three of them.

 

Ah, that felt good.

[Luftwaffles]

 

Well, I had to think about this a lot.

 

Rise of Nations

My favorite RTS of all time, I think possibly the best RTS of all time. Looking back, it's kind of a mix between the Total War games with their tactical map and Age of Empires with the battles and building. It's much better than Age of Empires, though, and moves faster and has more varied units. It's mostly on here because of how much I played it with my brother one summer, in co-op and just murdering swarms of enemies with rocket artillery.

 

Counter Strike 1.6

I was really late to the party on this, never played it at LAN parties, never played in a clan or even very competitively, but used to play it way too often with my brother and swarms and swarms of bots. I remember practicing on wide open maps by giving the bots only knives and myself only scouts and trying to kill them all with as little bullets as possible.

When I go back to try and play it now I'm fucking awful, which might be better as I'd rather still remember it when I was 14 or 15 and actually successful.

 

Far Cry 2

This game gets a ton of flak on forums and the internet in general, but I loved every minute of it. It's still the only open world game I've played where I genuinely felt in danger of dying or getting injured at every corner. It's also the only non explicitly tactical shooter (Rainbow Six, etc.) that I could really apply tactics to. Every 4 man guard post felt like an different challenge, and even 4 enemies could put you on the ground if you went in guns blazing without scouting the area at all. The quickly respawning checkpoints and hostile AI was annoying, but it didn't detract from my experience as much as it did from others and it's still one of the best shooters I've played.

 

Call of Duty 4

I feel like a lot of people dismiss COD4 as crap just because of MW2, WAW, and Black Ops using the same engine and not changing the gameplay much at all, but Call of Duty 4 was pretty revolutionary. It pulled off the Michael Bay style campaign like no other game had done before and the multiplayer, even with its issues, was still fun, even by yourself. I bought COD4 on release day and played the campaign to death before I even really realized there was a whole multiplayer component to go along with it. Yes it was heavily scripted, yes the story was shoddy, but it pulled me in like no other shooter had done before.

 

Battlefield 2

This was, and might still be one of my favorite games to play with friends. Teamplay was fantastic, gameplay was fantastic, and the maps scaled were like no other game I remember. It was also one of those games where you could go 2/14 on KD ratio and still be at the top of the scoreboard, something I really enjoyed as I often went 2/14. Also, Wake Island. So much Wake Island.

 

Flight Simulator 2002

This was pretty integral to my gaming experience as a kid just because my parents wanted me to get into aviation. It's also the only game I've ever played where you can buzz your own house in an F-15. I probably spent about 30 minutes with the stock airplanes and then rushed to the internet to get addons and extra scenery.

 

Lego Island 2

Scoff at this all you want, but I figured I had to put it in because of how many hours I sunk into it as a kid. Similar to Flight Simulator, I liked it because you could pretty much run around and do whatever you wanted. Note that this was far before I was old enough to know about the GTA games, so this was really the first "open world" game I ever played. It also had some of the best minigames (Jousting and the cannonball level) I've seen in a game, as well as the worst. (That fucking fishing hole).

 

Fallout 3

This is on here purely for the sheer amount of hours I have invested into it. The open world was so detailed you could spend hours just running from place to place, not even caring about the storyline (until the radscorpions got to you). I just remember running from area to area and admiring the amount of detail put into the areas, as well as places I know of from current Washington DC faithfully recreated in post-apocalyptic fashion. The combat was beyond janky, but it's always worth noting when a game allows you to decapitate people with a 9mm pistol in slow motion.

 

Left 4 Dead 2

I'll always remember Left 4 Dead 2 as the game that got me into what I consider "social gaming". I still have never had as much fun with a game as when me and 3 friends were running around decapitating zombies while carrying a conversation about politics or girls or whatever. The game isn't perfect, but it's the most fun I've ever had in co-op. I still always recommend this game to friends new to Steam just so I can play it again, as it's gotten a little boring now.

 

Phew. That's quite a list.

[deanb]

I saw FC2 and went to quickly check. Much the same praise as I'd give though you seem to have a much higher tolerance to the issues it had. Far Cry 3 will be a game I'll be watching with eagle eyes.

