What is your number 1 favorite game of all time? And has a game come close to dethroning it?

Everquest (1999 - POP era) No game has ever come close and never will. Mostly, what made Everquest so special for me was the high risk v reward gameplay and the incredible online community at the time; both of which no longer exist to that standard in games of today.

EQ was a proper RPG where you could gain skill ups in pretty much everything you can do, from attacking with a specific weapon type to casting alteration magic to becoming fluent in Elder Dragon speech.

Nowadays games of this kind are made to play easy by design in order to get as many people hooked as possible while EQ punished you for trying and punished you again for dying, but the achievement for succeeding in EQ was well worth it, success could gain your character real renown among the server community.

If you include the whole modding scene - probably Half-Life for me. HL2 came close, but I didn't spend as much time in the modding scene because I went to college shortly after the release.

Yeah... The 'Remake' was a cool way to add more life to the Midgar setting. I'm grateful we get a chance to see the locations and character fleshed out and made to feel alive.

BUT - I still prefer the turn-based battle system and the nonsense they injected into the story is clever while also a confirmation the Remake is in no way intended to be a replacement for the original.

Lots of good choices. Metal Gear, Ocarina of Time, KOTOR, Chrono Trigger, all games I have gone back to recently and played again. I have a couple ones that I am not sure between. First is Conker's Bad Fur Day. The gameplay was unique, each level had something different about it so it kept the gameplay fresh so it didn't get stale, and let's be real, no game anywhere close to as funny as that one has been made before, or ever will be again. Perfect Dark is up there on the list of candidates as well, and also the Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver games. Which one is on top, I don't think I can pick.

What disappoints me though is how far gaming has fallen since that era. Games now just do not come close to anything anyone has mentioned so far from the late 90s, early 2000s for gameplay, story telling, or even general story telling. It's a shame all we get now are movie games and shooters.

I'm trying to imaging what it's like to be a kid or teenager who is just starting gaming now. Basically, your whole childhood is Fortnite and COD lol. Ok, that's an over generalization, there are still some really great games that have come out in recent times. But yea, nothing like seeing the gaming industry blow up in the 90s and seeing 3D gaming for the first time.

Yeah, I agree, it isn't nostalgia. I've gone back and played these games again recently, even livestreamed them, and they were still as fun as I remembered them. I have also made friends in gaming who were fairly new to it, and younger and grew up in the 2000s and later. I've taught them how to do emulation, and gifted them a lot of games that are also available on PC, like KOTOR, Turok, FFVI, FFVII, Chrono Trigger, and more and they all tell me how much they wish they grew up a decade or two earlier and could have experienced them when they were new, and how depressed they are at how much better those titles were than new ones.

Seeing 3D for the first time was a completely different experience though. I do remember seeing a TV commercial for N64 and Mario 64 for the first time and my jaw absolutely dropped.

Ultima 7 and planescape Torment, objectively speaking lots of games has surpassed it in a lot of ways, but for their tune they were both true masterpieces! And I still have extremely fond memories of both of them to this day!

Oh yeah, definitely the peak gaming era. Mid-90's to mide-2000's for me. I try to not let nostalgia dictate what makes a current-era game "good", but at the same time the standards I have were set by games I played 15-25 years ago.

I'd say the information consistently breaks even; yeah, we have a lot of information, but we also have a lot of bad information. It's easier to communicate, sure, but we also have to hear from or about every single jackass doing every single pointless thing.

And yeah, I am happy to have grown up in the pre-internet, pre-Amazon, pre-Netflix days. I won't deny the convenience of it, but as Calvin's dad would say "it builds character" having done so lol.

I will confess I've become spoiled by modern convenience, I find it hard playing old games that I didn't play at the time of release: perfect example is The Elder Scrolls, as my first TES game was Oblivion, and when I tried to play Morrowind I just found it a bit tedious and boring. No doubt had I played Morrowind at its time of release I'd have been pissed off at Oblivion as well haha.

Oh god I forgot to mention Diablo 2. Yes, that is probably in my top 5. Literally all I played in college when I was a broke student haha.

