[/QUOTE]I pulled this from the internet and it explains TriTryst a little bit:
[QUOTE]PC Gamer sums it up well in their review of this addictive puzzler: “The basic gameplay of TriTryst is similar to Tetris, with different colored squares that fall from the top of the screen, challenging you to align them with other pieces on the game board to make them disappear. If your board gets filled up, you lose the game. Bonus squares give you extra points; blocking squares limit your movements, etc. There’s also a challenging progressive game in which you must win at one board before you can move on to the next board.”
Some other main differences were that you could see the next 3 pieces that were coming so you could plan out strategy. Also, I don’t recall there being a time limit, so there wasn’t the frustration factor that Tetris could add. Another thing was I believe you could place them anywhere on the board that you wanted and the static boards changed sizes as you progressed through the game which added new challenges trying to fit pieces in and clear tiles. My wife and I would play the progressive game like crazy back in the mid 90s. The changing in tile sets and graphics always kept it fresh and some tile sets were pretty unique and fun.
Just a google search will come up with some screenshots, but most seem to be abandonware sites with cracked copies so I won’t link any here. I should try to dig up my old CD and see if it still works someday.
I will try to pick out a few to make some comments on starting with my top 3 and why and some of my choices in certain series that are probably uncommon.
Everquest - This game had the single biggest impact on my life by far. The epic scale of it at the time and the wonder. The factions that actually mattered. Joining a guild for the first time ever and learning to work with strangers with widely different personalities to accomplish very difficult tasks in game. I spent a year or two as a guild leader of a 100+ individual member guild that focused on fun first and the things I learned about myself and skills I still use today on how to work as a team and motivate people. We never had the most skilled or dedicated people in our guild, but we valued traits that made us like a family and some of the “raids” we went on where I would take the safety of our group in my own hands and successfully go somewhere we had never been before just exploring was a feeling that was hard to top. I still have many close friends from back then still today.
Links 386 Pro - This game just completely enveloped me for years after it came out and as long as they were making courses for it. The graphics for the time and the competition that The Links Tour added were some of my best memories in computer gaming. I even had an infrared club/base that could be used with the game that I used almost daily one winter up here in Michigan playing rounds of golf with it. The next spring I was drilling completely straight 4 irons 200 yards and that was just amazing to me. I could never hit an iron straight let alone 70% that far before.
Ultima 4 - While 3 and 5 were incredible experiences, 4 had the most profound effect on me. It was released during my freshman year in college (although for some reason I thought it was in high school) and I was still pretty early in my adult development as far as traits and the type of man I was going to end up being. Going on the quest of the Avatar and being faced with decisions involving the 8 virtues I believe had a hand in shaping the person I am today. It didn’t hurt that the game was completely awesome at the time and exactly the type of RPG and world I loved.
Heroes of Might and Magic V - I know 2 and 3 get the most praise and if I included them they would also be in my top 25, but some of the systems and gameplay in V just clicked more for me. The scenario design and initiative system along with interesting gear to acquire and wear make me at least believe I enjoyed this one more. The scenarios in III used to frustrate me and were probably a little too hard. I like a certain level of challenge, but I also just want to win every time too, so I can experience the content.
Warlords IV - I know 3 is probably more widely praised and remembered, but it also had a problem with super stacks and was easily broken if I am recalling it properly. I played the campaign in Warlords IV to almost the end (rare for me) and enjoyed many of the features and challenges including carrying over heroes from one map to another. I still love some of the game play ideas this series offered like searching ruins and fighting their guards to acquire different types of rewards including even rare units at times.
Starcraft II - The added production levels of this game made it more enjoyable for me than the original Starcraft. I mostly played them for the single player so that is the main reason I would pick the second version when faced with choosing.
I had a ton of fun doing this. Thanks for the idea!
Nice list, Kelan. I love that Links ranked so high. For a decade, at least, it was omnipresent on my hard drive (even when I barely had space for it) and probably my ultimate comfort game. The way they kept letting you carry over your old courses into the latest editions was just a stupendous customer service. My collection just grew and grew and grew.