 

COD4 I grabbed in a steam sale last year. I was late to it. I enjoyed it. It was very well done and MW2 did not do it a service at all. I liked the Chernobyl mission. Even if I feel the sniping at the end was a bit scripted

[P4: Gritty Reboot]

Waffle is upvoted for Lego Island 2 alone.

 

Also, I seem to feel about COD1 how you do about COD4. I should get around to beating 4 one of these days.

[Saturnine Tenshi]

Yeah, Lego Island was a spruce thing at the time. ALSO THANKS FOR THE LOVE, FRED!

[quiddity]

 

Super Mario World:

The first game I ever played was Super Mario Bros on my friend's NES. My dad asked if I wanted a console too when he saw how much fun I was having. A couple months later my Dad comes home with a SNES with SMW packed in. It was the only game I had for probably more than a year or two, but I seriously did not mind.

 

Donkey Kong Country 2:

This, in my opinion, is the best 2D platformer ever made. I think it also holds a special place for me since it was really the last game my older sister ever played with me. Once things turned 3D she lost interest fast. I suppose that is somewhat significant since we lived in a neighborhood that did not have many kids. I pretty much went single player from there, which has definitely fed into my current preferences now.

 

Pokemon Red:

So I was THE pokemon guy at school. Knew all 150 by heart, when they evolved, when they learned their moves. I was that guy. Collected Pokemon Cards, followed the Pokemon anime (which led to find other anime which might have changed me forever, better or worse), hell I even bought the Pokemon Music CD. When I started attending a boarding school, I slowly stopped playing the series, but Pokemon introduced me to the RPG genre, and I would never be the same.

 

Banjo-Kazooie:

This game, in my mind, is the pinnacle of 3D platformers. The game had everything, fun power-ups, some of the best worlds ever to grace gaming (Freezeezy Peak, Tick Tock Woods), amazing sound design, and an all around great atmosphere. People will always cite Super Mario 64 as the pioneer, and I'll give respect where its due, but BK just outdid SM64 in every single aspect.

 

Zelda: Ocarina Of Time:

Not original? Don't really care. I remember playing Link to the Past when I was kid and honestly hated it (I guess I was too young for it at the time). So I didn't really think too much of this game. Everyone was talking about it, so I thought it was at least worth a rental. I was hooked so fast I didn't even see it coming. I begged my Mom to buy the game and I was lucky she was in a good mood. I seriously have no idea how many times I've played this game. It's the game that made me think about getting into the game industry, and if I have my way this year it might actually happen. While I actually preferred Majora's Mask over OoT, OoT was definitely more influential on me.

 

Final Fantasy VII:

So I actually played this game on the PC and not on the PSone, since I didn't have one at the time. I first borrowed the game from my friend and got about half way through the first disc where it kept crashing (That guy could never take care of his discs). I was really pissed off. I honestly could not ask my parents for another game since things were tight at the time. I was really bummed about it, and there was a lot of crap happening in my family. My sister saw that and she bought the game for me using money she got from her part-time job (she really is the best sister in the world). I can definitely say it was money well spent. The number of hours I put into that game were just insane. Multiple playthroughs, beat Emerald and Ruby etc etc, I don't think I've ever beat a game so completely.

 

Xenogears:

So Xenogears is my all time favorite RPG. When I got my PS1 (quite late, the PS2 was already released) I got this and FFIX. All I can say is I picked the right two games to start with. Well, maybe they were the wrong ones since I would compare everything else I played after them to those two. Either way, Xenogears was unique, touching on subjects I never thought would ever be uttered in a video game. The story was so deep and intriguing, and the characters so well fleshed out, I didn't even care that the 2nd disc was just a mess of incredibly long exposition and frustrating badly designed dungeons. I lapped up every word. And the dual battle system of Gears and human was just so awesome. Throw in what I consider the best soundtrack ever made and you have one very happy quiddity.