All "looter" games, be they isometric RPG's or shooters or what have you, I judge based on Diablo 2's mechanics.

Deus Ex without a doubt.

If I had to pick one I would say Super Mario World on the SNES. Admittedly this is mostly based on nostalgia as there have been many other games which I've enjoyed far more but SMW is special to me because it is the first video game I've ever called my own and the first one I had so much fun with.

It doesn't hurt that it's one of the best games ever made and has pretty timeless gameplay that can easily be enjoyed in 2021. It's one of those games that ages well.

Elden Ring.

Yes, its my fav game before its even out. Fromsoft+open world=massive potential.

Lol, didn't you learn from Cyberpunk not to hype a game to astronomical levels?

No. Fromsoft and Rockstar are on another level.

A Link to the Past would certainly be high on my list. Above Ocarina of Time. ALTTTP is easily one of the to games of all time.

Hard really been privy to so many titles over the years but in all honesty the first mario cart lol, I used to love seeing frustration of other players when I just bounced around the ghost level all the way around bouncing and sliding, I was impossible to beat at the time.

Final Doom. Played it daily for about the first year of its release and played it almost every month since.

StarCraft

That was my Jam over 10,000 of hours on gameplay zerg terran (epic music) protoss (my main)

WarCraft 2 was my dream come true but when I played StarCraft i literally had a heart attack and died for 10 years playing it all day. Warcraft in space with 3 sides and awesome story and cinematics and epic multiplayer ladders chatrooms and clans and omg jfc.

It also has the best expansion ever made it was only 40 dollars and it was epic as hell best expac Brood War

You got lurkers you got corsairs you got tons of new shit. 3 new epic cinematics by blur everything else is literally garbage trash compared to brood war. Its over.

This game literally sat in my dvd drive for 10 years I never took it out once thats dedication.

and no for me. Nothing has come close FF6 and Mario 3 and FFT and friggin Yoshi Island and Link to the Past, warcraft 3 with Dota 1, diablo 2 and everquest, and WoW. and stuff there great but there not like this. Nothing is.

Get friggin destroyed console gamers get wrekt.

@ProtossRushX: I love the Starcraft franchise even though I was never good at them lol. Do you think there will ever be a Starcraft 3? Seems like RTS isn't super popular these days.

Open world huh, so just another AC rip off no doubt, 100hrs to finish, multiple side quest, just another copycat like Ghosts of Sashimi LOL.

You've been conditioned to shitty open world games. Everything is an AssCreed clone for you. Go back to that Vallhala of yours.

You're used to linear dungeons, you will get lost, overwhelmed & start to cry when you hit an open world, but there are other on here who can only function in a linear game world, i know start a group and have weekly meetings to overcome your fear 🤣🤣🤣

Souls+Linear 😎Shows how clueless you're. As soon as its not AssCreed or Forza, you're simply lost and have no idea what you're talking about

lol

F-Zero GX. I play a lot of future racers and enjoy many of them, but GX is the apex of the genre. I don't think even a new entry would be able to top it, though I do wish Nintendo would try.

Same for me. Half-Life was the first WOW game that I couldn't put down but it's obviously aged quite a bit.

Other close contenders would be, Homeworld, Deus Ex, and Bloodborne. Homeworld redefined RTS' with the integration of 3d maps, cinematic storytelling, and giving off Dune vibes. Deus Ex gave us conspiracy theories, cyberpunk, and meaningful choices that actually affected the ending of a game. Bloodborne is so good at giving us HP Lovecraft in videogame form that I'd argue the lore and story are BETTER than anything in his catalogue, paired with Fromsoftware's most refined combat and level design.

Easily Everquest Landmark for me. It was the building game that was supposed to be used to help make Everquest 3. The tech was far beyond it's time and when Sony (failed) they had to sell off 1/3rd of the company including Sony Online Entertainment and along with it the Ever quest Franchise. This is easily Sony's biggest failure of all time (IMO) as they more or less eliminated themselves from the PC market and forced themselves into the narrow box they are in now.