I haven’t made a list (yet) but Jack Nicklaus Signature Edition Golf would have to be among my top 2-3 games. It was one of the first games I ever bought and I played it, or some version of it, for probably 15 years. I still have a version of it on this computer. I designed courses. I played in on-line tournaments (going all the way back to the Prodigy Golf Tour) and the first forums I became involved with involved players of this game.
Planet’s Edge and Sentinel Worlds were a couple representatives of the long-extinct space exploration genre. You could travel to different systems, mine resources, and interact with alien races like Starflight and Star Control, but you would also have surface missions with an away team, which is where Planet’s Edge really shined. The missions were fun and completely varied. One would be a diplomatic quest, another a search and rescue, another a physical puzzle, another a shoot-out, etc. Each away mission also had a unique tile set, so they even looked completely different. Sentinel Worlds had more of a first-person wire frame thing going on in its away missions, which ran really slow for me. Sadly, Space Rangers seems to be about the only game from this genre in the last 20 years.
the modern-era flight sims didn’t really grab me all that much, but Tornado was an exception. Lots of ground detail for its time and planning out coordinated airstrikes was hard to pull off but aawesome when it happened. Needed a serious time investment, which I couldn’t accomdate these days.
Paraworld was a silly RTS that combined dinosaurs, vikings, samurais and steampunk and managed to not mess it up horribly like so many ALL THE INGREDIENTS movies do. Had a unique unit ranking system that allowed you to develop your armies from mission to mission.
Well I know it took me a bit, but I just couldn’t get the order right… well I stopped monkeying with it and just went with it. Cross-platform because well, I am not sure we even owned a computer the first handful of gaming years.
• Secret of Mana
• Everquest
• Hero’s Quest
• Gemfire
• Breath of Fire II
• Dragon Age: Origins
• Mass Effect 2
• Jade Empire
• X-COM
• Rollercoaster Tycoon
• Uncharted Waters
• The Settlers
• Civilization IV
• Ogre Battle
• Harvest Moon
• Neverwinter Nights
• Battle for Middle Earth II
• Age of Mythology
• Age of Empires II
• Aerobiz Supersonic
• Pharoah
• Zeus
• Capitalism II
• Tropico 3
• Genghis Kahn II
• Heroes of Might and Magic III
• Majesty Gold Edition
• Theme Hospital
• Sims 2
• Final Fantasy Tactics
• Sim City 2000
• Master of Orion II
• Diablo II
• Theme Park
• Transport Tycoon
• Recettear
• Guild Wars 2
• Zoo Tycoon
• Left 4 Dead 2
• Rune Factory Frontier
• Borderlands 2
• SWAT IV
• Unreal Tournament 2004
• Railroad Tycoon 3
• Skyrim
• Space Rangers 2
• Europa Universals IV
• Battlefield 2
• Oregon Trail 2nd Edition
• Romance of the Three Kingdoms 3
• Sim Farm
• Bloodstone: Epic Dwarven Tale
• Pirates
• Caesar III
• Magic 2014
• Creatures
• Might and Magic 6
• Manchinarium
• Industry Giant
• Diner Dash 2
• Mario Brothers 3
• Bubble Bobble
• Street Fighter 2
• Master of Magic
• Pizza Tycoon
• Legend of the Mystical Ninja
• Magicka
• Super Mario Kart
• Super Mario World
• Crusader Kings II
• The Guild 2
• Plants Vs Zombies
• Mario Party
• Lords of the Ream II
• Industry Giant
• Utopia: The Creation of a Nation
• Anno 1404
• Chocolatier
• Cake Mania 2
• Oasis
• Kyrandia
• Kings Quest VI
• Airline Tycoon
• Top Gear 2
• The Lost Vikings
• Mortal Kombat II
• Actraiser
• F-Zero
• Spy vs Spy
• Nobunaga’s Ambition Lords of Darkness
• Birthright
• Carcassonne
• Mystic Inn
• Bomberman
• Reus
• Ticket to Ride
• Puzzle Quest
• Trine 2
• World of Goo
• Wolfenstein 3D
001 Heroes of Might & Magic 3
002 Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar NES*
003 The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
004 Ultima 7 *
005 Jagged Alliance 2
006 World of Warcraft
007 Craft the World **
008 Hot Shots Golf series
009 Divine Divinity
010 Beyond Good & Evil
011 Dungeon Keeper
012 Crusader No Remorse
013 Everquest
014 X-com UFO Defense
015 Zelda: A Link to the Past
016 Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction
017 Spellforce: The Order of Dawn
018 Gladiator
019 Katamari Damacy