 

Final Fantasy IX:

This was the other game I got with my Playstation and I was surprised by how much I liked it. While Xenogears was a mostly dark story, FFIX was the complete opposite. Happy, colorful worlds, cheerful (for the most part) characters and a relatively simple plot. I was in love with the Active Time Events (to this day I curse Square for abandoning them) since they really gave a feel for the characters that just wasn't possible using the traditional method of seeing everything through the main character's eyes.

 

Warcraft 3:

One of these things is not like the other.... I'll admit, I'm a console gamer (though thats been changing a bit recently). While I was in my boarding school, we used to play Age of Empires 2 in the computer labs. I liked it, but wasn't really sold on the whole thing. A couple of years later, my friend introduces me to Warcraft 3. They had it on all the systems at this gaming cafe. I started playing the campaign, and I was hooked. I ended spending way more there than it would have cost to just buy the game. Though at the time I had a shitty computer, so it didn't matter anyway. When I got to college I had to leave all my consoles at home, and I finally got a decent laptop. I started playing WC3 again... and again... and again. It's the only strategy game where I've actually liked the multiplayer. Pros say its broken, but screw them, its the most fun I've had in any multiplayer game ever. At the end of college we started playing DOTA, never got too into it since people turn into amazingly huge dicks when they play that game.

[FredEffinChopin]

This might be my favorite thread in here. There is something so familiar or easy to relate to in every one of these... In a way it's a better way of getting to know someone (for general purposes in an online community of gamers) than hundreds of forums posts. In a way. Always good reads.

[Luftwaffles]

This might be my favorite thread in here. There is something so familiar or easy to relate to in every one of these... In a way it's a better way of getting to know someone (for general purposes in an online community of gamers) than hundreds of forums posts. In a way. Always good reads.

 

Agreed. If we were to point newbies towards one thread on here this'd be a good one. It was one of the first I posted on when I joined here.

[Yantelope]

I can't find my original so I made a new one.

 

 

So I went at this with the mindset of what games I played the most or impacted me the most, not necessarily my favorite games.

 

1. Quest for Glory 1: So this game had character classes, individual skill trees, puzzles with multiple solutions depending upon your class, multiple endings and your skills ranked depending on your actions. Oh, and this game came out back in 1989.

 

2. Street Fighter 2: If you weren't around back when this game hit arcades you don't realize what an impact this game truly had but pretty much every quarter you had as a child went into this thing so much so that my brother and I considered spending $83 on the SNES cart a deal because of all the quarters we were going to save ourselves.

 

3. Final Fantasy VI (III): This game opened my eyes to what storytelling in a videogame could be. It also had me hooked on JRPGs for the next decade.

 

4. Final Fantasy VII: The game that created emo. I wont rehash all the arguments for this one. I will say that my mother told my brother and I "you know there's other things to do" to which we replied "not until we finish this game!".

 

5. Zelda: OOT: Also not going to rehash the arguments for this one I just freaking loved this game.

 

6. Metal Gear Solid: Alongside FFVII, this is one of the most sentimental games to me. Those two games exposed a darker tone than anything I was familiar with and the sort of solitary sadness of the game just sucked me in. It was also the most cinematic experience ever. My mother had been overhearing the dialogue was even pulled into the story a bit which I found funny.

 

7. Half-Life: Not too much to say other than this game broke the walls to prove that an FPS can tell a story. Also the firefights in this game were freaking amazing.

 

8. Supreme Commander: This game is everything an RTS should be. Focus is on strategy and not micromanagement and I love it. Shame it wasn't supported better as there are still some lingering balance issues and bugs. My friends and I still play this against each other.

 

9. COD4: Modern Warfare: I've spent over 13 days of online time playing this thing fully maxing out my level after Prestiging 10 times so I felt I had to include this one.

[Saturnine Tenshi]

After playing NieR, I would add that to my top nine. It is the manifestation of saudade. Emotionally striking to the end. Imagine playing Zelda, Diablo, Touhou and World of Warcraft, only with the an absolutely spellbinding soundtrack and narrative.

[Cyber Rat]

But it has only 68 on Metacritiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiic!