What made the game so amazing for people that like building things is that you could really manipulate the water, the terrain, and the voxels in very interesting ways. You could path NPC movements and set up event triggers to set things in motion. (Like walking into a room could trigger mob spawns that says stuff and special effects.) The possibilities were amazing. Alas Sony failed hard so the dream had to die. (as the people they sold it to had no real way of finishing a project of that massive scale.)

This is why building games are by far my number 1 Genre of gaming. The limits are simply the limits of your imagination. They are a feast for the intrinsically motivated among us. Landmark was a dream come true.

It will be at least 10 years till a building game can do anywhere near what Landmark could do. I miss it very much to this day.

@hardwenzen said:

@i_p_daily said:

@hardwenzen said:

@i_p_daily said:

@hardwenzen said:

Elden Ring.

Yes, its my fav game before its even out. Fromsoft+open world=massive potential.

Open world huh, so just another AC rip off no doubt, 100hrs to finish, multiple side quest, just another copycat like Ghosts of Sashimi LOL.

You've been conditioned to shitty open world games. Everything is an AssCreed clone for you. Go back to that Vallhala of yours.

You're used to linear dungeons, you will get lost, overwhelmed & start to cry when you hit an open world, but there are other on here who can only function in a linear game world, i know start a group and have weekly meetings to overcome your fear 🤣🤣🤣

Souls+Linear 😎Shows how clueless you're. As soon as its not AssCreed or Forza, you're simply lost and have no idea what you're talking about

Its a linear boring hack & slash game. And now they're going to go open world like AC, must suck knowing your favourite studio is copying one you hate 🤣🤣🤣

@i_p_daily said:

@hardwenzen said:

@i_p_daily said:

@hardwenzen said:

@i_p_daily said:

Open world huh, so just another AC rip off no doubt, 100hrs to finish, multiple side quest, just another copycat like Ghosts of Sashimi LOL.

You've been conditioned to shitty open world games. Everything is an AssCreed clone for you. Go back to that Vallhala of yours.

You're used to linear dungeons, you will get lost, overwhelmed & start to cry when you hit an open world, but there are other on here who can only function in a linear game world, i know start a group and have weekly meetings to overcome your fear 🤣🤣🤣

Souls+Linear 😎Shows how clueless you're. As soon as its not AssCreed or Forza, you're simply lost and have no idea what you're talking about

Its a linear boring hack & slash game. And now they're going to go open world like AC, must suck knowing your favourite studio is copying one you hate 🤣🤣🤣

I can tell you're having a lot of trouble in the souls games so you're trying real hard to bash them while knowing nothing about them. Bet you were stuck on the first boss and rage quit 🤣

Skate 3 is my favourite, great mechanics, awesome graphics and soundtrack. Can easily play it over and over again just skating spots. I grew up loving the Tony Hawk games but skate became and still is my favourite game of all time. Just wish it had a better split screen multiplayer.

@hardwenzen said:

@i_p_daily said:

@hardwenzen said:

@i_p_daily said:

@hardwenzen said:

You've been conditioned to shitty open world games. Everything is an AssCreed clone for you. Go back to that Vallhala of yours.

You're used to linear dungeons, you will get lost, overwhelmed & start to cry when you hit an open world, but there are other on here who can only function in a linear game world, i know start a group and have weekly meetings to overcome your fear 🤣🤣🤣

Souls+Linear 😎Shows how clueless you're. As soon as its not AssCreed or Forza, you're simply lost and have no idea what you're talking about

Its a linear boring hack & slash game. And now they're going to go open world like AC, must suck knowing your favourite studio is copying one you hate 🤣🤣🤣

I can tell you're having a lot of trouble in the souls games so you're trying real hard to bash them while knowing nothing about them. Bet you were stuck on the first boss and rage quit 🤣

I don't play boring linear hack n slash games, i'll leave boring games like that for you to play, they suit you well 🤣🤣🤣

I Cry Daily loves Ubisoft games. Casual confirmed. Now it makes since why you're a lemtot 🤣😂

@i_p_daily said:

@hardwenzen said:

@i_p_daily said:

@hardwenzen said:

@i_p_daily said:

