5 best video game series of all time

I mean it definitely varies.

I played my first Metroid, Zelda, and Final Fanrasy games in 2003-04. I was a Genesis kid, so my experience with Nintendo stuff was basically Mario and Mega Man. And a few odds and ends like Top Gun, and various multiplayer games.

But they absolutely hold up. Super Metroid is still great, Final Fantasy games hold up well (even the NES ones are playable, if sometimes rough). You can drop Age of Empires and still have a good time, but generally older PC games age worse. Honestly old flight sims and games like TIE fighter generally age best from that era, I feel. Those and old shooters like Doom and Dark Forces, because the controls are less intrusive.

But god, I tried playing some of those old DOS era and older RPGs and it is rough. They’re almost impenetrable with horrid control and gameplay. Wizardry is the worst in this respect. Ultima definitely better. And a game like Darklands is even tolerable.

Pre mouse, keyboard dependent, games tend to age the worst, IMO, and I say this as someone who mostly lacks at the time nostalgia for anything pre-2003, aside from Sonic and X-wing ca TIE Fighter.

Have you tried Twilight 2000?

Nope, can’t say I’d heard of it either. Looked it up and it rings no bells.

http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/26721/Twilight+-+2000.html

If it’s not on GOG. Basically, instead of making 4 characters, you make 20, and its set in Poland, after WW3. The other cool thing is, you don’t know when war will break out, so as your making your character, there is a chance that war will break out and give you one final year.

But if war breaks out too late, you may find the character is rich, but too old to be of use, and have to start again.

Or to young to be useful. Thankful, the characters will get experience during the game as well.

Also, you can drive a tank.

The CRPG addict reported about it, extensively as is his habit.


(And it didn’t make me want to play the thing!)

Probably a better link, start from the bottom entries:

It’s a game for people that like making characters. A lot. A hell of a lot.

I actually think pre-mouse games can have pretty elegant interfaces if you learn them. For me the era of the early GUIs (late 80s/early 90s) is often tougher to deal with.

Unless an interface is egregiously awful it’s usually not a dealbreaker for me; it’s more that it adds an hour or two to the learning curve, which may or may not be worth it depending on the gameplay underneath. (I am distinguishing interface from something like ‘stick feel,’ which is absolutely essential in action games and has been since at least the '80s.)

Just like Gordon, the keyboard only games often take more time to get used to than the intuitive mouse-navigation, but it is my experience they are also often more pleasant experiences once that hurdle is jumped.
I really enjoy keyboard only games, then and even now.

Civilization
Baldur’s Gate
Out of the Park Baseball
Heroes of Might and Magic
Wizardry

Pirates
X-Com
Jagged Alliance
Baldur’s Gate 2/Mass Effect (can’t decide)
Civilization

I’ll go with these. Ask me tomorrow and it might be different.

  1. Ultima Online
  2. World of Warcraft
  3. Warframe
  4. The Crew
  5. Diablo 2

Number four is not a joke. Number three has a small chance to move up the list.

EDIT: Oh crap, looks like I listed individual games, not series. Let me think about it some and I’ll try to rectify the list.

I’ll set some rules. Must have more than two games, I need to have played at least three. I’ll go with

  1. The Souls games
  2. The Forgotten Realms Saga by Infinity Engine (see what I did there… that’s how I get BG and Icewind Dale lumped together
  3. Elder Scrolls
  4. Ultima
  5. Mass Effect

Honorable mentions:

Wasteland/Fallout
Splinter Cell
Gold Box D&D
Operation Flashpoint/ArmA
Deus Ex
Fable
Civ
Star Wars Jedi Knight
Far Cry
X Series space sim

Future possibilities if they keep up the great work:

Divinity Original Sin

I was tempted to pull that trick myself.

Wasnt there a connection between the Baldurs Gate and the original NWN?

We did have some overlap and I did play and like all of the games in your list. I did include King’s Quest in my ‘impact on me when I first played them’ list. There has got to be a better title for that list.

There’s definitely a place for games that were huge on us at the time but don’t necessarily hold up. Maybe we’d call that list “Classics that I never want to play again.”

God, there are too many ways to cut up each genre, list or series.
I never got into the other Quest Games like I did Quest for Glory. I think I just like to power game too much, and trying to Max my stats, something that King’s Quest doesn’t let you do.
Also, I never played the final Quest for Glory Game.

And Planescape:Torment, damn it!!!

Here is the truth. Nobody likes Planscape Torment. We just pretended to, because we couldn’t bare to see you sad. I am sorry we’ve been lying to you all this time. You deserve to know the truth.

One common entry in people’s list, Civilization, I find it vacuous. Not people’s opinion of it, but the games themselves.

I’ve played a crap ton of Civ 2, 4, and 5. Most of the time, after a marathon session (it is quarter to three but I have to get up at 8 to school/work), I just feel empty. Most of the time I feel like I wasted all those time because I got hooked by the mechanics, not that I enjoyed the game. It feels like the games manipulated me. It wasn’t obvious at first, but it dawned on me gradually.

Frankly I think my taste in games changed over the years. I used to play lots of shooters but shooting now bothers me, especially unjustified violence. Tomb Raider reboot is a good example. I object to Lara Croft’s level of violence. Sneaking and non-violent (or at least non fatal) games now appeal to me. Fighting games got a second look from me nowadays because at the end of the day, it is about sparring and there is no fatality (I hated Mortal Kombat right from the start and more so now).