[Strangelove]

Nier is great. If only Square Enix had given them some FF money to make the graphics actually current instead of PS2, I think it would have gotten a lot more attention. Or better yet, if it had been on the PSP. The graphics are pretty much the same.

The story, dialogue, voiceacting, gameplay and music is great though.

 

Oh yeah, maybe some extra levels too while were at it. That game pulled a serious DMC4.

[FredEffinChopin]

Nier is great. If only Square Enix had given them some FF money to make the graphics actually current instead of PS2, I think it would have gotten a lot more attention.

 

Nailed

[Saturnine Tenshi]

Yeah, likely. But the graphics didn't bother me... aside from those wretched moments when the distance blur would set in. God, the blur.

[fuchikoma]

 

Super Mario Bros: My first console game was actually Smurfs on the Colecovision at an uncle's place, but trying some bizarre hack of SMB at a mall was my first Nintendo experience. We had a PC at home, but this was light years ahead of it. From then, I had to have an NES. When I finally did, I put countless hours into this at home and at friends' places, and I even started making friends simply because we both played SMB.

 

Chip n' Dale Rescue Rangers: My first (and almost only, next to Four Swords) taste of "coopetition." Team up for a common goal... or if the guy next to you is getting annoying, pick him up and turf him off the edge, heheh! In grade 2, I knew a guy who would fight me on the playgrounds (if hit n' run from behind is fighting) but one day we were each going to the corner store with our dads and found out they were old buddies and he lived a block away. We talked a bit and found out we both liked Nintendo. I went to his place and played this game ALL DAY for a day or two straight with him, and we ended up hanging out as best friends for the next 9 years. He later confessed he only started this to see if I had any good NES games! haha... The bonds of Nintendo! This game really opened my eyes to gaming as a social activity.

 

Street Fighter II: Same deal pretty much. Just about all of my friends were into this game, and I played it whenever I could. More than a few times, we'd rent it on the SNES, have a sleepover, and stay up playing it until we collapsed from exhaustion. I got a lot of colds this way... totally worth it. Ever since, I've loved a good 2D fighter.

 

Wipeout XL: By this time I was in high school, and a few years into the PSX era. This game was like a godsend. I loved the sci-fi design, the funky Designer's Republic art and design all over it, the seriously awesome soundtrack filled with various big techno artists, and the insane sense of speed. I hate to say it, but the pioneering in-game advertising also set me on a 10-year quest to try Red Bull (as an artificially caffeinated non-cola, it was illegal in Canada for ages until convenience stores finally imported the original Thai product with an over-the-counter drug info number. After that, the law quickly changed.) Anyway, this game really gave me a taste for racing as a preferred genre and not just something to dabble in.

 

Diablo: I'd played roguelikes for as long as I could read, but this was a whole new level. Graphics. Sound. Mouse-driven interface! More importantly, it was one of a couple games I had that would go online. I have such fond memories crawling random dungeons with strangers on the net. It was cool how everyone used the same servers too, so if you stayed up late, you'd see different rotations of people online. Since I was starting to study Japanese (and starting to obsess over anime...) I liked to stay up until around 3am when the Japanese players would get more common. Like their reputation in FFIX, they were pretty much all polite and helpful, unlike the hacking griefers during the day. This game also got me interested in RAM hacking, since it was a way of life in Diablo 1. I even made some varyingly successful joke hacks, like glitched ear items. Chasing the magic of Diablo, I later loved playing Shining Soul 2 with friends, and making new friends in Ragnarok Online - some of my fondest gaming memories. Even now, my friends and I play Marvel: Ultimate Alliance together. Long-live the dungeon crawl!

 

beatmania: A friend got me to try Pop'n Music 3 in the late 90s. Even on 5-button mode, with two of us sharing the controls it was pretty brutal. Eventually though I got hooked and it got more fun the better I got at it. I discovered the beatmania series it spun off from. It was ok, but the music was pretty bad... Then I found beatmania: Best Hits and my future was set in stone. Eventually I bought most of the IIDX series, all the DJ Max Portable games (well, I'll get 3 soon,) and countless other rhythm and music games. I love rhythm games. Playing a good hard music game at a level that completely saturates my attention and ability has led me to discover the joys of "flow" in everyday life, and even no-mind, without effort or intent to do so, so I can't overstate the influence of this series. There you have it - beatmania IIDX is a complete sermon on mindfulness that shows the joy and skill of total concentration, and the annoyance and inability of an unfocused mind.