You're used to linear dungeons, you will get lost, overwhelmed & start to cry when you hit an open world, but there are other on here who can only function in a linear game world, i know start a group and have weekly meetings to overcome your fear 🤣🤣🤣

Souls+Linear 😎Shows how clueless you're. As soon as its not AssCreed or Forza, you're simply lost and have no idea what you're talking about

Its a linear boring hack & slash game. And now they're going to go open world like AC, must suck knowing your favourite studio is copying one you hate 🤣🤣🤣

I can tell you're having a lot of trouble in the souls games so you're trying real hard to bash them while knowing nothing about them. Bet you were stuck on the first boss and rage quit 🤣

I don't play boring linear hack n slash games, i'll leave boring games like that for you to play, they suit you well 🤣🤣🤣

Weren't you the one praising Remenant From the Ashes? Yes you were 😅Not only do you play these games, you play the shittiest and easiest version of them. No wonder you're into asscreed as well 🤣

@hardwenzen: You're the ghost of linear rpg games 🤣🤣🤣

@NathanDrakeSwag: Coming from a guy who cries about the system he plays on all the time so you need to flip flop, to playing GTA & RDR, yeah you shouldn't be calling anyone else a casual.

Now run along and go play your favourite casual game in TLOU2 🤣🤣🤣

@i_p_daily: How about you tell us what's you're number 1 favorite game of all time cause all I'm hearing from you is troll talk.

Yeah bro get these fakeboy lems outa here and call them out when they try to derail good threads and don't post on topic.

Tough for me to pick just one. My first "favorite" game I played was Super Mario Bros 3 and no 2D platformer has dethroned it for me. GTA Vice City was my favorite open world game at one point but GTA V dethroned it. I judge my favorite games by genre rather than overall.

Because he's never played anything except Forza and AssCreed and doesn't want to get laughed off the forum for being a casual troll.

Yeah like im the only one, but hey single me out when you have a page full of troll threads. Shit this isn't even a SW thread, its a game discussion thread, so it shouldn't even be on this board, but yeah single out me for trolling it lol.

I don't have a favourite game of all time, i have favourites. Are you happy now, or do you need more?

I mean look at the 2 trolls posts above this one , i don't see you saying a word, different strokes for different folks huh dav lol.

Final Fantasy Tactics.

And..... nope.

@i_p_daily: weren't you saying how much of a gaming guru you are, having been gaming for decades? Which one have you enjoyed the most?

@appariti0n: Ivalice is such a great world.

What a childish post. "Bu bu Mr. Swag hurt my feelings"

Just admit you're a casual gamer who plays nothing but Forza. Everyone already knows it to be the truth. It just makes no sense why someone who only plays racing sims would be on a forum called SW when everyone else here plays a wide variety of games.

You keep trying to insult me but fail miserably, it is I that has hurt your feelings by reminding everyone that you are a flip flopper.

You named GTA, you can't call others casual, when you're the definition of it, i mean you named yourself after a character that's in one of the most casual series there is lol.

GTA is one of the most important and influential franchises in the history of gaming. Only a contrarian would call it casual. Being popular =/= being casual. On the contrary, nearly everyone would consider Ass Creed to be uninspired copycat casual garbo.

Also didn't you try to say Sonic games are better than Mario games before? Lol. Your opinions are worthless here, bud. Go play your Sonic Heroes, Lego Forza and Ass Creed and quit pretending to have any knowledge of real gaming 😂🤣

1 favorite game of all time. 😂 How basic.

@NathanDrakeSwag: will you knock it off? How old are you? You see IP get told off and think "hold my beer"

Nethack. Maybe Fallout 2 has come close.

Yes, and unlike you who's favourite game is an average one, i can't pick just one game.

Now why do you constantly spam this board with your game discussion threads?

I mean you've been here nearly 20yrs and you can't tell the difference between the Game Discussion board and the System Wars one.

@sakaixx: Yeah, was glad they used it for more than one game. I'll have to give the international version of ff-12 a go some day. Only ever played the original on ps2.

xenogear. imo it has the best story, soundtrack, character i have played. so sad square didnt even bother following up this gem. distant second is ff7 and ff9