Neverwinter Nights. Every six months or so I have to play it for a couple of days. It’s a compulsion.
Temple of Elemental Evil for me - every 12-18 months I get super into it again, pulling down the latest Circle of 8 mod. I’m actually 3 hours into my sixth play through right now, chomping at the bit to get home from work and load my game back up!
Cliched, but for me it’s League of Legends. Granted, it is supposed to be that type of game - but I definitely find myself starting something else (like Skyrim) and just saying, “Fuck it, I’m going to play a match of League of Legends.”
And it’s been that way pretty solid for two years now.
For me the three I go back to the most are:
- Close Combat (Any and all of them)
- Birth of the Federation
- Knights of Honor
I’m not sure why other then they push my buttons when in a mood to just relax and get into a game I’m comfortable with.
Have they done anything cool with it in the last few years? ToEE is a game I appreciate more as time goes on. But I was kind of done with it when I finished it a few years ago. Maybe I should leave it be.
I’m filing this in my scared-straight file. It will remind me to never to get into this genre.
That’s a good choice. Particularly so for me once I found a “No Intro Fix” for the game.
Hmm… I’d have to say:
-SimCity 4, for when I have a hankering to build
-Baldur’s Gate 2, even with all the time I have into it, there’s always something new, plus mods
-Freespace, still have to beat the second one, but I always start from the first
-Mount&Blade Warband, just love running around getting into big battles in this
On console, I seem to always go back to playing Final Fantasy Tactics.
AI War, Distant Worlds, Civ 4, Doom and Quake are really the only games with a permanent spot on my hard drive.
You’ve played Brutal Doom at least, right? If you haven’t you’ve got too, it’s pretty much one guys attempt at recreating the Doom comic in all its ridiculous glory.
Also there’s some really impressive Quake maps out there now, like Honey by czg.
I’ve only really played the official release stuff of Doom for some reason, even though it has always been one of my very favorite games. I dabbled briefly with WADs, but that was a long long time ago around the time Doom 2 came out. I have much to learn. I will surely check out Brutal Doom.
Holy crap! That is insane. Chock full of caveman talk and Evil Dead quotes. How did I miss this jewel when it came out?
Because the CD era one was so much fun… behold the digital era!
I laugh in the face of your addiction counselling.
Not a year goes by that I don’t boot up:
[B] - Baldur’s Gate II
- Icewind Dale
- Wizardry 8[/B]
Even if I don’t play to completion, I always put a few hours into each. LOVE these games. And I haven’t played Morrowind for a while but it’s probably my most played game of all time and I never even finished the MQ or the expansion pack quests!
Jagged Alliance 2. It helps that, every few months, the mod scene comes up with significant improvements to the core game.
Jagged Alliance 2. Close Combat series. Guiltily, any Final Fantasy game just about.
WoW has been a game I would regularly frequent in long bursts every few months over the past 7+ years, but with the latest expansion I really have fizzled out.
I certainly do seem to revisit the Infinity Engine games regularly too, having plowed through BG1+2 modded throughout 2011, and toying around with the new EE edition lately on iPad. IWD1+2 as well. Just adore so much about those games despite some serious issues with the combat structure.
Skyrim keeps me coming back 200+ hours after the fact. Still have quite a bit left to accomplish as well including the entirety of the most recent DLC to begin.
Other than that, my backlog is so massive that I have little time or motivation to look beyond my increasing pile of newish games.
Oh but I do hold a keen interest in revisiting many of the classic Final Fantasy games now and again. FFV in particular is one to enjoy thanks to its flexible job structure and enjoyable music and questlines. Really wish it receives a remake treatment eventually on one of the more current portable consoles.
I’ve never got into any MMO - some time in LOTRO with my wife, a fair amount of BF3 and more recently Planetside 2. Do you feel it’s worth it? I’m looking back over my collection in terms of time spent and I pretty much think that yes, it was just about worth that amount of time over the past 30 years… do you feel the same way about WoW?
I go back and play many adventure games every few years, like the Monkey Islands, Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle, etc… They’re just timeless to me and demand revisiting.
It’s been a while now, but I know that at any given point there’s a time where I’ll eventually boot up Left 4 Dead 2 again for a few rounds of Scavenge (preferably). Love that game.
Going even further back, Unreal Tournament 2004 still gets called up when I get the urge for some twitchy shooter action, and there probably hasn’t been a year without some Rise of Nations play yet (still my favourite RTS).
One of the Civ games (4 probably) would’ve made this list except I’m usually too terrified to boot Civ games up because of the amount of time that slips away.
I still play through The Last Express once a year. Fallout 2, Arcanum, and Dragon Age: Origins have also gotten a number of playthroughs and several hundred hours each for me. Inexplicably, I’ve also played through Dear Esther close to ten times.
Half-Life - 2012 was the first year since I bought it in 1999 that I didn’t play through it at least once (along with its expansions).
Team Fortress Classic - Played it on an almost daily basis for the first eight years of its existence.
Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl + Call of Pripyat - Both mainstays on my hard drive for years. I’ve beaten SoC three or four times and CoP a couple as well.
Diablo 2 - Basically has been on my hard drive for twelve straight years. I’ve beaten Hell with a dozen characters, and have taken many others into Hell, almost exclusively single player.
Fallout 1 + 2 - Probably my two favorite RPGs ever. I’ve beaten them each two or three times.
Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines - Bought it. Beat it three times. Sold it. Bought it again. Playing through it again at the moment.
Quake 3: Arena - I didn’t play it as much as TFC, but it stayed on my hard drive for an even longer time, and I played it a ton exclusively against bots. I’d just load up Foobar2000 and DM17 and fly around the map picking them off with the RL and RG for hours. Best DM ever.
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - I’ve beaten this more than a dozen times over the years and I’ve gotten to the point where I can usually beat the game in under an hour without dying. Gotta go fast!
Zombies Ate My Neighbors - I sure as hell haven’t beaten it more than a dozen times (probably only once or twice actually), but that’s only because it’s ridiculously long and a lot more difficult. I still load it up frequently, though.
Aladdin - Probably my second favorite platformer for the Genesis (after Sonic 2). The bats in the Sultan’s Dungeon are the cliff racers of the 16 bit era, by the way. Fuck those things.
I’m usually going back to AvP 1 & 2 every year as well, along with Psychonauts, Morrowind, Deus Ex, Arcanum, Age of Empires 2, the Thief games, and the first two Serious Sam games.
I play a lot of old games.