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).
The best series of all time needs to have at least 3 games in the series (a sequel does not make a series) and every game on the list must be solid gold - no carrying water for a lesser title on the list.
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Europa Universalis: All 4 games on this list were (and are) absolutely best in show for their time when they were released. EU1 was Paradox’s first major release that would cement their strategy bona fides for decades to come. EU2 was a distillation of EU1 and will always be a personal favourite of mine as the first PDX game I played. EU3 took things in a whole new direction by making history about mechanics, not events. EU4 has taken everything learnt from the other series to become an evergreen title that I would be happy for them to release DLC for forever.
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Total War: Everyone of these games are great - yes even Empire - one of the only games that lets you lead the Duke of Marlborough on the field of battle. From Shogun to Medieval to Rome to Medieval II to Empire to Napoleon to Shogun II to Rome II to Attila to Warhammer to Warhammer II to Britannia. Rob Zacny’s retrospective on how formative these games were to him on idle weekend is exactly how I feel about them too.
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Diablo: In the 20 years since D1 came out, I have probably sunk more time into D1, D2 and D3 than any other series. Many other series have copied Blizzard, but none have perfected the random intermittent rewards of a random dungeon crawl like Diablo has.
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Command Ops: I’ll quote from my one and only steam review - there are literally hundreds of WW2 video games. So why should you care about another one? Well Command Ops does what no other game does - puts you in the shoes of a real commander in highly detailed scenarios set in different theatres of the war. From the German invasion of Greece, to North Africa, Malta, Operation Market Garden, the Battle of the Bulge and on to the Westwall.
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Mario Kart: An evergreen title if there ever was one - while Nintendo’s other major franchises stumble from time to time (hello Hotel Mario), I’ve been playing Mario Kart for decades and loved every one.
Oh hmm. This might be hard.
(So I have to have played/tried at least 2 of the games in the series)
- Mass Effect
- Dragon Age (without having played more than a couple of hours of 1 & 2)
- The Witcher (without having played more than a couple of hours of 1 & 2)
- The Elder Scrolls - without having played more than a few hours of Skyrim, but GOD DAMN the world they created is so huge and detailed that they deserve a spot
- The Sims (lol YES. without having played The Sims 4 - this has to be in the list because of the amount of hours in my life I’ve spent playing 1, 2 and 3)
Honorable mentions that almost made the list:
- Command and Conquer. I haven’t played this for ages but I still miss playing Red Alert.
- Uncharted.
- Assassins Creed
- Tomb Raider
I definitely agree with the Tomb Raider comments. I think the level of violence in the recent games is ridiculously over the top and unnecessary.
Realized I forgot to include the Witcher series. I think that has to bump Fallout out of the top 5.
So again, w/o ranking…
Assassin’s Creed
Batman Arkham Asylum/City/Origins/Knight
GTA (3 onwards)
Mass Effect
The WItcher
Ditto. The older games were great because it was all about exploration and navigating your environment with the gunplay being rare and nowhere as graphic. The tone of the series has changed drastically. But with the success they’ve had, I doubt that will change.
RE: the violence these days.
It was refreshing playing Subnautica recently, as they took the game away from that direction and actively pushed combat avoidance as the most common path. And this wasn’t even against human-like beings either. But it’s the rare game these days that does that, sadly.
This is a bit of rose-colored hindsight. Only the first game had minimal gunplay (against humans–animals have been murdered in Tomb Raider games since the first minutes). Every other entry in the series has had plenty of man killing, but even in the first game, you had to shoot Pierre and a bunch of Natla’s goons.
I disagree. Many rated M AAA games are violent, yes. But there are plenty of non M-rated AAA games and plenty of indie and smaller budget games that are totally non-violent. I don’t think there’s a trend that is separate from the trend of average gamer age rising.
Don’t forget that T and E10+ can have violence as well, it’s a scale. There are even some E rated games with violence, but it’s usually on the side of fantasy or not human-like violence.
What I would never argue is that there is a correlation between video game violence and actual crimes. In fact I’d argue the opposite. But for sure, the choices of violence are higher most likely simply because there are more games, so there are more of them with violence?
I think you’re right though, because I have all games at my disposal to choose, I’m choosing more adult oriented games.
This was harder than I thought because so much long standing game series have absolute garbage entries which automatically disqualifies them in my book.
1. Thief: The Dark Project, Thief 2: The Metal Age, Thief 3: Deadly Shadows + T1/T2 Fan missions/Expansion
Amazing games for being so focused in what they do. While each game has some low points, it is a great trilogy overall. The quality of the best fan missions is also incredible.
2. The Witcher, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt
Rock solid trilogy. People hate on the first game but I loved it (and I bought it day-one before all the patches/localization fixes)
3. Baldur’s Gate + Tales of the Sword Coast, Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadows of Amn + Throne of Bhaal
Still my favorite Bioware series. It might be harder now to go back and play Baldur’s Gate 1 but I did play through that entire game TWICE almost back to back.
4. S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernoby, Clear Skies, Call of Pripiyat
While Clear Skies is a obvious weak middle, the first and especially the last game are so so good. I love how it is a full FPS but has a RPG-like sense of progression based on finding better guns.
5. Demon’s Souls, Dark Souls, Dark Souls II, Bloodborne, Dark Souls III
Honorable mentions: The Legend of Zelda, Ultima 4-7 only, System Shock, Mass Effect
How did I scroll this far without any Metal Gear mentions?
I’d go:
Final Fantasy
Metal Gear
Dark Souls (I’d count Demon’s in this)
Uncharted
Black Isle RPGs
Wrong forum, man. :)
Kinda like how I’m the only one with Metroid in the top 5 (though @Relayer71 gave it a runner up)
There are very few multiple picks that aren’t on PC, aside from Zelda and Final Fantasy. And even Final Fantasy is mostly available on PC these days, I still think of it as a console specific series but that isn’t really accurate anymore.
I’m the only one who picked the Tales JRPG series, and did so to the exclusion of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Ys, and Trails in the Sky. . .
Tales was in my “honorable mentions” list. It almost made the cut.
That’s cuz you’re good people!