 

Tourist Trophy: I traditionally hated Gran Turismo - I didn't know what sensible corner speeds or racing lines were, and even when I tried to apply them, the controls on a PSX were inadequate and I'd end up spinning donuts trying to just get back on track. After getting hooked on Initial D (go ahead, laugh, heh) I sat down and tried GT3, which was so much more playable with actual analog inputs! Then GT4 was a big improvement over that! I still wasn't a big car guy though, hardly able to tell most apart, and feeling that four wheels is still too complex unpredictable physically when pushed to the limit. Then I got Tourist Trophy... wow. I'd always wanted a motorcycle, but my parents never allowed it as a kid/teen. Here was the only game I'm aware of to this day that accurately simulated motorcycle racing physics. Weight transfer, wind turbulence, riding position, tire friction, g forces... This is still a favourite game of mine. It even inspired me to go out and get a sportbike of my own, and a few times when I've skidded, or hit a corner too fast for safety, habits I learned in TT got me out without even falling. Tourist Trophy helped me live a lifelong dream, AND maybe save my life from accidents in the same!

 

The Impossible Game: I got this a while before Super Meat Boy, but it had about the same effect. I've always hated games that are hard just to be hard. In fact, from around ages 8-13 I was even quite the cheat code abuser. From around 16-20 I was also a pretty avid console pirate since I had next to no money, lots of technical expertise, and an endless thirst for novelty. This led to a bad habit of playing many games, very superficially, as a sort of tourist. That was kind of ok, since I play games for not achievement, but novelty, but TIG was a sort of rehab. It's brutally hard, but makes no ceremony of punishing you or taunting you for failing. It just ups the attempt counter and goes "psshh! Start!" No lives. No continues. Short level. Clear, unambiguous challenges. Poking at this for a while, I eventually made it about 85% into the first level on the iPhone without using practice mode (the taste for challenge had already sunk in and I figured practice was too easy.) It showed me that a hard game is less about possible or impossible, and more about how much time and effort you're willing to put into gradually making it through, and that most any game is probably beatable with determination. I still won't waste time on a game that's buggy or unfair, but I now have a taste for hard, but not punishing quick games like TIG, SMB, Warning Forever, or Aban Hawkins and the 1000 Spikes.

 

Touhou Project (Imperishable Night): ...which brings us to Touhou. 45 minute games with 45,000,000 bullets. Actually, I've always hated 2D shmups. It always seemed futile to me, fighting an endless stream of enemies only to be taken out by some lone bullet you didn't see, coming from some guy on the side you missed because you were shooting his dozen buddies at the top... hated it. One day I found Marisa Stole the Precious Thing and it was completely confusing. Also, it got stuck in my head. Eventually it bugged me enough to look it up, and when I found out what Touhou really is, I went "ugh! That's for masochists!" and left it. But it gnawed at me. That didn't really look like a generic fighter plane fighting generic mecha-things and aliens, and I still have a soft spot from my anime otaku days so the random manga girl fighting intrigued me. I downloaded a bundle of them and tried them out. They kicked my ass... but not nearly as bad as I expected. And the music was amazing. I stuck to it, and got good enough to at least progress through the levels and enjoy it, and before long, I was even getting addicted to grazing bullets and appreciating the designs of the spell card attacks. Since then I've rushed around catching up on bullet hell games I'd missed. IMO bullet hell is easier than normal shooters because you're not taken out by a stray shot - bullets tend to come in HUGE colourful, unmissable clouds, and the real challenge is finding the non-lethal spots in those clouds. Totally different - like a realtime morphing maze, especially with Touhou's usually slow bullets. I could go on about other things that set this series apart in the genre to me, but I'd fill another page with babbling, so I'll shut up now.