020 Skies of Arcadia
021 Grand Theft Auto San Andreas
022 Hearthstone
023 Diablo 2
024 Tony Hawk Project 8
025 Ultima Underworld*
026 Earth & Beyond
027 Dark Souls 2
028 Civilizaton 3
029 Bully
030 Age of Empires 2
031 Arx Fatalis
032 Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance
033 Disciples 2
034 Suikoden 3
035 Chrono Trigger
036 Master of Magic
037 Lunar 1 & 2 (Sega CD)
038 Counter Strike
039 Anvil of Dawn
040 Magic & Mayhem
041 Shining Force
042 Borderlands
043 Fallout 3
044 Peggle
045 Psychonauts
046 Paper, Please
047 Zeus
048 Super Mario World
049 Might & Magic 6
050 Madden NFL series
051 Betrayal at Krondor
052 Dark Age of Camelot
053 Age of Wonders 2
054 Baldur’s Gate
055 Popful Mail (Sega CD)
056 Warlords Battlecry 2
057 GoldenEye 007
058 Batman: Arkham Asylum
059 Mario Party series
060 Evil Genius
061 System Shock
062 Rage of Mages
063 Red Dead Redemption
064 Willow (NES)
065 Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes
066 Burnout 3: Takedown
067 The Saboteur
068 Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter
069 Drox Operative
070 Pharaoh
071 Mass Effect
072 Warcraft: Orcs & Humans
073 Nox
074 Final Fantasy Tactics
075 Lands or Lore
076 The Mark of Kri
077 Just Cause 2
078 Tomb Raider Reboot
079 Valkyria Chronicles
080 Silent Storm
081 The Legend of Kyrandia
082 Act of War
083 Fable
084 The Magic of Scheherazade (NES)
085 Guitar Hero series
086 Growlanser Generations
087 Jade Empire
088 Alpha Protocol
089 Dark Cloud 1 (ps2)
090 Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get All the Girls
091 Tropico
092 Blood Will Tell (ps2)
093 Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist
094 Kohan
095 Sid Meier’s Sim Golf
096 Minecraft
097 Evil Islands
098 Hinterland
099 Din’s Curse
100 Path of Exile
I’m calling myself out for having 3 games from the Ultima Series on this list, but I feel U4 on NES, U7 on PC and UU on PC are 3 completely different experiences and all deserve to be here.
** This is still an early access game but easily in my top 10.
My honorable mentions list is too long to put here. I easily could have gone another 50 games, and the hardest part of this list was not what to include, but what to leave out.
Nesrie! Tell me about a few of these. A number of them look like casual time management games, which is a genre that I really love when done well, but also has a lot of crap making it hard to find the gems.
First, maybe kinda in that category: Sim Farm. Sim Farm!? This is an even less-talked-about game than SimCopter (on my list–and when it’s talked about, it’s often panned)! What do you like about it? Should I regret never getting my hands on it?
Then I want to hear about Chocolatier and Mystic Inn. There’s a game about being a Chocolatier??
Yeah a couple of the casual games would fall under the kind of embarrassed that I like them.
I don’t know how many hours I spent on Sim Farm, but I know it was a lot. Hopefully memory serves me well here… The crop that you picked matter a lot, they grew at different rates, I think season had a huge affect on the quality of the crop and I remember some of the more expensive crops, like strawberries had pest problems. You bought tractors to tend to the fields, and eventually you could buy a crop duster. There was livestock that also had quality of some kind because I remember entering them into a fair and wining a blue ribbon. The town expanded which helped, and there were roads,other equipment to buy… i think a water tower for droughts. It was just a lot fun and lot to consider. Always felt great when you bought the plane. I am a big strategy fan so I always hoped we would get more in the genre… then farmville destroyed my dreams.
Chocolatier is a lite strategy game. You travel around picking up ingredients from around the world, taking it to your factory to make chocolates to sell. It’s got a bit of a story line which is kind of fun. There is a mini game that helps determine how well the chocolate making goes, and that gets more difficult as you unlock the more difficult recipes to make. Since it is casual towards the end it I think I wound up with a lot of everything. So yep, you’re a chocolatier traveling the world, getting exotic recipes and making the chocolate from them.