[Hot Heart]

Chip n' Dale Rescue Rangers

 

Such an awesome game. Music was great too. I would use it as my first taste of co-op in a way but I'd already played TMNT II: The Arcade game. That would go in my 3x3 if I ever get round to it.

[excel_excel]

Chip n' Dale Rescue Rangers

 

Such an awesome game. Music was great too. I would use it as my first taste of co-op in a way but I'd already played TMNT II: The Arcade game. That would go in my 3x3 if I ever get round to it.

yes yes YES. Chip n' Dale was my families first co-op game, I remember playing it with my brother constantly! Such a great soundtrack too!

[fuchikoma]

Chip n' Dale Rescue Rangers

 

Such an awesome game. Music was great too. I would use it as my first taste of co-op in a way but I'd already played TMNT II: The Arcade game. That would go in my 3x3 if I ever get round to it.

 

Do it! It's fun... It made me consider what my big influences and turning points were, which I hadn't really done. I just kept a running list of games as I thought of them and read this thread, then narrowed it down a lot and made the grid... Just remember to save the image URLs, not the images, like I did the first time I was going to do this!

 

TMNT II... Is that the one where you can have up to 4 players, and can cut down things like parking meters and signs? I loved that game.

[Hot Heart]

TMNT II... Is that the one where you can have up to 4 players, and can cut down things like parking meters and signs? I loved that game.

 

Yeah, that's the one. Although, obviously, this was the NES version so it only allowed two people. They released the arcade version on XBLA, which had four-player but was missing some of the levels from the console version, sadly. That game had some great music too.

[Alex Heat]

I will explain myself as I come up with explanations.

Phantasy Star Online: This game holds an extra special place in my heart. It was the first online game I'd ever played (because I didn't really care about Everquest) and I made a few very good friends through it. One of which I lived with for many a year and met a bunch of good people through. Suffice to say, this game is monumentally important to me. Had I never played it, my life would be incredibly different.

Final Fantasy VII: This was the game that opened up RPGs as a genre for me. Hours into disc one and I felt I could not get enough of this genre. (Joke's on me though because nowadays, I've become sick of the JRPG genre and it's constant shonen anime tendencies. )

 

Bionic Commando: I'm not gonna lie, most of my memories of these were watching my brother play it when I was really young, so I felt I needed to play it and beat it too.  Fortunately, it's a great game that showed me that action games without a jump could be great too.

 

Digital Devil Saga: This is my favorite Atlus game.  Something about it resonated really well with me and one of my good friends (the uh, very same one that killed himself in 2012, unfortunately).  I liked it enough to get not one, but two tattoos based off it (Heat and Gale's Atma symbols).

 

Final Fantasy Tactics: My first and favorite TRPG that, much like FF7, opened up the genre to me.  Not that many come out, but at least there's Super Robot Wars and Tactics Ogre.

 

Alan Wake: Aspiring writer enjoys a game with a novelist as the protagonist.  In other news, the sky is blue.  Seriously though, I dug the story and enjoyed the characters a lot.  It was nice to have a modern game that wasn't rah rah military chest bumping.

 

Maximo: At the time when I first played this, I was caught up in that frenzy of 'man, Japan sure makes all the best games and the US doesn't make anything good!'.  I started branching out more afterwards.  Being a Ghouls n' Ghosts spiritual successor probably helped.

 

Super Mario RPG: I got my copy as a birthday gift from my best friend when I was in 7th grade or so, so I treasure this game.  It also kind of cemented my enjoyment of the JRPG genre (because I got it after FF7).

 

Resident Evil 2: My first horror game that took me a year or so to finish because I was such a chickenshit that I could only muster the courage to play it until I got to a save point every time.  Gave me an appreciation for tank controls that I still have now.  Granted, I would say that I'd prefer Resident Evil 6's gameplay to it though.  Ease of movement and combat is a plus.