Now Diner Dash has dozens of versions. It’s time management, but it kept me going back for awhile, keeping track of the various customers, trying to do color combos. I felt like it wasn’t so frantic I was frustrated but fast enough to be challenge. HomeTown hero had a competitive and a cooperative online version but I think they dropped that server awhile ago.
Mystic Inn is similar to Diner Dash, but I am a sucker for fantasy themes and fun music. Theme was a huge plus there and I believe you had to pay more attention to the potions since it mattered what you served.
mm, I think Flo on the Go was a good one, had more customer options than Dinner Dash 2. On the Go had some silly themes i admittedly liked, and I think it was more of the don’t sit this customer next to that customer issues. I should say the last one I played was Hometown Hero, which I did almost 100% MP. I can’t really speak for any games they did after that.
I (sort of) keep this list running in my head all the time. It changes often, and usually one of the most recent games I’ve played moves up higher (see Torchlight 2). These games come from every platform I’ve ever owned or played (arcade, Atari 2600, Atari 800, Vectrex, Atari ST, Sega Master System, Sega Genesis, PS1, PS2, GBA, Wii, DS, XBox 360, PC). It’s weighed down haevily by RPGs and arcade games. It turns out, as I look at 40 years in gaming, that’s what I like to play.
I’ve been working on my list for a while now. It started by just noting down a bunch of games that I knew would be in there somewhere, especially the “top 20” or so. Then I basically added all of your lists :) (Interestingly I haven’t actually read them or commented on them yet – I’ll do that later to avoid influence). Then I cruised through lists of top 100 Amiga games (starting with the infamous Amiga Power Top 100), Top 100 Mega Drive games and Top 100 PC Gamer games. I’m now trawling through wikipedia lists such as:
etc.
So far my list is up to 1500+ games and the ones I’ve got marked as “played” or “played?” is just touching 1000 :’(
You might think this is an excessive way to go about it, but had I not done this I’d have completely forgotten about e.g. Micro Machines, which is most definitely going to feature in my list.
ps: Glad to see some love for Police Quest 2: SWAT, though mines probably going to be higher than 95 :) I lent my copy to a friend when I was 15 or something and I never got it back. (Though it would have been lost in the Great Game Loss of the 2000s, firstly when I went to uni and then when I left uni and just left boxes of games at a friends house :’()
pps: I’d like to complain that none of you give the games their proper titles and so removing duplicates involved a bit of hoping back and forth and being aware of that fact. grr
When I saw Police Quest 2: SWAT on that list, my eyes bugged out like a cartoon and giant question marks circled around my head. That’s the top-down one?!? Ugh, I remember being so excited for it, playing the demo, and just giving up on it after that. I remember (foggily) that it felt impossible to control, or you couldn’t select your guys easily or something. Did I not give it enough time?
davidf – Also have to question you about The Fall: Last Days of Gaia. What’s that??
Jupiter – Yours is full of interesting titles I know nothing about. Escape from the Mind Master?
Pure awesomeness!!!
Escape from the Mindmaster used the Starpath Supercharger, which was a device you plugged into an Atari 2600 that let you play games off of a tape cassette. This held more information than a regular Atari cartridge. There were different challenges in the maze that must be solved and they were awesome. I think some were arcade challenges and some were brain teasers. I had a handful of games for this device. I mention another cutting edge Atari 2600 device here.
a) It’s Police Quest: SWAT 2 ;) (Police Quest 2 and Police Quest SWAT are different games :P. SWAT is basically Police Quest 5. So that either makes SWAT 2 PQ5.2 or PQ6)
b) It’s been a long time since I played it, but I remember you could just hit F1-F5 to select each of the 5 squads, and you could do the usual banding box stuff to select and move people. It wasn’t much different than any other RTS.
Doesn’t look hard to control? (e.g. at 1:10 in the first one or just all of the second one). I remember there were problems with LOS and clipping through walls etc and, like he said in the video, I could never figure out when it was ok to “talk” to civilians to make them do things. But other than that it was a lot of thematic fun!