Edited November 6, 2013 by Alex Heat

[Firescorpio]

 

tried not to be too repetitive and instead of being my favorite games of all time i tried to vary it for genre's there so many games that i love it's not that easy to come up with a definite list. =P

 

Final Fantasy III/ VI : It's by far always the first thing that comes to mind both for it's inmense nostalgia factor, as well for it's timeless quality and scope, on perspective FFVI individual elements all make to me the perfect jrpg, there are aspects i dislike of other FF's however with Vi it's hard to find a fault, from the characters, to the combat, and the iconic scenes like the Opera, FFVI exudes a personality that is rare to find even today in modern games, for all the advancements in gaming, VI still holds as a staple of gaming perfection (at least for me)

 

Also Kefka.....

 

Zelda Ocarina of Time: One of the best examples of Adventure games out there, the story isn't particularly the best, however the game, aside from being called the best game in history, (which i disagree) is still one of the best experiences i can remember in gaming. The diversity in creatures, the way the world opens up to you, and gradually became something more organic and believable than other games at it's time, a beautiful aesthetic design woven into a intricate and fun gameplay made ocarina of time something truly unique, i have nothing but love for this game

 

Pokemon Crystal: 251 pokemon two complete areas to explore, two entirely different Pokemon leagues, a entire subset of quests like the unown vocbulary, best legendaries and starters in memory, as a kid this game blew my freakin mind, gotta catch them all never felt like a more intense job. Aside from it being pokemon as always, i think pokemon crystal showed the best advancement in the series in years, with the exception of black & white.

 

What's not to love about pokemon Crystal?

 

Star Wars Rogue Squadron: I have yet to play a game that makes it so entertaining to shoot at things with the exception of Ace Combat 4, close call between both actually, but at the end Rogue Squadron is star wars, and flying that x-wing through the death star ravine, is something that any star wars fan should experience,

 

Shadow of the Colossus: I don't think there is much i can say, that the other members havn't said about this game, for me one of the first examples of how could video games strive to become something more than just simple entertainment. still eagerly awaiting the next masterpiece, the last guardian can't come sooner.

 

Batman Arkham City: No love for recent games on the majority of the lists, so i tried including some on mine, I'm a huge bathead, so i guess i'm biased as to how much did i love AC, however it was not just that for a second time rocksteady pulled off the "it's not just a great superhero game, it's a great videogame period" but how the game fleshed out, one of my main concerns or grudges against current gen games, is that sometimes

they try to be to gritty or convoluted with stories that sometimes they drag on forever. Batman Arkham City had just enough to never feel old and always mantain you on the edge. It's not longer than it needs to be and the whole experience just really sets a cherry on top of the pie with that ballsy ending.

 

My biggest surprise wasn't the ending though it was just how much more enjoyable it feels to use the side characters than batman. It's the bats we get it an he feels like batman ought to feel, but catwoman, robin, nightwing steal the show, i just wish i could use them all while free roaming the city.

 

Baldur's Gate: all those things i said about FFVI, but now about baldurs gate.... such a perfect game....

 

Red Dead Redemption: While it suffers from some issues, RDR is a game that broke a barrier in storytelling, proving it doesn't need to be evil empires, or space marines, John Marston is one of the greatest characters in gaming (for me at least). From how the world is set up, to the immense cast of memorable character RDR is one amazing game.

 

Bastion: In between batman, dark souls and many other games bastion managed to over shine most of the bigger competition, Maybe not everyone is a huge fan of the narrator, but between building your own custom difficulty, the story, the color, everything i couldn't help but fall in love with this game.

 

So there you go, that's my list which by the time i'm done a bunch of other games that didn't make my cut that should like Assassins Creed, Dark Souls, Mass Effect, Rayman, Mario, Contra, Street Fighter, Gran Turismo... see? this is why i suck at making lists =P

Edited June 28, 2012 by Firescorpio

[Chewblaha]

 

 

 

Aside from the Red Dead and SotC, this might be the best 3*3 I've seen.

[Firescorpio]

Aside from the Red Dead and SotC, this might be the best 3*3 I've seen.

 

Hey Thanks, I do feel very strong about SoTC it's one game i feel very sure will always pop up in my favorite game lists, but RDR is more of a wildcard, that could be replaced with many others, also i tried to give this gen some love, as there are so many games i love to death that could easily go in that list.

 

I'm glad you liked though =D